waterlilylullabies

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it's dangerous to go alone! take this ch 17 preview and an apology that i am the way i am lmao

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Binding Songs

Chapter 7: Focus

Dream is down bad. Things get flirtatious.

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Binding Songs

Chapter 6: Parthenope’s Song

*Alexa play ‘Getting to Know You’ from The King and I*

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Binding Songs

Chapter 5 - Punctuality is the Politeness of Princes

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𝓑𝓲𝓷𝓭𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓢𝓸𝓷𝓰𝓼 𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓕𝓸𝓾𝓻

[waterlilylullabies]

𝓑𝓲𝓷𝓭𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓢𝓸𝓷𝓰𝓼 𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓣𝓱𝓻𝓮𝓮

Welcome to The Dreaming

Warnings: Mentions of violence against women

Years ago, Belle lived through a night which she thought would never end. She was sleeping beneath a bridge in Rome and she knew what she was doing was stupid and dangerous but she had nowhere else to go. She wouldn’t allow herself real sleep, starting awake every twenty minutes or so to see that she was still alone. Every time her eyes would snap open, her heart would sink to see that she was still there, in that dark, cold, damp place hours away from dawn.

Belle remembers that night now as she pinches her arm, slaps her face, whispers “Wake up, wake up, wake up” all to no avail.

The stranger is watching her. His face is impassive. At his feet, is a raven.

They are in a vast, stone chamber. Stained glass windows throw chinks of coloured light across the floor.

Belle tries to keep her breathing steady. Maybe she’s been spiked.

The raven clears his throat awkwardly. Oh yes, she has most certainly been spiked.

But the stranger steps towards her, makes her a neat bow. “I am Lord Morpheus, Dream of the Endless. Welcome to The Dreaming, Lady Lorelei, I apologise for arriving so late.” He looks at her expectantly. Does he want her to curtsy?

“My name’s not Lorelei.” Is all Belle can manage before the world pitches and reels and fades to black.

~

“I tried to tell him!” Matthew protests, “I said he should explain things first…” Matthew is perched atop a stack on books on Lucienne’s desk.

The siren, whatever her name is, has been put in a small room off the throne room and Matthew, having witness the entire kidnap-cum-rescue and it’s attendant fallout has made his way to the library to give a full report, only slightly embellished.

“I doubt it would have made much difference Matthew,” Lucienne counters “It is very rare that a creature enters the dreaming in their physical form, the experience can be overwhelming. The poor thing is clearly terrified.”

-

At that precise moment, the poor thing in question having woken in a windowless room is plotting her escape. She tries the heavy stone door and finding it unlocked, pushes it open and peers out.

Here was the same room from before, empty now. At one end there was a flight of steps leading to a throne, at the other, miles away it seemed, was a vast stone door.

Belle breaks into a sprint.

“You seem recovered” came a velvety drawl, from behind, no in front of her. The voice was everywhere and it distracts her for long enough that she has no time to step around her captor, who chose to materialise from thin air at that moment so that Belle charges headlong into him.

Flat on her ass, which smarts where it had struck the cold stone floor, she glares up at him. He held out a hand. She resisted the urge to spit at him, to knock it away. She lets him pull her to her feet. “You have questions, no doubt.” He said softly.

“Bring me back to the bar. Please. I won’t go to the police, I promise.” The man frowns “You would not thank me for that, I can assure you.”

She can feel the tears pricking her eyes, she can feel the panic rising in her throat, she takes a step back from him, then another and another.

“What are you going to do to me?” She keeps pepper spray in her purse, but her purse is in the bathroom of The Venus Lounge.

The man looks affronted “You need not fear me.”

Belle laughs mirthlessly

His eyes are the blue of ancient ice. “Were you truly told nothing? Did your mother not explain?”

“I don’t remember my mother” Belle lies.

But she does remember. She remembers too late the warnings about songs and their power.

She remembers other warnings too, stories of what men would do if they could. Stories about one man, who was not a man at all, a King, an oath breaker.

Authors Note: Feedback welcome, thank you for reading! I’m actually writing this now ig!

[waterlilylullabies]

THINGS DON'T NEED TO BE PERMANENT TO BE BEAUTIFUL!!! VALUE IS NOT STORED IN PERMENANCE!! TO BE ALIVE IS TO EXPERIENCE EVANESCENCE!!!

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𝓑𝓲𝓷𝓭𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓢𝓸𝓷𝓰𝓼: 𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓣𝔀𝓸

A Ballad from The Venus Lounge

Warnings: Violence against women, swearing

The Dreaming

He finds her first in the dreams of her mother. Thalia, the joyous one. He remembers her laughter, suspects he will never forget it. But her dreams grew sombre with the birth of the child, the colour slipped from them, the silence,

profound.

In these dreams the child is an infant, red faced, squalling. Then a little older, dark haired, toddling. He delved deeper and deeper, searching for a name, but even in sleep Thalia is careful not to speak it, calls the child; her baby, her pet, her beauty.

There is one nightmare however, a sky on fire, unspeakable horror. She whispers the child’s name over and over, then the skein of Thalia’s life is cut.

But he has found her.

The Waking World

Cassie drops into the bar stool beside Belle with a contented sigh, she fishes in her clutch bag, pulls out her lipstick and begins to touch it up using the back of a spoon as a mirror. Evelyn, who had been drying off the cutlery strewn across the counter with a towel snatches it back.

Cassie gives her a sweet, reproachful look, but knows to pick her battles, so she turns to Belle, “Sweetie you’ll never guess what I saw outside.” Cassie is beautiful and her enthusiasm is infectious, Belle can’t help but smile “Go on, tell me.” Even Evelyn is dawdling in her work, just to catch the story.

“A pervert bird!” Cassie laughs. Belle wants to ask what she means, but they hear Venus’ car pulling up outside so they each endeavour to look busy.

Venus had been christened Mary Patricia Bernadette O’ Malley and this had been her greatest misery in life. The day she turned eighteen she had the name expunged from all public records and had it replaced with Venus Lovelace, which was equally ridiculous, but far more evocative. She affected a French accent at all times and was immaculately groomed. She was as out of place in shabby little Pleasance as it was possible to be and that was exactly how she liked it. A single candle shines all the brighter in a darkened room.

She bought the local dive bar on a whim, with money from her most recent (and most successful) divorce and transformed it into The Venus Lounge. The clientele were still the same old tired faces and there was nothing to be done for the dank stench of loneliness that lingered in every room but Venus worked hard to give the place a rarefied air. She liked her girls (her staff, all female, all pretty) to be talented, she wanted writers, dancers, singers, artists. Venus felt that their wide eyed hopefulness might brighten the place up a little.

“Bonjour mes enfants!” She trills, her heels play a rapid staccato across the tiles. The women mumble their hellos. Venus is plotting something. She scans the room.

Evelyn, Cassie, Belle.

Belle.

Mais oui.

Venus click-clacks towards the table Belle is wiping. “Ma chérie, I would speak with you. In private.” Evelyn and Cassie toss her a look.

Venus’ office is decorated with pictures of herself. There is a plate of macarons on the desk, either fake or very ancient, Belle cannot be certain which, but refuses them immediately when they’re offered.

“Ah ma chérie, I am going to ask you a favour” Belle begins a mental audition of viable excuses.

“You will of course refuse, but that is why I will give you this now.” Venus slides a sizeable stack of cash towards her “and this after.” She waves a larger stack in her left hand, just out of Belle’s reach.

Belle wonders how illegal this favour is likely to be.

“What do I have to do?” She asks, she cannot keep the suspicion from her voice. Venus sighs. “Jane, she has left. I have no singer.”

Jane had been threatening to leave for weeks, she wanted to marry her boyfriend Donny a former patron of The Venus Lounge, but he wouldn’t agree to it as long as other men leered at her. It didn’t seem to bother him that not six months earlier, he had been one of the men leering.

“Venus, I don’t sing.” Venus waves her hand as if she is swatting flies “Nonsense, everyone sings and besides, I don’t even really need you to sing, I only ask that you hold the microphone and look pretty.”

It is a lot of money, enough to leave Pleasance, which has been proving more difficult than Belle had initially thought.

“Why not ask Cassie or Evelyn?”

Venus makes a vague noise, her gaze trained on a portrait of herself done in oils, hanging above the door of the office.

“So they said no?”

Venus bristles “Yes, but I wasn’t going to pay them half as much as I’m paying you!”

Belle picks up the money, feels the heft of it.

“One week Belle and then I’ll find a replacement for Jane, unless you like it of course…” Venus is smiling now, she knows Belle will agree.

“One week” says Belle and pockets her escape route.

The Dreaming

Dream’s Raven shifts uneasily from foot to foot, glancing up at The Dream King with a look, that had he been human, would have expressed extreme discomfort.

“So… This is a kidnap mission?”

Dream of the Endless is affronted “Matthew we are retrieving the Siren from The Waking World and bringing her to safety in The Dreaming”

“But you’re not going to explain any of this to her? You’re just going to do your sand thing and bring her here?”

“I doubt an explanation will make the situation any less… Unexpected”

That may be true Matthew thinks, but Dream of the Endless’ threshold for the unexpected is likely to be a hell of a lot more expansive than the average human’s.

“Sir, maybe just try? Talk to her first? I mean it can’t hurt.”

Dream sighs. “Fine.” He is pouring out his sand and then they are moving, falling, twisting through worlds.

The Waking World

“There’s the bird!” Cassie shrieks, gesticulating wildly to the high window of the ladies toilet. The bird in question is a raven, who to his credit and the women’s delight, has the decency to look almost mortified at being caught spying on them and takes flight immediately. “Stop squirming” Evelyn chastises, slapping Cassie’s head gently with the back of the hairbrush. She is working Cassie’s hair into a bouffant that on any other person would look comical, but on Cassie looks like a golden halo.

Venus peeks her head around the door.

“Vite, vite, mes enfants! It is busy tonight.”

Evelyn and Cassie hurry towards the door, not bothering to clear away the mess behind them. Women don’t come to The Venus Lounge, the ladies toilet is their impromptu personal dressing room.

Belle, stands for a moment, surveying herself in the mirror, gathering her nerve. She would have sung for a lot less, but Venus doesn’t need to know that.

She doesn’t hear him come in, but she sees his reflection in the mirror. Their eyes meet in the glass and she turns, heart pounding.

The most important thing, the thing you must remember in these situations is not to be afraid, fear is blood in the water. Whatever happens, do not give them your fear.

She puts her hands on her hips, hopes he doesn’t see them shake. There is a weight to his gaze that makes it hard to meet his eyes but she does it anyway. “You’re not supposed to be here” she smiles, in a voice she hopes is casual, sweet, mollifying. He doesn’t move, he opens his mouth as if to speak but closes it again

Venus’ head pops back around the door. “Belle they are waiting!” Belle, still shaking, hurries to the door, “Sorry Venus I was just talking to-“ she turns to gesture to the dark haired stranger, but, he’s not there.

~

In the alley beside the bar Dream of the Endless is giving his raven a dressing down. “Your plan is too difficult.”

Matthew squawks. “I never said that you should approach her in the ladies room! What did she say when you told her? Did she freak out?”

Dream is silent and in a small voice he murmurs “I did not tell her. I felt.. Uncertain”

“You’re not sure it’s her?” Matthew flaps his wings anxiously, Dreams lack of confidence perturbs him.

“It is her, there is no doubt. But, it suddenly seemed like a terrible burden, this knowledge, and I-“

Dream sighs heavily “At any rate she has not used her powers.” Dreams coat flaps in a breeze that tumbles old newspaper down the alley. “How can you tell?” Matthew asks.

“All magic leaves a mark, it lingers on the user like a scent, if she had used her powers she could not stand in that bar without risking being torn apart.”

“Fuck.” Matthew sighs “So how would she use them, her powers I mean?” Dream casts his eyes over the flashing neon sign of The Venus Lounge. “Through song”.

From the bar comes the screech of microphone feedback. “Uhh, boss, maybe you should go back inside.”

~

Cassie and Evelyn have planted themselves behind the bar but Belle, thinking of the money in her duffel bag, moves further towards the makeshift stage in the centre of the lounge.

Venus is standing under the flickering spotlight, microphone in hand, the patrons look up wearily. Belle wonders why Venus bothers, all they want to do in here is drink and forget. But now she’s introducing Belle as The Venus Lounge’s very own Nightingale and folding herself elegantly in front of the piano.

Belle ascends the stage to half hearted claps and a giddy whoop from Cassie.

Venus whispers to her “Sing something sweet dear, I’ll follow along!”

Belle clears her throat, trying to think of ‘something sweet’. Mimi had been sweet. Mimi sang a song about a rodeo and a rock and roll band and a kiss. The song made Chester cry.

Remembering them feels like choking. She wants to climb down off the stage and hand back the money, but she has to get out of Pleasance by Summertime or she never will.

So she sings.

Had singing always felt like this? She doesn’t know, she hasn’t sung since she was a child when she would sit in the bath with the woman called Mother and their voices would bounce against the tiled walls.

Singing feels like… Like nothing else, it feels warm and good and right. It feels like jumping from a pier, like the first drag of a cigarette, it feels like being held and loved. It feels like standing exposed on a hilltop, it feels like everything.

Belle does not notice that Venus is not accompanying her, that the woman is simply staring, not quite at her, but through her almost, as if she is trying to see inside Belle to where the music was coming from.

Cassie and Evelyn are holding each other, having dispensed entirely with the charade of being anything other than madly in love.

The patrons are staring too. Some of them are weeping, some of them are on their knees but all of them have their eyes fixed on Belle.

Dream of the Endless watches too, tries to think through the song but the music is quicksand.

The song ends.

Everything happens all at once.

Venus leaps up from her stool, her hands reaching for Belle’s throat, the men rush the stage en masse, their hands open and grabbing and Evelyn and Cassie are twining their fingers and leaving through the front door. The man from the bathroom is moving towards the stage and he has something in his hand.

Silence falls, the men’s eyes have rolled back in their heads but before Belle has time to scream the man has grabbed her wrist and she is spinning, falling and rising in a whirl of sand.

Authors Note: Thank you for reading, feedback welcome!

PS. For anyone who’s interested, the song referenced in this chapter is Papa Was a Rodeo by The Magnetic Fields, I do have a playlist for this fic, which I’m happy to share if people would be interested!

[waterlilylullabies]

𝓑𝓲𝓷𝓭𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓢𝓸𝓷𝓰𝓼: 𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓞𝓷𝓮

Nobody’s Child

Warnings: Mentions of death, violence against women.

The Waking World

The woman Belle called Mother taught her two things. The first: you can make almost any meal go further if you add some lentils. The second: you don’t belong to anyone.

Belle remembers; the gentle chafe of hardwood on her bare feet, the early morning cool of the cabin, the woman’s hands braiding her hair, cigarette smoke, heavy sighs. The woman left one day, didn’t come back. They arrested a man in the nearby village but Belle never found out what happened next. By then, the cabin in the woods and the woman called Mother were already fading like dreams in daylight and Belle was adopted by an elderly couple longing for a child of their own.

Mimi and Chester were gentle and sweet. Mimi, a former ballerina, taught her to dance, Chester taught her to douse for water. The trio lived in perfect harmony for fifteen years. Until the old couple passed away one autumn, Mimi went first and Chester followed. Quiet, uncomplicated deaths, like flowers after the first frost.

And Belle remembered that she didn’t belong to anyone.

She packed her bags and started moving. She marvelled at the distance she could put between herself and the past. She worked odd jobs, slept in parks, slept in grand hotel rooms, slept beside strangers. She realised she had a knack for languages and where that failed her she discovered a proclivity for flirting.

Years passed.

Even if the body is strong and the mind is quick, sooner or later the soul will dig its heels in and say; I want to rest, I want to sleep in the same bed, see the same faces. The soul begs for boredom even as it cries out for wonder. So Belle gave in, came to rest in a nothing place. She would spend the Winter there and then she would be gone.

It is perhaps unfair to call the town a ‘nothing’ place. Everywhere is somewhere after all, though Pleasance (that was the town’s name) subscribed to this notion only tentatively. That was partly why Belle decided to stay there, she believed that a spell in Pleasance would cure her eternally of the need to put down roots.

There was one feature of interest in Pleasance and that was the local dive bar, The Venus Lounge. The name was preposterous, given its general state of disrepair and the fact that it sat between a disused canning factory and a woman’s clothing store long since closed. It was a garish little place and the rumour among the great and the good of the town was that there was nothing the girls who worked there wouldn’t do for a price.

Belle took a job there faster than you can say ‘damnation’.

The Dreaming

Dream of the Endless is wracked with guilt. He summons his librarian.

The sky is slate grey, a thunderstorm seems imminent. Lucienne makes her way to the throne room as swiftly as she can.

The Dream King stands in the centre of the hall, gazing half heartedly at the constellations above when she arrives. He looks awful, weary, woe-begotten.

“My Lord? How can I?-“

The King of Nightmares has no time for pleasantries today. “Lucienne I have caused great suffering.”

Lucienne is momentarily torn between agreeing with him and asking which particular suffering he is referring to, but elects to keep her mouth shut.

“I made a promise” he intones “over two thousand years ago, to a Siren. I swore an oath of protection, which my imprisonment prevented me from keeping, now I fear the world will suffer for it.”

Lucienne lowers her head “Ah, I see.” Lucienne knows something of the story, a promise made in a cave, a child to be entrusted to the King of Dreams. That much she gleaned from a dog-eared scroll in the library. The rest she learned from the child’s mother.

Lord Morpheus has wandered to the foot of the steps leading to his throne, outside a gentle patter of rain has begun to fall. “My Lord, during your imprisonment a creature came to the dreaming, she had with her a baby girl” He whips around, eyes wild. Lucienne steadies herself under the weight of his gaze “The crea- the woman called herself Thalia and she came with the express purpose of delivering the child, her daughter to you, but” Lucienne braces herself for the inevitable storm

“But?”

She heaves in a breath “When she saw the realm, as it was then, abandoned, she felt her daughter would be no safer here than in the Waking World.”

There is a moment of perfect silence. Then the heavens open, thunder shakes the foundations of the palace and lightning slashes the sky to shreds. “My Lord” he is not listening, “My Lord!” Lucienne raises her voice over the rising storm “There is every possibility the child is still alive!”

There is a loud crack of thunder. “The Waking World deals cruelly with her kind” he retorts, but his eyes give him away, he is desperate enough to hope.

“Only if she has used her powers My Lord.”

Another thunder bolt illuminates the throne room. “But a child, Lucienne” he whispers. ”A child will not know better.” Lucienne, whose patience never falters, clears her throat “Not a child, my Lord, that is, she would be nearly twenty five by now.”

This had not occurred to the King of Dreams, who for all his power, has never truly understood the passage of time outside his realm.

“There is a chance my Lord, that she is alive and well. All is not lost.”

Authors note: Very new to this, any and all feedback welcome! Thank you for reading!

[waterlilylullabies]

Hello!

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Binding Songs

(Dream of the Endless Fic)

Dream of the Endless made a Promise. The World depends on his ability to keep it. Or, Dream of the Endless must not fall in love.

A slow-burn romance, buckle up ig. Named female character. NSFW. Minors DNI.

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𝓑𝓲𝓷𝓭𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓢𝓸𝓷𝓰𝓼

Dream of the Endless made a promise.

The world depends on his ability to keep it.

Or

Dream of the Endless must not fall in love.

Warnings: References to violence against women.

Prologue

The creature had the shape of a woman, but moved through the cave with the tremulous quality of light on water. Her name was Persinoë and she would die seven hundred years from now, at the end of a sword swung by a pockmarked youth, promised fortune and loose women on the high seas. Persinoë knew this, not the particulars of course, but she saw the vague shadows the future cast backwards through time and shivered in their chill.

Her sisters were similarly perturbed. So they gathered, they discussed their options, pros and cons. Thalia, the youngest by some three millennia, was quick to point out their dwindling list of patrons and protectors.

What to do?

There is one.

Not that one.

Who else?

Anyone else.

His son was kind.

His son is dead.

A silence steals over them, they’re unaccustomed to discord. They move through it like tall grass, it trips them, slows them down. But they are dying, their daughters are dying. So they come begrudgingly to an agreement and Persinoë is sent to the Cave of Lost Songs to bargain with the King of Dreams.

She does not go empty handed, she has her offerings (a swan’s feather, a shard of mirrored glass, a vial of snake spit) and she rests them on the makeshift altar at the back of the cave.

I humbly summon you, Oneiros.

The darkness of the cave deepens, becomes treacle thick and oppressive. There is a scent of roses, incense. She can taste night on her tongue. She inclines her head.

He touches the offerings with a slender elegant hand, that shivers in and out of reality.

“I greet you, Persinoë”

“And I you, Dream King”

It has been several lifetimes since they have spoken, she cannot recall what passed between them then. It had been a wedding, his son’s? Perhaps. She is too weary to recall, she has no time to ask.

Perhaps he senses this, because he sighs heavily, raises an eyebrow, gestures imperiously to the offerings. “This is not a social call”

“No. I have summoned you to beg a favour on behalf of my mothers, my sisters and my daughters, both the living and the dead”

He’s not expecting that.

“I do not grant favours”

She is expecting that.

“We are slain, entrapped, defiled-“

“And what concern is that of mine?” He cuts her off. He looks bored. Those eyes, distant galaxies, admitting no light. She wants to scream but she does not. Later, there will be time later.

“The songs are ending, it is only a matter of a few generations now.”

He is silent. Because he knows, everyone knows but they are all too weak now to make promises. They cannot share what little power they have when there’s no guarantee that by next week it will still be their name over the temple gate and not that of some new god child. Gods do not last, only the Endless remain. He knows why he has been called, but still he asks:

“Is this not the way of things Persinoë?”

She thinks of the hooks in her mothers back, her sisters terror, she thinks of Odysseus, taking what was not his to take. The words are heavy and unwieldy on a her tongue but all the same she speaks them. “My sisters and I were not put on this earth to suffer the cruelty of men.”

The Dream King considers this for a moment. “Then why not call upon Destiny?” He steps away from the altar, moves closer to her.

So she tells him about the girl who will be born thousands of years hence. Tells him he must take her, keep her in the dreaming, let her live out her days in his world, where she will be safe.

If he is surprised he does not let it show. Because what else is there to do? Without the binding songs there is nothing.

“What of you and your sisters?” He sounds, almost sad, but no more sorrowful than he would have been at the loss of a particularly fine trinket.

“We will disperse. We are safer apart.”

There is silence, a long ponderous silence, punctuated only by drips from the cave’s roof, the lapping of the sea at its mouth.

“I will take the child.” He says at last “I will protect her.”

“Swear it” Her shoulders are tight with tension, she is eager to flee, back to the rock pools where her sisters wait, but not until he is sworn. “-by the blood of your son.”

She thinks he will strike her. She thinks he will turn her to ash. His face is impassive but his eyes are wildfire. She does not cower. She meets his gaze though her stomach churns until at last, at last, he relents.

“I swear by the blood of my son, the child is under my protection, from now until the end of days.”

There is nothing further to be said. She bows, offers him thanks and turns to leave. They will not meet again.

“Persinoë” he calls. She turns and he is one with the gloom of the cave but for the faint shimmer of distant stars. “She will know of you, of all of you.”

Persinoë cannot see the particulars, but she can sense the broad strokes of the future. She hears a voice raised in song. She is not afraid to die.

Authors note: I’ve literally never written a fic before so feedback welcome!

[waterlilylullabies]

by Samantha Cavet

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岡田の半夏生園

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