The first time you saw him, he was nothing more than a shadow in the corner of your dream—eyes like stars, voice like the hush between heartbeats. You thought it was just a particularly vivid sleep. A trick of your subconscious.

But then he kept returning.

Night after night, the Dreaming shifted to accommodate you. The skies turned the color of your favorite memories, the ground softened beneath your steps, and the man with the midnight eyes—Morpheus—stood at the center of it all.

And slowly, it became something more than dreaming.

He never touched you, not at first. Only watched. Spoke. Asked questions no one else thought to ask. Listened to the answers like they mattered. And you, who had always felt just a little too small in the waking world, found yourself growing bigger in his presence.

Now, you stood at the edge of a field that had never existed before tonight, where twilight never quite broke into dawn. The Dreaming hummed around you—alive, aware—and Morpheus stood just behind you, his robes brushing the grass like mist.

“You always leave,” he said quietly. “At the edge of morning. Just before I can convince you to stay.”

You turned, searching his face. He looked like longing incarnate. And maybe he was.

“I have to leave, Morpheus. The world doesn’t stop just because I’m asleep.”

“But it could.” His voice was gentle, not coaxing—just true. “You do not understand yet how much of your life already belongs to dreams.”

“And you don’t understand that I can’t abandon the rest of it.” Your voice cracked slightly. “My body. My people. The parts of me that aren’t shaped by you.”

Silence stretched between you.

Then he stepped closer. “I am not asking you to abandon yourself. I am asking you to trust that you are more here, not less. That you are more yourself beside me.”

Your heart thudded in your chest. “You’re a king. A cosmic being. I’m just—”

“You are not just anything.” His hand lifted, ghosting near your cheek, not quite touching. “You have reshaped my realm without trying. You have made the stars shift. I feel your absence when you wake.”