Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Danger: Gold apples absorb magic from direct contact with monsters, leaving a golden hue. Prolonged contact will shatter the monster completely.

The crescendoing shrieks that sounded like they belonged to kids his age broke Nightmare’s concentration as he tried to read. He huffed in annoyance. Before he could yell down at the kids to scram, Dream’s voice sounded, “Why did you bring us near Mommy’s Tree?”

“Beca~ause.” This from a rabbit monster a couple years older than they were - ten, Nightmare guessed. He hadn’t gotten around to learning the rabbit’s name. “Dream is gonna get us some golden apples!”

A chorus of surprise nearly drowned out Dream’s protestation of “No, I’m not!” Nightmare rolled over and peered at the kids through the branches below. In addition to the rabbit and Dream, there were a pair of dogs that Nightmare was pretty sure were brother and sister, and the human Teasel, whose name Nightmare only knew because he had effectively glued himself to Dream’s side.

Nightmare knew he should really be jumping down and shooing away the kids, but he wanted to see what Dream would do. And, fine. He also had reached a good part in his book and his makeshift cloister among the magic apples was one of the few places no one could bother him, not without risking contact with them. He, well, also wasn’t sure whether the elders would be happy to find his boots scuffing up Mommy’s Tree. So he watched.

“C’mon Dream! You’re a guardian now! You have the au-thor-i-za-tion.” The rabbit drew out the word.

“Wait, you do?” asked one of the dogs. The other hopped on her hind legs, tail wagging as though she had just been pet.

“But I’m not supposed to!!” Dream piped up, voice pitching higher. “I’m… supposed to… guard them.” They looked at Teasel for backup, but he only looked at Dream with just as much eagerness.

The rabbit cut in. “Of course you have to guard them,” he said, as though they were much younger than their eight years. “But you can also choose who you want to gift the apples to.”

The rabbit, being two years older than the rest of them, had experience they didn’t, and he spoke with such authority that Dream wavered. “Why do you even want the apples?” Dream tried again. “You’re not sick. Or anything…”

The rabbit grinned. He leaned in, and the group of eight-year-olds leaned in to meet him. Nightmare listened. “You know what would be really cool? Glowing gold.” He waited for the gasps of amazement to die down and ignored Dream’s further attempt to protest. “I’ve even thought it out.” He rolled up his sleeve and bared the inside of his forearm, just proximal of the wrist. “We can show it off to everyone in class without the teachers or elders finding out. Everyone’ll be so jealous!”

“The grown-ups will find out…” Dream tried again.

“I mean, not if you don’t tell them, Dream. But you’re too cool to be a tattletale. You don’t need to run to the adults like some little kid anymore.”

With four sets of eyes boring into his brother, Nightmare needed to intervene. Dream had friends they cared for and couldn’t afford to lose by acting as a proper guardian. “I’ll tell them,” he called down.

The group looked into the canopy, and for a moment, it looked like they believed the Tree itself had spoken. Then the rabbit’s eyes alighted on him and he scowled. “Nightmare,” he spat.

Yeah, there wasn’t much Nightmare would be able to do from up here. He nooked the book against a sturdy fork of branches and aimed so he dropped down without jostling any apples. He had wanted to land between Dream and the other kids, but cater-corner worked well enough.

“I’ll tell,” Nightmare said again, drawing himself to his full height and crossing his arms. He still had to tilt his jaw up to meet the rabbit’s eyes. “We protect the apples because they’re not safe in the hands of normal monsters,” he recited. It was what the elders had taught the two of them, and Nightmare was almost gleeful he had the opportunity to act like a real guardian. He could prove himself here! “They’ll eat you alive,” he added, “So you should thank me for stopping you.”

The rabbit’s expression darkened.

Dream grabbed Nightmare’s arm (since his hands were folded away). “Pennywort,” they said to the rabbit. “The apples really are dangerous. Nighty and I… can do things others can’t. Someone already got hurt-” Because one of the elders had tried to heal someone, but misjudged the procedure. The victim’s arm had to be amputated entirely before her whole body shattered into glittery debris. Nightmare and Dream had seen the wildcat sometimes later, struggling to continue her basketry. The elders had accelerated the twins’ guardian training in response to the incident.

“…I would hate it if you got hurt,” Dream finished.

“It’s our responsibility,” Nightmare said.

For a moment, it looked like Pennywort would try to fight past them. Technically, Nightmare or Dream alone should have enough power to fend off one small rabbit monster, but they were still children, about equally trained in bullet patterns as their opponent, and Pennywort was bigger. He looked at the twins, then at the dogs and Teasel, and huffed, “Fine, be a goody-two-shoes,” he sneered. “You’re gonna regret it.” He stormed off. He hadn’t gone too far when he turned back and called, “The elders told me it was okay, and I’ll tell them you wouldn’t listen to me! You’ll get in so much trouble!” He resumed storming off.

The next day, Nightmare walked leisurely back to the Tree with his nose in a book. He barely had time to recognize a sudden force at the back of his shoulders before he spilled into the dirt. He hadn’t expected a blow and lay, stunned. He almost didn’t believe what happened until he heard scuffling feet running away and a hissing voice throwing some insult at him that sounded garbled in his head.

He told Dream he tripped.

Danger: The dark apples are ‘sticky’ and will actively seek out sources of magic to feed upon if injured.

Now it was Nightmare’s turn to carry over the apple and use the knife (He didn’t like the knife. He didn’t like the weight of it, or how easily he could picture it slicing through his bones). He just had to do what Dream did, but it was hard to focus on that task with everyone staring at him.

They were just keeping an eye on him so he didn’t mess it up. He knew that. It had to be why all those eyes looked so hard against him.

“Well? Why are you waiting?”

“Don’t hold it at arm’s length, Nightmare. Your posture looks ridiculous.”

“He’s not ready.”

“He’d be ready if he just moved.”

No! He could do it. He didn’t need to look at Dream for reassurance. He could do this all on his own. Nightmare shuffled forward and tried to listen to the voices around him and weave in all their advice, but he couldn’t think beyond a single strand of an order. All he had to do was move. Why couldn’t he? He stared at the golden skin of the apple held in his white phalanges. They were shaking. In the dim light inside the lodge, they cast hazy shadows across the apple. Nightmare felt tears begin to prick the corners of his sockets.

“Nightmare!” The voices pressed louder.

He had seen what they had. Splotches of darkness spreading across the apple’s skin from his fingers like dye in water. Dark apples held danger. They would kill and corrupt and keep killing and corrupting to spread their misery around. Nightmare couldn’t think. He wanted it away away away-

He heard the apple’s skin break as it hit the tile floor. He saw the darkness seep from the fruit’s bared flesh, searching.

He had killed them all.

In the eruption of noise and chaos, Dream acted. They tipped a glass jar over the apple and slid both over a thick sheet of cloth, just as Nightmare had shown Dream how to capture bugs. No one stopped them from sealing the jar with wax from the dripping candles and swiftly carrying the writhing dark apple in its jar out of the lodge. Nightmare should really go to help them. But he couldn’t move from his spot, pinned under the glares of the elders towering over him. He should go help. He should do something. All he managed to do was force tears from his sockets. He knew he shouldn’t cry - crying didn’t solve anything - but at least his sobbing drowned out the angry voices.

“They shouldn’t have yelled at you like that,” Dream told him later, after the elders showered them with praise for their quick-thinking and left them to deal with Nightmare’s moods.

“I messed up,” Nightmare said.

“You’ll do better next time,” Dream said firmly. “You’re my brother, and you’re not scared of anything! Not even the creepiest-crawliest bugs.”

Nightmare rubbed his eye sockets. “They’re not dangerous, though. Not most of them. And the ones that are just want to be left alone.” Not like the apples…

Dream cupped Nightmare’s skull and forced him to meet their eyes. “You’ll do better next time,“ they repeated. “I’m right here, and I’ll be able to catch your mistakes and you’ll be able to catch mine. That’s why we have each other!”

Hazard: Gold apples are skittish, and they will turn to stone when threatened.

Dream was fretting. They hovered at a distance from the Tree where the fringes of the canopy blocked the sunlight and dappled their body in greys and yellows.

Their nervous energy had infected Nightmare and put him on edge as well. They had always been more sensitive to bugs and so Nightmare was expected something big. “What is it?” he asked.

“A bird.” Dream pointed somewhere near the trunk. Nightmare couldn’t see any overt movement at a quick glance, which didn’t bode well. His gaze soon fell on brick-orange.

“A bluebird,” Nightmare said. He approached the spot of dull orange on plush white - chest plumage. The bird lay on its dusky blue back, wings splayed, feet clutching upward. He hoped, for Dream’s sake, that the songbird had just been stunned from an impact, but its body was cold to the touch and too heavy for its size. “It’s dead,” Nightmare said aloud.

“Oh no.” Dream padded up behind him. They were especially sensitive to seeing animals getting hurt. They took the bird from him and gently tested the sharp sides of its neck there the piece of gold apple had solidified. It must have choked to death.

“I think they’re migratory,” Nightmare said. He couldn’t recall exactly. “Wonder why the dark apple aura didn’t scare it off.” It was generally how Nightmare assumed the Tree protected the apples from predation - the dark apples tended to grow from lower branches anyway.

“Didn’t know the danger,” Dream supplied sadly.

Nightmare left them to whatever burial they intended to give the bird. He scoured the ground and… There. He scooped up a stone in the shape of an apple. Several holes had been pierced into the top near the stem before it had petrified. He wondered if the apple had fallen before or after it had turned.

Still, he had a duty to attend to. The stone would wear off when the apple felt safe again - or at least, it was supposed to. Severed from a source of magic, the stone would crumble.

It wouldn’t be worth it to attempt to re-attach the apple to the Tree. Even if such a thing were possible, he couldn’t risk the apple vegetating right as some unsuspecting monster provided it with a decent meal. Instead, he followed the protocol and buried it between the roots so some of its magic, or essence, or whatever made it up returned to the Tree.

Hazard: The golden apples have an aura that amplifies the surrounding positive emotions and the dark apples have an aura that amplifies negative emotions. However, the apples can also change from dark to gold (and vice versa) in response to an especially strong emotion.

“It will work,” Dream said firmly.

Night glanced from the golden apple to Dream.

I have eaten a dark apple. I have so much more negativity inside me now. If I could only corrupt the apples then, why would I be able to keep the corruption at bay now?

Night didn’t say any of this aloud.

Mare wrapped his tentacles along the inside of Night’s rib cage, skating into the aura of his soul. Mine, Mare didn’t say in words. Even if you don’t have the golden apples, you still have me, and I will never leave you.

Just the useless dark apples. Or…

Maybe not useful, but he still had Mare. And somehow, his presence was comforting. Something dreary, but empathetic. Understanding.

Even if he failed… Night focused on Mare's presence inside him, the weight of his touch.

He reached for the golden apple.

Why aren’t you corrupting it? Night asked. He had the golden apple in his hands, still shining gold, Dream looking at him with delight. Everything seemed to be going too well.

I mean, it stings like a bitch. I'm using you as a shield, to be honest.

Night looked at Dream.

"As long as you don't let your emotions overwhelm you, you won't corrupt them," Dream told him. Their eyelights shone with the same yellow as the skin of the apple.

Their eyelights had been overwhelmingly yellow as of late - not a spot of their 'bluebird of happiness' blue.

I really should make more of an effort for Dream, Night thought, at the same time as the more selfish yet determined thought, If Dream can do it, so can I.

Countermeasures: There is no way to tell whether someone has been infected by a dark apple aside from chasing it out with golden apple juice, unless it decides to show itself.

Night remembered being awed by the size of the tapestry when he first saw it as a child, but he hadn’t taken the time to look at it since then. He had seen it enough that it had become background sensation, like the water lapping through the canalettes.

It really was well-constructed, now that he gave it another thorough look. In the center, the climactic scene of Venus vanquishing the dark apple, with the rest of the tapestry providing structure - both narratively and literally. Venus shone with the power of the golden apple, haloed by dragonfly wings spun in gold leaf and surrounded by the souls of the villagers gleaming with the love and belief they lent it.

The tendrils of the dark apple had the greasy sheen of pine pitch, and the way the pitch clung to the threads gave it the eerie effect of seeming to corrupt the very fabric of the tapestry itself - but in this scene it was weak. The bolts of positive energy loosed by Venus’s crossbow shattered the tendrils into rainbow sparkles - shards of polished stones and perhaps some iridescent beetle shells preserved in transparent resin beaded onto the thread.

Other scenes from the legend bordered this centerpiece - Venus by the bedside of the first monster to fall to the plague of negativity; villagers turning against each other as their children fell sick in turn; Venus asking the Tree for a boon, and being granted a golden apple of such power to stem the plague and chase out the corruption - scenes that were embroidered, not woven, as Night noted when he peered closer. The embroidery hid the thick warp threads needed to bear the weight of the tapestry across the centuries without it buckling under the heavier central mass.

Even as he focused elsewhere, Night could feel Mare’s attention on the depiction of the dark apple.

Do you think they were a person? Night asked. Like you?

I didn’t become a person until I bonded with your soul, said Mare. And not until after a while spent sating myself on such a deep well of magic. This one was likely spending all its time seeking out its next meal to spend any to become a person.

It was doomed as soon as it severed from the Tree, mused Night. Either it would devour everything in its path, or it would be destroyed.

You have too much sympathy for things that only mean to hurt you, groused Mare.

Like you?

Night didn’t expect the pang of sadness from Mare.

I didn’t mean to hurt you. Not wholly. Another surprise. Mare usually kept his own introspection to a minimum when interrogating Night. He abruptly cloaked the bit of intimacy. What makes you think they can change? Mare asked instead. I lived weeks with you, asking questions, pushing boundaries, before I accepted- You’ve lived with these people over a decade. Why would they change now?

Night looked at the arc of human and monster souls depicted in the tapestry, gleaming with their hopes and dreams. They believed, despite everything.

Just because they sometimes do good things doesn’t mean anything if they won’t offer you the same courtesy.

No, I mean. I’ve felt that despair. That the world is nothing but dread and misery and that people are selfish and would trample over you to press their own advantage. And that they were able to look at a world that, by all rights, seemed to justify that belief? That they were once capable of looking past that to believe truly, deep in their souls, that things like goodness and kindness and joy could return, enough to grant the golden apple enough power to overcome the corruption?

Night realized how maudlin he sounded and broke off.

Mare could have said a lot of things. He could have told Night that these were nice thoughts, but he needed the join the real world, or that all the stuff about the power of love was just something pasted on to the historical tale to make it more palatable to kids.

Don’t push aside what you want for their sakes, Mare said instead. If they seek redemption from you, fine.

People don’t change their minds overnight, Mare, Night said. Mom saw something worth saving in the people here, enough that she risked her life again and again for them.

You aren’t your mother. You’re not bound to her mistakes.

You believe there are people in this world beyond redemption. It wasn’t quite a question.

I believe there are people in this world that need a good smack in the head, replied Mare.

Night stifled a yawn. He had stayed up far too late reading Dr Gaster’s book. Even his pack felt heavy on his shoulders. We can postpone this discussion or we can skip class.

Skip class.

Nah, I owe it to Dream.