Editing Rad Ray Sunshine (section)

====[[Zed]]====
He's closest with the young man, who Ray's stated is his favourite of the four apprentices he's had.<ref name=":0"/><ref name=":2" /> Zed has admitted, in the privacy of his own thoughts, that Ray is stubborn, borderline abusive, and "a mess". He was traumatized by the death of his son, Hector, who rejected his help.<ref>Raymond aborting a conversation wasn’t unusual, especially in recent years.  But Zed had to puzzle out why, and in the here and now, he found himself reaching, going over the conversation.  What had triggered Raymond shutting down like that?<br><br>‘Helping hands to pull her up from the depths.’<br><br>Raymond was thinking of darker times.  When he’d reached down to pull his son Hector up.  His hand had been slapped away.  Raymond had never forgiven Hector for that, lending a kind of sadness to his earlier comment about favorite apprentices.  Hector, for his part, hadn’t forgiven Raymond, either.<br><br>Stubbornness ran in that family. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/08/15 Excerpt] from [[Out on a Limb 3.z]]</ref><ref name=":2">Zed floundered for a way of putting the idea to words.<br>The son?  That felt like a slap in the face to Hector, and Zed had always liked Hector.<br><br>In any event, He wanted to do right by Raymond.  The guy was a mess, and there were times he was borderline abusive, but he was also the first person who had really backed Zed up when he needed it.  If tonight went badly, if Zed didn’t come out the other end okay… Raymond would lose it, probably.  It would probably even go the way it had with Hector.  A decline so slow that people who were in contact with Raymond on a near-daily basis, like Alexander, wouldn’t notice the incremental changes.  So subtle that the people who were distant, like his other two apprentices, wouldn’t be able to put it to words.<br><br>Before Hector, Rad Ray Sunshine had been bright, effusive, happy, unflappable.  But the parent had buried his child and buried a good-sized part of himself with him. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/08/15 Excerpt] from [[Out on a Limb 3.z]]</ref>