The stars were new to the world, bright and unashamed in the black sky. Below them, firelight flickered over human faces — the first stories being told. Dream stood among them unseen, the heat of the flames glinting in his eyes like ancient memory.
They were small, these mortals. Fragile. But there was something in them that no god, not even he, could create — wonder. The kind that came from staring into darkness and deciding to imagine instead of fear.
He watched a child lean against her mother, eyes wide as an elder spoke. The old man's words carried rhythm, a heartbeat born of breath and belief. He spoke of the sky, of why the sun fled and the moon chased it. It wasn't true — not in the way the gods knew truth — but it was real in another way. It mattered because they believed it.
Dream smiled softly. "Stories before language," he murmured. "I suppose that's how it begins."
A voice drifted behind him — calm, old as soil. "They dream because you do."
He turned, and there she was — Gaea, her form vast yet human-shaped, her skin carrying the color of deep loam, her hair threaded with green and gold. The earth beneath her feet seemed to breathe.
"Mother," Dream greeted. He said it with a half-smile, amused by the irony. "You've taken shape."
"I've rooted," she corrected gently. "The stars have watched me grow tired of formlessness. The world needs its caretakers. Chthon is buried deep beneath, Set wanders the winds, and you—" she glanced at him with warmth — "you stand between them all. Still dreaming."
Dream looked back at the fire. "Someone must."
"They're beautiful, aren't they?" Gaea said softly, watching the mortals. "They don't know what they are yet. They fear the dark but never stop walking into it."
He nodded. "They remind me of something I used to be."
Gaea tilted her head, curiosity in her tone. "Something you used to be?"
He didn't answer. Just smiled — a secret, wistful curve of his lips.
Thunder rumbled far away, though no storm brewed. The flames in the mortal camp shivered, and several sleepers stirred uneasily. Dream's gaze lifted toward the horizon.
Something was coming.
He felt it — a tremor in the Dreaming. Fear had found form.
The first nightmare.
It rose not in shadow but in sound — a scream without throat or name, echoing through both waking and dreaming worlds. The mortals trembled in their sleep; some whimpered, others clung to one another. Dream stepped forward, leaving the warmth of the fire behind.
He entered the Dreaming through their minds — a step sideways into mist and echo. The world shifted: sky melted into glass, earth into whispering sand.
There it was — a shape still learning to be. Its eyes were hollow, its body built from the dark behind human eyelids. It lunged clumsily toward the dreamers, its voice a wail of confusion and pain.
Dream raised a hand. "Stop."
The thing halted, trembling. It looked at him — not with hatred, but with pleading.
"You're afraid," he said gently.
The nightmare shuddered, as if understanding.
"You were born from their fear of losing the sun," Dream continued, stepping closer. "From the thought that maybe the light won't return. You're not evil — you're necessary."
He reached out, touching its trembling form. The nightmare's edges softened, its screaming subsiding into a low hum — almost like breath.
"Dreams need their shadows," he murmured. "You will be their first."
The creature stilled, bowing its head. Then it dissolved into black mist, scattering across the Dreaming.
Dream stood alone in silence, the echo of the mortal campfire flickering faintly through the veil of sleep.
A whisper came behind him — not of soil or roots this time, but of finality.
"You always find the broken ones," Death said.
Dream turned. She stood barefoot on the sand, dressed simply, her hair black as night and eyes kind — too kind, for someone who held the end of everything in her hands.
"You've been watching," Dream said.
"Of course," she smiled, walking closer. "Someone had to be there when the first human died of fright."
Dream frowned softly. "They weren't meant to die for this."
"No one's meant to die," Death said gently. "It just happens. It's not your fault, Dream."
He studied her for a moment. "You always say that like you've told me before."
"I have," she said, eyes twinkling. "Just not in this life."
The words lingered — soft, impossible, familiar.
He looked at her then, really looked — and something in his soul stirred, that quiet pulse of recognition that bridges eternity.
"You know," Dream murmured, "most beings find death terrifying."
"That's because they don't see her coming," she replied, smiling crookedly. "You, though — you've been looking for me since the beginning."
He chuckled under his breath. "You make it sound romantic."
"It is," she said simply.
They stood together in the fading shimmer of the Dreaming. Above, the stars glowed brighter, reflected in Death's eyes.
She nodded toward the mortal camp. "You should go back. They'll need their dreams tonight. Something's shifted — the first story has been told, and the first fear has followed. Balance, right?"
"Balance," Dream repeated softly.
As Death turned to leave, he called out, "Do you ever tire of endings?"
She looked over her shoulder, smiling. "Do you ever tire of beginnings?"
And then she was gone — the Dreaming folding softly around the space she'd occupied, like silk closing over a candle's flame.
Dream stood for a long while in the stillness, listening to the echo of her absence.
When he returned to the waking world, dawn had come. The humans stirred, stretching, yawning, alive. A child looked up at the sky, saw the sun crest the horizon, and whispered, "The night didn't win."
Dream smiled faintly.
"No," he murmured, unseen among them. "It never does."
He walked away from the camp, the new day glinting on his skin, the weight of night still soft in his eyes. Behind him, a storyteller began to speak again — this time of shadows that could not harm and of gods who guarded sleep.
The words drifted upward like prayer, and somewhere, in the quiet between heartbeat and breath, the Dreaming stirred — watching, listening, learning.
For the first time, Dream realized he was no longer just dreaming for the universe.
He was dreaming with it