[Viktor's musings on a cure strike Paul more than the crackling cherry bombs and fireworks still intermittently going off around him. He straightens his back as his hands curl on his knees, eyes almost luminous with returned interest.]

More understanding than I had. [He nods.] More understanding of the people who are tied to this world, as well.

[He rarely discusses his work in the Pale Sanctuary where it touches the lives of the natives of Trench, but Paul has discovered a shift in how he approaches it. He's becoming sincere; it's an increasingly prevalent bad habit.]

Someone told me once they thought we were brought here to do just what you say. Study the blood magic and the blood pollution, using our understandings from our own worlds, so that we might elevate the discipline. To provide a disciplined path forward - because if we master this, we could master this place. We could change -

[He catches himself on the rising note of that abbreviated sentence, faintly flushed with the embarrassment of a young person carried away by a passion:] We could help them, and ourselves.

I think he may be right. At the very least, it keeps us busy, doesn't it?