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Dream of the Endless was not meant to decide to stay for a cup of tea.
It’d been quite the task the Three had given Hettie—to convince the King of Dreams to die. To protect Lyta Hall from him when he came to the Waking World to find her. Protection was easy, a red circle drawn around Lyta as she slept, but the rest...Hettie hadn’t any idea what to say to do it. Somehow she's to be a nail in his coffin, another hand they've recruited to hammer it shut. She is not in the business of preparing lambs for slaughter, but she had made a deal with the Fates and this was one of many, many payments.
So Hettie had fallen to what she understood. She’d aimed a bar or two lower than requested, picked what she could sell because she believed it, that Lyta Hall should not have to die.
That Dream should not have to kill her.
The air stirs; Hettie feels it prickle, goose flesh bumbling up and down her arms in what could be response or warning. There’s only one way to know which. Hettie hurries back to Lyta Hall, finds her still and sleeping.
She finds the Dream King is still here too.
Finds Dream, silent as starlight, poised like the king he is even while sat on a rickety old chair, pale in what is close to complete darkness, imperial even before the contrast of her modest London flat finds him. And find him it does, so out of place here, this slim figure all in black. As still as eternity. His elegant fingers steepled in his lap.
Hettie had not been expecting this.
The Fates hadn’t either.
She doesn’t know what that means, doesn’t know what this means, can only listen when her guest begins to speak and hope she figures it out, “Henrietta,” Dream of the Endless murmurs, cool and calm as anything, as one that is not facing imminent death, soft and silky warm as if Hettie is not one of those with a hand in arranging it, “Might I trouble you for some tea after all? Two cups, if you will—Lyta Hall will wake soon.”
Hettie does not gape.
It’s a near thing, her cool kept only by the skin of the nearly three hundred years she’s lived.
Hettie has already turned her back to Dream of the Endless once, knows with his power there is no difference in safety whether she faces him or not. She nods somewhat mechanically, turns back to the kitchen to get him his requested cups of tea. Really Hettie can do nothing else. Even now he’d asked politely, after all, and though she had not expected him to stay she had offered.
And one does not easily refuse an Endless.
Hettie is pouring hot water into a cup—not boiling, never boiling—a careful submerge of teabags, when suddenly she realises she does not know how Dream of the Endless takes his tea. She returns the kettle to the stove, leaves the tea to steep, goes back to ask him and finds Dream sitting exactly as she left him. A quirk to his lips the only sign there might be an affinity for mischief to this solemn being. Hettie finds it suits him, she'd meant what she'd said, holds no ill will for the Dream King, thinks to herself that an immortal should have ample instances to laugh. She does not like to wonder what forever might be like if you do not.
Hettie clears her throat, “Do you take milk? Sugar?”
“I do,” Dream confirms, waits, lips quirking even more before he says, “One sugar, a small dash of milk. Thank you Henrietta.”
“And Lyta?” Hettie asks.
“Two sugars. A tad more milk than I,” Dream says, certain in more ways than one as he adds, “But you already knew that.”
Hettie did.
She makes the tea, brings it out, approaches careful and slow to hand him his cup—"Thank you," Dream of the Endless murmurs as he takes it, soft and utterly, bafflingly sincere—then goes to set Lyta’s on the bedside table for when she awakens. It feels strange to step so effortlessly over the circle etched into the floor, how despite the hobble to her step it's still so very easy, almost crass, a gloat.
She puts it from her mind and returns to the kitchen to make her own tea, takes the moment to calm the frantic racing of her heart, then returns to ease herself back down into her own chair.
They both sit while they wait for Lyta Hall to wake.
Hettie has done what the Fates had asked of her; this now so very much off script, veering sharply from a scenario she'd prepared for as much as she could, what she might say to Dream of the Endless when he came here seeking to stop the women helping the Three tear his realm apart. Once done Hettie had been prepared for the night to pass uneventful, to pass the time quietly while her dogs slept peacefully around her. Additional company is unexpected in this vigil. The identity of her companion even more so.
Yet here Hettie sits, watching as the King of Dreams raises one of her battered cups to his lips and takes a careful sip.
Dream holds it delicately in ageless, fine boned hands. He lowers the cup to his lap; steam curls gently upwards from the rim like smoke without a fire, like there is nothing burning at all.
Hettie doesn’t even realise she’s been holding her breath until he speaks, “I did not need to come here myself. I could have sent others in my stead; nightmares, dreams, or perhaps like the Fates I could have utilised the assistance of a human,” Dream of the Endless says, quite casual. “There are many I could have called upon. There are many who would be eager to assist, either out of loyalty or for what debts are owed to me. But the truth is I did not—and will never—need to wield a blade by proxy. When it comes to defending the Dreaming against what would threaten it there is no law that exists to condemn my taking of a human life. Mortal…or immortal.”
Hettie grips the handle of her tea cup tight. It does not settle hands that still want to shake.
Dream continues.
“You are correct that all in this room have lost a child, but you know as well as I that this is not the only reason we are here. My realm is under siege; Lyta Hall is not the first, she is not the last, and that is where I must commend you, Henrietta, for an argument so very well made. Though I would caution you to remember that whatever the truth of my nature it has not been so long since I killed one whom I loved. I would invite you to consider how easily I could kill one I do not.” Dream pauses to take another sip of tea, and this time he lowers it to reveal a smile both small and terrible. “Fortuitous, isn't it, that today I am here for tea? Let us see what happens next, then, when I spare a life no authority would condemn me for taking.”
Hettie can only sip her own tea while stalling for a response, entirely on the back foot. She swallows, finds her voice, finds something to say, "You say it would be legal. Would that justify it?"
Dream's eyes gleam, with what she doesn't know, "Do you think that justifies it?"
It sets her even more off balance.
The low, quiet tone doesn't hide that this is a question Hettie is very much expected to answer. Even her grip on the tea cup can't hide her trembling hands now. Hettie doesn't dare look away—held fast by the blue of Dream's pale eyes, arrested by the stars there—knows he is waiting but doesn't know which answer he is looking for. Hettie can't make her reply defiance anymore than she can make gaining his approval her motive because she doesn't know what he wants.
All that's left is truth.
It will have to do. Hettie gambles with it, "No. I don't."
Dream of the Endless is unfathomable, unreadable even like this; starlight aglow in his shining eyes, this a vast night sky that no advancement in astronomy could ever hope to learn. Hettie is not ashamed to admit she is far too timid an astronomer to try. Yet one does not need to know the night sky to look up at it. So Hettie looks; finds Dream, unknowable, silent as starlight Dream, looks and doesn't know what is in his eyes, doesn't know what now quirks in his slow, curving smile.
He says nothing more.
Hettie doesn't know what he thinks of her answer.
Whether she passed the test or not—whether it was a test or not—Dream has no further questions for her, seems content to let the conversation end with her last words. Hettie watches as Dream of the Endless drinks the tea she made for him, relieved to have his attention elsewhere, exhales a soft, shaky breath as he turns his shining eyes away.
They fall onto the bed, the silence breaks.
"Lyta Hall is waking up."