Coming Up Next

Right, then.

Dream, for the time, was gone, and in his place, she was left in charge until his return.  It was not an official position, she was just the librarian, after all, but she had stood by his side for countless eons since the first stories were recorded in the hearts of man, and retold and told again around the campfire.

She was among the oldest of the denizens, and while she wasn’t the most striking or fearsome in appearance - dressed in her suit, the buttons of her dress shirt and her shoes all methodically shined to an impossible perfection - and rarely interacted with the dreamers, it was understood that Lucienne of the Dreaming was to be respected if nothing else.

Still. She worried at the chain that hung from her outfit, pinching the silver medallion in the middle between her thumb and forefinger as she stared at the stained glass portrait of the Corinthian, and then down at the empty throne.

She had called it a ‘presentiment’, when in truth, what she had felt in the moments leading up to Dream’s departure had been nothing short of pure and undiluted dread — a knowing in the fabric of her self, a self that was in part Dream, that he was going somewhere that she could not follow. A place where she would be unable to help, should he require it.

(He would never request it, of course, but that was beside the point.)

Dreams could not survive in the waking world, and not without the threat of losing what made them dreams in the first place. The pressures of reality were too great a force for most of the denizens to withstand, with the exception of the more robust nightmares, and perhaps Fiddler’s Green, as he was even more ancient than her, and among the first and a favorite of Dream’s creations.

Though, she highly doubted the verdant dream would ever want to leave the dreaming, even if given the chance. Out of all of them, with the exception of Lucienne herself, Fiddler’s Green was the most loyal.

She was still worrying at the medallion when she heard a cough from behind, turning to find Mervyn standing at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the raised obsidian dais.

‘Boss say when he'd be back?’  asked the pumpkin-headed custodian around the cigar in his mouth.

Letting the medallion fall back into place, she folded both hands behind her back. ‘Soon. He won’t be gone long, he reassured me. Once he has recovered the Corinthian he’ll return in short order.’

‘And if he doesn’t?’

‘You needn’t worry. Our lord is more than capable of handling a single runaway nightmare.’

Mervyn rolled the cigar in his mouth from one side to the other with his tongue. ‘Ain’t the nightmare that concerns me.’

She shared the same sentiment. But it wasn’t in her power to stop Dream. Even the advice he allowed her to offer him, seemed to land on unwilling ears most days. Lip service, as it were.

Just the librarian.

Descending the stairs, she told Mervyn that  ‘Jessamy went with him.’

Mervyn snorted, a plume of smoke exiting the triangle gap in the middle of his face that was meant to be his nose. ‘Oh goodie, he took his partner in crime. Now nothing could possibly go wrong.’

‘Jessamy is a responsible raven,’ Lucienne defended the bird in her absence. ‘Our lord chose her himself.’

‘She chose him.’ Mervyn corrected. ‘Took him under her wing, that crazy pigeon. We all know Death had something to do with that. The ravens were her idea.’

Lucienne sighed. Yes, Death did have a habit of meddling in her younger brother’s life, and introducing people into his endless existence that she thought might do him some good, and Lucienne couldn’t say she didn’t admire the repeated attempts... but Dream also had a talent for self-sabotaging all of his relationships.

The last time somebody had ‘dared’ to call him their friend, it had thundered and poured in the Dreaming for weeks, half the realm flooded. Denizens had to take shelter in the castle to avoid the worst of the raging storm.

But Jessamy…she was different. She was special. Lucienne didn’t know why, but Dream trusted Jessamy, and in turn, Jessamy would do anything for Dream. She was as close to a true friend, as Dream was willing to permit himself to keep.

Joining Mervyn at the bottom of the steps, Lucienne invited him to walk with her as they headed out of the the throne room. ‘Regardless, Jessamy will send word should Lord Morpheus find himself delayed. In the meantime however, I have a list of tasks that I would like to see done before his return…’

Behind her, she didn’t see the panes in the glass start to shift, and change form, as all three windows became a void of starless black that no light could get through.