[He doesn't answer right away. He stops -- takes a breath. Slow and steady. Focusing. Like reaching for the sense of something other. For that presence he'd fought and won the chance to fly with.]

[Calm.]

Because it's something someone told me. [His voice doesn't waver, now. Steadier than it would have been before, talking about this.] They told me I was nothing.

I was a monster someone else made.

[Not them. It wasn't about them.] It gets to me.