I know what you'd say to me, exactly what you'd say to me— I still hang on every word:

[narcissithstic]

CHARACTERS: Ren and you
WHERE: Bearings, Concordia proper
WHEN: 025 onward
SUMMARY: Ren wakes up and instantly regrets it
WARNINGS: discussions of violence, will update as necessary

CLOSED: to hux

[He wakes to nausea. To stiffness in his bones and a dryness on his tongue that refuses to be scraped away or swallowed down. It feels like a different life somehow— like shaking off a long dream, still half-cocooned in someone else's hopes, their fears and overwhelming loss. For a moment (staring blearily at the pale ceiling overhead, soft blankets clinging to his aching shoulders) none of it seems real. That Anakin Skywalker isn't dead from something so human as a flipped switch, that he hadn't gone mad with grief in the aftermath of it. None of them had.

But the bruised, bandaged contours of his own swollen fingers tell a different story. His left shoulder pinches, strained by nothing more than the struggle of a single exhale where exhausted nerves would rather see him back under again. Ren winces, breath hitching in his lungs. He has no idea where he's been left or who's been taking care of him in the interim (it looks like his designated apartment and yet there's something off about it— the scent, the arrangement—) or how long of an interim it's been. Part of him, already steeped in deep regret, isn't eager to find out.]


I: OPEN - concordia

[Continuing the tradition of shut doors and open windows, what follows in the wake of Castor's— and Concordia's— tragedy isn't entirely crushing. News sites and businesses alike have taken to catering to the public's insatiable thirst for drama (a public so generally removed from the loss they often times view the differences between real and fictional struggles are slim at most) and a cadre of reporters now seem to be working around the clock to overturn every figurative stone and pebble within reach. 'Love on the Battlefield' one particularly tasteless headline reads, slapped down over a collage of images of Ilde and Ren from Bout it Out, the article flickering alongside a number of others in storefront glass not far from Bearings. Some of the faces he recognizes: a few heroic shots of the Darkling with his chin held high in the seconds before the bombing took hold, the shadowed outlines of Lexa and Sam as they withdrew from the chaos, a heavily damaged mobile photo of Steve Rogers and the woman that'd seen to him initially— some of the articles even feature artful backstage images of various fighters, hoping to pry something more inspiring from overwhelming fear.

Nearly three minutes pass before Ren realizes he's stopped walking to skim those holographic tabloids, frozen in place, searching without meaning to. Each word, each list of names, even the dimly lit photographs too heavily obscured to properly take in.

Anakin isn't there.

And he knows, reasonably, it's an overly (senselessly) sentimental urge that has him grasping for even the slightest glimpse of what was once his broodmate, but no matter how Ren internally chastises himself, he's still there. Still staring. Feet planted, chin raised and obscured beneath the high collar of his heavy coat where it's draped over his shoulders to avoid agitating the sling that holds his left arm in place. Crowds mill past, some stare, others pause briefly to take part in scanning the news before returning to their own routine. The sky dims, city lights rise.

Ren stays.]


II: OPEN - bearings

[Avoid strain. That's what he's been told by the doctor assigned to him by the agency (admittedly unorthodox, but since Ren is both their newest client and a survivor of the attack on Bout it Out, it's considered a 'charitable investment' on their part) which, coincidentally, is exactly what Ren has opted not to do.

The rooftop is high enough to be freezing cold where wind cuts across in occasional gusts, chilling glass and metal and any living soul unfortunate enough to be standing there at the Bearing's peak. In spite of that fact, it's clearly a space that's been cared for with as much attention as the rest of the Benna Building itself: a little older, some of the core structure shows through in corners where circuitry sits clustered in its own nested wiring, but there's no trash to be found, no wayward paint or signs of life. At the farthest end of the balcony is a secure maintenance shed, thick exterior paneling chosen for its ability to keep heavier equipment secure— and at the moment for its ability to withstand thrown jabs from Ren's right arm. Metal to bone, to skin, to the wrappings that barely keep his knuckles from splitting as the reverberations dully echo. It keeps the worst at bay. The aggression, the anger, the urge to act without any amount of direction to guide his hand. Bang bang bang— nerves singing, mind empty and filled to the brim with nothing but absent, abstract sensation.

Better than the alternative.]


III: WILDCARD
[ooc: something else you want to happen? another setting you'd like to use? hit me up and we'll make it so. Ren's staying close to Bearings while he shakes off his injuries and misery, but he still wanders off out of necessity every now and then.]

Comments

i. insert (hungry) emote

[unsea]

[ Catching up with his battle partner within the Bearings itself would be ill-advised. Castor has been left to limp through their grief, however it is conveyed to the rest of the nest, and Castor is equally divided on the topic of the matter of the Darkling's involvement in seemingly pressing Kylo Ren deeper into his anger. It's not at all what happened, it's not the way the man himself would describe it - but if they desired to cast him in the role of villain... well, it was nothing new. He would bear the mantle, as one does.

It's eerie, seeing the image of his face upon the storefront. On multiple storefronts, wherever the news is playing in the wake of the tournament's sudden and explosive conclusion. The angle is something he sees associated with the dead and the worshipped, the heroic tilt of his chin - the highlighting of the netted scarring near his right eye, the grim slash of his mouth. He can't look upon such an image, nor the others that flow together - especially not of his fellow hosts. He's not a narcissist, not in his mind, and certainly not feeling voyeuristic, after all. And he most certainly does not have any intention of dying.

In front of one of the stores, is where he finds his opportunity to meet Ren once more. Looking fit to burn in his own skin.

Calling out to him is not something he does, keeping his back turned carefully on the article playing out in an endless loop before the other. But, he does linger. Silent for the moment, arms folded behind his own back. At rest, in the most militaristic sense. They'd met twice now, on the battlegrounds, this was the first moment where the street was the terrain upon which they'd interact. It's a little awkward, a little too intimate, perhaps. ( Ah, but now he really is being a voyeur. Isn't he? ) ]

I also lost someone who was irreplaceable.

[ A shot in the dark, but he'd touched upon that sentiment. Felt his own pain and resentment multiplied by it, and oh, he had loathed the feedback loop the symbiote had provided. ]

ii

[headinjuries]

[ Sam's fond of the rooftop, despite the cold. Even if being Nova hadn't been a part of his life for all that long, flying immediately became one of the best ways for him to clear his head and soothe his nerves, but using the Nova Force is flashy and obvious and definitely not something he should be doing if they want to blend in, in a place like this. So he settles for getting as high up as he can, and leaning on the balcony railing, and even if he's still frustrated at not being able to go out there, to fly through a cloud and hear the wind screaming and then fading to nothing when he gets out of the atmosphere -

- well, it's a different kind of frustrated than he usually is, and that's at least something.

Being grounded but knowing what he's missing, he's finally starting to understand his father a little better. How much he was giving up to settle on Earth and focus on his family. How his wild stories about the Nova Corps weren't just bullshit to help him cope with being a drunk high school dropout with a dead-end job, but how it was really the other way around.

Of course, understanding all of that now means precisely dick. Because this is his reality now, and these are his people, and his family are out of reach.

Maybe that's what finally pulls him out of the corner of the roof he's staked out for himself, closer to the shed, where he drops to the ground, still out of the way, and sits with his knees pulled close to his chest and watches Ren punching the hell out of a wall that's never done anything to him. There's not really any such thing as keeping a distance from all of this, is there? All of the hurt and anger and negativity is too tangible to not get stuck on.

Either everyone gets it together and moves on, or nobody does.

Maybe Ren's got the right idea in beating the crap out of a wall instead of trying to process what's going on. ]

[narcissithstic]

[He'd been wondering when they'd meet again. An inevitability as far as Ren's concerned, given the connection they'd shared in those taut, fleeting seconds. It's why he isn't surprised when he feels the dull pressure of another host's presence creeping upwards along his spine, bearing down without contact.

But even with the luxury of conversation between them, for a long minute or two Ren stays silent. His dark hair pulled back to expose the arches of his features, punctuating the fact that his eyes are still fixed firmly ahead at the edges of his own reflection where it bleeds into flickering images.]

Be grateful they weren't part of your brood.

[A tactless response, but an honest one— a sincere one, feeling the rot of his loss right down to the marrow of his bones. A hollowed out abscess, made all the more clear when he adds, listlessly:] He was my grandfather.

[If anyone here is capable of so much as grazing an understanding of what that confession means, however hollow, Ren imagines it's the man who sought to reach for him in the darkness.]

[narcissithstic]

[Small as he is— young as he is— it might be easy to assume his thoughts are equally as minuscule. That somehow by merit of having less years under his belt Sam suffers less, cares less. But for Ren, who spent the entirety of his young life staring into the breathing, whispering darkness far beyond his parent's reach, he knows better than anyone how untrue that is.

The currents whipping across the rooftop are alive with tangible thoughts and sensations, needs and sorrows, but it isn't until Sam edges close enough to tip the balance that Ren's feverish pace starts to slow. Stop. Reluctantly disturbed, panting heavily, he lifts his chin, glancing upwards towards the sky overhead as exhausted breaths rasp out from between his teeth.] It helps.

[Ren pauses for a moment to swallow down the dryness on his tongue. To finally level his stare at the now-familiar teenager standing just across the way.] It kills the fear, the restlessness.

[Another beat, and then, returning to the hammering repetition of his punches:] —for a little while.

[unsea]

[ Oh, he is grateful. Immeasurably so. A too-intimate connection between oneself and one who is no longer alive? Truly, he can only imagine the void into which life had been swallowed. It's not an experience he wishes to go through, not as wound up in Bellamy and Clint as he is. It's a vulnerability, and one he has rejected and removed from his person - before it was impressed upon him when he agreed to come to the Station.

Of Castor. And of blood. What a connection to lose -- ]

My mother.

[ Dead before his arrival, brought with him and interred within the station. The way others, connected via symbiote, were. He grazes that understanding indeed, cautious and sympathetic - without pitying him; blood but not brood. Blood and brood, in Ren's case. And yet? ]

And yet, more to you than symbiotic connection and a bloodline.

[headinjuries]

Yeah...I know.

[ He's been there, kind of. Not the same kind of loss, but it was only weeks ago that the shit completely hit the fan back home, before he came here, and he remembers how it felt to punch that impostor wearing his father's face. It had felt good. Or maybe not good, but while it was happening, it stopped feeling bad, and it wasn't until the dust settled that he was able to think about anything else. About feeling betrayed, about worrying about where his real father was and whether he was alive, about whether he could've, should've, figured out what was happening before then. ]

But you can't do it forever.

[ It's a general you more than a specific one; not a commentary on Ren's dedication to making that wall regret its existence.

I couldn't do it forever, is what's a layer under those words. Can anyone do it forever? a layer under that. ]

ii.

[deployed]

[ All Angel's tutelage hasn't yet come to fruition. Bellamy can't block out Ren the way he'd like to (both for convenience and for the intense privacy of the emotions emanating from him) and the sweltering heat of Ren's rage is a constant undercurrent, weaseling it's way in through the faulty barriers Bellamy's tried very hard to create. Maybe part of it is the familiarity of it all. Bellamy had spent months sunk into anger and pain, had lashed out the same way Ren had done. The familiarity is hard to turn his back on.

When he emerges onto the roof, Bellamy's not totally sure how much of it was his own desire and how much was just the white-hot draw of Ren's anger and the building crescendo of pain from each thud of his fists. That's familiar too. ]

Want a partner?

[ Maybe hitting Bellamy would be easier on his knuckles. The physicality of it is welcome, whatever the bruises Bellamy might incur. After the sudden plunge into illness, the idea of sparring is reassuring.

And possibly a little self-destructive, but who would Bellamy be without that motivation?

The way Ren's weathering the loss makes sense to him. What Bellamy can offer in the ways of comfort is limited; he'd never met Anakin, doesn't know him well enough to offer condolences. But he can offer a better distraction than the one Ren's pounding away at now. ]

[narcissithstic]

[The Darkling isn't wrong. Still it pinches under his skin like a struck nerve (as it had when the scavenger hissed it out, when Sam exhaled it under his breath) to hear his own life so neatly summarized in someone else's voice. Too often he expects those around him to see only the iron-clad visage of Kylo Ren as he himself viewed Darth Vader: not human.

The truth, he likes less.]

The galaxy feared him. Knew him. [For Ren, who still stands immobile in the shadow cast by his grandfather, there's so much to be admired in that. Not love or compassion or familial bonds, but the knowledge that they were— regardless of everything else— cut from the same cloth.]

Had he lived long enough, this world would have seen it, too.

[unsea]

Oh, [ he whispers, quiet and contemplative.

Anakin was a faint presence upon him. One more host among the many, who he had not gotten to know outside of he was here, now he's gone. But he meant something, more than brood, more than blood, to Kylo Ren. And that is why he's come to stand here, under these god-forsaken neon lights to hear his words. ]

Does that... fall to you now?

[ He doesn't pull his punches. Not in combat, not in conversation. ]

[narcissithstic]

[To that, there's only silence. The slowly waning thudding of Ren's knuckles against cold metal. Eventually— and this time permamently— he comes to a halt. Like this, with both their minds so committed to the idea of racing, there's not enough focus left in him to drown it out.

So instead he opts for the easier route: changing the subject.]

You left with him, didn't you? The champion. [Too much went wrong that day, but the idea that someone might have managed to glean at least some information in the process at least gives Anakin's death more purpose.] I saw images of what happened.

[The press have plastered themselves across every possible outlet, after all. He'd have to have been blind not to see it.]

[narcissithstic]

[Yes is the answer Ren instinctively thinks to give. Wants to give, but for all his recklessness is now too entirely battered to be anything but cautious. All it would take is an instant of pain, the snapshot image of Ren striking him regardless of intent and someone else might take it as yet another instance of Kylo Ren reaching his breaking point.]

Your brood— [He starts (and subsequently stops) turning to finally grant Bellamy the entirety of his attention, breathless. Where Ren's words trail off, his thoughts step in to fill the gaps: —will they interfere?]

[headinjuries]

[ A subject change sounds pretty good, to be honest. ]

Yeah.

[ The press. Ugh. But it'd fit right in with the person he'd presented himself as, at the fight. Just some kid who was a big fan of Kun-Kun and completely nonthreatening. Getting the hell out of there with his supposed idol wouldn't look weird.

Which is good, because who knows how long they're going to be stuck still working this problem? Why can't there just be something he can blow up and they're done. ]

We're gonna meet him again later. It wasn't exactly a great time to talk.

ii

[adamance]

[The rooftop has afforded Lexa some level of security. It's where she's brought people for private conversations. Mere days before, she had placed her hand in Bellamy's so that he could show her the remainder of her world, and grief had overcome her. It's the same grief she keeps hidden from everyone else, believing that there is much more for them to do right now. She can't get lost in the sentiment of what she's left behind. The tournament was important. Setting up the meeting was important. Ahsoka's grief was important.

But it's that last bit that's overwhelming. Mingled with her own grief, Lexa has limits to how much she can restrain that feeling. She may not have anyone she can reach out to (an act of her own accord), but she knows she needs to cope with it, or else she will hit a breaking point. She may pretend otherwise, but even she has her limits.

It's to the roof she takes, and it's midway through reaching it that she can feel the heavier presence up there. Kylo Ren. Unlike Ahsoka, his grief is more distant, but as she grows closer, it's clearer in her mind, twisting and mutating into one anomalous whole the moment she steps out of the elevator doors. She has been here many times before in an attempt to reclaim some sense of home. She will continue to come here, but there is little that can hold back the tightening in her throat and the glossiness of her eyes.

Simply put: it's all too much, and precisely what she feared would come has come.

Lexa juts her chin outward in a proud gesture and strides forward. She may not be collected, but she doubts that Kylo Ren has much room to judge. He is a disappointment: weak, emotional. Her own capacity for withholding those emotions can at least fall here, even if she views him as that. (Naturally, those thoughts are carefully buried, not available to where he might pluck them out.)]

Are you hoping to eviscerate your hand? [It is not a greeting. It is not even a sympathetic statement. Lexa's given up on these things, knowing that she'll fail. But just the same, even though she looks proud, she is clearly also overwhelmed at the same time. Her throat remains tight (being on the verge of tears is apparent in her few words) and her eyes remain glossy. There is nothing she can do for that now.]

[deployed]

Only if you plan on killing me.

[ Though Bellamy doesn't know for sure. Clint and the Darkling are still mysteries. He can't predict them, but he assumes neither of them are strangers to sparring. ]

I don't think it'll be a problem.

[ The biggest struggle might be the crackle between their minds. Bellamy feels it like an itch beneath the skin, prickling at the edges of his awareness. It's coming from Ren, from the places their minds touch. The parts of Bellamy that are immediately drawn to Ren's anger and pain make it difficult to sever the contact. Like calls to like. Bellamy has a disorienting moment where he finds it difficult to keep his own feelings separate. His jaw tightens as he crosses his arms, defensive in spite of himself. ]

[narcissithstic]

[Ren's attention snaps over towards the Darkling in an instant, sharp features gone noticeably pale. For the first time since leaving his own universe behind, he's filled with a sense of free-flowing dread: the stagnance and fear that'd driven him to kneel at his grandfather's altar clawing its way under his skin, the inadequacy that granted the scavenger strength. Here, if only for a little while, he'd been free of it.

The tightness at the corners of his mouth deepens; even steeling himself is a tell, much as he dislikes being so utterly transparent.]

I suppose it does.

[It was his to bear before, the burden of his legacy. Perhaps remains the only constant he's ever truly known.]

[unsea]

[ The sense of dread, is what strikes him most of all. What sort of man had Ren known, to evoke such apprehension. He knows nothing, absolutely nothing, besides Anakin's name and the void of his former presence. He'd like to know, to be made to understand. In the end, all he can do is understand.

And that tended to be what made him dangerous.

He folds his arms around himself, tucked under the folds of his kefta ( a little tired, of wearing something that is not his, perhaps ) and he steps closer. The casual shift of his weight that places him closer to Ren, leaned in conspiratorially, though his silence is telling in and of itself. He's not one for empty condolences, or platitudes. A soft sound, a sigh maybe - and with it: ] My grandfather was a madman, and a martyr. His legacy was hunger - vicious, bold words in his journals - about the things he did. I followed them to the letter. I sought what he had sought. Answers, to the question that still plagues men like you and I: why am I alone?

[ It's a lot, and it may not help at all. ] I don't doubt you.

[narcissithstic]

[Understandable. Injured or not, there was no doubt in Ren's mind that whatever damage wasn't done by the blast was carried out by a panicked, incensed crowd. Lingering anywhere for the sake of conversation would've been a poor decision on their part.

Still...

Ren pauses, turning over the wrappings across his fingers, winding them tighter with methodical devotion.] I want to be with you when you do.

[narcissithstic]

[There, at least, Ren struggles less. Not for his own grief where it echoes back like sound over stone, but for a life lived so entirely bound to the thoughts and sensations that surrounded him; through the Force, he holds the benefit of experience.

Perhaps, when this is done, he'll share it.

Ren lifts his right arm, angling it across the entirety of his front to compensate for the sling that binds his left in place. A haphazard defense, but after everything that's happened, he doesn't much care to keep up his guard. Which is also why Ren opts to hold nothing back: immediately lunging for Bellamy with a set of wide, hammering swings.]

[headinjuries]

[ He wasn't expecting that.

Okay, he knows Lexa wasn't the only one with at least some interest in being present for the meeting, to be fair, but nobody else had been so vocal about it. He definitely doesn't remember Ren showing that kind of interest in the planning stages. Sure, circumstances change, opinions change, but -

- well, the most obvious thing that changed, uh. ]

You're not gonna flip and try to hurt people again, are you?

[narcissithstic]

[It isn't the first time faith has been placed in Kylo Ren, nor is it the first time someone has claimed— truthfully or otherwise— to know what it is he endures. But it's been so long since he felt Snoke's presence cloaked around his shoulders, and without Cathaway within reach, without any brace against the clawing, hateful pull of gravity, his heart is hardly hardened at the sight of someone so near to comprehending everything that plagues him. They could be brothers, in a sense. Parallels from different worlds.

Or perhaps he's so unmoored that even the slightest glimpse of matching contours has him gripping the rails. How much did he see of himself in the scavenger? How much more in Cathaway, Ilde or Hux?]

What did you find?

[Nothing, he thinks absently, bitterly against the grain. He'll have found nothing. As much as the urge to hope wells up in his veins, he's too petty to think someone else might have succeeded where he failed, after all. ]

[narcissithstic]

Something deeper. [Something beneath sinew and bone, preying on the empty, bleeding wound that was once Anakin Skywalker. Something that would consume him, if he let it. Perhaps Ahsoka, bound by the Force and not by brood, suffers less. As things are now, he can't be sure; apathy encircles grief, constricts until what isn't claimed by misery dies quietly, unwanted. He doesn't care to check, or to subject himself to her sorrow only to have it compound his own.

Even now it weighs on him by proxy, through Lexa herself. Those narrow, fragile ley lines.

Eventually, when the tension in her throat (in his) refuses to wane, the blows stop. The roof turns quiet, aside from the occasional gust of wind.]

Why did you come here?

[exhuxperation]

[ He’s been awake– off and on– for a better part of the night.

After getting Ren back from the explosion site, he’d picked the closest apartment, which happened to be his. Hauling the larger man out of the area while he’d been out cold had been a task and he hadn’t been willing to go further than necessary. Of course, once he’d gotten them both there, it’d been a series of injury checks, cleanup, and half-stripping Kylo out of his singed and dirty clothes. Hux had rudimentary medical knowledge, as any good officer, but it had still been a trying few hours in the beginning.

Because while he was accustomed to a certain amount of mental and physical exhaustion, this had certainly pushed the limit. All night he got snippets of feedback from Ren as he rolled in and out of consciousness. The grief over Anakin’s death pushed at his mind from Ahsoka as well, something he hadn’t thought much of until it was too late, already so preoccupied with everything else.

So as Ren starts to re-surface, mentally (he feels it keenly, like a weight pressed against the inside of his ribcage), he sits up tentatively in the shared bed. Originally, he’d started in the nearby chair but ultimately gave in to curl up on the sliver that was left of the mattress. Careful not to move too much, he runs a hand through his already disheveled hair, adjusts the shirt that had gotten crooked in the night, and glances over at Ren. ]


Careful, Ren. Not enough time has passed to knit any part of you back together.

[ Aside from logic dictating this, he feels it under his skin. The exhaustion. A hollow ache. ]

[narcissithstic]

[It shouldn't upset him: there's no arguing that he didn't break when he awoke to the gutting emptiness of Anakin's loss, or that he hadn't intended to violently lash out in response to it. But for a split second Ren's features cinch tighter by degrees, pulse ticking upwards— and then ebbing off once again.

He's too tired, drawn down to the bone, to adhere to his own demanding nature.]

Anakin Skywalker was my blood. My family. [More than just the bond between broodmates, they were one and the same. That Anakin died without that knowledge does nothing to detract from the fact in Ren's eyes.]

I know what the others think of me. That they fear me. [If not overtly, then what he's capable of.] But I was denied my vengeance for it.

I don't intend to let that happen again.

[adamance]

[Something deeper. There is a sense that floods her that while she understands it, her coping tendencies tend to go in a different direction. Repression is her tool. In fact, some might say that it's her only tool, which is undoubtedly why it is failing her right now. While she can repress and bottle away how she feels, there's no part of her that can do the same for others. Even if she wishes she could. That would make her feel as if she has some control over the situation.

And the Nest.

And everything else.

Being a Host has truly shown how powerless she really is.]

I come here frequently. [There is no lie in these words. A flood of images enters her mind, of her coming up here and waiting, of conversations with Bellamy, Rhys, and Carata, of moments spent meditating alone, the chill on the air comforting her after a long day with few or no answers.] My people's capital is a building that shoots straight up into the sky like this one. Though this is lower.

[It is clear in these words that her grief is not only Ahsoka's, or Ren's, but her own. She doesn't bother to hide it, as there's no turning back.

Her thoughts toward him are still hardly positive, but in the moment, they're neutral. No one can be a disappointment in grief. Everyone is weak when they are grieving.]

[deployed]

[ No preamble. Bellamy had almost expected further protest, just a little more conversation to hash through before they brokered some sort of agreement. But the sudden catapult to action suits him just as well. So much of what he's experienced since he woke in the pod had been an endless struggle against his own mind. The physical comes easier. It's a relief to hit upon something he knows.

Even if Ren's first volley lands hard. Bellamy absorbs it with a grunt, mind scrabbling for purchase against the feedback-static of Ren's thoughts as Bellamy slugs him. This isn't the same as fighting Lincoln. There's no finesse. He fights the way Bellamy had, the way Bellamy still does: wild and unchecked, all furious motion. Even down one arm, Ren's fist connects, inevitably patterning bruises along Bellamy's ribs as he shoves him back, swings wildly at his head.

Is this allowed? The inter-nest rules are discovered as he goes along, and for all Bellamy's assurances to the contrary, he still isn't sure what they're doing is permissible or that it will be well-received by the rest of his brood. But for the moment, the foremost emotion is exhilaration, radiating loudly in spite of the undercurrent of pain. ]