WHAT. Ronan basically (accidentally) kicks in Dream's back door in the Dreaming and gets invited to stay for a tour. WHERE. The Dreaming WHEN. Backdated to before the hell plot (idk please don't make me figure it out) WARNINGS. none that I can think of STATUS. complete
Ronan had been experimenting since he woke up with the latest batch of new memories and all the truth about himself. Old memories - old old, not a few months but prior life old - were still cropping up from time to time and trying new dreaming techniques felt like stretching his legs after too long crammed into a small space. He was human and he was not. He was both. And it meant he needed to reshape his way of thinking when he was in a dream space.
This wasn't just a place inside his head; it was a world on the other side of the curtain. The world he'd been born into and only left because the pull of humanity and all it's beautiful idiosyncrasies had been too hard to resist.
But after the last dreamwalk with Adam, he was trying to be a little careful of his husband. No dreamwalking without talking about it first and no risky experimentation.
The space around him was blank at the moment, begging to be shaped. But Ronan closed his eyes and reached out along the filaments of Vallo's pool of magical energy. It was like a ley line but more chaotic and he felt himself immediately going to fast down a metaphysical highway with no map.
"Fuck," he grumbled under his breath. His heart raced painfully until he took hold of the energy around him and ground himself to a halt. His eyes blinked open in an unfamiliar and magical looking place. It wasn't a dream, not exactly. It was--
"Fucking fuck. Sorry?" he called out, wincing as his voice echoed. He recognized the energy around him. "Still on goddamn training wheels here. Was hoping to look around at people's windows, not just let myself in the back door."
“I do not think that is better. Spying instead of visiting.” Dream appeared behind Ronan, on the staircase made of black obsidian, shiny in nature and reflecting the stained glass windows around them. By design the dream space around him was on a less grand scale than it was at home. Here, he didn’t have Lucienne to manage things.
Dreams and nightmares wandered around as they always did, treating this place as home, but to a much smaller degree. To a degree that Dream could manage on his own, which had been proving itself a job and a half. But he was determined to show that he could, and do it well until Lucienne opted to join him here.
He closed the book that was in his hands and stared at the visitor. “Normally people cannot enter my dream space without my bringing them here. Were you trying to spy on me specifically or just wandering?”
"I wasn't spying," Ronan grumbled, immediately defensive for a flash as he spun around to face Dream. But it only took a moment before his shoulders sagged and he rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine, I was spying. Old habits die hard and all that shit." The whole reason he was human now after all was because he'd spied on humans and wanted to be a part of their world. It felt wrong now, with the way Dream said it. Creeping around the edges of people's dreams.
"Anyway, no, I wasn't aiming for you." There was a little flash of pride though, that he'd managed to do what others usually couldn't. "I was…I don't know, following the energy to see if I could even do it. Dreamwalk into other people's dreams or even just sense their spaces?" He frowned, scratching at his jaw. "I've done it with Adam but he has a link to Cabeswater so I figured he just had a door cracked open for me specifically." He paused and then grimaced. "That's sounded fucking dumb. Whatever."
Dream’s expression did not waver much, just a little twitch here, a slight eyebrow raise there. It would have surprised him if someone of lesser ability had been able to walk into his home, but not as much Ronan Lynch, not with what he was made up of.
The Greywaren was capable beyond measure, to the point where he did not know his own limits, and that in itself could be dangerous. “Be careful,” he did not want to sound as if he was giving a lecture. “This is secure and safe, but not all of the dreams here are. There are a number of demons that feed on dreams wandering around. Following. Watching. They are who I keep an eye on.”
Lectures rarely landed well with Ronan Lynch, but he wasn't the same angry mess he'd been as a teenager. Instead of verbally swinging, he merely made a grumpy face and turned his head away to look around at the Dreaming.
"Careful's never really been my thing, but I'll watch my back. Not really looking to go up against a demon twice in one lifetime." He'd keep his eyes peeled though, and there was no guarantee he wouldn't change his mind and take a demon on to stop it from feeding on someone, but Dream didn't need to hear all that. Ronan swerved the subject back towards the Dreaming.
"I think I was drawn here because this place has a special energy. Feels like…where I came into being I guess," he admitted quietly.
“So long as you keep your mind protected, your body will remain yours.” A great deal of his own abilities came from his parents upon creation, but Morpheus had to learn the ticks and abilities and tells of every demon he’d come across thus far. Lucifer Morningstar was particularly fond of sending her own brand of them out into the world, as annoying as it was against Morpheus’ creations.
He might have been able to wave Ronan away with just a flick of his hand, to make him wake up and be gone from this place, but-- there was that small tiny part of him that didn’t mind having a guest here. One that he didn’t create.
Plus the embarrassment if it didn’t work would be annoying enough. “Would you like a tour? Gregory and Irving are out in the yard playing. The library is behind me.”
Did he want a tour of the Lord of Dreams private Dreaming? Fuck yeah, he did. But Ronan was also snagged by the instruction to keep his mind protected. He’d failed at that the last time he’d fought a demon and Gansey had died to save him. He didn’t want that shit to happen again.
“I…fuck. I mean, yeah, I’d like a tour. And any tips you have for uh. The protecting my mind thing.” He hated sounding out of his depth. He’d learned a lot about himself in the last couple of months but that didn’t solve everything. In his original form, he’d never needed to protect himself from demons. “Or just. Help practicing or some shit? I don’t know. I might be stronger but I still feel like I don’t know a damn thing sometimes.”
If it surprised Morpheus that Ronan felt unsure of himself in terms of a demon getting into his brain, he didn’t let it show on his face. But he was, in a way. “We’ll find a method to help.”
He wasn’t entirely confident in his ability to teach that kind of shielding to someone else, even as he said it. It was the opposite of what he would have tried to do with Rose Walker, but the Vortex could have destroyed everything he had built since the dawn of time and that was more dangerous than anything this Greywaren had put forward so far. Ronan had control. His abilities were most like Dream, rather than something born to destroy their world.
He was quiet as he walked forward, thinking of ways to teach what he knew as they stepped out of the castle and into the open space of the Dreaming. Not everyone in Vallo came to the Dreaming when they slept, much the same that not everyone dreamed when they slept.
In the courtyard outside of the castle, it always looked like daytime, welcome, warm, inviting. Gregory and Irving were chasing each other around the lush green field straight ahead, and the world seemed to sense as Morpheus approached, and came alive before their very eyes. “When a normal mortal dreams, their subconscious occasionally visits here. Where one might find adventure and to feel free.”
Ronan unclenched his teeth. It was a relief to not hear any judgment about control - you should have this by now, Greywaren. He knew Dream was often direct and succinct so it wouldn't have surprised him to hear those words. Instead, he felt comforted. If the Lord of Dreams couldn't help him protect his mind then probably no one could. And the Dreaming was calming besides.
"Sometimes I dream," Ronan said, an unconscious little smile curling his lips as he watched the gargoyles play. "I mean, like really dream. Used to be mostly nightmares. But I've gotten better at taking control when that happens. When it's a nice dream though, sometimes I just let it play out. Maybe I'll end up here one day." He crouched down to cup his hand around a flower he'd never seen. He'd have to remember it for his own dreamscape. "Is it different at home? This place?"
Jessamy picked up on their exit of the castle and swooped downwards through the sky, which caught Dream’s attention and he turned his head upwards to look for her. Having her here with him was still enough of an unexpected pleasure that it could draw a small smile out of him just by seeing her. “Nightmares also dwell here, should you end up on that side. Though I wonder if the dreams and nightmares would look to you in a similar fashion as they do me. A creator.” That answer would come within time, as they were presented with it.
He didn’t turn his attention back to Ronan until Jessamy landed on his shoulder. In a rare display of affection, Dream lifted a finger up to rub against her chest feathers. “My realm is much larger at home. There are far more people that visit it there, not very many are resistant to being pulled into a dream realm as they are here.”
"A creator," Ronan murmured, his eyes tracking Jessamy across the sky. He wasn't sure how he felt about anything in the Dreaming treating him as some kind of Morpheus-adjacent being. Good. Freaked? Both probably. He was a different species and his powers were related but not the same. "I can't fucking imagine creating a place like this big enough for the whole damn world."
His eyebrows pinched together until Gregory bumbled over to bump his head against Ronan's side. Ronan smirked and gave the gargoyle a scritch up the bumpy ridge of his nose. "Can I uh…change shit here? You can say no, I just…." He peeked up at Dream with a shithead version of uncertainty. "I kinda want to know if I can."
Dream took a few steps, just to the edge of the path where he could overlook the world ahead of him. He clasped his hands behind his back. “It’s my purpose, and what I was created for. All humans spend so much of their lives here, it’s necessary. That kind of power comes naturally to me, but I lack your-- evolutionary freedom.” Ronan had once told him that he chose what he was, now. That was not an option for Dream, he was locked into his purpose, his life, set by rules and boundaries.
He looked over to the Greywaren and his face finally betrayed some emotion - envy, perhaps. He had always wanted the will to change things, but desire was a slippery slope, all things considered. The flash of emotion was gone as quickly as it came, and the corner of his lips curved upward. “You may try to change something mundane. A flower, plant, stone. My dreams are off-limits.”
"Bad. Ass," Ronan grinned, suddenly brighter even in the golden sunlight of the Dreaming. There was no obvious physical change but the ancient eldritch creature he was seemed closer to the surface here, swimming in the pale blue depths of his eyes and making his movements eerie as he crouched down. Gregory stayed close and curiously sniffed at Ronan's ear.
"I would never try to change anything you obviously care about. I was thinking something more like…" He pressed his hand flat to the grass beneath them - it was unnecessary but it felt right anyway. The grass shivered and shifted, slipping away like grains of sand, and up out of the ground came a giant bounce castle. It was black and adorned with ravens, but it sparkled in the sun. Ronan laughed.
"How's that for evolutionary freedom?" he joked.
Dream could appreciate the aesthetic of it, at least. Though black and raven-adorned was usually kept to his own private preferences and not for the rest of the dreaming (most people did not appreciate his level of gothic fashion, but there were a few). Jessamy swooped in and immediately laid claim to it by landing on an inflated raven head.
“The children will like it. There are a few in particular that visit from time to time that I can think of.” Bird children, which was not an adjustment he’d expected to make here, but had become an interesting challenge for him, just as many others had.
He walked around the bounce house, inspecting it, looking for flaws in design or anything that might break the fabric of reality when it came to the Dreaming. Eventually he came to a stop. “Impressive.” Dream did not often offer compliments freely, but he was attempting to be better about that when it was warranted.
Ronan had mostly been interested in proving he could change the Lord of Dreams work and being a joking shithead about it at the same time. Getting a compliment threw him off completely.
"It's a bounce house, it's not fucking rocket science." His knee-jerk response was to revert to old defenses - if something unnerved him, he reacted with annoyance. But after a beat, he sighed and rubbed at the back of his head. "Thanks. I was just gonna make a joke about you needing some fun in your life. I could do better, make it seamless.." He could feel the truth of that as he reached out around him with his magic. Dream could stop him, he had no doubt about that, but it was nice to know he could affect things here.
"But I won't mess around with your shit," Ronan promised finally. He glanced away from the play castle and off towards the real one. "Still on for the rest of that tour?"
Dream did feel the pull of Ronan’s magic, just as he knew full well he could end it right then it there. He held back, as a statement to his control and calm, only quirked an eyebrow. In the past, a play for power would have been on brand to his level of arrogance.
But he was and had been trying to do better about that. He wished Lucienne could be here to appreciate that restraint.
“I have plenty of fun.” He only sounded a little offended, in the same tone he used against Death or Kenzi when they accused him of the same thing. “My library is vast. We will start there for the tour.” Dream left no room for argument as he started walking towards the castle, undeterred by any protests that might have followed.
Ronan groaned dramatically, but still climbed to his feet and trotted eagerly after Dream. "That was the fastest anyone has ever proven themselves wrong, ever, in the history of…uh, fuck. Never used to second guess saying shit like mankind before," he admitted, darkly amused. "Anyway, If you start reading in there, all bets are off."
There were no bets, but that was besides the point.