Chapter Text
In a time before the Black Egg hatched, the land of dreams was a wonderful place.
A cursed holy ground within a cursed holy ground, all golden clouds and bronze skies. The dead suffered in their waking hours, but their dreams were filled with glimmering beauty.
It was a wonderful place to die in.
It is not that anymore.
It is an endless sea of pitch. Obsidian shores rose out in flat plains and jagged mountains, as if the world underneath had shattered and pierced the eternal ocean. Streams of black fall from the sky above, which was the color of steel. But it wasn't cloudy, no, it was if it was drained of all the color it had.
On what shores laid above the waters stood the Godseekers that had found their God. Their wrappings had been stained black from the endless mist and rains. Their masks were bleached silver from the sunless sky above. They never sung the praises of gods of glory and war and paint anymore. No, they mainly just stared at the sea, the sea born from their God's creation. They stared at the ocean, and they wept.
Beneath the waves, beneath that lake of tar, something else moved. To call it a monster would be inaccurate. A monster resembles something, something that causes fear, something that plucks at the strings of fear that lie within every bug's mine and makes them scream. The Lord of Shades resembles nothing but itself, and that was somehow the scariest part of it.
It swam and bathed throughout its sea. At first, it seemed to do so out of curiosity. If one could remark on it without bursting into tears, they would say that it was almost childlike. Soon afterwards, however, it became a pattern, and then an obvious attempt to alleviate boredom. The Lord had the entire realm of Dream's under its control, and yet, it was bored.
Soon enough it realized its grasp. The Nightmare Heart had long since sealed its side off from its Sister's realm; as soon as the tides of battle with the knight and Her had turned, it had already laid down a wall. However, that left the entire dream realm at its command. The moth tribe had long since faded off, with its final Seer going willingly into the light.
At first, bugs dreamed of gold and sun. Then, they didn't dream.
Now, they dream of obsidian shores, and eternal lakes, and a monster under the sea that tried to comfort them.
(Those who were comforted, and felt comforted, bled tears of pitch from their eyes and mouth. They fled their homes, torn the barricades that sealed off the flooded Abyss Sea, and threw themselves into the calm waters.
Some say that they can hear them weep, down there.)