I didn't think it was possible, myself, and I doubt that it would have been to this degree without the unforeseen.

[As gratifying as it would be to be able to take credit, as it is it would also be a falsehood. Intentions aside, he considers it highly unlikely he'd have ever grown beyond an ability to feign appropriate responses where necessary, to remain on the outside looking in.]

Easy, no. Satisfying, quite. A frontier revisited long enough after the fact to feel new. There's very little of this I remember from before.

Thank you. I doubt I'd have embarked on any of it without your companionship and goading. The siring perhaps. Not what started the climb out of dispassion and numbness.