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In one of the farthest universes from the one known to us, Desire’s lesson for Dream works and it works incredibly well. The characters in this iteration are not that much different, except that Alex is a bit less afraid of Dream’s wrath where Desire is a bit more impatient and that’s where it all falls apart in the end.
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It’s the eve of the new year, 1989 is a thing of the not too distant past and Dream has officially missed his meeting with one Hob Gadling.
When the human had theorised his loneliness and wish for companionship in 1889, Dream had denied it with a vengeance. After a century of confinement and true loneliness in every sense of the word, Dream regrets having told his friend off.
(And Hob Gadling is his friend. Dream knows that now.)
He had never minded being nude, shame in nakedness was a human concept after all. But being in this glorified fish bowl, laid bare and exposed for the world to behold, as the guards point in indifference at a fragment of his being, as though he were a mere animal that they grew bored of; he can’t deny that it chips away at him.
Add to that the lack of oxygen and water and food and all those little things that Dream has had in abundance before, all the things he had taken for granted (taken for granted like the companionship of his dear human), and the events that will unfold in the following few years will make that much more sense.
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On the 3rd of March 1995, Alex descends the steps to the basement for the last time. He is much younger than most of his counterparts are when they make this decision. He steps down into the dimly lit cellar, says his lines and then turns off the lights as he leaves.
(No reason to waste electricity on something that won’t even do him the curtesy of looking up when spoken, too. His father had been a fool - to hope that this thing can do anything but sit and stare and be, quite obviously, powerless.)
&
At first, Dream doesn’t mind sitting in the darkness. It had always been a comfort, giving him a short reprieve from his duties and the infinite sights and impression that lay themselves on him whenever he walks the Dreaming. Somehow the darkness takes that all away.
(Maybe it was a boon from their mother. A kindness and sign of her distant love. Or maybe it is simply her indifference.)
It isn’t a true darkness, which delays what is to come. Light streams down from the steps to the basement where gaps in the old wooden door are insufficient for a perfect seal. Dream’s eyes adjust and he cannot truly see, but he can make out shapes and shadows that walk in front of the door and that gives definitions to his surroundings, as it flickers back and forth.
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It is the year 2022 and he has sat in darkness for almost three decades now, deprived of his realm and his function - cut off from himself and the essence of who he is. His connection to the Dreaming weakened by the circle and then weakened some more by the various hungers of his human-adjacent body.
The streaks of light through the basement door had given him an anchor, but now even that is not enough. The darkness starts to pull him apart. Melts him down like sand atop embers and reshapes him in a process that is not in his control.
Dream feels disconnected in a way that is different from his severance of the Dreaming. He feels untethered and thus his perspective turns inward. Thinking, contemplating all the ways his actions and interactions could have gone differently; to not be trapped here for more than a century, to be not caught at all. His thoughts turn introspective.
And then they turn outward once more, trying to reach for the things that he is denied. He longs for his friend’s laughter and the companionship of his librarian and the reassurance of his dead raven. He wishes to drink and dine and sit at the table with the family that despises him so. He wishes to allow himself a reprieve of his duties, to indulge and relax. He wants to return to his realm and surround himself in the dreams of others, to redefine and find himself once more. He Desires so much and those Desires are finally heard.
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Desire of the Endless had very little patience for things that did not interest them and a lot of contempt for the things that did but had no interest in them in turn. They ensnared their dear older brother in a mortal’s trap to teach them a lesson, at first.
Dream had always looked down on the younger, thinking them unimportant and undeserving of his attention. His posture so proud and tall and above it all. And while his eyes held a universe, there was no space for the younger in them. No space for Desire and they loathed that and they loathed Dream in turn.
It was laughably simple to temper with the spell circle, to seduce half of the occultists, to tweak the words without anyone’s notice.
(It was just so laughably easy.)
They took to visiting Dream quite frequently at the beginning, taking joy in his pain and humiliation, then annoyance when he still wouldn’t yield. Still proud despite being locked in a stupid fishbowl. How dare he. Just when is it enough.
Five decades come and go - they appear no shorter in an Endless’ eye than they would in a human’s, their father's boon made sure of that - and Desire sees little change in their older brother.
When his Raven is killed, Desire can do nothing but laugh at the shock on his face. However, they quickly sober up when they see starlight drop down their brother’s cheek.
(They have seen Dream cry a total of two times in the past. The first had been when his first love had left him for a sun - Desire’s doing - and he had closed off his heart after that. The second had been when his son had cast him aside. He had written off family as a whole after that.)
It is not enough, however. He still does not call and thus Desire does not answer.
When more than a century has passed, Desire feels a tug at their chest. Wants that run so deeply and desperately, with an ethereal quality to them that it can only come from one being.
(Oh, how they have waited for this moment. It isn’t quite a verbal call, but Desire is growing bored and impatient. Almost desperate for something to happen. An incredibly unpleasant and ugly emotion, which they wish to rid themself of as soon as possible.)
They appear in a certain damp basement, ready to taunt and tease, when they feel an offness in the air. It is as though the air in the room itself is suffocating, clawing at itself in desperation for something more, reaching out for missing parts of itself.
It is dark - nothing that should concern one of the Endless, a concept does not need eyes to see - and as they approach the glass orb, they see a figure sprawled out against the glass.
(There were bruises and scratch marks on that marble skin. And the being’s eyes were tightly closed, as though shutting out the darkness.)
Desire smudges the spell circle without much fanfare and what follows can be neither described as an explosion or an implosion, but something else entirely. All the threads of the Dreaming and the dreamers come rushing in to the centre of their world, razing down the essence of the surrounding and leaving behind little but a shell. Desire can do little but brave the onslaught in turn.
They suddenly doubt and so in a lapse of judgement they reach out and touch cold skin, so cold and they meet empty eyes, so empty, devoid of their stars and universe. And that’s when pieces of themself rush in, ripped from their perfectly made nails and cut from their neatly styled hair. It all rushes towards what is nothing but hunger in the form of a being. Deprived so long that it now gorges itself on all that it can.
There is an unnatural light, as Skin warms rapidly until the heat spikes unbearably before simmering down to the average temperature of a human. Starless Eyes re-alight and shine not with the colors of nebulas and cosmic matter, but in a sick imitation of Fool’s Gold, fake in their glimmer and nauseating to look at. There is starlight running down his cheeks, as the gold eats through his pupils until they remind Desire of their own.
Their older brother grips and claws and then sags with an exhale, hand tightly wrapped around Desire’s arm. There is silence and then there is nothing.
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When Desire opens their eyes, they are back in the Threshold. To be more precise, they stand in their gallery, their back to the sigils. Disoriented, they turn around to the sight of a cloaked figure. They hold a crystal heart, as though in prayer.
Dream-Who-Was-Blinded stands unmoving in their gallery. The heavy red and black robe pulls at his shoulders and makes the once tall and proud King appear small. The hood hides his hair, his face, his eyes and all that remains is an entity, blind and undefined. Nameless and useless in its function. He introduces himself as Devotion, nonetheless.
(It’s a devotion to Desire and Desire only. He no longer serves humanity and it unbalances the careful equilibrium of the worlds.)
&
For the following days, Desire panics and calls a meeting with their twin.
(Despair takes a look at the Entity-Devoted-To-Desire and leaves.)
(Their plan had been to make Dream pay attention to all of them, but her selfish twin had overstepped and now Dream can’t pay attention at all. The feeling of disappointment is a familiar one and so Despair returns the next day with a few more scars on her face, but she returns nonetheless.)
They talk and discuss and find that this is actually not so bad. Dream is somewhat attentive and kind when talking to Despair. And adoring and awed when in the presence of Desire.
(It’s what they had always wanted. For Dream to pay attention and give affection.)
(It all feels a bit wrong, but it is easy to ignore when Dream smiles at them so openly when they remove his hood.)
&
On the night after his rescue, every living and non-living thing capable of entering the Dreaming dreams of Desire in all their glory. Every aspect, every angle, every facette is analysed and distributed and beheld by all that is and was and will be. Nights are filled with adoration and love for the third-youngest Endless and it doesn’t stop. What is a Dream if not an extension of a Desire for something impossible? People stop Dreaming in the usual sense of the word and instead Desire the unattainable in their sleep.
And for that first night, Desire loves it.
But then it doesn’t stop. Each night thereafter, every living and non-living things relives the same dreams, the same visions, forced to endure this endless loop of worship that is not their own until it is their own.
It is a dangerous thing for an Endless to be so thoroughly known. For Desire of the Endless to be so worshipped as they currently are. They thought they would love it. The attention, the offerings, the love and the desire.
But they hate it.
And they soon notice just how big of a mistake they’ve made.
(Devotion won’t stop following Desire. He never retrieves his helm or his ruby or his sand and instead acts as their second shadow. His tools of office neutralize themself, as Devotion looses his hold on the wider Dreaming - each night it narrows further in on the Threshold. The soft candy cotton clouds of Desire’s realm are replaced by the desolate landscape of what had once been the Dreaming.)
(Soon after that the whole place is overrun by rose bushes, which refuse to let themselves be pruned or cut in any way, growing an impenetrable wall.)
(The Endless are like planets circling around the same center in perfect equilibrium, and to have one planet circle another this closely and uncontrolledly. Well, it's easy to see the disaster that is about to unfold. Watch as the first throws the second off of its known path and hurls both of them into the unknown. A collision, an implosion waiting to happen.)
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Two weeks after Devotion’s ‘rescue’, a family meeting is called.
“It has come to my attention that the equilibrium of this universe have been offset by an unknown factor,” Destiny says. His book sits closed on the table in front of him.
“Even unknown to you, Des? No known unknown knowledge?" Delirium chirps, the silver flecks changes position from within her right eye to her left. She always forgets which side they belong on. “Woah, that had so many Ks, knock the knight’s knuckle knife.” She moves her hand palm down, then palm up and reveals a butterfly knife which she flips back and forth before throwing it into the air where it explodes in a rain of confetti. “Sharp things, hurt things, make them disappear.”
“What’s wrong, Destiny? You’ve not read from your tomb since coming here, did something happen- ” Death stops as gold starts to seep from the pages of said book, running across the table and dripping onto the floor. Touching it burns.
“This is precisely why I ordered this conference. Something beyond my sight is happening and I suspect it has something to do with you.” Destiny points in Desire’s direction and all heads turn.
They shift and pick at their clip-on earrings, trying to mentally put together a convincing case to defend themself when they are interrupted.
“Dream of the Endless, step forward,” Destiny calls.
(His chosen name is not acknowledged and it betrays Destiny's emotional indifference to the situation. He still loves his family, however distant that love may be, and does not wish them harm.)
They all watch with wide eyes as the cloaked figure behind Desire steps forward. Death frowns at his clothes - he is usually one to dress formally - and the surprise that he is there at all. She had not sensed him upon her arrival and not seen him in a century and a bit.
(He had never been one to call frequently, especially not to “hang out and chat” as Death would tell him to. She just thought that he was busy, delegating and expanding his realm, as was she ferrying all the souls. A lot has happened in the last decades, but she was sure that Hob Gadling had already filled him in on their last meeting.)
“I would ask you to remove your hood.” There is a startled intake of breath, as the Being-Who-Cannot-Be-Dream looks up. The expected universe in his eyes reveal themselves to have been replaced by Fool’s Gold, foolishly trusting and blind in their imitation. They twinkle and shine like Desire’s do and Death turns toward them in her anger.
“What. Did. You. Do?!” Each word is accompanied by an uncharacteristicly forceful jab to their personification. They really got under their sister’s skin this time.
“Allow me, my gracious Sovereign,” a smooth voice pipes up, alluring and enchanting in its depth and yet like a dagger through his family’s heart. “I am Devotion, servant and confidant to Desire of the Endless. After a century in darkness, I have finally understood what my gracious Sovereign has tried to teach me for eons. I spread the greatness, which I have witnessed in that dark cellar, and I bask in their light, as a Dream is nothing more but an extension of a Desire for something greater.”
(They are horrified by what Dream-Who-Was-Smothered-By-Light further reveals. The slow torture of it all and the guilt that they could have prevented this. So much has built up over the years, centuries, millennia - starting with a lone planet and her sun that shone brighter than a certain moon alone ever could and ending with silent cries behind thick glass walls that were never heard.)
(They all wonder if Desire alone is to blame or if they were complicit through their turning of their eyes and inaction of their hands.)
Devotion’s speech is followed by silence and blank stares. They are all caught off-guard and struck by the wrongness of it all. An Endless in the service of another Endless. A hitch of breath goes through their ranks when Devotion flips up his hood and steps back from the table, having told his tale and deeming it enough of an explanation. He pulls Desire along as he goes who shoots their siblings a helpless look. They disappear in a cloud of fine mist and sand that sticks to their hands and grinds at their helpless eyes.
Delirium wipes the sand mist from her hands and compresses it into a small glass orb, adorned with metal and chains. She leaves it on her brother’s seat, as she tumbles from the dining table and into her own realm.
&
In the next few days, Desire grows desperate.
(The twins spend a lot of time together, but even this is a bit excessive, Despair finds, as she for once is the one to go through her sibling’s hair in soothing motions. Their despair is both delicious and yet unwelcome.)
Devotion won’t stop following them and devote himself to every flick of their hand and every swoosh of their hair as they turn. It is creeping them out, having him stand in the corner and not do much all day other than observe and serve. When he meddles with one of Desire’s little projects - ugh, that couple had been so promising in their passion - Desire actually snaps.
“Will you just get out of my sight for five minutes?! At least?! Go bother Death or feed some stupid pigeons or something!”
“Very well, my gracious Sovereign,” Devotion answers and disappears from the Threshold between one blink and the next. Desire exhales in relief.
&
“What are you doing here, Devotion?” Death sits down next to the cloaked figure on the parking bench. Amongst the people dressed in light jackets or short sleeves for the warm weather, Devotion cuts quite the overheated silhouette.
“I was given four directives by my gracious Sovereign. With your presence at my side, I have completed one more.” He rips at the baguette in his hands and listlessly throws it after the pigeons, who scatter at the onslaught of small projectiles.
(The Dream in this universe is neither kind nor empathetic and thus he does not care for these measly pigeons, who could not even begin to grasp at the light he had seen and all it had shown him.)
(However, in this universe as so many others, he still ends up feeding pigeons. It is a truly strange constant.)
“Oh yeah, and what were the other ones?” Death still clings to the idea that maybe, just maybe, if she is kind as she always is and acts the same as she ever does, then that small aspect of Dream that burned away in Desire’s glow might resurface for just a moment.
(Hope is such a hard thing to kill. Her brother had taught her that.)
“They advised me to “get out of their sight”, to “go bother Death”, to “feed some pigeons” and to do “something”.” Devotions counts them off on his pale fingers, unaware that all Desire really wants is for him to go away. How ironic that they had always wished for his attention and care, and now can’t bear their intensity. “I have not decided what this “something” should be, as of yet.”
Death watches her brother’s eyebrows furrow in his deep thought and she already regrets the words that are about to leave her mouth. “You could accompany me if you want?”
“That is sufficient.” She could scream at how stilted and stiff his words are. A far cry from the slow but confident and thoughtful words that are usually spoken by the Prince of Stories. She wonders if she were to ask for a story now… would it contain more than Fool’s Gold?
(Death doesn’t give Devotion a lecture on their functions and connection to humanity. She knows he is incapable of understanding such now.)
(He still leaves for the White Horse and an immortal that cannot be his anymore. After much thought, accompanying Death still counts as “bothering Death”, so he needs something else to fulfill that last directive.)
(Hob Gadling is also one of the few constants present in most universes. It stand to question what he has in common with a flock of pigeons and a baguette.)
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“Tell me, Hob Gadling, do you still desire to live?”
There is a spill and then a crash of glass against a hard stone floor, as said immortal scrambles from his seat. Then there is cursing and frantic grabbing at papers and green marker pens, but there is a bright beaming smile as well.
(It might rival the light of his gracious Sovereign.)
“Yes, bloody yes, it’s always that, you know that.” Hob fruitlessly dabs at his students’ papers with a napkin and resigns himself to a long apology and endless teasing for the slight alcoholic smell of his whiskey that will undoubtably cling to the papers until next week. He puts all of it aside and then finally looks up to behold his friend.
(Because he is his friend. There is no denying that and isn’t that just bloody brilliant?)
But then he stops and does not stare in relief and mirth, but rather in confusion. His Friend - and isn’t that exhilarating to say - has always had a rather… questionable sense of fashion. Always black as night, even if the dyes at the time would not permit such a pure and dark color, and always just the littlest bit ill-fitting. As though he did not belong in such clothes, almost as though he did not belong here.
(And oh, just how accurate Hob was in his observations and deductions. So accurate and honest, it had almost cost him a dear Friend.)
His dear Friend is dressed in a cloak that even by his standard stands out in a strangely off-putting way. And above that, the hood of the cloak is pulled up and hides more than half of his face. It is quite ridiculous and strange and then Hob can’t help but laugh at his Friend’s expense.
Devotion stands silently and simply observes. He is undeniably captivated by the bright sound, coming from this mere human.
(It had been many, many years since Devotion had last heard something this clear and pleasant. The fishbowl had distorted the sounds and speech of others and reverberated in such an ugly way when people knocked against it with their fists or their canes.)
(Hob's laughter. It is a lovely thing to behold and the smallest bit of Fool’s Gold recedes from the universe within his eyes.)
“I’m not one to judge taste in clothes, I know I’ve had my fair share of fashion disasters, especially in the last few decades. But I must say, my Friend, that cloak is a bit much even by your standards.” Hob can’t help but speak freely, drunk on the joy of seeing his companion, whole and in the flesh in front of him. “Come, sit down and have a drink, although I’ve never seen you take even a sip in all the days I’ve known you. No matter, have you seen smartphones yet. Bloody brilliant things, I tell you. You see, just a few decades ago, they started this thing called the internet and-”
Devotion fidgets with the fabric of his hood before slowly lowering it to his shoulders. Desire’s never liked it when he wore it while they talked to him. And then he hesitates, but after a while he reluctantly sits down across the human, who exudes and gives his light this warmly and freely, and he basks in it.
(Desire never gave a time frame for his directives. They only ever told him to leave their sight for five minutes minimum.)
(Devotion of the Endless is happy to oblige.)