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In truth, I have discarded nearly a dozen drafts of this letter, and I still find myself uncertain of what I must precisely say.

So many things have been experimented upon--and sought for, that it is difficult to find a place to 'begin' telling you of what we have done. The inspired grasps towards those Golden Shores, and the gates into the Great Beyond... Mako, I do sincerly regret to inform you of all of this, but we have been complicit in crimes against Nature herself. We fought to pierce the veil between Here and There,

As much as I do desperately wish to tell you that we found some pocket of bliss--but that would be too concise. We did not even find what we assumed would be there, either; no balance, as there is in the natural world here.

But I must digress; if I continue much further without any form of discipline, I may resort once again to the throes of this madness.

We forced Science and Faith to walk en tandem, instead of forcing them to opposite ends of the room. It was in time that we learned just whythey reviled each other; and the dangerous effects that such a union bore.

I suppose that, at its core, this letter is but an admission of guilt. We sought to find the Golden Shores, and the Gates of Eternity, and we succeeded.

I recall the evening that the Congregate first gathered; admittedly my surprised overshadowed all other emotions.

It was the Winter Solstice Gala; this year held at our own, Wolfhardt Estate. Your mother had lined the grand staircase we'd once had with a brilliant display to welcome the near year. One of her former acquaintances had managed to bind the wicks of a series of candles together, and by the lighting of a single wick at the bottom, flames slowly ascended the staircase--one glowing ball of shy flame at a time. It was truly a sight to behold, beneath the skylight directly above the stairs.

Just as the final candles were lit, gaslights were cranked on--their noise disguised by fireworks just overhead. It was in that sea of spectacle, and the blessing of the Newborn Seasons when I finally caught a glimpse of Douglas LeVrane. His attendance couldn't have been more out of place.

A physicist by nature, and a spectacularly violent atheist, I couldn't rationalize what he could be doing at such a strictly religious ceremony. The ostentatious decorum was anything but conducive to hard fact and, in LeVrane's words, "Reality".

In spite of it all, most surprising was that he was there to see me. He even sought me out inside of the party itself! I was but a neophyte associate of the fledgling Wolfhardt Industries; we were only just starting out first facility near the prestiguous, old-as-the-walls academy in the Astronomy Tower.

He begrudgingly acknowledged that my ingenuity and faith had caught the attention of several beasts who wished to speak with him, and he requested that we speak someplace more private. Specifically, "somewhere that such delicate sensibilities would not be disturbed".

I escorted him to the gardens, far away from the nearest bit of reverie when he gave me his proposal. I laughed myself nearly sick; and had it not been that such a religious ceremony had no alcohol, I would have insisted that LeVrane was drunk.

He asked me about a machine I'd built--one that would stabilize a head for a fledgling dissertation, written by one Kendall Whitaker; something that would immobilize the head for the transplant of an eye. Now, mind you--I had first drafted the experiment with the spirited young otter when he was still a military physician some years ago.

While the machine was far from ready to be tested formally (after all, I only knew of cadaver testing), I instructed him that he knock on the door of Professor Whitaker. I didn't know the intricacies of bloodflow, or connectivity to the brain itself. It would have required a far steadier set of paws, and keener mind than mine.

Only a moment after the admission, and redirection, LeVrane stopped me from escaping. He produced, for my horror, a detailed schematic that he insisted I study for only a moment. This experiment was to cover something that could only be described as inane.

I felt my fist curl as he began to explain to me in earnest what he wished for me to do; reconstructing a skeleton from tissues of the recently dead: deny my Faith in order to pursue a study in abomination! He began to try and reason with me--that some how we could study God through the lens of a butchered cadaver.

I struck him then and there. Time and again, until his glasses had shattered against his face, and blood flowed freely from my knuckles, the wounds they had inflicted, and the glass that had become imbeded into my fist.

LeVrane was only saved by a pair that had heard the struggle, and pulled me off of him. I was delivered to two officers in attendance at the party, and remained in chains that night. Rather than charge me with the assault that he so richly deserved, or admit to his heretical request, LeVrane insisted that I be released immediately.

I stayed the night in the jailhouse by my own volition. Anger tempted my mind as it had never before; but there was something else whispering to me from the shadows as well.

Certainty.

The process I could take that would allow me to truly knowwhat the Beyond held. I didn't sleep that night for all of my questions.

Was this a test from God? Was I to oblige in this barbaric quest for a truth that I wasn't owed, by an Almighty whom I felt had every right to keep it from me? I prayed to whomever--or whateverlurked on the other side of the veil of prayer for guidance.

At the stroke of the Solstice's end--the sunrise of the next day, I had my answer after that prayer. I resolved to visit Professor LeVrane in the hospital that I had sent him to, both to apologize to him, and to offer my services.