The Immortal Dream

"As I've been trying to tell you," Crowscone Izvaldi ranted, his girth shaking beneath his royal robe, "Consul Barrows has been murdered! It is an outrage, and I want everyone on it this instant!"

"Calm down," Puddles gruffly instructed, her face hidden behind the impassive midnight helm of the Black Knight. "What actions have you taken so far? Have you cordoned off the crime scene?"

"Ah, yes, the crime scene," Crowscone puffed. "I sent my dithering servants to clean it up several hours ago. You, what did you do with the body?"

He pointed at the pegasus with the katana, who wore a pressed suit and a cross, tired expression. The pegasus sighed, stepped forward and bowed. "I moved the good Consul's 'remains' to a secure location. Perhaps you might leave the rest of our coordination to me and rest easy for the night?"

Crowscone kept his beady gaze fixed on the katana pegasus. "You are up to the task, I trust?"

"Naturally," the katana pegasus replied, bowing again. "Your every wish is my command."

"Hmmph." Crowscone turned up his chin, then walked closer to Puddles. "Don't feel obligated to do anything he says," he muttered, bringing his mouth up next to the metal ears on her helmet. "I put you in charge of this for a reason, after all. A very good one! Yes, a very... very good one, you..." He stepped away, continuing to mutter under his breath. "Oh, yes! If any soldiers from the Consulate show up, you are to send them packing. I don't care how nicely they ask. No allowing them to snoop around!"

He then excused himself, departing through a door and taking the three lesser servants with him, the light from a horn disappearing into the shadows.

Puddles sighed, then turned to the katana pegasus. "What do I need to know?"

The katana pegasus bowed. "You didn't come here to get involved in my father's scheming with the Consul, did you, Black Knight?"

"We have other priorities," Puddles agreed. "Your power situation. I notice your choice of lighting." She gestured at the remaining unicorn - the mare who was just as well-dressed as her companion.

The katana pegasus nodded. "Power to the city has been cut off at the source. From the reports, I believe this to be a wider phenomena than just our city. Additionally, all forms of storage have gone mysteriously empty." His eyes found the sack on her back. "If you're here to request what it looks like, then the answer is get in line."

I fidgeted as he spoke. Getting involved with a murder mystery sounded like a great way to not reach the crystal tower in any sort of hurry, at a time when every second counted. Puddles clearly knew that. But she had told us to leave all the speaking to her, so all I could do was trust that she knew what she was doing and could get us out of this...

"Tell me the contents of your reports," Puddles requested. "There is more afoot tonight than local intrigue."

The katana pegasus nodded, his face partly shadowed by his mane in the light from his companion's horn. "Mysterious weather patterns across Izvaldi. Tales of a 'red shock wave' passing by, and the wind and rain simply pausing. Alas, the teleportation guild is more of a local warning system than the national endeavor it once was, so there is little information about the conditions beyond our borders."

"I see," Puddles grunted. "And what if we needed to get south as fast as possible?"

"I can't think of a way faster than waiting for morning," the katana pegasus apologized. "Once the populace awakens and there is better light to see by, it will be easier to take stock of the situation and muster our resources."

Puddles turned her helmet toward me. "Can this wait for morning?"

My backwards ears fell. "If not, then we're probably screwed. But what options do we have?"

Technically, there was a way to make my way south in something resembling a hurry: running full tilt, and using my bracelet not to get tired. But the last time I tried using it to power a cross-country trek, it really didn't work out that well. I couldn't gamble on that not happening again. Not when I'd need to be in sound mind to actually do anything once we reached the Crystal Palace...

"...Are introductions in order?" The katana pegasus glanced at me, acknowledging my presence for the first time. "I am Neeve, Crown Prince of Izvaldi. This is Corona, my marefriend." He gestured to the unicorn who was providing light beside him. "I apologize if I took you for a porter."

Something prickled me about the way he said it. Maybe it was the implication that the iceberg on my trolley was nothing more than arcane luggage, or maybe I was still on edge from the mansion's inhospitable architecture...

"These are my associates," Puddles replied, beckoning for Lissa and Flarefeather to stand a little more in view and conspicuously not mentioning our names.

"Charmed," Neeve said, sounding not particularly impressed. "Now, might we offer you rooms for the night? Perhaps ones far from the commotion around the Consul, seeing as you have somewhere to be and it wouldn't do to get tied down in local drama. Come daybreak, I shall see if a scouting party can be organized that might bear you closer to your destination. As for my father, leave handling his reaction to me."

"We accept," Puddles grunted. "Thank you for your understanding."

Neeve gestured to his companion. "Corona, if you please?"

"Of course." She bowed, speaking in a professional voice that was much less sly than Neeve's, but sounded as if she had given up on much over her life. "Please follow me."

I held my tongue as we navigated the mansion's corridors. After the claustrophobic foyer, it opened up into something more opulent and usable - not surprising, since this was a lord's home, and not just his front door. What was going on here? Not just with Neeve and Crowscone, there was clearly foul play involved with whatever had happened to the Consul and one or both of them was in on it. But Puddles? Why was she playing along? And when would I get a chance to ask about it?

Eventually, Corona stopped in front of a door branching off from a hallway, not overly ornate compared to the others but still embellished a little with the likeness of stone pillars carved into the wall masonry at its sides. "You can make use of this suite," she said, tapping the door with her horn and flickering it in a pattern that suggested an unlocking spell. "You have your own lights?"

She glanced at my bracelet, and seemed satisfied with a simple affirmation when I nodded.

"Thank you," Puddles said, motioning us in through the door before bringing up the rear. "We'll speak again in the morning."

"I look forward to it," Neeve replied, in a tone that suggested ulterior motives. "Pleasant dreams."

And then the door was closed, two sets of hoofsteps clearly departing until an unnatural silence reigned.

"Pssst," Flarefeather whispered in the emerald-shadowed darkness. "That guy is totally the culprit."

"Perhaps," Puddles sighed, pulling off her helmet. "Do you really want to get involved?"

"I..." I cut myself off, realizing what she was doing. "Is it safe to talk in here, first off? This room isn't tapped or bugged or spied on?"

Puddles shook her head, looking weary. "Even if there were bugs, they'd be all out of power."

I glanced around at the contents of the room, lifting my bracelet hoof for light. It seemed to be a common area, with a couch and table in the middle and a door on either end connected to what must have been two bedrooms. But checking those out would have to wait, because Lissa and Flarefeather weren't waiting to start talking.

"So let me get this straight," Lissa accused, keeping her voice low. "The fat old senile stallion, who is you-know-who's dad..." She jabbed Flarefeather's shoulder with a wing. "He wants you to investigate a murder. His shady son, whom he doesn't trust with the investigation, clearly doesn't want us to get involved and gave us a very polite and respectable excuse not to, in a fashion that suggested he knew you would take it. And then you did. Whose side are you on, here?"

Puddles gave her a flat look. "The people's."

Lissa tilted her head.

"Who speaks for the creatures in the city we passed through on our way here?" Puddles asked. "What do they gain from anything that happens in this place? I don't have time to waste on drama between nobility." She shook her head. "For every noble that kills a noble, there are twenty civilians who are robbed by bandits or lose a child to illness or start to think Gottlieb Gallowsborn was onto something. I do what it takes to maintain a working relationship with the rulers here so they will let me continue to work in their province, and nothing more."

Lissa fidgeted. "So you're okay with everything that just got said back there."

Puddles gritted her teeth. "The ruler of Izvaldi brags about making sure the servants cleaning his floors can't afford those floors themselves. Do I look okay with it?" She sighed. "The ponies and griffons of Izvaldi don't have a leader who puts them first. My job would be so much easier if they did. But I'm not a revolutionary. I don't lead charges and promise riches and fame for the people who follow me. What I'm trying to do is inspire them to make promises to themselves, to fight for their own sake. But, it just... meh..."

"That sounds noble, and all," Flarefeather skeptically admitted. "But it still felt mega weird to see you cozying up to someone so sleazy."

"Crowscone is the one who cozies up to me," Puddles countered halfheartedly. "As for Neeve... I've known him for a long time. He honors his deals, and we've had a pact for a while now. I ignore what I see in the mansion, don't try to manipulate his father too hard, and don't rock the boat so much that his family loses power. He turns a blind eye to what I do with the rest of the province in return. I know how it sounds when I say that. But I decided that if I could be for the people and neutral to the government, that was a deal I couldn't afford not to take."

"Is that worth it?" Lissa raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you supposed to be a paragon of virtue who inspires people through your deeds? Because that's literally what I thought you were supposed to be. Someone who doesn't have to make compromises like that."

Puddles defensively met her gaze. "Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm just one mare with a suit of armor and a legendary dad. I wish I didn't have to, but I can't gamble with everyone's futures to find out."

Lissa gave her a slow, sideways nod. "I'm not the expert on what's possible and what's practical out in the big, bad world. But the kind of person everyone really looks up to is the kind who shows them that you don't have to compromise to get what you want, whether it's good or not. Just saying."

I cleared my throat, stepping up to Puddles' defense before she could answer. "Easy to say when you haven't faced the limits of forging your own path time and again. Do you know how many times I've given everything I had and still came up short?" I glanced pointedly at Coda's iceberg on its trolley. "If I saw someone who actually could just cut their way through all the knots I've struggled to untangle, I wouldn't call them a hero. Real strength is what it takes to keep going after you've sold yourself out when forced into a no-win situation."

"You sure you wouldn't?" Lissa turned her gaze on me. "Couldn't watch someone prove your problems are optional and not want a piece of that for yourself, instead?"

I hesitated half a second too long, and she kept talking.

"I've lived my life watching the rich and powerful," Lissa told me. "I know the difference between the people who make their own paths, and the people who follow along and try to emulate them or ride their coattails. I've seen over and over again how the people rules are for behave around the people who make the rules. Can you really tell yourself you could watch someone do what you've always wanted to do and not want to be them?"

Her lance broke through my armor through a fault she couldn't possibly have known: I had spent years pretending I was other ponies, looking at the mares I admired and trying on bits of their personalities like they were clothing. Imagining myself with Corsica's confidence, Mother's perseverance and Elise's grace... In hindsight, those years were formative years where the line between Faye and my mask was blurry, and we must have been a little bit of both, still shaping the process of who I would become.

But that was who I was. Speaking as the mask, at least, that desire was at the core of my reason for existence: being someone else, so I wouldn't be Faye anymore.

"Guess that means you can't," Lissa said, reading my expression and nodding a little.

Flarefeather tapped her wingtips together, sensing an opportune moment to change the subject. "So, what do you actually do for the people here anyway?" She glanced at Puddles.

"At dawn, you might get to find out," Puddles sighed, starting towards one of the adjacent bedrooms. "...If you think you can do better, go for it. I can get you out of trouble with Neeve one time by pleading ignorance of the rules on your behalves. Try not to get caught. Don't start a rebellion. And whatever you learn about how they backstabbed a Consul, I hope you find it worth making a bad first impression."

She clanked into the room, and started rustling about with the telltale doffing of armor.

Flarefeather stared at Lissa. Lissa stared at Flarefeather. Both of them turned to me.

"Can we borrow your light?" Lissa whispered.

"More importantly, wanna come with?" Flarefeather invited. "We've got a case to crack."

"Hold up," I warned. "First off, super cursed, no borrowing. Second, I know you're not thrilled with the fact that she needs to make shady deals to get by, but do you really see something for us in this dead Consul mystery? And third, I'm not fantastic at stealth."

Lissa nodded. "We're going south to visit your tower, right? Much further past here and you're in Neo Everlaste's land. Having a good in with the Consulate would be pretty valuable, don't you think?"

At this, Flarefeather hesitated. "You're actually gonna sell them out? See, I was just curious how they did it."

Lissa looked at me, waiting for my response.

"...Dunno," I admitted. "It sounds like bridge burning. But admittedly, I'm not planning on staying around here forever. It would mean I'd need to finish everything I plan on doing in Izvaldi during this trip, though, and I've got some stuff to do that's maybe less important than making it to the tower..."

Lissa considered this.

"And anyway," Flarefeather continued in her stead, "what do you mean, you're not sneaky? You are a sarosian, right?"

"What's that got to do with it?" I raised an eyebrow.

"You know, the whole shadow swimming thing?" Flarefeather raised an eyebrow. "If you came, you could even hide us with you. We'd be totally indetectible."

I frowned. "Could hide you with me? What?"

"Is that not a thing?" Flarefeather tilted her head. "That's totally supposed to be a thing, right? How you can take passengers who aren't sarosians when you go all two dimensional?"

I wracked my memories. Right, that was supposed to be a thing, but I had never learned it. Probably because touching other ponies made me uncomfortable, so all it took was a few failures to discourage further experimentation... "Dunno how," I admitted, realizing this might prompt her to change that.

"What?" Flarefeather gave me an indignant look. "That's like being a pegasus who doesn't know how to fly-! Uh, I mean, forget I said that? You, uh, really don't, huh?" She reddened bashfully.

"Never gotten it to work," I apologized.

"Here, show me," Flarefeather commanded, recovering her mojo and marching up to me. "I wanna see how you try, and where it breaks down. Your luck's bound to turn around somewhere, right?"

I frowned. "Is this just an excuse to ask me to make physical contact? I feel like you're not taking this situation seriously, here..."

Flarefeather aggressively shrugged. "This is basically a vacation, sue me. And is trying to help you learn an important ability really not taking this seriously? Think of how much more you could do if you could spirit someone away through the shadows!"

"Fine..." I sighed, closing the distance between us and putting a hoof - not my bracelet hoof - over her back. Then I kicked my bracelet off over a table, since I wouldn't be able to swim with it glowing and wouldn't be able to see with it off.

I hadn't really tried parting with it while using it, before. But it felt like it would work, and somehow, it did. The bracelet came to a rest without bouncing, still glowing softly green.

"Okay," I said, holding Flarefeather as tight as my strange queasiness would let me, focusing on the plentiful shadows cast by my bracelet. "Going down slowly..."

It worked. For me, at least. I sank down gradually into the shadows, but Flarefeather didn't come with me, stuck stubbornly on the surface. It felt like I imagined it would to try to dive while holding an inner tube.

For a moment, I pushed her against the floor, and she crouched down to try to follow me. But it just didn't work.

"Well?" I asked, eventually giving up.

"Hmmm..." Flarefeather frowned, rubbing her chin with a wingtip.

"Try making actual contact," Lissa advised. "Both of you are wearing clothes. Maybe that messes with the magic somehow?"

I glanced at my combat boots. No way was I going bare-legged, especially around two mares who knew a lot about leg markings like mine.

"Well, your wings are free," Flarefeather pointed out. "And, uh, you could try..." She fiddled with her skimpy dress suit, revealing a seam where the top half met the skirt. "Reaching my back through here?"

I sighed. "No. That sounds lewd. This is your experiment, you can just take the thing off. You're not thinking of stealthing in a glitter dress anyway, are you?"

Flarefeather looked just a little put out, even if she couldn't argue with my logic. "Fiiine. Here, Lissa, help me with this and I'll help get yours..."

While the two pegasi undressed each other in the middle of the living room, I sat down and faced a wall. They definitely weren't taking this seriously. Maybe I ought to make the most of the rest of the night and get some sleep...

"Sounds wise," Faye remarked in the back of my mind. "Though, not if it leads to those two going off on their own. This started off as a friendly first adventure like Aldebaran seemed to be for us, and it's quickly getting grittier."

I folded my backwards ears. Yeah. I had stopped being scared of what the world could do to me a while ago, it felt like, but these two... I couldn't let this trip break their spirits. Even if their brand of enthusiasm could get a little annoying. I needed them to succeed, and more importantly, to be alright.

Speaking of... I stole a glance back at the frisky pegasi. Did Faye have any ideas about why I felt so weird touching other ponies? Had we discussed this before? Could that be why I couldn't take passengers when shadow sneaking?

"I don't know," Faye replied in my head. "Maybe. We're scared of something that might happen, that's for certain. But whether it's something someone could do to us, or something we could do to someone else, that's an open question. I think it's most likely the latter. This might all tie back to what our bracelet did to Mother. And maybe it's a remnant of the barriers I built into you to stop you from exploring our powers. We've definitely got some of those left... but I remember feeling it too." She thought for a moment. "I think Procyon said something about taking our attraction to other ponies with her when she left. I don't know what that would feel like. But maybe with that gone, physical repulsion is what we have left?"

I sighed. Hmm.

"Mind letting me take over for a bit?" Faye asked. "I'm kind of curious to try this for myself."

I tilted my head. She actually wanted to? Sure, go ahead.

Faye settled back into control of the body she shared with Halcyon, immediately ghosting her mask so she could fly off and explore. As they grew more comfortable with each other, and as Faye in particular grew more used to the idea of being up front, switching was a much more seamless transition than it used to be. The wave of disorientation that came with it was manageable enough by now that they could do it during a conversation without arousing suspicion, aside from the slightly different speaking cadences each of them had developed.

She stared at the wall, and focused on her void. What she really wanted to try was something she had actively been trying not to do for most of the time she had been up front until now.

It used to be that whenever she was up front, especially during the years when she was almost constantly sleeping, that she would see a field of stars surrounding her, constellations of lights in the distance that each would correspond to a living pony. This had been everything from frightening to a distraction, like a sun spot on her eyes that never went away. The implications, which she still didn't fully understand, put her nerves on edge somehow, a tempting expanse that conflicted with the empty wind in her ears, beckoning her towards some nameless action she knew she had to avoid.

Somehow, the weirdness of it, her desire for it to fade into the background so that she could focus on the world the way other ponies saw it, had prevented her from ever considering this vision's applications. Applications like... telling if there was a guard nearby.

She might not know how to shadow swim with passengers. But tonight, for the sake of keeping her friends safe while they investigated a murder mystery that had very little to do with saving the world, she was going to stop blocking this out, and see if she couldn't learn how to parse what she was seeing into something more useful.

Faye focused, but it didn't work. The stars were distant and blurry, if they were there at all. Something was missing...

Her bracelet, glowing away on the table.

Faye frowned, glancing at it as Lissa and Flarefeather giggled together. She could walk over and pick it up, but if this was a night for testing untested powers...

She stretched her bracelet leg out, trying to remember how she had felt in the catacombs of Gyre, when her bracelet - halfway across the world in the possession of Seigetsu - had mysteriously returned to her foreleg. Could she do that again?

Nothing happened. Oh well. Faye marched across the room to pick it up normally, hoping she could at least turn a zero for two into a one for three.

When she put it on, the stars once again came into focus in her vision, a background phenomenon she wasn't sure she was seeing with her physical eyes. She had spent a lot of effort pushing them into the background so they wouldn't serve as a constant distraction, just like the rushing in her ears, and the more she thought of herself as a person, the less in-her-face they seemed to be. But they were unquestionably there.

Lissa and Flarefeather were remarkably close and remarkably bright, almost so much so that it made her want to push the stars away again. And there were many, many more. Try as she might, though, something broke down in Faye's mind when trying to translate the stars she saw into physical space, as if she wasn't perceiving them in a spatial system that quite aligned with reality. Only the two that were close enough to see and touch, she was certain of. Even the one a room over that should have been Puddles didn't seem to fit with her understanding of the mansion's layout, or even of three-dimensional space. This wasn't just free x-ray vision, this was hard.

But she would make it work. Faye squinted, and she stared, and she studied the star field, looking out into a parallel universe as she paced around the room, reality fading into the background of her senses as she allowed this other sense to take its place.

Some of the stars that she saw were weird. There was a red one, similar in size and intensity to all the others, yet off in color. Actually, there was another red one, though it wasn't really a star; it looked almost more like a ring, or whatever a ring would be in this world that didn't correspond to geometry. And then somewhere far below her - up and down did make sense here, even if nothing else did - there was something, like a hole where a star belonged, but none was present. That one was particularly hard to look at, because there was nothing there to see.

And then there was Coda. The entire iceberg glowed with a light that seemed to threaten her, like a thug asking 'Who are you lookin' at?' She couldn't see if anything was inside.

"...ey! ...yon?"

A voice barely reached her over the sound of her void in her ears, and she had just enough wherewithal to pull herself out of her head and realize it was coming from the real world.

"Nice daydreams?" Flarefeather asked, smirking in front of her. "Check this."

She and Lissa had both doffed everything save for their boots. The boots themselves, it took Faye a moment to realize, had been turned inside out: their glittery, sequined exteriors were now hidden against the mares' legs, replaced with a fluffy, padded, sock-like interior that surely had a professional reason to be turned outwards. A reason like... being dead silent when Flarefeather showed off her steps, almost gliding across the floor when she slid on their fluffy, cushioned pads.

"There ya go," Flarefeather invited. "Now try a wing on my back. And remember, if this doesn't work, we're not giving up or rolling out until you ditch your own anti-stealth armor."

Faye swallowed, nodded, and put a wing over Flarefeather's back, holding her against her side. She hadn't fully boxed away her star sight yet, and having Flarefeather's star so close, physically touching it... Yes, this definitely had to do with the twisting, uncomfortable feeling that encouraged her to break contact and jump away.

And it didn't just have something to do with it. Faye couldn't tear her gaze away as an idea unfolded and grew in front of her, like blood pooling around a body she had realized too late was a corpse.

She could break this living thing that she held. Break it and take it as easily as drawing breath. And if she did, she could keep it with her always. That was what Flarefeather was for. It was what Faye was for. It was what her body was meant to do.

Faye wanted to hide. To sink down, to put her defenses back in place, to forget what she had suddenly remembered about why she left to live behind a mask, this wrong impulse that made sense in the world of her void and her star sight but translated horribly to reality and grew worse the longer she thought about it. And as she did so, she felt something struggling at her side.

"Woah!" Flarefeather gasped as Faye surfaced again, gulping down air. "Hey, you did it! And that was really bizarre. Are sarosians seriously just used to that?"

"Can I try?" Lissa asked, curious and impressed. "I wonder if you can do two of us at the same time."

"I need a second," Faye whispered, voice taut as she tried to steady herself, still reeling from the fading vision of Flarefeather as a trophy to be collected and consumed. "Please."

"Are you alright?" Flarefeather's concern for herself started to morph to concern for Faye. "That didn't feel the same to you as it did to me, right?"

"Just a second..." Faye waved her off. She didn't have Halcyon to hide behind, not now. Halcyon had flown off to go exploring. All she had was herself, and her own determination to stay functional in the world. She could do this. She had to.

When she saw the world only in terms of stars and voids, it made so much sense that one belonged in the other. But her void was a place for carrying around flames of harmony that needed to be rescued, and red quasi-real sludge that paralyzed her until she could get rid of it and analyze it. Not for people. Not for friends.

She repeated that mantra, chanted it in her thoughts, and slowly, her heartbeat settled down. All of it was still there, the idea and her star sight, but she could see the two mares in front of her relatively normally again. Both of them were studying her with abundant concern.

"Sorry," Faye apologized. "I have... personal issues with touching people."

Definitely best not to tell them what those issues were.

"I'll say," Flarefeather remarked. "Has it always been this bad? Have I been making you super ultra uncomfortable instead of merely awkward and cute every time I exist in your personal space?"

"This was worse than usual." Faye shook her head. "But it's never easy. I'm sorry."

"Alright." Flarefeather backed off a little. "I guess plan team shadow swimming is off the table. Oh well. Think I'd need to practice with that a bit before being comfortable using it in the field, anyway."

Faye shook her head harder. "No, we can try it one more time. I... want to make sure that I'm over that. That it doesn't happen again."

"You sure?" Flarefeather asked, standing next to Lissa. "I'm trying to get you to lighten up, not actually hurt yourself."

"And I'm trying to keep you from actually hurting yourselves on an unnecessary stealth mission," Faye countered. "I can't let myself trip up over things like this. Forget it happened. Please?"

She wasn't sure if this was really something she should be asking. It would be nice if Flarefeather respected her boundaries a little bit more. But above all, she needed to understand and outgrow her limitations.

"Two at once," Faye encouraged, spreading and offering both of her wings. "Let's see if it's possible. You've got me trying this, so we might as well make the most of it, right?"

This time, especially once her bracelet was removed and burning back on the table, she felt the more familiar twisting unease as the two mares sandwiched her. She couldn't pretend that she didn't know where it came from. She had no more mask and no more years of avoidance to hide behind. This aversion of hers was nothing more than a defense mechanism so she wouldn't get too close to anyone, wouldn't be tempted to think of Flarefeather's star, or anyone else's, as a collectible with her name on it.

And it would be good enough. She could do this-

...Faye blinked at her bracelet. Her bracelet that she had only just now removed and placed on the table so that she could shadow sneak without its light getting in the way... which she had definitely been wearing a moment ago when she went down with Flarefeather.

She hadn't removed it last time because she was too spooked by her realization, and hid in the shadows without thinking. But it hadn't stopped her. The light should have stopped her. It always usually stopped her.

Somehow, providence had gifted her with the one thing guaranteed to re-track her mind from any and all woes: something completely inexplicable.