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He sat immobile in the center of the wide room, amidst the bright shimmers of reds, blues, and greens illuminating the smooth dark floor. His legs were folded to his chest, elbows resting on his knees, wrists hanging crossed in front of him. His eyes didn’t move, didn’t blink. It was quiet. Deep waters.
The light kept him afloat. It was beautiful and vivid, nothing like the measly candles which had dotted the stagnant stream of the basement like holes through black cloth.
“My Lord,” called a voice softly.
He raised his head. The chief librarian stood in the wide arched entrance, her features pulled in worry.
“Lucienne,” he rasped.
She stepped forth, obeying his unspoken permission to approach him, and joined him beneath the glowing stained glass. There, she stood at an arm’s length. Her voice was careful.
“I was looking for you.”
“Here I am.”
“Yesterday, you were here, too. Lost in thought. I chose not to disturb you.”
“Thank you,” said Dream.
She remained. He waited.
“How long…”
Lucienne’s voice trailed off. She adjusted her glasses with the tips of her fingers, before she found the question she truly meant to ask him.
“My Lord, why do you choose to sit alone in this place for hours on end? Surely you know that there are more comfortable places which would allow you to rest.”
“There is light, here. True light,” Dream told her.
Lucienne gazed at him. Her sharp, intelligent gaze could easily see through his words, and what she saw saddened her. He could see it in the unhappy furrow of her brow.
“You do not speak about it,” she said, “but I see you sit here, head bowed as if the weight of the world lays upon it. You do not stand as straight and strong as you once did.”
Dream said nothing. He had had the time to practice silence in the last century.
“My Lord,” quietly said Lucienne. “I know that what has happened to you has hurt you. I will not ask you to tell me what you do not wish to tell, but I know that even for an Endless like yourself, a century of pain is nothing that can easily be forgotten. I want you to know that I am here for you. I always will be.”
Dream gazed at the dark, seamless ground beneath his feet. He remembered being trapped at the bottom of a deep chasm of loneliness and boredom. Trapped like a vulgar animal, exposed and vulnerable, at the hands of vile ignorant individuals who made the choice of seeing nothing of the harm they’d caused. He remembered the blood of his loyal raven staining the glass of his prison, the cold realization that he had lost his beloved Jessamy, wrenching through his heavy heart like a spear. And the profound hatred which had festered and spread within him like a poison, chaining him to the glass sphere until the time had come for that glass to break, he could still feel the echoes of even now that he was finally home.
“I was alone,” said Dream.
Lucienne’s voice grew heavy with grief. “As did I end up being, my Lord. I can understand your pain.”
“No.” Dream raised his face to her. “I was alone from the beginning. Then, a decade later, they took Jessamy from me. I became more alone than I thought I could ever be.”
Lucienne wordlessly stared back at him, a faint horror tinging her features.
“My thoughts have been my only reliable company for a long time.” Dream lowered his head once more, and murmured: “I hope that you can forgive me for slipping into them so easily. That you can forgive me for having less… focus, than I used to.”
“Of course, my Lord,” whispered Lucienne. She sounded uncertain, and unsettled. “I did not realize… Well. Perhaps I overestimated my capacity to understand what you have been through during your absence. I apologize.”
Dream shook his head. “There is nothing to apologize for, Lucienne. You did not know, and now you do.”
Silence befell them. Then, slowly, Lucienne kneeled before him and laid a gentle hand upon his shoulder.
“My Lord.”
Dream raised a weary gaze to her.
Her seeking eyes roamed across his face, and she said: “I am here. Tell me what you need.”
His skin ached longingly beneath her touch, deeper than the relief he’d felt when she’d found him lying in the sand at the edge of his kingdom, stronger than the comfort her solid presence had provided him as she’d pulled him up to his feet.
Dream closed his eyes.
“Please… Hold me.”
Lucienne’s breath wavered, short and choked, as if the words had caught her at the throat. Dream understood her reaction. His voice had never sounded so fragile to his own ears before. He felt her lean in and touch the back of his head. Her arms wrapped around him in a strong, soft embrace, like iron and velvet, and she spoke in a sorrowful whisper.
“Yes, my Lord.”