He's always loved to travel, but traveling alone just doesn't suit him. Why travel alone when you can have friends tagging along, somehow managing to simultaneously bother the heck out of you and save your life from chronic boredom?

'Boredom' because when he is alone he doesn't see anything interesting. Everything looks the same to him. Not because it IS the same, but because the universe is his backyard and that's all it has become to him.

But with others' eyes he can see it again: the wonder of discovering new things, experiencing what could never have been imagined before. Feeling so free - free like you've been born again as a new person, a new speck in the universe.

So he takes them along, glorying in their utter fascination with everything. Watching as they grow and change, expanding their minds with every new experience.

But it must always come to an end. He knows that better than anything now, after so many companions have come and gone. They attach to him like magnets, flourishing in their new found freedom, but eventually something happens: they remember their old life, they realize that maybe life with him just doesn't suit them – or they simply get torn away whether they want to stay or not. After all, it is a dangerous enterprise, traveling with him. One wrong step and they're lost to eternity. And it hurts him every time. Perhaps the worst part is that he knows that it's always his fault. No one else is to blame but him.

So eventually, he decides that maybe traveling alone is the better option. No companions to annoy you, no one to look after, no one to break your heart when they get torn away.

After all, never giving your heart away is better than watching it break over and over again, right? He has a long time to live and he doesn't want to spend it watching his hearts slowly fall to pieces. Maybe that's selfish, but after all he's given the universe, doesn't the universe owe him something in return?

Yes, maybe traveling alone isn't quite so bad.

Not quite so bad after all.