Chapter Text
The Endless have rules. Strict rules, as they should, because one can never truly imagine the havoc they would reap should those rules not exist. The rules are unspoken to most, kept close to that of the hearts of the Endless, not to protect them, but to protect the rest of the world. As it should be.
Of course, as siblings do, rules exist for a reason. Destiny and Dream, the eldest, allowed the rules to be put into place. Cementing them into being through their shared power, some learned from their own mistakes, others formed to be sure their power did not corrupt what it was they were born to serve, and others that came about because of their siblings.
But as the eldest form the rules, the middle children tend to test them, and both Dream and Destruction knew how to test those rules, once upon a time. Testing and bending, they say, seeing how far they could push until something snapped back at them. Suffering the consequences. Destruction never quite stopped pushing, though Dream… as of late… became far more cautious. Two brothers, two different circumstances, two different outcomes, one could say.
Then, to add to that, the youngest always seem to believe the rules don’t apply to them, or, at least, they find ways to get around those rules. Slinking around them and causing mayhem in their own right. Desire, Despair, and Delirium truly loved to bend the boundaries set by their older siblings, searching for the hidden loopholes within the clause, and it was all the more fun when they got around them. For them, at least.
But there were rules for a reason. Rules such as: “Should You Spill The Blood Of The Family, Harm Shall Befall You As Well.”
Hadn’t that been a surprise, when Dream finally realized that killing Rose Walker would have caused harm to him. He had suspected something as such when he learned of a child born in the Dreaming, but to think his own sibling was so willing to condemn him to such a fate…
…There was truly no hope for him.
Beyond that, there was another rule, one that Dream, himself, liked to press and prod. This particular rule was quite simple: “Not To Fall In Love With Mortals, For Nothing Good Can Come Out Of Such Union.”
Dream has had many romances through his life. Many people he has allowed himself to love, allowed himself to fall in love with. And each time, each of his lovers has met a cruel, painful fate.
Nada. Oh, Nada. Dream knew better than to love a mortal, and yet he ignored the warnings and the signs. For he loved her, and she him. But where Nada had the strength to try and deny their love, Dream did not, and for that, she had suffered.
Her kingdom became nothing. Her people became nothing, all that was left was a small tribe. And she denied him their love. So he condemned her.
For an Endless could love for eternity. And an Endless could hold their fury that much longer.
He forgave, Nada. He had to. That time he was imprisoned, that encounter, the events that followed. What happened between them was a tragedy and Dream knew it, yet he had taken his anger out on her, despite it being his fault.
His fault. His burden.
Hob Gadling was right. He was lonely.
He’d never admit that to anyone. Not even his sister.
The rules of the Endless were there for a reason. To protect. To guard. Even if they could not appreciate them, they knew they needed to be followed.
To love was a death sentence.
A curse he must carry so long as he existed.
—-----------------------------
“Rose Walker?”
Spinning around, Rose found herself face with a tall, bald woman wearing glasses, staring at her in shock and incrediality. She looked almost human, except that her ears were pointed, like an elf. It took Rose a moment to think, to process, but then she remembered.
“Um, Lucienne, right? That’s what Morpheus called you?”
“I…” the woman seemed unsure what to say, eyeing her up and down, clearly just as shocked to see her as Rose was to see Lucienne. “Yes. That is my name. But… what are you doing here?”
“I invited her,” came a familiar voice, strong, bold, yet said with a rasp from constant unuse, but mixed with a softness of one whispering. The voice cut through the world like a knife, sending a chill through Rose’s spine, though surprisingly not unpleasant, even if the owner of the voice brought her disdain. “My apologies, Lucienne, I meant to bring her into the throne room, but I got rather distracted while I was summoning her from her dreams. I will be… keeping that book a bit longer.”
“Of course, my Lord,” Lucienne nodded, a fond, somewhat amused smile crossing her face. “I will leave you to it.”
Rose wasn’t sure she wanted to face the owner of the voice, but her sheer curiosity caused her to face him head on. She hoped she looked defiant or angry, but Morpheus had not spoken to her or any of them since he came and randomly spoke Daniel’s name.
A tall, skinny, pale man with a sharp jaw, clad in black robes and equally black hair tousled about in that way that looked like a bed head, but oddly worked for him. And his eyes… they seemed normal at first glance, perhaps a soft blue-gray, but when she looked closer, it was as if she was swimming in an endless sea of stars.
“Rose Walker,” Dream gave her a kind smile.
“Lord Morpheus,” Rose greeted back, her voice wavering with her uncertainty of the situation. “Is this-?”
“The Dreaming,” he nodded to her, offering his hand for her to take. “The library, within the Dreaming, to be precise. Here, there is a record of every book ever written, and a record of every soul that exists within the waking.” He paused when she still had yet to take his hand. “You need not worry, Rose Walker. You are here by my power this time. Your life as the Dream Vortex ended with Unity Kincaid.”
Rose hesitated a moment before taking his hand, allowing herself to grip his arms as he guided her from the library and towards his throne room. She took in the sight of it all, the strange creatures who eyed her as she passed through the walls of the castle. Eventually, she found herself dropping her gaze after locking eyes with a pumpkin headed scarecrow thing, trying not to stare and seem rude. Which meant her gaze fell on the book Morpheus had tucked under his arm.
“Is that-?”
Morpheus paused, his gaze following hers as he lifted the book for her to see. “Your book? Yes. Quite brilliant, actually. Though I do hope you’ll be a little kinder to the King in the sequel.”
“The sequel?” Rose squeaked as she gingerly took the book from his hands. “But this… I haven’t even… how did you…?”
“The Dreaming is the place of stories, Rose Walker,” Morpheus gave her an amused smile as she looked into his eyes. “A place where stories become dreams. It is only natural that a book that will one day inspire the dreams of others would appear here. And now that your fate no longer teeters on the edge of Death, your book appeared here. Many of the dreams here quite like it.”
“I… I am so sorry, I can chang-”
“That won’t be necessary,” Morpheus said, his voice gentle as he once more guided her on their path to the throne room, “Though I was not… pleased with how you may have deemed to portray me at first, it has been brought to my attention that given the circumstances, it was only natural for you to conclude that I was not to be trusted.”
“You did threaten to take my best friend’s baby away,” Rose agreed, clutching the book to her chest as if it were Daniel, as if she could protect him.
“Yes, I fear I should have been more considerate. Careful with my words. As it has been pointed out to me on several occasions as of late, I have never been very good at interacting or communicating.”
“What, with humans?”
“With anyone.”
They were in the throne room now, and Morpheus took a moment to dismiss a short looking woman clad in pink with brown hair, who had clearly been scrubbing the room till it sparkled. When the woman, Nuala, if Rose heard correctly, had left, closing the doors behind her, Morpheus turned back to her. Rose, however, was observing the throne room, it being as grand and large as she remembered. The only difference being that the three stained glass windows behind his throne no longer depicted the dreams that were missing. Instead, Rose found herself staring at a… being with golden eyes in the center. On the left was Lyta and Daniel. On the right was Rose and Jed.
She turned to Morphues, fear gripping her chest.
“Why am I here?”
“I believe it best I give you an explanation,” Morpheus admitted, motioning to a table that had materialized in the center of the room. “I owe both you and Lyta Hall that, Rose Walker. But I fear that Lyta Hall will not truly listen to what I have to say. So, I thought it best to speak to you alone.”
“Not alone, of course,” a voice piped up, and a Raven landed on the table. “I’ll be here to make sure that no miscommunication happens. How are you, Rose? How’s your brother?”
“Jed and I are fine, thank you, Matthew,” Rose couldn’t help but smile at the little bird.
“Glad to hear it,” the bird seemed to beam at her, if that was even possible. “Now, why don’t we all sit down and Dream, here, can start at the beginning.”
“Dream?”
“Dream is the name I was born to,” Morpheus explained softly, moving to pull out the chair for Rose like some weird 18th century gentleman. “Morpheus was a name I acquired later in my life, as I have with many of the names I go by. You may call me whatever you wish, Rose Walker.”
“Oh…kay,” Rose nodded, trying to wrap her head around this. “I’ll call you Dream! It’s easier than Morpheus. But you have to call me Rose, okay?”
“Rose,” Morp-Dream said softly, her name falling softly from his lips like a whisper said just a bit too loud. “I will do my best to do so.”
Rose smiled at him, bright and cheerful. It felt like some sort of tense air had been thrown away with just that simple exchange. It was nice, and Rose found the smile on Dream’s face was somewhat genuine.
“I suppose I should start at the beginning,” Dream sighed, letting the tension rise again. But there was more than tension in that moment. Rose could see it. Dream was pained, and, dare she say it, scared. “Over 100 years ago, I went to stop the Corinthian, and in the process, I entered the waking world as a cult of humans had decided they wanted to try and imprison my sister, Death. As a result, I was imprisoned instead, and I was trapped in the waking world as the dreaming fell apart without me. As a result, Unity Kincade, the Dream Vortex, fell into a deep slumber.”
On the table before her, Rose found herself watching Dream’s life, despite how short and clipped his words were, lacking a true tale, she saw it all take shape in the sand before her. From his imprisonment to his escape, to finding his tools and the journey it took to get them back. All in seconds, though it felt like years, the story acted out before her.
When she finally looked back at Dream, she found she had been crying, understanding the pain he must have gone through, and she saw Dream was not looking at the table, instead found that he was stroking Matthew’s back. Gently. Mechanically.
Rose stood up, rounded the table, and threw her arms around Dream.
It took her a moment to realize what she had done, but she didn’t let go right away. Because though Dream had tensed, he wasn’t pulling away.
“Sorry,” Rose said as she pulled back, looking into Dream’s eyes as he stared at her in shock. “You just… I felt like you needed a hug.”
“He probably needs several,” Matthew hummed, getting a glare from Dream. “Continue, my lord.”
The last part was said mockingly, and if Raven’s could smile, Matthew was definitely snickering around his. Rose meanered her way back to the chair, sitting down and sucking in a breath.
“I did not mean to upset you,” Dream said, voice now cautious, scared.
“I’m not upset because of what you told me,” Rose shook her head. “I’m upset it happened. I’m upset you had to suffer like that. No one deserves that.”
Dream seemed unsure how to respond to that, and Rose could see, now, that kindness was not something Dream understood. Especially not from mortals. It was clear he didn’t truly know how to handle it, how to accept it.
Perhaps that was why he had such a hard time communicating with mortals.
“Yes, well,” Dream waved his hand across the table. “As you know, now, my imprisonment caused many to fall into a deep sleep, including that of your great grandmother, Unity Kincade. Her dreams allowed her to live a full, happy life, but while she slept, she found herself confronted by my sibling. Desire.”
“Desire?”
Turning around at Dream’s motioning wave of his hand, Rose found herself looking at the stained glass window of the figure with gold eyes.
“My younger sibling, yes,” Dream spoke. “We have… never gotten along, my sibling and I. They took advantage of Unity in her sleep state while I was away, and combining the Vortex with our blood… they laid the perfect trap.”
“Trap?”
Turning away from the image of the person that was Rose’s great grandparent, Rose once more looked into Dream’s eyes.
“Yes, I suppose I should,” here Dream paused, once more running his hand over the table. “My family, Rose. My siblings and I were born by the union of Time and Night. From their union was that of myself and my siblings. Destiny, Death, myself, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium. We make up that of the Endless, each of us ruling over our respective realms. As such, we have rules. One such rule is that of “Should You Spill The Blood Of The Family, Harm Shall Befall You As Well.” The perfect trap.”
“The perfect…” Rose let those words wash over her, head looking at the seven figures that had formed in the sand, her head whipping around to look at the stained glass, then back to look at Dream. “The perfect… trap?”
Rose sucked in a breath. Desire. Her great grandparent. Dream had once said she was of Endless, and now he called himself Endless. Which meant… she was…
“You’re my… great… grand… uncle?”
“I…” again, Dream seemed entirely unsure how to handle this response. “Yes. I supposed I am. But that isn’t quite the point I intended to make.”
“No, I know what you meant,” Rose shook her head, sinking into her chair as she put a hand to her spinning forehead. “If you had killed me, you would have died, too, or something like that. Which is… which is what Desire wanted. For you to kill me. Right?”
Dream nodded.
“But that means… we’re related,” Rose said, sinking further till her back was on the seat part of the chair and she could only just make out the top of Dream’s head. “We’re actually family. You and your siblings and your parents. You’re the only family Jed and I have left.”
“Yes. That is correct, I’m afraid.”
Slapping her hands on the arm of the chair, Rose pushed herself up, determination coming over her. Dream seemed suddenly unsure of this entire exchange, and he glanced nervously at Matthew.
“So if we’re family, that means you can treat us like family, right? Like… like how you treat your siblings?”
Dream looked positively mortified by that suggestion.
“I would never ,” Dream said, his voice taking on a grave, furious aura. “I promised no harm would come to your family, Rose. Especially by my hand. You need not fear that from me. I promise you that.”
Okay. Clearly they were of two different mindsets.
“He, uh, doesn’t get along with most of his siblings,” Matthew told her in a whisper as Dream pushed himself to his feet and began to pace the length of the room. “Desire did try to kill him, and Despair is Desire’s twin, and from what I’ve heard, they’re often in kahoots. Delirium is… self-explanatory, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. Destiny is kind of a recluse. The only sibling Dream really gets on with is Death, and she’s a bit busy guiding souls to the afterlife to be able to spend much time with him.”
“What about Destruction?” Rose whispered back, curiously.
“From what I hear he was a kind soul, despite his realm,” Matthew said, feathers seeming to droop. “He really loved his family, but one day… he left. No one has seen him since. Not his friends. And especially not his family. Even Desire and Despair worry about him, though they never discuss it.”
Rose was starting to understand that his imprisonment was not the only reason Dream sucked at communication with others.
A man who had to surround himself with dreams and false beings so that he wasn’t alone, yet as ruler, he found himself lonelier even still.
Now was not the time for her to be coming up with a sequel to a book that wasn’t technically published yet.
“Dream!” Rose called to him, watching as he seemed to pace as though unsure what to do with himself. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant I want you to stop by from time to time.”
Dream stopped dead in his tracks, whipping around to face her. “You want me to… stop… by?”
“Well, yeah,” Rose shrugged awkwardly. “You’re my great grand-uncle. I’d love to spend more time with you.”
Dream blinked owlishly, and if the situation wasn’t so tense, she might have laughed at the expression on the Dream Lord’s face. But it was clear to Rose that Dream needed her and Jed just as much as they kind of needed him.
“I mean, Lyta really, really doesn’t like you, so it would have to be when she’s not around,” Rose began to babble, looking to Matthew helplessly before forcing confidence in her voice. “But I’d love to have you, and I’m sure Jed would love to get to know you. He created a whole superhero in his dreams around you. So if you came by when Lyta and Daniel were out-”
“Lyta and Daniel,” Dream suddenly voiced, once more moving to the table. “Yes, yes of course. I nearly forgot the other reason I had brought you here. I must tell you this.”
Dream crossed the room, once more throwing his hand across the table. In the spot where the seven siblings had stood was now the house Lyta held in her dreams, and a small miniature version of Lyta, Hector, and Daniel stood there.
“I once believed, Rose, that Hector Hall was in the dreaming because of you,” Dream began, turning to face Rose. “Except that Hector Hall died before my escape, and he did not die in the dreaming as Unity did.”
“He died in a freak accident,” Rose nodded, looking to Dream. “What does that-?”
“So if you, as the Vortex, weren’t awake, and Hector Hall wasn’t in the dreaming when he died, how did his ghost attach to my realm?”
Rose opened her mouth. Then shut it again. Opened it.
“How?”
“I have no idea,” Dream admitted. “But I have learned long ago that questioning the fates never ends well. I only know what it means.”
Something deep inside Rose told her she didn’t want to know. It told her that asking the question would not help her in this situation.
But she asked anyways.
“What does it mean, Dream?”
“Daniel Hall,” Dream breathed, allowing the image of Daniel and Lyta to grow on the table, “was born of the dreaming and given life in the waking world. A child born of my realm, given form by the Vortex. Not even I can understand the true nature of a Vortex, but in the end, I know what it brings.”
“Death?”
“Yes. And this time, it has foretold the death of one soul.”
Rose swallowed.
“Who’s?”
A starry sea of black orbs met Rose’s mortal eyes.
“Mine.”
—----------------------------------
Rose jolted awake in bed, breath rising rapidly, wildly. She reached up to scrub at her face, brushing the tears away to no avail. She was back in her bedroom, awake. Part of Rose wished she was still dreaming as she stumbled out of bed, once more trying to stop the tears in vain.
She wasn’t sure if she would ever stop crying.
She grabbed her house coat, threw on some slippers, and quickly grabbed her apartment key. With one last foolish attempt to stop the tears, Rose went to check on Jed, knowing he was safe in the dream realm with the new version of Gault was watching over him. With that done, she crept out of her house and made her way over to the stairs, climbing them gently to where she could hear the cries of the baby upstairs.
She unlocked Lyta’s door, stepping into the apartment where she could then hear Lyta trying to shush her weeping son.
“Lyta?” Rose called into the nursery.
Lyta visibly startled, spinning around, arms reflexibly curling around her son. It was probably for the best that Dream had not called Lyta to the Dreaming tonight. She wouldn’t have understood. Not like this.
“Rose,” Lyta sighed, clearly relieved. “I’m sorry, did he wake you?”
Rose shook her head. “I was already awake. Kind of read a really sad book and just… needed to be someplace I can cry without Jed worrying. I can take him if you want to sleep.”
“Are you sure?” Lyta questioned, fear creeping into her voice.
“Yeah,” Rose nodded, trying to force a smile, glad that the darkness hid her tear-stained face. “Who safer for him to be with than a Dream Vortex, right?”
Lyta, who was definitely an exhausted single mother, needed no further probing as she carefully slid Daniel into Rose’s arms. From there, Lyta crawled into her own bed and slowly drifted to sleep. Once Rose was sure Lyta was asleep, Rose sucked in a breath, sat herself on the edge of Lyta’s bed, and looked down to Daniel.
“It’s not fair,” Rose whispered to him. “To any of us, Daniel. To you, to your mom, to Dream. It’s not fair.”
She sniffed, trying in vain to scrub at her tears again, remembering the conversation she just had.
“Yours?”
“Daniel is a child of the dreaming, Rose. The first in centuries. The first that I can ever remember. And I am the dreaming, Rose. When the time comes, my time in this role will be over and it will be Daniel who will rise as my heir, as the next Dream of the Endless.”
“But… that means… you’ll die.”
“Yes. It does. I knew my fate the minute I saw Lyta Hall pregnant, even if I didn’t understand it at the time. I can only assume that Lyta Hall was chosen as his mother because of her close proximity to you, and Hector Hall was chosen for that same reason.”
“But… but you can’t die!”
“I have no say in my fate anymore than a mortal. When the time comes, I will die, and that which makes up my being will come for Daniel to claim him. The child of the Dreaming will become the Dreaming.”
“But you’re my family! I just found that out! You can’t just die on me! Not when I just got you!”
“It’s not fair,” Rose repeated, as she rocked Daniel to sleep. “Oh, Daniel. What are we going to do?”
Baby Daniel only babbled, cooing at Rose’s tear stained face as if sensing that Rose truly was upset and that trying to outdo her would only make the situation worse. Rose assumed that an heir to that of the Endless would have to be rather clever, even as a baby. Or perhaps babies were just smarter than they let on.
“Look at me, Daniel,” Rose hummed, somewhat hysterically as she tried to wipe her tears on her sleeve. “I’m crying over someone I barely know, mourning someone still alive. How stupid is that?”
Daniel gave a grumpy little huff, as if he didn’t think it was stupid at all, and he popped a little bubble in his mouth bursting into giggles afterwards.
Oh for life to be as simple as that of a baby’s life.
“He wanted me to be kinder to the King in the sequel,” Rose hummed, pushing to her feet so she could walk them around the room. “Should I be kinder to him, Daniel?”
Daniel gave a little cooe, as if urging her to go and do it right that very instance.
“Well, then, how should we start?” Rose sat herself on the bed once more. “King Somnio woke on the ground, cold and bare, gasping for breath that wouldn’t come as his cage of glass formed around him. For his punishment was that of immortal suffering. No food. No water. No air. Just him and his captors. Trapped for the next 100 years.”
Just as Dream had been. Only for Dream’s ending to be…
“Rose-”
“No! No! You can’t do that! You can’t just come into my life and tell me you’re dying! Everyone dies! First my mom! Then my dad! Then Hector! Unity, too! What next? Will I lose Jed, too?! This isn’t fair! This isn’t fair!”
She was sobbing, wildly, eyes blurry with tears as she screamed at something, anything, demanding to know why fate was so cruel. Perhaps she should yell at Destiny. Or maybe even Death. Why must she suffer this way? Why must everything end? Why must she suffer?
Dream. Dream was here. Dream was here . His arms were wrapped around her in an awkward but earnest attempt at a hug, and they were both sinking to the ground as she buried her face in his chest and wailed the pure agony this brought her to the wind. To the dreams.
She may no longer have been the Vortex, but the Dreaming shook with her cries of mourning. The realms shook with it as she mourned the family she had only just gained only to know she would lose it just as soon.
And Dream held her, allowed her to cry in his arms, and if she felt his tears in her hair, she would never dare mention them to a soul.
“Life’s not fair, even to Kings,” Rose continued her little tale. “And in this case, life certainly wasn’t fair to King Somnio.”
—----------------------------------
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Merv stood before the throne room doors, Lucienne and Matthew by his side. “The entire dreaming shook with her cries. If this meeting went wrong and he’s in a bad mood-”
“It didn’t,” Matthew insisted for what felt like the millionth time. “He just…” a huff of annoyance from the raven as he ruffled his feathers. “Look, I really think he should see that, alright? Trust me.”
“I don’t think it went wrong,” Nuala agreed, glancing once more into the room. “I have heard tale of his anger and his heartbreak in the dreaming. I think he is more… confused? Concerned? Maybe Matthew is right. Maybe it will help.”
Merv still looked unconvinced, but Lucienne simply nodded, clutching the book in her hands as she pushed the doors open.
Dream, they found, was relaxed on his throne, legs thrown over one arm rest, and one arm behind his head while the other held a book far enough away so he could read it. It was so uncharacteristic of the Dream Lord that Lucienne actually stuttered in her steps, eyes going wide. Poor Nuala slammed into Lucienne’s back at the sudden halting, both only saved from crashing to the floor by Merv’s quick hands. However, Matthew had no such problem as he flew across the throne room and landed on Dream’s knee.
“Hey, Lucienne has something she wants to show you!” Matthew called to the Dream Lord, pausing on his shoulder to glance at the book. “Wait, are you reading it again?”
“It’s a good story,” Dream hummed, pushing himself up so he was sitting properly on his throne. “She should be very proud of what she created.”
“Well, if you liked that one, I believe you’ll be pleased to know the sequel just showed up in the dreaming,” Matthew chirped.
Dream was on his feet in seconds, striding down the stairs at speed that would have made anyone cower (Merv definitely cowered) and he stopped before Lucienne.
“Have you read it?” he demanded, gaze fixed upon the book.
“Yes,” Lucienne nodded. “I’d say it’s better than the first, in my humble opinion.”
“May I?”
Lucienne offered the book to Dream, taking the first book in exchange for the sequel. Dream cracked it open and immediately faltered.
To My Great Grand-Uncle Morpheus.
A Kinder End.