"Don't be ridiculous," she sighs, the last word trailing into a frustrated hiss of breath before she bites down on it. She leans back again, not uncrossing her arms, looking at him thoughtfully.

"Expecting things to be the same as they were before is naive," she counters, with a little twitch of a frown. It's not the curse-induced flings, it's what they're mocking that upsets her. The sense that for once she's seeing what ought to be and isn't; exactly what he's suggesting, except it's not the possibility that upsets her, but its negation. She can't comprehend how he doesn't see that; but certainly that's how it seems.