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lucyfer-thorn · 2 years

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Younger Gods: I

Dream x fem!reader (unnamed)

Dream is protective of his ravens after Jessamy, and he's still bad at listening. The reader finds this out the hard way.

Warnings: extremely mild gore/injury to animal, language, Dream is his own warning

A/N: Playing a little fast and loose with dream physics, but we're just here for a good time, right? I read the comics an age ago, and thought I might as well pop back into the fandom for a quick swim after falling in love all over again via Netflix. Aiming for 5 chapters, but we'll see where this takes us.

*Remember, to like is kind but to comment/repost is divine.

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Chapter 1: Just don't bite me

“How did you get here?”

She stared at the injured raven hopping across her garden like it might open its beak and speak. Give her some answers. It’s eye fixed on her, pinning her even as it fought gravity and pain, flapping with a wing bent the wrong way.

Glossy black feathers hid the blood it left on the long grass. If it didn’t move like something hurt, didn’t struggle to hold up its broken wing, she’d never guess it had crashed into her little world by accident. Which brought her back to the question.

It fluffed the feathers around its neck in an attempt to look bigger, croaking as it shuffled farther away. Soft thunder purred in the clouds, and the steady rain dripped from the tip of the raven’s beak. She held up her hands. Sank low on her heels, as near to the raven’s level as she could reach without falling flat on her belly. If that’s what it took to earn its trust, though, she’d get a little muddy.

For all that it was uninvited, the bird was her guest now, and if she didn’t take care of it, it could never leave. Maybe it would haunt her. Maybe she’d just feel guilty as hell.

“You’re hurt.”

The raven twitched, its head tilting three different ways, studying her expression from varied angles, like it would reveal malicious intent in the right light. He could look all he wanted, but she needed to get him out of the rain.

She started unwinding the thick, knit scar from around her neck, speaking low in an effort to keep the bird calm. “I have something that can help. It’s just a salve, but you’ll heal much faster, and I’m sure you’d like to be on your way as soon as possible. But I’m going to take you inside first, so you can get warm and dry. The rain never really stops.”

Prepared with the folded cloth, she crept forward a few steps, giving the bird time to move away. When it didn’t, she closed the distance and muttered, “Just don’t bite me, okay?”

“No promises, witch,” the raven said.

Her hands stilled an inch away from his feathers. So, he was magic. Magic and rude as fuck.

She spluttered, “I’m not a witch.”

“Yeah?” The raven looked up at the clouds and down at her cottage. “Well, this place is weird. And so are you.”

“It was the best I could do.” She carefully wrapped the scarf around him, mindful of the bad wing – and the beak. “Sorry it doesn’t live up to your standards.”

Her first guest, and all he could do was insult all her hard work. He scoffed but held still in his swaddling as she pulled up to her chest and tramped back inside.

It wasn’t her fault it rained all time. Well, technically it was, actually, but she liked it. The water looked beautiful running down the windows, and the cozy fire glowed bright enough to warm a soul when the trees rustled in the wind. With rain hushing over the roof and a whisper of distant thunder to keep her company, she never felt lonely.

Tasteless corvid.

She set him down by the fireplace while she chose a good blanket to craft a makeshift nest. Only when she’d stripped off the scarf and moved him to the softer resting place did she tug off her own drenched sweater, shivering until she found a good replacement. Her wet hair clung to her neck as she pulled a sweater three sizes too big over her head. The sleeves dangled past her fingers, and she shoved them up past her elbows in thoughtless habit.

The bird hadn’t taken his eyes off her, but he still mustered enough faith to thank her. Sort of.

“This is… nice.”

It sounded like an olive branch, so she took it as one. The one room cottage was her haven. Even if it looked small and worn, she found it warm and soft, kind in the way a home ought to be.

“I like to think so.”

She moved to the workbench under the window that looked out to the garden, where she’d been sitting when the raven dropped out of the clouds with an all too human cry. Her fingertips ghosted over herbs and pots and potions as she looked for the little vial she wanted. She only finished it a week ago. It would take three months to make another. But that was alright. No one else really needed it.

When she knelt beside the bird, vial open and ready to drip over his injuries, he clacked his beak at her.

“Not a witch, huh?”

The wing felt so fragile in her hand. She couldn’t let him distract her. “My mother was. I’m… weird.”

“You can say that again.”

“This might hurt.”

“What do you -?” He broke off in a sharp caw, instinctively jerking away as she pulled his bones straight.

“Sorry, sorry. The worst is over now, I promise.”

He had a wonderfully colorful vocabulary for a raven, and he shouted a few rainbows while she wrapped his wing in the best position to heal. The white gauze practically glowed against his onyx plumage, and he looked just a little more pitiable.

“Sorry,” she repeated.

The bird shook himself, stretching and folding his good wing three times to push away the pain.

“Son of a bitch,” he hissed. “Fucking damn. Teach me to pay attention. Kids and their fucking rocks.” He’d been staring into the fire as he recovered his equilibrium, but once he could pause his cursing, the bird looked back at his host.

“Name’s Matthew. What do I call you, weird girl who isn’t a witch?”

She shrugged. “Whatever you like.”

“I was asking for your name, lady.”

“I don’t have one I can give you.”

“That’s not helpful.” He looked around the room, probably on the hunt for something to critique, and although his beak opened, it snapped shut again when he looked back over his shoulder. He stared at her in the firelight, but not at her face. “What happened to your neck, lady?”

Her hand flew up to cover the scars, a landscape of smooth, raised, and sunken marks ringing her throat. She’d forgotten when she took off the scarf. Horror and humiliation twisted in her stomach, and she was wildly aware of being ugly and vulnerable in the same breath. Instead of answering, she rushed back to her closet, pulling out an even longer knit piece than the one she’d wrapped the bird – Matthew – in outside.

He picked up on the subtext, deflating a little and pointedly changing the subject.

“How long will this magic potion of yours take? I need to get back to the Dreaming. My boss is waiting for me.”

The scarf’s tail dropped from numb fingers, one loop short of her goal, left to trail on the ground as she wondered how the fuck her day could get any worse.

“The Dreaming?”

“Yeah. Know of many other realms with talking ravens, lady?”

“No,” she admitted, cursing herself in the privacy of her own thoughts. “It will take a couple days for you to fly again, I think.”

“That’s no good.” Matthew pecked at his bandages, and she rushed over.

“Stop that. You’ll make it worse.”

“Can’t fly with this,” he said, mouth full of gauze.

“You can’t fly without them, either,” she said gently.

Giving up with an enormous sigh, the raven wriggled down into the blanket and glowered through the window at the continuous rain. A little bolt of lighting reflected in his gleaming eye, like an idea sparking to life.

“Your weird little house is pretty close, you know,” he said. “To the Dreaming, I mean. I bet you could walk there.”

“It takes a day to walk in or out.”

“Why?”

“Because I made it that way.”

“Oh, you’re definitely weird.” He paused, like he was finally noticing the blanket nest and the empty vial glittering by the warm flames. When he spoke again, he sounded the slightest bit contrite. “Weird but nice. And I still need your help.”

“I don’t want to go to the Dreaming, Matthew.” She couldn’t bring her voice to carry more than a whisper. She was so afraid of her dreams she didn’t even sleep anymore. Not much. Walking into the fertile fields of the Dream Lord’s imagination…

“You don’t have to go in,” the raven insisted. “Just get me to the gates and I’ll be someone else’s problem. I promise.”

She couldn’t answer. She really didn’t dare. The laws of hospitality urged her to pick up the bird and carry him wherever he wanted to go, and he made it all sound so reasonable, so easy. Just a stroll and a hand over to a friendly face eager to welcome him back. It wasn’t, though. Oh, the walk was fine. She came and went from her hideaway world all the time, but her heart thrummed in terror to even think of the Dreaming. Was she really so close? Her home didn’t feel as safe as it had that morning. The security of the cozy storm left something wanting now. None of this was designed to keep other entities out. It was just… out of the way. On the other hand, if she left the bird – one of Dream’s ravens! – here to recover and his master came for him, it would never be a sanctuary ever again.

Maybe… if she was quick…

“I’ll –” Her voice broke. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I’ll try. I’ll walk you to the gates.”

“Thank you.” At least he sounded like he meant it. Lack of gratitude wouldn’t change her mind at this point, but she appreciated it. Walking twelve hours with a rude bird muttering under his breath didn’t sound like the fun kind of adventure.

None of this sounded like the fun kind of adventure.

Fun adventures involved late night diners and questionable life choices after two bottles of wine.

“My master needs me,” Matthew said, like he still needed to prove his point.

That was fine. That was great. Dream would be missing his raven soon. She was tempted to take a faster mode of travel, but she wasn’t sure what that would do to the raven, so she hurried to gather everything she’d need for the walk instead. Tall rainboots, a hooded jacket, and two shawls. She wrapped one around Matthew to keep him warm and tied the other around herself like a sling. With the bird nestled close to her natural warmth, she charged back into the rain. She didn’t even take the time to bank the fire.

Matthew, apparently, decided her rush was entirely for his benefit. “Thanks for this. I mean it.”

She paused at the edge of the garden, standing in the gap in the stone wall as she studied the horizon, looking for something to tell her where to go.

“Which way to the Dreaming?”

Matthew fidgeted and jerked his beak at a random point. “There. I can’t see it, but I can feel it, you know?”

She didn’t know or she wouldn’t have asked, but her breath was better saved for walking. Nearly running, she sped through the emerald green grass and low white flowers in the verdant moss. She didn’t look. Didn’t appreciate. Didn’t stop to touch, or pick, or smell. If she had the stamina to run the twelve hours, she would.

Pattering rain sounded louder inside her hood, and the sky broiled with clouds promising a real storm.

Maybe he could hear her heart pounding by his ear, or he finally realized she was moving awfully quickly for someone who didn’t want to go on this trip in the first place. Whatever his inspiration, Matthew dragged their conversation back from the dead to persuade her she’d made the right choice as she forded a narrow stream.

“You don’t have to be afraid of Dream,” he said. “If he’s upset, it will be with me. You’re doing me a favor.” He paused, struck by a new through that almost immediately spewed out his beak. “You’re not old enemies or something, are you?”

“No. I’ve never met him. I’d rather not meet him today.”

Matthew croaked. “Why not?”

Sometimes the truth was the simplest path to peace, and she’d like the bird to shut up for a while. “I have bad dreams. I don’t want to get any closer to them. Thanks.”

“You know, he could do something about that.”

“I don’t like favors.”

“But I’d argue he owes you one.”

“I’d argue that I don’t care.”

More croaking, this time accompanied by rustling from his safely bound wings. She remembered ravens were in the business of knowing things, watching and listening until they could deliver a secret whole and unbroken to their master. Her cagey replies must bother him on some deeper level.

“So why are you doing this? You clearly don’t want to.”

“Because you were hurt. You needed help. And I don’t want your master to come looking for you here.”

He cast incredible side-eye for a creature wrapped in home-knit outerwear strapped to a stranger’s chest.

But at least he shut-up.

It was the perfect landscape for long walks. She’d designed it that way. Gently rolling hills melted into copses of trees just too small to be forests but deep enough to lose the daylight below the tangled canopy. Any other day, she’d enjoy this trek. But now she wondered if she’d ever be able to enjoy it again, knowing which direction the Dreaming lay and how close it pressed to her border.

She slogged up the hills and slipped down the muddy sides, careful not to tumble and crush the fragile bird she carried against her chest. She slipped through the woods, ignoring the sweet smell of old loam and dried leaves. When the heavy rain came down in a curtain as the crested the last hill, she pushed through that, too.

The raven stayed awake for the entire trip. She shaved a full three hours off her usual time, and she reached the end exhausted. She should’ve packed a stimulant. Maybe an energy drink. Maybe a potion. Something. She had to get herself back home after this.

A field stretched to the cusp of oblivion, a black void at the edge of the turf her mind fought not to notice. She walked to the edge, slowing until she came to the brink, and then she had no ideas.

“I don’t see anything.”

“Well, you’re not a raven,” Matthew said. “I see where we need to go. Just trust me. There’s a path a few feet to the left.”

She shuffled obediently to the side, but she still saw nothing.

“Just take a step,” the bird insisted. “I’ll guide you through it.”

She didn’t want to. Every instinct from every element of her pedigree screamed that this was a Bad Idea. Relying on blind faith and a raven’s intuition might lead her into the Dreaming, but she bet she’d have a long fall someone with wings wouldn’t consider a problem. Some little oversight would swallow her whole, and nightmare would eat her alive, or she’d be trapped in her own night terrors.

“Why don’t I just leave you here?” She could hear the panic in her wobbling pitch, and her trembling hands banished any doubt as she reached for the knot in the sling.

“I thought you didn’t want Morpheus to come looking for me in your weird little bubble realm.”

She closed her eyes. Drew a shaky breath. No, she didn’t want that, but would it be worse than voluntarily stepping into that darkness? The raven couldn’t protect her. He wouldn’t even know what was safe for her, really. He was flying on a lot of assumptions, and she didn’t want to pay the price for his optimistic naivety.

“I don’t know what the void will do to me,” she confessed. “I’ve never actually… touched it.”

“It won’t do anything,” the raven said. “And it’s so thin you won’t even notice. The Dreaming is right there.”

Fucking hell. Her hands seized air, opening and closing like she could snatch courage out of thin air. Damn it all.

She lunged into the thing she didn’t even want to look at, and for the barest moment, she felt it. Nothing. No pulse. No breath. No thought or feeling at all. A gap stretched between past and present, like she’d been snuffed out – or never began to exist in the first place.

Then her momentum carried her through in a boggling mess of physics, and she was somewhere again.

Air punched into empty lungs, and she stumbled, nearly falling to her knees as light, sound, and her own heartbeat returned.

“Whoa! Hey! Watch out for the water!”

Matthew’s shout brought her eyes down, and she saw dark waves lapping at her feet, sucking them into the black sand as the foam tried to climb up and over her rain boots. The fact that sea foam was trying to do anything clued her into the water’s threat, and she darted away with her newly-beating heart in her throat.

“Well done. You see? Not so bad. You’re fine.”

It had been one of the worst experiences in her fucked-up life, and she might’ve told him so if she had the breath. Instead, she barely managed to mutter, “I think I hate you.”

“Nah.”

She stopped to push the last of the void from her lungs, sucking in oxygen like she’d never tasted it before, and the sensation stirred several memories she couldn’t take time to stop and fight. Not on the shores of the Dreaming. Not so close to the Lord of Nightmares. She wrestled them down, threw other thoughts and needs over them like a rug over a stain. Her horrors would have to wait until she slept again, and she planned on putting that off for a long, long time.

When she felt ready and able to move again, she asked, “Where to now?”

“The gates,” he said, like he thought she was the stupid creature alive.

She looked away from her feet and finally noticed the looming doors further down the beach. Silently, she had to agree that she was, in fact, incredibly stupid. They were hard to miss, taller than a skyscraper, carved over in faces, beasts, and scenes she didn’t recognize, gleaming like aged ivory. Beautiful and awe-inspiring in the way an angel or the Milky way inspired reverence and respect. Something a little too vast for her to grasp, but towering over her regardless.

Yeah. Time to get this over with.

As she power-walked across the cold sand, shadowed by the rocks piercing out of the waves, she unknotted the sling and pulled Matthew out of his cocoon.

“This bus has come to the end of its route,” she said. “We hope you’ve enjoyed your trip.”

The raven cackled, trying to stretch his wing in spite of the way she still cradled him. “You find a sense of humor in the void?”

“No, just a sense of relief. Seriously. Watch where you’re flying next time. I won’t have another healing salve like a gave you for several months, so if you do this again, you’re fucked.”

“Thanks for the pep talk.” He was all but straining forward in her hands, eager to get home, to complete his mission and reassure his master that all was well. “You sure you don’t want to meet my master? Or Lucienne?”

It didn’t matter she didn’t know who Lucienne was. She didn’t need to meet any more dreams – or servants of dreams. “Very.”

“So, you’re just going to ding-dong-ditch Dream of the Endless?”

“Yup.”

“Suit yourself.”

The sand made it harder to keep her pace, sliding away under her heels, sapping her strength as she hurried to drop her guest off at his front door. Waves of power rolled down from the high wall, and she felt trapped against the tide of Dream’s domain and the dark ocean lapping up the shore behind her. Everything looked grand and stark. She didn’t belong with her green boots and her rain-slicked jacket. The hood had fallen back, and a damp strand decided to stick on her cheek. With her hands full of bird, she had no way to pull it off.

Cold, wet, disheveled.

Tired.

Afraid.

She was ready for this adventure to end.

“How are you going to get back through the void?” the bird asked.

She shook her head, amazed. “You just thought to ask that? Never mind. I have a shortcut.”

“What kind of shortcut? Why did we just walk for nine hours in the rain?”

She plucked at the end of the second shawl, the one she used to keep him warm on that nine-hour trip through the storm. Such gratitude.

“Because I didn’t know what it would do to you.”

“I can survive the void, lady, you think your shortcut’s tougher than that?”

How far away was the damn gate? Would this beach never end?

“All that matters,” she panted, “is that you’re going home. I’m going home.” She turned the bird in her hands so they were eye-to-eye. “And we will never have to see each other again.”

Sounding more human than ever, the bird tutted, but whatever he wanted to say was swallowed in a sudden, sharp wind.

The austere stillness consumed itself in a rage, lifting black sand and sea spray into an impenetrable haze. One second, she could see the gate. The next, she could barely see three feet in front of her. Shielding her eyes from the sand with one arm, she instinctively tucked the bird close, bending over him protectively. The grit gave the wind claws, and it lashed her bare flesh raw.

What have you done with my raven?

The question pressured her from all sides, a crushing, physical weight ringing in her ears as it forced her to cower in on herself. She couldn’t answer. Couldn’t breathe. Matthew squawked and fluttered in her arms, flopping free with half a scarf still wrapped around him, tangled in his claws. “Sir, wait! Sir!”

The raven’s call settled the hurricane, but the overwhelming pressure remained. The lingering effect of the voice pressed against her soul like a death knell as a figure gathered itself, standing between the two travelers and the gate. The raven struggled towards the tall, dark shape, and she all but slapped herself in the face in her fight to get the dust out of her eyes, nose, and mouth.

Matthew called the newcomer sir.

She was peering up at Dream of the Endless.

He knelt to accept the bird, face dark as a nightmare. Long, pale fingers explored the broken wing. When they pulled away, a few rusty crumbs of blood clung to the pads, and eyes burning with angry stars lifted to pierce her.

He asked again, “What have you done with my raven?”

This time the voice was a voice, not a force of nature. He sounded like smoke and sand, deep and sure as the ocean at her back. That voice might scour her away like a rough patch in his perfect Dreaming, and nothing in his tone said she was welcome.

Now she felt like the raven – a little bird with a hoarse cry and hollow bones all too easy to snap.

“You hurt something of mine.” A snarl carved into his face, and even as Matthew squawked for his lord’s attention, the Dream Lord reached out.

His shadow stretched long and dark from his feet, against the light. It crept towards her, darker than the black shore, and she stumbled over her own feet as she backed away, landing hard on her hands.

“I didn’t,” she whispered. Her voice was long gone. It fled and left her to die whimpering and pathetic, the traitor. Scrambling back as the shadow approached, she shook her head. “Please, don’t.”

Cawing and flapping, Matthew shouted, “Sir, stop!”

The shadow slowed, just for an instant, and she leapt to her feet. Tears burning her eyes from fear and grit, she ran three steps back, never daring to take her eyes off the threatening Endless. She clawed into her own mind, grabbing for the half of herself she preferred to leave wandering the sky over her cottage. A rumble drew Dream’s eyes to the dark clouds gathering at the edge of the Dreaming, and she saw his eyes flick back to her just as the lightning struck.

Her summoned bolt traced down to catch her up in a flash of burning light. The crackle was almost unbearable, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and Dream’s shadow was still snaking after her.

She wasn’t there when the shadow reached the place she’d stood. The lightning blast reached through her to the ground and then back up into the clouds. It took her with it.

An echoing strike deposited her in the cottage garden.

She fell to her hands and knees as the power zapped away into the sky. Mud squished up between her fingers, and she shuddered in place, too busy shaking to move. Rain rolled down her face, cleaning the salt of sweat, tears, and sea. Her limbs felt impossibly heavy after weightless, electric travel, and she bowed to the animal urge to just freeze in place for a while. She needed to think. Maybe then she could remember how to stand.

An Endless wanted her dead. Dream, no less. She had more reason than ever to stay awake. Maybe she could find a trick to avoid sleep forever.

But his raven knew where she lived, and it wasn’t a long trip.

She needed to run.

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