The Star in the Field Pt.1
Morpheus X Fallen Star!Reader
Chapter Rating: General
Overall Rating: Explicit
Word Count: 2.3k
Warnings: Slight Angst, minimal descriptions of y/n, reader uses they/them/she/her pronouns.
Chapter Synopsis: He had seen them, only for a moment, standing lonely in the barren fields of his still rebuilding kingdom. The flora that had just started to regrow, sprouting up through the dust of his ruin curving to meet the soft glow of their skin. And when they spotted him, observing from afar they seemed surprised. He had met all the Stars that visited his realm at one time or another, seeing as how some had been around since not longer after the creation of this universe. Their stare of unfamiliarity was returned, for he had never met, nor sensed them once in all his years.
Note: This will have some comic spoilers and it is mixed with some of Stardust lore as well, and will have some tweaks of my own to both Sandman lore and Stardust lore.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
It was a presence he had felt before, recognizable but not in the sense it held personal familiarity nor common place. No… this was an ancient omnipresence.
This was not of his creation, nor was it of this world, neither was it a deity worshiped by the mortals he served in sleep. This was a long forgotten nostalgia one that he had chaperoned over a millennia ago, before most of their dreaming became something viewed as tiresome and stale. But this was not the same heavenly dreamers that had once stepped through his realm and now seldom did. This was sharp, keen and born a new… a new being in his realm, a creature of the very heavens. A Star.
He had seen them, only for a moment, standing lonely in the barren fields of his still rebuilding kingdom. The flora that had just started to regrow, sprouting up through the dust of his ruin, curving to meet the soft glow of their skin. And when they spotted him observing from afar they seemed surprised. He had met all the Stars that visited his realm at one time or another, seeing as how some had been around since not longer after the creation of this universe. Their stare of unfamiliarity was returned, for he had never met, nor sensed them once in all his years.
They were gone before he had time to consider anything more than their surprised gaze.
He stood for a while, contemplating what this could mean before stalking off to the library, a whirlwind of questions that perhaps Lucienne would be able to help him figure out.
He wondered if they had always been here, on the tailcoats of the dream threads, maybe he had simply overlooked them? But a Star gracing his realm after so many had grown tired of dreaming for an aeon was something he would have taken notice of. Lucienne would have certainly written their presence down had they visited his kingdom and she certainly would have a book on the catalogs of their lives inside and outside of the Dreaming.
~
The Librarian had briefly questioned if he was perhaps mistaken, as she had seen no Star dream records, at least none updated since the late 1800s. And of all the dreamers to re-enter the dreaming after his absence, none were beings of heavenly light.
“They stood before me; shining like all Stars do.” He pulls another book down from the overburdened shelf; behind him Lucienne sighs and cocks her head.
“Sir if I might; the last Star to enter the dreaming was over one hundred years ago. Are you sure you saw a Star?” She reiterates cautiously.
“I know the last Star that entered this realm Lucienne, she has ascended back to the heavens with her husband some time ago or so it would seem.” He replies, placing the book back and pulling another from a lower shelf. “I do not know this one. I have never sensed their presence, inside of the Dreaming or out.”
“Maybe you just didn’t recognize them? You have been gone awhile.” Matthew quips, ruffling his feathers as he suppressed a caw.
“No, and they did not know me, they seemed surprised… perhaps even startled by my observation?”
“Well you’re not exactly the warmest welcoming committee.” Matthew hops to a stack of books a bit further away after a pointed look from Lucienne. “Who knows, maybe you don’t know them? I’m sure new people come into the Dreaming all the time?” He adds.
“Not Stars. I’m not even sure that is possible?” Lucienne comments, moving to take one of the books beneath the raven’s new perch. “ The Stars have been around for… well since nearly the beginning, at least the older, more ancient ones.”
“Then maybe it’s a new one.” Matthew states simply.
A quiet pause falls over the library for a moment; Matthew beginning to feel uncomfortable in the growing silence, lets out a caw that was meant to be a clearing of the throat.
“I mean would it really be that weird?” He adds, shuffling closer to Morpheus, who has yet to say a word in sometime, back still turned and hand poised over the worn pages of the book he held. “Would it boss?”
A new Star
~
You wake with a gasp, blinking rapidly in the darkness of your room; slowly your breathing mellows and your eyes adjust to the blanketing dark. A pale cast of light runs across the far wall, the sound of wheels splashing through a puddle on the street below; it must have rained while you slept.
Turning over on your side you gaze at the neon light of the alarm clock on your nightstand…4am…a heaviness settles in your heart.
Carefully you rise up from your bed pulling back the sheets and testing the floor below you. You were already a guest here taking up space, (no matter how much it was insisted that you were an honored guest) you didn’t want to make too much noise prancing around in the wee hours of the morning while most slept.
On the balls of your feet you creep to the bay window that faced the street, settling down on the pillows that bracketed the inlaid seat. You squint looking out at the street below. You never close the blinds, even though one of the street lamps sat glowing on the corner of the building every night, you couldn’t bring yourself to shut yourself off, not yet.
The light pollution here was heavy, but in these early hours you could make out some of the twinkling beings in the night sky… you wonder if perhaps any of them were ones you knew.
Sighing you tuck your knees to your chest, wrapping your arms around your legs and resting your temple against your knees, continuing to watch, continuing to think.
It wasn’t fair, you had decided (it was a decision you had made rather early on in your…unexpected adventure.) You had barely gotten any time to shine within the night sky before you had fallen; a mere seventy years in the heavens. Others had gotten millennia, some aeons; most of your brothers and sisters were still there, glimmering brightly amongst the cosmos. But no, you had been plucked from the sky before you even got to really experience what it really meant to be a Star.
You grumble softly to yourself, playing with a lock of your hair, observing it as you settle in your self pity. You can still see the fine spun magic glittering writhing the strands; you know you should stop being bitter, Earth and humans weren’t all that bad, quite fascinating in fact.
For seventy years you had looked down upon humans, delighting in their habits and odd quirks, the way they lived so freely. They lived for so short a time and yet they lived with such abandon, you admired that about them, their need to experience, to explore. It really wasn’t so awful to now be amongst them and witness them daily, no longer an observer from afar. Most were kind, at least the ones that you had met.
You smile softly to yourself; they made such wonderful things too from food to inventions; their minds seemingly never ceasing with imagination. If they could dream it up they could…
You pause in your hair twirling and thoughts…dreams… Even since your birth in the heavens, you had dreamless sleeps; Stars didn’t need to sleep but it was a novelty, a delightfully new thing at first. You had heard when you first came to creation that if you wished it you could enter the Dreaming, the realm of the Dream King, an Endless. However, no matter how many days you rested your head and wished to be swept away, the dreams never came…
You had asked some of the older Stars, maybe you were doing it wrong? They had shook their heads and told you that no, the dreaming had gone silent, however it was something that grows a bit dull after a few thousand years anyway and to not be too concerned.
From the stories they had told you didn’t feel that any of it could ever grow old, ever the curious mind and creative heart. So every night for over sixty years you tried to dream, but every time there was nothing... a void as black as the deepest, most barren parts of space. You had stopped trying after a time, coming to the conclusion that perhaps you were not meant to see the Dreaming; and after a while you had stopped sleeping all together, after all why sleep with a hope of something that obviously was no longer there. To you, sleep meant the possibility of dreaming and if that wasn’t there…
When you had fallen you spent the first few months on Earth not sleeping, but you had come to the conclusion that if you were to live a more human life that you should at least follow some of their patterns. That and, well the nights got pretty dull when no one was around to speak with and the shops and cafes weren’t open.
At first it was certainly strange, sleeping at night when you had always slept during the day when you were a heavenly being. So you had started to follow the pattern of your gracious housemate when it came to sleep, or at least adhere somewhat to his patterns to get used to it. It had taken some time a few weeks but you finally got it down for the most part. And of course when you started sleeping again you had secretly hoped that maybe, just in maybe the Dreaming would open up to you.
However the Dream Lord’s realm had remained elusive… that was until tonight. Tonight you had traveled, left this realm and gone somewhere you had only heard of…
It was strange, it had felt so real you had almost thought that you were awake, perhaps having somehow slept walked out into a barren farmer’s field. But as you had gazed upon the foreign landscape you could see, a looming castle seemingly ravaged by time in the distance. And as you gazed heavenward you saw a brilliance of night sky you had never seen before.
You were in the Dreaming.
You turned feeling the dust and sand beneath your feet and felt the cool air of the night upon your cheeks. Your eyes caught something, or rather… someone… a man stood, stone still gazing at you from across the field. You startled, for the place that you had found yourself in was completely empty save for him and yourself; his gaze nearly consuming you, the weight of it enough to jar you from from your first ever dream.
You frown, and start to twirl your hair again, thinking back to the man in the field. It was as if he held the cosmos in his eyes, deep and expansive, all knowing and never ceasing. But the thing that weighed heavily in your mind was the sadness that seemed to fill those endless eyes, and you once again felt the heaviness in your heart.
Humans had said that eyes are the window to the soul, and you wonder…why his soul sang such melancholy...
You hear the chirping of birds outside your window, your brows furrowing as you look back out to the horizon and find the golden tendrils of the sun beginning to creep along the rooftops.
Oh
Perhaps your schedule still needed some work, you blink over to the alarm clock that now reads just before 6am. Down the hall you hear your housemate begin to shuffle about his morning routine and decide that you might as well get up; tomorrow night you decide that you would finally get the human schedule down.
You dress slowly waiting to hear the water shut off in the bathroom and your housemate make his way down the stairs before going about your morning. You decide to take just a little longer in the shower just to enjoy the very human routine. Stars usually bathed in pools of moonlight; and while showering in a porcelain box might seem mundane it was once again a new habit and you greatly enjoy drawing little doodles in the mist that fogged up the glass.
Finally stepping out of the warmth of the shower you finish up your morning freshen and redress.
As you make your way downstairs you can hear the usual puttering in the kitchen, the sound of the kettle going off and the scrape of a worn pan against the stove top.
Rounding the corner you catch your gracious housemate pouring a steaming cup of coffee into a mug and then a second. He turns his head as you come in and smiles brightly.
“Ah good morning Y/N! Starting to sleep in a bit I see!” He picks up one of the steaming mugs and holds it out to you.
“Good morning Hob.” You smile back and take the cup from him. “I’m not sure about the sleeping in part.” You chuckle and take a cautious sip, quickly deciding as you have every morning, that yes it is still too hot.
Hob seems to understand and smiles softly as he takes a seat at the small kitchen table, you follow suit.
“We’ll I’m sure that you’ll be sleeping in till noon in no time and then you learn the joys of lunch for breakfast.” He laughs and you can’t help but laugh as well. “How did you sleep? Is it getting easier?” He asks after a moment, gazing at you over his mug as he takes a sip.
You stare down at the umber liquid in your cup.
“I did, and it is…” you pause and he looks at you expectantly. “Hob…” he cocks his head and waits. “I believe…I had a dream last night.”