Memories of Dreams

As much as Falco tried to find sleep that night, the fact was he could not. Memories of his dreams from his twelvemonth long slumber filled his head and he knew not what to make of them. In his dreams he had met Taurus Major, the long dead father and predecessor to Taurus Minor, yet he looked not as he should have. How many twelvemonths had it been since Taurus Major's cadaver had been placed on its funeral pyre? Falco could not remember, he could not even remember what Taurus Major looked like in life, but he knew it had been something human. What Falco, had seen in his dreams however, was something that suggested the Last Divine Deucalion of Aether had been having a nightmare that he could not wake from.

Taurus Major had appeared to Falco as an eyeless, mummified giant with a serpent's tail and his bull mask, itself lacking the eyes of curved crystal, fused to his body. Wherefore? Why did he look like that? What had happened to him after his passing? What manner of monster or demon had Taurus Major become?

Had Taurus Major said anything? Had he done anything? Alas, Falco could not remember... Or perhaps, he did not want to remember.

And then there had been a female Deucalion of the previous dynasty... Though like Taurus Major she had looked far from human herself. She had appeared to him as a purple-skinned giantess with a permanent smile upon her countenance and her husband living inside of her. What manner of dream, what manner of nightmares had he been having during his twelvemonth long period of unconsciousness?

Or was it possible that they had not been dreams, not been nightmares? Was it possible that his spirit had been ripped from his body without killing him? He dreamed... He dreamed that he had met Taurus Major and the Female Deucalion down in the Earth Bull's realm, greeted by the monstrous guardian of the gates!

What a horror that had been! It had been a gigantic three-headed tapeworm with the head on the left wrapped in chains, the head in the middle made out of snakes and the third had no skin around its mouth and that giant three-headed tapeworm did dwell within the cranium of a blind humanoid with arms for legs. The guardian of the gates to the Earth Bull's realm had never been described and Falco had discovered why, to know what the thing looked like was to invite nightmares!

Laying upon his cot, Falco stroked Kenneth as the images of those horrors filled his mind. There must have been memories of something good, something that was not born of nightmares, there had to be?

Sitting up, he wondered why these memories came to him now. He just wanted to sleep... And yet, could he? Rowena was so close she was right there in Hyperion. He was so close to rescuing her... Just as he had been the last time, then the Earth Bull escaped, the sky grew dark and he and Rowena were separated once more... For a twelvemonth!

The wait had been too long.

Jumping from his cot, Falco made his way to the tent of Lupus Khan. This long siege would end. Rowena had been a prisoner of Hyperion for too long, as had Scholastica and Xe-tian. Acinonyx had survived for too long, he who had slain Falco's father and predecessor Tigris and his lifelong compeer Frumentius and abducted his beloved Rowena had to be rescued!

Alas, it seemed that all had been for naught. Just as Falco reached the tent, a Hyperionite messenger arrived.