Banish Away Sleep

Nikolai Petrov || 34 || Priest & Healer Morpheus || Titan God of Dreams

[ladywitchcraft]

Dette was not pleased; not even the slightest. The marine killings were horrible and her position as a healer was much needed in such a horrible time. People came to her, seeking her help and comfort, and this time she didn’t have a snarky remark, not even once.  Hearing the knock on her door, Dette sighed softly and got up form her seat, heading to open. Seeing no one at the door, she cautiously took a step forward and called out. “You needn’t hide from me.”

[morph-in-your-dreams]

Nikolai had retreated - more than usual, his wit drying like a Mediterranean ocean bed, his words growing less barbed and more thin, simply a man sick of the hand being dealt. The riots had been bad enough, but this...this was far too much. Each night away from Pamela had only lead to more, fiercer nightmares. He needed something, to numb the thoughts, the screams. For once he needed someone else's help.

“I'm not hiding...simply waiting for you to appear...” The priest intoned, stepping out from behind the door he hadn't realised he'd stood behind in his own very real blindness. As usual the Russian masked his weakness with some false sage-ness, trying to appear more control than he was.

“I heard you have...ways to ‘help’ people.”

[heart-oftheforge-blog]

The tavern was not as quiet as he would have hoped, but then again, how could it be? Henry was amazed that the city itself was still standing at this point. As he sat in the corner of the room with a mug of ale, his thoughts gravitated back to the madness that unfolded on the docks. “I wonder if they thought of the families when they set fire to that ship.” He spoke to no one in particular.

[morph-in-your-dreams]

“Rich men do not see beyond their chests, poor men do not see beyond their meal and mad men? Well mad men only see themselves.” Nikolai murmured thickly from his spot on the bar. Despite being scrubbed clean, death hung to him like a unwanted blanket, small flecks of blood holding on, telling the tale he didn't care to share - of hours in a church dealing with more wounded, with the cries of men, women and children. It reminded him of home. Real home. Russia. And how he hated the mother lands. The booze slurred his words but did little to dull his mind, the dreams that had plagued him, nightmares of others, still deep in his sharp blue eyes. 

“So no, they didn't give a damn and in three weeks, no one else will either.”

[pamela-nereida]

@morph-in-your-dreams

[morph-in-your-dreams]

Into The Abyss || Nikolai & Pamela

[pamela-nereida]

In that moment, there was nothing she wanted to do more than just let him comfort her. She wanted to listen to his words and believe them, but that question in the back of her mind kept gnawing at her more and more as she calmed down. She knew how things between them worked, and this was not it. Why would he be comforting her? Why would he have woken in as much pain as she did? Why did he even bother to stay around?

The tears subsided, and the pain in her chest began to return to what it was day in and day out, and the cogs of her mind began to work again. Her brow furrowed slightly and she stared at a spot on the bed, all the while, she was quickly finding out that certain things didn’t add up. As he began to take his leave, she reached out and grabbed his wrist in a firm but painless hold. “Nikolai,” she used his full name rather than the nickname she’d come to give him, betraying just how serious she was taking this. Slowly, her eyes lifted to look at him. “How did you know my dream was of my past? How do you know I didn’t kill them?” Each question was said evenly. She’d retreated back behind the mask of the pirate. “Where are you getting your information, Nikolai?”

[morph-in-your-dreams]

There it was. Within the priest, a part returned back to old, cold memories, of dirty alleys and ever reaching hands, always pulling, tugging, wanting more, more of poor little Nikolai who had so little. Part of him wanted nothing more than to spurn around and punch her to be freed, so he could run back into the early morning darkness - into the shell he held so close. But he didn’t. Mainly because he needed Pamela still. To keep sane, to have dreams that kept him calm, though clearly tonight she fell through. Atleast that’s what he told himself. 

Instead he turned slowly, blue haunting eyes staring out into nothing with a level of vacancy that made one wonder if he was a man or a doll. Perhaps he truly had no soul like he said. You could imagine it from how listless he seemed. “I know everything, you should have worked this out from now.”’

“Do not ask questions you know I will not answer.”

[morph-in-your-dreams]

Into The Abyss || Nikolai & Pamela

[pamela-nereida]

The lullaby slowly died from her lips, not quite finished. She didn’t have the strength or the heart to. It was ironic that what was supposed to comfort her and bring her back to herself also reminded her of what she’d lost. It hurt to remember what she’d done, what she hadn’t done, who she’d lost, but she was doomed to never forget. There were so many things that kept her mistakes present in her mind. The nightmares, just looking at Clara and seeing her parents in them, the riots, herself. She didn’t want to forget either. As much as it hurt her, it was her curse, her punishment to bear and somewhere inside of her she knew she deserved it. That didn’t mean that she didn’t hate the feeling of the guilt and self-loathing that suffocated her though. It didn’t mean that she didn’t wish it could be lifted from her.

It was only when she felt the priest soothingly rub her back as his fingers buried themselves in her tangled curls that she finally started to come out of her headspace, slowly but surely. He anchored her, helping her find her way back from the dream and to the inn’s little room. As oddly comfortable as she’d grown to his sarcastic quips, she was truly grateful for the words of comfort he offered even if she didn’t believe them. “No,” her voice was still broken and muffled by his shoulder, though the tears were finally beginning to subside. “No, it’s not just a dream… They’re gone…they’re gone and it’s my fault. I did this to them. I made my sister an orphan because I was so stupidly selfish.” All she’d wanted was to go to sea, and she’d gotten that, but the price had been her family.

Even now, she was so self-involved, she almost missed the hint in Nikolai’s words that something might be wrong. Almost. But there was a small warning bell that went off inside of her. She wasn’t quite ready to address it yet, but the question was planted in her mind. How did he know that her dream was of the past?

[morph-in-your-dreams]

“Did you put the knife to their throat?” Nikolai murmured, coming back to himself as well as he struggled to figure out whether to let go or not. The touch and the smell anchored him down, a remainder him that it was her dream not his own, that he was a blind priest with nothing to hold him, and not a grief-stricken pirate that held her past like a suffocating blanket. “If not then it cannot be your fault alone rybka, that sort of thinking will only kill you inside.

Call it the foolishness of the moment, or simply carelessness on the part of the normally meticulous russian, but he’d completely forgotten how unaware Pamela should be to the fact he had experienced an exact copy of her night’s sleep. It was just as the words left his throat, that he realised he needed to leave, before anything else got noticed. Pulling away slowly, his hands felt around the sheets as he desperately tried to find the end of the bed. “I ahem...I should go.”

[madamofchaos-blog]

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you to knock on a woman’s door before entering her chambers in such an hour?” Sloane hissed out at the person to opened the door of the room she lived in. Honestly. Would some manners kill them?

[morph-in-your-dreams]

“Does not having one save me from scrutiny?” Nikolai murmured with a smirk as he drew into the co-owner’s room. It was an odd place for a priest to be, the pits, but he frequented around the place more than one might think. People paid good coin to have their cuts and aliments fixed before or after going into the ring, and the russian was never one to shy away from a chance to make his own good fortunes.

That wasn’t to say he’d ever bothered the owners. The blind man often knew better than to draw too much attention to himself, but times were changing, and perhaps so should his tack. He hummed out an amused response. “Do owners of such establishments truly court the usual hours anyway?”

“...Am I to presume from the smell that you are indeed Sloane and not some random woman sitting in her room?”

[pamela-nereida]

[Greek Week]

[pamela-nereida]

“What choice is there to make? I don’t see how this effects you in the slightest.” As far as she was concerned, she was just a blip in his day. Someone that would be there and gone again, never to bother him again so long as he gave her her wish. She didn’t see how it needed so much thought and time. It should be simple. As he came closer, she stood her ground, defiantly staring back at him, not caring that he was a god and she a lowly nymph. She didn’t care if she angered him. Maybe deep down that was what she wanted. He could punish her for her insolence if he pleased, she didn’t care, she deserved it. And yes as she met his gaze, she didn’t see the coldness she’d expected. Instead there was kindness, and she felt the need to look away. She didn’t want that. She’d rather have the harshness.

His wings spread wide as she finished her rant, almost as if he was using their expanse to exert his authority over her. She began to fear that he’d made his decision, and that it wasn’t the one that she wanted him to make. “Then you would do well to forget it. Just do it, please,” there was a desperation in her voice that she wasn’t proud of. “Just forget my story. Forget me, and let me sleep. You have everyone else and their dreams to watch over. Give your time to the people who need your guidance for their dreams. If you just give me what I want, you won’t have to fool with mine any more.”

She could read him well enough to know she’d hurt him, and instantly she felt a soft pang of regret. That wasn’t her. She didn’t intentionally hurt people, she was a mother, she cared for others. She protected others, and yet her anger betrayed her. “I-I’m sorry.” In all honestly, she didn’t know which fate she’d rather have. She loved her family and she was glad she’d had them for whatever short time she did, but this grief was just so consuming. She didn’t even know if she could remember the days it wasn’t there. “If you don’t trap me in this cave, you trap me in a worse one.”

“My home is gone.”

[morph-in-your-dreams]

It was impossible to answer. Of course, in the end it didn’t matter whether he chose to put her to sleep or not, but despite what many thought, Morpheus wished to help people. He gave them dreams to try to wake them from their own issues, and instructed his brothers to aid people not torture or scare them. Sometimes fear was needed, but most of the time, a gentle hand was preferred. It was the same desire that made it too hard for him to condemn her to a sleep that no one would wake her from. A fate even crueller than the life she thought was unbearable. Perhaps Morpheus himself was being cruel to deny her, but he would shoulder than blame on his shoulders if he had to. “I cannot, I am sorry...I may have a great duty to all mankind, to all gods and their nymphs, but you too need guidance and I cannot abandon you even if you wish it.”

“It is I that will be sorry.” Morpheus reached out, his hand resting just before Pleione’s face. She may forget the whole ordeal, or perhaps pieces would come to her, but she would not know how low she fell. How much she wished for it all to end forever. He knew that she was likely right, that his version of mercy was a cruelness in itself, yet there was nothing he could do. He was not his father, his heart was too great, too much was his conscious like his mother’s.

“You will find it...and I will give you a gentle rest.” His voice no longer seemed real, but more like the floating wind, wrapping around the nymph and beckoning to sleep with a strength that she would not be able to resist. It would not be eternal, as she so passionately wished, but it would be long and kind, the only thing he could over her.

As Pleione slumped into the world of dreams, Morpheus caught her in his arms, lifting her up effortlessly. His eyes scanned over her pretty features, hair as dark as midnight and a face so fraught with worry. She deserved better than this, but so did they all. The war had left many casualties and wounds that would never heal. But in that moment, as he looked upon her complexion, he vowed silently to send dreams to her daughter to encourage her to reach out to her mother.

His wings spread out again, sending poppy petals into the air from the force, red leaves gently falling all around them as he held Pleione to his chest. He carried her out of the cave, flying to the air and across the ocean till he found a place where the sea was calm and a smooth rock provided a comfortable rest. She would dream of happier times, of the things she loved as if they were still there and when she woke, Morpheus hoped she’d feel better. His blue eyes looked over her one last time, a faint smile on his lips. It would perhaps be one of the very times that someone spoke to him directly...and despite it being distressing he wouldn’t forget it. “Sleep well my nymph of the sea.”

As he flew away, one black feather remained behind, resting on Pleione’s chest.

[pamela-nereida]

[Greek Week]

[pamela-nereida]

“What does it matter to you whether I choose death or sleep?” In truth, death seemed too much like running away and escaping everything. At least with sleep she’d be alive and unable to live her life. It felt more like a proper punishment out of the two. “It is not just mercy I wish for.” It might have seemed confusing. She was running from the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her and yet seeking out another punishment at the same time, but in her mind it made perfect sense, though she didn’t know how to explain it to anyone else. There were so few who might be able to understand the logic of a grieving mother who’d lost the last of her children in some way or another as well as her husband. “Will you do it, or won’t you?”

“The little family I have left would not wish to see me. My- Atlas has not wished to be in my presence for a long time.” He’d been the one to push her away after all, though of course her remaining daughter and and brother-in-laws didn’t see it that way. To them, she’d abandoned him. “And my only daughter left…I would not be surprised if she never wanted to see me again. I don’t think they’d care what befell me.” With the end of this war, she was at the lowest point she’d ever been brought to. “I think the sea has plenty of nymphs to keep it company and a new ruler to look after it,” she snapped at the god. She hadn’t expected to have to justify herself so much to get what she wanted. “Why do you care to ask? I’m just one nymph out of thousands. I am no goddess, my responsibility is one that can easily be passed to another.” Her expression turned cold at his words, likely because deep down she knew he was right. “Once more? You hardly know me, Morpheus. You may be privy to my dreams, but you know nothing of my waking life. Who are you do judge what I do? You who has no wife, no children, who’s never lost your entire world. Don’t you dare imply that I’m being weak by asking for this.”

[morph-in-your-dreams]

“If I am to make a choice, and grace you with a favour, do I not have the right to question?” Morpheus shot back. His wings seemed to flex with his mild irritation and he came closer now, among his own poppies, stopping only two or so meters in front of the nymph. Up close he was even more enigmatic than afar, his robes seemed like a inky abyss that ate all that looked at it, and yet it seemed to shine like the stars in its emptiness. His body while thin and bony, didn’t seem ill or lacking, but elegant, like a span of a spider’s web. His eyes, once looking like sharp, cold things, were actually like the sky, open and imaginative, embracing you within their soft expanse. Even his black wings were more protective than demonic despite their colour, as if they may wrap around you and keep you safe from yourself.

Again, Morpheus lapsed into the silence that he enjoyed so much, simply watching Pleione let out her frustrations even if they were directed at him. Most gods would never let someone, especially someone seen as lowly as a nymph in such a manner. But he was not most gods. He was the watcher of dreams, the shadow that followed everyone who slept whether they knew it or not. He understood human emotions better than most, and understood her anger, knowing that refusing to see it would not bring her the peace she needed so desperately. He himself struggled to feel as she did, but his eyes were wise enough to acknowledge it still. Eventually once she was done, he let his wings spread wide, the great majesty that they held finally revealed in full as they stretched across the cave, wide and dark, yet beautiful. “You think much, as do we all...but it is clouded by your own pain. You may be just a nymph, but I care not...I listen to your story, and your life though you think nothing of it, will remain in my mind until I pass. Therefore, you cannot slip into the night without anyone to care for it. For I already will.”

The hurt from her last words however put a pause to Morpheus next words and his wings retreats slightly, curling around their owner as if to be a shield. “I do not judge...and I may truly be alone, and that is the bed that I rest upon, but to never have a world to lose can just be as harrowing as losing it all. I do not know what it is to have a family that loves you as deeply as yours does, nor to feel that towards someone else. But that only makes me wish you’d enjoy it more.”

“I will not trap you in this cave. That is my choice. Now allow me to return you home.”

[morph-in-your-dreams]

[Greek Week]

[motherlybeverly]

The familiarity she felt was the family connection. Her family. She wasn’t familiar with Pasithea but she knew she was part of her line through Hera. She wished she was more connected to her family but that was not an option. “Only through stories do I know of her my dear. I have been locked up for quite some time.” 

Hera had all but refused to come see her at all cost. The only thing she knew of her daughter was when she had children and what Zeus had told her. Her wish, though it might not come true was to have everyone, Titans and Olympians alike, to live in some sort of balance together. It would never happen. Never in this life anyway. 

“The war may end?” the idea that this war between her family and children was going to end made her pay attention to her great grandson more. She was curious of what information he might have or if he was here to trick her. “Why would such a decision be so important to the information you possess?”   

[morph-in-your-dreams]

“And yet I can reach you despite the chains. Perhaps not all is lost...if you have any messages I can pass them on.” Morpheus offered softly, his gaze soft as he looked upon his great grandmother. She wasn’t hard and unfeeling like Hera was, instead he could feel her softness and it made him feel at ease. She indeed felt like a mother...and he found himself wishing for his own. 

Morpheus nodded at her question, spreading his hands out as if to show he meant it. “There is an end, but know that a war will always have a victor...someone must lose.”

“I ask to see if telling you will have the necessary response required to end this all.”

[pamela-nereida]

[Greek Week]

[pamela-nereida]

His warning clicked in her head, but she was in such a state that she hardly cared. Most of her family was gone or taken away from her, what should she want to wake for? As he came from the darkness, she took a moment to take in Morpheus’ full form. He had large wings that looked soft, almost like fine pillows to lay her head on. Like most aspects of him, they set her at relative ease, only encouraging sleep. “I’ve already lost so much of myself through the war between the Titans and the Olympians. Losing the rest of myself doesn’t frighten me…it might be a mercy…” She was already so broken, it was hard for her to see what else of the world was out there for her past her grief.

“If I do not dream, then I imagine I’ll hardly notice the passage of time. I’ll just be…asleep.” Her gaze wavered at his question and she glanced down at the poppies around them rather than meeting his gaze. “I’m alone…and much of it is through my own fault. As a mother and a wife, it’s my job to protect my family and I failed. I left them when they needed me most. Instead of fighting for them, I did nothing. Now Atlas has been condemned to hold up the world for eternity. Seven of my daughters have been made to stars by Zeus so that I may only see them and never hold them. My young son was killed by a lion and sent to the stars as well. Five of my remaining daughters were so grief-stricken that…” Her voice faltered for a moment, unable to complete the thought. “They…they’ve joined him there. My mother has been imprisoned in Tartarus, and my only remaining daughter is off on an island… She would not wish to see me. I can’t imagine my husband would either. I believe I’ve only hurt my mother further by trying to visit her. I just want to end this misery. I don’t want to hurt any of my remaining loved ones. There are few enough left as it is.”

[morph-in-your-dreams]

Morpheus too had lost in the war. Family, his breathern. They thought him traitors now no doubt, for picking no sides and working with the Olympians to continue delivering important messages and guiding the dreams of mortals. It was all he knew how to do, and while he felt bad to be free as they wallowed in Tartanus it was a war that was not his doing. So instead he allowed them to the fate they created for themselves and focused on his obsessive all consuming work. Unlike the suffering nymph before him. “Then why do you seek sleep? If you no longer have any wish to have yourself exist, if you wish for mercy, then why do you not submerge yourself in the waves, and end your life permanently?”

It may have sounded like callus or cruel words, but they were not said as much, more like curiosity. Morpheus did not understand other beings very well, even though he watched their dreams always, he found a disconnect, even with his own family. He was the odd sheep, the sandman, shapeless and enigmatic, which made people more uncomfortable if anything, though the feeling often washed away by the serene comfort his mere presence also bestowed. He listened to her tale, his features softening just a fraction. He'd heard many sad tales but it didn't mean his heart, as stoic as it sometimes could be, didn't understand how it could be painful. “What do you think you will achieve? Hm? Will your family feel less pain if you are not there or simply feel more alone? The dearest Pleoine, do you think that the sea will not mourn even more with its fair nymph gone? It seems to me that once more, you are running, instead of sticking by through all the pain.”

[morph-in-your-dreams]

[Greek Week]

[eos-goddessofdawn-deactivated20]

Eos hadn’t realized she had fallen asleep sitting in her room and reading a book. One minute she had been wide awake and now she was here, yet she didn’t question it, nor the man before her. She felt calm, almost safe in the company of the man. “What are you here to help me with?” Her voice was a hushed whisper as she stepped closer, shaking her head. “I don’t understand.”

[morph-in-your-dreams]

“I am a messenger of the gods...I should only speak when told to...but in the land of men's thoughts. I see much else, and sometimes it compels me.” Morpheus spoke with the sort of long drawl that calmed anyone who heard it, it seeped through you, like the exhaustion of a long day, and whispered to you to rest. Even in the world if sleep, it kept you weary within your own mind.

“I have seen things...things that may break your heart young Goddess...goddess who loves too much. Do you wish to know or remain trapped in your own naivety? I am no Fate. There is no deal, but there is no certainty either...I only speak what I think, and it is as flawed as my own thinking.”

[morph-in-your-dreams]

[Greek Week]

[motherlybeverly]

“…A message?” Rhea didn’t quite realize she had fallen to sleep. The war between her husband and children was growing every day. And each day she grew worried of their safety. A voice called out to her in the darkness. She could have been afraid but she wasn’t. She had to stay strong these days for both Zeus and Cronus.

“Am I to trust a stranger to guide me in my most vulnerable of times?” she spoke, her voice firm. “What is it you want to help with then? Please speak your mind.”

[morph-in-your-dreams]

“A stranger...” Morpheus echoed, his voice bordering between hurt and amused. He often felt forgettable, only remembered when it was convienent. Even his own father seemed to find other things more worth his focus than his own son. Still, the faintest smile, appeared slowly as he spread out his hands. “I am your great grandson...Rhea. Son of your daughter’s daughter. Pasithea. If you remember her.”

He wouldn't blame her. The war had everyone focused on their own future, and seeing very little else. Even he had his own chips to throw in and see where they fall. For he was a Titan by blood but very little else. “I have seen things...and they lead me to believe that I will know how this war may end. Tell me...”

“Who do you love more? Your husband or your children?”

[pamela-nereida]

[Greek Week]

[pamela-nereida]

Pleione was well aware of the stories told about this place, and as she looked around, she could easily believe them. The walls oozed comfort in a way that even now she could feel her eye lids drawing closed. It was these very stories that had given her the idea to come to him to begin with for an eternity of sleep seemed a blessing compared to an eternity of loneliness after having her family taken away from her.

“The worst you can do is say no, and should that be the outcome…I’ll find some other way.” She didn’t know what she’d do. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. Maybe she’d choose to drink for an eternity instead in hopes that it would dull the pain or throw herself into her work and ignore the hurt. There were other ways, this just presented itself as the easiest.

“It is not so much what dreams I want as what dreams I don’t want.” Even the happy dreams she had of her family hurt more than she could bear. “I’ve heard tell of those that are doomed to spend eternity here in this cave in slumber.” She didn’t see any here, but she only assumed that meant that they were further back in the cave. “I want that. I want a dreamless sleep for as long as I can have it. I don’t want to live with this pain and loneliness and guilt anymore. It hurts too much.” She missed her family too much.

[morph-in-your-dreams]

Morpheus was a hard thing to pin down visually. He was like a mirage, more an impression than a solid shape, only his eyes seemed to be bent into reality, so very real and piercing. He listened so quietly it was hard to tell if he was listening at all, his gaze unblinking at it watched the sea nymph and little else. Finally, his raspy voice echoed out in reply to the request. It wasn't the first time he'd been asked for such things and the god doubted it'd be the last. “There are some...those who forever reside in this cave of dreams...but their rest is so deep that not even I can wake them. Only my father can.”

Hypnos too resided within in the hidden depths, often sleeping himself and waking up whenever it suited the god of sleep’s fancy. He shifted closer, finally detaching from the shadows to reveal his fuller form. As if from no where, dark wings appeared sprung from his back, long and elegant, somehow giving his thin appearance a sense of angelic radiance. “But understand this...dreams are apart of us, without them we lose a part of ourselves. Should I shun you from the gates...you can never be yourself again. Not as you use to be. No one can save you from your nights, your thoughts will never be known. If you wish to wake, no one will know.”

“Tell me...what pain could be so great, so agonising, that you could want such a fate?”

[pamela-nereida]

[Greek Week]

[pamela-nereida]

The cave gave her a mixture of feelings. Half of her felt like she should be afraid of the swirling darkness within, but there was another aspect of it that put her at comfort and eased her mind. It made her want to sleep, and suddenly her half thought out idea of a blissful sleep that spanned years seemed even more appealing. It was an oddly beautiful place with flowers growing in surprising amounts within the darkness. The stillness did make her itch for the open air though. The salty breeze of the ocean, the waves lapping at her feet. The stillness here was almost claustrophobic. It crowded her, pressing in at all sides. She was a nymph born in open space and of rolling seas. Stillness didn’t sit well with her.

She gave a little jump at the sound of his voice. She hadn’t noticed him in the darkness, his clothes blending into it so well. What stood out the most were his strikingly blue eyes that were almost haunting in nature. She turned to face him fully, standing as tall as the grief that weighed her down would allow her.

“So you know who I am?” It wasn’t often that people she hadn’t met knew of her. She was just one ocean nymph among thousands. She wasn’t anything special in the grand scheme of things. Not compared to the Titans or Olympians or even some of the heroes of the mortal world. “So you would listen to my plea and not give me an answer either way? It seems the least amount of kindness you could give is an answer.”

“I’ve heard you can shape dreams. I was…hoping you might be able to do that for me.”

[morph-in-your-dreams]

“I know all those who sleep, from the lowly peasant to the greatest gods. Should your eyes close, I send you through my gates.” One of ivory and one of horn, depending on the dream he placed upon the traveller. It left him often eternally busy, guiding dreams, appearing in them, enacting the will of the gods, be it Titan or Olympian. He had not even time to have a wife by his side, too invested was he in his work. But the sea nymph was lucky, for Morpheus rarely turned down a request. A trait he carried from his mother, so gracious was she in her care for others. It was simply rare for anyone to dare travel to his cave. It was remote and stories spoke of people entering and forever sleeping in his bed of poppies.

“A answer can be provided, it simply may not be the one you seek.” A ghostly smile spread across his lips, and he stepped closer, curiosity peaked. The Titan was an almost omnipresent being at times but he was no fate, he could not see visions of the future.

“Tell me creature, what dream is it you seek and why?”

[morph-in-your-dreams]

[Greek Week]

“There is a message you must hear...see...” Morpheus’ voice rang out in the crevice of the host’s mind. He appeared as a tall spindly figure, ragged and yet wise. While no smile graced his lips and his eyes were the colour of frost, nothing but comfort oozed from him, encouraging rest and relaxation, as if his dark robes could keep your warm.

“I beseech you, hear my words and let me guide you through this night. I am here to help.”

[thierrylockwood]

[Greek Week]

“Yes? How can I help you?” Thanatos asked as he turned to the footsteps that he heard behind him.

[morph-in-your-dreams]

“Dearest uncle...” Morpheus’ voice echoed around the room, almost seeming like it was nothing but a dreamy manifestation that a true sound. He rarely explored beyond his cave of poppies, but one sometimes had to venture out to truly fulfill their duties, and as of late, the god of dreams had found himself struggling to connect with the subjects whom he bestowed his messages. Death had become so prevalent on the lands below that he did not know how to relieve the poor tortured souls from such horrible memories. 

Family seemed a good place to seek aid. He and Thantos didn't often speak but he found himself more understanding of the Titan that some of his other siblings and his father. “I was hoping for company and advice..”

[pamela-nereida]

[Greek Week]

@morph-in-your-dreams

Pleione was in a downward spiral. The news of her family’s fates had destroyed her and she didn’t know how to cope. Her entire job was to be a protector. If she couldn’t protect her own family, how could she hope to protect sailors. Did they even deserve her protection to begin with? In the throes of her grief, she doubted it. 

She didn’t know where the idea came from. It just popped into her head. All she knew was that she wanted this pain to be gone. She wanted nothing to do with it. She wanted nothing to do with the world if she couldn’t be with her family, and that was how she found herself approaching the home of the god Morpheus. She’d heard tell of what he could do. That he could shape dreams. She only hoped he’d find it in his heart to give her a deep, dreamless sleep, long enough that when she awoke…maybe she could be with her family again. Maybe the guilt and pain of losing them wouldn’t be quite so raw. She was desperate to escape the turmoil that her mind had laid out for her.

Taking a steadying breath, she entered his domain and called out to him. “Morpheus…I have a request of you…can you find it in you to hear a poor woman’s prayers?”

[morph-in-your-dreams]

The cave held a strong scent of flowers. It was a hard smell to pin down, as if it smelt of every rose and dandelion, but yet at the same time, nothing at all. But it wrapped around you like a warm blanket, making the inky blackness of the whole place seem comforting. As Pleione drew in, the hard rock was replaced by the soft brush of poppies, faintly visible from their red echo in the dark and providing a distraction from the eerie silence. 

It felt like time was frozen here. No winds blew, the air seemed stale, and the darkness had it’s own life, swirling and sticking to every inch that the light from the entrance never hit, it seemed to shift and draw ever closer. “I always have time...to listen.”

Morpheus was made from the shadows. They stuck to him as his form drew from the abyss, threads of dripping blackness that clung to his dark robes. His bony frame was almost skeletal, barely visual under his overlapping clothing. Everything about him suggested a lifelessness, a tiredness, and just looking at the hollow vision of his face made one want to sleep. Everything but his sharp blue eyes. They were frostier than the peaks of Mount Olympus, yet beneath the frigidness, the light blue set you at ease, a perfect clash to his bed of poppies. This was his nicer form, something resembling the humans he often attended to, rather than his true, more demonic appearance.

His hair, long and strangely seemed to move on their own accord, tangling with his beard as he looked over Pleione. He knew who she was - he knew much. After all, when you attended to the land of dreams, there was very little that could escaped your eyes. “However, I cannot promise an answer, Pleione, creature of the sea.”