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Schlatt stares him down with a smile on his face, yellow eyes glinting eerily in the moonlight.
"Well, aren't you a proper Cassandra," his voice bears an inherent warble, a sort of raspiness that reminds Dream that he's not quite human. It shouldn’t bother him, with himself being half-Dreamon and the sheer amount of hybrids and other outcasts on this server, but somehow, it does.
"Nice reference," he presses his mask to his face with slightly more force than necessary with one hand, the other reaching around the back to make sure it is tightly secured. "Never placed you as one for Greek mythology."
"Could say the same for you," his voice is soft, trembling on the m and stretching the you, and Dream cannot help his shoulders from hitching upwards towards his ears, half of his mind hissing like a cornered cat and his hands clenching into claws. Schlatt's smile grows wider. "To be honest, it never really interested me, but you know how Wilbur is."
"I don't know if I do." He cuts himself off a little too quickly, words stifled by his teeth clicking together and he tamps down the urge to pull out his axe. It wouldn't matter if he fought because Schlatt is unarmored and Dream carries a war's worth of weaponry wherever he goes, and this is still a fight he cannot win.
"Damned if you do, damned if you don't," Schlatt smirks, his words lilting, almost song-like. His eyes seem to glow brighter. "Tell me, Dream, when did you realize that you could talk and talk and talk and no one would ever believe you?"
Dream swallows. The air, suddenly, feels heavy. "You do not belong here, Schlatt," is what he manages to get out through clenched teeth and a dead tongue, his throat bobbing. The air behind his mask feels suffocating.
"You're right," he says, and they know that Dream doesn't mean here, in DreamSMP or here, in L'manburg . Dream meets those yellow, otherworldly eyes and knows that they are thinking of the same thing, of a shoddy cobble cage sticking out of the grass, grey and rough and ugly and foreign. Of Tommy, when his eyes were still bright without the memories of war, of Wilbur not yet sunk into madness and trinitrotoluene, of a path that had not yet traced the rough-edged spine of a grassy cliff and descended into a forest that grew a van, grew houses, grew a wall. Dream remembers feeling his world shift underneath him and remembers the way he had ripped his claws into its fabric, letting the goat hybrid fall into the tear he left. You do not belong here, he had said, bared teeth and tense shoulders hidden under cool porcelain and enchanted armor. Leave.
And he had.
Schlatt laughs, low and cold. His hands scrape against the polished wood of his desk (here); his boots scuff against the diorite floor of the White House (here); his laugh echoes on the pale stone walls (here, here, here). He had left, at Dream's orders, a smirk written on the horizontal edge of his pupils, lingering in the smooth curve of his horns, and then he came back .
(Damned if you do, damned if you don't.)
"You kicked me," Schlatt drawls, moving slowly around his desk. His boots click against the stone floor. "You saw, I'm sure, what I could do. What I would do," he looks over, and though he is a hybrid of a passive mob his expression is entirely predatory. "You saw, and you took action, and you really are a fool, Dream."
"You knew they would never believe me," Dream doesn't move, words flat. It is nothing he hasn't known, but the realization punches the air out of his lungs all the same.
"Suspected," Schlatt leans over the edge of his desk, elbow pressed into the wood, hand resting under his chin. "But it looks like I was right. More right than I expected, really."
Dream swallows. His mouth feels dry; he must have forgotten to drink water, again.
"Cassandra," Dream starts, tongue scraping against his teeth, "was a priestess who wanted the power of prophecy." Each word leaves him more parched, but he cannot stop, cannot leave. "When she refused to give herself to Apollo after securing his gift, he cursed her. She would prophesize, but nobody would believe her." He swallows thickly. "They thought her mad."
Schlatt looks at him pointedly, a lazy smirk still on his lips. Dream knows his place in this story, knows that he's been cemented as the mad tyrant of this land long before he even knew there was a part for him to play. He blinks, and sees Wilbur with a quill in his hand, (where men could go and emancipate), sees Tommy watching him like he's a stranger (the tyranny and brutality of their rulers) , sees his friends standing against him (we would rather die- )
"What a tragedy," and Dream flinches away from the memories that cling to him like a shadow, his hands clenched into fists and nails digging into his flesh. "Poor Cassandra, isn't that right?"
(Damned if you do, damned if you don't.) "What do you want from me, Schlatt?"
Schlatt must hear him; they are the only ones in Manburg, and the room echoes loudly with every sound within its walls, but he doesn't seem to react at all as he continues. "And Cassandra saw the fall of Troy, didn't she?" He picks at his nails with one hand, looking almost bored. "Knew that the horse the Greeks brought was no gift, knew that what was contained within would fell their city." He looks up at Dream through half-lidded eyes, expression still stuck in that same, infuriating smirk. "Sound familiar?"
A long time ago that was not so long ago, Dream would've killed Schlatt and moved on with his day. A long time ago that was not so long ago, Dream would've used his powers over this world, hooked his claws into its rules and bent them to his will. A long time ago that was not so long ago, he would've looked Schlatt in the eye, tossed his head back, and laughed.
He is too tired for that, now.
"Trojan Horse, L'manburgian Goat," he smiles bitterly. "Do you plan on making a gaudy figurine of a cow to haul to Pogtopia next?"
Schlatt brushes him off with a wave of his hand. "No, no. That will not be necessary. Remember, it's Wilbur who loves the theatrics, not me."
"Says the same man who insisted on a festival to cover for the assassination of his own right-hand man," Dream shoots back. He had watched the Festival the way he watches most of his server now, with a heavy heart and loaded weapon he could never quite bear to use, huddled in some corner as he watched the bloodshed beneath him. (He is a child of war, child of bloodshed, but even he cannot bear the sight of his friends' blood on his hands for too long. Not in a world like this. Not when he's fighting little more than children.) He blinks away the sight of Tubbo falling to the ground with a blackened hole in his chest with slightly more force than he expected, and his voice comes out raspy. He tells himself it's just dehydration. "You're just as dramatic as he is."
"Fair."
"Which brings me to my next point," Dream sighs, a heavy exhale of breath that's starting to become all too familiar. "I know you well enough to know that you wouldn't talk to me without some sort of motive. What do you want?"
Dream watches carefully at the other man for any sign of surprise, anything he can use to regain control of the conversation and hopefully end it as soon as possible, but Schlatt is as familiar with verbal sparring as he (if not more) and remains completely unreadable. He straightens up again, the top of his head coming up just a bit lower than Dream's line of sight as he resumes pacing around his desk.
"I've heard," he starts, a throaty chuckle entering into his voice that has Dream's hackles raising, "that there may be something hidden, in my country. Planted, even."
Dream nods slowly. He would say that he didn't expect this, but Schlatt is observant, despite his vices. It's what allowed him to catch Tubbo as a traitor, Quackity in his doubt, even Fundy, perhaps, as a double agent. Wilbur wouldn't know subtlety if it smacked him in the face with a Netherite axe; his plan was bound (prophesized) to fail.
"And as much as I would like to see this land, how'd he put it, all blown up," his lip curls in irritation. "I would rather like to spare my enemy the satisfaction of victory, however pyrrhic it may be."
More attached to Greek myth than you let on, aren't you Schlatt? he thinks as he leans back on his left foot. "And why would I join you? You know as well as I do that my interests aren't particularly aligned in your favor."
"No," Schlatt smiles. "But they can be."
Dream swallows. (A long time ago that was not so long ago, he would've denied it.) "What do you offer, then?"
"I'm reasonable, Dream, despite whatever Wilbur and Tommy may think," Schlatt leans back against his desk, almost sitting on it, propped up by his hands lying flat on the surface of the table. "I know that there is no one on my side, left. And I know that there isn't much I have to offer to you." He makes some sort of gesture at the walls around him. "Look at this place. It's a wreck."
Dream snorts, despite himself. "You aren't wrong."
"But there is something that I have that you don't," he smiles, and his eyes glitter dangerously as they catch the sun's light streaming in from the windows behind Dream as it begins to rise, "I can give you Manburg."
What?
"Or L'manburg! I don't fucking care what it's called, really. You can have this place."
"You just called this place a wreck," Dream replies, voice carefully steady. "Why would I care about it?"
"Because you know, just as I know, that you want it," Schlatt smiles. It's a dangerous smile, even more than earlier because he has caught Dream in a trap, in an offer he cannot refuse, and Dream cannot turn away no matter how much he feels like he's selling his soul to the devil. His eyes glow . "Because you know, just as I know, that as long as this land belongs to someone else, it cannot be peaceful. It cannot be free." He leans back against his hands, eyes still fixed against Dream's own. "Isn't it fucking ironic? They thought they were getting their precious independence, and in the process, they made themselves slaves to an endless cycle of war and corruption. I know it. You know it."
Dream feels his breath hitch in his throat. "And what makes you think that it will be any different under me?"
Schlatt laughs. "Oh, it won't, because Wilbur's got a tongue of silver and Tommy's so busy fighting that he's already fucking forgotten what the hell he's fighting for," Dream can hear his heart hammering in his ears, an anxious thrumming drumbeat to Schlatt's voice, slow and smooth. "But you're powerful. You, at least, will be able to hold them together a little longer before they inevitably descend into chaos again."
Dream must hesitate for a moment too long before responding because Schlatt barrels on, eyes flashing with something almost like irritation.
"Let me map it out for you, Dream," he slides down from the desk, taking a step closer. "If you side with Pogtopia, then at best you get Wilbur and Tommy's regime back in power. One that cares little about authority and even less about actually ruling, and a perfect little spot of organization for their pet anarchist to take down without much trouble. At worst? Well, Wilbur is one wrong step off of losing his mind. Destruction runs in his blood, now," and Schlatt's lips curl into a pale imitation of a grin, "and I doubt it will be exactly easy to satisfy it."
"Or," Schlatt continues with a flick of his wrist. "You side with me, defeat their rebellion, and take over. You're the only one powerful enough to pose a challenge to Technoblade when he decides to go after the nearest government to take down, and the only one that's able to keep power when Wilbur gets it into his mind to destroy everything around him again. You get your precious land back, I get protection from their feral group of idiots, and they get protected from another round of their own madness." Schlatt's voice pitches lower, more genuine, and it's almost more terrifying than the insane laughter and overconfidence. "I know you're tired of all of these wars, Dream."
(Damned if you do, damned if you don't.)
Every nerve in his body is screaming at him to run, to hide, but he cannot. Not in this world, because this world is his in a way that no other is, his to look after and his to protect and his to possess. In other worlds, there are shadows to hide in, darkness to swallow him whole. Here, he is the sun, and shadows and darkness will always crawl away from his light. There is no hiding from his responsibility, here. Every fight, every death, lingers on his hands.
(Cassandra had the power of prophecy, but no one would believe her. Dream had told them to avoid Schlatt, and they hadn't listened. He had seen L'manburg's fall since the moment their declaration was signed, forged in blood and fated to die by it as well, but had been heralded a tyrant and a madman. He had seen Wilbur's madness since days clouded by blaze powder and hidden vans and had watched silently as the gold bled grey into gunpowder that clung to the palms of his hands. He wonders what Cassandra would have done if she had the power to make men tremble in fear, should they not heed her warnings. He wonders if she would have willingly plunged her hands in blood if it meant that Troy would still stand.)
"What do you want me to do?"