[center][h2][color=FFDAB9]Wren[/color][/h2][/center]
[center]★[/center]
[center][h3][i][color=FFE4E1]Morning Woes[/color][/i][/h3][/center]
[center]★[/center]	

	A veiled smile tugged at Wren's lips, though he did not reply to Maria's friendly banter. He could not glean any more humour from his dreams than he already had. As the briefing room swelled with the influx of other crew members, Lawrence felt his eyelids flutter, heavy with sleep. The morning chatter began to fade into background din. His head propped up by the crook of his elbow, the filmy pall of a reverie cloaked him.

	He could see his mother behind a thick wall of glass; see her pearly smile and the wild, curly hair Wren inherited. His father, too, with his hard-nosed countenance and the bristly stubble of a blue-collar worker. He could see their faces being leached of colour, their dusky visage fading to grey husks. Wren felt himself withdrawing from the scene, too fearful to see such familiar and soft faces etiolate like a dying rose.

	Wren's view changed abruptly, and he felt his heart wrench in pain. Standing in front of a small lake, air cockling the edges of the waterside gently, was Drew. The man he left behind on Earth to join the Condor, and to seek a purpose that would make him feel worth a tuppence. He missed Drew, and though Wren agonized over it for the first months of being employed, he never tried contacting the green-eyed charmer. No calls, not even an antiquated letter. He could not put Drew through more suffering to satisfy his own wants. Pain crawled about the peripheries of Wren's mind.

	[b][i]Stop[/i][/b], he begged himself, [b][i]I don't want to see. It hurts to see.[/i][/b]

	"[b]-ogue Titchua raiding IOSE ships.[/b]" The voice of Marino startled Wren from his daydream. He sat upright, fingers knotting together and unknotting on his lap anxiously. He listened, trying to reorient himself back to the job he sacrificed so much for.