Linden is almost shockingly frank regarding his experiences with bidders; many aspects of keeping that kind of company bore him, and others are tedious or annoying, but there's certainly an emotional roadblock where certain activities are concerned. More than a lot of other Victors, he has rules, and snaps badly when they're broken.

"I don't mind indulging a little bit of roleplay, but I've always made a point of warning everyone to stay away from my neck. That's all it takes to protect me from liability charges, and incidentally also all it takes to get an apology from a man whose trachea I almost crushed."

He seems amused about the apparent previous lack of context, how it must have seemed and sounded to someone without the whole story.

"We're a nation of observers, aren't we?" he asks dryly, turning his pen absentmindedly in his hands. "Even an entertaining trainwreck is still entertaining. Compson's as good for anyone as a third-degree sunburn, and after so many years of being who is his in a progressively more extreme manner, I doubt he's going to change for the better. They're both staff and they can do what they want with each other, I suppose, for as long as they want."

If Cora did bring it up, Linden would be perfectly no-comment in regards to Mentors getting too close to Tributes. What on earth would he know about that?