Immortals and Empires

Chapter 18: Mortal Relief

Dream, with Nightmare's help, convinced Ink to return to the world.

In return, Ink stalls for Dream when their shared foe is the first to greet them.

- - - - -

There was a time, after Nightmare's death, that Ink visited Dream. He remembered feeling as if his grief was a malleable stone, crumbling rock. He remembered chipping at that one spot, his careful words falling from between his teeth, tasting of nothing, but only so to himself. He felt nothing. He always had.

So why did he have to be born this way? What was his soul so incomplete?

Why did it bother him so much?

Why did it bother him to be incomplete? Because he wanted something he could have?

But how could he want something he didn't even know of? How could he grieve something that never was?

Could he grieve?

(Error.)

He was alone, here. But it felt so different then being alone out there. Why was he always alone? Was it because of who he was?

Was it because he was Ink?

(Why did he want to stay here?)

Could he even want? What was he?

Dream did not try to speak to Ink.

(He could ignore when Dream pleaded. He could not ignore Dream's silence. Was that intentional on his part?)

But Dream was still there, waiting.

"I'm not going back."

It came out stiff and stifling. A dirt seedling planted in sand.

(please, Dream would say, he always would, if not he'd imply it, do no more than that; Ink would say nothing more, and that would be the end of it.)

"Why?"

He didn't have to say anything.

He couldn't say anything.

He—

"Why should I?"

The Guardian surveyed the Protector.

"Why shouldn't you?"

A familiar trickle spilt inside him. It went by the name of annoyance. He always felt it around Dream. It felt refreshing to be reunited with such an old friend. To be reminded he could feel. But still annoyed, because this bastard was intentionally using wordplay.

Also annoying because he didn't have a reply to give.

"Why would I?" He caught Dream's gaze like one might the last flake of snow in spring. "What does the world owe me? What do I owe the world?"

"The answer you have in mind is nothing. But that isn't the truth, is it?"

Stop. "For me, it is."

"But we all owe the world things. It's just that the world owes us things in return, too."

A perfect balance.

"For you, perhaps. Not for me." I cannot owe what I do not have. I cannot return what I have not been given. Dream caught his hand. Had he seen it shaking? But it had only shook so slightly. Then again, Dream was a God of emotion. He was a Guardian before a God, too.

"Did you know Error brought you to me?"

Error?

(Error.)