One Winter in Icabon - Prologue

It has arrived, finally! Well, at least readers can now begin to personally acquaint themselves with this big (I can either hope or fear the fact) story. If you've stumbled upon this link and have absolutely no clue what I'm talking about, feel free to check out "One Winter in Icabon - The Premise"  by clicking on the link earlier in this sentence to read, well, the premise. Be forewarned that this item has been feeling pretty lonely lately (hint, hint), so I would still much appreciate feedback on my idea.

I would like to remind readers who have looked over the premise that I plan to get out a chapter (or a significant segment) of "Icabon" every month, at the least. I know this may not seem like much, but I'm still going to school and am taking some very difficult classes once summer is finished (perish the thought!:)). In other words, as I will be inundated with work, I may not always be able to crunch it out on schedule. In any case, I've got a story to tell, and I am determined not to keep it to myself!

And now, for a few specifics.

THIS STORY (OVERALL) IS RATED PG-13 FOR THE FOLLOWING:

Thematic/Dramatic Elements

Some Violence

Very, Very Mild Language

The above are listed by severity of usage. I'm trying to make this story accessible to almost anyone, and am telling it in consideration of personal principles which will gradually reveal themselves as the story progresses. If you want a good comparison in terms of content, E.T. is darn near perfect (minus the four-letter words, of course!:)). It's only rated PG-13 for safety reasons; no one likes to be caught by the Moderators for something that can be helped.

Now it's time to shut my yap and let the story speak for itself. Sorry for the lecture! Enjoy!:)

And so it begins...

Prologue

Some years ago, when a downpour that had ostensibly established itself as having no end subsided and left pursuing it a dampish warmth which blanketed the whole of Minneapolis, six men from various parts of the country gathered together in a most unusual meeting. What brought the peculiarity into this meeting had more to do with the ones who would present themselves, often in one room, than with the particular circumstances of their gathering. Their dubiousness towards one another, naturally, was made apparent enough for each man’s mental approval of duly noted caution, all the while graciously holding it back so as to make each one’s suspicions subtle, and they were therefore very good at keeping to propriety. Even as they stepped from their respective vehicles (mostly overrated Junkers of cars), wiping their brows with a kerchief each kept at handy for such conditions, the six scientists checked and gauged their gazes among themselves, quite happy with at least this stretch of common ground that had been established. The youngest of them, of a light but curious stature, looked intensely inquisitive and even a bit confused at this behavior as to almost make him stand apart from the others; but an older gentleman, with gentle, easy gray eyes, reassured his junior partner, and soon all six were within the safe confines of the hotel.

If the weather had not proved the prospect of catching these insignificant snippets of rather sweaty bodies in dark business suits mingling with the establishment’s “high-heads” in a lobby of angular jet black against checkered white quite impractical, there might have been the spot of fanfare bored Minneapolitans were looking for. For the brief moments they had actually stood outside the hotel, the young gentleman had to brace himself for what he’d at first felt rather than saw. The humidity burst forth when more air space had become available, wrapping him in the overwhelming muskiness it carried away from dozens of similar bodies that just happened to take up its invaluable room. Allowing for the instant to pass, he inhaled softly through his nose (deciding quite wisely to breathe through his mouth from that point onward), and then opened his eyes.

The first thing he noticed--which he would come to remember best from that day aside from the business at hand--was the strange, unprecedented softness the world had to it. He couldn’t put his finger on the words, but the one thing that did come to him probably described it best: Hazy. Hazy like the dickens; and there was the radiance that gleamed off rather than pierced through the haze, making the light of a spring day unusually tangible. The young man unfurled his fingers at the thought, letting his palms absorb the sunlight that he literally felt press against the skin. In that neon orange glow of a world did he lose himself--temporarily, for once again his partner pulled him from it, and now coaxed him into facing their current dealings.

Something about the elder gentleman’s demeanor after that, when the six were already finishing up pleasantries and being compelled into the conference room, caught the young man’s notice. For one his strapping age, he was allotted a curious sensitivity that it usually took the best of people years to garner. And these years were more often than not very hard on the person, as he had learned to realize some time ago. The old man presently looked at the one they both understood to be Keiffer--and though his full name included the designation “doctor,” the thin, slightly quivering wisp of a human speaking with one Dr. Pollock hardly seemed deserving of, much less capable of proving, that respectable title. Next to his ear, as he and his partner were seated on the right side of the room’s long conference table, the young man heard a deep-throated laugh. Turning to the sound, the old man stifled his chuckle further than he’d already managed, grinned at his associate, and laughed again more quietly.

“They aren’t built like they used to,” the older one said softly. He tapped the table edge to where a crack had formed within a tile of the art deco motif with one handle of his glasses. He rolled the frame between his fingers faintly, adjusting it so that the light of the room hit its lenses just right. Peering at the skinny reflection that bounced around the glass surface like a reed, the younger gentleman found himself hard put to it to keep from laughing out loud.

“Ah, well, Shearmur,” he answered in repressed glee, “I suppose that we’ll need to consult them about the poor quality of work lately.”

Shearmur did not repress a grimace--of the highly amused sort--as he placed the glasses on its respective perch. “But considering their Authority,” he said, “we’re going to need one hell of a consultant.”

The other smiled at what he guessed was the intended pun. He subsided from his partner in wonder: Dr. Shearmur was perhaps the foremost, and most venerated, bioengineering researcher of his time, though the statement was a bit exaggerated in that there were less than a dozen such researchers in the United States--and, at a once-in-a-lifetime meeting of the minds that intellectuals wouldn’t dare think to brush aside, the doctor was messing around with some punk kid from Southern California. Then again, he was a very smart punk kid, and he never hesitated to jump at an opportunity that threatened to either engulf him due to lack of imperative scientific knowledge, or lift him ever closer to his reach for the stars he understood the light intensity and type of in his growing astronomical intimacy.

That was, until now; and the man sitting beside him had long ago set his sights more inwardly.

“William?”

He began to start at the voice, but he relaxed as he recognized the softness of it. The young man turned to the face of a slight woman, perhaps not much older than himself. She backed away from the astronomer to accommodate the space the introduction of his head took up, and blinked back with her imploring but discriminating green eyes. She hardly bothered to smooth the black skirt and bright, white apron of the hotel’s pub protocol. Waiting for the reply, she absently fingered the lace of a charming little boater that completed the uniform.

Kicking himself for nothing short of being at a loss for words, the young man stammered, “Yes, ma’am?”

“Your name’s William, right, sir? That’s the word from the others.” She indicated with her eyes a couple of similarly attired men--minus the skirt, of course--who were at a separate corner table mixing the drinks. One of them perceived the astronomer’s stare, smiled back reassuringly with not-so-well hidden trepidation, and continued with his daiquiri.

“Yes…yes, I’m William,” he replied, turning his attention back to the woman. “That would make your sources pretty accurate, not to mention probing.” He leaned back uneasily in his chair. “Doesn’t do much for comfort for a man like myself, huh?”

Noticing the troubled wideness of his eyes, the server hastened with a warm smile. “We’re lucky we knew anything about Sputnik in this box,” she told him. “As far as the layman is concerned, we’re idiots.”

William chuckled appropriately at this, but couldn’t help the internal wince at the way she’d stated this fact more frankly than comfort allowed. Curious, he regarded her closely. It seemed that in the only way she could--preoccupation with the convenient lace--she was trying to convince him of her interest being as non-committal as those of her coworkers in the corner. It was her gaze, though, that betrayed her: It was far too keen for mere indifference.

But that was understandable, if what she said was as valid as it sounded from her. “From what I’ve seen, ma’am, it’s pretty darn difficult to reach any level of idiocy, and it takes a special few to get down there.”

“In any case, my lady,” put in Dr. Shearmur smoothly, “if a man were eager to truly know of the life of a recluse, then he should become a scientist.”

The woman made a subtle gesture equivalent to someone throwing up his or her arms in exasperated defeat. “Then, I’ve met my match!” she exclaimed, quiet enough so as not to draw attention to their conversation. “It’s certainly a strange sort of world where the solutions for everything are shipped to the populace in stealth, and with no thanks sent back for it. Well, sirs, laymen may learn a lot of things, but then they tend to be the most ungrateful.”

She left them to recall her duties, and William made a mental note to speak with her again under more opportune circumstances, perhaps even after the conference finished. The four others were presently settling into their seats, as was the casual talk starting to die down with the official opening time drawing very near. William proceeded to arrange his set of papers, or at least even the pile’s edges further for the sake of primed neatness, and was feeling extremely good about the persuasiveness of their research. This meeting isn’t about research, he remembered the doctor cautioning him. There is more fear for our hides than for anyone who’ll sit there the same and hear the same. Impulsively, he looked to Shearmur, seeing the troubled expression pulling the man back to a thought of some minutes ago as the Mediator motioned to commence.

“Not everything, Will,” the old man whispered, the lines in his face more evident than usual. “We can’t do everything.”

The Mediator was one who would be recognized simply for his own presence, no matter how under-whelming it proved by its sole merits; he thus would be little more than disappointed by a passive reaction from his audience. Luckily enough, he was also a respectable, likable sort of fellow with the enviable qualities of good taste (as his choice of location showed) and a silvery tongue that sometimes, when conditions were ideal, lapsed into indulgence and let fall sugary praises for his subordinates. William had often heard Dr. Shearmur speak of that conduct reprovingly, in that Professor Rosen’s humorous and noble intentions in this naivety of his remarkable intellect was a weakness that could, ultimately, destroy any chance for a stringent resolution to be passed under his perceptive watch. The man’s tendency towards compromise-—for he loathed both seeing a dispute and having to perhaps choose in the end between two equally appealing alternatives-—was a frustration nearly every conference member bore there, and they bore it in cool silence.

Professor Rosen, a medium built man of sixty with hair thinning or gone at the scalp, rose in the quiet that followed his gesture for starting. He leaned forward for a moment, laying his hands against the table’s head in doing so, looking to his right and then his left at the other five. Those hands--afflicted with debilitating arthritis, yet surprisingly animated when he spoke in a stern temper--moved together, clasped at his chest, and fell silently to his waist as his eyes bore on them in a grave air. He then addressed them, in soft but affecting melodrama:

“Today, gentlemen, we have come from our respective places and homes--if men such as ourselves are fortunate enough to have the latter--to do our bit of duty in the work we’ve come to unexpectedly excel in. I would like to have it known, before all else, that I am very aware of the lateness of date at which this meeting has been set--worse, without courteous warning--and might have, therefore, left you gentlemen in some unwarranted inconvenience. No doubt at least one or two of our number have had to cancel appointments or reschedule things involving personal pleasure, though such frustrations are to be expected in our honorable professions. I know that I myself have suffered these in order to be here, and my schedule differs little from most of yours. However, realizing these hassles as unnecessary, I give you this on behalf of those who knew it could be helped: We’re sorry.”

Seeming satisfied that everyone there understood the circumstances and accepted the politic apology, the professor nodded in his halfhearted manner and took his seat. He suddenly looked inquiringly at Keiffer, who was seated the nearest to him as opposed to the somewhat distant Professor Pratt at his left. Lifting up large, round eyes from a bowed head, the little man who now seemed more feckless than normal for even himself quickly flipped through his pile of papers, and soon handed Rosen a small yellow sheet comparative to a Post-it note. The professor skimmed its contents promptly, and with an enlightened “ah!” and quiet thanks to the impromptu secretary of the meeting, went on to deal with the matters at hand.

“Today,”--Rosen thought the word especially ceremonial and used it more often than advisable--“we gentlemen find ourselves in a new era of affairs--one which has come about, consequently, by means that have left us quite unwitting since.”

“--Passing of Einstein on April 17 of ’55,” interposed Keiffer, in his ever-tremulous voice.

“Yes,” Professor Rosen said, breaking a pause after the doctor’s statement, “it has put the world’s scientific community in a miasma for about three years.” Rosen shook his head doggedly. “A terrible shame to leave so many good men and women in that state without the action taken for so long; in which, thankfully, we are currently participating”

William raised his pen. “If I may raise a question about your last statement, professor, I wish you would clarify what type of ‘state,’ precisely, that the scientific community was left in by the event in question.”

Rosen smiled appreciatively at the young astronomer. “Why, you are always welcome to ask such things among your peers. Are we not, in our goals here today, considered equals?”

William scarcely caught Keiffer’s hushed snort. “It is nice to think of our relations in that manner, Professor Rosen, and that is all I’ll say on that; however,” and he looked at the Mediator more slyly than Shearmur would’ve probably thought wise, “I’m afraid you are beside the point in your reply. You did not answer my question: What type of ‘state’ was the result of Einstein’s death?”

The professor seemed somewhat taken aback, but soon managed to hide his incredulity behind a somber façade. “Sir,” he said grimly, “you know what state that was.”

“Well, yes, considering the context you’ve built about the world’s scientific community.” William regarded Rosen coolly. “I mean, if I am an astronomer as you all understand me to be, and have had all the opportunities to test and continually confirm the late man in question’s theory of general relativity as opposed to the rest of you gentlemen, then it’d be very odd that I wouldn’t share these particular feelings along with the remainder of the world’s scientific community.”

There was a clink of glass, and the carelessly listening Pratt and Pollock started, looking to the noise’s source. The zinfandel did not heed in its pouring, though it had no mind to either flow or stop on its own accord. The server looked towards the men, a little startled herself, but her wide eyes all the same daring any one of them to inquire. William felt an internal tug, but held it down as the woman glided away from Rosen’s glass.

Keiffer, for the first time, raised his head; he called to her, gently. She stopped to look full onto the doctor’s thin face. He blinked several times, smirked, felt through his faintly red hair, offered that hand meekly to her.

A sense of discord rang within William. Even as the bile rose, he made out a glimmering of lust in the demure eyes. He set his jaw, feeling increasingly helpless to his indignation, and tried to settle with an image of his hand slapping away the insidious thought more out of an awareness of protection than possession.

The woman’s high, dark cheeks flushed resolutely, and her eyes narrowed. She cradled the wine bottle to her breast, and turned with a significant step to the bar corner.

William breathed out, relieved. His alertness, however, would stay taut with the ongoing proceedings.

Rosen, coughing, said then, “Well, I will give credit where credit is due. It is hard to find a man these days who will admit to an, um, acute sense of topical avoidance at the site of that fault. I’ll give you credit there, umm, sir.” He seemed to fawn for his wine glass, and soon sipped on the bittersweet liquid diffidently. “Keiffer, have you noted all that too? Keiffer? Keiffer?”

The man sat there in a steady silence unlike his nature. He had allowed his shoulders to do all the talking of dejection, revelation, and quiet bitterness in sagging to where the lower chambers of his heart throbbed. Professor Pratt, the eldest of their number by twenty years, showed a twinkle that explained in its brevity what unsettled him from saying nothing more during that meeting. Keiffer slid from the control with a trembling hand that fingered the uneven edges of his papers, in something that resembled childlike awe at things in existence--within his pure, innocent reach--at things so abnormal, they were normal, and beautiful because if they did not have a good purpose, why, they wouldn’t exist at all! It was just such, for, as William perceived, he truly felt sorrow, in its authenticity and fullness.

In that moment, he felt almost sorry for the doctor.

But, in awful suddenness, Keiffer raised his thin face to normal eye level. His gaze rested upon the partners across the table, the younger of which had not long ago spoken his bit. William noticed something alert and terribly callous from the otherwise droll-looking eyes, and was tempted to turn away from the coldness of them.

Keiffer lifted his brow sneeringly. “Sir,” he began, drawing them back to a half-forgotten subject, “do you happen to know what a miasma is?”

In turn, William set his face decisively. “A cloud, I believe, doctor.” He added the last word as more of an afterthought than a reference of respect.

The other made it obvious he had picked up on that, but resolved to continue on his course. “Yes, a cloud. But the term miasma, in and of itself, possesses a connotation that suggests something more of a fog, or mist, rather.”

“True, but what does it have to do with the issues at hand?”

“I’m simply answering your question, sir!” Keiffer said with an injured air.

William shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“Then I’d advise you to listen, and look instead for the underlying importance of what I’ve told you.” Keiffer brought a bony hand to his mouth, sucking the index finger and then taking it out to rub it against his thumb. It was a flash of character, which elicited nothing more or nothing less concerning himself than one thing. He straightened when the self-conscious gesture was complete. “Now if, as Professor Rosen so well put it, the world’s scientific community has been in this ‘fog’ for the past two--almost three--years following Einstein’s death, it is suggested that this unfortunate event has resulted in a temporary”--his glare fleeted about the room to imply his doubt in that last word--“state of inability to see things as well as previously. Furthermore, if I may go so far as to suggest, this fog may also indicate a general undercurrent of uncertainty within our community throughout these past three years.”

For a moment he was unsure what Keiffer had meant by the word “uncertainty.” But his partner was quicker on the point, and took it up smartly.

“Uncertainty,” Dr. Shearmur pondered aloud, directing it at a now sincerely unhappy Keiffer, who appeared as if he were aware of something very unpleasant coming to him. “With the thoughts I imagine are currently fluttering about these gentlemen’s minds, doctor, I wish to inform all here that your conclusion—for I see what’s coming—about the results of that event in question is just simply illogical. I find it hard to believe,” he said, eyeing Keiffer dubiously and chuckling, “that all the men and women of the scientific community, who were disillusioned by an undemanding model of the universe which was proved very false by Einstein, hoped against impossible hope that maybe he would somehow reconcile all the confusions and complications made by his discoveries.”

“It is surprising what a man wouldn’t consciously admit, Dr. Shearmur,” was Keiffer’s cynical reply to this reasoning. The noise of uneasy shifting of seats in the room underscored his point, and he leered at the two spitefully. William looked to his mentor, only to see his expression spoiled by the shock, and then caught a glimpse of the woman in the corner. Seeing she had his attention, she indicated Keiffer in much the same fashion as she had her coworkers. Slowly, she slid an index finger across her exposed throat, and let it fall to the side, meaningfully.

The woman has condemned you, doctor, William thought, and with a surge of infinite but rather wicked satisfaction, he relaxed apart from his worries.

Keiffer turned. In his relaxed condition, William could not see those large eyes blink, shedding whatever light they had borne even before, and shone dark for an instant. Half shut, they wandered in this state to the woman. She stared, a flash of terror flew across her own, and it passed. The doctor’s gaze was blank, droll, innocuous; no doubt she was kicking herself for allowing such premonitions to overcome her. She could have been very wrong about what she’d seen--or thought she saw--after all.

Restarting discourse was eager on one other’s mind, then. “I recall you mentioning, sir,” said Dr. Pollock, addressing the astronomer, “something about your having various opportunities to test the theory of relativity.” He put this hesitantly, but had somehow retained his normal, matter-of-fact fashion in the saying.

“Yes, yes, that’s true; and I have, in fact, come here to relay the data and results from those experiments--which are surprising in and of themselves, but amount to--”

“Consistent fallout, sir?” said Keiffer. Tremulousness had escaped him. “For anything else, to our ears and minds here, won’t find much liking within men who have experienced the emptiness of ‘fascinating conceptions’.”

“Well, Dr. Keiffer, you must understand that even as it falls under my field, I feel that our equipment is yet inadequate in sensitivity to prove the theory on a constant basis.”

“So, not only is the astronomy of our world ill-equipped and ill-prepared to do its ascribed duty, but you--one of thousands, mark you all--you can only rely on feeling to measure this dilemma.”

The cord it struck in the other three made them sink in disturbance, and then glare upon the partners with a suspicion liable to break trust for good.

Keiffer was clever, and capable, enough of not stopping there. “And I see papers, there,” he continued, gesturing to William almost carelessly, “with, I would suppose, months of recorded data. I think upon that plethora of confusion, I imagine, and come to question: ‘How many of the conclusions drawn weren’t derived from simple gut feelings?” He hardly spared them his utter disgust at this notion. “I'll tell you about this, gentlemen, though it need not be explained anymore than what I give you now: This is not science—not of its pure form or quasi form, but a complete departure from all we men of knowledge hold dear.” He paused for effect, which did affect, and said in a softened, pseudo-dignified tone, “We are obliged by the human nature to seek out truth to unearth a reliance in this time of…uncertainty….It has always been about cutting away the branches that bear no fruit, and killing the weeds which drain away our resources as we speak.”

No one motioned to recognize his fancies after the speech. William knew the bad air in the absence of the obvious. The presence of which, admittedly, would’ve made things a lot easier upon him.

But Shearmur seemed to have strength enough under the burden. He gave forth a gentle, rational expression in the last of his effort, and was not wont towards confrontation in his soft-spoken manner.

“Doctor, what we have to offer at present may seem inadequate towards our general cause here. There is never much to go on or work with in the beginning of any theory made, despite whatever it already had to go on. Nonetheless, my partner and myself and thousands of others have seen in its mere abstractness a promise; and to say something is abstract still resonates as the solid, the existing, the real. Wherein, lies the path to truth.”

Keiffer had a quietly volatile expression that pierced to the researcher’s heart even before the words sprung from his lips.

“The same abstractness shown by your God?” he said.

The blow was true to its mark, and the comprehensive looks bore it all. There was nothing more for either of them to say, and they sat in listening, listless.

It isn’t as if nothing happened in the following hours that they are not recounted. To speak of, there were substantial lectures and raising of voices to make the event a rather animated, and entertaining, affair. For what it was supposed to be, however, all that passed in that meeting was inappropriate in the lip service unwittingly paid by the participators and in the unwarranted indiscretion of its leaders. Certain things did stir within several of the six men upon these things, for you must understand that they were no idiots. With a nod to the simple human weakness of desiring a little above all one’s principles comfort for oneself, they mostly chose to shrug it off and, “let things go as they would.”

Yet for the exceptions of the meeting, as everyone bid his good-byes back outside the hotel’s front, one old professor willed himself out of his good heart to give a friend support.

“It’s a sprite clearer out here than when we came this morning,” he said to Dr. Shearmur, in a kind voice.

The preoccupied doctor recognized the man, and smiled a rueful smile to him. “Yes, Pratt, though I’ll admit I prefer my humidity in the cool of the evening.”

“That says much for a morning person like yourself,” the professor rejoined, in a remarkably teasing way that the partners couldn’t help but warm up to. He stood for a moment hesitant, and, being very diminutive, had to crane his neck up to look upon both of them. “I felt bad things coming about this whole affair the instant I heard of it,” he started. “Then the list came out two weeks ago, and I acknowledged my guess and threw the whole thing out the window--and, anyhow, what is an old man like myself to do in order to fix the quandaries of an entire community in one sitting? Though, even an old cynic like myself never would have thought Keiffer as the instigator of all this trash.”

“Unfortunately, I’ve seen greater surprises,” said Shearmur, cynically.

“I’m sorry that you’ve lost confidence in yourself,” Pratt said, though his gaze bore knowing sympathy. “It’s not a thing that could have been, in any case, predictable with a fellow like Keiffer. I saw you shut him down twelve years ago, and I really thought the ordeal done and over with. It broke him so.”

Shearmur sighed, reflectively. “This business is pretty much about the things which can come back to haunt you--or your enemy.” He didn’t bother to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “So strange a manner of things, that I rather think it in unworldly hands.”

Professor Pratt drew back slightly; he dithered, looked to the ground, and cleared his throat to speak. “Now, doctor,” he said, his brow furrowing, “don’t think that your ideals or beliefs or whatever warrants sympathy in business. As a friend, I respect you for upholding a moral quality that’s sorry hard to find in a man, these days. But I stand my ground in saying it has no place in a business of the five senses.”

The two partners glanced at each other, not without meaning. The researcher then turned to his friend with a warm smile.

“As a fellow scientist and friend, all we demand from each other is respect. I just hope I can achieve it on the other level without relenting my principles.”

“We know what’s important, at the least,” Pratt said, with a sigh. He turned to his car to leave, and was sliding into the rear bench when his face lit with realization. “Oh, Shearmur,” he called, beckoning him in earnest, “there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, that I’ve been thinking on for some months, now….If you were to think about a person’s death, and what occurs to his or her, um, ‘consciousness,’ what would you think the greater terror: Eternal torment, or eternal oblivion once the mind ceases to function?”

Shearmur waited, and a visible change, like an electric surge that had now arrived and would not be suppressed again, graced his clear eyes even as he faced the professor with the utmost calm.

“It might be easy enough to see pain and sorrow for all eternity as the worse of the two,” said Shearmur. “But, then, one can only truly say that for sure from personal experience, and this cannot be achieved. For you can but choose one or the other; and if the latter were true, it wouldn’t matter since you couldn’t care.”

They bade farewell, and as William and the doctor departed so was the gathering broken, never for them to come together again. The elder of the partners presently took to his notebook, engrossing himself in what seemed to William like the beginnings of a new project outline. Meanwhile, the young man leaned against the cushy back of the car’s bench, letting his eyes relax focus, and went to fingering a small, folded piece of paper with a phone number written in neat, careful, elegant print. He smirked dreamily, and soon fell asleep.

Continue:

485634

One Winter in Icabon - Chapter 1  [13+] In which our heroine is introduced to things that may soon be beyond her understanding... by Light Rises