"I always took it as symbolic, but I started studying medicine very young, which admittedly wrecked a few stories for, till I grew up and stopped taking it so seriously," he says, drily, clearly amused by his teenaged self.

"Keep doing that. Keep learning people's stories and helping them to write them better." A thought ticks through his mind, to consider her a potential source of information, a second pair of eyes. But no. This isn't the place for that, and somehow, even in his dark heart, he knows that would damage something valuable, this connection between them. Whatever schemes he might concoct, he knows better than to pull her into them.

"If I'm ever down by the shore, I'll make it a point to stay here as well," he muses, his eyes warm in the firelight, as he tucks into his meal. "If there
are more places like this in it, think I could call this world a home."

((OOC: Shall we leave them there??))