A/N Thank you, DeniiXloveZelda for leaving your review! I'm so glad you like the story and I sincerely hope you enjoy the direction this story is taking. Enjoy this chapters

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They materialised somewhere in the Dreaming and it took Hope a full moment to take in the scene before her. Morpheus had not been sitting still in the time she'd been away.

With a pang or regret she realised that she'd not been here to witness this astounding restoration.

And she had to give it to him… He knew how to build a realm.

During her stay here, Lucienne had given her a bit of a tour, for as far as she had been able to physically travel because her injuries had prevented her from using the Dreaming-style 'short-cuts'. There hadn't been a whole lot to see then.

The lands in the Dreaming were vast and, though infinite, they were also bounded on every side. When Lucienne had told her that, Hope had said nothing, for what was she to make of such a statement? One thing that had marked the lands though, was it's bleak state.

As if a planet had exploded and its large remnants were now floating aimlessly through space. Desolate, crumbling, decaying… dying.

And yet, achingly beautiful, in its own disconsolate way.

But now?

Hope didn't know where to look first.

The palace, now, was majestic and, even from this distance, it was humbling to gaze upon its glistening splendour.

Gone was the dry and dusty landscape, now there were mountains and forests and rivers as far as the eyes could see. One hill side even shaped as a woman in repose, in peaceful slumber.

There was a long stone bridge!

And, as Morpheus supported her and gently guided her toward it, giant stone hands carrying that bridge, rose from the depths of a deep lake, water cascading down the stone palms and phalanges.

Hope couldn't resist but breathe in deeply, so deep she thought it would surely trigger more coughing. It did, just not as severe. And with each inhale she could feel something inside of her mending.

"Feeling better?" Morpheus asked her quietly.

She was still leaning on him for support, her hands clinging on his arm.

It was very strange to feel the warm, soft fabric of his coat, knowing it wasn't actually real.

Drawing in another breath, she noticed the taste of blood was gone and her heart was no longer pounding as if it were attempting to shred itself apart. "Yes," she sighed.

For a long time those were the only words spoken between them as they slowly walked towards the giant bridge. The wind messed with her hair and whipped his coat out behind him, but the day was otherwise clear and beautiful. And, as they walked, leisurely, Hope took in more of the sights.

Around the palace she noticed a grassy path edged off with trees, pink and white blossoms ruffling in them. Dainty white and yellow flowers speckled the grass and she noticed thumb-sized birds with peeping calls darting between the greenery.

The sky was like baby blue china. Above her, three little clouds, like a dollops of ice-cream, drifted by. And a soothing, crisp, apple and citrus smell filled her nose.

Finally she started to relax a little, though she was still hanging from his arm.

"I was confined in that glass cage for over a century," Morpheus suddenly said, his voice quiet. Not the quiet that boomed like thunder, but the quiet of a soft breeze. "I was robbed of all of my possessions. My tools of office, my vestments, and I was barred from my realm with that anserine circle. All that time I had one thought. Vengeance. When I was finally free… When you freed me," he quickly amended, "I was too weak to bring you with me. Before my imprisonment, the journey would have meant nothing to me. I wouldn't even have needed to travel. But now I had to enter the dreams of those who were dreaming, just to be able to absorb enough power to summon clothes. Before I returned, I paid Alex Burgess a visit in his dreams. It was not as satisfying as I'd expected."

Rather than claw the skin off his face in anger, Hope curled her fingers tightly around his arm. He'd stepped over her so he could get some revenge? Really?

Oblivious to her anger, or acting oblivious, Morpheus continued. "When I was ready to go back to my realm, my sister called upon me and when I found her, she was with you. I could sense you were not long for the waking world. I assumed she was there for her function and I could not fathom why she'd summoned me there. And then she ordered me to take you to my realm with me. To save you, as you had not yet died and there was still time."

"I heard you argue," she said shortly.

"She shared your opinion. That I should have acted kinder, at least."

She snorted at that.

"The dream I used to bind Burgess in eternal waking used up the last of my strength–"

Hope furiously whirled on him, eyes burning with outrage. "After you stepped over my dying body to get to the portal you created to escape into dreams!"

As unaccustomed as he was to have someone confront him with his shortcomings, with the exception perhaps to Dee, Morpheus, for once, didn't deflect with anger at her impudence.

He looked almost sympathetic.

"You were dying, Hope, it's not our custom to interfere."

Fatigue was settling in. And for a moment she simply wanted to bask in the warm sun, savouring the gentle breeze that blew over the waters.

"Seems to me it's not your custom to care either," she murmured.

"Time in the waking world does not move faster for my kind than it does for yours. I was trapped in that glass sphere for a human life time and inside that prison time crawled at a snail's pace. Would you still care?"

"If I saw someone practically offer themselves up on a silver platter, sacrificing themselves to set me free, then yes, I probably would."

"Perhaps," he said softly. "It still would have left me too weak to take you with me and have enough strength left to save you. As it was, I had to make a long and arduous journey through the fringes of dreamtime to reach the gates of horn and ivory. Had I not used my last strength, I might have been able to take us both to right outside of those gates, and then nothing would have been left."

It was hardly the point and she was tired of trying to get through to him

"Would it have mattered, in the end? Would you have remembered?" she asked quietly.

"I already do, more than I probably should."

When he looked at her, his eyes were dark and deep, the light of stars eternal shining in them. Like a body of water at midnight, where it was impossible to tell whether it was safe to wade through, or that one step in and you'd be swallowed whole by depth. She had the most peculiar sense that he could absorb anything with those eyes and reflect nothing back if he didn't want to, or everything if he so pleased.

She wondered if this was the person Dee had in mind whenever she talked about him. Ancient, but looking so young. Powerful, yet with a certain fragility. Oh, she knew that could change in a heartbeat, but for now he seemed a lot more approachable.

"Very well," she said, wanting to put that particular topic to rest. "Why am I here? Last time you made it very clear I was not to visit this part of the Dreaming, ever again."

"You could have asked for the right to visit as a boon," he said, giving her a peculiar look that might have been amusement, curiosity or anything in between.

"Don't you start that bollocks again. I'm not in the mood," she muttered.

They crossed the bridge in silence and Morpheus suddenly seemed to be in a hurry, because the remainder of the journey was made with just a few steps.

"I will tell Lucienne to prepare a room for you. I need to visit my gallery and summon my sister. Will you wait here for her?"

Here being in front of a beautiful fountain in the palace's courtyard in which a beautifully carved water nymph was spewing water.

Prepare a room? And he was calling Dee? What the hell was going on?

She shrugged her shoulders and watched him walk up to and then disappearing into his palace without so much as a by your leave.

His gallery, this time, was an impeccably white hall, at the moment symbolic for the blanc canvas that was the human mind when they entered the Dreaming. The gallery too had a penchant for changing and arranging itself to fit his mood. The white walls in his gallery were currently adorned only with an 18th century intricate mirror, and the seven portraits that contained the Endless' sigils.

Standing before his sister's, he hesitated. He did not relish his task at hands, and if there was a way he could avoid it… But no, by his own failings he had inadvertently tied the fate of a very cunning young mortal to his own realm.

Though he did not doubt, for one moment, his sister's most sincere feelings towards the mortal. He did, however, doubt hers… Hope's.

With the exception of a very select few, no human had a perfect moral compass. Each and every one of them could be bought, for they all had a price. They all had a hidden desire that drove them. That enslaved them. His sister-brother always made it a point to ensure it. Had that not been a hard lesson he'd learned himself?

And did he not know for a fact that Hope's affections did not run as deep as she pretended?

He had not sent her personally tailored dreams, curious to see what her own heart would manifest. Music, it seemed, held a much higher value to the woman than the priceless gift that was his sister's friendship.

And yet… He could not forget that look of contemptuous scorn when he confronted her with her duplicity. No human being alive who was guilty of such deceit, could have fabricated such a look of stunned horror and shocked outrage. Or such a look of pain, regret and consummate disappointment when she confronted him with his own unfeeling actions.

It filled him with doubt. Who knew this woman really? Was he in the right? Or was his sister?

Who could tell him?

Dream took the sigil of his sister, the ankh symbol, and reverently held it in his hands.

"My sister? I stand in my gallery and I hold your sigil. We should talk. Will you come to me?"

His sister appeared nearly instantly, right next to him, wearing her usual black garb. And she strode right past him without sparing him a single word or glance.

"My sister?" he called after her, then furrowed his brows in confusion when he was only met with icy silence. It took several long strides to bring him to her side.

"I thank you for answering my call," he tried carefully.

"I'm not talking to you," she said with a huff and continued on. He could of course switch the lay-out of his palace. Just to show her she had no power in his realm and she did not dictate anything here. But that would only anger her more so he simply kept up with her, knowing already where she was headed.

"And why are you not talking to me?"

More silence.

"Well, my sister? Are you angry with me?"

"Yes, Dream!" She whirled on him and gave him an angry look. "I am angry with you! My friend alerted me that you might not entirely be yourself. And, even though I already knew this, I also know you and you always get huffy when someone even tries to offer you help for which you did not ask. She gave me an excuse to come and find you and then you dare to use that against her?"

They were only a few feet away from the giant door that separated his sister from where her friend was waiting.

The cathedral like vault felt colder. The stones were a darker shade of grey. And, though he knew outside the sun was shining, no cheery sunlight filtered through the stained glass windows.

He did not like the current discord that now moved and fluctuated between himself and his sister. "I was merely trying to protect you. I believed she was trying to manipulate you, using your kindness for her own gain. I still do."

"Really, Dream? When I paid her a visit, all she did was suggest I might want to look in on you. I saw how bad she looked, her pale skin, circles under her eyes. Even her hair went pale! Of course I knew it had something to do with her dreams if she was mentioning you."

"I have not sent her any dreams, my sister. I was curious to what lived in her heart and, though it pains me to say, you are not in it!"

Her composure did not so much as shift a hair. But he could see it in her eyes. A sort of fury directed at him, not the mortal. It was pain as much as it was anger. And it was the pain that caught him off guard, for he could feel it echoing in the pit of his stomach.

"You don't know her, Dream. Don't think you do by a few of her dreams. I never promised her anything. She never asked for anything. It's easy for us to takes risks, brother. We are endless after all. What do we have to lose? Nothing! You were trapped in that basement for over a century. That is already more than she will ever have! Much more! And she risked what little she has left, because I was worried about you!"

Her words wormed through his gut, dark and synonymous with an insidious doubt he could feel encroaching. Could it be he had misjudged her wrongly? If so, he found that notion surprisingly distasteful. Yet he did not feel inclined to do entirely away with all of his previous thoughts and assumptions about the woman. But, perhaps, he could stop weighing her every word and judging her every action against the scale of mistrust.

"Why is she here anyway?" his sister suddenly asked. "I thought you banished her from this part of your realm forever?"

He flinched a little hearing the bite in her voice and he knew his sister held that decision against him as well.

"That was in fact to protect her. I wasn't blind to the attachment that formed between her and Lucienne and the other residents. A friendship that couldn't be. Humans, all mortals, need to dream and she would cease doing that, just to come here."

"Oh, that's hot pile of horse manure, Dream! You were angry and vengeful, plain and simple. And, even if you, in some weird way, did have her best interest at heart, it was not your decision to make, she–"

"Wasn't it?" He lowered his voice a bit. "I don't tell you how to conduct your affairs, my sister. I see no reason for you to tell me how to conduct mine."

"Still, you shouldn't have done it like that, severing all of her ties to this part of the Dreaming without even giving her a chance to say goodbye to her friends here." Her eyes then narrowed and she stopped walking, just shy from the door that would lead into the courtyard. "You said it was a friendship that couldn't be, not a friendship that can't be. What's going on, Dream?"

A short, awkward silence followed and Dream wasn't quite able to meet his sister's eyes.

"It appears that, when I regained my powers and infused her body, I did so with more force than I intended," he muttered gravely. "I thought I imparted just enough power to fully heal her body. I was wrong."

"Are you saying that some of your power is still inside of her?"

The ensuing silence was palpably incredulous. Even he still couldn't quite believe it.

"Yes. In my defence, I hadn't used my powers in a long time and when I reabsorbed all the power I had stored within my ruby, suddenly I was more powerful than I had been in eons. It was a–"

His sister gave a bubbly laugh.

"–miscalculation."

He paused for a moment. "This is no laughing matter, my sister. What's still inside of her is part of the Dreaming, a part of me. As such it tries to get back to where it belongs. Even if it rips apart her heart in the process."

"Will you take it back?"

"I cannot. Not without killing her."

"So, what now then, Dream? What will this mean for her?" His sister worried her lip in obvious concern for her friend.

That was the precise moment he suddenly gleaned a deeper understanding from his sister's earlier words: "I never promised her anything. She never asked for anything."

Mortals were creatures of comfort, often inclined to follow familiar paths unless faced with an obstacle that prevented them from progressing. It was during those times that they became cunning and resourceful.

Hope would have resorted to deceitful schemes and plots only if she were certain that she couldn't achieve her selfish goals through easier means—simply by asking.

The fact that she hadn't asked, did that not then shed light on the absence of such selfish goals?

All of a sudden, all those evenings of hearing Hope play those musical pieces, each and every one of them somehow tied to the theme of death, either by name or meaning, they now began to make sense, and he finally understood their hidden meaning.

You are not forgotten.

His voice came out a bit hoarser than he'd intended, due to a strange burning he felt at the back of his throat. "As long as she returns to this part of the Dreaming at least once or twice a week, physically or in her dreams, she should be fine and suffer no further consequences.

"And you will not deny her access to your realm?" His sister gave him a pleading look and he launched his brows in protest.

"Why would I deny her that, my sister? If that would mean her death?"

"No offence, little brother, but you've been known to lash out in anger."

"You know very well the Endless are forbidden to act against any mortal who is not an active threat. But, I promise you this, I will not deny her access to this part my realm, for any reason."

The smile his sister gave him was so radiant, he couldn't help but bask in it. His sister's mere esteem was worth more to him than the love and devotion of a thousand of mortals.

"Will you tell her?" he then asked.

"Why me? You upset her, Dream. You sort it out!"

"Are you telling me you do not wish to speak with her?"

She gave him a playful nudge and he couldn't help but smile at her. He felt great relief that all was well between them again.

"Of course I wish to speak with her! Very well, I will tell her, just because you put me in a generous mood. But, you should make amends too. Please, do not forget she nearly died, just to set you free."

"I did not forget, nor will I."

He did remember, and all he had felt back then. Before doubts about her motives had began to cloud his judgment. Doubts, he believed, that sprung from the mere fact she was a mortal and that it was a mortal who'd kept him imprisoned for over a century.

He remembered standing in his glass prison, his hand pressed against the cool surface, as he was forced to watch as that worthless creature defiled her body. Thrusting into her, moving back and forth, his eyes rolled up in ecstasy, while Hope was slowly bleeding out.

And yet… her eyes had stared at her left hand with a pinpoint focus, at her fingers working through and scraping at the gold paint of the binding circle… slowly destroying it.

Even as she lay dying.

Until her fingers slowed their movements, then stopped moving altogether, and a small portion of the binding circle was still intact.

He'd nearly howled with frustration, which now filled him with a twinge of shame. Because, instead of feeling concern or even sadness about her impending fate, he'd been more frustrated about still being denied his freedom that had been so close that he had tasted it in his mouth!

Then that man, lost in his sick passion, thrust into her body so harshly, she was propelled forward and she had made sure her fingers dragged through the last remaining bit of paint.

With the circle broken, though he had still been trapped in that dome, it at least enabled him to manipulate that man's mind, which had culminated in him shooting at and consequently breaking the glass. And he, on his turn, had made sure to make him suffer for the unspeakable thing he'd done to her. To Hope.

Her vile attacker was now, and forever would be, subjected in his dreams to the same treatment he'd given her.

That too had been a significant drain of his power.

And something he'd not yet told anyone.

Though Hope might not remember it, he had hesitated. He'd even experienced a pang of remorse before he had, in fact, stepped over her body.

She had been too close to death, to his sister's realm, for him to intervene.

That's what he'd thought at least, at the time.

"My sister, I find myself unsure of how to proceed, unsure of the proper course of action to take," he suddenly found himself saying. "Your friend is more than welcome to visit my realm as she needs and pleases, where her safety and comfort shall be safeguarded as an honoured guest. Yet, I confess my uncertainty in discerning the appropriate course for our… further interaction."

"You could just talk to her, you know."

He did something he wasn't often wont to do. He rolled his eyes at his sister to tell her how he felt about that. "You know very well I'm not good at that."

"And you'll never be if you don't try. Look, just go into one of those soft places and… find her a Stradivarius or something. She'll think you the best thing ever. And stay away from her when you're in one of your less than sociable moods."

He thought it over for a moment, then said, "I shall consider it."

A Stradivarius. Dream was quite certain Antoni Stradivari was still dreaming about his ultimate masterpiece in one of those soft places.

Question was… should he even bother trying to locate it?