String of Fate
Morpheus/Dream of the Endless x Reader
Summary: Two of the three Fates don't like the ending that has long been written for Dream of the Endless, and endeavour to change that by bringing him in contact with his soulmate. While such a decision saves Morpheus's life, it also changes everything he thought he knew about the natural order of the universe when he discovers that his soulmate is a mortal.
Word count: 5.6k
A note from the author: I've had this soulmate idea stuck in my head for a very long time, but I worried that I would be unable to write it because it was out of character/I couldn't figure out how to get it to work. Then the first six episodes of season 2 dropped, I saw how much of a yearning, sad, pathetic lover boy Morpheus actually is (thinking specifically of the look he gives Nada when she comes to him in the Dreaming for the first time), and the hesitation on the faces of the Mother and Maiden before Morpheus's string is cut, and went "oh I can work with this."
Not sure yet if this will be a true series with chapters or just a series of one-shots, but there will be more parts (I've already started writing them)! I’m honestly really nervous to release this just bc of how ambitious it is haha. I so hope you enjoy reading, and would greatly appreciate hearing from you about your thoughts on this!
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Official String of Fate playlist
In a pocket realm masquerading as a cottage sit three women of varying ages, each appearing to be about twenty-five or so years older than the woman sitting on her right. The youngest, her tight curls shiny and skin clear of any blemishes, sits next to a spinning wheel and works at coiling her latest yarn into a ball. The next, a woman whose gray streaks and smile lines begin to betray the years she looks to have lived, continues to knit a scarf made of fine, black wool. The last, her white hair and wrinkled skin just barely scratching the surface of how old she truly is, idly pets a calico cat in her lap as she peruses the front page of what looks to be a newspaper.
The women are known by many names. The Gray Ladies. The Kindly Ones. The Fates. Maiden, Mother, and Crone. But at this moment, in this space so sacred to them which exists outside of the jurisdiction of any of the beings that they oversee, they are simply sister-selves.
“The Oneiromancer gave the key formerly belonging to Lucifer Morningstar to the angels,” the Crone notes blithely, summing up what she’s been reading.
“Where it should have been all along,” the Maiden says. “The Silver City cast Lucifer out in the first place and sent them to oversee Hell. Might as well finally have to clean up their own mess.”
The Mother sighs. “Speaking of messes, poor Morpheus must have one of his own to clean up after hosting all of those pantheons and realms in his very seat of power.”
“‘Poor Morpheus,’” the Crone mocks, rolling her eyes. “The last thing any of the Endless need is our pity, but especially him. No, the only thing he’ll be receiving from us is what his prophecy foretells.”
Though all three of the Ladies possess powers of Sight, the Crone has a special aptitude for events which have not yet come to pass. She also holds grudges like no other and still bitterly recalls the whole matter with Circe and the Dream King’s role in it, and has thus been keeping a particular interest in the length of the scarf currently being knit.
The Maiden, who has a memory longer than most and vividly recalls just how deeply the Sandman loves his son, despite how it may, at times, have looked otherwise, winces just slightly at the reminder of what is coming. Though the action was minute, the Mother, who is perhaps most like the name given to her in that she always wants the best for her ‘children,’ notices, as she always does.
“The oldest battle will begin, and—” the buzzing of a timer in another room cuts the Crone off. “Ah! That’ll be the cookies. One moment, lovies.”
The cat jumps off her lap as she stands from the couch with an agility that one would not expect from someone looking to be the Crone’s age and heads into the kitchen to begin preparing tea.
“I’ll be sad to see this one end,” the Mother laments, running a hand down the rows of neat stitches. “Our sweet sister-self would call me a softie if she were in here, and maybe it’s true. How can I not be, though? Dream of the Endless is changing, though he once believed that impossible. It’s slowgoing, of course—”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less from him,” the Maiden notes with a small smile.
“Nor I. But there are futures out there where he is given the chance to change fully, futures where he accomplishes a whole lot.” This isn’t a mere guess; in the same way that her sisters can keenly recall the past and peer into the future, the Mother sees the potential paths of everybody who walks Destiny’s garden.
It comes to both Maiden and Mother at the same time that neither of them particularly wants to see Dream of the Endless’s story end in such a way as the Crone has been anticipating.
The Maiden glances through the door, where the eldest-presenting of the three has disappeared to the kitchen. “There is…something we could do, you know.”
She gravitates towards a cupboard near the window, opening it and beginning to search through what looks to be an infinite supply of yarn until she finds the skein she’s looking for. After checking the identification tag that every skein carries, so as not to get any mixed up, she hums satisfactorily.
For a species so full of themselves, human mortals only know about five to ten percent of what they would consider to be the Universe’s mysteries. What’s waiting for them after death (whatever they decide), if there’s a god (many), if they’re the only signs of intelligent life out there (hardly, and it’s a stretch even to call the human race intelligent). Another one of those mysteries is that of love. Is there such a thing as true love, as soulmates? Though they are familiar with the concept, even going so far as to attempt to label their loves as soulmates, they truly do not know if the person they are attaching themselves to is the one meant for them.
If only they knew what almost every other species capable of higher thought does: that soulmates are very real, and finding one’s is not nearly as much of a guessing game when one’s senses are heightened. Currently, Morpheus and his soulmate do not meet. While Morpheus dies, his soulmate goes on without ever having any idea of his death. There would be a few relationships before a perfectly normal and loving marriage, but his soulmate would never know the all-consuming love of being fated to someone. Now, however…
“Oops.” The new yarn is dropped in the Mother’s lap, and sparks emit as it bounces against the other yarn.
The Mother grins, scandalized. “Naughty petal,” she teases.
“Quickly now, before she returns,” the Maiden urges, returning to her seat and becoming very interested in her own project once more.
The Mother’s deft hands go to work, relying on thousands and thousands of years of practice to begin to knit the new yarn into the well-established pattern already created. By the time the Crone returns, there is no feasible way for the yarns to be separated without stepping into one of the few domains they have no power over.
Her outrage and indignation can do nothing now, for the fates of two have been combined into one, and the future has already been set in motion.
•••
Dream of the Endless is, as he is told that the youth of today say, going through it. A simple family dinner (though is anything truly simple when it involves any of the Endless?) proved to be the catalyst for attempting to reverse one of his most regrettable and shameful decisions, only for his journey to turn into a cosmic fiasco when Lucifer Morningstar abruptly retired and gave him the key to Hell, a key that he neither wanted nor needed. Still, he dutifully oversaw the various pantheons and realms as they each vied for the key, if only to ensure the safety of the woman he originally sought to free.
Although he did not necessarily expect Nada to unilaterally forgive him for what he had done, Morpheus did hope that she would understand the sincerity in his actions at present. The opposite was true. She…struck him. Dressed him down as though he were a mere child. Still, he offered her what he once did ten thousand years ago, for his love for her had not diminished in those ten thousand years: the chance to rule by his side. The Queen of the First People, always so eloquent with words, turned him down with a barb that cut so deeply, Morpheus wondered if the wound left behind would ever heal.
“I wonder if your kind is even capable of love,” she said to him, chin held high and looking every inch the ruler she once was.
Morpheus tried to defend himself, to make her see that he did love, and that he loved her. His efforts were futile, and she cared not what he had to say. She wished him well, ever the diplomat. Then Nada was gone, to see what the Waking had in store for her, leaving behind only devastation and loneliness, those old friends.
That was mere hours ago, the Dreaming almost immediately becoming drenched in torrential thunderstorms thereafter. Morpheus made his way to a balcony at the top of the palace, content to let the rain drown him. Lucienne, however, would not stand for it.
“My Lord,” she said tersely, black umbrella shielding her from the brunt of the storm, “perhaps solace is not the best thing for you right now.”
Perhaps she was right, but Morpheus, who was in no mood to listen to helpful solutions, glowered as he stared off ahead into the distant mountains. “Then what would you suggest?”
She thought for a moment, then sighed. “I am sure Hob Gadling is worried after your last interaction, where you told him that you may miss your next meeting. And he has said that you are always welcome.”
Pride and anger almost have Morpheus shoot the idea down before Lucienne can finish speaking. However, as he thinks about it, he realizes that there might be some merit to her suggestion. Hob Gadling had faced many triumphs and challenges throughout his long (for humans, that is) life, matters of the heart surely being one of those. Might the immortal man have some wisdom for a situation such as this?
Now he sits in the temple Hob had inadvertently created while waiting for his oldest friend to return, the New Inn, hand loosely curled around a stem of red wine that he has not yet touched. While the majority of him wishes still to be drenched in rain, another part appreciates the way that the Waking feels real. The Dreaming is real, of course, but he can manipulate every aspect of his realm. Here, he is master of none, and experiences the sights and sounds of a small pub on a Thursday night as any being would.
Morpheus had not gotten the opportunity to ask Lucienne the question he had been meaning to pose to her before he left the Dreaming. So, here in the Waking, he finds that opportunity. “Do you believe that I am incapable of love?”
From across the table, Hob Gadling cocks his head in thought. “Did the woman—did Nada say that to you?”
Morpheus nods. “They were some of her last words to me before she…left.”
The immortal sits quietly to compose his thoughts, taking a sip of his drink and staring up at the ceiling until the words he believes will comfort the Dreamlord, while also telling the truth, come to him. “She’s speaking in anger, my friend. You did an objectively bad thing to her, and she has every right to react towards you in whatever way she sees fit. But,” he says quickly, knowing that Morpheus is a breath away from angering, “she is wrong. Do you not love your realm, the dreams and nightmares that you create? Do you not love the dreamers whom you oversee? Your family, your…friends?”
None of that is romantic love, of course, but Hob is right, as he so often is. Morpheus does experience love in every one of those instances—sometimes begrudgingly, but he does love.
“You speak true, my friend,” Morpheus acknowledges, feeling his sister’s realm loosen its hold on him just slightly as the shadows of Despair begin to shrink.
Hob grins and opens his mouth to speak, but movement from the front of the pub captures his attention, and he instead waves. A mortal approaches their table—braver than most mortals in this pub, who have, so far (as is usually the case when he’s in the Waking), taken one look at the Endless and shied away in fear.
“Hey, Rob!” the mortal greets, using a name Hob must be going by in this century.
“Now, my favorite TA wouldn’t be taking advantage of my pub to work on homework for my class that you haven’t done yet, would you?” he asks.
“I’m your only TA this semester.” The sentence conveys that this is a common line for Hob, who chuckles and waves a hand nonchalantly in the air.
“Semantics!”
“But to answer your question, a couple of us are meeting up before the history grad students’ weekly happy hour to work on our term assignments for Keller’s Archival Methods class. I would never work on your homework in front of you!”
The mortal looks at Morpheus and winks, letting him in on the secret shared between student and teacher that homework for Hob Gadling’s classes has absolutely been completed in this building before, and with one quick movement of an eye, Morpheus feels himself come undone.
(In that little pocket realm masquerading as a cottage, two of the three Fates giggle and congratulate themselves on their impeccable timing, while the third sulks as she stares into the fire.)
The concept of soulmates is not rare among beings like himself. Indeed, out of all the species capable of higher thought, humans are the only ones who believe it to be a mere myth or fairytale (humans, of course, believe almost everything that they cannot understand is a myth or fairytale, which is why the other specieses don’t bother with them the majority of the time). To them, it’s a word one would use to describe the one whom they love most in the hopes that there are some forces of the universe out there steering them towards true love.
Most of the gods and goddesses, fae, beings, and creatures of all kinds, who have spoken about it in his presence mention a number of “signs” that average humans, with their dulled senses and limited use of brain capacity, miss. Sometimes it is simply a feeling, as though the universe has been tilted off balance the entire time, and meeting one’s soulmate has righted it. In other cases, electricity seems to spark the first time soulmates touch. Some have known their soulmate’s name before they properly introduce themselves, and others know exactly what their soulmate’s first words to them will be. He has even heard rare tales of seeing the Fates’ work itself, strings of fate connecting soulmates when they’re first in proximity.
Morpheus has never doubted the existence of soulmates, nor has he doubted the experiences he has heard. No, what he has always questioned has been the intensity of such a bond. How powerful could true love actually be, to change the life of one so powerful? Surely, a soulmate did not exert that much sway over a being of myth and legend?
He has been in love before, of course—with Alianora, with Killala, with Calliope. For a moment, when he rescued Nada from Azazel, he allowed himself to hope that such a second chance was his sign that Nada was his soulmate.
Now, he knows that those loves were pale imitations of the love that one has for a soulmate. A single wink has transformed everything that he thought he knew about life, and where he once saw no future that did not involve taking his sister’s hand, now, he sees only possibility. It’s not just a mortal who stands in front of him now, one of seven billion faceless creatures that occupy his realm for a third of their short lives.
No, it’s you.
Morpheus comes to know your identity immediately by virtue of you being a dreamer, yet he thinks he will not truly be satisfied unless he hears it from you directly. For a brief moment, a black string appears around his wrist, stretching and morphing into a silver one as it loops around your own. Then, it’s gone, leaving behind only the startling realization that Dream of the Endless has met his soulmate.
You bid farewell to Hob as Morpheus watches helplessly, uncharacteristically breathless when you, the deity he now worships faithfully, deign to smile his way before leaving. He is a mere planet sucked into the orbit of a bright, shining sun as his eyes follow you across the room, watching as you greet your friends at a large table. When you toss your head back in a laugh while removing a computer from your bag, he regrets that he’s too far away to hear the sound.
“My friend?” Hob’s voice is the life preserver he needs to pull himself out of the ocean he’s found himself treading through, and finally manages to look away. “Is everything alright?”
Morpheus is unsure. On the one hand, it seems as though he has finally found what he has spent nearly his entire, endless life searching for, right when he had decided that it might be time to stop altogether. On the other hand, the intensity of the bond forming…frightens him. Further, you’re a mortal, which means that he risks once again ending a civilization of humans thanks to his romantic aspirations. Instead of answering Hob’s question, he asks one of his own.
“You have lived a long life,” Morpheus begins, trying desperately not to sound as shaky as he feels. “Surely you have heard of the concept of soulmates?”
Hob’s smile turns soft, wistful. “Of course. Some immortals think that it’s the universe or whoever giving them something to make unending life bearable; others, like myself, are simply romantics who are charmed by the idea of having a love to follow them from life to life. I’ve heard your lot have a much easier time finding soulmates than us regular ol’ immortals, that your heightened senses show you things the rest of us can’t see.” His brow furrows in thought as he digests the rather odd change in subject. “Why do you ask? Did…did you believe Nada to be your soulmate?”
Morpheus is relieved that Hob hasn’t made the connection between his oldest friend’s sudden odd behavior and the appearance of his student. “Yes,” he answers truthfully. “For a time, I did.”
None of his previous feelings matter anymore, though, now that the answer to his happiness is sitting across the room.
“Forgive me, Hob, but I must end our meeting sooner than I hoped. There are…matters that I must attend to.” He needs to leave, for if he does not, he fears he may occupy this chair all night and watch you in a manner that would be considered ‘creepy’ by today’s standards.
To his credit, Hob does not act like their meeting is being cut short. “No worries at all. You know you’re welcome any time.”
“Thank you for your hospitality and counsel.”
Morpheus hesitates before leaving, defenseless against fate as his gaze is drawn back to you once more. After a moment, he opens the door to the pub and steps back into his own realm.
The ornate stained glass windows of his throne room do not allow him to see outside. But Morpheus does not require windows to know that the weather has already cleared, from booming thunder, bright lightning, and gale-force winds to clearing clouds and hesitant rays of sunlight beginning to dry the drenched landscape of the Dreaming. His realm’s weather is a direct reflection of his own emotions, and as he staggers to sit on the steps leading up to his throne, hope begins to warm his own waterlogged heart.
A soulmate. He would be lying if he were to say he hadn’t ever imagined the possibility of there being someone out there fated for him. Hob Gadling had called himself a romantic when explaining what he knew of the phenomena, and though Morpheus would never use the word to describe himself, he does think it apt. For all that he has been a being so devoted to his duties, he has also longed for someone to share those duties with.
If what he has seen is true, and he truly has become the first of the Endless to have a soulmate, then there is much to consider. There is only one person equipped to help him with this (only one person whose help he wants with this), even if she has never been through such an experience herself, which is how he finds himself in his gallery, staring ahead at the ankh placed in a frame.
“Sister,” Morpheus calls. “I must speak with you.”
“Hiya, little brother,” Death’s voice sounds from her sigil after mere seconds. “This a quick matter?”
“I would prefer that you come through, if you have some time.” Though no day can ever be slow when one is an anthropomorphic personification of a vital universal concept, Morpheus does hope that today, at least, is not busy for his sister.
“I always have time for you,” she says fondly.
One moment, there is nothing but air in front of him. The next, his beloved sister, her trademark smile the antithesis of the all-black ensemble she always sports. Said smile falters when she takes in Morpheus’s affect, likely resembling that of a wounded animal.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Death asks, placing a hand on his arm. “I figured you would be sad after the whole Nada thing—”
Wonderful, Morpheus thinks distantly, word of my rejection has already spread beyond the boundaries of the Dreaming.
“—but this is…not sadness. I’ve seen you sad before. A lot, actually.”
He tries not to take offense, for he knows that she speaks true.
“You have,” he agrees. “And you are correct.”
“Well, out with it then. What’s got you in such a state?”
He has to make an effort to say the words, a part of him worried that it might not be true if he actually voices what he’s just experienced. “It appears that I have…found my soulmate.”
Death’s smile slides off her face in shock before quickly reappearing, somehow wider than before. “Shut up!”
Morpheus’s brows furrow as anger rushes through him. “I beg your pardon?”
When she begins to laugh, those thunderclouds that were only just banished begin to build again over the palace. The Endless were never technically children, but at this moment, Morpheus feels every bit the little brother that he is as he perceives his eldest sister to be making fun of him.
“This is no joke, my sister.” His voice booms through the gallery, making the frames shake just slightly.
“No, sorry, I didn’t mean it in a bad way! You unintentionally quoted a movie, that’s all—remind me to show you that movie sometime, same actress as the one in Mary Poppins! I’m simply trying to say how shocked I am.” Death’s eyes shine as she looks at him. “Dream! Your soulmate? You’re sure?”
“The string of fate all but confirmed it.”
She squeals, a high-pitched shriek that echoes through his gallery, stopping suddenly when she realizes her merriment is not shared. “Wait. Why are you not excited? I thought you would be more excited!”
“It would appear that my soulmate is…mortal.”
Enthusiasm deflates out of her like air being released from a balloon. “Oh. Well. That is a problem, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he agrees, even though that feels to be a massive understatement. His soulmate being a mortal is more than a problem; it’s a tragedy just waiting to happen.
Death’s eyes flick around the room before she looks at Morpheus again. “Y’know who would be able to help us with this?”
He knows exactly where she’s going with this and wants no part in it. “Sister, no—”
“Destiny!”
“It is alright, truly—”
The last thing he needs is another of his siblings involved in this situation, specifically the one who can tell him what he fears to hear, but his words fall on deaf ears as Death stands in front of Destiny’s sigil.
“Hello, big brother!” Death runs a finger along Destiny’s frame. “May we come through?”
The reply is immediate. “You are both meant to be in my realm at this time.”
“Ooh, lucky us.” Death grins and takes Morpheus’s arm so that he cannot escape, stepping into Destiny’s Garden as the fabric between realms gives way upon their eldest brother’s invitation.
Destiny of the Endless stands before them, looking as he always does—wearing his robes and carrying his Book, stern and acting as though he carries the weight of many worlds on his shoulders (which is technically true). Out of all of his siblings, Morpheus speaks the least to Destiny, for he knows that there will never be room for a friendly conversation if the Book does not require it.
“Death. Dream,” Destiny acknowledges with a slight nod. Death darts over to give him a kiss on the cheek, and though he tries his best to keep his face as stonelike as the statues surrounding the garden, his lips still twitch up just slightly at the affection.
“Brother,” Morpheus greets. “Need I explain the situation to you, or has your Book explained it already?”
“Yes, I know what has happened.”
“Then you know that our sister believes you have answers to a number of questions.”
“Do not hide your curiosity behind our sister’s actions. You also want answers.”
Even though he knows Destiny isn’t being malicious by saying it, Morpheus still feels chastised and has to fight the urge to lower his eyes to the ground. “Yes,” he says, a little quieter than before, “I do.”
“Your path has stayed the same for centuries now, with little variation.” Destiny opens the Book to a page that must contain Morpheus’s story. “Yesterday, that changed.”
He gets the feeling that the debacle with the key to Hell has something to do with his story changing. “I was not supposed to meet…”
It’s impossible to bring himself to say the word to his brother, to breathe life into his hopes in front of one who could so easily crush them.
“No. But for reasons that I do not understand and cannot say, forces intervened. The moment that you left the Dreaming, it was providence that you would meet your soulmate.”
Though he knows that he must temper his emotions, that there is still a large part of the equation that has yet to be solved, this confirmation that the string of fate Morpheus saw connecting you to him was not a trick of the eye, that the sudden intensity with which he found himself falling for you was not mere desperation to be loved after crushing rejection, is a gift.
“The first of the Endless to find their soulmate!” Death says beside him, likely almost as happy as he is, simply due to one of her siblings finding happiness. “And here I thought that the Fates simply enjoyed being cruel to us because of our power.”
“There is still the matter of my soulmate’s mortality,” Dream reminds both his sister and himself.
This, he believes, is where the fantasy comes to an end. Death may be pleasantly surprised that the Hecate allowed him a soulmate in the first place, but he worries that their cruelty lies in the linking of his soul to a mortal’s. There will be no falling in love, no learning another in every way that matters. There will be no marriage, no everlasting partnership. No, he will be forced to know that there is someone out there for him, but that making a move would ensure your demise, and likely the demise of many others. He will be forced to watch from afar as you go through life without him, until eventually his chance at true love takes his sister’s hand and journeys to the Sunless Lands.
“We are forbidden to love mortals, lest we bring about their ruin.” His voice sounds hollow as he repeats this unwritten law, matching the hollowness that he is soon to feel for the rest of his endless life.
Death smiles sympathetically, but does not seem as heartbroken for him as he might have imagined. “I have a theory, if you’d be willing to hear it?”
Morpheus nods. “By all means.”
“I’ve been thinking about this for a while, honestly, and the past few days have made me consider that there might be some weight behind this idea. Though we, the Endless, all have our different purposes, our main one is to serve humanity. Humans hold quite a lot of power, even if they don’t realize it. They decide where they go after they die, and their belief, or lack thereof, gives the gods power. Beings with power like to believe that we have control over humans, but if anything, they have control over us.
“Nada and the First People believed that to love an Endless meant devastation for them. Might that be why the First People were wiped out, and not because it’s an unwritten law?”
Morpheus has never considered this, and mulls the possibility over. Desire, specifically, had courted a mortal in order to sire a child in the hopes of Morpheus spilling family blood. Though they did not love Unity Kincaid, he knows from Unity’s own words that she loved her ‘golden-eyed man’ very much. Yet there was never the end of a civilization due to her love, nor did there seem to be any natural consequences for such a union.
Is Death right? Has Morpheus been living under a misguided belief all this time?
“Destiny?” Morpheus asks, yet again, afraid to know what his brother might say. “Is she correct?”
“The Gray Ladies, for all of their aforementioned cruelty and disdain towards us, respect the concept of love; they relish playing matchmaker. It is one of their favorite parts of their function.”
Their other favorite, of course, is when their services as the Kindly Ones are invoked.
Morpheus must uncharacteristically swallow to clear his throat. “So it is true? I will not bring about the end of modern civilization by pursuing my soulmate?”
Destiny remains silent, and Death whoops excitedly.
“That’s a yes!” she declares, wrapping an arm around Morpheus’s shoulders and squeezing—the closest to a hug he typically allows. “Thank you. This visit has been everything I hoped it would be.”
“It is time now for you both to depart,” Destiny responds. He’s not being rude by ushering his siblings out of his realm; it is simply what the Book demands, and he must follow that steadfastly.
“Yes, of course, we’ll let you get back to it. Farewell, Destiny!” Death bids, waving once before disappearing through the tear in the veil that will undoubtedly lead back to the Dreaming.
“Thank you, brother. Truly.” Morpheus would thank him more profusely than this, but it would be in vain. Destiny knows just how thankful Morpheus truly is.
“Dream,” Destiny calls as Morpheus has one foot back in his realm.
He turns to look at his older brother, only to see the fond twitch of his lips typically reserved for Death or Delirium directed towards him.
“Good luck.”
It is not the usual foreboding tone of someone who knows what is to come and is merely conveying the necessary information as required by his function. No, these words are sincere, are well wishes that one would give to someone they care greatly about, and he appreciates them all the more as a result.
Morpheus nods gratefully, then makes his way through to the Dreaming, where Death stands beaming with her hands clasped in front of her.
“You have a soulmate,” she breathes, awed.
“I do.” While he knows he should be visibly thrilled, he cannot help but to remain serious as he works to fully digest the information, works through what it actually means for him and his future.
Death notices this, as she always does, and takes his hands in hers. “You get to be loved, Dream, just like you’ve always wanted. Don’t be scared of this gift that you’ve been given.”
But he is scared. Terrified is a better word to describe how he’s feeling. What if you deny him as Nada has done? What if the gravity of a soulmate bond, of loving one of the Endless, proves too tall a task for you? He could not bear it if his love—if the reveal of so much beyond the world you’ve been raised to know—were to cause you fear. He cannot get this wrong, will not get this wrong, yet…
“I know not how to court in this day and age, let alone court a mortal,” he says weakly. It is a flimsy excuse, of course, and one that Death sees right through.
“You’re asking the wrong being, since it’s been a good two hundred years or so since I’ve been truly involved with anybody. I’m quite sure that there’s some information on modern dating rituals—it’s called dating now, by the way, not courting—in that ginormous library of yours. Your raven was recently human, too, wasn’t he?”
He need not say anything, for they both know the questions are rhetorical. She squeezes his hands softly before releasing them and stepping towards her frame.
“I’ve got to get back to work, okay? But please don’t doubt yourself. You deserve this! And you’ll figure out how you want to approach this situation; you always do.”
Death has always had an unshakable faith in him, even when he does not believe the same of himself. “I appreciate your wisdom, as always, my dear sister.”
“Bye, Dream.” She opens her own rift between realms, likely to the Waking. “I expect to hear all about this soulmate of yours when we meet next!”
Then Morpheus is alone, left to his own devices as he tries to figure out where one starts when they first meet their soulmate.
