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"It's hard to say." Ashton averted her eyes. "I haven't seen him since...November, I think -- but he still retains ownership of the shop, and certainly I'm not the one managing hiring. If he is still in town, he's even more of a recluse than before, I suppose."

"I don't have much time for found animals." She laughed, a little bitter, an ugly strangled noise. "Between school and work, I have to plan hobbies far in advance, you know? Unless I want to start hunting down bluejays with a bow and arrow or poison my entire backyard in hopes we have a rat colony, there's just no time for the luck of found-work roadkill anymore."

Ashton smiled at Temperance's laugh like she was sharing a secret, giving a gift -- she knew a kindred spirit when she saw the glimpses of one peeking through. That want to step on things just to see if you could, tempered only by foresight and bystanders. In some bygone age, perhaps they might have been kings and queens, conquerors, the people kneeling before them -- but that wasn't now. It didn't matter, what could have been, if she couldn't use it.

She sighed, heavy. "Second year of premed right now, going into third -- I have an associate's degree in fine arts, that was two years already -- so technically I graduate after four or five years of premed, depending on how hard I double down on some courses. But there's four years of medical school after that, and at least three years of residency before I could dream of opening my own practice. It's a long road."

"We'll see how pretty that long road looks in four years when I'm going grey before I'm 30," Ashton groaned, still melodic even in that. "That's still a long time away -- I'd rather not count my chickens before they hatch, or before I get into residency and figure out what sort of people I'm best at dealing with." She shrugged, aimless.

"If everything's a mess, I suppose I can always realign myself and try to go for veterinary. Pediatrics is definitely off the table - children are little goblins, aren't they?"