#thalia callaghan

Thank you for reading. Comments (here or on Ao3) and reblogs are always appreciated. And asks, too! I love yapping about my fics 🖤

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I wasn’t exactly a cry because Zoē rarely cried in the way that human children did. What she made instead were smaller sounds. But of course Thalia had learned to hear those sounds anyway, and she suspected she would be able to hear them from the bottom of the ocean, or any distance the universe chose to put between them for that matter.

Morpheus was already sitting up. He didn’t say anything, he simply left, and Thalia followed him…

Zoē was still asleep when they reached her.

Other children, woken by nightmares, eventually surfaced. They cried but gradually let the dream go when they were held and not alone. Zoē did not surface. She stayed, and her small face moved through expressions like fear and frustration, and then something that looked as if she were attempting to negotiate with whatever she had found in the dark.

She was her father’s daughter, that much had been clear from the start.

Morpheus stood at the side of her bed and looked at her with an expression Thalia knew all too well: It wasn’t worry, because worry implied a kind of helplessness that he permitted himself only on very rare occasions, and this wasn’t one of them.

“What is it?” Thalia asked quietly.

“She has gone further in than she should be able to.” He said it calmly, but Thalia could hear the slight alarm. “She should not have the reach for this. Not yet.”

“Well, guess who’s her father.”

Morpheus glanced at Thalia, amused and slightly exasperated. “She is also yours. May I remind you that you are not particularly prone to stay… boundaried either? You dreamed your way into my castle and never took no for an answer.”

“And aren’t you glad?”

He looked at her with a smile. “Perhaps.”

Zoē whimpered again.

“I would like to go after her,” Morpheus said, and Thalia nodded…

— — —

They were standing at the edge of a forest. Or what had been a forest. What surrounded them now were trees that were leaning, angles all wrong, stripped of their leaves by something that had moved with force, and the ground underfoot was full of broken branches and scattered bark.

Thalia recognised the scent immediately. It was the smell of autumn she had loved when she was still alive, but that was what worried her, because it was the smell of death she had once found comforting. Earth and dead leaves, the smell of something ending that once had been beautiful. And it was hard to tell what it meant here.

Zoē was standing ahead of them at the tree line, her back turned and her nightgown very white against the grey-brown wreckage around her.

Thalia instinctively took a step forward, but Morpheus touched her arm gently to hold her back. “Let us see what she does.”

What Zoē did was reach out and touch the nearest fallen tree.

She put her small hand against its bark with the intensity that she brought to everything she was genuinely interested in. Thalia watched her daughter standing very still and with the focus of someone paying attention so hard that she had temporarily forgotten everything else.

Then Zoē said something that was too quiet to hear, in that voice of children when they are talking to themselves but also to the things around them. Thalia had been watching her do it for almost a year: Zoē talked to everything as if it were capable of replying. And in the Dreaming it was of course.

The bark under Zoē’s palm changed very slowly. Thalia watched a strip of bark that had been grey turn a colour that was closer to brown. Zoē took her hand back and looked at it. Then she put it back again, with greater confidence.

Thalia heard Morpheus exhale. Well, it might have been a sound if he had given himself permission.

“She’s fixing it,” she whispered to him.

“She is asking it.” Thalia took a quick glance at him. “She is not commanding.”

She looked back at her daughter, at her little hand pressed against the bark like someone making a promise.

Zoē had heard them. She turned, and for a moment her face did that thing it sometimes did when she was between sleeping and knowing she was sleeping. Then she truly saw them, and she just said, “The trees fell down.”

They walked toward her. “Yes,” Morpheus said. He crouched in front of her so that they were level. “Do you know what happened to them?”

Zoē considered it with very apparent gravity, and it nearly made Thalia laugh because she looked so like her father with her serious little face, but she bit back her smile. “Something was scared,” she said.

Morpheus was very still for a moment. “Yes. Something was scared, and when it moved through here, it moved without meaning to hurt the trees.”

“But they got hurt anyway.”

“They did.”

“That’s sad,” Zoē said. Such a simple statement, yet so to the point.

Thalia often thought that her daughter had an almost aggressive relationship with accuracy, and she wondered whom she’d got that from.

“It is sad,” Morpheus agreed, and he didn’t add a but. “What were you trying to do, when we came in?”

Zoē looked back at the tree she had been touching, and then at her hand. “I thought maybe… if I asked it to remember…” She sounded as if she were working it out as she was saying it, the way she always did when she was reaching for something not quite within the vocabulary of a three-year-old yet. “If it could remember what it was like before. It might… want to go back to that.”

Thalia crouched down too, and the three of them formed a triangle in the wreckage. “Did it work?”

Zoē’s expression hovered between annoyance and excitement. “A little bit. But it kept forgetting.”

“The remembering takes time,” Morpheus said. “But the asking was right.” Thalia could see the slight change in Zoē’s expression. “The asking was exactly right…”

They walked further in, and it was Thalia’s idea. She had looked at Zoē’s face, and then she had thought of every late October afternoon of her life, every walk she’d taken in autumn when her world had felt like something being put on hold, and she’d thought: Let her have all of it. Give her the whole of it so she can understand it.

She took Zoē’s hand, and Zoē took Morpheus’, and they kept walking.

The forest began to adjust; Thalia knew the difference between the Dreaming being directed and the Dreaming being responsive. And right now, it was responsive because of Zoē. Even the sky started to look a bit warmer. Under their feet, the branches broke like they did in real forests. Thalia remembered her own childhood, the small satisfying cracks followed by a bit of give. After a particularly crunchy one, Zoē looked down at Thalia’s feet with great interest.

“Again,” she said with a little giggle.

So they found her branches to step on. And Thalia couldn’t help but find it hilarious: Morpheus, Lord of Dreams, walked slowly through a forest that was healing itself around a three-year-old who was now extremely focused on finding the branches that would make the best sound when you stood on them. And when Zoē found a particularly… resonant stick and then made him stand on it too, Thalia caught his eye, and he looked at her with an expression that she had only seen on him in moments like these. Moments that could be considered so ordinary, but to him, they weren’t. He looked a bit helpless and overwhelmed in the way only happiness overwhelmed him, because he had less practice with it than with anything else. She reached over Zoē’s head and put her hand against his face, and he turned his lips into her palm for a moment. Then he looked away.

“Daddy.” Sometimes, Thalia wondered if that was a word Morpheus had ever been called despite his fatherhood, but she dismissed the thought quickly.

“Yes.”

“I want to show you something.” She stopped walking. They had come to a clearing, and in the middle of it there was a tree different from the others. It hadn’t fallen, it wasn’t leaning. It was tiny, a sapling almost, and it looked like something that had only recently understood that it is supposed to be growing and had taken this information very seriously.

Zoē put both hands around it. She stood there with her feet planted on the forest floor, her dark hair a mess and her nightgown getting the hem dirty, and Thalia stood and watched her daughter… talk to a tree.

And she didn’t know why, but she had to think about that small corner of her flat when she was still alive, that corner where the light was good, where she had spent years in front of canvases with the kind of attention she had not been able to bring to anything else. She had loved painting with her whole body, the same way Zoē was now doing this, completely absorbed, entirely gone into the thing. She had never been able to explain it to people who didn’t do it, because creating something required surrender. She recognised her daughter in this and she recognised herself.

Sometimes, she thought that she might have given her only ordinary things, like parts of her face or her stubbornness. She had not imagined she might also have given her this. Then again, being entirely in the place where the work was happening was also he. Thalia’s throat tightened, and she couldn’t stop looking.

The sapling put out another leaf. Really slow, and it took long enough for Thalia to wonder if she had imagined it and it had already been there. But it was a small, perfect thing that had not existed before, and now it did.

Zoē took her hands back and looked at the leaf with the pride of a, well, three-year-old. “I asked it what it wanted to be. And it showed me.”

Morpheus was quiet, but Thalia knew without even having to look at him that he was navigating something difficult.

“There is something I want to tell you,” he finally said while sitting on the ground with his legs crossed. And Zoē came and nestled herself into his lap without being asked. Or asking, for that matter. But he smiled briefly and held her with both arms before he turned serious again. “This dream frightened you.”

Zoē looked as if she were contemplating denying it for a second before agreeing. “Not very. But a little bit.”

“And so you came to fix it.”

“I wanted it to not be sad.”

“You cannot always do that.” His voice sounded measured, the way it was when he was telling her something he believed she was capable of understanding. “Some dreams are scary or sad because the person dreaming them is scared or sad, and those feelings are important and belong to them. The dream has purpose, and some things stay broken for a while. You will not be able to ask every tree back to life.”

Zoē looked at the leaf on the sapling. “But some of them I can.” And that was definitely not a question but a statement to set the record straight.

Something moved across Morpheus’ face, and he looked at Thalia while pressing his lips to the top of Zoē’s head. “Yes,” he said very quietly with a smile. “Some of them you can. I am sure your mother knows a thing or two about that.”

“Really?”

“Maybe I’ll tell you about it one day.” Thalia sat beside them, and her shoulders were touching Morpheus’, and Zoē immediately reached out to take her hand without looking, like someone who had never in her short life reached for a hand and not found it.

She will keep reaching like that, Thalia thought. And she wanted it that way. She wanted Zoē to know that whenever she reached out, her parents would reach back, for as long as she needed it. And as she thought it, Morpheus looked at her, and he just nodded, and his eyes were pooling with tears, and for once he wasn’t trying to hide it.

The sky seemed to finally make up its mind and turned golden. The leaves on the remaining trees, the ones that had fallen and been stepped on, the single new one on the small stubborn sapling, all did the thing that leaves did in actual late autumn in the actual waking world:

They caught the light and held it for a moment before they let it go.

It was everywhere, ending and not ending, like it had always been since the first thing had ever changed.

And Zoē breathed it in with her eyes closed. “I like it here.”

Morpheus took Thalia’s hand, and Zoē briefly opened her eyes when he kissed it. “So do I…”

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She watched his face and would have given everything to know what he was thinking, wishing he would let her in. And then she realised he didn’t need to because she could see it, stripped of every defence. Something that he had clearly not prepared himself for, was not yet finished being undone by, and was making no effort whatsoever to contain.

He didn’t think he would be here.

And of course she had known this in some way because he had… not quite resigned, but arranged himself around some peace with an ending.

But knowing it and seeing it were different things.

She cupped his face with her hands and brought him back to look at her.

“Hey,” she said softly.

“Hey,” he said, which was not a thing he said, just like those swear words she occasionally coaxed out of him that were her words, worn slightly strange in his mouth, and it undid her completely.

She kissed him again. He kissed her back and the light came up fully then, pouring through the tall windows across the floor and across them both, and Thalia felt it on her skin like something she hadn’t asked for but was receiving regardless. It caught the angles of him, and she briefly thought of all the darkness that had found them both and would no doubt find them again. She had never been naive about it. But she let the thought go because he was here, and there was light in every sense of the word, and this was their life, their impossible life, and she was in it with him, and they were both forever changed.

[continue reading on Ao3]

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Dream often caught himself simply watching her, and it was startling in a way he could not explain. Perhaps the reason was that he had told the Kindly Ones he was terrified of joy, and that he had not known how… terrifyingly accurate the word would be. Joy was not the distant thing any more he had once conceived it to be. It was closer to alarm, to being fully awake, and the irony of perceiving it as such was not lost on him. And whenever he found her asleep in the library chair, which had begun to happen more frequently of late even though she was a dream and quite strictly did not need to sleep (he chalked this down to her memory of being human, but he did not feel any need to linger on the thought), he felt something he could not name. And he did not, in truth, want to examine it too closely.

But the word for it eventually found him:

Tenderness.

Fragile and painfully wonderful, or wonderfully painful, he could not say. But what he could say was that it was somewhat inconveniently persistent.

“You look different whenever she’s in the room, boss,” Matthew, who had not been asked to comment, cawed one morning.

“That is none of your concern.”

“Just sayin’.”

“Of course you would.”

“All I’m trying to tell you is… well, you look less like the world is ending, you know?”

Dream considered this for a moment. “Perhaps. Thank you, Matthew.”

“You’re welcome. I guess…”

— — —

But there were hard days and even harder nights, too.

The visions came without warning. Mid-conversation, or just while he was standing in the throne room, and then he was somewhere else entirely without transition. And Orpheus was suffering, and it was because of him, because of choices he had made with the certainty of someone who could not conceive that these choices had been wrong or cruel or simply not what his son had needed.

Thalia did not try to pull him back or talk him through it. She simply stayed. Sometimes she put her hand on his if they were close enough. Sometimes she just remained in the same room until it was over. And she never asked what he saw…

One particular night he found himself speaking before he had fully decided to.

“He loved music.” Dream found it difficult to look at her, so he looked out the window, but truthfully, he looked at nothing at all. He just needed time to breathe before he could proceed. “I believed I was teaching him something when I refused to go to Hades. I thought I was showing him the nature of things. That…” He shook his head. “No matter. Perhaps I simply wished to protect him.” He felt her hand on his. “I told myself it was… that I was sparing him further pain.”

“Did you believe that?”

Dream considered the question with the seriousness it deserved. “I believed it was true, but perhaps that is not entirely the same thing.”

Thalia did not speak. He had somewhat expected her to because she always talked, and no matter how much it drove him to distraction at times, he had come to miss her voice in ways he would never have imagined whenever he did not perceive it. And yet, he was profoundly grateful for her silence at this moment.

“When the visions come,” he continued when the words found him again, “I am fully there, and I feel what he felt. I understand why, and I understand that I should as penance. And yet…” He could not continue and looked at her hand covering his.

“Do you think he knew? That you loved him?”

It was not a question he had permitted to ask himself before. “I think that love, when it is expressed poorly, becomes indistinguishable from its absence. And I was… very poor at expressing it.”

“That’s not a no.” She turned her hand over, laced her fingers through his and said nothing else.

“I think he forgave me.” It was not something he had expected to hear himself say. “He wanted to die, and he had wanted it for a very long time. He asked it of me as a boon, and I granted it. And he was….” Something caught inside his throat, and he tried to shift it. “He was grateful. But it does not make it any easier.”

Thalia seemed to understand that she was not meant to help him find his words, agonising as the silence might have been.

“He missed me,” he continued after a while. “And I… knew that he did. I told myself we would not meet again because I had said so. And so I did not go. And when I finally did, it was because I needed something from him. He was still glad to see me. That was…” He needed to take a break again, and he was unsure whether he could continue.

“You think you didn’t deserve it.”

“Because I did not deserve it. I did not… I could not give him what he needed when he needed it. He came to me the day Eurydice died, and I turned him away.” He looked at their twined hands. “I told myself that I was showing him something true about loss.” He laughed wearily. “I have since had some cause to reconsider whether I am always the best judge of what is true about loss.”

Thalia smiled. “What do you think you were actually doing?”

“I think I was frightened. Not only of losing him, but also of… what it would mean to help him. To bend would have meant admitting that I was wrong. That he was right to want what he wanted and I was wrong to refuse him. And I was… I found the thought very difficult.”

“You still find it difficult now?”

“Yes. But…” He felt as if all air had left his lungs, which was an entirely foolish notion.

Thalia raised their hands to her lips and just kissed his. He found the gesture both slightly incomprehensible and yet he needed nothing more right now.

“He said he missed me,” he said again, and that repetition was not careless because it was the thing he kept returning to, the thing that still hurt and probably would never stop doing so. “He had told an old friend that he did not even see me in his dreams. And he did not dream of me for all that time because I made it so. My only son could not dream of me, and I think that was the truest measure of how much I had…” He was unable to finish the sentence.

“But he forgave you.”

“He forgave me.” He exhaled. “And it changes nothing about what we lost. That is… Perhaps I did not understand that those two things could be entirely true at once.”

“As they usually are,” Thalia said.

He looked at her. “So you keep telling me.”

“Yeah,” she said with a smile. “Because I’m right.”

He pulled her into his arms, but if he was honest with himself, he needed to feel her close to him so he would not fall apart. When he felt strong enough to speak again, he still only managed to do so while holding her. “I keep thinking about what he was. Before. At his wedding… he was so…” His voice threatened to break, and it cost him everything to stay in control, “…he was so very alive. And so certain that everything was going to be alright. He got that from his mother, I think.” He swallowed. “I wish I had told him I was proud of him. While there was still… while it would have been…”

Thalia still did not jump in to finish his sentences as she so often did. She just held him and let him carry what was his to carry, and that was, he found, the most graceful thing she could offer him right now.

“‘I wish things had been otherwise.’ That is what he said to me before I took his life. And all I could say was, ‘Yes’. And… I truly do not know how to want anything more specific than that. I simply wish, very much, that things had been otherwise.”

Thalia just wrapped her arms around him tighter and whispered, “I know.”

And he found that was enough…

— — —

Then the other time came.

It was not the first time he was going to be a father, but it was the first time he felt compelled to read about it. Everything he could find across every library in every realm that had anything to say on the subject, and Lucienne had begun leaving books on his desk with her usual discretion. And there were moments when he wondered why he wanted to read about it. He who had access to every living being’s subconscious had no practical need for reading. But it was not someone else’s experience, it was hers. And his. And it all felt painfully close and yet so far away. Until it didn’t…

He stayed. Of course he had asked her if she wanted him to, and she had just called him an idiot for even asking, in that way she always did. Perhaps he would get used to it one day. And he laughed at himself inwardly because he knew he already was used to it and would perceive things as terribly wrong should she ever stop throwing her little insults at him.

So he was present for every moment of it. A certain helplessness began to creep in at his inability to intervene in any way he perceived as meaningful.

And he was not entirely certain whether he had somewhat shown it, communicated it in any way he knew he would have avoided had he only been aware because Thalia just said, “You’re doing enough,” before returning to address the universe and her body with the kind of swearing even Johanna Constantine would have found impressive. No, that was inaccurate. Even Johanna would have been mortified.

Thalia could have broken his hand with her grip were he not who he was, but he decided to stay silent, which she seemed to prefer anyway.

And then, there was… a child. Without any ceremony, and not at all like the last time he had become a father.

A daughter. Thalia had been right.

And that daughter was small and… apparently outraged and so very, very real.

He had been prepared for love because it had announced itself for much longer than he had initially let on. But he had not been in any way prepared for the way it came fully into being now. Not carefully or quietly but all at once and loud and… furious, like the child who had just entered the Dreaming, and something inside of him just gave way.

And for a moment, he just stood and looked at his daughter, and she looked back at him with the unfocused indignation of a newborn. And he had no idea what to say because he could not think. There was only feeling, and that feeling made its way to the surface, again not measured or slow, and it took the shape of a desperate need to touch her head. More indignation followed, this time not entirely unfocused but rather ear-piercing, but it changed nothing, and all he could do was look at her and listen to her loud protestations while Thalia just seemed to instinctively know what to do and quietly laughed when she held her closer to her chest. And she looked exhausted and beautiful and happy and peaceful all at once, and something else inside of him, something he did not even know had existed, gave way because again, he had no words for it. And there was more terror at, and more gratefulness for, feeling it, and it was like suffocating and being able to breathe freely for the very first time at once, and it made no sense how much sense it made.

And then he became aware Thalia was watching him. “Lie down with us.”

He did not understand, and yet he did, and he carefully lay down next to her and the slightly less protesting little being.

“You should hold her.”

And the fear was immediate because yes, he wanted to, but she would surely scream again, and perhaps he would hurt or upset her in some way, and he immediately thought of The Kindly Ones and all they made him promise and…

“Take off your shirt.” His brow furrowed, and it made Thalia laugh. “Trust me on that one please.”

And he did, because it occurred to him that he was usually well advised to listen to this woman whom he loved more than he would ever find words for, and he definitely did not find any now.

She just placed the still protesting child on his chest, and she was warm and smelled like… life and love and presumably the way newborns do, which was a different affair, and the happiness and the ache of only experiencing this for the first time now, when she was not his first child, were overwhelming. He held this little miracle who should have never come into being and yet she had, and he could not even imagine how it could ever be another way from this moment on.

And then another miracle happened: the protestations stopped. She just turned quiet and breathed.

“She… stopped being angry,” was all he could say.

“I don’t think she was angry, she just needed to feel you. It’s how humans do it, you know? Newborns need to feel your skin.”

“I… think I knew this, but…”

“Not from experience, I know. But you have it now.”

And it became so crystal clear to him that no one would ever have to remind him that he had to love this child unconditionally, because he already did. But he was still terrified. Terrified of loving too deeply, terrified of turning that love into something that would destroy rather than…

Thalia put her hand on his shoulder just as his thoughts began spiralling. “She needs a name.”

“Yes,” he replied, grateful as always for her ability to pull him out of his darkest thoughts. “I think she does…”

— — —

Matthew had been studying the colours of the sky above the castle perched on a windowsill for the last hours in complete silence. Which was probably a record.

“Well?” he cawed when Dream appeared briefly in the doorway. Shirtless. “Jeez boss, no need to run around half naked.”

Dream looked at him. “There is, apparently. Or so I am told.” His expression was not one Matthew had seen before, and Matthew had seen probably most of them by now.

“O-kayyy,” Matthew croaked nervously. “And?”

“Zoē has arrived…”

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Navigation

Chapter 6: Syzygy, in which Dream agrees to go on a quest he’s certain is a terrible idea.

Chapter 7: Holon, in which Thalia seeks Lucienne’s counsel.

Chapter 8: Building Fires, in which stubbornness and worry lead Thalia to insert herself into a quest she hadn’t bargained for.

Chapter 9: Love and War, in which an ancient goddess dances for the last time and Desire reveals uncomfortable truths.

Chapter 10: Unfair Persuasion, in which Thalia and Morpheus find… errr, comfort after trauma, but a brief mention of Desire makes things a lot more… uncomfortable.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Chapter 11: Pythia, in which Thalia has a vision warning her to leave, and Morpheus decides to seek out Apollo.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Chapter 12: Discordant Truths, in which Delirium gets the world’s ugliest cardigan and Morpheus discovers that loving someone means accepting their particular brand of madness.

Chapter 13: Ephemeros, in which a tense banquet leads to private revelations, and Dream must confront his past.

Chapter 14: Potamós, in which Morpheus delivers news to Thalia and says a goodbye that feels far too final.

Chapter 15: Aisa, in which Apollo shares a prophecy about Morpheus’ quest and tells Thalia she holds the key to preventing it.

Chapter 16: Topaz, in which Thalia obtains a dreamstone from Lucienne, only to realise it’s the wrong way forward.

Chapter 17: Adamas, in which Despair and Death both visit Thalia and she understands the very thing that could save Morpheus has been with him all along.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Chapter 18: Fracture, in which an impossible choice is made and Dream returns to his realm forever changed.

Chapter 19: Home, in which Dream’s hands won’t let go of his guilt but Thalia refuses to let him grieve alone.

Chapter 20: Invocation, in which Thalia makes a decision that may save or destroy everything.

Chapter 21: Pánta Rheî, in which Thalia seeks counsel from Calliope about an impossible truth, and four words prove too heavy for Morpheus to bear.

Chapter 22: Apognosis, in which Thalia learns that carrying hope for two people is impossible when one of them has already made up his mind.

Chapter 23: Life, in which Morpheus knocks on Thalia’s door for only the second time, and she asks him the most terrifying question of all.

Chapter 24: Original Sin, in which Morpheus shows Thalia his darkness, and she steps closer instead of away.

Chapter 25: Waiting, in which a throne holds more than it should and a child is returned whole while a mother’s grief quietly becomes something else.

Chapter 26: The Unravelling, in which Delirium is the only one who truly understands what happens.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Chapter 27: Semnai Theai, in which Thalia turns toward the one person who has every reason to refuse her and Calliope makes the choice that may cost her everything she has left.

Chapter 28: Katharsis, in which Johanna Constantine spends a night in the Dreaming and the Kindly Ones balance their scales.

Chapter 29: Light, in which an armchair nobody asked for appears in the library, light breaks through the windows and Morpheus says “Hey”, which is so not him. Or is it?

Chapter 30: Otherwise, in which Dream wishes things had been different, and then someone arrives loudly and apparently with opinions, and everything gives way.

“Matthew sent me.” His face immediately dropped. “Well, no, quite strictly speaking, he didn’t send me, he just yapped to me in my dreams. Came across him in the waking world last when he was running errands with that nightmare of yours, so I didn’t really expect him to get on my nerves when I’m sleeping. Anyway, what happened? Thought that little quest of theirs went well?”

Dream looked at her from the corner of his eye. “It did. But apparently the scales are not balanced.”

Johanna snorted. “No shit. You killed your son, mate.” His face contorted. “Sorry, didn’t mean it that way,” she mumbled.

“You always had a rather… direct way with words, Johanna Constantine. Something you share with someone else.”

“Yeah, heard about your lady friend.”

“She is not a ‘friend’.”

“Lady love then. So how’s that going?”

“That is none of your concern.”

“Well, it is now.”

His brow knitted itself together tightly. “Why?”

“Because your raven told me about your predicament when he found me in my dreams. Made a big fuss about it, too, and that I couldn’t wake up under any circumstances because I had to find you in the Dreaming. Seems I can’t get away from you, and it annoys the fuck out of me.” Her grin said it all. “Congratulations, by the way.”

“What did he tell you?” There was a dangerous edge to his voice that Johanna recognised all too well.

“Calm down, just here to help.”

The laugh came out of nowhere. She had never heard him laugh before; he didn’t seem the kind of guy who ever laughed at all. “How could you possibly help?”

“You don’t have a lot of trust in me, do you?”

The casting down of his eyes came as unexpectedly as the laugh. “You should know by now that I always trusted you and your kin. I apologise.”

“No need to apologise. Well, you should remember what I told you when you got back your sand? We’re not to be trusted.”

“Then whoever planted that seed in your head is wrong.”

She looked at him and narrowed her eyes. “Is it not you who holds domain over our subconscious?”

He blinked. “I…”

“Right, I’m not here for idle chit-chat. I’m here to kick your arse into gear.”

“How so?

“Because you’re stupid.”

He straightened his back. “What have I done this time?”

“Well, are you just going to lie down and let the Kindly Ones walk all over you without even trying to atone?”

Johanna had to strain to hear his voice. “Do you not think I regret what happened?”

“I said ‘atone’, not ‘regret’. There are ancient purification rituals for this. The Kindly Ones need to be invoked. No way out of that any more because you apparently hacked off some people enough to take care of that. But you can also atone, and I thought you, of all… people, would know? Provided you want to know?”

“You are the second person who has doubts.”

“Well, then maybe we’re right?” Silence. “For the ones who are slow on the uptake, then: Do you want to live and at least give this a shot?”

The eye-roll would have been comical hadn’t the reply come so swiftly and with a hint of desperation. “Yes.”

“Okay, but you understand this will cost you, right? The Kindly Ones don’t balance scales, or whatever you call it. It’ll hurt like a bitch.”

Dream's silence lasted longer than Johanna could stand at the moment. When the reply finally came, his voice sounded thin and stretched. “Everything I have done since… granting my son release cast ripples. Now…” He swallowed. “Now there is another life, and…” His voice gave in.

Johanna had never seen him so broken and put her hand on his shoulder. “Just let me do this, okay?” He barely nodded. “But to make this very clear: What I’ll do next will require confessions that are more than just nice words. They’ll need to come from a place a bit deeper than that…”

Johanna began her incantation in old languages most people didn’t even remember before she changed back. And that was the way it had to be because his atonement was not simply for the past, but also a negotiation for things to come.

The moment arrived, and it had to be acted upon swiftly. “Say his name,” she commanded.

The last bit of Dream's composure finally cracked. "Orpheus. My only son and my greatest failure."

“What else?”

He looked up at her. “What else is there to say?”

“Reach for it.”

Dream closed his eyes, and nothing came forth.

“Fucking reach! You know the answer!”

When he finally found his voice again, it was hardly that but rather a whisper. “There is another. Unnamed. Unborn.”

“That’s not enough. What else?”

“Loved already in ways that terrify me beyond reason.”

Johanna felt the shift, but she pressed on. The Kindly Ones had their job to do, but so did she. And this was her craft. “Tell them why. Tell them what drove you to break the law, and what you fear might drive you to break it again."

"Orpheus asked for release. I could not watch him suffer any longer. I gave him what I was unable to give myself…” His voice broke yet again.

Johanna really wanted to give him space, but it was hard for her to keep the channel open. “This is like pulling teeth, bruv. What couldn’t you give yourself?”

His breath caught. “An end to pain.”

“Finally we’re getting somewhere. Keep going, this isn’t exactly fun for me,” she pushed out through gritted teeth.

“Thalia had to bear the full weight of my grief, and now she bears what terrifies me more than I have words to contain.” His voice was raw. “I am terrified of loving this child completely. I am terrified of feeling joy because joy makes loss unbearable. I am terrified of becoming whole for even a moment because that which is whole will break more completely than what is already broken. I am broken. But I want to love with the totality of my being, even if it will cause me the deepest pain. I wish to be whole again.”

Johanna finally felt things settle. “Jesus Christ…” She already knew the price would be steeper than she had imagined, and it would cut to the very heart of what Dream feared most.

Johanna’s head thrashed back within an instant. The takeover came at the least opportune moment, if there had ever been such a thing anyway. Her voice was barely hers any more when she said, “An Endless who has learned to love as mortals do? Well, that requires… adjustment.” Hoarseness set in, and the effort of channelling their verdict nearly had Johanna at breaking point. “We offer you this, Dream King. You will viscerally remember your son’s suffering for ten thousand years, and you will have no control over when it happens. And believe us, it will happen more often than you fear. The pain shall remain to remind you that should you fail the child Thalia carries, should your love destroy once again, we will hound you, and you will become nothing more than a cautionary tale.”

Johanna came to and saw how badly Dream’s hands trembled. The silence that followed was awful. “Don’t mess this up,” she hissed under her breath. “It’s only ten thousand years, that’s nothing for…”

“I accept,” and those two words were so heavy with surrender that even Johanna felt emotional for a moment.

And the very next moment, the Kindly Ones stood right in front of them.

“Well, thanks very much, could’ve made it a bit easier for me,” Johanna grunted.

“Your work here is done, Johanna Constantine,” the crone commanded before turning towards Dream.

But it was the maiden who spoke. “Your acknowledgement satisfies the requirement of justice. The blood-debt transforms into the choice to love fully."

The mother proceeded. “And while we are appeased, Dream King, your true test lies in the time ahead. We will watch you and your willingness to love completely. We will judge your commitment to raising this child and loving it unconditionally at all times, for as long as it lives.”

“Your journey is not complete, Morpheus. It is only just beginning, and if you misstep…” the crone added.

And then they were gone.

“Fucking hell,” Johanna quietly muttered to herself while quickly rubbing her face.

His voice brought her back. “You have given me a choice I thought lost forever, Johanna Constantine.”

She smiled. “A simple thank you wouldn’t be like you at all, would it?”

Dream smiled back at her. “Is that what you truly believe?”

“Nah.” Johanna tilted her head. “Thinking of it: A while back, maybe. But you’ve changed.”

“Perhaps.”

A slightly awkward silence stretched between them, and Johanna was not good with those. “Well, you’ve got work to do I guess.”

He blew out a gentle stream of air through his nose. “Ten thousand years of it, as it seems.”

“Yeah, sorry about that one.”

“It is quite alright,” Dream said softly. “There is something… freeing about loss transforming into the courage to begin again.” He looked at her. “Perhaps even for you, Johanna Constantine.”

Her laugh sounded more awkward than intended. “Yeah, not sure about that.” She quickly wiped her hands on her legs. “Right, I should probably run, shouldn’t I?”

He stepped closer, head bowed, not looking at her. “I owe you. If there is anything…”

“It’s okay. You already took those nightmares away, I’m fine.”

His eyes finally found hers. “But are you? Truly?”

A brief moment of recognition passed between them, enough to make her understand that he was in the process of overcoming something (well, hopefully) that she still hadn’t. But the moment passed, and she let it.

Johanna drew in a sharp breath and put on a smile. “Yeah, I’m alright, nothing to worry about.”

“I will find you in your dreams, Johanna Constantine. And perhaps, you will even listen to me. One day.”

“Just like you always listen to me? Aye right…”

Dream cocked his head to one side. “Then again, I did just listen to you, did I not?”

“Yep, and look what it got you,” she quipped.

“Life?”

— — —

Matthew sat on a parapet. He simply ruffled his feathers and said nothing, which was so unlike him that it stopped Dream in his tracks.

Matthew turned one eye towards him, then away. “Boss.”

“Matthew.”

Another pause. “Is it…”

“It is done.”

The sound Matthew made was not quite a word. Dream actually chuckled, left him to it and simply walked on because he had to be some place else…

— — —

The pain was so severe she couldn’t breathe. Like nothing she had ever felt before. Even the darkest moments she had shared with him paled in comparison. And she couldn’t even wail at first. All there was were silent screams she felt building, but they went nowhere. It was as if they were stuck somewhere between her chest and her mouth.

Thalia rocked back and forth, hoping for something she could hold on to, something to stop her from collapsing completely and writhing on the floor. Her arms closed around her ribs, and a sudden panic overcame her, so profound that her heart would have stopped had she still one.

What if the child was gone? If what never should have been real in the first place would disappear with him if he didn’t come back? Because it was only real since he had made it so. With him gone, what would prevent the child to turn into nothing again?

Thalia’s thoughts began spiralling.

And just in that moment, she felt it.

I’m still here.

And she sobbed. Quietly at first as her hands began to run over her abdomen. Louder then, until she let go. And she finally wailed, and the tears flowed, and all she could do was howl. Howl away twelve winters when there were another twelve on the horizon. And another twelve, and another.

And maybe her howl was a threat instead of a call for mercy. Maybe it was just the release of a pain so deep that she knew it would never stop for as long as she existed, however long that might be. Or maybe it was a reminder for herself to keep herself in line, with the same cruelty that Prospero had shown to Ariel.

“Both of us are still here as it seems.” His voice seemed to come out of nowhere. “The three of us would be more precise.”

Thalia wasn’t even embarrassed he saw her like this. The tears wouldn’t stop, neither would the sobbing, neither would the shaking. And yet, she somehow managed to get on her feet, but she didn’t need to start walking because it was he who closed the space between them first to just take her into his arms. Which seemed very unusual for this particular moment, but she didn’t care one bit.

“You’re back,” was all she could get out between sobs into his chest that felt just as annoying as hiccups.

“Yes.”

“Yes?! Is that all you have to say?”

He pulled back and looked at her for a long moment, and it was very clear that the reason for his monosyllabic reply was simple overwhelm because his eyes were brimming with tears. The expression on his face was completely devoid of any armour whatsoever.

“Matthew sent Johanna Constantine.”

“Did he?”

“It seems he was worried about you and apparently considers her an appropriate aim to… communicate his worries to.”

“He was worried about me?”

Something seemed to shift, and his tears finally began to fall silently. “I am… in certain ways, not the same as when I left.”

“Yeah, I can sort of see that.” Thalia didn’t wipe away her own tears, but she gently thumbed away his.

He tried to find his composure. “Perhaps… I owe you an account of what occurred.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“Thalia, I…”

“Whatever happened between you and the Kindly Ones, and between you and Johanna, is yours. I don’t need a report right now. That’s not to say I won’t listen if you want me to.” She tilted her head. “Do you want me to?”

The silence that followed didn’t feel evasive for once.

“I should very much like you to,” he said at last. “Once I…” He looked at her. “If you will still have me, after everything I…”

“Morpheus…” She put her hand against his cheek. “I sent Matthew for Johanna Constantine. Does that tell you anything?”

His hand came up to hold hers. “Then I should perhaps confess that it was I who was worried about you, not Matthew. Well, I am sure he was, but that is not…”

“Will you shut up already?” she laughed, still trying to get her crying under control.

“You tell me to ‘shut up’? Oh how quickly the tables have turned,” he muttered before his lips closed over hers…

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Navigation

Thalia opened the door a bit wider. "What else is there to say?"

His eyes connected with hers before he immediately cast them down again. "Please."

She was deeply hurt, but she also loved him. And her profound certainty she would never stop loving him hurt most, because her love wasn't enough. He had given up on everything, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Thalia opened the door and stepped aside, and he entered hesitantly while she closed it with her back.

Morpheus stood in the middle of the room, his arms hanging by his sides, fingers fidgeting and grasping at something that wasn't there. He looked so utterly lost; a deep part of her just wanted to be close to him, but she couldn't. So she just stayed where she was and waited.

"I know you think I do not love you enough to reconsider submitting to the… inevitable." He looked at her, and his voice turned quiet. "But that is not true. You are everything that makes me reconsider. And if there were a way, a path I could choose, I would. I would even endure the pain of having another child if…"

It was the moment Thalia couldn't hold back anymore. "I know and understand how painful the thought of another child might be, especially right now. And it fills me with such deep sadness to think you would have to endure a child, like a burden. For you, but even more so for the child. I honestly don't know how on earth to make peace with that in any way, or how I can ever look at you again and not feel desolate for a child you will never see as anything but…" She stopped herself, and he looked at her as if she had kicked him when he was already down. "I chose to be with you, but I didn't choose this, Morpheus, and part of me wishes it had never happened. But it did. And it destroys me that I can't…" She looked up to the ceiling, searching for the right words. There were none.

If it were possible for him to look even paler than usual, he did. He seemed to hold on to every last bit of strength he could muster before he finally sat down on the bed, head in hands.

"I killed my son. I shed family blood. What has to happen will happen. It cannot be changed." Morpheus ran his hands through his hair. "And I have probably made sure of that a long time ago." He laughed weakly. "Long before I even knew you." He looked up at her with pleading eyes. "May I ask you to sit with me? Please?"

Thalia remembered that night in her bedroom when she had asked him to sit with her, and it was why she couldn't say no. She slowly walked towards the bed and hesitantly sat down next to him.

He turned towards her, but he didn't touch her. "I am so tired. I have wished for so long to be other than I am. Or perhaps to be more than I am. Or less… I do not know." He looked utterly broken. "Perhaps I set things in motion that are now running their course. Perhaps I expected them to go differently in certain ways, but they took a turn I cannot set straight at this point." There was so much defeat in his eyes that it cut her open. "What has been done cannot be undone. I had hoped I would be able to change things, and I tried to avoid them. I should have never gone with my sister to find our brother."

Thalia's heart felt heavy with guilt. "It's my fault, I told you to go."

He shook his head. "I could have said no."

"Then why didn't you?"

He avoided her gaze. "Perhaps our fate is determined for us, and no matter what we do, the outcome will always be the same."

"It's not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves. I still believe in that."

He half-sighed, half-laughed. "Of course you would."

They sat in silence, and it became heavier by the minute until Thalia couldn't bear it any longer. "Can I ask you a question? And will you swear to answer truthfully?"

He looked straight at her, palladium and diamonds. "Yes."

"When you pledged the bond, you asked me if I would stay by your side for as long as this universe exists. Did you mean it? At that moment in time, did you truly believe it was what you wanted? Or did you lie to me?"

His eyes were brimming with tears. "I meant every word, and it was what I wanted. I never, not once, lied about my feelings for you."

Although Thalia felt a sense of relief, it wasn't enough.

"And did I promise the reason I would stay wasn't because I have no other option, but because I choose to stay, in spite of that which you cannot always explain? In spite of your darkness?"

He looked down, and she rather felt his voice than heard it. "Yes."

She took his hands and lowered her head to meet his eyes. "I held and loved you through your darkest moments. And you loved me, and you trusted me enough not to hide your darkness from me. Even when all you were was grief and mourning and deep pain. I have lived with the manifestation of that pain every day since. I have never seen more darkness in you than I see now. And yet, I choose to stay, and I don't regret anything. But…" The tightening sensation in her throat finally gripped too hard.

His voice was so quiet it was barely audible. "Perhaps it is time you chose light over darkness…"

"Please stop! To know your darkness doesn't mean I believe it is all there is! It is the nature of daylight to fade, but it always returns! You aren't eternal darkness. You aren't Night. You are Dream! You are possibility, and I still believe you are! But I don't think you do, and I need to know if your will to live is strong enough to see the promise you made through. The promise to stay with me until this universe ends. I need to know you still choose me, as much as I still choose you." She closed her eyes and exhaled, and her breath fluttered. "I beg you to be honest. I swear I understand because I've been where you are now." The very same moment, Thalia knew that wasn't true, that she would possibly never understand what it meant to be Endless. But she had to try to make him understand that she had felt the weariness, the pain, the wish for it all to end, that she wasn't judging him but that she also couldn't hurt herself any longer while trying to hold his pain. "I will always choose you, but I cannot and will not save you. You can only do that yourself. I want nothing more than to walk with you, but you need to take the steps yourself." Her mouth was so dry that she could barely swallow. "I am scared of your answer, but I will ask regardless: If you could make whatever it is that's about to come go away, would you even want to live?"

Morpheus held on to her hands so tightly it hurt, and after a moment's hesitation, he looked straight into her eyes. "Yes."

And her relief was so profound that she sobbed and just took him into her arms.

She knew he was crying too, despite burying his face in her hair. "But it matters not because I cannot be certain I will be able to stop what has been set in motion."

"It makes a difference to know you choose life, no matter the outcome. Because this…" She held on to him tighter. "This is power. And I know you have that power inside of you, so stop telling yourself the only way to love is self-sacrifice. It's bullshit, and I'm done with it."

He released a strangled sound, and she couldn't tell if he was laughing or crying. "You are doing that strange thing with your voice again, Thalia Callaghan."

She still didn't let go, but she couldn't help snorting through her tears because it seemed so absurd. "What are you even talking about?"

She tried to pull back to look at him, but he held on to her. Without force and yet unyielding, his face buried in her hair. "You sang when I tried to avoid you after creating the star. You sang when you made me dance with you. Twice…"

"I made you dance?"

"Yes, you did. You move me in so many ways you will never understand." She felt his smile on her neck for the briefest of moments, and she could also feel it fade again. "But most of all, you sang when it was the only sound that could put my mind to rest after…" His voice faltered.

"I didn't even think you heard…"

He pulled back gently, and his face was tear-stained. "Of course I do. Just like the cadence of your voice when you read to me, and nothing but hearing you mattered."

Thalia swallowed hard. "It didn't seem to help you in any way."

"And yet I found, and still find, myself unable to stop listening to anything you have to say. This I swear: Your humanity is still your most vexing trait." He cast down his eyes briefly before he looked at her again. "But it is also your most precious one."

They got lost in each other's eyes for a moment, but the atmosphere was still fraught with hurt and tension.

Morpheus ran his hands over his face briefly, and he looked far more determined than only moments ago. "And because you are precious to me beyond words, I will not permit you get involved in this any further."

"Pray tell, how am I not already in knee-deep because you are precious to me? I know what I want. I always did."

His face contorted into an expression that hovered between self-loathing, complete disbelief and wanting to believe with all his might but failing. "You have no idea what will be coming for me, in due time. You won't be able to stop it without risking everything. And I do not know if I will be able to protect you."

She took his face in her hands. "I cannot die twice."

"No, but you can be severed from the Dreaming, and be forced to move on forever."

Thalia shook her head. "I was never afraid of death, and you know this. And I am not afraid of what happens if I move on from being a dream. But I am afraid of losing hope, and I have every reason never to go back to that place. And you know this about me, too—you always did. That's why I found you when even you believed I wouldn't. That's why I am here. That's why I am wearing this…" She laid her hand on the sapphire. "And there's no polite way of saying this: Stop telling me what to do. It didn't work last time, it won't work now."

"It is precisely what I am afraid of because I know you won't listen to me. You never do," he whispered as he gently ran his thumb across her cheek.

"Well, if I ever did, I wouldn't be here."

"But that is exactly…"

"Don't you dare default to your usual, 'Perhaps it would be better if you were somewhere else.'" She raised her eyebrow as a warning. "You knew all of this about me before you hung a rock around my neck, so why did you if you're not willing to put up with me?"

They just stared at each other for a moment before he couldn't hold her gaze any longer and began to laugh softly. "Why is it that no matter how grim the circumstance, you always find a way to make me smile?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Several of us are competing for the job of the court jester around here. The jury's still out who'll get it."

He knitted his brows and opened his mouth before closing it again in very apparent confusion.

"Ask Matthew, he'll tell you all about it. He has a talent for saying the right thing at the right time by the way, just in case you were wondering."

"I am fully aware he does."

"Then maybe you should let him know from time to time."

Morpheus blinked slowly. "I promise I will." The smile drained from his face. "May I request a favour? I am not telling you what to do, it is truly but a request."

Thalia nodded.

"Will you not do anything foolish that endangers you, or the child?"

And although he still didn't call it our child, the mere fact he mentioned it at all made Thalia's heart open to a small possibility, a modicum of hope. She knew she had to hold that hope lightly instead of trying to grasp it too tightly, so she chose to let it go for the time being.

"I'd like to think the things I do are never foolish, but always serve a purpose. Of course you're free to disagree, because sometimes, I disagree myself. Usually after the fact."

Morpheus nodded with a slight twitch of his mouth. "I shall not mention it again." He took her hands in his and focused on them for a brief moment. "Might I request something else?" As he looked at her again, she could see the insecurity in his eyes. "I would understand if you said no, and I would not hold it against you."

"Just ask."

"Dare I request to return to our chambers?" He exhaled and seemed to search for the right words. "I… find the thought of being alone difficult to bear right now. But of course that is not your problem to solve, and I…"

She lifted his hands, clasped between hers, to her chest. "Stop apologising for not wanting to be alone! I certainly didn't want to be, and it wasn't me who disappeared without a trace. It was so hard being without you over the past days. I completely understood you needed space, but I was so worried about you. We all were."

"I did not mean to cause worry. It seems I do not always behave in the most… appropriate ways."

"No, you don't, and it is a, let's say, occasional source of friction." She raised her eyebrow. "But I also knew that long before we bonded, and it never put me off, so it won't start now." And she meant every word and desperately wanted to kiss him, but she was too nervous; she didn't even know if he could bear being physically any closer to her than he was right now.

He gave her a way in when he simply asked, "May I bring forth another request?"

She felt her eyes pooling with tears because she knew he knew. "And what would that be?"

"Would it be too much to ask you to kiss me?"

"No," she whispered, and she moved in slowly. And the kiss was the lightest of touches, almost shy, and neither of them dared to deepen it. But it felt right; it felt deep all the same because it was the most careful, most gentle step to reconnect.

Thalia crawled past him into the bed, pulled back the sheets to lie down and invited him to lie with her by tapping the mattress lightly.

"I will happily leave the bed to you and sit on…"

Thalia rolled her eyes. "Unless you are scared of me all of a sudden, that's just idiotic."

"Sometimes, I am," he stated matter-of-factly.

She sat up slightly. "Scared or idiotic?"

"Mostly the latter." He smiled, but it only lasted for a second. "What if I were scared, in certain ways?"

A brief silence hung between them, full of all kinds of tensions that were difficult to explain and yet so clear.

Thalia was the first to break it by simply reclining again and saying, "Stop being silly and lie down."

"Are you trying to beat me into submission?" He finally couldn't suppress a chuckle any longer.

"Yes."

"Why am I not surprised?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Because you know me."

"Perhaps I do. But I am far more grateful to be able to say that you know me. Terrifying as that might be."

They looked at each other for a moment, and the smile vanished from his face when he finally sat on the edge of the mattress: he still hesitated to lie down next to her. Thalia briefly touched his arm and then just turned her back on him. After what felt like an eternity, he finally lay down, and it was unbearably hard for her not to turn around. So she focused on his breath, let hers fall into step, then began to slow it down, and everything became quiet…

— — —

They stayed like this for hours, facing away from each other, not touching, not talking. Close enough to feel each other, and it was close enough for her to want to be closer. But she did not dare to move, scared to destroy whatever it was they had rebuilt at this point.

It took another few hours until he asked, "May I hold you?"

She quietly said, "Yes."

He turned to put his arm around her, his front to her back, and she took his hand and pressed it to her chest. They lay like this for the longest time, fingers interlaced, just feeling each other breathe.

At some point, he slowly moved down their twined hands. And he whispered against her shoulder, "May I?", and she knew what he meant, and the tears started to fall, and she couldn't say or do anything but nod.

When she felt his hand on her abdomen, she also felt his tension, and she felt the pain he tried to let go of so desperately. So she turned to look at him, and he tried to turn away so she wouldn't, but she gently cupped his face.

There were no questions at this point. She let him take the lead; while she knew he wanted to kiss her and needed to be kissed by her, she didn't know how much he could take. And if she was totally honest with herself, she couldn't answer that question for herself either.

He rolled on top of her, and the kiss became heated so rapidly it took her by surprise. But then again, perhaps it didn't. It had always been true for him that banked fires blazed as soon as the walls came down, and it would set her alight in turn. It was more surprising, however, that he, all of a sudden, began to laugh quietly.

He propped himself up on his elbows and folded his hands at the crown of her head.

"I apologise." To see the smallest fraction of light return to his face, the incandescence in his eyes, now something other than a death lantern, took her breath away. But she also knew how fragile it was.

"You may try again," she smiled back at him. "But you don't have to."

He turned serious. "I wish to do so much more than just kiss you because…" His gaze became unsteady, flickering embers drowning in a pool of black water, and he closed them. "I wish to lose myself in you, and I wish to feel you lose yourself in me." He found her lips without opening his eyes, and it was he who surrendered, and yet it was also she who yielded. By the time he broke the kiss to speak again, she felt his mounting pain. "But I am not sure whether I can. I am scared it won't… I can't stop thinking about what never should have happened, and whether it will hurt too much that it is my fault you are…" He couldn't go on.

She brushed the hair from his brow. "It's okay. Even if you only want to hold me. Even if you don't."

"There will never come a day I do not wish to hold you." He looked at her for the longest time. "Will you tell me if I hurt you?"

"You should know by now I always do. But will you promise to tell me if you are hurting too much?"

"I promise." He hesitated for a brief moment, and the stars in his eyes were flickering erratically—cobalt, silver, gold and every shade in between. "I wish to… I would like to, with your permission…"

His inability to neither act on nor voice his needs was painful for her, not least because she could sense so clearly what he wanted but was afraid of all the same. "Do you want me to disrobe? Or would you rather…?"

Morpheus nodded and reached out his hand to gently pull her up until they were both kneeling. He didn't choose to let her dress disappear; he took it off slowly with his hands, barely touching her skin. And as he kissed her, again and again, his fingers stayed buried in her hair. When she made a move to undress him, he shook his head and moved away from her ever so slightly.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Morpheus closed his eyes and breathed deeply, and when he managed to look at her again, he focused on her eyes while his hands hesitantly began to run over her shoulders. He was shaking, and he didn't try to hide it. As he moved in closer, his body touched hers, fabric against skin, and he wrapped one arm around her waist and supported her head as he tipped her over, back down on the bed. She could barely feel his weight on top of her, but she felt his kiss setting alight every part of her body, and she was aching for him so deeply it was agony. And she remembered what she had promised. "It hurts."

He stopped kissing her and asked, "What would you have me do?"

"You know how much I want you, but it is too much for you. Maybe we should stop…"

"I do not wish to stop." He kissed her again, and as he did, his hand began to run down her side, over her hipbone, between them both. Thalia felt him cupping her and opened to his touch, moaning softly as he began to explore her. His kiss became deeper, and he pushed against her and his hand. It was then he started to tremble again.

She broke the kiss and asked, "Are you hurting?"

"No."

"Are you telling the truth?"

He looked at her, eyes all ablaze, stars fire and garnet, and he hoarsely replied, "Yes," before he kissed her again.

And he kept on touching her, and he moved with her as her hips rocked against him, and she breathed all that she felt, all that she was, into him. And as she did, she finally felt his skin on hers, and he removed his hand so they could be one.

But when he moved inside her, she began to feel his pain.

"Is it too much?"

He seemed to steady himself by focusing on her eyes again. "Yes." But he didn't stop and kissed again instead.

And this time, as he began to move deeper, he breathed into her, all he felt, all he was. And she moved with him, her fingertips leaving marks on his skin as she held him. She felt herself tightening around him, and it was pain and healing and love, all at once, and she took him with her, and it was over as quickly as it had begun.

He rolled off her, breathing hard, letting his arm fall over his face. Thalia turned on her side and put her hand on his chest, and she could feel his breath steadying under her touch until he put his hand atop hers. But he still didn't let her see his face.

"Are you okay?"

Morpheus stayed silent for a moment before he slowly lifted his arm off his face and turned towards her. He didn't need to say anything because she could tell he was in pain.

He moved in closer to put his head on her chest.

"You still feel the same; loving you feels the same. It still feels like home, and it feels like… life." He exhaled; a gentle stream breath against her skin—unsteady, unstable, uncertain. "Perhaps it is the reason I am hurting. Perhaps it should feel different. Perhaps it is wrong it feels right."

"Maybe it isn't right or wrong. Maybe it just is." She ran her fingers through his hair absentmindedly.

"Perhaps…"

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Dream felt it before he heard the griffin’s voice. Which was no surprise because at the end of the day, even the gatekeepers of the castle were his substance.

“My lord, we have captured an intruder.”

“So?”

“She claims to be your sister.”

He knew it never boded well if one of his siblings entered his realm more or less unannounced, and his intuition about this visit wasn’t any different.

When he arrived at the steps to the palace, the scene that presented itself brought out a chuckle, which made the hippogriff look at him with countless questions in its eyes.

His sister was hanging from the wyvern’s mouth, obviously not fazed in the slightest and rather enjoying herself, making noises like a very excited kid on a swing. But then again, she was Delirium, so it was to be expected.

The creature tried to speak without dropping her. “She said she was your sister.”

“She is my sister. Put her down.” He bit his lip in amusement. “Gently.”

“My lady, I must apologise. Had I but known, I…” the wyvern stammered.

“It’s okay. I mean, I liked it. It was like Disneyland,” Delirium babbled. She kissed the wyvern. “I really liked the swinging bit.”

And as much as Dream had to admit to himself that he was partly amused and partly… happy to see his sister, the slight discomfort at her appearance would not leave him alone.

“Delirium, what are you doing here?”

“I came to see you. I mean, I wanted to talk, too, not just see.” She looked almost shy.

“Why didn’t you call me? You have a gallery.” A slightly reprimanding tone had crept in out of old habit.

“I didn’t want to. If I called and you said no, then that would mean you wouldn’t talk to me. And the last time I called you, you said no. And the time before that. So I thought you probably didn’t want to talk to… me. So I thought if I just turned up, then…” She looked at him with pleading eyes. “Please don’t make me go away.”

And although his expression softened again, he was still wary. “Is this formal family business, sister?”

“Oh yes. I think. I mean kind of. Mostly. Maybe…”

“Then I think my gallery might well be the best place to conduct discussions, don’t you?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Whatever.”