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Chapter Text

"He is back" A shiver runs through the silk-like skin of the Queen of Love, as her ladies and lords in waiting stare at her. It's been years since her lord husband summoned her. But she could never forget his calling.

The sacred vow they shared make it impossible to ignore or forget. A mortal silence takes over the music room where a few seconds ago, you could hear young maidens from all the different realms , daughters from different gods, suns and stars in flower crowns laughing, while dancing to the elegant harp concerto, young lords trying to find words to finish sonnets, the older ones sitting in comfortable chairs around their Queen, keeping pleasant and polite conversations or moving lazily their handfans, more from habit than from heat. Since the climate is always perfect adequate at the Garden of Lovers. The light atmosphere changed the minute Lady Love mentioned her husband. The whole court felt the cold wind whoosing through the white curtains and the sudden change of the pink and orange skies to a blue grayish color. They knew it would rain later.

As it did, since their Queen got married to before the king of dreams vanished.

"I must make haste. Alone." She announces while her maidens got up. They exchange worried looks hesitating before bowing and staying still. She knows her husband well enough to know he is not going to be in his best mood. And her maidens do not deserve to deal with him. He never was in the best moon with Love. ‘Oh no, only his lovers get to see that' The Queen bitterly thought exiting the music room, almost running through the salmon marble floors that decorate the whole palace.

"My Lady". She heard Elijah running to reach her. Elijah was her most trustworthy cupid, her husband once called him ‘The Queen's Lucienne’ "My Lady Eostre, if I may speak freely, you don't have to…" She raises a hand, stopping him before he could finish and most likely commit treason. Love knew exactly what he was going to say. How she had grounds to ignore his calling, to never come to his aid ever again. After the abuse and disrespect of over a milennium. She knew it. She thought of it for years. But no matter what she thought, they were still husband and wife, king and queen, and although marriage may not be of any importance to her husband, to Love it was the most sacred institution

" Yes, I have. I must. He is still my lord husband as I am his lady wife, we made a sacred vow" The Queen looked sternly to her cupid, warning him " My good cupid, be careful, Dream is still your king, and one could take your words for treason" It was well-known that it is not wise to commit treason against an Endless, and to even suggest that a Endless' wife shouldn't come to his request was a dangerous territory. He lowered his head in respect "Apologies my Queen. It is a joyful occasion if our King is back." A mechanic polite answer. She nods in agreement, even if his face was heavy with worry for Eostre and not at all showing any joy in Morpheus return.

The lovefolk was not fond of the Dream King. They saw how their Queen's spirit got crushed with a loveless marriage over the centuries. How careless, and neglectful her husband was. Everytime Love would come back from the Dreaming, the entire Garden flooded with rain, mirroring the Queen 's tears, as she would lock herself in the bedroom and cry for days. She could never tell which was worse: Her husband ignoring her, without even a single kind word or a glance or when he impatiently acknowledged her, treating her as she was a burden to bear, a constant annoyance he needed to deal with.

The Queen of Love, however, believed in love, she believed that if she just tried hard enough, Morpheus would see her devotion, and they could actually have a happy fulfilling marriage. Love, better than anyone else, knew that most arranged marriages were a disaster. However as anthropomorphic manifestations of love and dreams, they weren't so different.

Mortals either dreamed of love or loved to dream for as long as they were created. Their marriage made sense. They even inspired the same mortal in two different occasions. He inspired a play called Midsummer Night's Dream, and she inspired Romeo and Juliet. They could be happy. She strongly believed in it.

How naive she was.

Dream didn't agree with their union from the beginning. A trick from his dear sibling, Desire, that became a political marriage. When Dream realize his sibling’s trap, it was already too late. Lady Love was infatuated by the love letters she received from her fiance (who, she later discovered, never wrote her any letter. Desire did. Misleading Love to elope). A few mischievous squemes made their union impossible not to happen.

As a Queen, Eoster tried for years everything a good monarch could: She tried to learn everything about the Dreaming, followed Lucienne around, asking for help to understand the dreamfolk, the laws of the Dreaming. Everything in her power to best fulfill her duties and help her husband with the burdens of a realm. She learnt how to love the dreamfolk, to care for them, to even bring peace of mind to distressed nightmares, to explain and defend her husband's harsh ways, to ease heavy hearts. It was easy for the dreamfolk to adore and become devoted to The Queen of Love.

As a wife, Love was by Morpheus' side at every official event and Endless reunion. She wanted to be more than just a lady wife, she wanted to be his partner. So eager to be a part of his life, although he didn't seem interested to be a part of hers.

Never even bothering to visit the Garden of Lovers, his wife's realm. Even with the king neglect and coldness, the Queen kept loyal and faithful. Dream could scan her sleep and never find any sinnful thought about a secret lover. She never wished for anyone besides him. Even with plenty of opportunities and suitors, her doves bringing letters of poems and sonnets from devoted mortals to sun-gods, praising her beauty, eager for her kisses, suffering from her loyalty, even then, Love never took a lover or indulged in immoral activities.

Eoster was ever obedient and submissive. An Endless outranked her, so due to her status and to tradition, she never spoke out of turn or raised her voice. She always abide by his commands and attended to his every need. Even in private, she was dutiful. Never denying her husband, opening her legs to welcome him, whenever and wherever he saw fit. She would let him rip off beautiful long nightgowns, designed especially for nuptials, gladly taking him for as long as he wanted. Most times, she didn't take great pleasure in it. and Morpheus always seemed to be performing a duty. He didn't whisper sweet nothings, was gentle or cared for her after.

That was the first piece of her heart to be broken by her husband. To realize she was nothing but a quick-release for him. Only useful to scratch an itch he happened to have. As a goddess of love, purity, marriage and fertility, she knew how intimacy between lovers could be of burning passion, beautiful, caring, a true lovers' dance. How cruel her husband was to deny her, of all entities, even this pleasure. But he did. And the worst part was that Love knew he didn't even know he was causing pain, he just didn't care enough.

Another thing she didn't expect was that they almost never shared his bed for the night. Most of the times, after fulfilling the Dream King's needs in bed. She would be dismissed to her private chambers. ‘Like a common whore’ she often thought. If Morpheus ever thought of her, embarrassed, half-naked, wrapped in sheets, tip toeing crossing the corridor to her room, he never said anything. Love would especially be ashamed when bumping into Lucienne. The librarian always offered a respectful bow, looking over her glasses. Professionalism wouldn't let her say a thing, but the Queen could see the pity in the librarian's eyes, as Lucienne could see the Queen’s cheeks wet of tears.

As she savoryly remembers the nights of being used and discarded, she squeezes Elijah hand in reassurance "My sweet love child, worry not. I'll be back before you know it".

And just like that, the Queen of Love returned to her husband.

Chapter Text

The Dreaming was very different from what Love remembered. Decading, fading. She couldn’t hear the dreamfolk. It was as if a war had taken place in the realm. She could not have known if it did, the last time she was in the Dreaming, her spouse banned her to the Garden. Otherwise, Love would never let her husband’s realm fall into such dismantle and abandonment. Even before her husband absence, Eoster had already set aside any dreams of making her husband's realm her home or seeing her children running through the palace room. However, she couldn't ignore the sadness in her heart of seeing all of the Dreaming destroyed.

“My lady Eoster”. The deep pink skirts of Love’s structured dress ruffled as she turned to face Lucienne. The Queen opened a sincere room-lightening smile, reaching to her husband’s librarian. “Blessing from the Garden, my darling friend. How are you? You seem…" Her voice died, it is impolite to say someone look tired, although there was no better way to put it. Lucienne looked exhausted. Deep purple circles under her eyes.

The librarian exitated for a moment seeing the woman turned. If the librarian didn’t see the King of Dreams summon his wife, she would never recognize her queen. Lucienne lightly shook her head, bowing respectfully. It was the Queen of Love, her sweet soothing voice was unmistakable, but she looked different.

When Love was in the Dreaming for the first time, her thick long brown curls were always in a loose braid or run freely in her back, she often wore delicate flower crowns, as the fashion in the Garden, along with flowy lovely almost see-through draped dresses with low necklines, enough to entice her husband imagination, but respectful enough to a Queen. Delicate as renaissance painting. A very different from the thick long curls now secured in a very elaborate hairdo, a golden embroidered crown and a deep-pink colored structured silk gown, with a tight corset accentuating her breasts, and long sleeves that touched the floor. More mature, womanly, confident, like a baroque painting. She was not the naive princess that moved to the Dreaming centuries ago.

“What in gods' name happened? If you are in need of help, Lucienne, please you must come to me” Lucienne’s eyes brightened, Love may not look the same but her nature was still kind, her generosity still abundant. “Thank you, my Queen. It is a blessing to have you back. We sure miss your springs. I hope you can stay” Love squeezed the librarian’s hand. The only time The Dreaming had a shining sun, and blooming flowers was when Eoster was around. ‘I hope you can stay’. Although she kept a polite smile, Eoster didn’t want to stay in the place responsible for her suffering any longer than necessary. Especially with her husband's return.

The queen could feel the king's eyes on her, his dark looming presence on the throne, the only sit in place, since he never made one for his wife. A clear reminder that she was a Queen only in paper. Love chose to ignore him. It was not defiance, he couldn't accuse her of that. Not if he did not made himself present.

“Are you married, boss?” Love looked around, trying to see whose voice it belonged to. The sound of little feet hopping made her look down, seeing a raven unknown to her, hopping near her feet and tilting its head. An unknown raven. This was odd, Morpheus' ravens were one of the few things close to him, he let her get to know “I don’t know this little one. Do you have a name, raven?” She smiled, leaning to him. “Matthew, my…er...” He looked from Eoster to Lucienne, and the librarian probably whispered the answer because he did what Love thought was the cutest bow a raven could do "My Queen".

It didn’t go unnoticed that Matthew was not familiarized with the ideia of Dream being married. Morpheus, once again, making a fool of his Queen. She should not be surprised. “Blessings from the Garden, Matthew. Are you a new raven to my husband? How is Jessamy taking the competition?” Matthew looked from to Lucienne to his queen “ Er- Oh boy, that is a hard one, well you see, Jessamy is-”

“Enough”. A shiver ran through Love’s spine. There he is. His voice. Always the same: Demanding. Impatient. Her husband. Love turns her heels, not quite facing him, as she is facing the floor, making a small courtesy. “Lord husband”. Emotionless and polite. After decades of euphoric running to her husband’s arms, sweet kisses, and being greeted with a cold shoulder, she gave up trying, and mirrored him with the same coldness he offered her. “Lady wife”. Something in his tone made Love look at him, she never heard it before, but if she would guess, it sounded like he was almost…tired.

Her King definitely wasn't the same, paler than usual, fragile, weak, she could see and sense his weakness. Something did happen. Love opened her mouth but no words came of it. Something deep in her heart wanted to embrace him, ask what happened, to care for him, mend his pains, but she didn't. He did not deserve it. Her soft heart might do good to remember it. If the opposite had happened, do you think he would care? It was a waste of care to pity Morpheus. After all, why ask if he is just going to mock her for caring? Or be furious for Love to think that someone could weaken him? Or even tell her to stop meddling in his affairs. No, she knew better.

Love intertwined her fingers in front of her corset, trying not to look fazed by her husband's current state “Our realms shall now rejoice for your return, my king” Morpheus frowed. He expected something…different from her. She gave him a neutral answer, a political welcome, not a crack in her voice, her face was as if she was talking about the weather, not to her husband who was gone by 100 years. He remembered his wife's kisses, always saying the most gentle and caring words, empathic to all creatures, even nightmares and demons. He also remembers that she was a passionate fighter, whenever they were quarreling she was always very emotional and constantly nagging. Neither those memories seem similar to how Love was behaving. He knew that he was neglectful but isn't he worthy of her empathy? Or her anger? He didn't needed it. But she was his wife, wasn't she?

She kept a stiff posture even if her body trembled a little. Without knowing she was holding her breath. She long stopped being angry at Morpheus, as it showed to be useless. In the beginning she used to scream and cry, locking herself in her bedroom for weeks, wishing for death or for her king to come and ask for forgiveness, she dreamed of him on his knees begging for a chance to gain her favors once again. He never did. As the years went by, Eoster gave up, in expecting anything else than nothing from Morpheus. But seeing him again, she couldn't help but to feel angry. All those intense negative emotions taking over her senses. She wanted to slap him across his face, scream, break everything dear to him in the palace.

It would be easier if he would just make a fuss for her not acknowledging his missing. She actually wished for it, giving her grounds to let out her frustrations. But that was not like her husband, his fury was a silent one, not one with screams and physical violence. He was an Endless, after all.

Morpheus stared deep into her eyes, making Eoster almost step back. There was hurt and fury in his calm voice. "A hundred years gone. Did you even wondered where your husband was?" Love knew that tantrums did nothing but annoy her lord husband. She wanted him to feel forgotten. Like he made her feel for centuries. So instead of indulging in intense reactions, she responded calmly and sensible after an uncomfortable silence
"A hundred years is but a glimpse of time for an Endless"

The silence took over the throne room, even Lucienne and Matthew felt the tension, the couple disguising their true feelings through polite words, followed by long games of silence. It was until the Queen broke it, annoyed by the prolonged time this reunion was taking, trying to appear calm, signing, turning herself to assess the destroyed room. ” I assumed you had taken another mistress.” Once, she would have been mortified by even thinking about other women, but now? There was no reason for it. The whole realm knew it anyway. “I assumed you were courting her.”

“Oh fuck, a mistress?”

Lucienne sushed Matthew, but not quick enough so Morpheus wouldn’t notice "Leave", he turned his gaze to the librarian, the king didn’t need to say more, they were quickly and happily gone . Lucienne did not want to see the end of this quarrel, Matthew didn't know, because he wasn't yet around when they quarreled. The librarian knew how it would end. Lady Love would hold her tears until back in the Garden and Lord Morpheus would take out his frustrations out in any subject, wherever guilty or not.

Love forgot that they had an audience present. Good, that might set the mood for Morpheus. He hated being exposed, especially to his subjects. Everyone in the Dreaming knew the couple was not a happy one, but they politely pretended not to know, as Eoster and Morpheus pretended not to be aware that their failed marriage was of public knowledge.

He got up from his throne, Love kept her face straight, as he stared deep into her eyes and she stared right back, not looking away, as he walked towards her. “May I remind you, my Queen, that you are Queen of the Garden as you are Queen of The Dreaming? Mistress! Was that it? The reason you let your subjects to their own luck? Jealousy? Has the Lady of Love no commitment to her duties? Is she incline to such cruelty?"

The air around them thickened, she breathed heavy, chest burning in anger. How dare he? How dare he guilting her about his realm destruction! Usually she would turn her back and walk away, not giving herself the trouble of explaining to her husband his own duties. However, accusing her of not caring for the dreamfolk, she would not have it. Not when it was his fault. With a deep breath, biting her tongue to hold the curses she wished to scream to him, squeezing her fingers to not squeeze his neck “May I remind you, my lord husband, that in our last quarrel, you banned me from the Dreaming.”

Love grinded her teeth. By the look on his face, taken aback by her. he had forgotten about that. “ In your words, I was only allowed here, through your calling.” Words like thorns, cultivated from years of neglect. “ So no, lord husband, I did not forget about the Dreaming nor I neglected it. For I do not let my personal matters interfere with my duties toward my realms." 'Unlike you', she thought. Love shook her head in disbelief, how could he accuse her of being selfish?! She sacrificed her own happiness to live a miserable marriage, she chose to never take lovers and she never even condemned him for his love affairs! She knew more than she wished to know about tolerance and permissiveness, he had no right to accuse her of cruelty. Not him. “And Jealousy! How can I have jealousy of something I never had? Spare both of us, I beg you this. Don't blame me for your sins for you know they are yours and yours only." The anger takes over her body in a way, she has to walk away from her husband or she would slapped him. "You forget yourself, wife" He warned, but she didn’t care. She didn’t even realize when tears start staining her cheeks " No, you forget yourself, husband." She angrily turns back dropping her hands “How dare you question my commitment to my duties?! When did I ever, pray tell me, neglect my responsibilities? Can you, husband, say the same? Wherever were your responsibilities with your wife? " He stayed silent. "Why, should I go after my husband? Only to see him bed another woman? Please another whore? Father a bastard? To watch you being so infatuated that even mortals dream of her?" As it has happened before, for her shame. "What was it this time? Another mortal? Another muse? A fallen star? It must've been a good one for letting your kingdom in-”

"I WAS CAPTURED" The King roar echoed through the room. She coied herself away,bracing for the worse. Morpheus never raised a hand towards her, but she never showed such insubordination to him. He warned, and she pushed. He may not hit her, but he would ban her for the millenia, maybe even send her to hell. She could almost see the grin in Morningstar’s face. "There was no mistress". He said the word with such spite that one might think he never indulged in such behaviors. Knowing Morpheus he would probably punish mortals to never dream of love again.

She looked at him confused. An Endless captured? Impossible. Could it be a trap set by Desire or Despair? There was no other possibility. He could see the question in her eyes ``A mortal. He wanted my sister, Death, but captured me. I was imprisoned for all these years. Unable to return. And Jessamy? She-” His voice cracked. Dead. Jessamy was dead.

Love didn’t understand. An Endless, her husband of all of them, one of the most powerful beings in the universe, at the mercy of a mere mortal. The idea of it was absurd, more than that, it was impossible. Even before their marriage, between all the beings it was a well known truth that marrying an Endless was to marry security, protection, to never be challenged, except by other Endless, and even then, family could not spill blood of family, and by marriage, this also extends to her.

An imprisonment explained her husband's more than normal pale skin, and how weak he seemed. Love couldn't help herself but to feel sorry for her king, sorry to think the worst of him. Yes, he did take mistress after mistress, and the gossip around all the entities was how infatuated he was for his lovers, so it only seemed obvious to Eoster that he was pursuing a new passion. She was so bitter and angry at him that she forgot how he was also one of the most devoted among all his siblings to his realm. He might had a mistress, but would never leave it to be destroyed. Love fiddled with her fingers, her cheeks red with embarrassment, lowering her eyes to the ground. "Forgive me, I…" She whispered ashamedly. It was true he cheated before, constantly, she had grounds to accuse him, but she was the Lady of Love, and love is always forgiving, it is always patient, it doesn’t hold grudges, so what was she doing? Not listening to him, not being empathic to her husband, has she become so cold after all these years? Has she become like Morpheus?

If only the Dream King had been a better husband, if only he had shown her kindness and companionship. Their reunion would not have been like this. In truth, if he had been a better husband, she would never let him leave.

Since she couldn’t make words for it, at least not in meaningful words, she falled in her knees. Eoster defied him, she knew the rules "Forgive me, please, I…I shall take whatever punish you seem fit." Love was certain he would send her back to the Garden, maybe never wanting to see her again, maybe this time for eternity. The weight of her words weighed her. Did she actually scream at her husband? Did she actually do it? What reckless behavior. It wasn’t like her, not of late. Eoster was always contempt, always submissive. Why was she furious with someone she concluded long ago would not be able to love her?

"I have no intention of punish you, my lady" she frowned her brows, looking at him puzzly as he signed, tired "I…" In his imprisonment maybe he forgot about punishments? Maybe he had grown mercy on him? "My Lord, I embarrass myself and you, accusing you of sins you did not commit. I shall retreat to the Garden and think about my behavior". Love suggested what seemed like something her husband would impose. He stayed silent, looking at her, offering his hand to help his Queen get up.

"I wished you back in the Dreaming." His words were uncertain, if she didn't know better, she would say that Morpheus was nervous and maybe a little shy in asking her that.

Eoster tilted her head, not daring to get up. She wasn’t sure if he wasn’t toying with her, even if it was very unlike him. She looked into his deep blue eyes, trying to read his face to figure out where this was going. Love could kind of understand why he would show mercy at her, after all, he might need her powers to restore his destroyed realm. But to ask her back to the Dreaming? No. That was…It couldn't been. Not after this disaster of reunion. She needed to appeal to reason, without appearing shocked. "My Lord, forgive me, I am sure you remember, but I do have a court".

One of their biggest quarrels. The Garden had a full court, very different from the Dreaming. Her husband's palace was quiet and ethereal, very different from Love's palace at the Garden, with constant music, talking, laughs, ladies and lords running through the halls. Balls, concerts, feasts, festivities happening almost on a daily basis. Eoster was always followed around by her closest cupids, her creations, and ladies and lords in waiting, entities from other realms learning the ways of the heart.

When they got married, she wanted to bring them to the Dreaming. Morpheus instantly denied her. They quarreled for days. It only stopped because he went to the mortal’s realm. He didn't want to be disturbed by gigglings and mindless conversations that he was certain Eoster court would be full of. And she just wanted to feel less lonely, to be around some familiar faces, that didn’t treat her so distant as the dreamfolk treated Morpheus, and by extent, her.

It would take decades to dreams and nightmares to learn that Eoster was very different from her husband. That she wanted to be close, to actually know them and have them around. In the end, to not have his wife moping in the corners and pouting, he allowed her to go to the Garden, to attend her realm’s affairs and socials.

" I do remember it." He said, more certain. Standing in front of her, she could feel his gaze. Love upheld her head. Did this awful mortal that captured him, torture him in a way he lost all his senses? What could possibly make Morpheus change his mind? That was one of the main reasons Love and Dream fight: His stubbornness to change. He didn’t want a wife, a court, a new realm to take care of. He didn’t even accept her purest devotion. "I have new ladies and lords in training, I cannot leave them without guidance" She mentioned politely, to avoid another confrontation by saying that he couldn’t expect her to drop everything at his command. (She once would have done it. But that was the past). She took his hand, getting up, as he unfazed by her appeals he concluded "Bring them."

Eoster dropped her mouth open, and almost fell back on the ground. She was too stunted to speak. She couldn't answer, the truth was she didn't wanted to come back, this wasn't her home. Love thought that if she reminded him why she couldn't be back, he would drop the subject. The Dreaming was never her home. Morpheus never allowed her to make it her home. The Garden was. She liked Lucienne and her subjects, but long ago her husband made it clear that this was his kingdom, and she was its queen but her role was not to actively rule, but to be more of an accessory, to decorate Morpheus arms whenever needed, to fulfill the role of devoted and beautiful wife.

Eoster raised an eyebrow. If this was a game or a trap, she would soon discover, as she pushes him for conditions he would not in eons accept. That she was certain of, imprisonment or not, he was still the Dream King. "As you wish, I will ask Lucienne to see Elijah to make arrangements for my court". The lady got up, dropping his hand as soon as she was on her feet, entangling her fingers against her corset, taking a few steps away from Morpheus, testing the Dream King's newfound goodwill. "Since you are in such high spirits, my lord husband, may I speak freely?” He slowly nodded in agreement, holding his tongue not to say that she did more than speak freely a few moments ago, but decided to avoid another fight, since he truly intended his wife to be back at his side. And fighting her, would not aid his cause.

Years of imprisonment gave him time to think, at first he did not think of Eoster at all, but after the loneliness and mistreatment, he started to long for his wife. He never expected to miss her talking, the gentle kisses, the eagerness to be close, the longing to be part of his realm, how she welcomed him to bed even if he did nothing to deserve the touch of her delicate naked skin. He realized that he didn’t actually know her, even after centuries married, he never had any interest in getting to know her. That pained him, thinking if he would get the chance to know her. Eoster could have dealt with the Corinthian. They were fond of each other. And she had a way of understanding and embracing troublesome nightmares, better than him. Although Morpheus would never admit it.

After examining her through their reunion, he could perceive the differences between the Eoster he once married. She grew cold, distant, avoiding his gaze, avoiding him, staying at a safe distance at all times. He cursed himself and his heart felt heavy for knowing that in most part, if not for all, he was to blame.

When they got tricked into marriage, Dream spent years holding a grudge against Eoster, thinking she had much part in Desire’s trap as his sibling. Maybe she was infatuated by him, and Desire offered a quick way to make him hers. He never directly asked her, but they were close, one may say they were even friends, if his sibling ever had those. After all, Love and Desire were, for mortals, two sides of the same coin. They worked too close.

He thought all her devotion was a farse. A plan to make him fall for her, to make a fool of him, to destroy him. Desire knew how infatuated he was for his lovers, and they were not the mistress of love. Imagine how would he be if he was devoted to the Queen of Love? Desire would have him completely annihilated.

“The solstice ball is to be held in a week in the Garden, but since you insist in my company, I assume you won’t mind it to be held here, in the Dreaming? After all, as you kindly remember I am Queen of the Dreaming as you are King of the Garden.” She wandered away from Morpheus, walking in the throne room langley, avoiding his gaze, afraid he would realize what she was doing. This would definitely make him exile her again. Back to the confort melancholy that she accepted as a dear friend over the years. “And thinking of the politics of all, It is the most appropriate time. It will show renewed strength to our subjects and especially to your siblings.” Who she was certain had something to do with his imprison. This has Desire written all over it. “They, of course, shall all be invited, and you, lord husband shall show them that you are not beaten down by some mortal, that you are stronger than ever."

She knew Morpheus. He hated festivals, balls, parties, all events that the Garden was full of. And inviting his siblings? Morpheus would be dead before Desire or Despair step foot in the Dreaming. She was pushing him through the edge. To the king of dreams to accept such terms, it was a true act of desperation. No, Love knew her husband, she knew his temperament. He would deny her proposition, and send her back to the Garden to even dare propose such an idea. Maybe not now, after all, he was imprisoned, alone, starved of touch. Morpheus probably would want a private visit of his wife in his chambers. He had no mistress over these years, Love knew by coming that their meeting would most likely end with her covered in sheets crossing a hall.

It took a few moments of silence, Eoster pretending to be assessing the damages, touching the decaying columms that seem once so strong, so fragile now. She could almost hear the engines in his head turning, considering whateve or no- " Fine. Give me a few days to restore my possessions and rebuild my realm. You can bring your court, and prepare the festivities." Morpheus offered her a semi-smile. She could feel her cheeks starting to grow red, immediatly turning away from his gaze. After all these years, all the mistreatment, a single smile ( not even that!) made her into a blushing maid. She lightly shook her head, focusing on the madness she was listening to. Di-did her husband just agree with her court and the solstice festival AND to his siblings all in The Dreaming? No. What? No. " I-I'll return to the Garden and inform my court of our new arrangement, my king" She gave a small courtesy, her skirts dancing through the floor as she walked away from her husband, still not sure this was actually happening. Feeling light on her feet. She needed to get out of here fast, or she would faint.

Her husband. Dream of the Endless. Lord of Nightmares and Dreams. He was, it sounded like madness to even think about it, but he was, wasn't he?

He was longing for his wife.

No

Love did not believe this. It was a need of power, a need for companionship, starvation of touch. He would come to his senses.

Chapter Text

"Why is she taking so long? " Elijah walked in circles impatient and worried for the Queen of Love. The cupid cursed himself for letting her go without company. Technically he couldn't stop her, but he regretted not being more convincing in persuading her not to go right away! Gods only know how awful Dream's humor might be.

" Will you please calm down? They are probably in each other's arms, making up for the lost time" The tall long figure with golden eyes and blond almost silver hair, joked while leaning against the pink wall in the small study room. He couldn’t deny he was enjoying seeing the cupid fussing over nothing. Dream and Love were stuck in a, ironically, loveless marriage, but the Emissary knew the Dream King was not villainous. He witnessed it first hand when Desire, the Emissary’s creator, set the marriage trap for his sibling. Morpheus could’ve killed Love before they exchanged vows, he could’ve freed himself, but he didn’t. The Emissary never understood why, after all Lady Love did not represent anything to him. Obviously Morpheus was aware of her existence and her well documented beauty, everyone was, but they never exchanged more than polite greetings.

“This is not funny.” Elijah didn’t even bother to look up, he knew the Emissary for over a century now, and just by his answer he could tell that the Emissary was having a fun little time watching his lover panic. Elijah loved the Emissary with all his heart, not that he would ever say it. After all, he knew Desire’s creatures treated love like leverage over an opponent. The cupid wasn’t stupid to give the Emissary the upperhand. So one could safely say, they were very fond of each other. But, every time there was a crisis, Elijah wanted to strangle him. The Emissary constantly jested at the most inappropriate times (like now), and would not take important matters (like this) seriously.

Right now, however, Elijah did not have the time to lecture his lover about times and places for jokes. " I should send a dove to Lucienne. Get me some paper." The Emissary raised an eyebrow "And ask what, exactly?” He cleared his throat imitating Elijah writing a letter “ 'Dear Lucienne, blessings from the Garden. How is the reunion? Is the whole palace staff blushing from hearing all the happy screams the Dream King is getting from our Queen? Tell me all the delicious details. May Love guide you, The Queen’s Lucienne'". The Emissary signed his invisible letter with the title the dreamfolk gave to Elijah (which he hated it).

The cupid ignores him, rolling his eyes and taking a deep breath, scanning through his desk looking for paper and a feather. "Something could've happened, you know. Don’t you remember the last time they saw each other?” It was a disaster in the Garden. The Queen was in such a miserable state, distraught, exasperated and resentful, that storms took over the whole kingdom, and anyone who got closer to the Queen, would have his eyes filled with tears, even if they did not want to weep. To feel the creator's emotions in such a way, was unprecedented. “ We don't know how he is, moodwise." Elijah's stopped, with a sudden realization "We should go to the Dreaming."

It didn’t matter how loony this idea sounded, Desire’s Emissary knew that when the brown haired cupid decided, he would do it. No matter, again, how stupid the idea was. And go to The Dreaming uninvited, with a probable quarrel coming, it was without a doubt the worst idea the Emissary has ever heard.

Elijah was devoted to the Love Queen, always worrying for her, for her safety, her happiness, and although he knew the Queen was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, and deep down aware that the Dream King wouldn't physically hurt her (Not the same could be said about emotional damage, since the king has done a number on his queen), Elijah knew how demanding and manipulative Morpheus could be, making Eoster feel guilty and responsible about a misery he was responsible to. Their marriage wasn't fair, never was. It killed Elijah seeing Eoster hiding her pain, something she became so proficient in hiding. The disappearance of Lord Morpheus came as a blessing in disguise for the lovefolk. Yes, their Queen was still stuck in a terrible marriage, but at least, he wasn’t around anymore. She now had some peace, some comfortable loneliness, away from the pain.

The Emissary stepped in front of Elijah grabbing his arms, stopping the cupid. Elijah was already grabbing his messenger bag, with determination in his eyes. The Emissary stared deep into his brown eyes, trying to fill some sense in such a heart-guided creature. "No we won't. Are you insane? If we dare to step in the Dreaming without invitation, Morpheus will have our heads. Especially mine." The Emissary pointed to the golden iris, in case Elijah had forgotten whose creation his lover was. " He might spare you, if Eoster, and I doubt it, is able to persuade him. But I am as good as dead. Besi-"

A knock on the door made the two of them fall silent, staring at the door, looking like two children misbehaving. They looked at each other. It wasn't Love, she never knocked. The Dream King never stood foot in the Garden. Both Elijah and the Emissary were in accord that even if he did, he wouldn't be knocking on doors. A second knock came. Both looking fearfully at the door, trying to silently impose to the other to open it and face whatever was on the other side. ' You open it!' Elijah mouthed to the Emissary who vividly shook his head, denying it. "This is your study, you open it!" The mute discussion continued until a third knock came. They made a ridiculous quick rock-paper-scissors game to which Elijah lost and went to open the door. They had no idea who it might be, but due to the current events, they doubt it would be good news.

" Ye- Lucienne?"

"How are you Elijah?" The librarian looked over her glasses to the brown haired young man, and to the study behind him. He standed still, blocking the entrance, and when he didn't invite her in, she slowly started to say "Are you not going to-" Elijah blinked twice before quickly making way for the woman, brushing off the shock.

Lucienne stood in the middle of the office, raising an eyebrow to the Emissary, taking notice of his golden pupils. He, on the other hand, made an extravagant courtesy, giving her a wink with a cheshire smile, to which she rolled her eyes "Lady Lucienne, blessings from the Garden" Elijah rolled his eyes and held himself not to sigh. "Emissary, leave us, please" the lover got up and danced his way out "It is time indeed that I celebrate the return of our dearest Dream K-" Elijah closed the door before he could finish, murmuring a 'sorry' to the librarian, offering her a seat. "Blessings from the Garden, Lucienne. It is such a joy our Lord Morpheus has returned." He said, no real meaning behind his words. Lucienne nodded with a brief polite smile. "Tea? We got an excellent lovers dance tea." Elijah offered while putting himself a cup. She raised her hand, thanking but denying. Elijah was dying to ask her a thousand questions, but professionalism wouldn't allow him.

"Has our Lady returned yet?" She asked. Elijah shook his head, it would be extremely abnormal if she returned and not met him immediately. "Well, then I will be the messenger of more than just one news.” She cleared her throat looking from her knees to the cupid, clearly uncomfortable “Lady Eoster and Lord Morpheus decided for new arrangements." And by that, she meant Dream decided and Love abided. As usual. Elijah noticed the librarian moving on her seat. "I see" the brown haired man said it encouraging her to continue, she took a deep breath before announcing "Lord Morpheus wishes Lady Eoster to move back to the Dreaming" Elijah blink, as the words the woman said were a foreign language he could not understand. "Pardon? For the night, you mean?" Sure it was what she meant. He just didn’t understand why Lucienne had to come all the way to inform him of that.

Actually he was probably way better versed in this than her. Since it was the cupid that in the next morning had to deal with a Queen pretending not to be hurt, rereading for the thousand time the same love stories of mortals that were faithful and devoted to each other, the ones that went through hell to be with their loved ones, the ones that lived everything she could never lived. Those were days devoid of music and poetry, with grayish melancholic skies . Elijah was sure Lucienne didn’t have the same problems in the Dreaming.

The night would probably require a new bridal nightgown (another problem Elijah knew Lucienne did not had), since the ones the king didn’t tear apart, the Queen burned. Especially the ones she got as honeymoon gifts. The cupid's thoughts turned to how he would find a seamstress in short notice who wasn't full of requests, since the Solstice festival was upon them. Of course, he could send a regular nightgown, but what if the Dream King took that as an insult? Poor Lady Eoster would be the one that would hear it.

Lucienne closed her eyes, gathering strength to explain to him. Elijah was a good cupid, but he often had too many questions and wanted too many explanations. "Lord Morpheus wishes Lady Eoster to be at his side, as husband and wife, king and queen, at the Dreaming. Not only for…" She kept struggling with the right words, after all, even for a royal librarian, it was extremely challenging to find the appropriate words to discuss intimate details of her king and queen marriage “ Marital duties”. She was definitely not cut for these types of arrangements and discussions.

Elijah kept looking at the woman, but could not manage to find answers. To avoid the awkward silence, she kept talking, maybe he was not aware of the politics of it, that in theory it wasn’t really a request. Lady Love didn’t have the option to deny her husband. "Since he is an Endless-" Elijah interrupted her abruptly, shaking his hand in dismissal "Yes, yes, I am aware of the politics of it all" He reclined in his chair, only to raise his back again, not able to stay quiet "Did he really said it?" She tilted her head. "Well, our Ladyship was the one who approached me, as instructed by Lord Morpheus, to make new arrangements.” He knew what the words meant, but it sounded like delusions of a crazy mortal. “Of course she did." He sighed.

Lucienne frowned, not sure if she liked his tone and what he was implying about her lord, but at the same time, could she blame the lovefolk for holding grudges against Lord Morpheus? “Lady Love requested that we both worked together to make the transition smoother.” Elijah frowned, “What transition?” Lady Love already had her private chambers in the Dreaming “The Garden’s court. They both agree that her court should accompany her to the Dreaming”. Elijah was speechless, and almost choked on his tea. “Also, the Solstice Festival." She gathered inner strength for she did not know how the cupid would react to this. The color of the cupid’s face was already gone with the court thing, and now the festival? Festivities were sacred in the Garden. To move or change them… Well, Lucienne could only hope that cupids’ hearts were strong. “Our Lady and Lordship want it to be held at the Dreaming. We also need to send invitations to the Endless siblings.”

First Elijah was speechless, and then he laughed. He laughed so hard tears got into his eyes. "You are a jester, Lucienne! Or is it the Emissary's work? For Love’s sake!” He was incredulous. “The court? His siblings?!" Thanks to his relationship with the Emissary he knew that Morpheus hated dealing with some of his siblings, especially Desire and Despair. To host them all under his realm during the Solstice Festival was unimaginable! Elijah couldn’t imagine him hosting a festival, laughing, dancing, enjoying any sight of happiness and joy, let alone being a gentle host to his family. Lucienne's face kept unchanged, with a slight discomfort. She would let his senses fall back into himself.

Slowly Elijah saw that Lucienne was not cracking with the joke nor did the Emissary returned mocking the cupid stupid shocked face. "You are not jesting." She nodded. " What happened to him? Is he really himself?" Elijah asked even if it was inappropriate. After all these years! Of course he thought it was a joke, that request was an insult! He deserved some answers, his queen deserved some answers! She sure would not get them from Morpheus. So it was his job to get them from Lucienne.

Would they just pretend that the years of misery did not exist?! Would she simply have to forgive the abuse, just because the Dream King is going through some middle life crisis and realized that maybe, just maybe, he should not be a dick to his own wife?! No, no, there must be some explanation, some reason to this. Cupids were not the most rational creatures, but for Love’s sake! To just accept this was delusional!

Lucienne didn't like to gossip, especially about her boss, but she knew the cupid, if she didn't give him some answers, he would not leave her be "I don't know for certain, and I should not tell you this, but our lordship was trapped by a mortal, for a hundred years. Jessamy, his raven, died. Many deserted the Dreaming." Elijah took a minute absorbing the information. An Endless captured by a mortal. A hundred years is nothing for them, but a hundred years away from his realm and his dreamfolk, unable to leave, ‘unable to cheat’ Elijah bitterly thought to himself. He pitied the souls of the fools who imprisoned him. They were going to wish for death.

The cupid took a minute digesting that information before clearing his throat " Then we must make haste." Unlike the Garden, Dreaming was not famous for hosting events. Elijah doubted it ever held one. "You must know, Lucienne, that the Solstice Festival is one of the most important events for our Lady and the lovefolk. It is the graduation of the senior ladies and lords in waiting, that came from different realms to learn the ways of the heart." Elijah didn't want to panic nor panic Lucienne, because it would not help, but perfection was imperative. Even after organizing it for centuries, it was always a handful. And by just imagining the next few weeks trying to fit all the arrangements in the Dreaming. Gods! His head was already aching. "I hope you had your rest over these hundred years, dear Lucienne, because we won't have much during the preparations. Follow me, please.” With a sudden jump, Elijah was at his feat, making his way through the door. Turning back to the woman “I am sure our lordship is a magnificent host, as you are in organizing events” Elijah politely said, even though it was a blatant lie, but, he didn’t want Lucienne to think the lovefolk took the dreamfolk as social incompetents (Although they were certainly of it) “But since festivities in the Garden have their own… Etiquette, you might want to take notes."

Lucienne however stood sit " There is one more thing, Elijah.'' He froze already at the door slowly turning to her. Shit. Did the Dream King sneak into his dreams and found out that he wasn't the most devoted subject of his? After being imprisoned by mortals, he sure would be in mood for revenge and eliminate traitors. Maybe Elijah was next. Maybe this was the reason Lucienne needed to learn how to organize the Solstice Festival, because Elijah would not be around. Could Lady Love stop him? "Lord Morpheus wants to see you."

Elijah raised his eyebrows in surprise. After all, the Dream King and he never exchanged more than what formalities required of them. It wasn't common for the right arms of entities to have close relationships with other entities. The Emissary was an ambassador from Desire to the Garden, but he was not close with Lady Love, he treated her with the respect her rank required, but nothing more. Lucienne and the Queen developed some kind of friendship, but neither Love or Lucienne ever forgot that Lucienne was Dream's right arm, not Love's.

" Any idea what this unexpected audience is about?" The woman raised herself and walked to the cupid. She signed and shrugs, honestly, Lucienne had no idea what her Lord wanted to discuss, after all he would be too busy rebuilding the Dreaming to arrange the Solstice Festival, so what was the need in talking to Elijah? Her shock when Dream asked for a meeting with the cupid was similar to Elijah's. “ I am not sure.” The woman paused, with her hands on her back, speaking with honesty “He is not the same, Elijah. He…” The librarian, even with her extensive knowledge of words, and complicated descriptions of feelings she read in the book of mortal’s lives, could not define how Morpheus had changed. But he was not the same King as before. “He changed”

That was not the first time the cupid had heard this. Only now, Lucienne was saying it, not his Queen. He couldn’t count the amount of times Lady Love grew full of hope believing her husband had changed his way. Elijah gave Lucienne a wary look “And did our lordship mention when this audience will be occurring?” Elijah was not convinced by this ‘changed-for-the-better’. The cupid doubted the raven’s haired King would ever be anything but stoic, cold and distant, incapable of giving Eoster the love she deserved. “He is going to summon you, after resolving some pressing matters.”. The brown haired cupid took everything in him not to ask what those ‘pressing matters’ were about, and simply nodded in agreement, before guiding Lucienne out of his study, and to the hallways.

He shook his head trying to ignore the itching of his curiosity. After all, he and Lucienne had many pressing matters that could not be disturbed by discussing possible character growths of the Endless. They had a festival, in a realm that never held one, to be organized. In one week. Gods may help them. Because damn well no Endless will.

Chapter Text

"Don't you think it is too much?"

"Not at all, m’lady. It is your wedding, nothing is ever 'too much'." Eoster sheepishly smiled, pressing her hands against the white sheer corset that the Seamstress was adjusting. Her wedding dress. Long silk skirts covered by tulle made of stardust, reflecting the bright sunlight that entered through the windows. Looking at her reflection at the mirror, it seemed like Eoster was shining. Inside, she truly felt like she was. Shining, happy, excited “It’s all happening in such a hurry. Dear Desire, do you think I am rushing it?” She bit her lip. There has only been one year. Yes, their letters were full of passion and devotion for each other, and Love never felt such affection, but still, a year was so little. Rushed and desperate mortal’s relationships always ended badly… Shouldn’t she wait more?

Before that boring conference of universal manifestations, both were only distantly aware of each other's existence. Some dreams were heavily influenced by her works and some lovers were heavily influenced by their dreams. One could say that they were nothing but distant work colleagues. That night, however, thanks to Desire, they were both formally presented to each other.

Love did not take much of it, since she was in the middle of hiding from a group of extremely boring and arrogant suitors that wanted a place in her dance card. Desire was certain that being accompanied by Dream would keep away the suitors. Eoster was not sure of that, even though Lord Morpheus didn't have the friendliest of faces, definitely not an entity she would cross, some of her suitors couldn't, for their life, read the room. He didn't seem to care for Love either. Different from most, which Desire would later say in confidence, that he lost his words in presence of such a beauty, like Love’s. She did not believe in it. But she did think it could be true disinterest. After all, the Dream King could have any maiden he wanted, he didn’t need to court someone like Love.

In truth, Dream’s thoughts were in Calliope, wanting to return to her, and get away from the conference. He was also skeptical about Desire’s sudden approach and poor excuse of 'helping their friend dodge suitors'. Desire had no friends.

The brown haired queen didn’t think much about their meeting until a few weeks later when she received a dove, a letter written by Lord Morpheus himself, ddressed to her. Daily, Love received suitors’ doves. She kept them all, feeding her ego with those sweet words and praises. There were some terrible poems and sonnets, but she knew they were well-intended (Not all of them, some of them had sinful propositions that Love prefere to ignore). His letter, however, was different, it didn’t praise her beauty, or compared her to the stars, neither had any vulgar proposition. It was a simple apology regarding the unattentive way he treated her in the conference.

Love was afraid the Dream King would have the wrong impression if she responded. She knew she had to say something, but what exactly? She didn’t want to sound like he owed her an apology, but she also did not want to dismiss him, saying it was nothing. Unsure of how to proceed, Love went to Desire of the Endless, not only they were Dream younger sibling, they were one of her best friends and also someone who Love considered as the older sibling she never had.

The Love Queen adored working with Desire, it was not only easier but much more pleasing to see two souls being together in perfect harmony, tenderly hungry for each other, not only they had carnal lust but also affection and devotion. Desire also was a great friend, always helping her escape suitors, and entertain her afternoons, making her company in the Garden.

For Desire, it was more like having a puppy than a friend. The wide-eyed innocent persona of Love was something she considered fun to have around and mess with. It was amusing to see her blushing complexion with every dirty comment and prank, or pretending to know about topics they knew she had not the slightest idea whatwas about.

Desire was the one that encouraged her to respond in an affectionate way. ‘Believe me, little dove, my brother does not send letters to anyone’, they said. And Love started to wonder about Lord Morpheus intentions. She caught herself thinking about why they hadn't met before. How could she have gone without a proper introduction for so long? He was a gentleman, attractive, and dutiful. A suitor that she might actually consider, besides, they worked close. Love started to daydream about the projects they could do together, the wonders they might provide to mortals.

Waiting for his answer was pure agony. Love was starting to give up any hope, thinking he only was being polite since she was friends with Desire. But when a dove came with the Dreaming’s seal. Love was caught by a surprise relief she felt on her chest. She was longing for a response. The correspondence did not stop for over 365 days. Anxiously she waited for every dove, always thinking that he might grow tired of her.

The palace staff quickly learned that if their Queen was nowhere to be found, she would probably be hiding in her winter’s garden, sitting in the balcony, eyes lost in the pink sky's horizon, wishing for a dove with a letter. Lord Morpheus' letters made the difference between a melancholic and a blissful afternoon. Elijah could cancel any engagements Love had when his letters arrived, since she would spend the rest of the day, with the head in the clouds, trying to imagine what he was feeling when writing to her, if he was thinking about her reading his letter. She giggled alone and reread every sentence, trying to imagine all he described, wondering if one day she might be invited to his realm. If he wrote fifty pages of letters, it wouldn’t be enough.

Eoster fell deeply in love. His letters flooded her senses, filled her nights and brightened her days. They developed some distant companionship, and Love never felt a connection quite the same. During this time, every mortal felt love in a newfound intensity, their creativity sprouted, the kisses were tender, the embraces longer, the partitude hurted more than a knife through the heart. The Garden flourished in plenitude, the flowers were vibrant, the grass greener and softer, the air was warm with light breezes. She never received so many young ladies and lords in waiting, she gladly taught about the ways of the heart. And when he proposed, Love had to contain herself otherwise mortals would probably explode of infatuation.

Desire looked back to her with a cheshire smile, seeing all those questions going through their friend’s head. They langley raised from Love’s bed and walked to the young maiden hugging her from behind. “Never, my darling. Look at you, look at your Garden. Both blossoming in happiness. Such happiness cannot be misleading. Besides, he was the one that called for a True Marriage.” Love squeezed Desire’s hand while taking a deep breath.

A True Marriage. The oldest type of union, and one of the rarest. If one is not sure of their love, they would never call for one. All the other ordinary unions are annulled by a True Marriage, nothing is above it. An unbreakable bond, written in golden permanent ink in Lord Destiny’s book. Unchangeable, no matter what the circumstances, twist and turns, or paths one chooses. It’s more than just a ceremony or names on a piece of paper, it’s an exchange of souls and hearts. One holds the life of the other, and gives its own life in exchange. The vows of a True Marriage are not to be taken lightly.

The only way to terminate a True Marriage is by terminating life. And when one half dies, part of the soul and the heart of the other half also dies. If Morpheus wanted to marry her under these ancient laws, he was as certain of his feelings as she was of hers.

The Seamstress pushed Desire out of the way, getting on her knees to finish the hem of the dress. “Don’t stay in the way if you don’t want to get pushed, m’lady-lord”. Desire rolled her eyes at the old woman. If one of Love’s cupid had done this to an Endless it would be considered a serious offense, but The Seamstress didn’t belong to any realm, she didn’t go by any set of hierarchy, she was old, how old Love didn’t know, but she had more wrinkles than anyone could count, along with a sharp tongue. “There you go, m’lady. All is done.”

The old woman gave Love’s waist two friendly taps, before getting up proudly looking at her creation. “My queen, I can’t say that I know the King of Dreams, but I know about wedding dresses.” The seamstress has been designing and sewing them for eons “And if our Lord Morpheus does not put a stained glass window of you in his palace. He is a fool.“ Desire and Love looked at each other, before laughing. And Love jumped and pulled the Seamstress into a hug. “Oh Seamstress! I promise, as Queen of Love, that if we decided for a wedding party, you shall have a invitation, you’ll be my guest of honor” The old lady was thrown off by the sudden movement, but welcomed the hug the Queen gave, and throw her hands in the air dismissing the invite. “I thank you for the invitation m’lady, but I sew, I don’t go to parties.”

Two knocks came from the door before Elijah popped his head in the room. “Excuse me, blessing from the Garden, Seamstress and Lady-Lord Desire.” He politely acknowledged the two others in the room before addressing Love “My Queen, it’s time.”

She said her goodbyes to the Seamstress, who remembered her that all her nuptial nightgowns were already sent to the Dreaming, and to Desire, who promised her a visit after the honeymoon, which made Love said wouldn’t be necessary, she could visit her in the next day, to which Desire whispered smiling into her ear “Darling, darling, trust me, you will not want to leave your room” Love gasped over her friend answer, but rolled her eyes. Desire was always full of little games to make her anxious.

Elijah spent the last entire week trying to learn everything he could to prepare for a True Wedding. There wasn’t much literature available and the whole ceremony was kind of a mystery. All he gathered was that both Lady Eoster and Lord Morpheus would be invited to Destiny's realm, where it would happen. No guests, no celebrations, just the two of them. Elijah really wished Lord Destiny would allow at least one witness (preferable one cupid, more specifically, him) to accompany Lady Love. After all, the King of Dreams was his sibling, but Lady Love was going on her own. “I am not on my own, my dear cupid. Soon Lord Morpheus will be my husband, and Lord Destiny, my brother-in-law. '' She pointed it out to Elijah. “Yes, my Queen of course, but Lord Destiny is already Lord Morpheus’ brother, by blood” Love stopped in the middle of the pink marble corridor, trying to calm her cupid down. She knew he only meant the best, but the rules were the rules, and she did not want to upset Lord Destiny, even before becoming his in-law. “ Lord Destiny will not be there as Lord Morpheus’ brother, he is the only one that can seal a True Marriage. Please, worry not, my cupid. All is well.” She reached for his hand, squeezing it, before looking in his doubtful eyes.

“Take some time to rest, after all, when we get back, you will also have the Prince of Stories to worry about.” Love tried to lighten the mood, she could not have her own worries and Elijah’s, hers was already overwhelming. “I will be glad to be able to worry for my ladyship and lordship.” He smiled before she asked to enter the Garden of Forking Ways.

Mist covered her eyes, Love squeezed her eyes trying to get a better view of her way. There was only silence, she tried to understand if she was inside the palace or in the actual gardens, since the mist was so dense, she couldn’t see the palm of her hands.

Naturally, she jumped when the deep voice of her host cut through the silence, echoing "Welcome, Queen Eoster, Lady of the Four Loves, Princess of Springs, and Ruler of the Garden of Lovers." As stoic as Love remembered. She made a deep bow "Lord Destiny of the Endless, blessings from the Garden, it's an honor to be accepted in your realm" she couldn’t tell if he heard her, until following a long silence, he said it "Follow me".

Love did as she was told, as she kept walking, her vision adjusted to her surroundings and she realized she was walking in the hallways through his empty palace. Light was getting more scarce, and when he opened a door to a room and made way for her to come inside, there was no light at all, only darkness. If she squeezed her eyes she could see some sparkle of her dress, she questioned herself if Morpheus would be able to see it as well. Maybe she did overdo it. "Lovers, offer your hands to one another" Her heart beating fast, within the silence, Love was certain Lord Destiny would hear it.

She hesitated for a moment. "The eyes do not need to see what the heart already is familiar with." Destiny answered her question before Love could even vocalize it. She offered her open hand to the void in front of her, she felt a cold palm under her hand. As they touched, Destiny continued. "Bonded by life. Terminated by death. Remember spouses, golden ink will tell your tales, but if red ink stained your pages, half of your spirit is the price to be paid.”

Feeling his cold hands against hers, brought Love some relief. Although the lady of springs was certain he was going to be there, to have this assurance, to actually feel him, was something else. They were pen pals turned to pen lovers, but never actually met, until today. It was unusual, but Lord Morpheus said it, and Lady Love agreed that longing made the heart grow stronger. And the bond that they developed, some couples spent eternity failing to build it. Now, they would have the whole eternity to make their longing for each other, worth it.

"If your hearts are true to your feelings, you may now say the sacred vows" Destiny said, his voice sounding permanent as their vows would be.

The beautiful and eternal vows. Dangerous for the weak of flesh and heart. Once they said it, there was no return from it. Love could feel the air thickening, her mouth was dry and she could feel the cold sweat in her hands. Maybe it was the pressure of it all, maybe it was the power of the old rite manifesting along them. She squeezed her fiance’s hands. ‘Give me strength, my love’ she thought, wishing Morpheus could read her mind.

“One soul. One heart. One life. As you are mine and I am yours. I embrace your darkness and worship your light. By the laws written in the Book Before Time, I concede to you my life and devotedly take yours, for I have no essence, no will, no present, past or future if not yours.”

The dense air was suffocating, she could smell blood and iron mixed. Ancient powers. Her head and feet felt light. It was difficult to breathe. She was doing everything she could to keep concentrating “Why can’t I hear him?” Love asked breathlessly, her chest burning. Destiny took, what seemed to be hours to answer “The ears do not need to hear what the heart already knows.” She weakly nodded “Hold onto your loved one, burden him with the weight of the soul, give your regrets, your happiness, your…” She tried to obey, focusing on the instructions, concentrating on what to do, but Destiny's voice drifted away, like she was under deep water drowning trying to hear him speak. Until she didn’t.

When Love returned to herself, the air was no longer thick, nor was it difficult to breathe. The darkness was still there, but that, she realized, was due to her closed eyes. And when she opened them, jumping afraid she might have somehow slept through her own wedding, she fell into the ground. What an embarrassment! Quickly she tried to get up, but her legs failed and her palms got sored from the impact. Her thoughts were only in getting up fast, before Destiny noticed, before Morpheus noticed. How could she do such a thing in front of her husband and her brother in law? She squinted her eyes trying to adjust to the light. ‘Light?’. There was no light. Before, there wasn’t. She blinked. Now, It was too bright. This…Where was she?

Love looked up, facing the surface she felt from. A bed. A room, she was in a room. And It wasn’t Destiny’s realm. Neither it was hers or Desire’s. She supported her elbows in the mattress, raising herself, throwing her body against satin black sheets. It smelt different. She looked to the narrow tall windows from where she could see the grayish skies. Looking around the room, it was a bedroom, but there wasn’t much furniture. A nightstand, a dresser, a tri-fold standing mirror, and the bed.

Love was still in her wedding dress. Her head hurted trying to remember what happened. One minute she was holding hands with her future husband, saying vows…the other. “ My Lady, you are awake” A strange lady entered the bedroom. She didn’t hear her knock. “I am Lucienne, my lady, Lord Morpheus’ librarian '' Love turned her face to the woman. “Lord Morpheus brought you to The Dreaming. A True Marriage can be quite overwhelming.” If she didn’t have bigger concerns, Love would’ve thought that the lady was terrible at small talk. But she was still confused “ You fainted, right after your vows and…Lord Morpheus brought you to the Dreaming. Where you are, right now”. The dark skinned woman explained, as the Queen frowned, raising her body from the covers, and even though she was feeling dizzy, she kept herself sitting. The Dreaming.

His realm.
Their realm.

“Here my lady.” The woman gave a cup of a red liquid to her. Love had no idea what it was, but its warm and floral smell was convincing enough to make her take a few sips. Her throat was dry. “Where is he?” Love said before clearing her throat. Her cloudy thoughts started to clear and panic grew inside her “ Is he worried? Please you must tell him that I am well.” Lucienne frowned, taking a few seconds to observe the woman in front of her. From what Lord Morpheus told her, Lucienne imagined an unapologetic seductress, evil grin without an ounce of remorse, very similar to his sibling Desire.

Instead, the Queen was a young woman with lily white skin, green puffy eyes full of worry and the voice hinted with panic. She looked full of innocence, worry and beauty. It was not even a compliment to say it, it was more of a fact “He is well, my Lady. “. It also made a bitter sense to the librarian, on why her king wishes to see her in person in his room, instead of just banishing her forever. He would not let an ambush like this go unpunished.

Morpheus was fine. Furious yes, but well, in terms of physical integrity. He thought Calliope had called for a True Marriage. Not Lady Love. In fact, he only met the queen on one occasion, and she was with his sibling. Probably when they decided to trap him in misery. Lucienne hated that her lord had put her, of all his creations, to deal with his wife. She was not cut for this. Especially when they seemed more lost than mischievous.

“Lord Morpheus sent me to see if you were already awake. I did also send a raven to inform the lovefolk about your whereabouts. I didn’t mention your state, as I didn’t want to worry them. I hope I didn’t step out of my place“ The woman lowered her head in respect. Love was quickly to leave the tea in the nightstand before reaching the librarian’s hand and pulling her into a tight hug “Oh dear Lucienne, you have my eternal gratefulness!” The librarian froze in shock with the sudden and expansive reaction. Love broke their hug only to look into her eyes “Elijah would probably be banging on this door if you had told him.” She jokingly said with a smile. The librarian gave out a sympathetic smile, before darting her gaze uncomfortably.

“Yes? My dear, is there anything else? I hope nothing happened to Lord Morpheus. I surely hoped that I didn’t embarrass him.” Eoster could see the distressed look in the librarian’s face. Love would never forgive herself if anything had happened to her husband. “No, my Lady, Lord Morpheus is fine. He wishes to… see you.” Love followed The librarian’s eyes to the other side of the bed. One of her nuptials gowns perfectly extended. “It arrived early, my lady. I believe Lord Morpheus, want you to…” She left the sentence unfinished, hopeful that the queen would understand.

Eoster opened another smile, face brightening, laughing as she grabbed the fabric and jumped out of the bed, dancing with the fabric, stumbling in her wedding dress.

Lucienne tried to reach for the queen to avoid an accident, but the lady was fast, crossing the bedroom in front of the mirror, trying to undo the tight laces in her back. It didn’t even feel like a few moments ago, she was passed out in the bed. “Lucienn, please help me undress. One should never make a husband wait for the nuptials” As they undid the laces in the back, and got Eoster out of her underskirts, the Queen couldn’t stop talking, which was very different from what the librarian was used to. Dizzy, Lucienne only nodded and gave polite smiles, thank goodness the brown haired maiden didn't expect answers. She was affectionate, talkative, and exceedingly happy. It didn’t match what one would expect of someone who scammed others into marriage. It matched what Lucienne expected of a young maiden absolutely infatuated by her husband, anxious for her wedding night.

Lucienne didn’t know how to feel. Lord Morpheus said she should be careful with Love, but Lady Love was swirling in the corridors, giggling, holding Lucienne by the arm as they were the best of friends, and taking every opportunity at a reflection surface to fix her hair, or her nightgown while walking from her quartels to meet her husband. Love took a deep breath as Lucienne knocked in the door, and gave a final smile and a squeeze in the hand, as the librarian opened the door and Lady Love closed.

Something wasn’t right. That woman was not an evil seductress that had her fun tricking the prince of stories, someone who enjoys playing hurtful games so he could never be truly happily married to his muse. In truth, Lucienne never saw anyone more transparent, guiltless and pure than Lady Love. In fact, she looked like the perfect fit for being misled.

As the door closed and Eoster saw Morpheus, hands in his back, with his usual black attire, happiness filled her heart. She ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck, pressing a soft chaste kiss in his lips. She waited a few seconds, but he didn’t respond. Neither did he embrace her. Embarrassingly, Love untangled her arms, letting her hand slide through his chest. Morpheus gave such a cold look at her hands that she quickly dropped them to her sides, entangling her fingers, giving a embarrassed small laugh “Pardon me, my lord husband for keeping you waiting”, She offered a small courtesy, thinking that probably he was displeased with her delay. Also giving his queue, to tell her to drop the formalities as they were husband and wife in the purest form. But he didn’t.

They stayed silent for what seemed hours. Morpheus waited for Love to admit what she did, to drop the maiden-in-love act, to take the blame. But she kept stupidly looking at him, he was tense, taking every fiber of himself to not oblige her to admit her sins. He knew Desire and their likes weren’t ever gonna repent, but to keep the act? Why? Why continue this farce? Why prolong his misery? Wasn’t forbid him to take his muse, his true love, as his wife, as the true queen of the Dreaming, enough? ‘Brother, why the long face? You were always moping around about your tragic romances and Eoster was infatuated by you. I only gave her a helping hand. Attending to one’s true desire. Performing my duty. And knowing Love, she will be more than eager to please you’ Morpheus could almost hear Desire’s purring voice from early, when he saw who his bride was and went to his sibling's realm to get some answers on this madness.

He wished to forget that his sibling was family. He wished to cut their throat and spill blood and not care by the mayhem within it.

He turned away from the maiden, walking to the bed. She and Desire came up with this, didn’t they? If Eoster wanted to forcefully be his wife, engaging in treacherous schemes without caring for his feelings in the first place, he wouldn’t care for hers. He couldn’t. How can she call herself the Lady of Love, if she doesn’t respect the love of others, putting her desires in first place?

Eoster followed with her eyes, his way near the bed, as he took his coat off. Her cheeks started to burn, and a sudden fear grow in her stomach. She avoided looking at him, trying to memorize their bedroom. It didn’t have anything special. Narrow tall windows, that let the greyish lights enter the room, it had no dresser, nor tri fold mirror. Love started to realize that Lord Morpheus’s palace was very minimalistic. He would probably be overwhelmed by the amount of art and decoration the bedrooms the Garden had.

Love kept distracting her with decoration thoughts to avoid the uneasiness that was starting to grow in her stomach. Morpheus was…different, from his letters. In them, he was infatuated to say the least, but now, he was cold. He barely acknowledged her, and was already unfastening his belt.

They never talked about carnal unions in their exchanges, the subject felt too intimate to discuss over letters, but she dreamed about being in his arms, heat reaching her core through her inner thighs, hot kisses spread along her curves, Dream molding her for him only and only him. Just like the most lustful and devoted mortals. And she knew he thought of her too, his letters gave hints, but never were explicit.

Love kept herself untouched for her true love. For him. And now, the queen was having second doubts, as he was treating it less like a sacred union and more like an obligation. As he was only expecting her, so they could get over it. “My Lord, I-” Love started to say, when he interrupted her “Lay down.” He looked over his shoulder, indicating the bed. The brunette took a deep breath fearfully looking at the mattress, covered in black satin sheets. She slowly walked to the edge, sitting while smoothing her long white satin nightgown, looking down at the lace pattern in her mid thigh, drawing with her fingers, feeling her cheeks and chest burned in apprehension.

“Lay down.” He said in a low impatient voice. She raised her head as he repeated, he was still fully dressed. She knew what was going to happen and searched her husband’s eyes, looking for some sympathy, some kindness, to embrace her and soothe the fears away, but instead she found his deep blue pupils, those everyone used to say you can see the whole universe, and saw nothing.

There was nothing there for her. He was acting as it was nothing for him. As she was nothing. He was about to take his wife's virginity, to make her entirely and only his. She didn’t know how to question him or how to tell him she did not want them to perform a martial duty, she wanted them to make love.

Lost without words, and feeling his annoyance, she did as told, laying on her back, curls spread in the mattress while she stared at the dark ceiling, knees strongly closed together. “Lady wife” Love raised herself hopefully for some remnant of the man she got to know through the letters. It didn’t go unnoticed that he kept the formal titles between them, but at least he was talking to her. “Are you untouched?”

She felt her face burning. Straightforward. Her husband was very straightforward. She barely nodded her head, feeling somewhat of embarrassment. Love knew it was pathetic to feel embarrassed of something her husband would soon discover, but at the same time, this Morpheus, made her feel like a stupid child.

He took a few seconds, processing the information. “ Waiting for true love, Lord husband”. She hesitantly said it, shrugging it off. It seemed sacred once, but now, it sounded silly. Still she looked hopeful to him, opening a sweet smile as he got close. “This won’t be good for you”. Her smile dropped, It was the last thing he said before grabbing her by the waist pulling her toward him. Eoster let out a surprised gasp. Her head hitted the mattress as she slid in his direction.

Love glanced at her husband, starting to pant, her thoughts scrambled in a pool of hysteria, panic grew into her as she heard the sound of pants being unfastened. Love kept waiting for him with her knees on her chest, as he wasn’t holding her. She lowered her eyes to see why was he taking so long, and caught him stroking himself. “Husband, I can-” She started to offer, when Morpheus let out a frustrated groan, cursing as he turned to look at his wife that resembled a frightened dove, she looked down to the mattress.

He grunted before reaching to the hem of her nightgown, ripping the thin fabric, exposing her all to him. Surprised, Love automatically covered her breasts. Morpheus took her hands out of the way, and she stayed bare under his gaze, hands to her side. He couldn’t deny, she was beautiful. Long silky legs that were going to be his to grab, small pink breasts with hard nipples that desperately wanted to be touched, pink full lips that could scream his name, and beg for him to do sinful things to her. Desire said that Love would be eager to please him, she would probably do as he told her, he could have her anywhere, anytime. His cock twitched at the thought and he stroked it faster, throwing his head back. But wasn’t really Lady Love he imagined doing ungodly things with. It was really Calliope. Love was only there to perform the duty she desperately wanted.

Her husband went back to stroking himself in a pace he seemed to like, squeezing his eyes shut. Love couldn't possibly be more embarrassed. He wasn’t even looking at her, and she didn’t understand why. Was she not what he expected?

Love turned her face away, pressing against the mattress, holding a sob in her throat, and closing her eyes, shivering feeling cold without anything to cover, she didn’t realize how cold the bedrooms could be. She opened her eyes when she felt her husband positioning himself upon her, supporting his elbows on the sides of her head, spreading her uncooperative knees apart. He was still semi-dressed, only his erection exposed, she felt the tip against her folds, as he slowly teases her slit. She could feel her insided clench in anticipation. She was too nervous, swallowing hard and looking at him in desperation. She wasn’t ready.

She knew she needed to be ready, her body was shivering and without even realizing she was gasping scared "Please my lord be gen-" She begged breathless, right before he thrusted deep into her, ignoring the wimps and the way her body tried to squirm away, as he hold her down in place. Love throwed her head back, feeling him stretch her insides. Tears reached her eyes. He didn't give Love anytime to adjust, sliding down and pounding deep into her again. “Pl-please husband” He kept a slow but deep pace, ignoring her loud cries. It wasn’t only unpleasant, it was a burning pain.

Nothing felt as it should feel. She knew her husband was right, it wasn’t going to be good for her. First times usually weren’t. But there were ways to make it more pleasant. Her husband did not seem interested in them. Love knew Morpheus was almost as old as his sister Death, he knew ways to make it better. He just didn’t want to make it pleasant for Eoster.

Tears started flowing down her cheeks. Her arms reached for embracing him, but Dream took both of her wrists, putting them above her head. The grip was firm, too strong, it would leave a mark. "Did you not want to be my queen? " He spitefully whispered into her ear, he didn’t bother looking at her. “Then you take it like a queen.” As his pace grew faster, he took her knee up his shoulder giving him more access to her. She turned her face away pressing against the bed, tears overflowing her eyes, making the vision hazy, her body felt numb, moving with his shoves, sometimes a wimp leaving her lips. Her head felt dizzy, even worse than before.

Morpheus didn’t take long. He spilled his seed inside her, as Love felt him going soft against her. He deflowered her. She was his. Their marriage consummated. And still, Love felt worse than she ever felt. The happiest night of her life and she felt used and dirty, like a courtesan. As he slided out of her, the queen stayed a few seconds in the same position. She didn’t want to move, afraid it would all make it real. She tried to think about how she felt earlier. It seemed like centuries, even if it was a few moments ago, she could not bring herself to feel like before. “Cover yourself, wife” He said as she heard him dress again. "Are you not staying? " Love turned her head to look at him.'' He didn't answer. Something did happen. Something she did. It must be, they got married, he hold her hand, he brought her to the Dreaming. She did something to ruin it. She must have done it.

The Queen reached for the sheets, wrapping herself onto them "Hum, my lord, did I do something wrong? Did I displease you in any matter? Because I can do better, I will learn to please you." He was on the other side of the bedroom, she went to him trying to grab his hand, to beg him for an explanation, any explanation " Please, why are you treating me like this? Why did you change? The let" He snapped his hand out of her, angrily getting closer, staying inches from his wife. "Spare me, wife, of your innocent act! Do you take me for a fool? " His voice hatefully roared to the whole room, and she flinched scared, he didn’t hit her, but sounded furious. She never thought the man who wrote her all those love letters would ever hit her. The man of the letters would also never disgrace her like he did. And still, here they are.

Morpheus took a deep breath, recomposing to his cold self. "I am finished with you. You may now return to your quarters. " Returned to her…These were her quarters! They were husband and wife, they shared a bed! " But I am your wife! " She screamed back, appealing to reasoning. "Indeed, you are, you made sure of it, didn’t you?.” Love looked confused, why was he saying those things?What was the meaning of them? “I pray you tell me husband, I know I can be naive sometimes, but I will do my best to understand, please, where is this coming from?” Morpheus couldn’t believe it. She wanted him to humiliate himself, to admit he falled into a trap, that she and Desire deceive him. He would not let her have this taste.“As my wife you shall do as you are told" She tearfully looked at him “Husband, please, I-” Abruptly he interrupted her, with a tone above the regular “Must I repeat myself?”. She fell silent. Walking past him, she still faced him, one last time, her green eyes asking for forgiveness, even though she didn’t comprehend what she did wrong. He took a glance at het, before turning away. She was still wrapped in the same sheets, as he opened the door, and slammed it closed right behind her.

Love leaned against the door, as she took her breath, before another lump began forming in her throat and she started crying. She did not want to cry in front of him, but she couldn’t contain the tears nor the sobs. Her knees felt weak, still feeling sore, something wet dripping from her, she couldn’t tell if it was his seed or her blood. Used and discarded. She slided against the door onto the ground, not able to support herself. Inside Morpheus could hear his wife crying, but he was not convinced by her act.

It was Lucienne, who heard the lady sobbing and went to her aid. She had received orders to not help her, however, and she thought that when Lord Morpheus reflected upon the subject, he would also agree, she couldn’t let the Queen of the Dreaming, undignified, wrapped in sheets, crying against the door of her husband, like a common whore. She guided the Lady back to the quarters, Lady Love didn’t even know where to find. The librarian helped the queen get into her bed, and offered to send someone to prepare her a warm bath, but she refused. The librarian couldn’t help but noticed the blood stains in the covers Eoster was wrapped. She didn’t want to condemn Lord Morpheus, but…

“ Lucienne?” Her queen whispered, as she grabbed the hand of the librarian that finished tucking her in. “Yes, my queen?” ‘My Queen’, she never expected to be Queen of anyone other than the lovefolk. “ Can’t you stay with me? Lord Morpheus he… I never sleep alone.” The look on her queen’s eyes almost broke Lucienne’s heart.

In a platonic and innocent way, Love’s ladies and lord in waiting were often sharing her bed. It was a common practice in the Garden to have close friends, sleep in the same bed. Truthfully, the only scenario where friends did not share a bed, was when one of them was to receive a lover. Then privacy was expected. “ I’m afraid I can’t, my lady. I’m sorry” Love whimpered while holding her hand. “Please, I am alone.” Lucienne could not stay. She was already disobeying explicit orders, and Lord Morpheus was not in the mood to have his limits tested. “My Queen, try to rest, please.” Against Eoster wishes, the Librarian gave her a sorrowful smile, slowly freeing from the delicate hold of Lady Love, her hand felt soft in the mattress, as she had no more strength. Lucienne couldn't think of any words that would ease her pain, so she left.

In a strange room, on her wedding night, alone. Love realized Dream did not even see her wedding dress. The Seamstress in all the eons of knowledge was wrong. It would never have a stained glass with her image in the Dreaming.

The Lady of Love then turned to her side, doing the only activity she found herself doing in the Dreaming: Crying.

Chapter Text

A Bath. A nice warm bath, that was all the Eoster could think. Some people clear their head under cold showers, Eoster liked to soak her head under a nice milky warm pink water and let the smell of a variety of flowers fill her head. She barely stopped to talk to any subject besides a polite acknowledgment nod, here and there, going straight to her bedroom, calling for the maids.

The bath was quickly fixed, and in no time, Eoster's entire body was immersed in the water, only her eyes and nose peaking out. A mix of flower petals danced around her moving in a slow and directionless pace. At first she tried to tune out everything related to Morpheus and his return, resting her head against the cold white porcelain, trying to relax, leaving the worries on the other side of the door. A few moments passed before she realized that she was getting a headache trying to convince herself not to think about their reunion. It was like telling someone not to think about a pink elephant, it becomes impossible not to think of anything other than a pink elephant.

If Love couldn’t turn off her thoughts, she decided to turn her attention to something else. A game she always liked to play: Guessing from which flowers the loose petals belong to.

Half an hour went by, as she lazily watch the petals and made lwaves pushing away those that she identify. Love manage to name roses, peonies, some lotus and a few rosemary’s petals. There was still some left, but the distraction didn’t prove enough to keep her mind away from her apprehensions.

This rare alone time was a small pause that allowed to forget she was a queen, that she had countless romances to supervise, marriages to bless, entities to teach, concerts and poetry readings to endure. A moment where she could inhale the sweet and healing smell of flowers and welcome the watery warmth, letting her mind go numb and her thoughts run free.

Some days, when she felt loneliner than most, she would check if there was any maid around, and if there was none, Love would remedy her loneliness herself. Gently sliding her fingers through her thighs, shvrieng from delicate touch, dwelving in that feeling that was scarying and exciting. Fingers dancing, enticing her flesh, until meting her core.

She shyly let her fingers touch the sensitive skin, sliding between her folds, experimentating with touches that provoke more delicious shrivels. Sliding a finger inside herself, thinking of no one in particular, just the touch. How she longed for someone who would want to touch her, to crave her flesh, to see her body curve and hear the whimps of pure lust.

A few years after her king absence, maybe her stupid heart started to forget about how her husband really was, because during those alone moments, she often began to think about Morpheus and imagine being one of his mistresses. Both in a hot bath, she laid against his wet chest, synching the beat of their hearts. A peaceful silence, enjoying a moment where they were not queen and king, husband and wife, but simply lovers entangled in each other arms. His hand would travel through her body, lightly caressing her lily white skin, caressing her breasts, the tip of his fingers playfully brushing against the sensible nipples, making his wife melt under his touch, humming in a languily approval. His hand would travel lower until reaching the bottom of her belly, cruelly teasing her, before pulling her closer by the waist. They would stared at each other, Love lost in his deep blue gaze, as he asks a silent consent, and reached for her lips. An innocent kiss that deepens as he would slide his fingers between her folds, slowly working on her, nourishing in her pleasure.

Love would indulge in her imagination thinking about his lips against the soft skin of her neck, not being able to contain himself, leaving love marks along her neck, marking Love entirely as his. The gentleness of his hands in her breasts, not squeezing them hard to over stimulate himself in coming faster, but to entice her, nipples aching for his mouth, his hot breath against them. How he would curl his fingers inside her, adding one after the other, revel in hearing the sweet whimps and pleads, seizing the chance to steal sloppy kisses from her, feeling her body tremble but cruelly keeping a slow pace. He would not just put himself inside her and pushed it until finished, avoiding at all costs looking at her. Not in her imagination. He would slowly stretch her out, while sweetly kissing her, dwell in her needy moans, whispering promises of love and other unpoetic secrets woken by their carnal union. Sometimes when almost reaching climax, she could imagine hearing the sound of his low sultry voice against her ear, a tone she imagined he would only use in private, asking her to come for him, to wake up all their realms with her lustful pleas.

She always felt ashamed of the inappropriate thoughts after relieving herself. Knowing that those imaginary scenarios were foolish fantasies of a lonely wife. Even though she couldn’t help but keep turning to them again and again. It was her pink elephant.

But now, after reuniting with her actual real husband, she doubted she would ever indulge in her immaculate fabrications ever again. His return, his whole presence, was a constant reminder that her fantasies were not only products of imagination, but impossible ones. That thought grew a bitter feeling inside her. One more thing Morpheus took away from her. Nothing ever would be safe from him. And if that was not enough there was the whole present situation.

He said her court could go to the Dreaming.

A court that was not fond of him.

He said the Solstice Festival could be held at the Dreaming.

He agreed to the stupid idea of inviting his Endless siblings.

His ruined realm would hold the most important festivity of the season.

And on top of it all, the cherry on top of the cake: Eoster needed to move back to the Dreaming.

Just the thought of it, made sour memories come back to hunt her. Sleeping alone in a cold room filled with blueish light that penetrate through her curtains; pillows wet from tears; hearing footsteps outside her room, and thinking, hoping, that maybe it was her husband. That maybe he would bust through the door and fall in his knees, repenting of all his sins, asking, begging for her forgiveness. Foolish dreams. She could live with a terrible marriage while in the Garden, it was her realm, her people, and she could bury all her misery deep inside her heart and fill the days with nothing but a blissfull routine, applauding harp solos, enjoying afternoon quadrilles, accompaning mortals through their love journeys. But in the Dreaming, everything was foreign and cold, she felt like a naive deluded young queen again. Loneliness and tears filled those palace halls.

Eoster let her body smoothly submerge, closing her eyes. If only she could disappear. Maybe if stayed hidden in her bath long enough, Morpheus would forget about her, and his sister, Lady Death, would come visit her. A much pleasant company. The thought was appealing, if not for knowing that Elijah would probably start a war in Love’s name against probably, due to his dramatic nature, all Endless siblings, and would most likely destroy her realm and everything dear to her heart.

Elijah needed Love, the lovefolk needed her, mortals needed her. She could deal with her husband. Today, she lost her temper, but it was their first encounter. She would regain her calm composed demure. And Morpheus would not get a single tear from her. He would have her back. An uncaring, vague, passionless wife. Just like he always wanted her to be. He would not get through her.

A shiver ran through her spine. The Dream King. Was it time already? She tried to ignore it, maybe he did summon her by mistake, but the tingles continued. She grunted in a very unlady like manner, emerging to the surface, clearing her eyes with the back of her hand. Eoster jumped when she saw Elijah with her fluffy tower next to the bath.

"My Queen, I believe the water is already cold. I can ask to heat more, if that is your wish." He politely said it, eyes upfront, a posh way of saying that she was taking too long. "Thank you, dear cupid, but there is no need for it. I-" Another shiver, more intense. Eoster even had to stop talking after the cold feeling took over her body.

True Marriage’s callings is one of the things that she really wished somebody could've explain it. One can not ignore the calling. It only grows stronger, more annoying, a literal pain. "As you see, the king is calling." She got up, some petals stuck in her skin. She wrapped herself in the fluffy towel, as her cupid helped her to get out of the bath. "I am afraid there is no nuptial’s nightgown ready for you, my lady. All the tailors and seamstress were full, and none wished to help their queen." The brown haired cupid accused bitterly. Elijah and the old tailors and seamstress had an ancient feud. Love didn’t meddle in those, preferring not to ask, avoiding picking sides.

She lightly scold him, knowing nothing would change. "Don’t be villanous, Elijah." He bowed his head respectfully. She had a hint the feud was something about the cupid undecidedness and impatience for immaculate perfect clothes. The old cupids are known for being stubborn and workers of their own pace and schedule. One could have the most beautiful original pieces by their hands, however it could take an eternity. And if rushed, it would take double the eternity.

Nevertheless, they were not fans of the 'stuck-up cupid’ (as she heard one of them called Elijah). Even Love had to be patient and careful on how to speak or demand anything from them. They could simply ignore it, or do it slowly as a cupid could, taking a millenia to finish an easy task. An delay entire operations. Nothing in the universe, expect a good cup of lovers' tea, biscuits with pure nectar, and a very convincing apology, would, maybe, in a good day, be enough for them to forgive an insult.

As they entered Lady Love's bedroom she saw three dresses perfectly laid in her bed. "I took the liberty on selecting a few options that might please the Dream King." Elijah went by the mattress, deciding which to show first. The chosen first option was a long silk golden dress with a bare back. It could pass as nightgown. Love glanced at it, not in the mood for gold. "We could try the lilac one, maybe some violet petals in a loose braid to match it." The cupid suggested, understanding the look as a disapproval of the first choice, taking the second option, a delicate tulle lilac attire, loose fitting but lots of transparency.

It was not the dresses she disapprove, but the fact that she had to wear them to please a king that could not be pleased. "Let's do hair first." Love turned away from the bed to her vanity, siting, while taking the hair pins off. Elijah dropped the fabrics, and quickly was behind her, brushing the long curls, untangling and smoothing them. "Did Lucienne talk to you?" The cupid didn’t take his eyes of the hair while responding. "Yes, my lady." He paused for a moment, and Love thought he would not give her the details, but this was Elijah. There were always details. "Poor thing, I only explained half of our traditions for the day, and what she would have to take care of" Places at the table, dinner options, color palettes, entertainment, appropriate topics of conversations, who to invite, who to avoid… "She looked as lost as a little lamb. I told her we could revisit everything tomorrow, but I am afraid she might resign." Both shared a complicit giggle.

At the same time it was a ludocris idea to resign over a simple party execution, it seems quite fiting for the librarian. Librarians are not versed in the practice of entertaining. Yes, Lucienne was more than a simple librarian and would do her best, of course. The woman never escaped duty, she was too loyal to her lordship for it. But Love feared her best wouldn't be enough for the Solstice Festival. "If the burden becomes too heavy, ask the Emissary to assist you both, but don't bring him into the Dreaming. Like a...Distant consultant." Love didn't mind her cupid's lover. Not at all. The Emissary has been around for years, he was as much part of her court as any other, and had quite an eye for anticipating crises. His clever wits also amused the Queen, and he had that daring nature that reminded her of Desire without the bad parts of trickery. Dream, on the other hand, would become insufferable if he knew Desire's creation was thinking of freely walking in his realm.

"Before fallen in desperation, Lucienne also mentioned that I am to have a private audience with Lord Morpheus." He glimpse at the queen in the mirror, she turns to face him, confused. "A private audience with you? Why?" Morpheus didn’t mention this to her. Why? If he wanted to discuss the Solstice Festival it didn’t need to be a secret from her. Maybe he was ashamed of not knowing about the traditions of his own wife realm? That never bothered him before, besides he has a librarian, she could do the search. "Did Lucienne mention the topic of discussion?" Love inquired trying to make sense of that strange meeting. "She did not. Lucienne only said that the king needed to finish some pending business, and he would summon me right after." Love fell silent, turning to the mirror, frowning, as Elijah returned to her hair. Dream needed to rebuild the Dreaming, that was the ‘pending business’, but what was Elijah’s part in this puzzle? she didn’t have the faintest clue.

After finishing a loose side braid tied with a piece of lace fabric in a small bow, Elijah had to tap the brunette on the shoulder, for she was lost in her deep trail of thoughts and theories trying to make sense of Morpheus’ plans. It’s not intending to meddle and ruin his plans, truthfully, although he would never believe her, it was the other way around. Love wanted to know his real intentions so she could dodge them and not be blamed for trying to ruin it.

Eoster lightly shook her head, as she got up, and stopped, looking to the dresses in the bed. Three perfectly beautiful and appropriate choices. Any husband would be delighted to see a wife dressed in any of them. ‘It is a mockery’ She thought. Why would she dress beautifully as it was their first night of honeymoon and they were a loving couple, when Dream would rip them off, and not even look at her face when finding his pleasure? Love doubted he would notice if she was dressed in a carefully made nightgown or a simple rag. He did not care. The only care he had was to roughly touch her body to entice his manhood, until he was ready to penetrate her. Any clothes she wore were only a reminder of her shame. Especially when destroyed and cast aside on the floor. A cheap but precise metaphor for her own self.

Love turned to her wardrobe, opening the white doors engraved with small flowers hand-painted in great details in each corner. She scanned through the beautiful gowns, formal attires and seasonal frocks, each more unique and ravishing than the last. It was until the very end, her fingers brushed against a thick long cotton fabric, an old camisole, that left all for imagination. Shoulders were only exposed thanks to the off-shoulder neckline. "Our king never really cared for them, did he? We might learn something from his never ending wisdom." Eoster didn’t mean to sound as sarcastic as she did, but after saying it, she did not regret it. How can she regret the truth?

Not once in centuries he complimented her, or spent more than a second looking at his queen before commanding her to lay down. So why should she care? Eoster took the rustic gown off her hacks, and happily gave it to Elijah. The cupid looked at it, and back at the determine look at Eoster’s face "Indeed, my queen." If Eoster didn't know better, she could swear Elijah gave her a proud look with a little smile in his lips. A small inculpable rebellion. An implied message that she might attend to her marital duties, as expected, but it was nothing more than a barely tolerable obligation. One that she was tired of dressing up, pretending it was her duty to sweet her husband's eyes. When in fact, Love was lying to herself, trying to ease the pain. Maybe wearing those nighgowns, it would feel like a happy wedding.

It never did.

Chapter Text

"Lord husband" Love made herself present as soon as she entered his bedroom. If it wasn't for the peeling wallpaper, dust and decaying state of everything, the queen wouldn't know time had actually passed since their last private encounter. Things tend to stay the same in her husband’s palace, which was almost laughable since dreams are convoluted and always changeable. She entwined her fingers against her belly, her green eyes facing her husband, a very formal demure, but then, everything between them was formal.

Morpheus was discussing with his new raven, Matthew, as she recalled. Both speaking in internal voices. She didn’t hear what was the subject and they abruptly stopped when she arrived, her husband jumped at his feet, hands regally clasped together, looking like a young Austen Hero anxious in seeing his loving lady. Love never saw her husband so promptly to receive her. "Forgive me, I was not aware you were in a private audience. I shall leave you to it. I can return another time. Matthew." She apologizes, lowering her head to Dream and acknowledging the raven, as he awkwardly made a curtsy. It would actually be a relief if Morpheus dismissed her. She could return to the Garden and call it a night. Heavens knew she needed to sleep everything off.

As she turned her back to leave, her husband's calm but demanding tone made her stop. "Stay.” A calm order. A husband shouldn’t order his wife around. One of the oldest ingredients to make a disaster of marriage. Everytime she saw mortals, when the husband started to order the wife around, she knew it wouldn’t be a happy story. And rarely, Love was wrong

The brunette queen didn’t get offended by his commands, not anymore. In early years of union, she found deeply offensive the things he would say and do to her. She would silently weep, but now they did nothing. Before she could turn and nod in agreement, he hesitantly added in a softer foreign tone “Please.” Words that Love thought her husband would never say “Matthew is already leaving." Morpheus justified, his hand indicating the door to the raven, the pair quickly shared a knowing look.

If he ever made an effort to be in her company, Eoster couldn’t remember.

But then again, he was touch-starved. Men do impressive and uncharacteristic things for women’s good graces when they want something.

" Very well." With a tired sigh, turning her heels, she made her way to the bed as the white tulle of the camisole danced behind her. Sitting at her usual spot, the edge of the bed, stretching her camisole, crossing her heels with an upright posture, distracting herself, or better, avoiding looking at his direction, running fingers through the braid’s loose curls. The familiar soft mattress and dark satin covers were nostalgic to Love, better companions than her husband ever was.

“Have a good night, your majesty” The raven said it right before the door closed behind him, Matthew knew from his human years the sad truth behind that beautiful empty solemn face of the Queen. The dutiful wife, the classic stepford smiler. Forever upholding the shambles of marriage she couldn’t leave, being blamed by a misery she didn’t provoke, haunted by the shadows of mistresses she doesn’t know, obsessive trying to understand where it all went wrong.

The raven was thankful for not having to stay with them for any longer. Tension rose through the roof as soon as the royals got together. The boss never mentioned a wife, and yeah, Dream was not exactly Mr. Open Feelings, but a little warning that a boss lady was in the picture would've been nice. Back in the throne room, he saw in her face the accustomed embarrassment when the raven didn’t recognize her by name.

Lucienne didn’t help with any explanations, repeatedly saying that it was ‘complicated’ and that ‘They absolutely shouldn’t meddle between the King and the Queen’. That he got just from seeing their early interaction. And Marvyn said something in the lines ‘Look kid, all you need to know is to treat her well, and avoid the boss after they fight.’

Matthew didn’t want to assume Dream was to blame, but things were pretty obvious. First, the lady boss mentioned affairs, which are never good. Second, earlier, when they were retrieving the dreamsand, Morpheus remembered, with an unusual urgency, that he had to go back and see his wife, like he wasn’t used to going back to her. A new habit that he wasn’t yet on track. And the third, and final strike, that confirmed that his boss fucked it up: He was being uncharacteristic caring, like he wanted to make it up for a mistake, and the queen was not buying it. The woman barely showed any expression when he asked her to stay or said ‘please’ which, knowing Dream of the Endless, was shocking.

Matthew might be a bird now, but he knew that if the boss was expecting a little fun time with the boss lady, well, he was going to be surprised by the fun I-have-a-headache time. And by the look of his queen, he might get that for a long time. That wasn't the face of a woman ready to forgive.

As for him, the raven was relieved and grateful to the Queen or he would be in literal Hell right now, retrieving the King’s helmet. They would still go, but at least not now. Maybe Matthew would have some time to fly over to Lucienne, so that she could put some sense in the king’s head before just going to Hell. A better strategy maybe.

Love would’ve remained in complete silence, until hearing the sound of unfastening belt, her usual queue to lay down, and try to find something to do with her time, while Morpheus found his pleasure. That was how they usually did it. Silence, muffled growls, dull whimpers, cleaning cloths. “ My presence might be in one of your books. I retrieve my sand amidst a final encounter of two lovers.” If Love didn’t know better, she would’ve thought her husband was trying to awkwardly make small talk. He wandered through the room, before standing in front of her. One side of Love wishes for a fight. It burned her throat, wanting to question him when he missed one of his precious little toys, but instead, she answered distantly, her lips pushed in a forced discreet smile while looking up to him “How fortunate”

Before even leaving the Garden, she knew he had visited Johanna Constatine. Due to the woman’s line of work, it made sense that he retrieved his sand from her. Her knowledge of Constantine and Dream’s encounter was not because of curiosity of the queen. She long learned to avoid pain, meant to avoid sniffing around her husband’s private encounters. Her heart felt relieved that he didn’t immediately look for comfort in another woman’s bed. A feeling Love couldn’t escape, as much as she wisely knew it would only hurt her.

Dream went to Johanna because of his sand, and he stumbled into a misfortune story between two lovers. One that had her life tormented by the occult, and the other, tormented with addiction. Poor Johanna and Rachel, doomed from the start, at the end of their tale, however, an unusual substance was what brought them together for a final reunion, and was also responsible for the second one inevitable fate: Dream sand. And in those pages, there was her husband. The responsible for giving Rachel a peaceful death, dreaming of love. A painful story, with a bittersweet ending.

He could’ve let her die a painful death, especially after abusing his precious sand. Sand that was stolen, and traded. But he graced her with a peaceful ending. If she didn’t know that the books from her library were always a raw portrait of lovers' entwined lives, Love would’ve thought they mistaken Morpheus for another anthropomorphic personification. Normally, he would let the mortal agonize in the end, a fair punishment for her sins. But this time, he showed empathy. That puzzled her more than she was willing to admit. Even worse, it made her uncertain of his unchangeable nature. Pondering that maybe, there was a small, but real hope.

Love dismissed those thoughts lightly, turning her attention back to the raven haired king, dangerously close to her, knees touching each other, both staring at each other in a silence that spoke more than words. Morpheus hesitantly touched her face, lightly caressing her cheek, she watched him as a wild animal near his predator, not able to predict what’s next. “You look beautiful” He softly whispered, lips curved in a small smile. A foreign intimacy. She shriveled at his touch, turning her face away “You don't have to woo me, to lay with me” She couldn’t stand his gaze, not when he was looking at her with such kindness, it hurted more than he could ever understand. Years after years she yearned for that kindness, for the soft touches, and he denied her. Now she felt insulted by it.

It was a laughable attempt to fix something long broken. Morpheus might reshape dreams and nightmares, create and rewrite stories, but he couldn’t erase her pain, he couldn’t pretend he made it impossible for them to be happy. He decided on a loveless marriage. Love has done everything she could and couldn't to make him happy and gained nothing but scars she did nothing to earn. The King of Dreams always had to be the miserable tortured lonely figure under the pouring rain, tricked and trapped.

“Forgive me, my lady, for misleading you” He cleared his throat steeping back, giving space to his wife, she could sense his uneasiness, some unusual red in his face, but his stoic front remained “I have no intentions in bedding you I-” Impatiently, she got up from the bed, walking to the other side of the bedroom turning to him, taking a deep breath “Lord Husband, we have been married for centuries now, in this time you only summoned me to your chambers when you wanted to bed me.” ‘And when there were no mistresses available’. She wished to say, but decided to avoid what would lead to a heated argument “That is not-" He started to defend himself, but Love was tired, she put a hand in her head trying to calm herself to not scream, sternly looking at him.

Both could feel the tension rising again, prelude to another fight " Yes, it is, husband.” Love signed hands dropping in defeat, tired of debating what is not up for debate. “I am beyond flattered by your remarks, but I am exhausted, if it pleases you, bed me, if not, I won't further bother you, and would appreciate being excused. Elijah is expecting me, I told him it would be brief." Love enterwind her hands against her front, assuming a stiff posture.

“You won’t be spending the night.” He concluded. The first time Morpheus said this to her, he briefly informed her about how their life in private would be: Separate rooms, separate beds, separate lives. This time, a hint of disappointment in his voice, as he expected that she would want to stay. Love had no idea why he thought she would like to.

Even if it wasn’t a question, Love answered. “No, I won’t. My room is probably still, in dreadful conditions”. Shattered glasses, wine stained sheets, pillow feathers everywhere. Their worst and final quarrel, it was a dreadful day and devastation followed closed by their screams at the sound of thrown glasses. “You can sleep here.” He mumbled softly and Love was certain she had imagined it. Not knowing if he was suggesting or demanding it, she tested the waters “So kind of you, husband” The grip on her fingers got tighter, her knuckles almost white in tension “But I would rather not. I would like to do your bidding and return to my realm.” If it was a demand, he would have been livid by the rejection, but it wasn't a rejection if he was merely politely suggesting, as one suggests, a friend to spend the night during a storm.

He slowly nodded "Of course.” So he was indeed suggesting. She could hear the engines in her husband’s head, as she let out a breath of relief. He wasn’t used to his cold apathetic and formal wife, and she wasn’t used to his new caring and respectful persona. Old Morpheus would’ve already been finished with her, and if they had half of the conversation they had, he would’ve humiliated her to remember her place. And Old Eoster would’ve already showered him with wet long kisses and giggles just by the spark of his attention.

“If you may, I would like to show you something.” Love looked from his face to his hand, now pointing to the door he opened. She didn't remember if her husband ever gave her so much choice in their relationship. It was frankly, overwhelming.

She wondered what would happen if she just said 'no'.

" Outside the bedroom”. He saw the obvious suspicion in her eyes “Is that your bidding?” He made a way so Love could exit first, “Yes, it is”. The woman avoidantly walked past him, still waiting for the catch.

As soon as both were in the corridor, he offered her his arm, and she politely denied it, by looking away. Once again, he surprisingly didn’t get offended by her denial. Why he was in a good mood to accept such defiance was a mystery. His realm was destroyed, his toys missing, and his wife apathetic and dismissive. No reason for being this nice. “Follow me" he walked a few steps in front of her and Love followed the dark figure of her husband, keeping a safe distance. They didn't talk much during their short walk, and Love took the time to assess the damage in the palace. There was no real destruction, but a real abandonment.

She guessed that was what happened when the monarch didn't attend the realm, probably what happened to Lord Destruction's, her brother in law's realm. The idea of abandoning her realm, her creations, the sole base of her existence was a brutal one. Sometimes the job overwhelmed her, but never enough to consider leaving it all behind to its own luck. " How are the plans to rebuild the Dreaming?" She asked, wanting to shove away those thoughts of fleeing away.

Also she was curious to know if he actually had any plans to rebuild his realm, or if he expected her to hold the solstice festival in a palace of deplorable conditions, dust all over the hallways from columns that were flaking "Why are you asking?" Love frowned at his tone "Am I not allowed to ask about it?" He closed his eyes, squeezing them shut, cursing himself very aware of the thin line between passive aggressiveness and a straight heated argument. "That is not what I meant, lady wife"

Everything between them was a prelude to a fight. Morpheus and Eoster have never been on the same page, and they never stopped to try to get there. Both in such different headspaces that they were incapable of going through one conversation without misunderstanding each other. "You did not seem interested before in my quest to find my sand, I gather you weren't interested at all" He explained, if Dream looked back, he could see Love rolling her eyes "Well, I am interested in knowing the conditions I am to hold the Solstice Festival, husband.” The spite when calling him, sent Morpheus shivers. “If your memory fails you, It is one of the most important and prestigious festivals in the Garden, my apprentices debut on it and-” He turned to her, interrupting. "Worry not. I would not want to embarrass you " Love stretched her lips mumbling a ‘That would be a first’, lowering her head in a respect that didn't match her sharp answer " No? I am honored by your gracious newfound concern with my emotional distress". Love starred in defiance, walking closely past him, staying a few steps ahead.

Both returned to the silent walk, as they walked side by side. A few minutes of walk went by, until he opened two french doors with a single pull "We are here, my lady".

Love couldn’t hold her gasp.

Her Garden. Not her realm, but her garden in the Dreaming, ‘The Queen's Gardens’ as the dreamfolk would call. She forgot about it. The beautiful blooms in shades of red, pink, white, lilac, the sweet fragrance mixed with rain-washed earth, "It's the only part of the Dreaming that remained intact." He said it, stepping aside to let her enter. Of course it didn't fade. It wasn't Dream's powers that fueled it, but Love's. It has grown wild in her absence. Untamed nature, untrimmed, tempestuous, but full, strong, with deep roots.

She could see from the corner of her eyes, her husband admiring the red roses, reaching to touch one "Be careful, husband, spurned roses, grow sharp thorns" She said while admiring the long lilac cascades of Wisterias, that formed an arc at the entering, working their way into the crooks and crannies of the naked brick walls. Hyacinths, Carnations, Daisies, Roses, Casa Blanca Lilies in vivid colors, painting the gloomy field of the Dreaming, all fully grown and abundant. She slowly walked, tumbling in some weeds that had grown between paving stones.

It always gave her a warmth visiting her gardens after a long time. That nostalgic feeling, that makes the heart fuzzy but hurts the chest thinking of the time that went by. Her long skirt dragged through the damp floor, but Love didn't mind. " It was my first gift to you, a sanctuary were you could remember your home" Love allowed herself smile, inhaling the darling aromas, sitting in the stone bench made for two, that was almost covered in bold vines "And I love it, a white canvas I could not wait to show it to you when I finished it. Those-" She pointed at the other side of the garden, where Morpheus could see the nightly blooming flowers. “Moonflowers, Evening Primroses, Jasmines, Queen of The Night, all bloom at night. It was supposed to be a sigil of our love. The intersection between my springs and your nights.”

Love stared at the small water fountain, a few steps away from her, in the center of the garden, it still worked, as the sound of falling water filled their ears. Moss had grown around its base and aquatic weeds violently invaded the bowls although some water lilies still float. “I wanted it to be a small garden where lovers could dream and find each other here. I was so proud when I finished, I thought that…” A tight knot in the base of her throat, oh the naivety! She swallowed hard. “That if you could see how much I was devoted to it, you were going to see how I would be capable of caring for you, for your kingdom." Her mind lost in memories, remembering the thrill of her heart and the disappointment soon after realizing Dream would never come. "But you never came."

" But your creations did. Your nightmares. I have no idea how they found me, but they did. I pity their souls." She remembers Gault. The first time Love saw the nightmare she was almost tiptoeing, carefully walking, afraid of touching anything, afraid of destroying its peacefulness, its beauty, but eyes sparkling seeing the garden. "Tormented ones, forever hunted by their own craft." At first, Gault didn't stay much, jumping at her feet at the first sight of the Queen. But after some visits, and Love assuring the creation she couldn't change anything in her garden (not even if she wanted to), Gault started to walk with the Queen, learning about each flower, and before you know, Gault was helping water and trim the plants. In exchange, Love would get bits of her mind, she was interested in understanding how nightmares did their jobs, and if the burden was not heavy.

The Corinthian took a while, and Love often had to pretend not to see him sneaking into her garden. She didn't want to scare him away, but was anxious to get to know another of her husband's creations, especially the one she heard was one of his most 'perfect' ones. Although she could not fathom the idea of a perfect nightmare, being horrified by the thought of its meaning.

Even suspicious, Love welcomed the nightmare into her small greenery, after all, she was his Queen. "I think that here they had some peace, a small idyllic paradise, where they could just be a part of." Love liked to think she helped ease the pain in their hearts.

To be a dream was easy, everyone loved what you did, humans were eager to be around them, to meet them. To be a nightmare was a heavy burden. Eoster was no longer smiling when other memories, their terrible confessions, the pure agony and duality in their existence, came to her. How they could not wish for more, but needed to help mortals overthrown and face their fears. "I took advantage of those poor nightmares. '' Love confessed, a single tear rolling through her cheek, as her chest felt heavy " I lure them with kindness, something so foreign to them. Easing their heavy hearts with softhearted words, listening to their afflictions to masquerade the emptiness of my days, to fill my loneliness, knowing that my hands were tied.” Morpheus stood quiet, he knew she was talking more to herself than to him. He didn’t know. His obliviousness angers him. “I've never promised anything, of course, but maybe I should've. I should've done something." The king tried to cut her, knowing that trail of thoughts wouldn’t bring anything other than distress " My Lady, I…." But she continued, as more tears roll freely staining her face " If I did it, if I had the bravery to face you, if I wasn’t fearful you would toss me aside and isolate me more than you already did, maybe they would not have been gone, maybe they would not had left me here".

The Queen stayed in silence for a few minutes. Morpheus knew she was lonely, but never would have imagined how much it affected her. Loneliness was an old friend of the king, one that he grew used to. His Queen had loneliness imposed on her. No wonders she was moping in the corners in their first years of marriage. Morpheus didn’t share any royal duty with her, he didn’t allow her to go back to the Garden, and still got irritated when she looked for a little sympathy and was not content. The realization felt heavy in his chest: He made his wife a gilded cage, a bigger one than his glass prison but still, a cage. The nightmares, who would’ve thought, were a companionship for her, the only thing she had.

"I…"

In a sudden movement, the queen got up to her feet, cleaning with the back of her hand the stained tears.”Is that all? Did I attend to your bidding? May I return to my realm?" Morpheus felt an urgency to keep her, if she could just allowed him to do better, to find the right words…" Already? Don't you wanna…" She started to walk away, walking past him almost elbowing her husband. Love was almost at the door when she turned her heels, and forgot about poise and demure. "And you didn't give this for me to have a ‘part of home', husband, you gave it because you were annoyed by my constant ‘nagging' about the Garden.”

" That is not…" Again, she cut him "I heard you speaking to Lucienne, don’t deny it." Love heard both in the throne room, she remembers Lucienne asking the king if his wife liked the gift, and he dismissively replying that liking or not, at least she would stop nagging. That made Eoster furious. At the time, she kept her poise, after all she was eavesdropping even if it wasn’t on purpose, but now, it made her beyond furious. It made her enrage.

He spoke highly of himself as she should be grateful for a piece of 'her home' in his realm. Like he was this benevolent king. To Hell with that. "I didn't need a garden, I didn't need my home. I needed my husband. I needed us. I needed to make it here, our home, together. And you couldn't be bothered by it. You were too busy showering dear Calliope with your never ending passion!"

Love swore to herself she would never bring that woman’s name again, but that was exactly what he was doing and how he spent his time. Morpheus reacted quickly rushing toward her, like she cursed all of his siblings together. He got closed to Love, threatening look in his eyes, finger in her face" Don't you bring her into this." Love raised her eyes, facing him with the same intensity, not taking a single step back, slapping his finger down "Oh, but I will. You were so unbothered, that you put a child in her. Her, not me, not your own wife." The only one that could give him a legitimate heir. The flowers wither with her words, petals falling dry, the vibrant greens fading into paling browns.`”Not even to give me something to alleviate my pain, something to love. No. And you didn't even have the decency to hide him!"

How he ruined public events for her, where she needed to endure the looks of pity, the whispers that stopped as she got close, Love having to smile through it all, like she was an airhead that could not see what was under her nose. Speaking of love, devotion, like a fool. Having to walk around parties hanging in her husband’s arms, being forever polite, kind, elegant, excusing his moodiness, not showing a single regret or insatisfaction. It cut through her like a knife. "I was in pain! Tricked by…Calliope and I were togeth-" Morpheus caught himself justifying the unjustifiable. He promised to himself that he would condemn his wrong doings, he would agree with his wife, but out of habit, he dismissed her feelings, as his were the priority. He also did not like to be put against the wall like she was doing, calling his sins out in the open. Love was never one to do such things.

"What about my pain?! My suffering? Did my lord ever think about it? " She was openly crying, fighting the tears trying to speak, avoiding the whimper in the back of her throat "I did I-" He lied, stumbling to find the words. "No, you did not. Don't humiliate yourself by underestimating me with your pitiful lies. You gave me a garden.” She said spitefully, hands loudly falling between her side giving up. “Somewhere you could shove me away without judgmental looks from your subjects or your siblings." That was the truth, one that she hid for centuries, always repeating the narrative that he gave her the garden to be close to her home. "That's not- '' Again he tried to retrieve the narrative.

Maybe she would have listened if he wasn't trying to justify instead of owning his actions. How could she forgive him, if he was still trying to play the helpless tortured victim? Love was done, she turned her back to him, "Goodnight husband" Walking away at a fast pace. Morpheus watched her leave, as he felt something tickling his hair. Reaching for it, he saw a red petal with brown marks, the velvet touch was now dry and crumbling as he looked around, he realized the garden was now dead.

Chapter Text

The morning bells outside the door woke Love in a jump. She didn’t remember much after leaving the Dreaming. The weight of her husband’s return, the changes and his new behavior overwhelmed her to a point of exhaustion. She didn’t want to get ready for the day, shoving her face back into the soft silk pillowcase, starting to fall asleep again, when the sleigh bells once again rang, followed by Elijah and the handmaids entering her room. Love put the covers over her head, as she ignored a few mumbles of ‘good morning my queen’. They abruptly opened the curtains, going with their usual routine, filling the bedroom with intense sunlight. Love turned to her side, dropping something on the floor, it didn’t shatter, but it was clearly made of glass. Love should’ve immediately looked for what she dropped, but her eyelids were heavy, and her head was spinning.

Elijah silently and quickly moved standing besides his queen, before the maids could see it. Not that they seemed interested in anything other than their work. Kneeling beside the bed and hiding a wine bottle from the Garden's royal winery, under his uniform, whispering "A single glass last night, nothing to worry about.” She knew he was lying, her headache and photophobia were clear signs of strong hangover. One or two glasses would’ve made her at ease, a full bottle usually made her pass out. Similar to what she was experiencing.

The last time she indulged in alcohol was before Morpheus' imprisonment, after a family reunion in Lord Destiny's realm. Fuel to an escalated argument that ended with her banning from the Dreaming.

The night before, the Cupid and the Emissary witnessed the Queen’s return. She went straight to the winery. It was a habit Love developed after decades of marriage. She either came back in tears, or if no one was around, looking for a bottle of something to numb her pain. Usually the cupid would go straight to her aid, letting her rant about the king, sometimes it made sense, sometimes it didn’t. Uselessly trying to explain, and although the cupid pretended to understand and stroked her curls whispering comforting words, until she was in a deep dreamless sleep, the truth was she felt much more than she could ever speak.

the Emissary didn’t let him go to the Queen this time, telling that she needed time alone. Elijah may be her longest loyalist companion, but the Emissary was a better observant than him.

The Queen was not in need of companionship. She needed time to soak in all the earlier events, to get a hold of herself, or to just not have to keep a posture, or care for her subjects feelings, and that included Elijah, however he liked or not. No matter how much he looked after his Queen's needs, it's forever her duty to be responsible for him. And Love always felt guilty of laying the pains of her failed marriage into the loyal cupid. It wasn't his responsibility to make her feel better. The Emissary knew that the cupid's presence would only burden her.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think we will be able to have a lazy morning. There are-” Love sat in the bed, clearing her eyes, many stimuli all together, making a tight knot in her stomach. Did she eat, yesterday? Why was Elijah talking this fast? Was he even speaking coherently? “Arrangements. Yes. Can we-” Elijah reached for a small bottle in her bedside table with an amber liquor. After spending the night with the king, very often, Love would awake in pain in her lower stomach, between her legs, nothing unbearable, but not very comfortable. Results of a consensual but unpleasant coupling. She was very discreet, feeling ashamed by it, after all, as queen of love, she was the queen of eros, carnal love. She was supposed to be feeling wholesome after a night with her husband, not in pain and humiliation.

The Emissary was the first to notice the coincidences of ‘date night’ as he started to call, and seeing the Queen (when she thought no one was looking) pressing her hand against her lower stomach. Desire’s creatures were not fond of helping or giving a helping hand, they were usually selfish as their creator. The Emissary was proudly selfish as any other golden-eye creation, but millennials away from Desire, may have made him a bit soft (Although he would forever deny it) and empathic.

Contrary to his selfish nature, the Emissary offered Elijah to take to the Queen a medicine of his own preparation. As a cupid, Elijah was beyond empathic, he could see one’s true intentions in an instant, it was almost impossible to deceive him. Elijah could sense and feel his queen’s discomfort, but poor cupid was not trained nor have the abilities to remedy those.

After all, cupids were only made to make matches, create a bit of chaos in love triangles and accompany newly wed mortals that were the result of their schemes. The Emissary, on the other hand, was perceptive of the matters of the flesh, especially those related to lust and carnal desires, he knew the delightfulness and the unpleasantness of it, and had a better experience in broken marriages than cupids ever could.

The Queen felt much better and relieved after taking it, and ordered to always have a bottle of the amber liquid beside her bed. Elijah hated looking at the bottle, as it was proof of her suffering, but the Emissary advised Elijah to not indulge in imagining what goes on in private meetings of failing marriages. ‘If you think too much about it, you might commit treason, lover of mine.’

Eoster delicately shoved his hand away “No need for it, Elijah." He looked at her, confused, but abided, putting it down. She reached for his hand before he could stride away. " Could we please shut the curtains?” As Love spoke, barely opening her eyes, Elijah gave the order to the maids.

The rest of the day went by without much change. The court was still deciding who would accompany the Queen to the Dreaming and who would remain. Eoster explained the differences between the Garden and the Dreaming. It lack of social agenda, a formal court or established etiquette protocols. There wasn't a 'Fashion of the Dreaming' or daily concertos, courtroom balls, and poetry reading.

"Pardon me, my lady, but what does the King expect from us, then?" Love bit her bottom lip. She didn’t inform them that he didn’t expect anything. They were part of a bluff that their queen thought it wouldn't work. " Well, I believe since there is a lack of social protocols, my lord husband expects us to provide it to the Dreaming. We believe, as your Queen and King, that you will be perfectly able to install a proper social agenda to your sister-realm" It was a no-answer and a lie. Morpheus hated social agendas.

She couldn’t wait to deal with his broody mood, after seeing the calendars full of events that required his presence.

The next hours went by slowly, Love was distracted. All afternoon, she kept waiting for a call. It wasn’t usual for him to go silent after a fight. Well, he would go silent, but would make sure that Love endured being in his company while ignoring her. Or worse, make her do meaningless tasks, just to remember her place, a meaningless position.

Could she consider last night a fight? She basically left before they could start any arguments, and even when furiously walking through her husband’s palace hallways, trying to get as far from him as possible before returning to the Garden, he didn’t make any attempt to follow her, scream her name, demanding her stay. He just let her walk away. Thinking about it, didn’t aid the queen in calming her mind. She couldn’t remember the last time her husband occupied so much of her thoughts.

After finishing the afternoon duties, Love walked to Elijah’s study to dictate a letter to Lucienne, about accommodations and such for her court. A poor excuse to get a sense of the whereabouts and frame of mind of her husband. As she raises her hand to knock on his door, it opened with Lucienne looking pale and confused ”My Queen!” She bowed quickly after realizing who was in front of her. The brunette took a look over her shoulder seeing Elijah “Blessing from the Garden, Lucienne. I must say, I did not expect you today. Did something-” She was cut by the woman who was out of her breath. Lucienne was the image of poise and professionalism, to interrupt her Queen, something must be really distressing her. “It’s Lord Morpheus. He is-” Elijah finished for her, making his way to the door, pushing the librarian aside and inviting Lady Eoster inside, offering her a seat.

The paleness of the woman and the way the cupid walked around the room seeming unusually agitated put Love unease “He is in Morningstar’s Hell, he went there to retrieve his helmet, he-” This time, Love interrupts him, raising her hand, a small movement of her head indicating the open door behind them. Elijah was quick to close it.

They could be strained to each other, but any topics of conversation about Dream’s problems or realm’s affairs, the few Eoster got to know, she kept private. She trusted all her cupids for she knew the truth in their hearts, but they were still cupids. And cupids have friends scattered through a variety of realms. They are charming, charismatic and very talented conversationalists which means that any gossip, especially about an Endless, is a hot topic of conversation, one that could put any of them in the center of the attention. And cupids love attention.

Depending on which friend they tell, and who is acquaintance to that friend, it can lead, in best case scenario, to a simple misunderstanding, in worst case scenario, imprisonment, punities and death.

And Morpheus in Lucifer’s Hell? Love could feel the headache, from earlier, returning.

“Morningstar’s Hell? Was he invited there? Lucifer found his helmet and is returning it in good faith?” Immediately as the door clicked, Love said it, reaching for the tiny flimsy hope that her husband didn’t do anything stupid. Lucienne and Elijah looked at each other. “ Not exactly, he went there un-” The Queen walked to the window. Understanding where their concern came from. “Uninvited. And what does he plan on doing when getting there? Asking politely?!” She bitterly laughed, slapping her hand against the wood frame of the window, “What was he thinking?!” Everyone in the room felt shivers running through their spines hearing her voice growing in anger. Elijah rarely, to not say never, saw his Queen like this.

Didn’t Morpheus stop to think about this plan for a single instant? As one of the Endless, her husband not only outranked Lucifer but he is stronger than the angel. Usually. Before being kept by a mortal for a hundred of years. In his current conditions and in the demon's realm? It was a witless move.

“He is playing the game.” The Emissary said coming from the adjacent room with a golden tray and three white cups with hand-painted flowers decorating them. Some demon he knew from before creating roots in the Garden, sent him the word about the King of Dreams challenging Morningstar. Desire would jump in excitement with it, and the Emissary job was to first deliver a message to his creator. So he did. that was why, he was in Elijah’s study. finishing his letter. It wasn’t a secret that the Emissary had to inform Desire of the Endless, Elijah understood it. It was his job. The only reason Desire let him stay.

The cupid’s lover was preparing a hot tea since Dream’s librarian arrived. The golden eyed man was quick in offering to make tea. He didn’t bother Lucienne, he indulged in annoying her like he would do to any other dream creature. But her apprehension, and Elijah pacing in circles was getting on his nerves. He only appeared again, when he heard the Queen’s voice. She was the one that needed his information.

The Emissary might report everything to Desire, but his creator never said anything about not reporting to Eoster as well.

As The Emissary handed the Queen her cup, he bowed, hesitating for a second before saying “The oldest game”. Elijah was the only one who noticed, the Emissary never hesitated. He preferred to say sorry (Although he never did) than to think before doing anything. Elijah loved and hated it, depending on his mood. But hesitation was not a good sign. “Queen Eoster, if I may, the demons are quite…Euphoric with the game.” The Emissary had a vast net of informants, specially in realms considered inhospitable and unwelcome to the lovefolk, such as Hell.

From what he heard, every single demon already considered Lucifer victorious. He couldn’t say that. He chose his words carefully. Demons don’t get excited unless they know they are winning. Love knew that. Everyone knew that, and as they exchanged knowing looks. “ Thank you, Emissary. You should stay, send a dove as soon as the game ends and the winner is declared.” The Queen turned to the right hands `` Both of you, we need to go to the Dreaming. Now.”

Chapter Text

Elijah knew the Dreaming turned into a wasteland, but it didn’t hit him what a wasteland actually looked like. “ Lucienne, lock all doors, gates, windows. Any creation of my husband that is in the Dreaming must seek protection immediately. A dove will be sent when it is safe to leave.” ‘If it is ever safe to leave’ Love thought while marching through the hall straight to the throne room. The librarian followed the Queen’s fast pace, as Elijah stayed behind, analyzed his surroundings

He vaguely remembered the Dreaming. He didn’t think it was nearly as beautiful as the Garden, but it was alluring. Incohesive to his eyes, due to its ever-changing nature. Even if the Garden, like the Dreaming, was susceptible to its creator's mood and condition, the Garden kept his core unchanged, it was consistent, stable for the lovefolk. The same could not be said about the Dreaming. And Elijah could clearly understand why the Emissary was hesitant and why Eoster was running around giving urgent orders to Lucienne.

They could very realistically be on the verge of a disaster.

The Dreaming was collapsing, which means the King was weak. Lucifer has one of his prized possessions. Morningstar has the trap set and Dream walked right into it.

“Spells or anything against demons. Check Constantine book, maybe it has something. We need it. Now.” Enfatic saying to the librarian, she turned to the cupid “Elijah, find ink, prepare the doves” It didn’t occur to her that there weren't any doves in the Dreaming, nor ravens. Elijah would have to find a way to warn their allies. They would be easy to find. Only a few entities were not fond of her, especially since she had taken a vast number of protégés, blessed many unions and was a godmother of gods knew how many children from these unions.

“Allies? My lady, we are not at war.” Lucienne said it with a gasped nervous laugh of uncertainty. Hands slightly shaking and hesitant. In her eyes the need for something to hold to, something to believe in.

Love was skeptical about her husband’s return. He was Endless, but his state was frail, crumbling to pieces like his own realm. And Lightbringer would see that. An opportunity. Lucifer always sees an opportunity, and one as delicious as an Endless desperate to get his tools back? The fallen angel was going to make him risk it all. And Morpheus would have no alternative but to accept it.

She couldn’t lie to the librarian, saying that everything was fine. Lucienne saw the restlessness in the Garden. Elijah and the Emissary agitated, promptly abiding Love’s demands. If she tried to lie, the librarian would be skeptical of her word. At the same time, it was her duty to care for her husband's creations. She needed to give them hope. If Lucienne, his most loyal dream, gave up on him, there would be no one left to fight for.

“You are right. We are not at war, but it might be wise to prepare. Demons can be erratic.” Love answered promptly. This wasn’t the time to argue about the necessity of raising defenses.

“I believe in Lord Morpheus” Lucienne faced her queen, fixing her glasses. Lucienne’s tone questioning Love's faith in the Dream King. Eoster couldn’t blame her. She couldn’t convince herself of any different outcome than defeat on her husband’s part.

She was also furious with his recklessness, doing the same mistake that got him imprisoned in first place and led to the loss of his prized possessions. Acting before thinking, acting before having a proper conversation with his wife, without tracing a proper plan.

He may not respect her as a wife. He may not want to talk about their relationship. But, politically speaking, she was his queen, she was responsible for his realm in his absence. The bare minimum would’ve been to let her know that he planned to throw his freedom away and deliver it on a silver platter to Lucifer.

Love took a step forward, enterwinding her fingers pressing them against her corset. She kept her face neutral but her green eyes sparkled with authority. It occurred to her that Lucienne never had to take direct orders from Love. Usually Love’s requests were supported by a previous order from Dream. How strange it must be to have to blindly follow Love’s without the king’s approval.

Love took that into account when choosing her words. “As you should. Defying my husband was a mistake and Lucifer will learn it the hardest way. Morningstar is a sore loser and might not want to give in easily. We must be prepared. When he returns, My lord husband will be displeased if we let erratic demons creep into his realm.” Promises of a doubtful return that Love made as a certainty.

The librarian's eyes kept still on the Queen, as if looking for something of a doubt. But Love turned her back, dismissing her “ Protection spells might be enough,”

Lucienne bowed before leaving the throne room, going to the library.

Love waited until she was certain she was alone, taking a deep breath, as filling her lungs with air would somehow ease her mind. Losing the posture, dragging herself up to the throne, sitting under it, leaning her head in the seat. She couldn’t occupy his seat. It could send the wrong message, like a claim she didn’t want to state. Besides, even the thought of occupying his seat seemed like a bad omen, like she was already sealing Dream’s fate. Sitting at the thorne's feet seemed more appropriate. Always at Morpheus' feet, never at his side. A position quite too familiar.

She should’ve known that his sympathy last night was hiding something. His secrecy with Matthew, and the sudden stop when she arrived. He knew he was going. This was the type of thing he should discuss with her, not with his raven. And more importantly, he should not waste their last night together in poor attempts at flattering!

Did he think she was that naive? Or that superficial? That a praise here and there, a kind word, would thaw her frozen heart, so she could grieve for him? For his realm? Beg to Lightbringer for mercy?

Love was already imagining the mess of his loss. There would be two sides that would split entities and anthropomorphic manifestations. The mortal realm would be chaos for who knows how long. Some would probably lose their lives, realms could be destroyed. All would burden her shoulders, terrorize her nights.

One side would support the narrative of: Morpheus lost in the oldest game. Suppose Lucifer wants to enslave the Dream Lord. The angel gets control of the Dreaming. And since Lady Love is bonded by the Book Before Time under the laws of the True Marriage, to Morpheus, she carries half of his soul. Since the Dream King is enslaved and Eoster is also part of his essence, Lucifer has a claim of Eoster and the Garden. Not only the fallen angel would have two realms, but two powerful entities as playthings. That would be his claim. A very good, and logical one, in Eoster’s opinion. Easy to support.

The other side, the one that Love would try to persuade Lords and Ladies to abide, would be: Morpheus lost in the oldest game. Lady Love is bonded to Dream by the Book Before Time under the laws of True Marriage. Since Lady Love carries half of his soul, and The Dreaming is her husband’s essence, The Dreaming is hers, as it is Morpheus’. By ancient law, before the oldest game, The Dreaming and her husband’s creations are hers. And since she wasn’t the one who lost nor agreed to gamble her realms, Lucifer has no valid claims. Morpheus may be enslaved and unable to rule, but not his creations, since they are now Love’s.

It didn’t sound strong like the first one, but that would be what Love would have to claim, to stay in the Dreaming, deny and resist its take over. Protect her subjects. Her husband might be awful to her, but he created dreams, nightmares and stories, beyond her wildest imagination. They carry an important hole in the mortals' realm. To let it be destroyed and corrupted was unthinkable.

She remembered the night before, her husband’s soft touch, the way his gaze rested in her face, his words. It was a farewell. He knew that he might not come back from Hell. Love didn’t know how to feel. He was imprisoned before, but she was not aware of it, of any suffering, and he was imprisoned by a mortal. Now it’s different. Lucifer could, or better, he wil.condemn him to eternal servitude, there would be no escape, no hope. She would be deserted. Alone. Fighting for a realm that the King never made to be a home for his Queen. A realm she felt responsible for.

It wasn’t like before, when she didn’t know if he would be back. This time, if he didn’t, he wouldn’t. “My Lady, what do we do, now?” Elijah’s voice made her raise her head from her hand, putting the curls that covered her vision out of her face. “Pray, my cupid. Seal the palace against demons and pray.”

The minutes turned to what seemed hours. Love heard a clock that wasn’t around, in her heels clicking on the floor, in Lucienne turning the pages, even in Elijah’s careful watch over the symbols draw to keep away demons. Love tried to make herself useful after pacing around the throne room, double checking all the entrances. Love hesitated in entering her husband’s quarters, but shook the feeling away, doing what was needed.

The last bedroom to be checked was hers. Lucienne left it half opened, and Love stayed in the middle of the hallways looking at the double doors. She wasn’t ready to deal with the past that laid inside that room. No longer she was the queen that lived there. She missed who she was. Hoping for it all, believing in the future promised in those forged letters by someone who wasn’t the one laying beside her. A blissful life, like the mortal’s she blessed, full of passionate love making, whispers of sweet promises, not a need in the universe the other couldn’t fulfill.

Love heard from someone she couldn’t remember, that the King of Dreams was so infatuated by his lovers that mortals would often dream of them. Love was humble enough to not think that it would be her case, but she did blindly believe that he would love her.

The memories from inside her room begged to differ.

Eoster took a deep breath, deciding to check the windows of the balcony, and go back to the throne room, not staying longer than necessary.

As she stepped inside, a crunchy noise was heard. Broken glass. She couldn’t tell if the smell of the room persisted from all those years, or it was her imagination. Roses, jasmyne and wine. It took her back, centuries ago. Her bed was a mess. Stained and creased white linen, pillows ripped, two in the bed, one on the floor, swan feathers everywhere. There were dresses tossed aside in her chaise lounge, unmatching heels scattered through the bedroom. Her vanity had a broken mirror. It was a disaster. A perfect scenery of the lowest point in their marriage.

Flashes from that night came straight to her head, like cutted scenes from a movie. Love’s head burned from each memory. Disgusting pleas, mixed with sobs, she collapsed on the floor. Head down in defeat, incomprehensible mumbles and eyes filled with tears that made it impossible to see anything other than a blurred vision of the marble floor.

She could feel his eyes on her back, but she didn’t care. He needed to get away from her.

“Leave”. Eoster repeated the words he coldly said it. Love never understood how he could watch her defeated and broken at his feet and not do anything at all.

It didn’t bring tears to her face. It wasn’t a sad memory. It was sour and left a weird taste in her mouth, something she felt ashamed of. That night, she questioned her own nature, if she deserved to be Lady of the Four Loves. Both said awful despicable things to each other.

One thing Love never admitted to anyone was that his decision in banning her from the Dreaming was for the best. Distance saved their marriage, not exactly saved, but preserved it. It calmed their nerves. Steady their emotions. Both could do their work, focus on the mortal realm, attend to their creations. True Marriage requires half of a soul, but it doesn't require them to share a home, a bed or even talk to one another. They would be together in reunions, conferences, sitting side by side in official events. He would summon her, when needed, and she would abide by his requests.

Love finished crossing the room, leaving the past behind, checking her balcony window, and taking a seat. Resting her back against the wall, she felt the cold silent air brushing against her face and brought her knees to her chest hugging them. Early stars shining above the realm's silhouette. The same view she used to stare while waiting. For the maids to fix her up to some event. For the Seamstress while adjusting one of her dresses for the evening. For Elijah. For Lucienne. For Dream. Her bedroom was more of a waiting room than anything else. All her life all she seemed to do is to wait.

Maybe it would be a good thing Lucifer taking control of the Dreaming. Maybe she could present herself favorable, relief even. The fallen angel could destroy the palace, destroy the rooms that terrorize her memories. Maybe Love could suggest to Lucifer to make Morpheus relieved their marriage but in her point of view. A torture even the cruelest demons would applause. It was tempting.

“ Lady wife” Eoster’s heart skip a beat, shutting down those traisoning thoughts. For the first time she was relieved to hear that deep calm voice. Tears almost came to her eyes, and she let out a breath she didn’t know was holding since earlier. Without turning, she could feel his presence at the door. “ You’ve returned.” She said it without any hint of worry.

“You seemed surprised. Did you not believe in me?” Love could feel his vacillating steps, like approaching a cornered dangerous animal. He remembers. She turned defeated, tired. “Don’t. Please” He stood quietly. She turned to him, saying in a quiet voice“ Why didn’t you tell me?” He raised an eyebrow “ Would you care?”

“I am your queen.” He perfectly knew what that meant. It didn’t matter if she cared or not. She should’ve known.

“ I had to restore my helmet.” He said it was the most logical response in the world. A final answer that justifies his whole sequence of inconsequential decisions.

It sent Love over the edge. Was he that oblivious? Didn’t he stop for even a second and think? She was at her feet quickly. “ You had to think sensibly, not impulsively barging into Hell!” She screamed angrily pacing through the bedroom, her steps almost opening a hole on the floor.

“ I was sensible! I did what I had to do. How did you expect me to rule?!” He replied screaming back. It came back to the fighting. The only language they seemed to understand.

“ I don’t know! But you should’ve consulted me! Talked to me!” Love’s voice got weak, her hand holding the bridge of her nose, shaking her head in denial, trying to avoid the knot in her throat. Taking a few seconds to regroup herself. Avoid all those convoluted feelings.

“Since when the Lady of the Four Loves is an expert in challenges in Hell?“ Morpheus grinded his teeth, trying to shove his angriness away. Why couldn’t she understand? He was rebuilding his realm. That was the only way he had to restore his possessions, even if that meant to put himself at risk. The night before, she made it perfectly clear that she did not care. Why was she upset?

“ Since when the Lord of Dreams is?!” Love was shaking, she didn't know how she was even able to keep walking back and forth in the room, because every fiber in her body was trembling.

“ Do you have any idea what the last hours have been like for me?! Making promises I didn’t even know if they were real. Promises that even I didn’t believe! Your librarian was in shambles, so I had to pick it up. And I didn’t know what to do. Prepare for a war? Search for you? Sit in the Garden and do nothing?!”

He tried to argue between her rants. “ I was going to tell you, last night. But you left before I could even say anything. I was trying-”

“Don’t lie to yourself!You didn’t plan to tell me anything! You were trying to court me to bed!” Poorly, she wanted to add. She saw men do it for centuries over love stories after love stories, telling their muses whatever they want to hear, luring them away from their senses with pretty words and impossible promises. It is easy for an innocent heart to fall for it, but not a seasoned one.

“ I did this for me as I did for you! Don’t you think that I know what would happen if Lightbringer or any other knew about my wounded state? If I did nothing, and waited, they would’ve come. And The Dreaming and you, I might add-” Love knew he was being sincere but couldn’t keep away her anguish.

“I was scared, Morpheus!” She let it out, before realizing what she said. He was stunted, his deep blue eyes confused but kept quiet. And she dared to repeat. Even if every inch of her body was trying to keep her from vomiting all her feelings. She repeated quietly, like she didn't want him to listen. Like admitting it to him, was admitting defeat. Her pride wonded by the confession. “I was scared. I thought…” She spoke before any sense of regretness made her quiet “You barely returned, and you were gone. Again. I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid. For me, for the Dreaming, for your subjects… for you”

Both dropped in silence, things were escalating. Both their chest going up and down, they could feel the thickness of the air, the bedroom seemed smaller, and their loud voices seemed to echo through the walls.

The raven haired king never, in centuries, saw his wife in such a state. He remembered her earlier years of being lovable and understanding. The later years of her melancholy and bitterness, and her recent coldness and passive aggressiveness. But, apart from one time, he never saw her distressed, arms and hands trembling, trying to hold herself. Love never showed any weakness in front of him. She silently cried, but every single inch of her always breath royalty, always a proper queen. Even in their fallouts.

He didn’t know why he made his way towards her. Last night, Dream saw that Eoster preferred to avoid his touch, recoiling from even the most lightly innocent brush of fingers. But he was taken aback by her sincerity. The confession of fear, obliviousness in face of a situation he didn’t prepare her to. He felt guilt. His wife knew nothing of the Dreaming. He never bothered to teach her.

Now trying to understand her place, he couldn’t contain himself, but to walk to her, close enough to touch her face, her elaborated hairstyle was semi-undone, her brown curls falling in her face. Dream put them behind her ear, making his queen look at him. At first, by impulse, she tried to get away from him, but concead mumbling again about being scared. “ I won’t ask for your forgiveness. I did what needed to be done. Still, it was never my intention to distress you. Leaving you in the dark, I thought…”

He didn’t, actually. The Dream King thought his wife wouldn’t worry. He never thought she would be terrified with his departure. He didn’t think about the burden he dropped inadvertently at her feet. Seeing her as only his unhappy wife, not his queen. Queen of the Dreaming. The Queen who would deal with the consequences if anything happened differently than his win. An entity with no experience in quarrels beyond the ones of a relationship.

Morpheus didn’t know his wife at all, that was clear by the shock of knowing she would try to defend his realm. Even after the suffering he inflicted on her.

Dream leaned in,letting his forehead rest against hers, as both of his hands secured her face, whipping the salty tears in her cheeks. Eoster let out a deep sigh, still listening, she didn’t try to wriggle out of his touch. Morpheus whispered to her, trying to calm her down, like an intimate prayer shared only between them. “ Hope made me victorious. It is what kept my strength, even when Morningstar had the upper hand. Laying on the ground, almost giving up. It was hope that upheld me. Hope for the Dreaming, for a new dawn… for us.”

Love’s voice was almost a whisper, and if he wasn’t close enough to see her lips move, he would’ve thought it was the whispers of the wind. She frowned, letting the best of her senses behind, ignoring the pain, the memories, nudging against his nose, looking for comfort even for a brief moment. Eyes closed, as if opening them meant to face reality. “Husband… You yearn for what lovers share, that only lovers long and grieve for. Only lovers hope.”

She taught that lesson a hundred times to protegées: When lovers are together, they can give each other everything that matters to the heart: Affection, romance, friendship, passion, fidelity, devotedness, but only if their hopes are in perfect harmony. Strangers that share a bed when the flesh craved for warmth, or that were tricked into marrying someone they thought they loved, are never in harmony. Their hopes are always somewhere else.

Only lovers hope. He knew what she meant. They weren’t lovers. Never were. Silence fell among them again, his thumb caressing her soft wet skin. Love didn’t remember if she ever felt such gentleness emanating through his body, calming her trembling self. She didn’t want to let go.

“My Lady, it is all I plead you ” He begged against her skin, their lips almost brushing against each other. Love felt the warmth of his hands against her cheek. She covered his hand with her own, slightly pending her head in his hand. She opened her green watery eyes, staring at him. Either they look brighter with tears, or Morpheus never really paid attention to them.

Eoster knew what he was asking from her. A vow of faith. To believe in his hope. To believe in his change. With all of her heart she wished she could. The words she so longed to hear. She once wished for his love, with all of her heart and self. Now he wanted her to believe in their future.

She wished she could, she wished her memory was feeble, obliviating all those painful recollections of their time together. His coldness, neglectfulness, disregard. The constant humiliations of being looked at with pity in reunions and having to pretend to not see it, having to endure with elegance, mistress after mistress. Having her intentions questioned constantly. Her devotion, inquisitioned by her own husband. Tossed aside, used for relief and discarded. A pretty accessory parading around in the Prince of Stories’ arm. A cruel joke that Desire could tell to amuse others.

“I want to believe, my lord. How I wish I could…” She let the words trail off, pressing her hands harder against his, as if she could make it happen by physically holding onto him, holding the moment.

She wished to forget the past, the truth and live in this ethereal parenthesis where her husband cared, where he looked at her with worry, sorrow, guilt, and he yearned for her. A parenthesis between the quests to find his belongings.

But the truth hovered between them. It was smothered by a brief second, but it was there, already reopening the drift between them. It was impossible to be ignored.

The truth was they were spouses.

Not lovers.

They never were

Chapter Text

Love jumped with the needle poking her skin, pushing her away from her dreamlike state. She had been particularly distracted all day, and not even the witty remarks of the Seamstress or the shy giggles of her assigned dream handmaids made her mind present at the conversation. Probably thanks to the amount of milk from night blooming jasmines she has been drinking. At first, she’d only take it before bed, it gave her a dreamless deep sleep. Offering some peace without twisting in silk sheets all night mentally rewinding and analyzing every interaction with her husband, thinking about different outcomes of different dialogues. It was a never ending exercise that led nowhere.

After the invitation to the Endless reunion arrived, the numbness of the jasmines became a necessity to be used during the day. Morpheus became even more difficult and it led her to such serendipity. Like she was under anesthesia, all that bothered her, couldn’t pass the liquid protection of the milk. Every conversation seemed like a distant uninterested topic, incapable of holding her attention. It would be especially useful in this dreadful dinner she must attend.The sting of the needle made her emerge from the comfortable dreamlike state, back in reality. It was like putting the head out of the water after staying so long under, you don’t remember what breathing is like.”Forgive me, I am quite distracted today”

In front of the trifold mirror in her quarters, Eoster moved slightly in the pedestal, taking a deep breath, showing she was now engaged (even if only for a few seconds) in the conversation. Seeing her reflection, she admired the beaded imperial waist white dress with a low neckline, even the slightest move made it sparkle. The Seamstress was doing the final adjustments of the Lady’s dress for the family dinner at her brother-in-law’s realm. “Nothing to forgive, my Lady Love, you just lost a little weight.” The handmaids exchanged a knowing look and the brunette observed the ancient entity, who was quick with her needlework.

Only for a few hours in the Dreaming and the Seamstress already knew. The way the woman spoke, with a hint of pity, the Seamstress could see right through her. She wanted to defend herself, to argue that she didn’t “lost weight” which was a polite and very court-y like to say that a lady or lord changed for the worst. They were unhappy, depressed, melancholic. Different from the young maiden she dressed centuries ago. Of course Eoster didn’t take into account the vast experience in seeing failed marriages . ‘Bigger the marital disaster, bigger the wardrobe’ the Seamstress always used to say to her protegés.

And Lady Love had more clothes and garments than a lifetime of events.

All the Endless would be present at this dinner, and as Dream’s wife, she was expected to come. Neither of them was thrilled to spend an entire evening sitting side-by-side, enduring Desire humorous glances, double-meaning questions and condescending comments or Delirium’s never ending topics that always end up in uncomfortable inquiries or remarks.

One moment she is talking about ice creams and somehow it jumps to “ Brother why you never kiss Sister Love? Isn’t that what love is?” or “It’s just like Brother when Sister Love touches him” describing someone having an electric shock, referring to how quickly a mortal could snap away their hand.

The bearable ones were Lady Death, who was always very kind to Love, and in the beginning of their marriage even came to visit the newly wed couple in the Dreaming. Lord Destiny, who was not much of conversationalist but could stir the direction of the conversation, sometimes saving the couple from uttering embarrassment, and Lord Destruction. Who was a touchy subject between the couple, thanks to an ill comment by Aunt Primness, excused as usual, by Aunt Temperance. Not that Morpheus forgave Aunt Prim. Not that Aunt Prim asked for forgiveness.

It happened during The Second Harvesting’s celebration, which are among Love’s favorites festivities. Decorations in orange and earthy-like tones, the smell of ripe apples and pumpkins, but most importantly, she loved it as a festivity for dancers. All night: Country dances, cotillions, minuets, boulangers and quadrilles. When she was a maid, Love used to dance until her shoes were worn out.

That was, of course, before. Now, Lady Love, accompanied by her husband, was sinking in a chair by his side, not holding her wishful sighs seeing everyone else partake in a dance. Unfortunately for Love, Dream didn’t show any interest in dancing. She didn’t even know if he actually knew how to, since she couldn’t remember seeing the Lord of Dreams ever take any lady or lord to one. Even if they were at odds, as usual, Eoster was always inclined to do as her dear Jane wrote in one of her books: ‘Dancing. Even if one’s partner is barely tolerable’. But Morpheus didn’t seem like the type to have read Jane Austen.

Love had her hands crossed in her lap, resting against the bright orange fine columnar silk skirt embellished with a lace pattern that covered the entire dress. Although it was long, it didn’t trail on the floor, as some of her dresses. The empire waist, low neckline and bare neck made her bosom a bit more apparent but not improper for a queen. In her hair, ribbons entwined her curls, in a variety of warm autumn colors that tickled her neck and her short puffy sleeves brushed against her husband’s satin black attire, very similar to the one he would use regularly, only in a different refined fabric.

The Endless did not pay much attention to his wife, as usual. They paraded around, doing the required social agenda, and ended up sitting side by side at their designed table. The raven haired king’ eyes scramble through the crowd. Since their arrival, he seemed to be expecting someone else, at first she thought it could be his siblings, but after he denied when she asked, she knew exactly who he was looking for.

And the minute he found her, he would give his wife some rushed mediocre excuse and leave her with her wine. At least he wouldn’t count the glasses and endlessly complain about her drinking. ‘I will stop when my king gives me a reason to.’ she once said to him while intoxicated.

“Looking for someone, Prince of Stories?”

And that was when the evening started to go south.

The Aunts were barely seen in any parties, they weren’t the oldest entities but certainly were one of the proudest. And for some reason, everyone always tiptoed around them. They were rare to see in events, usually preferring to receive a few selected guests in her realms. Which made them even more of an attraction when they came to one.

Aunt Primness had her dark blond hair in a tight updo with a delicate diamond tiara and earring and necklace matching it, her bangs meticulously divided side by side with an airbrushed finish, her light green eyes deadly-stared at Morpheus with disdain. She wore a beautiful purple silk brocaded dress, with a low neckline, short sleeves and complemented with long white sleeves that reached her elbow. She looked older than the couple, even if she was younger. “Aunt Prim!” Love was quick on her feet, giving the lady one kiss on each cheek, without breaking eye contact with the husband.

Aunt Prim knew Morpheus was looking for Calliope and any excuse to flee away as quickly as possible. She despised him for making Love miserable, feeling that one of her favorite entities was far too melancholic and apathetic, perfectly aware that its source was sitting broodling right beside her. “Love!” The soft voice, one step behind Aunt Prim, revealed to be Aunt Temperance, a kind woman, with delicate features. She was the complete opposite of Aunt Prim, although the two were inseparable. Even in the way they dressed.

Contrasting to the purple attire, Temperance was wearing a floor length silk dress in a pastel yellow color and a princess silhouette, the fabric was covered in white damask pattern, which made her even more like a sunshine with her bright red hair, elegantly pulled in a updo with pearl pins scattered through it and her short bangs making a curly front. She had a calm smile, but a warm hug.

As everyone said: One is kind but not clever, the other is clever but not kind. And one look was enough to tell each one was it.

Love greeted both of the Aunts as her husband did the same, with a polite but distant nod, ignoring Aunt Prim’s question. “Please, join us.” She politely invited, even if her husband gave her a side condemning eye, he knew she couldn’t send both of them away, it would be terribly inappropriate. “Are we expecting someone else?” Aunt Prim asked, while fixing her dress after sitting down. Love began to answer, but the aunt interrupted her “Are we, Prince of Stories?” Aunt Temperance felt the tension rise and tried to change the subject “Lovely celebration isn’t it? Prim, didn’t you say something the other day about how the Second Harvest was the only festivity worth coming for?”

A staring contest began between Aunt Prim and Morpheus, as her husband gave her a short “No.” as answer. To which the old woman opened her mouth making a “Ah!” as that settled the subject, ignoring Aunt Temperance, who was still going about the festivity. “Such wandering eyes, especially when your Queen is right beside you.” Love grinded her teeth, stiffening her posture “Aunt Prim…” She quietly pleaded, looking over her lashes to the woman, already feeling hard to breathe.

The blonde woman turned to Temperance talking as she was remembering a fun fact, a nostalgic memory. “Do you remember, Temp, when Love was still a maiden, how many suitors would fall at her feet, just for a quick glance from hers? I remember her hiding in the corners and balconies trying to catch some air. Pleading us to not tell a soul where she went. Her dance card would be filled by this hour and her feet thorn by the dancing.”

Love blushed in embarrassment, looking anywhere else but to Morpheus and the Aunts. Prim was trying to imply that her husband should feel lucky to even have her by his side. Temperance looked over the King, who shifted in his seat. Morpheus tolerated Aunt Temperance but Aunt Prim was unbearable. She overprotected Love, who did not need any protection, and had been a pain in his life since Love and him got married.

It seemed to be her favorite passtime to torture and embarrass him.”My wife was indeed very popular.” It wasn’t a compliment as he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “You don’t have to-“ Love mumbled and stopped as her husband gave her another side eye capable of freezing souls.

The Aunt didn’t seem to understand that he was stuck in the same miserable life as Love. More than that, she didn’t know that Love was responsible for her own misery. But Prim only saw that he was romantically involved with Calliope and that they shared a child together. Primness was beyond repulsed by this. Especially when she knew Eoster for being devoted to all her duties, realm and subjects, and a proper lady, which was a rare combination these days. Prim took the queen’s pains as hers, and different from most, she wasn’t afraid of politely making Dream remember who he was married to.

The most offensive of his crimes and what made Aunt Prim (who usually would avoid meeting with the king she had no respect to) to approach them was his wandering gaze. She knew many mortals with that same look on their face, looking for their mistresses while his wife was right there beside him. Maybe he indeed needs a lesson of good morals.

Calliope would be a sight to calm his heart and ease his pain, a brief moment where they could be together and pretend he doesn’t share a soul with another. He wanted to take her to those events, dance with her, whisper dark desires he wanted to do with her after, having to settle for caressing her soft tight under the table, drawing circles in her delicate skin, seeing her lips parted letting a small whimper of want escape. He wouldn’t have to meet behind locked doors, and worry about a bored wife that seemed to want to be anywhere else but with him.

It wasn’t forbidden to take a mistress or a lover after a True Marriage, but it certainly wasn’t seen with good eyes to other entities. Some of them, like Aunt Prim, were really fond of Love, and tolerated Dream because of her. They couldn’t defy him because of his Endless status, being more powerful than most, but found his choices appalling. Especially since Love, as an anthropomorphic manifestation of the four loves, outrank Calliope as a muse. They preferred as minimal contact as possible. Morpheus did not find this a problem at all. He had his duties to attend, not needing to waste time at parties with dull companions as his wife liked to indulge so much.

“You used to love to dance, my sweet darling.” Prim signed and Love raised her eyes to watch the pity in the Aunt's eyes. She opened a fake smile, taking a sip of her wine, before continuing. “I still adore dancing, Aunt Prim. Tonight, we are leaving the dancing to the young ones. Tomorrow, Morpheus and I have quite a day, our feet need rest.” A perfect crafted lie, she looked over to Morpheus, looking for approval as she awkwardly reached for his hand over the table, feeling he stiffened under the sudden touch. A very on-the-face gesture to show her Aunts that they were fine.

Her “busy day” in the morning would consist of doing the same things she did everyday, answer letters from the Garden, drinking wine, wonder through the empty hallways, tender her garden at the palace, maybe if she was lucky, The Corinthian would pass by and indulge her by telling about his day or maybe she would just drink wine until the handmaids woke her up to take her to a warm bath. If they add perfumed oils, later Morpheus would summon her to bed, if not, she could sleep or die that no one would care.

“What a lucky prince you are, Dream with such a thoughtful wife.” Aunt Prim poke. “Excuse me” Everyone looked up, and never Morpheus and Love were so relieved by an interruption. The tall broad red haired man, Lord Destruction, made himself present, Love bowed her head lightly as did the Aunts. “It was about time! Go on, my sweet child, your feet will forgive you for one dance” Primness gesture toward Love, as she needed to quicken her pace. The couple and the brother-in-law looked confused at each other. As none of them moved, Primness made herself clear “Lord Destruction clearly came to take you for a dance, my dear, seeing that his dear brother felt indisposed. What a considerate brother-in-law! Blessing for your intentions, my Lord” Prim even sounded genuinely relived.

Love felt heat reaching to her cheeks, and gulped. She liked her brother in law, but he was known to be a terrible dancer, and Love liked her feet too much to have them crushed. She could also see that smirk on the Aunt’s face, and Aunt Temperance looked as confused as the rest. “But he didn’t-” Aunt Prim raised Aunt Temperance’s glass to her eye level “Drink your lemonade, Temp, your throat is dry.” Dismissing and cutting the redhaired that thought for a moment before taking the glass. Hydration was important to Lady Temperance.

What was the Aunt planning? Crushing Love’s feet? Over a dance? Just because she didn’t partake in her passtime of poking Morpheus with a short stick? For the love of the Garden! The old hag wasn’t the one going to bed with him and having to deal with his moods!

“If, of course, Lord Morpheus doesn’t mind.” Aunt Prim never called Morpheus ‘Lord’. She was definitely into something, almost tempting Morpheus to deny the request. “Of course not. My Lady, If your heart desires, you may dance. You don’t need my permission to do so.” She nodded, hesitantly getting up and grabbing Destruction’s arm and walking away from the group. The brother still looked confused, not knowing how searching for his little sister ended up with a dance with his small almost feather-like sister-in-law. Neither of them however, have the guts to protest the old woman.

“Don’t get me wrong, Love. I would’ve asked you to dance, if I knew you wanted to, but I was just looking for Delirium and” She interrupted him, before he could tangle himself in excuses that weren’t necessary. “No need to excuse yourself, my lord. That was just Aunt Primness being Aunt Primness. Doing some scheme to get me away from my husband, so she could torture him freely.” Both of them arrived at the center of the ballroom, along with other couples, waiting for the instruments

“Is that who she was? It is true what they say then.” Love raised an eyebrow questioning, and Lord Destruction looked to the sides, as Aunt Prim could have ears everywhere “She does get you to do things that you had no intention in doing and make you feel like it’s your obligation.”

Love chuckled, it was the first humorous conversation she had since…Well, a long time. “Is dancing with me such a terrible burden?” She teased, holding a smile, faking an appalled expression. She could see his face becoming red, terrified he might have offended her. How can someone be the personification of destruction, something that causes so much pain to mortals, be such a kind soul? “N-No! That was not, what I-” Love laugh, a laugh that could make flowers blossom “I am terribly sorry. I couldn’t resist a small tease”

Destruction shook his head, responding with a small chuckle. He never saw his brother’s wife laugh or tease, let alone make jokes. She usually was, at least in the few occasions he saw her, quiet, politely answering only what was asked, always with her head down, and innocent eyes looking over her lashes, constantly looking for approval from Dream.”If I may, I don’t think Primness send you here torture my brother. I think she wants revenge against you.” Love was beautiful, one of the most, if not the most, stunning entities he’d ever seen. It was impossible not to notice. Of course he had noticed before, at the dinners, but she was often gloomy, her beauty dulled. Not the vibrant woman with a lightened smile he was seeing. Destruction could understand and even admire the courage some entities had, even after her marriage (one must be completely insane to want something, in this case, someone, that was Dream’s.) to keep faithfully waiting for a chance to even talk to her.

“Me? What could I possibly have done against Aunt Prim?” It was his time to tease. “Not you. Your feet. Only someone wanting revenge on one’s feet would send them to dance with me.”

Both of them laugh. “Well, thinking about it, some new feet wouldn’t be a bad idea. Mine's always been a bit too flat ” She joked right before the music began.

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Love thought it would be worse. But turns out, for someone the size of Lord Destruction, he was quite a skilled dancer. They spliced a boulanger into a cotillions, two minuets and even one quadrille. When they were beginning to prepare for the next dance. Someone tapped her dance partner's arm. It was Morpheus. Immediately Love started to fumble with words, having completely forgotten the time. “Forgive me, husband. You must be exhausted. I should-” He interrupted her, turning to his brother “May I have the next dance with my wife?” He especially stressed the “wife” part. Destruction didn’t seem to catch that, nor the fluster in Dream’s face.

“Of course, brother. You arrived just in time. Lovely night, Love.” He bowed, kissing her hand. Dream barely let him kiss his wife's hand, taking upon his own. Leaving the couple, but not the ballroom as he had a special request to the musicians.

Love didn’t see this, as she was occupied trying to read her husband. She was glistening and flushed, smiling, even some curls were loose. A disheveled appearance. It angered him. The thought of it. He never, indeed, thought about it, it shouldn’t bother him. But the moment the old hag Primness said it, the moment she suggested it, her appearance boiled his blood, as he now could see it in not so innocent sceneries.

He had an extra marital affair, yes, but it was a relationship, before he was married, he didn’t find a mistress after. Calliope was his wife in the true meaning of the word, his confident, his friend and his lover. It could barely be considered disgraceful behavior. Love and him shared an eternal bond, a trap he wasn’t convinced she didn’t scheme with Desire. The solitude he condemned her, was a light punishment for forever keeping away from his true love. He did worse with Nada, and she did nothing like Love did.

He didn’t love Eoster. He couldn’t love or trust her. Even if sometimes it was more difficult than he made it seem. She had every quality of a queen, an eagerness to be useful, the perfect balance to his strict and ruthless rule, empathic, kind and understanding. She cared for his creations and his realm as it was her own. And through lustful lens, it was also impossible to deny how her body also felt sinful perfect against his own, it wasn’t difficult to seek release when Love received him so well, her perky breasts moving with each thrust, her flushed complexion, curls sprawled in the mattress, he could hear the light whimpers every time he relentlessly pushed inside her. She never seem to enjoy it, since he made no effort to make it pleasant to her, but she didn’t protested or denied him.

Morpheus knew from their first night, she expected something entirely different. Not a marital duty between sheets, but a love making out of the most passionately beautifully written books.

It was a challenge not to fall in love with her. He was certainly that was the reason Desire choose her to conspire with. His sibling was very aware that he was a devoted and passionate lover, that did anything to make his companions happy. If he felt for Eoster’s charming ways, he would blindly follow her and she and Desire would take complete advantage of it.

It was way to protect himself. She wouldn’t succeede in making him fall for her, if she found him completely unfazed by her charms. It was also a punishing for her alliances. A hell of her own choosing. And maybe knowing this was why she never protested his callings to his chambers.

He never looked for her out of desire. He went to her, because she was there and Calliope wasn’t.

He always thought that if Love wanted to finally give in to one of those extensive letters she constantly received from frustrated suitors, she could. She didn’t have to pretend to be a faithful wife that loved her husband, and was the only moral saint between them. In fact, this angered him, for he knew her true intentions. If she choose a lover and it didn’t get in the way of her duties, she had his blessings. Maybe it would even make her more tolerable.

At least he though this, until Aunt Primness actually suggested it.

During their second dance, the table could clearly see Destruction and Love, laughing, happily dancing, both following the steps as it was as natural as breathing. At first, when Prim suggested the dance, he thought the old entity only wanted to provoke him, without Love making pitiful excuses. But she didn't, keeping quiet, lazily moving her fan, letting Temperance fill the silence with polite small talk about the Second Harvesting.

Aunt Prim sent Temperance to get more glasses of lemonade for both of them. “Behave” she sternly told Primness, who gesture in dismissiveness. “It is so good seeing Love smiling again. That smile can melt snow, make birds sing and flowers bloom. Don’t you wish you could see that everyday?” She signed moving lazily her purple fan.

Morpheus didn’t reply, not freely walking into one of her traps. Continuing looking at the dance, well, not exactly watching it, but distracting himself, taking some opportunities to scan the room looking for his lover. “They do make a dashing couple.” She finished her glass of wine, raising to the king “A true couple”. That caught his attention, as he stared at her, his eyes cold as ice, not believing in what she was saying.

Primness, the Aunt of moralism and austere views of living. His cold stare should’ve been a warning to Prim to stop that nonsense. Not that she cared. “You should consider supporting their affection. Love has been the most graceful to you, enduring your affairs and its products." By ‘products’ she meant Orpheus. Prim never said his name, finding it obscene just acknowledging him. “ Some others, would have the mistress' head in a stake by now, and their offspring, drowned. It is only fair if you offer her the same courtesy.”

The moment she finished it, Morpheus felt offended by it, ready to get on his foot, grab his wife and drag her out of there, never to go to another one of these stupid celebrations ever again. But, seeing her dazzling between dancers, he took a moment to consider. She looked happy. His brother also seemed to be enjoying her company. Love could fulfill her duties, but she wouldn’t be moping around, sighing, constantly begging for attention. For the first time in forever, Primness gave him a useful idea.

He was certain Love would be good for Destruction, she would be attentive, and caring, having someone to lay all her love, someone to talk to, someone to laugh with, and that would listen to the futilities of the Garden. His brother probably would also be intrigued by having someone different than him, a delicate porcelain skin flower, someone patient who could calm his nature, introduce him to the variety of the arts Love was well versed in.

“Just have to be cautious. After all, a child of love and destruction would not be good for anyone.” Prim mentioned it as she was talking about the weather. That stinged Morpheus in a place he hadn’t considered. Carnal pleasure.

Encourage their affections, wouldn’t lead them to just be friendly, platonic lovers. Eoster would be his mistress and Destruction would be her lover. The air shifted. Morpheus paid close attention to their dance, hyperfixated in the couple, feeling his breath becoming erratic by their proximity.

The way her delicate fingers pressed his brother's large arms, small squeezes she gave as the dances progride. Morpheus started to imagine those same delicate nails digging in his brother back, letting red marks all over his back, as he would take her, filling her with pleasure. Skin flushed as now, glistening with sweat running through her ribs, her breasts just like in the dance, lightly brushing against his large torso, but without any piece of cloth separating them, his hand probably covering entirely her breasts and she would scream in pleasure as he squeezed them. He would hover over her, covering her entire small frame, she would throw her arms around his neck, pushing him closely, hungry for his lips, guiding him in a deep kiss, letting him take complete control, feeling something she hadn’t in centuries: Desire. A man that actually desires her as her own, not using her as replacement, a man that would worship every inch of her skin.

Destruction would give her those love making from the books, preparing her body, tasting the nectar that dripped from her core, while working his tongue inside her, arching her entire body, feeling an unbearable heat, having to be hold down by the waist. Love was extremely reactive, she would give a show, but not to Morpheus, to his brother. She would cry his brother's name, dripping from her mouth like a prayer.

She would not whimp, she would loudly moan, looking at him with stars in her eyes, lips swallowed and parted trying to get air, as she was doing during the dance. He would add fingers to stretch her, sensing if she would be able to take him, telling how good she was, whispering the most sinful praises, confessing all that he would do to her, making her wetter, while working on her bundle of nerves, bringing her to an edge. Love will think it was never like this with Morpheus. Love would jerk herself toward Destruction, craving for friction, to feel his hard member dripping with precum touching her inner thigh, legs wrapped around his waist, feeling the tip against her entrance as he position himself to slide inside her warm wet entrance, that invites him so eagerly, her walls clenching around nothing in expectation. It wouldn’t be uncomfortable as it always was with Morpheus. She wouldn’t want to lay with her husband anymore, and Dream would not be able to blame her.

The way her body felt perfect underneath him, how she stretched and clenched around him, almost making him come in an instant. It would feel perfect underneath his brother, she would not avoid his gaze, as she avoids Dream, she would dwell in Destruction’s gaze. He would never command her to lay on all fours, as he would take her from behind, trying to picture she was someone else. He would never dare to think about another woman’s while inside her. Not like Dream. Destruction would sully her insides with his seed, he would claim her mouth as his. His brother would, as everything he touches, completely destroy his wife.

Morpheus might have been her first, but Destruction would be the one she loved.

He could already see, how his brother would make mortals fight in her name, declare wars to whoever happened to displease her. If he even imagined that Dream was making her unhappy, that he was the reason she copious cries to sleep, that she was unloved and neglected. Destruction may even forget that he is family.

Those images in his head, made him indescribably jealousy, the idea of someone else touching her, someone else seeing her in ways only Dream’s eyes had, someone else occupying her thoughts, boiled inside him and culminating with seeing his brother spin her in his arms in the air as she laughs, right before putting her gently on the ground and she stumbled, falling in his arms, chest glued to chest, faces closed. “Excuse me” He got up quickly, ignoring any protests against unpolitness that Prim might’ve done, making his way through the crowd of dancers, as they clapped to the end of the music.

Little did he know, that she merely follow him with her eyes. A smirk spouting in her face. “What did I miss? Where is Lord Morpheus?” Aunt Temp said it, clueless of what just happened. “Being sensible for once.” Prim said as she took a sip of her lemonade with a mischevous look to Temperance “Oh, Primness, what did you do this time?” Temperance shook her head already knowing Aunt Prim executated one more of her well crafted naughty plans. “Sometimes even an Endless need to be reminded that all they have, can be easily lost.” The red haired woman shrugged taking a sip of her own bevarage, but couldn’t help a small smile.

“Is there something wrong, husband? We can go if you desire to. I am a bit weary.” He glanced at her, she was genuinely concerned, as his behavior was out of character “I saw how weary you were.” He said in an accusatory tone. She frowned, what in the garden's name her husband was upset about now? Laughs? Fun? Does he hate happiness too? He cleaned his throat, trying to sound reasonable “ I saw how tired you seemed, and thought that maybe my brother was too avid of a dancer. And maybe you need a more serene partner” She nodded, not believing in his explanation.

As soon as the violins begin, she recognized as the Waltz of Lovers. Her husband wouldn’t want to dance that. “It’s a waltz, husband, if you-” He interrupted her, by offering his other hand “Shall we?”

And they danced.

Morpheus and Eoster synchrony was beyond perfection, the other couples cleared the center of the ballroom, dancing to the sides. The effortless move, their feet seemed to barely touch the floor, it was mesmerizing. Love never thought it would be so easy to dance with her husband, they seemed to be made for one another, swiftly, delicately and smoothing dancing in each other's arms, trusting each other’s steps, Love gracefully accepting being guided by her husband. If there was a light candle in Morpheus' hand, the flame would not have extinguished during the whole dance, it wouldn’t even flinch. They were perfect partners that every single entity applauded in the end.

Before, however, Love could drop her husband’s hand, after receiving the praise, he pressed her into his body, and passionately kissed her, holding her by her waist. At first, she was in such a state of shock, she didn’t move, it took only a few seconds but to her it was a noticeable eternity, everyone could tell, until she closed her eyes, and let him slide his tongue into her mouth, throwing her hands over his neck. His grip tightened around her waist, and he pressed her further in his body. Their audience applauded louder.

“Husband what has gotten into you?!” She said it as soon as they were back at the Dreaming, not long after their dance. He walked in front of her, in a quick pace, not saying a word, and Love had to hold her skirt to run after him. “I told you before.” Love rolled her eyes. “Not the dance, that kiss.” He stopped putting his hand behind his back and turned to her. “What about it, my lady?” She knew he was faking his calm manner, he was flustered in anger, and she had no idea of what Aunt Primness could have said that left him like this.

She blushed, looking at the floor, not beliving he would made her say it, but trying to make it as rational as possible “ You never kissed me in such a manner, my lord. It’s not that it didn’t please me to have your affection. But it was inappropriate.” He widened his gaze. “ Inappropriate! Pray tell me, wife, is it appropriate to be covered in sweat and completely disheveled while dancing with my brother?” She was taken aback by his enquiry. Both of them were staring at each other.

Love might not understand her husband, but she was well versed in that feeling. The conflicted look behind his eyes. It was too familiar. She’d seen in a thousand men and women. “You are jealousy”. She said not believing the words that came out of her mouth. A gasped laugh came out of her throat, before she taped her hand over her mouth. “Forgive me, I…” She laughed again. Not because it was a funny fact, but she couldn’t believe in it. Morpheus jealous, of her of all people? Oh and people still say that marriage becomes dull after the first century together.

“You are jealous of me. With…Your brother? Is that it?” Dream turned his back mumbling “ I will talk to you when you regain some sense”. She went after him, continuous with the subject, ignoring his mumbles. “Did Aunt Primness put those ideas into your head? Husband, you know she is just vexing you.” She stopped “Besides, I would never partake in any affair, I am devoted to our marriage, even if you choose to punish me with it.” He turned facing her shaking his head in disagreement and spiteful answering “ You are drunk” Love rolled her eyes, enjoying his embarrassing far too much “ Maybe, but I can be passed out and still recognize a jealous man by miles.”

Morpheus for the first time in a long time of marriage, didn’t feel the need to have the last word.

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Every since that day, Love kept ruminating the night over and over again, especially a few days later, when none other then Lucienne, asked her if she was having trouble sleeping, and Love lied, telling no, the librarian told her that the king was probably worried, because he asked her to scan through her dreams.

Love was surprised but not furious. For the first time, and how she loved that feeling, she had the upper hand, and her husband was struggling to regain control. The night blooming jasmine milk came to her as a cruel prank. Her husband was interested in her dreams, wasn’t he? Probably looking for signs of secret desires for his brother. Well, she would put up a challenge, not dreaming at all.

She could sense his moodiness with her dreamless sleep. And of course he didn’t question her, for he knew it would be an odd to take such interest in her sleep, when he didn’t even share a bed with her. Also to say he knows she is not dreaming, is to deliberately say he is spying her sleep. He needed to silently wait for her dreams. Or he would have to confess his jealousy over her.

Love prayed he would let something slip so she could call him immature and delusional for thinking she would have anything with his brother. Condemning him for thinking so lowly of his own wife, wishing to say that she wasn't like him, looking for comfort somewhere else because she couldn’t commit to her husband. Also, did he even stopped to actually think about that ludicrous ideia? From all those tempting letters she received, did he think she would take another Endless as her lover? She was a lady for love’s sake! Besides, one Endless was enough.

When both received the invitation to his family reunion, it was when she started to drink the milk during the day. Her husband’s mood got significantly worse since they received the letter. and the closer they get to the date, the worse it got. All the Endless siblings would be there. That included not only the ones both Morpheus and Eoster liked such as Death, Destiny and Delirium, but Desire, Despair and poor Lord Destruction, who definetly wasn’t expecting what was coming.

Chapter Text

”My Lady!” Elijah grabbed Eoster by her arm after she stumbled upon her own feet. “I am fine! I am fine!” The Queen raised both arms, so the Cupid could get away from her. I took her a few seconds so her head could stop spinning around. Elijah looked to both sides of the empty marbled hallway, and anxiously took a glance of the hours at the main clock. They were lucky Morpheus didn't show up to pick her up and go to Lord Destiny’s realm.

The Cupid has been cold sweating since he woke the queen from her bath. She passed out drunk, noticeable thanks to the five bottles on the floor that he almost stepped on. They were small, like syrup bottles, and earlier, were probably full of wine. Eoster kept the drawers on her vanity and under the bed, full of them. Easier to hide from her husband that kept nagging her about her alcohol consumption and from Lucienne, that would definitely snitch on her. She knew the librarian meant well, but the librarian also didn’t fully know the pains the Queen had to soothe.

In one of her hands dangled another small glass bottle very similar to the other ones, but that was half-filled with a white milky liquid. Night blooming jasmine’s milk. ‘Great’ Elijah ironically thought to himself. She woke up in a jump, as the bottle slipped from her hands. Not that it helped, since she was completely dizzy, partially awake but not able to hold herself. The cupid had to carry her out of the bathtub and dress her like a doll. It took more than usual, after all, Eoster kept snoozing and falling to the sides of her chair. By this hour, Elijah was already sweating. He was perfectly aware that those Endless reunions were a stressful event to the king, and if he was stressed, he was in a bad mood. And if he was in a bad mood, everyone, especially his wife, suffered from it. And she would soothe her suffering on wine, and now, night blooming jasmine.

The whole situation with Lord Destruction didn’t help. There were rumors about the Harvest. He didn’t hear nor ask Lady Eoster, but he overheard the dreamaids gossiping about it. Apparently the Dream King saw something that no one could yet tell, between his wife and his brother, that made him indescribably jealous, and they had a fallout after the party. Of course, Elijah cut those rumors as fast as he could. He wouldn’t have those nosy maids spread rumors about his queen’s faithfulness in marriage. The cupid obviously didn’t believe that anything could have happened.

If his lady was having a sordid affair with her brother-in-law, she would’ve asked for his help in covering it and she would probably be happier and giggling.

Like mortals do when they are trapped in unhappy marriages and live forbidden affairs.

A knock on the door came just as he was trying to put her hair in place. His queen was mumbling a thousand subjects at once, none of which made sense. He responded with robotic ‘uh-uhs’ and ‘yes, of course’ and ‘no, of course’. Elijah waited a second before opening a small crack of the door, taking a deep breath and fixing his face, to not look like he was freaking out. “Yes?” He spied over the small opening, not wanting anyone to see his queen.

”Is our lady ready yet?” Lucienne frowned and tried to stepped inside, hoping Elijah would open the door, but the cupid didn’t move. “ Almost.-“He pretended he didn’t see that she was bothered by the small window she had to talk to. He rolled his eyes in annoyance “These things take time, Lucienne. It’s not just a black robe and black shoes. I am certain you can understand...”The cupid said as a toll to the king and looked the librarian up and down “In some capacity.” He smirked as the librarian shifted the weight of her feet, feeling a bit self-conscious about something she didn’t actually care about.

That was something she hated about the Cupid: He’d always make her feel self-aware about things she didn’t care about or wasn't at all important. Clothes, social agendas, complicated protocols and confusing etiquettes and hierarchies from the Garden. Some, she never got the answer for: Why did Lady Eoster needed more than five maids? Why did she need maids at all? And why did she need a room just for her attires? Why did she had protégées, entities from other realms, living in her own realm? And Elijah was not very helpful in making her understand any of this.

”She is not…is she?” Lucienne whispered, the Queen's likeness for wine or any beverage was becoming a small inconvenience to Dream, which meant it was a huge trouble for Lucienne and the palace staff. It was becoming more frequent to find the Queen passed out in the palace. Usually the library. But Lucienne and Mervyn caught her previously asleep in her private garden, during her daily baths, at the dinner table, after waiting awake for Morpheus, at her bedroom, half her body on the bed half on the floor. Usually a small bottle hanging loose from her fingers. Lucienne had no idea where she was getting them, and Elijah always played dumb. She knew he might think he was helping, but if he saw how Lord Morpheus got when he noticed she was drunk. He wouldn’t encourage her to keep drinking.

Elijah sembled darkened. He absolutely did not accept any dream creature, not even a right-hand librarian like Lucienne, to talk about his queen and her bad habits, that, as a matter of fact, her king was responsible for. She wouldn’t have to drink this much if he didn’t make her life a nightmare. The cupid knew the dreamfolk didn’t have the same etiquette as the lovefolk, but he didn’t care, it was unacceptable to question it. It was fine for him to inform them about her state. Not otherwise.

She tried to take a look over Elijah’s shoulder. Even though he knew she couldn’t see much, he moved, trying to cover any glance those librarian’s glasses could have. “The Queen is perfectly fine. Why don’t you go see if the King is throwing a tantrum on the other side of the palace? He may need you to dust off the rest of some nightmare he sent to the darkness.” He sarcastically smirked, before closing the door in her face, not waiting for the moral lesson about his audacity in speaking like that about his king.

Well, she was the one who started. Asking intrusive impolite questions that happened to be true.

With Eoster ready, dressed in her long sheer white dress, with a see through cape brocaded in a pattern of constellations, and a high updo, locking all her curls in a tight hairstyle with a delicate silver tiara, the fluster in her cheeks could pass by rouge, Elijah hoped. What couldn’t be hidden was her uneven walk, tripping on her feet, stumbling on the walls. Before they left the room, Elijah gave her a morning jasmine tea. The tea was supposed to alleviate the drunkness, but its effects could not take longer to come.

”Lady Love, there you are!” The cupid froze in place, as he heard the fast-pace walk of Lucienne, turning over his shoulder getting a glimpse of the librarian with the king walking behind her. Elijah looked at his queen, desperately trying to fix her hair and her clothes.
Love was a drunk but she was a very dignified drunk. She snapped his hands away.”Elijah. I am fine.” She said, looking a bit more sober than before. Fixing her posture and enterwinding her fingers against her dress, as her husband approach. “He can’t tell the difference anyway.” She whispered with melancholy, passing through the cupid, going from his arms, to Morpheus, who barely batted an eye at her.

Elijah however felt a sting in his heart. What a bittersweet life must be to be with someone that doesn’t know you at all, to the extent, they can’t even tell if you are sober or beyond drunk. The Cupid could take one quick look at his Queen and know if she was sober, drunk, contempt, or sad. Of course he wouldn't expect her husband to be so observant after all, Eoster and her Cupid share a bond beyond any true marriage. The king also seemed to want as little as possible to know his wife. Not getting to know her, her realm.

Both Elijah and Lucienne stayed behind, with their hands behind their backs, as two parents seeing their children leave for school, as the couple went their way and disappeared in Morpheus’ sand.

”For your information, he wasn’t throwing a tantrum.”The Librarian said it proudly, without looking at him. Elijah rolled his eyes, sighing, with a swirl he turned his heels looking over his shoulder and down at the woman who was a good few inches shorter than him “For your information, she is drunk.”

———————
Eoster was a wreck. She looked very curated but she felt awful inside. Those night blooming jasmines mixed with wine made her sleep dreamless, but also impossible to rest. Her mind was tired and her body exhausted. Pretending not to be, was even worse. She stumbled for the third time during their silent walk through Lord Destiny’s garden, each time Morpheus had his grip on her, but each time, she seemed closer to knocking her face on the ground. He wasn’t going to say anything for Dream knew how reactive she got when she was drunk. Oh, yes. Different from what Elijah and Love assumed, he could perfectly tell when she was out of herself: The numbness and distraction in her eyes, the way her walk was light and unbalanced.

That didn’t bother Morpheus at all, Love could drink all the winery if she pleased. That is if the alcohol didn’t also free her suffocated regrets and repressed emotions, and made her desperate to share her own personal drama with everyone around her.

It didn’t happen when she was tipsy, like she was in most reunions. But especially today, she was far beyond tipsy. Morpheus cursed himself and her damn cupid. He should have obliged the pair to have Lucienne overseeing her preparations.

”If I may, my lady, you might want to have a light evening.” Morpheus stoically said, his eyes upfront. He wanted her to think this was a suggestion of a husband taking care of his wife's health. But Love scoffed, interpreting this as it was: An order to not drink. Well she had enough of her husband’s little orders. She was not Lucienne. “Yes, husband. I do need a light evening.” She sighed covering her mouth in a fake yawn. “I have not been sleeping well, maybe you can even help me, husband. You see, ever since the Second Harvest I’ve been waking in the middle of night panting and flushed, aching inside, my nightgown completely soaked, and I can’t remember what I was dreaming.” She could feel his stiffness under her touch. She knew it bothered him because he hadn’t been able to sniff around her dreams. “ But worry not, one thing I am certain is: It has nothing to do with you….” She signed, pretending to be bored “Maybe something with your brother.” Love knew she was poking a delicate topic at the wrong moment, all the fake hints of lately having wet dreams.

Little did he know she was not dreaming at all.

If Love’s sober self tried her best to not step on her husband’s toes, to not get in his bad mood, her drunk self made it her personal mission to antagonize him at every single opportunity she could. Completely ignoring the signs to be quiet and remember her place, rolling her eyes, like a petulant spoiled child, saying the first provocation that would pop into her mouth.

He angrily dropped her arm, and in a sudden movement, putting her against a wall, towering over Love, and holding her by the pulses along her body, as she stumbled back, hitting the wall beside her, her chest going up and down, struggling to free from his grip, not liking to feel trapped by her husband. He was too close, it sent goosebumps over her spine. He stared deeply into her eyes, sternly looking at her dilated green iris. “Your drinking is not of my business, but do not embarrass me tonight.” Love swallowed hard, a glimpse of sobriety into her eyes, as she failed to push her arm away from him again “Save your orders for you mistress! And you are perfectly capable of embarrassing yourself.” She spitefully said.

Morpheus never laid a hand on her, he might be emotionally abusive but never physical. He was a gentleman, to a certain extent. But even with this in mind, she couldn’t help but feel frightened. He was already angry with her, before today, and she was only fueling it. It took everything in her to stare back at him in defiance, her inebriated state giving her the courage to. “Oh brother, can’t you keep your hands off your wife for one night? What Destiny would say?” That sweet stick voice made the couple turn to the sibling.

Desire was meaningly teasing, very aware that Dream and Love were not in the middle of a romance. The couple was used to it, but it didn’t mean that they liked it. It was among their favorite activities to make fun of the misery of the couple.

”Desire.” Dream acknowledged his sibling, not moving away from his wife, Love slightly lowered her head in respect. “Look at you, Love Dove, all flushed.” Desire gave her a cheshire grin, which she ignored, turning her eyes to the floor, feeling her cheeks grow red, as she finally took advantage of her husband’s distraction and twisted both arms away from him. “Excuse me.” the brunette said it, eyes on the ground, stumbling her way to Lord Destiny’s palace entrance, wishing she could disappear back to her home, to never have to see Dream, Desire or any sibling-in-law ever again. To never had to deal with any of these overwhelming family dynamics, in which she seemed to be a puppet in strings.

“Love Dove giving you trouble? What could possibly have happened, big brother, that an obedient submissive little lady like Love would get so rebellious? How could you fuck up a perfectly good wifey like that?” Dream gave them a cold look, not giving them the pleasure of an answer. But Desire knew exactly how to get Dream’s attention. They were very aware of those delicious rumors from the Second Harvest. How the Dream King gave a very explicit display of affection to his wife, very unusual behavior. Especially after she was seeing dancing all night with his younger brother. Entities talk, and Desire is very good at listening.

Knowing Eoster, she was most likely to be completely unaware of it, while Dream probably would be hyper aware of it, biting himself by now. And since the first rumors started to arrive in their ears, Desire was planning a little something to them, alongside Despair. Desire knew how Dream could be possessive of his toys. Even dolls he didn’t want to play, like Love, were still his, not up for sharing. Unfortunately for Desire, Love was as faithful as a nun. Dream never had his reasons to doubt it. Not until now. And Desire would use those flimsy rumors to stir some fun at the boring family gathering.

” Stoicness doesn’t exactly make a lady weak in her knees does it? Did it ever occur to you, dear brother, that her sudden defiance might have come from finding someone else?” Dream rolled his eyes, ignoring them, walking to his brother’s palace entrance, after his wife disappeared upfront, but still listening. “ Maybe someone passionate, fiercely devoted…” Desire followed him, annoyingly continuing the subject “Prodigal…” Dream stopped. Desire smiled viciously. ‘Got him’.

”What?-“They asked innocently “You didn’t think she was going to tell you, did you?” They looked at the raven haired brother with a fake pity look, clicking their tongue on their mouth ceiling “Eoster is queen of love, not faithfulness. That is her cousin or sister, I think.” The endless started to walk slowly in circles around Morpheus, dragging their voice “Dear Eoster got a lot of suffocated love to give. Always needy and underappreciated….”

The golden eyed sibling sighed as it was obvious as the dawn in the mornings “You should know, brother. Don't unhappy mortal wives dream too?” Desire painted a very vivid image for Dream. The same he had been trying to erase since the Second Harvest. “Fantasizing about a strong, warm, broad knight in shining armor who will rescue them from their stoic cold uncaring husbands. It takes so little for their frustrated hearts to feel loved. They desire so little. It’s laughable, really.” That was one of the only things Desire didn’t distort.

It did take little to warm Love’s heart, and her desires were incredibly cliche and boring. The sibling was twisting the narrative, of course, distorting the truth, making it a bit more exciting. In reality Love’s desires were absolutely uninspiring. “If you even knew the sins darling Love dreams of. Blushing stuff, really. Never had any curiosity, brother? How she likes to be touched, kissed, what she likes to hear…”

Some would think that after years of an unhappy marriage, she would have fantasies about other gentlemen. But no. Even her wildest deviations were about the Dream King. Well, a version of him at least. Infatuated by her body and soul. Dull sweet love making in the glades of lavender gardens, unimaginative pleasing each other in the waters of milk rose lakes, boring reimaginations of her wedding night, lots of clichéd romantic gestures, embraces, impregnations, praises and cuddlings. Boring. Vanilla. Domestic.

The wildest ( and by that, Desire meant ‘less boring’) fantasy Love had was about her husband making her orgasm with his tongue while she laid in his throne. Something Desire was sure didn’t happen in reality, since Love was as frustrated and tense as any woman who couldn’t tell what an orgasm was by her life “Love Dove found herself a shoulder to cry, a chest to hug, lips to kiss, a member to plea-“The blonde sibling, now only steps away from his quiet infuriated brother, was quickly grabbed by their neck. “Hold your tongue, sibling. That is my queen you are talking about.” Desire smirked, even under a close threat. Dream may not fully believe in them, but it certainly put him in the right mood for the dinner “Is that what you were trying to remember her?” The raven haired king dropped them and stared at Desire, trying to find any hesitation that might say it was just a jest. But Dream could only find amusement.

Love passed through the dark metal doors with her breath hiking, she felt lightheaded, the voices seemed far and undistinguished. She needed a drink. That was the only certainty she had. Something to steady her mind, to fixate on something. She found a golden goblet of whatever her brother-in-law was serving, a dark liquid, that burned her throat as she took a sip. Stronger than Garden wine or night blooming jasmine . Love ignored the salutation protocol, finding the nearest seat and sinking into it. She held an upright posture, as if relaxing would leave her open to collapse.

Tears dared to inflict her eyes, hands trembling, she dug her fingernails into her skin, tearing at her cubicles. She'd not even noticed the pain of them. She barely even notices anything as she takes another considerable sip, closing her eyes to savor it. Letting the burn on her throat consume all of her attention. She would be at eternal damnation if her siblings-in-law could read her thoughts. How did she end up here? Miserable? Why affront Morpheus? Just for the attention? Just to have his eyes on her for a second? Even if it was a hateful stare? How could she even call herself Lady of the Four Loves, teach about the ways of the heart, if her own love life was a depressed sorrowful mess?

And Desire. Is it such good fun seeing a broken bird getting crushed every time? They never even owned up to being the one who plotted to marry Dream and Love. Even when Morpheus questioned them. Always with witty remarks and indications of Eoster’s involvement. Making sure she stayed in the punishment of marriage. The more Love tried to win Dream’s affection, to convince him of a different narrative than Desire’s, the more he slipped away.

“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun” The incomparable dragged voice of Lady Despair, made Love look from her fingers to her husband's sister.”It is still my favorite, much better than Midsummer Night's.” Love gave her a weak smile “Just don’t tell my lord husband, he still holds grudges over it” Despair knew. Love decided to make another deal with Shakespeare, behind her husband’s back, to write nothing less, nothing more than the greatest love play the world would ever know.

She intended to give as a surprise gift to Morpheus. Morpheus saw it as his wife trying to undermine his own deal with the mortal, working her influence inappropriately. It didn’t help that the play became a success.

”Why dear sister! Don’t you cry! Is this about the waltz?” Love found the tears marking her cheeks, as Despair gave her a tight hug, as the brunette queen hid her face in Lady Despair's shoulder. Trying to compose herself, drying the tears that didn’t stop falling. A few minutes went until Love was able to speak, still with a crying voice, raising slightest her head. “T-the Waltz? No, it’s nothing of sorts. It’s…” Lady Despair started to rip her own skin, as Love reached for her hand, making her stop, her husband’s sister lowered her already low voice, looking at the sides “Sister Love you don’t have to hide from me, I feel your misery as if it was my own. I see your pain.” Love blushed. She liked Despair, but in her current state, maybe it wasn’t the best idea to confide in her. After all, she indulges in states of desperation, anxiety and failure. All three that Love was overwhelmed with. “The embarrassment of being used to provoke jealousy on a muse. It is low even for my brother.”

Love felt her blood freezing. Muse. Calliope? Was she there? Love didn’t see her. But Morpheus was indeed looking for someone else. Probably her. Did he find her? And jealousy? What-

The kiss.

It hit the queen like a shot through the chest. Embarrassment hit her entire body and Love wanted, desired, dreamed of leaving to go home. Not her husband’s home. Her home The Garden. Lock herself away and be indisposed for a millennium. .

The minute of frozen reaction was replaced by a burning quiet fury. That coward of a husband! That cheap manipulator! He blamed Love for acting flirtatious with his brother, which she wasn’t, while jealousy of his Calliope in the arms of another! Which was perfectly normal, since she was uncalled. And she was a muse. Muses had affairs left and right. If he wanted loyalty he should have settled for his wife!

She felt her stomach twist in a knot, if she had eaten anything she would probably have thrown up. That laughable display of affection. How the other entities must be amused by it. It would be the laugh of the century. All thanks to her husband.

Dream took her for granted, and something in the mixture of drinks she took as telling her that it was enough. She was Lady of the Four Loves. Usually she relied on familiar and spiritual love. But she was Lady of Carnal Love. She could force her hand and make mortals, entities, and Endless desperately yearn for her. It would be good for him to remember that. He already had a small delusion about Lord Destruction, didn’t he? Not liking the attention she received. Even going through her dreams to see if she had any sordid ideas. Which, if he slightly knew his wife, he would know that it never went near her mind.

But now? Let’s see when Love gives Morpheus something to actually be jealous of.

Lady Love finished her drink until the last drop, the burn made her squeeze her eyes, as the bell of the dinner rang. “Shall we, sister?”

Desire and Despair knew that to disturb the already problematic couple they needed different approaches. Love regarded highly how she was perceived by others, hating to be out of jokes, or the one to be whispered about and was very sensible to anything related to Morpheus’ love affairs. She preferred to not acknowledge them at all. And it was very unpleasant and unsettling when Love, Morpheus and Calliope happened to be at the same event. Dream on the other hand didn’t regard at all his public perception, but abided by his wife's need of showing at least a tolerable union between them. He did not take kindly to being made a fool of, especially by his wife. And Aunt Prim awoke in him feelings of possessiveness over his wife. Desire could make Dream furious with the thought of his wife hiding an affair with none other than his younger brother, who happened to be the complete opposite of him. And Despair could easily put thoughts and doubts in Love’s head. As Desire said to Morpheus, it takes very little to frustrated hearts to feel supported, and easy for them to trust a gossip that sounded like truth.

As soon as the couple sat side by side, occupying the same seats they always occupy, the twins knew their plan had worked.

Love knew she was savoring far too much, thinking Dream was actually jealous of her. It gave something to feed her starving ego. Love knew how damaging, living off those crumbs of attention could be, how it could poison one's relationship. The reserved part of her library was full of half-written books of romances that her cupids recall from the shelfs of the romantic love section. Every page of them, mortals seek love not in love itself but in side-feelings that give them morsels or blurred reflections of what love might be.

The tension between the couple was palpable. Love, who was teary a moment ago, was squeezing her hands with such intensity that the whites in her fingers were evident. Dealing with Morpheus being Morpheus was one thing, to be told by her sister-in-law that wasn’t even in the Harvest that the only fragment of affection her husband showed her in years, was all a jealous act to provoke his mistress was beyond infuriating. It didn’t help that the room seemed unusually unfocused and unsteady. Or maybe her head was too light. Didn’t Elijah give her something to sober her up? Why did she feel worse than before? Well, it didn’t matter, it was a good thing she was intoxicated, she needed to be for what she was planning to do to spite Morpheus.

Besides, she wouldn’t be impolite to her brother in law. Leaving his wine untouched. It probably was a huge faux-pas in some etiquette book she couldn’t remember if it existed or not.

Love reached for her full glass and Dream slowly put his hand over hers, as a gesture of saying she had enough. Immediately, Love snapped her hand away, grabbing the glass, her glacial and defying stare at her husband, while emptying her cup. Morpheus stared back at her with the same intensity. Love could see he was rehearsing to quietly reprimand her without getting attention from his siblings, and she was eagerly waiting to loudly give him the answer he deserved.

Fortunately, thanks to a loud thud that everyone recognized as Lord Destruction, the silent confrontation between the couple was interrupted. The red haired endless sat in front of the couple, as usual. The Queen of Love did something that reminded her husband why he didn’t trust her and why her nature was as shifty and similar to Desire’s. At the same time, his brother sat, Love’s face immediately turned into a delightful smile. The same smile that Primness told Morpheus about, one that could melt the snow, awake springs and warm hearts. Even her voice became soft “Lord Destruction! How delightful to see you. It’s been a minute!”

Poor Lord Destruction was unaware, not very attentive to tensions between couples, or shared grins between siblings. Not at all aware he was the piece missing from Desire’s scheme to make a boring night, a dramatic show. “Love, how are you? I saw you sparkling from the other end of the hallway.” Love leaned on the table, tilting her head to rest on her hand, her elbow on the edge of the table. A mischievous smile dropped from her lips, as she lightly frowned, amusingly asking, a look that the Prodigal never saw in his sister-in-law.” Are you trying to woo me, my lord? “ She spoke with a lower voice, but loud enough to Morpheus hear.

The raven haired king stiffened as he heard his wife's provocation. The red haired endless choked with her words, giving an awkward chuckle. He knew now that Love was humorous, but her jokes at the Harvest were innocent, funny remarks, these seem dangerously provocations.” It’s simple the truth.” Love didn’t pay attention to his hesitation, quickly glancing at Morpheus.

The Dream King knew what she was doing, wanting a reaction out of him. To make a fool of himself. He knew what a brat she could be when intoxicated. But what a nerve she had, the same high morals as Desire, to provoke him with his own brother that she seduced. He didn’t want to believe in Desire, let alone to admit they were right, but his wife's behavior was making it impossible to think of any alternative. Could he blame Destruction, hate his younger brother because he felt for Love’s siren song? “Please, you are going to make me blush!” She crossed her leg under the table, making sure to let her thighs lightly brush against her husbands, and stretching her lower leg nudging against Destruction’s leg as she painfully slowly and discreetly slid her feet through his leg to his tight. She signed, pretending tiredness.

The red haired brother jumped in his seat, at the feeling, eyes went wide and he immediately glance from his brother to his sister in law, as he fumbled with a response and she smirked at his reaction, with his sister-in-law’s foot getting dangerously close to his crotch, and even though it was terminally wrong, it was a kind of touch he didn’t want her to stop “You have no idea, my lord…” She dragged her velveteen voice, like she was tasting every word. And even though his brother, her husband, was by her side, and they were at a table with his other siblings, their conversation seemed private, like all the time in the universe belong to them and nothing else mattered . “How hard it is to be admired these days.”
Desire carefully watched the trio's interaction. They opened a smile, mouthing to their twin ‘watch it’.

Lady Death also was eyeing the couple, the thick tension between them, and Love’s sudden attention to the prodigal. She was usually inebriated, everyone could see that, although no one ever addressed it, but always very quiet and polite. Death knew Dream and her had problems. Especially since their marriage condition, and Dream didn’t like to talk about it. But after a century or two, she thought they settled in maybe a friendship. The gossip of their waltz, gave Death even a small hope that they could’ve found happiness in one another.

Seeing Dream almost opened a hole on the floor as he walked to the dinner, moodier than ever, and Love’s wet eyes and uneven walk. She knew the waltz may be the opposite of what she thought. The way her sister-in-law was behaving made Death pinch Desire’s arm “ Stop it, right now.” The golden-eyed sibling looked at her with a hand in their heart, pretending to soothe their pinched skin “Dear sister, are you trying to imply something? I am not doing anything.” This time Delirium, who was until now lost in her own mind, meddled in the conversation “ You are always doing something, Desire. You can’t not be doing anything.” Desire rolled their eyes “Well this time I am doing nothing. Now Love Dove, maybe she finally got bored of Dream.” Desire took a sip of their drink and Death signed, giving up the idea of counting with their help.

Love wasn’t discreet enough Morpheus wouldn’t notice what she was doing. He could feel the way her thigh was tense, the delicate motion somewhere away from him,”Even by your own husband…”

It began as a game, her own personal game of using her tricks as Lady Eros, but as the words left her mouth, her mind grew distant, memories recent and old took place as her eyes were lost in her empty glass, even her teasing under the table stopped, as she dropped her thigh. She frowned again “Do you think he wants me? That he cares?” She gave a humorless chuckle “That-that kiss was for me? A declaration of love?” Love raised her eyebrows and shook lightly her head, fighting the words as she fought her tears “What a joke…” She raised her eyes bitterly and definitely staring at her husband. “Tell him, husband, who those are for.” Dream merely mouth her name in a warning tone, as she continued. “No? I’ll tell them. Those are all for his pretty little who-“

Clearing her throat, Death prepared to say something to distract both Love and Dream. But as she opened her mouth, Morpheus raised from his chair roaring through the room “THAT’S ENOUGH!.” Love bitterly laughs, as she raises from her seat. Both face to face. Death, Destruction and even Delirium trying to say anything they could’ve come up with to try to stop the argument, but the couple was not listening. “Now is it enough? Now is it enough?! You treat a whore like a wife, and a wife like a whore and”

She was abruptly cut. Morpheus didn’t raise his voice again, angrily keeping it down, clenching his teeth, his jaw was hurting from the pressure “You don’t need me to treat you like one. Not when you are opening your legs to anyone who gives you a half-witted compliment!” That was when he felt the cold drink against his face. Silence reigned for a few seconds in the room, not even Desire, who was amusingly twisting in their seat, dared to interrupt. Not even Delirium. “ Know this husband: If it wasn’t against every vow, every inch of my benign.” It physically hurt her saying, her mouth was stiff, like the words wouldn’t come free and she had to pull them out by force. “I would very much do it. And I would make sure that everyone, every single entity knew it.”

Without any balance, and the tears making it even more difficult to see, Love made her way out of the table, angrily untying her long translucid cape, which was more complicated than it seemed, dropping it on the floor before walking away. She couldn’t care less, if Morpheus called for her or not, she needed to get away from him, and his siblings as fast as she could, her mind playing tricks on her, seemingly hearing the laughs, the pity, the ridiculous condescension. She had to ignore those, if she ever wanted to leave this place.

Midway to the garden, She bumped into her host. Looking up to Destiny, she couldn’t think of an apology, or an excuse, he already knew what happened. Of course he knew it. Before it even happened, really. He remained standing still, looking at his sister in law with an indecipherable expression.
She knew she could ask him. She could plead right now. To make it go away, to make the pain stop. She dropped her shoulders, grabbing her arms, her throat hurting from holding a sob, as she tried to calm herself not to embarrass herself even more. If only she had more courage, she would ask him. It would be for the better. Dream would be free, Desire would lose his favorite joke, Love could be free, she could breathe. She opened her mouth praying the words would come, but as she tried to ask for the unimaginable, Destiny interrupted her “There is nothing to forgive, my sister. You are tired.” She puzzledly looked at him, as he followed his path. Not giving her any time to think about questioning anything else.

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Love thanked all the stars for Elijah not being in her room. He would be fulming if he saw what she did to her cape, and her heels, since one of them broke and was now lost somewhere in her brother-in-law’s realm. Destiny was right, she was tired. Love was careful in locking her door slowly, so neither Elijah or Lucienne would notice she was back. Her heart was racing, and the complete silence of the Dreaming, made it finally, private enough for her to let go of a painful sob, copiously crying, tripping to the side of her bad, falling in her knees, pressing her face against the bed, staining the white sheets with tears, trying to suffocate her loud sobs. Her whole body trembled, and the only attempt to move was to search for a syrup bottle forgotten under the bed.

She was far beyond drunk by now, but prayed for it to have a sip of wine, something to make her tears blurry and the world blurry again. She was already too sober, in her opinion, too aware of her surroundings, of her life. As she put it to her mouth, her husband appeared by the door. He didn’t knock, of course, neither asked if he could get in. It was his realm after all. Not hers, as he made sure she never forgot.

Morpheus looked at his wife, up and down, the image of misery, the hem of the dress was muddy, and her hair was a wild mess of curls. Half her body splashed on the floor, her back against the side of the bed. One of her heels dangled in her foot, the other was in his hand. Love laugh with herself. What an irony!

The prince with the lost shoe, looking for the princess who lost it. Both wishing it didn’t fit.

Her laugh made him angrily frown. “Do you think this is funny?” She looked him dead in the eye. “You don’t get to be angry at me. Not after what you did.” She stared at him. He wanted a fight? She would give him a fight. What could he possibly do anyway? Send her to Hell and give Lucifer a free opportunity to make alliance with his eternal wife? “What did I do? You were the one using your siren tricks on my own brother! You have no decency.” He walked front to back, as he walked near her bed, the Queen jumped from the floor, she tried to steady herself, but stumbled having to hold on to Morpheus, as he took her hands out of his chest, not waiting if she was steady or not. He couldn’t care less if she was. “You are one to speak of decency! You! I only gave you a taste of what you submit me every single hour, every single minute and second, since you realize you married me, not your dear muse!”

Love turned her back, taking two steps away before turning again. “ Why didn’t you leave me to die? Pray you tell me, why? You didn’t want me, you didn’t love me and is incapable of trying. Why submit me to such misery and you, as my lord likes to say so much, to such embarrassment?”

Morpheus looked at his drunk queen, Love made very uncomfortable questions for someone as drunk as her. The truth is, he couldn’t have left her. From the moment she fainted at his feet and he recognized the beautifully dressed woman at his feet, as Lady Love. Drained of all colors, lips ghostly white. He kneeled lightly caressing her cheek, taking the hair out of her face, she felt cold under his touch. Different from the vibrant young maiden he saw many times, clinging to Desire’s arms, rushing through ballrooms, hiding behind handfans, sweetly denying suitors, blushing when first meeting him.

At that moment, he didn’t think of her as the cruel seductress that deserved punishment, he saw a beautiful queen, a smile that lightened rooms, a caring ruler. Dream couldn’t leave her.

He knew he was completely damned from this day.

That brief moment, a life-and-death minute, was it for the king of dreams. Something changed in his heart, he felt glimpses of it and he shut it. Not that he understood, it would take him a good thousand of years to understand why he couldn’t leave her there. Why he finished his vows, and carried her back to the Dreaming. It wasn’t until later, alone in his throne, he would let his own mind decide what the woman he married and saved was. To think rationally on to whom his Queen was associated to, who orchestrated that arrangement.

But he couldn’t say that, not when fury was the one guiding his heart. Even if he could, he wouldn’t know how to put it in words. It was also a door he liked to keep close. So he answered, in the way he thought would hurt her the most, because that was the game they knew how to play, that is how they communicated. “You are dutiful to your subjects and devoted to the mortal worlds. I couldn’t risk your reincarnation being chaotic.”

If there was still an intact piece of her heart that wasn’t already broken, it would’ve broken. Not a hint of regret in his words, not a hint of emotion. Simple, solid facts. She didn’t know there was still some part of her that hoped for a different answer. “ I thought you would be more sensible.” He shrugged.

Not only break every piece of her, he also had to diminish her. Eoster tried to take a deep breath but her teeth were clenching in a way that she shivered from only trying. She was furious. Scared, tense, ashamed, everything was gone. Her blood was boiling from the only thing she could feel: fury. That man stole years from her life. He made her lonely, miserable. He took her innocence and crushed her spirit. But she refused to let him win.

”Sensible? Me? No. You are right. I am not sensible at all. I spent years smiling through all the humiliations you put me through. “ He started to interrupt her, questioning those humiliations that she thinks he put her through. She threw a bottle at his direction, hitting the mirror of her vanity “No! You listen to me! Every time that someone approaches me with that pity condescending look asking ‘how can you tolerate it?’ ‘Poor dove, how can you still walk in public with him?’ ‘You endure it with such class, I envy you’, ‘ The King was here the other day with her’. Of course you don’t know any of these sorts. It doesn’t get to you. No, you know what you hear? You hear that you are lucky, that you chose right, that they envy you because you have it all: A beautiful wife that sweetly welcomes you home and turns to the other way when you are whoring around having bastards sons…” The raven haired king, took feral steps, seeing pure red.

She never pushed him, not like this, it was different from every other quarrel. The way he came to her, a bull ready to hit his target, she thought he would pass right through her, when he stopped, inches away from her, so close that she felt his breath against her neck. Hot, irregular. But she didn’t flinch. Love stared back in his fury. “ Do you want to hit me? Do you?! Then fucking do it!” She was shivering, tears returning to her eyes, incapable of stopping, her voice trembling as she tried to speak with assertion “Make me feel something.” Other than humiliation, other than embarrassment and bitterness.

The second she saw him flinch, she closed her eyes expecting the hit, expecting the sting of pain. It took a few seconds of silence, hot, dense silence and unsteady chests rising, to hear her husband come to himself. “Leave.” He wasn’t looking at her anymore, dropping his hands at his sides. She opened her eyes to see him taking a step back. She just looked at him, not moving, not saying a word.

He took more steps away from his wife, as he needed for his and her safety to get away from her. “ Leave the Dreaming.” He repeated. Still the words couldn’t ring a reaction of the brunette “I am banning you, Lady of Love, Queen of the Four Loves, from the Dreaming. You shall return only on my command.” Love turned her face to him. He couldn’t look at her. “You can’t- I am your wife.” She mumbled as he nodded. “A True Marriage does not require us to live together. It requires being married. You shall continue your duties at the Garden.” With his head down, staring at the floor, he walked out of her room, leaving her with his final words “Leave until early dawn.”

Chapter Text

Dream and Love held each other in the middle of all those memories shattered through her room, both paying attention to each other’s breath, trying to listen to each other’s heart. It was a small eternity of unsaid wants and regrets, that was interrupted by Matthew. Morpheus didn’t want to let go, holding her even after the raven already delicately made himself present, not sure if he should stay or go away. The raven haired king was ready to tell the raven to give them some privacy. Urgent pending matters could wait a few more minutes. Love knew what he wanted, she could sense by the way he didn’t move, or made any mentions to let her go.

How strange it was be put above whatever was happening. Everything always seemed to be more important, an urgent excuse that needed his indivisible attention. And now she was a priority, and Love had no idea on how to react. Should she stay, believe in her husband, forgive and forget everything, dramatically slapping him for a few seconds, before throwing herself in his arms, cry and bury her face in his shoulder, welcoming his embrace, taking his scent in, letting it be the scent that calms her nerves, the safe harbor that would ease every doubt and every pain in her life? As a conflicted but likeable heroine from novels, ignoring every single lesson she learned the hard way through her life listening only to her heart. But after the heat of the moment, after they indulge in a beautiful reunion, wouldn’t Morpheus blame her for distracting him from his urgent business? Maybe the raven had a clue of the missing nightmares, or of his ruby, and he needed to leave at the exact moment, and he didn’t because he was with her. Wouldn’t he blame her for being too late? Or to intentionally want him to not restore the Dreaming and his power? It would not be the first time Morpheus blamed Eoster for his own lack of luck.

Should she then, leave? Get away from him as fast as she could? Every fiber on her body was already in a flight-or-fight mood, hands sweating, heart beating faster and louder than she ever thought it was possible, her own doubts whispering angrily in her ears that it was a play, a move or mere starvation of touch and sympathy, and she was a fool for falling for that. He craved a lot at the moment, and a small part of her, a stupid and naive part, wanted to attend every need, to care for him, to do as her younger self would: Discard everything just to see him smile, to get an ounce of affection, even if did cost her self respect.

But the majority of Eoster that internally scolded her foolish desires, knew that it didn’t matter if it was manipulation or if he did mean it. As soon as he restored the Dreaming, finished punishing the deserting dreams and nightmares, he would go back to his ways.

Morpheus hated change. Why would he change for someone that was merely decoration to him?

The overwhelming pain in her chest, mixed with the multitude of thoughts from heart and head, debating and screaming in her ears at the same time like two strong prosecutors making Eoster nauseous. She swiftly left his arms, strangely feeling exposed away from his arms. Awkwardly taking a few steps back, before making a quick reverence and sending Matthew her blessings.

Dream knew he lost his momentum. She mentioned something of how joyful it was that the king came home victorious, taking steps back toward the door, telling that she would return in a moment. She didn’t.

She left for the Garden. Unsure how to feel. Her doubts took root and developed theories that made her mind travel miles away from her duties, and angered her, because for every accusation Eoster thought, her mind had an excuse for him. It was a never-ending battle against herself.

Eoster said to herself that Morpheus declared himself just to shut her up, so she could stop complaining about his irresponsible act, willingly risking his realm, his creations, himself and her. In response, she questioned herself if he really needed to do that. After all, her husband never tried to persuade or tried to win her over. He was blunt as a knife. If he didn’t want to hear her, either he would leave or tell her that it was enough. And if the Queen wasn’t in a quarreling mood, she would often abide his demand for silence.

This back-and-forth against her own mind, always ended up nudging her to think that if he wasn’t persuading her, he might actually mean it. Wanting her. Wanting a marriage.

That single idea made her heart skip a beat. And through the days, she often had to pinch herself, to stop daydreaming of it being true. It also made her afraid to be vulnerable again, to open herself to the same man that made her regret ever doing so.

One thing was certain: Being around Morpheus would not help. He would cloud her mind again, watering feelings that Love thought were barren. She secluded herself to the Garden, occupying her mind with daily tasks. Telling herself, Elijah and everyone who could hear, that it was a complicated few days with the Solstice Festival, too many confirmations, requests, adjustments. And it was vital to have the Queen’s indivisible attention.

“Pardon my lady, are you busy?” Elijah only found her among the pile of unanswered letters thanks to the unmistakable dark curls lingering on the corner of the table.The brunette queen was leaning over the table, face against the hardwood, writing a response to a letter demanding more invitations. Love chuckled in disbelief, a polite decline was more than an educated reply, because if it was Morpheus, he wouldn’t even get an answer. Or an invite for all the matters. ‘For the Garden’s sake when did I start to wonder about fictional responses from Morpheus?’ Love thought before dropping the paper, massaging the bridge of her nose, while inviting the Cupid in. She urgently needed some tea. Or wine. Maybe both.

“Elijah, blessings from the Garden. I’m afraid there is much to do for the Festival.” The cupid nodded, even though he knew that was a poor excuse, after all, the Queen wasn’t necessary who dealt with the heavy burdens of the festival. He was. His ears were still hurting after listening to the endless complaints of the gardeners, when they got the news of their beautiful floral arrangements going to the Dreaming. Details that do not interest Elijah about different humidity, sun exposures, different soils, were explained in heavy detail. Elijah endured their discourse for what seemed to be an eternity. Only to them to go back and do exactly what he asked.

Everyone smiles and agrees to the Queen, and then they come to recite to Elijah lists of hundred reasons why it would not be possible to do anything they promised to the Queen.

Elijah would never, in eons, understand the minds of spring cupids.

“Yes, of course. I just came to inform you that Lord Morpheus requested my presence for that audience.” The dark haired cupid stressed the “that”. “I do not know how long it will take, for I was not brief on what the subject is, but the Emissary is on call if my lady needs any assistance” Some cupids didn’t approve of the level of access desire’s creation had to the queen. After all, he was loyal to the one responsible for their queen’s miserable marriage. A traitor. But they would never say to her face nor to Elijah.

Love frowned trying to remember what audience, before snapping her fingers. A few days ago she was dying to know what Morpheus wanted. Now, she was reticent if she actually wanted to know. “Oh, certainly. I can handle a few hours away from you.” She offered him a polite smile, dismissing him for the day. The cupid made a quick reverence, turning his back ready to leave when Love called him with uncertainty. “Elijah? If he asks why-” She fumbled with the words, she didn’t want her cupid to get involved in her marriage tribulations, but at the same time, she didn’t want Morpheus to think she was hiding from him.

Even if it was exactly what she was doing.

Lucky for Eoster, the cupid could see she was battling with words, biting her lower lip as she usually did when the words wouldn’t come. He didn’t need her to say anything more. He knew she was avoiding the king since his return from Hell.

The gossip around, the one Matthew told Lucienne was that they were quite close in the middle of her room. If Elijah overheard right, he used the word “embrace” which the cupid almost laughed at the improbability of it. Probably Lord Morpheus was holding Lady Love by her arms, so she wouldn’t make a scene while she angrily scolded him. Even the librarian seemed suspicious when she answered “Lady Love must have been in shock or truly afraid, if she let Lord Morpheus embrace her”.

Elijah suspected they had one of those awful quarrels just like her last banning.”I’ll let the king know that you’ve been having busy days that require your indivisible attention, my lady.” He offered her a reassuring smile, before turning again. “Elijah?”. The cupid once more twisted his heels. “It is odd, is it not, that he didn’t summon me?” Elijah frowned, she was eagerly waiting for his response, squeezing her fingers tight and avoiding his eyes. “ Forgive me, my lady but I do not know…” Trying to amend his answer to not embarrass her, since he could see her face growing red he thought of a quick excuse that could be true “Maybe he is busy too with the Dreaming”.

She frowned, seemingly trying to erase the thoughts of her mind. Opening a smile, feeling ashamed of her doubts “Of course. My lord husband is always busy. Forgive me, what a question! I do not know what came to me to ask such a thing. Besides my sister is coming today to visit me. Much to do! You may go, Elijah. Blessings from the Garden” Suddenly she was at her feet, urgently guiding the Cupid to the door, almost shoving him through the door.

After closing the door, she rested her back against it. Squeezing her eyes. Why care about Morpheus? He is fine. The Dreaming is recovering. Mortals no longer suffering from the sleep sickness. The Emissary even told them that he got his ruby back. Everything is in its place. And what happened the night of his return from Hell was merely desperation and relief. He will return to his regular ways. Already did. Busy with his realm and its affairs, ‘And his affairs’ Love bitterly thought, rolling her eyes at herself, before taking a deep breath and returning to the letters. She still had a few hours before her sister arrived. Maybe she could have a useful insight on this.

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Elijah hesitated for a second after being shoved away from his study. Wasn’t it a good riddance if he is not summoning her? The truth was Lady Love has not been as relieved as he thought she would be. Actually, after the King of Dreams returned from Hell, and Lady Love’s urgent reclusion, she had been distracted, her gaze lost in the Garden’s purple skies. Even when watching her proteges perform concerts or plays and poems, he knew her mind was lost in deep thoughts. Something did happen. And Elijah refused to believe it was anything related to that ludicrous idea of ‘embrace’ the new raven told Lucienne.

The Dreaming was quite healed. Everything was still blue-ish or grey-ish, tones that Elijah found very depressing, a kind of rainy London view, contrasting the cupid’s vibrant purple attire, a bold choice, which made him stand out in the middle of the dreamfolk. The Dreaming was full of them, but the temperature was more tense than joyful after the restoration of their home. Elijah could feel a bit of agitation and anxiety on them. Probably afraid of how soon would they meet the Darkness or if Lord Morpheus would torture them letting them go on with their lives but afraid of their next step. The cupid thought it was very on-character of him. He wouldn’t expect anything less from his lordship. As Elijah roamed through the hallways of the palace, he wondered if the king also bullied his creatures back as he bullied his Queen countless times to return to the Dreaming. Maybe the dreamfolk had more in common with her than the king himself.

The cupid diverged his direction, avoiding to find Dream, to find Lucienne. He needed to check the room temperature so he wouldn’t get burned. And the librarian was the best termometer of the king. What if the king had forgotten about the audience? What if he was livid with some nonsense as he frequently was? Some meaningless quarrel with his siblings? Elijah knew better than going to meet Dream without some prep.

He found Lucienne walking to her library with some heavy books in hands, which covered her front vision. Elijah didn't know how she was still walking, but he gave a helping hand, grabbing a few books. “The Dreaming bursting with dreams and nightmares and no one offered you a hand?” The librarian rolled her eyes. “I am perfectly capable of carrying those, thank you very much. I am a librarian after all. Just a librarian.” Elijah raised his browns. “I believe not a soul has ever questioned that.” He jested. Lucienne however didn’t answer him with the same tone, not even a fun rolling of the eyes. Elijah frowned.

They often poke each other. Maybe the years soured their relationship, and he was being too forward. A wave of shame ran through his body “Forgive me, I-” His change of tone, made Lucienne realize he was actually embarrassed. Elijah! Embarrassed! The years do change a cupid, after all. She dismissed his worries. “I never thought, in my life, I would see you embarrassed. And although it amuses me to see that you have grown a sense of self-” He rolled his eyes, but seemed to relax his posture after seconds of formality. “It is just something our Lord-” He opened the door for her, letting both walk into the immense library, with shelves higher than the eyes could see.

“Ah! already back to his old ways then? Am I to expect a lecture, a punishment or a banishment of this audience he calls for?” Three common choices of Morpheus. Elijah dropped the heavy books on her table before cleaning his hands from the dust in them. “No, he is not in a bad mood per say. He is-” While organizing the books, checking the titles, seeing if they had anything related to Rose Walker, that could or could not be a vortex, which was highly unlikable since a votex should only appeared in the next…What year? Maybe she should get the records from the last vortexes, Lucienne struggled to find words that described Lord Morpheus’ current mood, especially when Elijah was in her ears, interrupting her, like he often does. “Feeling impotent because his former captor’s bastard almost beat him up using his own devices?”

“Could you please not use that word?” She put the book she was holding on the table with a loud ‘thud’ to get the cupid’s attention. He shrugged. “I was not talking about his bastard.” Lucienne gave him a mortal glance, slightly lowering her tone, as they were entering delicate waters “Orpheus was not a bastard, he was a-” The cupid chuckled, throwing his head back in disbelief, with Lucienne’s insistence in defending the impossible. “A boy whose mother was not our lordship’s lawful wife and queen is an illegitimate heir. A bastard, by definition.” He smiled full of himself, resting his hands on his back, as he just won a court case. The librarian sat opening one of those dusty books, pointing a finger in threat, “We both know that Orpheus was conceived before their marriage. And I will not talk to you, if you continue this nonsense.” The curly head Cupid raised both of his arms in defeat. Truly he wasn’t looking for a fight, although he could argue that they didn’t actually know that.

Lucienne came up with that, and Lady Love never asked and Lord Dream never mentioned it. The only time they had conversation about this was amidst ugly fights about infidelity and mistrust.

Elijah needed Lucienne in a good mood, to help him. So he took the seat in front of the woman, unbuttoning his vest. “My deepest apologies.” He said it without meaning. “My audience with the king is today. Did he happen to brief you on the subject?” She sensed his uneasiness, as soon as he stopped her in the corridor. But she didn’t know how much he was until now. Elijah stared at her with an intense interest, as anything she could tell him was gold in the form of words, his legs under the table were shaking in a way that her pencils on top of the books were threatening to fall on the ground.

“As a mere librarian, Lord Morpheus did not think I needed to be briefed” Elijah carefully nodded, feeling sorry for Lucienne, after all she was attached to him, as his creation, and he had no care, respect or gratefulness for the one that kept his realm in his absence. “But Matthew told me-” The Cupid rolled his eyes, and let out an audible impolite sigh. Matthew! That deluded raven with a tongue bigger than his nozzle!

Elijah never thought he would miss Jessamy, she was too much of a prude, may Lady Death rest her soul, but at least she wasn’t deluded as this Matthew Raven. “The same raven that told you our lady and lordship were in a lovely embrace after his victory in hell? Oh please indulge me in more of his delusions. Did he also see the missing nightmares? Were they playing hide-and-seek with their creator?” Lucienne gave him a reprimand look very similar to Lady Love’s anytime he started to question one’s efficiency. “But he-” The woman tried to intervene but Elijah cut her abruptly “Pray tell me, Lucienne, how many times, in much better scenarios have you seen Lady Love and Lord Morpheus in any kind of embrace? ” He crossed his arms on his chest waiting for an answer he knew, would not come “Well there was-”

“In private.” Lucienne dropped her mouth open fumbling with memories and words. She couldn’t remember any time that actually happened. Probably the pressure of Elijah questioning her and the pending duties delayed by his interruption. But certainly there must have been at least one occasion, right? She shook her head. “You don’t know everything. Besides, correct me if I am wrong but our ladyship was very worried for our lordship. Maybe she got overwhelmed with emotion seeing him back.” Even saying it felt wrong. She frowned like she could taste the sourness and unlikeness of it all in her words.

Elijah maintained his eyebrows raised in disbelief until she nodded agreeing with her undeniable defeat. Even Lucienne knew the Queen was not anywhere near going soft on Dream, let alone letting herself be held. She was avoiding him like he was a new plague. “ Thank you. Now, about the meeting…” Elijah quickly turned to her. “Maybe he wants some attires suggestions to the Solstice” She looks him up and down judging his deep purple damask silk robes. “After all, as a wise soul once said: ‘It’s not all about black robes and black shoes.’” She gave him a victorious smile, a comeback that took years of waiting for the perfect opportunity to get back from the day he sent a beyond-drunk Lady Love to an Endless family dinner. He chuckled, gracefully accepting the delayed come back “Forgive me, my Lady Lucienne. It must have slipped my mind that dark melancholy was the only color palette allowed in the Dreaming.” The librarian pretended to accept his fake apologies, and the tone of the conversation returned to the main subject of his meeting with Dream. “But really, not any clue?”

She sighed, Lucienne truly had not a single clue why Lord Morpheus called for Elijah. It was unusual, and for Elijah, obviously unnerving to go to an audience without knowledge of its subject “I am afraid no.” She returned her attention to the books but not before jesting the cupid “But I can guarantee you, keep talking to me until you are late and he will send you to the darkness.“

“Only if he wants our Lady to spite him even more.” Even after saying it, he didn’t waste any second sitting at the library, raising from the velveteen chair and offering Lucienne a small courtesy. “He is in the garden.” She informed as he went to the door buttoning his vest. “ Which one?” After all the dreaming had gardens, forests, glades, thousands of them. The more the mortals dream, the more they appear. It was tragically confusing.

Lucienne hesitated for a second. “Hers.” The Cupid raised his eyebrows. That was not a good garden. It was beautiful, of course, all Lady Love’s gardens were beautiful. But this one was artificially beautiful with an intrinsic sadness in it. It tells a story of a love that never happened, of a happiness that didn’t exist. It was a lie told so many times that the words lost any real meaning. A set of a play waiting for a love scene cut early in the reading. Lucienne nodded. “ I know. He has been going there since their last quarrel.” Elijah jumped, knocking his feet in the air and snapped his fingers, Lucienne jumped off her seat in response to his sudden reaction “Quarrel! See? Not ‘embrace’. Quarrel!’ Lucienne rolled her eyes dismissing him, for good now, she hoped “Good day, Elijah.” She liked Elijah, but he could be a irritating nosy cupid when he wanted to be.

The Cupid knew his way around the palace enough to find the secluded place that Eoster spent most of her marriage. Lady Love groomed her garden to be a sigil of her eternal love to the dream king. And until her banishment it was an idyllic green small paradise. It was where Eoster received all her guests, siblings and subjects, a place which Elijah heard her say was the furthest from Morpheus and where he most appreciated her. A plaything for an annoying child. Something to keep her busy and out of his way. That was how the staff also saw it. No one really believed that he gifted her a garden out of goodness of his heart or worry about her longing for home.

As he crossed the french doors, the Cupid gasped. Dried leaves and wilting flowers, arid soil. A dead garden. The imprisonment of Lord Dream could not have affected it since it was not mainly his essence that made the garden. Slowly Elijah walked through the scenery, the small water font in the middle didn’t have a single drop of water. He bent to take a closer look at what he thought was once a red rose, but he couldn’t tell, since it was not a brown spiked dead flower he couldn’t distinguish from the other dozen that looked exactly the same.

He tried to get his head around the arid garden, trying to remember if there was any kind of plague that could've taken over it. Lady Love was going to be devastated. Of course this garden in particular wouldn’t bring her any particular happy memories, but it was still her creation.

“Is there nothing to be done?” He jumped, getting caught off guard, seeing the dark tall figure looking up to brown-ish wisteria vines that clamber into a woodland edge. The cupid watched as he delicately touched a crispy petal and it immediately crumbled, drifting away with a breeze of wind.

Elijah was not certain if he was speaking directly to him, if he even acknowledged his presence or was merely speaking to himself, either in a metaphorical or literal way, but carefully Elijah kneeled, reaching for the soil feeling between his fingers its rash texture. This was not a plague. Only one person would have killed this garden, and in all his years of work, he never saw Lady Love annihilate a land like she did in this garden. “I am afraid not much, my Lord. Lady Eoster took the fertility out of this garden. Not even the toughest weed is going to grow here. It is dead and dry.” Both stayed in a brief silence, quietly understanding that only she could return its life

The Dream King nodded quietly. And gesture so the cupid could walk with him “Elijah, you are close to the Queen.” The Cupid nodded, even if it wasn’t a question. In fact he was more than ‘close’, Elijah knew her almost better than herself. He was more than just her creation. “Does she value your opinion?” The curly haired cupid frowned, as he walked side by side with Lord Morpheus. ‘More than you value Lucienne’s’ he thought to himself. After all, if he had listened to his librarian, he wouldn't have got himself imprisoned by a mortal in the first place.

“To some extent, yes my lord.” He answered politely. Lady Eoster often asked him for insights, not only for attires, shoes, hairstyles or hats as some would tease him about it, but about relationship and organization of the Four Loves, each had their respective counsel and region on the Garden, and very often thought one was receiving more attention or power over the other. There was also the awakening of spring, which required a systematic approach, not very idyllic but useful when flowers needed to bloom, rivers and lakes needed to be defrosted, snow needed to melt, animals needed to wake from their hibernation or start to pollinate the flowers. It was very mythical and poetic as Lady Love made it all seem, but behind the power that fuels everything that was her, there was Elijah and a battalion of cupids making it run smoothly. If Love was the composer, Elijah was the maestro coordinating her melody to be played perfectly by all her cupids.

It was unusual for Lord Morpheus to dabble around a specific subject that Elijah was certain he wanted to talk about. He seemed to chew the information the cupid gave him slowly, tasting every flavor of it, not sure if he was ready to take another bite. “How do the lovefolk feel about the changes of the Solstice festivities?” Another change of topic. Now Elijah was curious on where he was going with this. Regarding the lovefolk, they were confused and curious most of the time, a feeling they share with mortal children when their estranged fathers show up with renewed interest in them. “Intrigued and fascinated by being invited to visit their sister-realm”. In other words, not sure if they should feel excited or angry, especially after being the ones that stayed with the mother through all the marital tribulations.

As often the Dream King didn’t show Elijah any emotion he could read, neither changed his tone of voice. As the raven-haired man suddenly stopped and turned to look at him, the cupid mirrored him. “I know my mistakes of the past. The affairs, the quarrels, mistreatments, isolation” ‘Date Nights’ Elijah bitted his tongue not to add to his list. “ The overall suffering and pain that my wife did nothing to deserve.” The Cupid saw Morpheus look down to his feet, almost looking regretful “I can not be forgiven. I would not dare insult my wife by asking her to do it. I can not plead her to discard her pain like it did not scar her. As I can not ask for your forgiveness in hurting your queen.”

Elijah was perplexed, he never in all his years of work thought that Lord Morpheus of all entities would be the one making him lose his words. “ Even though I have no right, I came in dire need of assistance. An assistance neither Lucienne nor Matthew could give.” Elijah couldn’t read his expression, but he was starting to notice an subtle distress by the way he continuously flexed his hands, and even the discreet hesitance in his voice, that was starting to become more apparent in each word he said. If Lord Morpheus was a mortal, Elijah would classify him as a desperate man trying to reach for the last drop of hope in a desert of impossibilities.

But of course, this was not a mortal. This was an Endless. Of course he was not desperate. Especially not for any assistance that a mere Cupid could offer.

“Lady Love deserves a good marriage. One that I fail in provide for her, and I am not confident that I will ever be able to do it.” Elijah didn’t find sufficient benevolence in himself to try to convince him of otherwise, but manage to assent. “But I believe I can give her at least a tolerable union.” It wasn’t what Lord Morpheus had planned. In his naïveté he thought that coming back and declaring his intentions would be enough to persuade her. Of course their first encounter after his return proved that would be far from enough. He didn’t even notice how she changed. Desire was right, he was the kind of husband, wives dream of being freed from. “Something that does not end in a quarrel every night. I do not wish to be estranged from my own wife.”

Although Elijah thought he did deserved to be estranged from his wife to all eternity. The cupid knew that Love could be resentful but she never wanted to be estranged from him. After all, if Morpheus wouldn’t have banned her from the Dreaming, she would never have left. At least being by his side she could had tried.

Lady Eoster was in peace when he was gone, yes, but the purple skies and cloudy weather of the Garden revealed the melancholy no one was indelicate enough to ask about. She felt ashamed by it. Ashamed by a faulty marriage, ashamed by not being able to make herself happy, to give her cupids the pink skies and sunny afternoons she knew they missed.

Even her sisters with their ferine tongues, when visiting, tried to cheer her up, reducing the importance of marriage to just ‘something they had to do it’ not their lives, comparing husbands to stubborn mules without an ounce of taste or good sense. Although she laughed at their jokes, it wasn’t enough.

Elijah realized that by the pause the king made, he expected the Cupid to reply. By the audience turn, Elijah could only assumed the King wished to know the Queen’s private thoughts. If Lord Dream ever thought he would gossip or manipulate his queen in order to bring her good graces to him, he was beyond mistaken.

Elijah raised his chin, taking a formal and stiff posture he cursed himself for briefly losing. “My Lord, I will not speak of Lady Eoster or confide in you her private thoughts. As her cupid, I beg your forgiveness but I won’t break my vows.”

“Of course not. I would never want you to break your vows. Your devotion is truly appreciated. A piece of your mind is all I ask. ” Elijah took his minute looking at his king. Lord Morpheus was far from being a theatrical endless or inclined to dramatic speeches. So his words were sounding more and more like a desperate man, sounding defeated before even trying. Yes, Elijah believed it was a lost cause, but Lord Morpheus could not start his quest already giving it up. “ Lady Love’s heart is never closed to forgiveness, after all love is forgiveness despite the impossible.” The Cupid recited as the most sacred vow he learned.

The cupid walked a few steps away from the King, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes. He wished to tell Lord Morpheus to give up on Lady Love, he has done enough and was better going after the witch or the fae queen or even the bastard’s mother if he so willingly wanted someone to love. But those words were sour in his tongue. The curly haired cupid may not know Lord Dream as Lucienne or any dreamfolk, but he knew that he spoke the truth of his intentions, Morpheus rarely, if ever, lied. He despised him with every fiber of his cupid being, but his personal opinions aside, a tolerable marriage could be, well, tolerable for Lady Love.

Morpheus would need to endure years of hard work on his marriage, maybe say centuries, in the best of the Cupid’s expectations. Elijah signed, there was no harm in denying him the truth “The path is the beginning, my lord. Lady-Lord Desire courted her in a magnificent way, passing as you through beautifully written letters full of devotion, tenderness, curiosity. The Lady-Lord knew Queen Love well to write exactly what she wanted to hear. But that time has passed, she is not an innocent doe-eyed queen anymore. Letter and promises won’t do it. “

Elijah struggled inside, it seemed wrong to speak of Lady Eoster with her husband. It looked like a plot. The cupid didn’t like plots. Plots are for traitors. But was he saying anything other than the truth? He asked Elijah, and he was merely answering a question. He wasn’t giving any solution for or giving him the key to her diary. He was stating facts. Simple sentences that everyone in the Garden would agree, maybe even some of the dreamfolk.

“My general advice as a cupid would be to court her, my lord.You are both strangers. Do not summon, invite her. Lady Love does not truly know you, the dreamfolk, the dreaming. Show her your realm, make it feel like her home. Because, in a way, it is.” He spoke in one breath, trying to get that out as quickly as possible. He spoke too much, and Lord Morpheus needed to do a lot of heavy lifting himself in his own marriage.

So Elijah finished doing what cupids do best: A vague suggestion that may or may not have the desired result. If Morpheus truly meant it, he would figure it out.

The Cupid put his hands in his back “May I present an observation, my lord?” The endless nodded “ A marriage as long as yours and I don’t recall, maybe that is my faulty Cupid’s memory, an official parade through the Dreaming. Introducing Lady Eoster to the dreamfolk as their queen and such. A truly lovely time for husband and wife to have time for each other while still performing official duties.”

He could see the way Lord Morpheus seemed to be working his gears around the path Elijah laid for him. “Anything else I can be of assistance, my lord?” The Cupid made a quick reverence. “You may go” As Morpheus dismissed him, Elijah turned his heels to the door

He would not tell The Emissary about this, he got enough in his head and did not need him jesting about Elijah ‘cupiding’ again. Especially since Elijah was notorious terrible at being a field Cupid, causing a variety of trouble in the mortal world, and was now giving suggestion to an Endless he spent centuries dreaming of cartoonish smashing with a piano like a looney tune cartoon.

But Elijah already had the reply on the tip of his tongue, in the case The Emissary figured it out: He was not doing it for him, he was doing it for his queen. For her happiness or at least, some contempt.

Chapter Text

“Tell me he at least gave you a good fuck” Love almost chokes on her tea when Lady Honesty spoke. “Honesty!” They barely sat with afternoon delights and tea, at the table under the white marbled gazebo covered in lilac wisterias just outside the palace, a sceneary worthy of protraits. Love hadn’t seen her sister in a while and forgot that Honesty was never kin on pleasantries, she preferred going straight to the subject. Some, like their Aunt Prim, did not approve this kind of behavior, saying that Honesty may have the look of an ethereal nymph with her long black as night locks gently curled and an intense purple stare with full lashes, but she had the tongue of a demon.

Love always thought that it matched perfectly with her sister, she didn’t shy away from controversy, often getting the truth behind any second intention or misleading speech. Honesty constantly repeated that if someone wasn't going to say what they really meant, then there was no point in having a conversation.

Eoster found it truly entertaining to see her in action. It was never boring to have her sister at the table. And she truly needs some of her high spirits to distract her from Morpheus, the Dreaming and all that mess.

Love just didn’t expect that Honesty would want to talk about exactly what Love wanted to avoid.

“What? I am only asking what everyone has been wondering”. The sister shrugged it off, while taking a sip of the lover's tea. And Love raised her eyebrow “And who, might I ask, are those ‘everyone’?” She perfectly knew who, but wanted to see if Honesty was going to out them. “Your dear sisters who have been crazy worried for you.” Love bited her lip at the judgmental look her sister was giving her. It was a bit of her fault.

She did not answer their letters, nor went to the gathering they often held, or went to visit their offspring when they recently were born. All her sisters have children by now. She knew she should’ve gone, after all she was named godmother of most of the newborn children. And of course she was beyond happy for them. But, at the same time, however, she didn’t have the strength to see them. None of her sister's marriages were perfect.

Well not perfect as Love defines a ‘perfect marriage’ but perfect in a deviant way.

Their husbands were avid cheaters, but so were her sisters. Although they would constantly complain about their husbands being stupid mules with barely a sense of direction, and their kids being clingy brats, anytime Eoster saw her sisters with their spouses and offspring, she could feel a genuine love. They were not unhappy. Messy, yes, but not unhappy.

And she knew it was selfish, but Love couldn’t stand being with them. Her sisters were blessed with love and she, the Queen of Four Loves, stuck in a loveless union. What did she ever do to deserve such cruel fate?

“I don’t think my intimate life has anything to-“ Honesty didn’t let her finish slapping the hand on the table, almost spilling the tea “ He didn’t! Fuck, I just lost fifty years in servitude to Pride. I hope you are happy, Love Dove” How could she be angry with Love when Love herself had nothing to do with it?! Besides the fact that her sisters were betting about her intimate life made her furiously blush and brutally exposed. How was she, the most discreet of her sisters, with the most antisocial of husbands, the one with a marriage that was a hot topic among everyone she knows?

Of course none of them had an Endless husband.

And of course, if they were betting on it, they were discussing it, and Love remembers quite well when they were all maidens how graphic and detailed they would talk about the tender intimacies of other entities. Just thinking that they might be discussing her like they did with those poor entities made her want to hide her in the most isolated room in all the Garden and never come back.

“I didn’t tell you to do a foul bet with Pride. And you should know better not to bet with her.” Her older sister Pride was addicted to gambling and the only reason why it wasn’t a problem that required intervention, was because Pride would always win. That was how she got married. Winning her husband on a bet.

‘And they are still in a happier marriage than me’ Love often thought. Honesty pretended not to hear the scolding tone in the brunette’s voice, taking a bite of a delicious sugar coated cake while explaining her betting plans “The odds seemed in my favor. You, lonely, faithful, in a cold large bed on the Dreaming, wet dreaming about those long pale fingers sliding under your silk nightgown, caressing your tights, pushing your undergarments out of the way, that deep soft voice saying how he missed your cu-”

“ Honesty!” Love interrupted before she would describe the most coarse of actions. Looking to the nearest weapon of choice, a napkin, and angrily throwing at her sister. Eoster would never admit to her sister, but that description was vivid in Love’s imagination while alone, in baths, after Elijah finally left her to soak under the water. Very similar thoughts would creep in her mind. Morpheus surprising her at night with an intense drive of passion that he couldn’t contain and only Love could take care of, how desperately he needed her, how she was made for him.

She knew it was cliché, hell, she invented those clichés, but was it wrong to want to live them, to deeply desire them? They are not supposed to happen to mortals, but to inspire them to get a love as close as possible to those. But Love? She was supposed to have a cliché romance and the most passionate of all marriages. She was supposed to inspire mortals and entities with her marriage. That was the reason she waited to get married, to find that exact someone who would write new clichés with her or inspire her!

Love shook her head, trying to physically get away from those thoughts. Her sister was largely laughing, almost threatening to fall off the chair, even after a napkin attack “ I’m teasing, I am teasing! I guess we can’t ever count on our Lord of Dreams to do anything right. Not even his most sacred duty.” Marital Duty. Love smiled before taking a sip of her tea, not realizing her sister stopped laughing and was looking over her with a very analytical attitude “ Unless-“

Love tilted her head “Yes?”

Her sister snapped her fingers and slammed her hand against the table, making the entire tea set threatening to fall. Love would’ve killed her if any piece broke, since it was a gift from Lady Death. One of the few Endless siblings she actually liked. It was supposed to be at the Dreaming, but Dream never cared about those gifts, so Love kept them in the Garden, where she could actually use them. After all, why have a tea set in a place where there was no one to have tea with?

“Oh, Love, you cold heart bitch! You didn’t let him fuck you senseless back to happiness!” Love eyes widened at her sister, a thought went across her mind if it would be appropriate to stuff one of those sweet cakes into Honesty mouth until she choked with her words. Probably way more appropriate than continuing with this conversation.

“ My stars, you are spending too much time in Aesir!” The nordic pantheon was known to be nothing but an unmannerly pit. “As Lady of the Four Loves it’s my obligation to tell you that the Lord of Dreams could not do anything to bring me happiness.” Love stated but as the words left her mouth she was not sure that was entirely true.

She fixed her posture and put an annoying curl behind her ear, shifting in her seat. The Love Queen told herself the reason she was bothered was because this wasn’t an appropriate talk to tea time, and any of her cupids could hear and gossip around.

But the truth was more selfish than she wanted to admit. Desire always joked that she looked uptight, tense, frigid. Love never took the offense to heart, it was annoying but she always took that as a way the sibling had to embarrass Dream and his abilities as a husband, especially since Desire considered Love an easy little thing to please. And that wasn’t a guess from the Queen, Desire told her more than one time to her face.

Now she wondered if someone could actually tell just by looking at her that she was never fulfilled or satisfied with any of her private encounters with Dream. Like she had a tag in her forehead with a written trope of ‘unhappy stepford smiler’. Love carefully made herself to always look bright and full of energy and happiness in every single social she had to attend, so entities would not even think about her being miserable. Of course, they knew about the cheating, but not about the unhappiness. Or did they know? And pretend not to out of pity?

Honesty shrugged it off. “Of course he can’t. No husband can, really. Do you think Wodan makes me happy? No, but my stars, he makes me feel good while trying.” The brunette Queen furrowed her brows, her sister smirked knowingly. Eoster didn’t believe Wodan didn’t make Honesty happy. Between threats of death, poison and tries of sacrifice, what her older sister called ‘love games’, Love knew if her sister wasn’t happy she wouldn’t put up with Wodan.

Of course, what he does to keep her happy was not a mystery to anyone, their love making were famous and spoke to it in its frequency, volume and duration. There was a reason they were no longer invited by anyone in their right mind to spend the night in another’s realm for a longer festivity.

And Love could be Lady of Eros, supportive of passionate nights and devoted spouses, but thinking of her sister and spouse made her nauseous. She didn’t spare an unladylike groan throwing her back against her chair “Spare me the details of your marriage, I can feel the tea in the back of my throat.”

Eoster never liked Wodan from the first time they were introduced, she knew exactly what he was: a rake, a brute, a classic god of war, thirsty for bloodshed, unfaithful, who saw naive maids as conquests, luring them with false promises of love until he had them exactly where he needed them, and then, discarted them, and moved to another.

A terrible match to Honesty, who Love always saw as witty, independant, enlightened, smarter than her sisters. She always thought Honesty was too smart to fall for the cheap rough charm of Wodan and would prefer someone that was an intellectually worthy adversary.

Besides, Wodan previously tried to court Love. “Court” would not be the proper word, since in the first five sentences they exchange, the norse god began a very pleasant discord on how some other gods (and he highly suggested other Love’s suitors) considered a lady’s place to be at the childbed, but he truly believedthat a lady’s place was in a man’s face, and he continued his lovely discourse describing how mortals were calling the act of cunnilingus the ‘devil’s lunch’ and how it may be but ‘yet is a fabulous meal any time of the day’, giving Love, who was vigorously blushing and praying for a way out, very suggestive looks. He only gave up when Eoster threatened to destroy all the harvest from mortals who worshiped him, if he ever spoke to her again.

An uncouth rake that Lady Honesty happened to fall in love for.

Love constantly questioned her sister's good senses and sanity, and Honesty dismissed Love, using her older sister tone: ⅔ condescending ⅓ full of mockery by saying ‘You are the one that likes them all broody, intellectual and sensible’ or ‘ I didn’t marry to have deep philosophical discussions’.

Love would defend herself by saying it wasn’t a preference for 'broody, intellectual and sensible'. She only wished for someone she could have a conversation with beyond the bedroom. And Honesty argued that that is what sisters are for.

And when arguments got heated, Honesty would throw in Love’s face that her husband might be all what Love disaproves of, but at least he married her out of his own desire and heart, she was invited into his life and he treated her like his queen. Unlike Dream, that on paper seemed all that Eoster wanted it, but was forced to welcome an univinted wife into his life and treated her like an unpleasant clingy mistress he got tired of. ‘If you wanted an Endless so desperately, you should have invested in Desire or the Prodigal one. You could’ve convinced him not to leave’. Even that, Honesty made it seem like Love’s fault. When fights like this would occur, they would spent decades without talking to each other.

The dark haired lady shifted in her seat, acquiring an older sister posture ready to lecture her reluctant younger sister. “Well you should listen. As your older sister with a senior marriage, it is my duty to teach you the ways of husbands.” Love rolled her eyes at ‘the ways of husbands’ as they held mysteries beyond the surface to be analyzed and discussed. Love could feel the torture that was yet to come “Oh, please!”. They had very different marriages, with very different husbands, whatever advice Honesty had, it wouldn’t work on Morpheus.

Wodan was a god of war; he yearns for a conquest, for the thrill of it, Honesty only needed to play hard to get for a moment before he is challenged, moving worlds to have her back.

Morpheus was lord of dreams, nightmares and stories. He didn’t yearn for any conquest. If she played hard to get, he would just move to someone more interesting. That was why even in discomfort Love never denied him in the bedroom, because at least she would have him there, not with someone else. He could think about others while inside her, but, at least for a few moments, he was with her. He was hers.

At least, before. Now, she could not understand what her husband was planning, let alone, wanting.

Honesty pretended to not listen to her sister's complaint “A repentant husband like yours will try anything to make his wife happy.” Love stubbornly refused to give in to Honesty. Even if Morpheus did go the extra mile to try to have Love live in the Dreaming again. “And you, my darling, should take advantage of that.” Love was about to ask Honesty if these so-called “advantages” included losing two realms to Morningstar.

Her lecture was interrupted by Matthew, the raven, flying over, dropping a letter with Dream’s seal, landing on top of Love’s porcelain’s plate.

Excitement, happiness, eagerness, all those feelings that were conditioned by the arrival of a letter, rose in Love’s chest at the same speed they were crushed, leaving her speechless. Color dropped from her face, and she looked at the envelope as if it was a ghost from the past, making no mention of opening it.

She knew it was ridiculous, to want to escape a paper. But she couldn’t stop wanting to disappear, run as far away as she could from that single stupid piece of paper.

Love received thousands of these same letters but written by Desire. Maybe the raven cackled something about the letter being from the Dream King, since the queen was behaving strangely towards it. Matthew could swear she threatened to jump away from her seat, when she saw the letter, like he was dropping a literal bomb on her lap.

She couldn’t answer him. She couldn’t take her eyes off the letter. A single letter made her feel small, a young Queen again, pushing her lips in a smile every time a dove was seen in the horizon. Love remembered running desperately down the stairs, wanting to beat down every cupid that wanted to deliver her a letter that would made a marvelous day in the Garden thanks to the Queen’s humour. Sometimes running so carresslesly, that she would rip her flowy dresses on pointy corners. Love didn’t care. She wanted to be the first and only one to read his words.

Looking at the seal, she couldn’t believe how she was deceived. Of course her husband’s seal would be deep purple, almost black. It suited him. Very different of the scarlet one Desire used. She should have known. How didn’t she notice it before? Was she that naive? Did she close her eyes for the truth? The clues must be all obvious as this one. Did she suspect through all their court but wanted to go on with it anyway? Was it loneliness? Was it desperation of not finding someone like she dreamed of, so she clenched her fists into fantasy, hoping for it to become true?

Did she conspire with Desire and told herself she was an innocent maiden in all of this?

Love’s head hurt.

Honesty dismissed the bird. Since Love seemed to be too stunted to move, and her sister was not the most patient woman, she took matters into her own hands, hovering over the table and grabbing the letter trying to break the seal with a desert knife.

That was enough to make Love wake, and jump over the table, dropping a few cinnamon cakes on the floor, and sugar syrup on her dress, trying to get the letter off her sister's hands. Whatever was in the letter, if her sister read, all of her siblings and their spouses would know, and in a snap of fingers, the whole universe would soon know too.

“Give this back!” Love screamed while attempting to get the letter from Honesty hands, that jumped away from her sit, trying to push Love away with one hand and open the letter and read the cursive with another. “Your husband's cursive is awful, I can’t read this! Damn, Love! Stop! Stop smothering me! You’ve gone fat! Out! Out! Let me read it!” The dark headed woman struggled, was grabbed by the arm by her sister to keep Honesty unable to escape. Love was now with her knees smashing down a tower of strawberry cupcakes, throwing her left arm and torso over Honesty trying to reach the letter on the free hands of her sister.

And for goodness sake Love hated those long arms of Honesty!

“It is not yours! Give it back! It must be something serious”. Honesty in a poor attempt to get free from Love, use the letter as a weapon, hitting Love with it. Probably thinking that a paper cut would made her take a few steps back. She clearly did not saw the stupidity in doind this “Than. It. Is. Better. That. I. Read. It.” Honesty said every other punctuated with a paper hit “You are too sensib- Damn it!”

With a now-or-never decision love took an impulse and throw herself in her sister’s hand, successfully grabbing the letter, as her sister took a step back to get away from her, due tot the now free hand, Love had no one to hold her free fall, and she hugged the air, falling with her face to the grass. She quickly ignored the pain and scanned the letters.

His cursive was really terrible. Different from the rounded vows, heavy pressure that Desire used. His writing was fast, pointed consonants, narrow “L” loops, slanting to the left. Even the writing was obviously different.

It was a short letter, direct but she couldn’t make sense of what he wrote. Actually, she could. But those words in a sentence coming from an invitation from her husband made no sense.

Honesty thinking it was taking an eternity for her to read the message, couldn’t contain a needy and demanding “Well?”

She was almost asking again or going to her sister to a second round in trying to get the paper from her. Love was paralyzed, before dropping the paper on the floor, looking at her sister and saying “ He wants us to go for a parade. In the Dreaming.”

Honesty frowned. Love was delirious that was it. “Parade? For what? Does he think it is great doing escape from a mortal after a millennia in imprisonment?” It was a century. Love didn’t know why she felt the impulse to correct her. It didn’t make a difference. Well it did. A few thousand years of difference. But she shouldn’t care. She didn’t care.

“And I heard if it wasn’t from a small mistake, he would still be there. Great achievement.” Her sister was sarcastic but right. His return was not from great victory, it was an escape. It didn’t make sense celebrating. But Dream didn’t want to celebrate his return.

“No. He says that he wishes us to parade through Dreaming, since we didn’t have a parade for the marriage.” A parade meant Love would be shown off to the dreamfolk, an introduction to their queen, so the people would get to know who the Dream King was marrying. It would have made sense, a few centuries ago.

“But you are not newly wed.” Honesty pointed out the obvious. “ I know”. Love could only answer. What did he want? To make her feel guilty of not helping the dreamfolk through all the years of his imprisonment. Well if he did, she would make sure to tell them that he was the one who forbade her to come.

“And you know the Dreaming, obviously” Honesty said, trying to make sense of the letter. Maybe he created new territory and wanted to show Love. The Dreaming was always changing, didn’t someone tell her that? It wasn’t stable like some realms due to the nature of dreams and nightmares. “Of course.” Love hesitated answering a bit too long. Enough to make Honesty suspicious.

“You don’t, do you?” Honesty knew the expression of a liar when she saw one.

“ I know the palace.” Love annoyingly answered. It was a blessing and a curse having a sister that was honesty herself, able to tell a small, minuscule half-lie from the truth. And Love couldn’t understand why Honesty was pushing her lips in a smug victorious smile “ And he wants you two to go on a romantic parade through his realm. Sounds like-“

Love raised herself from the floor, feeling a sting on the left leg, the one that hited the ground first, she ignored the pain, not realizing she was raising her voice to convince her sister that this wasn’t a romantic tale of some sorts “I don’t want a parade!”

The queen’s eye widen with realization, the permission to Elijah leave earlier, hitting her strong like a quick in the stomach. Suddenly the meeting made sense. A piece of a puzzle finally found! “Do you think that is why he asked to see Elijah?”

Her sister frowned, unable to understand that connection. Was Dream conspiring with a cupid and for what? Take over the Garden? Isn’t it already his? By marriage? Did he went insane after imprisonment? ‘Does he know how natural gossipers Cupids are?” Honesty just hoped she eventually would hear what this audience was about “Did he have an audience with Elijah, your Cupid? Why? Were you unavailable?”

Love grabbed a napkin from the floor, walking back to the gazebo, whipping out the sugar syrup from her champagne dress “No, I was here.” She answered while passing by Honesty, “ Of course it’s the parade. Since when does Dream know how to plan anything?” Besides, of course, their doom. Love spoke to herself making sense on that meeting, and the invitation. She just didn’t know why Elijah didn’t tell her.

Honesty bited her tongue not to tell Love that he obviously wanted to surprise her, feeling that her sister might kill her if she speculated anything good of Dream’s intention. Love might be Love but she felt her dear younger sister could stab a man (preferably her husband) if anyone suggested that he could do anything slightly amorous. Better to stay in safe territory. “And when is it?”

Love sighed. “ Tomorrow”. Don’t they get better and more important things to do than parading? Besides that amount of time together, after everything. It would be a disaster for both of them.

“ My stars! And do you have a dress?” Honesty took her hand to her chest, as having a dress was the most urgent life-depending matter at the moment.

She also thought that her brother in law 's desperation for her sister's good favors was quite smothering. If Wodan prepared a parade in such a short notice he would be parading alone, a woman needs time to decide her wardrobe.

Love rolled her eyes, not knowing how a dress was more important than the fact the Dream wants to parade around the Dreaming! “Is that what you are worried about?” Since when her sister was this frivolous? Or since when is Love not that frivolous?

“Well, forgive me for wanting the dreamfolk to see you in your best.” Honesty looked down on her sister wearing a loose fit champagne dress in a thick fabric that looked more like cotton, pushing her lips down, in the opposite of a smile. Love looked like a maid from southern France, not a Queen “Not whatever peasant phase you are going through now. You need to look like a Queen. I never would thought thatit would come from me of all people to tell you that”

Love’s eyes sparkled with a glimpse that worried Honesty because it meant she had an idea. And by her state, that wasn’t a good one. “I do have a dress. I do” Love smiled childish before running through the lavender garden, straight to the palace. Her sister followed her trying to keep her pace, but her small heeled shoes did not allowed to go a lot faster. Both passed through some of the palace staff who wriggled out of the way to not be knocked out, or surprise to see the Queen running around like a child, something she didnt do for centuries.

As soon as Honesty got to the door at Love’s bedroom, she saw her sister taking the dust off one of the most atrocious crimes any seamstress has ever sew. “Oh no you don’t.” Honesty took large steps grabbing the outfit from Love, holding it in front of her sister, so she could proper see what she was choosing. “Have you gone mad? You are not going to wear this awful looking thing that Aunt Temperance gave you. No, I forbid you.” Eoster quickly took back the piece before her sister would throw it on the flames. Rationally speaking “It is very traditional and a wedding gift. It is more than appropriate. And I think it is rather… Happy. Isn’t that what he is planning on making me? Happy? According to your great knowledge of husbands?”

She look confident and pleased with her witty response. Love had one of the most extensive wardrobes. She was the one that always impressed with her choice of dresses. Always on theme, always dazzling. From all her sister's gowns that never saw the light, why use this one?

Honesty scoff trying to appeal to REAL reason “It is medieval and makes you look like a fairy godmother missing only the wand with a star on the point. And that hennin. Please don’t tell me you are wearing that hennin.” She shouldn’t have said it because Love threw the dress in her pink bed and disappeared into her hat closet, appearing back wearing the pointy silk garment with a long veil falling in her back. “A fairy. Good. Might remember him of Titania and bring back some memories.” .

Honesty eyes open wide to the mention of one of her husband's former mistresses. Honesty didn’t know she knew about others. Love always seemed to be most resentful of the muse. Honesty couldn’t blame her. Calliope was the one that bore her husband’s cub, and Love never got pregnant. It caused quite a talk at the time.

Whispers and jests began to rise questioning if Lady Love was as warm as lovely, or if she was as frigid as beautiful.

Honesty would not waste her time arguing with those who were making awful hypotheses about her sister, but she sure did put Wodan to shut them up. And the dark haired lady was pretty convinced that their Aunts helped in shutting the rumors down. All the help was needed since her husband either was completely oblivious to gossip or he did not care what it was being said about his Queen.

Dream could impregnate Love anything he wanted to, have a proper heir, something his wife could love and that would love her back. It would even make it easier for him, if the problem was her being too clingy and noisy (not that Honesty believed it was the case). Hell, husbands did that all the time to get rid of their wives without breaking the marriage. But he chose to impregnate the other woman.

A boy that would later die for love.

A cruel fate but a well-deserved punishment for Morpheus. Not only Love’s sisters would agree on this, but most of the lovefolk.

“Titania would not be caught dead in that pink mess' ' Honesty snapped out of her thoughts turning to her sister that ignored the comment and sat down at the bed stretching the fabric of the dress. “Well if he is so willing like you said, he won’t mind. He will appreciate my company.” Honesty rolled her eyes, sitting at the bed. “And will you be a company to be appreciated?” Honesty was too smart for Love’s tactic of vague words. She knew her sister would not make the slughtest effort to be a good company.

“I will abide to my duty.” She shrrugled her shoulders, looking down at the dress corset a mix of dusk colors, majority pink but tones lilac and blue sprinkled across it.

Honesty throw her back against the soft mattress giving up any tries to convince her of other clothes and other attitudes. Speaking freely, giving her opining even if it risk to be choked down with the atrocious dress petticoat “My stars, Love. He is trying. Don’t try to make your marriage more difficult than it is.”

Love dropped her childish face, looking her sister dead in the eye, she sounded hurt. She was feeling stab by her own sister. Honesty seemed to be taking Dream’s side on this. Like she forgot everything he did. “I tried, do you not remember? Years of trying. And now you expect me to drop at his feat because he suddenly remembered his wife is not part of decoration but actually his queen, and he might start treating her like one?”

It gutted Honesty to tell her that. It hate her to not be able to give her words of comfort, to take her away and find her another husband, since her sister avidly deny any lover. She wished Love didn’t fall into a trap setted by that awful Desire. Honesty wished a lot of things to her younger sister that she could not do it. Love was stuck in a True Marriage. The only way to be free from it was a walk in Lady Death’s realm, which Love had no interest in doing.

She knew Love was feeling corned into a place she did not like it. It was not about sides. It was about reality. Their roles, their duties, their differences. “Love, you know it is different for them. And you suffered so much through your marriage why tire yourself more? Could you not just enjoy his tries? You do not need to forgive him, just let him adore you.”

The brunette eyes were wet with tears she refused to let them drip through her cheeks, but she looked to Honesty with disbelief like she could not believe how her sister, her closest sister, did not understand her feelings, or the situation.

“He hurt me, Honesty.” She clearly said. “More than you would like to imagine.” Honesty might be older, but Love often thought that she was oblivious to miserable marriage real struggles since hers seemed like a game with no losers.

This time Honesty raised her upper body angrily answering her sister that patronized her. As she was a naive nymph oblivious to the problems of the universe. “What? Cheating? Dragging other goddesses, stars and nymphs to your bed? While you pretend not to hear their screams while taking polite tea with your ladies-in-waiting in the other room? Taking you when he couldn’t find anything better to warm his cock? Pain in your lower stomach that you get drunk to forget? Crying yourself quietly to sleep because he doesn't like the sound of your whimps and you know that he will leave your bed if he hears your cry and you prefer his cruel company than a cold bed, because at least you can pretend that if you shared a bed, you are happily married? Please sister, don’t patronize me.”

Love thought in reply that Dream never complained about her crying because they didn’t share a bed, as a statement that her situation was even worse, But was it any winners in this scenario? Was it really worse?

She didn’t reply, winking a few times, taken aback by what her sister was describing. “I didn’t know Woda-“ If he did do such things, Love was right in hating him from the start, which did not bring any rush of pride that she thought she would get from being right. After all it meant her sister was in pain, and not only that, she was a better stepford smiler than her.

Honesty dismissed this with a gesture “Wodan wouldn’t dare. He is a good husband.”

Love rolled her eyes when she saw Honesty smile. “He is an uncouth rake. Weren’t you trying to curse him last time we spoke?”

Honesty shrugged it off. Cursing husbands was a passtime to her sisters. “Probably. He is a good husband, not a perfect one. Besides the point is: You are not the only miserable wife in the cosmos, and I am very good listener.”

Love threw herself in the mattress along her sister “You are a very good gossiper”

“Potato, Potatoh” Both of them smiled at each other, and Honesty lied back turning to her sister, looking compassionately at her face, raising her hands to let her thumb caress her sister cheek. Love delve in her touch. Beautiful green eyes and thick lashes, a smile curved in full pink lips. Her sister was beautiful, she was the most beautiful of the siblings, although Honesty would never admit that to her.

It pinched Honesty’s heart that she could also see the eyebags underneath her eyes, the purple from terrible slept nights, and the lack of glow she had when they were maidens. She wished she could offer some way, some path of a crazy adventure to restore some secret gem or magic dust, a visit to a sea witch, an offering to the Fates, anything that a brave warrior or a pure heart heroine could pursue in order to gain her happiness or at least freedom.

But the truth was they weren’t any of these things, and these weren’t choices available to them. They had duties, obligations to realms, to subjects and mortals. They were bound to them. They could turn their unberable suffering into bearable, misery into contempt. Honesty couldn’t give her sister a magic sand to make her pain disappear, but she could advise her in not hurting herself more.

“ Dove, don’t go on a crusade to punish him and hurt even more of yourself. An Endless like your husband does not have a heart to be wounded.” If he did have a heart at all, which most of the times Honesty doubted. Love sighted sarcastically, rolling her eyes at her sister, repeating her words empathically “An Endless like my husband wasn’t supposed to be locked away for a century by a mortal who barely understood what he was doing.” Which wasn’t a lie, after all wasn’t he trying to trap Lady Death?

Honesty couldn’t help to laugh with her sister “Touché.” She took a minute, both starring at each other eyes in a silent understanding of caring. Love and Honesty could have entire conversations just by deeply looking at each other.

As a spell broke, Honesty took a deep breath before taking an impulse out of the bed, returning to her usual bored and sophisticated tone of voice “I must go now Love Dove, thanks to your hate for orgasmic bliss, Pride waits with who knows what plans for poor me.”

Love frowned confused, raising herself from bed “ I thought she invited you for cricket.”

Honesty fixed her hair with a dramatic wave.

“The torture already began. If I don’t make it, remember me, dear Love”

——————

The parade was everything Eoster loved. She did not expected so many dreams and nightmares that wanted to see her, and give her flowers. They knew that Eoster was goddess of spring, and flowers apparently were the only suitable gift they thought of. She was not expecting to be received with such a warm embrace from them. Even the most awful nightmares seemed to be in their best behavior just to have a chance to exchange a few polite words with Eoster. Morpheus was clearly tense when Love was exchanging pleasantries with the nightmares, after all he was their creator he knew what they were capable of. He had no idea if Love had any knowledge superficial or deep about what they would inflict in a mortal's head, how they would even turn anything they hold dear into an awful horror during their sleep. But she acted with such kindness and gentleness that Dream questioned if she knew, she wasn’t parading only for dreams.

“Those were nightmares.” He said in a matter-of-fact tone, while she was delivering her bouquets to Elijah. The cupid and Lucienne were a few steps behind them, giving them some privacy. She looked at him as if he was oblivious to reality “I know, husband. Even nightmares deserve kindness. “ She said between smiles and cheerful ‘thank yous’ “Do you have any objection to kindness to nightmares? Maybe I should send them straight to the darkness, like my lord husband. ” Love ironically spat with a smile plastered on her face before turning her back to him, the veil of the henning slapping his face, as she continued her walk.

The parade was not what the Dream King imagined. He did not count that so many of the dreamfolk would appear, and that they were eager to see Love up close and talk to her. She seemed in her most natural environment. He was dressed in his usual black attire, and Love was dressed as a fluffy sunrise. A gown with voluminous skirts mainly pink but the fabric reflected lilac and blue depending on the angle, puffy sleeves, a tight corset that made her breasts more apparent than she wished, and her high hennin with a long veil, that she was using as a weapon to slap Dream any opportunity she had.

She looked like a child’s idea of a tooth fairy.

Their day started with a light fight, of course, since Dream had planned to go in an open carriage through the Dreaming, but Love insisted on going by foot. It ended when he argued in favor of her feet and she replied that he was never concerned about her well-being and he did not need to start now. The carriage would give them more privacy, which was what the king intended, just like Elijah suggested. But the queen, suspecting of what her sister said, was avoiding any situation where they would have the slightest of privacy. She even avoided holding his arm while parading. Only doing it when it was extremely necessary or it would look like she was publicly avoiding him. She did not need the dreamfolk to start enquiring about her marriage.

A part of Love was constantly thinking of her own words. ‘He hurt me’ countless times of being cold, stoic, uncaring, making her feel guilty, undeserving of love, having his way with her because it was easy, not caring if it was unpleasant to his wife or not, and she drank to forget it and drank to let it happen. ‘He cheated on me’, dragging every lady that showed the slightest interest in him to their bed, to their realm. ‘He humiliated me’ Having a muse pregnant, never wanting to share a life together, making her cry in empty hallways wrapped in sheets, condemned to live in eternal misery.

Strong arguments and memories, undeniable truths that kept them separated and her heart close.

Another part of her, one that kept opening a small creek in her heart and was fed by the way he kept starring at her during the parade, anytime he thought she wasn’t looking, how his face brightened when he saw her in the ‘atrocious pink dress’, the warmth of his hands when he guide her down the stairs before the parade. She could have denied it and walked by herself, but being alone with him, no Elijah, no Lucienne, it clouded her mind, and before she knew it, she was thinking how soft and warm his hand felt against her and awakened recent memories of his hands holding her face. How she suddenly wished he would do it again, have him close, inches away, feeling the familiar warmth of his breath and his touch. How she hated to feel cold when dropping his hand, to walk in front of him, to give away fantasies. The sweet words of his promises. The yearning. A new beginning. A start over. Hope.

“We will see three more dreams.” Love winked, lost in her thoughts realizing that the dreams and nightmares were scarce now. And Elijah and Lucienne seemed to be discussing an important matter that had both of them checking their notes in their respective notebooks and pointing to the horizon. Dream offered his arm to her and Love crossed her fingers resting them against her corset “ I thought all dreams and nightmares were invited to our parade. I do not believe any of them would risk your wrath of not coming to it.” She might fantasize about a husband she could love but it would not mean she would would be easily swayed by her real one “ Besides I am exhausted”

“ I did offer you a carriage, might you remember” Morpheus didn’t see when the answer slipped from his lips. Arguing with her came so easily. Love was not drunk, she was difficult and stubborn when drunk but he could tell the difference even after centuries apart, this was his sober wife that although didn’t disobey or cause any scene during the parade had been exhaustively petty, offering disguised insults through passive aggressiveness comments.

Love widened her gaze to Morpheus, groaning loudly, reaching for her skirts, turning her back and walking away. She would depart to the Garden immediately. And when he opened his mouth to appeal to reason, Love turned back fluster in angry “ Might I remind you, lord husband, that you wanted a marriage parade that I immediately agree, doing once again your bidding, performing my decorative role as your wife, and now I wish to return to my Garden.”

“Love, please” Morpheus walked a few steps close to her, not enough that she would feel threatened but enough that she could hear him. Love didn’t know what shocked her more, the fact that her name was dropping from the lips of her husband for the first time, without any title before it, or the fact that he was pleading. And Morpheus remembers quite well the words of the Cupid ‘don’t summon, invite her’. He cleared his throat and assumed the posture of a gentleman, one hand in his back and the other extended to her “Will you be kind enough to accompany me? Those dreams aided during my return. Besides, I would be delighted with the pleasure of your company. “ She took a second looking from his eyes to his hands before accepting it. “Any subject that aided my lord husband in his return, deserves my deepest gratitude.” Love stoically replied, a hint of tiredness in her voice. Morpheus looked at her trying to read any emotion, but Love did not look back.

Lucienne and Elijah were nowhere to be seen. And Love tried not to think about them being alone, she specially tried to avoid the thoughts that kept creeping in her mind about their last encounter in her quarters. How close they were, she could have kissed him. Despite the hate and the hurt. She could blame them for fear of losing their realms. Take his coat and shirt off, feel his arms, slide the point of her fingers all along his defined marbled torso, hear he groan in pleasure, feel him under his pants, his desire for her, the warmth of his breath in her neck, his mouth against every inch of her body, his tongue across her painfully hard nipples, while his hand took the other giving both his indivisible attention. Love would loudly moan in pleasure, keeping her fingers in his hair and eyes locked with him putting her hand on top of his, showing how she liked to be touch, desperate to teach and feel him everywhere, but he would want to savor every piece of her body, trailing kisses from her chest to her belly, skipping where she most needed him only to open her tights wide, Dream would flustered, his eyes darkening in lust, contrasting the delicate moving of his fingers finally reaching where Love most ache for him. She would let him beg for forgiveness every night between her legs.

“Your nails.”

Dream made her mind snap away from her deviation. She was starting to feel warm for nothing. She immediately relaxed her nails, realizing she was digging into his arm. “Forgive me. My feet are starting to tire me.” She lied, Dream noticed the red in her cheeks, but couldn’t possibly think why pain in her feet were a reason to be embarrassed. Maybe because she didn’t want to give in that he was right in using a carriage.

The raven haired king kept quiet during their walk, mostly because it was a difficult walk. Love nails started to dig into his arm a long time ago, he didn’t think she was having any difficulties in walking, but they were digging deep. He promised to himself that the path to her heart if there was any was through courting her properly, the very traditional way of courting, being invited to picnics, dinners, tea, dances in ballrooms, letters, slowly trying to gain her favors. But he could not help to wonder those same nails digging into his back or in both of his arms, having Love under him, feeling a hot wave of white pleasure across her whole body, digging her nails to keep him unbelievably closed, like being inside her wasn’t enough. His pants were starting to feel tight, and he tried his best to focus on the way. Cain and Abel, and Goldie. It didn’t help that the side of her breasts kept constantly nudging against his arm and through the side of his eyes he had the perfect view of her low neckline, which was more evident thanks to the tight corset he wanted to free her from.

He knew he had long lost his right in imagining her like this, to crave her like air, but he did both.

The couple walked in complete silence, before reaching two decaying Victorian style houses. The ground was covered in dry leaves, and the air smelled like autumn, which for Love didn’t make sense. She was about to question if she was able to be grateful to the houses. When two short men appeared. One looked quite cheerful, as the other had a cranky face. They were similar but at the same time, very different. No one needed to tell her they were brothers.

“Cain, Abel, this is Queen Eoster, Lady of the Four Loves, Princess of Springs, and Ruler of the Garden of Lovers and The Dreaming. She is my wife and your queen.” Love could not remember if she was ever introduced by Dream. Everyone already knew who they were, and she did not know how to feel hearing him actually telling others that she was his.

The brunette queen opened a polite smile, “Blessing from the Garden, Cain and Abel. I offer you my deepest gratitude for helping my husband, in such dire times.” She could see they were lost, looking at each other for a moment, before desperately looking over to Dream, who probably indicated something that they should do a courtesy. And they did, a clumsy one. Eoster could tell the cheerful one was a bit startled, while the cranky one seemed to be looking from Love to Dream, unsure. She realized they looked like a very atypical couple.

Love opened her mouth to break the awkward silence between them, when the cheerful one interrupted her. “My lady, do you like gargoyles?” At the same time, the cranky one punched his brother in the arm. “Do not interrupt her, Abel! The lady was about to speak!” Love flinched at the sudden violence, trying to avoid any conflict. Dream seemed unfazed by the interaction. Was this normal? “No, please. I can not say that I do, Abel. We do not have gargoyles in the Garden.” The eyes of the man seemed to sparkle with that realization. “Than you must meet Goldie. Lord Dream gave her to us. She will always be Irving to me, but please do not tell Cain.” He grabbed her hand, passing through the fallen leaves, Love’s hennin got stuck in a tree, and she turned back to grab, she immediately felt a breath in her back. She quickly turned to see a golden gargoyle.

Gargoyles were supposed to be terrifying, at least according to stories, however this was anything but. “Oh- Hello, hi” Love stumbled into a tree branch, almost falling back, but she supported the queen with her head, stabilizing her before Abel made the introductions mistaken a few of her titles as ‘Lady of the Four Springs’ and ‘Queen of the Springs’ but, the main title he got right, which was Lord Morpheus’ Queen. Goldie did the better bow between the trio. “Goldie likes you… ou-my lady” Cain stepped into Abel’s feet after he took a time not addressing Love by the proper title. Love did not care exactly. Especially because she was starting to grow fond of Abel. Love kept petting the Gargoyle and decided to ask some curiosities of her “ Do you both prefer a more autumnal scenario?”

Cain and Abel look at each other, unknowingly how to give the right answer, so Love explains, circling her finger indicating the environment “The dry leaves, dry trees, everything in orange-brown tones. Autumn.” They still kept quiet. It was not that Love did not liked autumn, she found it quite tolerable, going to the mortal’s world during this season always was pleasant, but it was also quite depressing.

“Your houses have a lovely front, and the soil is good. I can make it spring for you. Don’t you wish for blooming flowers, a light warm sun, trees full of green leaves, soft grass, maybe some carrots for Goldie?” Abel eyes were sparkling, he looked to Cain in excitement, but Cain seemed unsure. Not a fan of changes, Love could sense. “It would be my way of expressing gratitude.” She made a small bow, and that she knew would convince Cain. He was proud, but he would not say no to Love, especially with Dream right there.

Dream! “Of course, if my lord allows it, to shape his Dreaming.” She turned to him, completely forgetting that he was there! Biting down her lower lip almost as asking for forgiveness before the fight. She only wished he saved the lecture when they returned, not here. “You are Queen of the Dreaming, if it is your wish then I have nothing to allow.” He said in the most peaceful manner. Love frowned, taking a second to digest it, trying to sense any hostility, sarcastic, passive-aggressiveness, but he seemed to genuinely mean it. She was Queen of the Dreaming. Love couldn’t believe it.

The brothers sensed how unsure Love was. Constantly looking over to the Dream King as if he would change his mind at any second. Abel was about to tell her that it was no trouble at all. Dry leaves and dead trees were fine. She would not want her to get into trouble, especially after being kind to him.

But as he was about to speak, a cold air came across them, Lady Love had her feet on the ground, her eyes closed, as the next breeze came it smelled like freshly cut grass, and spikes of green herbs started to grow as the tree foliage, damaged tree trunks healed, the vines that climbed against the outside wall of the houses, went from brown to a deep green, as the smell of jasmyne, roses, lilies and lavenders started to rose, the field blossomed. Dream kept watching his wife awakening spring, her hair got fuller, and her skin slightly glowed as she was bathing in sun, she looked more alive than he ever saw her, while the nature besides him blossomed, he could only look at her.

The smell of rain came next. “Forgive me if it is not up to your liking, it’s been ages since I last performed a small spring, especially in front of an audience. We better get inside.” Love put her shoes back, before going to Morpheus’s side, her eyes were a vivid deep green that he never quite seen before. “ It is coming quite a storm to completely awake your spring my dreams, I believe I got too excited. We better go inside, unless you want to soak under the rain.” She expected any of them to lead the way, but Cain and Abel were still fascinated by the awakening happening all around them, Abel was especially charmed by the trail of tiny flowers, growning where Lady Love walked. And Dream kept cursing himself for his lack of control, thinking about his wife soaked under the rain, her dress sticky to her figure, her curls untangled, falling to her waist, the fabric semi transparent, showing her curves covered only by her underwear, that if he remembered were always flimsy lace, “Which house, shall we go?” Love innocently asked, not knowing where Dream’s thoughts were nor the argument this would cause.

Cain argued they should go to The House of Mystery, and Abel wanted them to go to The House of Secrets. Love did not know if she should intervene, for her the houses looked the same, even their names. Weren’t secrets just mysteries waiting for someone to discover them? And isn’t a mystery just an obscure secret? And most importantly wouldn’t they offer the same protection of the spring rain that was about to come? Love intervened when she thought Cain had a murderer look towards poor Abel. “We shall have tea in The House of Mystery! And of course we will have dinner at the House of Secrets. Does that please both of you? Then off we go, gentlemen, please. ” This seemed to settle the argument.

Dinner? She did not want to have dinner and tea with Cain and Abel. Actually she didn’t mind the dreams or the gargoyle, but she did mind pretending to be a happy harmonious couple more than she had planned. But how could she stop the two brothers? Love let the two walk upfront, making the preparations, like a mother that let the kids close the door before fighting with a low voice with her husband. “Would you let the two of them kill each other? Do your dreams mean nothing to you?” She spat, passing her hands through her hair.

“Abel is the First Victim and Cain the First Murderer”. He answered as this was enough to settle her down, when he saw her face continued the same, he further the explanation. “Cain is constantly killing Abel, and Abel does not remain dead. Cain always buries him, but Abel is alive again by sunrise. Cain is trying to avoid killing Abel in front of you. Out of respect”

He did not mention that he was the one telling them to avoid bloodshed, since Love was not fond of manslaughter, nor was herself used to it. Love looked at Dream with disbelief in her eyes. Did he learn nothing with Morningstar? Did he not listen to her? “And you did not thought that was crucial to share with your wife?” Dream crossed his arms in his back “Lady wife, you did not ask any habit of my other creations, I did not think this was any different.”

Love blinked looking at her unfazed husband. Tall, dark hair, pale, and not a hint of annoyance. He was not lying, she could tell. Morpheus did not lie. But he was not being sincere either. Something in Love kept nudging her that he wanted this to happen. It could be insanity, she must be going insane after those days. Better ladies would already give up. But it could be true. Maybe he wants to spend time with her, convincing her that he has changed for the better.

Well, she would give him reasons to regret it.

—------------

Tea time was tense. Abel kept shaking his tea. Cain kept giving murderer looks to his brother that flinched and shaked even more. During a conversation, Dream tried to hold Love’s hand over the table and she abruptly took it away, not breaking eye contact with the brothers that were telling a story. The brothers pretended not to notice the queen’s anxiety, every plastered smile Queen Love offered, every rehearsed compliment, and those half-a-second-blink-and-missed coldly glancing at Dream as a warning. Near the end of the tea time, Love asked a question that changed the course of her later evening “ How did the name Goldie come to you? Was it both of your choices? My sisters and I could never agree on naming clouds, imagine gargoyles!”

Five minutes later, Abel’s blood spills in Love’s face, Dream’s coat, and the table cookies, their chamomile tea acquiring a pink color after a dash of blood mixed to it.

Four hours later, there was no dinner, Cain was outside burying Abel. And Dream and Love were settled in a bedroom that Cain fixed for them to share a night at the House of Secrets. This time it wasn’t Dream who convinced Love, but Cain. He said that they need to fulfill their promise and to wait for Abel to say goodbye.

“If that was the case, then you should have learned how to control your nerves better, Cain of the House of Mysteries.” She scolded the dream. Cain was taken aback by her response. He heard Lady Love was kind, beautiful, generous and very polite, no one said anything about her scolding, how it felt like it was disappointing and betraying a mother. Cain merely nodded with his head down. He was ashamed of something he had done his whole existence. How was that possible?

Love did not caring if her husband would later scolded her for it.

To her surprise he didn’t. At the moment, he looked a bit… impressed. Like he didn’t know that Love could scold or lecture her subjects. Her cheeks turned pink when she realized he was looking at her in awe.

Now, they were stuck in one bedroom. Neither she or Morpheus had the courage to ask for separate rooms. It would be one night. At a dream’s house. What could possibly go wrong?

Love tried to tell herself, as she walked to the couple’s bed, covered in old flowery covers matching the walls, it looked like an old room in a farm cottage. She stopped between the bed and the vanity, untying her dress. Love could not sleep in her gown, it was too big and occupied too much of a space.

She stripped down the gown, and marched away from the two petticoats Elijah put her on. The corset was the last piece missing and she was struggling with the tight knots Elijah gave. It seemed silly, but it has been centuries since she was the one undressing herself, she usually had a dream maid or Elijah to help her, even Lucienne helped her once. She was getting tired of trying to push the knot since it seemed to tightens it more. Maybe she could sleep in a corset. It would crush her ribs. Nothing much.

“May I?” She wasn’t surprised with Dream behind her, she heard his footsteps. Love just didn't expect him to come help her. At first she denied, saying it was fine. He did not move, of course he didn't believe her, a single person could not untie the amount of knots in that dress. He could not understand why Love still picked those laced ribbons type of dresses, but he had a feeling that if he mentioned anything, Love would kill him in bed. “Fine.” She gave up.

Love didn’t want Dream this near to her. She could feel his breath in her neck, and it sent shivers down her spine. She held her breath and become stiff under his fingers when they slightly grazed her skin over the cotton gown. Love could see his expertly hands working through the mirror in the vanity. Even with the corset getting loose it was getting harder to breathe.

Dream pretended to be well composed, but his breath was uneven, and he was sure Love would notice. His mouth was dried and he tried to ignore it, while trying to focus on the ribbon knots, and avoid gazing at the naked skin of her shoulders, the connection point between her neck, and how it moved with every small turn. How he wanted to close the space between them, and kissed and take her scent in, discard that corset and put his hand over her waist, embrace her, let her skin melt against his, as he would slide his hands under her gown, feel her silk skin against his fingers, mark her neck as his.

He turned his eyes to the mirror, trying to get away from those thoughts, especially since he was going to share a bed with Love. He might daydream about his wife wanting to give him her tender affections, but he knew that in reality if Love even suspected he was slightly aroused, she would put her dress back and sleep on the floor. And he didn’t want her to be uncomfortable because he couldn’t control himself. Sharing a bedroom was not in his plans. Spend time with her, yes, but this was pushing the limits.

His eyes crossed with hers, as she was staring at him working on her corset through the mirror. He continuously untied her corset, but he didn’t break eye contact, neither did her. Both of them played a dangerous game, until her garment fell into the ground.

“Thank you” Love shyly said, turning herself to the bed, getting quickly under the covers, even if her nightgown covered every piece of her body besides her shoulders and her ankles. She tried to focusing herself, remembering why Dream was an expert in untying dresses. ‘ Yours he wasn't untying.’ She sat on the bed, braiding her long hair. She didn't had to, but at least it would keep her mind away from her husband stripping in front of her. “If it pleases you, I can sleep on the floor”.

Morpheus suggested standing at the side of the bed. Love looked at him in a normal black cotton shirt and boxers that matched it. Thinking it was a good idea. But also seeing the ridicule of it. They were married. He had seen her naked before, she laid with him, he spilled his seed into her. But even if it sounded ridiculous, sharing a bed in nightclothes was far more intimate then everything they shared “We are married” She shrugged off, it was the answer to their questions, she opened the covers on his side. “Maybe you should have one and I the other”. She pulled one of the covers to her side of the bed, pushing one to leave on Morpheus' side. He looked hurt believing she thought that he would do anything to her during the night. Another sin to carry. That was the type of husband she thought he was. That was the treatment he gave her.

Love on the other hand kept thinking that she just didn’t want to wake up curled into his arms.

She would never have thought that Morpheus would do anything nonconsensual to her during the night, he had plenty of opportunity to do it in the palace, and never did. Why would he start now? With dreams just outside their windows that could hear everything. It would not give him a good look.

Morpheus did not argue with her, merely agreeing.

As soon as he fixed himself, Love blew out the candle in their bedroom. Laying against her pillow. It wasn't fluffy as the pillow from the Gardens nor stained with tears or wine like the pillows from the Dreaming.

It had an unknown smell that was not helping her sleep nor the sound of Cain’s shovel. She closed her eyes trying to shut her internal voices, thinking about the pink milky lakes in the Garden, the sweet melodies her protégés would play, the sound of waves hitting the shore.

It did not work. She turned to her sides, feeling Morpheus was too close or the bed was too small. She decided to lay looking at the ceiling. How many hours did she spent turning on bed? Was it already morning? She needed to sleep.

The more she looked at the ceiling the more she realized she wasn’t going to sleep even if she was tired. “Husband, are you asleep?”

It was an odd question to ask, she realized. She did not know if Morpheus actually slept. He was the Sandman after all, but did he get the chance to experiment his own creations? Or he merely crafts his realm and its people for others enjoyment and misery? Always looking outside but never living it himself.

Both had more in common than Love realized.

He took his time to answer her, and she believed he could be sleeping. “No, my lady. I am not.” Love nodded, even if he couldn’t see. She moved, sitting on the bed resting her back against the headboard “May I ask you a question?”

Morpheus mirrored her, sitting in the bed “Yes.”

Love frowned, already regretting the question. She could have just stayed quiet. “You have to promise not to be crossed.” She didn’t mean to sound childish as she sounded.

“I will not. You may ask.” She could not see in the darkness but could feel Dream smile when answering her.

Love cleaned her throat “How was it?”

“Pardon me?” He could not have listened to her, after all she whispered like a student afraid of answering the wrong question from the professor.

“How was it to be imprisoned all those years?” She took a deep breath, reuniting all the courage to keep this conversation.

“ Why the sudden interest?” Love definitely regretted asking it. She did not know why she asked. It just popped in her head. Maybe because he kept saying his imprisonment changed him, changed how he sees her. She wanted a better understanding. Or it was her stupid heart trying to find any excuses to forgive him.

“ I can’t sleep” She lied shrugging her shoulders

“And details of my imprisonment might aid you?” Love could not contain a roll of eyes.

She stayed silent, both of them. He was crossed, he lied, although he didn’t sound like it. Morpheus sounded more amused than crossed, but Love couldn't trust what she felt he sounded like. It was dark, her senses were frail. She couldn’t trust anything. She turned herself to the opposite side, preparing to lay back and try to sleep or impatiently count the seconds so the night could be over.

“ Lonely.” He took a deep breath. “At first I kept thinking about the Dreaming, how it would be without me, neglected, unprotected, the effects on the wakening.” The Sleeping Sickness. Of course. Love remembers bits of it. She thought it was just an unrelated name to a common sickness, but it rendered dramatic love stories, couples forever apart by a forever sleep. “Then I remembered that you were here and my thoughts turned to your work, if you were getting a hold of it, dealing with dreams and nightmares, my siblings.” He didn’t say but part of him was expecting to come back to war ground, the Dreaming infested with Desire. How foolish it sounded now. “ I thought I was only thinking about duties, about the continuation of things, but as time went by, I realized that among all of it, I truly kept thinking about you. I worried about the dream folk and the realm but I kept always coming back on you. If anyone was helping you understand the Dreaming since I retrieve myself from that duty, if you were tired of bearing my load, if you were staying at the Dreaming or at the Garden, if you slept in my quarters as you were the sole ruler or continued in your bed, if anyone dared to defy your authority. When I realized, I stopped thinking about the work, and kept losing myself in these few memories of you, that were so scarce but fed my hopes of return, your soft delicate hands over mine, your floral scent. I curse myself for not remembering your smile, but clearly remembering your tears, the sound of your cries. I vowed that when I get back, I would make my daily iteration to make my Queen smile, so I could never forget. And if damnation came upon me, at least I have your radiance to remember when walking through my sister’s realm, knowing that I am not responsible for only your tears, but some of your happiness.”

Love could not keep her eyes away from Dream. His hair was a mess, he had prominent eye bags. His queen could not remember if she ever saw him more human, and under the soft moonlight coming from the thin curtains, he looked more handsome than she ever saw him. And the vulnerability! She was a fool, she knew her sisters would scold her for having a soft heart but she didn’t think properly when she suddenly kissed her husband.

Her lips crashing against his, she meant to pull away in a second, hide under the covers, and pretend nothing happened, afraid he might reject her. But contrary to her anxieties, he quickly responded to her kiss, and moved carefully against her mouth afraid she might break away. Love shyly opened her mouth as he gladly slipped his tongue inside which elicited a needy moan from his Queen that she had not realize it came from her, nor the effect it had on her husband who desperately needed to hear the sounds he could get from Eoster and felt a dire need to have her body close against him, he curled his hands into her hair, as they deepen the kiss.

Love showed no resistance to dwelling in his touch, letting the burning sensation on her body take over. Morpheus pulled her to him, letting Love straddle his lap, her gown pooled above her mid thigh, partially exposing her legs. Her hands resting flattened against his chest, feeling his heartbeat underneath her touch. She can imagine how he would look without a shirt underneath the weak light. They break their kiss for a second as her hands cradle his face, and she rested her forehead against his, even with the low light both staring at each other, their silence being only accompanied by their dorment passion, their chest heaving in synchrony.

Their moment was a brief eternity, Dream kept looking from her eyes to her parted lips, and when Love gave him a gentle kiss as consent to continue, Dream wasted no time, tracing a path of wet kisses from her mouth to her collarbone, following to her pulse point as she tilted her head giving him more access. His lips were warm from their kiss but they sent shivers across her back as he nipped the skin of her neck. Love weakly moaned, her tights tensed pressing harder against Dream.

Her hands went to his soft raven haired hair, grabbing his locks into her fingers, to which he groan in pleasure and Love felt a electric wave through her body. She wanted more. His hand was on her stomach, she could feel how cold they were as his fingertips raised the hem of the nightgown, delicately as he wanted to indulge every second of it.

She didn’t stop her sleeves to fall from her shoulder letting the sight of the top of her breast exposed, a silent invitation to be touched. Dream’s hand went up to her body, feeling every inch of skin, the warmth of his wife, he couldn’t take his hands away from her, it would be a sin, a crime to do it. To have neglected her all those years, he was the one that deserved an eternity in Hell for his foolishness.

Love was unsure if the feelings from her body were clouding her eyes, but she could swear Morpheus was smiling at her, and she was smiling at him. His hand laid over her breast, his palm a warm pressure over her nipple. Love arched her back, moving her hips, pushing her breast more into his hand “Dream…” the neediness in her voice, his name dropping from it like prayer, and if he never wanted or needed worshipers before, he would be content to only listen to her prays. ”Yes?” The rasp of his voice mixed with eagerness, wanting to hear every single need his Queen had. He started circling her breasts, pinching her hard nipple, as she moaned with each touch as he was discovering what would make Love say his name again. She took one of her hands to the other breast, feeling it burning in desire for her husband’s hand. Her palms were not the same as his, she squeezed it a bit stronger than her husband, to mimic the pressure.

The Dream King was mesmerized by his wife pleasing herself, he stopped for a moment his movements just to see her, throwing her head back, and looking deep into his eyes, full of desire, as a whimp escaped her lips “Touch me”.

Both of them shared a look, as she put her hand over his, showing how she wanted to be touched. Love never saw Morpheus take so well instructions from her. He didn’t need to be afraid she was going to break, so she pressed his hands more intensively against her, Love needed his touch as one needed air, she needed to feel his fingers dig in her skin, and as he learn, and Dream was a quick learner, she let go of his hands, holding him by his shoulder and then his back digging her nails in his skin as she pressed again her hips into him, his breath hicks, letting his head fall in her shoulder, his hair tickling her cheek as he kissed her skin, letting love marks all across her collarbone. One of his hands went to her waist to keep her close, she could feel Dream harder under her and his length grazing in her entrance, when he bucked his hips to meet her, sending a wave of pleasure that she wanted to keep chasing.

”Do you like it?” He whispered against her ear, and she stopped for a moment, Dream looked at her, flustered and painting, afraid he might have ruined it. As he opened his mouth to apologize, she kissed him, whispering back “You never asked before.” It was not a spiteful reply, like the ones before, everytime he asked her something about her well-being. It was a lovable answer, full of hope and happiness, like Dream finally asked the one thing that mattered in all those centuries. As a response to his question, she rolled her hips against his, feeling his hard on, and he immediately met her in the same motion, Dream holded her waist down to keep her exactly where she was, and both couldn’t help but moan louder than expected.

After years of their date nights being a painful annoyance only making her feel dirty, having to clean herself and drink tea for pain the next day, she never thought she would get any pleasure from her husband's erection, and she might be wrong or the heat got to her head but she couldn’t remember feeling him so stiff before. And for Garden’s sake, knowing she was the one making him painfully hard, was one sweat reward she never expected to feel.

“The crimes that I blame you for, they mean nothing more to me, my love” His words were sweet whispers as they shared sloppy kisses, while caressing her nude thighs. She was already soaking for him, it was not in her plans to get so easily aroused by him. But how can she not want to make true of every single fantazie she imagined all those years? Especially when Morpheus' was being gentle and attentive, his touch was addictive, her body responded to it as it did not need her mind to decide for it. As it wanted to give all for him. To be drunk on his touch, on his mouth, on his voice.

It wanted to ignore his words, but they kept resonating in her ears. Her body keep screaming to forget, forget and forget, that it didn’t matter, that she would ruin this, what she deserves, being worshiped in bed by her husband. She could smile and let him kiss her pain away, ignore his meaning. In a few moments he would be inside her, Love could tell by the way they kept quickly escalating their innocent kisses, and it would be pleasant, fulfilling, passionate, everything she always wanted. And Honesty would be right, Dream would try to compensate for all the years of negligence. And they would be the couple nobody invited to stay for longer festivities. But her mind kept turning the gears, repeating that he did not say that she was innocent of their forced marriage, he only dismissed it as he was forgiving her. He could not possible mean it, right?

“Crimes that I did not commit.” She lustfully whispered in the middle of a high pitched moan closing her eyes and pressing her forehead against his as Morpheus left her breasts to give attention to her neglected core, circling and pressing a finger over her thin underwear. He knew he was the only one to touch her wet cunt, she never had a lover and although he knew she not only could but should have by the way he treated her, he couldn’t help to feel more turned on by knowing he would be the only one giving her the denied pleasure he punished her with. And how much pleasure he plans to give Love.

His touch was vastly different from her own. It was intense and extremely hot, his fingers where slender and longer than hers, and could reach new spots she would not dream in touching, her insides clenched for him. “My lady, you are dripping for me.” He said as soon as he pushed away her underwear, and pushed a finger over her slit, circling her bud as well as pressing against her entrance. She hated how his words made it more difficult to think, how she grinded herself on his finger to raise the friction. “Yes, only for you, my king”. She felt dizzy and warm and drunk on his touch, Morpheus was painfully hard seeing her getting off on his fingers complemented with her filthy words, he gifted her pushing a finger inside her dripping entrance. It easily slided like it was meant to be inside her, he curled it in his direction, feeling her walls clenched around his fingers, as she cried at the intrusion. For a moment she thought that maybe she could make him say what she wanted if her body and mouth worked to let him be completely drunk on her as she was on him.

But it wouldn’t be true. He would say it merely to seek relise, to have her. Which was exactly what love has been avoided for all of these years.

She resisted the urge to ask him for another finger, although her body craved for it.

Trying to sober herself up from his touch and his warmth. She needed to hear him say. She needed more than any carnal desire. She needed to be believed by him. ”Morpheus?” She said his name for the first time, and squeezed his arm. He looked at her puzzely, she knew by his face that he was about to ask if he did anything to displease her, since her pleasure seems to be his focus. She cupped his face and looked him in the eyes, repeating herself “Crimes that I did not commit” so he would have the chance agree and make her entirely his.

He look at her, the lack of his immediate response set her aback and his next words were the wrong ones “We can move past this” a tired whisper, a string Dream was throwing at Love expecting she would catch. He went to kiss her again, but Love turned her face. The heat among them was lowering, and a wave of cold air ran through them, the rift between them opening again.

Love couldn’t believe that those words spoken in a sweet whisper, while both were entangled in each others arms, could be more cruel than any of their screams amids drunk fights before. How he managed to break her heart more than it was already broken.

Her eyes scanned through his face in disappointment and realization. “You still believe on that, don't you? You are convinced that I conspired with Desire.” Dream saw that he was losing her again, he saw in her green iris something broke inside her. Something drift away and slipped through his hands.

He could have lied, said exactly what she wanted to hear, but he couldn’t lie to himself and he couldn’t disrespect his wife by lying to her. They would be one of those couples that pretended to be happy, shoving everything else in the basement, until one day it came exploding in their faces. Or worse, it could be used against them, which could led to catastrophic consequences.

Love didn’t move, she dropped her hands fatigued, but still staring at her husband. Like holding her stare maybe would make him change his answer. What a romantic and stupid want. Her eyes started to feel dry, and the more she blinked the more she felt tears starting to pool. She felt ashamed of her exposed vulnerability. Not only of her body and how it crave for him, how it was responsive and wanted to ignore his words only to seek a sweet white relief, but her soul, how she let it again be hurt by him.

She was no better than any naive maid who fell for Wodan’s cheap charm. “ I am such a fool”

“ We can move past this” he repeated himself because that was the only think he could say. It was the past. They needed to move on. He holded her face in his hands caressing her cheek, looking at her teary eyes, he broke her heart once more, he knew and she was slipping away again, he wanted to hold her, so he could hold this moment, hold themselves.

Love knew if she nudged against his touch for a single moment, if she let him comfort her, she would not be able to leave. So she snap his hands of her.

She raised herself from him, returning to her side of the.bed, raising her sleeve and pushing down her gown feeling glad it was dark so he could not see the tears falling from her eyes. She wished she could run from this bedroom, whatever promises she made, threw it all to hell and never come back, never see his face again. “Love, please…” he reached his hands to touch hers, but she snapped them away before he could even touch her

She abruptly cut him, a knot in her throat making it almost impossible to speak, her voice was shaky, unstable, she felt herself trembling. “We can’t move past this, we can’t have a future without trust. We can’t hope for it, can’t you see, husband? You don’t forgive. And don’t tell me your imprisonment changed you, because you can say all you want but the proof of your inability to forgive lives in Hell at this moment because she declined you. And even after our marriage, the girl still is tormented in hell, just because you hold your grudges.”

“And do you forgive?! Do you dare say you don’t hold any grudges?!” Her husband snaps at her.

“My grudges are justified and you know it.” Love said in a serious tone

“And mine are not?” Love saw his point, but she would not argued it with him, besides she did not want to give in

“ You can’t forgive her, and you can’t forgive me” Love said it in one breath afraid if she stopped, she would begin to cry. And Love did not want to cry in front of him.

“Love, it is not at all the same, you…I…” Morpheus tried to justify, but what could he say? That Love was his wife, and he would never submit her to such treatment? He already did. He did not sent her to Hell, of course, but he did put her to live in misery.

“Eventually, we will fight again or I will displease you in some manner, and you will turn back to this ludicrous idea of conspiracy, and use it as fuel to punish me in bed and in public, and I will use wine to ease the pain you carelessly inflict on me. And you will say that I carved my own fate when I decided to conspire with Desire. As you said over and over.” Morpheus stayed silent, he couldn’t argue with her, Love knew his behavior too well.

Tears rolled freely from her cheeks, and Love did not make any attempt to clean them up “I am glad you are trying to fix the pain you cause me, I can see you truly repent of it and I am awfully sorry that you had to go through a century of imprisonment to realize your mistakes, but don’t lie to yourself, Morpheus, you don’t forget, you don’t move on and you still believe I mislead you, that I plot with Desire.” She glanced over at him, probably her own tears on the way, but if she didn’t know better, she would say that a tear ran through her husband cheek.

His voice however, was the same “It does not matter to me, it is nothing”

Love screamed in response losing her posture and control “It is everything! And it does matter to me! How can you be so blind?! You still think that some part of me is a vile creature that trapped you and hold you into a loveless marriage and that I conspired with Desire to aid in your demise.“

And pulling the memories, a week after their first night together, when she thought she could not live anymore, Love went to him, in all her innocence and naïveté “I begged you to believe me, I wept, I got on my knees, desperately pleading to you believe in my word, to see reason, to read the false letters, to believe in your wife. And do you know what you did, do you remember it?” At the ocassion she threw at his feet the hundred of letters written by Desire. And Dream, sat on his throne frowning reading a book, glanced at his wife, after the pleads and all was left was his sobbing Queen, on the lower step of the stairs, head in her hands, covering her eyes, as she kept crying.

Love never knew how he could see her crying and do nothing at all. Because that is what he did.

He left. Morpheus remembered it. He thought that Desire had chosen a good actress to partner with and how she patronize him, by thinking he, Lord of Dreams, would fall for a trick as a beautiful damsel in distress, in need of only his assistance.

“You left.” Love said it coldly. How could he not see the pain, she was before?

And Lord Morpheus, who would have dream prefer the silence but when spoke, speak always so eloquent, kept repeating the only thing he could “We still can find way to be together”

Amidst a sob that Love did not mean to escape but it found its way to her mouth before her words, she decided to open her heart, because what else would he do? He couldn’t break her heart anymore, he couldn’t lose her anymore that she was already lost “I love you, Morpheus. I do. I have to say it now because I won’t be able to muster up the courage to say it again. Against every fiber of my being, every pure logic, even knowing you were not the one the wrote those letters, I still see those same traits that made me fell in love, you are dutiful to your work, to the mortal world and the dream folk, you deeply feel and care for those you love even if I never was the one receiving it, I could see. And it hurts, because you never believed in the sincerity of my feelings and I cannot believe yours are anything but starvation of touch and sympathy, I am a fool for even a second thinking otherwise, and I can not bear to risk being misled again. I simply cannot hold anymore pain”

He didn’t know why he tried to speak but he had to “Love, listen-“ he had to at least try to make her stop, to make him rethink. But the doors were closed.

Elijah said Lady Love’s heart was never closed to love, that was her essence, but he was not sure if her Cupid ever saw her like this.

The way Love spoke next, it was devoided of any emotion, any pain, it was a tired speech, but she spoke as it was not up for discussion. And how could Morpheus tried to argue with her?

“After the Festival, I wish to go back to the Garden, with my court. We will call it a holiday. I will not be coming to the Dreaming, unless under your calling, and I deeply expect my lord husband to be less inclined in calling me, and highly advise you to find a mistress that will take care of your needs, for I won’t willingly lay with you anymore.”

She slided under the covers turning to the other side, looking at the window, they both stayed silent. The sound of Cain’s shovel being the only noise filling the space. She heard his sigh in defeat, more wonded than ever before.

“ Very well, lady wife”

Chapter Text

A burning anguish overwhelmed his chest, his entire body was trembling, and his vision was blurry from tears that kept running over his cheeks and had no intention in stopping, breathing was difficult but he couldn’t stop walking through empty halls. Morpheus' feelings were usually constrict but at this moment it felt like they were filling his chest, leaking from his pores. He supported himself on a corner trying to take a deep breath, wiping the tears with the corner of the trembling hands. Raising his head to try to stop the tears, his eyes seeing his reflection at the mirrored ceiling.

It wasn’t him. It was he who was looking, but the person who looked back wasn't him. The long brown hair in loose braids, the watery green eyes with long lashes, cheeks flushed. But the Dream King didn’t process this. He returned his head back, trying to stabilize himself. It didn’t surprise him the fact that he was wearing a tight corset with a flowy floor length light blue dress with tulle spiked in stardust and heels. Not only did it not strange him, he didn’t notice he was Lady love.

His perception was an unusual one, he was an observer and a character. He was devoid of his feelings and his notions and filled with hers. He saw his wife running through his palace’s halls in distress, he felt that distress, he was walking in her shoes, reacting with her reactions. The abundance of feelings was overwhelming as her thoughts, or his thoughts. It was like a radio out of signal that he was still trying to synchronize . He didn’t know how he got to this place, or what happened, but Love’s body and mind knew, and he couldn’t stop. He tried to end the dream, maybe he somehow invaded it, but he couldn’t. Maybe this was her dream or nightmare, he never visited those personally and did not intended to do it now. This was A True Marriage thing. It was like a movie playing live where no one had the control to pause it. It was already in motion and Morpheus would be part of it whether he wanted it or not.

Love stepped into Dream’s room filled with each of his siblings sigils. She entered without permission, barging desperate, holding Desire’s sigil in her trembling hands “I want to see Desire” She said cleaning with the back of her hands her stained mascara

His devious sibling voice responded as they seemed to already know what it was about, not a bit surprise that it was his brother wife calling through an endless only line “ Well come in”

“ How dare you!” Love angrily steps throwing a pack of letters with a red sealing open at Desire, hundreds of hand written love letters flew spreading across the floor. Desire was notably unworried, languidly laying stretched like a cat “Hello dear sister” . That debauchery always made Morpheus furious, and he felt the same feeling emanating from his wife

“ I trusted you like a dear sibling and you deceived me” Love grinded her teeth, holding a cry, Desire unfazed “You wrote these letters! You pretend to be Dream, you lied to me! Now I am, I am-“ Ruined. That was what the dozens of voices that kicked her head. She did not want to say it out loud, because marriage could not be her ruin, she was the protector of marriages, the lady of love. How could something so dear to her, cause such pain?

Desire pushed their lips into a cheshire malevolent grin, adjusting themselves on the couch, so they could face Love closely, resting their face in their arm “ Did he make you his queen yet? Or is he resisting the charms of having the Virgin Goddess herself warming his bed?” Love taken by a fury unlocked by her sibling-in-law, grabbed them by the throat squeezing tight with nails digging in their skin, a bit of herself was surprised by the violence she never had a tendency of displaying. That Tittle. That was one Love was not called in ages. She dismissed it as a ridiculous one, because she was indeed the protector of fertility, virginity and marriage, but she would not stay untouched for the rest of her existence, it was only until find pure love.

Morpheus felt the painful tension on her back muscles keeping a stiff posture, the sting of her nails digging in the flesh of his sibling. The question lingering in the air, pinching her lower stomach as a reminder of Morpheus not resisting her charm. He made her entirely his, he marked her on the inside, but he did not make her a queen. His own memory or it was hers? The weak whimps and panic filled in doe eyes pleading for gentleness, for sympathy.

All these memories made her squeeze her hand tighter in Desire’s neck. Eoster was tearful but devoid of remorse, of any emotion. ”I should kill you” she considered it loudly, her voice determined. Morpheus would never expect his wife to do such a thing, before, he was certain she would not touch a fly, seeing this side of her, darkness filling her eyes, he was not sure anymore. “Be careful now, sister.” Desire started right back at Eoster, their golden eye pupils were not scared, in fact, they kept smiling, contrasting their lack of air due to Love's iron grip in their neck “Family shall not spill blood of family”.

Love loosened her grip, but did not let go of their neck, she bended over the couch, getting near Desire's face “ You will fix this. You will tell my husband that I was tricked as he was, that it was a vile game of yours and yours alone. Speak the truth for once.” She gave them one more squeeze in their neck, before letting it go, turning her back to her sibling in law, her heart beat accelerated it, as she ran her hands through her hair. What would she do if Desire didn’t take their responsibilities?

“And do you think he would believe me? Silly, silly dove”. Desire lifted themselves, clicking their heels on the floor walking in slow circles around Love. A predator ready to catch its prey “I could go to him, recite all those sugary boring letters by heart, and he would not believe you. It would not aid you either, because if you are still contacting me, you are still plotting with me. By the way, did he know that you are using his sigils to come to me? Oh, Dovey, he will not take that lightly, conspiring under his nose. Nada was sent to Hell for less than that. I Wonder what he will do to you. ” Desire tap their finger in the cheek in a fake wonder. Love gulped, trying to keep a straight face, ignoring the tears running through her cheeks, calling desperately for help.

The memories of her first weeks, Morpheus could see how this was early in their marriage through her eyes, how she ran towards his arms every time he arrived at any of his palace’s rooms that she already was, how excited and curious she was about the Dreaming, always spying through the windows, eagerly to talk to any dream or nightmare she bumped into. Love never spoke ill of him, or showed any distaste for the Dreaming. And he would be there in her memories, shoving her away, telling her to shut it, ignoring her occasional glances over books he was reading, even if he could see she seemed interested, avoiding to stay in the same room as her, finding work to do somewhere else. And the thousand sounds of doors being closed at her face.

His own memories started to clash with hers, mixing point of views with her at his chambers door, different nightgowns, a frightened face, and then an emotionless slightly older face. He felt the tightens of her and the tightens of her fingers in the silk sheets, his release dripping out of her turning to the wetness of tears in her pillows, the bliss of his orgasm shifting from the relief of finally breathing cold air outside his room, of finally ending date night. A vertiginous and continuous crash of memories and feelings that kept drowning Dream away from the narration of Desire and Love.

But this dream was not letting him escape so easily. He was pushed right back feeling afraid of the unknown penalty, his wife was feeling. Desire words got to her. The voice of one of her sisters, he dared to guess Lady Honesty although he could not tell Honesty from Melancholy apart even if rumors had it they were vastly different. ‘More treacherous than charming, you ought to be careful with your closeness with Lady- Lord Desire, they had never uttered a single word without some dishonorable intention’. Treacherous kept ressonating in her brain like a tick of a clock. Love ignored that advice, thinking it was jealousy that she was a new favorite of Desire.

“ Oh Dovey, but do not worry your pretty head” In a fake pity Desire pouted at her, hugging Love from behind, sliding their fingers along her curls, she did not push him away. She was startled, helpless. There was nothing to do. Desire was right. Morpheus would not believe her, or their sibling. He already was sure what happened. And Desire words seemed like velvet in her ear, like she could nest in their shoulder, letting her weight against them, that they would take care of her.

She did not need to worry her head “You are Lady of The Four Love, protector of fertility, virgins and marriage. Goddess of Spring” Their words were soothing, Love could not bother to correct all those wrong titles, her head was starting to feel light, eyelids heavy “A beauty that transcends time, able to wage and finish wars, you can whisper at mortals ear and make them a loving father with a family or obsessive compulsive stalker with an religious excuse. Isn’t that you?”

Love dumbly nod along. “He hates me” She wimpered like a child, and Desire shushed her, their soothing voice and touch continued to keep her in almost sedated state.

“Dovey are you telling me that hate is stronger than love? That you are incapable of making my brother love you? You Queen of Love, and my brother who is always moping about having the most tragic love life of the universe, both not able to love each other?” Their velveteen-like tone was cut by a cackle that made Love raise her head and look at Desire, looking more awake “I am not a joke. Is that what this is to you? A joke?!”

Of course she was. Love and Dream would be a laughing anecdote Desire would tell in every social for the next thousand of years. But they would not tell her that. Seeing Love reaction, they forcefully pushed her head back against their chest, lowering their voice again, making it melt inside her ears “Of course not, never. You are Queen of the Dreaming, Lady of Dreams and Nightmares. Princess of Stories.” Love’s vision became hazy and difficult to see, the blood red walls of Desire’s realm, shifted to a dark red, Desire felt her relaxing against them, they gently swooped one of her arms over her head, making it touch their shoulder, entangled even more against them, exposing her neck to them, entirely vulnerable. “You are my Queen.” Love felt their breath against her ear, their words filling her with a delightful calmness.

Morpheus felt a rush of his own feeling angerness, jealousy. He wanted to barge in and drag Love away from his sibling's claws. Desire tried to seduce his wife, not only that, they were clouding her mind with their powers to have her.” Silly, silly ungrateful brother, complaining about having you forever…” Their voice continue to soothe her nerves. Dream felt their hands now dance against her figure with a feather-like touch that made Love wimp in want.”Such a young thing...” Their hands went from her waist up to the side of her breasts, lightly pressuring them, “Supple breasts…”

Morpheus was raging. He would not care if Desire was endless, if they did anything to her while she could not properly consent, he would not respond for his actions.

Why did she never tell him this? The question lingered with him and almost as the memory answered him, he realized what she thought. He would not believe her. And the worst thing is, he can’t say that she was wrong.

Love slightly opened her eyes to see a reflection of her and Desire, she did not remember a mirror in front of them, but a cold shiver went through her body, heart beating fast, and her eyes open wide in desperation as she saw that it was not Desire touching her. Or it was but they were shape shifted as her husband, her breath started to hick, feeling the feather like kisses on her neck.

Love's throat was dry, she felt paralyzed, holding out a moan on the back of her throat, she could see her reflection, their reflection. Her husband's eyes were dark and full of lust, he never looked at her like this, he barely looked at her. “A tight, firm…” his raspy voice, it was not Desire’s velveteen like voice, but Morpheus’s deep voice, which was smothered by her loud cry as his hands, his long pale fingers squeezed her ass, and she arched her back their hands keeping her in place, she could see him smiling smugly in their reflection. Morpheus did not smile like that.

He never smiled at her but she knew he did not smile like that. Desire took that as an invitation and slides his hands to her lower stomach, caressing her until reaching the the inner side of her thigh pressing his fingers “Uncharted legs...'' they took her scent in as she kept mesmerizing looking at their reflection, she couldn’t break away, she didn’t want to or she did, she did not know, some of her would let him do anything he wanted to her, if he just continuing whispering to her, if his hands never leave her body. Why did it matter if it was Desire? It was her husband there touching her. It sounded like him, it smelled like him, it looked like him. Some of her was terrified.

“This dream is over.” Morpheus, the real one, seeing the memory in front of him unravel said, and repeated it loudly as it did not change, and now Desire’s fingers were collecting her skirt, raising it, revealing Love’s lily-white legs and tights, “This dream is over!” But whatever it was, and now he was certain this was not a common dream or nightmare, it did not obey. It did not end. It was something with the True Marriage's bond. Dream was stuck seeing his wife being cared for by another. By his sibling. “And whatever your heart desires you shall have it”

The atmosphere was antagonized by the cold feeling of a tear, running down her eye, and the warmth of her body. Love blinked, and blinked once again trying to stop it. Why was she crying? Her real husband did not love her anyway, wasn’t it an appropriate revenge to get to one of his siblings? Wasn’t he going to keep mistress? Then why shouldn't she? Then why was she crying? Why wasn’t she able to say anything, to stop it?

Morpheus felt her agony, the beat of her heart intensified, her mind was clouded, she was not thinking properly, but her body reacted to it, like it did not want it to happen. “And you can always come to me-“ Desire fingers ran free playing with the lace band of her underwear “To be cared for-“

When it dared to touch her under the piece of fabric, a weak voice dropped from Love’s lips“ Stop”

Desire didn’t stop, pushing their fingers inside her underwear,“Shh relax Lovie, consider it my apologies to the Queen “ That sounded like Desire. She blinked once more, the clouds started to clear from her hazy mind. She now felt how her body was trembling, how it abominated this. She felt like she could throw up.

That made Love squirm away from their touch “Stop it. Stop it! Stop it right now!” As she pushed away her skirt dropped to its place again. The full clarity hit her mind, and Love was furious with the violation. She pushed Desire strongly on their chest, making them trip on their feet, almost falling “How dare you?! You cloud my mind, turn my feelings against myself, you were going to violate me! What were you trying to do? Put a child in me so Dream would be the laughing stock of all the socials? How is his wife a whore that sleeps with all his siblings? To take a toll at me? At a True Marriage? Violating your friend to have a punchline?”

Desire rolled their eyes, throwing themselves back on the couch “Violate you? Dramatic! One week with my brother and you are already losing your sense of humor. I was giving what you desire: A husband that admires and lusts after you. A most appropriate wedding gift, as far as I can see.”

Love looked in complete disbelief and disappointment. That was the same Desire she considered a sibling, a dear friend, who laughed with her, who would spend hours in the Garden together. “We are not friends anymore, Desire.”

The Endless looked at their nails, not giving the trouble to look at Love’s face of disappointment, and responded “Only family”. The brunette shook her head, turning her back to leave their realm for good.

“See you at family dinner, sis!” The sibling shouted after Love walked away. The aggravating loneliness that she felt with each step is what made Dream be kicked out of her head.

—---------

Dream woke up immediately, it was like falling out of bed: A minute of air before the ground. He felt the wetness in his face. Tears. He looked at the other side of the bed. Love was already dressed in yesterday’s clothes, back against the headboard of the bed. He did not know if he actually truly looked at her until now. Timid sunlight crept through the curtains, making her brown curls shine like they were sprinkled in gold, her skin sparkled welcoming the light, her hands delicately resting in her tights, fingers anxiously peeling off the cuticles, making them red. She looked peaceful even though her cuticles said anxious, looking to the door of the room, and sometimes looking at the window. He opened his mouth, but when he was about to, she stared back at him.

He didn’t understand her facial expression, she did not seem mad, but she was not happy either, she merely looked deeply into his eyes. The only thing certain was that she knew what he discovered. “Love, I…”

“We should go. I am heading downstairs to say my farewell to Cain and Goldie. I will wait for you so we can say goodbye to Abel together.” She put her shoes on, and turned her back to him. He didn’t interrupt her. Before reaching for the door, she once again turned, her dress swirling around her waist “You should use your sand for our return, I do not want to waste any more time away from our duties, I believe you agree”

Morpheus nodded, supporting himself on his shoulder. It was as if nothing happened last night. As he was about to call her again, Love closed the door. He wanted to say something, anything. But the right words kept being all the wrong ones. It did not take long for her to be downstairs, as he heard some commotion. Morpheus went to the window, to see that his wife was already partaking in her usual royal posture of polite smiles and conversations. Lucienne was there. And right at her side, Elijah. Both the second hands seemed to be quite in a hurry, but were still waiting.

It did not take long for Morpheus to get dressed in his usual black attire. As he was getting dressed his urgency rose. Parades and breaking fast together were not enough. None of it was. There is no forgiveness for who he was. But he needed to tell her what and how he couldn’t tell, but he needed to say something before it was too late.

Downstairs the apologies and goodbyes were quick. As requested, Dream used his sand to get them back to the palace. But as he turned to have a moment with Love, she already left with Elijah. He lingered a few seconds looking at the spot at his side where she was. “My Lord?” Lucienne asked as he did not seem to listen to a word she was speaking.

Well, Elijah’s plan with Lord Morpheus might not have succeeded. She felt for her king, but still was saving a ‘I told you so’ to Elijah. Yes, the cupid told her about their secret meeting. Cupids love gossip, and Elijah assumed Lucienne was safe.

Morpheus looked back at Lucienne, as he nodded so she could continue, even though his mind was far from talks of tables, rooms, expansions, etiquettes and invites.

He needed to talk to Love.

Chapter Text

As soon as they returned from the parade, Eoster confined herself to her quarters, making Elijah run through her everything that was missing to the Solstice.

The Spring Queen made every little detail her business, a perfect excuse to avoid her husband. She would check the invitation list, rearrange seats, make final decisions on decorations, and even details about the reception for her court that she previously left under Elijah’s supervision, such as the color of napkins and the setting of the table, the queen took upon herself to make the final adjustments.

Anything that would make her husband less inclined to interact with her, she took it upon herself to do it. She knew from Elijah that Dream wanted to talk to her, that he asked Lucienne to ask Elijah if she was available for a luncheon or tea. The Cupid apologizes for his queen's full agenda, but she did not have time for “anything nonrelated to the Solstice” which translates into “anything related to Morpheus”

Of course, he could summon her by the bound, but after their night together, she knew he wouldn’t dare. Both of them crossed paths in the palace halls, but, if he even thought of starting a conversation, she lowered her head, pretending not to notice and being too far busy with her tasks.

But there is only enough table setting a queen can choose for a solstice festival, and it’s not near the amount necessary to avoid a husband.

And so, she escaped the Dreaming.

It was complicated. He knew about Desire. He knew about innocence, Love was now as a victim as him, trapped in the most sacred of unions with him. Love should feel relieved. ‘He can finally forgive me. We can be happy.’ She repeated to herself, although the words were bittersweet.

She should be relieved, of course, she should. It was what she had always wanted: Morpheus to believe in her, seeing her devotion and adoration were true. But instead, she felt conflicted and suffocated.

Yes, he now believed in her, but not because of her words but because he could visit her memories, and feel her feelings. It never happened before, and Eoster suspected it did happen because of their proximity. They never stayed together in the vulnerability of sharing a bed. Their bed, his bed, was duty, obligation, as everything in their marriage was. They never shared a bed for more than an hour, until the parade. The bond must have felt the permissibility of their souls, the proximity of their bodies, and let one visit the other’s memory, or he visited hers, because Love didn’t see anything.

He would never believe her word otherwise, would he? He believed what he saw. It was two very different things. Maybe she was overthinking. Maybe she wants him to suffer a bit more before giving herself to him. A few centuries might do the deed. Love chuckled to herself. Who was she trying to convince? She hates those games. But wasn’t her marriage a game from the start?

How did their marriage become so complicated?

So she escaped. Hiding in plain sight at her favorite park. Hoping the flooding of Cupids arriving at the Dreaming would be enough to make no one look for her.

Although “hiding in plain sight” is quite a stretch, after all, if Love’s beauty was already the talk among entities, even in casual up-to-date clothes, trying to mix with mortals, she still caught a lot of attention, her presence magnetic, and every single mortal gravitate towards her. Men, women, and children are all in awe.

How could one not fall in love with love itself?

“You just made a mortal meet his soulmate before I collected him.” The Queen jumped in her seat, completely lost in her thoughts, gazing at the people living their ordinary lives around her. When she looked up, there was Lady Death, her sister-in-law, with a disapproving look that broke down in a warm smile.

Love gave her a weak smile, moving on the bench so Lady Death could sit with her. Death knew it wasn’t intentional on Love’s part. Unlike the Cupids who had to bring arrows, study perfect matches, and wait for perfect situations, Love’s presence was enough to make mortals fall in love left and right. It was not as nearly as precise as the cupid's work. It was pure spontaneity, not to say chaotic (just ask anyone who lived during Henry VIII's reign) that relied entirely on mortals' feelings.

The park was blossoming in it. Mothers at the children's park noticed how much that tiny copy of them meant the world, friendship that would last a life being made by the kids, and especially lovers. Couples deciding to get married, travel the world together, move in together. One could look left and right and would see the park immersed in pure love.

“Couldn’t you give them more time?” Love sighed a complaint with not much enthusiasm to insist on it, said out of habit.

The first time it happened, Eoster would do everything to stall Death. She would ask about every single sibling, the next reunion, and would create a thousand stories from the Garden that she simply must urgently share, just to give a family or two lovers more time.

If it was their day, a mortal would die independently, but with the presence of Love, they wouldn't go without meeting either their soulmate or being in the company of loved ones. A tragedy for most, but what would one expect with Love and Death at the same place?

But now, Love said the words without any meaning, as that hope that she could save those mortals, meant nothing more. It became ordinary, a habit.

Just like Lady Death repeating to her younger brother that he needed to give attention to his wife. Before his capture, every time they met he sulked by her side and she would scold Dream, saying that feeling sorry for himself would not help anyone, that his biggest problem was having a sweet devoted wife who would do anything he asked, a problem that any Endless or not would love to have. “Promise you will take better care of Love, Dream. You know that she doesn’t deserve it”, Death would say, and he would keep looking at his feet, until mumbling an upset "fine".

He wouldn't do it, and she said it more out of habit than anything.

She remembered the first time Love joined them for a family reunion, she was radiant, eagerly wanting to talk to the siblings, listening carefully to Delirium’s antics, and constantly looking for Dream’s approval, like a puppy trying to please its owner. She was the living propaganda for her marriage.

Praising the Dreaming and its folks, telling how delightful everything was, exaggerating how marriage life was even more perfect and Dream even more of a gentleman than she could have expected, excusing her husband for having yet to come to meet the Garden. Love thought that it was what Dream wanted to hear.

And she was desperately trying to please him, everyone could notice. They thought it was sweet. Death, Destruction, and even Delirium thought that her charms would eventually get past their brother's stubbornness.

How little did they know?

“I thought you would be busy with the Solstice, what are you doing in the mortal realm sulking on a park bench?” Death tried to change the subject, as the brunette didn’t make any attempts to continue the conversation, which was odd since Love was the conversationalist between them.

“Hiding in plain sight. Are you going to tell on me?” Love kept picking her nailbeds, before looking hesitantly to Death with her doe-eyes, over her eyelashes. The way her sister-in-law furrows her brows is a sign that she does not understand. “Your brother.” Love sighed, looking down again, as she was somewhat embarrassed by saying it.

“Is he being a dickhead?” Love smiled at Death’s question. ‘Dickhead’ what a childish but at the same time perfect way to describe her husband. Love watched the game happening a few feet away from her, without paying any attention. She loved her sister-in-law but, Love just wished to be anywhere away from her problems.

“I wonder if he was ever not a dickhead to me” The queen admitted shrugging off in an unlady-like manner. “It is ironic when I come to think of it. I spent years trying to get Dream’s attention, make him see me, want me, and now that he does, I am hiding in the mortal realm.” She laughed humorlessly. Does her marriage ever stop being an unfunny joke?

Death didn’t know what precisely to answer at Eoster’s confession, unless what it was the truth. “You were young.”

“Yes, I was. And eager to please and to be loved. I did what my older sisters taught me: Carefully watch him. His taste became my taste. I only read his favorite books, learned his favorite songs on the pianoforte, played them whenever I felt him close by, visited his favorite dreams, and cared for his perfect nightmares. I even dressed-" A sad smile and a hint of color reached her cheeks, full of the embarrassment of a desperate young self “-like his mistresses, if you can believe it, because maybe it would be enough.“

“Did it work?”

“If it did, we would not be having this conversation.” ‘Of course’ Death thought, cursing herself for asking such a stupid question. This was new between the two. And if she dared to guess, it was new to Eoster talking about it, because she threw the words quickly, like if she didn't spit them out as fast as she could, she might never do it.

“The muse, the fairy queen, or any other that I simply can't force myself to remember now. Every single one had the upper hand on my husband. I was not even a runner-up in the race for dear Lord Dream’s heart.” The brunette furrowed her brows, looking over to her sister-in-law, “I forged myself to him, to be what he wanted, and it angered him even more.”

Death listened to her quietly, after all, she did not know what to tell Love, she never heard the brunette speaking so clearly ill about her marriage, let alone her position in it. Dream's sister knew she was somewhat unhappy, even if they always arrived at the family reunions, arm to arm, his brother pulling the chair for her, both sitting side by side, Love in stunning gowns, complicated hairstyles, and adorned in jewelry. Even if they looked perfect together.

Love would always already be drunk or get drunk at the dinners. Dream would always try to stop her from pouring more wine or more champagne, but she always snapped away from him. And there would always be some antic Love would pull out of her drunk self. Dream would get furious at her. Everyone pretended not to notice when they would storm off, but, it was difficult not to hear their heated argument as they walked away.

Love never spoke of problems, well, not directly. While drunk, her complaints always were around lack of attention and cheating, but Death always assumed they made up. After all, next week they would be at a social, together, having polite conversations. And since her brother never let anyone sniff around his marriage, what Death assumed was that her brother could be neglecting Love from time to time, but they would patch things up. The expected consequences of being married for too long.

“It is fine. Really. I got used to that, no need to give me the pity look. I urge you not to. I simply can not take more of those.” Love shook her hand as to physically dismiss the pithiness. Loneliness becomes comfortable after one gets used to it. But pity is something she would always detest.

“After a while, I’ve stopped thinking of his love, and after his capture, I’ve never imagined, hoped, or planned that he would return with a newly found fondness for me.” Quite the opposite. Remember, Love thought Dream was courting another. Naturally, she thought that after the inevitable breakup, he would be in an awful humor. She had nightmares with it and woke up feeling guilty for having nightmares about her husband's humor, and then feeling stupid because he would not care if she was scared or not. Love did not matter in this marriage. But this was before. Now…

The brunette shifted in her seat and Lady Death noticed she was nervous, wetting her lips, looking to both sides, and speaking a tone lower than before “ And if I can be honest, it is awful.” It felt shameful to admit that Dream’s fondness was awful, but at the same time, it felt like she was discarding an enormous weight off her chest. Love took a deep breath, eyes wide in desperation to her sister give her some guidelines “I don’t know what to do with it. We don’t know how to be in the same room without going at each other’s throats. Carefully selecting words to hurt one another, waiting for a small slip so we can attack. For so long I craved to be with him, and now I do not even know how to breathe the same air he exhales.”
The brunette rests her back against the bench in defeat finally taking all of it off her chest. Death took a few minutes to process that abundance of information. Love was beginning to worry and planning to apologize for having thrown all of it at her, that it was not her initial intention when she spoke.

“What about trying from the beginning? You two were tossed into marriage with very different ideas of it. Maybe-” Love shook her head interrupting “We tried, and we ended up in a room in the House of Mysteries" Or was it House of Secrets? If she would be honest, she didn't even remember which one was the nice one, and which one was the short-tempered. "Sharing a bed. He violated my dreams.” This time, Death's gaze widened. “On purpose?” her brother, the brother that she knew, would not violate his wife's private thoughts like that.

“No, I mean, I do not know. I felt him nudging in there, like a shadow on the corner of my eye. And that never happened." Death signed, relieved "Not even when he was suspicious of some improper behaviors of mine.” She had Aunt Temperance to thank for that. “He put Lucienne to sniff around my dreams.” Death nodded silently, even Love was somewhat admitting that her brother would never actually invade his wife’s private thoughts. But their bond, maybe he was pushed there by it, after all, no one knows for certainty how the sharing of souls of True Marriages affects the couple, what are their limits, their boundaries.

“Anyway, he got his proof that I didn’t plot with Desire.”

“Well, that is good news!” Death grabbed Eoster’s hands in celebration, but seeing Love’s cranked face about it, Death had to ask “Is it good news?”

“It is supposed to be. But it’s bittersweet. He didn’t believe in my word, his wife. I did nothing over the years to have him question my loyalty, but it wasn’t enough. He had to see it. If he never invaded my dreams, would he know? Would he ever believe my innocence?” Although Death wished she could say yes, both of them knew Dream too well, and the Endless sister respected Love enough not to lie in her face.

The couple seemed to be trapped in a web of complicated and delicate knots full of ramifications. Love was right. Her marriage became a game of who could hurt each other more. She made herself the perfect bride for a husband who at first didn’t want one and now doesn't know how to be the husband she needs.

“You two need to start from the beginning.” Death said after a few moments pondering how to put it in words. Love signed a hint of impatience in her voice, thinking that her sister-in-law wasn't listening to her. “I told you, we tried-"

Death abruptly interrupts her clarifying what she meant, and what it was true. Honestly, who gave Dream the idea of a parade? She couldn't fathom the idea that her anti-social and selfish brother would want to be around loud subjects who wanted to steal his wife's attention. “No, you two went on a parade. Public parade, with smiles and flowers. You two did the theatricals of a reconciliation. You need to talk. Privately talk." She sighed smiling throwing her back at the bench "You two are the most similar anthropomorphic personifications I have ever known.” Love was opening her mouth to protest that she and Dream couldn't be more different, when once again, Death showed her why she was older and wiser “Loyalty means everything. You want to forgive but hold grudges, The Dream is the same. You want to believe but your awareness doesn’t let you. Isn't your husband the same?”

Love got up from the bench, facing Death, and at the same time, she theatrically threw her hands to the heavens. Was Love ever this dramatic? Death couldn’t help but wonder, if this was her with some sparkle, some anger, rather than her usual apathetic and compliant self. Although she kept speaking politely, it was obvious that what started with a conversation was turning into a disagreement. “Oh, sister! awareness of what, pray to tell me? When did I ever have my husband-”

Death smiled internally. She purposely engaged in a rhetorical philosophy to see if Love understood where she was going. The Endless had to hold a laugh. Like Dream, Love was not receptive to ideas and opinions contrary to what she already made up her mind. Death kept her posture and a neutral tone. “Never! I am not telling you he is right. He is not. I never thought Dream could be more wrong about someone. But you two are not far apart.” Love ignored her, continuing her rampage. How could her dear sister who, a minute ago, seemed to understand so clearly, become so antagonistic to the truth? “All I ever did was forgive him! All the time…” She emphatically repeated, her muscles tensed and Love seemed to use all of her strength to not scream like a crazy anthropomorphic personification in the middle of a park.

To which Death simply shrugged, and gave her the simplest answer ever: “Then take him back.” The response took Love by such surprise, that she froze, and Death thought that she might have broken her sister-in-law. Instead of poetries of couples, tragedies, and the sad life of Stepford smilers, Death offered her such a simplistic, obvious but at the same time impossible. Wasn't she listening? “I beg your pardon?” Love said as she heard the most gushing suggestion of all mortal existence.

Death raises herself, posed in a cool manner, with hands in her pocket. Love always thought that she was the definition of what mortals called a ‘cool girl’, and this demeanor made Love for the first time in forever, want to strangle her. “If all you did was forgive him, then forgive him one more time. Grant him pardon for all his transgressions, coldness, his mistresses, and his son born out of marriage. You put that behind you. If he is repent as you said, you can finally have a worthy husband and live happily ever after.” Love let a strangled laugh escape her mouth. In utter disbelief. “No, you don’t understand, it is not that simple-”

Death gave Love a knowingly smile “No, it is not.” Now, the Love Queen was more lost than before, her brows furrow and her eyes searched Death’s for any sign of logic. She felt a migraine and cursed herself for coming to this park. Peace, was that too much to ask? Was Dream the only one allowed to sulk alone? Love let herself fall on the bench in defeat. “I don’t understand why-”

“It is not simple, Love. Reasonable or not, both of you have a hard time forgiving, you didn’t, because if you did, you would not be holding so much pain in your heart. I know this because mortals constantly cross to my realms with hearts full of pain that they never will be able to resolve, lying to themselves that all is forgiven.”

Death reached to hold Love’s hands, caressing the soft skin as the lady of spring started to see the meaning behind what her sister in the law meant. It is not “enjoying a honeymoon” “punishing him” or even “you must do your duty as a wife and take what he is giving to you, it is just their ways”. It was something else. “I am not saying that you need to forgive Dream, that you need to take him back, accept him into your bed. That is up to you to decide. But, you need a resolution. About your marriage, about both your past... About his son.”

Love repeated her words, not understanding the emphatic pause at the mention of Dream’s offspring. “ His son?” Death first thought Love could be sarcastically repeating her, in a way of saying that she had no intention of talking about Orpheus, but as the pause continued, she realized that Love might have forgotten, not that Death understood how could she “His son died for a mortal girl.” It didn't seem to recall his brother’s wife anything since she kept quiet, seemingly waiting for anything that would explain, “He died because of love”

As soon as Death spoke those words, and Love quickly understood what she meant by that, Love took her hands away, feeling like a witness who suddenly became a suspect in a murder trial. Unprepared and too stunted to react besides trying to make sense of what Death just said “And you think-”

But the sister was quick to disperse any new arguments Love wanted to start, although if she was taken aback by this, she completely could understand why the need to defend her innocence. Although, as Death explained, she should not waste her breath “No, I don’t think. I am just explaining how his tale is known.” Which was true, a love tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice. It was well documented “Whatever happened, may belong in a conversation between you and Dream.”
“I did not-” And as Death was starting to regret mentioning it, cursing herself for speaking so much, an angel descended from the heavens to her aid, or better, a cupid in his lilac robes, shirt, and pants, and brown curly locks, appeared. He did not bother to change his usually 18th-century nobility attire to up-to-date clothes, different from the two women. He respectfully bends his head to Lady Death who gives him a warm smile.

“Hello, Elijah.”

“Blessing from the Garden, Lady Death.” He turned to the queen, who was still trying to find arguments for her innocence and only actually noticed her cupid when he called her “My queen” bowing his head. Even though her head was spinning from Death, she also had some questions about the cupid, after all, was everyone aware of things that she wasn't? “How did you find me?” The cupid looked confused. As the answer was obvious. “My lady, Centennial Park is your favorite park.” She nodded slowly, for a moment thinking that maybe Morpheus sensed her through the bond and made Elijah come all the way to make her return. “Is my lord husband looking for me?”

Elijah held his tongue not to answer that he never wished more for Lord Morpheus to appear from his sand and send half of the court cupids to the darkness. Maybe there, they would give him peace. “I have not seen our lordship yet.” Which he never thought would be an unfortunate truth.

Just by the morning, he had to scare away three Eros cupids that tried to woo Lucienne with the same line in the spare 2 minutes. They made very dramatic declarations using Romeo and Juliet “But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.” Thankfully Elijah managed to intervene before they started dueling for her hand, shushing them away like a pack of annoying crows, as they cacked explaining that their hearts never knew love until they met Lucienne (Or their ‘Dreamy Lady Librarian’ as they called her).

He also had to save some dreamfolks from being indoctrinated by Agape cupids, so they could leave the life of being dreams or nightmares and devote themselves to the spirit and soul. That didn’t even make sense. He finally managed to shove them all into some candlelight room with a strong smell of incense and dense fog where they could entertain themselves, reading their holy texts and meditating. Agape Cupids love nothing more than their sacred scriptures and candlelight rooms,

When he finally manages to stop a cult and the duelings, he is granted a visit by the Seamstress, who was already in a foul mood thanks to the number of cupids surrounding her and begging to glimpse at Lady Love's dress or a slot in her busy schedule to make new garments in the “Dreaming fashion”, which did not exist. After escorting her to Lady Love’s quarters, he took a minute to breathe, thinking of the Emissary. He didn't even have the time to miss his lover, but the absence of his jests and his don’t-care attitude in the middle of a chaotic event, like this, was starting to make the cupid’s heart hurt.

But just as he was daydreaming about his lover, the Seamstress began to poke him with her cane, asking about Lady Love, where she was, when she was coming, saying the dress would not be ready, she would make a fool of herself, lord morpheus would be angry, and the whole dreaming was going to collapse because of a simple dress.

Of course, he did not say any of this to Lady Love. She had problems of her own to deal with, hence why they are in a mortal park and not in the Dreaming. “ The Seamstress is in a funny mood because my lady’s dress is yet to be finished.” Love knew that ‘funny’’ was a very polite way to say she was being a demonic hag, although Love would not admit to ever thinking that of the Seamstress. Duties always come first. And since bringing the court was her idea, she had no way other than going back. “We will finish this conversation, sister.” She said in a warning tone to Death.

Death knew Love had nothing to do with Orpheus's death. But just the possibility of others considering it might make her sister-in-law approach the subject with Dream, and knowing Love she would be careful with the topic, after all, losing a child, was suffering too terrible to be named. Love may not harvest any affection for her long-dead stepchild, but she knew the love of a parent to a child enough to proceed with caution and respect.

And if Dream proceeds himself with caution. There might be a conversation.

There might be a way.

“See you at the solstice, sister.”

Chapter Text

Love, with Elijah’s discreet assistance, managed to navigate to her quarters without encountering any other cupids, a challenging feat given the palace's current bustling state. The corridors were abuzz with their presence, some exploring with curious abandon, others engaged in aimless conversations, young lovers seeking secluded corners, and tardy arrivals lugging more baggage than necessary in search of their lodgings.

Remaining silent throughout the journey, the queen conveyed her preference for solitude, a cue that Elijah intuitively respected. As they finally reached the hallway leading to her room, he maintained a respectful distance, keeping a few paces behind. His mind teemed with unspoken questions about how he might ease the frenzy of the approaching days. Not only was the Solstice Festival imminent, but a sudden change in plans dictated that following the festival, the court, led by the queen and extended to include Elijah, would depart for the Garden with no intent to return to the Dreaming.

Despite his aversion to the Dreaming's tense atmosphere and unpredictable nature, Elijah harbored hopes that after the festivities, relations would improve, perhaps even leading to a more permanent stay, albeit with occasional visits to the Garden. Yet, since their return from their unexpected night excursion, whether to Cain's or Abel's remained uncertain, the situation had deteriorated further. Previously, there had been heated arguments; now, Love actively avoided Dream, a silent treatment that felt more cutting than their verbal clashes.

Perhaps this was precisely why he preferred scholarly pursuits over fieldwork. "Oh, my love, that undoubtedly explains it," he imagined the Emissary's teasing response, eliciting a wistful smile. How he longed for those playful exchanges with his irreverent lover

"There she is! It seems they were right, m’lady, when they said that Love arrives when least expected." The Seamstress's voice broke the solemn silence as she rose from her vanity chair, her joints audibly protesting, while she directed the maids to fetch the dinner gown and her needles. Despite the noticeable change in Love's demeanor, marked by rare smiles and monosyllabic responses to inquiries about the gown's fit, the old woman refrained from commenting. Perhaps preoccupied with her task, she inadvertently pricked Love more than once, though the queen suspected it was no accident.

The Seamstress grew more cordial as she neared the completion of her work, presenting a dinner gown distinct from the queen's usual attire. The corset was unusually tight, enhancing her figure in ways that made Love feel increasingly exposed with each breath, despite the Seamstress's assurances that it was purely her imagination. The corset, she insisted, was intended for support, not scandal.

Long ago, during her early days of marriage, Love possessed dinner attire in dark shades, alongside the most exquisite ball gowns, delicate nightgowns that left little to the imagination, and lace undergarments meant to entice and be undone by her husband, adorned from head to toe, a gift to the Dream King waiting to be unwrapped.

Now dressed in black, she appeared different, changed by the passage of years—centuries even. Entities like her were not supposed to change fundamentally; they might alter in appearance, yet their essence remained steadfast.

But she did change. Love may still appear youthful in countenance, yet there was a weariness etched into her otherwise immaculate features, like a soldier returning from prolonged warfare, donning his uniform once more, fitting, yet somehow unfamiliar.

Dresses had never posed a bother; she could conjure them effortlessly. Nevertheless, she relished being attended to by her maids, finding a ritualistic pleasure in their gentle ministrations. It was during these moments that the maids, at ease with their tasks and one another, engaged in conversations that swiftly turned to gossip, a most reliable means for Love to remain abreast of palace affairs.

Eoster had always delighted in the layers, the petticoats, the snug corsets, the diverse lengths and styles of gowns, puffy, flowing sleeves, varied necklines. With each design, she could metamorphose into someone entirely new: demure, audacious, or provocative. Fabrics too held a special allure, silk, tulle, velvet, muslin, even plain cotton for days spent tending the garden, all crafted into attire befitting a queen.

Yet, for the first time, she found herself unsettled. Was it the garments or the relentless thought of her husband’s son that plagued her? Her dinner gown, as dark as a starless night, featured an elongated bodice tapering to the hips, a low bustle intricately draped with flounces and ruffles in fishtail fashion. The broad neckline showcased a splendid necklace, sparkling against her skin, an intended constellation adorning her nocturnal ensemble.

It felt stifling, burdensome. She longed to tear it asunder, if only to draw a breath unhindered. Worse still, the maids seemed to multiply, each adding layers, tightening already taut knots. When presented with white evening gloves, she shook her head against the insistent tug from a girl styling her hair. Love said nothing. "No, fetch the black ones," she commanded, a rare deviation from expectation. The maids exchanged puzzled glances at the uncharacteristic request.

The gloves had been a wedding gift from Honesty, left untouched in their box upon a closet shelf. Her sister's note, penned in gold ink with ornate flourishes, remained affixed to the black ribbon: "Proper gloves for a proper Queen of Nightmares."

Who said Honesty didn’t possess a sense of humor?

Handling the box with care, fearing its fragility, they undid the white ribbon and unfurled the silk paper enveloping the black, over-the-elbow gloves. Love studied her reflection, the black accentuating her green eyes, lightening her caramel curls. The crowning touch was a translucent veil shimmering with stardust, affixed to her crown, cascading elegantly over her shoulders to brush the floor. She appeared regal, resplendent, yet the dark attire lent an air of the sinister, a clichéd malevolence from fairy tales, the enchantress who ensnares heroes away from their beloveds, the Odile to the prince’s Odette.

But Morpheus was no knight in shining armor, no gallant prince in a white horse. No, her husband bore the likeness of a possessive villain, the jealous antagonist who ensnares the virtuous princess, akin to Count Paris whom Juliet adamantly spurns.

Both were villains in each other's tales.

Her attire in black also served as a declaration of loyalty to her husband, a reminder to the cupids that, while Love reigned as Queen of the Garden, Morpheus, although reluctantly, ruled as King of the Garden by virtue of marriage. They must accord him the same respect they willingly bestowed upon Eoster, if not willingly, then by compulsion.

They must remember to regard him as their sovereign and avoid any semblance of threat.

She could not shield them if they offended Morpheus within his own domain. They would be at his mercy, which, knowing her husband, meant none at all. She might plead, cast herself at his feet in tears, it would not make a difference. Morpheus tolerated no insolence, especially not from his subjects, and certainly not from his wife. Such defiance might only worsen the consequences.

The remainder of her preparations proceeded smoothly. Eoster allowed herself to be maneuvered like a puppet, her uncharacteristic silence noted by all, though none dared to question its cause given the circumstances. Elijah visited intermittently, seeking approval to dispatch additional invitations, the recipients of which held little interest for her. She nodded in agreement, silently praying for his swift departure so she might return to her ruminations.

Her thoughts lingered on Orpheus, his name echoing alongside Death's voice, each repetition a reminder of his uncertain fate. She pictured him, his face, his demeanor, wondering if he bore his father's dark hair and his mother's easy countenance. Was he stoic, reserved like Morpheus, or vibrant, full of life like herself? Did he carry shame as a bastard, or did he view himself as wronged, denied his rightful place, viewing Love as the adversary? ‘Foolish’, she thought, if he believed the latter, yet perhaps understandable given his circumstances. He likely loved his parents, and seeing his father flaunt a wife who was not his mother, must have unsettled him.

Part of her felt relieved that Morpheus, in his way, had shown respect to Love. Despite his inability to marry Calliope, he could have relegated her to this palace. She heard of some gossip about husbands that did that. A terrible fate endured by some unfortunate wives. Princesses and queens forced to endure discreet glances, furtive touches beneath the dinner table, clandestine disappearances during meals.

Could she endure such a fate? Perhaps she would succumb to despair, leaving her next incarnation to untangle this mess. Love believes that she would endure even the filthy pleasure sounds coming from the other bedroom being echoed through the walls, she would simple stabbed her ears and let it bleed without any desire to fix them, but she wouldn’t be able to see her, or deal with the pity.

But the pity! Love hated the pity, how people would surround her pretending to understand wishing to hear her speak from the heart when all they wanted was to be fed gossip. Gossip that would get to Desire’s ears and would turn into a joke in the next family reunion.

Children would complicate matters further. Not her own, of course. Why schedule date nights if he had his muse readily available? Why choose to lie with a willing yet disinterested wife, that avoided his gaze like the plague, trained by him to lie still and exposed like a doll, to remain as silent as possible, pretending to be anywhere but there? But the boy, eventually, he would find Love, children are curious. How would she receive him? Would she be cruel, distant, or might she grow attached to a child who could never be hers?

Maybe she would have stabbed Calliope. No. Maybe she would’ve stabbed herself. He could easily find another lover, but not her half of his soul.

The Spring Queen dismissed such thoughts as they proved futile and distracting. Orpheus was gone. Calliope remained somewhere distant, a place Love neither knew nor cared to discover. Her liaison with Dream had concluded on acrimonious terms. Though he had sought others since, he had never fathered another illegitimate child. And Orpheus, Love pondered how his demise might affect her, whether his pain might bring solace to her heart.

An eye for an eye.

A love for another.

The mere notion brought bile to her throat. No, that boy, whoever birthed him, did not deserve suffering. He was but a child, someone's child. The loss of a child, a suffering too terrible to name. Love did not seek revenge; she was not that sort of woman. She scarcely knew what sentiments she harbored toward him, yet she harbored no ill will.

"My lady?" Love blinked, brought back from reverie. The maids and the Seamstress had completed their tasks and now anxiously awaited the queen's approval or disapproval. Their work differed from any prior occasion, prompting thoughts of acknowledgment. But it was not their efforts that drew Love back to the present.

Standing at the threshold was Lucienne, clad in a subdued white rendition of her usual attire, adorned with delicate golden accents. If Love were to hazard a guess, and she rarely wronged in such matters, Elijah had likely coerced the librarian into wearing white. A second guess would suggest he himself was attired in an equal but more elaborate patterned fabric. Elijah had always favored patterns.

Love bestowed a gentle smile upon Lucienne, offering a delicate applause with minimal fanfare, ensuring the maids and the Seamstress received due recognition for their labors. "I am certain my lord husband shall find your work most pleasing." Whether Morpheus would even notice remained uncertain. The maids exchanged cheerful glances, but the Seamstress scowled. "If he possesses any taste, he surely will." Lucienne opened her mouth to protest, but a single glance from Love quelled the librarian's impulse.

The Seamstress acknowledged no authority, and no Endless could silence her. "May your heart guide you well, Seamstress," she replied, her tone dismissive. "My lady, I merely hope you refrain from requesting a black bridal trousseau. This was my final fabric as dark as night, and the journey to acquire it…" She shook her head, implying the memory was too arduous and unpleasant to recount.

The flock of maids followed the Seamstress as she made her exit. With their duties concluded for the evening, they were at liberty to enjoy the festivities as they saw fit. Love awaited their departure before joining Lucienne at the doorway, together making their way toward the ballroom, an extension crafted for the Spring Festival but likely to remain underutilized thereafter.

"I trust Elijah did not impose the attire. It is not obligatory." More an unspoken rule, one Love lacked the energy to elaborate upon. Regardless of their garments, the cupids would scrutinize without relent. Lucienne inclined her head slightly in deference. "No, my lady, he…did not impose upon me in the least." Lucienne hesitated, her words true though not without coercion. Elijah had not troubled her, but that did not imply he had been courteous in his request. He merely shoved the clothes in her chest and commanded her to wear it, like the always patient and kind cupid he was.
Love chuckled softly. "You look very proper, quite fitting for the Garden." Likely the affirmation Lucienne sought, the sole reason why she probably let Elijah choose her clothes. Speaking of whom… "And where might my dearest cupid be?"

"He is attending Lord Morpheus, I suspect clarifying certain matters of court division." Love simply nodded.
The mention of her husband was enough to pull her away from the fun thoughts of Elijah and Lucienne arguing about clothes redirecting her focus to Morpheus and his son. The librarian observed how her queen's countenance shifted to solemnity, an uneasy silence settling between them. Lucienne had hoped for a reconciliation following the parade, but matters had worsened. Lady Love had not returned to the palace post-parade, while Lord Morpheus appeared distracted and… something else she could not quite decipher,an anger not directed outwards but inwards, at himself.

-----------------

"The Cupids of the court are akin to swans, my lord," Elijah began, his tone carrying a respectful cadence. "Graceful, noble, and proud, they always move in bevies, each distinguishable by their attire." Eros, along with Storge, Philia, and Agape Cupids, were always adorned in pastels or meticulously following dress codes outlined in invitations. Like their Queen, they held a fascination for fabrics and designs, each expressing a unique style that set them apart. Morpheus had no need for the intricate details of their attire, and Elijah had neither the time nor the inclination to elaborate. If only his majesty had attended the scheduled meetings, Elijah would have gladly imparted such knowledge over the weeks. Instead, Elijah found himself imparting information to Lucienne, who filtered it through to the Dream King.

At least, that had been the expectation of both the librarian and the cupid. However, Lord Morpheus disregarded Lucienne or paid scant attention to her instructions. Though he never admitted it outright, the indifference was palpable to the librarian and became evident as the cupid was intercepted by the king just minutes before he could escort Lady Love, inquiring about the court with evident curiosity.

It didn't take long for Elijah to realize that his king was unaware of the wolves in sheep's clothing awaiting him. Elijah struggled to delicately convey the court's disdain for the king. For, in truth, there was nothing to admire. He insulted his subjects among the lovefolk by never visiting, failing to acknowledge his sovereignty, and allowing his queen to suffer. Cupids were natural conversationalists, skilled in gossip; it would be naive to assume they weren't aware of every transgression by Morpheus. They were simply courteous enough never to discuss it with Lady Love.

"One thing worth noting, my lord, is that like swans, cupids can be fiercely aggressive," Elijah continued, his expression grave. "Especially when their sacred institutions or their Swan Queen are disrespected." Which Morpheus had shown towards the queen and the Garden. "Storge Cupids will stop at nothing to retaliate against any who disrespect sacred unions, while Eros Cupids will ruthlessly condemn those who exploit the union of flesh for anything other than mutual pleasure." A swan may not kill, but they could certainly make a night torturous if they wished.

Morpheus glanced towards the flocks of cupids gathering in the corners of the ballroom, their laughter and conversations now filling the once tranquil palace. Young ones ran underfoot of their nannies, while older cupids flirted under the watchful eyes of their chaperones. Mature Cupids scrutinized every detail, commenting on any deviation from their accustomed norms.

All awaited anxiously for the royal presence, or perhaps their prey. A sudden, uneasy silence fell over the room, a collective intake of breath, as Morpheus and Eoster appeared arm in arm at the top of the stairs. Not a soul had anticipated the queen’s arrival clad in all black, presenting a united front with her husband. Elijah and Lucienne followed three steps behind, both attired in pristine white. All eyes watched vigilantly as the king pulled out a chair at the main table for Love to sit, the train of her dress swirling gracefully around her feet as she accepted with a gentle nod, avoiding direct eye contact with her husband.

Once seated, Elijah gestured subtly for the music to resume and signaled for the cupids to line up for their presentations. The first few cupids approached with quiet reverence, bowing deeply and expressing gratitude for the invitation, offering compliments on the Dreaming, much like children forced to be polite to unwelcome guests. Love wasn’t sure if Morpheus could see through their superficial smiles or mechanical bows. To someone unfamiliar with cupids, it might be challenging to discern.

But Morpheus was ancient, older even than Love, and it wouldn't take long for him to detect the underlying sarcasm behind their seemingly submissive facade. She found herself clenching the armrests of her chair, her fingers digging into the wood, her gaze stern as she silently warned them against pushing their luck. Love stole a few quick glances at her husband, attempting to decipher his stoic expression. He abhorred social gatherings, despised noise and frivolity. And now, he was stuck to one.

‘This is a recipe for disaster,’ Love mused inwardly. That was why she had suggested, when he had pressed her to return to the Dreaming, making requests that were undoubtedly impossible to fulfill, a headache in itself. She had never expected Morpheus to accept, and even after their recent falling-out, it was too late to retract. Her subjects were already excited, and Lucienne was already overwhelmed with the minutiae of courtly affairs. Love had expected her husband to cancel everything; he had never cared if any of Love's endeavors consumed time or were meaningful to her. If he didn’t wish it, they simply wouldn't proceed. It was her duty to comply.

But Dream courteously welcomed the Cupids, or as courteously as one could expect. He nodded in acknowledgment as Elijah introduced each cupid by name, title, and their spring duties in the mortal realm, tasks ranging from preparing soil to awakening hibernating creatures and overseeing pollination. He didn't smile; that, of course, would be too much to ask. But at least he wasn't scowling.

Instead of calming her nerves, however, this stoic demeanor kept Love on edge, waiting for his patience to wear thin and for him to dismiss the entire affair as an exercise in futility. He had embarked on this endeavor to regain his queen’s favor, to prove himself a better husband.

All that effort now seemed in vain, since Love had decided not only to leave the Dreaming, but also to refuse to warm his bed on demand. She trusted in his gentlemanly nature not to exploit their bond to coerce her. Even if he had never given her assurance that he wouldn't resort to such measures, she remained convinced that he would not resort to such measures. They had weathered graver situations where he could have employed their bond to inflict cruel retribution, yet he refrained.

The worst that could happen was for Morpheus to. grow weary of the peculiar, rigid, unspoken rules of the lovefolk. Rules that came naturally to them that were designed to ‘ensnare outsiders into embarrassing themselves’ A confession Lucienne did, while Elijah was trying to explain the differences between proper china for luncheon and dinner. All that superficiality and nonsensical fuss Morpheus had once sworn to avoid.

If the queen were a gambler like her sister, she would wager that Lord Destiny was making his influence felt upon his younger brother. ‘Well, at least we've had no incidents yet,’ Love thought, attempting to relax as she took a sip of her wine, her glass matching her husband’s.

"My Lady Eoster!" A voice rang out, it was the Agape Cupids. Killer Swans. "My dear children, blessings from the Garden. Welcome to the Dreaming. May I introduce you to your Lord Morpheus, King of Dreams and Prince of Stories?"

The group of four cupids, all attired in coordinated yellow hues, their pointed hats a distinctive feature, approached in unison. If ever there were a bevy of swans poised to strike, these were they. They did not hide their disapproval as they scrutinized Dream from head to toe, exchanging quick, indecipherable glances, a secret language even Love couldn't discern. "Blessings, my lord," Lysander, their chosen spokesperson, began.

Lysander, among the oldestc cupids in the Garden, had guided more mortals to find love through faith than any other. His mortals often became fanatics and cult leaders, which had led to his earlier retirement from fieldwork in favor of a more theoretical role in Agape court. "My lord, if I may," he continued, "earlier we were exploring your gracious somber realm and encountered some paradoxical sights that seemed devoid of common mortal sense. Is this by your design?"

Love detected no thorn or trap in the question, though her frown deepened as she regarded the seemingly innocent cupid. Even Morpheus appeared to struggle to maintain his customary detachment as he responded politely, "The work of dreamers who visit my realm each night in sleep. I am but the custodian of their subconscious." The cupid folded his hands behind his back, nodding knowingly. "A hoarder of the subconscious. Collecting, collecting, and collecting," he remarked with a smile, the first subtle blow. Love shifted in her seat, taking a long sip of her wine, which tasted too watery for her liking. She cast a sidelong glance at her husband, noticing his clenched jaw, her own throat tightening with the mounting tension between her subjects and their king.

His expression remained unchanged, but with Morpheus, one couldn't read much from a face that could condemn one to the darkness without so much as a raised eyebrow.

"A starving man with an insatiable appetite, never sated, indeed," Lady Rosalind of the Storge Cupids interjected, snapping her lace fan open with a long, almost ironic courtesy toward both her sovereigns. "Lady Rosalind, blessings. What a pleasant surprise," Love interjected quickly, attempting to steer the conversation back to pleasantries, though not with enough effort to sway Rosalind. She was a woman of conviction, deeply traditional, caring, with a sharp tongue and a sharper mind. Respected among the Storge Cupids for her work in establishing enduring bloodlines in the mortal realm, prioritizing family union above all else, even at the cost of individual desires. The happiness of some clearly overlooked by her steadfast commitment to familial cohesion. Pleasantries from her queen would not sway such a killer swan.

“My lady, it is indeed a pleasure to finally visit our sister-realm,” Rosalind remarked with a click of her tongue, a fleeting thought crossing her mind. She barely glanced at Eoster, just enough to observe the required etiquette, her focus unwavering on her objective. “Indeed, Lord Lysander, our sister-realm, is but a pantry with shelves positively overflowed with food.” Lysander added smoothly, “Indeed, the act of hoarding can pack abundant provisions, but can it have any nourishing warmth of affection, when all it do is hoard?” They exchanged a knowing glance, their satisfaction evident.

Before Rosalind could deliver a more pointed remark aimed at Morpheus, Elijah swiftly intervened, appearing almost as promptly as the Cupids had arrived. “Rosalind, Lysander, how delightful to see you once more. I trust I am not interrupting.” If cupids could scorch someone with their mere gaze, Elijah would have surely felt the burn. He harbored a profound dislike for the duo, foreseeing a most unpleasant situation if they persisted in meddling further, particularly in front of Lady Love.
Love interjected swiftly before the Cupids could respond in unison, “Oh Elijah, not at all. I believe our cupids were merely gracing us with their presence, but we mustn’t detain them from the reception.” She exchanged a meaningful look with her cupid, signaling her desire to steer the conversation away from potential discord.

“Of course, my lady. It has been far too long since our paths crossed. You simply must meet my esteemed librarian acquaintance…” Elijah interposed smoothly, gently guiding the cupids away with the remaining agape following suit. Dream maintained his silence, his gaze avoiding Love’s, yet the simmering intensity in his eyes did not go unnoticed.

Love couldn’t recall a time when her husband exhibited such restraint.

—-------------
Love admired Morpheus for his composure. He did not complain, did not lose his temper; most of the time, he responded with short, polite answers and remained silent when faced with veiled insults. The last cupids hadn’t wasted any time in challenging the king, and word likely spread that the king was unflappable. Knowing her children well, Love expected them to say he was an unrepentant rake, incapable of shame or regret.
Love was on her fifth glass of wine, yet felt none of the expected lightness. She tasted the alcohol on her lips but found no solace in her mind. She knew she should avoid drinking, but the situation left her anxious and nervous, and she needed something to calm her.

Perhaps it was thanks to the wine that she managed to say, “It is much appreciated that you did not banish them all to the darkness.” The couple were the only ones still seated as the guests danced to the music, a quadrille that, in another life, Eoster would have loved to join. The privacy felt overwhelming. Thoughts of their last encounter and her argument with Death earlier dominated her mind, a whirl of voices and images. Should they start anew? Should they speak? They couldn’t communicate. They didn’t know how. Maybe the alcohol was affecting her thoughts.

“They are loyal. And none of their remarks were untrue.” Morpheus turned his face, allowing himself to gaze directly at her for the first time that night. His self-restraint surprised even him, as if something anchored him, helping him to do what he must to keep his promises. He had promised to receive her cupids. He would keep that promise. His eyes lowered to her lips as she finished her glass, catching him staring. They had played this game many times before, the warning glances that he would escort her back to her quarters if her drunken state became an issue, a warning to cease.

But this glance was different. She searched his eyes for any trace of silent fury but found none. They stood side by side, inches apart yet not touching. He looked at her differently than he had a thousand times before, with tenderness, as if unconcerned by her cupids’ attempts to flay him alive. It didn’t matter. He understood their protective instincts. The way he spoke suggested he couldn’t condemn them because he might have done the same. Yet he never had. He had never uttered a word against the rumors or the pitiful, repulsive looks, Love endured for centuries. Her face flushed hot with the memories, but his eyes seemed to acknowledge that and silently asked for forgiveness for all the times he hadn’t spoken.

“I am not drunk, if that is what you wish to be assured.” She broke their exchanged glances, emptying her glass, eyes lost in the dance. Pretending his gaze meant nothing but a warning was the safest course. He frowned. Of course she would think that. Most times, he scowled at her, condemning her improper behavior and loose tongue after too much drink. But not tonight.

“I know.” She turned to him as he moved closer, almost whispering, close enough for her to feel his warm breath against her skin. It sent shivers through her, more sensitive to him than she remembered. After their shared night, things felt different, like their bond allowed her to be vulnerable, craving more than she denied in the House of Mysteries. Like an appetite awakened, fighting for life against the pain in her heart and the decisions in her mind.

Perhaps she was the starved one, as Rosalind and Lysander suggested, not Morpheus.

“I know you are not drunk.” She furrowed her brows. His response wasn’t enough, and she needed to focus on something other than his soothing voice or the tingling in her fingers to trace the line of his neck. She needed to push those thoughts aside.

“Do you really? Pardon me if I don’t believe you.” All Morpheus’s expressions were subtle. To anyone who didn’t know him well, he seemed stoic most of the time. And it was true, he was. But every now and then, there were these subtle changes, like now, his lips curving in a shy smirk, his breath near her ear, the music loud enough to justify it, yet he was cautious, seeking permission to be close. “You are quiet. When you are drunk, even Delirium struggles to follow your thoughts, which race straight to your lips.” His eyes settled on her lips, pointing to them, and for a moment, Eoster imagined how his fingers might feel against them. “And nothing can silence you.” She turned to face him, inches apart. “You silenced me.” She was breathless, expending all her energy to recall her past, as if she were pressing a wound to remember the pain and avoid being hurt again.

He felt it. After that night, his bond with her also became more permissive. There was no hurt in her tone, no accusation, just a statement as true as the sunrise. But he sensed the pain behind it, how those memories cut like a knife.

“No, I didn’t. I would try to silence you, to reason with you, to lead you away, anything to prevent my siblings from having more ammunition. Someday, the anthropomorphic personifications will tire of hearing the same joke about “how she embarrassed him.” Now she wore a wry smile, slightly scrunching her face in disbelief. “And I didn’t?”

Why had they never spoken of it? Those dreadful dinners, those torturous gatherings, Desire’s comments, Despair’s false sympathy, fueled by her own sister-in-law’s misery, and Delirium’s honest but out-of-place observations. Dreadful.

“Embarrass me? For centuries, I thought you did. Your erratic behavior didn’t make it easy.” Eoster was about to question this, how she wasn’t the one making it difficult, but if he noticed, it didn’t deter him. “My time imprisoned made it clear: I wasn’t angry with you. I know what I said before, I know I blamed you, and it doesn’t matter anymore. But Love, I am truly sorry.” She closed her mouth.

Her husband was not seeking forgiveness, nor was he pleading for her belief. He wasn't relying on his regrets to evoke pity from her. Instead, he was confessing a truth he had never before been able to articulate, for they had never spoken thus until now. “The truth is,” he began, “I have shamed myself by failing to care for you properly, by driving you to seek solace in wine and night-blooming jasmine. I should never have put you in the position of bearing the shame of my infidelity. I should have been the one ashamed, for betraying your trust. Even if, at the time, I suspected you of colluding with Desire, it should have made no difference. We were bound in the covenant of True Marriage; it was my duty to safeguard you. You were not just my wife, but my queen.'"

In the midst of the regal splendor of the ballroom, Love found herself ensnared in a tumult of conflicting emotions. The revelation from Dream, delivered with a sincerity they had never shared before, stirred dormant romantic feelings within her. Despite his past transgressions, betrayals and neglect. She wanted to believe in his transformation, to open herself to loving him again, yet the scars of his past actions still haunted her as ghosts that followed her around. “You never claimed me as yours” she whispered, her voice a fragile thread amidst the elegant music and swirling dancers. Dream met her gaze with a mixture of longing and regret. “Maybe I should have,” he admitted softly, his eyes pleading for her understanding. Amidst the grandeur of the ballroom, amidst their intricate dance of emotions, the setting faded momentarily as Love, once again, stood at the precipice of a decision: whether to let her heart bloom anew, or to shield it from the shadows of past pain

"Eoster..." The soft utterance of Dream's voice broke through the enchanting tumult of the ballroom, his warm breath a gentle caress against her ear. The sound of her name on his lips sent a delicate shiver through her, and a solitary tear escaped, tracing a melancholy path down her cheek. In that fleeting moment, he could not fully fathom the depth of her inner turmoil, yet he sensed with poignant clarity that his role was simply to be present.

His hand rose gently, his touch tender as he brushed away the tear that glistened upon her cheek. Their fingers met, an electric current passing between them, a connection that resonated with unspoken emotions. As he leaned in closer, intending to convey his feelings, the weight of the scars of past wounds surged within her, overwhelming the burgeoning hope in her heart.

Eoster recoiled, her heart a tumult of longing and apprehension, her green eyes reflecting uncertainty. "Excuse me," she whispered softly, her voice barely audible above the music's melody. With graceful composure, she rose from her seat, her eyes lingering on his for a moment filled with unspoken sorrow, before she turned and wove her way through the crowd of cupids.

The revelry continued unabated, a stark contrast to the storm within her, as she ascended the stairs, seeking solace from the tempest of her heart.
"My Lord?" Lucienne called softly, her voice tinged with deference as she attempted to capture Lord Morpheus's attention. His gaze, however, remained steadfastly fixed upon Lady Love's retreating form. In that moment, an urgency born from the brink of losing something that had seemed unattainable, yet had been within their grasp, led him to follow his queen.

Elijah, who had just managed to usher out the last of the cupids from their feet, joined Lucienne with a touch of impatience, anxiety and urgency exacerbated by such events. He observed with disapproval as Lord Morpheus nearly rushed through the ballroom, reaching the staircase where Lady Love had disappeared.
"Where are they going? Dinner is about to be served," he queried with a touch of impatience, speaking as if Lucienne had any inkling of their king or queen's intentions. She was aware of the impending dinner, especially since Elijah had been preoccupied for weeks with china and cutlery. His brow furrowed in disapproval, silently remarking on the disruption of their carefully orchestrated evening.

Lucienne sighed inwardly, understanding Elijah's exasperation with the mercurial and unpredictable nature of their sovereigns.

"You will not be happy," she murmured softly, holding back another sigh. In over a millennium, she had never felt the need for a vacation. Now, if she could dream, she would dream of a long holiday away from Lord Morpheus, Lady Love, cupids, dreams, and nightmares. Just her and her library. She glanced sideways, meeting Elijah's gaze. For the first time, they shared the same thoughts.

-------------------

Morpheus ran up the stairs with urgency, his heart racing from the desperate need to rekindle the fleeting moment they had shared mere moments ago, his chance once again slipping through his fingers. Love's sudden withdrawal had startled him, her fear palpable in the way she had retreated. As he neared her, his footsteps echoing in the corridor, he slowed his pace, trying to approach with a calm demeanor.

Love didn't pause since leaving Morpheus at the reception. Her breath was rapid and erratic, as though any moment of stillness might plunge her into an ocean of tears she desperately wished to avoid. Ahead, she glimpsed the double doors to her quarters, a sight that brought relief at the prospect of solitude and perhaps a cup of night jasmine tea to calm her restless mind and grant respite from haunting dreams. She halted only when she heard familiar steps behind her, forcing herself to sound composed and unaffected.

Morpheus approached, coming to a halt a few steps away from Love. She stopped before the doors to her chambers. She could no longer bear the agony of loving him, only to be hurt by him time and again. These feelings weighed heavily on her heart. With a mixture of anguish and a desire to hurt him or provoke his anger, anything to shield herself from further pain, she uttered a shocking question, something they had never spoken of directly, but which, according to Lady Death, was a consensus among entities. "Did you ever consider that I might have had something to do with Orpheus's death?" Her voice trembled slightly, her eyes searching his face for a reaction, her heart both terrified of his answer and desperate for the truth.

Morpheus froze, the weight of Love's question hanging heavily between them. The mention of his son's name, uttered by her lips in such a context, struck him unexpectedly. He had grown accustomed to her using indirect references during their disputes, often labeling Orpheus as "bastard," a reminder of his own infidelity. "No," he replied coldly, his voice betraying the discomfort of the subject. Why was she bringing this up now?

"You have blamed me for so much else, why not for the loss of your child?" Love challenged, half expecting him to turn away. She anticipated his dismissal, his refusal to engage further in a conversation that dredged up painful accusations. Yet, was he in any position to silence her inquiries?

He had never suspected Love's involvement, not for a moment. Why? Even if it was because of his son’s misguided affections for the mortal girl that contributed to Orpheus's death, one thing Dream never doubted "You would never harm an innocent child," he affirmed, his response sincere.
Love persisted, dissatisfied with his answer. "He died for love," she stated matter-of-factly, voicing the rumors that circulated. "Surely that raised suspicions in your mind? A son sacrificed for love, the same love you denied me."

"You would not punish a child for its parents' mistakes," Morpheus asserted firmly. Love shook her head in disbelief. Why wasn't he retaliating, condemning her accusations as baseless? Why wasn't he painting her as the monster he often perceived her to be, Desire's puppet disguised as a virtuous maiden? Why was he defending her against herself?

She shrugged, using his own logic against him. "No one wouldn't condemn me for it. Some might even consider it to be fair. My sisters have happier marriages with legitimate heirs, yet they discard their husbands' bastards without a second thought. Why would I act differently?"

"Why are you pressing this issue?" Morpheus sounded weary, but Love was relentless. She wanted him to confront her, to stoke her resentment once more.

" No, I want to know your theories. Why would I trick you into a True Marriage, endure your disrespect over every single principle that was sacred to me, disrespecting the carnal union of lovers, breeding me endlessly, disregarding my pleasure," Love's voice crescendoed in exasperation as she closed the distance between them. "And if it were solely to witness the birth of a child! Yet, it was all for your self-indulgence, your diversion! And worse, I had to endure witnessing your muse's pregnancy! Why wouldn't I wish ill upon your child?" Each word was a lament, a reminder of the trials Morpheus had subjected her to throughout their marriage.
Speaking these truths felt like extinguishing the flames of her own affections, as if making him despise her anew would somehow ease her burden. Her voice carried a sharp and cutting like the edge of a blade forged from years of silent suffering. She wove her words with the delicate threads of her heart, torn between longing for his understanding and fearing the consequences of revealing her raw emotions once more.

"Stop!" Morpheus's voice rose sharply, halting her venomous tirade. It was the first time he had ever pleaded with her. "You may inflict any pain upon me, twist the knife as you will. But not this, I implore you."

Love observed his stoic facade crack slightly, a solitary tear escaping his eye. She concealed her surprise. She had expected him to retreat, wounded and defeated, to nurse his wounds elsewhere, perhaps to create nightmares or seek solace in another's arms. Instead, he whispered almost inaudibly, "You could have saved him. My distrust condemned him. He didn't believe the girl was behind him. I killed my own son." His gaze lifted from the floor, the pain she had glimpsed earlier now etched deeply into his features. "You could have saved him, Love. The trust that you long, that trust that you teach, could have. But even before my imprisonment, I dared not ask. You would have sacrificed even if it pained you, for it was a child's life, and you could not let a child suffer. You are my wife, dutiful and kind. What have I done to deserve your mercy, your forgiveness?"

Nothing.

He turned away, unaware of Love's stunned silence. She had always accused Morpheus of not truly knowing her, but did she truly know him? She had never imagined he would acknowledge his mistakes, let alone express remorse before his imprisonment. Despite her doubts, guilt lingered in his admission. "You could have asked for forgiveness," she offered tentatively, though she knew he could read her thoughts.

"I am trying, am I not?" Morpheus countered softly. "But what good has it done, other than add more pain to your heart, to our marriage?"

Our marriage.

This was new.

"Morpheus..." Love started, wanting to explain that her hesitation stemmed from fear, not pain. Fear of surrendering her heart only to have it shattered once more, fear of rejection or of him deciding she was no longer worthy of his love, fear of losing herself in her overwhelming love for him.

But the words caught in her throat.

Chapter Text

The lake shimmered beneath the gentle rays of the afternoon sun, its surface dotted with the occasional ripple where a stray leaf or bird’s feather met the water. Surrounding the lake were tall trees whose branches swayed lazily, offering shade from the warmth above. The breeze was soft, warm tender even, brushing through the reeds at the water's edge. It was a typical summer day and one could easily hear the buzzing of cicadas all afternoon. It was a place designed for peace, a sanctuary of nature where the muses often congregated for lazy leisure and might enjoy each other’s company undisturbed by the chaos of gods and mortals. And yet, tension now held the air hostage.

What was meant to be an afternoon of gentle persuasion had already turned sour.

Calliope sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, her gaze fixed stubbornly on the far side of the lake, with her back turned away from her sister. The gentle overture from Polyhymnia, the eldest of the muses, to begin the conversation—one that every muse but Calliope knew to be the very purpose of this gathering—had met with quiet resistance. What began as a moment of peaceful indulgence, as Polyhymnia softly brushed her hair in that familiar sisterly manner, soon transformed into a posture of defiance, quickened by the shift in the air, her sisters encircling her as if she were some creature ensnared. Their expressions ranging from concern and frustration.

“She is a spoiled child who saw something she could not have and worked in a devious way to take it!” Calliope’s voice rang out, raw with the emotion she could no longer suppress. Her dark eyes flashed with fury, but beneath that fiery surface, tears glistened, threatening to spill. Her sisters had ambushed her, invited her under false pretenses to what she believed would be a tranquil afternoon. Instead, they had brought their judgment, their warnings, and she could no longer bear the condescending in their demeanor.

“Sister!” Polyhymnia’s tone was sharp, her face marked with the effort of maintaining composure. “Do not speak of what you do not understand.” Her dark brows knitted together, and for the first time in this conversation, her regal calm began to waver. She had promised herself, and the others, that they would approach Calliope with reason, that their words would be tempered with love and concern, the way that was always the best to talk to Calliope, the only way to make her listen.
But how difficult it was when faced with such stubbornness, such blindness.

Polyhymnia’s figure, always elegant, now felt rigid. Her dark, braided hair, so carefully woven into a crown, stood in contrast to the loose, windswept strands that framed Calliope’s tear-streaked face. Both sisters, mirror images in appearance, now seemed so far apart.

“What is there to understand?” Calliope spat, turning to face the older sister, even if it felt almost unbearable. “She got what she wanted, didn’t she? She trapped him, and Desire helped her. They plotted together to force him into this—this cage of a marriage!”

At this, Polyhymnia’s lips thinned, her patience unraveling thread by thread. But before she could form a response, Erato stepped forward, her eyes burning with righteous anger. "Is that the sweet lie Oneiros has been feeding you?” Her voice, sharp as a blade, cut through the air between them. Erato’s cheeks flushed with the heat of her own frustration, the kind that only sisters can invoke in one another. Though a few years older than Calliope, she moved with the restlessness of youth, her steps quick as she paced in front of the group. “Does he truly make you believe he is some victim of love, poor and powerless in the hands of a scheming queen?”

Polyhymnia sighed, casting a glance at Erato—her warning unheeded. She had told her sister not to let her closeness with Lady Love cloud the conversation. Erato and Calliope always had friction between them, disagreeing on even the most mundane topics, and Polyhymnia was clear that Erato should not let the emotions of the heart interfere with the delicate matter at hand. But now it was too late.

Her devotion to Lady Love had always made her the first to rush to protect the queen, and judge anyone that dares to speak ill of her. It could almost be compared to the devotion of cupids, although they would not like to be compared. And it showed now in every line of Erato's body.

“He is not kind to her, Calliope. Oneiros treats her with cruelty,” Clio interjected quietly, her voice steady, calm—too calm. She emerged from the lake, her red hair dripping as she wrung it out with slow deliberation, as if the conversation was but a trivial matter.

Calliope’s breath hitched. That calm tone unnerved her more than Erato’s fire. Clio, ever the pragmatist, always seemed to know more than she let on, as she was a specialist on every subject in the universe. And Calliope always believed in her sister's wisdom, now however it sounded as over-the-top pretentiousness. The younger muse looked up at her, seeing in her sister's expression not malice, but pity. And that, she could not abide.

“And what of it?” she replied, her voice now cold, detached. “He is cruel because she deserves it. He punishes her for what she took from him. A fitting retribution for all that she has deprived him of.”

In an instant, the air seemed to still. Polyhymnia’s breath caught, and the others exchanged startled glances. Then, with a sudden, sharp movement, Polyhymnia’s hand connected with Calliope’s cheek, the slap echoing in the quiet, idyllic scene. Not even the buzzing of cicadas could be heard.

Calliope’s hand flew to her cheek, stunned. She had not expected this. Not from Polyhymnia. A deep sense of betrayal flooded her, mingling with the stinging pain of the slap. She opened her mouth to speak but found no words, only a raw, wounded silence.

Polyhymnia’s chest heaved with the effort of regaining control, her hand still trembling slightly from the force of the blow. She never raised her hand to any of her sisters, she never resorted to violence and her immediate instinct was to hug Calliope, and beg for forgiveness. A quick glance at Clio, who locked eyes with Poly, gave her the strength to keep her stance. This was bigger than Calliope’s feelings. This was for her own good. “You defend a man who punishes his wife, and for what? A fleeting love that cannot last?” Her voice softened, but the steel remained. “This affair... it must end, Calliope.”

“She deserves it,” Calliope whispered, her voice barely audible, her pride still clinging to the remnants of defiance. Her sisters exchanged glances, even Euterpe, Melpomene, Thalia, Terpsichore, Urania who let the older ones guide the conversation, sitting on the side, realized with the exhausted sigh of Poly. They were no longer listening to her as a sister, but as a threat to their way of life.

Clio stepped forward, her eyes hard. If love and gentleness didn’t resolve, maybe rationality would. “And what of us, Calliope? What do we deserve? The wrath of the Queen of Four Loves for your defiance?”

The muses all knew what that meant. Lady Love’s sisters, the Ladies of Emotion, were known throughout the realms for their beauty, gracefulness, the embodiment of every form of feeling— They were good sisters, and loving nieces to the Aunts, but they were also known for their ruthless and unforgiving nature. Each had their way of exacting revenge. Honesty and Pride were quick to act when their husbands strayed, they had a tendency for the drama, crafting the bloodiest violent scenes as lessons to their husband.

Not that it worked, as their husbands were equally kin on bloodshed, feeling more proud and enticed by their wives. It is what Lady Honesty called “games of love”. Melancholy and Happiness had more long-term provoked suffering, playing with the lovers' emotion until they themselves ended their lives. Love didn’t agree with her sisters, and they would often fight when it came to discussion. Love used to say that they should punish their husbands for the infidelity, not the affairs they search for. Her sisters always disdain her opinion, saying that she would understand when she got a husband of their own.

Eoster promised herself to her if it ever came to infidelity, she would punish her husband and hold no ill against their lover. But more than often she broke that promise, and hated Calliope and referred to her by despicable names when fighting with Morpheus. Eoster knew it would elicit a reaction from him, she would have his attention, and after she hated herself for it, to reach so low, and found herself wanting her husband to defend her honor against the gossip and awful whispers that called her frigid and unfit, as he defended Calliope’s to her. But even in her lowest moments, Aphrodite never thought to resort to her sisters’ tricks and games.
The muses however couldn’t know this, they couldn’t be certain, and they couldn’t risk it. It was for Calliope's own good and survival.

“If Lady Love chooses to punish you…,” Clio said, her voice now edged with fear, “She may be softer, but do not think her heart will remain unscathed by your defiance. She may not draw blood as Pride and Honesty do, but she can withhold her blessings, and with them, the very inspiration that keeps us alive.”
Calliope’s sisters feared not just for her, but for themselves. They could not afford to anger the Queen of Love, the one who controlled mortal desires, the very prayers that sustained the Muses’ power.

Polyhymnia’s eyes hardened, her voice unwavering. “The mortals pray to us because they are moved by Love, Calliope. The songs, the poems, the art—it all begins with her. And if she turns away from them, if she takes away that spark… what would become of us?”

Calliope’s heart sank. She knew the weight of those words. Without the prayers, without the devotion of mortals, the Muses would fade. And it was all tied to Love, the queen whose influence stretched farther than even they could see.

“Oneiros won’t allow her. He promised me…” Calliope began, but her words sounded hollow even to her.

“Promised you?” Clio cut her off with a cold laugh. “What good are his promises when our very existence hangs in the balance? He will protect his queen, his soul, not you. You are a passing affair. She wears the crown.”

Polyhymnia stepped forward, her voice firm but tinged with sorrow. “You must understand, Calliope. This is not just about you or your heart. This is about all of us. We cannot risk losing everything for the sake of your… infatuation.”

Tears welled in Calliope’s eyes, but this time, they were not born of anger. They were tears of realization, of betrayal. Her sisters—her family—were not standing by her out of love or concern for her well-being. They were protecting themselves, preserving their own power.

Melpomene with her melodic voice, spoke for the first time, without directly facing Calliope, her tone different from all the others, she didn’t seem like to be talking directly to them, but to an invisible audience preaching a prophecy, her voice was distant “When push comes to shove, he will have one choice only. And she is the one sitting by his side, wearing his crown. She is, and always will be, his queen.”

Calliope looked at each of them, searching for a sign that they still cared for her, that their words came from love. But all she saw was fear—fear for their power, for their survival. They used the worry for her as an excuse to veil their desire of self preservation. The bond they shared, as muses, as sisters, had been broken, replaced by cold practicality.

She stood, feeling the sting of betrayal heavier than the slap across her cheek. She had lost her sisters.

—------------------
Calliope sat at the edge of the bed, her thoughts swirling as heavily as the storm outside the window. Her fingers rested on her belly, a gentle gesture, yet one laden with uncertainty. The Three stood before her, their dark chitons contrasting sharply against her pale gown, their presence an embodiment of fate and finality.

“My child,” the Mother began, her voice both tender and admonishing, “I feel for your tears, but you were warned. You were advised against this.”

Calliope had hesitated to summon them, but the silence of her sisters and the weight of her secret had driven her to desperation. She could no longer bear the burden alone. Weeks had passed without her monthly bleeding, and as the truth of her condition settled in, fear took its place. Oneiros had to know—yet how? How could she speak of the life growing inside her when the very act of creating it was shrouded in betrayal?

She could almost see the dream she once had, seemingly a lifetime ago, before the complications. Calliope watches them from the window from the same bedroom she sat now. A child wrapped in Morpheus’s arms, eyes like the starry skies of the Dreaming, cherished by the Lord of Dreams, as Morpheus would cradle him with the same tenderness he once held for her. How Morpheus would love him, their child, his child. She knew that, just as surely as she knew the stars would continue to shine. A father of stories would fill their child’s nights with tales of the Dreaming. In another life, perhaps, it would be a perfect future.
But perfection, Calliope now knew, was fragile.

“It is the last time,” said the Crone, disapproval dripping from her lips as if she had already judged Calliope’s heart. “That is what she said, the last time,” echoed the Maiden, sitting beside Calliope and placing a compassionate arm around her shoulders.

Every breath Calliope took seemed to make the room smaller, as though the air itself was pushing in on her. “Please, my mothers, what shall I do? I crave your guidance.” A blessing it should be. A blessing that belongs only in that perfect life in her dream life.

Because the moment the universe learned of this child, the whispers, and gossip would become insufferable. A scandal, which according to Oneiros, was all that Love wanted to avoid. The Lady of Love herself floated through socials with her sweet, brittle smile and gentle manners. But a child would be different. No amount of feigned ignorance or public pleasantries would quell the storm that would follow.

Calliope knew little of Eoster beyond her public mask—preaching love, displaying polite affection for her husband, always by his side, with her hand holding his arm, in a way that grated on Calliope’s nerves. She expected to see a fracture in her facade or regret, but the Lady of Springs was always composed. In private, Eoster was miserable; Calliope knew this. And yet, despite her misery, the queen had never directly harmed her. She didn’t torture her by any means. But could she trust that?

Eoster might not harm the child, but Calliope didn’t know that. What guarantees did she have, besides Morpheus' word?

And worse— She could see the future as clearly as she could feel the weight in her womb—Morpheus loving their child, yes, but unable to silence the outside judgment. He could not protect him from the scorn of entities, nor from the cruelty of his own family. What would be his place in the universe? The opinion of others might not be relevant to the Dream King, but to a child, it might shape their future.

“I see it,” Calliope whispered, her voice trembling. “I see the life we could have. The child would be so adored by his father, loved as no child could dream to be loved. But...”

Her voice faltered as the weight of the decision pressed down upon her.”My mothers, What would you have me do?” She repeat the question, craving for an answer, for an solution made by others. If she kept the child, he would be a source of joy, but also a source of endless conflict. Their son would grow up knowing he was not entirely welcome, his very existence a reminder of the broken vows of a True Marriage. Would Eoster ever allow Calliope’s child to feel love? Or would she punish him by devoiding him from the feeling? An empty shell, never satisfied, never knowing what is missing.

“It is not a question of what we would have you do,” replied the Mother, her expression softening as she seated herself beside Calliope. “It is a question of what your heart will allow.”

Calliope’s gaze fell to the small cup in the Crone’s hands. The tea was warm, fragrant, almost inviting. “Poppy for a dreamless sleep,” said the Mother. “Peony and safflower to ease your pains, and honey to sweeten the bitterness.”

She stared at the cinnamon-colored liquid, her heart pounding in her chest. How easy it would be—just a sip, and the terrible weight that had settled in her bones would lift. Maybe in a few decades she would tell him. What would he think of her then? Morpheus would forgive her, embrace her, soothe her pain, but beneath that forgiveness would always lie a wound—a wound that would never heal, because she had taken away something he would have loved beyond all measure. He would always feel betrayed, even if he never said it aloud.

The Maiden’s voice broke her thoughts. “What pains you now will not pain you any longer.”

But Calliope’s hands were already trembling. Could she live knowing that she had denied her child the life he could have had, the father who would have adored him, all because she feared entities whose whole lives revolve around gossiping and whispering lies? Could she truly carry on, lying beside him, pretending as though nothing had happened?

She looked at the tea again, the weight of her decision pressing down harder with every passing second. She imagined again her child in Morpheus’s arms, the life they could share together. But then the universe’s whispers crept in—the cruel, cutting judgments, the sarcastic jokes and mean laughs, the reminders that their love was hurting love itself.

The Mother’s voice broke through her thoughts, gentle yet firm. “A child can be a blessing.”

“And a curse,” added the Crone, her tone far less comforting. “What the Dream Lord gives to one, he denies to another.”
Calliope closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She had made her choice, though the weight of it bore heavily on her heart. “I will talk to Oneiros,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt.

The Three exchanged glances, their expressions unreadable. The Mother spoke softly. “Guard your heart, for his answer may not be what you wish it to be.”

“And yet,” the Maiden added, “perhaps it will be.”

Calliope swallowed hard, fear and hope warring within her. Whatever path she chose, it was clear: there would be no peace. Whether she kept the child or ended its life, the scars would remain forever. Yet one thing she knew—she could not bear the weight of this choice alone. Morpheus had to know, and together they would face whatever came.

But the final words from the Three echoed loudest of all, chilling her to the bone. “Remember dear Calliope, if you keep this child, it will never be entirely only your son. It belongs to the Dreaming, and tragedy follows the Dream King.”

—------------------
They had a home, the Dream King and Calliope. It wasn't a palace, like the one in the Dreaming or the one in the Garden. It was a quiet home nestled within a secluded glade, where the trees whispered ancient secrets, and the light filtered through leaves in soft, golden dapples. It was their escape from both their realities. And Calliope and Morpheus were content there, the best they could, taking the circumstances. The land around them was pastoral, untouched by time—wildflowers spilled across the meadow, and a gentle stream wound lazily through the valley. It was a place that seemed to belong more to myth than reality, where dreams and reality blurred together, a sanctuary for their love.

In the early days, the thought of ending her pregnancy had never truly surfaced in their conversation. Calliope’s worry were clouded by the unexpected emotion by her so often introspective king. Morpheus had cradled her growing belly with tender reverence, his dark eyes softened by the love he felt for the life within her. Orpheus grew in their little bubble, they had built dreams of their son, untarnished by the harshness of the universe beyond. And Calliope had been cherished, adored by the Lord of Dreams as if nothing else mattered.

But no child can be forever protected, and Orpheus grew into a fine gentleman, and gifted of music. He was enamored by life and nature, and soon, against his mother’s wishes, started to frequent socials, only from the greek pantheon, which Aphrodite was usually absent. His charisma and harmonic voice, inherited from his mother, soon made him a dear guest at any greek social. Both Calliope and Morpheus forbade him from going to any universal manifestation meeting. Until one day his eyes turned to a girl that always ran way, but in early spring, decided to stay longer than usual, to celebrate the spring solstice and the good fortune that came from mortal’s abundant harvest.

And from a young love, the promised tragedy came.

“I am going to kill her!” Calliope's voice, raw from endless weeping, cracked with a fierce determination as Morpheus appeared, his presence still and impenetrable as ever. Her face was gaunt, cheeks hollow from the toll grief had taken. She had not truly slept since Orpheus' death, haunted by the cruel fate that had befallen her son.

Morpheus stood there, watching her, his expression unchanged—a figure wrapped in shadows, the weight of the Dreaming ever present in his silence.

“My beloved, calm down,” he said, his voice low, distant. But the words felt empty to her, hollow like the chasm now carved into her heart.

“Calm down? She killed him, Morpheus!” Calliope’s fists clenched, her eyes wild with fury. “She used that girl—Eurydice! She took him from us on the day of their wedding, trapped him in darkness. Our dear boy…”she wailed, her voice thick with sorrow. “He will hate the Underworld. He loved the sun, the earth, the very breath of life. And now... now, he is lost, forever entrapped, his soul, his poor soul.” Her sobs broke free again, as though the tears would never end.

Morpheus said nothing. He simply held her, as he had done countless times before, letting the storm of her grief rage while he remained the silent center. Rain began to fall in the Dreaming, clouds swirling above, a reflection of Calliope’s inner torment. He, however, was removed from it. His thoughts drifted to the Garden, to the figure of Love, serene in her eternal role, utterly unaware of this grief. He hadn’t seen Eoster in what felt like an age. The thought of her, oddly, surfaced now, perhaps jealousy of her unremarkable week. The bond was quiet, it has been for a few thousand of years.

Calliope’s tear-streaked face turned up toward him. “Promise me you will bring her to justice. Promise me that you will make her pay.”
Morpheus’ eyes darkened. “Calliope... Eoster had nothing to do with this.”

“How can you be so sure?!” Her voice broke with disbelief. “There was a mortal girl, Morpheus. He followed her because he loved her. Loved, Morpheus. Does that sound familiar to you?”

He averted his gaze, jaw tight. “I warned him. I told him not to pursue Eurydice.”

“And that is all you have to say?” Her voice trembled with rising anger. “You warned him?” She scoffed bitterly. “She despised him. She despised me. Her sisters, her aunts, her cupids, her circle of protégés—they all called him a bastard behind your back, they shunned your son. Who do you think allowed that?”

“They needed no permission to behave as they did. Eoster does not control them any more than I can control the tides of time. She would not—”

“Why are you defending her?” Calliope’s voice was raw with accusation. “Orpheus’ blood is barely cold, and you’re here defending her! Why are you not feeling this?
Why are you not seeking justice for your own flesh and blood? He was your son!”

Morpheus’ voice hardened, though his expression barely shifted. “Do not mistake my restraint for indifference. I grieve our son. But I will not be ruled by madness.”
“Madness?” she spat. “Is that what you call a mother’s grief?” Her breath caught as she trembled. “How can you be so... How can you not see that she is responsible for this?”

His voice was ice, unyielding. “Eoster would never harm a child. She is the queen of love, of family. She would not break her vows so easily.”

Calliope's laughter came sharp and bitter. “Easily?” She whipped a tear from the side of her eye” Wouldn’t be the first time she’s bent her ‘sacred vows’ to get what she wants.”

A brief flicker of emotion crossed Morpheus’ face—something too fleeting to grasp. He inhaled deeply, grounding himself in the calm he always maintained. “Do not speak of what you don’t understand.” It was difficult to explain the bond, how he could be certain that Eoster had nothing to do with it. How he could vouch for her innocence even after years of not seeing her. How he knew her nature even if he didn’t properly know his wife as one often does.

“No. You’re right. I don’t understand. I don’t understand how you can stand there defending her—defending the woman who has scorned us since the day of that accursed marriage, who has despised your son from the moment of his birth.”

Silence.

Something dark and cold settled in her gaze as she looked at him.”Oh, I see” Calliope let out a sharp, mirthless laugh, one that sent shivers through the cold air. “She’s pregnant, isn’t she?” Her voice dropped to a low, venomous whisper. “That’s why you don’t care. She’s carrying your heir—your legitimate heir.”
Morpheus’ brow furrowed, his face set like stone. “Calliope, that is not—”

“That’s why!” she cried, interrupting him, voice rising in hysteria. “That’s why you defend her! You have a new child to look forward to, a new legacy to secure. You won’t accuse the mother of your ‘legitimate’ heir, will you?”

His voice, usually a command in the realms of dream and reality, faltered for the briefest of moments. “Do you hear yourself? I know you are in pain, but do not twist this into something it is not.”

Her eyes blazed. “When push comes to shove, you’ll have only one choice.”

“What?” His voice was low, almost a whisper, but filled with a deep, unspoken sorrow.

“You’ll choose her. The one wearing the crown. Sitting by your side.” Calliope’s voice was cold now, final.

Morpheus moved closer, trying to reach her with words, with a touch—but she recoiled.

“Get out,” she demanded, her voice barely audible.

“Calliope, please...”

“Get out!” she screamed, her face twisted in grief, in rage.

Morpheus stood there, the weight of centuries pressing down on him, but his expression remained impassive. He gave a small nod, turned, and walked away.

Even as the pocket sand wrapped him, Calliope’s heartache echoed through the emptiness, and Morpheus was left to face the terrible truth—he could not bridge the gap between them. She would always hate him, see him as the one who could not protect their child.

And somewhere in the depths of his silence, he knew she was right.

Chapter Text

Sleep proved elusive for Lady Love. She lay in her bed, staring at the dark canopy above, but the silence around her was louder than any celebration could have been. The laughter from the festivities below, once a lively soundtrack to her life, now seemed like a distant echo. The cupids had long abandoned their revelry, and with their absence, a heavy silence had descended, suffocating in its stillness. It wasn’t a silence of peace—it was a silence of waiting, of something unsaid, a void that demanded to be filled but couldn’t be. She could almost feel it pressing against her skin, against her thoughts.

Once, the quiet had been a comfort, a refuge she could retreat to. But now, it felt like the walls were closing in, amplifying every restless thought, every unanswered question. Her mind wandered back to the days of her youth, to the grand soirées she had once attended. The laughter, the music, the endless chatter—how vibrant it all seemed then. The mirth of the nights she shared with her sisters, the bustling crowds, the flirtations, the secrets shared in hushed tones, the world feeling alive with possibility. Yet, now, with time’s cruel clarity, she couldn’t help but wonder—did any of them truly enjoy those times, or had they, like her, hidden behind the noise, using it to cover the emptiness that lay beneath?

A sigh escaped her lips, and she turned towards the faint glow of the night sky, its silvery light filtering softly through the curtains. Perhaps a bath would ease her mind. The thought was fleeting. Her thoughts betrayed her, like they always did. They drifted, of their own accord, to Morpheus. The bond between them, thin as it once had been, now felt inescapable. She could feel it—the pull, the connection—though their physical distance had grown. Was he awake, too? Did he sense her thoughts, her quiet ache? A warmth stirred in her chest, and for a brief moment, she allowed herself the indulgence of the thought—did he miss her as she missed him?

She hesitated. Would he feel her longing? It made her cheeks flush with an unfamiliar heat, a rush of feeling she didn’t quite know what to do with. She had kept her distance for so long, built walls between them, yet the bond persisted—unseen, unfelt, yet so very real. It was like a door left ajar in the cold winds of winter, impossible to close, even if she wanted to.

Her thoughts turned inwards, as they often did, to what could not be spoken aloud. She wished, in that moment, for someone to confide in, someone who might understand. But the only person who might understand—the only person who had ever understood her—was the one she could never face.
With a soft groan, Lady Love pressed her forehead into the pillow, the faint scent of roses rising from the fabric. A simpler time, when she could hate her husband without question, when his indifference was a known quantity, and her tears felt justified. How strange it was to miss those days. She had once longed for this, for the silence, for the distance. Now, it felt like an emptiness she could not escape from.

She thought briefly of calling for Elijah, asking him to prepare a calming night-blooming jasmine drink, something to soothe her mind, to help her sleep. But with the Solstice Festival approaching, there was no time for such indulgence. Besides, poor Elijah was probably exhausted. She couldn’t bring herself to burden him further. As his creator, she should ease his load, not add to it.

Eoster didn’t know if she had truly slept or if her mind had wandered so far into its own thoughts that dawn had broken without her noticing. The first light of morning filtered through the curtains, spilling across the room like the touch of a cold hand. The Dream maids entered, their steps measured, precise—each movement choreographed to perfection. Two of them immediately set to work preparing a bath, the warm vanilla scent of the water filling the air, while another selected a long, white dress covered in hand-painted flowers, its delicate fabric a soft contrast to the hardness of her thoughts. A younger maid carried the underskirts and corset, each movement done without a word.

"Good morning, my lady," one of the maids said, her voice soft yet urgent, standing by the bed, waiting for Lady Love to rise. There was no need for the queen to actually wake before they began their work. The maids, trained in the delicate art of serving, always knew when it was time to begin, and when they needed Elijah to handle the awkwardness of waking their sovereign. Unfortunately, Elijah was nowhere to be found.

The queen kept her arm over her eyes, feeling the weight of the night’s wakefulness. She hadn’t remembered telling them to wake her at this hour, so why were they here? The question lingered in the back of her mind as she lay there, unbidden thoughts of Elijah’s fierce insistence on punctuality making her feel guilty for the precious moments lost.

The maid next to her bed, sensing her thoughts, glanced anxiously at the other two before clearing her throat and answering the queen’s silent question. "Elijah told us to come with the rise of the morning, to help you prepare for your pupils’ class."

Lady Love’s heart skipped a beat. Ah, the last lesson before they graduated in the Solstice, the final step before they returned to their realms as emissaries of the Four Loves, forever changed by their knowledge.

"My lad…" She faltered, realizing the weight of Elijah’s carefully crafted schedules, his deep-rooted terror of delays. The maids seemed to share his anxiety, their quiet distress evident in the way they shifted nervously.

"Blessed be your hearts, my dears," she murmured, pretending to yawn before sitting up, allowing the maids to guide her through the ritual of preparation. She allowed herself a moment to breathe, to step out of the fragile silence that had consumed her. But it was only a fleeting moment, as the world outside continued its relentless march forward, and she, ever the queen, had no choice but to follow.

And maybe if lucky enough, manage until the Solstice, not see her husband. Ever again.

—------------
Mervyn had been hiding in the library since the night before.He had expected many things—noise, confusion, perhaps even the occasional brawl—but declarations of unconditional love, proposals, and duels! For his hand, no less. His hand. He had a pumpkin for a head, for fuck’s sake—not exactly the kind of thing that launched a thousand ships or inspired dueling cherubs to take up arms in the name of romance.

And yet, here he was, dusting a shelf he hadn’t touched since the French Revolution just to avoid another lovesick verse comparing his “agricultural elegance” to the divine nature of passion. He wasn’t made of stone—he could take a compliment—but there’s only so many creative ways to rhyme “pumpkin” with “love” before an ordinary Joe starts fantasizing about self-immolation via book candle.

His moment of peace, however, was shattered by the distinctly furious sound of books being thrown to the floor, the kind of violence that suggested heartbreak or arson. He peeked out from between two massive volumes on Russian emperors—Peter looked betrayed; Catherine, disappointed—and sighed—relief and confusion both—at the sight of Lucienne. Of all people, she was the one chucking tomes like grenades? And this wasn’t her usual clinical frustration. No, this was something else.

“You scared the shit outta me, Loosh,” he called, stepping into view. “Thought it was another damn cherub. About to get on one knee. Pop the question.”

‘Again’, he might’ve added.

Lucienne didn’t respond. Didn’t even flinch. Just shook her head like someone ten seconds away from either a breakdown or revolution. These days, the trio of usual staff—herself, Mervyn, and Matthew—were avoiding the smitten cupids and their cooing doves like the devil dodges a crucifix. The Dream Maids, on the other hand—those poor things crafted to serve Lady Love—were positively reveling in the attention, giggling like schoolgirls at every wink a cupid sent their way.
Lucienne adjusted her glasses.

Her exhale could’ve flattened a wheat field. “They’re dueling in the palace gardens,” she said flatly. “For your hand. So I’ve heard.”

“Hey, Loosh, I can’t help it if I’m this season’s diamond,” he said, grinning like a man desperately trying to deflect with charm, hoping for at least a smile. She didn’t give him that. Instead, all he got was her just sinking into the nearest chair like gravity had tripled, head in hands, the weight of the entire Dreaming teetering on her temples.

“They’re really taking a toll on you,” Mervyn muttered. “I’ll have a word with that stuck-up boss-cupid.” Lucienne’s weary gaze stopped him in his tracks,presumably to go speak to Elijah . She was quick to shake her head.

“No, Merv. Thank you, but it’s not the cupids.” Her voice was dry. Immediate. Exhausted.

He hesitated. “Not the cupids?”.

“…Not just them,” she didn’t look up as she added, which wasn’t exactly reassuring, her frustration palpable.

Excellent. Brilliant. Great.

Then she reached into her coat and dropped a ivory cards on the table like they were cursed runes. Elegant, handwritten. Gold-inked. Dripping with bad news.

He squinted. “Okay. More guests. Big event. Extra effort. We knew this. Elijah’s been shouting about it like a pageant mom on espresso—”

“Flip them over,” she said, face still buried in the desk. if Merv didnt knew Lucienne he would say that she was also tapping her forehead against it. But no, he knew Lucienne.

He flipped the first.

Then the second.

The third.

Then the fourth.

Then he stopped breathing.

“Shit.”

Four cards. Four names.

Confirmed attendance.

All of them, ALL OF THEM, former mistresses of Lord Morpheus.

“What the fuck—”

“I don’t know!” Lucienne snapped, voice tight enough to cut steel.

Elijah had said Lady Love wanted the Solstice to be grand—so grand even those with ill will toward her or Dream would be forced to witness the Dreaming’s glory. She
would force the doubters to applaud.A political move. Smart. Strategic. Show them everything’s fine. Prosperous. No need for whispered coups or undermining Dream’s position just because of a century-old scandal with imprisonment by mortals.

Lucienne knew Eoster was cunning, yes—but never invites to Lord Dream’s exes?

This was not optics. This was chaos with a dress code.

“When—” Mervyn started.

“I don’t know.”

“But why—”

“Merv.”

Silence.

“Sorry,” he muttered. Beat. “This is a disaster.”

And that was putting it kindly. Lucifer showing up unannounced with the full Court of Hell would’ve been less stressful. At least then there’d be protocol.

Elijah had made it very clear from the beginning: “We need to keep Lady Love’s thoughts light. If she succumbs to sorrow or spite, spring may fail to bloom in the mortal realm. And the consequences—” he trailed off, as only a Cupid could, when imagining a world left without renewal. Mortals stuck in a metaphorical and ecological emotional spiral.

Now?

They’d invited her husband’s entire romantic trauma file to dinner.

“She’s going to lose it,” Mervyn muttered. “Your stuck-up friend’s gonna shit his divine pants.”

“If you mean the duelists,” came Matthew’s voice as he flapped into the room and landed on the table, “forget it. They’ve moved on. The bosslady’s maids are the new objects of desire. I heard one of them say he’d never known true beauty until he laid eyes on one of ’em—caw! It was tragic”

“Wow,” Mervyn deadpanned. “So I’m yesterday’s produce.”

“Matthew,” Lucienne cut in, brisk and bone-tired. “I have a job for you.”

She hadn’t wanted to tell Elijah. Not really. He was already wound tighter than a harp string. But if he found out at the Festival? In full view of Lady Love? Surrounded by roses and diplomats and centuries-old vendettas wrapped in sequins?

Not even Destiny could predict that fallout.

—-------------------
“Good morning, my darling,” a velveteen voice floated in the air, light as the breeze rustling the pink-toned leaves outside the open windows.

Elijah did not answer. He groaned softly, turning in their vast bed of white silk and pale blush linens, groping blindly with one hand until—ah! A pillow. Perfect. He yanked it over his face with the exasperation of a man who had loved too hard, slept too little, and wanted nothing more than to melt into the soft warmth surrounding him.

The light that slipped through the garden’s stained-glass vitrals painted everything in watercolor tones—roses, orchids, and ivy trailing across their marble walls, giving the illusion that the entire bedroom bloomed. It smelled faintly of honey and lilac. Paradise with decor.

Last night’s reception still throbbed in Elijah’s temples. A palace crawling with Cupids—some curious, some suspicious, all of them nosy—each peering into corners and whispering over crystal flutes and fluffed feathers. The tension between realms, the pitying looks, the snide comments that disguised themselves as concern. He had weathered it all. Barely.

And now this?

A weight settled over him. A familiar one. The distinct pressure of thighs straddling his hips. Still dressed. Still smug. Still infuriating.

“You invaded my quarters after midnight,” came that silken, wicked voice again. “Laid in my bed and thought I’d just allow it? You foul little Cupid.” A smile tugged at the edge of Elijah’s lips—but he kept it hidden under the pillow. Sleep was a sanctuary he refused to surrender easily.

Then the voice dipped, brushing against his ear, teasing and warm: “Wake up, sweetheart.”

The shiver that rippled down Elijah’s spine betrayed him.

“Our quarters,” he muttered, muffled by down feathers and half-hearted indignation.

That earned him the sudden removal of his pillow and a flood of morning light in his face. Elijah squinted, grumbling.

“And cheeky, too,” the Emissary mused, his golden eyes glinting with amusement as he leaned down, curls like spun sugar brushing Elijah’s cheeks. He kissed him—softly, languidly, like there was nothing beyond these walls but sunlight and silk.

Gods, Elijah had missed him. Missed the scent of his skin, the warmth of him, the feel of those cruelly gentle hands that always found their way to his hair.

They kissed like lovers who didn’t owe the day a single thing.

Eventually, Elijah murmured against his mouth, “Good morning.”

The Emissary drew back, settling on his side of the bed with a stretch that should have been illegal. “That bad?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
Elijah sat up slowly, the sheets falling to his lap, raking a hand through his curls. “Chaotic,” he said. “They didn’t show up to dinner. Stayed long enough at the reception to smile and wave, then vanished upstairs.”

The Emissary raised a brow. “Oh?” His voice dripped with implication

“Not what you’re thinking,” Elijah said at once, narrowing his eyes. “If you make a comment about how the Dream King skip dinner because he feasted on the Queen’s nectar, I swear to the Stars, I will drown you in rosewater.”

He could see it forming already—the sly smirk, the parted lips ready to unleash some damning innuendo.

“According to Lucienne,” Elijah pressed on before he could be interrupted, “Dream practically trampled her trying to follow Lady Love. And a dream maid told me—probably with her ear pressed to the damn door—that they had a fight. He accused her of killing the bastard. The nerve of that man.”
The Emissary’s expression sobered, just slightly, as he lay back down and tugged Elijah against his chest. His fingers immediately slid into Elijah’s curls, tracing them with reverent affection. “They’re like cat and mouse in an endless maze,” he said. “Every time I think they’re going to find their way out… they switch roles and start the chase again.”

“I have to hand it to Lady/Lord Desire.” The Emissary shrugged “Who would thought that to arrange for Dream’s demise they didn’t need to make faulty bets, and elaborate schemes involving mortals, all they need it was to give him in a silver tray the perfect match in a suffocating circumstance and just leave it to him to ruin it”

‘A rat will chew off its own tail to escape the heat’ the Emissary thought about the words Desire whispered scented with rose and blood and a wicked smile, before sending the Emissary as a gift to Love. Those words always stayed with the golden eyed man.

“Poor Lady Love,” Elijah said, voice barely above a whisper. “She adored Desire. They were so close once. What did she ever do to Lady/Lord Desire to deserve this?”

The Emissary didn’t flinch. He just breathed, slow and even, like someone who’s seen the world end more than once and stopped bothering to argue with it.

“Nothing,” he replied. “That’s the cruel part. She was a pawn. Easy to manipulate. Desire wanted to humiliate her—not because she wronged them, but because it was fun.”

Elijah’s expression tightened. He didn’t need the rest, but he let him continue.

“Playing with Eoster was like tossing scraps to a stray dog desperate for affection. Desire encouraged her. Then dismissed her. Showed the universe how the Queen of Love herself could be betrayed by the very thing she championed. Love, to Desire, is childish. Laughable. They see it as a lie mortals keep telling themselves—one they tell loudest when they’re alone.” The Emissary paused. Then, with the sharpness of someone laying bare an unpleasant truth:

“Love and Desire don’t always walk together. You know that. Mortals have started to idolize love—idealize it. Worship it. Desire hated that. They already felt Dream looked down on them. They wouldn’t be patronized by Love too. So when the chance came to bind those two—Dream and Love—into a forced union? That was the sweetest revenge. A way to wound them both. That’s how Desire saw it. That’s how they are.”

A silence stretched between them, heavy with memory and consequence.

Then Elijah’s voice, soft and sudden:

“Is that what I am to you? Also a pawn in your micro-schemes?”

The Emissary smiled, that maddening, too-honest smile.

“Yes. The most handsome and anxious pawn in all the Garden.”

“You are insufferable,” Elijah muttered, rolling his eyes—but the laugh came anyway, bright and small. Until a sharp memory hit him like a migraine, and he collapsed backward onto the pillows with a groan.

“The Court returns after the Solstice. I need you to prepare the palace and—”

“—and Lady Love is also returning,” the Emissary finished for him, already halfway across the room, fingers brushing through silk scrolls stacked by the window.
“Permanently, this time. I’ll send a note to Desire: All is well and miserable.”

Elijah snorted, even as the ache behind his eyes pulsed. It was tragic. It was failure. And yet somehow, still ridiculous. Still themselves.

“Am I a terrible Cupid?” he asked suddenly. “Did I fail her?”

The Emissary turned. His answer came without hesitation: “Do you remember Henry VIII?”

Elijah groaned into a pillow. “That was a miscommunication.”

“You told his mistress to wear yellow the day after her predecessor was beheaded.”

“I thought it symbolized joy!”

“To the Tudors, it symbolized betrayal. Or celebration of death. Either way, it was a bold choice.”

The Cupid rolled his eyes, though his smile lingered. The familiar banter was a balm. And yet, somewhere beneath it, something fragile and painful pulsed.

“You didn’t fail Lady Love,” the Emissary added, softer now. “Your terrible suggestions didn’t help, of course.”

“You really do make me feel better,” Elijah deadpanned. “Did you know that?”

“Oh, but terrible isn’t my opinion. It’s common sense.” The Emissary crossed his arms. “Besides, even if you’d used Anteros’s last carved arrows and shot them straight into their hearts, it wouldn’t have worked. Lack of love isn’t the problem.”

At the name Anteros, something shifted in Elijah’s face. The first Cupid. The master. His mentor, if screaming and threats counted as mentorship. His arrows were sacred— flawless, one touch on the flesh, instant love. Dangerous.

Anteros’s last words to Elijah echoed through his memory like a dagger wrapped in silk:

“Next time you even breathe near an arrow, I’ll be dead. Because it’ll take my corpse to stop you from embarrassing the order further.”

It was, admittedly, the moment Elijah decided field work might not be his calling.

“Dream is the problem,” Elijah muttered now, bitterness creeping into his voice.

The Emissary tilted his head. “Maybe once. Now? They both orbit pain like it’s gravity. Addicted to causing it. Addicted to feeling it.”

Elijah looked away. That was the part he couldn’t forgive. The part he hated discussing it. Not the heartbreak. Not even the manipulation. But the addiction to cruelty. Broken love. Rotting affection. A deviation of love, mixed with other emotions. No longer simple, no longer beautiful, no longer pure. There was an special division of highly accomplished Cupids that care for them. It was an unforgiving territory that Elijah preferred never to look at it. Love, to Elijah, was the only holy thing left. And broken love couldn’t be further from holy.

“Maybe we should arrange a small soirée,” he said abruptly, voice rising in pitch. “Music. Candles. Something gentle to lift her spirits. Otherwise we’re going to be facing torrential emotional storms, and I—”

“Elijah,” the Emissary interrupted gently.

“Okay, not a full soirée. She’ll be tired. Maybe just the protégés—keep it intimate. Harps. No brass.”

“Elijah.”

He didn’t stop. Couldn’t.

“We could invite the queen’s sister, maybe? Well not Happiness but—”

“Elijah.” This time, firmer.

The Cupid fell silent, lips trembling. He knew what the Emissary was about to say. He just didn’t want to hear it. Not now. Not in this soft hour where the light still looked golden and the sheets still smelled of lavender and hope.

“What do you want me to do?” Elijah whispered, voice cracking. “Just sit and watch her cry? Like he did? Like all of them did?”

The Emissary didn't answer. He didn't have to.

Because just then, as if summoned by that very ache—

“My love,” the Emissary said, blinking slowly, gaze fixed past Elijah’s shoulder, “why is there a raven in our room staring at us?”

“A what, a—AH!” Elijah’s confusion evaporated as soon as he followed the Emissary’s eyes to the raven now cawing atop a drawer.

“Lucienne told me I’d find you here. Greetings, you…” The bird tilted his head in a half-bow toward the golden-eyed being.

“The Emissary,” the gold-eyed man replied smoothly, already rising and pulling on a silk robe that seemed far too luxurious for someone who claimed to hate comfort. He crossed his arms over his chest, head tilted with theatrical menace. “At your service, raven. Preferences? I could impale you now and boil you after, or boil you first, then impale you. I’m terribly accommodating.”

Matthew let out a sharp caw and flapped nervously to the top of the wardrobe, already regretting his decision to fly in. “What?! Elijah! A little help here, maybe?!”

“Stop! He’s his raven.” The way Elijah bit into that his, Matthew instantly knew who he meant. Dream. Obviously.

“Dream's feathered voyeur. How charming. Nothing like starting your day with a dose of paranoia.” The Emissary didn’t stop staring. Predatory. Playful. Planning.

“Are you mad?! If you boil Morpheus’s raven, he’ll boil us alive.”

“I could fry him if our King prefers it,” the Emissary offered, turning to Elijah with a familiar grin. “ At least he will go to the Sunless Lands having the privilege of seeing me like this first thing in the morning. Do you know how many mortals would commit crimes for this sight raven?” the Emissary winked, running a hand through his tousled curls, now starting to shine golden under the morning sun.

Elijah slapped his chest. Oh that insufrible ego “Stop! He’s jesting,” He said to Matthew, and then to the Emissary, with a look. “Also, raven meat is dry.”

Matthew’s pupils, somehow even darker than before, dilated. “What do you want, bird?” Elijah huffed, his anxiety rising from irritated to full-blown derailed.

“Lucienne’s calling. She needs you.”

The Emissary quirked a brow at Elijah. “Oh, so she’s your boss now?”

“I’m not going over there just because she doesn’t know the difference between a tulip and a rose,” Elijah muttered, collapsing back into the pillows.

“Uh… that’s not it.”

“If this is about napkin colors again—”

“It’s the confirmations,” Matthew cut in.

“What about them?” Elijah sat up, already bracing for impact.

“It’s… better if you speak to her directly,” the raven said cautiously.

“Bird, you better start cawing in plain English or I will boil you.”

“It’s rather… delicate.”

“Bird.”

“You might want to take a deep breath.”

“SPIT IT OUT, RAVEN!”

Matthew flinched. “A bunch of ladies that Dream used to… well, you know, visit… confirmed their attendance to the Solstice. Lucienne wants to know if you invited them.”

Silence. Absolute stillness. Then:

“Oh shit.” Elijah whispered, pale as death.

“Is he okay?” Matthew turned to the Emissary.

“I think you broke him,” the Emissary said cheerfully.

“How many?” Elijah asked, voice barely audible.

“Ah, he lives,” the Emissary said, as if narrating a resurrection.

“Not many, really, we could probably divert them and—”

“HOW. MANY?!”

“Four!” Matthew squealed.

“…The bastard’s mother?” Elijah was laser-focused now.

“Who?”

“The bas—Calliope, bird, the muse!”

“I saw a bunch of weird names, but not that one,” Matthew said, as he remembered peeking over Lucienne’s cards.

“Coward,” the Emissary muttered under his breath.

“Class,” Elijah said, recovering just enough to look judgmental. “Something those other ladies forgot. Etiquette is truly dead.” the Cupid leaped out of bed with the elegance of a startled deer. He grabbed the nearest tunic—rose-colored, embroidered, absolutely Cupid-coded—and started putting it on inside-out.

“You’re defending the muse?” the Emissary blinked, genuinely amused.

“She did one thing right her entire existence. I’m not about to discourage a rare show of dignity.”

“The boss has a kid?” Matthew asked, incredulous.

“Raven! I do not have time for your stunning ignorance,” Elijah snapped. “Your boss—who you apparently know nothing about—had mistresses all over the realms and knocked up a Muse. Didn't even have the decency to make her get rid of it or hide it in some pocket dimension. And Lady Love didn’t tear the universe apart because she doesn’t want to become her sisters—who, by the way, do kill and torture their husband’s side pieces and bastard children for fun.”

“Lady Eoster prefers the quiet melancholy of sobbing on balcony railings or silk-drenched sheets,” the Emissary added helpfully. “And the bottom of a bottle of wine. Very regal.”

“Emissary!” Elijah snapped.

“Go back to the Dreaming. Sort this with Lucienne,” the Emissary said, noting the panic flickering behind Elijah’s eyes.

“Solve what? It’s a disaster!”

“You know what to do, dear Cupid. Distract. Divide. Keep Lady Love and Lord Morpheus as far from the mistresses as possible. The palace is vast. Guests from every corner of the universe. Keep them separated.” The Emissary responded sobered and calmly, planting a kiss on the corner of Elijah’s mouth, fixing the Cupids coat, before looking into those anxious eyes.

Elijah sighed, narrowing his eyes. “Knowing my luck, one of these women are going to walk into Lady Love’s dressing room and go, ‘Oh Love, I just wanted to see if the crown fits me better. You know, since you won’t be around, and won't need these things. Could I see your wedding trousseau? ’”

The visuals alone were enough to send Elijah into full-blown spiraling. He looked around the room like it was shrinking.

“You look like a fairy tale ran into a storm,” the Emissary commented diverging from the subject, opening a reassuring smile and lazily tying the Cupid's coat tighter.
“Which I suppose is fitting.”

“And you look like sin in a silk wrapper,” Elijah threw back, but with too much fondness in his voice to make it an actual insult.

And next thing you saw, they parted their ways. Elijah back to the Dreaming, his foot heavy on the floor of the Dreaming Palace, looking almost as if he was having a panic attack. He might actually be having one. One could not ignore that possibility.

“So you two,” Matthew interjected into the rising chaos.

Elijah turned sharply. “One word to your lord, or anyone, and I swear I’ll make sure the loose-tongued raven is the entrée.”

He lunged, faster than any mortal thing should move, grabbing Matthew with just enough force to scare the feathers off him.

And deep down, Elijah knew why he was panicking. If Morpheus even suspected that Desire’s creature was living freely in Love’s palace for centuries…

Well.

The worst hadn’t even begun.

—------------------------------------

“It is difficult, my dears, to always remember. Some days, you will question yourselves in private, wondering if any of it is real, or just social fabrications and excuses that you’ve crafted, feeling ensnared by your own spell. That is the purpose of these books.”

The ballroom of the palace was bathed in a soft blue light, the kind that seemed to filter through glass windows, as if the very sky itself had been woven into the walls. Youthful figures sat in circle in confortable tapestry and pillows across the floor, dressed in elaborate gowns and perfectly tailored coats.

Love strolled, looking at the protégés, their eyes sparkled with dreams of the future, their hearts light as the air surrounding them. They knew nothing of sorrow, nothing of the shadows that weighed heavy on some hearts. Eoster hoped they could continue like this forever, even if it was a foolish wish.

She held an example of a Book of Love. “They are written with every love a being faces in their life. A mother’s love, a spiritual enlightenment, the trust of a friend, the touch of a lover. In their purest form, they are written. They exist to preserve our fleeting memories, which so often betray us after a few centuries, the sigil of our victories, and our inspiration during the darkest days.”

She took a deep breath. “I’ve had my darkest days, as most of you may recall. Cloudy days, with relentless storms at the Garden. Any cupid who came near me had their eyes filled with tears. It affected me—my creations, my springs—they became dull, less fruitful, and not as vibrant as before. Irregular. But even in my darkest moments, a walk through my library, opening a random page from a random mortal, would fill my heart. The contents of it made the impossible possible. They kept me going—for them, for my duty. Yes, the springs were no longer as magnificent as before, but they still existed for my creations, for mortals, and for anyone who believed in love. Because, even in our darkest days, it is our duty as bearers of the four loves, to give and to teach. It’s not an easy burden, nor a simple one. But then, you are not simple beings with weak hearts.”

She flashed a knowing smile before clasping her hands together. “Now, let’s get to the fun part. As you know, the Spring Rabbit’s last visit was five hundred years ago, when he blessed us with a splendid spring. It’s now a tradition that the cupids born in the year the Spring Rabbit appears are gifted with a unique ability—to prepare sweets that summon the Spring Rabbit’s helpers. Just as I have my cupids, the Spring Rabbit has his helpers.”

Three cupids entered, dressed in light pink 18th-century attire. They placed cookies in shape of hearts with a vibrant red glaze on top, put on the floor, evenly spaced, half the number of protégés. “The helpers,” Love continued, “assist my protégés in matching their dance partners for the final grand dance before your graduation. The one chosen for you may not be clear right now, but trust me—the red eyes of these rabbits see more than my own judgment ever could. Your dance partner will forever be a friend and advisor, offering you perspectives you could not see before. It is my gift to you: to never feel alone.”

As the cupids left, not before bowing to the queen, the protégés quickly got up their laughter and chatter filled the air, bright, carefree, and full of life, but eyes glued to the doors and windows for the rabbits. However, as usual, they saw nothing until feeling the sudden pushes on their skirts and pants, guiding them in the right direction. The creatures were too fast to be seen—at best, a glimpse of their feet. But just as swiftly as they had appeared and disappeared, the cookies were gone, and the matches were made.

Love clapped twice, and music filled the air, signaling the start of practice. It was an innocent, light ceremony—one she had witnessed a thousand times, yet it still lifted her mood. Or it used to.

She watched, absorbed in the motion around her, but Love knew—knew deep down—that she was distant. It was a kind of solitude she carried with grace, a burden she bore, unseen by the merry crowd, maybe perhaps only perceptible to Elijah, that, thankfully, was not there.

The Queen kept smiling at the partners trying to find their rhythm, some quickly then the others, and others with a lot more stepping in each other feet. But she felt in her spine, in every pore of her skin, the moment he arrived. Perhaps even before, the moment he thought about finding her

Morpheus, in turn, gazed at her as he walked across the never-before-used ballroom. the youthful proteges spent enough time with the Cupids to learn how to pretend to ignore even if they followed each step the dream king gave until standing in front of the queen. Even if Eoster hadn’t acknowledge even his entrance, he knew that bond or not she was aware of his closeness. He knew her enough —her subtle sighs, the way she clenched her fists when holding back emotion, the way her lips would curve just so when frustration flickered.

“May I sit?” Morpheus’s voice was calm, but there was a quiet urgency beneath it. She was still confused, and a bit embarrassed by the way their argument went in the night before. But there they were in public in front of her proteges. Politness must be conceived.

“My lord.”, Her false startled hand flying to her heart. As the weakest attempt to pretended to be caught by surprise “As you wish.” She pointed to the seat near her, where one of the proteges was previous sat. But turned her face to the front. She was praying he would not wanted to return to their discussion. As to avoid any further thought. Love cut him before he even could begin. “I am afraid I do not have time for an audience,” Love replied, a brief flicker of anxiety crossing her face. “Two days to the spring solstice and there is much to be done.” She flicking open her handfan, barely moving it, signaling him that she did not wanted to talk, facing
the dancing proteges that were doing an explendid job in avoiding the couple, “It is of the most urgent need to be discussed now” he insisted.

After a moment’s hesitation, Love nodded. “Of course, if it is your wish.” She closed her fan in an obvious gesture of annoyance. Not that she was. She was curious in what he needed to discuss. Or knowing her husband, he speaks and she quietly listened.

Morpheus stepped forward, his gaze softer than usual, yet his voice carried the weight of something long unsaid. “I ask for your forgiveness—for my pitiful attempts to woo you, for trying to win your love when it only caused you pain.”

“And I pray you did not come for it again. It is starting to sound a bit pitful and repetitive” Love signed in boredom, her gaze fixed ahead. She was cold, yes, like her sisters. The same blasé tone, as his attempt was an embarrassment for both of them.

He ignored her. “I promised myself that after my imprisonment, I would minimize the damage. I wanted to be the reason for your smiles, not your tears. But I failed to understand you.” He took a deep breath “ the damage our marriage caused you...”

“Irreparable,” Love finished for him. Decisive. Not open for any discussion for questioning. “Our marriage was a joke. Or a trap as you like to put it. It was born dead. Fabricated on lies, and structured on cruelty.”

Morpheus nodded. “It never had a chance.”

“But that it did.” she added.” But you squandered it.” He wanted to interrupt her to tell that he didn’t take her for a fool, never. “I was naive when we married yes. But I have been overseeing marriages since the primordial days. I knew that arranged marriages rarely worked for love. Most of the times it turns into transaction or abuse and led to unhappiness, loneliness, affairs. Ours had a tiny chance to blossom, it needed effort. Mine was not enough, as seeds in a fertile land are not enough to make spring. “

He nodded “ But we cannot erase the past.”

Love’s heart ached as she gazed at him. “No... we cannot.”

“ I am not in a position to beg or bargain. But I still can offer something to you” Morpheus continued, his voice steady now, though tinged with uncertainty.
Love continued silent. Could rain make any difference to a soil that is dry and dead?

“Amicability,” Morpheus said quietly. “It may not be the great passion you once hoped for, nor the love you once dreamed of, but I will do everything I can to ensure you no longer suffer. I will ensure that you have peace in this arrangement.”

“Amicability?” Love repeated, her brow furrowing as she considered his words, her fingers, delicate as they were, trembled slightly as she lowered them to her side. She inhaled deeply, trying to steady herself before looking directly at Morpheus.

“You will leave as you wish to the Garden. but I won’t forbide you to come to the Dreaming. This is your realm as the Garden. The people like you. You never have to see me again if that is your wish. I won’t oblige you to any family dinner, but if you need me to socials, to avoid the gossips, if you care for them, I will go at your request.

“And you?”

“I will stay at the Dreaming, continue my work, your path will be free.”

“Free.” her voice tinged with sorrow as the weight of the past bore heavily upon her. He knows. She dreamed of everything he failed in giving her, and made all her nightmares true. King of nightmares indeed. “ I never dreamed our path would lead to such darkness. Amicability... it sounds peaceful. Stable. Quiet. Is that enough for you?” Her eyes, though seeking reassurance, held a quiet challenge beneath the surface, as if testing the sincerity of his words—testing whether the man who once tore at her heart with jealousy, with possessiveness, had truly transformed.

Love didn’t know if he was understanding the stand of his proposal. He was proposing something less than friendship. He was proposing respectful nods while crossing a hallway if they would ever cross one again. A kind of severance worse than when he banned her. They wouldn’t be husband and wife in a complicated quarrel, they would be co-workers. No, workers at the same company. Different branches.

Why that sounded more like a punishment than resolution? Why did she felt that way, if that was something she craved for centuries?

Morpheus stood before her, his presence heavier than the centuries they had endured apart. His voice, though steady, carried the weight of a truth long concealed. "It will be. More than enough. If not a tear of you falls again because of me, then it shall be more than enough. It will be a gift for me."
Love’s eyes, deep pools of hurt and longing, met his gaze, but they flickered with uncertainty. "A gift, yes, but from me wouldn’t it? A path free for you to bed and root seed without an ounce of guilt if you ever had one" Her words were measured, but each syllable carried the echo of memories—of the countless times she had seen him in the arms of others, his attentions a cruel mockery of the love she had given him so freely. Calliope, of all people, the one he had betrayed in such a visceral way, had left a mark on her heart. The child they had sired was the lingering reminder of his transgressions, and Love knew, all too well, how it had wounded her.

"My queen," Morpheus answered, his voice now soft, almost tender. "I promise you, you will not shed a tear anymore. Not an ounce of embarrassment. I do not wish to cross that path again, but you are free to follow it." His gaze held a sincerity that seemed to melt the years of pain between them.
Love nodded slowly, yet the question lingered, a silent test to gauge the true depth of his feelings. "So I shall take lovers?" she asked, her words not spoken out of want, but rather as a challenge, a test of the man he had become. She could still feel the fire of his jealousy from that night when she had danced with his brother, the weight of his gaze upon her like an invisible chain. It was a cruelty she had borne, but in that cruelty, she had glimpsed the fragility of his love for her.

Morpheus hesitated, the shadow of his past mistakes passing over his face. "I am not the one in position to establish the rules." His voice, though calm, trembled slightly at the edges. He had no right to dictate what she should do, not after all he had done to her.

Love's breath caught in her throat, and she looked at him with a rawness he had not seen before, her heart torn between the desire to forgive and the fear of the pain his love might bring once more.

"My lady," he began, his eyes searching hers as if trying to find a way to make amends for the years of hurt. "A smile on your lips, and your soul—" He faltered, swallowing the lump in his throat. "Even if not by my doing, I will be devoted to preserve them for the rest of my Endless existence." His words were not just a promise but a vow, one that he had failed to keep for far too long.

“Very well, I will consider your terms under one condition”

“Anything”

“You shall come to the Garden of Lovers. Children need their father as their mother. You are stranged to them, but you are their king, and need to take the responsibility of it not only the title. As I did with the Dreaming. You shall do it to the Garden.”

“Agree” Neither of them realizes the music long stopped, the rabbits and the protégés scattered. They kept looking at each other. There was eager, regret, lust and pain, an ocean of words lost in his eyes searching for harbor and safe land in hers.

He had broken her, time and time again. Morpheus got good at it. She got addicted to being broke, to the pain that only him could cause. She knew getting in every fight with him would end up hurting only her. She knew how to provoke him, how to twist the knife, even when she knew it would be her own heart that bled. Eoster got good at it.

And mortals got fucked up nightmares full of existential angst, questioning everything—love, faith, friendships—severing ties, tearing apart their worlds. Maybe that was how things worked. But not here, not between them. Here, there was no one to intervene in the war between Dream and Love. No one to stop them from going down the same old road. And they both knew it.

They could turn to normalcy now, if they chose. Just like the night before, they could retreat to their cycles—he to his berating, she to her clutching around the pain. To have that taste. But somehow, it didn't feel like enough anymore. Not when everything was broken.
In their heads, they knew a thousand and one ways to hurt each other—and how to sit with the silence that came after. They had grown used to the sorrow, as if it were part of the love itself.

She knew the silence that always came next, the ache settling just beneath her ribs like something she'd carried for years. And still, some part of her held onto it—because pain meant feeling, and feeling meant he was still there.

He, in turn, recognized the shift in her gaze before it even came. He’d memorized the cracks in her voice, the way she pulled away just enough to remind him she could. They both knew how to wound and how to survive it. The pain had become a rhythm between them—quiet, constant, almost tender. It lingered like a thread still tying them together. Perhaps that was the nature of their bond.

Why couldn’t you see me sooner?” she whispered, so quietly she wasn’t sure if she had spoken aloud or if it was the bond echoing her grief.
Her voice trembled as she went on, barely more than a breath. “I waited… for so long. For you to see me. Truly see me”

Morpheus looked at her, and in that moment, the weight of time collapsed in his chest. Every missed glance, every swallowed word, every tenderness he had denied her—they all came rushing in, bitter and sharp. “I see you now” he said, gently. It was all he had to offer. A truth too late. A promise without time.
They stood there for a moment longer, suspended in the stillness they had both feared and needed. No more words. Nothing left to explain. They had reached the end of something that had never truly begun.

Then, by some force greater than desire, he reached out—just barely—and brushed his fingers against hers, soft as a memory, and in that brief touch there was everything they had never allowed themselves to have.

She smiled, and it was the kind of smile meant for endings—soft, sad, and full of something almost like peace.

Then maybe,” she said, “that’s enough.”

As she walked away, the air between them shifted—emptier, yes, but not cold.

And maybe that was all they could have now.

Chapter Text

The weather in the Dreaming was curiously pleasant. Some might even say it was the finest it had been in ages. To call it a sunny day would be an exaggeration, for no golden rays pierced the skies, and the sun itself remained hidden. Yet the absence of dark, brooding clouds, replaced by a pale blue firmament adorned with clouds like spun sugar, marked a change distinct enough to be noted.
Her sisters had arrived the previous evening, as tradition dictated. It was their custom to gather on the eve before the turning of the seasons. Togetherness, this year, meant merely proximity, for Love had taken great pains to avoid the company of Pride, Honesty, and Melancholy. Happiness, as usual, had not yet arrived. Honesty had more than once dubbed her "attention harlot," for Happiness had a tendency to steal the spotlight from whichever sister was being honoured. At a winter gathering, she once appeared mere moments before Pride passed the Seasons Sceptre to Melancholy, an event meant to be the pinnacle of the evening. But with radiant Happiness in the room, who paid heed to the sombre, meek Melancholy? That year, Mel’s wrath unleashed one of the harshest winters known to humankind, its bite lingering well into summer.

Eoster had evaded them all, citing overwhelming demands upon her time and promising instead to join them for breakfast the next morning. And what a morning it was—gentle, fragrant, and graced with the hush of a new beginning. Thank the stars her sisters were not early risers, for as soon as dawn’s light touched her chamber, she donned a bonnet borrowed from one of her dream-servants and wandered through the palace corridors toward the only room—and the only company—she truly desired.

Or rather, company of the plural sort.

She slipped through the door with practised silence, entering a chamber large enough to cradle eight sleeping children. Its ceiling was a canopy of stars that shimmered like ancient constellations. She was surprised by the thoughtful arrangement of the room. More care had been given than she would have believed of her husband, who, to her knowledge, had never met the eight little dreamers slumbering peacefully in their cozy beds. Her heart swelled as she gazed upon them. She had no desire to face her sisters, their prying questions and constant assessments of her marriage, but these—these dear little souls—she yearned for.

She hated that she did not see them more often. The fault was partly her own. Her tangled emotions, her yearning for a family she would never have, too often turned inward—into sadness, indifference, even anger. She feared letting the children witness such turmoil. And yet, by all the stars, how deeply she loved them.

The Queen shook herself free of such thoughts and crossed to the windows, flinging open the curtains and letting soft light bathe the room. The children stirred, groaning and covering their eyes. “I cannot believe you would rather waste such a fine day in bed than accompany me on an adventure!” she declared, her voice alight with youthful mirth, as musical and bright as any storybook nanny.

As deer prick their ears at the sound of rustling leaves, the children responded instantly. Some sat up, two tumbled out of bed, and the rest tangled themselves in blankets in their haste to reach her. Through the double doors echoed a chorus of delighted cries: "Aunt Love!"

“Alright, alright. I missed you too,” she said, laughing as she patted their backs, her arms not nearly large enough to encircle them all.

“A lot, then?” asked Alith, a dark-haired girl with silver eyes, one of Honesty’s brood, pushing her older brother Valkar aside with admirable determination.

“Yes, my love. A great deal,” Love replied, kissing her niece’s brow.

“Like Lady Mother misses Lord Father whenever they dance?” inquired Talon, son of Happiness, sent to the Dreaming with his cousins. He and his twin sisters, Elira and Solin, all bore that Mona Lisa expression that made Love uncertain whether their questions were innocent or sly. At merely six centuries old, they were wise beyond appearances.
The “dance” he referred to was the so-called "eternal summer dance" — a euphemism for the violent quarrels Happiness and her husband, Lugh, engaged in each summer. Love had long pitied the triplets, who endured that endless cycle without comprehending it.

“Much more,” she said, lifting Talon into her arms and twirling with him until she fell with theatrical flourish onto the nearest bed, making him shriek with laughter. “Now, we can lie here and calculate precisely how much I missed you, or we can have an adventure in the Dreaming!”

“Are there nightmares here, Aunty?” asked Bellator, Pride’s son and a future war entity, whose greatest joys were swordplay and tales of ancient battles. He idolised his father, Ares, and even more so Wotan.

“Why? Are you afraid of them, Bellator?” she asked gently. He blushed. Of course he was, though he would never admit it. Nightmares to children were monsters, not the burdened beings they truly were.

“N-no! But Vanira is!”

“I am not!” his younger sister protested, shoving him. Fierce, though less battle-hardened, Vanira would not tolerate being cast as the frightened one.

“Yes you are! I’ll bring my sword to protect you!” he retorted.

“Am not!” she shrieked, lunging. Love intercepted her mid-leap.

“As long as you are with me, there is no danger, dears. Now, may I finally tell you our plan before your mothers come and kidnap me for a most dreadful breakfast?”

“Mum won’t wake until afternoon,” Lethe sighed, eyes fixed on the ceiling. The child of Melancholy, her gaze always held sorrow, her shoulders bore its weight.

“Then we have time to visit Goldie. My dear friend.”

Heads tilted in curiosity.

“You know, my old friend Goldie the gargoyle.”

Even Lethe’s eyes lit up. If there was value in that ridiculous parade of introductions Morpheus had once conducted through the Dreaming, it was knowing its subjects. Love knew a creature as charming as Goldie would enchant the children and grant her a way to avoid her sisters a little longer.

__________________________

The Dreaming unfolded before them like an impossible tapestry — forests that breathed in rhythms older than time, rivers that hummed forgotten lullabies, and skies that shifted hues with every blink, as if responding to the heartbeat of the dreamers who walked beneath them. Along the winding path toward the Houses — the ivy-cloaked House of Secrets, crooked and whispering, and beyond it, the solemn, time-worn House of Mystery — the children of the divine were ushered gently forward.
It was there that Cain and Abel received them.

Well, not exactly, because to receive one must be waiting.

More like invaded.

Could they blame the Queen? Cain sure felt like it, but as Abel told him before she could get any closer, Love did not know many places at the Dreaming. Lord Morpheus took her on a parade and he showed her their houses.

Cain, tall and sharp-eyed beneath his wide-brimmed hat, stood with arms crossed, lips curled in theatrical suspicion. Abel hovered behind him, wringing his hands, a nervous smile flickering under his mustache like candlelight in the wind.

Cain scowled under the brim of his battered hat, his arms crossed like closed gates. “What is this,” he muttered to no one in particular, “a divine field trip?”

“H-hello,” Abel, ever stammering, offered a nervous wave. “W-we weren’t told—um—exactly that anyone was—visiting today, but it’s—it’s lovely to see you! Isn’t it lovely, Cain?”

Cain grunted. “Lovely is not the word I’d use for a swarm of divine brats threatening to trample my roses.”

“They’re not trampling, they’re just—uh—exploring,” Abel offered, glancing nervously at the children.

“I saw one licking a sundial,” Cain growled. “And the twins are using my prized irises as catapults.”

Abel blinked rapidly. “Oh, n-no, that’s—that’s probably just creative play—” Just then, Solin shrieked with delight and launched herself at the House of Mystery’s doorknob, trying to hang from it like a tree branch. Cain flinched.

“That's it. I'm retiring. I'll go live in a dream of mildew and silence.”

But even Cain's usual snarl softened when Love approached. Hair half-loosened by children’s hands, her cotton gown brushed with grass, the timid sunlight caught in the folds like memory. The air itself seemed to hush at her arrival.

Cain tipped his hat with a reluctant grace. “Queen Eoster.”

“Cain,” she returned, warm but distant.

“Your—um—Majesty,” Abel added, nearly tripping over his own feet in a frantic bow. “A-a pleasure, an honor, and also a bit of a surprise—though not, not unwelcome, of course!”
Love raised a brow, smiling slightly. “ I apologize for the sudden intrusion. These are my sisters’ children. Someone told them about Goldie and they desperately wanted to meet her. Would you find in your good hearts enough patience and decorum to make the introductions?” Even Cain could not say no to her request. Morpheus demanded, he ordered as their sovereign, Eoster charmed them, making it impossible to deny any request she made.

Cain would deny ever falling for her ‘spring tricks’ as he would secretly call her looks and sweet voice, but he only fooled himself. Anyone who did not deal with Love daily, got mesmerized by her.
Abel gave a solemn nod, which earned him a broader smile from the queen. “Thank you, Abel. You’ve always had the kindest heart in this realm.” Cain rolled his eyes with theatrical exasperation, but Abel made no attempt to disguise the way he lingered—caught, perhaps, a moment too long in the glow of her gaze. He nodded again, slower this time, entirely entranced.

Cain delivered a sharp jab to his brother’s ribs.

Dream and the queen were not known for the blissful harmony of their union. But. Lord Morpheus was fiercely possessive of anything he deemed his own, so Cain knew that if he even considered that Abel was gazing so longingly at his wife, he might find himself dispatched—swiftly and unceremoniously—into the darkness.
Love, for her part, merely chuckled. She was quite accustomed to such reactions.

Turning a vivid shade of pink, Abel abruptly thrust the gargoyle into the air like a talisman of self-preservation. “G-Goldie!” he stammered, voice cracking slightly. “W-would you like to meet Goldie?”
The children turned their heads in perfect unison—like chicks glimpsing corn for the very first time—before stampeding toward him with divine enthusiasm.

Abel knelt with reverence, cradling the small stone gargoyle in his arms as though presenting a sacred relic. Goldie blinked once, languidly, his wings curled inward like a sleeping bat.
A collective gasp of awe escaped the children. For a moment—just a breath—the world stood still in perfect reverence.

It lasted, of course, precisely three seconds.

Then came the inevitable storm.

“Do gargoyles dream?”
“What’s the difference between a secret and a mystery?”
“Can nightmares be nice if they’re yours?”
“Can Goldie eat nightmares?”
“Can Goldie eat you?”
“Do nightmares taste like pepper?”
“Are you a nightmare or a dream?”
“Are you a nightmare because you are bald?”

Abel’s smile became a grimace of earnest panic as he tried to answer all of them at once — stammering explanations, making vague gestures, and nervously glancing at Cain for help that would not come.

Cain looked appalled in the singular manner only an ancient murderer could manage.

“Why,” he asked, deadpan, “are they asking so many questions? Is this the Inquisition?”

“No,” Love replied with a lightness born of divine patience. “It is curiosity—unfiltered, untamed, and—”

“Sticky,” Cain finished grimly, “like the footprints on my ceiling.”

“I do apologize, my dear Cain,” Love said, her voice a gentle murmur as she turned toward him with regal grace. “My nieces and nephews can be rather—”

“Pampered pests?” he interrupted, one brow arched with dry derision.

To that, Love responded with a smile—not a bright, beaming grin, but something measured, opaque, designed to suggest that she neither agreed nor disagreed.

“Spirited little wonders,” she corrected, voice still warm. Where Cain saw unruliness, unpredictability, and a complete disregard for order, Love perceived a sacred spark. That wildness—so often misnamed disobedience—was, to her, vitality itself. Promise. Emotional honesty in its purest form. She had once known such a spark herself, before her role demanded it be quieted. She saw their chaos not as an affront, but as a kind of necessary, divine disorder—a garden left wild to grow what it would.

Cain, with a huff and inward sneer, thought darkly: Ah. So that’s what they’re calling it now. A polished name for gremlins with crowns.

“If they break anything,” Love added, her voice as honey poured over wine, her hand reaching gently for his as though it were the most natural thing in the world, “do let me know. I shall see to it myself.”

Even Cain—who distrusted monarchs as a matter of philosophy—found himself offering the faintest of nods, grumbling something incoherent about compensation in blood and sanity. It was, of course, meant as dramatic embellishment, though in truth, only partly so.

He didn’t look her in the eye. He never did, not for long. Not because he feared her, exactly, but because something happened when he did. She had that same crownless weight that her husband wore — that gravity of old laws and older roles — but she wore it like silk instead of stone.

Looking at her too long made Cain uneasy. Made him feel like maybe the children weren’t demons in disguise. Like maybe he was a bitter old caretaker who had simply forgotten how to laugh. Looking at her too long made him question the narrative — and Cain had only ever felt safe when he controlled the story.

“One of them,” he said instead, voice dry as the Deadlands, “I’m not naming names, but it rhymed with Vanira — threatened to lick my sundial.”

She smiled.

Not a smirk. Not a courtly grin. Not even a polite upward twitch. Just a slow, genuine thing — like spring thaw on a grave. She didn’t take offense. She took it as truth, offered in the only way Cain knew how to give it.

It was enough for her.

She gave him a farewell glance — all rose-gold and soft firelight — then turned back to the chaos of the garden, skirts trailing moss and the scent of honeysuckle. Cain watched her walk away, and for a moment he felt something like vertigo. Like the whole world tilted around her steps.

Cain had seen kings and gods and nightmares rise and fall. He had seen galaxies burn out like candle wicks. But he had never seen anything quite like her.

She moved through the children like a song remembered. Her presence calmed the riot — not through commands, but through grace. They gathered around Goldie now, chattering, climbing, touching feathers with reverence. And in the center of them, Love knelt to cradle the smallest one.

Lethe.

The quiet one. The watcher. The child with eyes like fogged glass and a silence that made even Cain uneasy. But now she folded into Love’s arms like a shadow drawn to a flame.

And Love? She held her without hesitation. Without fanfare. As though the girl had always belonged there.

Cain swallowed thickly. It wasn’t natural.

Morpheus never did that. Morpheus loved through architecture and silence, through stories told in sand and sorrow. His affections were distant stars — beautiful, cold, precise. But her? She was the sun at dawn, and the children bloomed around her like stubborn weeds.

She didn’t ask for loyalty. She received it.

Cain looked away.

There was something unsettling about that kind of power — soft and boundless. He didn’t like the way it twisted the narrative. It made him doubt the ending. And Cain, above all else, hated stories that refused to end the way they should.

And then — as always with her sisters’ offspring — chaos bloomed like weeds after rain.

Soon, Bellator had conscripted Abel into a dramatic reenactment of The Siege of the Screaming Bridge, complete with phantom blood, exploding ghosts, and impromptu stage directions shouted by Valkar.

Meanwhile, Cain had been strong-armed into playing “Two Truths and a Lie” with Happiness’ triplets, cornered near the garden wall like a reluctant suspect. Alith, her curls bouncing, insisted she could unmask any deception with a single question. Cain snorted. “Good luck, girl. I’ve been lying longer than your mother’s been dancing.”
Vanira and Talon solemnly sealed a bet over the outcome — fifty years of servitude, paid in song or silence.

Elsewhere, Solin and Elira whispered conspiratorially, discussing the ancient rumor that Cain always killed Abel over petty grievances. They wondered if he’d try the same with one of the cousins—since, admittedly, they were spoiled, annoying brats—and most importantly, what Aunt Eoster would do if he dared.

After all, no one had ever seen Aunt Love truly angry. And wasn’t that a story worth witnessing? Would she have any power over him? Would she tell their uncle? And what would their mysterious, cruel, cold, never-before-seen uncle do? And most important: Could they watch?

But not all the children plunged headfirst into mischief.

While the rest of the cousins dashed through the gardens with the recklessness only children possess, Lethe lingered behind. She was not like the others—soft-spoken, inward, always watching, rarely joining.

The others burst into the world like firecrackers.

Lethe was mist — silent, ungraspable.

And only Aunt Eoster seemed to notice.

Of all the divine sisters, it was Eoster — not Pride, nor Happiness, nor even Melancholy herself — who knelt to tie a child's ribbon, who laughed at their riddles, who wiped their tears with the same tenderness that once birthed spring into the world. Sometimes, Love even preferred their company to that of her own siblings.

Lethe once overheard her mother murmur to Aunt Happiness, "Darling, It’s because she’s no mother herself." But Lethe wasn’t so sure. Eoster, to her, felt like the heart of motherhood—radiant and aching.
Valkar once told her it was jealousy she heard in their aunts’ voices—even in Honesty’s. Lethe didn’t quite understand why. Valkar didn’t either. He could only sense it.

Now stroking the little gargoyle’s snout with reverence, his leathery wings curled in like a sleeping bat, his blinking eyes half-closed in pleasure. Her fingers moved with sacred care, as though Goldie might stir and sigh if only touched gently enough.

“Will there be spring this year?” she asked, voice nearly inaudible. A breath more than a question.

Eoster froze — her fingers halting mid-stroke in Lethe’s curls.

“Of course, my heart,” she said softly. “Why would there not be?”

Lethe didn’t answer. She whispered into Goldie’s ear, as though confiding in something older than stone.

“You feel like Mama… before the grey years.”

The words were quiet—but they landed like thunder.

She feels it.

The grey years. Melancholy’s reckoning. The age when the world was wrapped in silence, rivers forgotten, skies brittle with sorrow. Even the pulse of the land grew dull, the seasons slipping their rhythm.

Lethe remembered. A child too young to name grief, yet old enough to drink its bitter draught. Born in the stillness between thunderclaps, raised on lullabies that never lifted above whispers.

Viddar, Lethe’s father, stood unwavering beside her—dusk made flesh, a shadow born of twilight’s grief. He loved Melancholy not despite her sorrow, but through it—mesmerized, as a sculptor who bows before his masterpiece wrought from ruin and mourning. Together, they moved through their kingdom without warmth or laughter—only the sacred and terrible art of despair.

But Lethe was still a child.

She longed not for myth or shadow, but for her parents.

“Maybe a cold spring,” Lethe breathed, fingers brushing Goldie’s weathered ridge. “Would you like that, Goldie?”

Her niece’s word digging deep beneath her skin, stirring her pulse.

She feels it.

Lethe bore more than softness. She saw with her skin, felt with her breath—the frost gathering before the grass shivered.

A cold spring.

Would such a thing come to pass?

“Aunt Love,” she asked with devastating innocence, “Would different flowers bloom if the spring were cold?”

The question struck earth like a spade turning soil.

Cold ground yields no blossom. Seeds sleep beneath its frostbound shroud. Love knew this truth well. No matter how gently she sowed, no matter how fiercely she warmed the earth—nothing could rise from barren stone.

A cold spring meant no spring, the seasons would collapse, the mortal realm would be put in danger.

No.

Mortals must have spring.

Fertility. Renewal. The turning of the ancient wheel.

Even if she could not feel the earth calling for her. Even if the Garden ached, and her own heart faltered, the earth must awaken.

Duty was the reason she kept being faithful to her broken marriage, the reason she came back when he asked. Everything was her duty.

Eoster drew Lethe close, her lips brushed the child’s brow in solemn vow.

“No matter what shadows linger in my heart, little one,” she murmured, “spring will come—warm, fertile, and true.”

Lethe looked up, eyes deep as still pools, heavy with knowledge no child should bear.

“That’s good,” she said, voice soft as a prayer. “Because I heard the earth whisper it’s waiting.”

_____________

By then, both Cain and Abel had surrendered — not with dignity, nor in any gentlemanly terms of parley, but with the panting breath of men besieged by a force of nature in silk ribbons and opinions.
Cain had made a valiant stand. He had raised his voice (twice), bared his teeth (once), and at some point brandished a rake with all the pomp of a ceremonial halberd. Yet children — especially the overindulged sort born of immortals — do not fear monsters they consider decorative. And to them, Cain was simply an eccentric antique from a nursery tale, dusted off and brought into the sun.
Little Alith, curls bouncing with the entitlement of a minor empress, had fixed him with the imperious stare of the terminally unamused. “You do own a skull made of glass,” she had declared, “and you did steal a kiss from a banshee. So that means—”

Cain had thrown up his arms in despair. “Fine! Yes! I was married to a troll. It’s all true. I regret nothing except my willingness to participate in this conversation.”

That was when he knew he had lost the war.

Abel, poor soul, had fared no better. He had been conscripted into a reenactment of the Siege of the Screaming Bridge — a historical travesty if ever there was one, written and directed by Bellator himself, who claimed strict accuracy despite ghost-skeletons, jellybean bombardments, and a goat in epaulettes serving as Supreme Commander.

At one point, Abel found himself crowned with dandelions and declared “Queen of the Fallen River.” His confusion was audible.

“Do I… do I have to be?”

“Yes,” intoned Valkar gravely, “Until the moon cries” He took a second to think, and childish shrugged it off “Or snack time. Whichever is first.”

From the corner of her eye, Love perceived the signs of fatigue — the twitch at the corner of Cain’s mouth as he feigned civility, the shrill edge to Abel’s laughter, half a beat too late and half a tone too
high. They were fraying, unraveling before the altar of indulgent youth.

But Eoster did not need to raise her voice. She did not chastise. No thundercloud darkened her brow.

She merely stepped forward “My little lords and ladies I would take my tongue out if I have ever encountered a group as,” she said, her voice a warm gleam upon the garden stones, “Valiant as you and…” Her eyes flicked gently to Bellator and Valkar. “As sharp of mind and tongue as you” she added, with a wink to Alith. “And of course, never met any group of such kind hearts, that I believe I do not even need to request, would kindly let both Cain and Abel rest, after such an enthusiastic visit.”

The children blinked. And then turned. As if her voice had magnetized the air.

“But we were about to—” Valkar began.

“Let me guess,” said Love with a smile that suggested omniscience and a touch of mischief. “A third attempt at the Siege of the Screaming Bridge?”

Bellator squinted up at her. “How did you know?”

She touched a finger to her lips in mock secrecy. “Because I know you, dearest.”

She paused — dramatically, deliberately — then sighed, a picture of feminine regret. “Of course, if you prefer playing at battles you’ve already won, you may stay here and rehearse what you know. But… I had thought you were brave enough to undertake a proper quest.”

Their ears pricked up.

“Only the truest of knights,” she said in a whisper full of promise, “Have ever dared the Maze of the Garden and retrieved the hidden treasure kept by Cain in its center. Some returned. Not all.”

Vanira gasped. So did the others.

Then — a shriek. “EVERYONE FOLLOW ME!” Vanira shoved Bellator aside and took off like a comet, the rest thundering after her in a flurry of satin and shrieking valor.

Somewhere beyond the hedgerows, a flowerpot shattered with a dramatic crash. Cain did not turn. He merely blinked slowly, like a man awakening from a fever dream.

She had untangled the storm with half a dozen words and not a drop of sweat.

Love approached them now with Lethe nestled upon her hip “They will not trouble you again,” Love said simply, her voice still laced with mirth. Then she dropped into a graceful courtesy. “You have my eternal gratefulness.”

Cain’s mouth opened. Closed. Then, in a low mutter: “That was deeply unnatural.”

“Merciful,” Abel breathed, crumpling into a heap. “She’s like… like spring with hands. And an agenda.”

Love laughed — the sound chiming like glass in sunlight — and glided past them. Her hair caught the wind like a banner. Lethe blinked sleepily at the brothers, then buried her face in Love’s collarbone.

Cain watched her go the curve of her shoulders, the ease with which she carried Lethe, the way her presence transformed chaos into choreography, and how just as calmed the storm, she returned humming an old spring melody.

“She’s not like him.” Cain finally said.

Abel tilted his head. “You mean Lord Dream?”

Cain nodded. “Morpheus commands with silence. Fear. Presence. You obey him, even when you don’t want to. But her? She makes you want to follow.”

As the children scattered into the winding garden maze behind the manor, their laughter echoing like windchimes through the hedgerows, soft moss and violet petals cushioned their quick and heedless steps. Love tried, with no success, to forget that her sisters were almost certainly hunting her down as one might a wayward lamb.

No doubt they had already cornered poor Lucienne and Elijah, pressing them for her whereabouts with the veiled ferocity only sisters and sovereigns could manage. And no doubt they were simultaneously inspecting every corner of the Dreaming, fingers twitching for some small imperfection to criticize.

It did not matter that this was the very realm from which their own dreams arose, that it was shaped, nurtured, and guarded by her husband.

Or perhaps it mattered precisely because of that.

Of course they would hate it. That was the nature of sisters and old grudges, particularly when thrones and pride were involved.

But her brief illusion of peace shattered not with footfall or trumpet, but with Alith’s unmistakable, high-pitched declaration ringing through the hedges “It is a dance!”

Vanira shouted from behind the hedge, exasperated. “There’s music and twirling and dresses! That’s the definition!”

And that was enough for both brothers to hide in their houses. Love could not blame them.

Elira and Solin responded with an unison groan. “It’s not a dance if half of you are throwing acorns at each other.”

“And it’s not a dance if you keep complaining” Valkar chimed in, arms flung wide. “Dances are supposed to be fun!”

“You don’t even know how to waltz!” accused Bellator, pointing at Talon, who was awkwardly attempting a waltz step and looking like he might trip over his own lineage.

“I do know how!” Talon snapped, red in the ears. “It’s just—these boots are cursed.”

“Cursed with clumsiness,” Solin muttered, earning a shriek of laughter from Elira.

The commotion had reached an operatic pitch — dandelion crowns flung like gauntlets, accusations of cursed boots and rigged duels echoing behind the hedges. Eoster watched from the edge of the garden with a bemused expression, one hand gently smoothed Lethe’s silken hair while the other stayed loose and open, catching the breeze like it might hold music.

Lethe murmured softly into her aunt’s warm breast, “They are trying, you know—to dance as grown folks do at parties.”

Eoster smiled down, a faint crease touching the corners of her lips. “And do you think they succeed?”

Lethe tilted her head with the curious innocence of youth. “Only in covering themselves with mud. Are you going to put a stop to this, Aunt?”

Love regarded her niece with a brow slightly knit. “Surely, no one has thought to teach them to dance at this tender age?” It seemed strange, indeed, considering how she and her sisters had been initiated into the art of the ball as soon as their feet could carry them.

Lethe shrugged with a quiet admission. “The nannies despaired of the attempt. And the dance instructors—well, they would sooner meet an untimely end than face this crowd. And my uncles did threaten them. It is a most hopeless endeavour.”

She spoke with the modest reserve of one who had herself been taught young, yet had never quite embraced the ritual. No one of her gentle stature usually danced. Moreover, her parents, she reflected, were seldom inclined to do so themselves.

“They are merely spirited children,” Love replied softly, “not creatures beyond hope.”

“Only with you, Aunt.”

With that, Love rose—graceful and unhesitating—and stepped into the tumultuous circle her nephews had wrought.

She clapped her hands once; the clear note rang out like the herald of spring’s first morning.

“Attention, my dears,” Love called out with the regal mischief of a sovereign who had long ago mastered the art of gentle command. Her voice rang out over the din like a silver bell at court. “I can no longer bear witness to this slaughter of the precious art of dancing.”

All movement ceased.

She stood at the center of the garden like the eye of a storm—grace in full bloom, skirts catching the breeze, hands folded as if cradling laughter. Her gaze swept over them with playful severity.

“I shall teach you,” she declared. “And I will not—will not—tolerate partners being twirled headlong into hedges, nor acorns being lobbed as though they were battlefield missiles.”

A guilty cough escaped from Talon. It was swiftly followed by Elira’s elbow jabbing him with sibling efficiency.

Love’s smile curved into something warmer, almost wistful. “I can assure you, your parents once spent many evenings—often at the expense of their dignity and shoes—engaged in precisely this sort of amusement.” Some look surprised that their parents would actually engage in dancing.

If only they would know what men do to catch the way of women.

“It is, after all, how a princess shows her grace,” Love continued, eyes twinkling, “And how she may observe equally graceful princes.”

What she did not mention—though her tone held the faintest flicker of memory—was how such dances led to couples slipping off into hidden alcoves, or vanishing entirely into garden mazes. But that was knowledge her nephews and nieces would acquire in time. Hopefully not too soon.

“Sometimes,” she added with a perfectly timed pause, “Matches are made.”

Rather than sighs of romantic delight, she was met with synchronized groans and noises of pointed disgust.

Ah, children.

“But only when you are much older,” she conceded, fighting a smile. “Until then, if you do especially well…” she lowered her voice as if sharing the most coveted secret in the realm, “they award you cake and lemonade.”

She delivered it with the tone of one offering a consolation prize.

The children, of course, did not know it was a consolation prize. Probably because Love had invented the entire idea—complete with ritual and ceremony—just to keep them interested.

To them, cake and lemonade were the crown jewels.

“Now! Two lines, if you please,” she instructed, “Princesses on one side, Princes on the other. I would hate to assign partners as if this were a lesson in old-fashioned matchmaking.”

A cheerful scramble ensued. Valkar and Solin nudged each other in mock opposition, Vanira helped Talon discern left from right, and Bellator tried and failed to change sides thrice before being intercepted.

“May I have this dance?” Love inquired, extending a hand and fluttering her lashes with an exaggerated coquettishness.

Before Bellator could comprehend the invitation, Talon pushed him out of the way, but Solin put his foot in front of his younger brother, and, ever the peacock just like his mother, swept an exaggerated
bow before Love, one hand tucked behind his back, the other extended with all the pomp of a courtier triple his age.

“My Lady Queen,” he proclaimed with theatrical flourish, “May I claim the honour of your first dance?”

Love laughed, the sound like bells on a spring breeze, and took his hand. “You shall, my dear prince.” She gave a delicate curtsey and called out the steps, her voice a clarion call to joy. “Face your partner. Hold your heads high, no barn owls among you, but royalty at the grandest ball of the season. Yes, even you, Alith.”

Alith’s eyes rolled in mild rebellion.

“Now, bow,” Love instructed, dipping into a gracious curtsy. The children tried, some with dignity, others more like wobbly storks. But Love made no correction, only laughter, and that was enough to bind them together.

They began to move, hesitant at first, then with growing confidence. Love’s skirts billowed as she floated across the clearing, guiding—not commanding—the steps, weaving their disorder into a fledgling harmony.

“Observe me,” she said, taking Solin’s hand. “Step forward—one, two—and then back. To the side, and switch. Like so. The secret is to feel the music, even when it dwells only in your hearts.”

The Dreaming itself seemed to respond; the trees bent with the rhythm, the breeze caught an unspoken tempo, and the dappling sunlight across moss and stone marked time with quiet precision. She spun lightly, her feet barely touching the earth. The children followed, clumsy and imperfect, but eager and bright.

Partners exchanged; Love passed Solin to Elira, calling to Vanira as she spun her beneath an arm and caught her again, “Remember, it is not the precision that matters, but the presence you bring.”

Talon hesitated, cheeks flushed with uncertainty, until Vanira grasped his hand firmly and gave him a look that brooked no refusal.

Though far from perfect, the scene was enchantment made flesh—children whirlwinds of laughter and effort, trying, stumbling, rising anew. Love was the quiet axis around which their world turned, her laughter the subtle force binding them.

Then, suddenly—a faint crack. Her heel betrayed her.

She should have known better; with such wild company, one never knew if the dance might become battle or chase. The sound was soft, but her balance faltered. She caught herself, now barefoot on one foot.

The children halted, breaths held.

A broken heel might have ended the revelry for any of her sisters.

But Love waved a hand, light as spring air. “The first rule of any ball, my dears,” she said, lifting the ruined shoe for all to see, “is to choose good shoes.”

It was a shoe of lilac satin, delicate as a petal, embroidered with hearts and trimmed in lace, a small silk rose perched on its toe. The very pair she had worn on the night she and Morpheus first appeared as husband and wife—perfect shoes for a perfect dance, and yet never danced, not until today. And it broke. Guess it was not the perfection she had hoped.

She tossed the broken slipper aside, then shed the other, the movement freeing her utterly. The children exhaled—some in delight, others in wonder. Solin offered another bow, his relief plain. Love curtseyed barefoot in return, looking every bit the woodland spirit rather than the queen of love.

A strange pang struck her—a yearning for a freedom lost, for years slipped away like shadows at dusk. This was no fault of Dream’s, she knew. Long before him, she had yielded her wildness—bit by bit—to the demands of mortals, to their need for rules and order.

Love had once been simple and raw, a force as impulsive and untamed as spring itself. But mortals complicated their affections, weaving them into codes and customs. So Love evolved, mastering protocol and etiquette, becoming a keeper of ceremonies and expectations. Only now, with bare feet upon moss, did she realize how dearly she missed the unbound wildness of her youth—when she could be all that she was meant to be, unshackled by the endless rules.

Perhaps it was the mortal fate, she thought, to surrender the lightness of youth to the weight of responsibility.

“Shall we continue?” she asked, and the children nodded eagerly.

The music resumed—if one could call the chaotic clapping and humming that—but one by one, the children surrendered themselves to the spirit of the dance. Even Talon dared a twirl that was more than mere stumble. Lethe smiled, clapping her hands.

Eoster let the dance dissolve, watching the children scatter back to their small worlds. She stood at the clearing’s center, skin warm with laughter’s glow, tendrils of hair clinging to damp temples. Her white underdress, loosened and flung carelessly in play, revealed glimpses of a gold-stitched corset beneath—delicate, intricate, and somehow a symbol of all that held her together.
It was then she felt it.

Not in sight, nor in sound, but in the quiet stir that filled the space between heartbeats—a presence that made the air itself pulse with meaning.

She did not look.

But she knew.

A silence—not from the children, but from the world itself, a deep sensation like a bell in form of a bond. Their bond.

He stood between the trees — not walking, not arriving, but simply there. Morpheus, cloaked in dusk and memory. Watching her, the children, the circle of joy she'd conjured with nothing but will and affection.

His eyes moved to her bare feet. Her flushed face. Her undone laces. Her joy. He never saw her like this. Was she this free at the Garden? And why did she looked more beautiful than ever? He had seen her wearing pieces made with the sole purpose of entice a man, wrapped for his pleasure, black and lace, silk, see through, also seen her dressed like a queen in thick chiffon, velvet, silk gowns heavily embroidered in pastel colors, but he never saw her this…free and unpolished. The thought made him glance away back to the safe innocence of children.

One by one, the children slowed down until they fell silent. They stopped their game mid-laugh, staring. Lethe tugged at Eoster’s skirt, asking quietly to be held. Their mothers didn’t talk a lot about their uncle but when they did, none of the stories they told were comforting. It didn’t help that Morpheus looked more scary than friendly.

He didn't speak. He simply watched.

Love turned toward him, her breath catching — not in fear, but in something she didn’t have a name for. The air seemed thinner, charged with the silent awareness only he brought, cutting down the idyllic domestic scenery.

As a reflex she fixed Lethe in her lap. Suddenly hyper aware of her state, the hem of the dress painted in mud, feet at the ground , hair falling down with many threads wild. He would be disappointed. He would think she was provoking him just a day before they had their understanding in amicability. He will think that she is doing this to embarrass him.

Love only hoped he would berate her behind closed doors and not in front of their nephews.

The children clustered closer to her, even Bellator’s grip on his wooden sword faltered.

Then, a small voice spoke.

It was Elira, one of the triplets. Wide-eyed and unblinking, her golden curls tangled from running. She stepped forward, hesitantly.

“Lord uncle, is it true…” she asked, clutching the hem of her dress, “that you put bad children inside mirrors forever?”

A hush fell like snow. Love’s eyes widened. She opened her mouth, unsure if to scold, reassure or protect. Would he even answer her? Morpheus knew how to be painfully cold. Worse than that was the fact that she couldn't sense anything other than silence in the bond, which must be wrong.

But Morpheus knelt slowly, folding himself like dusk, his cloak rippling across the ground like ink spilled in reverse. It made the queen hold her breath.

He looked at Elira, then at the others, and softly answered “No, Elira, daughter of Happiness and Lugh, Princess of Joyous Light, I do not punish children for being loud, or wild, or afraid. I dream them stories of who they might become… and sometimes I walk beside them, if they are very brave.”

The silence cracked, gently. Talon tilted his head. Lethe's eyes shimmered with something unreadable, but she still clinged to Love like Morpheus could take her away from her aunt’s arms at any time.

Bellator didn’t speak, but took a cautious step closer.

“Lord uncle, do you… do you make dreams just for us too?” Vanira asked, arms crossed like she wasn’t impressed but her voice too hopeful to match her stance.

“All dreams are made for someone, Vanira, sister of Bellator, Princess of the Proud Blade.” He said, “and I remember each of you when I make them.”

“But you never saw us before!” Alith said, voice a bit too loud and too accusing, before hiding behind Love’s skirt, as it was the strongest shield in the realm. Morpheus remained kneeling a moment longer.

He didn’t look at Love, but his eyes wandered far too long over the cotton dress, lingered where her corset faulted and showed more of her skin.

Then he raised one pale hand and blew gently into his palm, sand took the air.

From his breath came shimmer: motes of starlight and ink, catching in the air like drifting embers. The children gasped as the dream began to bloom around them.

The sky above them shifted, deepening into velvet blue, and stars began to arrange themselves — not randomly, but precisely. Shapes formed. Whole constellations danced into life.

A silver wolf descended from the sky, made of smoke and moonlight. It circled Lethe gently and bowed its head. “ Lethe, daughter of Melancholy and Viddar, Princess of Whispering Shadows and Quiet Lament.” the sad-eyed child reached for it, her fingers vanishing into the soft illusion. “Her name is Threnody,” Morpheus said quietly. “She remembers your sorrows so you don’t have to carry all of it.”

Bellator’s wooden sword glowed suddenly with runes of fire. “Bellator, son of Pride and Ares, Prince of Proud Wrath” The air split with a war drum’s rhythm as phantom warriors rose on the horizon — but none of them fought. They saluted him. He stood straighter, stunned. “A soldier’s worth,” Morpheus said, “is not in battle… but in restraint.”

Elira and Solin found themselves atop a floating tower of books, with feathered wings sprouting from their backs. They flew — awkwardly, at first, then laughing. Talon watched as a map of doors unfolded in midair, each leading to strange, enchanted summers that only he would know.

Valkar and Alith’s hands filled with mirrors. But these didn’t reflect faces — they showed paths. Choices. Some difficult. Some beautiful. One cracked when he hesitated, then healed when he whispered his name. “Even truth must make peace with uncertainty, Prince of the Iron Resolve and Princess of the Unyielding Truth” Morpheus said, his voice low.

Vanira found herself inside a storm, not battered by it — but dancing in its center. Lightning obeyed her hands. Her hair lifted like a goddess, and she grinned in wild wonder.
Love blinked a few times, she mechanically had to let Lethe down, because the girl was unusually agitated with her dream wolf.

From afar Cain and Abel watch the couple Her husband being kind and gentle to children. Her nieces and nephews. Chaotic, full of energy, overwhelming. Everything she knows he hates.

Or at least she thought.

Eoster had never glimpsed him with children — perhaps that was how he had been with... Orpheus. A sharp, forbidden ache tugged at her heart, a secret she dared not cradle, as if she were touching a flame meant to burn but not to warm. Was this the father Dream would be? Would he cradle his cubs with tenderness, their warmth woven into his shadow? Or would he drift cold and distant, a ghost among them, as Morpheus’s own blood had been — as her own kin had been with her? Or worse still, would he mirror her brothers-in-law? Men who saw their children only as prizes of virility and tokens to secure the fragile legacy of their bloodline.

It seems unlikely.

The children’s eyes sparkled—wide and expectant, limbs already twitching with anticipation. And just like that, they were gone—scattering through the garden like starlings loosed from a cage. Some danced, some tumbled, others plotted dramatic duels under rose arches. Goldie fluttered after them like a small, winged sentinel.
Love turned… and realized the garden had grown still behind her.

She was no longer surrounded by laughter and limbs and petals. Instead, she stood with her husband again.

Alone.

It was as though the universe—quietly insistent and more meddlesome than it let on—had conspired, yet again, to fold time just so, to hush the world around them. To leave them alone. As if it knew something still needed to be said. Or done. Even though they had already settled their marriage in words, drawn the lines between them with solemn civility.

“Thank you, husband.” She said softly “You didn’t have to be this kind”

Morpheus remained where he knelt, cloak still pooled like a second shadow, mud in the hem of his cloak. His eyes followed the children as they scattered into their dreams — laughter rising like flocks of birds into the deepening twilight. And Eoster pretended that the bond and his presença alone did not edge their bond, aching inside her, whispers of attraction she was shutting down.

“I did not do it out of obligation,” he said, his voice quiet but resonant, he was perfectly presentable not a single hair out of place which made Eoster even more aware of herself. Vulnerable. This wasn’t a moment for him. She wasn’t ready to be presented, not wearing her armor in disguise of gowns, or pre-rehearsed speeches, or even had the time to think and prepare her actions.

“And neither did you when you gave them your lap or your laughter.” He softly said, as it was something so obvious.

Love didn’t answer, lips parted slightly, a breath she hadn’t meant to hold catching in her throat, he had been watching her longer than she felt comfortable with. She felt her cheeks burn and thank the gods for the natural flush from dancing hiding it.

She couldn’t answer, out of embarrassment but also because his voice held that aching softness — the one he never used with her unless it slipped through his walls by mistake. And the Dream King rarely made a mistake.

He stood slowly, and the night stirred around him, folding back into its usual gravity. When his eyes met hers, they weren’t cold — just unreadable, as always. But softer at the edges, like moonlight over still water.

“It is the Solstice today,” he said, hands behind his back, changing the subject, though not without meaning. “The day winter dies.”

She let a breath out through her nose. “Or fails to.” Why did she confess this to him? Why did the words felt so easy in her mouth? Even to her sisters she would not confess this uncertainty.

He tilted his head. “Do you doubt your power?” His voice did not hold judgment, as her sister would, but a hint of curiosity and worry.

She looked where Lethe now curled against the wolf made of sand, where Elira was still circling overhead with a crown of stars trailing behind her. Love pressed her palm to her own chest, where the warmth should have been rising.

“The earth is not answering my call” she admitted. “I usually hear a hum that grows louder and louder until it turns to pure music at the spring solstice. I thought I was just too busy with the arrangements and your return that I was too distracted not to hear” She sighed, hugging her arms. “And then came today.” She could hear every palace noise, but not the melody she needed.

She has come to an understanding with Morpheus, Lucienne and Elijah were working together, the cupids were at the Dreaming, the preparations were at full speed, guests from all over the universe were coming, everything was on course but spring herself. “I can’t feel the thaw.” She confessed. More frustrated than sad “I can’t feel the earth sing the beginning of the spring melody.”

Silence stretched between them again — not uncomfortable, but fragile. Morpheus and Eoster knew little of each other, although they had more than a few centuries as a couple, but one thing the Dream King knew as he knew his own soul, his wife was one of the most dutiful entities he has ever know, and her work was her reason to be proud or a failure. He understood that.

“You are not failing,” he said at last. “You are afraid.”

He hadn't meant to say it aloud, but the bond had whispered it to him — not in words, but in the ache between her shoulders, the tremble veiled beneath her poise. He could feel it in his spine, as though her unrest had become his own.

He saw it clearly now — the weight she bore, invisible but immense, taken up not for glory nor favor, but for him. The Spring Solstice celebration had not been mere spectacle. It was strategy. She had summoned the universe to witness not festivity, but stability. Strength. Continuity. She had done so not to be seen — but to make him seen again as unassailable.

She did not need to orchestrate the revelry of gods and spirits and stars. She did not need to summon ancient rites or lace each ritual with symbolism that even he, until now, had failed to decipher. She did it because she saw the danger — the silence left behind by his imprisonment, the way rumors curved like blades when they sensed weakness.

Did she always work like this?

In the footnotes of his reign, hidden between sentences of silence, weaving safety into beauty, diplomacy into dance?

Had she always carried this weight — unasked, unthanked — to ease burdens he didn’t even know he bore?

Even after everything. Even after the betrayal, the hurt, the cold chasm between them, she still thought of how to protect his realm, his name. Still chose him, not with words, but with action. Even when it cost her.

And he — in his blind sovereignty — had not seen.

He could not have asked for a better queen.

She blinked at him. As if stunned that he had seen at all.

There was no accusation in his voice, no attempt to correct or contain her. Just a truth, spoken plainly — like someone offering shelter to a stranger in a storm.

But Love — who had learned long ago to make her home inside tempests — flinched at the kindness. It was too raw. Too real. She had grown accustomed to surviving in harsh winds and cold silences. This warmth was disarming.

“I did not know you could be kind to me,” she confessed.

The bond seemed to push the words forward, as though they had to be spoken — and she regretted them the instant they left her lips.

“It is not kindness,” he replied, his brow barely furrowing.

The words weren’t entirely true — not to the marrow — but he knew they would make her more comfortable. Eoster had never wanted to be wooed by gentle gestures, had never asked for softness. She had learned to distrust it.

“I am afraid it is mere selfishness,” he added, gently. And Eoster could swear there was a smile hidden somewhere in the shadows of his voice. “You promised a spectacle of strength.”

He could sense her unease with his support — the discomfort of needing someone — and they silently agreed it was better to keep things rational. Easier that way. Cleaner. He was simply giving her what she needed to hear, because it served him — not because he wanted to carry the weight she bore.

Not because he saw her. Not because he felt for her.

Not because he loved her.

He wouldn’t know how to offer help without it sounding like pity. And pity would break her.

When you’ve stepped on a rose a hundred times, there’s no way to pick it up without it falling apart.

They stood close, within arm’s reach. Neither moved.

He looked past her, to the garden’s edge, where the first crocus had quietly opened near the fountain. Life, soft and defiant, returning despite the cold.

“You could have performed a spectacle on your own,” she said. Her voice was quiet, steady. “You are Dream of the Endless.”

He had regained his full power. He could shape stars and storms with a blink. He didn’t need her. She had always been — in her mind — an ornament, a footnote, a beautiful distraction that fate bound to him by error or design.

But even as she said it, she looked at him. Still searching. Still hoping for an answer that would prove her wrong.

Morpheus didn’t answer right away. Instead, he stepped forward — only slightly — just enough to brush the edges of her presence with his own.

How many times, in one day, would she hold her breath near him?

His voice, when it came, was lower now. Softer. Like an embrace they couldn’t share.

“No. Today… I am Spring’s husband. Or perhaps only a man who knelt before your nieces and nephews and gave them dreams.”

A beat passed.

“Tomorrow, I may be the Dream King again.”

She couldn’t tell if it was the answer she wanted. But it sounded like something shaped carefully for her heart, like a dream constructed to feel like truth.

She swallowed. Her voice wavered.

“And if I fail to bring the spring?”

If she failed, it would not just be as his queen, but as Love itself — as the Princess of Spring, the Queen of All Four Loves, patroness of desire, affection, devotion, and care. She would fail the mortals who adored her, the cupids who served her, the sisters who expected her strength, the children who believed in her. She would fail herself.

Morpheus could feel it in the bond — the weight behind her eyes, the tight coil in her stomach. The tension she carried like a second skin.

Had she always felt this way? Every spring? Who helped her? Who listened?

Not the cupids — she would not burden them. Not Lucienne. Not her sisters, who had little mercy for vulnerability, especially in one of their own.

He should have noticed.

He should have been there.

His face turned fully to hers then — all shadows, stars, and sorrow — and he spoke with a devastating calm:

“Then I will dream the thaw for you.”

A promise, quiet and vast. A spell cast in syllables.

“Mortals will dream of blossoms. Of warm winds. Of golden light that clings to skin and wakes the soul. They will dream of spring so vividly, so achingly, that the world will be unable to resist its call.”

She almost turned away — not in rejection, but as if to shield herself. To hide whatever rose in her throat. She wanted to offer him something — not forgiveness, not warmth, not yet — but something like belief.

Could she trust this? Would he hold her if it all collapsed? Would he soothe her aches or punish her again?

And just then — the breeze shifted.

Not cold. Not harsh.

But scented.

______________________

Lilac, myrrh, smoke, rosehips and a sweeter perfume, intoxicating, refreshing, intense.

She didn’t even need to look.

A battalion of sisters, commanded by The Queen of Summer herself, Happiness, looking over them.

She was draped in honey-colored silk and jewels that shimmered like laughter, she walked as if the world applauded each step. She always made an entrance — late, radiant, deliberate.

“My, my,” she said, surveying the scene with raised brows and a wicked smile. “Is this our Spring Queen? Or a shepherdess from a pastoral tragedy?”

Love felt her throat tighten. Happiness had always shone like sunlight — beautiful, beloved. But it was a brightness that burned, especially when turned on her.

“We’ve been waiting nearly half an hour! Is this the new dress rehearsal? Muddy hems, tangled curls and flushed cheeks?” Pride’s voice came, rich and honeyed with contempt. If Love was conscious about her state, feet covered in moss and mud, sleeves wrinkled from carrying children.

It was way worse under her sister's judgment.

Love straightened instinctively, smoothing her cotton dress to conceal her corset and crossing her arms. But Pride and Honesty’s sharp eyes and even sharper tongues missed nothing. They exchanged knowing smiles — if smiles could speak, Love was certain she could hear the unspoken thoughts flickering between them: “Playing the innocent, tempting peasant, are we?” — “Could Dream truly be as naive as a lovestruck stable boy?” — “Indeed.” They would all agree.

Honesty, trailing dark silk and wearing a smirk sharp enough to cut the air, offered a brief curtsy. “My dear brother-in-law, what an unexpected pleasure to see you,” she murmured, her tone deliberately cool. “I confess, I could never have imagined you might be so…”

“Unexpectedly domestic,” Happiness finished smoothly, eyeing Morpheus up and down with a glint of mischief.

Morpheus remained unmoved, as ever — unreadable and still. Yet Love could feel the subtle thinning of the air around him. Not with anger, but with restraint. He would need it, facing her sisters’ sharp tongues, their polished pleasantries concealing barbed wit. Pride and Honesty together were like a hive of vipers.

With a slight bow — both courtly and cold — he greeted, “Ladies.”

Pride rolled her eyes with a faint scoff. Happiness, her velveteen voice dripping with mock sincerity, continued, “We watched from the terrace. Though, one might think the terrace was doing its best to avoid us.”

Love glanced at Morpheus. Was this true? Did he not want his sisters to see them? Or see her? Did he shield her from their inevitable judgment? She only wished he would be a bit more effective.

Honesty pretended to brush dust from her bouffant sleeve, her tone thoughtfully casual. “Dream of the Endless, on his knees, conjuring fairy tales for children. You do have a remarkable talent for appearing sincere, my dearest brother-in-law.”

“We were nearly moved to tears,” Happiness added, placing a hand dramatically over her heart, though her expression betrayed nothing but disdain.
Happiness and Love were almost like twins — their hair and eyes differing in color, but their faces and figures much alike. Where Love’s dark curls were thick as oak branches, Happiness’s tresses were long, sun-kissed, and flowed almost to her knees. Where Love had green eyes framed by thick dark lashes and skin as pale as lily petals, Happiness’s eyes were the blue of a clear summer sky, with golden lashes and sunlit skin.

Yet where Love carried gentleness and compassion, Happiness bore cunning and decisiveness. If, centuries ago, Happiness had chosen to pursue Morpheus, it would not have been a trap for two but a long, strategic design made by Happiness. She was as relentless as the summer sun at its peak, intoxicating and overwhelming.

That would be the villain Morpheus thought Love was for all these years.

But Happiness had no taste for men who spoke in riddles or lived in illusions. She preferred the calloused hands and sun-baked skin of rustic honesty. Any day, she would choose a blunt, even rude man over one who moped about like a forlorn cat.

“But we did not,” Honesty interjected, her smirk sparkling like cold steel. “Forgive us, dear brother, if we remain unmoved. Children and tender hearts often mistake illusions for promises.” Her eyes settle in Love with a warning and a correction, turning back to Dream “We, however, are old hags with cold hearts.”

Melancholy, silent as her name, took Love’s arm gently. Her voice was like mourning lace, trailing soft and sorrowful. The long grey-blue veil she wore fluttered in the breeze, framing her ghostly pale features. Her disdain for Morpheus was so complete, she barely acknowledged him.

“Come, dear Love,” she said softly. “You have a season to awaken and rituals to uphold. Unless, of course, you intend to summon spring like a milkmaid pulling flowers from the moist dreams of soldiers at war.”

Melancholy began to pull Love away from the children and Morpheus, but before she could lead her toward the waiting sisters, Love planted her feet firmly and met her husband’s gaze.

“I should go,” she said quietly.

Morpheus nodded once. “You should.”

Yet neither moved, even with Melancholy’s gentle but persistent tug.

Then he stepped closer, while her sisters watched like hawks, their eyes sharp and unyielding. Not close enough to touch, but close enough for Love to feel that familiar pull—the terrible gravity between them they both pretended to ignore.

“I meant what I said,” he murmured.

She didn’t ask which part.

Instead, her voice barely above a whisper, she asked, “And if I fail?”

He tilted his head, his voice softer than the breeze stirring the garden leaves. “Then you did, but you will rise—and I will dream the thaw, until you feel it again.”

She swallowed hard; her throat ached with unshed words.

“Careful,” she managed a smile. “If they hear more of that, they’ll accuse you of the greatest crime: tenderness.”

He gave no smile. But the space between them shifted—not warmer, not colder—just... closer.

“Eoster.” Melancholy tugged her arm once more. She would not let her sister say another word.

“Let them,” Morpheus said, before Love was drawn away, swallowed by the furious ocean of colorful skirts his sisters-in-law made.

“And brother,” Pride called out with a sly smile, “Since you’re so taken with domesticity, might you be kind enough to guide our nannies in rounding up our little brats? I dare say they’re in desperate need of a bath.”

“Or an exorcism,” added Happiness, clutching Pride’s arm as she giggled over their terribly pampered little angels.

With a sharp snap, Pride opened her fan and turned her back on Dream of the Endless, issuing commands in his own realm as if he were but a humble servant.

Barely the sister turned dragging Love away, an army of old women, in Victorian uniform, with long black skirts and white appron, walked down the hill, trying to prepare themselves to catch their little lords and ladies, who despised baths as they were liquid poison.

The barbs from his sisters-in-law struck deep, yet Morpheus maintained his posture, the faintest flicker of restraint in his otherwise unreadable gaze. He had been expecting their sharp tongues, but it was
never quite easy.

If only these weren’t his sisters-in-law.

Chapter Text

“You’ve got twigs in your hair, dirt on your legs, and your corset’s gaping like a barn door,” said Pride, tugging at Love’s hair with the precise amount of force required to blur the line between grooming and retribution. The gold rings on her fingers clinked softly against a shell comb she had pilfered from Honesty, who, naturally, had taken it from Love’s own vanity.

Around their queen, her sisters moved with a theatrical, circular rhythm: half-dance, half-inquisition, choreographed with the kind of intimacy only sisters dare employ.

“Pray tell us, dear sister, what on earth was that?”

Happiness floated by with a goblet in hand, pausing only to retrieve a petticoat from the floor, the one they had unceremoniously yanked off from Love, moments after slamming the doors shut behind
them.

The discarded dress had been muddy, beloved, and now deemed unfit for a queen. Happiness sniffed theatrically.

“This has mud on it. And possibly jam. Have you been embracing the children again?” She let it fall to the floor like a condemned garment and collapsed into a chaise longue with a dramatic flare.

At the door, Honesty returned with a dress draped over one arm and Elijah’s exasperated sigh could still be heard down the corridor. The poor cupid had looked like a child peering through a classroom window, watching others play at recess. He had attempted to see Lady Love, as if her recent disappearing acts had stirred in him some long-dormant anxiety.

But Honesty, always the truth-teller but never the empath, shut the door in his face with no more ceremony than a sneeze. She laid the gown onto the bed with a flourish that was more violent than necessary.

“I was playing with the children,” Love said, twisting to avoid Pride’s relentless combing.

Happiness rolled her eyes and lobbed a silk stocking at her. “Stop shifting about, you’re disturbing everything.”

Love hurled it back. “Stop throwing things.”

Pride yanked her head again. “Stop moving.”

Love groaned in frustration. “I was teaching them to dance. Since the rest of you appear quite determined to raise a generation of socially inept heirs.”

That struck.

Pride froze mid-brush.

Honesty nearly dropped the gardening hat she had lifted from the closet.

Happiness choked on her wine. A singular chuckle escaped.

“Well, well,” said Honesty, her grin spreading. “Our bucolic rose has thorns.”

“And sharp ones,” added Happiness, dabbing at her lips. “Careful, Pride. She might prick you.”

Pride narrowed her eyes, unused to being challenged, least of all by sweet, docile Eoster.

“We saw your game, Love.” Honesty flopped onto the bed, letting the gardening hat fall from her head and helping herself to Love’s hairpins without shame. “Bold move, but be careful not to fall into it yourself.”

“There was no game,” Love insisted, plucking a garter out of Pride’s hands before she could repurpose it as a headband. “This obsession you all have with strategy is bordering on paranoia.”

“And how are we supposed to explain a queen, usually perfectly dressed and composed” Pride asked, arching an eyebrow “dancing barefoot with an open corset in the mud, while her emotionally stunted husband just so happens to be passing?”

“A coincidence,” Love said flatly.

“She really does take us for fools,” Melancholy mused, rolling her eyes, stepping in from the adjoining chamber where a steaming bath, thick with flower-scent, waited.

“Honesty!” Love cried, turning toward her sister, now adorned with eight mismatched pins in her hair. “Surely you believe me? Or have Alith and Valkar finally drained all reason from you?”

Honesty laughed, swept across the room, and kissed her sister’s cheek. “I believe you, dear. I’m only teasing.” Pride pushes her out of the way and yanks Love’s head again. Reasoning back into the conversation “What can’t be denied, and do not even try, is that your husband was eye-fucking you the entire time. Like you’d walked out of some erotic pastoral fantasy, and he was a starving stable boy who’d never touched a woman.”

Happiness twirled her wine. “Like an erotic painting he wanted to frame in his quarters."

“That is a very improper but true metaphor, Happiness” Said Melancholy who found the discarded hat and now twirled languidly with the it, the veil following like a dancing shadow.

“Thank you, my queen of winter” Happiness gestured a bow.

“Dear stars, have pity on me.” Love sighed “Not every interaction with my husband is adult foreplay.”

“Are you even acquainted with the concept, sister of mine?” Happiness asked sweetly, the venom unmistakable.

“Ignore them, Eoster,” said Melancholy “They are being improper. We all know no interaction with your husband is foreplay.” Melancholy, ever serene thought this was helping, but it came at as comical since she was right. No interactions between them was ever foreplay. They didn't do foreplay.

Love straightened slightly. “We’ve come to an agreement. Amicability. He will no longer require marital duties from me, and I shall not be obligated to see him unless I wish to. He invited me to the Dreaming if I’m so inclined. And I’ve required him to come to the Garden. He is its king, after all.”

The sisters glanced at one another. Love’s voice was calm, regal, assured. even

The sisters exchanged glances.

Pride spoke first. “Very diplomatic.”

“How political,” said Happiness.

Silence followed.

The silence remained for a few moments, and just before Pride restarted brushing the curls, Honesty spoke what everyone else in the room was thinking, half-laughing.

“So what, he will let you take lovers now, without turning them to dust, without you needing to feel guilty?”

“Legitimate question,” said Happiness, raising her glass with renewed interest.

Love studied the hem of her chemise. “I’ve no interest in lovers,” Her voice was even. “But he said that if he’s not the one making me smile, he still wants me to be happy.”

The sisters looked at one another.

And then they grinned.

“Now that’s a marriage deal.” For them, if her sister wasn’t being satisfied in her marriage, an affair would heal her internal pains. And more, she could avenge the years of loneliness, making him pay. And they knew exactly how it would go.

“You should write to Destruction,” said Honesty, leaping onto the bed beside Happiness, both squealing and clap like schoolgirls. Even before Love ever crossed paths with Dream, her sisters had always had a huge crush on Destruction. When he left, not only he left his realm and his siblings, but four platonic widows.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Love darted across the room, while Pride got lost in her own reflection adjusting her bodice, and plucked a black lingerie that Happiness was admiring “Stop rifling through my things!”

“He’s your brother-in-law,” Honesty insisted. “He’d never refuse you.”

“You know very well the Prodigal abandoned his duties. And does not want to be found.” Love said, voice hard.

“Then whisper his name, and let the wind carry it. He’ll come.” Pride said, convicted, pointing to the chair, so Love would return.

“No one denies Love when she calls.” Melancholy said, gazing out the windows like she was waiting for him on a white horse.

“Oh, imagine the revenge!” Happiness clapped. “Tell him how cold your marriage is. How devoted you’ve been. Such a good wife, and all you get are cold stares, and a cold bed. Tell him how utterly unsatisfied you have been. How celibate.” She pretended to faint in the bed, like a damsel.

“Now that,” Pride adds wickedly, “is a man who’d make you forget all Dream’s moody silences and cold cock.”

“Just imagine Destruction, laughing in your bed, the Dream King watching from his tower. Regretting everything he took for granted.” Honesty sighed romantically, clutched her hands against her chest, like she was spilling her own fantasy.

“That is indecent and beneath you, Honesty.” Melancholy added

“No,” said Happiness. “Indecent would be riding the Prodigal on Morpheus’s throne. In her own chambers? That’s liberation. Or should our sister remain a nun for all eternity?”

“Enough!” Love’s voice rang sharp. “The Prodigal is gone. I won’t write to him. I won’t summon him. Have you no shame? I’ve never had so much as a flicker of desire for him. He’s my brother-in-law. Yes, he was a good brother but he abandoned his duties and his family. I could never lay with such a man. He is your collective wet dream. Not mine.”

“Oh, right,” said Honesty rolling her eyes, “your fantasy is Dream kissing you in a field of poppies, playing house, surrounded by barefoot children like it’s a midsummer fairytale.”

“We know you weren’t playing a game, Love,” said Pride. “But he was. Down in the mud, with children and dreams, acting like he finally read your diary. He have seen your dreams, he knows what you ache for.”

“And if you fall for his charms again,” said Happiness, “you are a fool. Things will go right back to the way they were.”

“No,” Love said, her voice soft but razor-sharp.”Morpheus never glanced at my dreams, he always thought it to be inappropriate. A concept you do not fathom.”

“So you think, sister.” Honesty said.

“So I know, sister.”

Her gaze turned icy. She circled them now, as if weighing their worth.

“You have never understood my marriage. Nor have I asked you to. And as always, you all forget your place.”

Her tone shifted, imperial, absolute. “I do not wish to speak about my marriage again. And as your host, and the Queen of this realm, I require your respect. Disregard this once more, and you will not see the Solstice. I will cast you out of the Dreaming myself.”

“Don’t be dramatic, sister dear” Happiness murmured with a smile and a roll of her eyes.

“Try me,” Love said, deadly calm. “Once more, and you shall see dramatic.”

Happiness looked down. Love’s gaze burned too hot.
And then Love turned, snatched her gardening hat off Melancholy’s head and slammed the adjoining door shut.

She opened it again.

“Call my maids. And Elijah. On your way out. I expect glee at the Solstice. And my nieces and nephews.”

Then she shut the door behind her with a satisfying snap.

A long breath. Stillness.

Then:

A laugh. Low and delighted.

After centuries of being coddled, pitied, and corrected, finally, silence.

Let them gather their jaws from the marble floor.

Tonight, she would sink into a jasmine bath scented with rose salt and power.

She doubted they’d dare challenge her again.

Love took off her chemise and lowered herself on the steamy bath, the water a lilac tone with hyacinth petals, rose, lilies, jasmine, making a mix of fragrance that one could not put his finger on what it really smell like. It was sweet and fresh.

Lilac waters rose to her shoulders as scented petals clung to her skin, drifting like fragments of a memory. The smell of wet earth before rain. Thawing rivers. Animals waking. Subtle but there. Was it the hum of the earth before spring? Was it there before, and she wasn’t paying attention? Or it arose after…

She would not dare. What if she was wrong?

Everything felt blurred. Her thoughts. Her heart. Her senses. But beneath it all, one thing shimmered with quiet clarity. She crossed her arms, hugging herself, sliding deeper into the warmth. The lilac water kissed her collarbone. A curl stuck to her cheek as she let her head fall back, hair floating like seaweed behind her. She felt lighter. Not like a feather dancing free but as if something was keeping her from slipping under.

She knew what it was. Their invisible string, the golden thread intertwining Love and Dream.

“I will dream the thaw for you.”

The words echoed in her chest

He never supported her, my stars he never even wanted to know what she did or didn’t do, and she had cared far too much. Had burned herself trying to warm a man that was more kin to coldness.

And now! Now he was trying. In that cold and careful way of his, he was offering her something. Lifting her burden, just slightly, as if saying: You are not alone.

He could’ve stayed silent. He could’ve offered her nothing. And yet, he did.

And her private doubts aside, she knew that in that moment he meant it. He still means it now. Like he continued to ease her mind, even after she left him in the field.

The weight hadn’t vanished, but it didn’t press down cruelly. It felt… lifted, just enough that she could breathe.

Nice.

That was the word.

How childish it sounded. No one had ever even thought of "nice" when describing them. Broken, yes. Distant, also. Cold, sure. But never “nice” .

She closed her eyes. Her fingers drifted lazily through the water. Not quite purposeful. Not quite innocent.

And her sisters. Love hated to admit it. They were wrong about many things, but not her dreams. Not the way her skin tingled when she remembered him kneeling before her nieces and nephews, the way his voice had lowered when speaking to the children or the way he turned fear into wonder with a word. She bit her lip, and a flush rose on her throat. Not the flicker of something soft on his lips when Elira asked him about bad children and mirrors.

He did not do it out of obligation. He did not do it out of duty. What obligation did the King of Dreams have to wild, unruly children, that would certainly cause more havoc before the spring awakened?

None.

And still, he held a shy smile. .

She let out a slow breath.

Her hand traced idle, lazy shapes in the water, slipping along her stomach. It wasn’t conscious, not exactly. More instinct than thought. Her body just needed it there where it aches.

He could have tried to impress Love, giving the children what they wanted, castles, and battles, but he gave them what was right for them. He knew them better than children know themselves. Stars, he probably knew them better than their parents knew.

She shifted in the bath, thighs sliding slowly in the warm water. Her fingers drifted just a little lower, their bond was so permissive today, would he feel it? Caressing her folds, pressing her long fingers against herself, her hips rising to meet her fingers, soft whimpers she would hold? Would he like it? Would he feel she was being too improper in such a moment?

The bond was a curious thing. So temperamental. So obedient when least desired, so absent when most needed.

Where was this mystical thread, when she had offered him a story and watched him dismantle it with the careless indifference of one unacquainted with love’s labour?

That memory, distant now, still had the power to wound her.

That was such a long time ago. She had been so young in love, not in years of course, Eoster was ancient, but in marriage she was new, as any maiden on the mortal realm stuck in an arranged marriage. She knew love in all its mythic shapes: philia, agape, storge, eros, but all in theory. Never like this. Never as a woman bound eternally to a man who would not look at her the way she looked at him. Never as a goddess made a stranger in her own bed.

And yet, she had loved him. Stars help her, she loved him.

Those were meant to be the golden years of their union, seasons of delight and shared joy, a courtship renewed across eternity. Instead, she had found herself cloistered in a palace of silence.

It was a time when she was completely alone in the Dreaming.

Elijah was allowed to come to the Dreaming but he also was required to go back to the Garden of Lovers, and Morpheus made sure no dream or nightmare spoke to her or offered a single word of gentleness. He had made quite certain she would not feel welcome in his realm.

She had tried. By all the heavens, she had tried. The memory exhausted her even now. It was humiliating, that hunger. A glance, a smile, any word from him at all. And each attempt she made to be closer, only seemed to deepen his resentment.

He had never raised his voice, nor behaved with cruelty, not overtly. He simply did not care. Or, if he did, he buried it too deep for her to reach.

“That will be all, lady wife.” He often dismissed her with those words.

Even Jessamy received kinder farewells.

And it was not only loneliness that plagued her. It was tedium, relentless and unrelieved. No duties were offered to her. No return to her Garden permitted. There were no soirées in the Dreaming, no confidantes, no laughter, no music, no dances, no clever debates, no lessons to teach or learn. Nothing but her trousseau and her reflection.

And so she bathed. And dressed. And undressed. She adorned herself for engagements that did not come, breakfasts never shared, walks never taken, waltzes never danced. Afternoon teas, untouched. A marriage bed, chill as any tomb. She became a doll of silk and satin, parading past him in corridors, hoping, always hoping.

It was boredom that led her to linger near the library doors that morning, when she overheard Lucienne and Mervyn speaking.

She sank lower in the water now, her eyes closing in remembrance.

She ought not to have listened.

"To linger at keyholes and corners is the province of bored maids and dullards, not princesses of emotions, future queens of realms." Her old nursemaid used to scold, whenever she caught her and her sisters trying to spy on entities. "You are the heir to the hearts and minds of mortals, gods and endless alike. You are not boring. Do not act as such. Eavesdropping is unworthy of the divine.”

“A triumph”, they said. Lord Morpheus’s triumph.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A play penned by a mortal, Shakespeare, and gifted with the power to mend rifts between Faerie and the Dreaming. Through theatrics, he had accomplished what diplomacy could not. He had caused Titania and Auberon to reconsider their fury.

A man of ink and inkling had moved kingdoms.

A mortal man had succeeded where she had failed.

The thought struck her with exquisite sharpness. If her words could not reach her husband, perhaps those penned by another might. He was, after all, the Prince of Stories. Perhaps a tale, beautiful and tragic, cloaked in artifice, might awaken what her voice could not.

It was, she would later admit, an idea born of romantic desperation.

But then, are not such ideas the most dangerous, and yet the most powerful?

It was the first morning of spring. The world smelled of damp earth and possibility. She found William beneath the shade of a venerable fig tree, his brow furrowed over a page, his fingers stained with ink and thought.

He looked up as she approached. She wore the fashion of his time, rich velvet, the colour of crushed rose, a girdle of gold at her waist, but there was something unplaceable in her bearing, that hinted him this was not an ordinary court lady, perhaps the gleam of her eyes, or the soft way the grass bent beneath her steps.

“My good William,” she said, her voice warm, musical, “how fare thee this morning? Didst thou pass by the hyacinths? They are in riotous bloom just past the hollow.”
He looked up, startled. “I… my lady, I did. But… how—?”

“Your mother tended them, did she not?” she replied softly. “Do you remember? You were but a toddling child. Once, you chased their scent and nearly met a horse’s hooves. I thought you might like to see them again.”

His eyes narrowed, searching her face. “Does my lady have a name?” Cautious but curious.

“I bear many,” she replied, stepping closer. The grass seemed to bow under her feet. “Some known to you. Others lost to the world. But I believe my husband has a… gentlemen’s agreement with you.” He looked puzzled and mesmerized “Stories that will live forever, to be remembered long after you are gone”

“Ah.” His eyes widened. Realization came to him at the same time as surprise, Lord Morpheus, that looked like a villain from a bedtime nursery married to a lady that looked like the sweet damsel sang on tavern songs? Love really doesn’t seen eye to eye “Another performance, then?” he asked, bemused.

She knelt before him, lifting her skirts slightly to sit gracefully in the grass. A breeze lifted the edge of her sleeve.

“No my dear William, I come,” she said, “bearing a secret. One I trust you’ll bury deep within your heart. I wish to give him a wedding gift.”

“What would you have me write?” He set his pen down slowly, as if the moment itself might break.

“A tale of young love.” She thought “A love that cannot survive the world that surrounds them. And yet they try.” The morning wind stirred her hair, the light touched her in a way that made the fig leaves above her tremble, as if they too were listening. “A tale of an encounter that comes too soon and too late.”

William tilted his head, his quill idle now against the parchment. “A comedy, then?”

She tilted her head in turn, and though her tone was mild, her eyes held something far deeper, something like sorrow smothered in sweetness.

“No quite, dear William” she said, letting the thought idle in his head.

“A tragedy of young love?” He never heard of such a thing, love worthy of tragedy. “But, my fair good lady, can love be true, if it ends?”

“Parting is such a sweet sorrow, my young William” she said, her gaze far off. “This love does not end, it only has brief interruptions.”

For a moment, William was struck dumb. He could not say what it was in her voice that moved him, whether it was the conviction, the melancholy, or the grace with which she bore both. She seemed as if she had known the love she spoke of. And its loss.

“There never will be a tale of more woe than this one” Still seated beside him, she let one finger trace the rim of his ink pot, absently, as if stirring thoughts in its depths.

She rose as lightly as she had come, her skirts gliding over the grass like drifting petals. “ Yet never will be a tale of more love, either”

“Farewell, my dear bard of Avon,” she said, her voice already dimming with distance. “Write it kindly.”

—-----------

The crowd had assembled early. Merchants jostled alongside apprentices, noblemen beside whores, scholars near pickpockets, and poets shoulder to shoulder with the common. All were united by a singular hunger: the promise of a new tale from Master Shakespeare. The chill bit through the wooden galleries, but none murmured complaint. The play, said to be tragic, romantic, divine, had already stirred something like reverence in the air.

Morpheus stood among them, his garments, as always, black, but of the cut and weight worn by noblemen a century before: long doublet, high collar, silver rings at his fingers. His hair was longer here, falling in dark, unbound waves that brushed his shoulders, softening the sharpness of his features, though not the severity of his gaze.

He had come alone, as was his custom, and taken his place in the theatre’s private box. He sat with the stillness of one carved from night itself.

But just before the trumpets sounded and the crowd quieted into an expectant hush, she arrived.

Love had not anticipated that the play would be first performed in the depths of winter. Nor had she foreseen the plague. Yet here she was, in London. Complexion paler than usual, for winter is no friend to spring.

She looked like any noble lady of the time, fashionably attired but touched by the hush of confinement. There was an air of faded bloom about her, as though she had been kept from sunlight too long.
Queen Eoster dressed in deep emerald velvet that shimmered like pine boughs touched by frost, hands hidden inside a muff of soft sable, her hair pinned in braids and coils beneath a delicate net of pearls, but a few wayward curls, ungovernable as ever, brushed against her temple and the base of her throat.
She said nothing as she sat, only inclined her head slightly in greeting to her husband. The faintest of smiles curved her lips, neither coy nor triumphant, but dangerous. Hope.

She sat too close with a soft, eager smile.

He did not look at her, yet he made no move to bid her leave. Morpheus had not called for her, neither told her of his whereabouts. And yet, here she was.

Why?

Was this another attempt to be part of his life? Would he be obliged to lecture her once more? Were the Ladies of Emotion not rigorous trained in the ancient patriarchal proprieties of marriage? To obey their husbands?

She desired to be his wife, to be his queen, seized that title from him and Desire crowned her with it as if it were hers by birthright.
If so, then she should have remained in the Dreaming.

He said nothing. His jaw remained set, his figure as still as ever.

At first, it was as expected. A brawl, swift banter, the bustling tempo of Verona.

But then came the first lines from a young maiden, Juliet.

His gaze narrowed.

There was a cadence there he had heard before, not in voice but in heart. Not in words spoken aloud, but in words meant, and never uttered. The mortal girl’s longing, her private rebellion, her dawning awe of love, was too precise, too honest.

He recognized it for what it was almost immediately: not his story.

It was Eoster’s.

Unmistakably, hers.

He heard his queen in Juliet’s every declaration, felt her breath between the lines. The metaphor of night and day, the exquisite ache of stolen hours, the bitter end too cruel for such a tender beginning. Not invention. Not inspiration. It was a confession.

Romeo, a boy who began the tale seeking another, Rosaline, vague and idealized, until he saw his true love, Juliet. Two lovers of warring houses, doomed by design, yet choosing each other still, even unto death.

He gripped the arms of his chair.

This was her doing. She had gone to the mortal, his mortal, and offered him a story not born of lore or myth, but of them. Of her heart. Her sorrow. Her accusation.

Without his knowledge. Without his consent.

Morpheus saw the way she leaned forward during the balcony scene, her gloved hands tightened within the muff; her breath caught on the verge of trembling fingers.

And the way she looked at him during the final moments, when Juliet’s dagger found her chest.

He had been too steeped in suspicion, too proud and afraid to believe she could love him honestly. He thought it was manipulation. Echoing Desire’s schemes. He was certain that she was trying to soften him for some hidden gain.

“A glooming peace this morning with it brings;

The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head.

Go hence to have more talk of these sad things;

Some shall be pardoned, and some punished.

For never was a story of more woe

Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

When the applause began, he said nothing.

Not to Shakespeare, who had turned with humble anticipation. Not to Eoster, who was still applauding politely

He disappeared back to the Dreaming.

No farewell. No praise. Not even a shadow left behind.

Love apologized to William, and followed her husband, disappearing a few moments after thanking and praising the bard. Assuring him that his deal with Lord Morpheus was unchanged. Not that she was certain of it.

The king of Dreams waited until she returned to the Dreaming. She would find him. She had that annoying habit of always finding him in the palace even if he did not want her to. No matter the hour. No matter the frost in his voice. His hands clasped behind his back, framed by pillars of onyx and moonlight staring at the cold glow of stars through the windows of the throne room.

She arrived quietly.

The Dream King would have to endure one hundred years of imprisonment to realize those subtle changes his wife made in herself in those first years of marriage. Solely exclusive, aiming to please him. Trial and error to see what would please him better, since he gave no direction or wanted to.

Spring should not be quiet, and yet, his wife learned how to be.

"Lord husband," she said with a smile so delicate it could have been painted on glass. It wasn’t a smile out of happiness or confidence, but pure habit and politeness, like she was taught, like she has taught mortals through inspiration. Always meeting a loved one with a smile. "What a fine evening, wasn’t it?"

She removed her muff with careful grace, folding to occupy her hands, as if they were still a couple returning from a play, still companions in some private celebration.
No answer. The air was thick with tension. What use was it to be a master in the art of conversation if your husband never responds?

“I spoke to William. I apologized. I told him your agreement remains sacred.” She tried to cut the suffocating silence only the Dreaming could provide. Love took a step closer, hands clasped before her, twisting the fingers together like ribbon unraveling. “Though I…” She looked down, biting her lip, realizing that it might have been a mistake. When did her husband ever like her meddling with his business? ”I know I had no right to do so”

He stood on the highest step to the throne. Far above her. Far from reach.

Her own voice sounded too loud in her ears, too childish, too inadequate.

But still she looked at him with a hope of a kind glance, or at least understanding.

He turned.

One slow, precise motion. A gesture that felt like turning a blade.

And Love was gifted with a stare that made her regret ever asking to be seen by him.

Glacial. Unforgiving. The kind of look that could strip flesh from bone.

“You went behind my back.” His voice was low but still echoed through the throne room. It made her spine shiver.

Her heart kicked against her ribs.“Forgive me, my lord husband, it was to be a gift. A wedding gift. Betrayal was not my intention and-”

The Dream King wouldn’t let her finish speaking. He rarely did.

“And when,” he asked, like asking the time, “have your intentions ever been pure, wife?”The word wife hitted her like a lash. It reeks of judgment, almost as if it was something to be embarrassed of, not something he cherished in having.

She flinched.

“Always,” She bit her lip, soft pink turning white. “Always. Please, I only thought… if you saw-”

“If I saw what?” he snapped, the hurt beneath it hiding angry, like she committed an awful betrayal. “A play twisting my agreement with Shakespeare? An emotional manipulation costumed in poetry?”

“No!” Her voice cracked like porcelain. She stepped forward, hope clinging to her spine like a corset. "I did it for you, to show you-" But Love could step forward as she wanted, it would never reach him.

He looked at her for a long time. “You thought flattery would soften me. That I would open to you, if you gave me something sweet and tragic.”

Her lip trembled. “I gave you something true.”

“Don’t twist it into devotion,” he said, eyes dark as obsidian. “You used my agreement with Shakespeare for your own ends. ” he said coldly. “I gave Shakespeare a contract. Not you.”

That hurt. More than he would ever know. More than he would want to admit. He separates them like two different entities.

“Please lord husband, don’t be cruel, I…”

“And you deserve tenderness?”

Her throat tightened. “I thought… if you saw what love…”

“What you think love is,” he corrected coldly. “You embarrassed us both.”

If he had slapped her it wouldn’t have sting like this.

She swallowed against the tears forming in her eyes.

He turned away, the hem of his coat sweeping like a curtain between them. “Do not meddle in my affairs again, lady wife.”

She held the cry in her throat, trying to fight words and a sob if he could only listen to her “Please just let me-”

“You may go.”

-------------------------
“Now, there is my lovely niece!” Aunt Primness swept into the marble chamber as though she’d been born to it . Love jumped in her bath, returning completely to the present. Her gown was stiff with purple embroidery, her chin at an angle of permanent disapproval, and her voice carried the weight of ancestral judgment. She surveyed the room like it was an offending new wing in her manor.

Trailing her, of course, was Aunt Temperance, serene in pastel yellow lace, all gentleness and murmured apologies for a visit that was already in progress, eternally apologizing for the company she keeps.

Behind them came Elijah, ever unbothered, and Lucienne, who looked like she regretted her decision almost instantly.

How they found her quarters she didn’t know but had a feeling knowing her aunts it would not be a secret for long.

“Thank the old gods,” Primness said, hands on her hips, “This place. It makes no sense to anyone sensible. Curved walls! Hallways that lead to nowhere! Staircases that double back like they’ve been drinking! Who designed this, a drunk satyr?”

Temperance, unruffled, lowered herself onto a brocade seat near the tub, just behind Love’s back. “Prim, it’s the Dreaming. Dreams are not supposed to be sensible. Besides, we came to see Eoster, not conduct a real estate survey.”

“Well, one can do both, Temperance. I don’t expect it of you, of course, but I certainly can.” Primness narrowed her gaze at her niece. “Darling, why are you still submerged like a nymph in mourning? You look half-drowned.”

“I must say,” Temperance murmured, smoothing the folds of her skirt “I’ve never heard you complain after a solid night of sleep, Prim. Your mind must wander beautifully in these mists.”

“I do not dream,” Primness snapped as if Temperance had accused her of cavorting with swine. “Not since before the Greek gods picked up bronze. Waste of time.”

“That would explain so very much,” Temperance said mildly, still smiling, a warm beam that disguised the dagger beneath. The look Primness returned was enough to cut through flesh.

“Darling girl,” Temperance said more gently, ignoring the look of her older sister, uncorking a bottle and testing the oil like a seasoned apothecary. “You haven’t even touched your hair yet? Your scalp must be parched. I’ll tend to it.”

Love blinked water from her lashes. “What are you doing here? Both of you?”

“Oh, your sisters found us while we were admiring the most fabulous gallery,” Temperance said, easing lavender cream into Love’s wet hair with tender, ring-clad fingers.

“ ‘Fabulous’ is certainly a word for it,” Primness muttered, wrinkling her nose.

“And they told us,” Temperance briefly looked at Prim, pleading to her sister to give it a break, continuing delicately “That you had, well, dismiss them, with some degree of force, apparently.”

“So of course,” Primness said, her tone growing theatrical again, as she eyed the bath oils. Selecting one, she dripped it into the tub with a flick of her wrist. The water blushed deeper. “We had to come see you. We were worried.”

“Well. She was.” Temperance tilted her head, combing in a floral oil with her ringed fingers. “But I do worry when Primness worries. It’s so rare it must be serious.”

“Whatever you did,” said Primness “It was about time. Those sisters of yours, and those husbands! No sense of etiquette. No decorum.”

“We weren’t able to find your quarters,” Temperance added lightly, massaging and combing Love’s curls, as she did when Eoster was a kid still under her protection. “Until we ran into Elijah and Lucienne. They were very obliging.”

“Yes, obliging in doing their job.” Primness snapped her fingers toward the pair standing in stately discomfort at the door. “Chop, chop, you two, Cupid. Dream’s Cupid. Where is the towel?” Primness extended her hand waiting for the towel to magically appear in seconds by servant efficiency.

Lucienne and Elijah blinked, one with long-suffering grace, the other with a tightening jaw.

Elijah simply offered a knowing half-smile and bowed, retrieving the towel with his average elegance. He was used to being a second hand, valet and confidant to Queen Love, and bore it with pride. Not only that but he had known the old hags Primness and Temperance far longer than he would admit in polite company. He once fetched honeyed wine while Aunt Primness recited all seventeen of Love’s childhood misdemeanors.

He knew better than to interrupt their theater.

Lucienne, however, did not. She was The Dream King second hand and librarian. She adjusted her glasses as if to better see the audacity in front of her. “We are not here to assist with Lady Love’s preparations, my ladies” she said, tone crisp but civil.

Primness turned to her with imperial slowness. The look she bestowed would have curdled cream, the kind of glare perfected over centuries of inherited authority, as if Lucienne had personally insulted the family crest.

“Your husband's staff certainly takes after him in being polite,” Primness scoff, lethally sarcastic.

Lucienne remained still as marble, no flicker of indignation crossing her face, only the weight of a thousand neatly filed volumes of patience.

Elijah's mouth twitched. A duel between Primness and Lucienne? Worth watching.

Temperance, always the olive branch, drifted in. “Now, now, Prim,” she said, rinsing Love’s hair. “Let’s not be unkind to the Dreaming’s librarian. She was very kind in bringing us to Love”

“Well, Temperance, if the palace no longer tolerates a simple towel request, perhaps I should’ve brought my own staff” Primness muttered, satisfied enough to continue judging the room’s decor in silence.”Only in this impossible place” She sigh before clapping “Up you go, girl. It is been a long time since we last helped any of you girls to a season changing, but as far as I remember it did not include soaking for a day under scented water”

Temperance was already at her side, hands warm and maternal as she helped her niece rise from the bath, wrapping her in linen embroidered with laurel vines. “There we are. One foot, then the other. You’ve always been the hardest to lift. Even when you were a girl you carried everything on your shoulders.”

Primness tisked. “She carried her sisters, that’s what. And their drama. And their broken things.”

“She loved them,” Temperance said, guiding Love outside the bath back to her bedroom, sitting her in front of the mirror in a cushioned stool and patting her dry with firm, kind strokes. “Still does.”

“Unwise. But then, she was always romantic.”

“And you were always the realist.”

“Which is why I’m still sane.”

Love, swaddled and pink-cheeked, gave a soft snort as her aunts worked around her like orbiting moons. Primness reached for an ivory comb and began dragging it through damp curls with surprising gentleness, her sharp tongue not matched by her touch.

“Hold still,” she ordered. “Not even a miracle conditioning would tame your knots. Always a battlefield this hair of yours.”

Temperance was already at the dressing screen, laying out chemise, corset, underskirts, bodice, gown, layer upon layer in soft shades of pure white. “Do you remember,” she said lightly, “the last time we did this for a solstice?”

Primness grunted. “Not since they were little brats, who could not control the seasons properly neither mortal’s emotions.”

“Living with us. After their parents-”

“Yes, well.” Primness waved the memory away like ash. “That’s ancient history. And they were a menace!” Primness sighed, a shiver went through her as she remembered those little girls causing havoc in her manon “Remember how many days it took them to understand how to sit properly at a table?”

“She was six hundred,” Temperance chided, though smiling. “Do you remember, Love? The time when Melancholy insisted on a veil so thick she walked into a pillar.” Temperance said with a smile. “And Pride tied her corset herself and nearly fainted.”

“Happiness thought hers should sparkle, and almost set us both on fire” Primness said dryly. That brat almost ruined her curtains. “and Honesty wanted hers to match your apron, Temperance, because it was the only honest piece of fabric in the house.”

They laughed, softly, warmly. Love smiled despite herself. She remembered those days. The scent of crushed grass on bare feet, fingers stained with berry juice, flower crowns wilting under the sun. There were secret staircases and crooked corridors where they played at being queens long before any of them knew what ruling meant. They sang to the wind, made oaths in whisper, and every night came gently, like a mother’s lullaby. The world was smaller then. So full of promise. So possible.

“You always were the lovely one,” Temperance murmured with pride, helping Prim secure the unruly curls in a hairdo half up, half down.

“You,” Primness said, eyeing her niece, correcting her sister “were always the only hope.” She continued to comb her hair, already shaping the curls. “Happiness and Honesty were a lost cause, Pride too full of herself to obey and Melancholy was, well too melancholic.” Prim recollected “You were the only one who sat still, who listened. Eyes like spring rain and just as quiet. Once you asked if flowers would ‘bloom better’ if you perfected your dancing steps.”

“Did I?” Love asked, voice fragile as a thread of light.

Temperance nodded, helping her older sister in pinning their niece’s curls. “You did. And when they did bloom, you cried.”

“I thought I broke them.” Love had a memory of her red face, clutching to a rose. The petals were soft, vibrant, and she'd been sure her clumsy dancing had ruined it.

Primness scoffed, snapping a curl into place. “You thought everything was your fault. Still do.”

“You didn’t understand the changes that came with spring” Temperance said, her voice a thread of silver through the silence.

“And the blood, you foolish girl, clutched to the stem, blood dripping from your hand, ruined your dress.” Primness said regretting the ruined silks.

Eoster held her hands. She could still feel the sting of the thorns in her palms, the ache in her small fingers wrapped around a perfect rose. But the pain hadn’t mattered. The girl didn’t even flinch. All she cared about was that the flower survived.

Temperance’s hands stilled. Her voice, when it came, was soft as wind through reeds. “Maybe if you’d had someone to tend the garden with you, you would’ve understood.”

“Maybe if she wore gloves,” Prim muttered. “Or a bit more sense.”

Love looked at her hands. The hands of a delicate elegant queen. The rose she clutched, the marriage she stayed, even as it bled her. The beauty she tried to protect, even when it turned on her.

She thought if she held it tighter, danced more perfectly, loved more purely, it would bloom the way she dreamed.

And there wasn’t someone for so long to tell her otherwise. There was silent, coldness.

Maybe it was too late to change how the rose was held, maybe it was too late to avoid the thorns to sting her palm and blood being spilled.

But maybe now she could ask someone to help her prune the thorns.

Chapter Text

With a flick of her hand and a judicious roll of the eyes, Lady Primness made herself perfectly clear. Well, at least, to those who had spent a lifetime serving her tea and wine, and taking her to rooms, learning how to decipher her expressions, she thought was obvious to anyone with a brain. The gesture and her expression meant she deemed the staff either unnecessary or so incompetent that she, herself, must once again shoulder the burden of preparing her niece for the most important event of her existence (or at least, of this year) .

For once, Elijah and Lucienne found it a relief to be counted among the incompetent.

"At least Lady Primness has the decency not to slam doors in our faces," Elijah muttered, pointedly refraining from naming names, though his lingering resentment toward Lady Honesty’s deplorable manners was unmistakable.

Lucienne halted mid-step and arched an eyebrow. “Well, I seem to recall a certain someone who had quite the fondness for slamming doors himself.” The librarian had vivid memories of the cupids almost breaking her glasses and closing her nose and feet at the door.

Elijah sighed, rolling his eyes as he resumed walking. “That was an entirely different circumstance. You were attempting to spy on our ladyship and tattle to our lordship about it.” And in his mind this was a far greater crime than delicately closing doors at her face.

Lucienne adjusted her spectacles with a look of dignified affront. The suggestion that she had “spied” and “tattled” placed her, in his words, almost among those dreammaids who pressed their ears to keyholes in hope of overhearing a quarrel, a scandal, or most delightfully a romantic indiscretion to spread like jam across toast. She was, thank you very much, far above such conduct. “It was not spying,” she replied, her tone clipped. “It was due diligence. Someone had to report on our ladyship’s wellbeing, particularly since she was passing out drunk with alarming frequency.”

Elijah continued walking, hearing the inevitable conclusion to her argument even before it arrived, he could even mouth it, if it wasn’t childish to do so.

“To prepare Lord Morpheus,” she added.

He rolled his eyes once more, smirking. “Ah, yes. To nanny a man incapable of facing the consequences of his own failings toward his wife.”

Then he stopped, turning to face her. They stood in the corridor, hands clasped behind their backs, perfectly composed second-in-commands, indulging in their usual banter. He tapped a finger to his chin in mock contemplation. “You know, they ought to change your title. From ‘Lucienne the Librarian’ to ‘Nanny Lucienne.’”

Lucienne forced a smile. Years of Elijah’s sarcasm had long since worn away any sting, but she was rarely bested in repartee. “Well then, if we’re proposing title changes, yours should be Mother Goose Elijah, always honking and flapping at anyone who so much as glances askance at Lady Love.”

Now it was Elijah’s turn to straighten his dark blue coat, visibly affronted. The idea of anyone looking wrongly at Lady Love was, of course, beyond unacceptable. Anyone who frowned at such kindness and gentleness should be made a roommate to Queen Nada. In his humble opinion, of course.

“As I should,” he said firmly. “Mind yourself, Librarian.”

Lucienne, suppressing a smile, continued as though she hadn’t heard. “And I daresay more than half the staff in both the Dreaming and the Garden would agree with me, Cupid.” She imbued his title with the same arch inflection he’d used for hers.

Elijah met her gaze for a few thoughtful seconds, groping for a clever retort. He would forever blame the exhaustion brought on by the Solstice for coming up empty-handed.

With a dramatic sigh, he changed the subject, not wanting to indulge in his lost of words. “Shall we see whether any of our special guests have arrived?”

Lucienne allowed herself a small, private smile, satisfied to have won a verbal skirmish she usually lost. A feeling shortly enjoyed, since they had to return to social obligations. She adjusted her spectacles and matched his stride as they made their way toward the main ballroom a grand new addition to the palace, built specially for the Solstice and its illustrious guests.

As they walked, the two issued a steady stream of orders to the cupids, dreams, and nightmares still scrambling with final preparations.

“There you two are,” came a familiar rasp from above. Matthew swooped down and landed neatly on Lucienne’s shoulder. Elijah hoped he would bear useful news and not the usual avian nonsense.

“Queen Titania has arrived with King Auberon,” The raven announced. “And apparently some fae fellow, Plural, Pluric, Cluaric, honestly, weird name.”

“Cluracan,” Elijah corrected smoothly.

Lucienne and Matthew exchanged looks, then raised their eyebrows in unison, waiting for elaboration.

Elijah cleared his throat. “I am… acquainted with him. That is all.”

They both knew perfectly well that it was not all, but neither pressed. They merely shared another knowing glance. They would press, when all of the Solstice passed, when and if they survived.

“Anyway,” Matthew continued, “He was hitting on one of the young protégés and mentioned that the royal fae couple were, quote, ‘deliciously enamorated,’ which I suppose means we won’t be having any
trouble from that quarter.”

Elijah gestured for him to go on.

“No sign of Thessaly yet, but Mervyn claims to have seen a few older witches from her former coven. She might be here already. Kilala’s still a no-show, and so is Alianora.”

“And the King?” Lucienne asked quietly. She hadn’t laid eyes on him in some time, not even before her abduction by the dreaded aunts.

“I was rather hoping you would know,” Matthew admitted.

They both sighed.

Exactly what they didn’t need: the King missing in action. For all they knew, he might have returned to Hell to wage war on the Lightbringer.

Oh, never mind. Elijah just spotted Morningstar downstairs talking to the Merkin.

“I’ll search the library and his quarters,” Lucienne offered.

“And change your attire,” Elijah added, glancing her over.

“Are you changing yours?” she asked archly.

“Of course. You’ll find yours in your usual place, atop the library table. I took the liberty of arranging it.”

Lucienne rolled her eyes. When did he not take liberties especially concerning her wardrobe? Did he think she was incapable of choosing her own attire? Nevermind the question. He did. She knew.

“Coordinated colors?” she asked warily.

“A very librarian light blue, in your honor,” he replied, placing a hand dramatically over his heart as if deeply moved by her fashion evolution.

Lucienne rolled her eyes again but smiled. She did pay attention to his infinite rumbles about fabric color and meaning. He returned the smile with one of his own.

“I’ll speak with the fae,” Elijah said. “They’re as adept at gossip as cupids. If anyone of note has arrived, they’ll know.”

“Ah yes, the fae,” Matthew said slyly, implying all manner of things.

Elijah reached for a feather, prompting the bird to squawk indignantly and flutter out of reach.

“You test your luck, bird.”

“Good luck to us all,” Lucienne interjected, bringing the conversation to a close as the trio dispersed in separate directions.

“We shall need it, Librarian,” Elijah murmured with a sigh, summoning a courteous smile as he prepared to face the Fae, an ordeal if ever there was one.

Why couldn’t faeries just die? Like mortals? No, like cupids, they lingered for thousands of years, meddling, gossiping, drinking. Annoying little mosquitos is what they are.

Contrary to what Lucienne and the bird might suspect, Elijah did not have entanglements with Cluracan.

Far too rakish for his taste.

But the Emissary had.

And Cluracan, curse his silver tongue, never let Elijah forget it.

Every. Single. Time.

May the Garden bless his heart. And patience.

—----------------------------
Dream did not return to his throne.

Instead, Lord Morpheus wandered, without destination or design, down a corridor he had traversed a thousand times. His fingers brushed the cool stone of the wall as he walked, idly tracing the carved cherubs that adorned it: silent, eternal witnesses to grandeur and stillness alike.

He had never truly noticed them before. But now, he lingered.

One bore Vanira’s smile, too large for its small face. Another captured the mischievous tilt of Solin’s brow. A third evoked Lethe’s tiny fingers, ever clinging to Love.

He had remained a few moments longer with the children. One of the twins had brandished a wooden sword, challenging a cousin atop a fallen log. Another child plucked dandelion stars from the grass, scattering wishes into the wind, innocent of the price such things exacted. Morpheus had not smiled, but his hands were clasped behind his back in uncharacteristic ease, and, for once, his shadow did not stretch so far behind him.

Alith, who had lost all fear of the King of Dreams, approached him with the bright-eyed audacity only children possessed. She posed a question, one of those singular inquiries that leave adults without answers.

“Uncle Dream, are you Aunt Love’s prince?”

He regarded her quietly, uncertain whether to smile.

She tilted her head, studying him like he was still a mystery (or a secret, she couldn’t tell the difference now, thanks to Cain and Abel) she couldn’t yet solve.

Valkar, unwilling to let his sister monopolize their elusive uncle, elbowed her sharply. “Of course he is. He’s married to Aunt Love. That’s what makes him her prince, and our uncle.”

Alith retaliated with a touch more force. “So? He could be married and still not be her prince. Maybe he’s the villain keeping her trapped here until her real prince comes to rescue her. Ever think of that, wormhead?”

She rolled her eyes and flung herself upon the soft grass in dramatic fashion. A single white feather, caught in her hair, fluttered free as she blew it toward the sky.

“I thought Uncle Dream was the villain,” she added plainly. “Because of what mother said.”

Morpheus could not find it in himself to object. He had, after all, been a terrible husband to Eoster. Her sisters, though perhaps meddlesome, were not wholly wrong in their assumptions, and in any court, celestial or hellish, rumour clung to broken marriages like moss to stone. Especially if it is a high-stakes marriage as that between Love and Dream.

“Is that so, little one?” he asked softly, the corner of his mouth tilting, just slightly.

She shrugged, considering. “But now I’m not sure.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied him. She lifted her chest slightly for a better look, then let herself fall back into the grass again, sprawling her dark straight strands of hair behind her. “I think you could be her prince… in disguise.”

Valkar groaned and crossed his arms. “Ignore her, uncle. A nightmare worm probably ate her brain.”

“No it didn’t!” Alith shrieked, springing up to deliver a well-aimed kick at her brother. Afraid her uncle might think a nightmare worm actually ate her brain. Valkar could be very convincing for a hundred years old boy. He dodged, grinning wickedly.

“A real worm ate your brain, Valkar! You don’t even know how to spell nightmare,” she added, sticking out her tongue.

“All right, no need to be mean about it,” he replied, lowering his gaze in feigned hurt. After a beat, a sly smile spread across his face as he looked toward Morpheus, pretending to also be a grown up assessing a child “Those worm-brains are temperamental, aren’t they, Uncle?”

Alith screamed in rage and gave chase, while Valkar shrieked with laughter, already sprinting ahead.

Morpheus watched them run. Each seemed to provoke the other into life. The type only the tender youthness of childhood could elicit.

As if summoned by the wild cries of the children, the army of nannies soon descended with practiced efficiency, scooping them up like errant birds. Each child squealed in protest, like demons caught by angels, or like piglets resisting the slaughter, save for sweet Lethe, who was lifted serenely into the arms of her nurse. She hugged the woman instinctively and waved goodbye to her uncle.

Only one thing remained behind: Alith’s question, lingering in the air like the faint scent of a memory too innocent to fade.

'Are you Aunt Love’s prince?'

Had she asked him an age ago, his answer would have been swift and cruel. No. Not only would he say that their aunt was undeserving of a prince, but he would never become such for her.
But now, the question was not what he was, or even what he desired to be.

It was whether he could be.

Still turning the thought over in his mind, Lord Morpheus wandered further, until his steps carried him to one of the grand staircases of the palace, a place carved in splendour, all gilded panelling and solemn cherubs, immortalised in marble and dust.

He stood at the uppermost level, half veiled in darkness, where the polished balustrade curved like a serpent beneath his hand. The flickering glow of sconces threw tall shadows upon the engraved walls, warriors and saints in eternal combat.

Two of Love’s protégées, blissfully unaware of the King of Dreams watching from above, were engaged in a private theatre of flirtation and poetry, staged on the very tiles where generations of myths had walked. She fled; he caught her. She laughed and turned her face coyly away when he leaned close, her whole being a choreography of invitation and restraint.

With mock piety, he spoke:

“Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?”

And she, with deliberate softness, trailing her fingers down the length of his arm, answered:

“Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.”

It struck Morpheus with quiet force—the verse, the illusion of something sacred made light and beautiful by youth. The performance was clearly meant for no audience.

And the memory.

It was there, on that silent upper landing, hidden between candlelight and carved angels, that Lucienne found him.

He had just returned. She could tell. The scent of open fields clung faintly to the hem of his coat, mingled with dust and wild grass and something sweeter... Jam?

Lucienne narrowed her eyes. He couldn’t possibly have, not with those children. The very same terrifyingly powerful, mildly feral nieces and nephews she had just watched try to scalp their nannies on the
southern lawn while crying about being dragged to be boiled alive.

She shook her head. That was a riddle for another hour.

The librarian had imagined she might find her lord sulking. Not quite brooding, but close enough. Somewhere quiet, resisting the inevitable march of pageantry.

Lord Morpheus had never been fond of spectacle, and this year’s celebration was extravagantly overgrown, even according to Elijah, by Lady Love’s standards. Family. Friends. Enemies. All came from across the universe, to either see his triumphant return after a hundred years imprisoned, or watch his demise during his own wife ritual.

Lucienne was ready for broodiness, moodiness and perhaps even some hopelessness covered in “What good my presence will do, since she won’t forgive me?” to which she already crafted a good response of “Because she is your wife”, that would not take any answer besides ‘I will go’.

What she did not expect was to find him watching two teenage lovers in a slow, clumsy dance of courtship, twirling and teasing and whispering behind their hands, as though the world was theirs and the moon had been lit just for their story.

He spoke before he looked at her. He didn’t have to. He knew his librarian steps.

“Did you know it was Queen Eoster who inspired Romeo and Juliet?” The words were soft. Almost contemplative. The couple was too far and too enamorated to even hear them. He did not turn his gaze from the pair below, now kissing sweetly beneath a stone arc with cherubs being their witnesses.

Lucienne stood at his side, posture straight as ever, hands clasped neatly before her. But her mouth parted slightly, startled not by the question, but by the gentleness in his tone.

She didn’t answer right away. Not because she didn’t know, of course she knew. But because the memory of it pressed like a stone beneath her ribs.

Lucienne drew a breath.

“I remember far too well, my lord.” Morpheus turned his head slightly, she frowned her brows looking at him, while fixing her glasses “The crying. The questions. The heartbreak. I was not built for it, my lord.”

He said nothing. His silence was neither surprise nor denial. Only the weight of recognition. Her heavy with the memory she painfully carried

“She came to me that night as just a girl. No crown. No divinity. Just a young woman who did not yet know what it would cost her to love you.”

“I did not-”

“No you didn’t” Lucienne cut him without mercy. “And then, you commanded the Dreaming to forget. You sealed every door. You forbade the staff. You even tried to keep it from me.”

The memory rose in Lucienne, vivid as firelight.

The first hundred years of having a queen.

Lucienne had been in the library, cataloguing new dreams, surrounded by the smell of old vellum and winter wind. When she heard that voice. Small, hesitant, cracking “Lucienne?”

Lady Eoster stood in the doorway like something precious abandoned. Her eyes, usually bright and hopeful, glazed and shining, as though holding back a tide too large to name. She tried to smile, really tried. Her gown was wrinkled from sitting too long, her curls falling undone from what had once been an elegant arrangement.

Lucienne blinked, unsure, instinctively rising from her seat “My lady…?” She barely had the time to process before the young queen collapsed into her.

Arms clutching her shoulders, face pressed into the crook of her neck. The sobs came in silence first, shoulders trembling violently, breath shallow and frantic. Tears slipped soundlessly down her cheeks as Love covered her mouth as if ashamed of sobbing.

“A girl who had tried everything,” The librarian said at last, her voice low but unwavering, “To give you her heart.”

Her eyes, steady and exacting, did not flinch from their mark. She gazed upon her sovereign not as a servant, but as one who had known too long the weight of silent witness. Her words hung between them like an accusation too long delayed.

Morpheus did not stir. Not a breath betrayed him, save the tightening of his jaw and the minute lowering of his brow. He stood composed, stoic, impassive as always. But the silence between them was strung taut, trembling with all that had gone unsaid.

“She believed the play might reach you,” Lucienne continued, “where her voice could not.”

There was no pity in her tone, only a cool clarity. She tilted her head, ever so slightly, in an expression not of compassion, but of appraisal. A woman weighing the man she once revered and finding him
grievously wanting.

“Do you know what broke her, my lord?” Her voice fell to a hush, like the breath of a candle before it dies. “It wasn’t your silence during the performance. It wasn’t the scolding afterward.” She paused, and even the memory seemed to pain her. “It was walking down that hall. Alone.”

Like the first fissure in fine porcelain, a crack appeared in the king’s expression. Barely perceptible, save to one who had studied him so long. His lashes cast dark shadows upon his pale cheek, as though he hoped such darkness might absolve him from his librarian’s truth.

“Your queen didn’t cry in front of you,” Lucienne continued, her voice gentler now, remembering the young queen, but not less firm. “She waited. Waited until she was certain you could no longer hear her.
Because Lady Love feared that even her sorrow might offend you.”

The stillness around them seemed to lean in.

Lucienne’s hands, which had been composed and gloved in the dignity of years of service, now clenched slowly, like pages curling in fire. Her gaze did not waver, but her tone grew taut with memory. Yes, she wasn’t unkind, and yes she did hug and tried to ease her queen’s pain without defying or slightly defying the king’s orders. But that wasn’t enough. She knew it back then, and she knows it now. A sharp breath escaped her lips, tinged with regret.

“I should have spoken,” she said bitterly, but entirely directed inward. “I should have defied you. She was not some scheming enchantress, nor a pawn in Lady/Lord Desire’s game. She was-” The word caught in her throat before she pressed on, “a girl. A queen in title, yes, but still a girl. Frightfully in love, and desperate to be seen. She asked a hundred times what she had done wrong.”

Lucienne scoffed, a bitter sound unbecoming of her usual restraint “As if your coldness were a failing of hers. As if the absence of kindness were some punishment she had earned.”

“She had nowhere else to go, my lord. No one to turn to. Because the one who ought to have seen her, the one who was meant to protect her, dismissed her.”

Morpheus turned from her then. Whether to shield himself from further indictment, or to spare her the sight of his unraveling, even he could not have said. Her words burned with too much truth, and truth, when long ignored, always seared.

He could feel it now. Not merely remember it, but feel it, deep and terrible.

The way her hopes had risen with the play, eyes searching not the stage, but him, waiting for some flicker of affection, for the smallest sign that he had seen her heart. And then, the crushing fall. The silence. The scolding. The shame.

And finally, the corridor. Her soft footsteps, echoed against the marble, the echo hollowed by solitude. No one approached her. By his own decree.

In his bitterness, in his wounded pride, he had forbidden them: “No one is to indulge the queen’s theatrics.” He had said that.

His own words returned to him now, foul and echoing. A line drawn in pride. One that he knew would hurt. He wished it did. A proper punishment for the one who stole his choice.

To him, solitude had long been familiar. But to her, so full of music, of brightness, it had been agony. She had longed not for grandeur, but for company, laugh. For warmth. For someone to teach or to be taught. Someone to reach for her hand.

And he had given her none of it.

He saw Lucienne again, her own discomfort with tenderness still evident even in memory, as she awkwardly held the trembling girl. A girl she could not save, but could at least hold.

Lucienne, the custodian of dreams, had never intended to be anyone’s solace. In that moment, had become all Love had left.

Morpheus’s hand gripped the railing beside him. He bent into it, just slightly, as the weight of what he now knew, what he had done or failed to do, of all he had ignored, all he had cost her, had finally begun to collapse upon him. Enough to ache.

“I did not think-” he said, and his voice broke like dry parchment.

“No,” Lucienne replied, her words clipped and cold, final in their judgment. “You did not.”

He had not thought. Not of her. Not of the weight of his rejection. Not of the way it would strip her bare.

He had mistaken vulnerability for strategy. Mistaken heartbreak for manipulation.

She looked too young to yield the pain she was enduring, frailer. Much more than he remembered.

Lucienne had held her, not out of duty, but from a silent, aching knowledge that she was all the comfort left.

"Oh, my lady," she had whispered, rubbing slow, unsure circles on Love’s back. "It will become easier."

"I only wanted to make him believe," Eoster had wept. "I thought perhaps... perhaps he’d finally see me."

Lucienne had said nothing. Had only leaned her cheek to Love’s temple, rocking her gently, the way only those who’ve never had to rock anyone do: Stiff at first, then full of something older than instinct.

Morpheus could feel the way Eoster trembled like a bird in the crook of Lucienne’s arms.

She had wept until there was nothing left. And Lucienne had stayed. A quiet rebellion against his cruel command.

Now, standing beside him, Lucienne said nothing more. If he wanted to punish her, so be it.

“Lucienne,” he said, his voice stripped bare “Thank you.”

She blinked. “My lord?”

“For not obeying me.” he said quietly “For... staying with her. I”

“Ah. There you are, my king.”

It was Elijah, already impeccably dressed in a dusky rose satin coat, its surface lavishly embroidered with gold-threaded vines and delicate florals that shimmered like old enchantments. Matching breeches
and a glimpse of brocade beneath his waistcoat completed the ensemble, along with a froth of lace at his throat. His brown curls were tied back with a pink satin ribbon that matched the buckled bows atop his satin shoes. He looked precisely like a courtier from the eighteenth century, and was already wondering, with quiet annoyance, why Lucienne and Dream were not attired with equal diligence.

His gaze swept once, slowly, from Morpheus’s dishevelled everyday robe, wholly unsuited for ceremony, with equally unsuited additions such as grass in the hem of his coat, something that Elijah hoped or fear looked like jam on his sleeve, and a flicker of sand in his shoulders, to his face.

And then, a flick toward Lucienne, just enough to register that yes, he noticed she had not changed either. There was, in the smallest glance exchanged, the polite fury of comrades uniting silently in crisis:

What were you two discussing that mattered more than the necessary duties at hand?

The Endless returned the look with a cold, quiet annoyance.

But he recognized that gaze too well. It was not amusement that danced there, but fatigue. The precise kind born from millennia of service to ancient powers and from the exasperated understanding that once again, it fell to him to shepherd one of his monarchs into doing what should have already been done.

Without a word, Morpheus lifted a hand. One flick, jam, grass and dust vanished. In its place came his ceremonial garments.

Elijah dipped his head, just enough to be respectful, and turned slightly toward Lucienne. “And you have not changed, either,” he observed, quiet and clipped, his brow arched.

Lucienne offered him a flat look heavy with irritation. He chose, most diplomatically, not to see it.

Instead, Elijah’s tone remained unfailingly courteous as he turned to Morpheus and extended an arm “It is time, my lord. I shall escort you while Lucienne prepares.” There was a touch more weight in his voice now, the faint stress of one balancing too many unseen threads.

Then, as if idly, the cupid added, “Shall we take the North Wing? There’s quite the commotion on the East side between the protéges. I imagine you would prefer to avoid it.”

His eyes flicked back to Lucienne for the briefest of seconds. Commotion. One of the past lovers was there.

Lucienne gave no answer but the briefest movement of her jaw, confirmation enough, turning away, already moving toward her own chamber.

Elijah did not look back. His duty, for now, was to keep the king distracted, far from wandering too close to the shadows of his own making. Until spring bloom again.

-------------------

Downstairs, it was a frenzy.

Cupids fluttered, Dreams drifted, and entities from across the cosmos filled the room with movement and noise. Select cupids—those trustworthy and handpicked by Elijah (with heavy input from the Emissary) worked with desperate precision, guiding key guests to their designated places. In the Garden, this ritual had a rhythm everyone understood. But here, in the Dreaming, even though the rite was the same, the arrangement was unknown to many.

The trusted cupids followed Elijah’s meticulous plan—he had briefed Lucienne, Mervyn, and Matthew, though he remained unconvinced they fully grasped the weight of it all. None of them had witnessed the Changing of the Seasons before. They didn’t understand the intricate choreography required to make it flawless. They certainly didn’t understand why the room had to be blanketed in white untouched snow, pure as the first morning of Christmas. Elijah had tried to explain. Eventually, he gave up, only muttering in exasperation, “Because it’s not time yet.”

All the Endless were present now, except, of course, the Prodigal. A sadness clung to that absence, one Elijah didn’t fail to notice. Yet, he couldn’t help but feel relief (Well, not to much, because Desire had the audacity to show up). Not only would the Prodigal's presence invite the dangerous interest of Eoster’s sisters (and risk the jealousy of their husbands, which could trigger a war before the first toast), but his absence spared Elijah the task of managing yet another wild variable. And for once, the siblings, though not required to participate, were exactly where they were needed to be.

At the bottom of the grand stairs stood the queens of the seasonal court, radiant and commanding.

To the left, nearest the stairs, was Honesty, her hair swept into a sleek French twist, a sheer veil clipped at the back of her head and cascading softly down. Her off shoulder long gown sheer in layers, with subtle iridescent shimmer with long bell sleeves in airy aqua with baby blue undertones, she looked like the sea rushing under the sunrise.

Beside her stood Melancholy, statuesque in deep slate-grey velvet. Her gown was heavy and full, structured with hidden layers, the fitted bodice clung with quiet severity. Its square neckline framed by silver embroidery threaded deconstructed snowflakes drifting along the collar and cuffs before gathering densely at the hem, where the grey velvet lightened as if kissed by frost. Her long sleeves, like second skin, modest and commanding, and a sheer veil of grey netting softened her face like mist clinging to stone. Her dark blue hair was pulled into an intricate braided updo, crown-like and mournful with a tudor headpiece. She was beauty veiled in grief.

Pride, ever a contrast, blazed in crimson and copper. Her elongated mandarin collar bodice surpassed her waist. Her sheer gown was a canvas of embroidery, flames, leafs, vines, phoenixes, branching like fire across the columnar skirt, with copper sequins flickering like embers. Her matching floor-length cape flowed behind her. The copper-pinned curls adorned multiple large, smooth loops and rolls of hair curled in structured loops like a sculpture of victory.

Happiness, glowing at the far end, was summer incarnate. Her llong golden curls tumbled in soft waves, and her dress, a full, soft pleated skirt with a deep V-shape neckline revealed a contrasting pinkish-lavender underlayer, with intricate embroidery in darker golden and earthy tones resembling delicate vines and floral motifs, glowed with embroidery of golden vines and floral motifs, warm as a sunset.
Her puffed sleeves flared like short wings fallen from her shoulders, delicate and bright.

Behind them stood their children and husbands, perfectly coordinated in color and form, flawed as they may be, Elijah noted with grudging approval, at least they dressed beautifully. But he did wonder how those ladies made their usual bare chested sweaty husbands dress in silk. Actually, the cupid realized, he did not need to wonder, he knew perfectly what they had done.

Across the staircase, on the right, Lord Morpheus had arrived. Elijah, after escorting him in, vanished quickly to prevent Lady Delirium from wandering again. The King of Dreams wore his signature black, but elevated, cloak midnight silk with barely-there swirls of mist; his waistcoat and high-collared shirt matched in shadowed tones. Discreet heels lifted his boots, and his dark hair fell loose to his shoulders.

At his side, unfortunately, stood Desire in a floor sweeping red coat with long sleeves, sharp shoulders and black heels. Dark makeup and striking lipstick completed the dramatic effect alongside the slicked white-blonde hair. Next was Despair, her usual grey gown blending into the snowy hall, so appropriately understated that Elijah nearly approved. And then Death: clad in black, her curls half-pinned, her tulle mid-calf high-necked dressed, with the necklace of her sigil. To Elijah’s distaste, her boots were far too plain. She looked less like the Lady of Death coming to the event of the century (perhaps the millenia) and more like a gothic teenager going out to see their friends at the cemetery.

There was Lord Destiny, who Elijah didn't like to think a lot, because otherwise it would appear in his little book. So he tried to focus only in good thoughts, and how his cloak looked very Destiny-like.

And then… Lady Delirium.

Who Elijah was almost wishing he had never met.

The cupid was nearly on his knees. “My lady, please, if you could just stay here for five minutes, just until Queen Eoster presents the spring…”

“But I was here,” she said dreamily.

“My lady, I just pulled you away from a circle of cupids.”

“No, I’d remember that. I was here. You weren’t.”

“Yes, I wasn’t. I was tending to Lord Morpheus.”

“See? You’re the one who got confused. That happened to me yesterday. And the day before. But not now. Now I’m here.”

She looked like she’d stepped off Sunset Strip in the ’80s, all pastel layers somewhere between nightgown and rave, with wildly nonconforming fishnets.

“Yes, my lady. I got confused,” Elijah said, exhausted. “Please. Five minutes.”

“Is this up to your liking now?” Lucienne asked, appearing beside him. Her robes, modeled after his, but in a soft light blue.

“Very appropriate. Thank you,” he said, scanning the top of the stairs and back to the guests.. He was growing anxious. ‘Was she taking longer than necessary?’

“If you’re looking for those two charming aunts,” Lucienne murmured, “they’re just behind Lord Morpheus.”

Elijah turned, there they were. Primness, already appraising everyone like a market vendor inspecting fruit. Temperance, lost in admiration of the winter décor. If they were here. Where was Lady Love?

“I will go look for her” Elijah said, already turning from Lucienne, and before the librarian had any time to protest, the trumpets sounded.

And the room fell utterly silent.

The protégés descended first, their gowns and coats white as dream-foam, kissed by tendrils of colour that curled up from the hems like the shy beginnings of spring. The silk flowed like petals caught in a soft breeze, the embroidery glimmering faintly as though sewn by moonlight. Crowns of snow-blossoms rested upon their heads, their steps so perfectly timed it seemed they were gliding, summoned not by music but by magic. Ladies to one side, lords to the other—grace and symmetry in motion. And when the last had taken their place—

She appeared.

Not walked. Not entered. Appeared.

As though dawn itself had been persuaded to take form.

A hush swept through the hall, deeper than silence.

She was breath after stillness, the first golden warmth upon frostbitten earth, her curls, pinned loosely with ivory blossoms, shimmered with a light that was not light. Her gown, oh, her gown, off-the-shoulder sleeves sheer and short, a fitted white silk bodice rounded softly at the neckline. The skirt, a cascade of soft layered tulle, reached mid-calf and floated with each step. She was the embodiment of purity, the essence of newness, of untouched wonder, of promises not yet broken.

But none saw the tremble in her fingers.

None heard the quiet battle of her breath.

Inside her, it was not quiet. Inside, it was a storm of doubt, of sadness she refused to name aloud. The kind that curls up in the hollows left by unmet longing. Eoster had grown used to arranging her pain like flowers, tidy, beautiful, and out of the way. She had taught herself to wear grace like armour. And even now she learned to settle for amicability when what her heart had wanted was something far less civil and far more consuming.

But she was Love. And Love endured. Love gave, even when it did not receive.

She tried, truly tried to fill her thoughts with the good, with reassurance. Her nieces and nephews, radiant in their gowns and vines, their laughter echoing like birdsong before a storm. Their dance, wild and irreverent, of their joy unburdened by consequence.

She clutched that joy like a talisman.

But it was not enough.

The noise in her head refused to still. The certainty of failure gnawed like rust beneath golden paint. Something would go wrong. She had felt it the moment she entered the room, the moment the eyes turned, the weight pressed down. This time, she would falter. This time, spring would not come.

And so she looked at no one. Afraid that they would see in her face how scared she was. How uncertainty breathes through her pores.

Not at her sisters, not at the Endless standing tall as carved myth, nor at Elijah in his embroidered frenzy, nor even at Matthew perched beside Lucienne’s composed frame.

Until she looked at him.

The bond snapped taut.

Her breath stilled, then eased. His gaze met hers as if it had been waiting there for hours, timeless and steady, the deep well of him offering not just strength, but belief. The yearning between them was like a flame trapped in glass, visible, aching, but restrained. She could not look away. She would not. If she was to take another step, it would be because he was watching. Because he was there.

And in that silent communion, Dream forgot the pageantry, the guests, the thousand eyes. He wished, no, ached, to be her prince, if only for one moment. To be the arms she could fall into, the shield that held winter back. And if she could not rouse the spring, he would dream it for her. Dream it so fiercely that the earth itself would believe it had awoken.

Not that he truly feared her failure. No. She had done the impossible before. Her love had withstood tempests. Her marriage had bent but not broken.

She was Love, and Love endures.

She counted the final steps in her mind.

Three.

Two.

One-

And the world shifted.

She tripped.

The air caught.

A collective intake of breath swept the room. Honesty reached forward, too late. The skirt tangled. The heel slipped. She was going to fall, before the court, before her sisters, before the world. Love knew what it meant, everyone knew what it meant. She failed. She tripped. Spring would not come.

And yet-

She did not fall.

He caught her.

Effortless. Instinctive. His hand reached, and hers found it, like two halves remembering their shape. Time thickened. Her breath was his breath. Their eyes locked, and in that infinite second she saw something in him, something she had not been able to find in herself.

Faith.

Unshaken. Unwavering. Profoundly hers.

He believed she would bring the spring.

Even if she could not believe it herself, he did. And that cursed her, because it mattered. More than it should, more than she could say. It quieted the voices in her head, soothed the trembling doubt in her heart.

They stood together, suspended in that private world. Some said they lingered too long. Others said it was never enough.

She stood once more, upright, though changed. The warmth of his touch clung to her hand as she slowly let it go. Her balance returned, but not her composure. Nor the ache.

She had not been born to be content. But she had learned it.

And it had never fit.

Turning at last to Honesty, she found in her sister’s eyes the fraying edge between alarm and belief.

Then Honesty stepped forward, her voice low and strong, the kind of voice that steadies hearts and roots storms

“Today, winter yields to spring. For there must be death, and there must be withering, if there is ever to be bloom. To be born anew, the universe must first sleep. To flower, it must first fade. And now the earth stirs from her slumber.”She dramatically turns to Eoster, how lower her eyes as receiving a blessing “My sister, heart of renewal, breath of warmth, guide us with grace. Bring forth fertility, prosperity, and the hush before the blossom. The season waits for no queen but bows for your blessing” Honesty bows deeply, walking without turning back to her place.

Eoster took a few steps forward, facing all of her sisters.

From the right, radiant in honey-gold silk, Happiness stepped into view. Her smile, as dazzling as the sun on midsummer water, carried centuries of mirth and memory. With solemn grace, she lifted the
Scepter of Seasons—a slender, twisting branch of white birch, adorned with ribbons, golden bells, and crystal leaves. Her voice was light, and yet it rang like temple bells “To the warm breezes and the never-ending buzz of cicadas, to laughter beneath orchard boughs heavy with promise, I yield the sun, that it may rise anew.”

With a tender glance, she passed the scepter to Pride, robed in scarlet and bronze, her bearing noble as a warrior queen. Pride lifted her chin, the torch of passion alight in her eyes, and spoke in a voice carved from fire “To the ripening field, the fierce flush of bloom, to the defiant green that breaks the frost, I give the will to grow.”

The scepter passed then to Melancholy, dressed in charcoal silver, veiled and quiet as moonlight on stone. She received it like she was receiving a memory long buried. Her fingers lingered. Her voice came soft, grave, laced with echoes “To the thawed soil, where sorrow nourishes seeds,to the hush before birdsong, I give the ache that stirs new life.”

Then she turned.

Silent as snow falling in candlelight, Melancholy knelt. She bowed to the earth before Love, and with both hands, offered her the scepter. And as Love reached forward, her hand trembled just so.

She paused. Just one moment.

And looked back.

He was still there. Still watching her.

Their eyes met across the distance. No words passed. None were needed.

She turned back, sceptre now in her grasp, and stepped forward to the center of the great mosaic carved in marble. No one could see it, of course, it was covered in snow. Love stood alone in the center of the ball, where twelve ancient symbols, hidden beneath the frost lay dormant waiting to be stirred awake

Beneath her slippers, the sigils pulsed with dormant power. She did not need to look down. She could feel them: the echo of centuries, of rituals long sealed.

One step… two… her toes glided over the sigils like a whisper through silk. A dance began. Quiet, deliberate, echoing the grace of stories carved into temples. From symbol to symbol she moved, alone in the hush of the ballroom, guided by instinct, memory, and the Scepter that pulsed warm in her hand.

From above, high in the vaulted dome, a single drop of snow melted. It dripped from the stone arch, and fell, landing on Matthew’s feathered back. He gave a startled shiver, and then blinked at the tiny wet mark. “Ahn…Guys, I think it is happening”

Beside him, Lucienne’s gaze turned sharply to the stone columns wrapped in dormant vines. Her lips parted in awe as buds, tightly furled for months, now began to unfurl in urgent bloom, violet, crimson, gold. Color spilled up the marble like ink in water. She exhaled, softly, reverently.

Mervyn turned to complain, only for a small deer, dainty, shining, and out of place to snuffle at his head like it might nibble the brim of his cap. “Hey! I’m not salad!” he bellowed, stumbling back as a pair of squirrels scrambled past his boots and vanished under a rose-laden archway. He looked around, wide-eyed, then he froze, noticing the moss climbing the corner of the bar, daffodils sprouting from the edge of the carpet. “Oh great. I just waxed that floor…”

The music had begun long before anyone realized, flutes lilting like a breeze, strings echoing the thaw of ice, horns swelling like sap rising in ancient trees. The ballroom pulsed with light and joy. Snow fell upward now, becoming mist, then vanishing entirely. Flowers erupted in spontaneous clusters, daisies and crocuses, hyacinths and apple blossoms, vines curling over stone and satin. The scent of new green filled the air.

Guests turned, gasping softly, laughing in delight. Some had removed gloves to feel the warming air on their skin. Petals fell from above like confetti, thrown in celebration, caught in curls and crowns.

Already, some began to dance.

And still the changes swept across the Dreaming, bursting from sigil to sigil in gentle, invisible waves with each of Love’s steps. Flashes of fur darted through the crowd, rabbits, white and brown, leaping and tumbling in delighted abandon. Doves circled high above and swooped through the great crystal windows, perching briefly on outstretched arms and tiaras, cooing as if applauding the return of the season.

Colors bled into Love’s gown, subtle at first, the palest crocus, the blush of magnolia, then deeper, fuller, more radiant. Her smile bloomed with the colors. There was no equal sensation to awake a season, like awakening after a long restful night. She twirled once, just before the twelfth sigil, and laughter escaped her, genuine, girlish, powerful. It warmed hearts.

When she reached the final mark, a crescendo met her steps.

And the ballroom erupted.

Guests threw petals into the air as commemoration of the turning of the season. Real, conjured, symbolic, and the petals danced back, spinning like tiny oracles.

Her nieces and nephews escaped their parents and ran to her, bright-eyed and barefoot, seizing her hands and whirling her into a circle. Their laughter joined the music. Her curls bounced. Her dress flowed like spring itself.

Honesty danced with Wotan, her sharp tongue silent for once as they moved in a fierce, martial rhythm. Pride and Ares glided like flames in perfect control. Melancholy leaned her forehead against Vidarr’s, swaying in sorrowful serenity. And Happiness laughed as Lugh spun her three times too many, her golden skirt flying.

Primness had Destiny’s arm, of course, and she had already begun explaining the structural differences between minuet and quadrille before he politely corrected her. Delirium and Temperance tossed petals like paint, watching them change color in midair, and while Delirum burst into laughter each time a rabbit hopped past in rhythm, Temperance gently laughed at the unworried nature of the youngest endless.

In a corner of plush cushions and velvet shadow, a cupid wept softly at Despair’s feet, reciting a sonnet about unrequited longing that made even the roses wilt in sympathy. And even Desire was half-lounging on a railing, half-sighing, “Remember the orgies late at night at the last awakening? At least three gods and one mountain got pregnant…”

Across the ballroom, Death was not watching her siblings. She stood just behind Dream, her hands behind her back, her smile quiet and knowing.
He hadn’t moved for several minutes.

Not since Love had begun her final turn around the golden sigil, the skirts of her gown billowing like seafoam and sunrise, the children spinning around her like little moons. Rabbits tumbled between her steps. Doves traced her silhouette.

His breath had caught in his chest like a boy glimpsing the sun for the first time.

Death nudged him lightly with an elbow. “You could ask her to dance, you know.”

His eyes remained fixed on the swirl of color and motion—Eoster at its heart, her smile luminous, her gown blooming into hues that shifted with every breath, every step. “I do not dance,” he said, almost absently.

Death gave an exaggerated sigh. “Yes, yes, Lord of Shadows, embodiment of restraint. But she does.”

He said nothing. His jaw tensed, some thought caught behind his teeth. Finally, he murmured, “She is already dancing. I would not intrude.”

Death didn’t press. She only looked at him, softer now, her voice more quiet. “She dances for everyone. But she’s waiting for you.”

He met her gaze, stoic as ever, but something flickered in his eyes, something warmer, something almost afraid. Death raised her eyebrows, sighing again, though not unkindly.
“Go. Or don’t. Just don’t pretend you don’t want to.”

He held her gaze a moment longer. Then, with a faint eye-roll, annoyed by the shared trait all siblings seem to have which was knowing him better than he knows himself, he turned back toward the sigil, toward the seafoam and springlight and the woman who danced in defiance of winter.

But she was gone.

The circle still glowed, the sigils now evident to anyone who wanted to appreciate the hand work paint. Rabbits bounded between boots and grass-laced hems, the children laughed, the doves cooed above, but the heart of it, the warmth and the rhythm, had vanished.

Morpheus turned his head slowly, searching. His gaze moved without haste, yet with unmistakable intent, his stillness belying the tightening in his chest. His? Hers? She would never leave before the rite
was sealed.

A stir of unease began to settle in the hollows of him. Something was not right with his wife. Whatever it was, he had to find her. He took a step forward.

"These celebrations are vulgar and loud.” said a voice behind him. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

A familiar voice. Dry as salted wind and just as sharp.

Thessaly.

—-----------------------

It began with the twirls.

The rhythm of her dance had taken on its own life, fluid and instinctual, the sigils beneath her feet glowed, exhibiting the golden light to the guests. The crowd faded into blur as her body moved with the season, awakening spring not with sight, but with sensation. Love turned with a smile, half-lost in the rhythm of the dance, the pull of the children, surrounded by color and admiration. She knew how to be adored. She wore it like a cloak. And for a fleeting moment, she was pure magic.

And then…She felt it.

The tremble of a harp string out of tune. A subtle dissonance beneath the orchestration of the ball. She slightly frowned. Did anyone hear it?

But it wasn’t outside.

A strange tightness pressed against her chest.

She breathed. Once. Again.

The air wasn’t warm anymore. The music was too loud. The twirl of silk and shimmer now a blur that churned her stomach.

She danced still, gracefully, elegantly, but her heartbeat was no longer keeping time with the music. She could feel it now, pounding against her ribs, something unfamiliar and humiliating blooming deep
in her. Was this... fear?

No. Why would it be? She was not afraid. She was happy. Spring was borned again. The seasons would turn. It was perfect. Grand. Regal. No one would question’s Dream position, or power.

Everything went well.

Everything was fine.

Then why did her chest felt like it might explode? Why was her corset stabbing her ribs?

Her eyes scanned the crowd, searching for Elijah, or Lucienne, perhaps for Morpheus, but instead, they caught other faces.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a shimmer of green and silver. Titania, watching her, of course. That was expected. That was manageable. She was queen of Faerie. The Dreaming and The Garden had diplomatic and peaceful relationships with the fae realm. And unfortunately, Titania was not one to lose a party. Especially a lavish event like the Solstice.

But just beyond, a flicker of something too pale, too knowing, Alianora.

And then a cold gaze framed by unremarkable hair and extraordinary arrogance. Thessaly.

Her steps faltered. Only slightly, a heartbeat's worth, but she felt it like a stumble.

Why were they here?

Her mind, so full of music, color, and purpose, clouded.

Why them?

She twirled again. Their eyes were not even locked on her. They looked at the dance, at the awakening of spring, as if she were incidental. As if she were no more than a vessel, a seasonal tool. Or worse, as if they pitied her.

Did Morpheus invite them?

The thought crept in, sharp as icewater down her spine.

Did he want them here? Did he-

No. No, he wouldn't be so careless. Would he?

Or maybe he had.

Something deep, deeper than vanity or wounded pride, whispered:

‘He brought them to humiliate you.’

‘To show you your place.’

Maybe this was his kind reminder, that no matter how many centuries passed, she would never be the only name he spoke.

That she could be Princess of Spring, Queen of the Dreaming, his eternal soul-bond wife, and still, still be the second choice.

Still be the girl he married by a trick.

She pressed a hand to her chest.

The thought made her bones tremble. He wouldn’t. No. He changed.

But did he?

She couldn’t breathe.

The petals, the animals, the defrosting snow, the circle of watchers, it all closed in, and her throat tightened. Her chest refused to open. The dancing. The children. The colors. The joy. It had been beautiful, but it had been too much. She could not pull in a full breath.

She hadn’t realized how thin the thread was until it snapped.

Her skin prickled like it wasn’t hers. Her hands trembled.

“Excuse me, my darlings,” she murmured, a smile blooming on her face with such radiance that it blinded all concern. The children, entranced as they were by the wonders of Spring’s first breath, gave little heed, scarcely noting her departure.

She walked, glided, really, her skirts trailing like a stream of dawn-lit water.

And then, Titania.

Of course.

Elijah had already stationed himself between the Fairy Queen and his lady, a pale sentinel with a charming smile that was just a shade too polished. His brows held a tension of polite alarm.

“Your Grace,” he began with admirable cheer, “May I tempt you with a dance? A Mother’s wine, perhaps? The Philia Cupids boast this vintage as their finest from the Eighth Century.”

“Perhaps later, dear little Cupid,” Titania said with a voice as silken as it was dismissive, brushing him off like dandelion fluff. Her gaze pinned Love with a feline glint. “I came to offer my praise in person. This Spring,” she said with a reverent bow, “is among your most dazzling. My Queen of Blossoms.”

Of course she did.

“Ah, Titania,” Love replied, her expression a gentle mask, her hand resting upon Elijah’s arm to anchor what remained unmoored within. “Blessings from the Garden. What a lovely surprise.” Her voice was poised, her smile unyielding, for if Titania so much as glimpsed a falter, she would feast on it for centuries.

And Love refused to give her any entertainment. It is enough that she thinks it is some sort of personal victory to have bed Morpheus, while married to Eoster, and spread it like it is the most exciting thing to have ever happened in her long fae life.

“Oh, not so lovely as yours. I do believe half the court gasped when you descended the stairs. Even your husband seemed caught in his own dream.” Love had to hold herself with more intent to not roll her eyes.

“You look radiant tonight, dear Eoster,” Titania murmured as she took Love’s hand in both of hers and held it rather too long. “I daresay even the stars must feel second-best in your presence, how fortunate they are to remain so far above your court, and safe from comparison.”

“You are far too generous,” Love replied. “I merely fulfilled my duty. Now, if you’ll forgive me-”

But the Queen of Faerie had not yet exhausted her sport.

“Duty, yes. You were always so dutiful, our dear dove.” Her eyes narrowed, smile sharpening at the corners, with a furrow of brows hinting the one thing that Eoster hated: pity. Even fake ones like
Titania’s. “You know, when Dream visited my court, he spoke often of longing, of beauty too delicate to hold. Such a poetic man. Famished, truly. For something real.”

She leaned in, just a breath closer, as though confiding some ancient, irrelevant curiosity.

“I do wonder what you were doing then. While he slept beneath my canopy. Fulfilling your duty, I assumed. Not your wifely duties, though. At least not quite so well.”

Love’s smile did not tremble. Not even slightly. Her arm pressed a fraction harder into Elijah’s. The Cupid had to battle a most uncharitable desire to tear Titania limb from limb, and give her insides to The
Emissary so he could feast on them. Yet he remained still as marble.

There were those who often forgot that Love, gentle, patient and soft-spoken, was raised since birth in courtly insults, and lethal politeness.
Whatever courtly game Titania played, Love improved the rules.

“What a ghastly little thought,” Love said sweetly. “I must confess I did not entertained the same. Not when Auberon pressed his mouth to my ear and begged me to warm his bed. Nor during the years he sent those... ambitious sonnets, detailing his pulsing desire.”

Titania’s expression faltered, a flicker of incomprehension passing over her elegant features. Love never told the fae queen or anyone, apart from Elijah about it. After all, never felt the need to talk about her endless admirers across realms, all the impolite proposals she received over the centuries. She felt talking about all the impolite proposals and endless admirers, were not a reason to gloat, not only it gave more credit and attention to them, but, did nothing for her.

Completely useless and vulgar.

“I did not believe it a fault in my dear friend. How naive I was.” Love’s smile deepened. “I simply grieved for the women, queens or otherwise. undeserving of such disloyalty. And you may rest easy, dear fae, I declined his persistent attentions with all the grace I could muster.”

She paused, just long enough.

“And I forgive you for expecting the same from yourself. It would be rather like asking the desert to produce rain, charming, but misplaced.”

Elijah made a small noise, suspiciously like a cough, and had to turn away lest he betray his laughter. Titania, for once, struggled to summon words.
Love remained dazzling.

But then, above Titania’s shoulder, she saw something that pierced her like ice.

Morpheus.

He stood far, engaged in what might, to an untrained eye, appear a perfectly civil exchange. And yet beside him stood Thessaly.

Her mouth moved still. Something refined and biting, surely. Her eyes fixed on him with a familiarity sharpened by memory. Her hand — her hand — rested on his shoulder, and when she leaned in to whisper…

The ache returned, swift and sharp.

“Elijah,” she said, turning with slow grace, her voice as light as birdsong. “If we may?”

“Your Majesty—” he began, glancing toward Titania, who now seemed quite disinclined to continue their conversation.

Love pressed her hand, once, into his arm, that quiet, desperate pressure he knew too well. Her silent plea.

He inclined his head, and with swift courtesy, made his excuses. A graceful bow to Titania, a final turn, and then they were moving, cutting through the revelers, past dancers and drifting petals.

Behind them, the great doors shimmered and closed in golden hush.

And beyond them, at last, no one followed.

Love stepped through the quiet archway and into the Garden. Her garden.

The one Morpheus gave her, long ago. Not as a gift, but a distraction. A place to keep her. A cage that looked like Eden.

She had made it bloom. She had tried to show him. She had loved it. Because she loved him.

And when he returned from his imprisonment, he had taken her there. Told her it was the only place in the Dreaming that had thrived while he was gone.

And they had fought.

And the garden had withered.

Now it was quiet. Broken. Brown. Branches like bones against the sky.

She walked in. Alone.

And finally, exhaled but it did not soothe her.

It only left her hollow.

—-------------

He turned.

She was waiting for his response.

“They are not for you.”

A pause. Not awkward. Not tense. Simply space. Breath between blades.

She tilted her head. “Protective now, are we? Quite the change from before”

“I have learned.”

She smiled, almost kindly. “Your little queen taught you?”

“No,” he said. “I taught myself. After.”

His eyes remained distant, fixed ahead. .

Her fingers, arrogant and slow, drifted to his coat. A touch that claimed knowledge, ownership, something already worn thin by time. Her fingers lingered.

"She’s very pretty," she said, almost kindly. "Delicate. Honey-dipped sweet. Does she weep when you leave her bed? Whisper your name like a hymn while you slip into shadow?"

He didn’t dignified her with an answer.

“I imagine she does. That breathy voice, the trembling lips. A good little wife for a dreamer. You always did prefer them pliant, didn’t you?”

Still silence.

Her voice drops, low and teasing, a razor beneath the silk: “Don’t give me that look.”

“Speak only of things you understand,” he warns.

“Oh, but I do,” she purrs. “You forget who you were with me.”.

Her voice turned low, dark with memory. She leaned in, her breath brushing his skin.

“Remember when we argued through storms and summoned gods just to silence us? When you tore the Dreaming open just to prove me wrong?”

She leaned in closer, lips near his ear.

“Remember when you fucked me so hard the stars dimmed? I defied you, and you punished me because you wanted a challenge.” Her hand remained, definitely pressed to his chest.

“But you were colder then.” Her breath brushed his cheek, soft but tinged with a quiet bitterness. “I suppose that’s progress,” she said, her voice low and edged with irony.

“You mistake warmth for weakness, Thessaly. You always have.”

There it was. The smallest shift. The flicker of offense.

She frowned and rolled her eyes.

“Should I be more like your spring queen, then? What does she do, exactly? Apologize when you hurt her, cry when you come inside, say thank you, perhaps? Do you ‘make love’ now, Dream? Are you chasing forgiveness between her thighs?”

Morpheus turned his head, slowly.

“She’s everything you never allowed yourself to be,” he said. “Everything I never let myself want.”

Her voice dropped again, poisonous with certainty.

“She isn’t your equal, Dream. She’s a fantasy. A doll made for your bed and your pity. A thing to be looked at. Played with. Sweet, yes. Loved, maybe. Broken, certainly. But not matched. And you-”

She leaned back, eyes narrowing.

“You were never made for sweetness. You may want to pretend to be a fairytale prince, but you are still the king of shadows, still a creature of silence.”

He looked at her then.

His gaze met Thessaly’s.

Not with fury. Not with disgust. But with the silence of something ancient and over. A glacial stillness, as winter might have ended everywhere but behind his eyes.

"You think fury made you my equal?" he asked, his voice soft and terrible. "That defiance alone was intimacy? That punishment replaced meaning?"

She froze. Just for a breath. Thessaly was never intimidate by him. And she refused to let his words hurt even if they did.

Morpheus’s reply was quiet. Flat. But it rang with finality.

He stepped forward, and she, proud, vicious Thessaly, instinctively stepped back.

His voice remained low, even. Crueler for it.

"You speak of my wife with the bitterness of someone who knows could never fit her shoes, and the audacity of someone who forgets herself. I did not love you. I possessed you. Because you were loud, and clever, and you reminded me of myself. You were not my match, Thessaly. You were my mirror. A cracked one."

Her jaw tightened, fingers curling at her side.

"You mistake her softness for emptiness. But she holds galaxies in her gentleness. Her strength is not in her sharpness, but in the grace with which she bears wounds. Including mine. To endure what she has, and still choose love is a grace beyond your grasp"

Dream stepped away. Done.

A silence like crushed glass stretched between them.

And then Lucienne arrived, clearing her throat as she approached, worry tensing her posture. "My lord." her eyes flicked to Thessaly, who turned to he startled.

Dream stopped “Lady Thessaly was saying farewell,” he said, as if answering a question neither had asked. “Let Lucienne escort you. You’ve earned that much courtesy.”

Lucienne blinked. "Of course, my lord."

He did not spare her another glance. He turned.

Just past the next archway, where he caught the flick of a gown. Soft white. Motion halted.

Elijah stood at the door, hands folded behind his back like a sentry, trying very hard to appear casually intrigued by the dances and music.

—————---------

The cold air was a welcoming one. The soft hush of wind against her flushed skin, and the dim illumination outside was far less punishing than the golden riot of candlelight and dancing within. But the tightness in her chest only squeezed harder, a coil of wire pulling tighter with each step. Her lungs wouldn’t expand. Her ribs would not give.

She needed to breathe.

She needed to remember how to breathe.

How cruel it was, she thought, that such a natural act as breathing could betray her in this hour.

Eoster pressed a trembling hand to her chest, the pressure meaningless against the pressure inside her. Panic whispered with too many voices. Her vision prickled at the edges, bright as frost.

Why were they here?

She shut her eyes and tried to banish the image that came anyway to haunt her: Thessaly’s fingers, insolently placed against the black fabric of his coat, the pads of her fingers splayed against his chest.
Her mouth near his ear. The flicker of an ill-intended smile. The tilt of her head was intimate, practiced.

She had no right.

She shouldn’t be here. Neither Alianora.

Eoster’s own mind turned sharp against itself, a dance of shadows and accusations: Thessaly, Titania, Alianora

Why? Why would they come? Was it to test her, to expose some frailty she dared not acknowledge?

Love and Morpheus needed to show unity. Poise. Power tempered by grace. She knew well enough the eyes that watched them, gods, demigods, empires, demons. And instead of a strong front, they found this fracture.

Perhaps this wasn’t their demonstration of strength, but his alone: a cold proclamation that his power, his freedom, and all that he claimed, wife and mistresses alike, were his to command.

But no.

No, she told herself, gathering what little resolve remained, that could not be. He had not invited them. Morpheus did not aid with the list. He had not shed the invitations. He hadn’t even read them.

Only she, Elijah, Lucienne, and Matthew knew of these invitations.

Matthew, she was certain, was blissfully unaware of any of them. Elijah and Lucienne wished nothing but peace, or at least to avoid trouble, and would never betray her.

Had she, in some careless moment, granted permission? When? Love wouldn’t. Not out of politeness. Not for show. Not even for peace.

But didn’t she allow a bunch of extra invites when Elijah asked her? She recalled the day with the Seamstress. Eoster was distracted, her head kept circulating around the words from Lady Death.

How could she be this stupid? Who delivered those extra invites? They were not on her list for sure. So they must be someone plus one.

And yes, a bunch of entities hated Dream and wanted undermine him. But they wouldn’t do this. Too irrelevant to the kind of foe Dream had.

Now, Love. Love might be well connected and on good terms with most entities, but that would not stop some of them from wanting to draw blood from her.

And most of them knew how appearances mattered to her.

But even if his mistresses receive the invitations. Why did they come? Have they not had any grace?

Well, she couldn’t expect it from Thessaly. She had no use for manners or subtlety. But she despised these kinds of gatherings. Eoster had overheard her say more than once, always in that clipped, bored voice she used when she wanted to wound: “Frilly excuses thrown by ornamental dolls desperate for attention”

Always loud enough to be heard. Always sharp enough to hurt. Always just as Eoster passed.

Still, Thessaly had come. To stare, to judge, to remind and to take.

Alianora, Eoster wanted to believe her better, that she would have declined, kept to be in her own pocket world. Yet perhaps she had believed too much.

And Titania.

Ah. Titania. That was different.

She had been invited. The Queen was too powerful to snub, too tied to the Dreaming’s fragile threads. Also The Garden and Faerie held a history that Love would not sacrifice to personal pride. Besides, Auberon would attend.

Once, long ago, Titania had been a friend, at least, Eoster had thought so. As with Desire, she had mistaken appearances for allegiance. Titania did not treat her as a naive pup; rather, as a rival wrapped in silken poise, diminishing with a glance, mocking with a smile.

Now, the Fae Queen wielded mockery like a blade, veiled beneath polite smiles. She shared the bed of Morpheus when the chance arose.

A constant reminder of Love’s fragile place.

A roaring filled Eoster’s ears, her vision blurred, and her knees gave way.

She needed...

Air, more air.

Her knees buckled. Her body folded like fine silk set aflame. She sank to the earth, her gown whispering across the dirt like a funeral shroud. Arms curled around herself, as if holding her broken pieces together. Her forehead pressed to bent knees, hands clawing at her hair. Her chest still refused the breath she craved.

She couldn’t.

She couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t breathe.

She tried to pull in air, but it felt like drowning dry. Her lungs burned. Her ribs screamed.

The harp string inside her, that strange, delicate line she’d danced on all night had snapped.

He had let her believe. He had let her hope. He promised her she would not shed a tear in his name anymore.

Then what did he call this?

Where was he? Had they fled upstairs, to private chambers? To their quarters? Would he humiliate her like that?

Why did the bond fail her now? Could he feel her pain? Or worse still, did he feel and choose indifference?

She fought tears, fought the breaking.

She tried to breathe again. Looking at her garden. The one Morpheus gave her a gift, so she “would not miss home”, the one she poured her entire heart, waiting for him to come, to see her love, to see her. But the only ones who ever visited were troubled nightmares, who wished for something they could touch and not destroy. She had welcomed them, tend their hidden wounds, fixing what was not supposed to be fixed. Given love to those who should not receive it.

And It was beautiful. Her garden was beautiful.

But not anymore. And even if spring bloomed everywhere else, it didn’t here.

Spring wakes dormant things, not dead ones.

Wilted stems stood like gravestones, petals ash-gray and brittle, branches barren and shorn.

She danced. She smiled. Laughed even, for others, for joy, for rebirth, for the endless turning of the seasons.

Her fingers digging into the earth beside her. “Why,” she whispered. “Why did you let it die?”

The trees were grey skeletons. The vines hung dry, strangled. Nothing had grown. Nothing had been touched.

Her garden had died unloved.

As would she.

“Eoster”

Morpheus.
She didn’t look up. His footsteps were slow, deliberate, drawing closer until she could hear the whisper of his coat against the dead vines. If she looked at him now, he would see her face, still marked, even if dry, by tears. He would know she had been crying. He always knew. But he had never cared.

Would he care now?

“Please, Dream, just…” Her fingers raked through her hair as she lifted her head. “Just go back inside. Leave me.”

“Spring thrives,” he said quietly. “Why are you hiding here?”

Her breath caught, sharp, furious. “Why were you talking to her? You said…” She broke off, gave a brittle laugh. “Is this a power play? Fine. You win. I give up. You can have it, all of it. I don’t want to play anymore.”

“No, you-“

“What?” she cut in, voice trembling “Weak? Ornamental? Sentimental? Aloof? Tell me, what incredible, uninspired venom did Thessaly feed you this time?”

“Eoster stop-”

“No! You, you-”

“I love you”

The words struck her like a knife, deep in her chest, resonating until her breath caught in her throat. For a moment she only stared at him, disbelieving or believing she couldn’t tell anymore, before finding her voice, small and shaking. “No you don’t, no you don’t”

“I do” he said, taking a single step closer, his voice deep and fervent. The dead vines swayed faintly in the cold breeze “I came to tell you this. Thessaly wants what she can’t have, what she has always known was yours. My lady. My soul. My Love”

Her heart stuttered at the last word. He reached for her then, his fingers brushing hers, lingering, not pulling, waiting for her to accept the contact.

She didn’t. But she didn’t pull away either.

His thumb traced the side of her hand, warm, deliberate. “Eoster,” he said softly, “Look at me.”

Against her will, her eyes lifted to his.

“You are being cruel” Her jaw trembled. She meant to pull his hand away, but her fingers didn’t move.

Something in them held her there, caught between defiance and surrender.

“Cruel,” he murmured, “was every day I let you doubt. Cruel was every moment I stayed silent when I should have told you-” He bent slightly, his hands now cupping hers completely. He was warm, almost too warm, his thumb sweeping across her skin with a lover’s certainty.

Her throat tightened. The bond flared, restless, like a tether straining. Like it wanted to pull her away from him. Why? Wasn’t it itself that was pushing them together, infiltrating their minds and imaginations? Maybe it was herself, her own mistrust, weariness, not a warning.

“You are not weak,” he murmured. “You are the breath in my lungs, the heartbeat in my endless night. You are the only dream I have ever wanted to keep.”

Her lips parted, her breath unsteady “Dream” but in that same moment, his arm slipped around her waist, steady and certain. In one smooth motion, he drew her up from the ground.

Her balance shifted, her hands instinctively finding his chest. And before she could question, before she could breathe, his mouth was on hers.

It was deep, deliberate, a kiss that stole the air from her lungs.

When he drew back, his forehead rested against hers. His breath was warm, his grip unyielding.

“You are beauty,” he whispered, “and ferocity, and every thought that has ever undone me.”

She tried to speak, to remember the reasons she had been angry, but his lips found hers again, firmer this time. His other hand slid to the small of her back, anchoring her to him.

“You deserve worship,” he murmured against her mouth, “and I am yours to worship you.”

Her head felt light, the air thin around them. “Why-” she began, but his lips brushed along her jaw, then down to her throat. His hands were already at her corset laces, fingers sure and unhurried.

“No more doubt,” he said, his voice a low hum against her skin.

Every time she pulled back to think, to argue, another kiss came coaxing, claiming, filling her with every word she had ever wanted to hear.

Her back pressed to the pillar now, the cold stone at odds with the heat coiling in her body. His hands moved with a deliberate urgency, not reverent, not the way she had imagined him, but insistent, each kiss another tether pulling her into the moment.

“You are everything,” he whispered, his lips ghosting the shell of her ear. “Every star, every blossom, every sigh that keeps the universe turning.”

Her breath trembled. “Dream-”

“You are not a wife to be left wanting. You are my queen. And every part of you-” his mouth was at her throat now, the brush of teeth making her knees weaken and a soft moan escaping her lips, she could feel him smiling against her skin “is mine to cherish.”

She felt her head grow light, as if the air had thinned, her thoughts smudged at the edges. His kisses found the corner of her mouth again, silencing what would have been a protest.

“Say you believe me,” he coaxed between kisses, his voice molten silk.

She opened her lips, to speak, to ask, she wasn’t sure, but his mouth claimed hers again, faster this time, like he was tasting victory.

His fingers tightened at her waist, the other hand working deftly at the corset laces, loosening them one by one.

“I…” The word was lost in another kiss.

“Say you want me,” he murmured, the syllables low, dangerous, and sweet all at once.

Her eyes fluttered shut. “I...”

And then-

Her lips still tingled when she heard it.

“Eoster.”

The same voice.

The same cadence.

But this time… it came from ahead of her.

Morpheus.

Chapter Text

She froze.

Opened her eyes, and saw him.

Not pressed to her throat, not loosening the laces at her back, not flooding her senses with the steady pull of his body against hers. But standing apart, looking at her.

The real Dream.

His face was unreadable, save for the faintest shadow of pain. His gaze held hers, cold and fathomless as deep water, offering nothing. No anger, no forgiveness, no belief.

The man holding her was not him.

She shoved him away with a trembling burst of strength, stumbling back, her head shaking violently as though she could undo the last moments by sheer refusal.

“No,” she said, the word fractured. She barely heard herself over the muffled rush in her ears. A single tear slid hot down her cheek, an anchor in a body that felt half-absent.

He did not resist, simply stepping back like a victor stepping off the field, slow and certain of the battle’s outcome. One gloved finger wiped the corner of his mouth, smearing away the ghost of her kiss. Then came a smile, sharp, predatory. So unlike her true husband.

The molten gold in his eyes flared as his shape unraveled, Morpheus’s severe face melting into another beauty entirely.

“Oh, my sweet sister-in-law,” Desire purred, their gaze roaming from her parted lips to the quiver in her hands. “So very eager. So very desperate. You wanted him to say the words, and I gave them to you. You wanted him to take you, and I obliged.” They tilt their head as if savoring the taste of the moment. “Even with your precious little bond, you couldn’t tell the difference. ”

Her vision tightened at the edges. “Stop.” Her voice felt thin in her own mouth. She kept turning with them, unwilling to give them her back. As she would be open to another stab.

They ignored her, their words sliding like silk dipped in venom. “Or maybe you didn’t want to tell.” Their gaze slid to Dream, still standing stone-straight. “She saw you with Thessaly. You broke her again. And she’s been starving so long… oh, she wanted to be chosen so badly, she’d take anyone who wore your face.”

Their fingers brushed her temple as they tucked back a stray curl, a gesture that made her stomach twist. “To plead fidelity, of course.”

The heat of shame mixed with the cold sweat of the panic still gripping her. Every heartbeat seemed to scrape against her ribs.

“TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF ME!” The shout ripped out jagged and too loud, making her own skull ache. She struck at them, but they recoiled before her hand could connect. Love trip, having to hold the stone railing for not collapsing on the floor.

Desire words lodged deep, precisely where her fears already festered. Her lips parted, but no defense came. She turned to her real husband to defend herself. Even though… what use would it be?

She was too tired, too raw. Panic had left her hollow, and Desire’s voice filled the emptiness. Every syllable sounded true, because hadn’t Morpheus already once chosen suspicion over her pleas? Hadn’t he believed the worst of her when she begged him otherwise? The last time, she had proof of her innocence, her letters, Desire’s letters passing as Dream, and still he had judged her guilty.

What chance did she have now, with nothing but her own word and the taste of Desire’s kiss still warm on her lips?

Her breath stuttered. The words spun, collided, fell apart before they could form. She could not think past the roaring in her head. She could not untangle the mess of what had happened from the sight of him watching it. She could feel the pulse in her palms, her hearing dimming as though she were underwater.

Every thought she reached collapsed into another, becoming an endless cruel cycle of shame into anger, anger into panic, panic into shame again., and turning to dust before she could even grasp it.

What could she say? That she hadn’t known? That she’d ignored the bond? That she’d mistaken the feeling for something else? They were excuses, all of them, and she wouldn’t believe it herself if it was him in her place.

“I—”

Desire’s eyes gleamed. “And oh, the way you kissed me…” The smile was slow, deliberate. “You leaned in, you wanted it. You would have let me keep going.” The pause stretched until her skin prickled and her vision swam. “Wouldn’t you, Dove? I was already untying your corset. What else would you let me untie?”

Heat flooded her cheeks, nausea tightening her gut. “Morpheus, please—it isn’t true, I—” Her voice was fast, too fast, the syllables tumbling over each other like they were trying to escape.

Desire’s laugh was soft and merciless. “And you, big brother… I gave you your perfect half, a pretty princess that would die for your sins. And all these years, never once have you kissed her like that. Not with heat. Not with hunger. It took me to make her feel wanted.” Their head tilted in mock sympathy. “Tell me, did you like watching me put my mouth where you rarely bother to? Want to see more? I could teach you how to make her sing for you.”

“Enough,” Morpheus said, his voice low, dangerous. But he did not move closer.

They leaned closer, their voice a mock caress. “Why, brother, you should be grateful. I’ve done you a kindness. I’ve proven how easily she can be misled, stray from you, how childish her heart remains. One kiss was all it took, wasn’t it? One kiss and she melted. One sweet word and she was pleading. You know this, don’t you? You knew it once before. You can’t trust her, can you? You doubted her then, why should you not doubt her now?”

Her knees felt unsteady, her breath shallow. The garden seemed smaller, the air heavier, Desire’s filthy words clinging to her like smoke.

She couldn’t tell how close they got to her again, but she could feel their breath whispering in her ear, soft as silk and twice as cutting “You will never convince him. You will never be enough.”

Love closed her eyes, fighting her own tears. She wanted to scream, to strike, to deny, but her body betrayed her, she felt tired. The crushing certainty that her voice would mean nothing. That Morpheus would see only what Desire wanted him to see.

“Morpheus, I didn’t know,” she heard herself say, but the sound felt distant, not entirely hers, as it was a reflex that she didn’t even know it was worth it. “I swear it. I was a fool, I please-” Her throat constricted.

She almost whispered, looking down at the ground, tears running freely over her cheeks “Don’t punish me for this. I didn’t- I didn’t know it wasn’t you, please, please-”

Desire’s laughter rang bright and cruel. “She begs so prettily. You should make her do it more often.”

The air changed before he spoke.

A scent rolled in, damp earth, cold stone, the metallic edge of rain not yet fallen.

Somewhere beyond the dead garden, thunder murmured, distant but growing. Lightning flashed once, silent, just enough to limn Morpheus’s face in silver for a heartbeat before shadow claimed it again.

Love’s pulse stuttered. That silence, that terrible stillness, she had felt it before. Sometimes it meant his judgment was already set. Sometimes it meant the sentence was still being weighed.

She could not tell which one this was.

His eyes found hers, black and fathomless, and the weight in them pressed against her as if the Dreaming itself leaned in.

“You have overstepped again… more than I can bear to forgive,” he said, his voice quiet but absolute.

Love’s breath caught. Her knees threatened to buckle. Her mind spun. ‘ He believes I’ve failed him. He believes I’ve betrayed him’

“You trespass upon what is mine,” he said at last, voice low enough to make the air vibrate in her chest. The red-tinged Dreaming shuddered in answer, a ripple through the sky like the pull before a storm breaks. “You twist what is bound to me. You lay hands upon her.”

Desire’s smile was feline, victorious. “And she let me. Oh, she welcomed me.” They stepped closer, close enough that the first growl of thunder seemed to echo their voice. “You can’t even tell, can you? Whether she kissed me because she thought I was you… or because she wished it was me all along.”

The lightning this time split the clouds above, bright and sudden. The scent of rain sharpened.

Dream took one slow step forward, and the light dimmed around them as if the sky itself recoiled. Then, in a blink, his hand was at Desire’s throat, lifting them from the ground with the ease of pulling a petal from its stem.

Desire’s high heeled boots scraped against nothing, the red earth falling away beneath them. They gave a choked laugh despite the crushing grip. “Careful, brother… wouldn’t want to spill a little family blood, would we?”

“Morpheus!” Love’s voice broke out of her before she could stop it. Her own desperation startled her though even she didn’t know if it was plea or warning. If spilling family blood would fix their problems, she would have done it long ago.

For a long, taut heartbeat that stretched like an eternity, Dream did not release, his hand tightening around Desire’s throat. His gaze locked to his sibling, black as a moonless night meeting the gold gleam of a sibling’s delight in cruelty, and the air between them trembled with the nearness of the coming storm.

Rain threaded the wind, the storm called into being by his rage. The Dreaming seemed ready to tear itself apart with him. Then, with deliberate slowness, he let them drop to the red earth.

“I will warn you once,” Morpheus said, his voice ringing with the weight of eternity. “Lay claim to what is mine again, and you will find yourself nameless. I will scour you from every mortal thought, every secret hunger. You will wander forgotten, starved, in the silence between desires.”

For the briefest heartbeat, Desire’s smile faltered. Then it slanted back into place, thinner, sharper, laced with venom. “Such a possessive husband,” they purred, though their voice was not quite steady. “This temper will cost you both, in time.”

“Begone,” Dream commanded. His words rippled through the Dreaming, final and inexorable. “You are barred from this realm until I decree otherwise.”

Desire’s gaze slid toward Love, slow and lingering, a promise curdled with threat. Then, with a shimmer of gold and the faintest echo of laughter “I will miss you, my dear siblings”, before they vanished.

The echo of Desire’s laughter lingered, a sharp edge slicing through the quiet room. Love’s chest heaved, eyes fixed where Desire had vanished, while Dream’s jaw tightened, every muscle rigid with restraint.

The words left unspoken pressed between them like thunderclouds, heavy and inevitable. Rain began to patter against the windows, soft at first, then louder, a mirror to the storm building inside them.

“You… you always do this,” Love breathed, voice trembling between accusation and plea. “You let them—”

“I let nothing,” Dream cut in, voice low but taut.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the sharp angles of their faces, and for a heartbeat, all the anger, hurt, and desire hung raw between them. Love’s hands trembled, drawn despite herself, pulled by the same invisible current that had always bound them.

“You can’t… you can’t keep doing this,” she whispered, almost to herself, the words fragile yet laced with fire. Her chest heaved, and for a moment, the hurt softened into quiet reckoning.

Her gaze sharpened, fury and resolve coiling together. Slowly, deliberately, she spoke again, her voice colder now, more measured, like the strike of a blade. “That was a mistake.”

His brow furrowed. “Are you angry?”

Love’s eyes burned, fury alight in their green depths. “Do you ever think past the moment? Do you have any idea what you’ve just done? They will retaliate.”

“They provoked—”

“They always provoke!” she cut in, her voice rising, sharp as a blade. “And you took the bait like a fool. You’ve just made certain they’ll come for you, for us, in ways we won’t see coming.”

His voice deepened, low and raw. “They deceived you. Violated your will and twisted your emotions, knowing what you have been through. And forced me to watch it. They wanted me to watch, to help them twist the knife, to deliver the final blow. I couldn’t—”

“Why? Why couldn’t you? Why does it matter to you? I don’t matter to you.” She turned sharply, fingers clutching at her hair, as if holding herself together.

“You do matter. You—”

“Yes, as your possession. I matter to you as a doll you don’t want to share.”

A chill drop of rain fell into her palm, startling her. Then another, landing on her cheek. She ignored it, too consumed to notice how the sky was darkening.

“You think I acted to protect my pride?”

“Yes!” The word burst from her too quickly. Then softer, trembling: “No. I—” She turned away again, her voice breaking. “Go back inside, Dream. Go back to Thessaly, or Alianora, or Titania. Or another one—I don’t… I am tired. So tired of this. I just—”

“I was coming to you.” His tone was almost pleading. “I dismissed Thessaly. I—you were in pain. I came to see you, to—”

“Don’t. Do not say it. Do not say it when you look at me like this. Do not say it as if you believe me.”

“But I do.”

“Stop! Stop it! Please.”

“Eoster.”

Her hands flew up, shaking. Then, with a cry, she struck him. Her palms slammed against his chest, hard, once, twice, again. The sound echoed with the first clap of thunder overhead.

“You ruined me!” she shouted, pounding him as the rain fell harder. “You and Desire and my sisters! But you! You me into pieces and left me to pretend I was whole!” Her fists struck chest, and arms, her voice ragged with years of hurt.

Morpheus did not stop her. He did not defend himself, did not even raise a hand. He stood still beneath the violence of her grief, as immovable as stone, as though he believed he deserved every blow.

The storm answered her, lightning splitting the sky, the rain started to pour violently around them. Her hand striked upon him. Her hands ached, her arms trembled, but still she struck, each one weaker, her voice breaking. ‘ See me, feel this, carry it as I have carried it’.

At last, her strength gave way. Her fists slid from his chest, falling limp at her sides, as if she no longer knew whether she wanted to strike or cling. With a sob, she sagged forward, forehead pressed against his soaked shirt, her body shaking with exhaustion. The rain poured over them both, drenching them to the bone, her tears indistinguishable from the relentless storm.

Morpheus remained still a moment longer, honoring her fury in silence. Only when her trembling grew too great, when she threatened to collapse entirely, did he move. Slowly, hesitantly, his hands lifted, not to restrain, not to command, but to steady her. One hand hovered, then settled at her back, the other at her shoulder, light as if she were made of glass.

“I am broken,” she whispered into his chest. “You know this, you caused this. And why would you want a broken heart?”

His voice was low, steady, unshaken. “Because it is yours.” He stopped for a second feeling her subtle tremble “And broken or whole, it is the only heart I want. I have no illusions of perfection only the truth of what you are, and what we might be.”

She shook her head weakly denying it, as she couldn’t not believe his words, but did not pull away. His arms held her, not to cage, but to keep her standing.

“I will spend every day I have mending it. Not to earn your forgiveness, but because I should have done so from the start.”

“Even when you say this, my heart aches.” She whispered against his chest, a raw confession dragged from exhaustion.

“Then let me try to soothe it.”

“You will break me again,” she whispered, voice raw. “And when you do, what is going to be left of me?”

“I will tear down every tower in the Dreaming before I fail you again.” His words rumbled like thunder, quiet but immovable.

“How can I believe you?”

“I have been cruel, cold, distant. But have I ever lied to you?”

Her eyes searched his, frantic, desperate. The rain poured harder, plastering her hair to her face, dismantling her hair, his cloak heavy with water, both of them trembling under its weight. Years of mistrust shimmered between them, carried on every raindrop.

Slowly, as though lifting something impossibly heavy, she raised her face to his, her hands pressed against him, tentative at first, a question more than a demand.

She opened her mouth searching for the right words to wound him, to keep him away or to keep him closer, she didn’t know for certainty, but they dissolved as his mouth claimed hers.

It was tentative at first, fragile as the first drop of rain. A breath caught, a soft tremor, a kiss that was more question than answer. For a heartbeat, it was homecoming: delicate, tender, two lost souls finding their way back through the darkness. And when she faltered, he lifted his hands at last cradling her face as if she were the last light he might ever hold.

But the storm would not allow stillness.

Their lips found each other again, soft at first, tasting of rain and tears.The rain came harder, drumming against their skin like needles, soaking them until water ran in rivulets down their faces, mingling with salt tears. The wind rose and whipped her hair across his cheek, tangling against his lips as he kissed her deeper, harder. Thunder rolled above them like a heartbeat too vast to be contained.

The kiss grew urgent, trembling with the ferocity of all they had been denied. Her hands, shaking, slid from the folds of his cloak to the back of his neck to fingers tangling in his soaked hair, pulling him closer; His hands moved from her cheeks to her back, then lower, memorizing her, until his hands reach the sides of her tights, lifting her, he anchored her to him, against the stone wall, as though the storm itself sought to steal her away.

She gasped against his mouth; he answered with a hunger edged by grief and centuries of longing. The storm howled, the air electric around them, but within that chaos they were a single point of unyielding gravity.

His lips traced her jaw, down her neck, lingering at the curve of her collarbone, brushing over the hollow of her throat. Each caress sent shivers through her pulling a soft cry from her lips. Her hands tangled in his hair, tugging him closer, he was impossibly close to her, and her breath caught as she felt him, hard and urgent, pressing against her thigh, and instinctively, she arched, pressing herself into him.

“Dream-” she whispered, wanting to feel this friction, he move against her, and her thighs tightening instinctively around him.

His hands lingered on the sides of her thighs, steadying her, grounding them both in the moment. His lips moved lower, leaving the soft column of her throat for the swell of her breast above the clinging white silk. One hand cupped her, thumb rolling her nipple through the soaked fabric until it hardened beneath his touch. Her chest rose, quivering, tilting toward him, needing more. His lips followed to the other breast kissing soft at first, then pressing a reverent bite over the peak.

A soft moan escaped her lips, shuddering, and he soothed the ache with his tongue, sucking until her spine bowed beneath the contrast of his warm breath against the cold rain. She pulled at his hair, demanding, and he answered with equal intensity, squeezing her soft flesh until she moaned again, head thrown back, her whole body reaching for him.

His hand descended, tracing feather-like touches, down her ribs, lingering at the hollow of her stomach before stopping at her hip bone, fingers drawing small circles there while the other pressed firmly against her thigh, holding her close.

His gaze met hers. She never saw him like this, lips swollen and red, breath uneven, hair wild and dripping, all for her. It made a heat pool between her legs, and her tights clench instinctively.

His eyes searched hers, reverent, asking without words. She answered with a tilt of her body, a smile tugging at her lips, the slight parting of her thighs for him, an inaudible permission.

Carefully, he lifted the hem of her rain-drenched dress, the wet fabric sliding upward to reveal the curve of her hip. His hand found the damp silk beneath, pushing it aside with aching patience, teasing her gently, as she arched in response. “Dream-” she whimpered and it was the most beautiful sound he ever heard.

The first brush of his fingers against her made him groan low in his throat, the sound vibrating against her skin. She was already slick, already open, as though her body had been waiting only for him. His touch was reverent at first, brushing along her folds as though memorizing her shape, until she trembled, thighs tightening around him, whispering his name like a broken plea.

At last, he pressed one finger into her, impossibly slow and deep. She gasped, clutching at his shoulders, muscles drawn taut, and he stilled for a heartbeat to savor the way she pulsed around him. Then, when she shifted, urging him wordlessly, he began to move, curling his slender finger inside her, stroking her walls until her body writhed against his hand.

“You’re divine like this,” he whispered, rough velvet against her ear. Reverent, awed, but filthy “My Love, my perfect Love, writhing, so hungry for me.”

His pace quickened, finger plunging deeper, curling into that place that made her spine bow and her thighs clamp around him, her walls squeezing impossibly tight at his fingers, like it never wanted to let him go. Her silence shattered into gasps and strangled cries as she gasped “More” and rode his hand, greedy for every drag of his finger.

He obeyed like his only duty in the universe was to bring pleasure to his queen. A second finger slid inside, stretching her, filling her. She clenched around him, wet heat fluttering tight, pulling him deeper. He curled both fingers, slow and deliberate, until she cried out, hips rocking forward, demanding more of the pleasure he had long denied her. He gave it to her, unhurried but relentless, savoring every gasp, every shudder like a starving man tasting a feast. When she moaned, he pressed harder; when she writhed, he gave her more, another finger sliding in, stretching her further, claiming her with exquisite care.

She unraveled before him, eyes half-lidded, lips parted, body straining toward every movement of his hand.

Through their bond he felt everything, every flutter, every gasp, every desperate throb of need, and it wrecked him, intoxicated him, as if he were touching not just her body, but the core of her very being, and it was only his to worship.

Her need drove him harder. His ease his fingers only to push it against her tightness again, dragging against every place that made her cry out, his thumb working on her clit, pressing it, circling it, making her release inevitable. He had never cared for it before, but now, now he craved it, worshipped it, needed it more than breath.

“Let me hear you,” he urged, his voice reverent, ruined. “Let me have you.”

She bucked against his hand, grinding down, chasing the peak he kept dragging just beyond her reach. His pace was merciless in its patience, pulling her tight, then easing, then plunging again, the rhythm of torment and gift. Her thighs quivered, her body trembling on the edge, but he refused to let her fall until she gave him everything.

“You let me starve,” she sobbed, trembling, her body grasping at him with every thrust.

His mouth pressed against her throat, his teeth grazing her skin, as his tongue soothe his mark, his voice a litany of devotion and filth. “Then starve no longer. I’ll feed you, fill you. Ride my fingers, my dream. Take everything, I will give everything.”

She arched into him, broken cries spilling into his shoulder as she rode his fingers, her body greedy, insatiable, her hips moving against him, his free hand digging at her hips to hold her in place. He held her through it, relentless, whispering like prayer against her skin:

“I should have worshiped you like this every night. Show me, my dream.”

The coil inside her snapped, violent, incandescent. Her cry tore through the rain-drenched night, her body clamping around him, convulsing, convulsing again, pouring into his hand. He drank it in, his eyes closing as though her pleasure was the only thing in existence, the crown jewel of his eternity.

He slowly withdrew his fingers, and she cried out softly over the hollow, glistening where he had touched her. He kept her pressed against him, steadying her quivering body, and lifted his hand to his mouth, tasting her. If the sound of her voice, caught between pleasure and breath, was one of the most exquisite things he had ever heard; her taste, he thought, would be the last feast he would ever need.

She blushed, unable to look away from the way he sucked his fingers with her release, and instinctively her tights clenched, he gave her an almost smile. “You taste… divine,” he murmured, reverent and awed, looking at his digits glistening with her desire. She coiled a smile, voice trembling, “Then let me taste it.”

She captured his mouth in a hungry kiss, tasting her own pleasure still wet on his lips and tongue. Her hands grasping him by his collar, ease on his heavy coat, pushing it off from his shoulders, letting it fall to the rain-dark earth. He guided her down onto it, cradling her as though even the ground were not worthy of her.

She sat up on her knees before him, breath ragged, her fingers unbutton his shirt, Dream helped her, tugging the fabric loose until she slid it from his shoulders, her hands finally grazing his sculpture torso. She could never touch him before, never seen him like this, her eyes kept memorizing every centimeter of his body, like she wanted to remember forever. He eased her soaked dress upward, over her head, then helped her shed her underclothes piece by piece.

He could have make it vanish with a look, but there was something sacred in baring her with his own hands. Her corset, already loosened, slipped free at her urging. Her silk underwear, dark with rain and her own desire, was pushed down her thighs and discarded. At last, she was bare before him, bare for him.

The sight nearly unmanned him. Before, he only pushed her nightgowns to her chest, they never looked at each other, now of all her was there.

Before he could say anything, she moved. She leaned forward, unsure, Love was never one to initiate, it was not was she was taught. She was taught to be guided, to wait for her husband to show her what to do, to only touch if he demands, to be silent if he so wishes. All that seemed impossible and silly, when him was warm under her touch. She couldn’t help but press wet kisses to his throat, to the hollow at the base of it, his pulse point, lowering to his chest, tasting the rain and the shivers she drew from him, her hands traced his arms, his ribs, down his stomach. Lower. His hands found her waist, gazing her actions, how he had done nothing to earn her lips, her tongue, and she still bless him with it.

Her lips followed, dragging down his torso, her breath hot against his skin. Her soft wet kisses, lingering at the hollow of his hips, her hands worked at his trousers, tugging, eager, intent. She sank lower, eyes glinting, looking over at him through her fluttering lashes, her swollen red lips parting in promise.

But his hand stopped her, stroking her cheek, brushing a stray wet curl from it, a single finger under her chin tilting her face up. His gaze caught hers, dark and burning, a weight that made her tremble.

“My queen” he said, voice low, velvet-thick, utterly filthy and worshipful “ For every cry you swallowed, every touch I never gave. I want to feast on you.” His mouth ghosted over her jaw, his voice a growl against her skin. “I want to eat you until you can’t remember what loneliness felt like.”

Her lips parted at his words, her breath catching as heat surged low in her belly. The crude reverence in his tone, like prayer, like hunger undid her. She squeezed her tights, her already sensible core from her first orgasm clenching in anticipation. She found his lips quickly again, her eyes never leaving his. Slowly she reclined on the dark folds of his coat, she spread her knees apart in invitation.

Dream’s cock twitched painfully against his trousers at the sight, his body begging for hers. The air cooled her slickness, flushed and swollen, glistening for him, dripping for him, her body screaming its need. Her hand called for him instinctively, urging him closer to settle between her thighs, the bond between them burning hotter than the rain.

He braced above her, still half-dressed, pants undone, his weight pressing deliciously into her as he kissed her again. Their mouths crashed together, tongues slick with shared taste, his hand anchoring her hip while the other braced the ground beside her. She arched to him, moaning when his hardness pressed against her folds through his pants, desperate for friction.

Her hand slipped down between them, palming the rigid line of his cock through the loosened fabric.

“Love—” he warned, a ragged growl, his control fraying. He was fixed in her pleasure, but the way her hand stroked him over the fabric… Gods, he was going to come like a schoolboy in his pants.

She blinked up at him, lashes lowered in wicked innocence, her voice breathless, a smile tugging her lips “I just want to feel… what I do to you.” hips rolling against him. Her words were breathless, daring, fingers tracing his length with sinful insistence.

He snarled, his breath hitched, his jaw clenched, his voice lowering into something dangerous and devoted, rocking against her hand, the bond between them vibrating with need. “You will know, my Love. I will show you exactly how hard you make me. But first-” Before she could protest, he dragged himself lower, his mouth tracing reverent fire across the soft skin, feather-light kisses. Wet, lingering suckles on her breasts just enough to turn her nipples hard again, followed to her stomach, down to the sensitive curve of her inner thighs.

His hands urged her thighs wider, thumbs pressing into the softness before dragging her legs up, draping them over his shoulders, locking her open. He kissed her knee, her inner thigh, giving her a sharp nip that made her gasp, moving with infuriating patience, until she’s writhing beneath him, hips lifting, offering herself with no shame.

And when he dared look up at her, their gaze met. His eyes burning with possession and awe as he saw her already touching herself, palms cupping her breasts, fingers teasing her nipples, her body arched, a wanton vision putting on a private show just for him. The sight nearly destroyed him. If he had dreams of his own, her sight would be the one he would keep sleeping to see again, every single day from eternity.

They shared nothing but glancing, when he lowered his head between her thighs, the scrape of his lips so close she nearly wept, until they finally brush her swollen folds, his tongue tasting her with deliberate, devastating care.

Her cry fractured into the rain-soaked night.

His tongue moved in languid sweeps, circling, tasting, savoring her as though she were honey poured only for him. The reverence was there, in the way he groaned into her, low and hoarse, as though the act itself undid him.

His hands were holding firm at her hip, the other sliding beneath her, pressing her down so she could not escape the press of his tongue. When her thighs tried to close, overwhelmed, he only groaned in satisfaction, prying them wider for him, as though nothing else in the Dreaming could possibly matter but the taste of her.

He devoured her as though the act was prayer, his tongue flicking sharp, then slow, then swirling until her breath broke into muffled cries against the sleeve of his discarded coat. He chuckled darkly into her, breath hot, words reverent and filthy all at once, against her core “Do not hide from me, my dream. I want the Dreaming to echo with your pleasure. Let me hear your sweet cries” Love raised her hips for even the second he decided to talk and not use his tongue, her hands clawed through his hair, pulling it hard, until her knuckles went white, she begged, shameless in her need “Dream, please-”

And still he edged her, refusing to give the final mercy, until her voice cracked with it, until her toes curled hard enough to cramp, until her entire body was trembling on the precipice.

Each time her breath grew ragged, he slowed, easing her back from the edge, forcing her to endure, to burn, to ache with the hunger he wanted to ignite in her. His tongue pressed deep, only to retreat, keeping her in that suspended, unbearable place.

"Patience, beloved," He growled, pulling her hips harder against his face, his fingers clawing into her waist to hold her still. Her hips fought against his grip, but he only held her harder, pulling her tighter, burying himself deeper, his tongue unrelenting now coaxing every single response from her, the sounds of her arousal filling the room.”You are made for this, to tremble only in want, to cry only in bliss” He gasped against her, his words wet against her skin.

And then he added his finger to her clit again, and pushed her over with his mouth. Her voice broke, raw and wild, his name spilling from her lips, the entire Solstice, if it wasn’t from the music of the ball, would know she was been eaten out in a dead garden.

Her body snapped, her thighs clamping desperately around his head, but he only drove her further, carrying her through wave after wave, licking her through the flood of her release, sucking, praising her even as she screamed, loud and glorious, swallowing her down with a groan as though as she were the sweetest thing he had ever known. Her release shook through her like a storm.

When he pulled back, expecting her to be undone, Love startled him. Yes, her body trembled, thighs slick, breath caught in sharp, uneven waves, but instead of yielding to spent softness, she pulled him to her mouth, dragging his mouth down into another kiss, fevered and wet, tasting her release on his lips. Desire did not dull her; it made her more alive, more ravenous, as though the high had only sharpened her need.

Morpheus hovered above her, and she devoured the sight of him: his hair disheveled from her hands, unruly black curls falling across his temple; his lips parted in uneven breaths, his chest rising sharply as though the air itself had turned thin, the unbearable pressure of desire sharpened by restraint.

He looked like every secret dream whispered into the night, unraveled, stripped bare, and entirely hers.

He tried to suppress the ache, to temper his greed. He should worship her, continue to tend to her, but stars, every unspoken thought betrayed him. If she could drench his tongue, tighten around his fingers, then how much sweeter would it be to feel her stretch around him, to sink into her heat, to be taken by her body as surely as her soul had claimed him? His cock strained against restraint, painfully hard, aching to be buried inside her.

“The bond betrays you, my Dream,” she whispered against his mouth, denying him another kiss. Her nails teased down his chest, slow and deliberate, until they skimmed the sharp line of his hipbones. “I feel your hunger. You ache to bury yourself in me, to spill your seed deep inside, to keep me filled and trembling with you until dawn.” Her laugh was husky, nearly broken with her own pleasure. Her lips barely grazed his skin as she murmured, “You long for me to take you over and over, until there is nothing left of either of us but the bond that binds.”

His breath caught; his hips jerked forward at her words, shamefully eager, sinful thoughts laid bare by her delicious tongue. She hissed in delight at his loss of composure, her body clenching at the bond’s echo of his hunger, like it was her own desire.

Her hand slid lower, into the open edge of his pants, delicate fingers curling eagerly around him. Long and hard, he pulsed in her hand, and his jaw tightened as he groaned into her hair. She pumped him slowly, steady strokes, dragging her thumb over the bead of moisture gathering at his tip. She smeared it deliberately, making it messy, coating her palm until he was wet and slick for her. The sound of his ragged breath, the way his hips twitched helplessly into her fist, it made her smirk, triumphant, clenching around nothing in anticipation. She may have never touched him before, but it felt natural, like she knew exactly how and where to touch him.

Adjusting her hips just enough to be closer, she guided him lower, fist tightening around him as she brought him to her entrance. His tip pressed against her folds, both of them gasping at the contact. He looked down at her, his perfect, poised queen, his own Spring, handling him with a confidence and eagerness foreign to him. ‘ Is this how she becomes when cherished? Is this what blooms in her?’ He couldn’t help but wonder. Gods, he would never leave her.

His cock was slick with both their arousals, gliding against her as she teased, coating herself, rubbing him along her swollen heat. She arched her hips into the pressure, but denied him entry, teasing, coaxing him with wicked patience.

“Love…” he rasped, voice breaking.

She smiled against his throat, nipping lightly. “Feel how I crave you?...” Her other hand slid between her thighs, circling her clit in lazy, deliberate spirals, moans spilling freely, husky and breathless “Claim me as yours, as you should have centuries ago.” She commanded, her curls clung damp to her flushed skin, thighs parted, her breath coming in little whimpers as she toyed with herself, right before his eyes.

Her lips brushed his throat, tongue laving where she bit as she stroked him against her folds, pressing his slick crown at her entrance, green eyes gleaming with desire.

When at last he sank into her, she gasped, sharp, wet, reverent, her body locking around him, clutching him like it had waited centuries. Her walls fluttered, tightening, claiming every inch of him as her own. Her fingers never left her clit, circling as she moaned in awe, and he held her hips down, reverent, trembling at the unbearable sweetness of her taking him in, letting her feel every connection, every ridge, every curve.

Her cry broke into a sobbing moan, her body arching to take him deeper, her nails raking his back as she clung to him.

Morpheus groaned, forehead pressed to hers, the bond blazing like starlight through both of them. He tried to still, to savor, but her body milked him, greedy, drawing him deeper, until his control shattered with a guttural sound.

He moved, slow thrusts first, deliberate. Her gasps broke between them, her free hand clutching his hair, her knuckles white, while her fingers circled her clit, coaxing herself higher with every roll of his hips. Their mouths found each other again, sloppy, moaning into each other, the bond thick with shared ecstasy until he nearly drowned in it.

“You are milking me, my queen,” he rasped against her lips, undone, reverent. “Drawing me deeper, as if you would never let me leave.”

Her answering laugh was ruined and breathless. “I will not. I want you hard, soft, spilling and still inside me, filling me, warming me. All of you. Mine.”

His groan broke against her mouth, his hands cupping her breasts, squeezing her flesh as though to anchor himself. She arched, circling harder over her clit, clinging to him, clenching around him with greedy devotion. He looked down, overwhelmed, to where they joined, her body glistening, tight, devouring him with each thrust, and the sight alone nearly undid him.

Love felt the twitch of him inside her, his body straining, fighting for control, but she would not let him relent. Not now. Not when her own pleasure trembled on the edge of breaking her apart. Her thighs locked around his hips, dragging him deeper each thrust pulling ragged cries from her throat. Her nails carved crescents into his back as he drove her higher, her thumb never leaving her clit even as his rhythm dissolved into frantic, uneven strokes. She cried his name, loud and breaking, each one a demand and a plea, not ‘Husband’ not ‘Dream’, but ‘Morpheus’ , raw and desperate, until he thought he might shatter from hearing it.

He answered not with words but by bending lower, taking her hand from her clit, with reverence, he pressed a kiss into her knuckles, then guided it to rest against his back pressing a kiss into her knuckles, as though in reverence, before guiding it to rest at his back. Her protest was swallowed in a ragged gasp as his own fingers replaced hers, sliding down, circling the slick bud of her pleasure with relentless intent.

The shock tore through her. Her cry cracked in the air, her voice breaking into hoarse, shuddering pleas. His touch was infinitely better than her own, his fingers touching her heat as he wanted her to break under his touch. “Don’t stop, don’t, please, pleas-” Each syllable crumbled into sobs as her body clenched around him, tight, wet, unyielding. He drove into her, burying himself to the hilt, grinding her down against his hand, determined to see her undone.

The world outside ceased to exist, no Dreaming, no Solstice, no dawn, no time itself. There was only the wet slap of skin, the wet slide, the heady heat, the helpless sounds spilling free. His mouth found her neck, her jaw, her lips. She clung to him like an anchor, and he held her as though she were the only thing keeping him alive, their bodies crashing together in a frenzy that was no longer love nor lust but both, indistinguishable and consuming.

Her climax ripped through her like fire, convulsing, again and again, over and over, as if her body could not stop. She sobbed his name raw, breaking, her voice splintering into cries he would never forget. Her pleas poured out shameless, molten, desperate “Fill me, please, fill me” She half-begged, half-demand making his last restraint snap.

With a guttural groan, he gave himself over, “Yes… take it, my love. I’d fill you until you’re split open on eternity itself” Slamming into her, harder, faster, each thrust reckless, sloppy, yet somehow perfectly attuned to the rhythm of her cries and the lock of her warmth around him, as though trying to bury himself inside her forever.

His release hit like a storm, spilling inside her with a shudder that rattled his bones, her body convulsing around him, milking every last drop as he kept his hand upon her, circling, coaxing her through wave upon wave until she broke entirely, sobbing, trembling, her voice cracked and breathless against his mouth, and still she clutched him tighter, her relentless body dragging every drop from him. He collapsed into her, undone, and still she held him inside, clinging as if she would never let him go.

They stayed for a moment, completely spent in each others arms. Morpheus lingered inside her, feeling the gentle warmth of her body collapse into his. For a moment, he thought to ease himself, to give her space. The warmth of her body pressed against him was intoxicating, but he did not wish to overwhelm her further.

He wanted her to feel cherished, worshiped, safe, to ease those creeping doubts that had lingered in her mind, the fractures left by their past that thanks to the bond, he was having small glimpses of her point of view. He didn’t want her to feel like their flesh unions from before, not merely filled, used for his own release. His hand lingered lightly along her back, ready to cradle, to hold, to let her breathe. He started to shift, his arm loosening ever so slightly, meaning to let her recover, to let her slip into the soft emptiness of the afterglow.

But she would not let him go. Her hands pressed against him, curling over his arms and shoulders, gripping with quiet insistence. Her whispered plea, soft and ragged in that single, impossible way that demanded all of him “Don’t go… stay with me.”

It was not lust alone in that plea; it was a demand for presence, for the reassurance that he would not slip away, cold and distant, ever again. It was a claim for warmth, for permanence, for a tether that only he could provide. A plea that he be hers, fully, in all ways that mattered.

It was not lust alone in that plea; it was a demand for presence, for the reassurance that he would not slip away, cold and distant, ever again. It was a claim for warmth, that she had learned to only crave in dreams and never before dared to ask for. A tether that only he could provide.

Her words threaded through him, unraveling every recently awakened instinct to protect or restrain. He could have withdrawn, let her rest in the heat of his coat, alone in the quiet aftermath. But the intensity of her need undid him utterly. Every hesitation melted; he could not, would not, deny her.

With delicate care, he rolled them onto their sides, guiding her leg slightly over his own. Pressed chest to chest, she could feel him fully, even softened, the echo of his hardness still resting inside her. The bond hummed between them, alive with shared breath, heartbeats, and something older than time itself.

He cradled her with one arm around her back, her head nestled into the curve of his shoulder, curls brushing his cheek, spilling damp and soft across his chest. He buried his nose in her hair, inhaling, memorizing, the warmth, the weight, the irrevocable closeness of her body. His free hand traced her curls, her shoulder, the subtle planes of her back, as though engraving every contour into eternity.

She shifted slightly, pressing further into him, insistent even in sleepiness, seeking the warmth she had begged for. And in response, he pressed closer, letting the heat of his body speak the words his lips had not yet dared. Her pulse, her breath, her gentle insistence wrapped around him, binding him as thoroughly as any vow. Reverent. Honored. Utterly hers.

Her warmth, her desire, her insistence made him shiver, made him feel everything all at once: reverent, honored, utterly hers. And every beat of her heart against his chest told him what words could not: that she would never let him go, and he would never wish to.

Love’s breath slowed against him, her lashes brushing the hollow of his throat, her body pliant in his arms. She drifted at last, her fingers slackening where they had clutched his hand to keep him within her. Morpheus did not move, unwilling to disturb the fragile peace that had settled over her face.

Then he saw it: a petal, lost from a bloom only just unfurled, spiraled down and grazed the curve of her shoulder, cool and silken against the warmth of her skin. Another settled briefly along the slope of her hip where she pressed to him, velvet against velvet, before a breath of wind carried it away. His eyes followed its flight.

The garden around them was no longer drowned and desolate. The sodden earth, once only mud and ruin, quickened beneath their embrace. Leaves jeweled with rain trembled overhead, scattering droplets that kissed their skin, their coolness only to be chased away by his warmth. Roses curled open, lilies lifted their pale faces, and tender green vines stretched upward with newborn longing.

The Queen’s garden was reborn, not by season but out of devotion, out of passion. Every flower seemed to lean toward her resting form, as though the very earth sought to cradle their soft embrace.

And in that hush before dawn, the horizon brushed with lilac as night withdrew, he bent his head. Against the crown of her hair, against the scent of her, he let fall the words he had guarded for longer than she might ever forgive. Words that stripped him bare, unraveling centuries of silence, distance, and pride.

It was the only truth in his heart, and the only one that deserved to be spoken. Whispered into her dream, carried against her breath, so that even if the universe itself forgot, she would still know.

“I love you”

Chapter Text

The corridor outside Lady Love’s chamber was still heavy with the perfume of last night’s revels. Petals of roses, lily, sunflowers, wisterias making a mixed of color into thecarpet, skew rabbits jumping around, the sour tang of spilled champagne clinging to the air, lone gloves abandoned on the banister like a casualty of war, alongside shoes on the staircase. Through the high windows, dawn slanted in pale ribbons, catching on the dust motes that danced despite the solemn silence of the palace.

Four young dreammaids scurried along the polished floor, their skirts swishing, bonnets tied slightly crooked in their haste. Their black dresses rumpled from too-early rising, bonnets crooked, cheeks blotched from hurried washing. None of them looked particularly reverent.

“I don’t know why we should come to dress her at dawn,” Sorcha grumbled, adjusting her apron with a sharp tug. “We should be the ones partying last night, riding those massive rides, not those old hags.”

The remark drew a scandalized squeak from Cliodhna, who nearly dropped the neat bundle of ribbons she clutched. “Sorcha! If the older maids heard you…”

“They’re not hearing anything,” Maeve said serenely, her braid swinging over one shoulder as she strolled at the back. “They’re still flat on their backs in the wine cellar.”
Niamh gave a snort, curling her lip. “Right, like those ‘massive rides’ would even look at any of you when there were literal sex goddesses floating about in the ballroom.” She flicked a bit of lint from her sleeve with studied disdain, her curls bouncing with the motion.

Cliodhna, cheeks already pink with earnestness, clasped her hands. “Well, I for one am excited to see Lady Love. She looked so beautiful last night.” Her voice softened into reverence, her small hands smoothing the ribbons nervously.

“She’s always beautiful,” Sorcha cut in briskly, curls bouncing as she adjusted her cap. “That’s who she is.”

Cliodhna tilted her head, green eyes dreamy. “Not like last night. She was… springtime beautiful. A glow, like the earth itself was waking. You’d know, Sorcha, if you’d actually looked at her.”

“I see her everyday, Clio. If she looked ugly that would be the news.”Sorcha shot back, her freckled face puckering into a smirk. “I was busy looking- ”

“At the massive rides, we know,” Niamh said with a long-suffering sigh.

Sorcha only shrugged, smug as ever. “Well, fuck you lot.”

The others giggled, shoulders bumping, the hush of slippers against marble making their laughter sound all the louder.

“Girls!” Cliodhna hissed, straightening her collar as though sheer posture might save them. “Compose yourselves!”

In an instant, the chatter cut off, mouths snapped shut. All four pressed their palms against the stiff black fabric of their dresses, arranged their bonnets, and tipped their chins down in practiced obedience. To any wandering eye, they were the picture of sober reverence, exactly what Morpheus intended them to be when creating them.

Together they counted softly to three and swung open the great double doors to Lady Love’s quarters.

The room glowed faintly in the pale morning light, curtains drawn tight against the dawn. The air held the fragrance of crushed petals and perfume from the night before. They did not look at the bed immediately, they never did.

Habit sent them gliding into their practiced routine: Sorcha to the curtains, yanking them back so the light flooded in like a flood of gold, Maeve to the bathing chamber where water already steamed,
Niamh collecting all the stockings and corsets misplaced by Lady Love’s sisters, and Cliodhna, who had been studying springtime rituals, went to Lady Love’s walk-in closet, pulling underskirts and delicate gloves from their velvet-lined drawers.

She hummed happy that the others finally let her choose their queens’ attire. Her careful hands smoothed a white gown she had chosen herself to the queen for the morning after the birth of spring. Off-shoulder, painted with flowers rising delicately from the hem, a ribboned hat waiting to tie beneath the chin, a short veil that their ladyship could use to cover her eyes from the sunlight. She hummed under her breath as she carried it reverently to the bed.

She smoothed her apron nervously, the way one might before touching a relic, and reached to lay her hand gently on the covers, to wake the queen, as she often does. Her fingers however met not the warmth of a sleeping Eoster, but air.

The hum cut off at once. Her brows knit, lips parting in confusion. She pressed down harder, patting the space as though the bed might reveal its secret if only she searched more firmly. The sound of rustling sheets drew the others’ attention, and when they turned, they found her on all fours, bonnet askew, tossing pillows and clawing back the fine embroidered coverlet.

“What in Dream’s name—” Niamh burst out, eyes widening.

“Sweet suffering Dream—she’s not here!” Cliodhna’s voice shook, half-hysterical. “Lady Love has disappeared!”

The three others froze mid-step the polished discipline of maids cracking like porcelain.

Within seconds they were scattering in different directions — Sorcha diving behind the curtains, before opening and closing them as in a magic trick they might appear. Niamh rifling frantically through
gowns as if Lady Love might be hidden among silks and lace, Maeve splashed her hand in the bathtub as their royal highness might be drowning.

“She is not here,” Maeve intoned, straightening up.

“She might have been kidnapped,” Sorcha blurted, eyes wide.

“Don’t say that!” Cliodhna squeaked, clutching a pillow to her chest as though it might ward off doom.

“It happened to our lord before, didn’t it?” Sorcha pressed on, red hair flying as she gestured wildly. “Snatched by some mortal lunatic. What’s to stop them kidnapping her too?”

“Girls!” Niamh snapped, arms flailing as she tried to rein them in. “No, no, we mustn’t panic. There’s a perfectly good explanation.”

“Really?” Sorcha arched a brow. “And what would that be?”

“Well…” Niamh faltered, eyes darting. “Maybe… she’s with the King.”

Sorcha barked a laugh. “Doing what, exactly? Fighting till dawn? They can’t stand to be in the same room for more than five minutes.”

Cliodhna’s eyes went round, lips pressed tight in scandal. “Don’t say that! They’ve been… different these past days.”

“Different?” Sorcha smirked. “Aye, after that hallway screaming-match about bastards and bloodlines? If that’s different, I’ll take the old way.”

Maeve gave a slow blink, gaze solemn. “Then she is really kidnapped. And they will blame us.”

Cliodhna squealed, dropping the pillow, bonnet slipping forward into her eyes. “We’re doomed!”

“Look, let’s look for Elijah, aye?” Niamh hissed, eyes darting about.

There was a collective groan, a ripple of violent headshakes, skirts rustling like a chorus of disapproval.

“Let’s be smart about it,” Sorcha argued, jabbing a finger in the air. “If we go to Elijah and Lady Love is just sleepin’ in with those miniature nightmares she calls nephews and nieces, or curled up with her sisters, he’ll give us a forty–minute lecture in paying attention.” She imitated his nasal severity so well that the others snorted behind their hands.

“So I say we look around first and then go to him.”

“That is actually a good idea,” Cliodhna admitted, as if it pained her.

So off they went, pattering through the hushed palace corridors, their slippers scuffing against marble in a syncopated rhythm, like a flock of unruly doves. They peeked first into the nursery, only to find the children soundly abed, dreaming away, their limbs flung wide in angelic abandon. No sign of their aunt.

Lady Melancholy was in her chambers, pale as porcelain, wrapped in her silks like a statue draped for mourning.

The others, however, were strewn about in far less dignified fashion.

Lady Happiness had collapsed upon the grand stair in a scandalous tangle with her husband, Lord Lugh, both dead to the world. Lady Honesty and Pride had fallen asleep entwined upon a chaise longue, their elaborate gowns spilling to the carpet, their husbands curled like hounds at their feet, one of them looking like he pissed himself with the globet of wine spilled into his pants.
In the drawing–rooms, some proteges and favored guests were already awake. They plucked harps and sang lilting folk songs in the languid morning hush, the music threading gently through the corridors like incense. Beyond, the greater halls bore the wreckage of festivity: goblets overturned, petals crushed into the tiles, abandoned fans and gloves left like offerings to the night.
Many still lay where the revelry had conquered them, sprawled in regal disarray. Some had wisely departed after the solstice rite, the dance of Lady Love, the cascade of petals, the animals waking from hibernation, the solemn proclamation of spring.

The Endless had vanished into their duties, as had Titania and Auberon and other high busy entities who could not linger long.

Yet plenty remained to be seen, and the maids elbowed each other, stifling snickers, tiptoeing past each scene. Their usual serene and boring castle, now a gallery of exhausted grandeur and absurdity.
Two river–spirits, still in their ceremonial robes, slumbered upright in a fountain long drained, their heads lolling against the stone basin. A dragon lord, coronet still glittering upon his brow, snored thunderously in the banqueting hall, face pressed into a platter of sugared plums, his scaled tail twitching like a cat’s.

“Would you look at him,” Sorcha whispered, nodding toward the war-god. “Fell asleep mid-bite. That’s what I call dedication.”

Cliodhna pressed her hand to her mouth, scandalised and delighted in equal measure. “Stop looking! We’ll be hexed.”

They gave up the search before long, muttering darkly of doom, and decided with dread to face Elijah.

And found him, not lecturing, controlling chaos with his usual brisk authority or judging other entities, no. He was slumped against a marble pillar, arms folded, chin tipped down. His curls flopped rakishly over his brow, his wings tucked in with the careless ease of exhaustion. The guardian and terror of dreammaids, looked for all the world like a schoolboy who’d nodded off after his lessons.

The girls exchanged horrified glances.

To be this relaxed, there was only one plausible explanation.

Cliodhna clutched Maeve’s arm, eyes wide as saucers. “Oh, Dream save us. He’s dead.”

Maeve tilted her head, braid slipping forward like a pendulum. Her expression was solemn, almost studious. “Aye, He might be dead,” she said, as calmly as if remarking on the weather.

Sorcha folded her arms, unimpressed. “She might be right.”

Cliodhna gave a strangled squeak, curls trembling as she clutched her apron to her chest. “If he’s dead, we’ll be blamed! Lord Morpheus will cast us into the darkness, gone in a puff of smoke—I knew it!”

Niamh spun on her heel, exasperation written all over her. “Don’t be ridiculous! Things like this don’t just—don’t just happen.”

Maeve blinked slowly, unfazed. “Things like this happen all the time in these things.”

Niamh squinted at her. “Really? And how many ‘things’ have you actually been present for, Maeve?”

Maeve leaned closer, dropping her voice to a grave whisper. “Our Dream Lord has entrusted me with knowledge of these matters.”

Sorcha snorted. “Knowledge? You fainted dead away last week trying to lace a corset.”

Cliodhna let out another high-pitched squeak, pointing a trembling finger. “There’s a—oh Dream preserve us—there’s a wet glimmer at his mouth! He’s foaming! He’s cursed!”

She flapped her hand as if to ward off evil, bonnet sliding dangerously low.

“Maybe he’s seeing visions,” Niamh said desperately. “Cupids might see visions—”

“They don’t,” Maeve cut in, serene as ever.

Cliodhna gasped, dramatic as an opera soprano. “He’s already seen us plotting to wake him and is preparing to roast our insides alive!”

Sorcha tilted her head, squinting. “If he were dead, his wings wouldn’t twitch like that.”

And indeed, the faintest flicker of movement betrayed life: a feather shivered as Elijah gave a soft snort, shifting his weight against the wall.

“But what if it’s, you know—” Maeve flapped both hands, helpless. “One of them sleeps–but–is–actually–dead things. You know, like maid Kathy said happened to that nightmare once.”

“Maid Kathy is a big fat liar, everyone knows that,” Sorcha retorted, though she, too, edged back a step.

They clustered together, skirts brushing, four heads peeking round Cliodhna’s shoulder, none daring to approach. Cliodhna, brave only in words, hissed, “Well somebody’s got to check!”

“What if we tap him?” Maeve suggested gravely.

“Tap him?” Cliodhna squealed. “He’ll cut our hands off!”

“Well, what do you suggest?”

Cliodhna wrung her hands, curls bouncing. “Fine. One tap. But we run for our lives after!”

Gathered in a trembling cluster, they shoved Maeve to the front. With exaggerated solemnity, she stretched out one long finger and gave Elijah’s shoulder the gentlest poke.

For a dreadful second, nothing.

Then Elijah stirred with a disgruntled snort, smacked his lips, and muttered something incoherent in his sleep.

The girls shrieked all at once and scrambled behind one another in a flurry of petticoats, nearly toppling in their panic. Maeve ended up crouched on the floor, Niamh clinging to Sorcha’s arm like a lifeline, and Cliodhna squashed between them all.

“That was the scariest shite I’ve ever done in my life,” Sorcha whispered, clutching at her chest.

“Girls.”

The voice sliced through their panic like a blade.

They froze.

Lucienne stood just behind them, arms folded, spectacles glinting, expression sharp enough to cut stone.

“Why,” she said coolly, “are you four loitering here instead of assisting Lady Love?”

The silence that followed was so taut one could hear the faint drip of water in the fountain across the hall.

“Do not say a word,” Sorcha muttered under her breath.

“We’ve got to stick together,” Niamh hissed.

“Aye,” Maeve nodded gravely. “No surrender to the enemy.”

Cliodhna bobbed her head. “Whatever happens, we back each other up.”

They turned as one, plastering shaky smiles on their faces.

Niamh cleared her throat, voice sweet as honey. “Good morning, Mrs. Lucienne.”

Sorcha chimed in. “Aye, grand spring day, isn’t it? Lady Love really outdid herself.” How could she tell? She had never been to a Spring Solstice but it sounded right.

Maeve nodded solemnly, while Cliodhna turned red as a beet, cheeks puffing as if she might burst.

Niamh nudged her. “Say something.”

Lucienne’s eyes narrowed. “Cliodhna, is everything all right?”

“LADY LOVE WASN’T THERE AND WE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO DO AND SHE’S PROBABLY KIDNAPPED AND LORD MORPHEUS IS GOING TO SEND US TO THE DARKNESS AND I DIDN’T WANT TO WAKE ELIJAH BUT MAEVE DID AND IT’S ALL THEIR FAULT, I SWEAR IT WASN’T ME, IT WAS THEM, IF ANYONE SHOULD BE PUNISHED IT IS THEM!”

She blurted it all in one breath, bonnet sliding forward until it nearly covered her eyes.

The other three gaped at her.

“What happened to solidarity?” Niamh squeaked.

Lucienne sighed with all the weary authority of a long–suffering abbess.

“Honestly,” she declared, voice dripping disdain, “it’s barely dawn…”

Lucienne’s gaze narrowed. She snapped her fingers once, sharply.

“Elijah.”

No response.

Lucienne did not rush. She placed her books neatly on a side table, then stepped toward Elijah’s slumped form. With all the dignity of a headmistress waking a delinquent pupil, she extended one finger .

She poked again—sharper.

He snorted, head lolling, but still no proper stir.

Her lips pressed thin, she delivered a third, firm jab.

Elijah jerked upright with a strangled gasp, wings flaring wide, feathers scattering faint dust into the golden shafts of light. He blinked, smoothing his coat, patting his curls as though he’d been awake all
along. “Lucienne!” His voice was far too bright.

“Sweet dreams, Cupid?” Lucienne gave him a sarcastic smile. “Is that what you meant by keeping strong vigilance in our king and queen?”

A silence followed, sharp as glass.

From the huddle of skirts behind him came a muttered, unmistakable: “Busted”.

Lucienne’s head snapped round. Niamh was glaring daggers at Sorcha, Sorcha pretending to study the floor, Cliodhna’s face was a mask of guilty terror and Maeve checking the hem of her apron with very dedicated interest.

Elijah cleared his throat, standing straighter now, wings settling. Glaring at the dreammaids, he would deal with them in a second. “What do you want, Lucienne?”

“Where is the Queen?” she asked, unimpressed.

He raised an eyebrow “Where is the King?”

Lucienne’s expression sharpened into a blade. “Retired to solitude, as he does. Which means you are about to tell me exactly where Lady Love is.”

Elijah coughed, tugging at his lapels “And are you certain of this?”

As Lucienne opened her mouth to answer.

Matthew swooped down from the rafters, feathers all askew. For a brief second the librarian looked relived, as Matthew showing up was proof of Lord Morpheus being around.

Little did the poor librarian know.

“There you are! Been looking everywhere—can’t find the boss or the boss lady. They’ve both scarpered.”

The dreammaids gasped, clutching each other like a chorus of fainting damsels.

“Kidnapped!” Maeve whispered.

“Or trapped in a dungeon!” Niamh squealed.

Cliodhna fanned herself wildly, she looked paler and breathier than usual. “We’ll cease to exist, won’t we? Girls, I really don’t feel great, I feel kinda shaky, I think my blood sugar is dangerously low.” She gulped, loosing a bit of balance “I can’t feel my hands. Do you feel my hands, Niamh? I think I’m already fading!”

“That’s not how it works!” Niamh snapped.

Elijah clapped his hands sharply, wings bristling. “Enough! You will not cease to exist. Compose yourselves.”

The girls stiffened, though Sorcha still muttered, “Easy for you to say…”

Elijah glared at them, with the kinda of look the at could actually freeze a soul “Since you appear to be wandering about aimlessly,” he said, voice smooth as silk yet edged with steel, “it would serve a greater purpose if you applied yourselves where your… exuberance might be of use.”

The four maids stiffened as one, the air instantly colder.

“The nursery,” he said simply, folding his arms. “Lady Love’s sisters brought their blessed progeny, and their nursemaids are surely overrun. Who better to assist than four alert, competent dreammaids who are wasting their energy on commentary?”

Niamh squinted. “So we’re bein’ punished, then?”

“Not punishment,” Elijah said quickly, wings giving a nervous twitch. “Entrustment. A noble charge! Nothing more perilous than a child with sticky hands.”
“Oh no. No no no.” Maeve shook her head so hard her curls bounced. “Not them. Not again.”

Cliodhna whimpered. “Lady Pride’s son nearly took my eye out yesterday with a toy sword.”

“And the tall girl with the ribbons pulled half the nurse’s hair clean out!” Sorcha added. “I saw the clump in her fist. Grinning like a little demon she was.”

“They bite,” Niamh declared gravely, crossing herself. “Actual bites. Teeth marks.”

“Assist the nursemaids with the children, chop, chop!” he repeated, with all the solemnity of a death sentence.

Lucienne arched an eyebrow. “You would prefer I assign you elsewhere?”

“Yes!” the four chorused, seizing on the faintest shred of hope.

“Something less violent,” Maeve suggested.

“Something quiet,” Sorcha begged.

“Something without children!” Cliodhna nearly shrieked.

“They’re not children,” Niamh whispered darkly. “They’re entities.”

Matthew snorted from his perch. “Oh, for pity’s sake, they’re just kids.”

“Kids?” Maeve turned on him like he’d grown two heads. “You didn’t see the one that kicked the nanny in the shins and sang while he did it. Like a battle chant.”

“They don’t blink proper either,” Cliodhna added.

“Right.” Elijah clapped his hands sharply, startling them all. “Enough. You’ll go to the nursery or Lucienne will put you in the library reshelving dust-coated tomes until the end of days. Your choice.”

The maids exchanged another look of dread.”Better than bites” Sorcha said, ready to choose books instead of children. Which knowing Sorcha she choosing books over anything was quite strange.

Elijah overheard them and raised an eyebrow “Did I forget to mention these books might also contain evil spirits who may or may not not haunt you for the rest of your dreammaid life?” He looked at them
“So what is going to be? A few bites or being haunted for life?”

Lucienne gestured imperiously down the hall. “Move.”

And instantly all four crumbled, wailing over each other in protest as they shuffled off toward the nursery, lamenting their fate like martyrs heading to execution.

Finally alone, Lucienne raised her eyebrow “Well?”

Elijah scoffed “Well you. You also don’t know where our lord is.”

“He told me to accompany Thessaly out of the solstice I came back he wasnt here, and he usually likes to avoid crowds and guests so I assumed he recoil to solitude. But you have no excuse.”
Elijah rubbed his eyes furiously as though that might disguise the fact he had been very much asleep.

“The last time I saw her,” he muttered, “was right through that door. I was keeping watch—”

Lucienne’s brows lifted. “What door?”

“That one!” Elijah gestured, a bit too dramatically, at the blank stretch of wall. “Don’t you dare tell me I imagined it—”

Matthew tilted his head, wings rustling. “Uh… mate, there’s definitely no door there. Been here a while, I’d have noticed.”

Elijah bristled, colour rising in his cheeks. “I’m not mad. She passed through, I swear it.”

Lucienne sighed, arms folding. “No, not mad. She wanted solitude. The Dreaming bends to her—though not so easily as it does to Lord Morpheus. It could have sealed itself behind her.”

Matthew gave a low whistle. “So… she is now probably locked somewhere and will only come out when feeling better? Brilliant. Great”

“She would have gone somewhere private,” Lucienne pressed. “Think. What place would she choose?”

They began to throw out possibilities: the Library, the children’s quarters, one of her sisters’ lodgings. Each suggestion Lucienne dismissed with a small shake of her head.

Finally, she said, almost reluctantly: “Her private garden.”

Elijah scoffed, quick to cut her off. “The dead one? Please. She would loathe the sight of it. It’s—” He faltered, thinking it over, then grimaced. “Well. It is the one place no one would disturb her.”

Lucienne’s eyes narrowed, but she inclined her head. “Precisely.”

Matthew flapped up to hover above them. “Right, then. I suppose that means we’re trudging through the creepy dead garden. Fantastic.”

Elijah straightened his coat, regaining his composure. “From the outside. I know a passage.”

Lucienne corrected him dryly: “I know the passage.”

Matthew chuckled. “Oh, this’ll be fun.”

And with that, the three set off, the weight of unease thickening with every step toward the garden’s forgotten edge.

—————
The garden woke before she did, blossoms opening to the first rays of dawn, petals drifting down like confetti upon the black coat beneath them. Dream had not closed his eyes once through the night.

He remained as she had asked, still inside her, holding her, a sentinel against every shadow that might disturb her sleep.

At last, Love stirred. Her lashes lifted languidly, and with a drowsy smile she whispered, “Good morning.”

He pressed his lips to her temple, his voice a murmur against her skin. “Good morning, my dream.”

She shifted slightly in his arms, and a faint sound escaped her, not of displeasure, but of the muted ache left in the wake of their joining. Her thighs pressed closer together, her body instinctively protective of its tenderness. Dream felt it, the subtle clench around him, the tension betraying her soreness.

“You are sore,” he observed, though it was more compassion than question.

She nodded reluctantly, eyes still heavy with sleep. “A little. But… I don’t want you to leave me.”

“I will not,” he vowed.

Yet he knew her flesh would not thank him if he lingered longer. With infinite care he slipped from her, and she let out a soft, half-conscious complaint at the sudden emptiness.

His hand soothed over her hip as he whispered low, “I am here.”

Then his touch wandered lower, fingers replacing the absence he had left. He cupped her tender flesh, two fingers parting her with slow reverence, stroking the swollen softness of her folds. His movements were unhurried, not to ignite desire but to ease the ache — pressing gently where she was most sensitive, circling where the tension was greatest.

She turned within his arms, her back pressed to his chest, and let her body melt into him, her hand closing over his forearm as though to anchor him there. With every slow pass of his fingers, the lingering tightness yielded, her muscles relaxing, the ache fading into something closer to relief.

A sigh left her lips, deeper than sleep, almost content. “Better,” she whispered, half-dreaming still.

Dream bent and kissed the crown of her hair, his free arm holding her firmly against him as his fingers continued their patient ministrations. Around them the Garden responded, the trees releasing a quiet rain of petals until the black of his coat was almost hidden beneath white and crimson petals.

————-

Lucienne, Matthew and Elijah took the outside route. From the front entrance, to the left side of the palace, since the Dreaming proved unwilling to help either the librarian or the Cupid to find the hidden passages to the queen’s garden.

“It still rankles me,” Elijah muttered, his laced shoe getting mud on the light pink ribbon thanks to the damp ground from last night storm “that our lord sent you to escort the witch. What was he talking to her anyway? And during our queen’s solstice, trying to ignite an old flame...”

Lucienne’s step never faltered. “Ignite? Where did you get that idea?” she repeated, her voice clipped. “If anything he extinguish it for good.”

That earned a startled beat of silence.

Matthew nearly lost his grip on the beam. “Sorry—what now?”

Elijah blinked, his suspicion still evident. “I saw her touching him, and I am pretty sure Lady Love saw it too.” ‘And anyone with eyes’ he wanted to add but remained too curious to provoke Lucienne.

“Deliberate but uninvited touches. ” Lucienne said crisply. “She presumed too much. Spoke vilely of Lady Love, in terms I will not repeat. She sought to tempt our lord. He did not yield. Not even flinch at it.”

Elijah’s mouth parted, then closed. He shook his head, curls bouncing. “He… refused Thessaly?”

Lucienne shot him a glance over her spectacles. “Do not sound so incredulous, Cupid.”

“I simply thought—” he began, but checked himself, lips pursed. “Well. Perhaps I misjudged him.”

Matthew ruffled his feathers, muttering, “About time someone saw sense.”

They pressed on. Elijah’s expression had grown grave. “Lady Love doesn’t know this, and she was distressed last night, after having to endure the moth queen being as improper as one would expect of her kind.”

“Moth Queen?” Matthew asked.

“Titania” Elijah and Lucienne almost spoke unison.

“She may not be well." Elijah said with finality. "Be kind.”

Lucienne’s brows knit, but she said nothing.

They nearly passed the garden door without realizing what they’d walked into.

For where once there had been only a blackened ruin, there was now a riot of green. Blossoms glowed in every hue, vines arched into living trellises, butterflies wheeled in slow golden spirals. Droplets clung to every petal, trembling like crystal tears.

Lucienne halted, staring. “Is this—? The dead garden?”

Matthew tilted his head, feathers rustling. “Looks bloody alive to me. Maybe spring gave it a kickstart.”

Elijah stepped closer, eyes narrowing as the rain–beads slid languorously down silken petals, every curve of stem and unfurling bud glistening with a sensual weight. It felt a bit too erotic for a normal bloom.

Even the Cupid's face tinted red, voice dropped, almost reverent. “No. Springtime only blooms what is dormant, not dead, this-...”

He never finished.

“Oi!” Matthew squawked, wings beating as he darted ahead. “There she is!” Through the drifting blossoms, a dark crown of curls was just visible, half–buried in petals. The staff surged forward in relief, turneing a corner around a hedge of golden camellias.

“My lady!” Elijah exclaimed “We are so glad to have found you—we feared you were—” finally letting out that he actually worried just like the the dreammaids afraid she was kidnapped or entraped.

Behind him, Lucienne walked straight into him with an annoyed "Elijah!" before she followed his stunned gaze... and turned to stone.

There was a moment — too long — where the three of them just stood there, blinking.

Because it took a second to register what, exactly, they were seeing: Two figures lay entwined upon the grass, pale limbs lost amid the flowers, dark hair against white skin, the petals scattered like a painted veil. Love’s back against Dream’s chest, his body pressed flush to hers. Her hand holding his forearm that curved lower, unmistakably buried in the softness between her thighs, slow and reverent in movement, easing the ache he knew he had left upon her, her thigh hooked over his hip. She stirred faintly, not resisting, a soft sound on her lips that stirred something perilously tender in him.

Both utterly unbothered by the outside world.

Elijah’s words strangled into silence. Lucienne froze mid–stride, turned scarlet beneath her calm exterior. Matthew gave a very undignified squawk.

“Good morning” Lady Eoster said, stirring not in panic, turning her face toward them, her voice was calm, almost amused as her posture. She didn’t seem bothered by how her wild curls fell from her shoulder exposing her chest nor the interruptions.

As if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, like the sight of her entangled in the king’s arms was routine. Not the usual tense cold war between them.
Her hand tightened gently over Morpheus’s, as though to anchor him, a light pressure, steady, sure. A command and a plea to not hide in shame.

To her, to be caught in complete vulnerable tenderness by their creations was not disgrace. Not weakness. It was something she could meet the world with calm. But for him, the exposure was unendurable.

Dream went still as stone. For one terrible heartbeat, it seemed he might rise in a storm of shadows.

To be seen not as Endless but as a man with his arms around his wife, to be caught during something sacred! He was not only stripped of every shield, but felt a bit possessive over his queen. She had opened to him so beautifully the night before, offering a sight meant only for him, not for others, and that included their creations.

He could not cover her. His coat lay beneath them, already strewn with blossoms. So he gathered her closer. Pressed her to him until her spine molded to his chest, until the curve of her body was hidden in his own.

His eyes found the intruders. Cold, unyielding.

“You will retreat.”

It was not a request.

Lucienne bowed her head at once, cheeks aflame. “My lord,” she murmured, already turning, every inch of her posture promising silence.

Matthew stumbled after her, muttering, “Yep, yep, right on boss, we’re going, didn’t see a thing—wasn’t here—” until Lucienne silenced him with a glare.

Elijah lingered a heartbeat longer. His eyes softened when they found Love, so unguarded, so serene, twined in arms that had never before held her so. He inclined his head, more solemn than usual, and followed the others out.

The petals settled again. Silence returned.

Love felt the tremor in Dream’s chest before she felt his eyes upon her. When she looked back at him, her eyes soft, soft in a way he did not deserve, she found the rawness in his gaze. Her cheeks bloomed with heat.

And with it, the dawning awareness that her cold, stoic, distant husband was not protecting her body or her pride, but this small, bright thing that was theirs alone.
The fragile, fleeting closeness that even now threatened to slip away if he faltered.

He held her tighter, as if the whole of creation might conspire to break it, and he alone could stand against it. And when she leaned into him, smiling through her blush, he thought perhaps, for once, he would not fail.

———
The three of them did not speak until they turned a corner away from the garden.

Lucienne adjusted her spectacles, her cheeks were still faintly pink but she kept her posture controlled. “We will not speak of this to anyone. Not a whisper. Not a glance. Our lord and ladyship deserve their privacy.” She calmly and orderly said to Elijah and Matthew.

The librarian had averted her gaze as soon as she understood the privacy she and the others had just invaded. However, the sight and especially Lady Love’s expression brought a warmth to her chest she could not quite smother.

“Bloody hell—was he—? I mean, his hand was right there and— I can’t unsee that!” Matthew squawked, wings flapping, voice rising with each word.

Lucienne ignored him, she still was thinking about the same young queen she had once found weeping outside a locked chamber, all silk torn and innocence lost, who Lucienne told it ‘would be better’ even if she knew Morpheus was unlikely to change, was now held, not spurned.

Cherished, not used.

And that same hand that she thought it would be impossible to change. The hand that once inflicted silence upon Lucienne’s lips now cradled Lady Love with trembling reverence.

“Is this normal? Like—the Boss just… do that in the middle of the roses?!” Matthew continued, oblivious.

Elijah was unusually quiet, gaze lingering on the garden door, looking dazed “ She smiled…” he said in low awed tone. Yes, Lady Love was often smiling, but the light in her eyes, that… hope, Elijah hadn’t seen it in… “Not since before their marriage.” He whispered quietly, almost reverently. “Do you realize it? It is- I never thought I would see it again.” He looked at Lucienne almost in disbelief, but couldn’t help but smile to himself. That unpracticed smile from Lady Love. The one who could give the universe a new rebirth, that comes not out of politeness or obligation, but simply because it should be there, simply because she feels like smiling.

Lucienne even if she felt the subject should not be spoken anymore, so it wouldn’t be subject of whispers and theories allowed herself a soft answer “Then may it remain.” A quiet pact of hope between the Cupid and the librarian.

Matthew waved his wings helplessly “I mean, I know they are… married, technically, but I thought that was just, y’know, frost and formality. Not—uh—full-on petal porn” .

With that, Elijah snapped out of his five second bliss, apparently all a Cupid is allowed these days.

After all, he couldn’t hear the bird call what they just witnessed a crass ‘petal porn’! His voice cut like a blade. “BIRD! One more squeak and I will give you to the dreammaids to make raven soup for dinner!”

Matthew squeaked and fell silent, muttering under his breath. “At least it was us, imagine if any guests saw them”

Elijah was ready to make it right on his promise and take Matthew to the oven, but Lucienne immediately realized what they had forgotten. “The Solstice!”

The Cupid slapped his own face, sighing holding the bridge of his nose “May love guide our hearts… There are two days yet of solstice celebrations.”

Lucienne sighed, reluctant but acknowledging the truth “Guests will wander, and some will find paths not meant for them.” She looked over the raven and Elijah. “Not all who seek hidden places do so innocently.”

Elijah nodded. Sisters, aunts, entities, loose tongue Cupids and Titania’s moths that still linger around to bring hot gossip to her ears. Elijah wondered where Cluracan was, probably in some random gods’ bed like the harlot he was.

But Elijah could bet his left wing that if that moth scented there was some private sacred lovemaking happening in the Dreaming by the ever so modest and prudish king and queen, he would be sniffing the walls until find it. He sighed “We need to warn them.”

———-
The petals had not yet settled when the trio reappeared, hesitant at the edge of the clearing, with the back to the couple, giving them the due privacy and respect.

“My lord. My lady. Forgive the intrusion, once again but it is a matter of urgency. There are two more days of solstice. The guests… Some of them are skilled at finding hidden places. If you remain here…” She let the implication hang delicately.

Matthew flapped again, awkwardly. “What she means is—you should, y’know, move. To somewhere, uh—private. Like the boss’ quarters, maybe? Big bed. Locks on the doors. You’d be—”

“No,” Love said at once, her voice sharp as a blade drawn across velvet, her body stiffening with her voice.

Matthew’s beak clicked shut. Even Lucienne blinked at the suddenness of it.

She did not explain. She did not need to. The thought of that bed, that room, where her body had been used, where walls had soaked in their battles where she had spent nights looking at the darkness of the ceiling, waiting for it to be over, waiting to be loved, telling her own self that at least he was there, the uninvited tears that stained the linen… It was enough to make her chest tighten.

And Morpheus felt it. Through the bond, it came to him that surge of memory not his own, bitter and unrelenting. He closed his eyes. His arm tightened around her.

Then he bent his head, pressed his lips to her temple. “Forgive me”, he whispered, though not seeking absolution, but promising he would never again lay that burden upon her. It was a vow disguised as a plea.

Love trembled. Her hand rose to cup his cheek. She could not forgive him. The wounds have already scarred. He couldn’t erase their past, even if it was now what he most wanted. But she understood it.
He was not asking for the past to be undone, but promising to build a different future.

And so, when he turned his face to hers, she met him in a reverent kiss. An acceptance, not of pardon, but of promise.

She would never again accept less than this.

A vow sealed not in words but in the very flow of their bond.

The garden seemed to hush around them.

Until Matthew cleared his throat. “Uh—boss? We’re still… right here.”

Matthew’s cough still lingered in the air when Love, cheeks warm, drew back slightly from her husband. She smoothed her hair, not out of shame, but to gather her thoughts.

“Perhaps… we should go to my realm” At first she sounded uncertain, but as the words left her mouth she was more sure of it. “Most of my court children are here in the Dreaming. There would be privacy. And quiet. We can say that we had urgent business that required our indivisible attention” She finished softly speaking, meeting no one’s eyes but his, looking over her lashes, her hair falling over her shoulders.

The words hung delicate as a blossom in the air. He had never come to her realm, although by marriage, he was king of the Garden of Lovers. Love never forbade him, Dream himself never wanted to come. And asking him to go to visit his now realm by marriage, felt too embarrassing, like she was asking for something so basic but at the same time that she knew he would deny, if he responded at all.

So the Garden had been hers alone, not by choice.

The only place untouched by his shadow.

Morpheus stilled. His eyes darkened, unreadable, but she felt the flicker through the bond: hesitation, fear, then the ache of longing.

At last, he inclined his head, voice low and solemn. “Wheater my queen desires I shall follow” A pause, and softer still, a promise “And we will spend these days together.”
Her breath caught. A smile curved at her lips, tender and disbelieving, slightly furrowing her brows “Are you promising me a honeymoon, my lord?”
His gaze searched hers. He did not smile, but his fingers brushed her cheek, reverent. “Yes.”

Lucienne bowed, relief plain in her posture. Elijah lowered his eyes, but a ghost of a smile touched his mouth, quiet satisfaction. And Matthew muttered, “Better than a walk-in show in the gardens, anyway…” before being silenced again by one single glance from Lucienne.

But Love hardly noticed. Her hand slipped into her husband’s, their fingers interlacing as though they had never fit before.
Lucienne cleared her throat, carefully measured. “My lord, my lady… forgive me again, but the matter of the guests remains. They expect your presence, or at least your attention. We cannot simply leave them to their own devices.”

Elijah folded his arms. His voice was gentle, but firm. “Many will wander. Many will test boundaries. Without the monarchs’ watch, mischief will find its way into the Dreaming.”

Matthew flapped his wings nervously. “Yeah, uh, not to be that guy, but if you two vanish, it’s us left juggling gods, kings, and cosmic big-shots who are curing hangovers with more wine. We can’t exactly tell them, ‘Sorry, Lord Dream’s on his honeymoon.’”

Love’s lips curved faintly. “Urgent business, you mean, dear raven”

Matthew sputtered. “My lady, you don’t say that to guests like Zeus and Loki and whoever else is out there! They’ll—” He caught Dream’s glare and snapped his beak shut.

Dream’s hand tightened around Love’s. His tone was final, quiet but implacable. “You will see the guests. They will be entertained. They will not intrude.”

His eyes, dark and bottomless, flicked to each of them in turn. “Should any test the Dreaming’s bounds, they will find them unyielding.”

Lucienne inclined her head, accepting the command though she still looked uneasy. “As you wish, my lord.”

Elijah’s gaze lingered on Love, not Dream, as he said softly, “We will protect what is yours.”

The staff parted at last, reluctant yet obedient, each carrying with them their own weight of concern for the guests that remained. Lucienne’s stride was brisker than usual, though her spectacles betrayed the faintest tremor. Elijah muttered under his breath about moths and gossip, already devising strategies. Even Matthew, for once, held his tongue, wings tucked tightly as he flew off with a mutinous huff.

And then—silence.

The garden breathed again, blossoms swaying in the lingering warmth of what had been shared.

Love shifted where she reclined, stretching like a cat in a patch of sun, her hair spilling across her bare shoulders. She turned onto her side to face him, laying her head on her stretched arm, her lips still curved faintly in that smile that hadn’t left since their kiss. Dream lay close, propped on an elbow, his eyes tracing her with a quiet reverence. His fingers idly wandered over her skin, drawing lazy, abstract patterns along the curve of her hip, the inside of her arm.

“You never came to the Garden,” she murmured, voice quiet but edged with something more than curiosity.

His hand stilled against her skin.

“I did not wish to claim it. As I did not wish to claim you.” The words dropped low, heavy.

Her gaze did not waver. “It wasn’t only that” Eoster’s tone carried certainty. She had watched him too closely, for too many years, not to know.

Even if Morpheus never opened himself to her emotionally, she spent a long time trying to learn, to understand him, to make sense of his actions. She observed him for all their marriage. At first, to try to coax some tenderness from him, to please him, as she learned as a young maiden to be what she should do when finding her husband distant, uncarrying and favoring mistresses. Desire told her that.

Later, the knowledge was the fuel exacerbated by wine to provoke him, to fight, to get any sort of reaction from him.

Her lips curved, not quite a smile.“You thought it was frivolous. A place of endless chatter, veiled manipulations, empty etiquette, filled with court games. As you thought of me.”

He did not deny it. A silence, taut as a blade’s edge, served as his answer.

Her breath caught—half expecting the sharp retreat she knew so well. But instead, his thumb resumed its slow circle against her wrist.

“Sometimes…” His voice rasped like sand, the words almost reluctant, shy in admitting care. He wasn’t used to being vulnerable let alone with her “I wished to see you.”

She frowned, slightly caught between disbelief and startlement.

“But it was too late. We had forged silence into a weapon. I would not turn your realm into another battlefield. Nor subject you to the pity of your own creations.”

Her composure faltered, lips parting. She had expected excuses, evasion, perhaps some distant lordly excuse. The husband she knew. Not this.

“I knew what appearances meant to you,” he said, his gaze lowering, voice roughened. His hand slid up her arm “How you loathed pity. I learned it. Unwillingly.”

Her head tilted, curiosity beneath her poise. “Unwillingly?”

He hesitated, as though pulling words through thorns. He hated that she wanted to know, that she was paying attention, but he also knew that she should know.

“I did not wish to know you,” he confessed at last. “Not your ways, nor your thoughts, nor the masks you wore. To know them was to admit you pressed upon me” his mouth tightened “Enough to move me. And I feared that-”

She stilled, watching him, the pulse of the bond tightening like a thread between them.

“I thought every glance, every word, was a scheme to rule through me. To let you in was to be undone.” His eyes finally met hers, dark and unguarded. “And yet… I did learn you. Against my will, I did. I could not keep you from seeping in.”

The silence lingered. She did not rush to fill it. His words lay between them like fragile glass, and she, uncharacteristically, did not shatter it with wit nor reproach. She only breathed, slow and steady, letting the bond pull and ache.

At length, she stirred. Rising from her languor, she smoothed her hair back and let her eyes roam the moss about them. “We should get dressed,” she said at last, her tone composed, almost brisk.

She turned slightly, scanning for her gown. The lush green leaves, and furious blooming flowers, working to hide it, almost as if they want to conspire against them leaving. Finally Her hand brushed the folds of a once-upon-a-time white fabric, now covered in mud, half-hidden in the grass. But before she could gather it, his voice stilled her.

“Let me.”

Her head turned. He had not moved, save for the way his dark eyes held hers—earnest, unguarded.

She frowned faintly, caught between wariness and surprise. “You would dress me?” The words carried both disbelief and a note of irony, it wasn’t supposed to be a question but the tone of disbelief was undeniable.

He inclined his head once. Not command, but request. “If you will allow me.”

For a heartbeat, she only looked at him. Dream, who had taken and commanded, who had never asked. Love could feel the heat on her cheeks, to be dressed by his hands was way more intimate than the shared nudity of them.

Slowly, she let her hand away from the gown. “Very well.”

He rose then, sand stirring about his fingers, drifting like smoke. When he touched her shoulder, the grains poured over her skin, delicate as breath, weaving fabric where they passed.

She held still, her heart quickening, half-expecting—half-dreading—the cut of black silk, his color, lace drawn tight, transparency on the sides, low neckline, a man’s vision of his wife.

But the fabric was light, almost luminous. A gown of pale blue, edged in silver, the hue of starlight seen through water. The skirts flowed like ripples, translucent only in the barest suggestion at the movement of her legs, unnoticeable for anyone but him. The boat neckline dipped modestly, yet the back bared to the curve of her spine. Proper, graceful, undeniably hers, yet with discreet traces of him woven in.

Her gaze traveled down the gown, fingertips brushing one of the skirts that clung like water-light. “I thought,” she murmured, half-smiling, half-bewildered, “that you would have dressed me in tight silk and shadows, edged with lace.” A dress of a man’s desire, almost not different from modest lingerie.

He regarded her, unreadable. His eyes held the faintest shimmer of acknowledgment, a weight heavier than any words. The slow brush of his fingers along her arm, tracing patterns only he could feel, spoke more than any explanation.

Something in her chest trembled at the silence. She drew a breath, steadying herself, eyes sparkling with curiosity. “May I?”

His brow arched, but he did not withdraw. “If that is your wish”.

The lingering sand obeyed her touch as she brushed her fingers along his arm. His raiment shifted, darkness pooling and reforming like ink in water. Black as midnight, as was his essence—yet subtly altered beneath her hand. His coat bore a faint damask pattern, visible only when the light caught it. The collar softened, no longer sharp, opening to reveal the long line of his throat. She lingered, fingertips grazing the hollow, betraying more than propriety would allow.

When she withdrew, he looked down at himself, then back at her. Her lips curved in a playful, wistful smile. She closed the distance between them, hands resting lightly against his chest, and slowly lowered her lips to his exposed throat, just beneath his ear.

Her voice was low, soft, carrying a note of deliberate mischief. “I hope… you will allow me some indulgence,” she whispered, letting each word linger. Her lips brushed the spot she had discovered drew a quickened pulse, a teasing invitation. She lingered, letting him feel the warmth, the deliberate brush she knew would draw him in.

For a heartbeat, he did not move, did not breathe. The world contracted to that single, warm contact. A sharp, unfamiliar ache prickled beneath his stoic veneer, tight and electric. That she wanted access to him, that she chose to tease him in such a private way was a temptation he could neither command nor deny.

He did not flinch, but every small shift of his hand, every brush of his fingers against hers, was attuned, aware, and claiming. Their fingers interlaced naturally, a quiet acknowledgment of the invitation.

He looked down at her, dark eyes assessing, aware of every subtle motion, every carefully placed intention. A pulse of heat coiled low and slow, a desire restrained but undeniable, a recognition of the pleasure in being wanted so reverently, so daringly

The sand stirred at their feet, curling around them in golden swirls, intimate and obedient, wrapping them in a private corridor leading toward her true Garden. As it carried them forward, Love glanced at him, noting the soft damask of his coat, the exposed line of his throat, and the way he did not flinch under her gaze.

Dream, in turn, observed her with measured reverence, but beneath it, something taut and keen stirred—an awareness of her body, her intent, the subtle teasing that made the air between them shimmer. The pastel blue of her gown flowed about her like water, light, ethereal, unmistakably hers, yet shaped subtly by his hand, hints of his desire woven quietly into its folds. He did not indulge as boldly as she did, but the depth of his want was no less present. Patient and taut, a desire quietly coiled in the space between them.

Chapter Text

The first step into the Garden of Lovers was like crossing into another world. Dream felt it immediately: the air grew dense with fragrance: roses, peonies, jasmine, sweet but never suffocating. The light was different, softened and warm, tinted rose and gold, falling through veils of leaves that glowed as if they were stained glass.

Dream stood for a moment, utterly still, his black cloak a dark stroke against the soft blaze of color, allowing his gaze to roam. Eoster felt how new the landscape was to him, and to signal him that they should move, that there was much to see, she slipped her hand into the curve of his arm. Instantly the realm responded, and the king noticed: blossoms tilting toward her, grass thickening at her feet, petals drifting down as if to crown her steps, a cluster of pale violets bloomed in the space where her hem brushed the ground, their fragrance suddenly present in the air. Wherever she stepped, the Garden reverently responded.

Although it stretched before him in sweeping abundance, it was far from wild. Each cluster of flowers, each turn of path was designed to delight the eye. Pathways of pale marble curved through fields of velvet grass, their lines softened by moss and jeweled with flowers springing up in clusters. Roses were endless, overflowing, climbing in arches and pouring across trellises, their blossoms in shades of blush, ivory, crimson, and gold. Cherry boughs bent under clouds of blossom, sending petals falling in delicate, unbroken showers. Everywhere vines reached, curling into columns and wrapping balustrades, as though stone and nature had conspired to decorate one another.

Fountains spilled crystalline arcs, scattering droplets like prisms, slender streams threading beneath arched bridges, lakes with swans, always in pairs, gliding serenely across the water, their feathers luminous against the faint rose shimmer of the lakes.

The Dreaming was infinite, shifting, chaotic in its wonders. This was not. Here every corner seemed composed, deliberate, not endless possibility but careful harmony. Nothing here felt accidental. It was beautiful by design, tender yet commanding, sculpted for devotion.

On their way, animals emerged with quiet regularity, as though paying homage in procession. A family of rabbits bounded forward to circle Love’s skirts, then disappeared into the grass, a deer stepped delicately from a birch grove and lowered his head, his dark eyes fixed only on the queen.

Birds wheeled overhead: sparrows in flocks, quails scurrying low through the hedges, hummingbirds glittering like emeralds as they hovered near her hair. A woodpecker tapped a slow rhythm into a tree, as if keeping time with their pace. From the corners of his eye Dream caught movement: owls blinking solemnly from high branches, raccoons gliding noiselessly through the undergrowth, a beaver slipping into a stream with a splash of its tail in greeting.

Even the smallest lives, mice, chipmunks, groundhogs, lingered near enough to glimpse her, but kept their distance from him.

“They are drawn to you,” His voice held the gravity of something he half-knew already.

She felt her cheeks warm, but couldn’t help to smile, turning to the path in front of them. It was not embarrassment because of how things responded to her in the Garden but because he made it sound more mysterious and elusive than it was. “They are drawn to spring. My presence means warmth, rain in season, crops that will not wither. Not cold soil, not hunger, not the ache of empty rivers.”

He studied her, and though his face betrayed little, the silence between them grew heavy with recognition. Her hair fell in longer, fuller curls touched with copper and gold; her cheeks glowed, her eyes shone brighter. All through their marriage he saw her through foggy glasses, in the Garden he could see her through crystal clear lens.

And yet, as radiant as her and her realm was, he felt the wariness of the land.

The earth beneath his boots shifted. Grass that thickened for her, leaned away from him, reluctant to brush against his shadow. Vines that curled joyfully toward her hem recoiled from his cloak. The animals’ reverence did not extend to him. The deer froze when its gaze flicked to him, rabbits halted mid-step, birds dipped low toward her but veered sharply aside when they skimmed his darkness.

Above them, petals rained from cherry branches. They clung in her curls, adorning her brightness. One landed on his shoulder and stayed. His gaze lingered on it, puzzled that it had dared to touch him at all, until a breeze came to carry it away, as if it wasn’t meant to touch him.

The Garden held itself taut about him. Its abundance was not for him. Unlike the Dreaming, which yielded instinctively to his will, this realm possessed its own mind, its own memory.

And It made them clear when a snarl of wiregrass caught at his boot. The King of Nightmares — who moved as though the world itself were his to command — stumbled. Instinctively, his hand tightened upon Love’s arm.

Her head turned at once, her green eyes lit with concern. “Dream—”

He recovered quickly, his expression scarcely shifting, though his voice was low, resigned. “It resists me.”

Her gaze followed him, alighting upon the obstinate grass. She reached down, fingertips brushing the obstinate grass, which instantly loosened its hold and withdrew as though chastised. Love straightened, her lips curving in a rueful smile. “It shields me,” she corrected it. “You carry part of me; thus it knows you belong, you are its king. But you have never walked here. It doesn’t know you. It also remembers the years when I suffered because of our marriage. It will not trust you easily.”

Her tone softened, though her eyes did not waver. “It is like a child. You are its father, estranged and unknown. It wonders if you have come only to wound me again or if you will stay.”

Dream’s gaze lingered, dark and unreadable. But he understood. It didn’t not know if it should bother to offer him devotion, if he was going to stay long enough to the Garden bend towards him.

He was unused to a realm that he was king, but did not bow to him. The wariness of the grass and creatures pressed on him, a reminder of his past mistakes and abandonment.

Eoster pulled him forward. The path unfurled into archways bent beneath the weight of roses, so heavy they bowed their trellises, until the castle rose beyond: pale stone veined with rose-gold, its windows shimmering faintly in daylight, its balconies awash in wisteria. It seemed less built than grown, a crown lifted from the Garden itself. Dream’s gaze lingered there, shadowed.

Before he would drown in his thoughts, with wiftness that disarmed him, pressed a kiss light, quick, yet steadying. Her fingers slipped from his arm to his hand, twining firmly. “Come,” she urged, with a smile and a shy giggle, her husband allowed himself to be led, his long stride easily matching her hurried grace.

For a short breath, the resistance of the Garden dimmed, overpowered by the sheer momentum of her presence. With her hand clasped in his, the marble steps unfurled toward the palace doors, as if nothing could bar her path.

Within the halls, the air grew still. Silk caught the light in softened glows, marble shone like dawn-clouds polished to stone, frescoes stretched in domes above: cupids with bright eyes or serene faces, weaving vines, blessing births, whispering to mortals.

Love exhaled, unaware of how tense she’d been.

Dream remained a step behind her, but the bond between them grew taut now that nothing lived around them to dilute it.

Every corridor amplified the quiet.

Every footstep felt too loud.

Every breath felt shared.

The light dimmed to honey-gold, and the air warmed, not from the sunlight creeping through the tall windows, but from her presence growing denser as they approached the heart of her realm.

With no audience but endless paintings and immortal sculptures, the pull between them thickened.

Warm.

Insistent.

Familiar in a way that frightened her.

Around them, sculpted embraces, mothers and children, brothers in loyalty, lovers in reunion, figures bowed in prayer, wove storge, agape, philia, eros into one unbroken circle, all equal, painted not in hierarchy but flowing one into another seamlessly.

She tried to focus on something else, her voice came softer than she intended as she explained the paintings. “Each painting was given to me by the first cupids from the four loves.” she said, her hand brushing his as they walked, at the same time, the touch seemed to make it easier to breathe, it was not enough.

She shook her head, remembering an amusing memory “Elijah hated the concept of cherubs, but he would not argue with his mentor, Anteros, who had the idea to paint the Cupids in such a manner and inspired the others. You would like Anteros.”

Dream took each step as a chance to learn about his wife, but he could also feel the tremor in the bond, the hitch in her breath, the way she bit her lip, barely but enough for him to notice it. The pulse was unmistakingly hers, but echoing through him as naturally, as the water in a river that flows through two pathways.

The walls shimmered faintly with light, panels of marble veined in pink and cream, polished so smoothly they reflected fragments of movement. Gold traced their borders like the stroke of a calligrapher.
Above, crystal chandeliers hung, but instead of fire, their light glowed from within each drop, soft as dawn.

At last, the corridor widened. The double doors carved from pale wood veined with rose-gold, with vines so intricate they seemed to sway faintly as the light touched them, opened for her and golden light spilled outward, letting the sun scatter through blush silks and crystal chandeliers.

Love’s throne rose gracefully on a dais of three shallow steps, carved from ivory and rosewood and adorned with golden flowering vines that wound along its curving high back, crowned by a halo of eternally blooming roses, its presence gentle yet absolute. Behind it, a mural of lovers in soft, swirling colors, timeless figures entwined in tender embrace seemed to pulse subtly with her movement, reflecting pure unwavering harmony.

Dream paused, eyes narrowing, as though already feeling the gravity beyond.

His pale frame covered in black contrasting against the rose-lit air. He had seen infinite visions, renderings of devotion and desire, yet here the unity of them gave him pause.

He said nothing, but his silence carried weight, as its lightness and the openness of it make him feel exposed, shadows were brought to daylight, and he felt an urge to be consumed by it.

She watched him take it all in, the awe, the reverence and something in her loosened.

“It’s stronger here” he murmured, not needing to specify. He felt it like a ghost of hands, a whisper of lips, a pull under his ribs.

She slipped away from his hand, walking a few steps upfront, pressing a hand to her chest unconsciously as though the ache lived there.

“You used to visit” she said absently, trying to ease the atmosphere away and change the subject. Why? She couldn’t explain why for certain this self restraint was important to display. Maybe she was afraid. Afraid that he might think it was too much, even though she could feel part of his desire through the bond, it may as well just be hers, amplified by her own Eros nature. All those concerns her once maiden self had, were coming back to her thoughts just as her desire increased.

He turned. “I did?”

“In my dreams,” she added trying to think about those silly innocent fairytale fantasies, the confession slipping out before she realized. “Many times.”

His eyes darkened a shade.

“In those dreams,” she continued, voice light at first, almost laughing at herself, “You would finally come to me.” She turned, walking backwards just to stare at him “Walk through those doors exactly like you did now. And I would be so happy to see you, happy in a way I haven’t been for ages.”

Dream’s expression changed, softened and sharpened all at once.

“You would take me in your arms,” she said, smiling at the memory, “and spin me around as if we were in some storybook ending.” She laughed softly. “So foolish, such a young maiden's dream, isn’t it? My husband, Dream of the Endless himself, twirling anyone.”

But then—

A flicker.

A flash.

Her smile faltered, replaced with a breathless stillness.

Because another part, parts that usually only came to her in nights where the loneliness and the coldness of the bed felt overwhelming and her skin felt too hot.

The part that always followed.

Warm hands.

Warm mouth.

Kneeling. Fingers pulling hair, thighs tensing, muffled moans.

Heat pooled low in her body at the sudden memory.

Dream felt it through the bond, her pulse tripping, her breath thinning, the warmth blooming between her thighs.

He stepped closer.

“What happened,” he asked quietly, “after the twirling?”

She swallowed. Hard.

“I—” A blush crept up her neck, hot, uncontainable. “It is not proper for a lady to say, you wouldn’t want to…”

“I very much do,” he said, voice deep and velvet-smooth, the kind of tone that could pulled secrets right out of her skin.

Love hesitated, all those fears fighting with her want to tell him, to see what he would do if she tell him and the pure intensity of simply being alone with him, where so many of those dreams happened.

He didn’t need to say anything to end the talks in her head, neither did she need to ask him for certainly.

He simply extended his hand.

Her fingers slid into his — slow, inevitable.

She guided him.

And with naturality, she sat into her throne.

Dream dropped to his knees without hesitation, as if answering a command she had not spoken aloud. And her eyes followed his kneeling, her thighs clenching together in a very subtle but not imperceptible way.

“You asked me to bless your hand with a kiss…” Her voice came out soft, thready, as she guided his hand to her mouth, giving a gentle kiss on top of his hands. Her smile curved deeper when she caught the flicker of hunger on his face that turned into surprise when she caught one of his long fingers and pressed against her mouth.

With a slow, wicked precision, she drew them deep, coating them in her saliva, looking at him through her lashes. She hollowed her cheeks, throat closing around him as her gaze fixed on his. He shuddered, his composure trembling at the sight, beneath her gaze.

Morpheus shuddered, visibly, beautifully undone.

When she released him, she guided his hand beneath her skirts, between her thighs. “Then, you touched me with these…” she whispered, a command and an invitation.

His cool fingers gathered the hem of her gown, drawing it slowly upward until the fabric bunched around Eoster’s waist. Guided by her pale hand, his own descended along her thigh. His thumb traced a deliberate circle along the inside of her thigh, his eyes never leaving hers.

Cool air swept between them.

His fingertips brushed the tenderest part of her—just one ghost-light stroke—and her gasp was so immediate, so raw, he nearly groaned in response. Her desire poured through the bond like warm honey. She was so sensitive. So beautifully reactive.

He had seen universes collapse with less force than the way her body answered his. If there was ever doubt that he was supposed to be with Eoster, it felt absurd to imagine an eternity where he would not touch his wife and see her trembling for him.

The hunger that rose in him was near feral, he had to still his touch, wait for her silent permission, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to control himself.

The permission came as a smile.

Her breath left her in a sharp intake as his fingers parted her.

“Your flesh is still red, my queen,” he murmured, voice low and resonant. “I do not wish to press you.”

“Would you rather have me suffer in impossible want?” Her thighs shifted, coaxing him nearer.

This time, he answered in touch alone.

His fingers traced the seam of her core, slow as moonrise, coaxing her open. He parted her fully, exposing her heat and wetness. His thumb brushed her folds, making her shiver.

“So warm,” he breathed. “So wet… as though you waited only for me.”

A single finger pressed inside—slow, deliberate—drawing a sharp gasp. Her hips moved to meet him, instructing him wordlessly.

Then she pressed his wrist deeper.

“I touched myself thinking of you,” she confessed, breath breaking. “In my bed… in my bath… imagining your hands…” She guided him to the exact place she needed him. “But I could not—”

“Could not what, my queen?” he asked, curling his finger just right, making her back arch.

“Could not finish?” His voice was a low, velvet blade. “Because it was not my hand?”

Another finger joined the first, slow, patient, stretching her with reverence, until her breath shattered.

Her nails bit into his skin, body answering him in waves.

He set a rhythm then—slow, deep, precise—curling inside her, unhurried, devastating. His thumb found her clit, brushing in soft, perfect circles.

Her head fell back.

Her hips rocked helplessly into his hand.

He shaped himself to her, matching each tremor, their gaze met in an electric current.

“You tighten for me,” he murmured, breath unsteady, she could feel her walls clenching at his words, how could he command her body like this? Make her mind think about nothing more than him “As though you would pull me inside you forever.”

Her breath broke into three pieces.

“Morpheus—”

His name fell from her lips like a plea. Eoster who have been avoiding to call him by it, who always called him “my lord”, “husband” and “my king” , was now broking in climax with his name dripping from
her tongue.

He froze.

Then his eyes darkened to true hunger.

“Say it again,” he whispered, curling his fingers deeper, pumping them inside her. “Say my name.”

“Morpheus,” she gasped, head falling back, body tightening. “Morpheus—”

“Again.”

She did, holding his wrist and grinding faster against his hand reaching the climax, as Dream watched it tore through her.

She cried out, thighs trembling violently around his hand, clutching his arm, the pleasure hitting it left her nearly sobbing. He carried her through every wave, unrelenting, coaxing, circling, murmuring praise she barely heard through the pleasure blurring her vision.

When she sagged forward, trembling, he finally withdrew his fingers—slick, shining, trembling with her release.

And then he brought them to his lips.

The sight stole her breath.

She clenched again just from watching him.

He couldn’t resist the look in her eye completely taken; he leaned forward and kissed her—sharing the taste with her, slow and consuming.

“This dream is not over…” she whispered with a lazy smile against his lips, voice soft but commanding.

Shadows curled instantly around him.

“As my lady wishes,” he said, and knelt between her thighs.

The first press of his lips to her swollen, sensitive flesh shattered the last of her composure. She gasped, body arching, hands flying to his hair.

He tasted her with slow, devastating precision.

Every flick of his tongue was learned.

Every press was deliberate.

Every linger was worship.

She writhed under him—overstimulated, desperate—pulling his hair, rolling her hips against his mouth.

“…Since last night…” she gasped.

“Since the fields—
Since the parade—
I’ve been wet for you. Needing only you—”

Morpheus groaned against her, the vibration sending her spiraling.

“Say my name,” he breathed against her skin, voice ruined with want.

She could barely breathe.

“Morpheus,” she moaned, tugging his hair hard enough to make him inhale sharply. “Morpheus—please—”

He lost the last of his restraint.

His mouth closed over her clit with deliberate pressure. His fingers returned—sliding inside her again, slow, then deeper, then curling until she choked on air.

Her hips bucked into his face, helpless, needy, undone.

“Again,” he murmured.

“Say it while you fall apart.”

“Morpheus—!”

Her climax hit like a lightning strike—harder, sharper, deeper than the first. She cried out, back arching off the throne, thighs clamping around his head as she shook uncontrollably.

He held her through all of it.

He drank every tremor.

Every gasp.

Every cry of his name.

When she finally collapsed beneath his mouth, trembling, shaking, her climax rolling through her in long, helpless waves, he lifted his head slowly.

His lips, his chin, the corner of his mouth with that almost smile: all glistening with her.

The sight made her body jolt again, weak and oversensitive, but it did something far worse to him.

The bond flared.

He felt every aftershock inside her— as if it were happening inside him.

He sucked in a breath, staggered by it, and rose over her with a look that was not a smile but a kind of worshipful hunger. She touched his hair with slow fingers, still panting, still shivering.

“My love…” she breathed, staring at the shine on his mouth.

He saw where her gaze rested, and leaned in. The kiss was molten, greedy, inevitable. Her taste was still on him. He let her have it. Let her swallow it from his tongue.

She moaned softly into his mouth, a sound that shot straight through him.

Her hand slid down the firmness of his chest but it didn’t take long to it go lower, until her palm cupped him through his pants. He jerked.

Hard.

He was rigid, unbearably so, throbbing against the fabric. The bond made every second of restraint feel like fire under his skin.

“Eoster—” he tried, voice ruined.

“Don’t you want to know,” she whispered against his lips, “the rest of my dream?”

“You are still sore,” he managed, though his hips pressed into her hand helplessly, looking from her eyes to her hands. “I do not wish to hurt you—”

The sentence broke.

Her hand slipped into his pants.

And wrapped around him.

He made a low, bitten-off, feral sound, forehead dropping to her shoulder as his entire body shook with the shock of bare skin meeting bare skin. He was already leaking for her, the bond pulling every strand of pleasure into him tenfold.

She stroked him, slow and deliberate, guiding her thumb through the slick bead at the tip, just like she did the night before.

His hips bucked without his consent.

“Morpheus,” she whispered, stroking him harder, “You feel it, don’t you?”. ”

He choked, breath hot against her neck. “I feel you still— your climax— inside my mind— Love, I am going to—”

“Good,” she breathed, tightening her grip, her hand sliding from root to tip with wicked intent. “I want you to come undone for me. I want to feel it, then I want you to push inside me, coat me, I want—”

A sharp, uncontrollable groan ripped from his chest.

He was seconds from spilling into her hand.

Seconds.

His breath trembled against her cheek, his hips already surging helplessly into her fist, his release drawn tight as—

A polite, mildly bored voice floated from the archway:

“Do not stop on my account.”

Both froze.

Eoster’s head snapped toward the doorway.

Morpheus went utterly still, every muscle locking, his entire body turning to carved obsidian.

Leaning casually against the threshold, with the insolent ease of a courtier who had never been denied, or at least one that he would abide, entry anywhere—stood a golden hair figure, his curls tied loosely at the nape, violet-red coat half-unbuttoned, boots dusty with garden soil, his face screamed amusement and deep, unrepentant mischief.

His golden-pupil eyes flicked once, slowly and not at all discreet, from the sight of Eoster’s hand still inside Morpheus’s open trousers, to Morpheus’s wrecked expression, to the flushed, trembling queen on the throne with her skirts dragged to her waist exposing her legs, her womanhood covered only by the luckily position of her husband’s frame.

Then he grinned.

“Ah,” he said brightly. “That explains… all of this.” He made a vague circular gesture at the air surrounding the throne room, as if referring to an aura of sex thick enough to choke someone.

Morpheus, for the first time in centuries, looked… stunned, but quickly it turned to cold fury.

He jerked away from Eoster’s touch as though burned, half instinct, half dignity, trying to recompose himself as shadows snapped protectively around his undone clothing.

“Emissary, what are you doing here?” Eoster asked fumbling with words. She snapped her hand out of her husband’s pants, resting them in her lap. Introducing the Emissary like this to Dream, was not in her plans. She actually did not even had the time to think about the Emissary letting alone introducing him to Morpheus.

“Taking care of the palace, my lady.” The Emissary straightened with courtly elegance, pressed a hand theatrically to his chest, and bowed.

“Who,” Morpheus said, voice glacial, “are you.”

“My lord Dream of the Endless,” he said with exaggerated, flourishing respect that somehow felt like mockery. Eoster could not tell if it was just the way that he normally speaks or was making it on purpose. “I am the Emissary, ” he flashed a wicked smile at Eoster— “longtime resident of Her Ladyship’s Garden.”

Those were very carefully chosen and somewhat true words, although not entirely.

Morpheus’s jaw went rigid. “But you are not a cupid.” He turned to Eoster, eyes dark with confusion, betrayal, the bond sparking like struck flint.

Eoster responded before the Emissary could “No, he was created by Desire and gifted to me. Long time ago.”

“You allowed a creature of Desire to remain here—near you—” his voice dropped to a dangerous whisper, “and did not tell me?”

Before Eoster could answer, the Emissary waved a hand.

“Oh, no, no—please. Do not blame her.”

He strolled into the throne room as though they weren’t half-naked and shaking with interrupted climax.

“If anyone is to blame, it is Lady/Lord Desire. And, well—me. I was supposed to report on her, spy. Tragically, I became far too fond of Elijah to be properly obedient. And the wine here is too good to return to Desire.”

He flashed another grin.

“The queen and I have an arrangement.” He lowered his eyyes, still looking too arrogant for his own good. As if he did not know that Morpheus could in a snap of fingers undone him.

Eoster covered her face with one hand. Why everything Elijah’s lover says must have an intonation of wickedness?

Her breathing still hadn’t returned to normal.

Morpheus—still trembling from being wrenched off a climax mid-flight—looked carved from barely-contained wrath.

“Leave,” he ordered.

The Emissary blinked.

Then smiled sweetly.

“You seem tense, my lord.”

A pause.

A lower glance at Eoster’s flushed thighs, clasping his hands behind his back

“…Understandably.”

Eoster groaned.

“Emissary, for the love of—”

He perked up immediately.

“Yes, Lady Love?”

“Why are you here?” She dragged a hand down her face. “…now?”

He shrugged, as if the answer were as natural as the orange-pink sky at sundown in the Garden.

“This is the shortcut I take from the kitchen to the lake, where I usually have my breakfast. I would invite our majesties, but…” He tilted his head. “Something tells me it is not food you hunger for.”

Just like Elijah, Love found it terribly agonizing how the Emissary seemed willing to risk his life purely to provoke.

Morpheus’s glare sharpened to a killing edge. Love gave the Emissary a look that was part impatience, part exhaustion.

The Emissary bowed with theatrical grace. And though he pretended to remain cool and unbothered, even he was beginning to sense that if he did not leave swiftly, the couple might very well snap their fingers together and turn him into sand on a beach.

“Well then, I shall resume my journey to breakfast and leave our graces to their privacy.”

He said it with such serenity one might think Eoster and Morpheus had summoned him—rather than him barging into their intimacy.

He vanished down the hallway in a flutter of gold and the unmistakable snicker of a man already planning to tease Elijah about this for decades.

The throne room looked exactly as before—unchanged, stately, serene— and yet Eoster felt as though the floor had dropped away beneath her.

Morpheus stood before her, breath still uneven, shadows coiling sharply around his half-buttoned clothes, pupils still blown wide from what she had done to him —but his expression… changed.

It deepened into something unreadable.

It could be accusation.

It could be coldness.

It could be the prelude to an old, familiar winter.

She could already hear the echo of a line he had thrown at her long ago:

'You have deceived me.'

The bond—an open blazing line moments ago—fell into terrible stillness.

A frostlike quiet.

As if the warmth had abruptly fled. Her heart plummeted.

This is it. He would retreat. Step back into that distance he wielded so easily. Decide she had conspired with Desire. Believe she was the ambitious queen he once imagined—grasping, calculated. Assume she had betrayed him.

The spiral clawed up her throat:

He will think I plotted.

He will think I smuggled a spy.

He will think Desire and I—

He will shut the doors again.

He will leave me in the cold.

He will—

“Eoster.” Her name fell from him like a blade cutting clean through panic.

She looked up and froze.

His expression was not furious. Not betrayed.Not wounded pride.

It was something she had never seen directed at her so clearly.

Concern.

He stepped closer, not with suspicion, but with that restrained urgency that only appeared when Morpheus feared something precious had been endangered.

“Why did you not tell me this before?” he asked softly.

She blinked.

He swallowed, jaw tightening—not with anger, but with a fear he was trying, and failing, to hide.

“He is a creature of Desire,” Morpheus said, voice low, controlled, almost hoarse. “Treacherous by nature. Manipulative by design. Desire fashions nothing that does not hide a hook beneath gold.”

She stared at him.

This was nowhere near the conversation she expected.

Morpheus lifted a hand—hesitated—then laid it gently upon her knee, the very knee that had trembled around him moments earlier.

The touch was grounding.

Terrifying.

Tender.

“You should not have been with him for so long,” he murmured. “Not without my knowing. Not without protection.” Her heart thrashed so violently she wondered if he could hear it.

“I can protect myself. The Emissary is clever, but this is still my domain.” Her voice was steady, though she knew he had not meant to question her strength.

His thumb brushed her skin in a gesture so gentle it nearly stole her breath. “I know,” he said. “But he could use you. Manipulate you. Take advantage of your kindness—your trust. Desire—”

“Desire does not control the Emissary in the way you think.” She cut him more abruptly than she expected it.

He did not question how she saw his thoughts so easily. Dream only looked at her, uncertainty softening the severity of his gaze. Not because he doubted her judgment, but because the Emissary’s origin was enough to rouse every instinct Morpheus possessed.

“Tell me,” he whispered. “How long has he been here? And why should we trust his loyalty?”

Her lips parted.

Morpheus was not upset she had kept the Emissary a secret.

No—this worry was something far more devastating.

He feared she had been alone.

Unprotected.

Unbelieved.

If anything had happened, if she had been harmed... It would have destroyed him.

She reached for his hand—a cautious gesture—and rested her fingers lightly atop his.

He did not withdraw.

“He would never harm me,” she whispered. Her voice trembled, not from fear of the Emissary, but from old ghosts rising out of habit. “Not now. Not anymore.”

His thumb stilled against her cheek. He did not look convinced.

So she continued, quiet and earnest: “He fell in love.”

Morpheus’s brows drew together. “…with whom?”

“Elijah.”

His expression flickered—surprise, then a strange mix of relief and confusion.

She pressed on before he could speak.

“It was strange at first,” she said, her voice warming. “They are opposites. Elijah worries about the placement of every flower in a field… and the Emissary has never once cared where he left his boots.”

Morpheus blinked.

She continued, cheeks softening with a reluctant fondness “He teased him endlessly. Pretending to plot calamities, whispering nonsense just to watch Elijah turn scarlet.”

Her smile gentled.

“And somehow, that became a pull neither expected. And no matter the bickering or the aguing, they always found their way back to each other.”

Her husband listened not with suspicion. But with breath-held dread.

“And no one,” she said quietly, “In all the realms has ever been more protective of me than Elijah. You know that.”

Dream’s hand tightened subtly around hers, enough to make her breath catch.

“So when the Emissary came to care for him…” She exhaled. “He understood that if he ever schemed in a way that harmed me, or delighted Desire at my expense, he would lose Elijah. And that was a price not even the Emissary, who in another life might have sold his own mother for power, would dare pay. Not even if it were Desire charging him .”

Morpheus’s expression softened—though the worry did not leave entirely.

“He has protected me in other ways too.” Eoster drew a deeper breath. “He was the one who told me about Hell,” she whispered. “About the oldest game with the Lightbringer.”

She watched the pain cross his face: quiet, sharp, familiar.

“He has friends among demons,” she continued softly. “And he knew that if you lost…” The air became heavy. The words hung between them. It has not been too long since this happened.
The words hung between them, weighted. “It would be wise to prepare the realms. In case…” Her voice thinned. “In case you never returned.”

In case she lost him before she had ever truly been allowed to have him.

Love looked down, fingers tightening around his.

“I wanted to ensure the safety of our realms, protect our creations… but I was afraid. I know so little of the Dreaming. And because of the bond, I could not tell whether losing meant I, too, would be part of the bargain.”

Her eyes lifted to his. A quiet, aching beat stretched between them. Morpheus stepped closer.

Closer still.

Until his forehead rested against hers again, their breaths mingling, the bond vibrating like a wound and a vow at once. Soft, bright, painfully sincere. Just like the Garden around them.

“Eoster,” he whispered, voice breaking, “I am not troubled that you hid Desire’s creature.”

She swallowed, warmth blooming in the place fear had frozen.

He cupped her cheek, thumb brushing carefully along her skin.

“I am troubled,” he continued, “because you bore fears that were not yours to carry. You bore them alone. You smiled through them because the universe demands it of you.” She nodded, letting him speak a truth she had never allowed herself to admit—that solitude had hurt, that duty had weighed unbearably, that holding everything together had cost more than she could ever show.

“You shall never endure that again,” he murmured. “You shall never bear such burdens alone. Even if I am absent, you will not face them unprotected.” He pressed his forehead more firmly to hers, his voice a vow made of shadow and devotion.

“I swear this in the name of my Father and Mother.”