we came passively, falling on the steps of melancholy,
falling deeper, with an ear sharp for the fall

Sometimes dreams ended sweetly. You slipped gently from one world to the other, woke fuzzy around the edges. Maybe a sweet scent would linger, or sound, or taste. The body peacefully welcomed you back home.

But this dream had teeth, and would not go gentle into that good night. It buckled and thrashed like a dying animal. When it stretched thin enough to see through, there was nothing on the other side. Not just darkness, or endless space, but absolute nothing. A complete absence that would drive Dune to insanity if he looked too long. So he looks to the dreamer instead, anchoring himself in her eyes as the tears begin to well there.

He wants to say “it’s okay” as she snarls and growls, words twisting and tangling and failing-- as words always do, eventually-- “you don’t need words”-- but isn’t it beside the point, to say such a thing?

(We should note that it hurts, it really hurts, as she digs into his wing and pulls herself up on sharp teeth, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. Like the crown on his poll, pain was a gift too.)

The words a solar flare blossoming in the collapsing darkness-- FIND ME--

He opens his mouth to speak as the world, stretched taut, finally snaps.

- - -

“How?” The question is exhaled whisper-soft; it fades away quickly into the midday heat. Solterra. Earth-bound. He’s come to a stop at the back entrance of the manor. Awareness of the yoke and its weight comes back in full force-- a good thing, then, he’s reached his destination.

“Bout time,” the gatekeeper spits roughly. Dune says nothing, like usual, but he thinks calmly to himself that the man is all bark and no bite. Men like him, sitting behind walls day after day, dim-witted with boredom, they can never handle themselves in a real fight.

He ambles forward through the gates and begins to unpack the cart, quiet and efficient. Paint, salt, bronze, mangoes. All pass from cart to porch without second thought. His mind is tangled up in “How, how, how, how,” the word coalescing in his chest like a stone.

My magic doesn’t work like that, like a sniffer dog. It’s not just a matter of effort.

And what was the mute supposed to do, travel the world in search of someone he met in a dream? He snorts to himself. I’ve hardly left the capital. And what would I do, even if I found her? She’d expect me to say something.

There will be no reprieve for him until the welcome distraction of sleep tonight. He must lose himself in another stranger’s dream, and wake up without the smell of stardust, without the memory of weeping eyes and golden wings. He must, because hope needed to be smothered.

There was no place for it here.