my friend
"You won't hear about it," Anna returned, crossing her arms over her chest like a shield. Her rings caught what little light there was to be had out here, snapped, sparkled like moonlight on broken glass, which was precisely their intent. They were armor. She had the sensation of facing off across a chess board, although it came with none of the 'worth adversary' interest someone else hungrier for a fight might have been. She never wanted, particularly, to attack where she didn't have to. That just seemed to be the only option more often than not.
In any case, her response wasn't a perfect crystalline vow of nonviolence, but it was close, and the best she was likely to deliver. "You know it was never my mother and me who were the problem back in Virginia. And I don't want to see any of the others any more than you do."
There was a note of something foreign in her voice; on someone else it might have been a plea.