One Winter in Icabon - The Premise

A Closer Look:

It was cold, cold far too long...

Last year's winter came about longer and more dismaying than Icabon, New Hampshire has ever known. The people despaired quietly at the shortness of daylight, and marveled in dread at the disquiet its peculiar yet dangerous beasts felt and exhibited, thus encouraging no one to withdraw from the haven of their houses. The first buds of spring garnered a gratitude from every resident--young or old--that has not failed to cease throughout the following year.

There's a change on the coming wind...

Reese has come into this tiny community--a place she had never heard a breath of until two weeks ago while loitering in San Antonio, Texas. She keeps her interests and intentions to herself, her past a virtual mystery to even the determined, pursuant young resident Jeremy, and the kindly Uncle Horatio. But Reese's encounter with a mysterious rider who saved her life just before she arrived, someone she is sure to have been inhuman, soon opens her up to the two. It is not long before she is unexpectedly introduced to a creature imprinted with pieces of her personality extracted from a strand of her DNA--a creature whose kind should have died out at least 66 million years ago. Shawna (as Reese calls her) is under the young woman's control, insofar as she must enter the bipedal dinosaur's mind and become one with her. As she learns to harness this gift to greater effect, Reese discovers the secrets of this strange place and its residents--including her rescuer, a wayward dromeasaur and the sole warrior of Icabon against the increasingly rebelling beasts of its forest. It also becomes strikingly apparent how different and unique Shawna is from her human partner, though she can for a long while only exist when Reese so choses to use her body for her own purposes.

The openness is killing them, just as a man whom they called a prophet said...

There remains much, however, that both Reese and Jeremy are terribly ignorant of. Something jealous and utterly evil has bided its time, and is now attempting to do the unthinkable: Perverting the extra-dimensions of Creation, in spite of its current control of the four dimensions of physical existence. Icabon rests on the very edge of these two realities--one temporary, and one Ultimate--and thus is the first to feel the pervading wickedness' pangs. A cloud has drawn over all the land; only our friends and the rider/warrior named Pindu are left unclaimed by fear. But the circle is coming full turn, and as the bitter winter draws on longer than ever dreamed, the cycle of life is now taking out its fury upon the two who need--or perhaps deserve it--least: One new, the other newly-arrived, stricken with an illness that threatens to take them both unless the unimaginable is accomplished on one of their parts. Or, can those whom they have just learned to love find a way around such a heart-breaking decision?

Hi there! As you can see, I've added a basic synopsis for the readers out there to get a better idea of what this story will be about. The "brief description" offered just doesn't seem to do justice to the work.

Anyhow, this is a serialized story that I hope at first to get out to interested readers (and authors!) monthly. The first real chapter--or rather, the first significant segment--is now available; just click the link below this paragraph to continue.:) Meanwhile, it would still be great if you could drop me a line and tell me what you think of the plot! I love getting feedback from the critics who really matter. Thanks a bunch for checking this out!

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One Winter in Icabon - Prologue  [13+] In which we realize that things are not always as they seem... by Light Rises