A Visit to the Library

Summary: Kacy gets a chance to visit Lucienne's library as a present for her 13th birthday.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Sandman. Just my original characters.

It had been August 26th, 2022 when Kacy had first spoken to Dream. Now, a week later on September 2nd, 2022, she had celebrated her thirteenth birthday with her parents, brother, aunt Leah, uncle Brad, cousin Evelyn, and cousin Miles early in the evening. Tomorrow, she would go with Ingrid, Noelle, and Tanya to the movies. Noelle's brother Aaron and Tanya's live-in aid Cindy would be there to supervise them. It had been a wonderful day and the now teenage girl was exhausted as she got into bed after putting on her red pajamas and placing her glasses in their case on her bedside table. By now, she had finished her picture of Dream and hoped to get it framed soon as she drifted off to sleep.

One of the presents that Kacy had been given was a yellow piece of paper from an anonymous source, who had stuck it in the mailbox with a note saying to put it under her pillow as Dream wanted to speak with her in his castle, which she had done before falling asleep. The girl wasn't sure what to make of this, deciding not to say anything to her parents. After all, it had looked like an ordinary piece of paper. What was so special about it?

The brunette girl was now finding out as she dreamed of having walked up a staircase underneath a dark sky that seemed to have purple, pink, and green sections. The normal stairs turned into ones made out of jagged rocks though and she felt her feet getting scratched, cut, and saw them bleeding when she looked down. She nearly freaked out as she was scared of blood but kept going and soon had reached a dessert. She knew she had to keep walking, so she did. At least my feet aren't bleeding anymore and it's not as hot as I expected, Kacy thought to herself.

Then Kacy had come to an oasis that seemed to turn into a jungle. She thought she heard the trees telling her to "turn around" and "go away", which were repeated by vipers and birds. She thought she might have heard them all saying "come back!" when she reached the clouds and stepped on one, causing a path of stepping stones to appear.

"Reminds me of some of the video games Noelle likes to play" Kacy said to herself as she kept on going. Then she was going through a forest, a meadow, past a house with two brothers arguing while a gold-colored baby gargoyle looked on, and went by a spring that had what looked like chocolate milk flowing through it before crossing a bridge.

Now she was at a set of gates, one of horn, and one of ivory. Atop the tall gates were a wyvern, a griffin, and a hippogriff who seemed to be living statues. Kacy noticed that she had the slip of yellow paper in hand though her awe would not last long.

"State your business for being here, dreamer." The wyvern said to her firmly.

A startled Kacy held up the paper. "I was given this and told that Dream of the Endless wanted to speak to me." She was frightened of what these beings could do to her and shaking in response.

A few moments passed as the 3 mythological creatures remained silent and still as though were listening to someone tell them something. "Very well. Please accept our apologies for scaring you; we are merely fulfilling our purpose in guarding the Dreaming. Our master has informed us that you have spoken truly." The griffin explained gently. "Therefore, you may enter the gates but do not stray from the path. Your safety can not be guaranteed if you leave it."

"Thank you." Kacy replied. She pushed open the gate of horn, surprised that she could as she walked through it and kept on the path, heading towards the castle in front of her. It seemed like a longer walk than what she had taken already at first but she found herself at the door sooner than expected.

"You are almost there, Kacy Nelson." Morpheus' voice said in the girl's mind.

The teenager could not help but smile at the familiar voice as she walked into the castle and found herself in the throne room. She saw Morpheus sitting on his throne at the top of a set of long stairs and wearing black robes. There were 3 stained glass windows behind him and the ceiling seemed to open up to the night sky. Kacy immediately bowed to him. "Hello again, Morpheus."

"Hello and happy birthday to you, Kacy." Morpheus replied, pleased that she had remembered her manners.

"Thank you. Is the fact that it's my birthday the reason I was invited here tonight? I assume that's what the token I was given is for." Kacy said, speaking softly but not so soft that she couldn't be heard at all.

"That is indeed part of the reason why you were invited here. I did say that I would allow you to see my library and thought that tonight would be a perfect time to do that as a birthday gift to you." Morpheus was coming down from his throne as he said this and was soon in front of the girl. "Would you like to do that?"

"Yes, I would, please!" Kacy could barely keep herself still as her excitement was obvious in both the look on her face and the fact that she wanted to bounce up and down as a way of what she could call "stimming".

"Very well then. Take my hand." Morpheus offered his right hand to the teenage dreamer and she took it. Then he led her a short distance to the library doors, which opened for him as he led his guest inside.

Kacy was looking in awe at the many high shelves of books, scrolls, and other such printed material. She had a feeling that this library was much bigger than the Library of Congress (which she had visited once on a trip to Washington, DC). She then looked and saw a bald, black woman wearing glasses and a long-sleeved black dress sitting at a desk with several books in front of her.

"Kacy, this is my librarian, Lucienne. Lucienne, this is Kacy, the dreamer that will be given a tour of the library tonight." Morpheus said.

Lucienne stood up and got out from behind the desk to shake Kacy's hand. "A pleasure to meet you, Kacy."

"It's nice to meet you too, Lucienne." Kacy returned the handshake. "How many books are here?"

"All the books that have ever been thought of, whether they were written in the waking world or not." Lucienne answered, smiling at the girl.

"That's awesome!" Kacy was eager to see as much of this as she could before she had to wake up. "I know how important it is to treat books with respect."

"Then I think I won't have a problem with showing you them." Lucienne seemed pleased to hear that.

"I will leave you both to it." Morpheus said before exiting the library and returning to the throne room. He knew that Kacy would enjoy the tour. Perhaps he would let her visit the library again in the future if all went well.

Kacy now took Lucienne's right hand and walked with her, the latter explaining what was in each section. It seemed to be a bookworm's dream come true in Kacy's opinion.

"So even the books I would want to write if I become an author someday are here." Kacy was saying to herself after being given a brief history of how Lucienne had been Dream's first raven prior to becoming a librarian. The tour was going well and about half an hour or so had passed.

"They certainly are and I believe that you are capable of writing and publishing them in the waking world if you wish to put in the effort." Lucienne assured the young dreamer as they briefly passed a section that had books with the name "Kacy Nelson" on the binding.

"Thank you, Lucienne." That encouragement had made Kacy think that this tour of the biggest library anyone could ever see had been perfect, or at least as close to it as possible. She then decided that if she had children one day, one of the girls would have the name "Lucienne" as a first or middle name.

"You are welcome, Kacy." Lucienne replied. She was smiling as she continued leading the brunette girl around. It would have been hard for anyone to tell how long this was actually taking seeing as this was a dream, but Kacy didn't lose interest at all. In fact, she was a bit disappointed when she and Lucienne came back to where they had started to see that Morpheus was there waiting for them.

"Welcome back, Kacy. I take it you loved everything you saw." Morpheus knew that she had but just wanted the verbal confirmation.

"I did. It was fascinating." Kacy assured him. She was still smiling.

"She was well-behaved and pleasant company, my lord. I would not mind if she were allowed to return." Lucienne added, a smile on her face.

"Then I believe that allowing you to know you are dreaming every two weeks and getting to visit the library during that time will be beneficial, Kacy Nelson. You will be able to read whatever books Lucienne allows you to though you are unlikely to remember the content of them when you wake." Morpheus decided.

"Thank you, Dream! May I give you a hug, please?" Kacy asked, clearly loving that news.

"Yes, but only one." He answered. He was doing his best not to show how startled he was that she had asked that. Then again, being imprisoned for so long had left him touch starved albeit that was not something that he would admit to himself or others.

Kacy gave Morpheus a hug and he returned it. Then she hugged Lucienne as well. "See you in two weeks. Thank you for the tour."

"You are welcome, Kacy. I look forward to seeing you again." The librarian assured the teenage girl.

"For now, you must wake as this dream is over." Dream declared.

Kacy awoke and pulled the yellow, paper token out from under her pillow. She decided to put it in a plastic bag in the back of her closet just in case she needed it again. That had been a wonderful dream and something she would certainly never forget. She had also been inspired to start writing about her encounters with Dream and so did that after she had gotten dressed and had breakfast. She was unaware that some of his siblings would get interested in her as well.