Can We Just Talk About This Sklskslsl👀👀

The Rings of Power

1.03 “Adar”  

· Elendil of Númenor, future first High King of the Dúnedain in Gondor and Arnor ·

👑 + 😃

SIR PLEASE!

Source

(via)

where you go (i will go) — part xiii

Summary: Hob offers you a lesson in love, and Dream's quest for answers finally comes to fruition.

Words: 6.1k+

AN: Been looking forward to this one for a long time. Enjoy! x

masterlist

. . .

“I still remember everything you like,

Following your footsteps in my mind;

Tearing out the pages that I write,

‘Cause every line I read is through your eyes.”

Sun, loveless

. . . 

part xiii

While the residents of Dream Country rest, their minds swaddled in the thick comfort of slumber, their creator’s mind races. Standing in the center of his gallery, Dream of the Endless contemplates his next moves for the hundredth time. The twin fires lighting the gallery leap and flicker, seemingly mirroring the turmoil within their master’s mind. 

Morpheus had existed since the dawn of the first thought, since the first need for rest. The breadth of experience he had navigated in his eons of existence could not be overstated. These eons had granted him wisdom and enlightenment beyond the attainment of most beings. It was not often that he was faced with indecision. 

It was you who had spurred him to invite Calliope to the Dreaming. ‘Sometimes, if you love something, Dream, the best thing you can do is let it go.’ In your months of knowing one another, it had never ceased to astound him how you spoke the right words at the right times, seemingly without even realizing it yourself. He had sent for Calliope the very next day, arranging her visit without delay.  

Their meeting in the Dreaming had been desperately needed, even…curative. He was hopeful that the opportunity to air their grievances and confessions would be fruitful. He was hopeful that it would allow her to move forward and find greater happiness, just as you’d said. He wondered if it might do the same for him. 

That had been the first step. After you’d left the Dreaming earlier tonight, Morpheus had returned to the throne room alone. He had once told you that the vastness of the sea helped him think more clearly. The vastness of the cosmos beyond the throne room’s trusses were no different. He had observed them for hours after you’d left the Dreaming, seeking guidance. Seeking answers. 

The longer he’d observed, the more musings had made themselves known to him. Like how the slant of Capricornus reminded him of the curve of your jaw, the curl of your eyelashes. How Lyra summoned the memory of watching you foster attachments during his first visit to your Realm. The serenity in your expression as you’d plucked the threads like harp strings would have been put to shame by human descriptions. He wondered what you might do if he brought Canis Major to life above you, if he called the Great Dog right out of the sky and sent him into your arms. Would it soothe your sorrow about the friend you’d parted with, Theo? 

The longer he’d stared, the longer each cluster of stars above had led him back to the glimmer in your eyes. The glimmer that surfaced whenever you emboldened a new attachment, or gave input on a new dream. The same glimmer he witnessed when you collapsed onto the dock after a long night of working, when you smiled at Lucienne, or when you laughed with Matthew. When you looked at him. 

On the first day you’d traveled to the Dreaming all those months ago, a call had risen in him. It seemed to strengthen in your presence, beckoning him toward you. You know her. She is familiar, it whispered. He supposed it was from your time as a human long ago. He knew he must have encountered your unconsciousness before, crafted nightmares and fantasies for you and you alone. In spite of this knowledge, he could not place you. Like a song he’d once known, but was lost to him. He could not grasp the words of you, yet remembered your tune deep in his bones. 

In spite of his nature, he had tried to be patient. You had been open with him, had revealed your mystery piece by piece. And yet, even still, your picture remained incomplete. 

He was weary of being patient. He wanted to know the truth. He needed to know everything. 

His feet carry him toward Death’s sigil with purpose. When he takes it in his hands, it’s without indecision. 

“Sister, it is your brother, Dream of the Endless. I stand in my gallery and I hold your sigil. I wish to talk.”

. . . 

The slap of your sneakers against the cobblestones echoes in the stillness of London’s night. Teetering around freezing, a wintery mix falls from the sky, wetting your hair and cheeks. The bitter wind cuts straight to the bone, but you barely pay it any mind. All your attention is trained on the building in front of you, on the golden lamp lights that illuminate its familiar green door. 

Your knuckles rap against The New Inn’s front door hastily. Heart in your throat, you anxiously pull at your fingers as you wait for some sign of life on the other side. When several long seconds drag by with no reply, you huff with frustration, pounding on the door in earnest.

After several seconds of banging, a groggy voice calls from within, “Okay, okay! I’m coming.” As the sound of locks being undone reaches your ears, you swear you hear a grumbled, “Gonna wake up my damn customers.” 

When Hob Gadling swings the door open, his eyes are heavy with sleep, his hair utterly disheveled. He looks like he’s properly prepared to chew out whatever unlucky stranger has torn him from his slumber. But as his eyes flicker over your recognizable features, the anger slips from his face. “Love?” he says incredulously, trying to blink the sleep from his eyes.

You heave a sigh of relief at his familiar face. “Thank the Maker, Hob. It’s so good to see you.” Now comes the truth. Clasping your fidgeting hands in front of you, you gaze up at him imploringly. When the words come out, they flee you in a rush. “I need your help. I think I’m in love.”

. . .

The smirk that Hob levels you with from across the table is downright, undeniably smug. Upon ushering you into The New Inn and out of the cold, he’d graciously poured a glass of water to calm you, hot tea to warm you, and a beer to “make those problems of yours seem a little smaller.” All three sit before you now, untouched. Your hands are clasped tightly in your lap, white-knuckled and nervous. 

Hob is the first one to break the weighty silence. “You could have told me you were snogging, you know. I bloody knew you were snogging.”

Your head falls into your hands with a groan. “We weren’t.” Understanding the connotation that that gives, you hastily add, “We haven’t.”

You can’t say you’re surprised that Hob’s taking the opportunity to tease. In fact, it would’ve been more surprising if he hadn’t. In spite of Hob’s smugness, you don’t regret coming here. After you’d learned the truth of your attachment with Dream, it was the first place you’d thought to go. You liked Hob Gadling a great deal. You’d paid him a couple of other visits in recent weeks whenever work brought you to London, sipping on afternoon tea while Hob nursed a beer. 

As much as you loved Lucienne and Matthew, you didn’t dare go to them with your secret. In the end, their loyalty was with Dream, as it should be. Besides, Hob was honest about Dream–brutally, at times–and, to your understanding, they didn’t see each other often. He seemed to be your safest bet, and a comfortable one, at that. 

From between your fingers, you watch Hob throw his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay, I believe you. Sorry, I’m just amazed. I’ve known him a long time, and the subject of romantice has never come up. To call him reserved about his love life–hell, about everything–would be an understatement. How did this even happen?”

You heave a sigh into your palms. “I don’t know. We were partners in our work–that’s how it started. The more time went by, I guess you could say we became…friends. As much as you can be friends with someone who perpetually keeps everyone at arm’s length. It always seemed so funny…I felt like he could just read me, and I got pretty good at reading him, too. And then, one day, everything was just…different. Like a switch was flipped, and I saw everything in a different light for the first time. It…snuck up on me.   I wasn’t trying to fall for him. If anything, I was trying not to.”

“Well, piss-poor job you did of that.”

You raise your head to glare at him, only to find him grinning at you. You can’t help but relax a little under his friendly gaze. “Yeah, no shit.”

Hob chuckles softly, taking a long drink of his tea. “So, how does he feel?” he asks with a quirk of his brow. 

You nibble at your bottom lip, another nervous habit. “I’m not sure. I haven’t asked. Too scared to, obviously. The attachment is there, but I haven’t done anything to foster it. All I know is that it’s a romantic soul tie.  I’m not sure if it’s one-sided, or if he feels the same way.” 

“What do you mean, if he feels the same way? If the attachment is there, shouldn’t he love you, too?” 

Your heart flutters at the mere mention of the words. You swallow thickly. “Yes and no. Just because it’s meant to be doesn’t mean it has to be. The only way to guarantee an attachment is reciprocated is if I fulfill it through my function. If the attachment is simply there, and I don’t foster it…well, it could be reciprocated, or it could not be. If he doesn’t want to love me, he won’t.”

“Oh, I highly doubt that he doesn’t want to. I bet that lonely bastard is dying to get some, even if he wouldn’t admit it.” You purse your lips at his words as heat rises in your cheeks. Hob huffs in satisfaction and leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest with a grin. “My mysterious friend has a soulmate. Shit, what I’d give to pick his brain about that.”

A tick in your jaw tightens your expression. “You can’t tell him, Hob.”

Hob blinks once, seemingly surprised. “Why? I don’t see what the problem is. Why is being in love with him such a bad thing? Besides the fact that he can be a prick sometimes.”

“Because.”  Your heart stutters at the base of your throat, trapping the words there. You swallow heavily, working past them. Working up the courage to be vulnerable, to tell the truth. “It’s a bad thing, because that’s what ruined things the first time around. That’s what got me in this situation in the first place.” 

The words hang suspended between you in the quiet of the inn. Hob stares at you silently, eyebrows pinched together, searching your face for answers. After several long moments, understanding dawns on his face, softening his expression. “Oh. Oh, Love.”

And that was the fear at the heart of it, wasn’t it? That was the fear at the heart of everything. A fear that had dictated every decision since the day you’d opened your eyes to Death’s kind face, a fear that had suffocated and shadowed your every waking and resting hour for eons. 

You’d loved before. You’d put your heart in another’s hands, and it had ended with those hands around your throat. It had ended in the knowledge that the emotion you’d put so much faith in had been no match for Desire, no match for another pretty pair of eyes. It had ended with you still loving him, in spite of everything, and the crippling self-doubt that came after. It had taken ages for those feelings for him to fade. Even when they had, the self-doubt had still remained. 

In the years since you’d walked the earth, your fellow mortals had crafted romantic turns of phrase to describe the passions of the heart. “The heart wants what it wants,” they said. “Follow your heart,” they said. But could you really trust yours? Could they trust their own? 

You knew it was irrational to think that everything would happen all over again, that history would repeat itself so cruelly. But mortals’ sense of self-preservation was a powerful thing, and yours had carried over into this immortal life. Self-preservation was rarely logical. Self-preservation spurred you to protect yourself, regardless of the cost. 

Sitting across from Hob, it occurs to you for the first time that, perhaps, the fact that your first love had resulted in your demise wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe it was meant to happen, a tragedy carefully designed for a greater purpose. Maybe it was meant to lead you to this moment–to lead you to him. 

Dream. Your eyes flutter closed at the thought of him. If you put your heart in the Dream Lord’s hands, what would he do with it? Would he hold it as fondly as one of his books, revere it as a treasure? Or would he crush it within those elegant fingers that were so adept at creating? You had a hard time believing that he would hurt you, but your past experiences placed a grain of uncertainty in your heart. His own history in love had been troubled, to say the least. But he had shown you remorse. He seemed to be changing. 

You wanted so desperately to believe you were right. You weren’t sure you could bear the pain of being wrong again. 

“I’m scared, Hob,” you breathe past the quiver in your throat. 

Hob watches you in silence for several long moments. When he finally breaks his silence, he does so with a soft chuckle. The sound catches you by surprise, his humor in this situation unexpected. Still, your hammering heart slows at the sound of it. 

“I would’ve thought that the goddess of love would know that love can be scary,” he prods gently, giving you a good-natured smirk. The bait works–you feel the corner of your lips twitch upward in response, which makes him smile wider. “Yes, Love–love can be scary. But that’s a good thing. Means you’ve got something worth being afraid of losing.” 

Hob leans forward, resting his forearms on the table between you. When he levels you with a genuine stare, you find yourself unable to look away. “When we first met, I’d shut myself off from the idea of love for a long time. I was afraid of losing it again, afraid I wouldn’t find something as great as what I’d shared with Eleanor, afraid of how it would work…all of it. But you taught me a lesson, so allow me to return the favor. Giving in to the fear…it’s safe. It’s the easy way out. Confronting it is harder. But if you don’t, my friend, you risk missing out on the happiness waiting for you on the other side.” 

. . . 

The honey-gold beach forms a soft pillow beneath you as you gaze at the stars swimming overhead. And when you say swimming, you mean it quite literally. Fake Dream sits beside you, one hand supporting his weight behind him, the other extended to the night sky overhead. As his fingers elegantly sway back and forth, Volans and Pisces do the same, swimming through the darkness above in a shimmer of stars. 

You smile as the two dive past one another, their tails almost intertwining. You’d told the Dream Lord once that watching the night sky was calming to you, and the sentiment had been genuine. You turn to face him, cheek pressed into the sand. “Very impressive, but I think you’ve got more in you. This is my unconscious–anything is possible here. Paint me a fable, Fake Dream Lord.” 

The full moon hovering high above the water bathes the beach in a soft film of white. Fake Dream’s skin seems to glow from within beneath it, the faint upturn of his lips easier to spot against the pale backdrop. He dips his chin at you and then, as if to show off, waves his hand across the sky without breaking eye contact. 

At Fake Dream’s beck and call, the heavens above begin to shift and change. As his palm glides across the sky, so too do Vela, Puppis, and Carina, setting Argo Navis asail down the river of the Milky Way. With a wave of his finger, the sea monster Cetus and the sea serpent Hydra burst to life, racing toward Argo Navis in haste to drag it into the sea of the sky. Just as their shimmering appendages reach to pull it under, Cancer, Delphinus, and Dorado spring into action. They dive onto the scene courageously, chasing the sea villains away from the ship and across the sky. 

A laugh bubbles forth from your lips as you watch them disappear into some far-off, unseen galaxy. Your gaze returns to Fake Dream, only to find him still watching you. “Now that is impressive,” you say with a grin. 

As your resting hours pass watching the night sky above, Hob’s words from earlier tonight return to you. He’d encouraged you to leave your fear behind, to not let it stand in the way of the happiness that could await you. But maybe this was a place where you could have everything you wanted. These resting hours, this time with a fake Dream. No matter how many times you met him here, no matter how many times you reminded yourself that this wasn’t real, you couldn’t deny the fact that it felt real. Every word Fake Dream breathed, every move he made–it all felt real. 

Maybe you could lead a double life. Mortals did it every night when they slept. Maybe you could live out your fantasies and live in safety. Indulge your heart, and protect it, too. 

You only had to decide whether knowing it was an illusion was a price you were willing to pay. 

. . . 

In all your months traveling to the Dreaming, it had only ever been a place of beauty. Sure, some days offered clearer skies than others, and the weather wasn’t always sunny and sixty. But there had never been a time when the sun hadn’t seemed to smile upon you, or when the sweet air hadn’t rushed to you in a greeting. 

That’s what makes this morning so jarring. 

When you step out of Dream’s sand and into Fiddler’s Green, the first thing you notice is gray. The entire scene seems steeped in it, like a coffee stain on parchment paper, or the grainy filter of a silent film. Overhead, the normally blue sky is completely suffocated by  dark clouds. Thick and heavy with rain, they churn relentlessly, promising a downpour to come. The air is charged with brewing lightning and anxious energy. Below your feet, the grass of Fiddler’s Green seems dull and lifeless. The sporadic clusters of flowers around you stand limp, drained of color. 

None of the flora reaches to greet you. No sweet smell rushes to meet your nose. 

Something is very wrong. 

You pour another handful of sand over you in a rush. The palace. Take me to the palace. The pull in your chest beckons you there, urging you to find Dream within. 

When Dream’s sand whisks you into the palace foyer, you’re met with utter silence. There is no soft sound of chatter, or far-off music from one of the living quarters. No residents of the Dreaming waltz in to greet you. 

“Matthew? Lucienne? Mervyn?” Your voice echoes through the foyer, up the staircases, into the trusses high above. 

There is no answer. 

Your legs carry you through the hallways of the palace with haste. As you follow the pull in your chest, you quickly realize you’re traversing hallways you’ve never ventured through before. Wherever the Dream Lord is hiding, it’s somewhere that you either haven’t found in your explorations of the palace thus far, or it’s somewhere that hasn’t been made known to you before. You swallow thickly, walking faster. 

After several twists and turns, the pull leads you to a pair of darkly stained oak doors. Compared to the majesty of the rest of the castle, their simplicity seems almost out of place. You can feel Dream’s presence on the other side, beating like an extension of your own heartbeat, a phantom limb. With a deep breath, you push one door open slowly. 

The room that awaits you on the other side can be summed up with one word: Dark. You blink quickly, willing your eyes to adjust. Two fires flicker lowly against a pair of pillars,  providing enough illumination to reveal that the room is circular in shape. Along the far wall are seven ornate golden frames. Through the darkness, you can see that each one houses a different object. Some of them are familiar to you–an ankh, a glass heart, a helm. Dream’s helm. 

That’s when you see him. The Dream Lord himself stands in the center of the room, almost entirely concealed in the darkness. His back is to you, his posture stiff, his head bowed. As you step into the room, you notice that his presence feels…different. It feels dark, heavy. 

In such a confined space, his aura is almost too much to bear. Dream’s energy crackles through the air like live wires, his presence so overwhelming that it seems to crowd the oxygen from the room. As the door closes behind you, it’s not fear that spikes through you–it’s concern. 

“Dream?” you call softly, as if too loud a word from you might break him. When he doesn’t answer, you take a few careful steps toward him. “Dream? What’s going on? The Dreaming looks…sick. And I can’t find anyone.” More silence. “...are you okay?” 

You’re not sure how long you both stand in the darkness, still as stone. It’s only when Dream finally turns that you see the twin stars burning in the inky pools of his eyes. As he turns, you spot the leather-bound volume clutched tightly in one of his hands. Though the low lighting enshadows the name on its cover, understanding creeps through your body like pins and needles. If you found it hard to breathe before, you certainly can’t now. 

“I know everything.” The voice that emerges from Dream’s throat is not that of the Dream you know. This is deeper, primordial, ancient. 

As his words settle over you, your whole world stops, then tilts. 

“How did you get that?” you ask in a whisper. 

“My sister.”

Your eyes fall closed as understanding washes over you. Of course Death told him your mortal name. He’s her brother–if he went to her with a question, why would she not help him? Frustration simmers in your veins, followed by the coldness of guilt. You couldn’t be mad at her for helping him. It’s not like you’d asked her to keep it a secret from him, anyway. 

As the two of you stand in silence, a sense of unease settles over you. It’s a strange feeling, the realization that someone else knows more about you than you know about yourself. He’d read dreams and nightmares you couldn’t remember. He’d lived parts of your life that were unknown to you in his own head. He knew your real name when it was a mystery to yourself. 

He’d truly born witness to all your broken, jagged edges now, both from your mortal life and this one. If you had bared them willingly, you might feel differently. But his knowledge of the former was of his accord, not your own.

When your eyes open, they settle on Dream with a measure of caution. His form is taught and stiff, every muscle tightened with tension. His beautifully sharp features look all the more cutting in the low light. You draw in a deep breath to calm yourself for what lies ahead. “You went behind my back. You wanted to know something, and you went behind my back to figure it out.” 

“You were not forthcoming.”

Now, that sends a spike of anger flaring through you. “Oh, you’re one to talk. Getting you to be forthcoming is like pulling teeth.” 

Something in Dream’s posture changes at the bite of your words. Though his expression betrays nothing, the aura in the room shifts ever so slightly. You’ve become good at reading him over all these months. The emotion that registers to you is hurt. 

Your heart squeezes with the realization, and you bite your tongue. When you speak again, it’s with a softer tone. “I wasn’t forthcoming because it’s painful, Dream. I can’t remember anything before those final moments, and it hurts to relive those. So I don’t really like to just bring it up unprovoked.” 

You pause, gnawing at your bottom lip with nerves. You take a step toward him. Dream’s lithe form, though taut with tension, seems to incline toward you. “But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have told you. I would have told you anything if you’d asked. Whatever you wanted to know.” 

Another pause. You draw a step nearer, your skin humming in his proximity. “Did you really think I wouldn’t have told you?” you ask in a whisper. 

Standing this close, Dream’s eyes are truly dark as night. The pinprick of light glowing within each one makes him look otherworldly. You’ve never seen him like this before. A muscle in his throat flexes, pulling like a length of rope. “You were not ready,” he says, his voice monotone.

“But you were.” Silence. You’ve pegged him. “Can you really tell me that what you did was completely selfless?” you implore, hoping for honesty.

Dream watches you for several long moments. You can tell that he wishes he could say yes. After several dragging seconds, he straightens, pulling away from you. “It matters not.” He turns in a blur of black, stalking toward the wall of sigils. “They will atone for what they’ve done.”

Your face falls at his words. “What do you mean?” you ask. As you follow closely behind him, you reach out, grabbing him by the forearm. It’s not lost on you that this is only the third time you’ve intentionally touched: The first at the mortals’ wedding, the second the night he found you alone in the throne room. 

If the contact takes him off guard, he pushes through it. “My sibling first, and then every living descendant of the one who hurt you.”

“No!” As the exclamation slips from your mouth, Dream slips his arm out of your grip. As he approaches the wall of sigils, you keep pace beside him, seeking his face. “Dream, that’s insane.” 

Dream surges forward, his hand reaching for the glass heart hovering in one of the golden frames. Desire’s sigil. “His seed will never be sewn upon the earth again.”

Your heart leaps into your throat. This can’t happen. As Dream’s fingers stretch toward the sigil, you do the only thing you can think to do—you jump forward and grab it from him. In a non-Endless’s hands, it’s useless. In his, not so much.

“No,” you say firmly. 

Dream falters slightly, seemingly taken aback. His dark eyes flicker from your face, to the sigil in your hands, and back again. “You would stand in my way?” he says with a quietness that is clearly forced. His tone is so low that the sentence almost doesn’t register as a question. 

“I would,” you tell him. You draw in a deep breath, striving to keep your emotions in check, to choose each word carefully. “I’m not going to let you punish innocent mortals and ruin your relationship with Desire just to…just to…satisfy whatever this is.”

You place the sigil back in its frame with care. As you turn, Dream moves to step around you. But you move faster, forming a blockade between him and the sigil. Dream’s pink mouth purses with frustration. “You will not interfere—“

You throw up a hand, cutting him off. “The only one interfering here is you, Dream. This is my life. It’s my problem. And I will live my life and solve my problems as I see fit. What’s going on between Desire and I is for me to resolve. Not you.” You turn your face up to him, searching his dark eyes for answers. “Why do you care so much, anyway?”

With one long stride, Dream closes the distance between you. “You deserve to be protected.” 

Electricity crackles down your spine at his words, a shiver you can barely suppress. Your breath catches as he leans down toward you, lips parted softly. The closer he draws, the more the darkness in his eyes begins to recede, lightening into that familiar shade of ocean blue.

“Your well-being is imperative,” he murmurs gently, his words careful.

Oh, how you wished he’d add “to me.”

The two of you stand in silence for what could be a second, or what could be an hour. The sheer closeness of him is intoxicating. Your thoughts scramble in his presence, your skin singing with glee at his proximity. He’s close enough to spot the measured rise and fall of his chest, close enough to feel his warm breath kiss your skin. You could reach up and push the stray hairs draping over his forehead from his face. You could feel the smoothness of his cheek, test the tenderness of that bottom lip that endears you so thoroughly. A quiet exhale escapes you as your fingers curl tightly into your palms. 

Dream’s eyes flicker back and forth, searching yours intently. There’s a sheen in them that you linger upon, a pinch in his brow that makes your heart ache. He looks sad. After a long moment, he murmurs, “I felt you be torn from the Dreaming that night.”

At first, the words don’t fully register with you. They sink in slowly, like a settling fog, or new rain on dry earth. When they do, sorrow and joy crash through you in equal measure, robbing the breath from your lungs. You shake your head once, hard. “No. Please don’t tell me that, Dream.”

Dream’s eyes hold yours, unrelenting. You’re not sure if the stars you’re seeing in them are real, or a sign that you’re about to faint. “I will not lie to you,” he says quietly. 

Your eyes fall closed as emotion rolls through you in waves. Joy at the realization that someone had noticed when you’d disappeared, that you hadn’t been alone in those final moments after all. Sorrow that he hadn’t been able to save you, that even though he’d felt you be pulled away from him, he hadn’t known why. Joy that he remembered you, even after all this time. 

“I knew not why you left,” he says softly, as if reading your mind. 

You draw in a deep breath, exhale it slowly. “Well, now you do,” you say in a whisper. 

Dream is quiet for several long moments. You can feel his eyes on your skin, a sensation that compels you to open your own. When you do, you find that he’s drawn impossibly closer. 

“I remember you,” he murmurs, his words tender with earnesty. You’re not sure you’ve ever heard him speak like this before. As compelling as he is when confident or impassioned, the gentleness he speaks with now is more than compelling–it’s spellbinding.  “Though I may not know each face, all of my dreamers’ minds are known to me. I forget no one. Something within you was known to me from the moment we met.” 

Something solid and true settles in your soul at his words. Validation. That familiarity, that pull–you hadn’t been alone. He’d felt it, too, this entire time. The realization is both grounding and elating simultaneously. 

As you draw in a deep breath, seeking to calm your hammering heart, it dawns on you just how close he is. With his last step forward, your faces are nearly touching. You can feel the warmth of his skin against your own. 

Dream cared for you. He wanted to protect you. The air between you suddenly seems like too much space, and yet too little. Every cell in your body is urging you to surge forward, to take his beautiful face in your hands and kiss him. It’s the only thing that could possibly satisfy the call in your bones, the soul-deep, gaping need that burns in your core. 

You could do it. It would be so easy. 

From deep within the recesses of your mind, that damning voice of logic, of self-preservation, hisses, No. 

With a shaky breath, you tuck your chin to your chest and step around him. As you walk toward the center of the room, your muscles cry in revolt, every fiber of your being demanding you to turn around. You purse your lips and tuck your hands under your arms, distrustful of both.

“You were right, before. My motivations were not entirely selfless. But they were not entirely selfish, either.” 

Dream’s voice stops you in your tracks. As you slowly turn to face him, he takes small, careful steps toward you, as if too quick a movement may cause you to flee. He lifts a single hand toward you, the one that holds the record of your mortal life and dreams within it. 

Maker. In all the turmoil, you’d forgotten that it was even part of the equation. Your eyes dart away from the book, away from the name you know you’ll find on its cover. You hold Dream’s gaze, instead. 

“I sought out this book for my own interests, yes. But I also sought it because I wanted you to have it,” he says. “I know your mortal life haunts you. I hoped it might offer you closure.”

A breath of awe escapes you as he holds the book between you, extending it like an offering. The softness of his tone, the glimmer of stars in his eyes, the openness of his body language–all of it indicates sincerity. 

You were well aware that Dream was not a perfect being to love. He could be selfish, hard-headed, driven to a fault, and impatient. That last quality had flung you into your present situation head-first. It would be a lie to say that you weren’t still upset about him going behind your back to get the book. Though you were forgiving by nature, it was a difficult pill to swallow. In spite of their negative connotations, you’re self-aware enough to recognize that some of these qualities are the same ones that endear you to him. His hard-headedness could be amusing, his drive inspiring, his impatience endearing. Funny how his quirks could make you want to throttle him and kiss him all at once. 

In the heat of the moment, if someone had offered you the chance to go back and let today transpire differently, you suspect you would have said yes. The longer you stand under Dream’s soft gaze, however, the more your mind starts to change. The events that had transpired in this gallery had neither confirmed nor denied the nature of Dream’s feelings for you. A desire to protect was not inherently romantic. But it had confirmed to you that something was there. In some capacity, he cared for you. 

Can that be enough? a small, tentative voice within you asks. As you look inward, you find that you’re really not sure. A question for another time. 

And then, there’s the book. The presence of the leather-bound volume between you demands your attention, but you remain steadfast, training your eyes on Dream. How many times had you fostered attachments in a mortal family and wondered what your own was like? How many nights had you wondered what it felt like to dream rather than relive nightmarish memories? How many days had you spent wondering what had occupied your time as a mortal? Had you enjoyed reading, drinking coffee, and watching the stars, even then? Or were those passions unique to you as you were now? 

There was a time when the desire to satisfy these curiosities was maddening. But as you stand in Dream’s gallery with all the answers at your fingertips, you find that the itch is no longer there. Dream’s brows furrow slightly as you press the tips of your fingers against the book, pushing it towards his chest. 

“There was a time when I would have taken this from you in a heartbeat. I thought my mortal life might hold answers for me. I wondered if it could grant me some level of happiness that was missing from me in this one.” You pause, searching for the right words. When your lips upturn in the faintest of smiles, the crease in Dream’s brow eases ever so slightly. “But not anymore. I’m happy now, Dream. Really, really happy. So I’m done looking behind. From now on, I’m only looking ahead.” Your palm falls atop the book between you with a sense of finality. “I suggest you do the same.” 

So mischievous😏😏

He looks like he's having dirty thoughts 👀❤️

Source

Dark Academia Channels You Need to Check Out

Here are the ones I like. Feel free to add more!

1. Ruby Granger 

2. R.C. Waldun

3. Micol

4. Writing Tales

5. Bernadette Banner

6. ssilvics

I’m so sorry but every edit I’ve seen where someone makes it so the RoP elves have long hair looks awful… like the point they’re trying to make about it “looking much better” is not coming across at all . . . 😭

Can we talk about the fact that Rob Aramayo is a Tolkien scholar? A man after my heart.

YES WE CAN!! 🥰He was so passionate on set and got the others involved too he's a hero in my eyes and it shows so strongly just how much the character world and books mean to him ✨