A Dream of My Love
"...While I cannot give you the thing itself, I could give you a dream of my love."
"I already have that, my lord."
- Morpheus and Nuala, the Kindly Ones
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Nuala polishes the stained glass carefully, balancing tip-toe on the tall ladder as she stretches her arm to clean as high as she can. Her twin in the glass imitates her movements, reflecting her straggly brown hair and plain pink dress. The throne room is empty, but Nuala steadily continues her work. She wonders, while she works, if the Lord Shaper will notice how clean she has kept the place in his absence (kept it clean just for him). She pictures it in her mind: the Dream Lord entering the throne room in his usual aloof manner, then pausing for a moment─ maybe a glimmer from the sunlight catching the glass will draw his attention?─ and turning his gaze to her, standing tall on her ladder. Him staring at her (she can always tell when he's looking straight at her, even if he doesn't have true eyes), maybe the way he stared hard at her the day he let her keep the necklace, and his lips quirking into a cold half-smile. Him murmuring a word of thanks, or perhaps bidding her to rest.
She likes to think that someday he will do more than simply thank her, but she knows it isn't likely. It doesn't stop her hoping.
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"Did you have a particular boon in mind? When you summoned me here?" His voice is cool and quiet, as it has always been, and doesn't sound the least bit accusatory. But she is still ashamed, and she lowers her now-sapphire eyes to the ground before she answers.
"I wanted you to stay. I...I wanted you to love me."
She dares to look up. She wishes he would say something, but instead he gets that look on his thin face. The look that indicates that he is considering deeply, and she knows he is thinking of Calliope, of Nada, of Alianora and the Thessalian witch and every other unworthy woman who has ever broken his poor heart. He acts so stoic all the time, but he really is very easily hurt, and Nuala remembers the last raging rainstorm that overtook the Dreaming when the Thessalian witch left.
He has yet to speak, and her heart breaks. He doesn't love her. It was foolish of her to think that he did...On impulse she leans in to kiss him on the cheek, to urge him to go back to the safety of his realm, and as she moves forward he turns to her and her lips brush not his cheek but the very corner of his mouth. His skin is cold, she thinks absently, but she doesn't mind, and she doesn't pull back when he turns his head so that his lips meet hers. She pushes forward instead, pushes herself into his thin black-clad frame, and as her hands fly to meet his shoulders (she wants to be closer), she takes a deep gasping breath...
And wakes. He pony is grazing nearby and now she remembers. She's not in Faerie anymore, nor is she in the Dreaming. When she had left Faerie the wind had been cold as she imagined his skin to be, and she had been so scared because she had known that she was far too late.
Nuala hides her face in her hands and weeps.