I do not own these characters and am making no money from this work.
Morpheus frowned as he walked through the Dreaming. Slowly and methodically he searched for the anomaly. There. There it was, on the edge near the desert that was one of its borders; only the Dreaming had no borders. And rarely does it have anomalies. It is made up of anomalies.
Here on the brink of asleep and awake a dreamer struggling to hold onto it's piece of Morpheus' kingdom. Such a thing was not a rarity and may have in fact escaped his notice if he had not been alerted to it. But there was something disturbing in the determination of this one.
You should let go and join the world.
I do not know the world. I know this place. I like this place.
How will you know if you like the world until you try it? It is where you belong.
Is it like here?
Is the world like the Dreaming? Or is the Dreaming like the world? They are compliments. This is where humanity's greatest fears are discovered, where the most terrible acts are conceived. The Dreaming is where the strength to be good can be found, where the fantastic is possible, where one's nature may be revealed and paths chosen. This is where they find their hope, but it is in the world, in reality, that all these things are realized and made true.
"Does she have a name?" The nurse did her best to work up enthusiasm, but it was the twelfth hour of her shift and all she really had enthusiasm for now was a bubble bath, a glass of wine and the latest episode of Friends.
The new mother took no notice of the nurse's temperament. She cuddled her baby close to her heart. "Her name," she beamed and the room seemed to glow with her joy, "is Aishlinn."
Her ambitions are somewhat small, but her passion, her sheer wanting, is as intense as the sun. I can reward my faithful. Desire leaned down to press its lips against the woman's damp brow.
Dream looked impassively at his sibling and the exhausted new mother, but his gaze lingered for a time on the infant. Before he too took his leave he reached out and with a forefinger as pale as milk he stroked the child's face from its gently pulsing forehead to the tip of its nose.
In a quiet room a woman smiled and a baby slept.