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The thing is: Morpheus had, for over a century, had nothing to do but reflect. The thing is: Now that he's back, his associates, creations, siblings, friends, react differently to him. He reacts differently to them. There's trust there, fragile, new, hard-won and uncertain, of a form he hasn't experienced before. That he can allow Lucienne to oversee his duties, that she can speak her mind to him, that he shares his name with Hob Gadling and thanks his sister for a needed lesson well-taught.
The thing is: He has a horrible suspicion that the cage, that airless, tortuous orb, did him good. That as his nightmares serve to edify the dreamers, so it served to edify him, to humble him, to remind him and prove to him beyond doubt that without those he values, he is nothing.
He is a proud being. That remains true after a century of imprisonment as it likely would after a millennium. But no longer is he proud of his pride. He has seen, with these reopened eyes of his, how his hubris has damaged those he holds dear and how it has threatened his realm and the dreamers along with it. He has hurt his sister, and Lucienne, and Hob Gadling, and his own creations. This, too, is not new; however, he no longer sees others’ pain as the inevitable consequence of his nature which, through its immutability, warrants no apology, but as the unnecessary injuries his unnecessary stubbornness leaves in its wake.
He has meted out punishment to others, in the name of reminding them of their places for their own good and for that of the Dreaming. In this new world requiring him to admit his own fallibility, how can he exempt himself?
---
Lucienne finds him. A momentary flare of outrage blazes through him as their eyes meet, mortification at being seen in his vulnerability transmuting itself insidiously into offense at her audacity, before the curved glass around him transforms indignation into quiet acceptance of a deserved humiliation. He lowers his eyes.
"Sir?" Lucienne's voice is distorted slightly, muddled through the glass, as all voices were for over a hundred years. "What are you... sir, what are you doing?" He raises his gaze from the stone floor to her shoulder but can neither meet her eyes nor answer. There is no speaking in his prison.
She steps closer, crossing the moat surrounding his glass cage. His eyes follow her, but he does not allow his limbs to shift from the position they held so long, a part of his mind screaming horror at the terrible familiarity of crossed ankles and arms wrapped around uncovered legs, though his muscles cannot cramp in the Dreaming the way they had in the waking world. This is as it should be. The psychological torment teaches him his lesson better than any physical pain.
Lucienne reaches out a hand, stops herself before touching the glass. "Sir... is this because of earlier?" He blinks slowly, neither confirmation nor denial, but Lucienne seems to make up her mind regardless. "Lord Morpheus, please. Come out of there. We can talk about this, like civilized beings, clothed, in one of the countless more pleasant spaces your realm offers." He blinks again. His punishment is not complete. The pride must be purged from him by the cold cruel glass before he may be allowed to gasp in the sweet air of forgiveness.
Then again... she did ask.
"Sir, please," she repeats, voice softening. That makes the decision for him. Lucienne should not be forced to beg due to his actions. He closes his eyes and wills himself out of the cage, wills his clothes onto his body and his cloak to sweep around him. He stands beside her with his back to the orb and turns his head to look down at her. "Very well, then," he murmurs. His throat seems to have forgotten that it has been mere hours, rather than decades, since he last spoke. He cannot force more than a rasp from it while the glass looms behind him. "Let us go."
--
They cross the moat together, ascend the stairs out of the basement, together they pretend not to notice Morpheus’ white-knuckled grip on the railing where he usually wouldn’t use a banister at all. The door at the top opens out into Fiddler’s Green. They wander a while in silence, meandering between trees and wildflowers, the fresh air carrying the sounds of birdsong, of grass rustling in a breeze. They come to a stop at the banks of a clear brook, multicolored pebbles resting beneath the flowing reflection of the sun. Morpheus gazes into the trees on the opposite bank so as not to have to see Lucienne looking at him.
“I have always considered myself… dignified,” he begins quietly. “Before… This, and pride, and independence, were all synonyms to me. Interchangeable. I did not recognize that which I truly was: arrogant.” He looks down into the water, at their two reflections rippling in the gentle current, Lucienne’s head turned to face him. “In… that place, I was too proud to call for help. I knew my absence would damage the waking world, would damage the Dreaming, and still I could not give up my last shred of dignity to call to my siblings. Burgess had taken everything else from me. I felt if I let him take that too, there would be nothing of me left and the Dreaming would lose its king regardless.”
“My lord, we are just glad you returned to us,” Lucienne replies after a moment. In the water, their reflected eyes meet.
“I am changed, Lucienne. You yourself have remarked upon this, as have others. I have… changed. For the better.”
“You are, if I may say so, my lord, more forgiving.” He can hear the hesitance in her voice; even agreeing with a point he himself has made, she is cautious of his reactions. The shame spikes anew as she continues. “You accept both assistance and criticism more readily. I do feel, my lord, that this has improved the realm.”
“Yes.” His voice is barely louder than the gently flowing water. He cannot seem to make himself speak louder. “I see this. And yet… at times I seem, still, to forget.”
“So this is about earlier.” Her tone is businesslike now. She turns to face him.
“I treated you unjustly, Lucienne. I value your suggestions and I have observed, time and again, the benefit of incorporating them into my decisions. Still I banished you from my throne room. I shouted at you. I let my pride overcome me.” Morpheus can feel her eyes on him. He stares resolutely into the water.
“So you locked yourself back into your personal nightmare?”
He closes his eyes, listens to the insects in the brush and the birds in the trees. “All beings,” he whispers finally, “must be reminded of their place.”
“Lord Morpheus, please look at me.” He keeps his eyes closed another moment. Breathes in and out once, twice, three times. Cool air through his lungs, insects chirping in the brush, birds singing in the trees. Water flowing at his feet. At last, he opens his eyes, turns to face Lucienne. “Sir. That… atrocity of a cage is not where you belong.”
“It is the place my pride belongs.” His gaze slips from Lucienne to the wildflowers behind her. “Sometimes I must be… reminded.”
Another beat of silence. The birds have become quieter, somehow. The roaring of the water feels louder, though the small brook neither rushes nor roars. What, then, is this furious river in his ears?
“Sir.” The pounding current recedes in deference to Lucienne’s voice. Morpheus meets her sympathetic look. “I do not wish for you to torment yourself when you feel you have wronged me.”
“I-“
“Please, sir, let me finish.” He falls silent. “It is not my wish for you to suffer, and I do not believe that you require suffering to improve yourself. What you experienced changed you, it is true, and in the aftermath you became a kinder ruler than the king I knew before. But that kindness was always in you, sir, just as the pride you carried once remains with you now. Their balance has merely shifted. It surprises no one but yourself that your pride manifests now and again." She pauses. "The change you must learn to cope with, Lord Morpheus, is that now you feel guilt for your actions where you were accustomed to feeling righteousness.”
In the wake of her words, the roar of the river that is not there drowns out the sounds of Fiddler’s Green entirely. His chest feels like a pit of quicksand, upside-down, dragging his insides up to clog his throat and leaving a gnawing hollowness in their place. Guilt. What he feels is guilt. Above the river, Lucienne is speaking again.
“Sir, whatever that glass cage had to teach you, you learned it long ago. You return to it to punish yourself, nothing more. You hope to alleviate your guilt through punishment.”
He forces the words out. His voice is coarse sand and stony riverbanks. “Is that not the way of things?”
“No, sir,” Lucienne sighs, exasperation now coloring her voice. “Typically, when you have wronged someone, you apologize. Usually, they forgive you. You move on.”
Morpheus blinks. “And you find that sufficient?”
“I have read the stories of a great many mortal lives. What I have invariably found is that those who seek only to punish those who wronged them remain lonely and unsatisfied, while those who forgive and move on are able to surround themselves with other mortals who give them a fuller life than any quest for vengeance could. And I have found that this principle applies just as much to hatred of oneself as it does to hatred of another.”
A water strider makes its zigzagging way across the surface of the brook. A school of minnows flits through the water beneath it. Morpheus watches them swim until they are too far down the brook to see. He imagines, for a moment, that he hears Calliope’s voice, sees Nada’s face. Finally, he speaks.
“I… am sorry, Lucienne. I should not have treated you as I did.” The water strider, following its erratic path, springs into the space between their two reflections, rests there. “Forgi-“ Morpheus cuts himself off. Takes a breath. “Please. Forgive me.”
Lucienne’s reflection could be smiling at the water strider. Lucienne is smiling at him. “All is forgiven, my Lord. Thank you for the apology.”
The water strider has leapt further. Their reflections can only be looking at one another. The brook babbles, the birds sing. The raging river has receded from his mind. Morpheus finally returns her smile. “I am fortunate to have you, Lucienne. I thank you.”
They return to the palace in amiable silence. Deep below the throne room, an airless glass sphere disintegrates into sand.