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[hypnagothic]

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[hypnagothic]

No. They would not dare without cause, which I have not given them.

[ he lifts his hand to gently caress her arm. ]

It matters not. They have met their due.

[matermali]

[ With the shirt covering her thighs, she finally drops the damp towel away completely. His touch again has her leaning his way, reaching to hug and nuzzle at his arm, though the lull to her movement still carries the tension of anger. How glad she is that he escaped whatever other cage once had him.

It does matter, but she shouldn't press. ]

How did it happen?

[hypnagothic]

[ his arm curls around her again, comforting against her back. ]

An amateur that had fortunate timing and powerful tools that he abused to achieve it.

[matermali]

...That much does not sound so very different, after all.

[ She can't say that Dr. Banning was an amateur, but he should never have been considered a doctor or a scientist. Nothing more than a man with a desire and a penchant for cruelty. ]

I can't...imagine anything like an amateur managing such a feat. [ Powerful tools indeed. ] Did he hurt you in any way?

[hypnagothic]

Hurt ... no. He did not touch me during my captivity, only at the beginning before caging me to take my tools.

[ he encourages her towards the bed, handing her the knit pants to finish dressing. not that he's pulling away from her at all. ]

[matermali]

[ The thought of anyone handling him to put him into a cage stirs something in her that makes it difficult to care about anything like covering up her legs. She just wishes to hold him until he no longer has to remember such an injustice.

She wants to know what was done to him, but it doesn't feel right to ask. ]

How... How did you escape?

[ The pants need to be knotted, but she isn't going to worry about rolling up the hem, at least, so it's quick to pull them on with Morpheus there to lean against. She's in no hurry to go jogging anywhere. ]

[hypnagothic]

[ not that he would allow her to go outside, unless she insisted. no. she needs rest, and so he will insist that she rest here. ]

In truth, I am not certain what the catalyst was. Either a moment of neglect or of pity. The lover of my captor's son had negated a portion of the spell used to bind me which then allowed me to enter the dream of one of the guards they had watching me at all times.

[matermali]

[ The son's lover? Perhaps love had kept them from entirely losing their humanity, then. What of the rest?

Looking back up to him, she begins to reach to cup his cheek. The sight of her own wrist has her quickly dropping her hand back, but it doesn't halt her curiosity.

She should bandage her wrists before she ruins his sheets, but she detests the thought of doing anything else. Ever again. Unless any of those responsible for this story are still alive, that is. ]

And did you punish him? Your captor?

[hypnagothic]

[ he'd been turning his face away as if he didn't wish to face his retelling, but he looks back to her, even after her aborted gesture. ]

No. He died before I could bring my revenge upon him. A scuffle between he and his son, intentional or not, ended in his death. Too simple an end for an abhorrent creature such as he.

[matermali]

[ Far too simple. It sounds like he didn't suffer enough. ]

Why did his son not free you once his father was gone?

[ Perhaps he was as bad as his father?

Her hands settle against his chest, her thumb brushing idly at his shirt as she peers up at him with a creased brow. ]

What did they want with you?

[hypnagothic]

[ his own hands settle on her waist, the embrace light but nevertheless present. ]

Because he is a coward. Frightened of his father's shadow and of what I would do to him once I was freed. He had murdered my raven, Jessamy, at the behest of his father, after all. I might have forgiven him for such savagery if he had freed me in that moment following the death of his father, but the hold his father still had over him dominated over any decency he may have had.

In his fear, he only asked for the promise not to harm him or his. It was not what his father had demanded, pleading for gifts that were not mine to give nor mankind's to receive. But I still remained just as silent, and for this, he refused to release me for decades.

[ as he spoke, the grip on her waist had tightened, fingers digging in slightly. he sighs gently then, letting out a tension that had been growing in him, and the embrace loosens once more. ]

It was not me that he wanted.

[matermali]

[ It's rare to hear Morpheus speak so much on his own troubles, and she listens all the more intently, even without the urging of his tighter grip. That only urges her to lean closer. Focusing on someone else's pain has always been easier than processing her own, or it is something that helps her through it. Taking it as her own.

So he says that they might have released him if he had done what they wished, but she doubts it. And if they did, then would that not have been giving even more of himself than what they had already taken? They did not deserve mercy.

Vanessa could have tried to curtsy through Dr. Banning's wishes sooner, since she mostly understood what it was they all wanted of her. It still would not have worked to her favor, but she hadn't known until trying. Some hours had felt like days, and some days had felt like years, but in truth she was only trapped in the white room for five months. What would decades have done?

What had it been to feel the loss of his raven while so caged? And then to linger in that grief for so long? How can she not feel that kind of pain down to her bones?

Who? she wants to ask, but something else is more important, even while she blinks as though holding back tears. The tears are for him, but the quiet anger that tremors through her words are for any involved in keeping him in such indignity. ]

What did you do to them?

[hypnagothic]

[ one hand rises to her cheek, cupping it delicately while his thumb brushes just under her eye, ready to catch should a tear fall for him. ]

To the guards, nothing. Merely put those that were present to sleep once I was able to do so. To the son, I grant a gift.

[matermali]

[ Her head tilts into his touch and a small hand lightly settles over his, her gaze remaining fixated. ]

A gift?

[hypnagothic]

[ his hand stills under hers. ]

A gift of eternal sleep. A nightmare everlasting.

[matermali]

...I am only sorry that his father could not receive the same fate.

[ If she had hoped for Hell, then that is close enough.

Not enough to erase the scars in the mind, though, at least not by her experience. Not only is it heartbreaking to learn that he suffered that sort of entrapment, now she has to forever worry about their new captor taking Morpheus at a whim to further that sort of pain and indignity. ]

For how many decades did they cage you?

[hypnagothic]

[ he lets out another slow, quiet breath, his thumb caressing her face once more. ]

For one hundred and six years. In a cage made of glass and iron fit to entrap a faerie, surrounded by a binding circle. Stripped of my tools as well as my raiment.

[matermali]

[ Over a century? In a glass cage?

Why had he bothered even saying decades? It's so much worse than she had already thought, and the shock of it leaves her unable to restrain a weak sob. ]

Oh, my love...

[ There is grief in her for the losses he suffered, and it's enough to overcome her anger for the moment. Vanessa is quick to reach up again, this time wrapping her arms around his neck while pushed up to her toes. Any stinging or soreness or weariness is so easily forgotten when all she can think about is wishing she could erase his pain.

Her cheeks are damp when she nuzzles at his neck, though her weeping is still silent. ]

[hypnagothic]

[ his arms surround her as well, returning the embrace she gives him though it's more holding her up as she reaches for him. any despair he may have felt for himself at the time seems to have seeped away, but neither is the rage there either, not while his lover embraces him with tears of her own.

from one moment to the next, Vanessa is on her toes while holding him, but when she next notices her surroundings, she is still holding him but now they're lying on the bed together, the comfort of it holding them both up now. ]

[matermali]

[ It's startling at first, only quickly comforted by his arms still encircling her, and there she can curl against him while blinking through her tears. There would be more yet, were she not still recovering from dehydration. ]

I would do anything to keep you from experiencing such suffering again.

[ And yet she only admitted earlier how hopeless their situation is. What can she or any of them do against their new captor? ]

If I could only know what I need to do.

[hypnagothic]

Peace, beloved, and hold to hope.

[ his hand runs its fingers through her unkempt hair, cradling the back of her head as she lies against him. ]

We shall protect each other as best we may, thee and me.

[matermali]

[ 'Hope' is such a hurtful word, now, but there is so little to be good anymore. Already it had been a strain to find.

Giving her poor eyes a rest, she'll keep them closed while murmuring against his coat. ]

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;

[hypnagothic]

In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering,
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

[ he completes the poem quietly, smoothly picking up from her break in reciting, gently tightening his fingers in her hair while his other hand caresses against her back. ]

So, too, can something be gained from what was lost. We are not the lesser for it.

[matermali]

[ With such tired eyes, it's difficult for her to see past what came before, but she nods in as much agreement as she can muster. They can at least agree on doing what they may to protect one another—what little they are permitted. ]

How did you manage for so very long without going mad?

[hypnagothic]

[ he takes a deep breath at the question, slowly in and out while his fingers continue to stroke against her hair. it's a long while before he speaks again, long enough for Vanessa to start feeling drowsy, speaking barely above a whisper. ]

... While I was captured, I was ... alone. Truly alone for the first time in clear memory. The guards were always there, of course, outside of my glass encasement. Always. They moved and breathed and sighed. They adjusted in their chairs, rose from them to stretch their legs. They talked to each other, though never to me, shared amusements over their reading. Even in my prison, there was still life. There were still dreamers. But they were just ... not a Part of me.

It was agony. To be cut off from the Dreaming, cut off from the infinite skein of existence which is both deep enough to fall through as well as a part of me. I was alone in a body, trapped in a cage twice over. For even while I have stood in the silence between stars, always there has been the noise of eternity and my own function before. But there was nothing in that prison but my own thoughts. Not the thoughts of the minds that make me as Dream, every dreamer who dreams, be they the smallest insect with sufficient consciousness to sleep and dream of food they lack now but want tomorrow or the dreams of my siblings when they scheme and muse and hope and long, and, rarely, sleep. There was nothing.

It was a ... quiet that I had never known. A quiet that screamed at me. A howl that tore through me like a roaring torrent.