Damn... Atleast He's Kinda Gentle About Her First Time... But It's Still Non-consensual...

Damn... Atleast he's kinda gentle about her first time... But it's still non-consensual...

Funny thought but she reminds me a lil bit of Alicent Hightower by how miserable she is and will be with her situation.. (Well, anyone would be miserable if your boss tries to force you to be his mistress.)

The Dream That Got Away

Chapter 11

Pairing: Dark!Morpheus x You (no Y/N!)

This is a multi-chapter fic — Weekly updates (either Saturday or Sunday) because I found a rhythm of sorts lol

(The entire fic has been outlined, so I will see this to the end, you have my word)

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Link to the Masterlist

Overall Warnings!! Take heed:

Morpheus is DARK – in canon, he changes for the better (or at least, tries to – but we don’t do canon lol, so he goes even more batshit crazy) cue obsession, manipulation, possessiveness, powerplay

18+ ONLY – explicit scenes will be present, some explicit language

DUB-CON and NON-CON scenes

Character death (sort of)

Creator vs Creation drama

And other dark stuff that may be added in the future

This chapter’s warnings:

graphic non con ahead - turn back now if this disturbs you

touch-starved Morpheus should be a warning of its own

memory loss (happens to the best of us lol)

You have been warned!! Proceed with caution!!!

Link to the previous chapter

Chapter 11: Your Nightmare, Tenfold

Oliver Chapman woke up, falling out of his bed in a tangled mess of sheets and blankets, shouting unintelligibly, his heart beating so loud he could hear it. He got up from the floor with a loud groan and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

It was just a bad dream.

Despite being an active dreamer, he remembered very little of the nightmare he had just woken up from. How peculiar, he thought. He was also quite sure he called out a name when he came to, but it was a name he no longer recalled. The dream felt almost too real, even without his device on, which now lay on his bedside drawer.

He stared at the MiraSleep device with a dry chuckle. He didn’t remember how he came up with the name, but it felt right, somehow. With an inward shrug, he decided to keep the name, liking how it sounded on his tongue.

What now concerned him more was the fact that he hadn't had a nightmare in years since this one – was he going to have to take his meds again?

He glanced at the time on his phone - eleven o'clock.

Deciding a cup of coffee couldn't hurt, he makes his way to his kitchen with an audible yawn. Once he had prepared a huge steaming cup and filled it with loads of milk, he walked to his study, automatically glancing at the wall where his father's dreamcatcher hung.

He did a doubletake when he saw that part of the wall empty.

He didn’t remember even touching the heirloom, so why it wasn't there, he had no clue. And yet, as he observed that subtle imprint it left at being hung on the wall for so long, he felt something: a gnawing sensation at the pit of his stomach (and it wasn't just the acidity of the coffee), making its way to his heart. It was painfully hollow, like he was forgetting something important and he couldn't quite place it. He had only felt this twice in his life, and both times involved love interests that broke his heart and left him for another. He was missing something, or was it someone?

A lone tear fell from the corner of his eye.

"Stupid fucking nightmare," he grumbled under his breath.

And so, with the intent of distracting himself from the bizarre feeling, he turned his desktop on. The clinics conducting the MiraSleep trials had sent over numerous progress reports he had yet to analyze, he vaguely wondered why he'd been putting this off for the past few days.

With all traces of sleep gone, Oliver Chapman cracked his knuckles and began to work. Finding that dreamcatcher can wait.

***

You make an attempt to squirm your way from underneath your Dream Lord, but he uses his torso to push you further into the bed, making you feel his throbbing arousal settling on your lower back. He then brushes your hair aside to get better access, planting wet kisses on the groove of your neck. 

"Please, don't..."

You try to beg once more, wishing, praying to anyone that listened, that when you open your eyes, you'll find the Endless on top of you gone; that you're still with Ollie and this was all just one horrible hallucination.

The gentle bite on your shoulder brings you back to reality.

As you begin trembling with renewed sobbing, your master flips you over with one swift motion, exposing your breasts to the cold and making your nipples pebble. Sitting up, he groans in appreciation as his eyes roam your naked front. You try to frantically cover your breasts with your arms and close your eyes tightly, but he lets out a growl of displeasure and harshly yanks your wrists away and pins them beside your head.

"Do not hide from me. I crafted you, this body, to perfection. I intend to enjoy every inch of it.”

He dives, kissing you on the lips deeply, tasting your mouth, while he parts your legs and settles in between them. Any whines you make, he drowns out with his own mouth, drawing out your shallow breaths with his kisses, eager to taste your tongue. His mouth then fervently attacks your throat, caressing and nipping the flesh to ensure he leaves bruises – marking you as his, as if there was ever any room for doubt. Along with his brutal assault on your neck, he lets go of your wrists and cups both your breasts, squeezing them and pinching your already hardened nipples in an almost painful way, sending jolts of unwanted pleasure to your core. It's an entirely new sensation for you, making you pant audibly - it alarms you how much you arch your back to his touches.

"You cannot keep denying me, my dream; not when your body so desperately calls out for its master," he whispers against your pulse point.

You gasp as he licks his way down to your left breast and begins sucking your nipple. You writhe underneath him, moaning wantonly, fisting the dark sheets on the bed, while he kneads your other breast. Grazing his teeth over your nipple, he moves to the other, lavishing it with just as much attention. By now, you’re throbbing between the legs, feeling immense heat pooling beneath.

Horrified at how you’re responding to his touches, tears form at the corner of your eyes, and you let them fall, getting too lost in your master’s ministrations.

Undeterred by your sniffling, his tongue travels down to your stomach, stopping before your abdomen, ignoring your mound, and kissing you on the mouth once more. His hand then trails downward before cupping the pulsating flesh between your legs.

Instantly, you jerk beneath him and break your kiss with a squeal. Your tears are back full force, but you close your eyes as your hands claw on your creator’s chest to try and get him off of you – it doesn’t matter to you now how your body seems to need more of him.

“Please, my Lord, please, don’t…”

But he doesn’t put aside the hands fumbling on his chest – instead, he sits up, and in the gentlest of gestures, he places a hand on your cheek, wiping the tears away.

“Sshh, my little dream, sshh. It will feel good, I promise.”

In response, you shake your head in defiance. You don’t care about feeling good, you just want it to be over.

He stays sitting up, observing your scrunched-up expression. As if he read your thoughts, he says softly, “It will be over if you do as I say.”

Without waiting for your response, he massages your mound with slow, deliberate strokes, his finger parting your lower lips as he does. Your hands drop to your sides limply, gripping the sheets again. You squeeze your eyes tightly, turning your head to the side as you let him rub parts of you you didn’t know existed. He grips your jaw and turns your head to face him.

“Look at me, my dream.”

You do as he commands, and you let out a tiny mewl as his finger presses against your clit. He drowns out your sounds with his mouth eagerly, biting your lips lightly, before pulling away, smugly looking down as you come undone below him.

But before something in your core uncoils, he withdraws his hand. A whine develops at the back of your throat as you watch him lick his fingers – his silver eyes, glazed over in pure lust, never leave yours as he cleans the evidence of your wantonness from his fingers – you’re dripping wet between the legs and positively aching with a need you couldn’t understand.

How could he make you feel like this?

“You taste divine, my Mera. I need more of you. More.”

As he growls the last word, he makes his way downwards, angling his face before your tender lower flesh. He flashes you a hunger-filled grin, before digging in on the feast before him.

The moment you feel his mouth on your sensitive mound, you let out a sharp cry. Your hips thrust involuntarily upward as his tongue parts your slit, wet and hot and pulsating with longing. Your Lord, grasping your thighs to still your squirming, suckles your opening and laps your juices greedily, while your hands automatically make their way to his midnight locks to keep him there. You couldn’t help fisting his hair, and you feel him groaning in satisfaction. With his skillful mouth, he commands every sound that tears from your throat. When he repeatedly flicks your clit with his tongue, you curl your toes and scream, your thighs trembling at the stimulation. It’s almost too overwhelming.

And yet, once more, he pulls away, ignoring your whining protests.

“Patience, little dream of mine. I will have the pleasure of being inside you on your first release.”

Still hazy with the lust, you’re shaken out of your reverie at the sight of your master’s hardened length, its tip dripping with pre-cum. The pleasure you felt in his previous ministrations is gone, replaced with the overwhelming need to push him away, as he positions himself on top of you.

“Don’t…please, my Lord, I can’t…”

“You can and you will.”

Your creator, ignoring your helpless pleas, takes his raging erection in his hands and uses it to part your slit, taking in the wetness from your folds. He then angles it over your opening, probing, threatening to plunge. You hysterically scratch his chest, attempting to push him away, but as always, he’s an immovable wall – he simply pulls your wrists and pins them above your head with one hand. The other he uses to align his cock to your entrance.

“You belong to me.”

And then you feel it – the searing pain at his intrusion – you feel the tip of his cock tear your opening, and you scream, unable to thrash, for the hand that isn’t pinning your wrist is holding your hip in place.

“Please stop…please, stop,” you say over and over, but your master bends down and plants soft kisses all over your tear-stained face, shushing you gently. “My Lord, please, it hurts…”

“The pain will be brief, little dream,” he reassures you with a strained voice, pushing his cock inside you further.

With nothing to hold on to, your nails dig into your palms for comfort that wouldn’t come. You feel him slowly plunge his cock inside your core, stretching your tight cavern and pushing his body further into yours so your chests touch. He wants you to feel every inch of him, asserting his control, his possession over you, almost suffocating you. With a grunt, he shoves himself fully inside, and beneath him, you sob helplessly, the stinging sensation between your legs caused by his cock straining your inner walls not letting up. You feel full, and painfully so.

This is your Dream Lord, your King, and creator, finally claiming what you knew from the start is rightfully his.

You look up at him with your eyes, vision still blurry from your tears – his jaw is clenched in a look of concentration as if trying to control himself. Surprisingly, he does not tear into you violently like you had thought he would – he waits, presumably, so you could adjust to his size. You could hear your own cries die down to soft whimpers as the pain gradually dissipates to mere discomfort. He seems to recognize this too – he starts moving within you, agonizingly so, pulling out almost fully before pushing back in.

He releases his grip on your hip and holds both your wrists as he finds a steady rhythm. Noticing your tense expression, he whispers over your lips:

“My Mera, focus on the pleasure.”

And so with closed eyes, you do; your discomfort rapidly shifts to an almost unbearable ecstasy. Sounds you don’t recognize tearing from your throat soon echo the chamber as he increases his pace and the force with which he withdraws, then sinks into your tight core, filling you to the brim with his every thrust.

“Look at me as I take you.”

A particularly hard thrust at a spot makes you scream, forcing your eyes wide open – and you had nowhere to look but into those now-onyx eyes, boring into yours with so much desire, and perhaps something else – is it love you see? – but at that point, you had no other thoughts but him, him taking you, and bringing you close to the edge. Your body, having a mind of its own, start meeting his hips with every forceful thrust. Your walls start clenching his cock more insistently, and you feel something coil within you, wanting to be released…

“Now, come for your King, little dream.”

At his command, your climax crashes down on you in waves, a scream tearing through your strained throat. You hear him groan in his own pleasure as your walls spasm around his cock, threatening his own release. With another thrust, he intensifies your orgasm, making your vision turn white. Your thighs tremble underneath his for a final time before your entire body goes limp. His lips crash into yours as he gropes your breasts, hungry for more contact. Finally, he pulls out his still-hard length with much reluctance.

In your pleasure-clouded mind, you belatedly realize that he has flipped you over on your stomach. Only when his tip starts probing your entrance once more from this position does it dawn on you what he’s about to do. And you panic, struggling underneath his hold.

“Please, my Lord, no more…please…!”

But you could only cry out as he buries himself in you to the hilt. This time, he doesn’t wait for you to adjust to him – he plunges into you repeatedly, drawing out renewed screams of pleasure from you. He leans into your back, and whispers over your ear:

“My dream, you’re taking me so well,” he praises, but you could only respond with a desperate shaking of your head.

He lifts your hips further into the air, making him hit a pleasurable spot inside you that makes you see stars. He hits again and again as he massages your clit, and all you could do is bury your face in the pillow, gripping it so tight you almost tear the cover. But he takes offense at this; he bunches your hair and tugs on it while he gently grasps your throat from behind to raise your head, whispering against your hair:

“No, you will not deny me the music you make.”

As if to punish you, he squeezes your lower cheeks with bruising strength and picks up an unforgiving pace. You could hear his own grunts of pleasure amidst the sinful slapping of flesh against flesh and your own indecent moans echoing in the chamber. When your thighs start shaking, he holds you steady at the hips. Your body has been feebly meeting his, but it wasn’t enough for him; he pulls you toward him with every deep thrust, bringing tears to your eyes, and eventually, he coaxes another orgasm from you, more intense than the last, allowing you to collapse on the bed in a sobbing, moaning, sweaty mess.

However, he doesn’t allow you to come down from your high. Turning you over to face him, he makes a rapid move of parting your legs with his knees and pushing his cock once more into your already-abused core, holding you close and leaving you no choice but to bury your face in the groove of his neck. You make a pathetic attempt to push him off, weeping heavily at his intrusion - every nerve ending in your body had activated when he entered you fully for the third time, overstimulating you.

“Please, my Lord, enough, make it stop, makeitstop –”

“I will tell you when you’ve had enough. Your King has yet to find his release,” he says through gritted teeth, burying his face in your neck to suckle your sensitive flesh. As he does, he pounds into you with relentless force, desperate for his climax – he had held it down long enough for you. You know he had been starved of you for more than a century, so this is him making up for what he lost and taking from you what he’s wanted so insatiably.

“You’re perfect, so perfect for me. My dream. Mine.” He growls the last word over your ear before nipping at your earlobe and biting the sore skin of your neck, already peppered with his marks.

You wrap your arms around him and dig your nails into his pale skin, marking his back as he did your body. In his ears, you plead – but for what, you don’t even know – he’s making you tread the precarious line between pain and pleasure, reducing you to a string of throaty screams and moans. You’re all his: his dream, his property, his everything – and with your bodies joined together he makes you feel it, intoxicating you, swallowing you whole. You could feel him come closer to his undoing – his thrusts become more erratic, his breathing more jagged – and with a roar that shakes his entire kingdom, your King, your Dream Lord finally finds his release. He takes you with him as he snaps his hips and holds you down so he could pump his seed inside you, his warmth coating your inner walls as you come undone in hoarse croaks.

“You will take all of it, my little dream, every last drop,” he says breathlessly as you cling onto him like a lifeline, with him riding out both your orgasms.

You both stay in the same position, coming down from your high. Yet he doesn’t pull out – instead, he maneuvers your body so he could lay flat on his back and have you draped all over his chest. Satisfied with your position, he wraps his arms around you, stroking your hair with a low hum.

“You did well, my Mera. You will, in time, grow accustomed to your function.”

His words were meant to praise you, but they just send you back to your hellish reality. A wave of shame and disgust hits you in the gut as you feel the hot, sticky evidence of your union leak out from your folds and coat your inner thighs. He may have given you pleasure unlike anything you have imagined, but everything he has done that led to it is still fresh in your mind, and like a bleeding, open wound, he had just poured salt into it, hurting you more in the process. Scrambling to get away, you thrash against his hold, but his grip is vice-like – he’ll never let you go. Not now, not ever.

And so, with quiet weeps against his chest and your master’s soft cooing in your hair meant to comfort you, you close your eyes and let exhaustion finally take over.

*** You awake to hot breath fanning the back of your neck, and a finger languidly tracing circles on your abdomen.

In your sleep, you must’ve shifted sleeping positions – you find yourself hunched in a corner of the bed, with your master, spooning you.

“I seem to have roused you from your deep slumber, dream of mine.”

His breathy whisper in your ear is enough to send goosebumps running over your arms and heat coursing to your cheeks. Despite the warmth his naked body behind you is emitting, you shiver at the memory of pale hands running all over you and silver eyes gazing into yours as he takes you with wanton abandon…it takes all your inner strength to reel those tears in, and ignore the fingers now making their way between your legs. Your Dream Lord presses his erection against your back more urgently as if trying to get your attention. When he doesn’t get it, he hums in mild displeasure.

“Will you not indulge your king before he attends to his duties?”

Your breath hitches when a finger parts your folds, still wet with his cum from last night’s events. A lone, pained whimper escapes your throat despite your efforts.

To your surprise, he halts his movements.

“I understand you may still be in pain, given how strenuous last night was for you,” he says with tenderness in his tone. Behind you, you hear him shift, stroking your hair. “Can you sit up, my dream?”

You do as he asks, but every cell in your body seems to wail in protest. Every muscle that moved hurt and your core all but screamed in agony, so much that you fail to stifle that small cry of pain forming at the back of your throat. Your Dream Lord places a hand on your back at once, shushing you and trying to still your movement. The bed creaks as he gets off the bed and approaches your side. He snakes an arm below your knees and carries you, bridal style, to a door on the corner of the chamber, which automatically opens the moment he’s inches away.

The door reveals a bathroom with vintage fixtures, with an ancient tub placed in the middle. Water, infused with aromatic oils permeating the room, materializes out of nowhere in the tub, and with the utmost care, he lowers you to the warm water. Your aching muscles welcome the comfort of the bathwater, and with a relaxed sigh, your hand travels to your shoulder to massage the sore area – but a pale hand gently lowers it.

Your master gets into the tub behind you, settling with thighs spread so he can accommodate you between them. With gentleness you’re not aware he’s capable of, he brushes your partially wet hair aside and kneads the knotted muscles on your back, making you throw your head back in relief. With practiced ease, his fingers rub your scalp, noting how he managed to get the shampoo out of nowhere – he works the lather on your hair, and with a showerhead, he rinses the bubbles off.

Being bathed by your master like a delicate doll isn’t what you were expecting as his first act of mercy after he had ruthlessly taken your virginity the night before.

Once he has rinsed off the lather, he replaces the bathwater anew in the blink of an eye and wraps his arms around your form, pulling you to his chest. You’re almost lulled to slumber in the warmth of the water and the aroma of lavender, if it isn’t for the soft lips caressing your exposed shoulder. With a satisfied sigh, his hands knead your breasts softly, eliciting a small gasp from you. On your lower back, you feel his cock harden, so you keep still as much as you can within his arms; at least until his hand makes his way between your legs and a finger parts your aching folds.

You struggle weakly in his hold but he tightens his arm your form with shushing, cooing sounds. He gently flicks and massages your clit as he whispers words of comfort over your ear in a language long-forgotten, while you let out soft, breathy moans, your back arching against his chest and bucking your hips against his skillful ministrations. You hold his thighs for support, digging your nails into the pale skin, while he nips at the groove of your neck with his teeth in between soft, open-mouthed kisses. With his free hand, he massages your breasts, squeezing your nipples with his thumb and forefinger. In his grasp, it isn’t long before you come undone, your entire body quivering in the pleasure he provided. You lean back on his chest fully for support as your orgasm ebbs away, fully aware of his hardness still pressing on your back.

In an effort to address that, you whisper, “My Lord, are you going to…?”

“No. I cannot bring myself to – not when you’re still in extreme discomfort,” he replies, stroking your cheek with his forefinger. “I am aware that you are unhappy with our arrangement, my dream. I will amend that, and you will, in time, see that I am not such a monster.”

The Voice in your head begs to disagree.

He cups your jaw, turning your head to give you a passionate kiss on your lips. Timidly, you kiss him back; you don’t know whether his words are but a ruse meant to lull you into a false sense of security, but you’re somewhat thankful for this small act of mercy. When he pulls away from the kiss, he wordlessly steps out of the bath. The warmth that previously encased your back is gone, now replaced with cold air. The once-warm water has gone tepid, so you wrap your own arms around yourself in want of heat.

A towel is placed in your line of vision. Looking up, you see your Dream King dressed in his usual attire. With a small ‘thank you,’ you take the towel and wrap it around your body as you get up on the tub.

“I have left clothes for you in the wardrobe. Once I have completed my duties for the day, I will come back.”

Bristling at his words, you glance at him, wide-eyed. “You’re leaving me here?”

He responds with a hard, chastising expression, “It is necessary, my little dream. Until you have earned my trust back, I cannot allow you to roam in my Kingdom unguarded. Consider this a penalty for your recent, treacherous actions.”

He then takes his pouch of sand from inside his cloak and out of it, springs a swirl of sand that is to take him to wherever he needs to be.

As he disappears, you gaze at him with tearful eyes of resentment.

“Haven’t you punished me enough, my Lord?” you say as he and his sand dematerializes from the bathroom. He probably didn’t even hear it, you tell yourself ruefully. You're now trapped in a nightmare, and one your Dream Lord has made sure you'd never wake from.

***

But Morpheus hears every word as he leaves you alone in the ancient castle. He has half a mind to return to you and ease your worries, kiss you until you accept him, and give you everything you desire (save your freedom, of course), but as he lands in his throne room, he forces himself to dispel these thoughts. He must help you come to terms with the consequences of your actions so you would learn never to defy him again. Everything he does, and will do to you, will be for your own good.

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Author notes on the Chapter:

A bit on the short side, I know, but more soon!! This is my first smut everrr, so please give me feedback huhu not sure I managed to do it right (faces the wall) Also, imagine your dark Morphy being horny 24/7 after this lmao Happy New Year to all of you!!

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Author's notes in general:

Thank you, THANK YOU for reading!!

Please engage, comment and reblog!! I love feedback from you guys :) This is my first ever fic, so kindness is truly appreciated!

Thank you to my queen @queenshelby@endlessdreamqueen3 for encouraging me to pen this, as well as to my fellow Dark!Morpheus writers whose work I have thoroughly enjoyed and keep rereading :)

Post date: 12/31/22

Edit date: 12/31/22

Taglist: Just lemme know please if you want to be added, too!

Tagging the following:

@wt-fxck

@sandman-33

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The worldbuilding😍🙌🙇

"Pillars of Eternity" - Morpheus x Wisdom!Reader

[TW: kidnapping/captivity, blasphemy, mentions of sexual assault, nudity, graphic description of a rotting corpse]

[Sandman-inspired playlist] || 🫀REQUESTS ARE OPEN🫀

SUMMARY: In a spell-go-wrong, Rodrick Burgess manages to summon you: Wisdom incarnate. Noticing a strange and quite unnerving change in the world, Morpheus ventures into the Waking World to investigate, only to find someone he's always been looking for.

WORDCOUNT: ~ 9k (oopsie daisy)

Oh, you're just in time! Come, sit beside the fire, warm yourself. Did your travel go well? Hermes walked with you, you say? That is just wonderful! Back when I was a wanderer, he showed me many shortcuts, both in this world and leading to others. If you happen to meet him again on your journey back home, please send him my regards.

Why I summoned you? Well, I'd like to tell you a story. It's one of my favourites, actually. Tell me, do you think dreams and wisdom have anything in common? You can be honest, I won't tell The Circle's Magister of Oneiromancy. No? Nothing in common? I used to think that too. "How can fantasy and reason have any similarities?" I'd ask. But have you never wondered why oneiromancy is such a recent field of study? Even more important question: why do we find answers to the banes of life in our dreams? Of course, the Magister will give you plenty of plausible excuses but the truth is, none of it existed until a few centuries back. What reason and fantasy have in common is just that: oneiromancy. So far, it's the only shared work of the Endless and the Pillars of Eternity. What are the Pillars? Have I never told you about them? Oh, you have to forgive me, I'm an old man. Well then, let me briefly explain to you:

There are four Pillars of Eternity: Wisdom, Decay, Abyss and Aether. They created life and with life came the Endless. Unlike the Endless, however, the Pillars do not mingle with humans. They rarely even meet each other. The Pillars are the only force keeping our universe steady. They were never born, so they will never die. One day, they shall end this plane of existence and create a new one. What about God, you ask? Well, they are the God. The Holy Trinity was just a huge misunderstanding of reality as the early humans thought that Abyss and Aether are one entity.

Abyss and Aether are, actually, the oldest of the four Pillars, although so much time had passed that neither of them knows any longer who is older. But that doesn't matter for now. Both of them were always frail. In fact, so frail one would take pity on them and share their meal. Abyss had skin of the darkest shade you could imagine, while Aether's was so white it nearly made her transparent. They each held a weapon, a symbol of their power: Abyss carried the Aegis of Darkness and Aether held the Blade of Spirits. For the longest time, the universe was only them - two equal forces but not equal entities.

Then came Decay, the most beautiful boy you ever did see. One of the old poets wrote about Decay as "beautiful like the Trojan horse". Marigolds would sprout from his fingers, wolves and deer would sit side by side just to watch him pass. He is the cycle of life and death, a balance that allows the world to carry on. Decay's weapon, the Bow of Existence, is told to end and create life as he pleases. He could aim his arrows at our world and soon all of us would turn into walking corpses, spouting rotted venom with each ragged breath.

And the strangest of them: Wisdom. Her name, however, quite poorly represents her domain. She is everything that is arcane, that lies beyond the material world. The very magic that you so fondly study is her gift. No, it's more than that: she is what we call magic. Wisdom's siblings never quite liked her for she knew the secrets of their powers. Those that have been blessed to see her say that she's always holding the Spear of Ages but I know that to not be true. It is told to harness the arcane wisdom of all universes past, present and future. Some even go as far as to say that it's the only weapon capable of killing any and every creature, no matter how eldritch they are. In fact, Archangel Michael once told me that it was Wisdom's spear with which he killed Satan.

Remember the last time you visited and I told you about the Endless? Well, one time the Endless and the Pillars met, changing our world in a way we are yet to witness and understand. A charlatan named Magus managed to capture Wisdom with magic The Circle will not teach you. Sometimes I think they don't quite know it themselves but it's for the best. No one should be able to harness such strange power. Curiously, the said Magus did not die in some horrible way like many did before him casting that spell nor did madness gnaw at his old mind. But that's not important. Alas, without Wisdom to guide creation, the whole world began to fall into chaos. Magic became uncontrollable, even the powers of the Endless started to falter. Perhaps, that was the reason why Dream ventured into the Waking World to investigate that commotion...

Lucienne had finished briefing Morpheus on the current affairs of the kingdom of Dreaming but she didn't leave immediately after as she usually did. Instead, she stood slightly sideways to him, pondering whether to stay or go.

"There is something else on your mind, Lucienne." His voice was carried by the loud echo of the overwhelmingly empty throne room. "Speak."

She let out a sigh. Her gaze met his for a second before she looked away for a short moment, the last reflection of whether honesty was appropriate at the given time, only to look at the King again. "My lord, I can not be sure whether it's something worthy of your attention."

"Let me be the judge of that."

Before she let him in on the secret, Lucienne shortened the distance between her and Morpheus but in moderation - he was sitting on the stairs and had she walked a few feet farther, Dream would have to look up at her. It was simply wrong, for the librarian to look down on her master. "There is something strange happening in the Waking World," she revealed in a low voice as if she was expecting prying ears around every corner of the palace. "Prayers are no longer answered, magic is wreaking havoc..."

"Yes, I have noticed dreams and nightmares seeping into wakefulness," Morpheus confessed in a reflective tone. Lucienne wasn't sure what to think about his thoughtful voice; clearly, Dream was at least partially aware of the strange commotion and had spent quite some time thinking about it. Something about this subject made him stand up and slowly stroll around Lucienne. "I admit I can not tell the reason for such a breach between realms."

"If I may so suggest, my lord, perhaps Wisdom...?"

Morpheus suddenly stopped. He watched Lucienne's face for a moment, studying her expression. A cold silence filled the throne room as if speaking that ancient name was a transgression against entities incomprehensible to the creatures of this plane. "No one has seen the Pillars for millennia, Lucienne. They do not care about the affairs of other realms."

"They created this universe," she argued. "I'm sure impending doom that is not caused by them will get their attention. Magic is, after all, Wisdom's field of expertise, so to speak."

"Even if she was willing to take an audience, I do not know where she resides. Firstly, I shall visit the Waking World and see this unrest myself. Perhaps there is no need to seek out the Pillars."

The Lord of Dreaming was a steadfast man and so Lucienne did not bother attempting to change his mind. "As you wish, my lord Morpheus." She slightly bowed to him before leaving.

Burgess mansion was drowning in a tense silence - the same type of quietness that takes over a stalked prey. Staff didn't engage in their usual small talk and gossip anymore. Instead, they'd give each other shy, anxious looks of worry and fear as if each of them wanted to make sure that everyone else was feeling as much dread as they did. It was the calm before the storm but no one could quite tell how far from them the black clouds of rolling thunder were. Each time some odd sound resounded throughout the mansion, no matter how quiet or loud, housekeepers would immediately stop whatever they were doing and stare in the direction of the basement door. Cold sweat run down their spines.

Rodrick thought that the Corinthian's trustworthy look was quite suspicious. Somewhow, the man in glasses reminded the Magus of a sleazy salesman, who manages to sell surprising amounts of an outrageously low-quality product. Nonetheless, a more naive part of him longed to listen to what the blond stranger had to say - even to simply satisfy his curiosity but, perhaps, Rodrick knew somewhere deep down that he had found himself in a land of strangeness never before discovered.

"I'm afraid you got yourself a bigger fish to fry, mister Burgess," Corinthian stated with a polite smile. "You have captured Wisdom, one of the Pillars of Eternity. She and her three siblings are what you call 'God'."

A feeling of dread in Rodrick's abdomen only grew in strength - he was hearing about things never mentioned in the occult books he had studied so feverishly. Necronomicon itself never mentioned something close to "Pillars of Eternity".

But for now, Magus couldn't care less about Wisdom's familiar connections. "Can she bring back my son?"

"Personally? No." The Corinthian maliciously waited for Rodrick's expression to turn grim before he continued. "But if there is a way to make that happen, she knows all of them. The problem might be getting the bird to chirp."

"Oh, that should not be a problem," Rodrick gritted through his teeth. Was he already reliving all the imaginative tortures he was going to subdue her to?

The Nightmare, however, seemed greatly unmoved at the viciousness seeping from Rodrick's mouth. In some disturbing way, his face appeared brighter, suddenly, as though he was pleased with what he was hearing. "Do yourself a favour, mister Burgess, and chain her with iron. Lock her in a circle of salt and black tourmaline. Otherwise, the bird might just fly away."

But Rodrick was not a fool, perhaps a little too proud but never naive despite falling to the stranger's charm. He was right to submit the Corinthian's claims to generous scepticism. "How do you know so much about her?" he asked with a slight squint in his old eyes.

That polite smile the Corinthian so often wore never faltered. "Let's say I'm a distant relative of sorts. Goodbye."

Watching the blond man leave, Magus pondered what business the Corinthian had with making sure that Wisdom didn't escape any time soon. He came to the conclusion, that if she was as old and powerful as the stranger claimed, holding her captive was enough to gain Rodrick allies as powerful as they were inhuman. Therefore, even if she ended up not helping him, there surely was some otherworldly horror out there willing to fulfil his wish in exchange for her. But before that, Rodrick had to at least try and make her cooperate.

Waking up, you felt something coarse and cold against your skin. A shiver ran through your body and only then did you realize there weren't any clothes covering your skin. Contorting yourself into a fetal position in an attempt to fight the discomfort, you finally opened your eyes to look at wherever you had found yourself.

The room was dark - a dirty window the size of a bar of soap was a laughable excuse for a source of light. Judging by the painfully rigid and coarse floor, you must have been sitting on concrete. With each breath, your nostrils were filled with the stench of mould. When your eyes adjusted to the tomb-like darkness, you began noticing white lines around you. They seemed to come together into some sort of occult or alchemy symbol. Circles, triangles, hexagons...

"Metatron's Cube," you whispered to yourself. You could recognise your own creation anywhere but considering you hadn't drawn this one, there was a genuinely demented scheme operating in this realm. What's worse: you never bestowed this knowledge on humans.

The sound of a metal latch being lifted stopped you from your small investigation. As the door's rusted hinges moved, a deafening creak resounded in the concrete cell. A man with a halo from gas lamps behind him stood at the threshold as though he was the messenger of some unspeakable forces. He slowly stepped into the confines of your prison, showing only half of his face as the other half was still drowning in the overwhelming darkness of the place.

With just one look at the stranger, the enigma of your own magic being used against you became clear as day: "You tore your soul for this."

He, however, disregarded your statement. "I am offering a fair trade, Wisdom." Rodrick put an odd accent on your name as if he had expected you to be shocked at his insight. But you were a little too loyal to the name you had been given to be surprised at his knowledge. Seeing as he in no way impressed or intimidated you, Rodrick's expression fell and a disturbing shadow danced across his face. "You will stay here, imprisoned, until you bring back my son or tell me how to do it."

Humans... you give them one finger and they bite the entire hand.

"Such an act is against my brother's laws," you informed him. Decay was an entity difficult to please and so it took all four of you entire aeons to come to the consensus that currently controlled this universe.

"I do not care for any laws. I only want my child back." Rodrick stared at you with squinted eyes but it was not an expression of scepticism: his cheeks were raised in contempt and, thus, his eyes appeared smaller. He took a few steps closer to you but remained wise enough to not cross the line of the Cube. It would have been a very painful disintegration if he had. "Regardless of price," he added after a small pause.

"Most unwise, Rodrick Burgess," you answered slowly. Considering the fact that you were naked, laying on the cold concrete floor in a fetal position in his own basement, your words were in no way more intimidating than a scorned ant.

"I am the Magus," he spat out, "and you will address me only by that name."

But you remained unmoved: his anger could never impress you. "You are only a human, barely a larva in this universe's cycle of life."

"And you are my prisoner," he pointed out triumphantly. Although he hadn't gained anything yet, it seemed that Rodrick Burgess was for now satisfied just with your loss.

"So mote it be," you said in a calm, firm voice.

A heavy sigh left your lips when the metal door shut loudly behind Rodrick. Once more, there was only you, cold concrete and darkness. Inside Metatron's Cube, the world was disturbingly quiet. Visions of universes past and future no longer haunted you. Even realms of this cycle seemed to be out of your reach.

Days went by before the air in your cell changed. Something about this microcosm of captivity shifted but the borders of the Cube prevented you from learning what it was exactly. There was only dread and fangs that resided in the darkness surrounding you.

Then a figure emerged from the shadows. You recognized him immediately by his simple yet characteristic attire but you'd know this Endless without ever looking in his direction: his presence always filled the room with a faint aroma of pomegranate, lilac and old paper.

"Lord Morpheus," you introduced him. "It is not chance that brought you here but consequence."

"Consequence of what, if I may ask?" His low voice echoed throughout the small, empty room. In slow steps, he was making his way towards you.

"Everything. A horizon of events that had never happened and all the timelines that are yet to become true should we step in their direction."

Morpheus knew there was only one creature in creation that could speak in an equally strange and insightful way: "You're Wisdom."

Putting your hands against the concrete, you sat up with knees close to your chest in a pathetic attempt at retaining at least some of your decency. Seeing him for the first time in millennia, you thought he generally looked exactly the same as the day he came to life. "Yes, that is one of the names I was given in this cycle."

Even while he was meeting someone he regarded as nothing more but a tall tale, Morpheus remained ever so expressionless. "Why are you here?"

"I was imprisoned by my own spell; the magic I had created was used against me." You noticed he was coming dangerously close to the chalk line on the floor. "Be warned, Dream of the Endless, not to cross the lines of this sigil. It trapped me but you..." you stopped yourself from continuing. Perhaps, there was no need in informing him of such horrors that do not have to appear in this timeline - to be simultaneously reduced to atoms and locked in one's corporeal form. "I do not have the heart to tell you what shall happen to a creature of your sort in Metatron's Cube."

Morpheus listened - the tips of his shoes were a mere inch away from the border of the symbol. "I presume it is your imprisonment that is causing chaos across realms."

Yes, that was bound to happen. "The magic I breathed into this world is shifting, wandering into places it was never meant to reside in like sheep that scatter in the absence of a shepherd. It's slowly leaving all realms only to gather here, in my prison, where Rodrick Burgess can do whatever he pleases with it. In the upcoming days, humanity shall see the most powerful sorcerer that has ever graced planet Earth."

"Then I shall bring this transgression to an end."

You appreciated his vigour but inaction was often smarter than a well-intended impulse. "No, Morpheus, it is not time for me to leave yet. The magic of this place is too stable. Let it gather, let the scale be unbalanced and then come to my aid. Humans are fickle things and there is only so much magic they can harness with their bodies, minds and spirits. Once Rodrick Burgess gathers too much of it around him, the call to balance my freedom shall cause will make the magic devour him alive. Every particle of him that does not come directly from any of the Pillars will be reduced to nothing."

"What will happen to the realms while you await for the right moment?"

"They will surely be visited by my dear brother Decay. But to free me, you must retain your power, dear Dream, and there is only one way for me to help you do that. You will find my spear by the tallest tree in my home, in Shangri-La. Hide it in Dreaming, in a place no one visits and do not tell anyone about it. Leave it be and the spear shall let you and your domain live comfortably through my absence. Remain brave of heart, dear Dream, for the Spear of Ages shall show you the world through my eyes and it is not something your kind was meant to see."

He fell silent for a moment, clearly pondering the quest he was about to accept or reject. It was truly humiliating for one of the Pillars to be dependent on the goodwill of one of the Endless but at moments such as that one, it was unwise to remain prideful. "If you're trapped, how will I know when the hour comes to free you?" he asked. There was at least one creature in this cycle that wished you well.

"Come back in a decade and I will give you my judgement. Now go, Dream of the Endless, for Shangri-La is far from here and with both of us gone, your realm shall fall into ruin at a frightening pace. However, there is one more thing I'd like to ask of you." Although he was free to leave and save his kingdom before he saves you, Morpheus remained still, waiting. "If Rodrick Burgess so desires to see his son, allow him to but do not discard even the smallest element of truth: paint him in his thoughts as he truly is."

"I will return, Wisdom," Morpheus announced in a low voice before disappearing in a whirlwind of golden sand.

The first time Rodrick heard a questioning "Father?" resound in his ears, he dropped the pen he was writing with. A fearful tremor shook his old body.

He got up from his chair so fast, he nearly lost his balance and had to lean against the back of it. "Son?" Rodrick called out in a trembling voice. It was silence, however, that answered him. With a thundering heart, Rodrick run out of his study to continue the search for the source of the voice he so longed to hear again.

The creature he saw, however, could hardly be called a human. Perhaps the shape was once the corporeal form of a young man but those days were long gone. His military clothes were black with mould and torn in many places. Was it a scrap of material or part of his intestine hanging from one of the holes? Most of his face had already been eaten by necrophages, leaving a disgustingly open view of his greyish-green brain. Fat centipedes and larvas fell to the ground when he moved the remains of his head a little too fast. A putrid smell of something both sour and sweet filled the air making Rodrick feel his stomach tighten so much, its content travelled back up his oesophagus.

"Father?" the odiousness called out once more. His voice was raspy as most of the vocal cords had already been eaten by the happily fat insects. "Father!" the monster cried out upon recognizing his once beloved parent. "Why have you done this to me?!" he sobbed in terror and pain.

Rodrick Burgess was speechless at the horror he was cursed to witness. Hearing blood rush through his head and feeling his heart beating too fast, he leaned against the wall. His terrified gaze never left the terror that slowly limped towards him. A raven croaked outside.

The monster, in turn, never abandoned Rodrick's mind: as long as the Magus was awake, he was cursed to see, hear or smell the resurrected corpse of his son, while none other was privy to this maddening nightmare. It was his personal Hell, catered to his very own taste. The Devil, as one can learn, does not lurk in the details but in every wish and whim that is granted.

Morpheus never had to endure cold. Sure, there were lands of eternal snow in his realm but their weather never affected him. Their climate was, after all, of his own doing. The Himalayas, however, were a strange land and their coldness gnawed at every inch of his very being as if it wasn't his fingers the unpleasant weather touched but his very soul. Nevertheless, he had made a promise and that meant he had to brave through the unending pale dunes.

The day when his eyes saw the pagodas with gold roofs, a sigh of relief left his mouth. You were true in your words: the journey was long, tiring and littered with hardships that made even the Endless question their purpose. As Morpheus walked through the city hidden from the rest of the world, its inhabitants seemed surprisingly disinterested in the unexpected guest. Living at the literal top of the world, what wonders were they privy to? Among the streets of Shangri-La, his heart was at peace and Morpheus at first wasn't sure what to call this sensation. He felt as if he could sit down right where he stood and remain there until you and your siblings end this cycle of life. It surprised him how little regret resided in that hypothetical scenario: Dreaming, after all, would be reduced to ashes should he decide to abandon his current life and stay in Shangri-La but at that very moment, Morpheus had little to no care about his own domain. Even worse: the thoughts and memories of it were swiftly escaping his mind. There was only him and the overwhelming peace caressing his tired bones.

Despite his strange desire, he made his way to the monastery which was placed in the centre of the city. Crossing the threshold, he saw a large patio with a large brass gong placed in the middle. The twelve lamas that ruled Shangri-La probably didn't notice his arrival as nothing about their behaviour seemed to acknowledge Dream's presence. As if completely obvious to the doom looming over the universe, they continued their daily duties of meditation, practice and tea brewing.

The unexpected guest, however, did not remain unseen for much longer as if he was, after all, expected. One of the monks, dressed in orange robes and with a head bald enough to reflect sunlight, approached Morpheus silently. No words greetings or inquires were exchanged between them - the lama only stared at him, awaiting an explanation.

"I came for the spear," Dream announced.

The lama, however, spoke no words to him even this time - he simply pointed towards a hill that towered over the city. A mighty sequoia grew on top of it and Morpheus for a moment pondered how he had missed this very obvious landmark. What he never learned was the fact that until the monk pointed towards the hill, it didn't quite exist - not in this dimension, at least. With his eyes set on the miraculously tall sequoia, Morpheus marched on.

Standing in front of the tree, Dream was rendered breathless at the unspeakable beauty of the view around him. Shangri-La was but an anthill from this distance. The rest of the world, no matter how big someone thought it was, remained covered by thick, white clouds as if this sequoia and the pagodas with gold roofs were the only things to ever exist. The setting Sun, slowly crawling to disappear underneath the cotton-like clouds, painted the sky above him in all shades of fuchsia, red and orange. Morpheus completely understood why you had spent centuries in this place.

The golden spear was lodged in the frozen ground between the roots of the mighty tree above it. Although 'spear' appeared to be a quite misleading name: it was a polearm with two intrinsically decorated sharp blades on each end. A red ribbon was tied to the shaft of this primaeval weapon; even after centuries of withstanding violent winds, it remained untorn.

The moment his hand lay on the weapon, a terrifying avalanche of thoughts flooded his mind - concepts, ideas, words and images he couldn't even begin to understand. He retracted his hand as quickly as it touched the spear before. This sorcery was beyond him, it filtered through dimensions he could never trespass due to the very laws according to which he had been created. Morpheus was akin to an ant that, through a series of misfortunes and the universe's maliciousness, was suddenly cursed with experiencing the surrounding world as a human only to be thrown back into its tiny mind with sensations and knowledge it could never comprehend.

But he knew he had little choice if he wanted to free you one day as well as make sure his realm prevails in those trying times. Feeling an unknown fear in his chest, Morpheus grabbed the Spear of Ages once more. As maddening thoughts ran through his head, he used all of the strength he had to pull the long blade out of the frozen soil. Every inch of his crawling, pasty skin was screaming at him to stop, to abandon this unholy artefact and save himself. But, as it was mentioned before, Morpheus was a steadfast man and so he kept pulling and pulling until he believed he had been doing it since the birth of the stars.

The moon's silver light cascaded off the freed edge. Although the golden blade was covered in intrinsic reliefs, the metal was polished so diligently, Morpheus could see his own reflection in those decorations but he quickly noticed that something about it wasn't quite right; the reflection wasn't his only as though an invisible entity resided inside the blade, a creature he knew was there but couldn't physically perceive. On the other hand, perhaps he was finally seeing himself for the very first time just not in the limited way human mirrors reflect one face. Dreams of the Endless from universes past and future were staring into that golden blade all at once.

If the legends were true and this spear had been used to kill at least once, it must have been the most beautiful weapon to die by. Perhaps its artistry was exquisite enough to calm the spirit of anyone who fell victim to it, drowning in peaceful silence and awaiting Decay's passionate kiss.

Remembering the unsure state of his realm, Morpheus made haste to return to Dreaming, where things were much worse than he left them: entire lands dissolving into oblivion; Dreams and Nightmares confusing their nature and duties, only to seep into the Waking World with no way to come back; dreamers getting lost in their own dreams or stumbling into the consciousness of other people, unable to wake up. Trusting your words, he hid the Spear of Ages somewhere inside the palace all the while following your advice and never revealing its location to anyone. In a matter of hours, Dreaming returned to its state from before his prolonged absence, to its lawful order, but it still wasn't ideal. Morpheus knew that his realm wasn't going to heal fully until you are free and it pained him to know that in the face of a calamity that raised its terrible hand against his home, there was nothing he could do but wait.

Awaiting the decade to pass, impatiently or not, Dream would wander into the dreams of people in Rodrick Burgess's manor. Part of him was anxious about your fate: should you, somehow, be destroyed, this universe would disappear with a snap of a finger. Perhaps part of him was simply sympathetic towards you and the human malice that clawed at your existence. Maybe, in those dreams, he would uncover some way to ease your struggle.

And wandering through their dreams he mostly saw, as one might expect, completely mundane sights of fantasies and terrors. A change appeared only when he trespassed into the dreams of the men that guarded you, who fantasised of defiling you even in their sleep. Morpheus felt a gut-wrenching disgust seeing with his own eyes how low humans were willing to fall, to crawl, just to usurp a fraction of your gift. His mind was incapable of comprehending something so mundane, normal, for you, so there really was no way for him to tell what inexplicable madness would devour their minds should they happen to lay their hands on your spear. The human heart, however, remained insatiable in its greed.

When the first decade had passed, Morpheus travelled to your prison not expecting his visit to be one of many to come. Before leaving Dreaming, he pondered whether to take your spear with him but quite quickly did he realize that placing such an artefact within Magus's reach was more than completely idiotic - he already had something inexplicably powerful in his unlawful possession.

Arriving at the Burgess mansion, he noticed the lack of change in you as in you were sitting in exactly the same spot and exactly the same position as you did ten years prior. Morpheus was about to call out to you, ask for instructions on how to free you, but you seemed to be well aware of his presence even before he had a chance to speak:

"No, it is not the time yet, dear Dream," you answered his never-asked question," but the night is young and I should like you to stay with me until the sunrise if you wish so too. It is unwise to let loneliness gnaw on one's mind for too long."

Wasting no words, Morpheus simply sat down in front of you. Even in a position that was supposed to be comfortable, he appeared artificially rigid. His stern gaze bore into your face in anticipation. A few minutes of hesitant silence passed by before he became courageous enough to make demands to an entity superior to him. Dream's voice, although low and voided of emotions, made the coldness of your prison more bearable: "Tell me about other worlds."

And so you did. Recalling the marvels you had witnessed and created, you told him about realms that had existed countless cycles before this one as well as future ones about which you knew only as much as the afterimages of the event horizon revealed to you. Taken over by the nostalgia of your too-long life, you shared memories of a world you always recalled with fondness:

"The sky was an ocean, deep and impenetrable as you have never seen. There were no stars, no suns or moons, only gargantuan jellyfish that swam across the indigo firmament. They glowed with such a bright light, the land underneath them was never dark. A soft, melodic hum travelled through the light breeze that was always present. People thought it was simply the wind brushing against their homes but if you listened closely, you'd know that it was the creatures in the sea sky singing a blessing to the lands over which they swam. I remember... I remember it always smelt of oranges there."

Quite surprisingly, he listened to your stories without even a shadow of confusion as if none of the strangeness you had seen was enough to surprise him. Well, he was the Dream King, after all, and that meant he was made out of oddness and wonders. Sometimes, when your words were colourful enough, he'd chip in with a story of a similar dream he had once seen. But never once did he laugh at the ridiculousness of your tales, never once questioned their validity or admitted his lack of understanding. In all of creation, finally someone heard your stories and said "I know" instead of "Explain"; your infinite wisdom for the first time united something in place of dividing as it so often happened with minds too small to look past their pride. For the first time since you remembered, it wasn't unspeakably lonely to know what others couldn't comprehend.

"You are a strange creature, Dream of the Endless," you confessed close to the end of the night.

"How so?"

"In all of my eternal existence, you are the first to have the faintest idea of what I mean when I speak. Everyone else lacks the imagination to ponder the impossible."

"I do not believe in the impossible," he answered. Perhaps it was then, in those very words of disagreement, that your fondness of him sprouted so vigorously. "Improbable, perhaps, but human ingenuity showed me that the impossible is simply yet to be uncovered."

And what a wonderful thought that was! That there was always something more to discover, wonders yet to be seen and knowledge to yearn for; that no one truly knew everything and the finality of your wisdom was a generously rounded subjective experience.

The sun was beginning to rise - it was time for him to go. "I will be back," he stated before disappearing and you never quite knew if that was a promise or a fact.

One day, not too long after Morpheus's visit, Alex Burgess came down to your dungeon. He was a frail boy, no older than thirteen, with big eyes that watched the surrounding world as if he was seeing it for the very first time. Perhaps they were part of the reason why he looked so frightened by existence itself. If not, the fact that he was sneaking behind his father's back surely was.

He stared at you in silence for long minutes. Maybe he didn't know what to say or maybe the sight of you made him too scared to open his mouth. "Is it true what they're saying? Are you the Devil?" he finally stuttered out in a quiet voice.

"Devil is a title, not a name, Alex Burgess," you corrected him. "After the fall of Satan, that honour was bestowed on Lucifer, the current King of Hell. I am not Lucifer." Truthfully, it was offensive to even suggest you were anywhere close to that pesky, wayward creature.

"Can you really do it?" he continued. "Can you really bring my brother back?" A glimpse of fearful hope appeared in his eyes. It nearly made you feel sympathy for him.

"Do you think I should?" you returned the question. "Would it be wise, little Alex, to rob the dead of their peace?"

Frantically looking over his shoulder, the boy walked up to you in rushed footsteps. As a token of his complete subjection, Alex fell to his knees in front of you. Staring into those big, teary eyes of fear and longing, you wondered what horrors he had to endure since his brother's passing. "Please, do it, I'm begging you. My father, he... He has changed ever since my brother died."

But even the tears of children weren't a good enough excuse to break the consensus between you and Decay. "And why should Rodrick Burgess dictate who dies and lives?" you asked Alex. It was at least ridiculous to entertain such thought - that larvae would order lions around. Humans rarely considered matters from a perspective other than their own. Maybe it was time to force one of them to be something else than egocentric for a moment: "Which one of you had ventured into Death's realm and asked the boy himself whether he wants to return?"

And maybe Alex Burgess would have responded to your strange, quite macabre, question, had his father not appeared in time. Seething, Rodrick yelled out various curses directed at his youngest child. His hand, although old and tired, grabbed Alex's shoulder with surprising strength, only to forcefully drag him out of your cell. Then, in those big eyes that glistened with fear you, saw his moment of clarity, complete understanding that you were something much older and much more powerful than the fairytale of the Devil people believe in - you could be much worse than the Adversary and his father kept you locked up like a stray mutt. Since that fateful moment, every day Alex begged his father to let you go in fear of your primaeval anger.

The silence of your loneliness, despite being hardly bearable, was a lot more welcome than experiencing another exhibit of human entitlement. How come those low creatures always thought they knew better? As much as they execrated gods, idols and all creatures in between for not granting all of their wishes, they never seemed to entertain the thought that, maybe, it was for their own good.

Every decade that followed, Morpheus would leave his domain to venture into the Waking World; for one night every ten years, reason and fantasy sat face-to-face as if they could ever be equals. As time went by, you couldn't decide whether it sounded like a set-up to a bad joke or the first verse of a life-changing poem. Although, who was to say both variants weren't equally true at the same time? Why did it have to be one or the other?

In any case, some nights the two of you talked but others were spent in a pleasant silence. When the night hours were spent on conversations, it was mostly you talking but it was quite understandable: while you knew what he was, Morpheus had a less than vague idea of the truth behind the myth of Wisdom, the Pillar of Eternity. There was a strange intimacy in being the one known instead of knowing but you welcomed it with the warm curiosity that defined you.

One time, probably as a token of his goodwill or care for you, Dream brought a book from the library in his palace. Out of all the works ever written, Morpheus chose The Trial by Franz Kafka. Perhaps he liked it himself or perhaps he found it somewhat fitting. It was a bizarre thing to stare at him while he read through the existentialist story: not an emotion appeared on Dream's face, nothing that suggested any reflection elicited through the strange tale he shared with you, all the while words leaving his mouth painted a disturbing course of events of a man who tried to defend himself from an accusation he never learned. Nonetheless, his low voice made for an exquisite narration of the through-provoking tale and you found yourself pondering asking him to read more to you. But that was a worry for the future, now you simply listened to his pleasant words.

Hours had passed and the sun was rising, people in the mansion were beginning to wake up, so Morpheus knew he had to leave soon. But before he was gone for another ten years, there was something you needed to tell him or maybe it was him who needed to hear it: "The world would be at ease knowing that it is you who is watching over them while they sleep."

"Thank you. That is a beautiful wish."

You gave him a gentle smile. Was it insecurity or modesty that spoke through him? "It is merely a fact, darling Dream."

And with those words, Morpheus had disappeared, marking another decade when magic run uncontrolled through all of the realms.

The eleventh time Dream visited your cell, he could immediately sense that something was different about that night. Were the wolves howling at a strange moon? Or perhaps moth swayed to inaudible music? Whatever it was, it pierced the air even in the concrete cell.

"The day has come, dear Morpheus," you called out to him. As it usually so happened, you acknowledged his presence before he could make it known. "The clock has struck Magus's last hour. There is enough raw, untamed power within these walls for you to not fail."

Strangely enough, you were in a different position: on your knees, sat on the back of your feet with hands resting on your thighs, leaving your chest indecently exposed. Morpheus felt a knot of shame tighten in his stomach - he should look away, shouldn't he? Redirecting his flustered gaze at something above or behind you, he spoke:

"What should I do?"

"You will need my spear." Still, you refused to look in his direction. Your vacant stare seemed to be admiring the dark, wet and coarse concrete wall in front of you.

"I hid it in the Dreaming as you advised."

Finally, you looked at him. Out of the two of you, he seemed to be a lot more embarrassed at your nudity. Perhaps you simply grew accustomed to the constant shivering and goosebumps. "Or did you?" you asked with a glint of mischief in your smile.

Morpheus was about to answer you, voice his confusion at your vague question, when he felt something weighty in his hand. Sure enough, he was now wielding the Spear of Ages, although he knew for a fact that he did not bring it with him coming to your decadal meeting. Curiously, he noticed that within your vicinity, the primaeval weapon did not torture him with visions and whispers he couldn't understand.

"Break the sigil with my spear," you instructed him, "but first you need to cast a spell, call my name into the void beyond all realms and summon me into this plane. Repeat after me, Dream of the Endless: I name you wolf, guardian of order and arcane laws. I name you heron, pathfinder of skies. I name you moth, the winged god of change. I name you fox, a traveller between realms. I name you earth, the sanctuary of stability and abundance. I name you crow, keeper of lost lore. With this artefact of power, I name you Wisdom, the Pillar of Eternity."

Morpheus tightened his grip around the shaft of the spear. With a strained groan, he pierced the concrete floor of the basement breaking one of the Cube's lines. A loud cracking resounded in the small room and a web of crevices sprawled across the complex sigil, essentially breaking it into countless dismembered lines. From those breaches emerged green light that quickly became blinding, forcing Morpheus to look away. The power, whatever it truly was, only grew in strength and soon it had reigned over the entire mansion. Housekeepers kept their eyes shut tightly, covering their entire faces as they felt the light burning their skin.

Then, a blood-chilling scream resounded through the house. It was, as one might suspect, Rodrick Burgess himself. Having gathered and irresponsibly used your magic for his own mundane whims, the green-coloured power recognized the man as a vessel for arcane force and so it tore every particle, that you had breathed into existence, out of him. Soon, the screaming subsided and only a speck of ash was left where a man once stood. The green light went out, crawling back down the cracks it had originally climbed out of.

Your world became loud again, filled with whispers and images from different realms and timelines. The static noise of universes past and future was never once overwhelming - it was akin to a farmer hearing fields of wheat rustle on the gentle august wind; it was the sound of life, creation walking along its predetermined path.

After over a century of forced, cold nudity, you found yourself dressed once more, in emerald green and embroidered golden ibises. A cape was covering one of your shoulders. As paradoxically as it may sound, it was then that you had felt more naked in front of Morpheus than before as though him seeing you in your arcane exult was more intimate than witnessing its mere fraction.

Nonetheless, it was time for the two of you to leave this den of wickedness. Having effortlessly pulled your spear out of the cracked concrete, you placed your hand on Dream's shoulder and, without a word of caution, travelled across the globe to the place you considered home. Where the two of you once stood among the darkness, now lay glistening, green dust, so easy to be overlooked by an inexperienced eye.

Morpheus found himself among the busy streets of Shangri-La again. Despite decades having gone by since the last time he had set foot on those cobblestones, nothing about the hidden city had changed. In fact, it seemed as if not a day had passed for its citizens. Still, the people of Shangri-La passed by him without ever acknowledging his presence. To Dream's surprise, neither did they acknowledge you. The bright, warm sun rays reflected off the gold roofs of pagodas building the city. A gong resounded through Shangri-La as though the monks were announcing someone's arrival or calling people to prayer.

Seeing you in all of your timeless glory, no longer bounded by foul magic, he fell to his knees - bowing, as one should do when facing the Pillars of Eternity. Although he was showing you the respect you deserved, it felt strange to be reminded of the inequality between you because, truthfully, this dissonance was buried the moment he sat in front of you, asking to be told about lifetimes he never got to witness and landscapes he was never going to set his eyes on.

The Spear of Ages weighed in your hand. The bright sun of the Himalayas danced across its edge, reflecting a mirage of colours both known and yet to be named. With a strange nostalgia, you looked at your own reflection in the meticulously sculpted metal. Entire universes had been born and collapsed before another pair of eyes stared into the golden blades. Eternity was changing, you could tell as much, but in what ways? That knowledge remained beyond you, for now.

"Throughout those decades of chaos, it had belonged to you as much as it belongs to me." With a sharp sound, you broke the spear in half against your leg. Holding one of the blades in your hand, you extended the now-broken shaft towards Morpheus. "You do not bow before me, Dream of the Endless," you announced in an official tone making him look up at you, "but stand by my side as my equal. A friend, if you will." Such a word of intimacy and trust tasted weird on your tongue. It was a flavour you were yet to grow accustomed to.

With a gentleness that befitted hesitation, Morpheus took the half of the spear you offered him as he stood up. In the upcoming millennia, he was going to have numerous opportunities of proving its deadly legend true, raising the primaeval blade against his own siblings but never, until the end of this cycle, was his hand going to strike one of the Endless. Not with this arcane weapon, at least. Now, when half of the Spear of Ages belonged to fantasy and the other half to reason, a new power was called into existence to accommodate this dissonance: oneiromancy, the art of prediction through dreams.

"Wouldn't it be considered rude for one of the Endless to seek out the companionship of one of the Pillars of Eternity?"

"We are peers now, darling Dream," you reminded him. It was utterly bizarre to consider one of the Endless as anything else than below you but perhaps too much time had already passed to dwell on your differences. "All you have to do is ask."

He didn't speak right away as if he needed more time to ponder his request. Only now, having escaped the darkness of the dungeon you were held captive in, did you notice the strange yet captivating shade of blue in his eyes - they were the same colour as the sky sea once filled with glowing jellyfish you remembered so fondly.

Finally, Morpheus took a bold step towards you. The stern, cold look in his eyes suddenly became mild as they studied your face. His face stopped intimately close to yours. "Come with me," he begged barely above a whisper as though he was afraid of anyone else becoming privy to the desires of his heart.

"That is not a question," you answered equally quietly.

"Allow me to rephrase: will you marry me?"

Staring at him in thoughtful silence, you couldn't help but smile. Some part of you knew this was going to happen the moment he stepped into the confinements of your prison for the very first time. Perhaps, the curious resemblance between his eyes and the strange sea sky was more than a random occurrence. "It is not chance that makes you say this but consequence."

His face lit up with amusement or curiosity. Dream's lips, too, contorted into a smile but it seemed to be a reflex rather than a conscious choice. "Consequence of what, if I may ask?"

"Of things that I have done," you answered. In a truly tempting fashion, your arms circled his neck. You leaned in to whisper something in his ear, making Morpheus sharply breathe in as he felt your own breath against his skin: "And as a consequence of everything that you have done, I shall tell you 'yes' without hesitation."

How do I know this story, you ask? Well, of course they themselves told me! I could ask my father to tell me any story ever dreamt but so often I'd demand to be told the very same one over and over again - the tale of how he met my mother.

Growing up, I was always headed on an expedition to find the Spear of Ages, at least one half of it but I never did. As Dreaming and Shangri-La are far and wide, the weapon was nowhere to be found. "The spear can not show you anything that you don't already know, Mimir," my mother used to say. Perhaps, she was right.

But the day is growing shorter, dear student, and you mustn't linger beyond nightfall. I bid you farewell. May you dream of wisdom and may you be wise in choosing your dreams.

TAGLIST: @deniixlovezelda

do you guys think neil gaiman knows we call his dark charismatic and extremely powerful anthropomorphic embodiment of the universe’s natural forces, baby girl?

me and the girlies saying hi to each other

I agree to all of them except for Dream. He would probably cry then combust once he feel an ounce of affection

I’m sure this has been done before but here’s my take on this Sandman meme  Tag yourself.

Sorry for meme dumping but I realized that I made a lot of memes about Dream.. sorry about that.. Dream in the fic is just so... memeable..

The Dream That Got Away

Chapter 10

Pairing: Dark!Morpheus x You (no Y/N!)

This is a multi-chapter fic — Weekly updates (either Saturday or Sunday) because I found a rhythm of sorts lol

(The entire fic has been outlined, so I will see this to the end, you have my word)

**********************************************************

Link to the Masterlist

Overall Warnings!! Take heed:

Morpheus is DARK – in canon, he changes for the better (or at least, tries to – but we don’t do canon lol, so he goes even more batshit crazy) cue obsession, manipulation, possessiveness, powerplay

18+ ONLY – explicit scenes will be present, some explicit language

DUB-CON and NON-CON scenes

Character death (sort of)

Creator vs Creation drama

And other dark stuff that may be added in the future

This chapter’s warnings:

non-consensual kissing and touching

touch-starved Morpheus should be a warning of its own

angst, so much angst

threats of perpetual nightmares

the King of Nightmares living up to his name

You have been warned!! Proceed with caution!!!

Link to the previous chapter

Chapter 10: This Dream is Over

Morpheus left the library, and you on the couch, just a tad bit disgruntled at his Royal Librarian’s interruption – and for a second time too, however unwittingly so. You were already responding to his touches, and he was so close to finally taking you fully as he had desperately wished to for so long. But, perhaps it was for the best – after all, he made a vow to you to take it slow until the fifth day tomorrow. Only one more day, he tried to placate himself.

And yet, as he paced at the foot of his throne, he recognized the frustration invading his thoughts stemming from forcing himself to separate from you (why did he care, anyway? He is the King of Dreaming, he should be able to take you wherever and whenever he pleases). He was painfully aware how bottling these complex emotions like so might lead to uncontrollable outbursts, given his experience in the past.

Just pacing in his throne room and stewing in his thoughts won’t do – he needed an outlet.

He willed himself, with a bit of his sand’s help, to a beach at the outskirts of his kingdom; a beach only he, and on rare occasions, his librarian, had access to. On one bended knee, he took a fistful of the beach’s black sand, feeling every coarse grain in his palm. He stood slowly, spreading his fingers and allowing the sand to be carried away with the light breeze. Except the sand didn’t land on the midnight-coloured shore he picked it up from – every single grain started floating in midair before him as his power commanded so, gradually taking shape.

Into what, he was unsure of yet. However, he allowed his current storm of emotions to guide him to this new creation of his, eventually concluding the nature of the being he’s forming.

He had not created such a potent nightmare in a long time.

He looked around the black shores, his workshop of sorts, with his hands clasped regally right in front of him. His thoughts landed on a certain little dream of his, as he was wont to do.

The intimate moment he had witnessed in the dream of Oliver Chapman had led him to a flare-up in the library, and you had unfortunately received the brunt of it. He had stormed off to Fiddlers’ Green to find out if you had confided to your fellow dream about any personal matters. His heart wanted to believe your word regarding your connection with the mortal that had dreamt of you in such an insulting manner, but his age-old intuition told him differently. Experience had taught him to trust such inklings, and so he begrudgingly allowed an invasive thought to cross his mind: did his beloved dream harbour…feelings for the wretched human?

This was a thought he had refused to entertain at first, for it left a bitter, cloying taste on his tongue. Furthermore, he had no reason to doubt you in such a way. How could he? He had read so in the books himself: such was your steadfast devotion to him that you were willing to risk your life in search of him.

It was the cursed Chapman he did not trust.

Was he the one who had trapped you with magic? Even worse, had he brainwashed you against him, your master and creator? Was he the reason why, even after such a long time, you still had not accepted your eternal place with him? With a low hum, he contemplated gathering more of the black sand to craft more horrors he wanted to inflict – he might have a need for more nightmares than he originally intended. But should a third visit to the cursed dreamer confirm his suspicions, he would be forced into a more drastic, devastating approach.

Perhaps he could make the doctor forget? It would be like child’s play – with a pinch of his sand, the Chapman would forget about you, thus, you would have no more reason to refuse your function and shirk your new duty. You’d finally be more accepting of your fate as the King’s only consort, an honor he had no intention of bestowing anyone else. Whether or not he would even need to would be another matter.

He stayed on the midnight shores, concocting nightmares shaped in the maelstrom of his emotions, until just a little past sunset. He had planned on retiring to his chambers afterward – there was work to be done tomorrow, after all, and a dreamer to visit – but on a whim, he materializes into his library. He found Lucienne scribbling on her desk with the lamp on, having already dimmed the lights in the library.

“My Lord,” she greeted, polite as ever, putting her quill down and getting to her feet.

Morpheus slightly tilted his head in greeting, before issuing a command: “I need you to fetch the last Chapman’s book of dreams.”

Lucienne knew never to question his motives but, this time, she furrows her brows at the request. “Sir, you had asked me to put them away in your office with the intention of never touching them again. May I ask what brought this change about?”

“A mere hunch,” Morpheus replied, purposefully being vague about his reason. As loyal as she was, he and his librarian had developed a rapport that allowed her to freely voice her opinion on both matters of the Dreaming and personal affairs, but there were things that even she need not know – his plan for the dreamer in question being one of them.

With a purse of lips and a small bow of her head, she pulled out a set of keys from her desk drawer and quietly excused herself. Minutes later, she came back with a thick leather-bound book in tow and set it down on the table, dusting it off before handing it to him.

He gripped the book with unnecessary force, immediately flipping to its last pages. To the untrained eye, there seemed to be nothing amiss – but Dream knew better. He had handled an endless number of dream-books since the inception of the library, enough to know the final pages on the Sleep Doctor’s book had been cleverly and cleanly removed from the stitching on the spine instead of simply being torn off.

“Curious,” he muttered to himself, running his fingers on the portion of the book where the pages should have been stitched.

“Sir?” Lucienne looked on with mild intrigue, eyeing the book in the King’s grasp.

“Had there been any other instance of dreams going undocumented?” Dream asked, hoping to draw a more rational conclusion. Could you have –?

“None that I am aware of sir,” she responded confidently.

Could his suspicions be true? A bright flash of light followed by a loud thunderclap reverberated through the entire Dreaming, mirroring its sovereign’s inner turmoil. But no – he knew he needed to approach the matter more judiciously. After all, the vandal that tampered with the library book may not have been acting on her own accord. He tried to take control of his simmering rage, but in doing so, his hands, still holding the book, started shaking ever-so-slightly. This did not escape the notice of his worried librarian.

“Is there something wrong, your Majesty?”

Morpheus let out an imperceptible sigh. “Nothing I cannot amend, Lucienne.” Wordlessly, he handed the book back to her before walking away, retiring in his quarters. He made a beeline for his desk, where a quill and a small piece of paper lay waiting. He wrote a brief note on the paper addressed to his little dream, before traipsing to the expansive balcony that offered him a view of his Realm and the now-cloudy night sky, not minding the cold, harsh winds blowing against his form.

As soon as light touched the first blade of grass in his Kingdom, he would set to work: Fiddlers’ Green whom he would enlist to distract you, then the mortal from whom he would extract the truth, no matter the means.  

***

Ollie pulls you to him in a tight, warm hug with light shushes, trying to soothe your sobs. You’ve always liked his hugs, so you bury your face in his shirt, not caring that you were staining it with your tears. When you both pull away, he cups both your cheeks, wiping your tears away with his thumbs. He then places a kiss on your forehead, then whispers against your skin with the gentlest of tones:

“Then I’ll protect you with my life.”

His words were touching, but the last thing you want was for him to risk his life, not when the Endless could easily take it away with a snap of his fingers. “Ollie, he’s going to hurt you, I don’t want you to hurt…you could still run away –”

“Absolutely not,” he says, pulling away so he could look into your eyes. There isn’t a trace of fear in his, even with the impending threat on his life. At this moment, he’s the bravest human being you know, perhaps foolishly so. “I will not abandon you. I made you a promise, yeah? You will stay here, with me, and he’s never going to touch you again.”

He’s your only hope at freedom, now, but it would all be meaningless if your freedom isn’t with him. Trying to match his courage, you do something you have been meaning to do for quite some time.

“You mean, you…?”

“Take this,” you say as you place his dreamcatcher in one of his palms and cover it with one of your own. You ignore his befuddled expression and put on probably the wettest smile you’ve ever had. “This is yours. It always has been. I’m yours, Oliver, and as long as you have that, you have my heart.”

Your own confession takes you by surprise – who knew you had it in you to finally reveal your forbidden affections? Judging by his astonished look, he couldn’t believe it, either.

“Yes, I do. I love you, you big dum-dum. I love you so much,” a fresh set of tears makes your voice tremble, but they’re happy ones, and when you hear Ollie chuckle as he hugs you again, you laugh with him. You had not laughed in days – his laugh is just that intoxicating.

He cuts your winded laughter off with the gentlest of kisses on your lips. Gladly, you wrap your arms around his neck, still clutching the dreamcatcher as tight as you can, leaning into his kiss. Once both let go, elated and breathless, he holds the sides of your face in both hands and brings your foreheads together.

“I know this isn’t the time, but I love you, Mera, so fucking much,” he says with the widest smile he could muster. “I never thought you’d come around, you know. It’s what I’ve always wanted, it feels just like a dream.”

“Then maybe it is time you woke up, Oliver Chapman.”

Ice-cold shivers wrack your body at the sound of the voice, resonating in the entire dream-space – one you had hoped never to hear again.

Dream of the Endless.

Your heart rate goes through the roof as every hair on your body stands on end. You find yourself rooted to the spot – when had he entered the dream? Had he been there the entire time, masking his presence? Even worse, had he been lurking while you and Ollie poured your heart out for each other? You hastily conceal the dreamcatcher behind your back, away from his burning gaze.

Ollie recognizes the being that has come to whisk you away; immediately he positions himself before you, hiding you from your master’s view to protect you.

“Mera, stay behind me,” he orders you calmly.

You peek behind his outstretched arms to get a glimpse of your King. His eyes, the first thing you see, are pitch-black, so far from the ones that looked at you with so much warmth in the first moments of existence. The Endless that you saw then is gone now, replaced by this monstrous nightmare, with unbridled fury emanating from him in visible waves of black smoke.

“You shouldn’t be here. This is my dream, and you’re not welcome in it. I have placed runes –”

“None of which can ward me off,” he interrupts with a clenched jaw and shaking fists, his voice seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, overwhelming your senses. He takes deliberate steps toward Ollie, his cold, coal eyes never once leaving Ollie’s warm greens.

“You really think that a mere lucid dreamer is a match to one such as I?” he spits out venomously. “I am Dream of the Endless, the King of Dreams and Ruler of Nightmares, the one whom you owe your dreaming abilities. There is not a place in the Dreaming I cannot penetrate.”

Ollie, undeterred by the mad King’s words, rises to his challenge. “You won't take her away – I won't let you. She clearly doesn't want to go with you, so you leave her alone.”

Don’t anger him any further, you want to say, but you seem to have lost the capacity to speak.

The Ruler of Nightmares scoffs, an icy sneer forming at the corner of his lips. “Your hypocrisy astounds me, doctor. Were you not the one who bound her to you and manipulated her against her wishes? The dreamcatcher, that pathetic human magic is proof of that.”

“I don't deny your accusations, but I have never manipulated her feelings. Her love is real, I know that now, and so is mine. I won't let you take that away from us!”

“Ollie, no…” your warning comes out barely a whisper.

He either does not hear it, or he chooses to ignore it, continuing his tirade against your creator.

“And what about you?” he points an accusing finger at him, outraged on your behalf. “What right do you think you have to order her around and make her do shit against her will? You think you’re God?”

But the Lord of Dreams just lets out a mirthless, sinister laugh – one that sends chilling shockwaves down your body. “I am more than a God: I am an Endless, and one that can unleash terrors you dare not speak of, so watch your tongue. Or should I send a nightmare to cut it out for you?” he tauntingly asks, his sand threateningly circling his raised palm.

Oliver just refuses to back down. Instead, he takes a step forward, goading him on. You grab his arms in an attempt to hold him back. “Just because you have the power, does not mean you can give life to somebody –”

“Oliver, don’t –!”

“ – And hold their autonomy against them, you sick, twisted fuck!”

“Enough!” Dream thunders, the intensity of his outburst making the floor beneath you quake momentarily. “I have had it with you foolish humans trapping beings beyond your comprehension, all for the sake of your selfish, paltry desires. I will not let you, a mere mortal, covet what is mine any longer.”

Before your eyes, your King, surrounded with black smoke manifesting his uncontrollable rage, raises a trembling hand. His sand swirls with growing speed around him, getting ready to strike. He’s going to hurt Ollie.

“My Lord, no, please, please don't hurt him...” you find the courage to step in between your lord and the man you love. You’re not about to let him hurt Ollie, and so, with your palms clasped right in front of you in prayer, you beg. “I'm the one at fault, so please punish me instead –”

“Mera no –”

“Mera, my little dream,” the Dream King’s attention turns towards you. He lowers his hand, his voice softening by a fraction as he addresses you. “How you disappoint me. You lied to me. You threw away a hundred years’ worth of devotion to me, all for this mortal? By loving him, you have betrayed me, defied my will, and abandoned your role in the Dreaming, yet you still protect the very man who led you astray.

“I shall give you this choice, then: you will give me that dreamcatcher or I will be forced to give your beloved doctor what he so foolishly seeks - an eternal sleep, where he could dream all he wants without waking - forever.”

Your head slowly shakes in disbelief. Ollie would suffer in perpetual sleep, haunted by nightmares he formed, and all because you had dared fall in love with him. Was that such a sin in his eyes?

“Please my Lord, you don’t have to do this…”

“My dream, you brought this on yourself. Tell me now, before I think of a greater punishment. What will you choose?”

You bite your lip in distress, eventually tasting blood. Your Lord always keeps his word. And like he always has done; he now has you against the wall. You were always his prey, running off into a trap he had set – and he, the predator, circling you, drawing out your suffering. And now, if you don’t let him pounce, he’d hone in on another victim. It’s either you or Ollie.

As sick as it sounds, for you, it’s an easy choice to make.

Your hesitation seems to give it away for Ollie. He takes a hold of you by the arms, turning you to face him, but you couldn’t bring yourself to face him.

“Mera, don't give it to him. Mera, look at me.” He cups your face so he could look into you. “I don't care if he makes me sleep forever. We'll be together, then! It'll be just us, in here, don't you want that?”

Oh, sweet, sweet Ollie. Fresh tears start rolling down your cheeks, and he makes a move to wipe them away, but with your free hand, you lower them.

“I want all your dreams to come true, Ollie.”

A smile starts to form on his face, but you cut him off.

“So make them come true, in the waking world –”

“No Mera –”

“They need you there. You'll do great things –”

“No! Mera, don't do this –”

“Please listen to me –”

“I won't let you – !”

“Please, my dear Ollie!” you desperately beg, placing your palm on his cheeks. You put on a reassuring smile to try and persuade him to save himself, but you're breaking on the inside and you could feel it. “Do it for me. You are meant to chase your dreams, so do it in the Waking World.” Better you hurt than he.

You peer into your beloved doctor's face. You see nothing in it but love, sorrow, and acceptance of your doomed fate. You hate that resignation in his eyes, but you look into them, nonetheless. In your mind, he’ll always have that cheeky smile and that bright spark, just like he did when he first started talking about his passion to help people dream better. You’ll always have that look, and him, in your heart. At that moment, both of you get lost in each other, even for a few final seconds.

"Go live the life you’ve always dreamed of – for me," you whisper. "And I'll be happy and content just knowing that you did."

Slowly, you let go of your doctor's face, but he takes your hands in his, kissing your palms, desperate for more contact.

"Mera, I love you. Please..."

"And I love you, Oliver Chapman; in the Dreaming, in the Waking, and in everywhere else in between."

You feel your world coming apart when you finally let go of him. With one final choked sob, you turn to face your Maker; the Endless whose unforgiving glare was enough to pin you to place. You could tell by his look that the display of your affections deeply repulsed him. You cling onto the dreamcatcher for comfort with trembling fingers. All you want to do is to curl up in a ball at how his pitch-black, pitiless eyes bore into yours, but you swallow back your fear. Ollie had shown immense courage for your sake – he deserved the same from you.

The Dream Lord, obviously growing more impatient by the minute, walks to you intimidatingly, his smoky coattail trialing him behind him. He yanks the dreamcatcher from your shaky grip with so much force he breaks a few of its strings. He spares one brief look of angered disgust at the insulting object before looking into your eyes and crushing the dreamcatcher with his bare hands. Not once did he look away from you as the totem, a symbol of your slight against him, turns dust in his powerful fist.

Your heart clenches in pain, almost as if it was your heart your creator just crushed. Anguish washing over you, you collapse on the floor and clutch your chest, letting out a silent scream you try to hide from Ollie. The Endless, unmoved at the pitiful scene unfolding before him, strides purposefully over to Ollie with his pouch of sand in his hands. Panic immediately engulfs you, and you get to your feet, staggering toward them.

"My Lord, please, I did what you asked of me..."

Your words do not deter your creator, who promptly blows sand in your Ollie's face. The sleep doctor vanishes in a flurry of sand, gone forever.

"NO! OLIVER!"

What has he done? You double over in your grief, already fearing the worst.

"You promised you wouldn't hurt him…”

"I did not."

Morpheus turns to look at your quivering form hunched on the floor, face as stony as ever.

"I merely sent him back to the waking world."

But his words offer you no relief.

"He will, however, have no memory of you, of your time spent together, nor of his love," he continues with a snarl, "...for you. You are now, to him, a fleeting, fading recollection, a mere dream he had which he will forget at the first few moments of his waking hours. Nothing more, as it should be."

Your eyes, already blurry with the tears you shed at your beloved's parting, grow wide at this revelation – the King of Nightmares, living up to his title, yet you know you had barely seen his true form. There seem to be no other words you can place for what he has done.

"You're heartless." It comes out barely a whisper, yet your master hears your words clearly. He seems to be unaffected by them.

"No. I could have punished you, cast you to the darkness for openly lying, attempting to leave my Realm, and abandoning your King and master. Yet I have not, for I acknowledge that you had no hand in your capture."

Gathering all the strength you could muster, you stand to your full height. "I'd have rather you cast me to the darkness, my King. I no longer have a purpose or a reason to live. You already took him from me."

He takes an intimidating step forward, invading your personal space like he always does. With your master's face a few inches away from yours, you look away, wishing his callousness was directed at anything but you. He harshly lifts your chin with his forefinger and thumb.

He speaks, his voice slightly shaking with barely controlled rage, "Is this what it feels like to you, my Mera? Have you truly any idea what it is like to feel aimless, without purpose? Perhaps I can give you a taste."

You swallow the bile forming in your throat at the threat, but you could no longer bring yourself to care about what he can do to you. He has done the worst possible thing you can imagine.

"I hereby strip you of all your Dreaming powers. You shall be kept locked in your chambers, without any contact from outside.”

With this declaration, he uses his sand to transport you both to the prison cell he calls ‘your room.’ In the blink of an eye and a swirl of sand, you appear in your quarters, expecting the natural sunlight streaming from the windows to almost blind you, but the warmth does not come. Instead, you’re enveloped in the dim light source that is the starry ceiling above; the windows and the balcony are gone, replaced by nothing but solid walls, effectively holding you in your own, personal insane asylum.

"Here, you shall spend your time in isolation, contemplating your transgressions, your betrayal against the Dreaming and against me.” His scathing voice echoes around the dimly-lit room. "Call upon my name when you are ready to fulfill your purpose to me. Only then will I free you from this place and forgive you of all your offenses. Be warned, my Mera - Endless as I am, my patience is not."

And with that thinly veiled threat, he vanishes, leaving no trace of his presence, save a trail of sand falling to the carpet, leaving you alone in deafening silence.

Just as you start getting used to the quiet lull of your surroundings, you hear a piercing, tortured wail bouncing off the walls. Gasping for air and clutching your throat in pain, you barely recognize your own unearthly screaming. You collapse on the bed in renewed sobbing, wishing that your Dream Lord had indeed been ruthless enough to spare you the torment and just banished you to inexistence.

Ollie had gone to the Waking World and had forgotten about you. The only thing left in you are memories of him, ad in your solitary confinement, nothing stopped you from reliving them; every snarky comment he ever made, every bawdy joke he ever told, every fleeting touch you shared with him. It made your loss even more unbearable, but what else could you do but stew in them? His was the only memory you had worth recalling in your existence, yet he had none of yours. It was the spiteful King’s idea of retribution meant to wash away your sins.

***

You spend the next three days in absolute misery. Refusing to get out of bed, you stay curled up in a ball, wrapped in a cocoon of blankets, warming you but never comforting you in your heartbreak.

He materializes in a spinning whirl of sand inside your bedchambers. It’s a pure display of power at this point, for he hadn’t removed the door to your room, even if he had it locked. You kind of half-expected him to close the distance at once, kissing you in greeting like he always did. Instead, he just stands there, intensifying the already-gloomy atmosphere in the room. Out of habit, you get up and bow your head slightly, even if you were still in your nightdress.

Languidly, he makes his way to you, pausing until he’s an arm’s length away, looking down on you with a reproachful look.

“You have not called upon me for forgiveness.”

You flinch the moment he raises his hand – only for him to lift your chin so you had no other choice except to look at him.

You give him the blankest of looks, unsure how to respond.

“The sooner you accept your fate, the sooner I can end your confinement. So, I will ask you again, my little dream,” he says in a low voice, leaning downwards so his face is but a hairbreadth away from yours. “Will you carry out your duty?”

Your response is barely a whisper, fanning the hair framing his forehead.

“I cannot possibly do what you’re asking me, my King. I am only a dream, so why me? Why make me suffer so for it?”

“You are more than a dream to me, my Mera. Out of all my creations, I treasure you, love you the most.” For a moment, his expression changes, but that tenderness in his gaze is gone in a flash. “Which is why, out of all the treason my subjects have committed, yours was the most painful. It is within my right as your King to pass judgment. And yet, it is within your power to end your penance.”

He whispers, “You need only do one thing.”

At the end of his last sentence, he angles his head – your noses touch, but he doesn’t press his lips on yours like you expected him to.

“Seek my pardon, and I can make it go away.” He whispers against your lips.

But if you do, it would mean admitting that Ollie was a mistake.

“No. My love for Ollie is no sin. I have nothing to ask for forgiveness for.”

You don’t regret your words, even as your master grabs the back of your neck forcefully to pull you closer to him, making your noses touch.

“You dare speak his name in my presence…” he hisses.

Closing your eyes, you feel his lips ravish yours in a vicious kiss, seeking to possess – in its force you’re pushed back into one of the bedposts. His unforgiving grip on your jaw forces your mouth open, coercing you to kiss him back. He abruptly pulls his head back when he feels a wetness on your cheeks.

Tears.

Despite the salty discharge, you stare at him with defiance.

“You still love that worthless mortal,” he concludes with a faint amount of sick amusement. “I have not decided the form of judgment I should pass on him. Should you prolong this further, it would give me more time to create potent nightmares tailored to his fears.”

He seems to relish the way your lips tremble in terror. The thought of Ollie getting nightmares especially made for him makes your empty stomach churn.

“Or shall I remake the Corinthian and send him to plague your mortal alone? He was and still is, my perfect nightmare. The both of you, my errant creations, so perfect in every way, yet so flawed…Renounce your love for the human now, and I shall be merciful.”

But he doesn’t see you fervently shake your head, for he closes in on your throat, planting wet, open-mouthed caresses on your skin. You make a move to push him away on his shoulder, but he grabs your wrist harshly and pins them above your head on the bedpost. It was no use struggling against him in his firm hold, so you close your eyes, imagining you were somewhere else, as you feel his free hand roaming your still-clothed form, desperate to feel your warmth. As his tongue lavishes your pulse point, you let out an involuntary moan.

“Ollie…”

By the time you realize your grave error, your Dream Lord has already pulled back, tugging on your hair with enough force to make you gasp in pain.

He looks at you with a dark, displeased expression, seething in anger. “I have tried being patient with you, my dream, but you truly test me.”

“My Lord, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean –”

Your frantic apologies are drowned out by a maelstrom of sand engulfing the both of you. As you feel the sand disappear, you hear the loud rumble of thunder, followed by the thrashing of waves of an ocean in a raging storm.

You open your eyes to a different room. Your master had transported you somewhere else, but where it was is unclear – the room, however, looks to be inside an old castle. You can see the exposed stone bricks in its interior; against its closed, murky windows the rain outside pelted hard, offering you a view outside: deep, gray skies that littered with flashes of lightning, and a sea that tossed violently against the harsh winds. You’re now far from the Dreaming palace, you know that much. He had taken you here to isolate you even further.

The King before you places a firm hand on your shoulder, forcing you to sit on something soft – a huge bed covered in sheets of silk in the colour of his long coat, which you notice had already fallen to the floor. You pointedly avoid looking at him, your face turned to the side, fidgeting with the sheet. Out of the corner of your eyes, you see him shed his shoes, followed by his shirt. Suddenly, your breathing becomes more laboured, and you could hear your own pounding heartbeat despite the furious storm outside.

“My Lord, where have you taken me?” you start softly, attempting to distract him.

“Where we shall not be disturbed,” he says simply.

It’s when you hear him undo his belt that you make a last-ditch attempt to save yourself evade him and jump to the side of the bed to get as far away from him as you can.

It’s a futile move – you find yourself lying on your stomach, your right arm awkwardly buried underneath your body, and a taut, heavy, naked chest pressed against your back.

Your Dream Lord has you pinned beneath him, his thighs straddling your waist.

“No!” you cry out in distress; it’s the only thing you could do against the impregnable force pinning you to the bed without any wriggle room. You could feel his hot breath fanning the back of your neck. In response, he whispers over your ear:

“I grow tired of your refusal, dream of mine. You will carry out your duty to me tonight.”

“No, my Lord, please, please, I beg of you…”

But your fraught whimpers fall on deaf ears.

You feel a hot, wet kiss on your exposed shoulder, while a lazy finger traces your spine. To your horror, you only notice that your nightdress has disappeared when trails of sand enter your line of vision, before promptly vanishing into thin air. You’re completely bare under his gaze, and like a starved man, he feasts – his hot mouth starts leaving butterfly kisses on your upper back as he strokes the sides of your waist, while you lay below him, sobbing in earnest and unable to move.

“Please, no, please, no, no…My Lord, please…”

“You will not deny your King,” he growls against your back, gripping your waist tight. “For every ‘no’ I hear from you during our union, I will create a ferocious nightmare that will follow only your pathetic human until his end of days. Will you be responsible for the madness he will surely turn to?”

Still weeping piteously, your closed eyes flash vivid images of Ollie thrashing in his bed, screaming in his sleep at horrors only he could see.

For the last time, it seems, your Dream Lord had you effectively backed into a corner with no chance of escaping. The predator had grown weary of circling its prey and had now pounced, ready to devour.

***********************************************

Author notes on the Chapter:

Ollie and Dream's confrontation is the most challenging dialogue I have ever written. Next chap with will be full of smut, smut smut, so be prepared!! (I need to be, too, it seems - writing smut can be intimidating af lmao)

As usual, thank you for sticking with me in this!! Love lots!!!

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Author's notes in general:

Thank you, THANK YOU for reading!!

Please engage, comment and reblog!! I love feedback from you guys :) This is my first ever fic, so kindness is truly appreciated!

Thank you to my queen @queenshelby@endlessdreamqueen3 for encouraging me to pen this, as well as to my fellow Dark!Morpheus writers whose work I have thoroughly enjoyed and keep rereading :)

Post date: 12/26/22

Edit date: 12/26/22

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