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whyisaravenlike-awritingdesk · 9 months

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Heirs to Empty Thrones (ao3)

In the absence of the king, Nesta finds herself carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, and there's only one knight in the world that can take her mind off it. (For @cassianappreciationweek day 5. We're playing very fast and loose with the term 'lionhearted'...) (psst, @c-e-d-dreamer)

The gold circlet at her brow was heavy.

Heavier than before— heavier than it had been that morning. It was a burden, a chain around her neck, and it didn’t matter how fine or gilded it was— the hammered band was a mantle she did not wish to bear, and now there was an invisible weight crushing and pressing and bearing down on her as the strain worked its way into her very bones. It curled up around her veins and grew tighter, squeezing until it felt like the cold, thin band was constricting, determined to make her bleed.

It ached.

Everything ached.

Her father was gone— abandoned them a decade ago to wage holy war in lands so distant they seemed like another world, and now every day that dawned brought a horde of dissatisfied noblemen to her door, in their fine clothes and gold rings, horses hooves clattering in the courtyard every morning as the gates to the castle were thrown wide. The same men who had decades ago refused to accept a woman’s rule now crowded in her hall, begging her to write to her father and bring him home, as if her words could do anything, as if they were of any value at all.

Nesta shivered, the nighttime chill seeping through the stone of the central keep, and through the thick-paned and lead-lined glass she saw the torches glowing on the curtain wall, flames stark against the night sky, devouring the dark.

Beyond the light of those torches, in the distant miles outside that high stone wall, the realm crumbled. The roads were filled with bandits and rebels, taxes went unpaid, and as each day gave way to night, the laws of the realm seemed ever more breakable, no stronger than reeds swaying in the wind. Her father had left her uncle as regent, charged him with the protection of the crown and its lands, and yet unrest had never been so widespread. There were rumours of men in the forest stealing from the rich to give to the poor, tales of children starving, and with no king to call on there was no solution to be had, nothing to be done.

Nothing— and Nesta dropped her head into her hands now, wondering when exactly she’d been the one to pick up the weight her father had dropped ten years ago. She had been a child when he left, the eldest daughter he’d gotten in place of a son, and for so many years she had awaited his return, watching for his ship on the horizon, counting the sails of every vessel that came to port. In vain— she had waited in vain, and when her mother and sisters had returned to their estates in France, Nesta had stayed behind, a woman now, all alone and bearing the weight of a kingdom on her shoulders.

Weary, she sighed.

The hour grew late, the darkness deepening, and yet Nesta didn’t move. She remained sitting alone in the small chamber branching off the great hall with only the silence for company. A single candle cut the dim, sweet wax scenting the air as night descended, the flame flickering in the draughts that crept through the stone.

Already, she knew sleep would not find her tonight.

Her head began to throb, the coronet she wore unbearable. Her people suffered, her realm burned, and what was she but a princess in a world that didn’t hear the voice of women, powerless and vulnerable until her father returned? She shook her head, and with a steadiness that surprised her, she lifted her hand and removed that God-forsaken band, casting it onto the thick wooden table before her, leaving it to sit in a pool of candlelight, gold and shining and bright with something she had once thought to be promise. The jewels winked, garnets and emerald and sapphires, cut stones set into the band, and oh, once Nesta had looked at the diadem and thought it pretty.

Once she had thought it beautiful.

She didn’t think so any longer.

And with her head resting in her hand, she sat alone in that chamber, lost, only waiting for somebody to find her.

It didn’t take long.

Soon enough a knock sounded at the door, echoing through the silence, and Nesta almost opened her mouth to ask for peace— but before her lips could part the door was opened, iron hinges creaking as old wood slid across even older stone. Footsteps sounded, muffled by the rushes scattered across the floor to fight the chill, and as Nesta looked up, fingers still resting against her temples, she glimpsed the bulk of a man slipping around the doorframe, a silhouette against the candlelight.

Somebody had found her indeed, and as she straightened in her chair, she realised that perhaps she didn’t mind so much that out of all the souls in this castle, he had been the one to seek her out.

Cassian.

The man who had helped her off her horse so many months ago, when she’d first arrived at this particular castle, so close to the coast. He was her father’s knight, a broad span of hardened muscle with hands no strangers to the hilt of a sword, and yet when he’d lifted her down from her horse at that first meeting, when her hands had slid down the length of his chest, his fingers had curled around her waist and brushed her spine, and she’d felt a jolt go through her that had her suddenly wanting to ride every day, if it meant he would be the one to lead her horse to stable when she returned.

When her feet had hit the ground, his hands had lingered at her waist as hers had tarried at his shoulders. He had dipped his head as he took her horse’s reins, wrapping the leather around his fist, and when he’d glanced up at her from beneath thick eyelashes, he’d murmured welcome home, princess— and Nesta had known then that she was in trouble, swimming in dangerous waters, at risk of drowning.

He’d been knighted by her grandfather before the late king’s death, earning his spurs fighting rebels, and daily he could be seen in the courtyard practising with his blade, so lethal it was a wonder her father hadn’t ordered him to lead the armies fighting in the Holy Land. Silently, secretly, Nesta was glad he hadn’t. Cassian was confident, arrogantly so, but loyal to a fault, and since that very first day he’d worked his way into her good graces, slipping so easily among her thoughts it was though he was always supposed to be there, taking up space inside her head.

And now she prayed for meetings on the turrets stairs, chance encounters in darkened halls, where his hand might brush hers, or his smile might make her heart race.

“You should be in bed,” he said now, looking at her across the candlelit chamber, over the long wooden table surrounded by empty chairs. “It’s late.”

His familiar face eased the ache that had plagued every part of her, and as his eyes dropped to her circlet lying discarded on the table, Nesta tipped her head up to see his face, raising an eyebrow as she rested her hands on the arms of her chair.

“Are you my nursemaid now?”

Cassian let out a small laugh as he stalked closer, prowling through the darkness as his eyes studied every inch of her he could see, as if searching for injury, looking for strain. As her father’s household knight, he was honour-bound to protect and serve her, but as he raked his gaze across her face, Nesta knew with certainty that it wasn’t honour that had him closing the distance between them with even, determined strides. Slowly, he tilted his head, giving her a brazen smile.

“Would you like me to be?”

He rested a hand on the hilt of his sword as he came to a halt, standing on the other side of the long table. His silhouette was stark in the golden light— broad shoulders lined with muscle were covered with a simple linen tunic dyed a watery, washed-out red, the sleeves rolled up to show his forearms. Golden brown skin shone almost bronze beneath the glow of the candles, and his wrist lay idle atop the pommel of the sword hanging at his hip. Nesta dragged her eyes over him, from his leather boots to the silver bracelets at his wrists— a matching pair, each studded with a single large garnet. They glimmered, deep crimson stones shining like molten rubies, and even though they were far from extravagant, Nesta’s eye caught them anyway. Cassian lifted his wrist from his sword as he crossed his arms over the wide span of that chest, his gently curling hair spilling over one shoulder and brushing his collarbone.

He was…

He was everything she shouldn’t want, and everything she couldn’t have.

And yet still she met his eye, his hazel gaze a delectable blend of gold and green and brown— rich and warm and sweet. Cassian didn’t blink, and just as she always did, she felt stripped by the intensity of his gaze. He looked at her now, expectant.

“I can’t sleep,” she admitted at last.

Cassian frowned. “You seem troubled.”

Nesta barked a laugh, one that was bitter and as sharp as shattered glass. She shook her head, and even without the golden circlet around her temples, she felt the pressure still there, pushing in on all sides.

“Do I?”

“You do,” Cassian nodded, taking another step forward until he stood directly behind one of the chairs tucked beneath the empty table. He reached out and braced his hands on it, fingers curling around the wood as he leaned down to her level, canting his head to the side and sending his long hair tumbling over the other shoulder. Something thick and heady stirred in his eyes, something that seemed like concern mixed with something… something else, something she couldn’t recognise. His face softened as he let out a breath, tension seeping from his jaw as his fingers loosened on the chair.

“Tell me,” he said after a moment. “Tell me what burdens you.”

Nesta blinked. “It’s your brother that’s advisor to the crown,” she said, thinking of Cassian’s adopted brother— Rhysand, the one who was, even now, with her father in the Holy Land, kept deep within the king’s confidences. “Not you.”

Cassian shrugged. “I don’t want to be an advisor to the crown.”

“Just advisor to me, then?”

His lips split into a grin, one that made her heart ache.

“If you’ll have me.”

Nesta shook her head again, dipping her gaze to her hands, just to stop herself from dragging her stare over every inch of him, over the forearms where his exposed skin shone in the candlelight.

“I can guess,” Cassian continued, his voice a drawl through the otherwise silent chamber. “What it is that brothers you— I can guess. Your uncle is causing chaos outside these walls, princess. Soon there will be riots.”

A chill gathered at the base of her spine. Nesta knew this already— had spent hours being lectured on it by the very men who her father had trusted to keep his lands safe. And now they looked to her, as if she could fix it— as if she had any sway at all over the man who had left when she was a child. The king had become a stranger to her, hardly a shadow in her memory, and she was naught but the princess of a failing kingdom, the daughter of an absent father. What did she have— what power did she hold at all?

“The law means nothing anymore,” Cassian said with a wave of his hand, lips pulled downwards in distaste. “Your grandfather I respected, but his sons leave him a poor legacy. Your uncle takes what he wants when he wants, and his retainers are worse. The taxes he levies are brutal and—”

Nesta let out a sound, somewhere between a groan and a whimper. “I don’t want to think of it anymore,” she said, tired. “I want to forget about it— about all of it, for just one night.”

She looked up, at the warrior on the other side of the table. His words died on his tongue, and the silence stretched for a beat too long as he met her gaze. Her heart seemed loud enough for him to hear, and as the night pressed against the windows and the candle flame flickered, Nesta looked at him with a challenge - a plea - in her eyes. She blinked, but he merely looked at her the way he always did, like he knew her down to her bones.

“I want to forget,” she repeated, a whisper as he pushed away from the chair and took a step towards her, bringing him close enough to touch, now. “Let me forget, Cassian.”

Silent, he nodded. In the gathering dark he reached for her, lifting her hand from the arm of her chair and bringing it, reverently, to his lips. His mouth was warm against her skin, his hand tightening around hers, holding her against him as though he wanted to keep her there forever, and though this ought to have been a knightly gesture, something chivalric and gallant, there was something in the way he held her that made it deeper, made his kiss something far more than a show of loyalty from a knight to his lady.

Something far more meaningful— and something far more dangerous.

“I can help you,” he murmured, his voice little more than a breathless whisper in the darkness. Nesta found her eyes drifting closed, and even though he lifted his lips, he didn’t drop her hand. “I can make you forget all of it, princess. Just for tonight.”

Her eyes fluttered, and oh, it was a kind of treason— to let him touch her, to let him press such a lingering kiss to her skin, to let him speak to her as though he knew her, body and soul. With effort, Nesta forced herself to remember where she was— who she was, because with that raw heat dancing in his eyes… oh, yes. It was treason to touch the king’s daughter the way he did.

“My father…” she began.

“Is absent, princess.” Cassian let her hand slip from his, and the absence of his warmth was jarring. “Your sisters are in France. There’s nobody here but you and I, and no king on these shores to object to anything.”

“Treason,” Nesta breathed, her voice soft. To speak against the king, to speak of him with such disdain… that was treason too, or as close as one could get without lifting a sword. But Cassian only let a grin curve his lips, crooked and charming as he pulled away just enough to draw his sword an inch from its sheath.

“Will you end my life here, then?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Brave, Nesta thought wryly, looking at the hand wrapped tight around the hilt of his blade. They called her father coeur de lion, but it was Cassian who had a lion’s heart. A foolish heart— but brave nonetheless. He smirked a little still, even as he unsheathed his sword all the way and set it on the table. The steel was bright, polished, and the hilt was simple— wrapped in leather with a silver pommel. Her father’s was decorated with gold, vines engraved down the blade, a groove down the middle to wick away the blood he shed. Cassian’s was far simpler, but no less sharp— no less deadly. It lay between them as he nodded.

“Go on, princess.” He tilted his head to the side, eyes dark and daring. “Attaint me. Have me stripped of everything I own, take my name and ruin it.” His voiced dropped lower, his gaze turning heated. “Because even if your father were here, my loyalty would be to you. I wouldn’t go to the edge of the courtyard for a man that abandons his realm for ten years. But for you— for you I’d go to the ends of the earth, and you’re right princess, that’s all kinds of treason, so you should do everything that I’ve just said. Have me attainted, confiscate my lands, and then have someone slit my throat, because death is the only thing that could stop me from doing this.”

With an unwavering gaze, Cassian lifted a hand.

Slowly, purposefully he cupped her cheek, his touch far too bold and far too brazen as his fingers strayed across her jaw, sliding into her hair— braided and bound and up. His rings snagged on her braids, the plain silver bands he wore with swirling engravings reminding her of the woad tattoos she’d once heard about the ancient Scots decorating their skin with, and as his lips neared hers, her heart began an off-kilter beat inside her chest. His touch was one of devotion— unyielding and unshakeable and so very, very treacherous.

She didn’t move— couldn’t. His eyes roamed her face, searching, as her lips parted he looked at her like he’d just found whatever it was he’d been looking for. He risked his life, his neck, and yet something thrummed through her as she felt his callouses against her skin, rough from all those years with a sword in hand. The cool metal of his rings pressed against her cheek, and it felt all kinds of forbidden and yet— she didn’t pull away.

The gold circlet on the table was all the reason in the world that this was a bad idea, but outside the world was already going to Hell, and Nesta just wanted one moment of peace— one breath of it, no matter how brief. Cassian looked at her like she was the closest he would ever come to Heaven, like he’d already resigned himself to his damnation, and she knew without needing him to speak that she was the only thing he’d kneel for, the only altar he would worship at.

“You can’t,” she whispered as he tilted his head. Those eyes - those damned eyes - were afire, blazing with a kind of heat Nesta had only ever heard about in songs and chansons de geste— epic, lyrical poems. They were certain to be her undoing, those eyes. Her unravelling. But as the candlelight glowed, reflected in that unwavering, steadily burning hazel… Nesta longed to fall, to let herself come undone.

“And why not?” Cassian asked with a rueful smile, daring to drag his thumb across her cheekbone.

“Because I—“ she began, but her breath faltered as he moved his thumb to her lips, tracing the bow in the centre before dropping to her chin and circling beneath her jaw. Nobody had ever touched her before— nobody had ever dared. “My father is the king,” she forced out.

“Your father hasn’t been here for ten years, sweetheart.”

“That doesn’t change anything,” she said, forcing her eyes open even as they threatened to drift closed.

Cassian let out a breath, and when he spoke next his voice was firm. “Princess, your great-grandmother sank this country into a civil war to get the crown. You could too, if you wanted.” He didn’t waver, and his touch didn’t slow, exploring the planes of her face with a gentleness that contradicted the sword on the table, the scar through his eyebrow. Treason danced on his tongue, but he spoke of war and bloodshed as if it were nothing, as if he’d serve up this realm to her singlehanded if only she’d ask. “And I will cut down every single person who stands in your way, if I have to.”

“That really is treason,” she whispered.

“I care not,” he murmured, dipping his head until his lips were barely an inch from hers. She felt his breath on her cheeks, felt her heartbeat grow wild.

“Fool,” she said softly, but there was no ire there, none at all. He only hummed, nodding in agreement.

“Only for you,” he answered, and it seemed, somehow, like a promise. Like a vow. “Only for you would I draw that blade— only for you do I kneel.”

The candle flame flickered in the corner, and with the moonlight drifting through the windows, she let herself, for just a moment, lean into his touch. She turned her face into his palm, and he hummed again, daring to let his other hand curl around her hip.

She felt herself slipping, falling. With the golden light dancing on his skin and setting his hazel eyes aglow, she felt herself forgetting all of the turmoil outside of these walls. Tomorrow— she’d deal with it tomorrow. For tonight she only wanted this— the man who looked at her like she was the sun and the moon and the sky itself, who offered her the sharp end of his blade, hers to command as she wished.

“No one can know,” she breathed. “About this— whatever this is.”

He smiled softly. “I always have been exceptionally good at keeping secrets.”

Nesta smiled too, and with every beat of her heart catching, stumbling, she reached for the hand he had rested at her hip. She tangled their fingers together, his rough against her smooth, and Lord have mercy on her— she melted at that touch, felt herself sinking into it and letting it enfold her, engulf her. His thumb moved across the back of her fingers, his lips parting on an exhale, and with all of the weight and authority that she could muster - every ounce of regality that circlet gave her, that her royal blood gave her - she lifted her chin and sought out those eyes of burning, burning hazel.

“Kiss me,” she said.

Cassian smiled, his fingers squeezing hers, tightening his hold. Nesta longed to feel the curve of those lips against hers, yearned for it, and just before Cassian pressed his lips to hers - just before he gave her everything she had ever wanted - he let out a soft breath, one hand moving behind her back, resting between her shoulder blades to pull her closer, to hold her pressed to his chest. As Cassian’s lips brushed the corner of her mouth, he smirked.

“As you wish, princess.”

#nessian #cassianweek2023 #early post because im back in work this afternoon after my holiday boo #but as always there's an authors note on ao3 with all sorts of various historical detail and facts i drew inspiration from #oh and spot the princess bride reference 👀

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darthstitch · 2 years

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fic: but all I want is for you to shine (shine down on me)

This really started with Jeddie.

If it had been up to Rose Walker, she might have wanted to forget about Dream of the Endless, the whole business about being a "child of the Endless," her best friend suddenly ending up pregnant with a magic baby and nearly getting murdered. Sure it was to save the world and all, but still. "Mixed emotions" was an understatement.

Her dreams were blessedly ordinary for a good long while. Memories of Mom and her childhood, Grandma Unity's dollhouse and her as a little girl playing with it, although she had never gotten to do that in real life. Sometimes, there were dreams of flying or swimming in a vast ocean filled with stars. Sometimes it was bits of inspiration for her book.

And okay, if she had just vented a little bit about how she'd been manipulated in the way she'd written the character of King Somnio, well, who could blame her, right?

"He's really nice, Rose," Jed said to her after reading her very first book - her first published novel, which was still quite thrilling to her.

"Who's nice, Jeddie?"

"Uncle Dream. He's nice."

"You call him Uncle Dream now?" Rose was incredulous.

Jed chortled. "Yeah, that made him look all funny but then he said, 'I suppose that is technically accurate, Jed Walker, less a few "greats."' Her little brother did his best impression of Dream's deep, resonant voice with the expected comedic results. "He actually liked it. I can tell."

"But why do you say he's nice, Jeddie?"

"He listens and he helps me when I go on adventures as the Sandman and he likes it when I show him my Sandman comics and we get to talk about what we're going to do next as the Sandman, fighting the regular bad guys and the nightmares too." Jed beamed. "He doesn't think it's stupid or silly like… well, not-Uncle Barnaby." He scowled. "Just Barnaby. He's not my uncle anymore anyway."

"Aww, Jeddie. Barnaby's not gonna hurt you anymore. Nobody's gonna hurt you anymore, I promise." Rose drew her little brother close for a hug, still thankful that she'd gotten to him in time.

"Uncle Dream also helps me face the nightmares too, Rose," Jed murmured.

She hugged him tighter.

Rose doesn't expect to find herself in the Throne Room of the Dreaming. Then again, maybe she should have, after that conversation with Jeddie a few days ago.

The King of Dreams is not actually sitting on his throne. He's on the floating staircase that's leading up to it, sitting in a comfortable sprawl, his ridiculously long black coat trailing behind him.

Her book is in his hands.

A hot flush rises up the back of her neck. For some reason she just feels horribly embarrassed, even though she really shouldn't be, because what is there to be embarrassed about right?

There's a faint smile on his face as he's reading her book.

"Hello, Rose Walker. How have you been keeping?"

"Um. I'm… fine?"

"You sound unsure," And he sounds amused, damn him.

"I don't know - I mean, you're reading -- " She gestures helplessly at the book in his hands - her book.

"It's really very good. I rather enjoyed it. Although Lucienne thinks you might wish to be kinder to the King in your next story."

She huffs. "You would think that."

"I said it was Lucienne, not I." His expression turns wry. "I believe the King has gotten no more than what he deserved, don't you think?" He gestures at her to sit next to him - the movement is, as always, regal and graceful.

She does. She draws her knees up to her chin, blows out a breath. "Will you tell me about the previous vortex you had to deal with?"

"Why do you ask me this question, Rose?"

"Because I don't know how to feel about you anymore!" She finally explodes. "I liked you, Morpheus. And then suddenly, I'm this vortex and I could end up ending the universe and you were gonna have to kill me and I just wanted to find my brother but I'm gonna have to die and then my grandma had to do it and I only just found her and, and after my mom died -- "

She's horrified that she suddenly bursts into tears but she can't stop herself, the words and the feelings just tumble out.

There's a hand on her back, a gentle, almost tentative touch. Through blurry eyes, she's being offered a handkerchief. It's white.

She finds herself making a watery, hiccupy laugh.

"What is it that you find so amusing?"

"I thought it would be black, what with the whole emo goth thing you've got going on." She takes the handkerchief anyway, blots at her tears, blows her nose with an inelegant snort.

"I am sorry, you know." There was a soft sigh. "I had intended to simply use you to find the other Arcana. I had a realm to rebuild and I had been away for far too long. It was wrong of me to treat you thus. If you fear me now, it is no less than what I deserve."

"But that's kind of the point, Morpheus. I don't want to be afraid of you. Jed isn't afraid of you. And I don't have so much family left that I can just ignore my newly found great-great uncle, even if he happens to be some kind of magical eldritch being."

"Dream."

"Huh?"

"Dream is the name I would prefer, for family and dear friends."

"All right. Tell me about the story about the vortex." Rose takes a deep breath and tries it out. "Uncle Dream."

And he does.

"NOPE."

Rose is fully aware that Dream of the Endless is perfectly capable of turning her into a mushroom or a frog or some such thing but she doesn't care. She is far too busy dragging along her not-struggling-too-hard magical eldritch Addams Family member into the nearest Tesco's because this requires reinforcements.

"You are taking very great liberties with my person, Rose Walker, I hope you realise this."

"Balls or bollocks to that," Rose tells him archly. She does a quick scan of the freezer. "HA! FOUND YOU!" She grabs two tubs of ice cream, coffee and chocolate fudge and hands it off to Dream. "Hold this. I'm getting cookies."

"Why are we doing this?" The tone is hilariously plaintive. It's adorable. She's not sure how Hob Gadling has let her ridiculous dramatics-prone uncle out of his sight and reach for even just five minutes. They're both idiots, she decides then and there.

"Because you are not going to play the tragic figure, standing in the rain, pining over lost love." Rose pokes him in the chest. "You are going to tell me about your boyfriend of the past 600 years -- "

"We are not romantically entangled -- "

"THAT'S THE ENTIRE PROBLEM, YOU NUMPTY!" People are staring, some hastily stifling smiles as they're getting the gist of the situation. Rose does not care. "You want to be, right, Uncle Dream?"

"..."

"Sorry, Uncle Dream, I don't speak eldritch mumble."

"yes" The admission is so soft, so painfully quiet and pained that Rose's heart aches for him. She settles for gently patting his arm.

"It is a human rule that these kinds of things are best resolved with ice cream and cookies," She tells him decisively.

"I have not heard of this human rule."

There it is, a ghost of a smile fleeting across that pale, handsome face. If Dream had ever directed the real version of That Smile in Hob Gadling's general direction, he'd have been pounced on immediately. That is, if the man had any brains. The jury is still out on that, Rose knows.

"You're hearing it now. So ice cream, cookies and talking like sensible grown-up beings. No ridiculous tragical pining, not on my watch. Okay?"

"As you wish."

She chortled. "See, Princess Bride references already! You're on the right track, Uncle Dream. Let's go snag your Dread Pirate Roberts, all right?"

"You realize that you have cast me as Buttercup in this scenario."

"... and Hob is an ancient medieval nickname for Robert. Your point being...?"

A sigh. "The point is that I would very much like chocolate chip cookies. The ones that your brother Jed says are the chunky kind."

Rose blinks. But Dream looks less like a sad wet cat now and those brilliantly blue eyes are gleaming with mischief, rather than tears. She's gonna take what she can get. "Chocolate chunk cookies it is."

It is entirely due to the Tesco's Ice Cream Incident, which subsequently led to a Certain Pair of Idiots Finally Getting Their Shit Together, that led to Rose being formally inducted into the Conspiracy of the Ravens.

Okay, so it's a Raven, an ex-Raven-turned-Librarian, Mervyn Pumpkinhead, one son of Adam, a baby Gargoyle and one immortal. But Matthew said that the name sounded cool and Rose had to agree.

When Matthew explains to her what the Conspiracy was all about, she finally realized the truth.

Matthew was the shared brain cell between her idiot uncle and idiot history professor.

Lucienne deserved to be crowned Queen of the Universe, for putting up with so much of this clusterfuckery.

Her gods-be-damnned grandparent definitely deserved a massive kick in the nuts. Twice. For her grandma Unity and Dream.

And nope, Certain Things were not going to happen to their Morpheus, not if they had anything to say about it.

Rose was in.

Rose, of course, was absolutely right about Dream's smile and its effect on one Professor Robert "Hob" Gadling. Folded like a wet paper bag. Melted like butter on a hot pan. Absolute slush.

It was simultaneously hilarious and adorable.

Rose also noted the more frequent appearance of those smiles and was rather surprised and touched to learn that she and her brother were also causing them.

As was the first time Dream had referred to her with unmistakable affection as "my dear Rose."

She also found that it was very useful to have an uncle who also happened to be Prince of Stories and absolutely refused to indulge her own bout of self-pity while suffering writer's block. Being literally carried off to Tesco's for ice cream and cookie therapy was its own kind of mortifying and endearing.

Matthew was no longer her favorite Raven as he had been too busy laughing at her own predicament.

Excerpt from a book review from The New York Times:

Rose Walker continues to be a fantastic new voice in the realm of fantasy, with the follow up to her best-selling debut novel. It is also a further expansion of her earlier published short story, "The King of All Night's Dreaming."

She continues her enchanting tale with the charismatic and mysterious King Somnio, who is fast becoming one of the most beloved characters in fantasy fiction. The character development here is nothing short of compelling, as the layers are peeled away from what we earlier thought was a cold and calculating monarch ...

The dedication page of Rose Walker's second novel:

For Uncle Dream, our Prince of Stories

-end-

Footnote the First: The TikTok channel run by the Hellfire Club has a new update. The hashtag is #storytime. It has a brief clip of "Professor Thomas Murphy" reading from The Princess Bride. The audience is a mix of university students and their younger siblings, all clearly having a great time.

Footnote the Second: There is also a clip of "Inigo Montoya" (Duncan MacLeod) and "the Dread Pirate Roberts" (Hob Gadling) reenacting their duel on the same TikTok channel. Clearly, Professor MacLeod was having too much fun delivering the immortal lines: "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

Footnote the Third: Lucienne is a huge fan of Rose Walker's books and is absolutely delighted to read the latest installment when they appear in the Castle Library. It takes an enormous amount of self-discipline not to spoil anyone as to what happens next.

Footnote the Fourth: There was a lot of speculation about the dedication in Rose Walker's book and rumors abounded that "Uncle Dream" was, in fact, the real-life inspiration for King Somnio. Rose declined to comment on this when asked, opting instead for a mysterious smile.

#the sandman #dream of the endless #rose walker #dream and rose #dreamling #i crack what i want #jed walker #dream and his niblings #hob gadling #as you wish #princess bride references #shhh nobody tell neil

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