He made a face at the shirt comment, but dutifully pulled put his notebook. In shorthand, he quickly wrote down a reminder for shirt shopping. Next to it, he scribbled out the word 'CUTE' in blocky letters. Horace did not have a good grasp of cute, girly things - if it wasn't pre-approved, she would've ended up with a shirt covered in tentacles in size large. But the notebook was hastily shoved back into his pocket after; it would be rude to take notes on her life, although he wanted to.

"Your sister - the one here?" He jabbed his finger downwards. At the mention of her dad 'breaking', he frowned, brows drawing together. "That sounds... like it was difficult. I'm sorry, Pey. Did you guys go live with your grandma or something?"

In the following hour, Horace listened raptly as Peyton recounted her childhood, the loss of essentially both parents, her decision to join Deus, meeting Astrid not once, but twice. He suddenly felt as though his life had been unfairly easy - but Horace had known that. Some idle part of his mind wondered if Peyton knew how to not be strong.