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hello allo person in a fandom. let’s play a game. in front of you are two characters. your challenge is to okay and you’ve already started shipping them. well the crusher machine is going to activate now goodbye.
no no i actually think it’s super fun that you took that aro/ace character and bent them over backwards to make them gay!!!! we all know being gay is more #progressive than being aro/ace so i’m so glad you freed them from having a storyline unconnected from romance and shipping!!! you go diva!!!
Washington Post is paywalling the article but it looks like Taylor Farms — a consumer bagged salad brand that also supplies produce to grocers and fast food chains like Taco Bell, Walmart, McDonald's, Chipotle, Burger King, KFC, and Meijer —may be at least one of the sources of the current cyclosporiasis outbreak.
Taylor makes bagged greens, salad kits, chopped salads, the works. Keep avoiding supermarket greens, but keep an especially close eye out for this brand/supplier. The above list of grocers and fast food chains is NOT exhaustive, so please continue getting lettuce and other raw produce taken off your burgers, sandwiches, etc.
The knuckle on my left index finger has been aching for days, so I'm splinting it until it gets better. This, of course, means no typing until it gets better, which means no writing :/
A/N: I love Nat King Cole and this song is so Dream-coded that I had to include it! Here we get a little background as we go back in time to see how Dream’s relationship with Calliope began in this fic.
It's two chapters for the wait-time of one! This chapter got too long, so I've split it into two smaller chapters!
<- Prev. Chapter
“Then why do I feel so lonely?
Like a king on an empty throne?
There’s one thing that’s missing only
A true love to call my own.”
-Nat King Cole’s “Mother Nature and Father Time”
You were a ghost in the palace. Always passing through the halls, lingering in the rooms, but somehow always out of his reach. Out of his grasp. He would catch the sweep of your skirts, the hint of your perfume, hear the sweet melody of your voice. But the moment he turned the corner, or opened the door, you were gone. A fleeting, ephemeral presence that permeated the space of his home but remained just out of reach.
And as he sat upon his throne, he could almost see a vision of you thirty years past.
“Must you continue to spew such horrid filth about me? Your wife? Your supposed love?”
He swallowed thickly as the memory of you in tears elicited some of his own. And the desperate way you looked at him then, the pleading tone you used then, ached his throat.
It was all so different from the last time he had spoken to you. Five months and twenty three days ago, to be exact. You had answered the door with apathy rendering your voice and gaze ice cold. You had renounced every ounce of love and care you felt for him, announcing that you would hold nothing but contempt and disdain for him from that day on. Your voice no longer lilted with the giddy joy of seeing him, nor did your eyes brighten at his presence.
You truly held nothing in your heart for him.
“I will forever be stranded and heartbroken,” you had cried then.
He shut his eyes as he recalled how hesitant you had been to choose him as your lover. As the person you would be tied to for all existence. And he recalled how he had convinced you, how he had quelled your fears that he would want someone else, only now to take another in an act that simultaneously violated his word to you and desecrated your very being.
“I’ve seen her, Morpheus.”
He let slip warm tears that streaked his pale skin as he recalled how you had finally broken down then. He hadn’t known how you knew about his time with Calliope, but it didn’t seem to matter when he saw just how deeply his actions had struck you.
It had been a mistake, plain and simple: a rash act conducted out of and fury and outrage at the thought that you had betrayed him with the Faerie King. But what of the second incident, thirty years after the first? When you spurned his pleas for your love and his vindictive rage convinced him to take the muse in your own bed? Was that, too, a simple mistake, he wondered?
And such was the truth he faced when Calliope arrived in his realm several days later.
“I do apologize for simply dropping in, Oneiros,” she smiled, coyly. “But I couldn’t possibly wait another thirty years to feel you again.” Her hand slid to the side of his face then, cupping him gently before pulling him down to her lips.
But he gripped her wrist then, freezing her in place before stepping back and out of her hold.
“Calliope, I – I have made an egregious mistake,” he sighed, letting her hand drop from his grip.
“What do you mean?” She asked sharply, irritation furrowing her brow and pursing her lips.
“I acted rashly and out of fury when I took you,” he explained. “I was not thinking clearly, and I have no intention of carrying on with you.”
“You told me that your wife had betrayed you. That she had lain with another man and you no longer loved her,” she recounted.
“I was wrong,” he admitted. “She had never betrayed me. And my accusations have cost me her. She will have nothing to do with me now,” he added, as his head hung low.
“If she will have nothing to do with you, then can we not continue?” She wondered, and when Morpheus raised his head with confusion knitting his brows together, she continued, moving closer to him. “We all crave some form of intimacy now and then,” she explained, with another step in his direction. “And when either of us craves such a thing,” she began, letting her finger trail down his chest. “We need only call upon each other.”
“I cannot betray her,” he whispered, as your soft cries at the revelation of his infidelity echoed in his mind.
“You already have,” Calliope reminded him. “And if she no longer wants you, what have you to lose? Must you truly remain loyal to someone who abhors you?” She asked, before leaning up to him, but stopping just short of his lips. “Or would you rather have me?”
He swallowed thickly as he considered her words, before his tongue darted out to wet his lips at the sight of her tantalizing smile. He leaned down them, moving roughly against her lips as he pushed her back against the wall.
You were in the Temporal Plains when you felt it: a bright burst of something that felt like home. It erupted and announced itself in a bold fashion, and you grinned as you finally recognized it.
Following the audacious burst to the Daunting Expanses, you crossed your arms against your chest as you paused behind a well-built man of tall stature.
“I suppose just anyone’s allowed in the Dreaming, now,” you scoffed. He turned at the sound of your voice and your name spilled from his lips in a breath of disbelief. You couldn’t maintain your faux-distaste any longer, and a giddy laugh erupted from you as you crossed the distance to him and wrapped your arms around him.
“What are you doing here?” He breathed, after he pulled away and looked down at you. He glanced around then, his soft brown hair flicked with the motion. “Where are we?” He frowned.
“We’re in the Dreaming,” you explained, before narrowing your eyes slightly at him. “You’ve started sleeping, haven’t you?” You asked.
“I have,” he realized. “I’ve been traveling with a group of mortals lately and began to mimic the behavior to avoid suspicion.”
“That’s how I started, too,” you recalled, with a fond smile of your first days visiting the Dreaming. “When we sleep, we dream. And when we dream, we come here,” you explained, with a sweeping gesture to the region.
“To this land, the Dreaming?” He checked, testing out the concept. “Intriguing,” he remarked, as he looked over the vast landscape.
“It’s so good to see you, Vantaros,” you breathed, your head shaking lightly in disbelief. “I haven’t seen any of our kind in so long,” you sighed.
“Anonymity and reclusion is a light punishment for how we failed our people,” he countered, and you settled into a mournful silence as the memory of your people’s downfall weighed heavily on your hearts.
“Have you seen any of the others?” You asked, after a moment.
“No,” he sighed. “Just you.” He smiled then, as the realization set in, and he took your hand in his. Your body stilled and his brow creased at the act, but with a steadying breath, he allowed himself to continue. “I never thought I’d see you again,” he whispered, his thumb smoothing across your knuckles. “That I’d never get the chance to ask you –”
“Vantaros, I’m married,” you admitted, softly, as your gaze fell from his and your hand slid back to your side.
His lips parted with an empty reply as he watched you turn in on yourself. Your gaze remained low, and he pushed the hurt, the heartache of losing you aside at the sight of your despondency. You two had spent ages as friends, growing closer than many married couples you knew. But you had been apprehensive to fulfill your single-love pact, and he had been supportive of your concerns, willing to wait however long you needed to be certain.
But it had never felt right to you. You cared for him, certainly, but you had always believed love to be an explosive thing: something entirely world-altering, something so blatant and fundamental that it could never be questioned. Unlike your feelings for Vantaros. You had planned to tell him the very thing, but then your people were destroyed and your kind fell away to anonymity.
“I – I’m happy for you,” he decided. You pursed your lips at the forced platitude and wondered just how long he had practiced the words for this possibility.
“You don’t have to pretend, Vantaros,” you sighed, folding your arms across your chest. “I know how we were and I should have told you how I felt ages ago, but then our people were killed,” you began.
“And we all drifted apart,” he finished, nodding slowly. He watched press your lips to a thin line and he had to know, he realized. “Did you ever love me?” He wondered, softly.
You sighed as you watched the vulnerability that wavered his words and had him glancing shortly at you.
He was the straightforward type. He preferred the brutal truth – blunt explanations that lacked the falsity and grandiosity of polite remarks and euphemisms. So you ensured your crushing revelation would be worded in just the right way for him.
“I cared so deeply for you,” you assured him. “But I don’t believe it was love,” you concluded.
He nodded his understanding shortly, watching the blades of grass drift gently in the breeze as he considered his next question.
“The one you married,” he asked, tilting his head as he watched your reaction carefully. “Do you love him?”
He furrowed his brow at the sardonic breath of laughter that escaped you then.
“Dream of the Endless,” you began, with a contrite smile. “Morpheus,” you corrected, the taste of his name burning your tongue. He’s the ruler of this realm. I met him much the way we met just now: on my first encounter in the Dreaming,” you explained, before glancing down at the grass as you continued. “And, if it makes you feel any better, it was a colossal mistake,” you scoffed. “I waited ages with you to be sure before I made a decision, and then with him, I practically decided on a whim,” you laughed, bitterly. “I knew it wouldn’t work, but I – I just loved him so much, that I suppose I was willing to believe anything,” you admitted, before sitting on the grass and pulling your knees to your chest.
He watched you lean your head against your knees, and he swallowed thickly at the sight of your melancholy before taking a seat beside you.
“If it hasn’t worked out, if you’re no longer in love with him,” he began, slowly, ever cautious in this delicate question. “Would you ever consider violating your pact?”
“What, leave him and take another lover?” You scoffed, without turning to him. “I could never do such a thing. I could never sever the last connection I have to our people.”
“Is he at least kind to you?” He wondered. “Does he at least care for you?”
A bitter laugh shook your body at his question. It brought tears to your eyes, though from cruel humor or unbearable sadness, you weren’t sure.
“No,” you sighed, as your breathing evened as you wiped at your tears. “No, he is not kind to me, nor does he care for me,” you smiled sadly.
He watched you with such pain, then. Studying the pitiful way you seemed to have made peace with your circumstances, the way you managed to find cruel humor in the ironic situation you found yourself in.
“He accused me of infidelity,” you admitted, after a moment, with your eyes set out over the plains. You had never spoken of that night in Faerie to anyone; discussing such an event with anyone in the realm would certainly alter their perception of their ruler, and you couldn’t allow that. So now, when you were sat beside a close friend with no connection to your husband, you found yourself baring the events of that night to another soul for the first time. “Of betraying him and breaking my word to him.”
“You?” Vantaros asked, his eyes wide with bewilderment as he turned completely to you. “He accused the goddess of virtue and oaths of betraying her husband?”
“And he did it with such unnecessary cruelty,” you added, your voice wavering as your throat began to ache. “Such vulgarity and humiliating abuse,” you sobbed quietly, your voice scraping against your throat. “And the way he forced me to the ground that night, I –”
“He laid his hands upon you?” He breathed, his outrage shaking his voice and tightening his fists. You watched his renowned anger warp his kindness and you reached out to place a grounding hand to his fist.
“No, it’s alright,” you assured him, as you wiped at your eyes. “I’m certain it won’t happen again. We haven’t spoken in six months now, and before that, we hadn’t spoken in thirty years,” you squeezed his hand lightly, and he seemed to relax at your assurances. “He doesn’t care about me anymore. He’s taken someone new,” you forced a smile to convince him, but it only came out broken and pained.
“He accused you of betraying your oaths and dishonoring your virtue, the dual divinity that you are held sacred for, and then he took another lover of his own?” He breathed, in disbelief. But his face contorted in disgust then, as he tried to imagine someone desecrating you in such a way. “How could he do such a thing? To know what your bond to him meant and to blaspheme it such a way?”
And as you listened to the outrage and indignity he felt on your behalf, you finally let yourself feel it, as well.
“I don’t know,” you whispered, sadly. “I really thought he loved me,” you admitted softly, looking down at your toes, as your tears began to fall anew. “We had such a deep love before then, and now,” you breathed brokenly then, as wondered how your love could have decayed so.
“You don’t have to stay with him,” he began. “I’m not saying that you should come away with me, but you shouldn’t have to stay here with him!”
“This was my mistake, Vantaros,” you sighed. “I acted rashly and chose him despite my own reservations. I need to face my error and accept it.”
“But you do not deserve to suffer for it,” he insisted, reaching for your shoulder to turn you towards him. “Leave him,” he urged you. “You don’t have to take another lover or violate your divinity, but please, don’t stay here with him. I can see how your light has dulled since I last saw you. Leave this place and return to our world. Seek happiness there.”
“Perhaps this is simply penance for my part in failing our people,” you breathed. “You must admit it’s quite fitting that I of all people be tied to someone who longer loves me and has moved on to be with someone else,” you smiled thinly. “The goddess of giving oneself over to another in the name of love is used and thrown away in favor of someone new,” you recounted, bitterly. “I’d probably find it quite funny if it didn’t hurt so terribly,” you whispered, before shutting your eyes against the sight of Morpheus in bed with Calliope.
Your eyes stung then, and you couldn’t bear the hurt any longer. Your sobs wracked your body and the ground began to shake with your wails. The skies thundered and a heavy rain filled the clouds, preparing to echo the onslaught of your tears. But Vantaros’ arms wrapped around you then, and as you wept in his arms, the Dreaming and you seemed to settle in his hold.
“How could he do this to me?” You sobbed. “How could I be so stupid?”
“Love makes fools of us all,” he whispered, soothingly. “You’ll be alright, in time,” he assured you.
It was the sound of your joyous laugh that called to Morpheus. He had longed so dearly for you in the days following his encounter with Calliope in the throne room. His guilt had eaten away at him in the aftermath as he realized how unsatisfied Calliope left him. It wasn’t her fault, really; after all, nothing seemed to satisfy him after your leaving. You had left an empty chasm that nothing seemed to fill.
So when his longing soul caught wind of your melodious laughter, he disappeared in a whirlwind of sand to witness it directly. But his eager smile dropped when he saw you with your arms around some man who gazed down at you with all the adoration that Morpheus was meant for.
He knew of him, of course: Vantaros, your people’s god of bravery and exploration, of forging one’s own path. But he hadn’t known of your close relationship to him.
He turned behind a great oak tree then, hiding his presence from either of you while still listening closely. Morpheus heard Vantaros’ voice drop low with reverence and regret, and anger tensed along his jaw at the thought of this lost love of yours. That someone else could have captured your heart, your affections as he had. But his wrath dissipated as soon as it had come when you informed him of your marriage. He swallowed thickly at the way you denied him so quickly, so definitively, despite your estrangement. And shame burned within him as he recalled how he had so easily given in to Calliope’s proposal.
His breath caught as he heard you refer to your choosing him as a mistake, but he didn’t linger on it for long, when Vantaros asked if you would ever consider leaving him. Relief slacked his shoulders at your staunch stance against such a thing, but he stilled completely when a bitter laugh sounded from you.
“No, he is not kind to me, nor does he care for me.”
“But I do care for you,” he whispered, softly.
And then you recounted the events of that night in Fairie and guilt consumed him at the quiet way you recounted his cruelty. But it was shame that burned through him once again as you mentioned how he had thrown you to the ground. He cursed himself as he overheard Vantaros’ outrage for his actions: an outrage Morpheus himself hadn’t felt for thirty years after his disgraceful acts against you.
“I really thought he loved me.”
“I do love you,” he cried.
He longed to leave his hidden position then, at the sound of your pitiful voice. He longed to hold you and convince you of his love for you, but then Vantaros was pleading for you to leave him. He listened in dreaded anticipation of your response, and a shaky breath left him as you rejected the notion, stating that choosing him was your mistake, that perhaps this was your penance, but your next words were what truly broke his heart.
“The goddess of giving oneself over to another in the name of love is used and thrown away in favor of someone new.”
And as the tragic words and your cynical tone seared his mind, he almost hadn’t noticed the skies gray and the ground rumble. It was the sound of your wails, the desperate grief that scraped your throat, that caught him and compelled to reach out for you, as he had when you first arrived in the realm. But he watched you fall against Vantaros as he soothed your tears and held you close. Morpheus turned then, disappearing in a whirlwind of sand as your lost love’s touch calmed you and your hold on the realm.
Centuries passed in the same way. Morpheus would long for you, but your steadfast refusal of him would send him into Calliope’s arms to seek a fleeting comfort that would then overwhelm him with guilt. Vantaros visited you often, regaling you with tales of his adventures and explorations in the Waking World. Often, he would lend you a consoling ear as he listened to your woes and wept in his arms when you found your difficulties with Morpheus particularly trying.
One such moment was the day you had learned that Calliope had given birth to Morpheus’ child. The child that was always meant to be yours.
“He’s had a child with her,” you whispered, in a broken sob. “All the palace is agog with the news and they all stare at me in pity or ridicule or what, I don’t know, but I can’t bear it, Vantaros!” You cried, before falling into his arms. “He spoke so sweetly of the children we would have, on the night we wed. How could he do this? To know that I have no chance at achieving such a future without him and to simply take it for his own?”
“I don’t know,” he swallowed thickly as he held you. “I don’t know how someone who claimed to love you could do such a thing. I am so sorry, my friend,” he soothed, as his hand rubbed circles at your back.
“I can’t bear this humiliation any longer!” You cried out. “I can’t leave here and violate my vows, and I can’t live like this,” you wept, softly. “I don’t want to live any longer,” you sobbed, through your blurry eyes and aching throat.
“No, no, please,” he pleaded with you, brushing your tears gently, before holding you out before him. “There are so few of us left. I could not lose you, too,” he breathed. “Please,” he shifted to sit directly in your line of sight. “I will do whatever I can to ease your pain. But please, I beg you, do not resort to that.”
You peered up at him and a devastated breath left you before admitting a truth you had desperately hid from.
“It should have been you,” you breathed. “I should have chosen you, Vantaros. I should have married you,” you wept, clinging desperately to him.
“No,” he shook his head. “You didn’t love me,” he reminded you, a pained smile pulling at his lips.
“But you never would have hurt me like this,” you countered.
“You’re right,” he agreed. “But you’d never have known love, then,” he began, as he smoothed your hair. “Despite how he’s hurt you, you did love him, didn’t you?”
“And I shall love you like no one has ever been loved before, Dream. I love you so completely, so wholly, I cannot imagine myself as anything other than yours,” you sighed, as you nestled further into his chest. He smiled softly at your act, and his arm tightened around your waist, pulling you flush against him as he reveled in the feel of you. “And I can imagine you as nothing but mine,” you added coyly, before letting your fingers tangle in his hair to pull him down to your lips. “Mine,” you sighed, as you pulled away from him. “Mine to love, to hold, to adore, to kiss,” you listed, before reaching back up to taste him with a giggle.
“Yours,” he agreed, with a contented smile as he watched your excitement. “To love, to hold, to adore, to kiss.”
“Terribly so,” you admitted, through a harsh sniffle.
“Then hold fast to that,” he instructed, his hands bracing your shoulders as he delivered his advice. “Hold tightly the memories of your love, and should you ever regret your decision, console yourself with those treasures.”
A Roman marble sculpture of four puppies, all curled up asleep together. Unearthed from the ruins of the House of the Faun in Pompeii, 1st century BCE, now housed at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, Italy
i do think we should normalise being like. platonically enamoured with someone. perhaps i love and admire you dearly and there's nothing romantic about it
when shirley jackson said, “the very nicest thing about being a writer is that you can afford to indulge yourself endlessly with oddness, and nobody can do anything about it, so long as you keep writing. all you have to do — and watch this carefully, please — is keep writing.”
