Endless Dream

Please

By the time the emotional onslaught ended, Dream was exhausted. He felt weak, and his bones ached. He had never experienced such a drain on himself. The endless did not experience their existence in the same way mortals did. They never felt hunger or the desire to rest. He could exert enormous power and not feel the burden of its loss.

Dream moved his head, rubbing his heavy eyes. He felt something brush against his nose. It tickled the edge of his skin before dusting him with soft powder. Dream looked to where the feeling came from. He gaped in horror as the sand had destroyed what remained of itself, pushing all of its thought and energy into reaching him. The sand could barely form two fingers, they were elongated and quite terrifyingly thin, but they wiped the tear from his cheek and brushed against him. Despite the agony inflicted upon it, it remained kind.

Dream was moved by the action. The emotions bound to the sand had made it kind, caring with a sense of empathy he only recognised in few beings. He let the fingers brush across him again. The sand seemed to hum softly. He felt warmth in the sand, a sense of peace, and longing. The sand had seen such love from its dreamer and felt its passing. He couldn't fathom what had gone through it as its home fell to ruin.

The sand stopped humming and seemed to ask him something. It conveyed its thoughts through a series of hums and ripples - it was limited by what little it could move.

"You must have been lonely," he said to the mound of sand. The sand swirled and moved closer to him, pressing his fingers to his chest and tapping gently on his shirt.

"I see," he said in reply. The sand tried to convey that it was alone but not lonely in this place. This had been its first home and the place where it felt safe. Dream mourned the loss of the dream and wanted to provide comfort to the sand. He noticed more and more of it slipping away, rolling off itself and fading.

"Would you like to see it again?" he asked sweetly. The sand swirled again with an impatient excitement. Dream found himself laughing with it, relishing the change in its demeanour, "Very well," he said. Dream placed both hands on the floor and let a sliver of his power flow along the ground. The translucent swirls painted the floor, colouring the dead earth with life. Grass sprouting wherever the power touched, restoring the sand's home to its former glory.

The sand beamed as it saw the pavilion restored, inch by inch. It longed to touch the pillars and curl up under the shade of the white building. It turned and tried to get closer but had nothing to move with. It had expended the last of itself trying to reach Dream. The fingers clawed at themselves, frantically pointing and urging themselves to move.

"I'm sorry," Dream apologised. He could see its desperation and longing to be reunited with its home. He chewed the inside of his cheek and bit his lip, trying not to be saddened by the sight before him.

The sand begged him, pleaded with him to let it go home. It could feel the end eerily creeping closer. It knew its pleading was futile. It still tried, tearing itself grain by grain to move even an inch.

Dream admired its defiance. He stood above the sand, ready to disperse it with a wave of his hand. The sand tried to scurry away from him again, cowering from him.

"I'm sorry," he said again. He couldn't offer it anything else. He felt guilty. He wondered if this was how it felt to kill an innocent, to hold the knife over its head and see the fear in its eyes.

The sand gathered the last of its form and tried to recall something from the memories of its dreamer. It tried to think of a word, something that could save them, something that could convey how terrified it was, how desperately it didn't want to fade away. The sand formed a pair of lips, crude but usable.

"Please," it said, the last act of its defiance.

Dream was stunned. Sand couldn't speak. It had sentience, it could evolve and do as the dreamer wished, but it couldn't speak of its own volition. It had no innate life, no soul. His mouth twitched. The sand had comforted, been kind, and now had begged him for its life. The sand fell to its side limply. The sand brushed lightly against the petals of an iris flower before fading away.

He could disperse the sand and let it fade away, or he could do something unheard of. What the cost of his actions would be, he didn't know, but a deep curiosity whispered to him. He had a sense of respect for this being and decided it would be given a chance; to live.

"I name you, Iris, Shelter for the lost dreamers and Protector of The Dreaming," he let his power flow through him again, giving part of himself to the sand, a sliver of his soul as its dreamer had. Whatever the being would do and be, he could not know, but perhaps he might find a kinship within it.