c!Niki hates c!Dream when the Syndicate rescues him and brings him to the arctic.
She helps him, because she’s never seen c!Techno look so desperate as c!Dream bleeds out on the floor of his cabin.
She helps stitch him and bandage him and forces him to drink a health potion despite his half-conscious protests.
But she does not pity Dream.
She was a resident of L’Manberg. Until Doomsday, he was always on the opposite side of her story.
She has seen the destruction he can create. She was there when he threatened to kill Tubbo and the server surrounded him and put him in prison.
He does not scare her. She has caused her own fair share of destruction.
She does not know why Dream did what he did. But she knows his actions caused others to hurt and she doesn’t like him or trust him because of it.
So as she stitches up yet another deep gash in his back, she doesn’t pity him.
Instead she feels a grim sense of irony. Neither the most innocent nor the most powerful can escape the horrors of this server. Dream and Niki, on the floor of Techno’s cabin surrounded by blood, are living proof.
As Dream struggles to recover from the physical and mental injuries that plague him, Niki is not kind to him.
Don’t get her wrong, she isn’t mean. But she doesn’t give him the same grace everyone else does.
When the whole syndicate sits down to eat dinner and Dream’s seat is empty, Techno says Dream wasn’t feeling up to eating.
So naturally, Niki marches to Dream’s room, pulls the covers off of him, and tells him he better get up and she’s not letting him leave till he takes three bites.
She does the same when she catches Techno tending to the dogs by himself, or when Phil is clearing the porch of snow alone.
On the days where there isn’t anything for Dream to do, she demands he help her in her cabin, and spends the whole day giving him tasks until they’ve baked enough to last the whole anarchist commune a week.
Dream never protests, and he doesn’t dare tell her no.
It’s in these baking sessions that she and Dream talk. Dream does so reluctantly, but she doesn’t allow him to avoid the conversation. She knows she is pushing him, and sometimes he doesn’t say much, but it’s something.
Eventually Niki learns that Dream enjoys talking about the past, back before the wars and the pain. She learns of days spent in the sun, running through forests and fields with George and Sapnap. She learns of how the community house was first built, and a girl named Alyssa who left before Niki had the chance to meet her. She learns of crazy situations the “Dream Team” had gotten themselves into, and how they barely escaped bastions and desert temples by the skin of their teeth, but always left laughing. They always left together.
Most surprising of all, Niki learns how much Dream cares for his friends. How he still, to this day, would do anything to protect them from harm.
She learns how to finally start to piece Dream together.
She opens up to him, about her underground city, about burning the L’Manberg tree, about Wilbur’s betrayal.
And he opens up to her, about the L’Manberg war and his attempts to keep his server together. About dethroning George to keep him from becoming a target.
Niki knows Dream is leaving things out. It doesn’t all quite add up yet. But she can see from the mix of fondness and hurt in his eyes when he talks about his friends and his server that he isn’t a villain. He doesn’t enjoy the war that has taken over his home.
It’s through hours of baking that Dream is forced to open up and begin to heal.
It’s through hours of baking that Dream and Niki become friends.
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