[Lina stares at the slice of pizza that she lifts from her plate for a moment. At first she was going to just give up. As prone as she was to getting angry, she didn't like staying angry. She was ready to just throw in the towel and offer to find her own place. Zelgadis had enough on his plate, and she was supposed to be making things easier for him, not harder.
She didn't want to be just like everyone else.]
....
[But still, as much as her sympathy wrestled with her pride, she couldn't bring herself to swallow that bitter pill of losing. Lina Inverse didn't lose..! She didn't back down from a fight! What sort of precedent would she be setting if she were to just roll over to this stranger that somehow squeezed her way into this dynamic without any regard for their history?]
This. [She gestures with the slice of pizza.] What's this stuff called, anyway? [Stubbornly shoving down the feelings--the weakness--she took another bite and swallowed it all down.]