#ic: morpheus

[formshaper]

"How about dying with a little dignity?"

((Ghostly first Corinth can not resist the jab. Sorry Dream 🤷‍♂️

The lord of dreams observes the little skull in its hand with melancholy detachment. What was not contained within the Corinthian's skull was reabsorbed by its creator the night they uncreated him; there is little left of the nightmare now that is not also them. Many ghosts walk the Dreaming, but this is not one of them. It is the Endless equivalent of the mind playing tricks upon itself; pieces of his own consciousness, separated from the whole, lingering in the liminal space between Dream and Dreaming. The Corinthian is in his mind, his hand, and his realm all at once, and yet it is also in none of those places.

"One must be alive, to die." It strokes the little toothed eyesockets with its thumb, gently. He had been so proud of this creation, once... and proud of himself, for making it.

How far they both fell.

How far they both might rise, once remade.

The only hope available to them: this one will be better suited to the world than the last.

"Is this not what you wanted? My death?" He presses his thumb against one of the mouths, harder this time, remembering how he had shaped the teeth just-so, millenia ago. The spectral image of the Corinthian does not leave his mind or his realm, but it is the skull he focuses on, the real. "It's what you thought you wanted, at least. And yet..." Dream smiles, slightly. "If you were truly here, I think you would be angry at me for it."

He sighs. Sand gusts from his mouth; it dusts the Corinthian's lifeless skull. Dream straightens, no longer leaning on the railings of the balcony, and slips the little thing into his pocket.

"No matter. I have use for you yet, little dream."

His own voice comes back to him, faint, remembered. The next time I make you, you will not be so...

Well, he thinks. There is no time like the present.

[formshaper]

(Nevei and Dream t i m e) Nevei lies on his couch, not having moved much since his mother had patched him up, attempting to get some rest and sleep if he was able. Being basically run over by a 10 foot tall beast of a deer while in that one Forest would do that to you. In his fatigued haze he can't tell if he's asleep or awake, but he has noticed a familiar figure close by and speaks with them regardless. "....hey" He says wincing. "Sorry I'm uh...you ever be hit by a truck? I can't recommend it." (f eel free to take the reigns >:3c )

"No. But neither have you." Its head turns only slightly towards him, its long, dark fingers resting against the leaves of a tall houseplant by the window. Night stretches on forever past the glass. Dark and endless. Gently, the figure shifts the plant a few inches away from the wall. Nevei cannot entirely make out what it says next. Something like: "It doesn't like to have its leaves touch the wall. A cat's whiskers..."

And then the room tilts sideways and all is dark and painless for a time.

Nevei wakes to birdsong. Bright, clear day pressing against the curtains that keep the room in gentle shadow. The smell of hot, floral tea on the end table past his head; a blanket over his feet.

And that figure again, dressed in black now, wearing the first face Nevei met it with, long ago, in worlds far from here. Is he dreaming again? Morpheus is dead. But his skull and his ribs and the small bones in his hands and wrists and ankles still hurt so badly. It looks like Morpheus. Feels like him.

Is this what Dream meant, back then, when they stood on a dying planet before he changed - that there was always one and there was always many?

"Yes." He answers a question Nevei did not ask. What was it? Then tilts his head, listening, perhaps, to something else. Or someone else. But there is no-one else in the room. "It is not so uncommon... to dream that someone will come for us when we need them most. To be... disappointed, when they arrive after the fact, and not before, or during. To be angry with their reasons for turning a blind eye."

There is a hand on Nevei's cheek, but Morpheus has not moved; he is still perched where he was, hands in his lap. But the hand takes some of the ache away, some of the swelling. Not all. White curls in the corner of his eye, a flash of a green amulet dangling from a dark throat; of course. Morpheus would never touch him, but the other one might. The other Dream whispers something to Nevei that he understands but cannot hear, in a language he will not remember when he wakes.

If he wakes.

If he is asleep at all.

It wasn't your fault.

It wasn't theirs, either.

Morpheus will not tell you; we have been here before. We are still angry at our mother...

And the hand rests on his forehead for a moment, and he sees something behind his eyelids: Morpheus, young and afraid, spiralling forever into a black hole. He calls for help and the voice of Night answers only to laugh and leave him there. It is not clear how he escapes.

Across the room, Morpheus clears his throat, shifts uncomfortably. The other Dream pulls its hand away, murmurs something Nevei cannot hear again to its counterpart. It approaches its former self and they merge into one, bright and incomprehensible, and--

He wakes, drenched in sweat, still in pain.

It's still night outside.

The plant hasn't moved from the window.

Something about a cat's whiskers?

His head hurts.

[formshaper]

("I dare you to try." Dream @ Insomnia, messes around with this one given Insomnia doesn't really speak and it's more the vibes NJSLKGMNLDK. Insomnia being a cat incarnate and slowly inching towards Dream's throne that he's currently sitting in, Insomnia also determined to try and sit on the top of it while Dream is still seated.)

Morpheus’ fingers are steepled, his spine slightly bowed as he rests his elbows on his knees and watches the creature inchworm closer. He knows its intent; not because he is an oracle (do not think of Orpheus now), but because its intentions never change. Insomnia, like Dream, is stagnant. The same each time they meet.

Insomnia eyes the top of the throne. Morpheus, statuesque, makes no move to stop him - yet.

Condescendingly polite, he rests his chin in one hand and waits.

“I invite you to try.”

It will take barely a thought to flick the thing back into its own realm before it ever reaches the throne.

[formshaper]

(Regular Nevei @ Dream of your choice, I'm not sure how he comes in contact with him BUT) "Hey um, do you mind if I ask you a quick question because I'm...curious." Nevei pauses trying to figure out how to dance around the subject. "I had an......encounter with the guy with the eye teeth but- he doesn't seem to remember? I mean it's fine but it's just- he's a splitting image of the guy are they twins or something? Amnesia? All of the above?"

The King of Dreams stands alongside him within the crater of a small moon. His hands are clasped behind his back, a bone-white contrast to the velvet black of his robes. This place held civilisations once, but now its only inhabitant is an old, whistling creature on the far surface of the rocky sphere who has no idea that Morpheus and his visitor are here.

"The Corinthian," interrupts Morpheus, just as Nevei is beginning to explain that it's fine. He lets him continue, though it is not entirely clear if he is truly listening; his face is turned up towards the vast emptiness of space and his expression, while difficult to read, is not one of someone paying rapt attention.

"There have been two Corinthians. Your relations were with the first, whom I destroyed." Morpheus does not elaborate upon this. "The one you speak of now is the second. He retains little memory of his previous incarnation, but is prone to... distraction. I advise you not to indulge him."

Looking at the being beside him at last, it is striking how similar they look; any outside observer might believe Nevei a distant, forgotten son of the Dreaming. But as the manifestation of a black hole, Nevei reminds Dream more of his own mother than himself; do not all celestial bodies belong to her, in some way?

In the impossible distance, there is a terrible sound. A sun has reached the end of its lifespan. Morpheus' expression does not change.

"Let us depart. This universe will die and begin anew soon, and destroy you with it." He turns away, robe sweeping the ground, sand whipping into a spiralling frenzy that will carry them both far from here--and then he pauses. The sand whirling around them both slows, but doesn't stop. "...You may stay if you wish, of course. The choice is yours."

[formshaper]

"I love you." ( @ morpheus :') )

something in his expression closes off; irritation, or hurt, passes over the sharp, bone-white features. the difference is hard to distinguish.

"how often you say that to persuade me to do your bidding," says dream, quietly. "and not because it is how you feel."

it is not the first time she has done it, nor the first that he has seen it for what it was. it is only the first time he has said anything about it, instead of either folding to her wishes or flatly refusing her.

dream's fingertips brush her collarbones, then up, resting against the side of frankie's face. he is mesmerised sometimes by her freckles, but right now his eyes are fixed on hers.

"do you know that you do that?"

the quiet stretches. morpheus' voice lowers; not dangerous, but slightly edged. a wound disguised as something regal.

"do you know that it is almost always in service of the corinthian that you do?"

[formshaper]

can i even trust you? ( early frankeus, post corinthian in the waking? YES, she hugged you morpheus but she's still a lil fighty )

Its head tilts, the stars in its eyes coalescing into a single white point. The effect is unsettling, but more so is the full weight of Dream’s attention, which rests on her like a heavy shroud. Dream of the Endless is shaped like a man, but his voice is the one that has carried every mortal through dreams and nightmares all their little lives; his presence is as familiar as their own thoughts, and as alien as a faroff star. There is nothing human about him.

Certainly not now.

“You fear I will take him back? I will - if he breaks his word to do no harm. Until then, he is yours.”

The faintest twitch of that thin, bloodless mouth on the last word. It is impossible to ascertain what it means.

Dream does not step closer. Reality simply shifts around him until he is closer - or at least it feels that way.

“If you will not trust me, then trust that I am bound by my word. You have nothing to fear from me… in your Waking hours.”

[formshaper]

“There we go! We’re getting to know each other now, aren’t we?” / taskmaster quote for morpheus! he probably answered one (1) surface-level question and john will be riding that high for the rest of the convo

@talentforlying

Ordinarily, Constantine’s incessant chatter is met with silence - or unsubtle evasion, when questions are asked that the dreamlord does not wish to answer. John asks a lot of questions. Not all of them are ones he seems to expect an answer to - often it’s like he’s talking just to talk, because he knows Dream won’t.

Morpheus has learned to… endure this. Occasionally he even appreciates it, in his way.

He has never expressed this to John.

He would not know how.

The question had been something like, do you like yours, then, the one that made you? Did something make you? on the subject of creators, loosely related to a previous topic of Dream’s own creations, his duties to them. Dream had thought about it for a quiet moment and said, “No. Not as such.”

Then he looked away, but—

But Constantine reacts with such glee that for an odd moment Dream thinks that John is about to clap his shoulder. He’s beaming so bright and standing so close.

Fortunately for both of them no such incident occurs. He doesn’t know why he thought it might.

Dream drifts past him without so much as a whisper of fabric. Silver-gold specks of dreamdust linger where they drift from his coat.

His voice has gone stony again.

“We are already well acquainted, are we not?”

[formshaper]

[ 45. ] sender is the first person receiver sees after returning to consciousness. (Insomnia @ Cid, Cid somehow ended up in the Dreaming [s]probably because of Corinthian related shenanigans[/s] but Insomnia is just peering at him like a cat watching it's owner and they've missed breakfast time by one minute. @ Dream or Daniel please come collect your "cat")

"Jesus."

Cid's seen a lot of weird shit in his time, but the--thing crouched right beside his face has such a violently unsettling presence that even he has to scoot backwards away from it. It's wearing a fucking hospital gown. Although Cid has extensive experience in hospital settings, something about it on this creature in particular makes his skin crawl.

Still half-lying in the sand, he realises he's dreaming.

"You one of his? Another nightmare?"

A shadow stretches over them both. Darker than the blackest night and far more threatening. Cid has to whip his head around to look up at the source of it: twin stars stare past him, settling on the little intruder.

"No. He is not."

"Jesus," Cid says again. What else can you say, really?

Morpheus extends a hand, and the beast in the hospital gown vanishes into sand, displaced to some other realm. Cid opens his mouth to ask where the fuck Dream sent it--

--and wakes in the back of Vic's car with a shout, drenched in sweat and covered by his leather jacket.

"Fuck!" He throws off the jacket, sitting up quickly to get his bearings. He's awake. His dead heart is pounding, but he's safe. He's fine. No dark stranger looming over him. Funny that the little demon-looking guy wasn't the scariest part: it was Morpheus. Cid wonders if the dreamlord knows about him and the first Corinthian... or him and the second.

In the driver's seat, Vittorio looks at him through the rearview mirror. "Aye? Bad dream?"

"Like you wouldn't believe," Cid grumbles, and slumps in the backseat.