[Ben waits, not exactly a pause but a prolonged breath, waiting for the cues he recognizes without having to look for them. He knows when he has his audience's attention, and he doesn't smile, nerves still too close to the surface for it, but something in his expression relaxes.

The stories are for other people, but they relax him as well. Ben is not what most people would consider soft, but there's an element of it in his voice, a warmer tone, when he says:] And they love him. [There and gone again, such an easy admission where it normally would never occur to him; his voice is back to normal when he continues.]

He makes it his duty to learn about the world in any way he can and use his knowledge to keep his family safe from the dangers out in it. But he is only one person and there are so many dangers, and so many he has yet to learn about, that his duty slowly ate away at him until it is all he was.

And because he is only one person and still cannot prevent all the dangers, he became angrier, and angrier, and that ate away at him too.

And because they loved him, his family tried to tell him to stop, but he would not. Perhaps, in the end, could not.