milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Two players, two characters, one post.

Dream enters without his usual fanfare, at his favored table. He, of course, is scribed in black, white, and hems of burning nightmare. One pale, pale hand rests on Kitty's shoulder.

She looks a little more with it, a little less likely to fall apart, than she had been the last time she came into the bar. She also still looks like she'd rather not be here, for all she can't hide forever.

He looks worried, for him, and silently accepts two cups of coffee from a passing rat. One of them is handed to his favorite niece before he sips from the other one.

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She has not heard such a voice before, nor could she ever have hoped to. It echoes along dark places in her mind where nothing dwells...and where nothing should.

Were she less trained than she is she would shiver.

"Lord Morpheus" she agreed, such a label was also acceptable.

He was known as that for a very long time, on one world.

He watches her without emotion; perhaps the only being which can match the blankness of the child.

This man puzzles her, as much as she can puzzle.

"You are known to me" she admitted at last, kneeling by his feet and bowing her head "But I fail to remember..."

"I am memory."

Is the response,

"I am thought. I am dreams. I know you, but you have never met me."

"Apologies for my mistake" she begged quietly, because that is what one did when mistaken.

Then they took the blows.

"There is no need for forgiveness."

He doesn't move. Only the edges of his robes do, in a breeze of their own making. Nightmares dance, there.

"The Lord is kind" she spoke, rising smoothly.

She doesn't turn away from watching such things, after, she has lived her nightmares, and she cannot fear...and it is rude to turn one's back on a Lord, no matter what lenience he shows.

He is silent. He could argue with her, but does not tend to do so with people.

He doesn't "get it" enough.

There's something here, she's sure of it. A reason. Something that calls her, not unlike when Master Gaunt had needed her to heal a broken toy...

But she cannot fathom it.

It is not within her.

She swept a curtsey, strange in her overalls, but no less elegant as her hair pooled to the floor "I have no reason for my approach, Lord" she admitted.

"You puzzle me"

"This is not unexpected. I am rather more than any being can conceptualize."

Including his player, who often flails. Yes, she is called to him. Not to heal him, however.

There is a broken toy.

There is a matching piece.

She blinked a moment, taking in that answer.

"Lord...why humble yourself with a simple form then?" she asked, truly puzzled. If one was vast, powerful...why?

"Master Gaunt often claimed to be beyond ken, and yet he was but a man in body, a body I knew well. Do you appear as a man to puzzle?"

"I do not appear in a simple form. What you see is all that you are capable of comprehending. I am omnipresent, to see more than this would be for all to enter my younger sister's realm."

His voice is even,

"I have no need to show that I am powerful. It does not matter. I am what I am."

She cannot comprehend such a statement about power. Power is for use, there is no escaping it...

But neither can she debate such without earning punishment. Instead she bows her head once more "I apologize, that my perceptions limit you so here"

"You can not limit me."

He says without heat, or chill. He leans on the edge of his ever-shifting throne (which is also part of him) and watches her,

"I am what I am. The fact that you only see part of me does not change me."

She...does not understand. The words flow, they are clear seperately, but together do they blame her for limitation or do they seem amused at her confusion?

Was it a game?

A test?

She should know! Something important, something critical balanced upon that single puzzle piece she could not find within herself.

"I...I would understand if I could, Lord"

"Ideas may not be limited. I am all ideas."

There is no amusement. No blame. There is only Dream, and Srraell.

"Would you?"

"If the Lord wished" she answered mechanically, neither desire nor curiousity therein.

She is not meant to know all things, nor step beyond her alloted place.

He watches her in return.

"That is a non-answer."

Again there is no condemnation, simple stating of fact.

"It is not my place to decide such" she answered in turn, and were she capable of uch perhaps that admission would hurt.

"Why?"

It is quiet, bland, and demands an answer. Not "because", but an answer. A real answer.

"I am to obey my Master or Mistress in all things" she stated calmly. It was beat into her blood and bone, scored through her mind in words as bleak as any desert.

She had no will.

Perhaps she never would.

"Why?"

This is the problem, if problem it is, with Dream. He forces thought.

A great force meets...a broken child. Neither with the option of giving ground.

"For such is not my purpose"

They are what they are, and the perception of each can not change the other.

"There are more purposes than one for any situation. This situation should be assessed for need before you assume that your purpose is the same."

"What need?" she asked

"Are you ill?"