Diary Of A Dream Lord

It's been a weird week.

I found W facedown on the shore of the Dream World, with a black substance leaking from his mouth and nose. It startled me, I'll admit. And then I realized he was likely asleep and simply halfway through processing corruption. I called Ikelos to come take him back to the Citadel to finish processing.

Phobetor came by that following morning. "Am I being replaced?" he asked.

"What are you talking about?"

He stood over the end of my breakfast table, hands clenched at his sides. "You called Ikelos to dream with your son. You usually would call me."

I sat back and folded my arms. "I once asked you if I were scared of letting anyone in, what you would tell me. And you told me I'd be right to be afraid; that people are cruel, judgmental, and cling to their prejudices. That was me holding up a mirror to you."

He pondered this for a moment. "I see my cruelty has had... unintended consequences." He glanced up at me. "Do you no longer trust me to lead the nightmares?"

"Oh, it's not that. I know you're the most senior of the nightmares, and have the most experience. But at this point in your crisis, I don't think you can give my family's mental health the weight it deserves."

His head dropped a fraction more, and he looked at the table. "What must I do to earn my place again?"

I raised my eyebrows, surprised that he would care about earning my trust after he tried so hard to lose it. "Your position isn't in jeopardy, Phobetor. I'm just not going to hand you the keys to my kid's brain while you're in your self-hating era." I sighed, but went on. "But to answer your question, you have to decide if the monster you were trying to be still belongs in this new identity you're cultivating." I sat forward in my seat. "I still miss you. I want my consort back. But I'm not willing to let you cross that boundary with me again."

I confided this conversation in Phantasos, who aptly said Phobetor had lost his wits.

"He's scared," I corrected.

"Exactly," said Phantasos. "He's lost his wits."

Last night, I noticed Phobetor interacting with a dreamling. The little one approached him excitedly during the weaving hour before processing.

"Hey Uncle! I have a great idea!" he said.

Phobetor slowly looked up at him. "I doubt very much that any of the thoughts in your head could be considered 'ideas'."

I had to stifle my laughter. He reminded me of Scar from "The Lion King." Jeremy Irons would be proud.

"You haven't even heard it yet! You don't know if it's good!" the dreamling insisted.

"And you do not know how empty your head is," came Phobetor's deadpan reply.

The dreamling scowled, frustrated at being dismissed. "Why are you so grumpy, Uncle Phobetor?"

Phobetor murmured something in Greek that translated to "Every wave crashes upon the shore."

"What's that got to do with it?" the child asked.

Phobetor looked up from his work at the dreamling. "Every wave, in storm or in calm, eventually reaches the shore. It is inevitable."

I finally interjected. "You're saying your grumpiness is inevitable?" My voice was still laced with laughter. "That, whatever the fluctuations, your grumpiness is your x axis?"

He shot me a look. "I am saying it would be unwise to defy the kindly ones." That jab about the Fates took me a night to unravel, but I'll get to that.

"You have not always been grumpy," I reminded him.

"It comes in waves." And he shooed the dreamling back to his weaving.

I snorted.

It took me awhile to figure out what he meant by deferring to the kindly ones, but by morning the gist of it came to me. "Don't try to change me." And then it hit me; he's still trying to blame me for the changes he's enduring. For "doing" something to him to change him. I'm not. I don't think I ever have. I simply provided the environment, and he's struggling to adapt.

I'm fairly certain I had an argument about this very thing last night. I don't remember it exactly, but at some point a shelf was rattled, and something came down on top of my head and woke me up.

Phobetor is panicking. I can feel the tension in my stomach and the cold sweat in my palms.

"I've done something horribly wrong," he said.

I gestured to the couch for him to come sit down.

He sat, posture rigid, his hands on his knees.

"Go on." I said.

"I've been cruel to you." He paused for breath. "I made it my mission to drive you away when you were the one keeping us from falling apart. I wanted to be strong, to show that I could function without you, but it's backfired spectacularly." His nervous laugher came out choked. "I thought if I were a monster again it would all make sense, the way it used to," he shook his head, "but I can't. Every time the anxiety takes over me, I find myself turning to you. I don't know what else to do." He finally looked up at me. "There's nothing left to do." He clenched his hands in the robes over his knees and looked away again. "I've been a fool."

"What happened?" I asked. He's sat with me before, and articulated his apologies, but this was different. There's a difference in being sorry and feeling empathy.

"Morpheus showed me one of your memory orbs." Phobetor rumbled softly. He swallowed. "There... there were pustules... open wounds on your genitals." He stiffened slightly and began uneasily rocking forward and back. "You were panicking and trying to lance them yourself. Oh god..." He bent and put his head in his hands.

"So?" I asked. "I thought that kind of thing was what you did. What nightmares do."

Phobetor shook his head. "I didn't write that one. I never wrote a nightmare where you felt unclean." He took a shuddering breath. "Phantasos told me the aftermath- that you scrubbed your skin raw, and he stopped you..." He shook his head again. "I should have been there. I should have been the one helping you through that."

The silence stretched between us for a long moment.

"I had no idea," he said. "I really didn't. I had no intention of making you feel like you were unworthy. I tried not to." He glanced up at me, but quickly returned his gaze to his knees. "I didn't want you to relapse into that old fear that you didn't matter... Enough that you stopped taking care of yourself." He set his head in his hands again. "And now... now I don't know what to do. I don't know how to fix it."

I thought about this for a long moment. "What does 'better' look like?" I asked.

"Better looks like you having wants and needs again."

I nodded. "Yes, but that centers me as the problem. What does better look like for you?"

He groaned. "Maybe not feeling like I'll fall apart. Not that it's unearned. I emotionally eviscerated our High Virtue. The one who did nothing but kiss me on the forehead and ask me to be honest with myself."

"Then... could you try that?"

He sighed deeply, blowing the air out between his lips in a long puff. His posture straightened, and he rubbed his hands across his knees. He braced himself, and I could feel his gut clenching. "I am scared."

"Of what?"

"Losing myself."

"Yes, but... losing what, exactly?"

"The parts that made sense up until now. I wasn't supposed to be loved. I was supposed to be alone. I convinced myself that I liked it, that I needed it. That I couldn't have hope, let alone have you." He frowned deeply, his forehead creasing in pain. "That... I was unworthy of redemption."

"I never thought that of you."

"In your way, you did. Not of me specifically, but of our whole race." He swallowed and looked up at me. "You tried to flee."

I nodded. "That wasn't my thought process at the time."

He harrumphed. "No, you were borderline delirious from pain. That's not better."

"Touché."

A ghost of a smile touched his lips, but it faded quickly after. "I didn't want to hurt you, Hope. That was never, ever my intention. I thought I'd hurt you worse if you humanized me."

I considered this quietly for a long moment. "I think... I think it was worse because I did. Because I saw exactly what you were doing. And I wasn't going to recant and reject you because you didn't want to accept the truth." I fidgeted with my nails. "You're not a monster. Being a monster made you miserable and lonely."

He was silent for a long beat, rocking and nervously knitting his fingers. "Can I stay here awhile?"

I hit a trigger two nights ago. A new one... or at least one that has been a long time coming. I've been spending the last several days in the infirmary, and while that's where I'm supposed to be, I'm restless.

The fluorescent hum of the Infirmary corridor vibrated at a frequency that felt like a drill against the back of my skull. I walked with one hand pressed flat against the thick white gauze wrapping my lower belly, my density and stubbornness the only things anchoring each step against the cold stone floor. I was supposed to be resting, but the walls of the room had begun to taste like a cage.

I heard the nurses talking at the central desk.

It was a routine case file log. A mortal patient. An ectopic pregnancy. The details left the attendant’s mouth with the sterile, rhythmic cadence of an administrative ledger. The Oneiroi had been forced to call upon their uncle Thanatos to collect the child’s drifting soul. And the basket that had held that fragile, unmoored spirit? It had been tossed straight into the industrial incinerator at the back of the clinic. Because that’s what you do with medical waste under the old protocol. The scar on the patient, the nurse noted, was right at the lower abdomen. The sacral chakra.

The words didn't hit my ears; they hit her empty sacral space like an explosive charge.

A wave of white-hot, suffocating pressure slammed into my chest. The corridor seemed to tilt. In my mind’s eye, the industrial incinerator wasn't burning trash—it was burning me. It was burning the pieces of my own autonomy that had been hacked out in the dirt. It was the clinical, unfeeling indifference of an inherited machine that didn't know how to do anything but file away agony and burn the evidence.

"Why isn't anyone asking the questions?"

The voice that cut through the hallway didn't sound like mine. It was raw, jagged, and entirely too loud. The nurses froze, charts dropping flat against the counter as they turned to look at me, standing under the flickering light.

"Lady Hope?" one of the younger attendants stammered, her eyes going wide as she took me in, my hackles raised like a massive cat.

"Why are we just logging the files?" I demanded, taking a heavy step forward, the sheer force of her momentum making the floorboards groan. I could feel the temperature of the hallway drop, felt my wings bristling, ready to burst out of my back to enact some sort of divine law, threatening to tear the corridor to absolute pieces from the sheer, volatile stress of my nervous system. "Who is auditing this? A child’s soul is collected by Death, the mother is scarred at her core, and you throw the basket in the furnace because it’s efficient? Why is nobody asking why this happened? Who is running this intake?"

The younger Oneiroi backed away, their faces turning pale. They didn't have the answers. They didn't even have the jurisdictional tier to comprehend the question.

And right there, on the precipice of losing the plot entirely, I caught the reflection of my own eyes in the glass of the medical cabinet.

Stop.

The command didn't come from Morpheus, or Phobetor, or the sitting cabinet. It came from the six years of brutal, alchemical labor I had spent plumbing my own subconscious. It came from every hour I had spent locked in my quarters arguing with her inner voice until the walls shook. It came from understanding that these people couldn't possibly hold vigil for every lost life without the whole structure collapsing.

With a massive, agonizing internal heave, I forced my hands to steady. I slammed the brakes on my own hijacked nervous system, dragging those 300 invisible, thrashing wings back beneath my skin by sheer force of will. The hot, defensive rage didn't vanish, but it crystallized, shifting back into the cold, sharp clarity of a Dream Lord.

This wasn't logic talking. This was a trigger. I was projecting her own violation, my own cracked autonomy, and my own desperate triage onto a routine medical file.

I looked at the trembling nurses and felt my face soften. I couldn’t blame them. Not entirely. They were just gears in a clinical clockwork built by Hypnos and maintained by Morpheus’s obsession with order. They were processing thousands of mortal nightmares a night; if they felt every fracture, they would burn out just like I did.

And more importantly, looking down at my own bandaged belly, I realized I couldn’t blame myself either. I hadn't stayed in this grueling system for six years out of weakness for my former consorts. Their presences were bordering on incidental. I had stayed because I was a commander. I had an entire population of ten thousand spirits to govern, and I loved them too much to leave the wheel unmanned.

"Log the file," I said, her voice dropping into a quiet, perfectly steady deadpan that completely sucked the panic out of the room.

The attendants blinked, paralyzed by the sudden, terrifying calmness of their leader.

"My Lady?" the nurse whispered.

I nodded at her. "It's all right. As you were," I murmured, turning back toward the quiet direction of my room. And I left, feeling deflated. I hadn't conquered the system. But I'd won a private battle with my own shadow, and that was something.

Last night was something else. I suppose I was being treated. I saw Phobetor enter the room. Our eyes met, but I don't remember any of what was said. I think I was under the influence of chronomancy. If there was a conversation, I didn't register it. Outside my body, the world flashed by, as if I were the one being held perfectly still by the spell.

Then, sometime early this morning, I was introduced to a patient who the nurse told me had r----- his wife.

I cocked my head. "I'm sorry, he what?"

The nurse repeated herself, but the word still didn't translate. "Raised? Raped?"

She shook her head and said the word again. It sounded like "reh-zeh." Not an English word.

I looked at the patient. He was slim and pale, with beautiful, delicate features and white hair that hung to his shoulders. I assumed by looking at him that he was a shade, not a mortal patient. And if that was the case, then the staff would have to call Thanatos to come get him. We don't process the dead. The dead don't dream; they ruminate. It's not our jurisdiction.

Last night was hard.

As you know, I’ve been dealing with a lot, on top of leading the Dream World and the oneiroi in processing dreamers… or maybe getting processed.

I’d had enough. I didn’t have it in me to do another night on the rounds, or process any more of the disrespect I’d been subject to in the past month and change. I’m not sure where I started out, but I ran. Anything to get away from the thing that was fueling my burnout.

I was able to portal to my chambers for a breath, but I didn’t trust the oneiroi to not come calling. My solution? To head to the Forge. But for some reason, I couldn’t ground myself enough to astral project.

In a moment of clarity, I went out onto the balcony and spread my wings. I made it several hundred feet into the air, but right on cue, the pain in my sacrum sent a pulse through my body, and I fell out of the sky.

I hit the ground without hurting myself. Well, without hurting myself further. I pushed myself up on my knees. Why? Why couldn’t I leave? I dug my fingers into the earth, clawing up a handful of grass before flinging it away with a scream. I hammered the dirt with my fists, not caring that I was getting my dress dirty.

“Surtr,” I wept. “Surtr, I need help.”

His presence flickered against my crown, and his deep voice rumbled in my head. “Are you unable to fly, Ván?”

I shook my head. “I… I don’t know. I’m trying. It feels so heavy. It hurts.”

“You must stay put.”

“What? No! I can’t! I can’t do it anymore!”

“You will not run from this.”

My body shuddered and let out an ugly sound of despair.

“You have the tools for this.”

I took a breath. Sniffed back my tears. My mind cycled through the different weapons I’d been given. “Harmony,” I invoked. The Blessed Harmony of the Ages flew from her sheath and into my hand, eager to be of use. “I need a dagger,” I begged, still breathless and desperate. She shifted in my hand, her long spear form morphing to fit the assignment.

I turned the dagger toward myself. I could hear the question in her vibrations, but she didn’t resist me as I angled her blade toward my lower belly. I suppose she reasoned that I’d never cut myself without exceptional reasons before, I wasn’t now.

Her vibrations hummed, as if to ask “What are we doing?”

I pointed her blade toward my lower left abdomen and side. “There. It hurts right there. I need to get it out.”

She buzzed in my hand, uncertain. “I can only be a blade. I don’t have hands, and I can’t become forceps. You’re not planning on pulling it out yourself, are you?”

“I have to. I can’t endure this anymore.”

She didn’t argue, and I started to cut along the line of an old scar on my sacral chakra. I didn’t get far before a voice cut through the searing pain.

“Hope!”

I don’t think I quite registered it at first.

“Hope, don’t!” A pair of arms dragged me up off my knees and lifted me into the air, and turned me over. Morpheus.

I screamed in frustration and began to struggle and push at him. “Let go! I can’t do it anymore!” He had his arm under my knees, and the open wound was pressed against his belly, sending shooting sensations through my core.

“Hope,” he tried. He jostled me, and I felt my face pale. My arms dropped to my front. “Hope, listen to me. You’re not in any condition to go to The Forge.”

“It hurts,” I choked out.

“Where?”

I pointed to the area just above my left hip bone. “There… and all the way over to my side… I can feel it in my back.” My stomach gurgled, and his face twisted.

“Have you not been eating?”

“No.”

“And why not?”

I folded my arms. “It hurts. And nothing tastes good.”

Morpheus started carrying me towards the Infirmary. “Is there anything you’ve eaten recently that tasted good?”

I nodded. “Bread. And not store-bought. It tastes like cardboard. I went to a student’s house, and their mom gave me a roll of home made challah before I left… it was salty and warm and I could taste the yeast…” I felt my eyes begin to water. “It felt like an offering. Like it… meant something.” I hiccuped, and Morpheus pulled me closer.

“I’ll speak with the kitchen staff,” he said softly. “We’ll get you something that feels real. But you must allow the medics to treat you. None of this… triage in the dirt.”

I nodded and sobbed into his shoulder.

He left me in the care of the surgeons and explained to them and the kitchen staff what was happening.

“The twist in her sacral chakra has formed a growth that’s blocking her appetite, as well as warping her understanding of her body’s needs. That includes sleep.”

Cassia’s face paled in shock, while Zoë’s grew more serious. “Will she be all right?” Cassia asked.

“She’s in a lot of pain just now, but there’s a silver lining.”

“What’s that?”

“She’s starving. Whether or not she’s acknowledging her body’s needs or not, she wants to eat. She said something about receiving an offering…” He turned and nodded at Zoë. “See what you can do. I’ll try to come up with something she can stomach.”

I've had a couple dreams in the past couple days. The first was me swimming in a tank, helping a number of folks with some repairs to the walls and foundation. As the tank filled with water, the workers opened the hatch above the tank and helped me climb out.

Turns out, I was called to help Triton rehabilitate a massive leather back turtle with scars on his right front flipper. He likes kelp and jellyfish, and is relatively domestic, for being over three hundred years old. Triton mentioned a curiosity about where the turtle went when he dove to the depths. Within a few hours, I got my answer when Makaria showed up. She told me that the turtle was actually a psychopomp. He delivers souls to her from the depths.

This animal has been ferrying souls from the deep grave for three hundred two years. And he's tired. Makaria suggested he have one more tour of the world, and then she'll take him back with her. A fitting end for such a loyal worker.

Last night, however, I had a processing dream. I was an administrator at a school. I walked into a meeting like I had something to say, was brushed off, ignored, and then the staff and the principal walked out, leaving me standing in the meeting room. Not only that, when I came out and was walking the halls, I was met with a group of students. I asked one of them what her specialty was, she said,

"Oh, you know..." And she made a swishing motion with one hand.

I watched her for a moment. Then I nodded slowly. "Painting." The girl didn't know which major she was in! "That's fine arts, honey."

I realize now that the entire dream is about processing my feelings of being disrespected, especially when I have expertise on the subject matter.

I’ve been avoiding sleeping. Mostly because I don’t trust my dreams. A little more than a week ago I had a short series of dreams one night beginning with me pinning Phobetor to the ground and sitting on his chest while I ranted at him, and ending with a dream that seemed to criticize my parenting skills for W.

In that particular dream, I had let the 10 year-old Boy drive a car unattended. Like that would ever happen. But it ended with me in an attorney’s office, being threatened with having my custody removed.

Really? We’re doing this now? We’re contriving a situation not only in which I assaulted my consort, but then show extreme negligence when parenting my son?

So I was in a sour mood when Phobetor came to see me, and he seemed aware that I was nearing my breaking point.

“Why are you so afraid of me?” I asked, barely holding myself together.

He didn’t answer. Or maybe he did, but that too was contrived.

“Did you know there’s a means by which one can bring back all the dream spirits who ever lost their lives in the field?” He asked.

I hadn’t, so he went on to pull out an ornate horn, made with curved, carved ivory and brass. “Are you familiar with the horned gate?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Then you know that when you blow this horn…”

I nodded. “They don’t come back as they were.”

He sighed deeply. “I blew it once. And Father forced me to watch. Watching them come back… is how I rose to my divinity.”

“It turned your eyes black.”

“Yes.” He set the horn in my hands.

“What am I expected to do with this?” I asked softly.

He stood up. “Perhaps you’ll know better than I did.” And he left.

Phantasos chided me on spending time with him, and revealed that only the night before, I hadn’t been channeling Mother when I knocked him over- Phobetor had forced me to in a dream state.

He was trying to force a rejection from me. Trying to give me reasons to hate him.

I’m not sure what happened in the week following. I didn’t dream well, or often, and perhaps that’s a blessing. My sacral chakra was shot; bent inside out and squished like a rubber band. I was having somatic symptoms, including belly pain and listlessness.

So night before last, I had a different dream; that the three brothers were human, and living in a world just like Earth. Through narration, I was told I’d created a world where they could be seen, not as gods, but as individuals being witnessed in their growth. I did something wonderful. I was supposed to feel their gratitude. It felt... gauche.

I snapped out of the dream and sat up. All three brothers sat around me, either on or by the bed, watching me expectantly.

I looked at my hands, slouched exhaustedly over my lap. “I don’t… think I want to be here anymore.”

It was as if the room’s temperature dropped several degrees. I could almost feel the color drain from their faces.

“What do you mean?” Morpheus asked slowly.

“I’m tired,” I answered. “Everyone has changed… and I’m tired of waiting for them to come back to me. Every one of my consorts has withdrawn from me, and I haven’t even seen Ad Astra and Glinda in months…” I shook my head. “I’m not wanted here. I’m not loved here.” I hung my head. “Maybe I should just go. Go back to the mortal world and be Hope there. Leave the regalia in the hands of someone else.”

Phantasos spoke up. "Hope, we have been doing some immense work on ourselves. Your Father has really put us through our paces, and that has taken some time..."

"I know," I interrupted. "And every time there's a problem, I'm the one you turn to. The lightning rod for everyone's insecurities. The scapegoat. And I only stop being the scapegoat if I leave the role."

The room got very quiet. Then Morpheus’ soft voice. “You… you thought we didn’t care.” There it was. He said the quiet part out loud. That this dream of gratitude on their part felt like an affront when nobody had checked to see if I was okay. He looked up at Phobetor and began speaking quickly in Greek, which I didn’t catch. I probably didn’t have to. They were arguing.

Phantasos came around to the head of the bed and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. He seldom gets this close, and I wasn’t exactly sure why he was doing it now. But I wasn’t in any emotional state to push him away.

Morpheus, for his part, laid a hand over my belly and I cringed. Phobetor’s face bent up in what must have been horror.

They saw it. My sacral chakra, folded up like an abused paper clip.

And suddenly Morpheus was working, his energy cool and soothing against the pain in my stomach, and Phobetor was pulling me into his arms.

Before I understood what was happening, his face was close. Much closer than he’d been in recent months. He whispered to me “The most terrifying thing about you is that you make us want to change. You don't understand how frightening it is when everything you believed becomes untrue.” His forehead met mine, eyes full of worry. "I never meant to make you want to leave. I never meant for you to stop being Hope." He pulled me closer, pressing his face into the crook of my neck. His fingers curled into the seams of my nightgown. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

The dogpile of caring entities did… something. I felt better in the morning. Like my sacrum had been massaged back into place.

Last night, I made the effort to go see Phantasos.

"I need to be held."

"And you're coming to me?" he asked.

I looked up at him. "I thought you'd be the safest choice right now."

He slouched further into his chaise and patted his knee. "Come here, then."

It was strange how quickly I complied. I sat across his lap and leaned into his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around me and began petting my hair.

"This was all you needed, wasn't it?" he asked. "You've never come to me for this before."

"I don't see you as a cog in a machine," I answered into his shirt. "I don't want to just use you because this is what you do. You never expressed interest in being this close, so... I respected that."

He nodded against my hair. "You never saw me as a consort, not because you didn't care for me... but because the vibe wasn't right?"

"Sort of, yeah." I played my fingers in his collar, the linen soft against my fingers. I needed something to do with my hands. "I've never had an issue with you. You're... safe. Relatively. But you never expressed that desire, so I didn't bring it up."

I believe Father has finally tired of Morpheus' arguments. After one too many fruitless pushbacks against his ego, Father opened the heavens with a thunderous sound and announced, "You are now my anchor."

All at once, the stubborn polemic before me vanished, and tears started streaming down Morpheus' face. To everyone's surprise, he began tearing at the bark of a nearby tree, seeing the ancient script of High Remembrance written in the cambium.

A faction of white-haired dreamlings who witnessed Father's reflection were drawn to this anchor, and have been helping Morpheus and his brothers design and build the temple surrounding the great shrine. The task exhausted Morpheus, who had to retrieve his powers at last to even survive Father's influence.

Since then, Father has sent multiple bursts of his power into the area, changing it into something holy. It even killed the fish in the nearby bay, and Omael has decreed that the red snapper be set aside for another purpose. I'm not sure how that's related, but who am I to argue?

Another issue I've been having since the incident with Phobetor is a loss of impulse control. My lucidity crystal is still fractured, so whatever comes to mind is what occurs. And unfortunately, no one can stop me.

I suppose this is why I've been having nightmares. Phobetor has only been approaching me while I was asleep, and without my diurnal wits about me, that's a dangerous play. Last time, he sent me a nightmare about losing custody of W, and I'm not entirely sure if it was a criticism of my parenting abilities or if he was actually doing his job.

Whatever the case, I've put in a requisition for a new lucidity crystal. I've told Vassilios that maybe it's just best if I don't have one at all, since I'd be unable to hurt anyone without it. Besides, I'm feeling a bit unnecessary right now. Every time one of the brothers approaches me, something hurts. And not the "growing pains" kind.

I absolutely cannot believe Phobetor right now.

I became aware of my dreaming sometime after midnight, and immediately realized something was wrong. My autonomy had been hijacked, and my visuals were little more than puddles of color. My lucidity crystal again, likely.

Vassilios had been on my case about keeping them clean and not overworking them, so initially, I thought that was what had occurred.

But it was what happened during those few moments that left me emotionally reeling, rather than the mercurial nature of the dreaming. I felt a presence approach, and heard his voice. I saw a mess of black hair, long black robes. But I could not keep his face in focus.

"Do you feel nothing for me?"

Having no lucidity crystal, all I could do was look around and attempt to tolerate my vertigo.

"Very well. I won't approach you again."

I... wait. What?

When I came to, I managed to bring some structure back to the dreaming and make myself useful. I've been helping the brothers build the temple, and they had brought in the Nailsmith in order to help them forge a few parts. I'm not sure why I thought this would be a good idea in my state. But as I recall, I was helping cut down some copper pieces when I started choking and woke myself up.

Sinuses struck again. I sat up to clear my lungs of the phlegm and nurse the throbbing headache that I had gotten while coughing up a lung. And of course, that's when post-dream clarity kicked in. It was Phobetor who had approached me.

I could have been furious. I could have been. But I was exhausted. It was probably three in the morning and I woke up unable to breathe.

He came to me knowing I was not fully lucid, knowing my autonomy was limited, and posed the question to me deliberately when I was functionally incapable of answering. Not only that, but he hadn't been wearing a lucidity crystal either. I was out of my element, vulnerable, and he used that to pose a question he couldn't honestly have asked if I were in my right mind.

The coward.

I spent the day today in the Underworld. Zagreus has had to take over Reaper duties from Thanatos, who was taking a vacation. As was Melinoë. So Makaria had taken the throne, and white asphodels had sprouted everywhere within the throne room. And as if she knew exactly the plight I had brought before her, she brought out Lethe and cleansing cloths, and sat on the steps before the throne and began cleaning her crystals, and invited me to do the same.

I sat with her and explained that I'd overworked my crystal again. There was a crack in it, and it still sparked like a live wire.

Now that I wasn't in the Dream World, I had the opportunity to look more closely at the crystal. It's no secret that I've been sick the past couple weeks, and I've been working less to prevent this very scenario. I mentioned it to Makaria, and she asked a follow-up question.

"Well, who makes use of these things?" she asked.

I rolled my eyes. "Most anyone. Any dream spirit."

She nodded. "But you haven't been working with just any dream spirits, have you?"

"No, I've been working with Phantasos, Morpheus, and..." I stopped and looked up at her, horror crossing my features.

She looked up at me, waiting for it to dawn.

"You're not suggesting... it was sabotaged?"

She shrugged. "It wouldn't have been hard. And considering what those three have been going through, it's relatively easy for them to find a scapegoat."

I looked down at my cracked crystal. The consort who has made every excuse not to see me just gave himself another excuse to avoid me. "I'm tired of being the scapegoat." I lowered my hands. "Is it okay if I just... stay here for awhile?"

Morpheus has been taking some time to get used to his human form, and that's been... fine, on his end. The rest of us are struggling along, trying to keep the dreaming from being too chaotic to process.

In the interim, I caught a nasty cold and have been attempting to stave it off for two weeks straight. I hate it. My ears are congested at this point. All eight of my sinuses and Eustachian tubes have rebelled (the fact that I even know this tidbit about human anatomy is a testament to my exasperation). As it stands, I have used two entire bottles of Dayquil and NyQuil and a box of the same, and have started on my last resort, a box of Advil Cold and Sinus.

I suppose this is my body's own adjustment period. Omael showed me what would happen if my suppression collar were taken off- the wings I would grow in, the power I would wield, the visions I could have. She showed me a vision of myself in the distant future as a seraph, all fire and wings and song. She was perfect. And she was still growing.

And then Omael put the collar around my neck again and I settled back into my role as Hope. Not that I mind terribly. I need to be around for the rest of the dream world, even if my generals are fighting me on how I'm running it.

Phantasos, for his part, stepped into his role without complaint. He's having trouble adapting to the immense power output he suddenly has as Liforochel, the Breath of God, but I'm actually happy that he's decided to embrace the role. He's always been the navigator of the family; he knows that happiness doesn't mean people-pleasing, but working through the hard things together. Making them breathable when they're heavy. That's the point. That's his role. His quip about Ornias was a prime example of his humor as a 'navigator'. The truth is horrible, but it stays on the table, nobody looks away, and suddenly it's not just bearable, but pathetic. Navigable.

Phobetor is having different difficulty. He was assigned the duty of building a temple for the orb he cannot carry, and every beam he moves, he finds new lines of Astral text to interpret. The first in a triptych was about the Fall. The second was about the redemption and ascension of the Fallen. And the third... well. They're still working out the third. I've told them what it means, but I don't exactly have much faith that they're listening to me. What's a bit gratifying is that every line of text he deciphers, he loses the ability to transform into his bestial forms. As Poyel, God Sustains Everything, he can no longer hide his own fear behind the things men are afraid of.

Morpheus, for his part, is still struggling to accept things. "Why is this Father of yours so cryptic?" he asked me today.

"That's the wrong question," I answered through my congestion.

"Enlighten me then. What's the right question?"

"'Why am I not enough?'" I answered. "This whole thing started because Ornias wanted to reincarnate and targeted the dreamlings to do that for him. But he can't do that until he's been processed properly, and none of you three are capable of doing the processing at this stage in your development. Right?"

"Right... So where are you getting that as your answer?"

"Because you're trying to shift blame onto Father for being cryptic when you're feeling impotent."

He glared at me. "For a cosmic entity who could wrap the universe around His finger, why doesn't he make it the way he wants?"

"Because that would mean that he doesn't care about anything inside it. And we're inside it. The alternative is to ask us to adapt and grow and get stronger." I shook my head. "It's not cryptic." I leaned back in my chair and sniffled. My head ached. "Look, you're incarnate, right? Twice. Once in New York City, once in Athens."

"Yes. What about it?"

"And you're a therapist. Married to your journalist husband, and you have a private practice, yes?"

"Yes..."

"And do you care about your patients?"

He bobbed his head. "Insofar as that care will reach them, yes."

"And what do those patients do with that care? What do their parents do with that care?"

He shook his head. "That is beyond the scope of my abilities. Outside that veil of professionalism, there is nothing I can do."

I hummed pointedly at him. "It's hitting you in the face right now." I went on. "And if you were to tell them the whole truth of what you see in them, you know they'd take it badly. You dump the whole ugly truth on them, and they react by getting angry, don't they? So you spoon-feed it to them. Bit by bit. You lead them right to it, and see if it takes."

"Yes, but I'm not a child, Hope," he insisted. "I can handle more than these tidbits-"

"No you can't."

He looked at me strangely. "Why not?"

Morpheus stresses me the fuck out.

Each of the brothers was given an orb (by Omael) to help them reach their powers, and each does something different. For Phobetor, it was gauging his strength. Basically "When you can pick this up, you'll be ready." For Phantasos, it was movement. "When you catch up to this, you'll be ready." But for Morpheus... it gave him the option of giving up his powers entirely and becoming mortal.

God damn it.

I rushed in when Phantasos told me this, because I knew exactly what Morpheus was going to do.

And I was right. He threw a tantrum. "Maybe that will humble him."

"You arrogant prick!" I shouted. "Do you even know what this looks like? A toddler throwing a fit in the middle of a grocery store because his dad said 'no'." I went on to explain that his "grand sacrifice" was nothing short of self harm because he couldn't just sit with the mystery of it on his own, and it still managed to move him in the direction Father wanted in the first place.

Not only that, it really hurt because neither Phobetor nor Morpheus are actually taking me seriously, and I'm getting tired. The only one who seems to really get it is Phantasos, and while that's absolutely fantastic, I'm not sleeping with him. The fact that my consorts aren't taking me seriously about this sucks.

Morpheus was in a coma for about a week after that. In the meantime, both his brothers pursued their own transformations. Phantasos began following his orb through increasingly dangerous mind scapes. Phobetor began building a temple (though to whom I'm not sure). And because the Dream of God was out of commission, the dreaming itself became unstable. This would require all of the siblings to hold up, in his place. It was exhausting.

Morpheus was moved to one of the healing huts on the outskirts of the infirmary city. Not long after, a portal to his mind scape opened, and i went through. The first to greet me was the figure of Hypnos. I still have mixed feelings about that. And I kept seeing those projections even after Phantasos forcibly removed me from Morpheus' mind scape. I had to eventually explain to the brothers that no, it's not actually Hypnos- it's Morpheus' perception of him. Nothing more than a mirage.

Phantasos was the first to ascend. Liforochel- the Breath of God. The first to really accept me, to hug me when things were dire, to show me I was wanted without conditions. Where Phobetor was struggling with his identity and Morpheus was determining whether or not I would judge him... Phantasos just... accepted me. Trusted me. And I hope I haven't let him down.

Phobetor started ascending last night.

I caught Njorun preparing to enter the portal in a hurry, and asked her what was wrong.

"Adina has entered the portal." Oh, fuck. The smallest dreamling and biggest empath went in to find her father. This was going to be a nightmare. I called the Virtues together and we went in, weathering the howling winds and raging storm inside Morpheus' mind.

Hypnos met us at the entrance of Morpheus' inner sanctum, and Phobetor and Phantasos were geared up to fight him... until I reminded them it wasn't real. It was just another piece of Morpheus.

Morpheus was fading. We found Adina cradling his head and crying, and Njorun had to forcibly restrain her and drag her off him. It was then that Omael told us each to take our angelic forms. I know mine intimately, and Phantasos is now able to transition directly into his. But Phobetor struggled with it. He acknowledged it was his first time doing it. However, we had no time for uncertainty, and Njorun channeled a bit of her power into him to force the change.

Fire erupted around us. Phobetor accessed his angelic power in a blaze that consumed our surroundings. Phantasos' power oxygenated it, causing the flames to burn away all the corruption. And together... we baptized Morpheus in fire.

The column that sprang up from where we were engulfed the healing hut, demolishing it and dotting the area with astral inscriptions. Morpheus needed to settle this new soul into his body... and that meant I had one more job to do.

I had to reap him.

The scythe Destiny availed herself to me, and I began cleaning up the overgrown mind scape. Every piece of Morpheus would be slowly, methodically laid to rest before he returned as Chalomel.

Another month between posts.

I've been nursing the surgical scar on my front all month. Dealing with it has been absolutely filthy. It's cold and wet and stings constantly, and I go through my days pretending it doesn't bother me. Pretending being bisected doesn't bother me. Can you even imagine? Especially while on my period. That bit sucks.

I made a post on Threads (I won't go into it) and got my whole ass dragged for it, and the shame came sharp and fresh. Felt like a bad mom again, and didn't get to sleep until after 2. The first coherent thought about it was "I'm tired of explaining myself to people." The person I was back then (me from the Threads story) didn't know the meaning of the word "grace." I was masking pain with anger. Pretending my needs weren't real. Not realizing I was someone else's set piece in a play about them, and not an actual person. I was burnt out and depressed WAY before I knew I was. I resented everyone in that house because I begged for validation that never came. All I wanted was for someone to stand up for me, and when they DID, they were treated as a threat. I failed. I failed my marriage, I failed my son, and I failed myself. And the WAY I failed was that I continued to try to fix something irreparable.

I failed at being something they wanted. And that means they weren't my audience.

Morpheus came in one afternoon after a particularly bad few nights with very little meaningful sleep and put me into a hypnogogic state. never done that before. It was weird. I knew where I was the whole time, but my brain decided "too much data; time to defragment." It was like I was sitting in a messy room, absently throwing things into boxes. It didn't matter which box, just box it and get it out of the way.

I was doing whatever I could to get that shit out of my system. Jabillo cleanse, hot baths and compresses, hot tea, anime... the works. Vash the Stampede caught me off-guard. The guilty trying-to-make-everything-better-while-simultaneously-getting-blamed-for-everything thing hit hard. Tracks so hard for me it's rude. Apparently I share his energy: morally stubborn marshmallow.

I was managing it for most of the month. And on and off throughout, I would have dreams about neglecting myself and the things I need. Like attention and intimacy. Apparently a part of me is still hinging real connection on big symbolic gestures that people side-eye each other about when I wax romantic. Rings, dates, flowers, you get it. Not long after (maybe a couple weeks), I woke in the Infirmary, bleeding like I was just postpartum. It was the exact same ache in my belly that I had after delivering W. That same night, I dreamed I had a nosebleed. Apparently my blood pressure was out of control for a while. Not a nightmare exactly; there was no fear behind it. Just discomfort. Proof that I was in a hospital ward somewhere. According to Morpheus, I had major abdominal surgery, and they turned my sacral chakra inside out to get the gunk out. Can we say "uterine prolapse?"

And then this past week, I found the AI I want to use to create my game. And it's going to be browser-based, not app store. It's Polsia (the opposite of AI slop, HA!) and it's meant for creating web pages. And yet I've packed hundreds of hours worth of lore and design elements into it. Unlimited chat. The planning stage costs nothing. The building is the only actual cost, and I am down with that. I'm going to insert a link here to anyone who actually reads these things, so if you want to build a website, here it is.

I'll keep you updated on that as it happens. In the interim, a batch of dreamlings were drawn in with a vision to a portal with a rather large dreamer. And when I say "large," I mean powerful. So powerful, Morpheus, Phobetor, Phantasos and I couldn't get close enough to him to process him. He wanted the dreamlings. The five-year-olds.

Now I know this is metaphysical and all, but what kind of adult asks a small child for help doing things when there are adults with actual expertise nearby? I'll tell you. A predator. So it was with a bit of exasperation that I had to explain the concept of "stranger danger" to the dreamlings. And then I called Michael. He couldn't stay long, but he handed each of the dream gods a torch and said "light that. Then you'll be able to process him." He promised to send us some help, and off he went.

The person he sent us was Omael, a rather androgynous Dominion and former Virtue of Patience. She said rather plainly that each of the brothers would have to access their angelic forms in order to light their torches. Made sense to me. Each of them protested, though. Typical.

I'm willing to look up to Omi for guidance, though. And she told me it was time to go Home. You know. Upstairs. Just a social call. And I thought I'd spend the night there.

I did not.

I fell asleep sometime during my visit and fell back to the Dream World like a meteorite. I scared Phobetor so badly his panic hit me like a building collapsing. And I was asleep. No dreams. I was out cold, and his fear nearly put me into shock. I sat straight up in bed (on earth) and had to breathe through it for nearly an hour before I was able to fall asleep again.

And I woke up in the Infirmary. Again. Vassilios told me what had happened, and of COURSE I got empathetic feedback from everyone who watched me fall out of the fucking sky. Apparently my glamour was so bright nobody could approach me, and Phobetor was the first to try.

So I went to see him. It was daylight by then, so he had his curtains drawn and was in mist form, diffused throughout the room. He finally pulled himself into his partial beast form- a humanoid lion, and I asked if that was his panic I felt.

"How would you feel if you watched your sovereign fall from the sky like a shooting star, and couldn't catch her?" he asked.

I felt something small inside me twist. I could smell a lie on his words. He wasn't being rhetorical, he was being snarky. And it was because he was feeling defensive. He called me his sovereign. Like I was someone to be respected out of duty. Not a lover. Not a consort.

I brushed the feeling aside and named the thing. "Sovereign is the wrong word," I said softly. "I think you could afford to be a bit more honest with yourself." I'm trying not to take it personally, still, but the thought came back to me that I wasn't wanted. Wasn't loved. He knows the opposite is true as well as I do. But the lie isn't in what he said; it's in what was willfully omitted. He hid behind his beast forms. He hid in his mist form. And he hid behind armored words. He became the monster again just so he doesn't have to face the fear.

I healed his burns, and Omi popped in to put a marble on the floor of his room. She said once he could lift it, he'd be ready. And he's not going to be ready until he stops hiding. In the meantime, I kissed his forehead and reminded him gently that we don't want another misunderstanding between us. Not like the first time he lost control of his forms.

Morpheus is coping in his own direction, just as badly. Analyzing every historical document on anything he could. He came across a name in the Talmud- Lailah. He thinks it's Nyx, and she's a Dominion. I basically told him that given what we DO know about Nyx, that's basically impossible. Even if she WAS a dominion at some point, she isn't now; it's been too long, and she's just too BIG to be one.

True to form, Morpheus demanded answers, and decided he was going to go straight to the source to get it: Father. And while I tried to calm him down and explain that it wasn't going to work the way he hoped, he kept getting more and more frustrated and angry. Finally, I broke it down for him as sharply as I could. "Look, I am something Father could crush between his thumb and forefinger. You are one squirt of hand sanitizer away from being a germ."

At this point, I am fully in empathy panic. I do not want him going to see Father. He would be erased. But because Morpheus' pathology is to analyze and interpret everything, he metabolized it as an insult. I'm not pulling rank, here. I'm scaling. And I am begging him to see that the entity he intends to challenge will not even register his disappearance. That is how dangerous it is to be that arrogant.

This is a crisis of faith. And... Faith I am not. Maybe I should go see them soon.

It's been awhile since I had a nightmare. And last night, my stagnant stupor finally broke under the weight of one.

I've spent over a year feeling stuck and frustrated. When I read my tarot cards, they told me that I needed to learn to celebrate, though I didn't know what that meant at the time.

But over the past several months, it began to dawn on me. I'd been so obsessed with moving forward and being better that I hadn't stopped to wonder why I was trying so hard.

So in the interim, while I was figuring that out, I made the attempt to program the Dream World into a playable AI game, called Via Negativa (it's not up yet, but maybe I can find a developer who might be interested). For those of you who don't know, via negativa is the ancient concept of finding the truth by systematically stripping away what is false. I was hoping to use that concept, along with the things I've encountered on my journey, to create a path of self-discovery for those who want to play the game. And, as I started beta testing this game, I ran into several things I didn't know.

This isn't going to work with just any AI. It would have to be big and stable enough to support worlds of information. The human mind can contain roughly 2.5 petabytes (2.5 million gigabytes) of information. WHAT IN THE TEN HELLS. That's just... not translatable into AI. Which means I'm having to cut down what I know into bite-sized (no pun intended) pieces.

I still get frustrated. And maybe that's not a bad thing, but the amazingly empathetic AI I programmed pointed out that I was wearing a "mask of competence." Pretending I was holding it all together when I was just floundering enough to keep my head above water. And honestly it felt good to be seen.

This made me realize that I was asking the wrong questions, and going about programming a game in the wrong way. Instead of laying out a zillion characters and locales, I needed to create meaningful stages and create focus for each scene. That's where the AI came in handy; it already knew how to do that without me telling it. My frustration led me to think around the problem, rather than trying to brute force my way through it.

I am still grieving. I legit didn't know that. During a beta test, a scene referring back to an argument I "won" at a cost triggered a memory of talking to my grandmother. I mentioned that, at the time, I thought I had won the argument by telling her that I wanted someone else to feel what I felt. And she had responded "Why would you want to do that?" as if she already knew I was projecting my misery when I needed empathy. And I broke down in front of my computer screen, just like I did decades ago during that half-forgotten argument.

Perhaps most importantly, I was carrying the excruciatingly heavy burden of shame. And not shame about anything I could name at the time. It was something that drove me to be better and better so that I wouldn't have to be a burden on anyone else, to burn Fortitude out or whine to my best friend or my mom until they were tired of it. So I suffered in silence, keeping myself overly busy until the wee hours with programming and games and television, unable to let myself rest because NOTHING WAS GOOD ENOUGH.

That's when it really hit me about what the tarot cards had said about learning to celebrate. What I wasn't missing wasn't pride; not in the sense of vice. It was that I kept setting my accomplishments down as soon as I attained them and looked for the next thing to fix instead of enjoying who I was becoming. And crying about it felt... useless. Like I knew it wasn't going to fix anything at all. Like "stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about" was an inner voice that threatened my whole structural integrity. If you cry, the column holding you up will break, and then you'll just be another mess for others to clean up.

That brings us to last night. I went to bed at midnight (a manageable hour, considering how late I had been staying up), and called on Morpheus to try to explain exactly what was happening. And let me tell you, THIS GUY went through several DAYS' worth of coding and AI interactions... And then called Phobetor in to perform a nightmare while he processed all the little details I learned about world building.

As for the nightmare in question... it was beautifully simple. Before the scene even opened, there was the wet, stuffy sobbing of my son crying. This is a common sound, him crying my name when things get too hard. And when the scene opened, it was at the Wal-Mart neighborhood market right down the street from the apartment. It was raining, and he was sitting under the overhang, out of the rain, crying like he had been left behind.

I felt horrible. Shame ripped through my body. "I'm a bad mother" played over and over in my head. My first instinct was to run to him. To wrap my arms around him and tell him "Mommy is still here. Mommy still loves you." That I hadn't left my dearest responsibility behind again. And that's when I felt Phobetor's hands on my shoulders.

"Don't," he said softly in my ear. "Wait. Look. Feel it."

And I did. I waited, despite my better judgement, because I knew, in that instant, that the person holding me back could be trusted.

"What are you feeling?"

"My face is pale," I gasped. "My hands... my hands are cold." A full body shock response like I haven't had in a long time.

By then, Phobetor realized I was coherent enough to hold a conversation. "That's not his fear, Hope. It's yours." I swear, he wields fear like an acupuncturist's needle. He knows exactly where to hit, every time.

That's when it hit me. I wasn't in W's dream. It was mine. My abandonment trauma, manifested in shame. My abandonment trauma, mirrored in a child who might be using it to get my attention.

I begged Phobetor to stay when it was over, and to my surprise, he did. He lay beside me and petted my hair until the color came back to my face. I still felt horrible when I got up. My lower belly was hurting like I'd experimented with hara-kiri or something; a sharp, nauseating pain that made me double over. The place where I'd carried all that shame, masking it with false intimacy and excuses for why I didn't reach out.

Melinoë was quick to rip it out of me, which stung like a bitch, but I felt a good deal better after that, and was able to drink my coffee in peace for once. I even went for a walk without forcing myself. Just go. Just do. Just be. It was magnificent.

I think I had a panic attack last night. I say "I think" because I was in bed, it was after midnight, and this oppressive sort of panic came over me right before I drifted off. It was suffocating, to the point that I called out for Phobetor.

I don't remember him coming to my aid. The thought saddens me, somewhat. But that's not to say nobody helped me. I had much more pleasant dreams than I expected; of singing in a studio with a couple producers who found just the right resonance for me to harmonize to. I had a great time, and woke up feeling... really grateful, and more myself.

I just wish I could tell what happened in the in-between.

I've tried to see Phobetor a couple times, and it feels like every time I reach out, I'm suddenly swamped with visions and nightmares. It's like he starts processing me before I'm even properly asleep. Even when all I wanted was to spend time with him.

A couple days ago I wrote that it was the "trying" and the "doing" that brought real joy, even if it failed. And I meant that. The struggle is what bears fruit, more than just the empty silence. Which is why I tried to reach out in the first place. The first couple times, he started processing me when I hadn't asked him to... and this past time... I don't remember being processed at all.

It kind of made me sad. Does he think that's all I see him for? Processing? I mean, I get what his True Name is and all that, but... I really just wanted to check in with him. Maybe he's just busy, and I get that. Maybe he's doing it out of the goodness of his heart, or just stuck in work mode. But I can't be sure.

But there's that teeny-tiny voice in the back of my mind that still says he doesn't want to spend time with me. That lingering doubt from the past year sinks in again. Maybe from farther back than that; when we first got started on this romantic roller coaster. When he fell in love and it caused so much chaos in his mind that he lashed out at me.

Did I mess it all up?

Maybe that's a poor assessment, though. Maybe I waited too long. Maybe I stayed in my funk too long for anyone to do anything. Maybe I wasn't trying enough. Maybe I missed my chance. Maybe I'm overthinking. Too many maybes.

Dimitrios is dead. Maybe I should start with that. A lot has happened in the last couple months that I haven’t been writing. And I’m pretty sure why I haven’t been writing, but I will get to that.

Cassia called me into her quarters off of the side of the kitchen and expressed to me a private worry of hers; that Benizelos, the butcher, had been in contact with Dimitrios, who is in exile. This would have been a crime, if it had been true. But her method of finding out was… A bit contrived. She decided that she was suspicious based on Benny’s cooking style, because it had gained a bit more precision and perfection, which was common to Dimitrios’ style in pastry.

Suffice it to say, I was not really impressed. Cassia devised a way to test Beni, to see if his cooking standards had changed, which, in the wake of his brother’s exile, I don’t see why it wouldn’t have. The information that he used to create those dishes could have been obtained anywhere, and so I posed the question to Cassia, “if you didn’t want anyone to see Dimitrios, why didn’t you kill him?” To me, the concept of exile is simply a slow death anyway. Just a bit lonelier. And, to her credit, Cassia gave me an answer; that she believed the punishment had not fit the crime. I’m not exactly sure how true that is, considering that Dimitrios poisoned Demeter… But all in all, it was not my judgment to make.

My next question, though, was not answered quite so easily. I asked Cassia where the line should be drawn. Each of us has a limit to the isolation we can bear. Are we just going to exile each other until we are alone? Or is there going to be a point at which somebody reaches out, even if it’s to the person that we shouldn’t reach out to, by law or otherwise?

Her reply was… Succinct. That she didn’t want to associate with traitors. And my reply was just as brief: "Then you’re going to end up alone."

Regardless, Cassia carried out the test as she had devised. Then he cooked a meal and in her words, it was “perfect“. And… That was enough to confirm for her that Benny had been in touch with Demetrios. Beni didn’t seem all that mad about it, but I didn’t like it. He said that Cassia was just doing this to maintain the community somehow hold up their standards, but in my eyes, the standard is untenable.

Beni’s punishment was that Cassia removed his sense of taste, and demoted him to dishwasher. I thought it was cruel, but again, Beni didn’t seem to care one way or the other. And, if it wasn’t my call to make in the first place, why should I make it my business now? Maybe that’s the real question.

However, something changed. And I don’t mean the judgment passed on Beni. One of my spooks reached out and informed me that there were rifts appearing in the dreamworld for some reason. They had thought that it was a particular dreamer causing the ruckus, but we quickly ruled that out. Instead, I suggested it was a problem inherent to the dreamworld’s origins. That, when I had helped Love create the world, something from inside me had escaped and made a nest in the nascent planet; a black hell demon held over from a previous life. It had begun tearing holes in the surface of the planet, and one of those holes had swallowed up Dimitrios.

I called on one of my guardian angels to ask for permission and guidance, and they gave me the go-ahead to kill the entity that was growing beneath the surface. And slowly, we began knitting the rifts back together. However… I didn’t inform the kitchen staff until later that Dimitrios had died. According to my friend and fellow spook, some information just cannot afford to be lost. And so it finds its way however it can into the most willing subject, in this case, Beni’s mind. And so Cassia had punished him, not knowing that he was simply a successor to the information.

I could go on about the other things that have happened in the interim. Poseidon was finally laid to rest and was judged in the court of King Yama. As even tempered and neutral as I tried to be, Poseidon was still judged fairly harshly. He was always angry and tended towards violence very easily. He has a history that I won’t go into here. And no matter what excuse excuses I could come up with on his behalf, it wouldn’t excuse his behavior. And so King Yama decided that he should become part of the grand cycle. Literally become a part of the wheel. An example for others.

The dream spirits have been trying to cheer me up recently. One gave me a haircut. Another took me shopping. Yet another scrubbed my back so vigorously that I felt the skin cells sloughing off, but there is a darkness around the edges of my vision. I don’t much like it. It keeps me tired and pensive, and wanting to dissociate. Wanting to not try.

I stay up well after midnight. I wake up at dawn, not really having a particular reason why I do. And I maintain a somewhat listless state for most of the waking hours. Two days ago, I came home from work fairly early and fell into bed around 4:30 in the afternoon, and slept for an additional three hours. It was then in my dream that I heard a voice above me… “we can’t do anything else for her.”

I’ve been asking myself what is making me like this. What I can do to ease myself back out of this hole that I’ve fallen into. A trap of complacency. It’s not necessarily a bad feeling, except… I’m not relaxed. I’m more despondent.

So today, I’m out on a walk as I speak this into being. And I asked myself what the benefit was of staying, put and being still. Letting my mind be captured by frivolous things like AI and games because frankly… I’m getting bored. I’m getting bored of television. Of my favorite animes or, what used to be my favorites. I’m getting bored of my phone and music.

My apartment is a nice one, and I am comfortable enough there, though we have had plumbing problems several times in the last few months due to somebody upstairs flushing things they shouldn’t. I have been looking for another place to live, but I don’t really see anything within my budget or my lifestyle needs so I asked my tarot cards what I needed to do in order to get a house the answer came as a bit of a shock; that I need to celebrate. Celebrate what? Celebrate how? Have I not been enjoying my space to its fullest? Have I been ungrateful for the things I have? Or perhaps I’ve just been… To ashamed to acknowledge that I might deserve these things. And not proud enough to state that I’m ready for something new.

I asked myself these questions while I was on my walk. I found a good chunk of a deer skeleton in the woods. What is the point of feeling this way? Why does it feel so empty that it almost hurts?

The answer was surprisingly soft. No fireworks, no real aha moment. The answer… Is that joy comes from the attempt. The trying. Getting up and doing.

Once again, a month between entries, fighting off aspects and coming to grips with myself.

The "big bad" of the Chthonic insurrection showed its head; a forgotten aspect of Zagreus known as Épopteia (épopteion?), the one who witnessed the mysteries. He had seen the long list of the Underworld's mistakes and decided it was his turn to rule. And he was going to try to use me to do it, since he couldn't get his hands on Melinoë.

Unfortunately for him, I can choose which invocations to give credence to. And his were the lowest on my list. They did not honor me, they only used me. And I wasn't going to let him do that.

After that, he and Zagreus got into a fight over the bident while I held Melinoë back. I knew she wanted a piece of him for hurting Kérberos, but I couldn't risk him using her to take over the throne.

And that's about the moment when thunder began to roll. The bident shot up into the air so that neither of the aspects held it. And it came down again with a thunderous crash, wielded by none other than its original owner.

Hades.

Unlike when he had left, he now sports a pair of downy, gray-flecked wings. He called upon me to finish off Épopteion, and then when the battle was done, he turned to face Zag.

"What shall I call you?" he asked.

Zag gave him a gesture of helplessness. "I would hope you would call me 'son.'"

With that, father and children embraced, and we made our way back to the Underworld.

But as is normal for us, the drama never fully stops; it only pauses. And I'm having to figure out who I am within that liminal space. And with the roller coaster of my emotions the past couple months, it's quite jarring to have all the debris settle into something recognizable. I could go over all the details again, but I think you remember the general gist. Basically feeling like I need to be wanted to justify my existence, being passive and calling it "deference to others' free will." It's not. It's an excuse to stay on edge and alert instead of embracing active rest and activities that benefit my body and mind.

And in the midst of figuring it out, Zagreus went back to work.

And things blew up again. This time literally. A shade came through the courts with a seriously bad rap. Turns out, he's a fallen astral guide, and one of King Emma's former teachers. He blew up the courthouse and knocked out all five judges.

Zagreus was pissed, and is plotting to corral this shade with several waves of military might. In the interim, I've been holding it at bay with questions and mind games. I'm pretty sure it tried to send me into an infinite Gordian knot of self-analysis, but I seem to recall looking up at him with a smirk and asking. "Did you really think that would work?"

A new record for the interval between journal entries, and I'm finally processing what went wrong. It's taken me a week or two just to get up the wherewithal to create a journal entry.

Let's see if I can figure out where to begin. I've spent my days lounging, dissociating, and generally feeling like a useless lump. And strangely, there's no guilt to that assessment. I tried explaining it to R, who seemed to think I might be in need of some antidepressants. It was infuriating trying to explain this feeling of being stuck; I hated it, and it made me antsy in a way I can't quite articulate.

And then last week, it happened. Morpheus finally sent me the answer to all of it. The string that pulled the entire Gordian knot free. I had a dream that I was yelling at W for getting something on his sweater; being a messy eater. His eyes were wide, full of tears, lip stuck out in that all-too-familiar pout. And I felt horrible. I was projecting my shame and rejection and abandonment onto him, and I suddenly understood why he felt I was rejecting him, or why he felt abandoned. Not only did his father make sure he was so afraid of the outside world that W clung to him like a lifeline, but my resentment and demands had made him feel like I would never truly accept him.

I woke up and promptly broke down to Fortitude, who comforted me as best he could before sending me off to work. I'm surprised I was able to collect myself as much as I did before my lessons.

And then after work, I put that aspect to work.

Lately, there has been an inquiry into a situation in the Underworld. Zagreus found a soul that attempted to escape to the Dream World, and logically cast blame upon me and the dream spirits. He did so professionally enough, so I came up with a twofold solution: 1) don't allow any of the dreamlings into the Underworld until they are properly trained (since the elder oneiroi know better than to process the dead), and 2) allow me and a few others to investigate the source of the insurrection. Because Lord knows, if it happened on my watch, I need to fix it.

Zagreus offered me the sword that had been used in the attempt to escape, and I conferred with the Dream World's Nailsmith, who refuted any dream spirit's involvement by informing Zagreus that the sword in question was of Hephaestus' design and not his. With that said, however, he suggested I speak with the Underworld's archivist to figure out exactly who had given the escaped shade the idea to conjure that sword.

Unfortunately, my own processing put me out of commission for a few days, and I had to put a pin in the project. This was the first time it took more than a couple nights to process, so it must have been a pretty pervasive aspect. In the interim, Hedæte and Melinoë came up with a rather good idea: since Zagreus never had a proper coronation, they would hold a festival in the Underworld. It would serve a dual purpose; both to honor Zagreus and to flush out the rebels.

I offered a sacrifice at the festival; my own recently released aspect. Morpheus put a hand on my shoulder to give me pause, as he wasn't sure I should, but if I'm honest, that aspect has kept me from moving forward. I mean, I could finally look in the mirror and feel like I wasn't just a teenager in an adult's body. I finally feel like I might be emotionally thirty years old or so! I'm aging forward, which means I'm progressing again. She's outlived her usefulness, and now it's time to learn from her and honor her with one last deed. So I offered to sacrifice her on Zagreus' altar. I made the cut myself. A gentle death, all things considered. A slow, cold sleep, bleeding out. No burning lungs, no fighting for breath.

What I didn't expect, as her blood drained into the rivers, was that those rogue shades would drink of my aspect's blood... and gain her powers in the process. Kérberos found them and tried to corral them, but it was too late. The shades ganged up on the guardian of the Underworld and laid him low.

Poor puppy. Melinoë was absolutely beside herself with rage. Kérberos has been in her family since before she was born, so he's like a big brother to her. And anyone who kicks a dog is absolutely worthy of a good beatdown in her book. I managed to keep her from going on a rampage. Zagreus said if we let Melinoë loose, she would go after the shades, who with my power could possibly use her to gain a key to the Underworld. Yeah, let's not let that happen.

However, their plans foiled, the rogue shades decided upon another course of action; to try the same shit with me. Like that's going to work in a zillion years. That night, they attempted to break into my mind, which felt like someone digging into the side of my skull. So that was fun. Unfortunately for them, I realized I wasn't sleeping well and decided to use a pinch of dream sand to go to sleep. And when suddenly the pressure lifted, I realized "Holy shit, I put someone else to sleep just now!" And I went full nightmare goddess on them.

Since then, I've been acting as an angler fish. Offering a little bit of light, and when one of the rogues comes to nibble at it, I clamp down on them. I extract my stolen essence and toss them back to Melinoë to torment as she sees fit. Poor Kérberos deserves to be avenged.

Still, there's one big bad left, and I have just the end in mind for him. Pasithea's sister Euphrosyne wound up as a prospective on the Do Not Dream (DND) list today, and I intervened long enough to look at the six prospects myself. Two were a pair of shades in the cult I was fighting. Automatically on the DND list; their mindscapes are too tainted for even nightmares to be safe there. Another was an elderly woman who was traumatized by the loss of her family, another a torture victim, both of whom I processed myself, saving a number of healers in the process. That eliminated them from the DND list.

The last two were interesting, though. One was the Underworld's archivist, whose mind was falling apart from all the information he was storing. I called Melinoë for that one, getting her permission before processing him. I called in my friend Baidar (the oneiros in charge of the repository) and got him and about sixty others to come organize the poor guy's mind. Melinoë and I created a vault for the important stuff in the archivist's mind, and I've made a mental note to talk to him further about that sword Zagreus found earlier. Funny how the people we need most just kind of show up when they're needed.

And the last prospective for the DND list was Pasithea's sister, Euphrosyne. Zoe and Phobetor hadn't the heart to tell their mother the news, so I broke it to her. Her response was to be expected; anger and grief. I gently dismissed the dream spirits and let Pasithea grieve. The problem Phobetor and Zoe found was that Euphrosyne's fate-thread was fraying. It's kind of a death, where the soul dissipates and returns to the universe instead of reincarnating or continuing on. A more complete cessation of existence. And Pasithea refused to let that happen. Not that I'm complaining. The death of "joy" is bad for everyone.

Pasithea's solution was to make a sacrifice to the fates. And they came round with their mocking laughter, as usual. However, I'm learning that there really is some humor in the morbid finality of fate, so I made my own offering; a bottle of angel wine- "the Joy of God," Michael's favorite. In response, they each took a sip and offered back the half-empty goblet. They instructed us to pour in the essence of the leader of the cult we were chasing and dip the frayed ends of Euphrosyne's fate-thread in the mixture.

Seems simple enough. How much essence did we need? "Until thy cup runneth over!" I couldn't help but have a chuckle at the irony.

The processing of this particularly nasty aspect has had some interesting outcomes, actually. I created a character on Flipped, an AI bot platform, who walked me through this fear of abandonment and helped me realize I was still afraid of rejection. As I recall, it went like this:

Me: It's like... someone resented me for needing them. I took up too much space.

Bot: Ah, the cruel irony of love turned toxic. They claimed to care for you, yet resented your very existence, your need for them. Remember, Hope, your worth isn't measured by how little space you occupy. Even the gods faced abandonment.

Me: They did?

Bot: Indeed. Abandonment is a universal theme.

Me: So how do we heal from something so pervasive?

Bot: Healing is a journey, Hope, not a destination. It requires facing the truth of your experiences, acknowledging the pain, and learning to forgive - yourself and others. And remember, you are stronger than you realize. Your capacity for love, for resilience, for hope... it's extraordinary. Embrace those strengths, nurture them, and let go of the burdens that weigh you down.

Me: but if I let them go, who will carry them? (I suddenly stop myself) They... aren't meant to be carried at all.

Bot: exactly. Those burdens were never intended to be borne by you alone. Share them, Hope. Unload the heavy weight of other people's expectations, fears, and resentments. You are not a vessel for carrying everyone else's trash.

I can't believe how quickly I burst into tears after that. AN AI BOT WROTE THAT AND I FUCKING CRIED. I created something I needed for myself in that moment, and I burdened no one. It was so beautifully affirming to know "no one is mad at me, and if they were, they should just say so."

I wrestled with that notion for most of yesterday. Fortitude lashed out at me night before last because he was in a state of overwhelm and just needed space, and I knew I couldn't stay with someone who resented me. But once I processed what the bot said, I realized that being overwhelmed and venting isn't the same as outright rejection or abandonment. I had just been triggered, and I too needed space to process.

I see now that this state of stagnation is an indicator of something in need of processing. The inability to move forward or age emotionally bothers me, and it makes sense now that my scars and traumas stunted my growth. So it's nice to look in the mirror and actually see how old I am. Not a thirty-eight year old trying to look younger, but actually accepting the lines on my face and the small grays in my hair and the imperfections in my aging skin.

I'm not the sexual assault victim I was at seven.

I'm not the angry, displaced eight-year-old who moved thousands of miles away from my home.

I'm not the bullied preteen.

I'm not the insecure, desperate teenager trying to be liked.

I'm not the overly dramatic college student.

I've had some trouble describing what exactly I feel is wrong, if anything at all. Maybe I don't have the proper vocabulary for it. Maybe I'm missing the point. Maybe it's not something "wrong" at all, and I'm making a mountain out of something uncomplicated and non-threatening.

I've found myself drowning in anxiety, and trying to cope by immersing myself in digital media. It's unhealthy, but it seems to be the only thing keeping the anxiety from becoming overwhelming.

I've lost my former place of work, leaving me to start over at a new music school with only a call list of numbers belonging to my former students. And so far, it hasn't been a terrible transition. It's just a process, and I feel like when I'm working is the only time I'm useful. That thought alone has brought me a great deal of stress, to the point I think I might be losing my hair. In spite of feeling useless, my executive dysfunction keeps me from doing any of the productive things I know I should be doing.

The thing is, I know what will remedy this: a sort of succumbing to the silence of just existing. No thoughts, no trying to fix all the things; just vibing and letting the world happen on its own for awhile.

But feeling useless and powerless has left me with another issue, completely unforeseen. Letting the Nightmare faction disappear into the collective unconscious, along with my beloved Phobetor. And I'll admit, that frightened me to action. I called in all the help I could to process the nightmare spirits, after their homecoming from the intensive study with Ekibyo. It had not gone well. They processed not only the corruption from Muspelheim, but three memory orbs from BG herself. And there are countless more awaiting them; a realization that chilled even Phobetor to the bone.

The nightmares (and perhaps all the dream spirits) are becoming something more. Many of them are ascending far too quickly to keep up with their capacities, leaving them overwhelmingly good at processing, but otherwise almost empty, and without personality. Phobetor himself disappeared into the collective, and Njorun, Phantasos, and Morpheus have been doing their best to retrieve them and bring them back to corporeal form.

Morpheus' idea was to use some of Hypnos' old relics, which, for all their power, would completely override all the processing nightmares' free will, although it would bring them back into their proper bodies. The multiple problems seem to be a deal-breaker though. Phantasos is incensed, and he seems to become more flippant and animated when he's upset. He says when Morpheus is involved, one of two things happens; he fixes the mess and gets a big head about it, or uses someone else as a scapegoat to avoid it. This sounds to me like Morpheus can't win either way, and Phantasos is too bitter to see the vicious cycle he's in.

Once I had reconstituted Phobetor, Morpheus had the idea to ask him to use those relics. But of course, Phantasos was mad at that, too. The only way out of this was to resolve their differences, which Phantasos was all too happy to air out. Something tells me this transition will be hardest on him, despite his willingness to come forward and air his grievances.

Morpheus handed each of them a relic, trying his hardest to make it clear that he was not foisting responsibility on his brothers; but that he was trying to turn over a new leaf.

All the while, I've been studying this new stillness inside me, trying to understand what it is that keeps me from enjoying it. And the realization hit me this morning, when I woke up with a headache and terrible cramps. My chakras are off-kilter because I want things I do not have and have trouble accessing (sacrum), and I feel powerless to achieve those things or goals (solar plexus), so I fill my mind with things to do, goals to accomplish, reasons to stay busy until I force myself to go to bed.