Disclaimer: I don't own the characters.
The Dream Master experienced love and desire as shadows. Slipping in and out of mortals' dreams over the centuries, he had watched a million faces at the point of ecstasy or the declaration of love. For Gainel such emotions were echoes, as substantial as mist sliding across the palm of his hand.
Until he met Veralidaine. He was not whole: not quite part of the Divine Realms, not quite part of the mortal realm. Not quite a god, not quite a dream. Veralidaine was the same. Neither god nor mortal, wild power contained by human will. The few mortals he had met in the past hadn't been able to meet his eyes. Veralidaine held his gaze, and Gainel felt like her eyes were penetrating him, stripping away the shadows that surrounded him to lay bare his core. For the first time in his long existence, standing in the humble garden of two minor gods, he felt desire not as an echo, but as a raging, uncontrollable force.
He wished she would fall into an endless sleep where he could claim her. As lovingly as an artist creating his masterpiece, he crafted a thousand different dreams which he knew he would never use. A thousand different scenarios, but always the same name trembling on Veralidaine's lips, always the same insubstantial yet unbreakable embrace surrounding her. Perhaps if she was less important he could put her into an eternal slumber, but she was important and his brothers and sisters would never allow it. They had plans for her, and he already knew the outcome as surely as he knew that the sun would rise in the morning.
She would choose the mage. It was written in the way her eyes followed him around every room, the way her breath caught in her throat whenever he was near. But it was most obvious in the dreams that she always attempted, and failed, to forget. Unable to relinquish his newfound desire, Gainel struck a deal with himself: he would wear the mage's image and visit Veralidaine's dreams as long as she remained in the Divine Realms.
For her part, Daine knew that it wasn't Numair she embraced, but Gainel. The Dream Master's disguise was almost perfect, but not quite. Numair's velvety tones and his gentle touch could have been plucked from her memory, but Gainel was so cold. His tongue was an icicle probing the puckered flesh of her nipple, and he breathed puffs of frigid air into the hollow of her neck. Around her, above her, moving inside her, he was like ice. But she didn't have the power to give up the only time when she could be truly close to Numair. She despised herself for succumbing to the fantasy even as she gripped him with the thighs and cried her pleasure.
She woke each morning before dawn, the memory of icy kisses still making her skin break out in goose pimples. With the utmost care she slipped inside Numair's bedroll as he slept, pressing herself against his warm chest and shivering.