Pairing :- Dream of the endless (Morpheus) x Hades and Persephone’s Daughter!reader
Summary :- The daughter of Hades and Persephone, heiress to Aphrodite’s power and the proud Princess of Tartarus, has never been one to bow to anyone. But when Lucifer steps down and hands the key of Hell to Dream, the King of Dreams, her father tasks her with ensuring they’re in the right hands.
Warnings :- none in particular. No use of Y/N I guess?
The grand chamber of Tartarus was quiet, except for the soft rustle of silk and the faint echo of her own footsteps on the black marble floors. She, heiress to the dominion of love, the daughter of Hades and Persephone, and the proud inheritor of her aunt Aphrodite’s mantle, sat amongst her maids, their hands fluttering over her gown as if tending to a literal constellation. She was all arrogance and grace, a celestial figure wrapped in shadows of her father and lights of her mother, the very air bending around her presence.
A knock at the door, delicate yet insistent, pulled her from her train of thoughts.
“Come in.” She responded to the knock. One of her maids entered, bowing slightly, “Your Highness, your parents, the King and Queen seek your presence.”
With a stretch and a glance that left the maids breathless, she rose, letting her gown flow like water in slow river, and moved toward the throne room which was always surrounded by tortured souls, who screamed in agony of either being burnt or facing their punishment.
Her father, Hades, was waiting. As she approached them, the shadows seemed to part in deference, and she offered him a cool, confident smile.
“Greetings Father, Greetings Mother. May I know the reason behind as to why I was summoned so..hastily, without any further notice?”
The couple looked down at their daughter with prideful eyes, she was the pomegranate of their eyes, their precious youngest amongst all their children. But slowly, her father’s eyes turned from loving to stern “Dream has the key,” Hades said, voice calm but carrying the weight of worlds. “Lucifer has stepped down as ruler of Hell and has handed the key to Lord Morpheus himself.”
She frowned, lips pressing together. “And this concerns us… how?”
Hades’ eyes, dark as lakes of Tartarus itself, met hers. “It does not, at least, not directly. But I want you to go. See if the key is in the right hands. If Dream is worthy. If not… the demons, the prisoners, they would wander unchecked. Chaos in Hell is a nuisance to me, as I’m sure you understand, my daughter.”
She arched a brow, her ethereal form poised like a living statue. Then shrugged, her expression a mixture of indifference and amusement. “Very well, Father,” she said, and with a faint smile, “I shall see to it that the key is placed in right hands.” And then she was gone from Tartarus, drifting across realms like a shadow in sunlight.
Persephone glanced at her husband, a worrying taste souring her tongue. “Was it wise to send her there my love? After all what had occurr-”
“-Do not fear Seph. You mustn’t underestimate our daughter, she knows what she must and is doing, I can assure you that.”
The realm of Dream was a tapestry of impossibilities, a place where the unreal and the divine walked hand in hand. Reader moved through it with a careful elegance, letting the throngs of creatures, mortals, gods, and spirits swirl around her like mist. Some creatures whispered or recoiled, sensing the authority in her aura. She kept her distance, observing.
From afar, she saw Lucienne, the caretaker of this domain, holding a ledger, pen poised like a conductor over a symphony of names. Dream’s voice rang out, warm and strange, announcing a gala for all who had come. Reader shifted aside to avoid a little girl dressed as a clown, clutching a red balloon as if it contained the world.
And then her turn arrived. She stepped forward, every movement deliberate, the air bending around her like silk caught in a current.
Voice steady, carrying a melody of command and charm. “Princess of Tartarus.”
Lucienne looked up, recognition flickering in her eyes, and bowed slightly. “Have you come to be among those seeking the key?”
She chuckled softly, a sound like bells ringing in a tomb. “God, no. I can barely manage being the Heiress to Aphrodite. I am here on behalf of my father, to see that the keys of Hell are in the right hands.”
A pause hung, pregnant with the weight of her words, before Lucienne nodded, curiosity and respect threading through her gaze. She allowed herself a faint, satisfied smile.
Dream had met every possible candidate who might be worthy of the keys. Demons with ambition in their eyes, immortals with cunning hearts, gods with prideful intentions, all had come and told him turn after turn why they were perfect, their worth measured, weighed, and found wanting. Yet amidst the chaos of the gala, his thoughts were suddenly pierced by a laughter he knew far too well.
He turned, and there she was, the daughter of Hades and Persephone, leaning lazily against a marble pillar, the dim light of the gala tracing her perfect structure. Her eyes danced with amusement as she surveyed the crowd, her smirk effortless, unchallenged, a blade wrapped in silk.
“Do you… take pleasure in my suffering?” Dream asked, tilting his head, his voice a mixture of curiosity and restrained annoyance.
Her smirk widened, one corner of her mouth tilting with wicked grace. “Your suffering doesn’t amuse me,” she said softly, almost teasingly, “but the reason behind it?” She continued as she pointed her finger at him “,that does.”
Dream frowned, studying her. “The reason?”
“Lucifer,” she purred, letting the name hang like smoke between them, “the ruler of Hell, handing down the keys of her domain… to you, the King of Dreams. Tell me… how did you even gain her trust?”
Dream’s lips pressed into a thin line, and he remained silent.
What was he supposed to tell her? The truth?
The truth about the journey to retrieve Nada from Hell, the mistakes he had finally recognized too late, was not something he would reveal to her. Not when he knew the Princess of Tartarus despised mention of those she considered beneath her. Mortals, demons, even the chaotic throngs of lesser gods. According to her, none of them deserved her attention. And Nada, fragile and mortal, was far too insignificant to speak of here.
Yet he felt her gaze, sharp and unwavering, as though she could see the truth even in the barriers of his silence. And for once, the chaos of the gala, the hollering from the Asgardians, the whispers of the elves and the swirling colors of impossible things, seemed to pale in comparison to the quiet, cold amusement in her eyes.
“You’re hiding something,” she said finally, voice soft but edged with command. “I know you even to tell that.”
Dream’s silence deepened, a shadow folding over the realm itself. And she only chuckled, a sound that seemed to ripple across time and space, beautiful, dangerous, and utterly unconcerned.
“I expected nothing less,” she murmured, straightening with a fluid grace. “Very well, King of Dreams. Let us see if you are truly worthy of the key you so suddenly inherited.”
Later, the next day. Dream’s voice carried across the hall, calm and resolute as he announced the decision, the keys of Hell would be handed to the angels. The crowd shifted, murmurs spreading like ripples through a storm dominating sea. Everyone was shocked and unable to believe the words coming out from the Dream of the endless, demons getting ready to protest, but his attention was elsewhere.
From the corner of his vision, he caught her.
Her gown still, receiving no air.
She leaned casually against a marble column, her presence impossible to ignore. Her smirk was slow, deliberate, as she raised her hand in a slow, mocking applause. Each clap echoed unnaturally even among the chaotic crowd, the sound almost alive, tasting of amusement and warning both at once.
Dream’s gaze followed her, curious and wary. There was a sharpness in her eyes, a knowing in the curve of her lips, as though she alone understood the weight of his choice, and found it delightfully ironic.
Then, in the blink of an eye, she was gone.
No rustle of silk, no shadow stretching across the floor. One moment she had been there, watching, judging, the very air around her bending with her call. The next, she was gone, leaving only the faintest trace of her laughter lingering like smoke, curling into the edges of the dream-realm.
Dream’s fingers tightened slightly, not in anger, but in recognition. She was always just out of reach, always a step ahead, and always, somehow, utterly in control.
And for the first time that evening, the King of Dreams felt a flicker of uncertainty.
The echo of her vanished applause lingered like her scent in the air, but Dream’s mind was no longer on the gala, the angels, or even the key itself. Her presence always did that, unsettled him, made the edges of his carefully contained world blur.
He remembered her. Not this calculated, ethereal Princess, but the girl who had once loved him. The one he had believed to be shallow, frivolous with affections, incapable of the depth he thought he deserved. He had told himself that story over and over, like a mantra, convincing himself that love in his world was always doomed, first Calliope, bound and betrayed. then Nada, abandoned by him when he realized too late what she had sacrificed.
And yet… even now, standing amidst this surreal gala, he felt the ghost of her laughter, the sharp tilt of her smirk, the weight of those eyes that had once seen him so clearly.
Dream’s chest tightened, an ache he had long buried resurfacing. She had loved him. Truly, Madly and Deeply. And he had dismissed it, convinced it was only another fleeting infatuation, unworthy of the gravity of his own heart.
She had grown, of course. Far beyond the girl he thought he knew. She had become something terrifyingly beautiful, powerful, and untouchable, the heiress of Tartarus, the would-be goddess of love, a force even he could not contain. And yet, in that smirk, in the vanish of her presence, there was a whisper of the girl he had lost… a reminder that the past never truly dies in the realm of dreams.
For a moment, he allowed himself a private, bitter acknowledgment, the Princess of Tartarus, in all her arrogance and light, had once been the only one who might have made him surrender willingly, and he had let her slip away.
And now, she was watching, testing, judging… and perhaps, still waiting.
