"Hah." That actually teased an honest smile from Maalech. "True words indeed, though I suppose I will be familiar with what people use to deafen the misery of the surroundings soon enough. Familiar in principle that is, I have no use for drugs." He pocketed the money after yet another moment's hesitation.

"Would you mind if I asked a question of you doctor? There is something I have pondered which perhaps you could illuminate."

"If I can answer it," he replied, bemused. "I'm a doctor, not a scholar."

"What have made you stay down here? You are as you say, a doctor. Surely there would be other parts of town where you would be more than welcome. Places where you could get proper payment for your arts. This place... these people... a doctor is the last thing I would expect to see here." Maalech looked honestly curious about that kind of decision, to have the option to get out and choosing not to do so.

An interesting choice.

"Can you think of any place on this island in more need of one?" he asked in return. "Plus, the hours suit me." He nearly smiled.

"No, the need here is terribly evident. There are just few people that would rise to that call. You are a charitable man it seems, in more ways than one." Maalech considered the situation quietly to himself. One man here would be a drop in an ocean of suffering, there was no hope of reforming the society or truly change how these people led their lives. The poor were fickle and most likely less than grateful at times, so why remain? Why face this place, every day?

He was not sure that he understood. When he had walked down here for the first day he had wished that there would have been a cleansing fire, some way of erasing this place so that something new could be started. It was frustrating knowing that most people would never see further. Would never imagine another life. Would never strive to better themselves. They were like this place, rotting while they still lived.

Part of him despised them enough to feel sick, despised them for their weakness.

And yet, when confronted with individuals, like that dead girl, he found it impossible to hide what he had seen. An individual. A face. Someone that should not have died like that.

"I suppose you see a better side of th... us than I do."

"Oh, go on and say it. 'Them.' I don't know what's brought you here but you haven't been in it long enough to be of it. If I were you, I'd find a way to get back to wherever you were before, if it's possible. It gets into your pores and can't be scrubbed out. Stay here too long and even if you do leave it, there's always going to be those looks. Carries himself well, for one of them--that sort of thing." He shrugged. "You seem a decent man. You probably don't need the warning."

"I was of it once upon a time." Maalech did not deny the allegations, though his lips quirked faintly at the use of the word decent. "I grew up in a place not unlike this... on the mainland." He did not bother to detail which mainland, it was not important. "It is as you say, it creeps into you. I thought I had left it behind for good, consigned this place to my past. I was a fool." There was no sigh there, only a simple statement of facts.

"Lately I have come to think that even if people no longer saw these marks upon my self, I still knew they were there. It gets into your mind, your way of thinking..." He drifted off, running a hand over his scruffy jaw again. "Perhaps I came back because I was tired of running. Perhaps I came back to make peace. At this moment I do not know. But I thank you for your warning."

The man shook his head, gravely. "This is not the place one comes to make peace."

He gave Maalech a little bow, in the Cecilian style. "And on that note, I leave you. It's getting too late to stay out. I would suggest you take the same advice, sir."

"Perhaps not. And yet, this is where my path had led me. Back to the beginning." Maalech returned the bow with a serious expression, then straightened. "Walk safely then, doctor."

He had a lot to think about already.