[There’s an appreciative little hum from her, both at the physical gesture and his tactful avoidance of any pity. Because she is all too used to facing either pity or disdain when others learn of her less than ideal origins and she’s frankly sick of it. She wishes it didn’t bother her as much as it does, but it’s hard to fight the heart when it has strong feelings of any sort.]

I appreciate you saying that. Truly. Sometimes others might feel sorry for me, but I don’t think most of them really understand how hard it was to live like that.

[Particularly when she spent the last few months surrounded by the sons and daughters of wealthy or noble families who were used to simply overlooking the struggles of anyone they deemed beneath them.

A tiny bit of tenseness is there in her shoulders now that the conversation’s hit a less than comfortable topic for her, but as she glances back up at him there’s some gratefulness in her eyes, and maybe a bit of an emboldened spark there too—he understands how it feels, at least in one aspect.]

But we’re more than where we come from, right? We’ll take life into our own hands and show those worthless fathers of ours that they’re the ones missing out on us.