Days rolled by and Astraea never once saw the stars again. She could feel herself draining the longer she stayed confined to the glass sphere. She could feel her wings prickling at her back, begging to be let free and spread out, she had almost caved a few times when the pain had got too much to bare, but then Rodrick Burgess returned and made those sick comments about her wings.
"What if I cut them off? They'd fetch a pretty price."
"What are you without your wings? A normal human? I could do a lot to you without those wings."
"I bet you don't have wings, I bet you're a normal human."
She tried to react as little as possible to his taunts, Dream was always expressionless when faced with his insults. It had been ten years and she still had never heard his voice. Though, she supposed, he had never heard hers. They stayed silent in their prisons, staring at the guards and reacting as little as possible.
Dream barely moved, comments were always made if he so much as twitched. Astraea couldn't do that, she was constantly moving, trying to distract herself from the itch of her wings and the pain that came with it. She could feel every ruffle of her feathers and every loose feather that wanted to fall free, yet she couldn't show them to rid herself of the feathers. She assumed at this point if she were to do that, there would be more feathers than free space in her glass sphere.
She could hear a party upstairs, most nights held parties now. The Burgess' had met much prosperity over the last ten years, she could only assume that it was from Dream's tools, making all their dreams come true. She could sometimes hear stray pieces of conversation if she focussed enough, though it was usually distorted by the thick glass surrounding her.
The party lasted for hours and slowly came to a close in what she assumed was the early hours of the morning. She had lost track of time many years ago, she was able to tell from the guard shifts mostly, she didn't know what time they changed at but she could guess at how much time had passed between them.
It was the morning when the guards were supposed to change shifts, the next shift must have been running late as the two guards huffed at the time.
"I'm sure these two can't cause much trouble if we leave them alone for a while. Maurice and Noel should be here soon." They turned to look at both Astraea and dream before leaving up the stairs.
"The guards have left." Astraea couldn't help but comment on it, not once in ten years had they been left alone. She couldn't help the relief in her voice at their momentary isolation.
"They'll be back, they always come back." He didn't turn to look at her, just continued to stare forward.
They probably only had a few seconds to a minute of isolation until the guards came back."Are you really one of the Endless?"
"Are you really an angel?" Was the only response she got.
"Fair play, I'm... I'm Astraea by the way." This was the first time she had spoken in ten years, her voice was hoarse from lack of use, yet it felt so good to be speaking again.
"Morpheus." He still didn't look at her, but their conversation was interrupted.
"Hello. It's Alex, the Magus' son." The boy from all those years ago had grown up, they had only seen him a few times over the years, each time he grew a little bit more. He walked closer to their cages.
"See, I don't know whether you can speak or... or if you can even understand me, but I just wanted to ask... are you alright in there?" He paused looking between Morpheus and Astraea, they looked back. Astraea almost felt sorry for him, he hadn't asked to be involved in this.
"No, of course you're not. I'm... I'm sorry about all this. He's not a bad man, my father, he... he just... See, if you could bring Randall back, or... or just give him something, anything, Or even just speak to him, Then I am sure that he would let you out. See, I... I would let you out." Astraea felt pity at the poor boy, he clearly was in way over his head and was forced to follow his father.
"You would, would you?" Almost flinching at the sudden intrusion of Rodrick Burgess, Astraea felt her heart drop as Alex's face fell at his father's entrance. He was dragged away by his father and the two guards, Noel and Maurice took their place at the doors and Morpheus and Astraea were plunged back into silence.
It wasn't silent for long though as smoke began to poor into the cellar and the guards rushed out, yelling about the fire brigade.
"What's going on?" Astraea's voice called out, Morpheus didn't answer, he knew as little as her. The smoke continued to pool in the cellar and the heat rose in the room, a fire.
Astraea's breathing had quickened as she realised that the house was on fire and they were trapped. It wouldn't do much, it would discorporate her at worst, it would still hurt though and her soul would be trapped in the binding circle still.
A raven flew through the doors and began pecking at the glass surrounding Morpheus, a small smile had made it onto his face. Maybe, this raven would be the one to save them. She had almost begun to cheer the raven on when a gunshot sounded in the cellar and she saw the raven covered in blood, feather's strewn across the floor. Morpheus' smile instantly dropped and she watched as Alex Burgess realised what he had done.
"Idiot. You could have shattered the glass." Rodrick Burgess did not seem impressed that Alex had almost freed Dream of the Endless. He looked down at the dead raven.
"Clear that mess up." He turned away from the two supernatural beings. Astraea could see the look on Morpheus' face, his whole world had been shattered. She didn't know who the raven was, but she knew that they must have been important to him.
A few months passed and Morpheus seemed even more closed off than he had already been. They hadn't got any isolation since that day, until now.
The guards had been late again and the last shift had left after waiting half an hour.
"I'm sorry about the raven, what was their name?" It was the first time he had looked at her during the ten years, he had spent the entirety of it staring at the gates, not looking in her direction or acknowledging that she was there.
"Jessamy. Her name was Jessamy." She could hear the unshed tears and heartbreak in his voice as he spoke.
"Jessamy is a beautiful name. She will be missed." He didn't speak again for a minute.
"Astraea?" He had never spoken to her first, only responded to her questions.
"Yes?"
"Do you have anyone out there looking for you?" His eyes flashed to her direction, the pain clearly shown on his face, she wondered if he had thought about that a lot. She knew she had, wondering if Aziraphale had noticed her absence yet or if he thought she was just taking her time between visits. He had probably got too absorbed into his book shop and not noticed her peculiar absence. It would most likely be the demon, Crowley that pointed out her disappearance.
"I like to think that my brother has realised I'm missing by now. Mum knows he's oblivious to these things." He let out a chuck at that, "What about you?... Got anyone looking for you?"
"My siblings no doubt know I am missing and are doing nothing about it. Lucienne - my librarian - is probably ruling in my absence." She could hear the annoyance that his family hadn't come for him and that someone else was ruling for him. She couldn't imagine not being close with her family and not relying on them when she was in need.
"So you really are Dream of the Endless then?" She had turned her whole body to face him at this point. She was intrigued by him, she had grown up on stories of the Endless. They were revered throughout all of heaven. Morpheus was mainly know from the Greek Pantheon - she was also a part of that pantheon. Astraea, Goddess of Justice, the last one to leave Earth and the caretaker of Zeus' lightning bolts. When she had left, she had taken residence in the sky as the constellation, Virgo. The Virtue, Zeus, had convinced an entire portion of the Earth to worship him - he was punished for that. Some of the other angels and supernatural beings such as Astraea and Morpheus had been dragged in by him to his insane scheme.
"I suppose. Am I correct in assuming you're a cherubim?" She was always proud that she was easily identifiable as a cherubim. Her brother was no longer classed as a cherubim, instead he was a principality after giving away his flaming sword - not that heaven knew about that. "You would be correct." They couldn't continue their conversation as the next shift of guards entered into the cellar and took up their positions.
Another bout of silence filled their days as the world continued to move around them. It was months later that Rodrick Burgess returned to their cages, panicked and hurried.
He marched up to Morpheus' sphere and attempted to make eye contact with the Endless."The woman who lives with me has gone and robbed me of my fortune. She has also robbed you. She's taken your helm, your sand and your ruby. Now, I can unlock this, and you can go after her... If you give me what I have been asking for. Wealth, youth, immortality." Dream stayed silent and continued to stare at Burgess. These things were not for human's to have.
"Oh, you're a god. These things are nothing to you. Don't you want your weapons and your freedom?" He continued to stay silent and Astraea held her breath in anticipation as Rodrick's anger spiked. This could go very badly.
"Speak to me! Speak to me! Speak to me!" He hit the glass with his cane and Morpheus and Astraea both seemed to have the thought that he would break the glass as he continued to hit it.
"Come on! Speak to me!" Alex moved towards his father and tried to pull him away from the glass and try and calm him.
"It's alright, father." Rodrick turned around to hit him with the cane.
"Get away from me. If you were any kind of son to me..." He swung the cane at Alex and he had to duck out of the way, Astraea sat forward in her sphere to try and see better as they moved in front of her. She was an angel, she didn't tolerate violence, but being trapped for a decade meant that this was the highlight of her decade.
"If Randall were alive today-" Alex grabbed onto his father's cane and cut him off.
"If Randall were alive today, he would hate you as much as I do." Rodrick pushed him backwards and off of his cane, however, the force of his movement pushed him back into the glass of Astraea's sphere and his head collided with it, he dropped to the ground and groaned out in pain.
"Sir?" One of the guards called out to him as his head bled onto the floor, he rolled his collapsed body over to look at Morpheus and Astraea.
"You're never getting out of here. Never." Astraea's focus shifted from the dying man and the guards to Alex who was slowly moving closer to Morpheus' sphere.
"Sir, don't do it. He'll kill us all." Alex didn't pay attention to the guards as his hand reached out to Morpheus' sphere. Could this be it, could they be escaping. No, Astraea had a feeling that they weren't going to be escaping for a long while. The apocalypse was due to start around a century after her capture and she knew that she wasn't there for it, where else could she be other than here? What other reason would she have for missing it?
"What would your father think?" That made him pause. The dazed smile dropped from his face and he lowered his arm.
"I need to think." He hurried from the room, and with him went their chance of escape. She was right, they weren't due to escape any time soon. It didn't make it hurt any less though.