Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lady Nuala, former ambassador and commander of Queen Titania’s court, spent the first few days in The Dreaming being an utter bother.

No one said as much, of course. She’d not been introduced to all of the palace staff, but those she had met were nothing but gracious. It could have been they were afraid of displeasing Lord Morpheus by bullying her, but she couldn't tell.

The Dreaming, she found out rather quickly, was quite the odd place.

Initially, Taramis gave Nuala a job in the palace kitchens. She tried her hand at baking pastries (a venture she’d always been curious about but never had the opportunity to try) but it went… less than well.

Notably, Nuala didn’t always create soggy, disgusting masses of flour. One or two (or sixteen) of the pastries burst into flame and filled the kitchens with so much smoke it forced everyone to evacuate.

Afte the second (fifth) time this happened, the aging chef politely – but firmly – transferred her to the gardens. “We do need someone to collect our herbs for us,” Taramis told her, though Nuala knew for a fact there were no less than three herb-gatherers on staff.

Nonetheless, blushing and stammering apologies, Nuala took the list and fairly sprinted to the garden.  

Thankfully, the gardens in question happened to be in the domain of Fiddlers Green. Which is how she met Gilbert, a cheerful man who enjoyed regaling her with stories of his short time in the waking world.

“Though I will always remain partial to the medium of theatre, I have to admit there was a certain appeal about movies,” Gilbert reminisced from his perch on a nearby bench. Nuala hummed busily.

The coriander she had been tasked with retrieving was gnarled about the lower extremity of a blueberry bush. Yanking, shoving and snipping had done nothing but dislodge unripe blueberries- she doubted Taramis would be happy about that – so now she was stuck trying to detangle the damned mess.

“I suppose the two artforms are cousins, but there is something so intimate about live theatre. You can feel the heat of the person next to you, smell the cologne of the actors!” he leaned back in his seat, one hand pressed to his heart as if in ecstatic jubilation.

Nuala wasn’t exactly sure what Gilbert did in The Dreaming. When she asked, he merely blinked at her and gestured to the wooded paths and stunning trees. Then he continued his diatribe about Chesterton versus Emerson, two names which Nuala had only heard about in passing.

This was a very strange realm.

“When they stumble over their lines or mistakenly bump into one another on stage, you are privy to it. That is to say, I am sure it happens on the set of movies, but they edit those bits out. Now, I am of a mind that those are the most charming bits…”

A sharp branch whacked her in the face. Nuala gritted her teeth. She could just hear Cluracan now.

Can’t even pluck a few stems without ruining the berries? He might have tsked, leaning over her shoulder and rolling his eyes. My dear sister, no wonder Queen Titania bartered you off like a lame mare…

“Ugh!” Nuala growled. She swatted at a bug, something foul and with sharp pincers, and it flitted away cursing at her in Finnish.

“Are you quite alright, my dear?” Gilbert asked, startled from his mostly one-sided conversation.

Nuala sat back on her haunches and inhaled a deep breath. You know better, you idiot, she scolded herself. Such an outburst would have been the talk of Fairie for decades. Everyone was expected to conduct themselves with the most pristine, unaffected, uppity stoicism possible. Visibly showing frustration or discontent was not encouraged.

“Yes, Gilbert,” she schooled her expression back into pretend calm. “I’m sorry. I’m having a bit of trouble with this coriander.”

“Oh! Why didn’t you say so, my dear?” Surprising her, Gilbert shuffled onto his knees and peered over the edge of his glasses at the tangle she’d been wrestling with for the past few moments. “Ah, I see the problem. Not to worry. I can handle this.”

Before she could assure him that he needn’t bother, he waved a gentle hand over the gnarl of plant and branch and roots. Magically, they each retracted like scolded children. The blueberry bush pulled away from the coriander and went back to its appointed plot of land.

Nuala’s jaw dropped.

“I… How did you…?” Not only had she never seen Gilbert leave the bench, but she’d also not witnessed such pure acts of Earth magic for centuries.

Then again, they weren’t on Earth, were they?

Gilbert looked up to flash a bright smile.  “There you are! I’m terribly sorry about that. Sometimes, these smaller plants get away from me.”

Nuala gawked. “Gilbert, are you one of the gardeners?” She’d seen a few of them milling about the palace grounds plucking weeds and watering the voluptuous array of trees, flowers and bushes. Then again, most of them tended to scowl grumpily at whoever passed, so she couldn’t imagine Gilbert being part of their ranks.

The older man wrinkled his nose distastefully. “Goodness, no! I tried gardening in the waking world and I’m afraid I was pure rubbish at it. Could never keep the damn things alive, ironically enough.”

Nuala looked back at the now straightened plants, then back at him. Though she had shed the opulent robes of Fairie for a set of humble overalls, she still found herself reaching up to clasp the buttons of a nonexistent corset. “But then… how did you…?”

He arched a bushy eyebrow at her, amusement twinkling in kind eyes. “Lady Nuala, in the form I currently inhabit, I am Gilbert,” he bowed over his cane gallantly. Nuala giggled. “However, this is but one aspect of who – and what – I am. My other form is the one you stand on. This garden, these trees, this soil… All of it. Me.”

She inhaled sharply, glancing at the gardens, the flower-pocked meadows on her right, and grove of apples trees to the left. “All of this is… You?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” Nuala had heard rumors of the dream folk, of course. The Endless and their realms were a constant source of fascination for the lower entities.

People like her, who had spent most of her life hiding behind a glamour while Gilbert easily manifested and managed several selves.

Nuala’s shoulders slumped. “That’s… Incredible, Gilbert. Truly.”

He cocked his head like a disgruntled puppy. “What’s the matter? Have I said something…?”

“No!” she hurried to reassure him. “No, you’ve been lovely. It’s only that this place is full of such… wonder and beauty and honesty and I am…Well, I’m rather useless.”

“Useless?” he scoffed, as if it were really such a shock coming from someone whose own queen hadn’t wanted her. “That can’t be true. I’ve not known you for very long, but already I can see in you a determined and capable spirit.”

She couldn’t help but smile, warmed by his compassion. “Thank you Gilbert, but you have to admit, I’m not exactly the best at, er, picking herbs,” they both stared at the mostly empty basket. “I tried my hand in the kitchen and nearly burned the whole palace down.  Maybe Queen Titania was right to send me away. Maybe I’ve been a burden all along…”

“Preposterous!” he interrupted with such severity the nearby plants rumbled. “All due respect, your former monarch Titania is a petty, short-sighted, shallow woman who cannot tell an orchid from sewer fungus. You shall not base your worth on her judgement. I forbid it.”

Nuala had never heard anyone speak of Titania in such a way. In fact, had they been in Fairie, Gilbert would have been put to death in the most gruesome and cruel way imaginable for even daring utter those words aloud. Instinctively, she opened her mouth to defend the queen who she had served for more than five hundred years.

The words never came.

Gilbert was no longer paying much attention to her anyway. He tapped his cane against the ground and squinted into the distance thoughtfully. “Hm. Perhaps, your skills are simply better suited elsewhere in the realm. Tell me, what did you do, in Fairie, that you actually enjoyed?”

This was another shock to the system. No one had ever asked what she liked to do before, not without expecting the answer to have some bearing on Titania. “Um…Mostly, we just have balls and dances in Fairie, but every so often…” She bit her bottom lip.

“Yes?” Gilbert pressed.

She rubbed her palms against the course fabric of her pants. “Well, in Titania’s castle, there is a library. Mostly it contains books about Titania but sometimes, there are other stories. About the Waking World.” She scowled. “I didn’t get much chance to associate with humans, but I liked it. I liked hearing their stories, and learning about the world beyond…”

“Ah ha!” Gilbert blurted. She jumped. “Forgive me, my dear. I just had an idea.”

She cocked her head curiously, but before Gilbert could elaborate, a friendly voice called out from above. “Hey guys!”

Nuala raised her head to see a black bird ascend from the heavens like a falling star. He whooshed past her head and landed on the abandoned bench gracefully.

Gilbert’s bright smile stretched his cheeks, making them bulge almost comedically. “Ah, Matthew! Your flying skills have much improved, I daresay. How are you?”

“Thanks, Gil,” Matthew chirped. “I’m good! Sorry I haven’t been around much. It’s been pretty busy around the palace because, well, you know.”

 Nuala couldn’t imagine being Raven to Dream of the Endless. While Lord Morpheus did not give her the impression he was as demanding as Titania, he was certainly an active king, which meant Matthew was undoubtedly hard at work as well.

Gilbert nodded. “Indeed I do. What can I do for you?”

“I’m running errands for Lucienne. She sent me here to ask whether you have the, uh,” he scratched the top of his head thoughtfully. “Oh, I remember now! The final count of all dream visitors to Fiddlers Green. From last quarter?”

“Ah, yes!” Gilbert rummaged around inside his waist coat, plucking a wrinkled piece of paper from some hidden pocket. “Here you are!”

Matthew snagged the offered report. Just as Nuala was afraid he might accidentally tear it to shreds between sharp talons, the sheet of paper began to morph. The straight edges curled into smooth lines and tiny scales. The report- now decidedly snake-like- slithered onto Matthew’s back and wrapped around his throat like a scarf.

Nuala didn’t know whether to shriek or applaud.

If either Gilbert or Matthew were impressed or alarmed, they hid it well. “Oh good. You wouldn’t believe the number of Vavasors who barely remember their own names much less who comes through their territory.”

“Most dreams tend to be rather… scatterbrained. It’s part of our nature. I admit my time in the Waking World helped me tremendously in that regard. Anyway, I wonder if you might do us a favor Matthew.”

“Sure,” Matthew said, still clad in a paper snake. “What’s up?”

Gilbert reached out and snagged her in a companionable but rather inescapable half embrace. “Lady Nuala here has been having some trouble finding her place in The Dreaming.”

Nuala suddenly wanted to melt into the ground and never rise again. Her face blazed with hot embarrassment, but Matthew just clucked sympathetically. “Ooh, been there, done that. Don’t worry, it gets better,” he assured her.

Yes, but at least you’re a real dream, she thought. I haven’t been a real anything in years.

“Quite. I was hoping you could take her to see Lucienne.”

“What?” Nuala peeped. She’d not had much contact with Lucienne, but even those at the Royal banquet had spoken the Librarian’s name with equal parts begrudging respect and envy. The dream-folk, meanwhile, referred to Lucienne the same way one would a benevolent god. She tried to duck from beneath Gilbert’s arm. “N-no, that’s not necessary. Really…”

“I beg to differ!” Gilbert harrumphed, not loosening his grasp in the least. “It sounds as if you’d enjoy working in the library. We have every book that has ever or will ever be written. Perhaps you could be a page or researcher?”

Nuala hesitated. The idea of spending her days in the serenity of a library, caring for the stories and dreams of those mysterious, complicated, fascinating beings known as humans was enticing. Then she remembered that this might entail having prolonged exposure to Lucienne, the second most powerful entity in the land, and her heart skipped a beat. 

“I-I mean, I don’t want to intrude…” She stammered. Or to say something stupid, or make a fool of myself, or do something that makes Lord Morpheus send me away like Titania…

“Oh my gosh, that’s a great idea, Gilbert!” Matthew cried with a little hop of excitement. “Luci has been swamped trying to run the realm and finish her regular duties. She could totally use an extra hand. Come on, Nuala, I’ll take you!”

“You will?” she peeped.

Gilbert squeezed her shoulder. “Go on, my dear. I promise you have little to fear from Lucienne.”

That sounded improbable. Nevertheless, Matthew rose into the air and took off toward the palace, evidently expecting her to follow. Desperate hope and anxiety wrestled in her chest. Nuala hadn’t been this terrified in decades, maybe centuries.

“I…”

Gilbert gave her a little shove from behind. The force in it belied the gentle expression on his face. “Don’t worry! I’m sure the herbs will be here should you decide to return.”

It was only the genuine warmth in his eyes that gave her the strength to take a tiny step forward, then another, until she was running after Matthew the Raven, toward the Palace and the future waiting within.

Chapter Text

“This is the library?” She gasped first. “And I thought Queen Titania’s collection was impressive.”

But the Faerie Queen’s archive couldn’t hold a candle to this. The entire room was a complex labyrinth of walkways and bridges that connected shelves which seemed to stretch infinitely into the air, disappearing behind thin clouds of mist.

And upon every shelf were thousands – millions, a voice in her head awed – of books. Fat thesauruses and skinny pamphlets. Ancient manuscripts and modern comic books. Titles danced in front of her eyes in so many languages it made her dizzy.

She’d thought only The Creator would have access to such vast stores of knowledge.

Matthew circled the air above her head. “Just one section. It goes on for miles and miles. It’s the second largest room in the entire palace.”

Nuala accidentally scuffed against a table with her hip. The stack of books on said table wobbled, then proceeded to wiggle away from the edge. “Are these books sentient?” she gasped.

“Some of them.”

“And Lucienne runs… all of it?”

“Well, Lucienne runs everything, but yeah. She’s officially vavasor of the library, a domain and territory all on its own,” his voice was saturated with a brotherly pride. “Come on. Her office is this way!”

Nuala resisted the urge to read every title that crossed her periphery. “Don’t you think we should make an appointment?” she worried. Three men sat round a table to the far right. They didn’t even look up as they passed, too engrossed in their own dreams. “If she’s busy I don’t want to…”

“Appointment? With Lucienne?” Matthew cried, as if she’d just suggested they dance naked in the arctic. “Only officials outside The Dreaming do that!”

“Yes, and until very recently, I was one of those officials,” Nuala pointed out anxiously. She came to a halt, shuffling closer to the nearest bookshelf for protection. “She doesn’t know me yet, Matthew. I want to make a good impression.”

Matthew circled back around and perched on the lip of the shelf above her head. “Hey,” he cawed gently. “I know all of this can be overwhelming. Before you arrived, I was the new kid. But it’s going to be ok. In the Dreaming, anything is possible.”

It was startingly close to what Gilbert said. Nuala inhaled a deep breath and nodded. Matthew could not smile, per se, but there was decided liveliness to the way he fluttered back into the air. Together, they wound their way through the maze of books to what Nuala felt was a centerpoint of some sort.

Just as Nuala caught a glimpse of a large wooden desk, a rough, scratchy voice broke the relative silence. “Look Loosh, it’s not as if they’re broken or anything. Why do they need to get done now?”

“The windows are cracked, Mervyn. Cracked. It’s only a matter of time before they break, and what else do you have to do?”

“Well, if you must know, I’m on vacation!”

“Vacation?!”

“Oh boy, they’re at it again,” Matthew groaned.

“Who?” Nuala whispered, peeking round the corner. Lucienne she recognized right away. The scarecrow standing opposite her desk was new though.

“We’ve been in the new palace for a week!” Lucienne hissed. “What in the world could you have done that warrants a vacation?”

The scarecrow – Mervyn, she assumed – twisted his jagged mouth into supreme affront. “Oh, you wanna know what I’ve done? Some of those dumb fucking clown people popped all the lightbulbs in the Great Hall! All of them!”

Nuala felt as if she would spend eternity gawping at everyone in this realm. Cursing at or near Titania was a crime punishable by whipping, and yet here Mervyn was flailing his long arms and towering over the King’s righthand without so much as a whimper.

And Lucienne did not call for an immediate removal of his head. In fact, the librarian crossed her arms and peered at Mervyn over the rim of her glasses. “Oh, how terribly draining Mervyn. You changed a few lightbulbs,” she drawled sarcastically.

Mervyn growled. “I changed all the light bulbs, Loosh. You know how many light bulbs there are in the Great Hall? Two hundred and fifty-seven! Not to mention something crapped in the corner…”

“Hey!” Matthew landed on the desk between the two, splaying his wings irritably. “Sorry to interrupt your regularly scheduled bickering, but Lady Nuala here has a question for Lucienne.”

Lucienne and Mervyn swiveled to stare at her. Nuala gave an awkward little wave. “Um. Hello.”

“Get in line! I was here first!” Mervyn barked.

Lucienne smacked his shoulder with a pen. “Mervyn, mind your manners!” To Nuala, she pulled out a chair and nodded. “Lady Nuala, please sit down. I’ll be right with you.”

As Nuala obeyed, Matthew shook his head vigorously, and the paper slowly slid from its place around his neck. “Oh, and here’s the report from Fiddlers Green.”

“Thank you Matthew,” Lucienne unwound the paper and scrutinized its contents for a moment before nodding briskly and setting it down. “See, Mervyn? This is what one would call being helpful.”

Mervyn put his hands on his hips. Though he did not have any pupils, the glare he directed at Matthew was undeniably heated. “No, that is what one would call being a teacher's pet.”

"Guilty as charged," Matthew quipped. 

Lucienne pinched the bridge of her nose. “Mervyn, you and I both know you’re going to change the windows, so why don’t you just do it? In the time you’ve spent arguing with me, you could have finished the task and returned to your completely undeserved vacation.”

At that, Mervyn’s grin turned sharp. “If I didn’t argue with ya, who would keep you humble?”

There was a beat of silence. Then, Matthew snorted, and Nuala had to hide her giggle behind a courteous palm. “You are a vile creature,” Lucienne informed him. “I’m asking Lord Morpheus to uncreate you.”

Mervyn just chuckled. “See ya, Loosh. Hey birdy, come with me. Apparently, we’re fixing windows.”

Matthew obligingly hopped onto Mervyn’s twig-like shoulder. “Um, don’t you mean, you’re fixing windows?”

“What, do I have to do everything round here?”

Their voices dimmed as they left, still squabbling. Lucienne sighed and sunk into the chair on the opposite side of the desk. “My apologies. Mervyn can be a handful.”

“Reminds me of my brother Cluracan,” Nuala replied with a sympathetic smile.

“I have been meaning to check in on you. I understand your stay with us was rather… unexpected.”

Nuala’s stomach dropped. “Lord Morpheus told you?”

Had he mentioned it to everyone? He hadn’t seemed the type to gossip about his subjects, but knowledge, as Titania often claimed, was the ultimate power. If the other dreams knew more about her than she did them, that put her at a disadvantage.

She had truly hoped to leave all the spiteful psychological warfare behind.

Perhaps it was just her imagination, but Lucienne’s expression held nothing but concern. “Yes. I am sorry you’ve been so cruelly uprooted, but rest assured, it is very important to Lord Morpheus – and to me – that you are happy here,” she folded her hands primly. “Now, how are you doing, Lady Nuala?”

She ducked her eyes. “Nuala, please. I’m no longer a lady after all.”

“Are you sure? In the Dreaming, one’s title does not necessarily correspond to their hierarchy. There are dreams with names such as King of the crossroads, for instance, or God-of-barbs.”

Her head snapped up in surprise. “Lord Morpheus lets them call themselves that?”

Lucienne splayed her hands in a small shrug. “He is the one who thought it up. Names here reflect the person, not the power. So, no one would think it inappropriate if you still went by Lady Nuala.”

Nuala considered this. As a wee one, she had yearned to strut the courts of Faerie, to smirk as the lower servant class bowed over her fingers with a quiet My lady. Only then, she reasoned, would she have control over her life. How naïve she had been then. How shallow.

Finally, she exhaled a slow breath and squared her shoulders. “No thank you. Lady Nuala was a terribly unhappy and stifled fairy in Queen Titania’s court. I would like to…Just be Nuala, if that’s alright.”

Lucienne smiled. “That sounds wonderful. Now, back to my original question: how are you?”

“I am… So grateful that Lord Morpheus allowed me to remain here, in The Dreaming. Everyone is so tremendously kind and helpful. I’ve even made some friends,” she frowned. “Well, I think we’re friends anyway. I’ve spent most of my time with Gilbert in his garden and Olly in the kitchen.”

“You might want to be cautious around Olly,” Lucienne hurried to warn. “He has a tendency to fall in love with anyone who smiles at him, which is why he works alongside Taramis, who does not smile at him under any circumstance.”

“I thought he was looking at me strangely,” Nuala speculated aloud. As a matter of fact, her admittedly short time in the kitchens had been spent keenly aware of Olly’s five eyes tracking her backside, which, while flattering, wasn’t exactly what she wanted at the moment.

Lucienne nodded. “He’s harmless enough. It’s a consequence of his function, I’m afraid. The best cooks are often hopeless romantics.”

“I see,” she lied because in Faerie the hopeless romantics were often delegated to the role of court jester. “Anyway, Gilbert is the one who suggested I speak with you.”

This seemed to pique the other woman’s interest. “Oh really? And what exactly did Gilbert think I could do for you?”

Nuala had been silently rehearsing this moment ever since Gilbert shooed her from his garden. Nevertheless, the words tumbled from her mouth in tentative fragments. “Well, I mean, I don’t want you to think me brazen or disrespectful. That is, if Lord Morpheus would prefer I remain where I am, I will of course oblige, but…”

Lucienne interrupted her babbling to reach over and squeeze her hand. “Nuala. I hope it will comfort you to hear me say this: Lord Morpheus does not care one wit what you do in The Dreaming. He is not a monarch who interferes in the private affairs of his subjects. That's my job. If you’d like to try your hand at a specific task, you are welcome.”

“Oh,” she blinked. “I… I would still like to be useful, though. At first, Taramis allowed me to try my hand at baking, but…”

“I was wondering why there was smoke everywhere,” Lucienne murmured, eyes widening in realization. “I thought someone gave the Wyvern mápó dòufu again.”

Nuala cringed. “I am so sorry about that. I’ve been picking herbs ever since, but plant collection is not exactly a passion of mine. I told Gilbert that I very much loved to… hear the stories and tales of humans in the Waking World…”

Lucienne's pointed ears twitched with curiosity. “Oh really? Do you mean reading biographies, or…?”

“Yes, I like that too, but also… This will sound strange. I loved speaking to them. Mortals, I mean,” Lucienne arched a brow. Nuala hurried to explain. “They’re just so fascinating! I could write an entire novel on all the ways they manage to create and destroy and live and love!”

“Hm,” The Dreaming’s regent leaned back in her seat. Her pupils narrowed, studying Nuala with a suddenly hawkish gaze. Nuala opened her mouth to apologize, but she’d no sooner drew breath that Lucienne spoke again. “You know, there was a project I began some centuries ago. I would interview dreamers about their lives and record those conversations.”

“Really?” Nuala gasped. Most of the cosmic realms regarded humanity with indifference, if not outright hostility. “Why?”

“Most beings often refrain from telling their own stories because they are not invited or do not feel safe enough to do so. If I may be so bold, I believe you have some experience with that feeling, yes?”

Though it was said with the utmost kindness, the words still sent a shiver down her spine. Nuala gulped. “Aye. I do.”

“Well, I have observed that here, in The Dreaming, they feel secure enough to… unveil themselves,” Lucienne tilted her chin the slightest bit, eyes ablaze with pride. “As I am the keeper of untold stories, I believe every story deserves the opportunity to breathe and feel the light of day.”

Nuala inhaled sharply. Keeper of Untold Stories sounded rather more magnificent than Royal librarian. She wondered vaguely if Lucienne was actually a minor Goddess of some sort, and if so, how the hell she’d ended up in The Dreaming.

I suppose names don’t have anything to do with hierarchy here, she thought.

Then she frowned as something else occurred to her. “But…I mean, I apologize, I don’t know how this all works, but if the untold stories get told, doesn’t that mean you lose control over them?”

“I do not keep stories for control, Nuala,” she asserted firmly. “I keep them because it is my duty and my honor to care for them.”

Nuala averted her gaze. “I- of course. I’m sorry. I meant no offense.”

There was a tug on Nuala’s fingers, then a squeeze. Lucienne’s eyes were warm, forgiving. “And the greatest expression of love one can give is to let go when the time is right. Does that make sense?”

Nuala’s heart spasmed. In Faerie, the appearance of control was everything. One had to be in control of their emotions, their aspirations, their faces, their accents… All in service to a queen who played them like puppets. “Yes, it does. I think you are very wise, Lucienne.”

The librarian splayed her manicured hands with a smile. “Maybe, but I’m not entirely unselfish. Even once they are told, they still end up in the library. All stories come here. Nonetheless, I’m afraid I had to pause my efforts and focus on other things but if you’re interested, I would love to see the project reborn.”

Delight zipped through her spine like an electric current. Nuala leapt from her seat, squealing. “Yes! Yes, yes, yes!” Realizing she was now dancing on her toes like a child, she flushed. “Um. I mean, I would like that very much, thank you.”

Lucienne huffed a small laugh. “I promise, you’re the one doing me a favor. I’ll repurpose one of the unused rooms for your office, and I’m sure one or two of the pages would be amenable to assisting you. Has anyone given you a tour of the library yet?”

“Is that possible?” Nuala replied, a bit shocked. “This place is so large. I’d assumed it would take years, if not decades, to walk through it all.”

“Oh, it would, if one does not know the secret routes,” Lucienne pushed herself from the table with a grin. “Come. I’ll show you around.”

In short order, Nuala discovered that Lucienne was a terrific listener. Or maybe Nuala was just a shameless blabber-mouth.

Either way, it didn’t take more than ten minutes before she felt comfortable enough to spew her entire life story to the librarian.

“I imagine the reason Queen Titania gave me away without warning is because I did some, small, unknowing thing to irritate her days or weeks ago,” she finished, watching shards of light dance through the stained windows on the ceiling. “That, or she’ll tell my brother to reenact the look on my face when I found out for her own amusement.”

Lucienne made a disapproving noise in the back of her throat. “There is a reason I stopped accompanying Lord Morpheus to Faerie. Oh, and here is the fifteenth compendium of Arts.”

Nuala leaned over to peer beyond the golden archways. Apparently, the library held not only books but weapons, paintings, tapestries and sculptures. Indeed, the fifteenth compendium of arts was a space replete with white walls and statues of various Gods and Goddesses in repose. It reminded her of a museum exhibit.

“Oh, there’s Isis,” she said, catching sight of the Egyptian Goddesses slender likeness. “Did you use too? Accompany Lord Morpheus to Faerie, I mean?”

Nuala had never seen anyone accompany the dream king to Titania's Balls or Court Hearings. Then again, she was rather young in the grand scheme of things. Lucienne, on the other hand, gave her the impression that she was a much, much older woman.

“Quite a few times, but then again I used to go everywhere with him. Ah, here we are,” they came across a large wooden door, partially hidden behind a sagging bookshelf. Lucienne bade the bookshelf to scoot aside with a wave of the hand.

Nuala followed her inside and promptly gasped. Before her stretched a long chamber the size of Queen Titania’s private dining hall. Angels and butterflies danced in elaborate scenes on the ceiling.

Fat, thorn studded vines inched along the corners of the hazy creme walls. There were marble birdbaths and French boudoirs and empty display cases scattered throughout, covered by dusty scraps of cloth.

Lucienne set her hands on her hips. “This used to be a storage room where we kept dangerous texts, but I think it would make for an elegant office, don’t you?”

“This would be my office?” Nuala repeated blankly, simultaneously hoping she’d misunderstood and that she’d heard correctly. “But it’s so big.”

“Is it?” Lucienne rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Hm. Well, all the better. Sometimes people manifest differently in their dreams. You’ll interview quite a few individuals who are tall as giraffes and others that are as wide as whales. It all depends on their perception of themselves, and the dream itself of course. What do you think? Will it do?”

Nuala blinked back the heat stinging her eyes. “Aye. It’s… It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

Lucienne dipped her head gracefully. “I’ll have Mervyn clear the cobwebs for you, and then you can decorate as you like.”

Nuala took a few unsteady steps forward, twirling on a heel as she beheld the room that would soon belong to her. “I feel like I’m dreaming,” she breathed.

 “We get that a lot here,” Lucienne tittered. “I hope you’ll be happy with us, Nuala, I truly do.”

“How can I not be?” Nuala shook her head and waltzed over to the nearest item – an elaborately painted mahogany piano – and swiped the tarp from its surface. “That’s it, I can’t wait for Mervyn. I’m going to start clearing things myself. Is it alright if I move it all to the half-lit storage room?”

She might keep the piano though. It was terribly pretty.

“You really don’t have too…”

“I want too,” she declared, and oh the words might as well have been a breath of warm spring air after an eternity of winter. Nuala was doing this because she wanted it, and she was safe to want, and the sprawl of possibilities was too titillating to ignore.

Lucienne cocked her head in a way that was strangely reminiscent of Matthew. “If you insist. Yes, go ahead and reposition these things there. Matter of fact, I’ll help. It will go faster if we do it together.”

Chapter Text

Despite Lucienne’s promise that working together would make the work go by faster, they spent at least five hours shuffling everything to storage. Then, Lucienne took her to pick out paint colors. That took another two hours.

Rearranging the furniture was no small task either, and by the time they got around to laying down plastic sheets and actually painting her new office, night had long fallen over The Dreaming.

It was glorious.

Not just the office. Lucienne was superb company. Nuala had rarely ever felt so seen. Empathetic and witty, Lucienne managed to banish all of Nuala’s worries either by making her laugh or simply laying a hand on her shoulder.

She possessed a wealth of knowledge, too. It was as if she had been to every corner of the known universe, from the ancient cities of the mortal realm to the rowdy arenas of Olympus. Nuala was desperate to sop up Lucienne’s stories, her wisdom.

Cluracan would have mocked her for being so star-struck, but it wasn’t as if she was the only one. Several beings stopped by to ask Lucienne for advice or favor or to relay the facts of their day. Even more astonishing, Lucienne deftly allayed their fears and answered their questions without batting an eye.

If Nuala fancied herself an admirer of Lord Morpheus, she was quickly becoming a devotee of Lucienne.  

Nevertheless, Nuala did feel a stirring of guilt to have hoarded the librarian’s time for so long. “I’m sorry, Lucienne, are you needed elsewhere?” she asked after the tenth person to seek out Lucienne’s help departed. “Matthew mentioned you’ve been swamped lately.”

Lucienne, standing on a ladder on the opposite side of the room, turned partially to give Nuala a reassuring smile. “Oh, I’ve been swamped for the past two hundred years, give or take, so don’t worry. I’m quite used to it.” She said, ever cheerful. “To tell you the truth, I think I needed this, a moment to focus on something other than the realm or library or Lord Morpheus. Vines or no vines?”

Nuala studied the wall Lucienne was currently painting. The thick cords of foliage did give the place a rather whimsical touch…

“Vines, definitely,” she decided. “How long have ye been second-in-command?”

Lucienne swiped a dot of blue paint from her cheek. “That rather depends on who you ask. Officially, I started when Lord Morpheus returned from his long absence.”

The paintbrush in Nuala’s hand started to wilt as if they very mention of Lord Morpheus’s imprisonment sucked the vitality from it. “We heard about that in Faerie. I think it scared Titania and Auberon. They’ve considered themselves above the entrapment of mortals for so long.”

Something like remorse passed over Lucienne’s face. She nodded gravely. “Yes, as did Lord Morpheus.”

Nuala gnawed her bottom lip. She had only asked about that event once, and the reaction to it had been less than ideal. The rest of the palace staff – Gilbert, even – shied away from any mention of Lord Morpheus’s capture.

However, outside The Dreaming, rumors and musings still abounded about the type of mortal capable of such an act, the torture Lord Morpheus must have suffered, and the horrible grief his subjects had endured in his absence. She desperately wanted to ask Lucienne the details, but uncertainty held her tongue.

Thankfully, she didn’t have a chance to work up the courage. “Lucienne?!” The eleventh visitor called as he entered the room in a blaze of bronze waistcoat. “Oh, there you are!”

Lucienne inclined her head in greeting. “Hello Abel. Goldie.”

The tiny frog-type creature sitting on the man’s shoulder chirped at her happily. “Goldie and I were wondering…” the man paused, evidently realizing that Lucienne was neither alone nor at her usual station. “Er, what’s going on?”

“We are preparing Nuala’s new office,” Lucienne explained. She waved to the duo. “Nuala, this is Abel and Goldie.”

Nuala snapped her fingers. “I thought you looked familiar! I saw you during the magic show. Are you truly Abel of old?”

He smiled shyly. “That’s me.”

“Well, it’s good to officially meet you both.”

Lucienne continued painting in attentive, languid strokes. “What did you need, Abel?”

Abel stared at the librarian, eyes wide. “Um. Well, you see, Goldie would like to find a book on palm reading. He thinks that will be an entertaining act to add to the Houses of Mysteries and Secrets.”

Lucienne leaned back to scrutinize her work and nodded once in satisfaction.  “I daresay it will. If you turn back around and head to your left…”

“I’m sorry,” he interrupted in a rush. “Lucienne, are you painting? Yourself? There are no spells moving that paintbrush or anything?”

“No,” the librarian narrowed obsidian eyes at him. “Abel, I can paint.”

“Should she not?” Nuala asked, wondering if she had unknowingly pressured Lucienne into breaking some sacred rule.

“Of course she can!” Abel squeaked, raising his palms pacifically. “Lucienne can do whatever she fancies. Power to the girls and all that, it’s just…I’ve never actually seen you perform… manual labor, is all.”

Nuala couldn’t help but giggle. Lucienne, for her part, waved the business end of her paintbrush with such force that a few drops of paint splattered against the floor.  “I’ll have you know that before Mervyn was here complaining about everything, I was the one who did most of the heavy lifting around here!”

“Yes, of course Lucienne,” Abel said, not sounding at all convinced as he nodded vigorously. Goldie didn’t bother to hide his dubiety. “But, where did you get the paint, exactly?”

“There’s a storeroom filled to the brim with buckets of paint round the corner,” Nuala explained.

Abel wrung his hands, shifting awkwardly. “Um, yes, but if Mervyn manifested all those buckets, wouldn’t that mean he intended to use them for something?”

Nuala’s eyes snapped up to meet Lucienne’s as realization bloomed between them. “So, that’s why these ones had ‘tearoom’ written on them,” Nuala gasped. She cringed, internally calculating the number of cans they’d inadvertently stolen. It numbered more than ten by now. “Do ye suppose Mervyn will be upset?”

Lucienne’s lips quirked up at the corners and mischievousness glinted on the edge of her teeth. “Oh, he’ll be livid, but it’s his own fault, really. Had he not sent me to the brink of insanity with his unnecessary arguments earlier, I might have been able to parse out his labelling system. I suppose he’ll just have to manifest new paint cans when he returns from his ridiculous vacation.”

Goldie tsked. Abel blanched. “Oh dear.”

Nuala laughed. Lucienne climbed down from the ladder. “Come, Abel, Goldie. I’ll show you the texts on palm reading. I should probably get back to my duties as well. Nuala, will you be alright here?”

Disappointment flooded through her. Lucienne’s presence was a balm. However, Nuala just smiled and gave a little wave. “Aye. Thank you so much Lucienne, and if you ever need a hand, I hope you’ll call on me.”

Lucienne’s smirk softened into something more tender.

“I rather think I will.”

Chapter Text

The next few weeks passed in a whirlwind. Nuala scarcely had time to sit, much less ruminate on her good fortune.

And she was spectacularly fortunate.

Lucienne instructed three library pages to help her run the project, and not a week later, the palace staff began calling her new team as The- Four-Summons. Nuala enjoyed the title. It meant the palace staff were beginning to accept her, in no small part to the tireless advocacy of her new friends.   

Roozbeh, a tall, sprightly man with skin the color of dusky sands and a smile wider than the sea, had the ability to speak any and all languages, and was thus the team translator.

Minter, meanwhile, wasn’t even bipedal. He was a petite gray fox whose eyes glowed an eerie silver whenever Nuala scratched him beneath the chin. He was adept at locating and leading children to the library, often tugging them along using his fluffy tail.

While Nuala and Roozbeh conducted the interviews, Piz Bernina was the administrator. She was a brusque, sharp-witted woman with an owl’s snow-dusted head and a talent for excellent administrative organization.

Nuala quite literally had no clue what she’d do without them.

“That was a rather sad story, don’t you think?” Roozbeh speculated after Minter ushered their last guest back to his dream. The skinny old man, Henry, was still dabbing at his wet eyes with a handkerchief as he hobbled out the door.

Nuala exhaled a shaky breath and softly closed the book which now held Henry’s testimony. He hadn’t been the only one to cry during the interview. The poor man endured a miserable existence. Abused by his parents as a child, he spent most of his life spiraling through a never-ending struggle with drugs, lies, homelessness and an unplanned child who subsequently hated his guts.

Sometimes humans could be… so haunting.  

“Well, at least he thinks of his daughter from time to time,” she supposed. Nuala wondered if her own brother thought of her with the same heartfelt regret and shame.

Probably not.

Roozbeh hummed sympathetically. “Yes. I hope he reaches out to her again… I know he’s afraid but imagine how hurt she must feel. Perhaps we should interview her next.”

Nuala smiled. If she had learned anything so far, it was that it was terribly difficult to locate a specific individual in the Dreaming. At least for anyone outside Lord Morpheus or Lucienne.

Nevertheless, she would like to understand Henry’s daughter and her side of things. She imagined that having one’s father abandon you at the tender age of eight, only to return decades later and steal a few thousand dollars for drugs was… overwhelming.

Although, Nuala didn’t quite understand the aversion to certain substances. In Faerie, any and all things short of poison were consumed heartily, and sometimes belladonna would find its way into the mix if someone was feeling particularly adventurous.

She crossed her legs and straightened the rumpled creases of her overalls. “If Minter can find her.”

Roozbeh snorted and leaned against the screen separating the interview space from the rest of the office. Lucienne had found it abandoned somewhere in the palace. Nuala was quite fond of the wooden structure, and more specifically, the mural that constantly swam on its surface, depicting a vast coral reef teaming with fish. Apparently Lord Morpheus was fond of oceans.

The dreamers seemed to find it comforting as well, or at least enchanting. Some of them had spent the entirety of their interview gushing over the bright starfish and looming manta.

Roozbeh rolled his heterochromatic eyes. “Don’t let that little scamp hear you. You know he swears he can…”

“Find anything, anyone, any time,” they finished in unison since Minter repeated this boast at least once a day.

As if summoned, the proud fox slipped into view. “Well, I can,” he drawled, hopping onto Nuala’s desk. “I’ve even managed to find a tasty raven to snack on.”

Matthew the raven landed on top of the divider, beady eyes following the slow swish of Minter’s tail. “Oh, fuck off fox,” he growled.

Nuala quickly distracted Minter by scratching him beneath the jaw, sending the sarcastic scoundrel into a cross-eyed state of bliss. She grinned, hoping her friendliness would put Lord Morpheus’s raven at ease. “Hello Matthew! I didn’t realize you were coming.”

Thankfully, Matthew seemed more interested in keeping the peace than getting into another fight with Minter. “Hey guys! How are things?”

Roozbeh threw his arms out exuberantly. “Brilliant! We just finished the last interview of the day. What brings you by?”

“He’s come to give Nuala something,” a new voice announced.

Nuala jumped, smacking her hip against the corner of the table and nearly upending Minter from his spot. “Shit, Piz,” Roozbeh gasped, one hand to his heart. “I thought we agreed you’d announce yourself when slinking about.”

Piz Bernina was notorious for her ability to arrive and disappear in complete silence. She gave them a dry look over the rim of her spectacles in much the same way Lucienne might have.

“Well, she’s right,” Matthew reached behind his head with a skilled claw and pulled a small, enveloped card from some hidden compartment. “Luci asked me to bring this to you.”

Nuala studied the envelope. It was tinted a light shade of gray, as if dust had long settled on the corners only to be brushed off recently. Her name was stamped on the front in sophisticated calligraphy. It was something she might have seen at the royal banquets of Faerie.

Curious, she began opening the envelope. “I just saw her earlier for tea. I wonder why she didn’t mention it then.”

Lucienne could not always make their weekly appointment for tea. She led a busy and hectic schedule, but Nuala cherished every opportunity to sit together. Lucienne was so calming and accomplished and wonderful.

Nuala pulled out the discreet card, but before she could so much as skim the first sentence, Roozbeh snatched it, squealing. “Oooooh! Nuala, do you have any idea what this is?”

Nuala stared at her empty hands. “No.”

“It’s an invitation to The Yield!”

That sounded vaguely threatening. “The what?”

Piz Bernina made a high-pitched shrieking noise which might have been disapproval, astonishment or both. “Let me see that!” she snapped. Roozbeh handed her the card, and even Minter leapt onto Piz’s broad shoulder to sniff at the summons. “Huh. It appears you have been invited to The Yield. Quite an honor.”

Her tone suggested it was not an honor, but a mistake of the highest order, and Nuala’s stomach twisted anxiously. Out of habit, she pasted a smile on her face. It would not do to lose control. “Can someone please explain to me what’s happening right now.”

Piz crossed her arms. “The Yield is when all the leaders of The Dreaming gather to discuss matters of state.”

“Ok, it’s not that formal,” Matthew interjected. “I would describe it more like a big family reunion. There’s a lot of teasing involved.”

 “None of us would know, would we?” Piz Bernina sniffed.

Nuala decided she didn’t have enough context to know why Piz was upset, so she turned to Matthew. “You’ve been?”

He blinked, once, twice. “I’m the boss’s raven,” he pointed out, as if she had just asked whether clouds existed in the sky.

This was not at all a helpful response. Roozbeh reclaimed the card and waved it like a flag. “Nuala, you must go! No one outside of the Major Arcana and vavasors are ever invited. It’s very exclusive, very hush-hush. I would kill to know what goes on in there.”

Nuala cringed. Roozbeh was jovial and loyal, but just then he sounded very much like Cluracan. “Yeah, and that’s probably why it’s so exclusive,” Matthew scoffed. “What happens in the Yield stays in The Yield. It’s a sacred space.”

“Why was I invited, then?” Nuala whined.

Piz was pretending to study a grain of sand floating above their heads. “Lucienne has been known to occasionally request the presence of an outside party. I used to think it was a sign that a promotion was coming, but it doesn’t always happen that way. In fact, do you know how Lucienne chooses her… special guests, Matthew?”

“Nope,” he said in a tone that insinuated he did know but wouldn’t tell them.

“Will Lord Morpheus be there?” The only thing worse than attending a gathering of The Dreaming’s finest was attending one which held The Dreaming’s finest and its king.

Matthew’s feathers rose in a shrug. “No clue. From what I’ve heard, he never used to come before… Well,” they lapsed into a tense silence. Lord Morpheus’s capture still haunted the walls. “But since he’s been back, there have been two Yields. One after he called everyone home and another after the Vortex was destroyed. He was there for both of those. Didn’t really talk, though.”

“You’ll need a better outfit,” Roozbeh gestured to her overalls. “This little House on the Prairie costume is cute for the dreamers, but for The Yield…”

“Do I have to go?” she interrupted.

 “You want to refuse?” Minter squawked. Roozbeh was making tiny gasping noises like a fish tugged from the water and Piz’s tilted her head a full ninety degrees. “Nuala, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity!”

She ran a hand through her wild, newly untamed curls. “I spent too long in Faerie playing at court politics. I don’t want my life in The Dreaming to be the same.”

And Lucienne knew that. They’d discussed it at length. Besides Cluracan, her new mentor knew more about the misery of her old life than anyone. A slight tinge of betrayal coiled in her gut that Lucienne should even think of requesting she attend something like this.

“Oh Nuala, it isn’t that bad,” Matthew promised. “Since you aren’t in charge of any territory, no one will expect you to weigh in on the big stuff. I never do.”

She bit her bottom lip. “It’s not that,” she bit her bottom lip. “It’s just… I’m not…” she struggled to put her panicked thoughts into a cohesive sentence.

Minter rubbed against her knee comfortingly.  “I’m sure Lucienne won’t be offended if you can’t make it, but if you do refuse the invitation, it shouldn’t be out of fear.”

“Gilbert will be there,” Matthew offered. “Cain, Abel, Taramis… Lucienne leads the official parts, which would usually mean it’s the definition of formality, but afterwards, it is actually a lot of fun. I think you’d really like it.”

“If the keeper of untold stories found you worthy of an invite, then you should go,” Piz Berina harrumphed, evidently having switched from jealous to defensive of propriety.

“Please, Nuala,” Roozbeh begged. “Imagine the bragging rights this will give me over the other pages!”

Half assuaged by Minter’s steady warmth on her leg and Matthew’s assurances that she wouldn’t be completely surrounded by new faces, Nuala inhaled a steadying breath. “Alright, I… You don’t think I’ll embarrass myself, do ya?” She asked

Matthew scoffed. “Nuala. Merv is going to be there. I guarantee you won’t say anything stupider than he will.”

Chapter Text

Nuala was desperate to talk to Lucienne about The Yield, but every time she visited the librarian’s office or quarters, they were empty. Defeated, she resigned herself to uncertainty.

Roozbeh took her to The Fashion Thing, who was likewise ecstatic to learn she had been invited. Nuala refused the fancier outfits offered. She had shed the old identity Lady Nuala in every way, including in her style choices, and she wanted to keep it that way. Thankfully, neither Roozbeh nor the Fashion Thing pushed the issue.

In fact, they embraced it with such heartiness she found herself sucked into the fun of it all. Hence, the night that Nuala finally headed to The Yield, she was wearing a fluttery crème tunic with a turquoise corset. The tunic was flowy and light and shimmered gold when she spun around.

Though Roozbeh and Minter had enthusiastically advocated for a long blue skirt which shimmered like dewdrops, she had chosen at last to wear a set of plain leggings and high, black boots.

According to the Fashion Thing, she looked more like a pirate than a lady of any court, which suited her just fine. She let her hair hang loose round her shoulders, kept out of her face only by a thin band of violas.

The Yield was set to take place in the great hall.

It’s a good way I know my way there, she thought. As Nuala approached the gigantic, gilded entrance, she found Lucienne standing just inside the doors. She and Taramis hovered close together, heads bowed in quiet conversation.

“Oh, Nuala!” Lucienne cried when she caught sight of her. “I’m so glad you came. Oh, and look at you – you look wonderful.”

She blushed. “Thank you Lucienne. I hope I’m not underdressed.”

Though, neither Lucienne nor Taramis seemed to have gone to great lengths to wear anything different. The color of Lucienne’s clothes was subject to change any minute, and it was not uncommon to see her wearing svelte green one moment and midnight black the next. Her suit and jacket were a burgundy color now, broken up only by a silver circlet round her forehead.

The buttons of Taramis’s chef’s jacket were shaped like tiny spatulas, but otherwise she remained as poised and grounded as ever.

Lucienne waved a dismissive hand. “No, not at all. No one ever really gets dressed up for these things anymore. A few centuries years ago, perhaps, but not these days.”

Taramis hummed. “I remember when we would. The 17^th century, wasn’t it? That was the last time I ever tried wearing a dress,” she shuddered. “Terrible experience.”

“They’re rather cumbersome, aren’t they?” Lucienne agreed.

Nuala peered past Lucienne’s shoulder and arched a brow. The Great Hall was empty, not only of other people but food of any kind. The tables were set with large plates and clean dishes, as if waiting to be magically filled.

She blinked. “Did you cook for this event Taramis?”

“Oh no darling. I never cook for The Yield. It’s the one night I get off,” Taramis jerked her head downwards in the direction of the kitchens. “I sent some of my attendees to procure food from other dimensions.”

“That’s where Matthew is,” Lucienne explained. “He escorts them. They should be here shortly, actually.”

“So I’m…early?”

Taramis and Lucienne shared an enigmatic smile. “My dear, time is a construct,” the chef chuckled. “I know the invitation says to arrive promptly, but dreams from all over the realm are coming. I doubt anyone else will show up for another hour or so.”

“Oh,” Nuala breathed, relaxing a bit.

“You’re welcome to stay here and chat with us. Taramis and I always come together beforehand so we can compare notes on the new cookbooks in the library.”

“It is horrific what these mortals have done to the oceans,” Taramis declared with more zeal than Nuala had ever heard from her. “They’ve poisoned over half their population of edible fish, and it shows in the recipes. It used to be that you barely had to season salmon, and now you need to soak it in herbs for hours to bring out the best fats…”

Nuala nodded along politely as Taramis complained about the state of mortal seafood. Lucienne piped in with a historical anecdote or hum of agreement every so often, but while Taramis was preoccupied waxing lyrical about calamari, she winked. Nuala's heart warmed.

After a while (sometime after Taramis’s pontification on the difference between sashimi and sushi) the hallway outside the great hall rumbled and a gaggle of dreams and nightmares bustled into view. They obligingly began to line up outside the doors.

“Ah, here we go,” Lucienne tugged a large, leatherbound book from her pocket and readied a quill over the pages.  “I must tally the attendees and ensure none of the bolder types try to infiltrate.”

“I’ll see about the food,” Taramis offered.

“I can help count everyone if you’d like,” Nuala said, eager to be useful. 

Lucienne smiled. “Thank you Nuala, but its better if I do it. I know everyone and all their usual tricks.”

“You know everyone in The Dreaming?”

“Lucienne!” A booming voice shouted. Nuala clapped a hand to her sensitive ears. Suddenly, a stout faun shoved her aside and sidled up to the librarian with a beaming smile. “My muse, my darling, my Goddess,” he gushed, pressing reverent kisses to Lucienne’s knuckles.

“Hello Decimus,” Lucienne replied in a tone of fond exasperation. “I think you owe Nuala an apology. You nearly sent her flying.”

“I couldn’t help myself,” Decimus intoned without so much as glancing Nuala's way. The coarse hairs on his plump legs shivered like a horse’s rump. “I am drawn to your beauty like a bee to its honey, like fire to wood, like a…”

“Decimus, are you going to do this every time you see me?”

Giggling, Nuala patted Lucienne on the shoulder and took her leave. She clasped her hands behind her back and explored the changed space.

The last time she’d entered The Great Hall, it had been decorated with the most prestigious paintings and drapery.

While it was still upheld by macabre black marble and prettily sculpted pillars, nothing else was the same. The table linens were rather mundane and slightly scuffed, the paintings had transformed into floating shelves of books, and the drapes had been replaced with narrow fountains from which sparkling water cascaded and swirled into a drain on the floor.

The changes might have been small, but they did lend a feeling of… normalcy to the situation, of familiarity. The hall was no longer designed to amaze and intimidate, wreathed with the prized jewels of a king, but the casual fancifulness of a rather quirky realm.

She broke out of her observations when someone called her name. She pivoted on a heel. “Gilbert!” The end of his walking stick clacked against the tile floor as he wove his way to her side. Nuala threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, it’s so good to see you! How are ya? Have you read anything good lately?”

She hadn’t been back to Fiddler’s Green since being assigned to the library, despite her best attempts to carve out time to visit. Judging by the way he returned her fierce embrace, he didn’t hold it against her.

“Oh, I’m swell, my dear!” He adjusted his spectacles. There was an emerald dragonfly stitched to the corner of his jacket. Nuala recalled Taramis’s spatula buttons and Lucienne’s silver circlet and wondered if these were markers of some sort, a declaration of one’s role in The Dreaming.

Did she have one?

Gilbert set his hands on her shoulders. “And I have some incredible poetry to discuss with you, but first you must tell me about this new project you’re heading in the library. It’s been the buzz of the land.”

Nuala was more than happy to expound on all her new adventures. She told him of her new team, and the project’s scope, and the incredible lives she had documented in Lucienne’s book.

Meanwhile, The Great Hall slowly rippled to life around them. Kitchen staff filtered in carrying gigantic platters of food. Dreams and Nightmares assembled in loose groups, laughing and joking in voices loud enough to shake the walls. Some even leapt into the fountains, a phenomenon which didn’t seem to bother anyone half as much as it did Nuala.

It got so crowded that a few others squeezed into a small circle around her and Gilbert. “You must be very special Nuala,” Gault said, having joined and been introduced almost immediately. The nebulas along her ribs flared emerald. “Lucienne would not entrust the stories of our dreamers to just anyone.”

Despite herself, pride burbled in her chest. “I think she knows that I understand what it’s like to hold a story inside without anyone able and willing to listen.”

“I suppose that must be why she invited you to The Yield,” Cumin said.

“Despite the relative newness of your presence here,” Caraway, who shared a body with Cumin and often finished Cumin’s sentences, added.

There weren’t many two-headed creatures in Faerie. Nuala tried not to stare. “Matthew said she sometimes invites… outsiders to join but he wouldn’t say how she picks them,” she glanced around at the assembled dreams. “Do any of you know?”

Gault waved to Gilbert. “Well? You’ve known Lucienne longest.”

He scratched the top of his head. “I must admit I have no clue. I imagine Lucienne of all people has an internal system for these kinds of decisions, but she’s never elucidated the point to me. Lucienne, like Lord Morpheus, has an air of mystery about her.”

“She’s the keeper of untold stories,” Caraway pointed out. “Her very existence is predicated upon secrets.”

They all turned back to the doorway, where Lucienne still sentineled over the Great Hall. She was busy checking in the last stragglers of the evening, chuckling lightly as a nightmare the size of a gorilla and eyes dripping bloody tears whispered something into her ear.

Nuala shook her head. “I still can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that she knows everyone in The Dreaming.”

She had seen the census after all. There were over eleven thousand beings in the Dreaming. Nuala wasn’t sure she’d even met eleven thousand beings in all her centuries of life.

“Well, of course,” Cumin sniffed. Their breath smelled strongly of carrots. “She predates most dreams now existing. Lord Morpheus’s face is the first we see when we are created, but Lucienne is often the second, even for original dreams like Fiddlers Green.”

Nuala swiveled to face her friend. “You are Lord Morpheus’s original creation?”

His eyes widened and he stepped back as if speaking it would make it so. “Oh no my dear! There were many, many before me. But dreams, too, eventually fade back to the sands. I am the fourth Fiddlers Green.”

Nuala was about to ask what it meant to be the fourth of anything around here, but Gilbert tapped at his chin thoughtfully. “Notwithstanding… it was quite some millennia ago when I was created, and Lucienne was already here, albeit in a much different form.”

“Different form?” 

Gault planted both palms on her hips. “Why yes. Didn’t you know? Lucienne was Lord Morpheus’s first raven, a gift from his sister, Death.”

Nuala briefly considered lying. She could always claim she’d known that because how insane would it be to suppose Lord Morpheus kept one raven forever and ever throughout all of time?

But as far as the other realms were concerned, Lord Morpheus was a being unchanging and unfathomable. Even in ones which bordered The Dreaming, such as Faerie, knowledge about The Dreaming’s inner workings was stuffed with speculation and half-truths. Lucienne’s offhand statement from weeks earlier rang through her mind.

“I used to go everywhere with him.”

Nuala had been so enamored with the library; she had delegated this sentence to things she would ask about later and then forgotten. But if Lucienne used to be a raven…

“Wait, does that mean… Is Lucienne human?” she breathed.

No one else seemed particularly put off by the fact that the Dreaming’s second-in-command was no dream at all, but one of the mortals despised by most creatures of influence. “She is both human and dream, technically,” Gilbert explained. “She has a human soul. Lord Morpheus sculpted a dream form for her when she became The Librarian.”

“How did she become the librarian?”

Gault shrugged. “No one knows. She’s very private about it.”

Cumin lowered their voice, which meant they all needed to lean in to hear. “Some say she displeased Lord Morpheus, so he stripped her of her title as his raven and banished her to the library as an act of humiliation.”

Nuala knew the Nightmare king could be dangerous – even cruel. She’d heard stories of The Darkness, an unescapable prison where one was forced to sit alone in a void of black cold.

It was said Lord Morpheus banished disobedient dreams there for decades or even centuries. However, she couldn’t envision him punishing Lucienne with anything more serious than a heated glare, much less humiliating or disparaging her in any way.

“Yes,” Caraway agreed in the same conspiratorial whisper. “However, the prevailing theory is that after thousands of years as his raven, she asked to move onto the Sunless Lands to be with her family.”

Nuala felt as if she’d just been punched in the stomach. “She had… a family?”

In all their conversations, Lucienne had never mentioned any of this. Meanwhile, Nuala had told her every uncomfortable and degrading detail of her life in Faerie. The idea Nuala had of the librarian shifted, infinitesimally, and she couldn’t fathom whether it was a good or bad shift.

Cumin snorted. “That’s all humans do, isn’t it? Procreate and kill each other. But by that time, she was as much part of this realm as any of us, so Lord Morpheus refused to release her from his service. He gave her a new role instead, as a sort of compromise.”

“It couldn’t have been a punishment,” Gault protested. “She is the Keeper of Untold Stories. She has power equal to that of Thoth or Apollo, and the only way one could have received such command is if it was bestowed by One of the Endless. Why would Lord Morpheus give her power unimagined if she offended him?”

Cumin reached over to pluck a glass of wine from the nearby table. “Well, she never would have asked to leave. Lucienne loves this realm with all her heart. I doubt she even remembers her old family.”

Gilbert’s eyes misted over with something like melancholy. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Cumin. Having lived as a mortal for a scant few years, I can tell you… it is not a forgettable experience.”

“If she didn’t forget on her own, Lord Morpheus made her forget,” Caraway waved a dismissive hand, nabbed the wine before it could even touch Cumin’s lips and took a swig. “We’re her family now.”

They said this with the air of a child who jealously hoarded their mother’s full attention.

Gault rolled her eyes. “What do you think, Nuala?”

They had suddenly veered too closely into gossip territory, and no matter what Nuala’s feelings about Lucienne’s secrecy, she couldn’t abide by spreading rumors about her. “I think if she wanted us to know, she would have told the story long before now,” she asserted.

“Boring,” Caraway declared. “I thought you Faeries were supposed to be amusing.”

Fortunately, Nuala was saved from responding by the sharp ring of metal against glass. “Attention everyone, attention!”

She looked up. Lucienne was standing on the edge of the foremost table, holding up a sparkling wine glass and fork. “We’re about to begin!” the librarian announced, somehow managing to be heard over the commotion. “Please take your seats.”

“A timely interruption,” Gault supposed. “I enjoyed our talk, Nuala. I hope you stay after dinner. We might exchange more trade secrets.” With a wink, Gault fluttered off to a different table. Caraway and Cumin trudged after her silently.

Gilbert laid a hand on her shoulder. “Come my dear, I believe Lucienne placed you near myself.”

Indeed, there was a slip of paper with her name on it near the front of the middle table. She slid into the plush seat next to Gilbert and eyed the plate full of vibrant zinnia blossoms hungrily. She loved zinnia.

To her right, an emaciated, auburn-haired little boy struggled to climb into his seat. “Do you need help?” Nuala asked, slightly stunned to see one so young at The Yield. He couldn’t have been older than eight years of age.

He flashed a grin, and she realized his mouth was full of razor-sharp, jagged teeth. It was like staring into a shark’s maw. “No thanks, mum. It’s good for my cardio, yeah?”

Gilbert leaned back in his seat to see who she was talking too; and chuckled. “Oh, this is Whipper-Snap Jack,” he explained. “He’s a nightmare who haunts abusive parents. Good to see you, old boy. This is Nuala.”

Finally seated, the child shook her hand with the loose-fingered enthusiasm of youth. “What do you do with the parents?” Nuala asked, unable to tear her gaze off his pointed fangs.

“I use an axe to chop off their arms and legs, and then I tear out their hearts with my chompers,” Whipper-Snap Jack answered with no small amount of pride. He picked up his cup, which had a long, crooked straw attached and slurped his juice happily.

“Ah,” Nuala breathed, faint.

She quickly looked away.

The tables were narrow and lengthy. At the head of Nuala’s, a single, towering throne sat with Lord Morpheus’s helm carved into its wood. It was empty. Lucienne took up position directly to the right of that seat while Matthew descended onto a perch on its left. Mervyn sat across from Nuala, grumbling.

In her periphery, a shadow broke free of its brethren and materialized into one of the gatekeepers. The griffin. The enormous guardian plopped herself directly behind Lord Morpheus’s chair like a cherished hound. 

“I didn’t know the griffin could leave the palace steppes,” Nuala thought aloud.

“I didn’t know they had roasted honey butter squash in the twelfth dimension,” Gilbert murmured around a mouthful of whatever was on his plate. “It’s quite good. Do you want some?”

Nuala recoiled from the forkful of yellow mush he offered. It seemed strange that he, a meadow and garden and mountainside, should eat plants. Was that not akin to cannibalism?

“Um… No thank you.”

He cupped a palm round his ear. “What was that?”

“I said no thank… Ugh, is it getting bloody louder in here?!” The volume had steadily risen in the past few minutes. It made her ears twitch in discomfort.

Lucienne surveyed the chaos with a calm expression. When everyone sat, she leaned down to address the gate keeper. “Griffin, if you’d be so kind?”

The griffin huffed and drew herself up. She spread her wings, sending a typhoon of warm air blasting through the hall. It rattled plates and upended cups. Before anyone had time to so much as save their drinks, the griffin then screeched, loud and deep enough for the sound to bound off the walls and echo back.

The silence afterwards was deafening.

“The next idiot to speak over Lucienne will lose an eye!” The griffin bellowed, golden gaze sweeping over the assembled dreams as if daring one of them to do it. Nuala gulped.

No one spoke.

Lucienne dipped her head. “Thank you griffin,” she turned to them with a bright and slightly triumphant smile. “Welcome back, Nightmares and Dreams, distinguished Vavasors and Arcana. I know we have had more Yields in the past year than we’ve had in three hundred years, but this is proving to be a rather… eventful millennia.”

“No kidding,” Mervyn snarked. The griffin snarled.

“There are many matters to discuss,” Lucienne continued primly, circlet glinting in the light. “The first: I know you’ve all heard that Lucifer Morningstar abdicated Hell. Undoubtedly, you also noticed the… commotion at the palace gates a few weeks ago.”

A few dreams nodded. The nightmares leaned back in their seats, arms crossed. The griffin may have hissed something unintelligible.

“Well, summarized nicely, Lucifer Morningstar attempted to curse Lord Morpheus with the key to Hell.”

Nuala glanced around to gauge the reaction to this pronouncement. It had caused quite the stir in Faerie. However, she was met with a significant number of eyerolls, exasperated huffs and a bristling of shoulders. She wondered how often Lord Morpheus found himself in these kinds of… situations.

Lucienne folded her hands behind her back and rocked forward on her heels. “He subsequently held a banquet to decide who should inherit that power. Be safely reassured that he has passed the key onto greater and trustworthy beings, and so we will not be required to host any demons or Hell-bound mortals in The Dreaming.”

A ripple of utter relief went through the room.

“Thank goodness!” Someone further down the table shouted. Others clinked glasses.

“As if we don’t have enough to do,” Whipper-Snap Jack harrumphed past a mouthful of something bloody and dark. “You know how many arms I axe off every day?”

I’m sure I don’t want too, Nuala thought. She gently pushed her own plate aside.

Mervyn scoffed. “No one even likes demons.”

“Yes, I agree. However, some good news has emerged from that entire mess,” Lucienne’s eyes searched the room until they found her. “Lord Morpheus has invited Nuala, a former ambassador of Faerie, to live in the Dreaming. I hope you will all make her feel welcome.”

Immediately, heat wormed its way up Nuala’s neck. Gilbert squeezed her shoulder as a polite round of applause rose from those assembled. Tears stung her eyes. Even when she and Cluracan had finally been allowed into the Faerie court, they’d not been introduced or treated with such… fanfare.

Whipper-snap Jack interrupted her stupefied gratitude by excitedly slapping her on the back in a gesture that was probably meant to be friendly but still made her ribs ache. “Well, congrats to you then mum! This place is much better than the Fae realm!”

“Thank you,” she wheezed. Jack’s freckled smile was really too cute to resent. She waved to the rest of the room. “Thank you!”

“As for the last vestiges of damage done by The Vortex… Oh sir, you were able to make it after all.”

Lord Morpheus, proud and serene in his once empty throne, gave a nod. “Yes.”

Nuala gave a start. She hadn’t even noticed him arrive, much less join the conversation. The griffin plopped a giant head in his lap, purring as he stroked her feathers. Lucienne didn’t miss a beat. “I’ve just finished updating everyone on Hell and Nuala’s homecoming.”

Nuala’s blinked rapidly as hot tears stung her eyes. Lucienne said homecoming. Homecoming. As if she’d merely been away on a long journey and had finally returned.

In many ways, that’s how she felt.

Lord Morpheus glanced at her. One side of his mouth lifted. “I see. Carry on.”

“Right. Matthew and Mervyn have finally cleared our realm of any leftover toxic essence from The Vortex,” Lucienne gave them both a warm smile and nod. “Thank you gentlemen.”

Matthew raised his chin, preening. Mervyn crossed his arms as if in a huff, but if Nuala wasn’t mistaken, there was a slight uptick of pleasure in the corner of his eye. “Yeah, whatever,” he mumbled.

“So please inform your residents that any rumble, sinkhole or sudden erasure of environment is due to regular restructuring of the dreamscape, and they should refrain from barging into my office panicking about it.”

“But we can still barge into your office panicking about other things?” Someone called from the back of the room.

Lucienne heaved a sigh. “If I said no, would it stop any of you?”

Her exasperation set off a chain reaction, impish cackles and titters rising from the masses like smoke. “I have it written in my schedule to charge into your office with inane concerns at least twice an hour!”

“Do not disturb my heavenly darling!” a voice very much like Decimus’s yelled.

Mervyn, evidently more in his element now, waved a dismissive hand. “Loosh wouldn’t know what to do with herself if we didn’t come talk her ear off about stupid shit.”

Nuala couldn’t help but giggle. Secretly, she agreed. Lucienne blinked at them, once, twice. Then she pivoted on a heel to the Dream King. “Lord Morpheus, I do not like any of your creations,” she informed him dryly, inspiring another round of chuckles.

The Dream King smirked. “So you’ve told me.”

Lucienne did not roll her eyes, but the gesture was writ large in her body language all the same. “I would also like to take this time to commend Ilara, who faithfully and diligently saw her dreamer Quyên to The Sunless Lands,” she smiled down at a lanky woman with skin the color of pearls and a body that better resembled a stalk of wheat than a human. “I know you made an incredible difference in Quyên’s life, Ilara. She owes you a great debt.”

Ilara’s thin silver eyes were surrounded by dark circles. “Thank you Lucienne, but I was not there at the end, when Quyên needed me.”

Those nearest to Nuala shimmied in their chairs, as if collectively shuddering. Nuala frowned. She knew those of The Dreaming were dedicated to their charges. Even when Lord Morpheus was imprisoned, most of them continued working with varying degrees of chaos, but there was a difference between being dedicated to duty and being dedicated to people.

This was the latter.  

Such a strange land.

“You were with her when it mattered most, Ilara, during her life,” Lucienne reassured. “If not for your encouragement and inspiration, she might never have become a mother or a surgeon or saved as many lives as she did.”

“I’ll miss her,” Ilara glanced up at their sovereign from beneath lashes lined with tears. “My Lord, do you… Do you know if Quyên suffered, in the end? She died in a motorcycle accident, and I have no idea if it was instant or if she…” her voice wavered.

Lord Morpheus’s expression softened. “I do not, but I shall send Matthew to inquire in my sister’s realm.”

“Thank you, My Lord.”

Lucienne nodded. “Now, onto the nit-pickier points. I am still missing final counts of all dream visitors from several territories. You know who you are and that I will find you..."

Chapter Text

For the next few hours, The Yield continued in much the same way.

Lucienne spent another hour updating them all on The Dreaming’s current status. Then each of the Vavasors reported on the happenings of their territories.

No one asked Nuala to speak, for which she was grateful. She hadn’t realized just how much administrative detail went into running a realm made entirely of imagined stories.

It was honestly boring as hell. After the second hour, Matthew began to sway sleepily on his perch. Mervyn’s quips became ever sharper. Nightmares bickered in low tones in the back of the room. She even caught Gilbert reading a book under the table. Some woman named Mary Alcock.

Nuala found that she was able to nibble on her Zinnias if she didn’t look at Whipper-snap Jack while she did it, which became her main source of entertainment.

Honestly, when was the fun part of the evening going to begin? Matthew had promised there would be one.

So far, the only break from the monotony came when someone would interrupt Lucienne with a teasing or playful remark, which, as the night wore on, resulted in Lucienne concocting ever more violent suggestions for how that individual might be uncreated.

At some point, Lord Morpheus just fashioned a dagger out of sand and silently passed it to her. Subsequently, a few dreams questioned whether she knew how to use a dagger, and establishing that she did, the nightmares made bets as to whom she might disembowel first.

The general consensus was that it would be Mervyn.

Then, finally, the last Vavasor finished their long-winded complaint about the turquoise mist causing dreamers to defecate everywhere, Lucienne promised to investigate, and they were excused from their seats.

Almost immediately, the festivities began.

A small band, led by a man with a crane-like neck, struck up a jovial and bouncy tune using guitars, flutes and bongos. The tables were hurriedly shoved aside to create space for a makeshift dance floor. A series of drinking games were established, including one where people jumped through a flaming hoop?

At this point, Nuala wasn’t even surprised.

“Where in the world could they have gone?” she muttered to herself as she maneuvered through a tangle of dreams. Gilbert had abandoned her for the dance floor. She was still slightly frightened of Whipper-snap Jack.

Her last refuge was Lucienne or Matthew, both of whom had vanished in the crowd. And a crowd it was. Between the games and dancing and general mischief, trying to find anyone in the Great Hall felt like snaking through a labyrinth.

Thankfully, Nuala had lots of practice with labyrinths. Thus, it didn’t take long to locate Lucienne. The librarian was sitting at a round table, sinuous and languid with relaxation. She’d unbuttoned the top of her collar and rolled her sleeves up to the elbow.  

“Nuala!” Lucienne cried, raising a cup in salutation. The dreams and nightmares hovering around like bodyguards all looked up. “I hope I didn’t embarrass you with that impromptu introduction. I didn’t want your presence to go unmentioned.”

Nuala glanced at Lucienne’s feet, unceremoniously plopped onto the table. She’d never seen her mentor so at ease. “No. It was lovely. I appreciate the thought,” she said.

“One of you lazy bastards go find The Knight of Clouds. He’s playing with us,” Saone, a foul-mouthed dream from the kitchens, commanded. One of the nightmares, a faceless man with skin the color of amber, scurried to obey.

“Would you like to play?” Lucienne asked, gesturing to the board, where Gault and Saone were busily setting up tiny figurines of Mayan gods and goddesses. “It’s similar to chess, if you’ve ever watched the humans play that.”

“They used to play chess with real humans, in India,” Inthanon complained, his numerous tentacles flailing in irritation. “I don’t see why we can’t do the same.”

Lucienne sipped from her glass of shimmery orange liquid. Nuala briefly wondered whether it was alcoholic. It certainly smelled as such, but it was hard to imagine Lucienne taking part in such vices.

“Lord Morpheus wouldn’t approve of you abusing the dreamers in such a way and you know it, Inthanon,” Lucienne harrumphed.

“But once he leaves…” Inthanon whispered, arching his brows suggestively. Lucienne rolled her eyes.

“I think he’s a bit busy,” Nuala laughed, glancing over her shoulder. The Dream King was currently surrounded by a gaggle of his creations, listening with the patience of an overwrought father as they regaled him with stories about their various misadventures in The Dreaming.

“Speaking of India, how is Saraswati, Lucienne?” Gault inquired, tone dripping with faux sweetness.

“I’ve not heard from her in many decades,” Lucienne caressed the rim of her cup. “Why? Do you… know anything about what she’s doing these days?”

“The Hindu Goddess of knowledge?” Nuala asked, intrigued.

“Lucienne’s ex-lover,” Saone explained.

“One of her many ex-lovers,” Gault corrected. “Lucienne is genius at many things but not love.”

Lucienne glowered at them over the rim of her spectacles. “I don’t recall asking anyone here for their opinion on my love life.”

Inthanon wrapped an affable tentacle round her shoulder. “No, but if you’d take our advice-”

“Which I also did not ask for-”

“Then maybe you’d be able to keep a wife, and there would be darling little librarian children running about for us to love and spoil,” he sighed as if Lucienne’s childless state was a great tragedy. 

Nuala was so surprised she forgot her tact. “But, I thought you did have children. In the waking world.”

Gault momentarily froze. Lucienne’s eyes snapped up to meet hers, and as Nuala watched, an impenetrable barrier slid neatly in front of the openness which usually resided there. “They’re long gone,” she replied with a coldness that made Nuala shiver. “Besides, when do I have time for children? I’m already responsible for babysitting you ungrateful lot.”

Saone grinned maniacally. “And a grand babysitter you make, my friend!”

“Cheers!” Inthanon exclaimed. “Now, Nuala, are you in or out?”

Before Nuala could clarify the details of the game, something large and hefty smacked into her side. Shrieking, she toppled to the floor. “Oh, so sorry Nuala!” her cannonball, in actuality Abel of old, gasped. He scrambled back to his feet and yanked her upright.  

“Don’t worry,” she assured him as Gault and Saone steadied her by the elbows. “But what are you running…?”

“Get back here you sour-smelling, bombastic, sorry excuse for entrails!” Cain bellowed, appearing with a steak knife and gritted teeth.

“There it is,” Gault sighed.

Abel’s eyes widened. Abandoning Nuala, he rocketed toward the hall doors. “No, Cain! Cain! This is a new suit!” he wailed as Cain pursued.  

Since Nuala had witnessed Cain murdering his brother multiple times without consequence when she first visited The Dreaming, she wasn’t overly concerned.

She was, however, highly amused when Mervyn leapt from a horde of Nightmares shaking his fist. “Oi! No killing in the Great Hall! I just polished the floors!” He shrieked. “Loosh! Loosh, tell ‘em not to ruin my floors!”

Lucienne didn’t so much as twitch. “C’est la vie, Mervyn.”

“Damn it, Lucienne!” Mervyn started to sprint past but paused mid-step. “And you, blondie, don’t think I’ve forgotten about all the paint you stole! I’ll get you!” He growled one more time, for dramatic affect perhaps, and then took off after the famous brothers.

Nuala snorted. “I feel as if I should be worried, but truthfully, I’m not.”

“Mervyn is all bark but no bite,” Saone agreed. “So, Nuala, chess?”

“I’m stealing Nuala away,” a deep voice announced a half second before bulging arms wrapped around her waist. Nuala threw herself to the side and twirled around, intending to punch the newcomer in the face, but stopped when she noted that his face was, by all accounts, gorgeous.

Dark skin. Soulful almond eyes. Hair tangled about his head like the lushest canyon vines. And he was so tall, so muscular, she could feel the power thrumming just beneath his skin like an electrical current.

“Oh,” Nuala peeped. “H-hello.”

He grinned, showcasing a line of perfectly white teeth. “The name is Kamaji-the-Chaos. Is it true in Faerie, you dance for days on end?”

It took her a few minutes to process that words were being spoken in her direction. Behind her, Lucienne had begun to chuckle. “Uhhhhh, the rumors are a bit exaggerated, but we do have…”

“Good! Only the finest are allowed to be my dance partners,” Kamaji-the-chaos placed a gallant kiss to her knuckles. “To the floor!”

Nuala had dined with some of the oldest beings in existence. She’d danced with lords and knights of Faerie. None of them had even remotely left her feeling as tongue-tied as Kamaji-the-chaos.

Kamaji-the-chaos was a skilled dancer. Neither meek nor forceful. He simply glided with her, calm and graceful as a swan mid-flight. Next to him, she felt small and dainty like a piece of priceless silverware. His hands dwarfed her own. Strength thrummed along his skin, which was warm and silky to the touch.

Was it hot suddenly? She felt hot.

When the music slowed to a mesmeric drawl, Nuala cleared her throat. “Uh, so, Kamaji-the-chaos, what do you… do here?”

Idiot, she scolded herself immediately. Even Cluracan could have done better.

He grinned. “I’m a nightmare.”

Nuala nearly stumbled over her own feet. “Really?”

So far, the nightmares she had met, if not outright unnerving, had a… meanness about them. Whether those with cherub faces or pointed fangs, they all exuded danger, but Kamaji-the-chaos only gave her the sensation of behind held.

He chuckled, and even his laughter made her blush. “Yes. A tempter, you might say,” well, that certainly made sense. She was tempted to drag him to a secluded closet for rather debauched purposes. “That is why I am called the chaos. I encourage my mortals to embrace their… more impetuous nature. I represent freedom. Abandon. Non-conformity.”

Encourage sounded much nicer than “lop off their limbs and eat their heart.”

She frowned. “But you’re a nightmare, so… What does that mean?”

He tipped his chin proudly. “Nightmares serve an important function, Nuala of Faerie. Chaos is liberation. It’s necessary for balance in the universe, but it is also terrifying, selfish, wanton, and largely uncontrollable,” he leaned closer, so close that she felt the warm breath of him tickle her lips. “If I did not scare and tempt my dreamers into jumping from the mundane comfort of their little lives, then they might never do so.”

Nuala’s heart hammered in her ribs. “What if they get hurt?”

His pupils blew wide until they were black as a moonless night. It was mesmerizing. “What if they become brave? Sometimes, you just need to lose control and damn the consequences.”

She flushed. “I-I see.”

He spread his fingers along her lower back and tugged her impossibly closer, breath ghosting across the pointed curve of her ear. “Like this.”

Suddenly, he reared back and stomped directly on her right foot.

Nuala shrieked so loudly a few other dancers turned to stare. She shoved him away, hopping on one foot as she attempted to cradle her injured one in both hands. Searing pain ricocheted through her toes.

Her cheeks reddened for an entirely different reason now. “You- you stepped on me!” she hissed.

Kamaji-the-chaos spread his hands in a who, me? kind of way. It reminded her so much of Cluracan that her heart gave a pitiful tug. “Yes. And what are you going to do about it, Nuala?” he replied with far too much calm for the situation at hand.

Nuala spluttered, bewildered. Had they not just been having a delightful time? Had she done something to offend him? However, there was no displeasure on his face, nor any particular concern for her. He had done it because he felt like it. Simple. Spontaneous.

Her fingers itched for the sturdy comfort of a sword pommel.

“I am finding a new dance partner because this is ridiculous,” she sniffed, gingerly setting her foot down. It still throbbed.

Kamaji-the-chaos circled her like a buzzard searching for leftover scraps. All of his charm and poise had faded to the background. He was an ambush predator, as ruthless as a leopard and twice as deadly. 

“So pretty and prim and proper,” he tsked. “But I would wager that behind that fragile face, you’re just dying to set the world on fire.”

She bared her teeth and started to elbow past him. “Maybe not the world, but most definitely you. Get out of my way.”

But Kamaji-the-chaos was a persistent nightmare. He grabbed her arm, and before she knew it, the world tilted precariously, and she was once more encased by his muscular arms.

He grinned. “Make me.”

The music bobbed with renewed tempo, a disarming staccato rhythm that reminded her of a murder of crows.

Briefly, it occurred to Nuala that she could technically call out for help.

Not six seconds later, she decided she wanted to rip his eyes out first.

It had been a long time since she had manifested her wings. The burning shudder they gave as they unhinged from her spine wasn’t an altogether pleasant experience, and wings were a hazard on the battlefield and cumbersome in daily life. 

Nevertheless, they unfurled at her command. She lifted into the air, just high enough to launch her one good foot directly into Kamaji-the-chaos and his stupid, gorgeous nose. The light crunch of bone rippled through her leg and Kamaji-the-chaos stumbled backward. A drop of blood dribbled from his nose.

She expected him to shout, or at least grunt, but he just laughed. “Ooh! You’ve bite, little fairy!”

Nuala landed on the floor in a crouch. Her wings were flittering with fury. It was messing up her hair. “I wasn’t just an ambassador, Kamaji-the-chaos. I was also a warrior, and if you want a fucking fight, it’s a fight I’ll give ya!”

“C’mon then!”  He lunged for her, but Nuala just backflipped over his head. Then, in a move that was pure, impulsive pettiness, she stomped on his foot. He did yelp this time. Victory flooded her veins. She’d never wanted to hurt someone this bad.

Well, she had, but she’d just never allowed herself to actually do it.

From the outside, their battle must have appeared childish at best and downright frenetic at worst. Had Nuala spared a moment to think, she might have been surprised that no one moved to intervene. She and Kamaji-the-chaos orbited each other like two eagles locked in a downward spiral, each straining to get close enough to stomp on their opponent’s foot.

Nuala had the advantage of flight, but Kamaji-the-chaos was quick and strong. It was no small feat to keep her focus on both attack and defense, so she didn’t notice the music switch to screeching violins and feverish strumming, nor the other dancers, until someone cried out nearby.

She glanced at them from the corner of her eye and realized that they were being copied. There were several duos now trying to decimate their partners feet, all of them laughing and shrieking with utter delight. To Nuala’s eyes, it looked like two butterflies tap-dancing together.

Kamaji-the-chaos never slowed his advance, even as he also took note of their surroundings. He clapped his hands like a child who’d just been given permission to eat the last of the candy. “It looks like we started something. Lets show them how it’s done!”

These people are completely insane, Nuala thought.

How fucking wonderful.

Gritting her teeth, Nuala forgot about the impropriety and her uneasiness and years of conditioning. She just moved, spurred on by a competitive need to smash Kamaji-the-chaos’ feet to bits. The dancers around them moved in stride with them, plodding along to a disorientating – but genuine – melody. Someone began to clap. Another brought out a tambourine and beat it in rhythm to their movements.

One two three, stomp! One two three, stomp!

Without warning, one of the other dreams – a tunic-wearing man with large, feathered wings jutting from his back – jumped into the air and spun on his toe, again and again and again, so many times he ceased to be a person at all and transformed into a blur of energy.

No one spoke.

But they imitated the move regardless, soaring on their feet and hooves and tentacles. Nuala paused, gasping for breath, amazed and scared all at once. “Oh, I don’t think I can do that!” Everyone was still spinning. Dozens of dreams. It was mind-boggling. It should have been impossible.

“Try!” Kamaji-the-chaos commanded. “You’ll never know unless you try!”

He leapt onto one toe and began to twirl like the finest ballerina. Not to be outdone, Nuala rolled up her sleeves, vaulted onto her aching feet, and threw her entire body into the air.

It felt glorious. The Great Hall passed by in a dizzying sprawl. Nuala squealed with laughter, unable to contain it. By some unknown instinct, she fell back into step with the other dancers. They were no longer twirling in air, but around each other, forming giant circles and switching partners rapider than she had time to wonder about the mechanics of it all.

“We’re kicking up sand!” She yelled at one point, since gold sparkles were pirouetting at their feet as if snatched by invisible winds.

Kamaji-the-chaos, still nearby, threw his head back to laugh. “We are the sand, Nuala!” He bellowed. “You’re in the Dreaming now, and you’re dancing with us! Let go your control! Let loose your fire!”

Arms outstretched, Nuala did. She jumped into the air, balancing on a tightrope that was no longer there, wings flared to full height, spun and spun.

I’m dancing with the dreams.

Her hair slapped her cheeks.

I’m dancing in The Dreaming.

Bits of sand clung to her arms and legs, tickling, searing, ensnaring, releasing.

I am the dream, and I am beautiful.

When it ended, she was reborn and breathless from it. Nuala plunged back to the ground with a solid thud that quaked in her bones.

“Huzzah!”  The dancers of The Dreaming all yelled, coming to a sudden stop as their unexplainable connection tapered away with the music.

She shook out her short curls, smiling so widely that her cheeks ached. At once, she was surrounded by well-wishers. “Well done, Nuala!”

“You looked absolutely, ferally beautiful!”

“You fit right in!”

Nuala could only grin and nod enthusiastically, strangled by the growing lump in her throat. Kamaji-the- chaos stretched his arms above his head cheerily. “Ah, that was wonderful!” he cried. He swept a hand across the marble floor in a dazzling bow. “I thank you for a good fight, Nuala.”

Wrung dry of any resentment, she returned his bow with one of her own. “I must thank you as well, Kamaji-the-chaos.”

His eyes twinkled. “Call me Kamaji. I must away. My dreamers call to me, but I hope we meet again,” with a last alluring smile, he pivoted on a heel and headed toward the hall doors, where Lord Morpheus now stood with Matthew. “Lord Morpheus! Did you see that? Nuala nearly broke my foot!”

He sounded so genuinely happy about this that Nuala didn’t even feel the usual spike of alarm at having caused a scene. Indeed, the Endless merely nodded his approval. “I am glad to hear it, Kamaji-the-Chaos. Happy dreaming.”

No sooner had Nuala lost track of the nightmare that Gilbert approached from the side. “May I have this dance, mademoiselle?” he asked, smile cracking through the bush off his mustache. “I promise not to trample your toes.”

Nuala giggled and allowed him to sweep her into a loose twirl. “Thank ye, Gilbert. I suppose its ending now, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Indeed. To all things there is an end, and most of us can only maintain separate manifestations for a few hours. If The Dreaming is to continue serving humanity, then all the dreams and nightmares must go to their duties.”

She cocked her head. “Is that why Lord Morpheus is wishing everyone a ‘happy dreaming’?” The dream lord stood at the doors like a statue, nodding and exchanging quiet benedictions to his subjects as they filtered back to their territories.

Gilbert held her steady as she dipped. “Yes. He and Lucienne will see us all out, I imagine. They’re always the last to leave. So, did you have a good time?”

“Gilbert, I have never been happier in all my life,” she told him, quite seriously. Moved to tears, she hid her face in his jacket and squeezed tight. “Thank you so much. For everything.”

His chuckle vibrated against her cheek. “It was my pleasure entirely, dear friend.”