Lolotaru could always fall asleep. Often, sleep was not an entirely restful affair, plagued by vivid dreams or simply hamstrung by the tension of his waking hours, but he was always able to fall asleep. Still, any other night he may have been roused by the girl's temerity. But that night, uncommonly exhausted and fallen deep into the grip of a powerful nightmare, he simply slouched further and began to snore lightly. His grip on the book did not loosen, nor did it tighten, but remained static and largely unresponsive to its careful removal.
