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A long time ago, there were two gods. One of them was bright and brilliant, burning hot. The other was cold and cavernous, calmly serene. They were Summer and Winter, and they were madly in love with each other. They were the epitome of passion and perfection, but they were not the only gods. Jealous of their love, Autumn and Spring drove Summer and Winter apart, and remained as transition seasons firmly between the two.
Over time, as they were apart, the two gods fell out of love with each other- as it goes. They fell in love with other people and had other children. Their other children remained mortal, because they were each afraid that the day would come where a child turned out to be a god like Autumn and Spring, and try to usurp their power.
Until, one day, a special child from each of the gods came along. Summer fathered a child, a boy, who had hair that was golden like the sun Summer so loved. It was a purposeful child- there was no mother. This child was to be his heir. Summer named him Clay, after the earth from which he was fashioned.
Winter gave birth at nearly the same time, also to a boy, who had eyes that were blue like the ice Winter so loved. She didn’t mean to give birth, but she did. Winter decided that this child would be her heir, and named him Error, because that’s what he was.
Over time, Clay’s golden hair faded into a dark blond. Over time, Error’s icy blue eyes turned dark and muddled brown. As they came unto their own, the sons of gods, trained to replace their parents, they chose their own names. Clay decided to be called Dream, for that is what he saw the season of summer as; a hazy dream of both the best and worst kind. Error decided to be called George, a mundane name, not associated with any season or god, something completely his own.
Summer and Winter, who could not see each other because of Autumn and Spring, raised their sons to fear the opposite season.
“Winter is evil,” Summer said. “She will bite at your fingers and freeze your heart. Do well to stay in the heat.”
“Summer is evil,” Winter said. “He will melt your soul and creep up your neck. Do well to stay in the cold.”
Of course, destiny is a funny thing, and the two sons were destined to meet each other and fall in love, just as their parents had. It was a day in late Autumn, a time when neither Summer nor Winter was ruling the sky, one of the two seasons in which the sons could walk the earth without fear of repercussion from the other.
Autumn and Spring knew of the two sons, the heirs. They saw as the two drew closer to each other, their paths about to cross.
“We should split them up,” Autumn said from his throne, looking down upon the earth. At his side, Spring scoffed. “Spare them the pain.”
“They are not their parents,” she told him. “Let them be. They will learn, in time, that they cannot be together.”
And at that moment, on earth, they found each other.
For Dream, it was as if a chill was washing over him. For George, it was if the entire world had warmed up.
“You’re Winter,” Dream said.
“You’re Summer,” George said at the same time.
They stopped and stared at each other. To each, it was like looking at beauty personified; George was everything Dream could not have. Dream was everything unattainable to George.
“The son of Summer,” Dream offered after a moment, when it was clear George would not speak. “I’m his son.”
“I’m her son, too,” George supplied. “Winter’s, I mean. I’m supposed to take her place… some day.”
“I am, as well,” Dream said. “Maybe we’ll meet again, eventually.”
“Maybe,” George agreed. With that, the two parted ways, feeling that something in the world had suddenly, irrevocably, changed. Spring and Autumn each breathed out a sigh of relief.
But something had changed, in the world. George longed to feel the touch of summer, heat brushing against his lips and coiling in the pit of his stomach. Dream craved the touch of winter, the cool tendrils around his back and the press of frost at his neck. Without knowing it, the two had intertwined their fates merely by meeting.
They didn’t meet again for another few decades. This time, it was Spring, and Dream was wandering the world, preparing to bring his warmth. George was still lingering, waiting, watching from afar. Feeling mischievous, he decided to have a little bit of fun.
He made it snow, in an area Dream had already visited. The people cried out, upset, and Dream heard them. He came back to see George surrounded by a small flurry of snowflakes, smiling.
“Hello, Son of Summer,” George greeted him.
“Hello, Son of Winter,” Dream replied. “Why are you messing up my job?”
“I’m just having a bit of fun,” George said. “I’m George.”
“Dream. It’s nice to meet you, officially.” Dream stood in the flurry of snow and let the flakes dust his shoulders, his hair. He tilted his head back and let them fall on his tongue, and he smiled. It felt painful, like tiny pinpricks against his skin. Being in the snow was unnatural. It wasn’t supposed to happen, and they both knew it.
“Your skin is turning blue, Dream,” George said, with a slight smile. “I don’t think my snow likes you very much.”
“I wonder why,” Dream remarked dryly. “I think, if I were to part your clouds…”
He raised a hand, and the sun overwhelmed the clouds, sending them scattering. George laughed as he felt the rays on his back, his skin blistering, just as Dream’s had.
“You’re right,” George said. “We’re meant to be apart.”
“Too bad,” Dream replied. “You’re very pretty. I guess I’ll have to gaze from afar.”
“You do that,” George told him, and that was the end of their second meeting.
From then on, they met at the changing of every season. One of them left as the other entered, and they always exchanged a few words, a smile, occasionally teasing the other with snow or sun. And always, they held those encounters in their hearts for the rest of the season, until they could meet again.
One Autumn day, as Winter was preparing to begin her reign, Dream sought out George in the far south, where Winter’s reach didn’t quite touch.
“I think,” Dream said, “That I should like you to make it snow.”
“Really,” George replied, one eyebrow raised. “I think that would hurt you, wouldn’t it?”
“It would be worth it, to experience something that you enjoy so much.”
George smiled and created a small flurry of snow, just for Dream, and it did burn, but it burned in such a good way, an intoxicating way, a way that Dream wanted to feel again and again.
The next Spring, as Summer prepared to take his throne, George asked Dream for the sun.
“For you,” Dream said, parting the clouds and making it as sunny as he possibly could, “Anything.” And it burned George, but it burned in a way that made him want to never leave the sun, never return to the cold, if only to feel what Dream felt.
When their lips first met, what must have been years later, it was the most glorious moment either of them had ever experienced, even better than feeling the opposite season for the first time. It was the hot and the cold combining, a whirlwind, but it was something that was not meant to be.
It hurt them. It was more painful than the sun and the snow, more painful than the frostbite and the sunburns. It was a blizzard, a heatstroke, and they both knew it could never happen again.
They found their happy place in the very heart of Spring and Autumn. Halfway through each of the two seasons, there was one point where they could be together without fear of hurting the other. They would wrap themselves in each other’s arms, and there, they could be at peace.
“If I could,” George said, “I would turn the entire world to ice, apart from a palace in the sky made of pure sunlight, just so I knew you would be safe. If it were always Winter, I could hide you away and you would be mine.”
“If I could,” Dream replied, “I would make you a palace of freezing ice, and I would burn the world down if it meant having you all to myself. If it were always Summer, I could lock you up and keep you safe.”
And they both said it light-heartedly, teasingly, because they knew the world didn’t work like that. They could not protect each other from themselves. They could not protect themselves from each other.
So they remained in a world where they could see each other twice a year, where they could barely hold each other without feeling pain. And Spring and Autumn watched from their palace in the sky and did nothing; Winter and Summer could not be together, and neither could George and Dream.
But George and Dream were different. They were not gods; they were the children of gods. And their capacity for love was something even greater than the gods could even imagine. They did not let distance force them apart; they did not fall out of love. If anything, their love was only strengthened, by both space and time.
“And as I tell you this story, I’ll close this journal, and just know; somewhere, as Autumn and Spring hit their midway point, the lovers are meeting again.”
Karl sets the old journal to the side with a smile. Another book for the ages. He is the god of Time, and it is his fault the seasons cycle through again, and again, and again. He is the reason time marches on steadily, and George and Dream are allowed to see each other.
“That’s a depressing story, love,” Sapnap says, pressing his head into Karl’s shoulder. “There’s no happy ending.”
“There isn’t even an ending, Sapnap,” Karl reminds him. “Maybe someday, they’ll be able to be together.”
“Maybe someday,” Sapnap agrees.
And far away, in a palace of Autumn leaves and Spring flowers, Dream and George entwine themselves together and smile. Because they have each other, and that’s all that matters.