“More common than for your average citizen,” she says, “who does it probably never. There's nothing in this world some ancient elf didn't stick his dick in at some point and we're constantly trudging around the ruins of all their previous fuck ups because the Venatori are still picking at their bones for new and exciting ways to dick the rest of us.”

She's so beautiful, truly, and then she opens her mouth and talks.

(The accent, a Halamshiral High Quarter princess through and through even now, makes it all the more jarring — though her voice has a pleasant weight to it, lower than she looks like it'll be.)

“I'm right-handed,” after a moment, “so the left isn't ideal. But I've had to become sort of ambidextrous,” gesturing with her left hand, and the anchor-shard that gleams dully in it, “and I'm hoping that'll make up the difference, if there's difference to make. There's not much else for it but getting on, anyway.”

She's still alive. She's still on her feet. There's still work to do.