The transition was not gentle.
One moment I was Jon Snow, six years old, lying in a narrow bed in a cold castle, the fading pulse of a weirwood tree still echoing in my bones. The next I was Loki, the God of Stories, the Anchor of Yggdrasil, sitting on a throne of crystallized time at the center of everything.
The shift was disorienting in ways I had not anticipated. My mortal body was small and weak and limited, its senses dulled by youth and inexperience. My true body was vast and ancient and powerful, its senses attuned to the pulse of infinite timelines, the hum of infinite stories, the slow, steady beat of a multiverse that had been growing for eons.
For a long moment, I simply sat there, reorienting myself.
The tree blazed around me. Emerald and sapphire, ruby and gold, branches reaching into infinities I had not yet explored. The red-flecked canopy of the Marvel realities pulsed with its familiar rhythm. The blue-specked canopy of the DC realities shimmered with its quiet, alien harmony. And between them, new branches were sprouting—hybrid realities, in-between places, worlds that belonged to neither multiverse but drew from both. Planetos was one of them. There would be others.
I could feel them all.
I could feel the link to Jon Snow, still active, still humming at the back of my consciousness. The boy was sleeping now, his mortal mind drifting through dreams that were not quite dreams. I could feel the weirwood's presence, faint but persistent, a thread of old magic woven through the fabric of that world. I could feel the runes I had carved, two small stones glowing green beneath a child's bed.
But all of that was distant now. Background noise. The foreground was here. The foreground was the summons.
The summons from Dream.
---
I had felt it even as Jon Snow—a pull at the edge of my awareness, a hand brushing against my sleeve. But now, with my full consciousness restored to my true body, the summons was unmistakable. It was not a voice. It was not a message. It was more like... an invitation. A door left slightly ajar. A path that had not existed before, now waiting to be walked.
Dream of the Endless wanted to see me.
I leaned back on my throne, considering the implications. Dream was the most complicated of my new god-siblings. He was proud and cold and ancient beyond measure, the Shaper of Forms, the Prince of Stories, the Lord of the Dreaming. He had not welcomed me with open arms at Destiny's garden. He had called me a disruption. He had questioned my right to cultivate stories in the waking world.
But he had also acknowledged me. Colleagues, I had called us, and he had not rejected the word.
Now he was summoning me to his realm.
"Interesting," I murmured. The throne adjusted itself, cradling my spine. "I wonder what he wants."
The tree did not answer. The tree never answered. But the gold thread of Time pulsed in the branches, and I felt something that might have been encouragement.
I closed my eyes and reached out with my consciousness. The technique was familiar now—the same technique I had used to attend Destiny's meeting, the same technique I would use to visit all seven realms before my pilgrimage was complete. Find a vessel. Establish a link. Walk into the unknown.
But the Dreaming was different. The Dreaming was not a physical place. It was a realm of mind and memory and imagination, shaped by its master's will and inhabited by the dreams of every living thing in existence. I could not simply borrow a mortal body and walk through a door. I would need to enter the Dreaming as myself—or as much of myself as could be contained in a form that would not shatter the realm around me.
I focused. The link to Jon Snow was still active, but I did not need it now. I needed something else. Something closer to Dream's domain.
I needed to dream.
---
Sleep was not something I had experienced in eons. The throne did not permit sleep. The tree required constant attention, constant magic, constant presence. I had not closed my eyes in what felt like a thousand years.
But I was the God of Stories. And stories, like dreams, existed in the space between waking and sleeping, between reality and imagination, between what was and what could be.
I let my consciousness drift.
The throne remained. The tree remained. My body remained, hands resting on crystallized time, magic flowing through the branches. But my mind—my awareness—slipped sideways, through a crack in the fabric of existence, into a realm that had existed since the first living thing closed its eyes and imagined something that was not there.
The Dreaming.
---
It was vast.
That was my first impression. Vast and shifting and utterly, breathtakingly alive. The sky was not a sky—it was a canvas, painted with colors that changed with every heartbeat, streaked with clouds that were not clouds but memories, lit by a sun that was not a sun but the collective imagination of every dreamer who had ever looked up at the heavens and wondered what lay beyond.
The ground was not ground. It was a mosaic of images, fragments of dreams pressed together like tiles in an infinite mosaic. I saw faces I recognized—mortals I had watched from my throne, avatars whose stories had returned to the tree—and faces I did not, dreamers from realms I had not yet explored. Their hopes and fears and fantasies swirled beneath my feet like currents in an ocean.
And at the center of it all—if a realm without geography could have a center—stood a palace.
It was not a palace in the mortal sense. It was too vast, too beautiful, too *impossible*. Its spires reached toward a sky that bent to meet them. Its gates were carved from the stuff of nightmares and the stuff of hopes, intertwined so tightly that one could not exist without the other. Its walls shifted and flowed, never the same from one moment to the next, as if the palace itself were dreaming.
The palace of Dream of the Endless.
I walked toward it, and the path rose to meet me.
---
The gates opened before I reached them.
A figure stood in the doorway—tall and thin, with pointed ears and a face that was both beautiful and unsettling. He was not human. He had never been human. He was something older, something stranger, something that had been shaped by the Dreaming the way a river shapes a stone.
"Loki of Yggdrasil," the figure said, and his voice was the rustle of pages turning in a library that did not exist. "The Lord of Dreams awaits you. I am Lucien, his librarian. I will escort you to the throne room."
"A librarian," I said, and I could not keep the amusement from my voice. "How appropriate. I have a certain fondness for librarians."
Lucien did not smile. "The Lord of Dreams has instructed me to treat you as an honored guest. Please follow me."
I followed.
---
The throne room of the Dreaming was not what I expected.
It was vast, yes—vaulted ceilings that disappeared into mist, windows that looked out onto landscapes that could not exist in any waking world. But it was also intimate. Personal. The throne itself was not a grand, gilded construct but a simple chair of dark wood, carved with images that shifted and changed as I watched.
And on that throne sat Dream.
He was exactly as I remembered him from Destiny's garden—pale skin, dark hair, eyes older than hope and colder than starlight. His cloak of midnight pooled around him like a living shadow. His face was carved from marble and grief. He did not rise when I entered. He did not smile. He simply watched me, his gaze unreadable, as I walked the length of the throne room and stopped before his seat.
"Loki," he said. "God of Stories. Anchor of Yggdrasil. Godbrother."
"Dream," I replied. "Prince of Stories. Shaper of Forms. Lord of the Dreaming. You summoned me."
"I did."
"May I ask why?"
Dream was silent for a moment. Then he rose from his throne—a fluid motion, graceful and deliberate—and descended the steps until he stood before me. We were nearly of a height, I realized. Our eyes met on a level.
"You called us colleagues," Dream said. "At Destiny's garden. You said we were not rivals but colleagues. I have been thinking about that word."
"And?"
"And I have questions." He gestured, and two chairs materialized from the shadows—simple, elegant, facing each other. "Sit. Talk with me. I would understand what you are."
I sat. Dream sat opposite me, his dark eyes never leaving my face.
"Ask your questions," I said. "I will answer what I can."
---
"Why do you cultivate stories?"
The question was direct, unadorned, utterly characteristic of the being who asked it. Dream did not waste words.
I considered my answer carefully. "At first, because I was bored. I had been sitting on that throne for longer than most civilizations exist, sustaining a multiverse that did not ask for me, watching stories unfold without ever being able to touch them. The avatars were a solution. A way to participate without interfering. A way to be part of the story again."
"And now?"
"Now it is more than that. The avatars feed the tree. Their lives become compost—nourishment for Yggdrasil, fuel for new branches, new realities, new stories. What began as entertainment has become a cycle. A purpose. A glorious purpose, if you will forgive the phrase."
Dream's expression flickered. "You feed on stories."
"I cultivate them. The distinction matters. I do not consume stories. I do not destroy them. I plant seeds and tend the garden and harvest the fruit. The tree grows. The multiverse expands. Every story that returns to me makes reality a little larger, a little richer, a little more alive."
"And the dreamers?" Dream asked. "What of them?"
"I do not touch their dreams. That is your domain, not mine. I shape the waking world. I give mortals choices. Free will. The ability to write their own stories instead of following a script written by someone else." I paused. "You shape the dreams. I shape the lives. The distinction, as I said before, seems clear enough."
Dream was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was quieter. "Do you know why I was hostile to you? At the garden?"
"I assumed it was because I had intruded on your domain without permission."
"That was part of it. But not the whole." He leaned back in his chair, his dark eyes distant. "I was once imprisoned. For decades. A mortal sorcerer trapped me in a glass cage and stole my tools—my helm, my sand, my ruby. While I was imprisoned, the Dreaming suffered. Dreams faltered. Nightmares escaped. The waking world fell into a sickness of sleep that lasted for generations."
I listened. I had not known this. The Endless were ancient and mysterious, and their histories were not written in any book I had access to.
"When I escaped," Dream continued, "I had to rebuild. The Dreaming. My power. My sense of self. It took a very long time. And in that time, I learned that my domain was more fragile than I had believed. That without my constant attention, the dreams of every living thing would wither and die."
"And you saw me as a threat to that."
"I saw you as a rival. Another lord of stories, shaping narratives in a realm adjacent to my own. If you grew too powerful—if your domain expanded too far—what would become of the Dreaming? What would become of me?"
I considered his words. The fear behind them was not irrational. It was the fear of a being who had already lost everything once and was determined never to lose it again.
"I am not your enemy," I said. "I am not your replacement. I am not even your rival. I am a gardener, Dream. I plant seeds in the waking world. You shape the dreams that inspire those seeds to grow. We are not in competition. We are in partnership."
"Partnership," Dream said, testing the word.
"Colleagues," I offered. "Or, if you prefer, godbrothers. I have been told I smell like your father. Delirium mentioned it. Repeatedly."
For the first time since I entered the throne room, something flickered in Dream's expression that was not coldness. It was not quite a smile. But it was close.
"Delirium mentions many things," he said. "Most of them are true. Some of them are colors."
"I noticed."
The silence that followed was different from the silences before. Less tense. More... companionable.
---
"Tell me about your tree," Dream said finally.
I told him.
I told him about Yggdrasil, the World Tree, blazing with emerald light at the center of everything. I told him about the branches—the red-flecked canopy of the Marvel realities, the blue-specked canopy of the DC realities, the new hybrid branches sprouting between them. I told him about the avatars I planted in the souls of the unborn, the lives they lived, the stories they returned to me when they died.
I told him about Jon Snow.
"A child," I said. "Born in a world called Planetos. A world of ice and fire, of ancient magic and political intrigue. I linked my consciousness to his soul before he was born. I am living his life as he lives it—feeling what he feels, learning what he learns, growing as he grows."
"You are invested," Dream observed.
"I am. More than I expected to be. He is... important. Not just as compost for the tree. As a person. As a story. He is the Prince That Was Promised in his world—a prophecy of a savior who will stand against the darkness. And I am beginning to suspect that the prophecy was always about me."
Dream raised an eyebrow. "You believe you are this world's prophesied savior?"
"I believe I am ice and fire. Born on Jotunheim, a realm of eternal cold. Baptized in the flames of Ragnarok, the death of Asgard. I have carried both elements inside me since before that world existed. The prophecy is not predicting me. The prophecy is describing me. It just didn't know my name."
Dream was silent for a long moment. Then he said, quietly, "Prophecies are dangerous things. Destiny knows this. His book contains them all, and even he does not interfere. To be the subject of a prophecy is to be bound by it."
"I am not bound by anything," I said. "I am the God of Free Will. I chose to enter that world. I chose to become Jon Snow. And I will choose how his story ends—not because a prophecy dictates it, but because I will make it so."
Dream looked at me with something that might have been respect.
"You are not what I expected," he said.
"Neither are you," I replied. "I expected a cold and distant prince, too proud to admit that anyone could be his equal. Instead I find a being who has lost everything and rebuilt it, who fears for his domain but is willing to listen, who asked me here not to threaten but to *understand*."
"Perhaps we are both more than our reputations suggest."
"Perhaps we are."
---
The conversation continued for what felt like hours. We spoke of stories and dreams, of mortals and gods, of the nature of narrative and the shape of imagination. Dream told me about the Dreaming—its history, its inhabitants, its endless, shifting landscapes. I told him about Yggdrasil—the branches, the avatars, the slow, steady growth of my divinity.
We did not agree on everything. Dream was still proud. I was still mischievous. There were moments of tension, moments of disagreement, moments where the old hostility threatened to resurface. But beneath it all, there was something new. Something that had not been there at Destiny's garden.
Understanding.
When I finally rose to leave, Dream rose with me.
"You are welcome in the Dreaming," he said, and the words seemed to cost him something. "You are not my rival. You are not my replacement. You are... my colleague. My godbrother. And I would not be opposed to further conversations."
I smiled. "I would like that. But I have six more realms to visit before my pilgrimage is complete. Your siblings are waiting."
"They are." Dream paused. "Be careful with Desire. They will try to manipulate you. And be gentle with Despair. She is more fragile than she seems."
"Thank you for the advice."
"Thank you for coming."
I turned to leave. Then I paused, looking back over my shoulder. "Dream? One more thing."
"Yes?"
"The stories I cultivate—the avatars, the lives, the compost that feeds the tree—they are not a threat to your domain. They are an expansion of it. Every life I touch creates new dreams. Every choice I enable sparks new imaginations. The Dreaming will not wither because of me. It will grow."
Dream was silent for a moment. Then, almost imperceptibly, he nodded.
"I will consider your words," he said. "Now go. You have a pilgrimage to complete. And I have dreams to shape."
I walked out of the throne room, through the shifting corridors of the palace, past Lucien the librarian, through the gates of horn and ivory. The Dreaming swirled around me, vast and beautiful and strange, and for the first time since I sat on my throne, I felt something that might have been hope.
One realm visited. Six to go.
And somewhere, in a cold castle on a world called Planetos, a boy named Jon Snow opened his eyes and wondered why he had dreamed of a palace made of starlight and a man with eyes older than hope.