#the way dream looked with disdain for the title over at hob

[joinmeinjoy]

Ok so lets talk about that one scene in The Sound of Her wings, when Hob and Dream meetup in 1789. Specifically, when Johanna Constantine orders her men to slit the throats of Hob and Dream. I was inspired directly after seeing @avelera​ ‘s post (here) and watching the scene again to fact check myself as i screamed in the tags. (Before i even get to the fight, can we take a moment to appreciate when Hob looks at the drawing done of them in 1689 and goes “Is that meant to be me?...Oh i look terrible...” and then tips his head to Dream and says “You look worse :)”. I loved that he joked with him, that he fully went “i look horrible- ur worse tho hehe” and you KNOW he’s saying it in jest. Wonderful.) Its the way Hob attacked the man going after Dream first. He threw his tea at the man in front of his friend, first and foremost stalling His Stranger’s attacker, and then smashed the teacup over the guy in front of him and smacked him in to the table. Dream doesn’t even move- not that i imagine one such as he would need to fear any mortal wound from a human, but Hob doesn’t know this. Hob doesn’t know who or what Dream is, he doesn’t even know his name, so Hob defends- he attacks first, attacks for him. The fight literally goes: Hob throws tea at Dream’s attacker >> Hob smashes teacup on his own attacker and knocks him out against the table >> Hob smacks Dream’s attacker upside the head when the man tries to stab his friend. Morpheus doesn’t move at all, and he doesn’t need to. Not until Johanna has a knife pointed at Hob’s face. And as you can see here:

Hob is 100% ready to get stabbed in the face. He’s immortal, it’ll heal. It won’t be fun, but it won’t stop him from eliminating the threat. Its only then that Dream intervenes, says “Wait,” and stands up to incapacitate Johanna with his sand. Dream would know as well as Hob that no mortal wound could kill him, yet the idea of Hob being injured is unpleasant nonetheless. This idea is later reinforced when Dream says that Hob might not be able to die, but he can be captured and hurt- foreshadowing, for sure, but it also tells us a bit about what Dream thinks of. Before he says that to Hob, however, there is the Scene of the Hour; the ear pull. After Dream so tenderly says “You need not have come to my defence...”, Hob responds with a delighted “Clearly...Still, i didn’t want to be drinking alone here in 100 years time.” (this line also supports the fact that Hob has no idea who Dream is or what he’s capable of, thus defending him seems the obvious choice) And what does Hob do as he says this?

The ear pull. My man fully played with his ear with THAT expression. If his hair was untied, i bet you $100 he would have been twirling it around his damn finger. And what was this met with?

Dream looking at him like this. This about concludes my ramble but by god was there so much to unpack here. I urge you to go back and re-watch this ep (as if anyone needs any convincing to re-watch this show) and just really drink in the details.