Now this really does give her pause. Sure, she recalls Lenore saying something about negotiations earlier, but during the fever pitch of her anger and pain she'd paid it little mind. Manipulation tactics, tricks to subdue and control her, to make her forget about the hot blade of revenge and become their thrall instead. Which, to be fair, is still partially what's expected here, mercenary or otherwise, but it nonetheless throws her to hear it presented as any kind of choice. In Drearburh they may have called her a bondswoman, but since the moment her mother had died in that God-forsaken place and left her to their tender mercies, it was an unspoken understanding that - despite how they hated her - she was their wares and inventory. Indentured until death.

"You'd pay me," she says, not without a touch of incredulity, for all that her sick and traitorous heart had leapt at the word prodigy.

As for the question, what is it that you want?, it's the first time anyone's ever asked it of her. For all that she's dreamed and yearned and hurt for a different kind of life, this stuns her enough that she isn't sure how to answer. Give her a moment whilst she chews that one over.

"I always thought that bodyguard meant standing around looking bored all day, missing out on any kind of action," she says it more to buy herself space for thought, than anything. Priamhark and Pelleamena's 'bodyguards' had been gnarled and ancient retainers well acquainted with osteoporosis. They'd looked more dead than alive, she'd seen them sleeping on the job more times than she could count. The position doesn't exactly sound glamorous.