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“They’re all pawns in my little game. Pawns to toy with for my own enjoyment.”
Those words rang through the silent air outside of the Dream SMP, atop a grassy knoll. The man with the green cloak and smile mask watched over the land he so enjoyed. Tomorrow was to be a festival in L’Manberg in honor of Dream and L’Manberg’s supposed peace. Dream knew there were underlying intentions in the words Tubbo had spoken to him earlier-there always were.
He wasn’t sure entirely what they were, but he was going to find out exactly what they were, one way or another. The wind blew ever slightly, setting his shaggy dirty blond hair moving over his mask in a slight dance. He knew by now that people on the server had connected some dots as to why he no longer took his mask off, but those people were of no concern. None of them really were.
With one last glance at the SMP from above, Dream jumped down from his hill and began his small trek back to his lands. Nightmare jingled on his back at each step-the ever present force that he had stolen from this body. He languished in the silence in his head as he walked in the night air. Back when he had first taken the body, Dream had been an unwelcome presence in his head at all times, but especially after L’Manberg’s destruction, even those slight feelings of guilt had dissolved. This had truly become his body and Dream’s influence had long lost its hold over the land, like he had disappeared from his friends’ minds. They no longer saw him as that friend that had helped him build the Community house, or had messed around for hours with no coherent plan on what to do. If they ever were successful in bringing Dream back and getting rid of him, would his friends be able to trust him again?
Dream’s lips curved upwards in a vicious smirk behind his mask. Even if the real Dream came back, they would only ever see him as the Dreamon in their eyes. He was no longer that nice guy that you could hang out with, he was a manipulative puppet master who didn’t care about anyone. He stopped at the river just outside L’Manberg, staring down into the water. He lifted his right hand, which had begun shaking slightly and clenched it, “Even after all this time, this body never truly outgrew you.” He murmured into the water as his own bright green eyes stared back at him, distorted in the river’s tide.
He wondered briefly as he looked back at his reflection if Dream would even know what happened if he came back. Would it be like a long slumber of which he had no memory, or would he suddenly be thrust into this months long story he had not been a part of? The menacing smile of his mask stared at him a moment longer before he broke the surface as he waded into the water. He riptided through the river quickly with his trident and stepped onto the other shore.
Now what was he to do to figure out how these fools thought they would get the upper hand on him? He looked at L’Manberg’s sleepy stillness as a thought struck him: Why not go to the one that will betray him without them even knowing? He started walking once again, adjusting the mask straps to sit more comfortably on his hair and not rub on his head.
The soft light from the lanterns glowed through the holes in his mask as he entered the country, “Now, which house is Ranboo’s?” He questioned under his breath, to himself. There weren’t that many houses to begin with, so it wouldn’t take him long to figure it out. He walked up the steps of a house and looked in the window. He was greeted with the slight emptiness of a house that was rarely lived in, “Not this one.”
He stepped back down the stairs and moved to the next house. As he walked up the stairs, he could hear multiple animals making noises. This had to be it, he thought to himself as he slowly pulled the door open. The house was empty of human occupants, so he stepped in without a moment’s hesitation and began sifting through the many chests. The hood from his cloak slowly slid down his mask as he bent over the chests, the soft fabric swishing quietly as it rubbed against the mask’s wooden surface.
There was a book that the half-enderman often carried with him. He was unsure what it was, but he knew how important it was to him. That was his ticket to gaining his information. After a few minutes of looking through the entire house and trying to avoid multiple cats, a bee, and a fox, Dream turned back to the door to finally leave. Of course it was still with Ranboo. He would have to find another way of getting a hold of it.
He pulled the door open again and stepped out of the house, and just as he pulled the door closed with a definitive click, he spotted the boy walking from the river bank where he had come from. He walked down the steps and waited in the small plaza nearby until the boy was close enough to hear his words.
“Out awfully late before a big event, aren’t we?” Dream questioned breezily, his hands stuffed in the sleeves of his cloak, as usual. Ranboo glanced up at the stagnant face of the only expression he could see, his heterochromatic eyes glimmering in the lantern and night light, “Just some nerves I needed to work out-big day for us and all, you know?” Ranboo stammered confidently.
Dream narrowed his eyes as he looked at the boy. He was different right now; he didn’t seem like the boy he had seen earlier in the day, “Totally understandable. Say, do you happen to have a ledger of all the events for tomorrow?” He asked steadily. Ranboo looked at the stage behind Dream briefly before focusing on him again, “What kind of ledger would you need?” He asked wearily as his face became edged.
“Oh you know, just one that describes the events.” Dream pressed. Ranboo couldn’t suppress a shudder as he caught a glimpse of Dream’s eye from the depths of the foreboding mask, reaching subconsciously for his memory book. He pulled it out and Dream’s eyes lit up in hunger at seeing the leather-bound object, “Ah, like that.” He said as he took a calm step closer to the teen.
“What do you say to handing that book over for me to look at?” He added and Ranboo’s eyes stared back at the older male. Dream’s voice practically purred with fake gentleness. But Ranboo had no idea how fake it was. Something in Ranboo shifted at his words and he held the book out for Dream to take. Dream took the book and tilted his head to appear like he was smiling under the mask.
There was only a knowing smirk on his face.
Dream fished a similar book out of his cloak and handed it to the teen with a pat on the hand, “Thank you for your contribution. Sleep well, and see you tomorrow.” He responded, and before Ranboo could respond, he had turned away and started walking back down the piers.
“Why did I just let him have the book?” Ranboo asked himself as he watched the man walk away, “Did you really think you could oppose him? You felt whatever that was.” His voice cut in, slightly deeper pitched, “You won’t remember any of this by the morning anyway. What he will do to you once he finds out what you’ve done.”
Ranboo’s arms dropped to his sides as Dream disappeared from sight. He wondered what it was that he had felt just then. Dream had done something to one of them for sure, but he didn’t know what it was. With a sigh, he looked down at the book in his hands and then turned and walked up into his house. With a smile at his animals, he climbed up the ladder into his little loft area and sat at the edge, “What will you do tomorrow?” His voice asked himself, “I’ll do what I can.”
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Dream walked out of L’Manberg with a small smile on his lips. How wonderful it felt to flex his power over these whelps. It had been so long since he had been able to do something like that so freely. He looked down at the leather object still held in his hands. Now to find a place to hide and read through it. His eyes slid from either side of his head as he scouted his surroundings without turning his head. It was late at night, so reasonably there would be no one out and about in the SMP. The swish from the cloak’s fabric as he walked seeped into his ears-it was so silent both internally and externally that only the sounds he made from his movements caught his hearing.
He kept walking, the sound slowly becoming louder to his own ears as his hearing focused on it for lack of something else to pinpoint. Finally, with a frustrated pull, he ripped the cloak away from his legs and let the fabric float to the ground where he stood. He released a breath and calmed his breathing, “No, you’re gone. There’s nothing to fixate on, it’s just me.” He murmured to himself, but he felt a twinge in his stomach that certainly wasn’t of his doing. You can never get rid of me, it seemed to say.
With a jolt, he realized he still held Ranboo’s book tightly in his right hand. He glanced down at it again, before tucking it away and starting to walk again. Whereas he had been moving down the Prime path toward the Community house before, his feet now carried him the opposite way towards Skeppy’s mansion. For once in a long while, his head was completely empty of any thoughts. Usually, his brain was working to puzzle out his next moves, and in particular against Tommy and L’Manberg. Now, though, it was devoid of anything-like he was on autopilot.
He was unsure of what was suddenly happening with his body, and why it felt so strongly as if Dream had been part of the reason. He was gone, he was no more. He stopped on the path as he passed by Tommy’s house, turning towards a familiar hole in the stone from the mountain side, “Why this place of all places?” He asked himself under his breath.
Before he knew it, he was climbing down the hillside and towards the many doors stood outside the hole. His heart beat in his ears as he approached the old home he only remembered, but had never been to. He crawled through the small hole until he reached the bigger room within, glancing around. This was something he had only seen through Dream’s memories, had only seen through the other’s eyes. A feeling of nostalgia hit him and he stood in the center of the room for a second, absorbing every small feature, his green eyes hungry for the memories. His warm breath settled against the inside of his mask, making it difficult to focus on anything else.
He reached to the back of his head and unclasped the mask, letting his hand fall limply to the side and drop the mask to the ground. He sucked down some clear air in small gulps and relaxed his body. How good it felt to truly show himself back where it had basically begun so long ago. But was it his face, truly? Yes, it was, and it always would be now, he told himself.
He sat down at last and pulled the book out, turning it over in his hands momentarily before flicking it open to the first page. Descriptions and memories of when he had built the wall scrawled the first few pages. He read through, smirking at the disgust plain even through the pages. Next, he read of when Ranboo had gone to visit Tommy during his exile, then of the butcher army and what their plans were against Techno.
The wooden walls slowly began to surge inward each page he read through, a pit of unrest forming in his conscious mind. Not his, but his, “How are you doing this? You’re gone, they got rid of you.” He growled as the walls swam in his vision. He lifted a hand to his head as it throbbed slightly. This was not the same as it had been when the two souls had each vied for control of this body, no. It was different somehow, but still disorienting. Never before had he met such a resistant host-even after being exorcised by the hunters, its consciousness fought to stay present.
“I’m not as gone as you think I am.” A sleepy, but familiar voice floated through the edges of his thoughts, as if a leaf carried through the wind. His other hand gripped his head as a laugh surged through his chest and erupted out of his lips, “And I’m not even near finished with this server. Come back all you wish, I will gladly let you watch as I thoroughly destroy everything you loved.” He said between laughs, his voice choked slightly.
The voice in his head stirred slightly, but did not continue to push through his thoughts. He was there; he wasn’t going anywhere. But he would not push himself onto the dreamon. Dream-no, the Dreamon-sat on the floor of his old home, his hands buried in his shaggy blond hair, a mad look in his green eyes and a wild smirk splitting his face and obscuring his freckles.
“You want to watch, fine. My game is not finished, and I have much worse things in store for the future. Torture my thoughts, fight my movements, but these pawns have yet to see how fucked they truly are. This is my land. My power is infinite, and my control is limitless. So suffer. Suffer in silence, for what you will never have.”
A wild laugh floated through the air on the outskirts of L’Manberg, drifting down wind to the sleepy country. What they have in store for them.