Return to Aether

Three Twelvemonths Later

Three twelvemonths had passed since the Siege of Hyperion had come to an end. Not knowing if Aether still existed after the Earth Bull's escape, Falco and Rowena, the Last Divine Deucalion of Aether and his Queen, found land to call home in the Cambyses Empire, which the Shah Darius recognized as their own. Their friends accompanied them such as Falco's mentor Achilles and Rowena's ladies-in-waiting Scholastica, Xe-tian and Hilda, as did others.

Falco and Rowena had a son whom they named Macbeth, a healthy boy with his father's ruddy skin and curly red hair and his mother's reddish-brown eyes. Unlike his paterfamilias, Macbeth's eyelids were not close fitting and thus, they did not seem small and triangular, but on the other hand they did not seem large and expressive like his mother's, but rather in between. He had inherited his father's big, hooked nose and square jaw and no doubt in twelvemonths to come, it would be evident that he had inherited his father's sharp cheekbones, but he was overall a bit less common in appearance than his paterfamilias.

In the shelter of their home, Falco and Rowena watched as their three-twelvemonth-old son slept beneath a blanket. By his side was one of the kittens fathered by Kenneth, Falco's caracal. Both Falco and Rowena were twenty-one twelvemonths of age, the former lean and hungry and standing at a height of five feet and six inches while the latter was slender and an inch taller than her husband.

His eyes mismatched, the left being blue and the right green, Falco was wearing a red loincloth and a pair of arm rings. He was a modest man, always had been. Rowena on the other hand, was a light-skinned young woman with red hair that was long and straight that she kept in a ponytail with a pink ribbon, a good pair of legs, a cute mouth and an honest face, overall, fairly attractive, with her attire consisting of an amber breastband, a brown perizoma and pair of triangular gold earrings.

As he and Rowena watched their son sleep, Falco's thoughts turned to Taurus Minor, the treacherous High Priest of the Earth Bull who had escaped Hyperion with his sister, nephew and a band of followers, some of them having been Hyperionite soldiers. What had become of that blackguard, he who had slain Rowena's father, orchestrated a coup to usurp the Falco's family back on Aether and eventually betrayed his fellow Aethereans after the Earth Bull had escaped from his prison, destroying Aether, by accepting an offer from Leo of Hyperion, the father of the man who had abducted not only Rowena but Taurus' sister Pasiphae among others, to become the city's new high priest to the Earth Bull.

It had all turned out well for Taurus. His sister had married Leo, from that marriage had come their son Brutus, but still the question remained, what had happened to Taurus Minor?

"Three twelvemonths of peace and it seems as if all the evil that ever appeared in our lives has just vanished, Rowena." Uttered Falco, his voice a deep baritone. "No word about Taurus Minor, no word about Leo's maneless companion Priam, it is almost as if they just vanished off the face of the earth."

Smiling at her husband, Rowena said: "Be careful, Falco. In stories word usually comes after someone says something like that."

Giving a small laugh so as to not awaken their son, Falco said to his wife: "Yes, well, it would be nice to know what had happened to them. People and animals don't just vanish off the face of the earth, but still, it has been nice to know three twelvemonths of peace after everything we've been through."

As Rowena continued to smile at him, Falco leaned in to give his wife a kiss. Yes, three twelvemonths of peace had been just perfect.