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“My lord?”
Dream looks up from the book he’d been flipping through and rises from his throne, setting the book down behind him. He descends the winding stairs with no apparent rush, but there’s an interested, almost expectant, gleam in his eyes as he glances down at Lucienne awaiting him at the foot of the stairs. She cradles a wrapped bundle in her arms, and it doesn’t take much to guess the purpose of her arrival.
“Lucienne,” Dream greets her with a dip of his head. The librarian inclines her head, smiling softly. “How fares she?”
“Well, I believe,” Lucienne answers, glancing down momentarily at the infant girl sleeping in her arms. She reaches to draw back a corner of the soft blanket wrapped snugly around the seven-month-old and nods appreciatively. “She’s just woken from a nap, sire. I think a little time with her father would not be amiss.”
Dream approaches her and opens his arms to receive his daughter. “I’ve nearly finished that old storybook you suggested to me. I believe I have enough bedtime story inspiration for another millennium,” he remarks. Lucienne hands over her charge and steps back with a slight bow.
“She must learn at some point; story-telling is her inheritance,” Lucienne says gently. Dream takes the soft bundle, shifting her in his hold until she’s cradled against his chest. He draws back a fold of the blanket nearest her face and leans down to press a soft kiss to her forehead. The soft wisps of her inky black hair tickle his nose. As he withdraws, he looks at her tenderly, noting just how much she has taken after him and her mother, from the prim curve of her nose so clearly that of her mother’s, to the steely blue of eyes that gleam like starlight—her father’s.
“She will make her own stories. I can foresee it. If she is anything like her mother,” he mumbles. Lucienne lingers a moment or two longer, watching father and daughter with quiet awe.
When he says nothing more, she respectfully takes her leave and departs. As she turns down a corridor, she passes Johanna Constantine and pauses. The Queen of the Dreaming approaches, wrapped in her characteristic white trench coat, and offers a kind smile when she catches sight of Lucienne.
“Greetings, Lady Johanna,” Lucienne says, offering her a bow. “Lord Morpheus is back in the throne room, if it serves your interest to know. I’ve just given Irene to him. It does him good to hold her. He is so very happy when he has her.”
Johanna huffs, her brows quirking. “Lucienne, I've told you, ‘Jo’ is perfectly fine. Lady Johanna was my ancestress," she says with a soft huff and half-hearted wave to dismiss it. She doesn't think she'll ever get used to the formalities of being 'royalty'. "It does," she confirms her interest. Her eyes twinkle when she speaks; nothing softens the King of Nightmares like his infant daughter. "Is she sleeping? I couldn’t get that little imp to settle last night to save my life. Teething. That lucky bastard doesn't even need sleep; I ought to start giving him charge of Irene while I sleep.”
Lucienne’s brows fly up in surprise over how Johanna addresses their sovereign, but does not comment regarding its propriety. “I don’t believe he would raise any objection to the matter, my Lady,” Lucienne muses. “He loves her very much.”
“He better,” Johanna quips, “He spent a year convincing me to give him a child. I have to see this for myself. I’ve barely seen that man smile since our wedding.”
“He tends to have a somber disposition,” Lucienne says gently, “When he does smile, as rare as it may be, it is because whatever the cause is truly worth such a visible expression,” she says fondly. Lucienne has witnessed millenia of his moods; this is the happiest she’s seen him in recent memory. “I’m afraid I must be on my way. Reports are due on recent activity of nightmares in the east. Begging your pardon.” Lucienne dips her head in a respectful nod and continues on her way.
Johanna watches her leave, and once the librarian turns a corner out of sight, she continues in the direction Lucienne had pointed her in. True to her word, Dream is sitting on the winding steps leading up to his throne. His long black coat is pooled behind him, covering several of the steps, not unlike an upturned inkpot spilling its dark content over a blank white page. She remains where she stands, silently watching the quiet adoration barely visible in the faint smile on a father’s face as he looks at his daughter.
A familiar ache grips Johanna’s heart at the sight. It evokes a life she’d dreamed of in her memories, a life she’d held only as an impossible hope. She remembers the distinct yet resigned despair of burying a lost hope in the deepest recesses of her heart. No tears come now, not anymore. She had long since sworn to hide such fragility in the furthest depths of her being, safeguarding it in the face of the dangerous life she’d chosen to follow. To show it meant weakness; to be weak against the forces of hell was to forfeit her life, and it was a risk she dared not take. But over the years, she realized that locking her heart away in a figurative metal box meant locking everything else out. It meant isolating herself from precisely what she’d once hoped for for herself. Her occupation was far too dangerous to allow otherwise.
But the man before her eyes–her husband, the lord of this realm, an Endless–found his way past the high walls she’d lifted around her heart. He’s drawing her out past them, little by little, and it’s terrifying if she’s honest. But now, as she looks at him and the beautiful baby girl they’ve brought into existence, she considers it worth every minute. Part of her hesitates at the fragile intimacy of such a moment, but the rest desperately wants to participate in it.
She clears her throat. Dream looks up, immediately tense, but relaxes when he sees her. Johanna approaches, dropping down to sit beside him. She rests her chin on his shoulder and peers down at Irene.
“Look at that, she’s sleepy, finally,” Johanna mumbles into his shoulder. She feels him shift slightly, turning his head to kiss her temple; her gaze shutters. “She looks peaceful. That’s her name, innit? Irene. Peace.”
“Peace of the Endless,” Dream says softly with something akin to reverence. “Destruction, Death, Despair, Destiny…She would have been welcome from the beginning, when we first walked among your kind. Much needed.”
“Oi, Death and Destiny are not bad things, eh?” Johanna retorts, nudging his shoulder. “Neither are you. Besides, aren’t you the one that gives people things to dream about? Can’t say much for Desire. They’ve caused enough trouble in their own right.”
She can feel him shudder against her at the mention of his younger sibling, affirming her words.
“I meant to point out that all seven of us, myself included, are not exclusively joyful or evocative of similar positive emotion. To have peace is to be content and free from sorrow, fear, and despair,” Dream explains. Irene burbles, straining in her blanket to lift one tiny hand and flex her stubby little fingers. Unable to resist, Johanna reaches around and extends her index finger toward the little one’s hand. Irene squeezes her finger, more by reflex or passive reaction to the physical discovery of something else there. “I contain the entire collective unconscious. I am the Dreaming, and the Dreaming is me. Do I give them dreams? In a certain sense.”
“So morose and logical,” Johanna tutts at her husband. “Well, you can spare me the gnoseology lesson, love. I think you just might have bored the poor love back to sleep with all that nonsense. Come now.” She snuggles closer to him, gently nudging her way under his arm as she deftly takes Irene from him and into her own embrace. Moments later, she’s aware of the arm he drapes around her, drawing her close and the soft press of his lips to the crown of her head. “You’re taking her tonight, you know that, right? Lucienne gave me a brilliant idea about it, given you don’t technically need sleep like I do.”
“Is that so? Hm,” Dream mumbles. His dark brows furrow as though giving serious thought to her proposition. “It seems I shall have to have a word with the librarian about her outspoken counsels.”
“She’s right, eh? And outspoken counsels or not, I’m not budging on the matter, sir. Lucienne said you wouldn’t mind, and you love this little one far too much.” Johanna leans down to nuzzle Irene’s forehead.
“She is more beautiful than anything I’ve ever created,” Dream whispers. Johanna laughs, and to his confused expression, she offers an answer.
“You did create her, genius,” she chuckles. “We did. And you’re right, she is beautiful.”
Irene gurgles softly, and though she sleeps, her rosebud lips twitch in something not unlike a smile, as though she’s heard the softly spoken praise.
“She is,” Dream affirms. “She is, indeed.”