If he thinks Ned's rambling is inane, he certainly doesn't show it, and instead, turns a smile on him in return, nodding. "I liked myths, too. I'm not sure I'd want to live in one -- bad stuff always happens to people who defy the gods in old myths, right, and I'd definitely be the guy who defied the gods -- but they're fun to read about. I did a lot of reading as a kid. That probably doesn't surprise you. I bet you did, too."

Because he remembers that Ned had said that he, too, hadn't talked much as a child, and he always somehow imagines that people who don't talk much as children, the way he'd been himself, had probably spent a lot of their time in books or otherwise ensconced in their imaginations. To some extent, he'd always lived in an imaginary world; he'd just expanded it to include advertising, when he'd needed to get a job.

"I never know what to think about paintings," he says, moving from the room full of sculptures to the room Ned had indicated he wanted to go to, shrugging expressively. "I admire people who can paint. I can't. I mean, I can storyboard stuff for ads, but that's not real art. I'm just not sure I understand painting. I can look at something and see what they're painting, but not why, you know? Like that one..."

He points randomly at a painting close to them. "It probably has some kind of symbolism, right? Do you get it?"