Tywin's Trilobites

In this dream I was attending a sea lion show at another zoo with family. For some reason, my family are always present in zoo dreams these days, even though they've traditionally been lonesome experiences. I generally don't get on well with sea lions in dreams, having been badly mauled on two previous occasions, and last night's was no exception. It started with us watching the demonstration at a poorly attended show, sitting on concrete concentric rings around the main stage. There were three pinnipeds at the performance, a black sea lion, an albino fur seal, and a strange hybrid, a creature with the iconic spiraling tusk of a narwhal but the body of a walrus.

About halfway through the show I suddenly remembered that sea lion performances were cruel and so chivied my family into protesting. Our protest was probably one of the weakest and most impotent demonstrations ever made in the history of animal rights campaigning, and mostly involved us not clapping with the rest of the audience. A trick that the staff were particularly fond of making their animals perform was a maneuver involving the sea-lions balancing on their throats whilst raising their bodies and hind quarters vertically into the air and balancing in this position. It caused tremendous pressure to weigh down on their necks and spines.

Near the end of the performance, the white fur seal broke out of the arena and came galloping towards me. I decided that the best tactic was to show no fear and stand my ground, but this time it had no effect. The seal rammed into me like Pierre, our standard poodle, and began chewing on my arms and torso. I tried to push its head away but it kept bouncing back to deliver more bites on my hands. I attempted to run but it maintained a firm grip on my arm, so I started punching it in the head. As soon as it released its jaws for a second, I took the opportunity to run for the car as fast as I could, but the seal came after me in hot pursuit, honking and hollering in fury. I woke up before more damage could be done.

Tywin desperately wanted to devote more time to his passion, but matters of war kept him busy. Close-by the study was a cinema featuring a primitive projector showing films and documentaries about the history of life on Earth. I'm not sure where the electricity came from. I was an eager yet sometimes distracted student who spent a lot of time daydreaming, an unfortunate habit Tywin lost no time in punishing severely. I can't say he was a particularly pleasant master to be indentured to, but turn his mind away from war and onto his favourite subject and he would momentarily forget his ire to animatedly discuss biology. Get the facts wrong however, and he spared no quarter on discipline. In other words, I lived under the constant threat of torture and execution. Not an awful lot happened in the dream and I never got to venture beyond the walls of Casterley Rock, bound as I was to the tending of the trilobites.