"Don't think so. It would be more the implied lack of choice. At least, that's the measure I have of her."

"Hmm, I'm not sure it's meaningfully different than the lack of choice inherent to the process? The fact that you aren't everywhere is already a strong form of selection bias, and most people aren't really swimming in a pool of candidates amongst which they then choose, they just pick the first one that they happen to get to know enough to predict they might work well together."

"That may be true, but it's irrelevant to how I predict she will think about it."

"Even if you tell her this?"

"I don't know. I'm not an expert in Sandy. This is just my overall impression."

"Fair enough."

"Anyway I should head for lunch now if you want to come with." Which the answer is almost certainly yes, but he has to ask.

"Yes," she says, obviously.

So he goes to a reasonably fancy yummy restaurant and tells anecdotes about his friendship with Sandy before heading back to the afternoon classes.

And she gets back to trying to help with electrical engineering.

They can go over the notes and discuss experiments later. And after that do some other things.

A productive day, all in all.

Yes! And then they can sleep snuggled up together, right? Or rather, he can sleep and she can watch.

Sure, he has no objection.

The next day plays out much the same, including a call from Sadde's mermaid friend who wants to know if she's practiced with her shiny instruments, and a brief message from Nils asking when he/she will want to come see the new version of his ship.

She did! But not very much, only during her free time or when flying around sometimes.

Nils... hmm, she wants to call him back on that, she'd like to check on something first.

That's delightful!

And, of course, check away, the offer will expire when he leaves port though.

When will that be?

Soon as he's done. Two, three more weeks. It's going faster than expected.

Oh, sure, she'll probably be available by then.

When will Terel be around? And will Sandy be with him?

About an hour, and yes.

So she'll ask him about it in about an hour.

"Hello, love."

"Hello again Sadde! I hope you don't mind I soooort of promised Sandy a lecture in electronic banking from you."

"A lecture? I can probably provide an infodump, I'm not sure I have the appropriate materials for a lecture!"

"That's fine. Lecture has a looser definition here, perhaps."

"Sure, I can do that, then. Now?"

"If you don't mind. I'm very curious about it, you see."

"So am I to be honest," Terel contributes.