"Somehow I'm not surprised."

"I like what I like. Which most definitely includes women who bleed fetchingly."

Nod. "I'm very much familiar with the concept of 'I like what I like,' differences in personal taste aside."

"It's a good concept. I used to get into all sorts of trouble for lack of it."

"How did you manage to do that?"

"I was very well-placed to get into trouble. Or did you mean how did I manage to miss it? I wish I knew."

"I meant how did you manage to miss it."

"It didn't even feel like I was missing anything! It felt like the way I was thinking was obviously right!"

"I suppose it's easier to miss something if you don't know you're missing it," Necori agrees. "It still seems strange, but...it would be a dull world if we were all alike, I'm sure."

He laughs. "It might be a much nicer world if fewer people were like me."

"Well, I won't argue with that."

Shrug.

"But what I meant was that the fact that I can't imagine doing that doesn't mean it's not the kind of thing that would happen."

"The man I used to be is the kind of person it's hard to imagine being, I think."

"Probably. I don't have enough information to give it a try and check."

"It's hard to even describe the mindset. I say things like 'when I was young and stupid' and, well, that's true enough, but it doesn't really explain what it's like."

Nod. "Realistically, that's what I'll be saying about asking you to dance, a few decades from now. Not that it hasn't worked out splendidly."

He giggles. "Yeah. That was not a safe thing to do. But I'm glad it happened the way it did. You're interesting to have around."

He sweeps a dramatic bow. "I try."

Serik laughs.

He straightens up and tucks his hair out of his face and grins back.

He's so charming!

Eventually Necori returns to his exploring. There's a lot of castle to explore. He's not going to be done with it by the time Serik goes back out swan-hunting.

Yeah. He still has to do that.

Oroshe hasn't been working for him lately. Maybe he'll have better luck if he takes a different approach. He wanders on the wind, looking for isolated people, people he can take without an audience.

Here's one!

A strikingly beautiful young woman sitting on a wicker chair outside her adorable little cottage in the middle of some hills, close enough to Oroshe to walk there and back in a day, too far to do that very regularly. She has a knife in her hand and a block of wood in her lap, but rather than carving she's leaning back and watching the clouds. She looks very content with her life.