Fic: Promise of a Dream
Title: Promise of a Dream
Rating: For All Ages
Fandom: Sandman
Summary: One hundred years later...
This was written for nautiluspq, about a year ago. She seemed pleased, so I thought I'd share it here.
It is a hundred years from now, and one of the little figments comes to the King of Dreams.
"I would like to journey from the Gate of Horn," the figment said to Dream, bowing low.
Dream-who-was-once Daniel frowned. "I am not accustomed to letting dreams leave my realm."
"But I have an appointment," the figment answered. "I have had this appointment since before you were born." Words were left unspoken, implications left unsaid, but in the end, Dream nodded.
"Very well. You have one day."
So the figment drifted from the Gate of Horn, and to a little English pub, where he sat and waited. And waited.
It was nearly closing time when a man entered the pub, head down, and sat at the bar. The figment stood and crossed, sitting next to him.
"I believe this one shall be on me."
Hob Gadling's head snapped up, and he gave the figment a startled look, as if he'd seen a ghost. Which, in a way, he had.
"I thought you were dead!" he accused.
Dream, the first Dream, shrugged. "I am. But dreams are strange things, Hob. When people dream of things, they must exist in the Dreaming. Oh, they can come and go if they are fickle dreams, but when men dream every night of the same thing, the image gains existence outside of that dream."
"So, you're just a figment, then," Gad said, somewhat bitterly. "A piece of my imagination."
"Perhaps," Dream answered. "But I'm still here."
And perhaps that was enough.
Rating: For All Ages
Fandom: Sandman
Summary: One hundred years later...
This was written for nautiluspq, about a year ago. She seemed pleased, so I thought I'd share it here.
It is a hundred years from now, and one of the little figments comes to the King of Dreams.
"I would like to journey from the Gate of Horn," the figment said to Dream, bowing low.
Dream-who-was-once Daniel frowned. "I am not accustomed to letting dreams leave my realm."
"But I have an appointment," the figment answered. "I have had this appointment since before you were born." Words were left unspoken, implications left unsaid, but in the end, Dream nodded.
"Very well. You have one day."
So the figment drifted from the Gate of Horn, and to a little English pub, where he sat and waited. And waited.
It was nearly closing time when a man entered the pub, head down, and sat at the bar. The figment stood and crossed, sitting next to him.
"I believe this one shall be on me."
Hob Gadling's head snapped up, and he gave the figment a startled look, as if he'd seen a ghost. Which, in a way, he had.
"I thought you were dead!" he accused.
Dream, the first Dream, shrugged. "I am. But dreams are strange things, Hob. When people dream of things, they must exist in the Dreaming. Oh, they can come and go if they are fickle dreams, but when men dream every night of the same thing, the image gains existence outside of that dream."
"So, you're just a figment, then," Gad said, somewhat bitterly. "A piece of my imagination."
"Perhaps," Dream answered. "But I'm still here."
And perhaps that was enough.