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The Dreaming isn’t a bad place to spend one’s afterlife, if you can swing it. It’s a good middle ground between the quiet paradise of Heaven and the torture of Hell. It has wonderful views of the sunsets (any sunset, from any inhabited world in the universe) -and lovely, lush forests. The nightmares that live there are only a bit of a bother, those wily things. The good dreams that live there are only a little bit dulled, but that is to be expected if you are not a living dreamer. They are not meant for you, after all. It is not the worst fate to die and find yourself a citizen of the dreaming.
Especially now, as it is no longer lying in tatters.
And of course, you would be protected there. As all denizens of the Dreaming, those who once lived and those who never lived at all, are protected under the rule of the Dream King. His reputation is muddled among his subjects these days. There are those who have faith in their Endless ruler, who trust him to keep the Dreaming safe. There are those who have grown suspicious of him in his century away.
All agree that their ruler is stoic, and firm in his decisions. They all agree that he is sure of himself, and never waivers even if he should.
Matthew the Raven knows the truth. Dream is a mess.
Oh, he tries to hide it, but he hides it about as well as a mercurial teenager hiding his latest bout of angst. Matthew knows. He has nephews.
Had nephews.
That’s not important.
The important thing is that Dream is a mess and absolutely refuses to admit it. He barely eats, and Matthew knows, he knows , that Mr. Endless over there should be eating even if he doesn’t necessarily need it. He doesn’t leave the throne room. Which would be fine if Matthew hadn’t seen his perfectly good bedchamber. It looks comfortable. It looks relaxing. It looks like it would be a good place to go if one were a mess and needed to get un-messed as soon as possible. Worse yet, he doesn’t talk to people, even though Matthew can see that he needs to say something to someone. The words are there, shattering under Dream’s skin.
And still Dream keeps himself locked away.
“He’s still in there,” Matthew reports to Lucienne after the first week. He flutters up to her writing desk, perching at her elbow. He clicks his beak nervously as she turns her gaze on him.
She looks exhausted. Rebuilding the Dreaming is hard work, and Dream’s increasing isolation is not helping. She takes her glasses off her nose and scrubs her face. “Is he now?”
“What do you think he’s doing?” Matthew’s so new, he still doesn’t understand how the Dreaming is supposed to work. He only knows that it isn’t right yet, and they are trying to fix it.
“Brooding, mostly,” Lucienne sighs. “Rebuilding, I hope. He’s in one of his moods.”
“Does he get like this a lot?”
“I don’t know.” Lucienne is too refined a lady to shrug, but her shoulders slump infinitesimally and momentarily she looks, exhaustingly, achingly, old. Matthew can see every one of her potential thousands of years in the lines of her face. “He’s very different now. But he used to, Before.”
Before he was locked up in a crazy guy’s basement. Man, if Matthew had been locked up for a century he’d never want to be alone again. He didn’t understand Dream’s self-imposed isolation. Wasn’t he…lonely?
(The answer was yes, of course. Matthew already knew that.)
“Jessamy was always able to talk him out of these moods,” Lucienne continues, unaware of Matthew’s wandering thoughts. He feels that irrational pang of jealousy once again. He knows he shouldn’t be jealous of a bird decades dead but…
Well, it was hard when Jessamy had apparently been so perfect all the time. How’s Matthew supposed to compete with that? He’s a shitty raven and was an even shittier human. His whole purpose now is supposed to be about helping Dream but Dream isn’t letting him, and even if he did Matthew would have no clue where to start. So what exactly is he supposed to do with himself?
Still, he has to do something. He didn’t give up opposable thumbs and a normal afterlife to sit here and do nothing. “I’ll talk to him,” he puffs up his chest, trying to look more confident than he feels. “I’ll get him to talk to you at least.”
Lucienne smiles wanly, stroking Matthew’s head with a careful finger. He leans into the touch. “Thank you, Matthew,” she says and he hops up to her shoulder to nip, friendly-like, at her ear.
“Hey, if Jessamy can do it, how hard can it be?”
___
The answer is, of course, very hard. Because Dream is a secretive, surly, bastard who refuses to say more than two words to Matthew unless he’s giving him an order. At least he lets him into the throne room. Small mercies.
Dream’s back is turned when Matthew flies in. His hands are clasped behind his back, and he seems to be staring, contemplatively, at the shifting stained glass windows behind the throne. Last time Matthew was in this room it had been completely destroyed, now it looks almost whole. There’s only a few panes of cracked glass to indicate that it had ever been damaged at all.
And even those disappear with a wave of Dream’s hand. Matthew lands before the throne, never on it, never that close to Dream, that was Jessamy’s purview. Matthew is always on the ground, behind Dream, below him.
He tries not to let it bother him.
“Lookin’ good boss,” he compliments, settling his wings against his body. “You’ve been busy.”
“Matthew,” Dream greets, in that hallowed voice of his. He half turns towards him. From this angle Mattew can just catch the shape of his profile silhouetted against the shifting colors of the windows.
He misses being tall.
“I did not call for you.” There’s a question there, an accusation. Why are you here?
Matthew shifts from foot to foot. “Nah, Boss Lady’s getting worried. Told me to come get you.”
Dream spins fully around at that, looking apprehensive. Now, looking at him full on Matthew can tell how tired Dream truly is. He looks somehow paler than his usual chalk-white, his skin sallow and his expression drawn tight. He has the look of someone who has not taken care of himself in a very long time. “What’s wrong with Lucienne?”
Dream, Matthew thinks, also looks like he’s ready for a fight at any given moment. Matthew knows that look, he’d seen it a lot when he was alive. Usually directed at him. It makes him want to reach for a switchblade he no longer can carry.
Yeah, he hadn’t been the best person when he was alive.
“Nothing’s wrong with Lucienne, Boss,” he says quickly, and watches as Dream’s shoulder slump in relief. “She wanted me to talk to you.”
Dream waves a hand through the air almost lazily. Like now that he knows the problem is him it can’t possibly matter. “I have no need to talk.” The King of the Dreaming looks a lot like he’s bitten into a lemon.
“You can tell Lucienne that I am fine, Matthew. I have no need of you, you may go.” He turns back to the window, as if inspecting it for imperfections that no longer exist.
“Boss,” Matthew tries, hopping closer. “It’s been more than a week.”
“I have been repairing my throne room, and the Dreaming at large. It takes time.”
“Yeah, but Boss. Look, your throne room is repaired,” If Matthew still had arms he’d be spreading them to emphasize how repaired the throne room is. As it is he just flaps his wings. “And you still haven’t left it, you’ve barely talked to anyone since you came back from that mess with the ruby. It’s not good for you to be alone.”
Dream’s expression flits between incandescent rage and something that, on any other man, would be guilt.
“I am fine Matthew,” he repeats, his words clipped and final.
Perhaps Matthew is feeling a little bold, because he doesn’t back down at those words, or cower at the rage in his boss’s starry gaze. No, he puffs up his chest, hops a little closer to the Dream King (They’re almost standing toe to toe now, or toe to claw. Matthew has never been this close to him before. It’s a little terrifying) -and says:
“Bullshit.” And then remembering he’s talking to a literal honest-to-god king, tacks on; “If you’ll pardon my language Boss.”
The Dream King stiffens indignantly, and makes to loom over Matthew. It’s not hard to do of course, but it’s still intimidating. He remembers suddenly that his boss is wearing rather sturdy boots and it would probably be quite easy for him to stomp on a pesky bird. But he must manage to find some dwindling reserves of audacity somewhere because when Dream starts to muster up a reply Matthew interrupts him before the first word is out of his mouth.
“No, you’re not ‘fine’ Boss. You’re hiding, and you need help. So let me help you.”
Silence. Dream still looms and Matthew feels very, very small. A mouse under the watchful eyes of a cat. He gulps, as best a raven can gulp.
“I mean, I’m your raven, what else am I for?”
So that question might’ve been a bit more sincere than Matthew would’ve liked, but Dream’s look turns contemplative and the silence between them becomes just a little less predatory.
“Has no one explained it to you?”
Matthew clicks his beak, cawing nervously. “There’s been no one around to explain it to me,” he says. “I died, woke up a raven and then it was all ‘go help our King, it’s your calling .’ or whatever, And then I go with you to Hell and no one’s explaining what I’m meant to be doing-”
It’s getting hard to stop talking, the flood gates are open and Matthew can’t seem to close them. “And then you get back here and lock yourself away and no one is telling me what to do except that I should be helping you and I don’t know how because no one will TELL me.”
He pants. He didn’t even know raven’s could pant. He feels wrung dry, squeezed out completely, he doesn’t even know where most of that came from, but Dream looks slightly stunned and Matthew wants to fly very far away, possibly forever.
Silence again.
Matthew hates it, and wishes he had hands to wring.
Then, slowly, so slowly, Dream lowers himself to one knee, a king bowing to his servant. It's such a little thing but it seems momentous to Matthew. Dream then hunches forward even more so he can look Matthew straight in the eye.
“I have done you a disservice then, my friend.” Matthew swears he can feel that voice shaking the walls, possibly the very fabric of the Dreaming. “Forgive me, I have mistreated you.”
Matthew shakes his head, his feathers literally ruffled. “I don’t understand.”
Dream looks him over once, and shakes his head. “No, you do not, and that is my doing.” He gets that far-away look that Matthew instantly recognizes as the ‘thinking about Jessamy’ look. Lucienne gets it too, sometimes. “It’s been a long time since I’ve taken a new raven, I have forgotten how much you do not know.”
Matthew feels a rush of indignation at that. Like okay, he’s not the smartest guy, he knows that. And he’s certainly not as clever as picture-perfect Jessamy obviously was, but he’s not an idiot either. “Look, I get I’m not Jessamy but-”
“No,” Dream says, and looks him over with a considering eye. Hunched over in that position has got to be uncomfortable, but Dream hasn’t moved, his arms folded over his bended knee, his chin resting on his hands. “No, you are not.”
And that…that hurts more than Matthew would like it to. He discovers that there’s one thing he really likes about being a raven and it’s the fact that it’s very difficult to have facial expressions. He can hide what he’s thinking in a way he’d never been able to do when he was human. He’d always worn his heart on his sleeve. Now it’s in his wing, hidden behind black feathers. Easy to conceal.
He swallows down the pain of that comment and opens his mouth to say something, he’s not sure what yet when Dream continues.
“Jessamy served me for centuries, there was very little that I felt that she did not know. You and I don’t have that rapport.”
‘We could,’ Matthew wants to say, the words seem to stick in his throat. ‘If you’d let me.’ Because that’s the real problem isn’t it? From day one Dream has been keeping him at arm's length, sending him away, keeping him from doing his job; helping.
Matthew wants to say all that. Instead, he says nothing.
It turns out to be a good thing. Dream keeps talking. Matthew thinks this might be the most he’s heard his boss say at one time. He’s still looking at him too, dead on. Matthew’s not even sure he’s blinking, just staring at him, gaze fathomless.
“That is my fault, Jessamy tried to be useful to me and I could not save her, you have tried to be useful to me and I have not let you, for fear that I will not be able to save you. It is unfair to you.”
And there’s really nothing Matthew can say to that is there? Except; “Save me from what?”
“I do not know,” Dream admits, though he looks haunted. “Humanity perhaps?”
“Yeah, good luck there,” Matthew snorts. It’s weird to snort as a bird.
“Quite,” Dream’s lips quirk up in a sort of half smile. Matthew has spent enough time listlessly following him around to know that that is his version of laughing uproariously.
There is silence once again, but it feels almost companionable. Matthew breaks it by stepping closer to Dream, Dream wordlessly offers him an elbow to step up on.
He’s never done that before. Always it’s Matthew hopping along in Dream’s shadow, narrowly avoiding people’s feet, or it’s Matthew flying behind him, or being told to fly home little birdie . Dream doesn’t like to be touched, especially not by his raven. A raven who is not Jessamy.
Matthew steps up. The coat feels soft beneath his talons, something between silk and softly spun wool. If galaxies had a texture this is what they would feel like, spinning out beneath him. Dream holds him on his forearm, rising to his feet.
“I have always had a raven, since before ravens were created,” Dream starts, and Matthew tries to imagine a raven, millenia ago flying in the space between newly formed galaxies. “When a soul dies in its sleep it is offered a chance to become part of the Dreaming.”
“And one lucky sap gets to be a raven forever, I know."
“It is not luck Matthew,” he says. “I choose whoever is best for the job, and in my absence Lucienne did the same.”
Matthew suddenly cannot look at Dream, he looks at the stained glass windows. The pictures are changing, shifting from impressionistic shards of color to something resembling a man. Matthew can just make out the dark shape of his coat. The changing mosaic washes the throne room in prismatic light that flickers and shifts off the marble pillars and stone steps.
Like everything in the Dreaming it’s ethereal, and beautiful, and it makes Matthew feel small. Less than.
How could he be the best for this job? He had been a piss-poor human in life. He’d lied and cheated near everyone in his life, and had honestly believed that every other human being on the planet was doing the same thing. He stole for fun, fought for laughs, got thrown in jail and had eventually been barred from seeing his own family.
His nephews had to be in their teens now, he hadn’t seen them since they were six. He wonders what his sister told them when he died.
The best. What a joke.
He might’ve said that last part out loud, because Dream stares at him, brows raised to his hairline.
“My ravens need to be stubborn, and fearless, because you are my messenger. You can travel between realms without a monarch’s permission, and through you I can see things that I would’ve otherwise missed.”
“Now, tell me Matthew, doesn’t a raven who followed his master to Hell, against his master’s express wishes mind you, sound stubborn and fearless to you?”
Matthew blinks. Dream is looking at him with something that could be mischief, but might also be respect and he doesn’t know what to do with that.
“Did I ever apologize for that?”
Dream waves him away. “No need. You were right, I needed you there. I would not have won without you.”
There’s something in the solemn sincerity of his voice that makes Matthew swallow hard. “I just rambled at you, it was nothing.”
“No, you did more than that, my friend, you reminded me of what was important. That is what my ravens do, remind me of what’s important when I cannot see it myself. That is how you can help me.”
Nothing magically clicks into place, there is no aha moment where Matthew suddenly realizes his place in the grander scheme of things, but Dream’s words are soothing in their own right. Matthew feels more settled, he feels like he has a starting point. Remind Dream of what’s important, alright. Yeah. He can do that. Be stubborn, that was something he was born for. Fearless might take a little more work, but he can get there. If he needs to.
Tentatively, Matthew takes a step up Dream’s arm, inching his way along until he is perched on Dream’s shoulder.
Dream lets him.
“I think what’s important right now is that you get out of this damn room, and go talk to Lucienne,” Matthew says.
Dream glances sidelong at him. “Yes, I believe you are right.”
They make towards the door, it swings open to reveal a kingdom which had been shattered, but is now on the mend.
Behind them the stained glass window finishes taking shape; a tall pale man in a dark coat, with a raven perched on his shoulder. The glass around them is the colors of a sunrise over a new day.