…Sometime in the Future…
The Dreaming was rarely quiet.
Even when no mortal slept, echoes lingered — faint remnants of imagination, rippling across the shifting sky. But tonight, the palace felt still. Dream sat upon his throne, eyes closed, cloak wrapped around him like midnight.
Then he felt it. A spark. Small. Innocent. Strange.
A dreamer had arrived.
Curious, Dream rose and followed the pull through the winding landscapes of the Dreaming. Past forests of glass, past rivers of memory, past fields where laughter grew like flowers. Until at last, he came to a pool of moonlit water.
Ripples spread across its surface. Something stirred within.
Then it emerged.
A tiny creature, no taller than a child's knee, waddled out of the water with stubby fins and a wide, toothy grin. Its little legs pattered against the sand. Its eyes were bright, curious, utterly fearless.
A land shark.
Dream blinked. "Ah."
The creature wagged its tail like a dog, barked — yes, barked — and bounded forward. With surprising boldness, it leapt and latched onto the hem of Dream's cloak. Not with malice, but like a puppy gnawing at a toy.
Dream looked down at it. Many would have dismissed such a being as insignificant. But he was Dream, and nothing that dreamed was beneath his notice.
"You are small," he said softly. "And yet you dream."
The land shark yipped happily, still tugging at the cloak. Dream knelt, his pale hand brushing gently against the creature's head. The Dreaming rippled.
The shark's dream spilled out like bubbles.
He dreamed of endless treats. Of belly rubs. Of swimming in oceans made of squeaky toys. He dreamed of chasing butterflies with legs too short to catch them. And somewhere, deep down, he dreamed of belonging — of being loved.
Dream's expression softened, just slightly. "Jeff," he murmured, for in dreams all names reveal themselves. "You are not mighty, nor vast, nor terrible. And yet your dreams… are pure."
Jeff barked again, as if in agreement, then rolled onto his back expectantly.
Dream sighed — the closest thing to a laugh he had given in millennia — and, after a pause, scratched the land shark's belly. Jeff wriggled in delight, fins flapping wildly.
For a while, there was no silence, no duty, no weight of eternity. Only a shark who dreamed of joy, and a lord of dreams who, perhaps for the first time, felt it.
When Jeff finally dozed off within the dream itself, curled into a ball against Dream's cloak, Dream whispered:
"Sleep well, little one. You remind even me why dreams matter."
He touched Jeff's forehead gently. A silver glow shimmered, then sank into the little creature's slumbering mind.
"A blessing," Dream said softly. "For you alone. You shall know only good dreams, Jeff — dreams of joy, of comfort, of love. Nightmares shall never find you."
Jeff snored softly, kicking his tiny legs as if already chasing butterflies in his sleep.
And so the Dreaming held a new story, one small and absurd, yet no less precious than the greatest epics:
The tale of a cosmic god and a land shark who dared to dream.