The universe had found its rhythm.
Galaxies spun like jeweled wheels, stars were born and perished, and on countless worlds the first sparks of life flickered. Dreams multiplied in small, fragile forms — insects that dreamed of endless nectar, beasts that dreamed of endless chase, saplings that dreamed of sunlight.
Dream walked the halls of the Dreaming, watching it expand. What had once been barren wilderness now grew lush with story. The first forests of possibility reached toward skies painted by imagination. Rivers of memory wound through the land, fed by slumbering minds across the cosmos.
But the Dreaming was not still. Something vast pressed against it. Something new.
He lifted his head. In the void beyond stars, titans stirred.
They were not abstracts. They were not primal concepts. They were beings. Living, breathing colossi, each body forged from the very bones of creation. Their forms towered higher than worlds, radiant with power. They looked upon the universe with a singular purpose, though they could not yet name it.
The first Celestials.
Dream folded himself into the void between stars and watched as they gathered. Four stood nearest:
Arishem, tallest of them, whose gaze judged light and shadow alike.
Eson, wrapped in burning flame, whose hands clenched as though to unmake all they touched.
Exitar, massive and solemn, who carried silence like a crown.
Tiamut, restless and uncertain, his form shifting with unsteady brilliance.
They did not speak, for no language yet belonged to them. They simply were.
And as they stilled — as even gods must rest — their minds dipped into slumber.
Dream entered.
He stepped lightly upon the threshold of Arishem's vast thoughts. Here, the titan dreamed of balance — light weighed against dark, matter against void. But the scales tipped endlessly, never finding rest.
Dream whispered, "Judgment comes not in perfection, but in striving."
And in Arishem's dream, the scales steadied. Not balanced, but always seeking balance. The echo of this would shape him for eons: Arishem the Judge, bearer of the Celestials' great decrees.
He moved next into Eson's fire. The giant burned with rage, his dream an endless furnace. He saw only destruction, planets scoured, stars consumed.
Dream brushed his hand across the flames. "Even fire creates. Ash feeds soil. Heat births light."
And so, Eson's dream shifted. The fire no longer consumed blindly; it burned with purpose, to clear the way for renewal. In waking, Eson would become both destroyer and seeder of life.
Exitar's dream was silence. He stood in a void where nothing moved, nothing lived, nothing ended. The stillness threatened to consume Dream himself.
Dream knelt, speaking softly. "Silence is not emptiness. It is the pause between notes, the breath before the tale continues."
A low hum spread through Exitar's silence, the first tone of finality. Thus was born his dominion — execution, the last word, the silence that follows judgment.
Last, Dream entered the mind of Tiamut. Unlike the others, his dream was chaos: endless shifting shapes, bursts of power uncontrolled. Tiamut trembled, yearning for form yet fearing constraint.
Dream placed a hand upon his brow. "Change is not weakness. It is promise. Be the restless one. Be the dreamer among your kin."
Tiamut's visions calmed, not with order, but with purpose. In waking, he would be both feared and revered — the Dreaming Celestial, whose visions foretold change.
When Dream withdrew, the titans stirred. They did not know he had touched them. They did not know the whisper in their thoughts had given shape to their eternal roles.
But Dream knew.
As he drifted back to the Dreaming, he whispered into the cosmos:
"Walk well, Children of Creation. Your judgments, your fires, your silence, your visions — they will shape gods and mortals yet unborn. And all that they dream will return to me."
From a distance, he felt a presence. Death again, watching quietly, her gaze unreadable.
Dream met it with silence.
The Celestials awoke, their purposes crystallized. They strode into the stars to begin their work — to seed life, to judge worlds, to weave destiny. And behind every judgment, every firestorm, every silence, every restless vision, Dream's hand lingered, unseen.