#i bet my phineas and ferb followers are SOOOOO confused rn sorry gang

[ineffablyendless]

Two Graves.

Rated: G

Relationships: Nuala of the Faerie/Dream of the Endless|Morpheus

Tags: No Archive Warnings Apply, haunted surrealism, non-graphic mentions of blood, implied character death, post-TKO, so there's the acknowledgement of what happens to Morpheus, be warned.

Summary: Nuala dreams, and dances, and the Dreaming cries a dying melody. Then she wakes

A/N: HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET BUNNY, and to one of my absolute best friends on earth @nualaofthefaerie thank you for letting me participate in her birthday event even though I don't draw or anything and also have not participated in the Sandman fandom for the last couple of months. If anyone else is interested in reading about Nuala's birthday event and wants to try your luck writing her, you can peek at Li's post here .

Nuala is, at her core, a very tragic character in the comics, and this more than anything carved her spot in my heart. She is principled, strong, and kind, but what makes her appeal to me more than others is that unrequited, heartbreaking devotion. A girl that has so much to give so willingly, discarded and forgotten, and it makes me so angry. She kept trying, and it wasn't enough. This is a recurring theme in the Sandman. But the love was there, and it deserves to be told. In this fic I wanted to capture that fruitless yearning and her desperation and how she fights. So I hope it comes across well. This fic is less about Sandflower more so it is about Nuala.

Granted, Li had planned sweet things for a sweet girl, but I really wanted to write a ballroom dance scene straight out of The Labyrinth, and the angsty vibes from that particular scene spread through the entire fic and it turned out a lot more melancholic than I originally planned. And, uh, a lot longer too. So...win-win?

You can also read it on Ao3 :)

At the end, he comes for her.

(Just as he'd promised)

It stretches on endlessly. Infinity on the head on a needle.

She remembered being told once, that on their last breath, mortals would recall their life in flashes. Dominoes falling into place. Cluracan had laughed as he told her so, joking to her of their feeble and short lifespans. Should a Fae be allowed similar opportunities, recollection could stretch on long enough to fill another mortal lifetime, and the Fae in question would have tricked and swindled another breath, not unlike Sisyphus.

Alas, it was not meant to be. Fae were without souls, and the last of their breath returns them to nothingness. There is no great Beyond; only a change in form. A loss in consciousness. Not true death.

It sounded like plenty death to her.

At the end, her lover came to her in bits and pieces.

She would begin in empty, wandering halls, hearing his voice in the horizon. She was sure he would be in the library, she thought, if only she could find him. Sometimes she would be carrying some sort of burden; a basket of papyrus scrolls, or a simple stick of dustfeathers. Most times it is only her, and the silent patter of her cold feet on stone floors as she wanders and searches of a faint voice in the wind.

Outside, a storm brews, but it was not yet time for her to leave.

She finds the library eventually, and she chases his cape on the edges of her periphery. The maze of towering bookshelves consumes her, and she twists and loops through it's oaken pathways, up and down and side to side intertwined, like how they used to dance. She would hear his giggles, that taunting melody, and when she trails her fingers longingly down the spine of ancient times they shiver, and she yearns to come home.

Find me, little fairy, she hears him say on the wind, just as he had when she was young, and in love, and light with hope. You be my fox, and I your hare.

The panes creak and rattle from winds that whistle down oculus dome of the Endless Library, and often she must shield herself from the hail of rotten leaves and debris. Not once does she find Lucien. It escapes her mind. When she falters, she hears him chuckle, and she gets back up on her feet.

At the entrance of the ballroom, her aching feet pause.

Much like the rest of the Dreaming Palace, it is empty and silent, save for the storm brewing outside. Yet when she closes her eyes, it is a bustling cotillion, and she is dressed as a lavish queen; the empress of shadow and nightmares, and her King stands in the very middle of the crowd. Waiting for her.

Closer, my diamond. Step down, my jewel.

At times she would stumble on non-existant petticoats, and when she opens her eyes she is once more on the top of the stairwell, and her king bids her to come closer.

Her feet bleeds. Her skin dries. By the banquet, she sees a beautiful woman with haunted eyes full of woe. In the next second, her ghosts and her ankh is forgotten, and Nuala tries stepping down the stairs once more, eyes fully closed. It is not about her. For once, it is about Nuala, and her lover, and she still has time, that wretched all-father. For once, it is about Nuala.

The ballroom is empty, but she feels the crowd pushing and pulling and shoving and laughing, just as they do back in the Faerie, from whence she had been plucked and moved and gifted to a veritable stranger in a land of mysteries and fear. A place that used to be home, but wasn't truly.

Her King awaits, and she reaches for him, grasping desperately. He would hold her, she knows, and he will tell her that everything is alright, and for a moment everything would be. For a moment she would have a home, and her love was not grief. Nuala tries again, and they push her away, like spiteful tides. Again, again, again.

He touches her, and Nuala imagines her tears like glass and quartz. He touches her, but not quite; a phantom sensation, and she knows he is once more out of reach. This is a memory.

But her eyes are closed and storm howls and sings. The window panes drums her a beat. So Nuala cries, and bleeds and dances.

The crowd sways with her, and she falls against them. His phantom touches leads, and he twirls her, and spins her, and dips her. Her arms reach towards the Heavens, and when the music of the storm fails her, her lungs constricts and Nuala screams.

It is agony. Liberty. Longing. Love. Her feet step on the broken glass of smashed window panes and tears, and she can no longer tell between the empty ballroom and her ghosts. Their gazes become suffocating, and she escapes through the side door, into her garden, into the Dreaming.

Everything is dying. She is not so special.

Fiddler's Green is a torn up wasteland, and the watering holes are dried and destitute. The storm cackles, and she looks into the Faces of the Three Who Are One. They rip him apart with their teeth, the Love of her life, and Nuala sobs and begs and falls to her knees.

This time, it is he who reaches for her.

She looks up to see Morpheus-not-Morpheus, the blank fresh nothingness of the eyes she had loved since she had laid her own upon him, what felt like centuries ago.

Nuala clenches her eyes shut, hoping to see the man she loves and for everything to go away and leave her alone, yet still the Furies cackle and the Dreaming trembles in their wake, and her King is bleak and pale as snow.

When he touches her, he is the wrong sort of cold.

"Sweet Nuala," he pleads, and she turns her head from him. If her lover was to change in force and agony, she wants to be right there with him. "Gentle Nuala. Loving Nuala. Please, let me take you home."

She shakes her head, burying her hands desperately in her hair, streaked with debris and dishevelled from the winds. Her feet crack and bleed, and her cheeks stain with tears. Her breath shortens. There is no great Beyond, for a Thing like her. Her home was her Lover, and her Lover was dead.

"My Nuala," the new King whispers. "Won't you look at me, one last time?"

There were many things she could've said. They choke her and burns the back of her throat like nightshade and Ivy, yet still her heart blooms. She is angry. She is helpless. She asks him, "Why?"

"Why?"

"You were loved. I had loved you. My King, I had everything on offer, and had you simply reached out and tried we could have-I could-,"

Her voice breaks and fails her. His eyes, white as bone, soften like crushed velvet.

"My King," she asked. Around them, her dreams fall apart. "Why did you fall?"

He hums. "Would you have loved me if I couldn't?"

"I would have loved you. Nevertheless."

He looks away. "I am sorry." He says, and Nuala believes him.

She had given him everything, and it was buried alongside him. All that was left of her was her Dream of him.

"I'm ready." She finally says. "To wake."

The King steps forward, and he plants on her a sweet kiss. When she reaches for the pendant, when she had made her last wish -one last Dream- she could almost pretend it was everything she ever wanted.

"Thank you," she says. "For coming."

Daniel smiles sadly. "He had promised. You called."

She had.

"This dream is over."

And Nuala wakes.