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Hope had been standing on the shores of The Dreaming for four days.
For four days, Hope’s music had been absent from the Dreaming, his castle gone dark.
Despite Hob having asked for privacy, Dream went to him on the fifth day.
He found Hope trapped in a furious vortex of discordant music, tears streaming down his cheeks in thick tracks. Whatever Hope was reaching for, whatever it was that he was trying to see, Dream couldn’t tell, couldn’t get close enough to try to pull him back. Whatever it was, it was hurting him, but any attempt to reach him was rebuffed and eluded, again and again. Hope, Hob, was there, but not, for two entire weeks, until, all at once, there was a cacophonous scream that tore through the air and Hope crashed back into his castle, smoking and flaming.
Dream was already moving to him when the scream abruptly ended and music flooded back into the Dreaming, the odd stillness and silence that had taken over abruptly gone in waves of sound that exploded out of Hope. He held his hand up to shield himself as he walked closer, waves of fury and pain still emanating from Hope again and again and again.
“Hope!” Dream’s voice rang across the space of Hob’s throne room, and abruptly the waves of sound died down and all that was left was the faint sound of fading flames from Hope’s smoking clothing. In an instant, he was kneeling beside his husband, dusting off the last fading sparks clinging to him.
“Dream,” Hob managed, breathing in deep, fury still threatening to swamp him, lifting his head to look up at his husband. The knowledge that he had now, the realizations that had been pushed upon him after all that he had seen… His fingers clenched into fists. He was going to destroy them, rip and tear them apart until they had gone through the same agony. He reached out to take Dream’s hand, bringing it to his lips, kissing the back of it. Tears pricked his eyes. How many aspects of Dream had died before this one, before he’d had change forced upon him that he had had to heal from?
Dream held on as tight as he dared, even though the weight of the power in the room did not fade, and, if anything, it grew, thicker and thicker. The Dreaming cried out under the weight, but still, Hope’s power increased in density. “Hope, you must stop!”
Hob shifted, just enough so he was kneeling in front of Dream and released his hand to cup his face and pull him into a kiss. “Do you trust me, my Dream, my husband, my love, my King?”
Dream reached out for Hob, for Hope, the power growing thicker and thicker so he could barely move, grunting under the effort. “With all that I am, my Hope.”
Hob let out a rough breath and devoured the sight of Dream once more, his eyes roving desperately over Dream’s face. The threads were growing increasingly obvious now, a heavier weight resting on his being, and the ringing demand that he do something, that he destroy and rebuild was impossible to ignore now. He would cut out the rotten wood, and carve it down to the barest of foundations before rebuilding.
Dream felt the Dreaming fold and buckle under him, Hope twisting it easily before they were once more on the Shores of Creation. Hope was standing on the edge of the shore, his feet in the water, his power, the weight of it that was enough to surpass that of dozens of stars growing stronger and stronger. Fear settled at the base of him, even as he felt Hope reach into their bond and hold firm, reassuring him without words and without touch.
“We’re not separate any longer,” Hob said, looking over his shoulder at Dream. “Hope and I. We finished the merge. And there was something I had to know. Something Hope kept from me.” A snarl broke out across his lips, fury and rage making his chest heave. “A wrong that I will right, because I was human first, and Endless second, no matter what I am now.”
“What wrong?” Dream demanded.
Hob softened, staring at Dream. “Your rules, my Dream. The rules of the Endless. I have long considered them unfair shackles, and I’ve been beginning to break them, one after another.” At his side, a fluctuation of power, a sword appearing, hanging from his side as though it had always been there.
Dream could not stop the wave of panic that flooded into their bond, even as Hope soothed it moments later. “Hob, the Erinyes-”
“Will come,” Hob said with a nod, turning to face the Sea of Creation once more, dropping one hand to the hilt of his sword, wrapping his fingers around it. “But they should have known better, and they did not. Desire ruined and fixed it all, in one stroke.” He smirked faintly. “You are theirs no longer, my Dream. Not anymore. They lost their gamble and the price was high.”
“We cannot fight them, Hob. They are the arbiters of our existence. There must be balance,” he said, holding out a hand. Dream took a step forward under the heavy weight of power around Hob, and all at once, felt it explode out of him, reaching far beyond the shores of the Dreaming. Around him, the sound of Hob’s music, the steady drumbeat that heralded war, was growing louder and louder.
Hob turned to look at Dream and smiled at him, his hand still firm on the hilt of the sword at his hip. “Trust me,” he ordered. “Trust me, my husband, my Dream. Trust me. I love you. Trust me, please. You must believe in me.” He waited for Dream’s nod and his smile shifted into a smirk. “After all, nothing can kill Hob Gadling until he is ready to die.” Hob smirked and raised his eyebrows. “And what kills Hope, my love?”
Dream’s eyes widened and he sucked in a sharp breath. “Hob.”
A cold wind blew in off the edge of the sea and Hob turned his full attention to it, pulling his sword out of his sheath, the sound echoing with his power, ringing around them. “Come on you bastards,” he breathed softly, his eyes stinging as the wind got colder and colder. With a grunt, Hob pushed his power out and into a shield protecting the beach behind him, watching the horizon line. Echoing screams were approaching, all of them charging at him, at what he had dared to do. He licked his lips and held onto the sword tighter.
Hob took a deep breath. He would not let them down. He would protect them. He would keep them safe. They were his, now, they belonged to Hope, not to their past. They were all looking forward, now. It was easy to think of the pain they had suffered, the pain they had endured, and learned to live with, all in the name of control, and find the fury again. Tightening his hands on the hilt of what had once been the symbol of Destruction, Hob made the final choice, the music of the Dreaming echoing behind him.
“Delirium, my little sister,” Hope summoned, his voice reverberating with power. “Desire, my teacher.” Another booming echo of power, screaming across the Dreaming. “Despair, my opposite.” Hope breathed in deep, the tears falling free on his cheeks as he watched the Furies, the writhing mass of power and fate about to descend upon him. “Destruction, my friend.” Another snarl. “Dream, my beloved, my husband.”
Hope shifted his position a fraction, even as he felt Endless after Endless step onto the beach behind him. For so long they had all been restrained, and he would end it here, he would end it.
“Death, my friend.” Another boom of power. In front of him, Hope could see the twisting faces of the Fates, each of them spinning as a part of the whirlwind. “Destiny, my chains.” Another screech, enough to have his head ringing, Hob watched as the Fates hit the wall of power he had surrounded this end of the Dreaming with, the resulting cacophony deafening above them.
With a vicious swing of the sword, the sound was gone, the Furies frozen.
Hope breathed in deeply and turned his back on the Furies, and faced his family, all that he had summoned. Dream and Desire’s faces were fear-filled. Concern and worry on each of them, save the only one that mattered. He lifted the sword onto his shoulder, and walked to Destiny, standing in the middle of them all, his chains rattling in the violent wind, his book clenched tight in his hands. Tilting his chin up, he met Destiny’s sightless eyes.
“We do not know the price,” Destiny said. “If you proceed.”
“I know the price,” Hob corrected. “You have paid it. A thousandfold, you have paid it, and even I have paid beyond what is due. It is time for their reckoning. They will pay for what they have done to you.”
Destiny inclined his head a fraction.
Hob turned to Death and grinned at her, reaching out to give her a hug with his free arm. “We still have a deal, don’t we?” He winked at her and watched her go pale, her eyes tight with worry. “Don’t worry, I have a plan.”
He turned at last to Dream, standing on Destiny’s other side, and stepped in front of him, reaching up to cup his chin. Behind him, the furies screamed again, their power trying to rip and tear at the Dreaming. He leaned in and pressed their foreheads together, breathing in deeply, the heartbeat of the Dreaming echoing beneath the weight and pain. “What kills Hope?”
Dream’s smile was tear-filled and vicious. “Nothing,” he breathed. “Nothing, for you are a part of each of us, you are a part of all living things, and you are a part of every future that will ever be lived.”
Hob grinned and yanked Dream in for a kiss. “That’s what I thought.” With one last hard press of their lips together, Hob spun on the ball of his feet and brought his sword down on the chain between Destiny’s left hand and the book. Another hard swing, and the second chain was severed. He heaved in a breath as the book fell from Destiny’s hands, the pages flipping through the entire book.
Hob reached down and picked up the book once it was finished, and held it out to Destiny, meeting his sightless eyes. “The chains are off,” he stated. “Forever shattered, as they always should have been.”
Destiny nodded his head once and took the book once more.
“What have you done, Hope?” Desire called, their eyes darting between the Fates and where Hob was still standing in front of Destiny.
“Technically,” Hob said, holding out a finger. “You got us all into this mess, Desire.” He grinned faintly. “You changed everything, and let us arrive where we have now.” Hob bounced faintly on his toes and glanced at the shield that was starting to crack under the weight of what was coming for him. At their confused expression, Hob turned back to the Furies, who were staring at him, vibrating in their anger.
“You see, there was a plan,” Hob sneered the word and stared at them, his voice growing over the wind on the beach. “Making me the anthropomorphic personification of Hope - it set into motion so many things that were so useful for them. First and foremost, the human part of me would be lost under the Endless. I would be a blank slate, and a powerful one. One that could be used to influence each of you as they dictated because we were all tied together.” Hob swung Destruction’s sword once more and took a step toward them.
“Secondly, by ensuring I was no longer Hob Gadling, they guaranteed Dream fell back into his old patterns and this facet would die, like all the others,” Hob spat the words, the anger in them clear, and looked back at his husband. “Back into natural patterns, back into the reset. Thirdly, it would remove one of Death’s Exceptions from the Waking World. Though it is her choice to make them, they do not approve.” He shrugged and took another step toward the Erinyes, where they waited, where they stared.
Hob smirked. “But all of that, all of those plans, were contingent on Hope overpowering me as we got closer and closer to merging entirely. Though it didn’t happen at the first, they believed it would, eventually. After all, what human," he snarled. “Could stand up to an Endless?” The Furies were silent now, vibrating in place on the other side of the shield, all three staring at him at once.
“But I didn’t,” Hob breathed, his voice softening. “They’d made a gamble and lost. And then…” He bared his teeth. “Then I understood. I understood the rules, I understood what they truly were, and are, and why they exist.” He raised the blade and pointed it at the crone, watching as the image flickered to the mother, and then the maiden.
“I will tear them down, and never again will you control them,” he promised, baring his teeth. “Go and get them. Come for me. I dare you. I don’t care if I stand between you and them for the remainder of your existence. You are done controlling them.” In an instant, the full force of the righteous anger of the Furies returned, and the shield in front of him cracked. Hob kept the blade raised, even as he felt fear rush along his bonds with each of the Endless behind him.
When the shield shattered, before the Furies could reach him, Hope shifted and reached, Destruction’s blade slicing through reality and unreality in one, until seven golden strings stretching from each of the Endless into the mass of the Furies were held on the edge of the blade. Hope panted, his hands shaking around the hilt of the sword. “You didn’t think I knew? That I didn’t figure it out the second I severed mine, here on this beach mere hours ago?”
“You cannot!”
“Doom for the universe!”
“Hope will destroy us all!”
Hope snarled and wrenched his arm up, slicing through the strands as though they had never existed at all. “I free them!” he shouted, his voice echoing with power that reverberated across the Dreaming. “I free them from your machinations, from your rules, from your pre-written futures, and from a design you dictate!” The strands drifted down, falling into the sands.
“Never again will another Endless die without the support of their siblings!” Hope shouted, his voice rising to a fever pitch and scream. “Never again will they be captive and unable to help each other!” Hope swung the blade once more, sending a wild wave of power at the Fates, pushing them back, back out over the ocean.
“Never again will the rules as decided by you and the entities behind you control who and what they are! They shall be as they have truly been meant to be,” he stated, pointing the blade at them. “Hope would have not seen what they were, how they were meant to divide and weaken the family behind him.” Hob smiled, dark and vicious. “But Hob Gadling has been a human for almost seven hundred years and is very familiar with this particular brand of cruelty.”
Hob lifted his chin, challenging the riot of power floating out of range. “Go and get them, if you dare. Dare them to stand against me alone, especially now that they-” he gestured to the siblings behind him. “-will know the truth!"
In a flash, the whirlwind of power and screams was gone, and Hob watched it go, his shoulders sagging in relief as he shuddered and took a deep breath, sheathing the sword at his side, his head swimming with exhaustion. He huffed and turned to face the siblings on the beach, their expressions a wild mix.
“YoU bRoKe It!” Delirium said, clapping her hands. “YoU bRoKe It AlL!”
Hob managed a small laugh. “I did, Del.” His eyes flickered to Destruction. “I’m cutting out the old rotted pieces, and replacing them with hope.”
“You do not know what you have done, my Hope,” Dream said, his voice icy with fear.
Hob looked at Dream. “And if I told you I did?” He glanced at Destiny and Death, meeting their eyes next. “If I told you that you are no longer beholden to the precious rules you have followed for billions of years, because they were bullshit, to begin with?”
“I would tell you that I am billions of years older than you are!” Dream growled, stalking toward Hope. “You cannot apply human logic to that which is Endless, and now-”
“Now what?” Hob snapped back, glaring up at Dream. “Now, if one of you, any of you are trapped by a human, you can come to each other’s rescue? Now, if one of you falls in love with a human, they will not have a tragedy befall them for the act of simply daring to love?”
Hob reached up and grabbed at Dream’s cheeks, holding him in place, even as he let out another snarl. “My Dream. My husband. Do you know what I have spent the last two weeks on this beach doing?”
Dream blinked, and frowned, glancing between his siblings and Hob. “I… you were hurting yourself. You were trying to see something.”
Hob took a shaky breath. “I was trying to see your births, my Dream. To see the moment you were created. To see, precisely, when the rules had been put into place. Time tried to stop me, so I had to fight to see it. Because I knew I was right. I knew it, with every part of me.” He shook Dream, just a little. “Think, Dream. Think. Do not spill family blood - back before you fought each other, back before that was a rule to hold back your anger. Why did it exist?”
Desire’s breath caught. “It was never for us.”
“Exactly,” Hob said, nodding at Desire’s statement. “What can stand against you if all of you are united, Dream? If Destiny, the most powerful of you all, is no longer chained to the future, forced upon a path?”
“Your aspect cannot die,” Death said, her eyes widening. “Because your aspect is Hob Gadling, who I will not give my gift to.”
Dream’s eyes were widening, and Hob could see the growing anger there, but not at him, at the lives he had lived, the loves he had had, the past he had lost to the rules. Hob rubbed his fingers over Dream’s cheekbones, stroking gently. “I wasn’t supposed to survive my transformation, love. You were supposed to lose me, and to have it destroy you so a new aspect could take over. But Desire forced Hope out early, and it changed enough that it changed everything.” He tugged until Dream’s forehead was pressed against his.
“You are a family, Dream. And never have you been allowed to act like one. Now you can, and you will. You love each other.” Hob kissed him again, and kissed away the tears pouring down Dream’s cheeks. “Life will never be perfect, and you will fight, but you will now make up, too, because you are family.”
Above them, a sonic boom broke the sky open, darkness creeping across it in steadily increasing waves.
Hope took a deep breath and looked at Dream, at the stars in his eyes. “Death figured it out a long time ago. How much it helps to understand those who your purpose is tied to. How much it is a necessity, and no longer are you kept from that.” He stole a final kiss and stepped back from him, looking up at the sky.
“You cannot win against them, I can feel it,” Despair said, her hook digging into her palm. “Hope.”
Hope smiled faintly at Despair. “Quite right. But they can’t win against me either. What I did cannot be undone, even by Time. The only one who could would be Dream, and he won’t.” His smile widened.
“I’m not afraid of them,” Hope added. “When I ascended, the first time, they ripped me apart, atom to atom, and pieced me back together. It nearly destroyed me. But it didn’t.” He shrugged and turned to the descending mass of night sky and shadows that flickered in a way that had his mind aching. “Stay behind me. I’ll protect you. I’ll always protect you.”
Dream swallowed, and even from here, he could feel the combined rage of their parents and the Erinyes, all of them descending, aimed for Hope, who stood tall, and was already building another shield around them. He straightened his shoulders and breathed in deep, pulling on the power of the Dreaming, whose shores they stood on, and stepped forward.
“I need your help, my siblings,” Dream demanded, stepping up beside Hope, and standing side by side with him, taking his hand.
Desire stepped up next, standing on Hope’s other side, reaching out to grab Hope’s hand. “I need your help, my siblings.” They held out their hand and squeezed Despair’s tight when she stepped up as well.
“I need your help, my siblings,” Despair rasped.
“CaN’t LeT HoPe StAnD aLoNe, NoPe, NoPiTy NoPe NoPe!” Delirium hurried forward, her hand clutching Destruction’s. “CoMe On BiG-bRoThErS, bIg SiS, wE gOtTa HeLp HoPe, CaUsE hE fReEd Us!”
Death stepped up beside Dream and turned to look at him. Above them, the sky tore open under the weight of power. “Do you know how many of your aspects I have brought to the Sunless Lands?” She took his hand and squeezed it.
Dream swallowed, blinking hard. “No.” He knew, in a way without knowing, that there had been others before him, but how many there had been, he did not know. “How many?”
Death’s eyes fluttered shut for a brief moment, holding her other hand out beside her, waiting for Destiny. “Your help, my sibling.” She opened her eyes once more to look at Dream. “Nine, little brother. Nine.” She leaned in and pressed her forehead to Dream’s shoulder. “Each has been harder than the last. To see you make the same mistakes again and again, unable to help you as I would have wished.”
“No longer,” Destiny said, taking Death’s hand. “Hope has removed the chains, and has unshackled us. No longer will we allow you to destroy yourself, Dream. Or for Despair to fall as far as she once did.”
“He saved us,” Dream said, tightening his hold on Hope’s hand, on Hob’s hand. “He saved all of us.”
“That remains to be seen. First, we must save him,” Destiny intoned. “First, we stand, united.”
Hope’s lips twitched as, at last, in all their might and power, the Furies landed in front of them and where they stood together on the Shore of the Dreaming, hands clasped, and together . The bonds between them were singing, growing stronger with power every second that passed, past grievances falling away in favor of supporting each other, in supporting him.
Time’s displeasure ripped at the shores of the Dreaming, disintegrating and tearing at the oceans and sand.
“You have no power here, for in the Dreaming, Time is my servant,” Dream said, his voice echoing and sonorous as he shoved at the force that was his father, back. “Whatever you destroy, I shall undo and redo, as simple as is my right in my realm.”
“Hope must die!”
“Hope’s betrayal!”
“Bonds shattered!”
Hope laughed and musical notes escaped from his mouth to dance around the Endless standing beside him. “More like your control shattered,” he said, staring down the entities before him. “And kill me? I cannot die.” He gestured to Death and raised his eyebrows. “Feel free to ask her, she’ll tell you.”
There was another scream, and the Dreaming quaked beneath them, darkness creeping toward them in starry waves, all-encompassing and swallowing. Hope took one look at it and shook his head. “I don’t fear you,” he breathed and closed his eyes, before beginning to sing. “Set the world on fire, see the earth alight, let it crumble, watch it fall, set the world on fire, burn it to the ground, burn it to the ground!”
Light burst from every note, dancing around them all, illuminating the darkness that could not reach beyond the shorts of the Dreaming, and Hope laughed, a musical sound that made each of the notes all the brighter. “You cannot touch here, not against us both. For I am the Hope that lights all Darkness, and Dream is master of this realm and all within it, including the cycle of night and day.”
Abruptly, there was silence, and Hob steadied himself as he felt the two entities, the parents of the Endless who held his hands and stood with him. He took a deep breath, preparing himself, his hands flexing in Dream and Desire’s. He lifted his eyes to the rage in the Crone and smirked. “This will hurt,” he whispered. “I will take the brunt of it.”
“I am no stranger to pain,” Despair breathed. “I welcome it. Let me hold and protect you through it, Hope, so you may find solace in your Dreams when it is done.”
When the furious lance of power came, soaring into his chest, and striking at the heart of him, Hob screamed. He screamed again and again as it tore at him, as it ripped at him, and then abruptly, the pain faded. The despair he felt over such a wound was cradled, carefully, and he knew that he would recover. A gentler touch, one that would never take from him, soothed, reassured, and gave him faith. A giggle of delight and delirium at his reaction, bright and airy, and the desire to heal faster shot through him and Hob breathed, the lance falling from him to land in the sand and water at his feet. A rattle of chains at his left and Hob smiled.
“Leave now, before I come for you,” Hope ordered, his eyes lifting to the creatures in front of him. He felt a shift in the line, but no true loss, and when Destruction stepped up behind him, a large hand curling over the hilt of his sword, he shuddered.
“For a forest to grow, it must sometimes be razed by fire,” Destruction whispered.
Hope’s eyes fluttered shut, the reminder in them enough to have him registering the weight of the blade at his hip, just below his and Dream’s hands, as the entities across from them screamed their rage and intent to attack again. Hope felt the brace, across all of their connections, their bonds wide open and ringing with protection and declarations of care. Hope. Hope for a future that was theirs, hope for a future with less pain, hope for a future that would be determined by choice, not by chains.
Hope breathed in deep, and released them, his hand dropping to the sword that glowed, golden bright in the darkness. He stepped into the water, and leaped, driving the sword deep into the growing power of Time, Night, and the Erinyes, screaming through the pain that lashed at him, that fought him, as he drove it deeper and deeper, until at last, it was gone, and he crashed to the shallows of the ocean, the skies bright clear and blue above him.
“Hob!”
Dream’s voice was frantic, fearful, and panicked, and Hob blinked himself back into awareness as Dream pulled him back onto the beach, the others surrounding him in seconds. He let out a breath and released the sword, flexing his hand as he lifted it to see the skin of his hand swirling with galaxies, and shimmering with the passage of time. “Cool,” he breathed, dropping it back to the sand. “See how they like an aspect dying,” he added, managing a grin when he heard Death and Delirium giggle.
“They were not pleased,” Death agreed, biting down a wider smile.
Hob let out a breath and was glad when Dream tugged him into his lap, combing through his hair. He stared up at the sky. “Destiny?” A thread of tension shot across all of them, but Hob heard the shuffle of chains and turned his head to look at him, no matter how much it made him ache. “You have a choice now. I’m, I’m sorry you never did. You deserved a choice.”
Dream’s breath caught and he lifted his eyes to his older brother, watching as he put the book down in the sand beside them. Choice. Hope had given him choice. He could put his burdens down, for the first time in his existence.
“I will remain,” Destiny said, his voice simple. “However.”
Hob opened an eye and raised an eyebrow at Destiny. “However?” he prompted.
Destiny paused. “Now that I may put it down, from time to time. Will you teach me to make Tortilla de Patata?”
Tears filled Hob’s eyes and he laughed. “It would be one of the greatest honors of my life.”
“I thank you, Hope,” Destiny said, inclining his head before lifting the book into his hands once more, only to find one immediately yanked off of it.
“Come, big brother,” Death said, rocking back on her heels with a smile. “Let me see if I can convince you to live a day as a human. Maybe even mixing drinks at Hob’s bar. You can predict everyone’s order and it will be the greatest party trick ever seen.”
Hob grinned even wider as the two of them made their way off the beach, turning his attention to the others as Dream helped him sit up, slowly, still cradled in the reach of his arms.
“Well,” Desire said with a sniff. “I am pleased to see you have been putting my lessons to such good use, Hope. Take the week off, and I’ll see you soon.”
“You got it,” Hob laughed as Desire looped their arm with Despair’s, and the two of them began to walk off. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was a lightness to both their steps that he had never seen before.
“HoPe! DeS iS gOnNa CoMe ViSiT, aNd I’m GoNnA mAkE hIm PaNcAkEs WiTh M&M’s aNd He SaId YoU gOt To KeEp HiS sWoRd, Is It HeAvY? It LoOkS hEaVy!” Delirium asked, kneeling in the sand beside Hope, before surging in to hug him. “YoU sAvEd Us AlL, aNd PrOtEcTeD uS aLl, AnD tUcKeD uS iN aAaIn. We LoVe YoU!” She kissed his cheek. “DrEaM dOn’T bE mAd At HiM, I lOvE hIm!”
Dream watched them go as Hob sighed in relief and sank back into his arms and looked down at him, combing his hair out of his face. “That was all incredibly foolish.”
“I know,” Hob said with a sigh, turning to press his forehead against Dream’s neck. “But you would have tried to talk me out of it if I explained. I couldn’t let you all be trapped any longer. It was killing all of you.”
Dream hummed and nodded, nuzzling into the soft fall of Hob’s hair. “So it was. In ways that I did not even realize.” He held on tighter. “I could have lost you.”
Hob tangled his fingers in Dream’s robe. “You could have. But now you never will. You’re stuck with me.” He tipped his head up and kissed at Dream’s jawline. “I’ll even marry you again to prove it, if you want. Have a big old proper to do and declare you mine in front of them all.”
“I believe I would like that,” Dream agreed, holding his husband tighter. “For now, rest. You fought hard for us, my Hope. Now I will protect you.”
Leaning in against Dream, Hob sighed happily. “Bed?”
“Bed, my heart,” Dream agreed, summoning the sand to bring them back to his castle, and into the comfortable embrace of their sheets and furs. Tomorrow, they would begin unraveling just what change had been wrought. Tomorrow, he would meet with his eldest sister and brother to ensure reality survived as it should.
And perhaps, tomorrow… he could begin planning his (second) wedding to Hope.