Disclaimer: I do not own either Desire or Delight. (Technically, neither does Neil Gaiman, but don't tell him that.)
Author's note: Just as a bit of forewarning (since a number of reviewers seemed to have been surprised by it), this story takes its cues principally from the "Heart of a Star" chapter from Endless Nights, on the grounds that this appears to be the only story in which Delight appears as Delight. Since Dream refers to Desire as his "sister" in that comic, Desire is therefore considered simply female for the purpose of this story. Anyone who considers this a shameful oversimplification of Neil Gaiman's thought may wish to find another story.
"Rarely, rarely, comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou art fled away."
–Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Song"
Desire took a deep breath, ran her hand through her hair, and tapped lightly on the jewel-encrusted door in front of her. "Del?" she called.
"Who is it?" came the voice of her youngest sibling through the door.
"It's 'Zire."
"What do you want?"
"Well, first of all, I want you to open this door."
"Go away," said the voice.
"Why?"
"Because I want you to."
"That's it?"
"If you were a nice person, that's all it would take."
"But I'm not a nice person, Delly," said Desire. "After five billion years, you ought to realize that."
"Oh, I do," said Delight's voice. "I just thought I'd give you a chance."
"Okay," said Desire. "So you gave me the chance. Now, are you going to open this door?"
"No."
"So I have to go get Destruction and have him break it down?"
"I'll just hide my realm again while you're gone," said Delight.
"And I'll just find it again," said Desire. "Only this time I'll bring along the others. Is that what you want?"
There was a small sigh from behind the door. "Why do you always win?" said Delight plaintively.
"Because that's my job, Del-kins," said Desire. "When a little sister and a big sister argue, the big sister always has to be right, or the universe would implode. Or at least that's what Death always tells me."
She was rewarded with a giggle on the other end of the door – a very brief and rather reluctant giggle, but a genuine Seventh-Endless giggle nonetheless. "Okay, fine," said Delight. "But if we end up annihilating each other, just remember it was your fault."
"I can live with that," said Desire.
At this admission, there was a heavy clunking sound on the other side of the door, like the bolt of a lock falling out of place, and the door swung open to reveal the original Ideal Bedroom of a thousand art classes. The pictures of unicorns and other benevolent spirits that crowded the walls, the collection of curios from across the cosmos heaped upon a small table in the corner, the enormous bed at the far end of the room that made one want to bury oneself in its covers just looking at it: all served to identify the room as the epitome of coziness, the archetype of security, and the natural habitat of Delight.
And curled up in the bed, dominating the whole picture like a sleeping Madonna, was Delight herself – though, if Desire hadn't known that it was she, she never would have guessed it. At first glance, nothing seemed farther from the Delight she knew – the buoyant, exuberant spirit who taught birds to sing and stars to dance in their courses – than the tiny, bedraggled figure lying motionless on those sheets.
"Why did you have to come looking for me, anyway?" she murmured. The characteristic rainbow tints could still be heard in her voice, but now they sounded muted, almost befouled, like the spectrum one sees in a patch of oil on a highway.
"That's who I am, Delly," said Desire gently. "It's the nature of Desire to seek after Delight."
"Yeah, but no one said you have to find it," said Delight.
"Well, this time I did," said Desire with an air of finality. "Now, do you want to tell me what the matter is?"
Then she realized that she knew perfectly well all the things her sister wanted, and that a confidante was not among them. She tried again. "Will you tell me what the matter is?"
"Why?" said Delight.
It was on the tip of Desire's tongue to respond, Because there are two things in this universe that I can't stand to see: my twin sister happy, and my little sister miserable. That, however, was more than she would have said aloud even to Destiny, so she settled for the somewhat lamer, "Because I want to help you."
"No one can help me," said Delight.
The way she said it chilled Desire to the metaphysical marrow. It wasn't just the outburst of a moment of petulance; it was said without the least trace of emotion. It was plain that when this crisis, whatever it was, had first started, Delight had carefully considered every form of aid that she could possibly receive, and had concluded that none of them would be of any avail. It may have been at that moment that Desire first realized the extent of the changes that had taken place in her littlest sibling, for that sort of cold calculation was utterly alien to Delight as her siblings knew her.
"Del…" she began. But she couldn't think of anything to follow it with, so she fell silent, and, with a sense of utter helplessness that was quite uncommon for her, walked over to the bed and sat down beside her sister.
And at that simple gesture, all the defenses that Delight had built up in herself suddenly collapsed. "Oh, 'Zire!" she exclaimed, and threw herself into her sister's arms, sank her face into her bosom, and began sobbing like a broken reservoir.
On some level, Desire wasn't really surprised. The bewildering contortions of longing and counter-longing that occurred during major emotional crises was her stock in trade, after all, and Delight's reaction was exactly what she would have expected from a mortal undergoing the same sort of conflict. It was the suggestion that her sister, an Endless, one of the seven deathless masters of the sentient heart, was vulnerable to the same terrors and uncertainties as any earth-crawling hnau, that excited the tender pity that, unbeknownst to nearly the entire universe, did actually reside deep in the heart of Desire.
She stroked her sister's golden-brown, disheveled hair, and softly hummed a lullaby that one of her siblings (either Dream, Destruction, or Death, depending on which of them you asked) had composed long, long before, when Delight's beloved anti-matter world of Hatrae had been annihilated during the universal shift to negatrons. The full flavor of the song, of course, was inexpressible in any mortal tongue, but in English it might have gone something like this:
Oh, dear Delight, oh, sweet Delight, don't cry;
Bring back the sun, the rainbows in your eye.
If you can't smile, what hope is to be had?
Who can be happy when Happiness is sad?
"'Zire, I'm so scared," Delight whispered. "I don't know what's happening to me, I don't know what I'm going to do, I don't… I…"
"Shh," said Desire. "I know, honey. I know. It's all right."
They remained in this position for some time, the cruel twin of Despair consoling the Joy that cometh in the morning. Then, at length, when Delight had regained some measure of self-control, she pulled away and looked her sister in the eye.
"Thank you, 'Zire," she said. "Your intentions were good, and I'm glad that you came. But whatever's coming for me is something that I have to face alone. You won't be able to help me, and it'll only hurt you if you're here when it happens."
"How can you know that?" Desire demanded.
"I just do," said Delight. "There are some things even an Endless can't argue with. And, anyway, if you're just hiding out here waiting for my… (she swallowed) …for my change to come, who's going to torture Death about that human prophet she let slip through her fingers a millennium ago?" She grinned shakily, and Desire couldn't suppress a slight smile.
"Well, it can't hurt her to be left alone for a few extra hours," she said. "If you'd rather I stayed with you a little longer…"
Delight shook her head. "No, you should go," she said.
The finality in her tone left Desire no room to argue. She got up off the bed and was just turning to leave when Delight said, "Oh, one more thing, 'Zire."
Desire turned. "Yes?"
Delight reached over to her curio table, picked up the small, pale-blue shell of a Hatraean mollusk, and placed it in her sister's hand. "Could you take care of this for me, please?" she said.
Desire frowned. "What for?" she said.
Delight took a deep breath. "I don't know what's going to happen to my realm when… when it happens," she said. "It's possible that everything I have in here will be annihilated, or else twisted into something unrecognizable. I don't mind so much about everything else, but I'd be really disappointed if that got lost."
Desire cocked an eyebrow. "You don't mind losing yourself, but you don't want to lose a shell?"
Delight didn't laugh. "Please, 'Zire?" she said.
Desire sighed. "Oh, very well," she said, and slipped the shell into her pocket.
"Thank you," said Delight, and turned silently to face the wall. Desire waited to see if there was anything else, then turned and headed for the door.
She was halfway out of it when Delight said, very softly, "I love you, 'Zire."
Those were the absolute last words Desire had expected to hear. In five billion years, she couldn't remember any of her siblings, herself included, saying those words to any other. For a moment, she was unsure of how to respond; then the obvious revelation came to her, and she heard herself saying, with something like wonder in her tone, "I love you, too, Delly."
Delight seemed unaware that she had done anything extraordinary. She did not move when Desire spoke to her, nor when she heard the door close behind her. Indeed, it is debatable whether Delight, as Delight, ever moved again.
But they say that in the realm of Desire, to this day, there stands a finely crafted table of jadrat wood, on which rests the small, pale-blue shell of a Hatraean mollusk. Every so often, when Desire finds the company of her siblings too much to bear, she enters the room wherein this table stands, and places a single finger on the shell – and then, they say, Desire's eyes fill with tears, and she weeps for a little, laughing girl-spirit who once taught birds to sing and stars to dance in their courses, and whom she had never known she loved until she had already lost her.