" I suddenly saw, clear as day, that Tess didn’t need me to protect her from Will. She resented it, in fact; it made her feel helpless and weak. What she needed was a sidekick.” “You are not saying, I hope, that I should be Tess’s sidekick,” snapped Marga, her hackles suddenly up. “N-not at all,” said Jacomo, eyes widening in apparent alarm. “I meant that both of us might be sidekicks to the Aftisheshe, instead of thundering in like knights-errant to save them, whether they need it or not.” Marga exhaled, her ire deflating a bit, although something at her core still quivered indignantly. “You must understand,” she said, “sidekick carries a different weight for me than for you. The world never told you your life would be better spent in service to a husband and children. Scholars and swordsmen never patronized you; your family never considered you too Porphyrian—or too Ninysh—to amount to much. You were born a protagonist; some of us have had to fight for it.” Jacomo opened his mouth as if to argue but seemed to think better of it. “There are other words,” he said at last. “How about accomplice? Or… "

― Rachel Hartman , In the Serpent's Wake (Tess of the Road, #2)