Work Text:
In Search of New Dreams:
So I’m dead?”
“Yes.”
“Heh. So that’s it then? What happens now?”
“Now you make a choice.”
Matthew Cable stood beside The Lord of Dreams in the most unpleasant of settings. His own death. He looked down at the hideously emaciated corpse. The body, whose organs had been harvested while he still breathed. The eyes were empty sockets. Tubes and wires were plunging in and out of him. There were scars from unrequested surgeries to remove organs for the black market. They had never thought he would wake up nor did it look like they cared. If he had woken up the “good doctors” probably would have “Helped” him along anyway.
When Abby had found out what was done to him, she had intended to put him out of his misery and end his possible suffering. She was going to pull the plug. But with the aid of Morpheus, Matthew had been able to wake up just long enough to knock over and unplug his own life support equipment. “Forgive me, Abby… Then… forget me…”
He couldn’t remember much after that. It was like falling asleep. He didn’t feel himself suffocate or his heart stop. He just felt like he had drifted to sleep, gently, peacefully… But as he stood there, watching his own body, sensing the other entity beside him, he saw the creature on the floor wheezing, gasping for wretched breath and finally…stop.
This extraction before death had been an act of mercy from The Dream Lord and he knew it.
Matthew’s experience in The Dreaming had not always been so kind. He had been there for some time before his own death. Had it been months or weeks? He wasn’t certain. Time was distorted in such a place. He had spent that time in a cave, in the haze of a dream.
And in that dream he was married to a beautiful woman who called herself Eve. He had mounds of treasure and material possessions, like a dragon’s hoard. And in that dream he saw his own stupidity, his cruelty, his misogyny. He would see and feel himself starting to become an abusive ass. He remembered how terrible he was when he drank and cringed to think of the anger in him that seemed to only manifest with the drinking. Demanding she fulfill his manly needs and boy did Eve make him pay for all of that!
In a strange way he came to love Eve for it, for every lesson she taught him on his own previous awfulness. When he finally had crawled out of the cave, Morpheus had been there waiting for him. Morpheus had been there to congratulate him on his growth and he told him what he must do… to free Abby of her past with him forever…
His body had been dying anyway. There was no returning to that life. Now he had to let go for Abby’s sake…
And so now Matthew looked down at his own body. Morpheus stood beside him. The figure next to Matthew was no human man. Morpheus was tall and improbably thin. He had black eyes, black like the eyes of a leopard gecko. He had only seen one leopard gecko once as a little boy and he had never forgotten about the strange, wide, black eyes. He had almost thought they were pretty, and strangely expressive. And to see them now in a face that resembled the face of a human man was peculiar and yet, though he’d never voice it, kind of beautiful… He liked those eyes.
Morpheus had wild black hair. And his skin was as white as bone. He wore long, billowing, black, robes.
“Choice?” Matthew asked. “What kind of choice?”
There was a bright light only a few steps from his body. Matthew raised his arm (or was it just the illusion of an arm?) to shield his eyes even though the light didn’t really hurt. The light looked like a brightly illuminated doorway. And from that doorway he could see the silhouette of… A girl? Matthew doubted himself. The glowing door seemed to take on the on a shape, an ankh. And the shadowy form of the girl became easier to see.
The girl had black hair. She sort of looked like Morpheus but much younger and yet somehow he knew she wasn't really the younger of the two. But her eyes were grey-blue, more human-like. She wore a black tank top and form fitting black jeans. She had on black ankle boots. And at her neck hung an ankh pendant that appeared to be silver. The girl, herself, had an eye of Horus tattoo (or was it makeup?) around her right eye. She looked like she couldn’t be more than nineteen-years-old.
But what Mathew saw behind her, he could almost guess the man he stood with could not see. The girl had these beautiful, massive, bright, white wings. They were elegant and large. They were like the wings of an angel, or what he imagined angel wings should be like. They were so large, and each feather bore a strange iridescence, like they were made of some substance that contained its own light. They glittered and shimmered and it was hard not to look at them.
“Hello, My sister.” Morpheus said to the girl.
“Hey, Dream! Hi, Matthew!” She waved as if they were old friends.
The girl seemed friendly, the way she smiled at him, and it felt like he had known her his whole life.
“You have your choice.” Morpheus said. “You can stay with Eve in her cave in my realm, The Dreaming. You will be transformed. Your human life is over now. You would serve me as my raven. I will not own you, you always own yourself, but you would be my subject. You can do this or… You may go with my sister to where you are supposed to go.”
“Shit. Where I’m supposed to go…?” There was some dread to those words as Matthew repeated them.
The girl tilted her head slightly at Matthew. “It’s all right, Matt. You tried to do what’s right in the end.”
“But I was such a screw up. I did things… Really bad things…”
“Lots of people do bad things.” She said gently. “I’m not here to judge. You know, forgiveness is a thing, Matt. It doesn’t have to be bad, not if you don’t want it to be. Believe it’ll be all right and it will be.”
She looked at Morpheus (or Dream as she had called him). “It’s not really a choice if he’s scared to go, you know.”
Morpheus frowned.
Matthew was looking behind her. The ankh-door was something else now. A corridor, long and dark with something glowing at the far end of it. And… It felt good. It felt welcoming.
“You have to forgive yourself, Matt. Then let go.” She said gently.
“I already let go. I mean… I’m not that man anymore, right? I can be anything.”
“Yeah.” She said reassuringly. “Anything.” But she was probably talking about the possibility of reincarnation, not the choice Morpheus had offered him.
“Okay… So...” Matthew raked his hand through his hair. At least in this dream or soul-self he still had hair. The ravaged and harvested corpse didn’t have hair, or eyes… or much of anything worthwhile left...
“You know… Okay, so I did some crappy things near the end there. I’d like another chance. Not in that life. I made a rotten human. Maybe I’d be better as a bird. Let’s give it a try.”
“You’re sure that’s what you want?” the girl asked in a kind tone.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“All right.” She said with a smile. “There’s no wrong answers here. My brother picked you for a reason. You’d probably like it. Good luck.”
She backed away and turned around. “Be seeing you!” She waved and was walking through the lighted passage that faded with her. As she walked he could see the massive wings unfurl behind her, and he heard a heavy flapping as the whole image faded away.
But as the image faded he realized the flapping was not coming from the now gone spectre of Death. No. The flapping was his own. He hadn’t even really felt it happen. It felt that natural and organic to him. It was like the transition from sleep to waking. Matthew figured that most people don’t really remember the precise moment sleep becomes waking. He fluttered and swooped before he even realized he was doing it. And his sight- everything was suddenly so clear. It was as if he had never truly seen before. It was like his entire life he had been looking at things through a mesh of stocking or fog. He saw tiny details and distance in ways he could never have imagined in his human life. He loved it!
He flew out the window, which he wasn’t entirely sure was supposed to even be openable. He did not realize Morpheus had opened it for him, knowing his excitement to experience his new flight.
Matthew glided over the swampland on velvet wings. Flapping to gain altitude and catching the wind currents to glide as if it was the easiest and most natural thing. He didn’t even miss having thumbs. He thought he would at least miss that.
Matthew was having such a grand time in his flight that he barely noticed the passage of time. It was late in the evening of the following night when he finally landed on a tree limb in the swamp to rest. Maybe he could find Alec, apologize to him too… For… you know… all of it…
He landed on the low hanging branch near the water and suddenly Morpheus was beside him. He knew it before he even saw it. He turned his head. “How’d I know you were there?”
“Don’t be afraid, Matthew.” Morpheus was now dressed in a dark grey t-shirt under a long black jacket. He also had on black jeans and black shoes. And he was somehow untouched by the muck of the swamp.
“I’m not afraid.”
“You and I are connected now, you can feel me. As one of my subjects we are now linked.”
“I… guess I’m okay with that. You know my thoughts aren’t always that nice.”
“I’m not constantly searching through your thoughts and memories.”
“That’s good to know. You know, it’s strange… I almost feel like I was always supposed to be a bird. It’s like… I’ve been-“
“Liberated?”
“Yeah. Everything I was I can just leave behind. I’m glad I don’t have to be that guy anymore. That guy was a jerk!”
There was something that almost looked like a smile on the pale face of the Dream King. Matthew could feel his amusement more than he could see it.
“It’s strange. But I think I like it.”
He also felt like The Dream King somehow understood him and his stance. And for the first time he really noticed the eyes weren’t exactly black. They had tiny pupils that twinkled like stars. Tiny, glowing-white pupils that twinkled. Strange how he hadn’t noticed that before. Maybe because when he was still sort-of a man all he could see was darkness. Now he could see the light in the darkness.
“Hey, uh… Can I ask a favor?” Matthew asked, trying not to stare at Morpheus’ eyes. The way they reflected light, they were more beautiful to him now as a bird than they had been before.
“You may ask.”
“I never wanna be who I was before. I just want to be Matthew The Raven now.”
“You never have to be that man again.”
“Good. I just... This is gonna sound weird but… Can we go to my funeral? Assuming there is one… I feel like I should say goodbye… To him. Have some closure, you know.”
Morpheus held out his arm and Matthew understood what the offer was for. He moved to perch on the arm, careful not to dig too deeply into the fabric of the jacket with his talons.
“You don’t need my permission for that, Matthew. I have granted you the ability to come and go from The Dreaming and Waking World. You will need to be able to do that to serve me.”
“I mean…” Matthew felt ridiculous, vulnerable, and even a little angry at the thick headedness of his new boss. “I mean…. Will you come with me? I don’t want to go to my own funeral alone.” He was physically much smaller as a raven than as a man but now he felt utterly tiny.
Morpheus’ expression became blank, confused and then slowly showed signs of warmth. “You want me there with you?”
Matthew didn’t answer. He felt like he was about to be made fun of.
“I will come with you, Matthew…”
Just as he had predicted there weren’t that many people there at the funeral. Matthew felt strangely reassured by Morpheus’ quiet presence. No one saw them there. Though some of the mourners may have thought they saw a raven fly out after the services, fly high over the grave and then far, far away from the life of Matthew Cable…
The End. The Beginning.