Chapter 5:Mortal Frailty and The Rivers Of Time...
The night went still. Time lost its grasp, and reality convulsed, birthing a vortex darker than the void itself. It swirled from the ground, gleaming with auroras and a tapestry of stars.
When it finally receded, there stood a glorious figure, shrouded in night and masked with fate. He held dominion over death and dreaming, a crow perched on his shoulder—the harbinger of beginnings, into which the vortex had withdrawn.
It was The Dream.
He had returned to the mortal realm, specifically this dilapidated shed where the dreamless mortal dwelt.
He willed the Helm of Fate and the Unholy Sword of Death away. They retreated in a swirl of tempestuous darkness into the Orb of the Dreaming, now residing within the vortex.
He took a step forward, only for his legs to wobble. The world spun, his vision thinning.
Before his mortal mind could comprehend, his body descended in a graceful arc toward the rough stone floor.
"Vortagem," he weakly beckoned, more a subconscious command. The crow obeyed instantly, dissolving into a swirl of dark matter laced with starlight. It wrapped around his flailing form, easing him onto the frail bed. His pale face, illuminated by moonlight, faded as his vision dimmed.
Was this the fatigue of the mortal body?
That was his last thought before unconsciousness claimed him. The crow's form shifted, first into a devouring maze that engulfed the confined space, then convoluting into a figure—mortal-like, dream-like. The true likeness of its master, yet feminine.
Her pale hands tenderly draped the Dream Lord in the scattered sheets, parting strands of hair from his pale face, now etched with harrowing cracks—a testament to the tremendous strain he had imposed on the mortal body he inhabited.
"Sleep well..." From afar, the stars flickered, streaks of shooting stars bathing the sky, as if the world itself offered a lullaby.
"Dream Lord..."
---
The tingling warmth of sunlight on his skin and the incessant chirping of birds drew him from slumber. As expected, it had been devoid of dreams—just a pale, dark void where imagination should have flourished.
Truly ironic.
The Dream had become the dreamless.
He rose from the disheveled bed, his feet touching the rough slabbed floor. Instinctively, he withdrew, the sensation crawling up his legs. So this was the mortal sense of things—not grandeur, but simplicity.
How intriguing.
A sharp pang tore through his upper abdomen, a deep yearning to feed on whatever sustenance the mortal realm offered.
Inconvenient, it seemed. This was mortal hunger, the dependency on energies and supplements to survive.
He was now plagued by this burden, another diminutive mortal peril.
"Vortagem," he muttered, not aloud but through the mind. In response, a crow swirled into being, eclipsing the morning light as it landed on his shoulder.
Truly, his most reliable companion.
"Tell me truly—how bad was my condition from the night before?" he asked, his tone adjusting to the linguistic cadence of this realm's mortals.
"Your peril, dear master, was no more than a consequence of your overwhelming dominance over the mortal body you now reside in. I advise you minimize displays of your magnificence, dear Lord... I mean no imposition." Vortagem's words resonated in his mind—the only being he deemed worthy of such intimacy.
It was right, of course. But it wasn't solely the aftereffect of his overexertion; it was also the Creator's active suppression in the mortal realm. In the realms of Fate and Death, limits held no sway, for there he existed as the Dream, bound only by the Author's will. But here, in this fraught mortal plane, he existed not as Dream but as Meredith, his essence suppressed. It left him unperturbed, save for the lingering toll on his host.
Truly diminutive.
His stomach rumbled loudly, echoing off the moss-laden, cracked walls—less a room, more a rat hole.
"Tell me, Vortagem," he muttered, raking his obsidian-dark hair back, "in what way shall I satisfy this mortal urge to feed? How shall I acquire these supplements?"
He could have sifted through Meredith's memories, but he deemed it a waste of his sentience.
"I apologize, O Lord, but thee possess not the means to acquire such supplements, for they are exchanged for currency mortals of this province deem as Vals." The message surged into his mind. "Unless perhaps you forge the currency into being, O master. The choice lies before you."
He sighed, standing fully. He approached a broken drawer laden with tattered garments: a faded linen shirt with frayed cuffs, woolen trousers patched at the knees, a threadbare waistcoat missing buttons, and a crumpled cravat—all remnants of Victorian-era attire, evoking the somber practicality of a bygone age's working class.
"It is beneath the Dream to expend his essence on trivial matters. This peril, I shall solve myself," he muttered, removing the tunic from the night before. "Then I shall proceed with the first stage of my grand scheme: the acquisition of the essence of the Ascended Angel," he uttered to himself.
"I plead mercy for my interruption, O Lord. I wish to inform thee that it is a custom of mortals, after the break of dawn, to undergo a rite of cleansing with water and lye—one you have yet to perform." Vortagem resounded in his subconscious.
"Very well. Where, then, would I undertake this rite?" he mused. Even mortals wove laws to bind themselves, yet craved freedom.
How ironic.
Like Creator, like offspring.
---
In an ethereal realm where time flowed in luminous rivers, the dark sky was cast alight by a colossal fractured halo, its jagged edges pulsing with otherworldly radiance. Landscapes hovered suspended above, floating islands of crystalline rock and whispering mists,No Chaos.,Just the Stillness of All things. Below, the Eternal River of Time surged endlessly, its waters a cascade of shimmering chronal threads, weaving past, present, and future into an infinite tapestry.
On one of the cliff edges sat a figure:six-winged, with six concurrent dark halos encircling his form like shadowed crowns. His pristine white hair flowed in eternal suspension, untouched by wind or whim. In his hands, he held a great hook and line, cast into the rivers below—fishing for anomalies that disrupted the flow.
An ethereal figure manifested from the stillness behind him, prostrating in reverence before the fallen Archangel, Lucifer Dominos.
"What drags you O vermin across Creation to one of my strongholds?" The realm bellowed, echoing the will of the Fallen Archangel.