Unus Putesco pro Paradiso

[Zach Kaiser]

As the tests were handed in, Eilert didn't have much time to give them more than a cursory glance--he would end up taking them home and grading them over the weekend. Judging from her demeanor, Mayako didn't seem to think she did well...or perhaps she was nervous about something else? It wasn't something he'd normally take note of, but Zenos was the last to finish his test by a wide margin and he had little else to do until he was done.

Of course he was aware of some of the gossip on campus--given the remarkable nature of the two, even the teachers talked about them occasionally. It was no particular concern of his, but he wished them luck anyway, if it was true.

He managed to get through the rest of the day without incident, fortunately not falling victim to any more lucid dreams.

Once home, he was pretty busy--his wife was busy making sure their tenants were situated for the evening, since she didn't want to be interrupted while they had company unless it was absolutely necessary. Fortunately, the two boys renting one room were out again for the evening, Mr. Arrieveous usually took dinner in his room anyway, and the young woman in the remaining room didn't mind eating a bit early. But that left him with doing a fair amount of the work himself--last minute cleaning, a break to take his medication (the effects of which left him out of it for a few minutes), and preparing some of the less complicated meals. (Eilert was not a particularly good cook, much of which had to do with friends and family not letting him around sharp things for most of his life due to his illness.)

By the time their guests arrived, however, the house was spic and span, dinner was well on its way, and Eilert was a little winded but otherwise in good spirits...

[Nayt]

They were late, but not by much. Sturm had said it would be around seven in the evening when they arrived, but they were a half an hour late--acceptable tardiness, all things considered. The stage coach driver had actually been a bit confused with the directions, and Sturm had some trouble conveying them to him any better than they were conveyed to him. It was an altogether frustrating experience, but the same stagecoach and the same driver was going to be back later . . . in about a few hours, sometime around eleven o'clock, at which point, Sturm and Icsorue were going to be leaving. That was still hours away, and the night was young!

Sturm left the stagecoach first, not dressed down for something like an elaborate party, but a casual dinner. He wore a white button down shirt, black slacks, and dress shoes--nothing fancy. As soon as he was out, he walked to the other side of the stagecoach, that which was facing Eilert's home, and opened up the door, reaching his hand in soon after to help Icsorue out--a woman who graciously accepted his assistance.

Icsorue Jaini Lahmendt wasn't just a significant other to Sturm--she was his wife as of a couple of years. She had short blond hair that she kept parted in the middle, with her bangs tucked back behind her ears, and had a young face with visibly smooth skin. Icsorue was only twenty years old. She wore a modest yellow dress, something to reveal the shoulders, but nothing gaudy, something casual--and somewhat large on her. It was a known fact that Icsorue was not a sickly thin woman at all, nor was she remotely overweight. She was a stark in-between: twenty years old, five feet and five inches tall, and around one hundred thirty pounds. This all just lent to making her that much more curvaceous, with exceptional bust to boot--but she was making it a point to hide all that today. To top it all off, Icsorue had a constant grin on her face. Even when she was smiling, the grin was evident, but she wasn't crazy. There were simply a lot of things in life that were amusing to her, and she liked to regard that.

She wrapped her right arm around Sturm's left and the both silently approached the front door, arm in arm. As the stagecoach started off, the driver having other business to attend to for the next few hours, Sturm lightly rapped upon the front door . . .

[Zach Kaiser]

The house was notable both for its size and decoration; it was far bigger than necessary for two people, which was why the unused rooms were furnished as bedrooms and rented out. Additionally, there were no small amount of flowers in front of and around the house. Some were clearly part of gardens that were well maintained, while in other places there were wildflowers blooming.

It wasn't long after Sturm knocked that the door swung open. Standing in the doorway was a petite young woman, in her mid-twenties but looking to be around Icsorue's age. Her skin was fair, though still healthy unlike her husband's, and her short dark hair was accentuated by a blue flower placed just above her left ear. She wore a pale green dress, similar to Icsorue's in that it showed her shoulders and was casual, with pink frills at the top of her (admittedly somewhat lacking) chest. A cheerful smile rose to her face at the sight of her guests.

"Ah, you're here!" she exclaimed. "It's been too long...I mean, since I've last seen you, not that you're too late or anything." A cheerful smile was on her face, a welcome sight. For a long time, when Eilert had been terribly ill and recovery seemed unlikely, any smiling she did was painfully forced. Now, with her husband on the road to recovery she had no more need to fake being in a good mood.

"Come in, come in," she implored, leading them inside. There was a small entryway where she took their coats and they could remove their shoes if they wished, hanging up the former while the latter was set off to the side. After passing through a small hallway (off of wish the main washroom was located) they arrived at the living area. It was an atrium that served as the center to the rest of the house--the bedrooms were all on the second floor, accessible from a staircase, with other rooms--such as the dining room, kitchen, and Eilert's study, being on the ground floor.

The room was furnished with a couple of couches and several chairs which were seated around a central, small table. Off to the side were a couple of chairs positioned on either side of a chessboard.

In one of the chairs around the center, a very comfortable looking one at that, sat Eilert, who rose to greet them. "Tyrian, Icsorue, I'm glad you could make it," he said, smiling upon seeing his friends. "Dinner should be ready shortly. Until then, please make yourselves at home."

[Nayt]

Sturm and Icsorue were both delighted to see Helena, too. Icsorue smiled cheekily and Sturm modestly--Sturm, who glanced away awkwardly once the mention of time was thrown out there. They were a bit late, after all. Of course, it was too be somewhat expected, considering how much stagecoaches could be trusted, but still . . .

"It has!" Icsorue exclaimed as she leaned in, intending to give Helena a light, quick, gentle, and friendly hug--it really had been too long since they saw each other!

As soon as Icsorue was in and able, Sturm lifted his arm so she could hold onto him while she slipped her heels off. They were a bit choking, and she wasn't too much of a fan of them. But hey, when one wears a nice dress, one had to accessorize just a bit!

"Our stagecoach couldn't foind the place," Icsorue remarked with a bit of a grin and a shrug of her shoulders, "We kept telling him that it was north of the lake and had a couple of flags out front--and pretty big, to boot, and the bloody imbecile couldn't wrap his mind 'round the directions."

The young woman had an accent, but it wasn't much--not anymore, at least. She was originally from England and lived for the most part in a poor Cockney neighborhood, spending at least the first ten years of her life in an orphanage--until immigrating to America with her foster parents at the time, who all moved to Massachusetts to avoid the cluttering and dirtiness of New York City, which was almost as bad as London--the horrible city that was. London was the type of city that could breed the bubonic plague--it was just that dirty. New York was pretty dirty, too . . . it was a wonder that there wasn't a horrid disease killing people in mass quantities. Excepting Boston, most places in Massachusetts weren't like that--and Boston was to be avoided by anyone intelligent, anyways.

In truth, Icsorue's full name was Icsorue Jaini Lahmendt-Sturm, but most didn't attribute her as having that last name, and generally referred to her as "Icsorue Lahmendt," if only because Tyrian Sturm was only called by his first name by perhaps three people: Eilert, his wife, and Icsorue, who--for the longest time before their relationship--simply called him "Dr. Tyr," a bastardization and shortening of his first name. Now, to safe herself the confusion and speak to him with the same closeness that she felt for him, she used his entire first name.

After they were greeted at the table by Eilert, Sturm replied, "I'm also glad, as well."

"Eiler~t!" Icsorue exclaimed as she bounced around the table, intending to throw her arms around him giddily--with which Sturm had no problems. Icsorue was easily excitable and quite affectionate . . .

[Zach Kaiser]

For a few moments Eilert looked like a man who was in the process of weathering some kind of storm, which caused his wife to giggle before she returned to the kitchen to finish dinner. However, after that he returned her embrace (though with significantly less gusto), saying, "Good to see you too."

He was still a bit tired, as he had been often lately. While he was now capable of fighting his illness thanks to the new medication, it was an exhausting process, and he lost a lot stamina while he'd been bedridden.

"I apologize for the vague directions." He just didn't know how to better describe it--he had a good sense of direction, which made it tough to give others directions because he always seemed to know where he was going without trying very much trouble. This was in stark contrast to his academic career, in which it'd taken a lot of hard work for him to come as far as he had. This was arguably what made him a good teacher: he knew what it was like to struggle to learn.

[Nayt]

Icsorue was a little over half a foot shorter than Eilert, so when she hugged him--and leaned in to do so--she had buried the side of her face into his chest and squeezed him tightly. After their shared embrace, Icsorue returned to Sturm's side, who stood at the opposite side of the table.

"It's not your fault," replied Sturm.

"Mhmm! The guy droiving the stagecoach is just a little off in the head, that's all," Icsorue added.

Sturm pulled a chair out for Icsorue, who sat accordingly--with a glance up at him with appreciation. It was extremely common for a man of any standard to be a "gentleman," at least socially, doing things like pulling a chair out for a woman to sit and standing when a woman was seating herself. They were just common respects. Sturm pulled out a chair next to Icsorue for himself.

Icsorue glanced around the atrium with a sort of awe. It felt like she hadn't been here in ages. Really, it wasn't that long at all, but the last time she was here, this room, and the rest of the house, had just seemed to gloomy and sad . . . with good reason, of course. Nonetheless, the progression from the dark and gloomy house to a bright and cheerful place wasn't observed by her until now, now that Helena was keeping the house decorated and nice with true enthusiasm, and not just because she needed something to do in order to take her mind off of things.

Earlier, when Icsorue embraced Eilert with such enthusiasm, there had been a fair and understandable reason: she hadn't seen him for awhile, and though that generally made her that much more affectionate towards a person, she hadn't seen him since the times when they thought he was dying.

"So! oI heard you're on the mend!" Icsorue claimed excitedly.

[Zach Kaiser]

Eilert nodded. "Indeed. This new medication is supposed to eventually cure me, not just delay the inevitable." Since he was a fairly stoic person normally, the ease in which he smiled now was truly telling of the difference it made. He'd lived most of his life with the knowledge that he had much less time on it than most. He fought to accomplish as much as he could while he could, eventually accepting his own demise long before those around him could.

And then, when things had seemed their bleakest and it looked as though Death was lurking just around the corner, he'd been given a reprieve. For the first time he he could allow himself to imagine growing old with Helena as something other than a forbidden fantasy. He no longer had to rush all that he did--he was a much more relaxed person now that the medicine was visibly working, and he allowed himself to hope.

"Though, Tyrian could probably tell you more about why than I could," he noted. He had many fields in which he was knowledgeable enough to teach, but medicine was not one of them.

[Nayt]

"As you knew, Icsorue, Eilert has a case of tuberculosis that was relatively rare. He contracted it at a fairly early age, but it was slow acting, unlike most cases. His doctors--and I, as well--concluded that a variety of factors could have lent to this, from a weak infection to an inherently strong immune system, and with treatment of penicillin, death from consumption was able to be delayed significantly."

Icsorue was already confused.

Sturm coughed. "A new set of drugs labeled antibiotics, when used in conjunction with the penicillin, reduce the effects of consumption to nothing. In short, a new medicine was put to use that has saved his life."

One factor between Icsorue and Sturm that didn't mesh well were the areas of science. Icsorue didn't understand (or care about) it at all, while Sturm was fairly passionate about his studies and research of physical bodies--bodies living and once living alike. Plants, animals, humans, bacteria, viruses . . . from macro to microbiology. Such were Sturm's areas of expertise, and he had multiple degrees in such. Fortunately, he didn't hold Icsorue's lack of care against her, as they had other things in common.

Of course, Icsorue had been like that since the very start of the relationship--however bizarre it was. Teachers didn't carry relationships with students beyond just student and teacher, and though neither Sturm or Icsorue talked about it now, there had still been rumors of Tyrian Sturm fornicating with a student in his general anatomy class . . . be those rumors true, it would say much about his responsibilities as an educator, as Icsorue attempted to take three of Sturm's classes total, and failed out of every single one of them. He didn't cut her any breaks, and during classes, she didn't cut him any breaks, either--often arguing with him loudly in the middle of class.

Not but a month following Icsorue's graduation, she had officially announced her relationship with Sturm (leaving out any possibility of there being a secret relationship between the two beginning sometime between three years prior and the day of her graduation), and soon after, they were married. Even still, she wasn't a huge fan of anatomy and biology as a whole, but they still got along fine.

"Ohhh~!" Icsorue whistled, impressed, "By the skin of your teeth, huh? oI'm so glad you're okay, though. It was getting so much worse back then; it was difficult to be here without wanting to cry."

[Zach Kaiser]

"Death does not need to be a sad thing--if one has lived one's life to the best of one's abilities, minimizing one's regrets and not wasting the time that one has...then I believe it is possible for one to die with dignity. If one's life can be celebrated, then there is no reason for one's death to be a tragedy." It was something he gave a lot of thought to while bedridden, and the conclusion he came to was that he had done much with the time he had, was proud of who he was, and could therefore pass on without regret.

"Of course, that doesn't mean I'm not happy to be alive," he added a little more lightheartedly. There was difference between accepting death and rejecting life, and while he was capable of the former he was not going to do the latter.

It was at that time that Helena returned. "Dinner is served," she announced. "If you would follow me..."

The dinning room was just off of the atrium, and when they arrived they'd find the table set and ready. The meal included roast beef, steamed green beans, dinner rolls, and mashed potatoes and gravy. At each of the four places set there was a glass of wine as well.

"It's not much, but I hope it will do," Helena said humbly. She was a good cook (though not an excellent one), and while her meals weren't fancy they were usually delicious anyway.

[Nayt]

Although Icsorue disagreed with Eilert in terms of death not being sad, she still respected his opinion and resolve. It would have made passing away easy for him, knowing that he had succeeded as much as he possibly could given the short time he was given to live. Still, she would have been extremely sad were he to die, and seeing his health degrade so rapidly over the last couple of years had really done a number on her. Sturm, too, had been affected, but he was in agreement with Eilert. He would had missed his friend very much, but he'd have regarded Eilert's achievements and happiness--he'd have no seen it as a tragedy, like Icsorue would have.

They were inevitably lead out of the atrium and into the dining room, where a modest feast awaited them. It was enough to suffice for a party of four with none too many leftovers, at the very least! Steam billowed off of the roast beef which sat as a hunk of perfectly baked beef, set within a beef broth, baked with diced carrots, celery, diced pieces of potatoes, and slices of whole onion--a broth in which it had cooked for the duration, culminating the flavor of the broth and the vegetables all into the moistened meat itself. The side dish of green beans must have been recently obtained fresh from a garden, as they were whole--untrimmed and juicy, and the potatoes must have been purchased from a recent harvest (or perhaps grown on this very estate!), peeled, and smashed with added moisture to form a baked dish of creamy potatoes, with brown gravy--beef flavored, likely originating from the beef used for the roast--on the side, just in case one of them wished not to use the roast's broth for gravy.

"This looks delicious, Helena," Sturm announced as they approached the dining room table, "Vastly superior to what Icsorue can prepare on her own."

"Oh, hah hah," Icsorue faked a laugh, "You can't do much better than oI can. And besoides! It's not loike you have anyone else to cook for you, and oI'll be damned if you cook for yourself."

Sturm flashed a bit of a smile to Icsorue, who grinned in return. They enjoyed this sort of thing, tossing comments back and forth that made them seem as if they were actually feuding, but due to their friendly, jocular tones and complete lack of antipathy for one another, it was easy for the observant to conclude that they were just picking on one another.

As before, he pulled out a chair for her at the table, and Icsorue took the seat soon after. Sturm sat to the left of Icsorue, with the table setting having Helena across from Sturm and Eilert across from Icsorue. For a moment, both of them were quite; Sturm eying the roast beef as if he were analyzing the physiology of the beast from which it came before its inevitable demise, and Icsorue inspecting the dining room as if she had never been there before. It was the same as the atrium: lively. After a moment, she remembered something, and coughed awkwardly.

"oI, uh . . . um, m-may oI propose a toast?" Icsorue asked nervously.

There certainly didn't appear to be any reason for her to be nervous, and she wasn't all too anxious--it was just momentary, anyways. Provided that Helena and Eilert didn't mind a toast, she lifted her glass of wine, for which Sturm would follow, but not quite as elevated, as per how toasts proceeded in general--the proposer's glass had to be higher than everyone else's. It was but another oddity of the days' culture, but that was simply how they were all raised to be, from Sturm's upbringing in Germany to Icsorue's in a poor area of England.

"To new loife," she'd speak with a smile.

Eilert was going to live, and could even treat this as a brand new life, free of the shackles of an untimely demise. It was definitely worth a toast, but certainly wasn't the only mention in this multifaceted toast Icsorue had proposed to the rest of the four person dinner party.

[Zach Kaiser]

"One of these days I'm going to teach at least one of you to cook," Helena replied to them. "Lord knows what you eat on a regular basis." While it was mostly in jest, she did worry a little bit about their health.

Both she and her husband raised their glasses to the toast. "To new life," they echoed, clinking the glasses together. Helena's returned immediately to her lips; Eilert started to take a sip, but paused.

"Thank you Icsorue," he said, the corners of his mouth twitching up slightly into the barest of smiles the way they always did when he felt like he'd discovered something. "But...you aren't referring to just me, are you?" he asked coyly.

This nearly caused Helena to spit her drink back in the glass. Gulping it down, she looked quickly between Eilert and Icsorue, eyes wide. "Eh...? You don't mean...?!" Her gaze finally settled on the latter, looking for confirmation with excited eyes.

[Nayt]

Sturm clinked his glass with Icsorue, as well, and prepared to take a drink. Wine . . . wine was a truly delicious thing, but something he tried to stray from, less it were a special occasion such as this. Years prior, he had a bit of a problem with alcoholism, causing him an excessive amount of sleeplessness and physical failures, with him looking haggard and at least ten years older than he really was; at the peak of this problem, he had dark circles under his eyes and shaggy, unkempt hair, paired with an unshaven beard. Because of Eilert and Icsorue, though, he was able to be free of the shackles of alcoholism, but it was still a problem if he let himself go back into it.

It wasn't just a moment after he took a drink of the wine that he found himself fighting to keep it in, from spitting it out and making a huge unnecessary mess. He almost choked on it, but he inevitably swallowed the gulp of wine and breathed out an awkward and fatigued sigh.

His wife, on the other hand, had a very different reaction. This was something she actually intended to talk about later, but hey! Why not use the opportunity that was given to her? Unlike Sturm, who wasn't surprised by the notion (already aware of such), but the fact that it was brought up, Icsorue was full of cheer and spirit. She was . . . gleeful, in a state of true bliss, happier about this subject matter than she ever had been in her life--well, next to her marriage to Sturm, which had her almost fainting with joy.

"The doctor says oI'm already a month and a half in!" Icsorue replied excitedly.

Sturm, as a means of regaining his composure, added: "We considered the possibility of this a couple of weeks ago, shortly after Icsorue's seemingly random twelve hour nausea spells became frequent, and last week, the test was conclusive. A colleague of mine who specializes in gynecology is her doctor--and I trust his judgment."

Icsorue then continued, disregarding the history and scientific nature of her positive diagnosis, to hold back the urge to giggle and squeal, inevitably squeaking out in a giddy, high pitched voice: "We're gonna have a baby~!"

[Zach Kaiser]

Eilert smiled triumphantly as Helena nearly squealed in joy. "Congratulations!" she gushed, her entire face alight with joy. It was several moments before she was capable of saying anything else coherently--like Icsorue, she could hardly contain the urge to burst into a fit of giggling and squealing.

They were especially happy for the two, as the chances of them having children of their own were minimal--Eilert was ill for so long that they weren't sure if it was still possible, even. It certainly wasn't going to happen before he regained his full strength, if it still could.

It wasn't something they were overly upset about at the moment, though, as they were still riding the high of the news that he was even going to live.

"Forgive me, did I spoil the surprise?" Eilert asked a bit ruefully, having witnessed Sturm's reaction. If his wife wasn't so excited for them, she'd have likely scolded him for bringing it up.

[Nayt]

"Thank you~!" Icsorue chimed gleefully.

There were certain things that the woman wanted in life beyond all other things, and a family was one of them. Firstly, she had wanted to get married to someone kind, which had originally been a very difficult prospect to make good on, because she was already an orphan, and by the time she was going to Worcester Academy, she was emancipated--for the best. Her foster family at the time had been kind and such, but when they were together for too long, they had problems. She still had contact with them, but they weren't legally responsible for her. Because of this, there was no estate to her name, nor any sum of money to her name that hadn't been spent on her tuition. In this day and age, no man wanted a woman like that especially since it wasn't like a formal education could get her a substantial job.

Sturm had taken care of that. The second part was that she wanted to have kids with that husband, and now that was on the way! All there was left to do was to be a family, grow old, and help their child succeed--and Icsorue had already declared long ago that, despite the fact that she was raised Catholic and still believed in it to a certain extent, she wasn't against measures to avoid pregnancy after the first child. She only wanted one, but if there was an accident and she had two--she wasn't going to complain at all!

"It's perfectly fine. I just hadn't expected it to be brought up so soon . . ." Sturm nodded.

Icsorue, still giddy, added in the remark, "It's just . . . it's just . . . it's just good! Roight now--where we are now. Eilert is going to pull through and Sturm and oI are going to have a baby--it's loike . . . whot we always thought impossible is really going to happen, you know?"

[Zach Kaiser]

Helena nodded vigorously in agreement. "I'm so glad he'll be around to see your child. Isn't that right dear?"

"Yes..." For a moment Eilert trailed off, zoning out as he got an odd image of what Icsorue's child would be like: a bouncing, rambunctious little girl, not afraid to say what was on her mind to anyone. Nearly a carbon copy of Icsorue herself at the age...

Wait, I didn't know her until she was teenager...where did that come from? Oh, right, in that dream...

"Eilert?" When he snapped to, Helena was giving him a concerned look.

"Ah, sorry. I was just thinking about what their child will be like. I bet she'll be a handful," he said absently, forgetting that the child could be a boy as well. "But you're right, I am glad. It just goes to show you that no matter how bleak things seem, you should never give up hope. The situation will improve in time."

He smiled serenely--it was at times like this that it was difficult for even him to believe that he hadn't yet reached thirty years of age. He felt like he was older than even Sturm...