"Huh. I guess making the rule 'only bite on command' reduces her ability to act independently in a fight."

"And makes her useless if I'm down, yeah."

"Which happens a lot."

"Two of you could ever make a friend who does melee."

"Why's that their job, why don't you make a melee friend?"

"Do I look like a friends-making kind of person?"

Mahdi pets his hair. "I think you actually do, is the thing."

"Not counting Belmarniss, she doesn't suck. Easy to get along with people who don't suck."

"I'm flattered."

"Not a high bar, I've met four people who don't suck."

"Four?"

"Fy's a person."

"But how many people have you met who do suck -"

"Oh, thousands. Tens of thousands. I spent a century trapped as a statue in the court of a Taldoran count and every person there sucked."

"I wouldn't call that meeting."

"Hmm. 

We've adventured with some people who didn't suck very much."

"Now I'm wondering how long it takes you to tell, maybe I'm still in the danger zone and I shall fall in your esteem somehow."

"Usually it's pretty noticeable as soon as you try to solve some problems together but I guess if you ...lose your temper on someone and stab their kid and then dump a lot of money on a temple to cover it I'd change my mind? There was one guy who seemed pretty okay until he started making fun of his pregnant girlfriend for writing him a letter..."

"Wow. Uh, I don't have a pregnant girlfriend, guess I'm safe."

"What was in the letter?"

"She wanted him to send support."

"She was at this point still his girlfriend?"

"Letter said, uh, 'love you dearly and hope you are safe and successful. the stove stopped working and we are buying another, which means we had to dip into the money for the midwife. can you send more? we got a discount on the stove so it will be only two gold.' He read it aloud eight times in different voices so I remember it."

"Wow."

"Eventually he sent her the money on the grounds that he'd only have to see her four more times before she hit him up again for it to be cheaper than a whore."