When I was young, I wanted something like that very much. It sounds rather a bit like a knight in shining armor, doesn't it, when you put it that way? Or a Prince Charming.

[There's a wobble at the corners of her mouth again.]

Then I met someone like that, and we were to be married, until I became more of a nuisance than I was worth and he tricked me into being rid of me.

My mother loved me and did awful things to innocent people for love of me, and my keeper played at loving me but really only despised and used me, and a gentleman loved me and was killed for me, and another abandoned his fiancée for me and promised we'd live happily together where I'd be safe...and he was wrong.

[Unconsciously, she touches her fingers to her chest, remembering the jolt of pain where the blade had gone in.]

And it's not that I'd like to presume or put you off or— ...I just, I can't stand to be hurt again. I just can't. And it's not that I think you will, it's just the opposite, it's that I want to believe you so badly but I'm afraid to believe it if it's...founded on something that might change...

A-And if I don't know what it's founded on at all, then how can I know whether to be afraid?