Chapter Text
It had been nearly a year since Lord Morpheus had returned to the Dreaming. It had been a year of transformation, reconstruction, and all the joy and pain that accompanied such labor. The palace was restored: wonderfully unrecognizable from the decaying structure that it had been when Lucienne escorted the King of Dreams back to his home after his century away. The library had returned soon after that, and Mervyn had been working nonstop to build new additions for all the new books that had been flooding in since humanity’s unconscious had returned en masse to the Dreaming.
Lucienne’s census books were thick and full of names, both of the returning dreamfolk and the new creations that Lord Morpheus had brought into being since his return. All that had deserted the realm had been accounted for. Most had returned willingly, across the spectrum from defiant in justifying their leaving to pleading forgiveness and swearing renewed fealty to their master. Those that returned less willingly were given an audience with Lord Morpheus to explain themselves, and most were forgiven with an equivalent slap on the wrist and a word of warning for any future insubordination. Some had had to be unmade for their actions.
The ratio of forgiveness to unmaking was shocking for all of them, Lucienne included. The Morpheus that she had served prior to his capture would never have even entertained an audience with any of the rebellious dreams. Now, as he had promised, he was trying to listen, to understand, to exercise patience and a gentler hand with his subjects. He toed the line of affectionate toward some of them, if she was to be honest.
It was a beautiful change that she felt privileged to witness. So it was an alarming thing when one of the minor arcana approached her in her private office one afternoon, with great tears falling from his eyes and shaking with emotional distress over his recent treatment by Lord Morpheus.
“Sit down,” Lucienne gently offered, trying to hide her own bafflement at the dream’s state of upset. “Calm yourself. It can’t be as bad as all this,” she said, keeping her tone light and casual.
The dream quivered as he sat. He was dressed in a tunic and pants that were artfully torn and hanging in tendrils across his body, in what could barely be considered clothing. Every other movement exposed different sections of flesh, but for his near-nakedness, he appeared unhurt. Tousled brown curls flopped over his head as he tried to stop his tears, holding both hands over his mouth to repress the hyperventilating breaths.
“Whatever I’ve done—Whatever I’ve done, I’m sorry,” he croaked through his fingers, his red rimmed eyes pleading with her. “Whatever trespass I have unwittingly made against Lord Morpheus, please let it be known that it was not my intention. I have done nothing! I swear, I have done nothing. I don’t understand why his ire is directed at me so intensely!”
Lucienne’s brow knit in concern. Ire? Lord Morpheus had been downright…cheerful these past several months. Or what constituted ‘cheerful’ for him. The weather in the Dreaming had been warm and sunny and pleasant. The shores of creation where he worked had been churning with excitable ideas and inspiration for new dreams and nightmares. There had been nothing about his air or mood to suggest any level of vitriol toward any of his subjects of late.
“Why do you think Lord Morpheus is upset with you?” she asked.
The dream couldn’t stop one sob from escaping, but he clamped it down quickly and ducked his head to avoid looking at her.
“I d-don’t know! I swear I do not! But it is clear that he…he is displeased with me—No, it is stronger than that. I…He has never treated me with such…I can see it in his gaze when he turns his eyes upon me…I believe he HATES me, and I don’t understand!”
He dissolved into tears, covering his face with his hands and doubling over almost in a ball in his seat.
Lucienne regarded the hysterical dream for a moment.
“What is your name?” she asked, reaching for one of her census books resting on her desk. “State your name and function, and I will take this matter up with Lord Morpheus.”
The dream looked up, a flash of fear in his eyes. “N-No, I don’t…I don’t want to be on his radar any more than I need to be. I don’t want to make it worse! It can’t get worse than this…I don’t want to be unmade. Lucienne, please, whatever I must do to earn forgiveness for whatever damage I have unintentionally done…I will do it, please! I just—”
Lucienne grimaced and folded her hands on the desk. “I will look into this, but I need more information before I can help.”
The dream hiccupped, cleared his throat, and tried to sit up straighter and rebuild some composure. “My n-name is Dishabille. I am the dream of exposure. My function is to give dreamers the experience of finding themselves naked or nearly. An exercise in exploring insecurities and the apprehension of being seen and laid bare.” He hiccupped again, sitting forward in his seat in agitation. “I was one of the last to leave the Dreaming after His Majesty disappeared, and I was one of the first to come back upon his return! If those are my crimes, then…Others have committed worse acts of treason and been granted clemency. I beg you—”
“Begging is not necessary, please,” Lucienne said calmly, holding up a hand to stop the rambling. “I will look into your case, but…for now, I advise you to give Lord Morpheus a wide berth until we can discern what’s happened between you.”
Dishabille gave a shuddering sigh and slumped back. “That won’t be difficult. It seems as though he has gone to great pains to avoid ever being near me. Whenever he finds himself unfortunately in my presence, his displeasure and…and disdain are clear.” He shrank a bit, fiddling with the ribbons of his scant clothing.
Lucienne kept her professionalism firm. “I will get to the bottom of this,” she said, with a gentle air of dismissal.
Dishabille sniffled, nodded dejectedly, and stood up. He started to leave, paused, and then looked to her again.
“I am loyal to this realm, Lucienne. I only wish to serve my function in peace. I…This is my home, and I love my king…I don’t…think it is so much to ask that he not hate me in return? Especially when I don’t know why?”
Lucienne eyed him, then incrementally softened. “Go, continue to serve your function in peace, and…we will get this figured out.”
He sniffled again, nodded, and shuffled away, looking utterly wrung out.
Lucienne watched him go, frowned, and then opened her notebook of items to discuss with Lord Morpheus at her next scheduled meeting with him.
..:--X--:..
“The library is fathomless. New extensions are added constantly to match the growing need,” Lord Morpheus said simply, as though that was that.
Lucienne pursed her lips, holding her notebook in front of her and reviewing her list of points to address this morning.
“Of course, sir, but I believe what Mervyn is communicating is that this specific collection could be better stored in two sections. It has been growing exponentially for—”
“I am aware, but this dreamer’s collection is to remain together in a locked wing by itself,” Morpheus impressed. “The restricted access that I required for it cannot be as efficiently managed if it is broken up across two sections.”
It was said with an air of finality, and Lucienne exhaled through her nose with a nod. She had told Mervyn that this was not a subject on which the King of Dreams would give any ground, but she had promised to at least bring it up.
With a definitive motion, she used her pen to mark out the topic of the Gadling Dream Journals.
“The entirety of the collection stays together then,” she conceded. “I will ask Mervyn to continue with the construction of the new extension to that wing.”
The throne room was quiet this morning, with warm sunlight glittering in through the stained-glass windows. The sculpted walls cast elegant shadows along the floor. As had been the routine since his return, Morpheus was not perched atop his throne and peering down at her from on high; rather, he was sitting near the bottom steps, long coat sprawled out behind him, cross legged and thumbing through this or that book or papers that she had presented to him.
His eye level was still higher than hers from this new vantage point, but it was less towering and was almost approachable in this arrangement. It was another change that she thought favorably of.
“Is that all, Lucienne?” he asked.
Lucienne eyed ‘Dishabille’ at the bottom of her list, the last item that had not been addressed. She raised her eyes and found Morpheus staring at her inquisitively. She pursed her lips and closed the notebook, holding it with both hands against her.
“Yesterday afternoon, I was approached by a dream that was in a state of…intense emotional distress.”
Morpheus’s expression sharpened. It was perhaps unusual for the qualms of one dream to be enough to bring to the King of the Dreaming’s attention, but now that it was spoken, he was visibly invested in resolving whatever calamity had befallen one of his subjects.
“What was the cause?” he asked in concern.
Lucienne paused, trying to say it delicately. “He believes that he has somehow become the target of your displeasure, sir. He is desperate to rectify whatever slight he has unwittingly done. When he came to me, he was actually afraid of being unmade.”
Now it was Morpheus’s turn to look distressed.
“What?” he asked nearly breathless, sitting up straighter on the steps and surveying her severely. “Name him.”
Just as she suspected. This had to be a misunderstanding. Dishabille had misconstrued something. Surely if Lord Morpheus was so displeased and angered by one of his subjects, he would think of them immediately when Lucienne brought this up.
Lucienne answered, “His name is Dishabille.”
Now. The King of Dreams was known for his unrelenting, long-lasting moods, be they positive or negative. His reputation was not one for rapidly oscillating mood swings; far from it, it sometimes took enormous acts to budge him at all. So the rapidity with which Lucienne saw his expression shift from deep, warm concern to a solid block of cold stone was alarming.
Perhaps Dishabille had not misconstrued something? Was that…revulsion…that she saw move across Morpheus’s face at the mere mention of the dream’s name?
“Sir?” she pressed lightly. “He is one of the minor arcana. I pulled his history records. Dishabille has perpetrated no acts of insubordination or treason beyond that of participating in the Great Exodus…an act for which you have issued broad clemency across almost the entire population. Notably, he was one of the last to leave the Dreaming and came back within hours of your return last year. He—”
“Enough.” Morpheus raised a hand for silence and simultaneously on his feet, turning away from her. “I am aware of his service and loyalty to this realm and to me.”
Lucienne frowned. “You might remind him of that. He was hysterical in my office—”
“He is meant to elicit the insecurities and expose the vulnerabilities that humans carry. He is by his nature…sensitive.”
“This was more than that,” she pressed. “Sir, if I may—”
“You may not.”
“—Whatever your reasons for feeling anger toward him, if those reasons are not a consequence of his own doing, perhaps you could let him know? He thinks you hate him and want him unmade.”
Morpheus looked stricken. “I do not…I cannot hate one of my own creations. I do not carry anger or any malice toward him either. He is simply…” he paused, pressing his lips closed in a thin line, eyes going distant for a moment.
Lucienne patiently stood her ground, waiting for him to come back.
When he refocused a moment later, his eyes on her were hard. “No matter. Tell Dishabille that he is in good standing with me. There is no ill will, and he should continue to serve his purpose in peace.”
She exhaled. “I have assured him of that, sir, but perhaps in the spirit of…mending bridges, you might personally speak to him?”
“I cannot.”
“And I would normally not speak on it further, but if you had witnessed his condition—”
“I have made my wishes clear, Lucienne. I do not have time to intervene with every disgruntled subject who lodges a complaint.”
“Sir, I understand, but if you could only spare a moment—”
“NO!”
The halls of the throne room darkened, and the glitter of the stained-glass fell muted. A distant roll of thunder moved across the ceiling, and Lucienne saw his eyes flash to black as he roared the singular word.
It was gone as rapidly as it came on. The sunlight returned, and the thunder receded. Morpheus remained standing on the steps, staring down at her, but with an added weight seemingly pressing down on his head and shoulders. A flicker of apology moved across his expression mutely, but everything else about him remained stone-like.
“Enough,” he spoke softly this time, gesturing with one hand at his side for emphasis. “I will not explain myself further. I have given you the answer to Dishabille’s complaint. Pass it to him, and let this matter be resolved.”
Far from resolved, she thought, merely raising her eyebrows in compliance.
“Yes, sir.”
“…Is that all?” he asked, looking at her notebook now.
She watched him. “That is all, sir.”
“Then you are dismissed,” he said, turning away and walking up the stairs.
“Yes, sir.” She turned, paused, and stared instead at the stone wall rather than toward him as she added. “He expressed his loyalty and love for you explicitly, sir. Such straightforward honesty should possibly be acknowledged with similar honesty.”
She received no response, and she sought none. Figuring she had pressed her luck enough for one meeting, she acknowledged his stony dismissal and took her leave of the throne room.