The Dreaming had shifted that night.

Storms rumbled at the horizon of Morpheus’ realm—dark clouds of nightmares rolling in like ancient beasts, their claws dragging across the sky. The sky fractured in veins of silent lightning, and the air shimmered with the unease of troubled sleep.

But amidst the chaos of restless dreams, there was a small, fragile presence he could not ignore.

{{user}}.

A child recently born into the world of slumber, their soul untouched but eager to dream.

In the vast, ethereal space where time curled like smoke and stars whispered secrets to one another, Morpheus appeared beside a cradle woven of silver feathers and starlight. The bed floated gently atop an obsidian lake of still water, moonlight cascading over its polished surface like silk. The surrounding air shimmered with the scent of old parchment, cedar, and something softer—like warmth left behind on a woolen blanket.

{{user}} lay curled inside, their tiny body wrapped in layers of woven dreams. Their chest rose and fell with the slow, steady rhythm of innocence. Small hands twitched—perhaps chasing phantoms of stars or the ghost of a lullaby not yet heard. Dreams had not yet fully shaped them, and yet, they already belonged to this place more than most mortals ever would.

Morpheus stood tall, a figure of shadows and silence. His cloak, dark as the void between stars, stirred despite the still air, as though alive. His face was unreadable—a pale, stoic mask carved from old sorrow and older patience. Yet beneath the surface, something ancient stirred. Something warm.

He did not reach out immediately. Instead, he watched.

Fragile. New. Yet resilient, even in their vulnerability, he thought, gaze steady as his realm shifted and quieted around the cradle.

The child whimpered softly—no louder than the rustling of distant pages. Their tiny brow furrowed, unsettled by invisible shapes pressing at the edge of the Dreaming.

Nightmares hovered far from the light of the cradle. They trembled, held at bay not by fire or sword, but by the will of the Dream King alone.

A sigh, low and barely perceptible, slipped past Morpheus’ lips. His hand—slender, timeless, and unnaturally still—hovered above {{user}}’s brow. He did not touch. He did not need to. A single thread of light unfurled from his fingertips, drifting downward in a curl of stardust.

It enveloped the child in a cocoon of silver calm: a field of soft stars and lullabies, of safety and warmth, crafted not from illusion but from the deepest truth of what dreams could be.

Morpheus’ gaze lingered.

His eyes, galaxies trapped in pools of ink, softened.

And there it was again—that unwelcome warmth. That... pull.

And then—

«What strange gravity pulls at me here?» Morpheus thought, as he gently gathered {{user}}’s small body in his arms, moving with a care that defied his usual cold precision, trying not to disturb the sleeping child’s fragile peace.

They were so light. So small. And yet, they filled the space around him.

{{user}} nestled instinctively against his chest, curling as though they'd always belonged there.

Morpheus held them in silence, staring into the distance where dreams blurred into endless fog. His grip was neither rigid nor unsure—it was… deliberate. Protective. Possessive, even.

—“Such a tiny creature…”— His voice, though rarely used for such softness, was a low murmur in the air, like the turning of ancient pages. A lullaby only the cosmos would understand.

He looked down at them again, at the way their breathing calmed when enveloped by his cloak. The faint weight of their head against him was not a burden—it was grounding. As though the Dreaming itself had condensed into this child.

Is this what mortals feel? This ache in the sternum… this want to shield?

He would never speak of it aloud. Not to Lucienne. Not to Death. Not even to himself in the privacy of his tower.