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Follow me, reader! Who told you that there is no true, faithful, eternal love in this world! May the liar's vile tongue be cut out! Follow me, my reader, and me alone, and I will show you such a love!
-Michail Bulgakov, Master and Margarita
///
The devil has been roaming the streets of Moscow, along with their wicked companions. Spreading chaos, performing miracles, and driving people insane. Yet, as Goethe said, they are part of that power that eternally wills evil and eternally works good, often entirely by accident. And sometimes entirely on purpose.
Now the devil sets their sights upon a pair of lovers separated by fate. The next lesson the people of Moscow will have to learn is to never try to fight the truth with lies, they decide. They tilt their head, smile, and tell their confidante to issue an invitation.
///
Hob sits down on the curb, despondent. The rain soaks the bouquet of ugly yellow flowers in his hands, and he sits there, half afraid and half angry. He wants tears to come, but they do not.
The mist swirls in the city around him. It crawls through the streets like a giant cat that has decided it no longer wants to linger by the fireplace. Now it has grown hungry, and it is out on the hunt.
When his jacket has almost soaked through, Hob finally forces himself to stand. He cannot bring himself to throw away the flowers, despite their sodden and generally unappealing appearance. They're the only reminder of Dream he has left at this point.
Everything else has been lost along with their apartment. The rocking chair. The work desk. The leaking ceiling. And worst of all - the manuscript. Part of it burned by Dream, part of it by Hob according to Dream's wishes, the rest of it lost in the rubble of a home that doesn't exist anymore.
Midsummer Night's Dream - the most beautiful translation; annotated, rewritten so many times because Dream couldn't stand it not being perfect. Rejected by the censors for being a source of Western propaganda. Burned in the fireplace.
Hob walks along the streets, seemingly without aim. The mist-cat wraps itself around his feet. It doesn’t bite, doesn’t offer any comfort, just appears and disappears, as cats tend to do. The clouds sit heavy above the city, and Hob can’t bring himself to find any joy in it like he usually would.
Another man joins him. He is dressed in the way that Hob has always thought Americans would dress. Even the sunglasses.
"Nice weather, isn't it?" The man says. Hob nods. It keeps raining. "Would be a shame if this were left outside to be soaked through," He holds up a paper folder and -
It can’t be. Hob remembers burning it, the flames licking the tan paper. He remembers when he still had the energy to cry and sobbed his eyes out in front of the fireplace.
And yet. It's unmistakable.
Some things have been happening lately. They have been the sort of things that deserve a capital T at the beginning. Things.
(There is a rumor a man slipped on an oil stain and a tram ran him over. A poet that raced through the city naked. A man who went to work and found himself in Vladivostok in the afternoon after stepping out of his office. But that’s all they are. Rumors. Things.)
"Where did you get this?" Hob’s exclamation is almost, almost incredulous. He can see Dream’s handwriting on the paper sticking out. It’s in pencil because Dream preferred saving ink. He would also chew the end of the pencil when he was deeply focused. Hob would never dare mention this to him.
"Found it in the fireplace," the man says as if stating the obvious. The lenses of his sunglasses glint. The sky is still clouded over. "You should know - manuscripts don't burn," he shoots Hob a smirk and hands him the folder.
"Thank you," Hob answers, a folder in one hand and that god-forsaken bouquet of sad-looking yellow flowers in the other.
"You could give him this, you know. Would be quite sweet," the man says, motioning to the bouquet. His blonde hair is sticking to his face, and he looks quite dashing, in the way that evil knights in fairytales often look dashing.
"I don't know where they took him." He's not given up on looking. He's not given up on loving. “I’ve searched the whole city, but he’s gone. Dust in the wind.” He would burn Moscow down to find Dream if he were not afraid he’d burn Dream along with it.
The man laughs. “Should have said sand in the wind,” he corrects, smiling at a joke Hob does not understand. Then he brushes his hair back from his uncannily beautiful face. “I have a proposal for you.”
Hob keeps staring ahead, walking. They’re slowly nearing a crossroads. “What sort?”
“We will help you find him, if you…” The man adjusts his clothes and elegantly steps over a puddle. He grins. “If you accept an invitation.”
"To what sort of event?" The rain has let up, Hob notes. He wonders if it rains in Vladivostok this often. “And who is we?” He notices a dot in the sky getting larger and larger, until it is clear it is a bird. In a matter of moments, a giant raven descends on them, carrying a black envelope with a seal.
The man takes the envelope from the raven and offers it to Hob, who has to put the folder with the manuscript and the flowers into one hand before accepting it.
"Lucifer wants to make an impression at the ball they are organizing," says the raven, and it makes perfect sense that he would talk. It takes Hob a few more seconds to understand the content of his words.
“Lucifer? A ball?” He manages. He opens the envelope. He reads - and isn't at all surprised by the content. The raven and the man nod at him, the raven now perched on the man’s shoulder.
"Well, Lucifer has standards. They can't show up to a party with a raven as their dance partner, can they?"
"That does make sense," Hob agrees. The rain may have stopped, but the sun hasn’t really risen through the clouds. Yet it glints off the shades of the man and the beak of the raven. He considers this. Considers the Things that have been Happening.
And then he remembers the bouquet, and the folder, and Dream. "What do I need to do?"
///
"Did you enjoy the ball, Robert Gadling?" Lucifer asks as they walk away from the manor that is Hell.
Hob exhales heavily after taking the first breath of fresh air in about six hours. The garden and the driveway exist only in the shapes illuminated by the light of the windows. Inside, the ball has gone from a dignified ordeal into a full-blown orgy, and Hob is just glad Lucifer didn’t force him to participate in that.
He feels a little insane. What started this afternoon in a rain-soaked street has turned into an experience he will likely never forget.
The things asked of Hob in order to arrive at the ball were not as repulsive to him as he expected tasks from the devil to be. They were… nightmarish, to be sure. But Hob enjoyed being the nightmare for once, instead of being constantly tortured by them. Burning down the building of the translators’ association - the ones who refused to accept Dream’s work - was almost gratifying.
Once he arrived in Hell, Hob was attended to by the man from before - whose glasses turned out to have been hiding eye sockets full of teeth. His name - The Corinthian - was almost as strange as his blinking, which made a clicking sound. He dressed Hob in fabrics he had never even comprehended could exist. They were soft, yet strangely itchy, rigid, and yet malleable.
At least the color scheme was straightforward - a black shirt threaded through with red embroidery that matched the color of the waistcoat, and a suit so dark Hob wondered if it sucked out the light around it. The pocket watch with a golden chain was a nice touch, as was an overcoat that looked like it was made from the night sky above Moscow - dark with the smoke from the newly built factories, with the occasional star desperately peeking through. Hob, so used to wearing things much more mundane, felt a bit out of place in such clothes. He stopped The Corinthian from trying to braid his chin-length hair back, insisting to keep a piece of his ordinary self.
The man staring back at him in the mirror seemed like someone much more dignified and confident. Someone who was not afraid of attending a ball in hell. He convinced himself it was so.
Meeting Lucifer was somehow much more anticlimactic than Hob expected. They towered over him behind the mirror and spoke in a way that betrayed the fact that they were once an angel. Their red gown was in stark contrast to their enormous wings, and the color of it matched Hob’s waistcoat.
Hob decided early on that trying to make sense of things would only speed up his descent into madness, so he resolved to accept everything that hell tried to throw at him.
So, when Lucifer offered their arm to him, he took it and went along with them toward the ballroom. He answered questions about his journey to Hell and politely asked about the Things Happening in Moscow. They laughed, bells clinking in the wind, and told him that some madness is needed to reveal the truth. Hob was so preoccupied with mulling over their response that he nearly missed the start of the ball.
It was nothing short of spectacular. Turns out the devil is an excellent dancer, and while Hob was able to hold his own, they were very much leading the whole time. When he was not dancing, he was being introduced to vampires, witches, demons, and even faeries. After repeatedly being offered a goblet of something that smelled suspiciously like blood, he resolved to abide by the old fairytale rules, and refused any snack and drink on principle.
Privately, he thought he saw Titania herself glare at him a few times, as if he was the one at fault for the writing decisions of William Shakespeare. He shot back his most cheerful smile, and almost laughed as she snorted in disgust and averted her eyes.
"I think I have enjoyed myself, yes," he finally agrees, turning to Lucifer, realizing they have been watching him with a benevolent smile.
"You have upheld your end of our agreement, then," Lucifer’s lips curl up. "Shall we go pay a visit to your beloved?"
Hob's mind is suddenly cleared of everything else - how could he have forgotten about the reason why he was doing this? How could he have forgotten about Dream? "Yes, please, let's go."
"Ah, you don't want to stay a little longer, then? With a glass of wine?"
He looks for a way to walk out of here, but he knows there isn’t one. The driveway drips off into darkness that seems to contain nothing. Absolute emptiness. He’s at Lucifer’s mercy - but he still feels as if he has some leverage. More than he had when he was stranded on the streets of Moscow, desperately searching for any clue as to where Dream was taken.
This is what it's about - a poor trick to persuade him to stay. A way to threaten him. Too bad Hob has seen worse. He stares into the nothingness, and then looks back at the devil, and grins. "It would take a lot more than wine and a ball to lure me away from him."
Lucifer smiles again. "So I've heard."
Hob takes a step and - in the next one, he's in their old apartment. The one that has burned down, along with every piece of them. A memory brought to life. The past, and yet the present.
The first thing he notices is his exhaustion. It is as if his entire escapade has finally caught up with him, and he breathes heavily to keep himself from collapsing. The brown carpet he’s standing on is as uninviting as it is theirs, and something inside of him feels broken, cracked open as if split by lighting. As if he does not belong here anymore, unfit and unworthy to be as loved as he was when he and Dream lived here.
He hears a noise so familiar it forces him to look up from counting the strands of the carpet.
Dream is sitting at the kitchen table, as usual. His messy hair, threaded with a few silver strands, is falling into his eyes. He's got his papers spread around him, and he's gnawing on the other end of his pencil. As always, he barely looks up as he asks, "Love-in-idleness. How would you translate that?"
Then he sees Hob, and truly sees him.
The pencil clatters to the floor. Dream stands up as fast his fatigue allows him, nearly turning the chair over to stand and rush to Hob. They collapse into each other like two stars that were bound to collide.
No. Not like stars. It is much simpler. They embrace like people who have been kept apart for too long.
Hob, overwhelmed with both exhaustion and emotion, feels his knees buckle. Dream keeps holding on, and they both end up kneeling on that old brown carpet.
No words are said for a while.
Eventually, Hob gently lowers his arms to allow himself a good look at his lover, but Dream hangs onto him as if by a lifeline. His face is ashen but with a trace of a smile, and his hair is a rat's nest, as it always has been.
Brilliant blue eyes shine with unshed tears as they stare at Hob, dazed. "This is not real," he says, devastated. "This is not real, you are not real, the nurse must have put something into the water again-" His hands clench in his anxiety, still holding the sleeves of Hob's suit.
Hob holds him. "I don't know about the rest of it, but I am definitely real, love." He forgets about everything else at the joy of this singular moment.
Dream finally pulls back enough to see him properly. He blinks, slowly, like a cat. His mouth opens in the tiniest gasp, and then he pulls Hob to him again. “There is no god to which to pray anymore, but I prayed to any who might listen to bring us back together.”
“Ah, I think that might have worked.” Hob chuckles. Dream says nothing, expecting an answer to a question he does not need to state. Hob obliges him. “You can thank the devil themselves for our reunion.”
“Can I? Then I will,” Dream exhales, letting go of the embrace but clutching Hob’s hand to his. “If you speak truly, then the world has truly turned upside down."
"Isn't that the point?" comes Lucifer's voice. They're standing at the kitchen table, looking over the translation. No longer do they wear the blood-red ball gown. Instead, a mid-length dress made out of some sort of shiny leather wraps their body in such a way that it looks like it was made out of the same material as their wings. It might have been. "Isn’t that the point, to be turned upside down, to fall in love with donkeys, and confuse every single person with the other?"
Dream and Hob turn to them. Hob sees it in Dream's face, when he realizes there's nothing to fear. He's still holding onto Hob for dear life, but his expression, which turned nothing short of haunted when he heard Lucifer speak the first time, has relaxed a little.
"It is nearly finished," he says, a little proudly. "I hid it in my pillowcases. Learned the original in its entirety, word per word, so I could come up with translations when I had paper available."
A breath traps itself in Hob’s lungs and he cannot move for a moment. He feels real, yet this place cannot be. And Dream is here, holding onto him, but he is also imprisoned somewhere where Hob cannot reach him.
Lucifer tilts their head, as a benevolent angel would. "Do you see now, Robert? The Corinthian was right - manuscripts have a hard time burning." They turn a page with their long slender fingers. "You can burn paper, and even people, but ideas, those are difficult to kill.” They let out the smallest chuckle. “Trust me, I am in the trade. This has taken on a life of its own. It is something more than a translation now, isn’t it?"
Dream, with aid from Hob, slowly stands, pushing his hair away from his eyes with his free hand. The silver strands fall into his eyes again almost immediately, like moonlight streaming through a window into the darkened room that is his face. His skin is pulled taut from starvation and exhaustion, casting shadows in odd places. He's barely forty, but he's been through too much to come out singing. "It is. I still have to work on that. I do not know how much time I have left in me to finish it.”
"You will have all the time in the world, Master Dream," says Lucifer. Dream’s hand that is holding Hob’s stiffens at the form of address - an old way of honoring his studies. "If you wish it."
Hob looks between Dream and Lucifer. He does not even want to contemplate what Dream might be implying, or what Lucifer might mean with their answer. He’s aware of the reality, of course - but then again, the last year has felt like one long fever dream. Selfishly, he wishes to keep it for just a little bit longer.
Noticing Dream is shivering, Hob quickly takes off the strange overcoat given to him at the ball and puts it over Dream’s shoulders. Somehow, it fits him better than it did Hob, as if it shaped itself to Dream’s narrow frame, in order to comfort him but not stifle him. Many things have tried doing the latter over the years.
It sort of makes sense, doesn't it, Hob thinks. This apartment isn't real, just like hell wasn't real, just like a man with mouths for eyes hiding behind his sunglasses can't be real. Just like Dream, wrapped in a coat made of stars, free and with a manuscript in his hand can't be real.
But they are.
They feel more real than everything that is happening outside of these four walls. Lies, murder, starvation - they're all much more evil than Lucifer could ever hope to be. Hob would know. He knows both sides of the coin now. And he knows which one he would pick.
(I’ve picked already, haven’t I, something in him whispers.)
“There are many ways to continue your journey.” Lucifer watches Dream as they speak, their elegant hands toying with the pages. "You have spent your whole life trying to bring people truth through metaphor, through the subtleties of literature. You have done so admirably.” They smile again, and at this point, it’s getting a little eerie.
Dream, as is his custom, says nothing. He does not feel the need to respond when people are clearly about to continue their speech. He just stares back at Lucifer, unblinking.
Lucifer averts their gaze first. “You could have the power to show them the truth without anyone being able to stop you. No more hospitals. No more drugs. No more..." They motion to the tiny fireplace, which looks like it's smoking as if someone recently burned paper in it. "No more need to burn your own creation.”
“This seems like too much of a boon to offer for a few dances I shared with you in hell. What do you ask of him in exchange?" Hob responds when Dream doesn't. He's killed for him. He danced with the devil for him. He would drag him out of whatever is happening now if it's not something that Dream wants.
Dream now turns his dark eyes at him and asks a wordless question - probably about the dancing in hell. Hob waves his hand. It’s not that important. Not for now. He would do anything for him.
He's so tired.
So tired of running, of hiding, of burning. But he would. Push Dream out of the basement window to the street and bring the building down on himself and Lucifer.
"He has given it already, Robert Gadling." Their voice is like honey. Hob takes his tea without any sweet additions.
"Dream? " Hob asks, confused, eyes never leaving Dream. His lover has wrapped himself more in the coat, and now it is starting to look more like a king’s mantle.
"I gave my everything for that translation. There is nothing of me left." Before Hob can object, Dream turns to him, eyes brimming with tears. "You would love an empty shell. You don't deserve that, beloved."
Hob all but shakes him by the shoulders. "Well, then, I gave all of me for you. There's nothing left of me either. Yet, I'm still here, and I love you."
He leans over and kisses him, gently, softly. It feels like another layer of embrace, another promise of protection. There will be time for ardent passion, he tells himself. They will make it through whatever trial the universe imagines for them.
Eventually, He pulls back. He would fight the world, the real and supernatural, to stay with him. Dream knows this. He must. "So, what's going on?" Hob asks, again.
"There is an empty space on the throne of dreams.” Lucifer’s sweet and melodic voice is suddenly gone as if they recognize Hob’s internal decision to not take any of their shit. "The last lord abandoned existence a long time ago. Mine became the dominion of nightmares and pain.” In a twist of their hand appears a dusting of sand, falling towards the floor in a star-like shower.
Dream crouches down and picks up some of the fallen sand, gently as if caressing the petal of a delicate flower. There is barely any light streaming in through the cellar windows at this point, and it makes the room seem divided into stripes of gray and black. Some shapes disturb the angularity - Lucifer’s wings, the sparkling sand, Dream’s misty coat. Hob remains standing in the darkness offered by the shadow.
Lucifer watches them, mute for a moment, before continuing. “Yet the nightmares have become a comfort to many, as their waking world tortures them with every step. In those dreams, hidden behind absurdity and metaphor, they find the truth that they so deeply miss. I cannot give them that, not like a true Dreamlord could.”
“Dreamlord, hm?” Hob touches Dream’s shoulder, a dumb smirk stealing upon his face. He thinks he’s starting to get it. A little bit.
"I don't think I can hold onto this dream any longer either," Lucifer says. The shadows flicker, as if to prove their point. "So, you have to decide, Master Dream, and Robert Gadling. To stay here, back in the hospital, and out on the street in front of a burned house. To know that the other is alive and that you might meet again."
"Or?" Dream speaks, breaking his habit of staying silent. With the help of Hob’s arm and a nearby chair, he slowly rises. A few crystals of sand remain clutched in his palm.
"You can give it up. And try to give others the truth in a different way."
Dream nods, almost regally. "I have made my choice." He reaches for Hob's hand.
"And I'm not leaving you," Hob confirms, taking the hand at once. He feels like he has not slept in months - and he hasn’t been sleeping well, or enough. Or eating well, or enough. He feels like he's been fighting for years. They both have been. There are other ways to fight than with a sword or with a gun, he’s realized. Dream has taught him that.
"Then be on your way, gentlemen." This time, Lucifer’s smile feels a little bit less pretentious.
The shadows flicker again, and then there's a new door leading out of the basement apartment. It's a staircase with a doorway at the end. Their old door, which used to be half-rotted and needed a stepladder, is gone.
Hob offers Dream his arm to help with the stairs. Dream accepts it and Hob steadies him as they walk. It is such an old habit that it takes him a moment to realize that, maybe, now that Dream is something...more, he doesn't need that help.
"I don't think I will heal any faster, beloved," Dream smiles sadly, as if reading his thoughts. He has to stop in the middle for a moment, leaning on Hob for support.
Hob nods, because of course. He's got his own share of pains. "Up we go, then."
Together, they ascend the stairs toward the doorway. There seems to be more of them than what their eyes see. Before they step through the doors, Hob turns his head to see Lucifer still standing in the apartment, holding the manuscript. The tan folder that has been through so much seems unharmed by its fate, almost shining with light in contrast with their darkly-painted nails.
"It is up to you to begin," they say. "You can be sure that this,” they hold up the folder, “will find its readers.”
“Thank you,” says Dream, and it sounds different. As if he has one foot elsewhere. Hob takes one last look at their home, and then turns away, this time with much less despair.
“Farewell, Dreamlord, farewell, Robert Gadling,” Lucifer’s last words come to them as if through a barrier. “This nightmare is over.”
///
Together, they step through the doorway.
Behind them rattles a rumble, as if a building has come tumbling down. Hob flinches, but he resolutely does not turn. Dream does not even shiver, though he does stop in his tracks at the sight before them.
There is only a meadow, with a road that winds lazily through it. It is like a sketch an artist makes before they reach for the paints. The barest suggestion of a landscape that might take shape if only someone thinks to devote a bit of time to it. The air feels lighter here. Dream inhales, deeply for the first time in years, away from the stifling rock of a damp flat and the numb pressure of a world that wants him gone. His spine straightens a bit, and the coat frames him like a perfectly rendered rectangle of cloudy ink in an otherwise unfinished piece of art.
To his left, Hob notices movement. He turns his head and sees... Himself.
Ten years younger, his hair fully brown and much less shaggy than it tends to be these days. He is walking in the street - here made out of smudged lines on a beige background but in his mind clearer than any moving picture - and wondering what will happen to a man not perfectly aligned with the way his world is being ruled over.
He stops. Something makes him stop and look, look at the other side of the street, at a man walking opposite him. He is wearing black from head to toe, with a hat, a cane, and gloves to boot. He holds a small book clutched to his side in his free hand as if protecting a treasure. He does not fit the world, as it is now.
He stares back at Hob.
They know.
(Dream would later say it was love at first sight. Hob would stubbornly insist that they must have met before, the way fated souls do. Our souls are not yet used to parting, Hob would cite Tsvetaeva at him, with a shimmer of glimmering wings they each other call! And Dream would indulge him with a smile and then begin to cite Sonnet 116 back, to even the odds. He would always get to It is the star to every wand'ring bark, - and then Hob would kiss him, just to shut him up.)
The man turns and plucks an ugly yellow flower from a bush that grows by the side of the street. He walks over to Hob and gives it to him. Hob accepts it. The flowers are a symbol of betrayal to those who care for such things. It is considered taboo to gift them to a friend, let alone a lover.
They keep staring at each other. Neither of them cares for the made up meaning.
"Hello," Hob says, and smiles.
The man tilts his head. Smiles back.
They walk home, arm in arm. The clouds that have been hovering over Moscow part, just for a moment, and allow the sun to deposit a few rays of its glimmer on the petals of the flowers, making them look less dead and more beautiful.
The Hob of the present grins like a lovestruck fool. "You knew me, from the first moment."
Next to him, Dream smiles too, fond. “I guessed.” The landscape around them gains the slightest hue of green, a first layer of watercolor - before the artist has put in any details.
"You were right."
“I’m glad.
They continue walking through the meadow. Slowly, with no rush. Arm in arm, as always. They have to stop a few times because Dream needs to rest, but he seems less exhausted from the walking and more overwhelmed with all the new sensations. He smiles again, after a while. His smiles seem so much more unbidden here. “Look,” he says, tone almost excited, motioning to a handful of yellow flowers growing in by the road.
Hob grins. "You did that, didn't you?" The blooms themselves are not pretty
“Yes.”
"Sit, give me a moment." He lets go of Dream and rushes over to the patch of flowers. They cover more than a patch now, an artist's careful brush dotting the landscape in tones of muted yellows and oranges, each drop unfurling into a bloom. On impulse, Hob picks a handful of the flowers, noting with a smile their long stems. Some memory awakens within him.
He returns to Dream, who has sat himself down on a large rock as if it were a throne. The hem of his coat is now a little dirty from the road but no less beautiful for it. Hob suddenly remembers he's still wearing the shirt, waistcoat, and the black suit he wore to the ball in hell but finds he doesn't care. He sits in the dust at Dream’s feet and starts weaving.
It doesn't take long. The flowers keep spreading, the land around them gaining more vibrancy and detail, and Hob notes with delight at how the familiar scent of those flowers reaches his nose. When he is finished with his work, he stands and turns nonchalantly toward Dream. "A proper Dreamlord needs a crown," he says, very seriously.
Dream's blue eyes glint with tears, but he bows his head and allows Hob to set the flower crown upon the wild nest of his black hair.
It is not the neat and beautiful creation that his younger sister used to make, but it suits his lover better than any crown of gold or diamonds, or even roses might have.
Hob then bends, brushes back the gray strands that have fallen into Dream’s eyes, and does the easiest thing in the world, the one that comes to him more naturally than fighting or burning. He kisses Dream, kisses his Dreamlord, and takes strength from being able to do so in the newly-painted sunlight.
When they part, Dream slowly stands, and holds both of Hob's hands in his own, half seeking balance, half reassurance. Hob gives him both.
When Dream next speaks, his voice has the gravity of words etched into stone, yet the softness of a poet. "A dream will be nothing if there is no dreamer, and I would be nothing without you.” He breathes deeply as if it requires a lot of effort to speak his feelings so plainly, without disguising them behind sonnets of playwrights long dead.
After a moment, he squeezes Hob’s hands and continues. “Let my first decree be that you may stay by my side as long as you wish. Any who would try to part us again will have to face the wrath of hell, to which we both have gone on our own, yet emerged together and in good graces with the devil."
Hob nods seriously, but he's smiling. "That is a good law to start with." He pulls Dream by the hands to embrace him, the echo of the strong voice rattling around the land around them. It should feel stifling. It feels like freedom, instead.
The sun shines through the clouds as they eventually begin their journey again, Dream finding a conveniently sized branch by the road to use in place of a cane. He laughs at it a little, comparing it to his old black one, and Hob is struck by how much he missed Dream’s laugh.
They are nearly out of the valley, when, among the sea of yellow, Hob spots a wild pansy growing by the road. "Love-in-idleness," he smiles. "What are you thinking of?"
"Dreams, I suppose. What can I make of them."
"If you want my opinion? Anything."
Dream inclines his yellow-crowned head in agreement. "Anything."
---
Tomorrow, everyone in Moscow, from the general secretary of the party to the poorest man out in the street, will wake up from a dream where they fell in love with a man with the head of a donkey. They will go about their day confused and think themselves unique, and never speak of it to anyone.
And the Dreamlord will adjust a line of his new manuscript. He did say that it still needed polishing, after all. His beloved will insist that it's perfect but offer a different word when asked.
They still sit in the meadow. There's time to build a castle, yet.