Musings that go nowhere, for there is nowhere to go.

by Mcufaninmydreams

Summary:

Dream, trapped in a glass sphere, has a lot of time to think. These are some of the abstract thoughts that go through his mind in his seemingly endless imprisonment.

AKA: I was dissociating, so I made Dream dissociate instead.

Chapter 1: Tick

Notes:

After I wrote this, I was informed that the Endless are Earth centric. In this fic's universe, the Endless are the Endless for the entire universe. Also, I am aware that in canon the Endless formed at different stages of humanity's development. However, that would make them like rays, having one fixed endpoint and another point that goes into infinity, and the word "Endless" is in the name. In my fic, they do not have a start, because, geometrically speaking, a start is a kind of end. The Endless are lines, extending through time infinitely in both directions.

This story, however, is non-linear. If a specific time is not mentioned, it could take place at any point in Dream's 100 year imprisonment.

I am going with the show length because of a certain brown-haired immortal.

He remembers the first time someone dreamed of a clock. It was a sight of wonder, the child with purple skin and three arms on the blossoming planet of Gardenia, seeking for a way to make a moment for his friends and to still sleep curled in his mother’s embrace.

After much thought, he fashioned a vine, straightened with the heat of the sun and solidifying amber, and let it swing from the branch. The next sunrise, he watched and counted in his language the swings of the vine under the rising orange sun of his world as it rose out of the night. He counted each swing, from darkness to full light (eh, she, eth, erb) then returned in the evening to count the swings from light to darkness. When he closed his eyes, the vine still swung in his mind. That night his dreams were of counting. Eh, she, eth, erb.

*

He barely feels it when all the dreamers of a planet suddenly have their dreams extinguished, thinks that his sister is suddenly much busier then normal. These runes that hold him were meant to contain Death, to cut her off from The Sunless Lands. Those souls would have lingered in agony on a burning planet, unable to die, and yet unable to live, if she had been here instead. As it stands, it is Dream who is held captive, Dream who has the faintest connection to the dreamers still, just enough to feel their existence, but not to know their names, their dreams, unable to fulfill his duty.

And that’s what hurts more than anything. More than the stale air, the dehydration, the starvation, the loss of Jessamy (though that comes close, and sometimes, every time he sees Alexander Burgess, it overtakes this other pain), the loss of all but the most miniscule remainder of his function bites into this frail imprisoned form. He is Endless with no purpose, Endless for nothing.

Once, long ago, before the first vortex, before the first anything, he might have said that nothing could hurt an Endless. They were there before the beginning, and they would never cease to exist. He would not say he had been young, for he had always existed, a creation of Time and Night. Before Time, there was no before. But he had been naïve, he had been inexperienced. Dream had failed in his duty, and a world had been lost. Though he stayed his hand, the vortex died, as did everything else. The walls between dreams grew so thin that the whole planet and then the whole universe dreamed the same dream. The dreamers’ psyches could not handle the overwhelming pain, and the vortex could not handle the guilt of destroying it all.

When the vortex hung herself, Death came and held him as he wept.

He has not been held in so many years. Before this glimmering circle and this sphere of glass had cut him off from everything, he had still been separate, above, aloof. He did not let himself reach out to others, not after Nada had forsworn him and he saw what devastation it was to love an Endless. Few had tried to call to him over the years, and he had rejected them all.

Sometimes he regretted it. Those cold words he had delivered to Hob Gadling – as 1989 approached and then dissipated, he knew that Hob believed him too prideful to return, too distant to call the immortal human his friend. He imagines he can feel the heartbreak Hob carries over to his dreams.

*

These guards are especially chatty. Dream senses their unease as they fight of the gloom of the dungeon, of the forced wakefulness. They speak to each other of their families, the books they are reading, the music they like. The taller one is having trouble with his girlfriend, and then he is marrying her. The shorter one is trying to afford a larger apartment so he can adopt another rescued cat.

Dream wonders at humanity’s hypocrisy. For the short guard to come here, day after day and watch him, imprisoned behind glass and painted runes, and then to go home and worry about homeless cats…

Cats are majestic creatures. Dream remembers the days when they ruled the Earth, hunting and toying with humans as they now do with rats. He recalls the powerful dreams of the terrified humans, changing the universe by sheer force of will.

Their communication skills are a credit to humans. Dream knows no other species so skilled at convincing others to do their will, to follow their beliefs. It has caused so much harm. It can generate so much good. And Dream and Desire and Despair had once admired them in agreement, an the dawn of humanity, just as they first evolved. It had been a short moment that the three shared, before the humans had started calling their desires their dreams and the rivalry began.

Dream understands where Desire’s anger comes from. He would not want anyone else taking credit for his work either. But their meddling has caused him so much pain that Dream has no sympathy for them.

*

In the first year of his capture, Dream had stayed silent through Roderick Burgesses taunts by harnessing his pride and the patience of an immortal. In the second, he envisioned all sorts of revenge – an eternal nightmare of pain, of starvation, of losing everything he had gained from Dream’s sand and helm and ruby. His hatred burned in his eyes, and the mortal man did not stay long each time he arrive to cajole the imprisoned Endless. In the third year, when he ran out of the oxygen he had been preserving, for this frail mortal form craved breathable air, Dream began to play the symphony of Endgterity in his mind, a song from a long-dead civilization on the other end of the galaxy.

The people there had finer tuned ears then any other species. There were whole sections of the song that traversed the infinite space between two notes, and others that held megaoctave jumps from a note below human hearing to a note so high that even the dogs failed to perceive it. And most importantly, the song was long. It was written to last the whole revolution of Endgterity around its star, 527 days by Earth-reckoning.

Dream listens to the nonexistent music until he has been in the cage for nearly five years.

It would be hard to keep track of time, cut off from his knowledge, the Dreaming, and the dreamers themselves, separate from the very force that created from him. Roderick Burgesses, however, addresses that problem, often telling him exactly how long Dream has wallowed in his basement. He could be lying, Dream supposes, but sometimes the guards have newspapers with dates large enough for him to see, and the time passes in an orderly fashion.

When he has completed his mental concert, he feels no relief or success. He sought no validation in ensuring that he had the entire symphony memorized. There is only the need for a new thing to think about.

He has not moved in 527 days. Slowly, he stretches each of his fingers one by one, feeling the burn of disused muscles. If he were human, he would have atrophied into nothing. If he were human, he would have long since died, been claimed by Death, and departed to The Sunless Lands.

Death was the one they wanted. The part of him that is selfless is glad she is not here, in this prison of glass and circle of gold. The circle was made for her, he knows. He has read the runes that surround the cage, sees the meaning. He knows the mistake the magicians made, Burgess talked through it once in front of him when he ranted in fury at getting the wrong Endless. The magicians killed a cat, and that is what saved Death and dropped him in her place. Death would have taken the stairs to get to the soul of the cat; she would not have crossed the circle. If they had simply poured the blood of the still living creature, it would have been her who was pulled through space and been deposited inside the runes. But they killed the cat, so the arcane magic searched for the next closest thing to Death: Dream, who also has a realm for human souls, Dream, who is so often compared to Death in poetry and songs that they are connected, albeit not as closely as the twins.

The glass cage and the spotlight were made to contain him though. Sometimes Dream wonders how they knew to hold him when he was not their query. Death would have been chained to the ground, rune-inscribed cuffs keeping her in place. If Death can move, Death can free herself.

If they had smashed a mirror instead of killing the cat, they would have summoned Despair. The sphere of glass would have been no trouble for her. All she needs is a reflection to take her back home. To hold her, the magicians would have needed to keep Despair in total darkness without any chance for reflection. A cage made from bedrock would work.

As for Desire, they would have been summoned with the menstrual blood of a person desperate for a child. A glass sphere would contain them as well, but they would need to be fully clothed, with even their face covered, lest a guard become overcome with lust at the sight of bare skin and release them in the process of approaching them.

Destiny carried his chain with him always. His prison within the circle could be his book completely sealed in a grounded safe. He could also be in more chains, like Death, or in glass like Dream. In all honesty, Dream did not fully understand his older brother’s power. Maybe Destiny could not be contained. What would even summon the oldest of the Endless?

Delirium might be able to escape any prison as well. Changing form was so intrinsic to her that no runes made by man could take that power from her. Maybe being imprisoned as Delight had forced her to change, or maybe she had grown up in an extreme way. She never answered when asked, and Dream did not know what had befallen his littlest sister. Delight could have been summoned by burning a hesia flower, but Delirium might be too disconnected from anything to be summoned.

And Destruction would not have been summoned by any ritual designed to capture an Endless, his forswearing of his domain an extreme form of protection from this branch of arcane magic.

Thoughts of his siblings in cages make Dream shiver, although the temperature in the sphere is uncomfortably warm, a side effect of being in unceasing bright light for years. The photons are bound by the glass just as he is.

There is only darkness on the inside of his eyelids. He closes them and tries to build new dreams. The effort is in vain. Without his connection to The Dreaming, he cannot feel the energy of creation, does not have the tools to begin to imagine what dreams might be needed in this changed world. Dream wants to cry. He plays a sad sort of game with himself, bringing tears to the surface and then blinking them away, unshed.

This form only has so much stored water, after all.

Sometimes when he chooses forms, he lets his hair and nails grow. He did not make that decision with this one, so there is no change. If his nails grew, he would have claws by now.

*

“Hold on to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” Alex is young, the guards are on a break. He is reciting a line of poetry he found. “Is that true?” he asks, as though Dream will answer. “So many people no longer dream. It is called encephalitis lethargica. I think it is because you are here. Father won’t release you on behalf of the world though.” Alex paces around the sphere a few times before departing, leaving Dream alone again.

It pains Dream to know that there are those who once dreamt who do so no longer. He has failed them.

Hoping to distract himself, he mulls over the poetry line. To him, it implies that Death, for Death is also Life, would suffer if he died. He knows she will not come. To save him would be to risk capture herself, being cut off from her own duty. It would be disastrous. No, even if she misses him, she will not come. The others probably do not even know he is gone. He will not call out for them, will not let the Burgesses take another Endless and keep them from their duty. The dreamers are suffering, and they will suffer more if Dream calls for aid.

He misses Death. He misses Lucienne. He misses Cain and Abel and Mervyn. He misses Fiddler’s Green. He knows Jessamy is outside, has heard Roderick Burgess complain of her. He wants to tell her to flee and is touched by her loyalty at the same time. She is his only hope of escape during the lifetime of Roderick Burgess. At some point the painted circle will lose its power. Even the most powerful mages cannot hold a circle forever. Roderick Burgess is not the most powerful mage. The circle should not last more than two hundred years. That will be two hundred years of torment, for both himself and all the dreamers, but it is the only way forward. Dream will never give into the selfish demands of his captors.

Dream wishes that he had the ability to sleep. There is no relief when he closes his eyes.

However, when he squints and hold the world just out of focus, he can see individual particles of dust floating, falling through the air. The harsh light hits the glass and the beam bends and distorts. In that small space, Dream thinks he can see a rainbow. It is not really there.

The guards change. “It took forever for that bloody tablet to wear off,” one mutters to the other. “And yet here I am again, wide awake because of the damn thing. Remind me why I’m doing this again?”

“The pay is good,” the second guard mumbles. Dream barely hears her.

“And then once I finally do get to sleep, I get lectured by a pumpkin headed dude about the mess my boss is making. Hardly understood a word, his accent was different from the stuff I generally hear in polite company.”

Dream’s eyes widen in recognition. Mervyn spoke to one of the guards! His subjects know where he is and are trying to help. They are forbidden from leaving The Dreaming, lest they prey on The Waking World, yet they have found him, after seven long years of silence. Mervyn’s loyalty touches him deeply, and he wonders if the pumpkin-headed dream would dare cross the borders of realms to find him.

Perhaps he is being too optimistic. Maybe Mervyn is ranting to any dreamer he encounters. How would he know what has befallen his king? As quickly as it emerged, the beam of hope fades. The guards do not notice his expression shift, and he is glad.

*

Dream has run out of songs that do not remind him of pain and loneliness. There are surprisingly few. Or perhaps it is not surprising – music conveys the experience of being alive. To live is to feel, and everything that makes him feel hurts.

There is only this body and the glass and the light. Light that reflects off of his skin, shows a tiny sliver of his power. The guards find it eerie.

They should.

Dream will wait. He must wait. The Earth can bear his absence a bit longer, as long as it takes for the magic that binds him to fade.

And yet.

The guards should feel off-balance. The world itself is off, is wrong, without Dream.

…and Dream is wrong without the world.

He is only himself and his own thoughts. The collective unconsciousness cannot reach him. He wonders how many of his actions were influenced by the dreamers, how much pain he met out on behalf of those suffering. How much joy, he thinks, as an afterthought.

There is only one mind in this cage, one mind bound by grey matter and neurons that lack the ability to connect all that he is and all that he can be. Dream is less. Dream does not feel Endless.

He wants to feel the pulse of the dreamers, wants their thoughts to flow through him and with him as their guide. He wants to hold a child in his arms as they dream of Fiddler’s Green, wants to soften a soldier’s pain with sleep. He wants to provide a safe haven away from the Waking, where a father can rest after a day full of childcare. He wants to see an old woman lick a treat that no one remembers how to make. He wonders what unfinished stories the dreamers are writing.

They all must wait.

They, like Dream, are cursed by this circle, by this glass. They are Dream, and Dream is them, and together they suffer.

Far away, a child wails, trapped in a nightmare. A soldier stares on ahead, morphine failing to bring him sleep. A father sleeps in a hospital bed, his children sent into an orphanage. They barely remember him. A woman forgets the taste of childhood and weeps.

The web of spun sugar has been pulled apart, its source dried up and gone. The few crystals that remain try so hard to twinkle. They fail.

*

There is nothing Dream wants more than freedom. And yet he cannot promise Alex anything. He has held his silence for so long, perhaps too long. He cannot forgive.

Chapter 2: Tock

Notes:

Some of the described dreams are ones I've actually had. The narrator is from the modern day. This entire chapter takes place in 1927, but the narrator is speaking to present-day readers.

“Do you know how hungry a man can get? When he can’t eat, but he can’t die?”

Morpheus knows. He hadn’t then, had barely sympathized, had helped to poor man more out of curiosity then anything else, confusion at how he kept living, despite such pain. Now, eleven year since he last ate, he understands.

This pain is a strange one. The emptiness does not match the one in his soul, the loss of The Dreaming and of Jessamy, yet the physical manifestation of that gnawing, gaping hole in himself is similar, at least. It’s such a simple thing, eating, putting the chemical energy derived from sunlight into something a mortal body can use. His inability to satisfy this basest element of mortality was mildly irritating at first, something he knew would not be problematic. As the seconds ticked by, agonizingly slowly, Morpheus slowly came to understand, with dawning horror, how challenging this would be.

Dreams are the most emotional, evocative, eventful, and erotic elements of most people’s lives. They are memories respun as stories, lessons transformed from a collage of people that we see every day, that we are attached to intrinsically. We watch as the ones we love embrace us and are ripped away. They are our saviors and the victims of our mistakes. We could be pulled into a getaway car by our mother, away from a hoard of goblins and ogres while firing potatoes at them, and then suddenly the potato launcher turns into a pistol, aimed at our entire family as a Nazi orders us to pull the trigger or unspeakable horrors, unsaid, but known in our heart-of-hearts will be unleashed upon us and we shall sink into the riptide of panic and forever be swept away.

We are not usually calm, not serene in dreams. Dreams are when hearts overflow with love for a soon-to-come, long awaited child. Dreams are where we scream apologies to the skies as every flawed interaction we have ever lived through plays in short succession, one after another, again and again and again. Dreams hold our full attention and the whole of our emotion in the moment in which we live them, and they never let us go.

There’s a reason so many books show us the dreams of the characters. Dreams show motivations; they show dreads and desires and the darkest of our fears. Dreams are the farthest thing from calm. They are as close as a monsoon is to a frozen lake – no, those are still connected through water. Dreams are to passivity as fireworks are to the mirrors inside ballet studios.

And so you can now imagine how difficult it was, for Morpheus, Lord of the Dreaming, King of Dreams and Nightmares, Dream, of the Endless, he who embodies the Collective Unconscious, who holds the waters of all dreams within himself, who gives of himself into every dream and nightmare creature, to remain silent, impassive.

Have you figured out what the link is, between a firework and a mirror? I haven’t. You might think that perhaps the mirror also creates light, like a firework, but only that which shines upon it, but you would be wrong. This tenuous connection is broken by the fact that mirrors do not create light, they reflect that which already exists. There is nothing to link the two but the weakest of conjectures, just as dreams are not emotionless and fire is not wet.

So Dream sits and he waits and he boils with pain and resentment and fury and sorrow and a hunger for things to return to the way they should be. But dreams are also excellent at hiding what a person does not want to be found. They exist in a different world where no one can find them unless they are asleep.

Morpheus hides behind a mask of impassivity. His skin is stretched tight over muscle, any trace of fat long since vanished. Dream sits like a coiled viper, and he waits for the spell to break.

Chapter 3: Shadow

It did not take Dream long to notice that he had no shadow.

There was a spotlight shining directly onto him, but nothing stems out beyond the human form he bears. There is no friend here to follow his movements. Maybe if there were, he would move more, relish the beauty of light and dark flickering along the inside of his palm. But Dream is without a shadow, and therefore without a friend.

There hadn’t been a moment to make a shadow when head been hurled through space, through a crack in the world and into this circle. He’d had a shadow when unmaking the Corinthian, had used it to warn the nightmare of his upcoming demise, to intimidate his erstwhile creation. But then those voices started chanting, the words reverberating throughout Morpheus’s entire being. He’d dissolved into aether and come back to the waking without the parts of himself that he consciously maintained. His shadow, which constantly shifted to give the illusion of his presence distorting light, had not come with him. There had been no time to form it again, not when the enchantment had sunk its hooks into his power, rooting him in place. For days, he’d been too weak to even move.

It would have been nice to have a shadow.

Notes:

This is inspired by a comic panel describing Dream:

“Dream of the Endless: ah, there’s a conundrum.

In this aspect (and we perceive but aspects of the Endless, as we see the light glinting from one tiny facet of some huge and flawlessly cut precious stone), he is rake-thin, with skin the color of falling snow.

Dream accumulates names to himself like others make friends; but he permits himself few friends.

….

Dream casts a human shadow, when it occurs to him to do so.”

The line about the shadow stuck with me, building up into this little chapter.

Chapter 4: Haunt

The glass is warm against his skin.

His hand pressed against the glass beneath him. A single hand, a single concession to movement, felt the smooth curved surface. Excruciatingly slowly by mortal standards, he stroked the glass with his thumb. It was soundless.

Sometimes he opened his starlit eyes and stared at the guards relentlessly. He was a child of Night, and his eyes were deep pools that gave proof of her vastness living in him. Stardust reflected back at him.

His lips never dried. He was, to all appearances, a statue. Unchanging. Barely moving. It made the mortals uneasy. He still held this one power above them. He was the Nightmare King. He knew how to haunt their waking hours too.

Notes:

Please let me know what you think of this fic! Do you have any thoughts for future chapters? Have you read other fics similar to this one? If so, please tell me how to find and read it in the comments. "Musings that go nowhere..." is a story I wrote because I could not find what I wanted to read, so I would love to see other's interpretations of this thought.

As always, if you see any grammar or spelling mistakes, please let me know.