The Dreaming was restless. Its skies darkened, and the rivers of thought slowed, like breath drawn but never released. Dream walked its shifting fields with his cloak trailing behind him, sensing the disturbance pressing against the edges of his dominion.
Something was drawing near. Not warmth, not curiosity — but inevitability.
Dream stepped beyond his realm into the raw void between stars. The young universe pulsed around him with light, galaxies still shaping themselves into spiral forms, suns blazing in their infancy. Yet beyond that beauty, at the edge where creation trembled, he found them.
Entropy.
A force that was not form but unraveling. Its outline shifted constantly — threads of stars pulling apart, matter reduced to ash, patterns collapsing into chaos. It was never still, for stillness was order, and Entropy was the undoing of all order.
Oblivion.
If Entropy was collapse, Oblivion was what remained afterward. A hollow, not even the memory of existence, not silence but the lack of anything to silence. Where Oblivion passed, even imagination recoiled, as though it had never been.
They did not announce themselves; they had no need. Dream had always known them, as one knows the inevitability of dusk after dawn. They regarded him not with hostility, but with the absence of regard itself.
"Dream," said Entropy, its voice a crumbling thing, as though mountains were eroding with every syllable.
"Dream," whispered Oblivion, softer still, and the word seemed to fade from memory the moment it was spoken.
Dream bowed his head in acknowledgment. "Brothers."
Entropy shifted, galaxies unraveling across its form like sand scattering into the wind.
"You weave illusions. Fragile, fleeting things. But all dreams decay. All visions crumble. Nothing you shape will last."
Oblivion followed, its voice hollow and consuming.
"And when they crumble, they are mine. Not even their echo endures. I am the erasure of meaning."
Dream's silver eyes glimmered, steady.
"Yes. You will claim all in time. But until then, I give them form. A dream need not last forever to matter. Even a single vision, held for a moment, can change the course of eternity."
Entropy tilted its unraveling head, threads of matter collapsing into formlessness.
"Futile art," it said at last.
Oblivion countered with a hollow whisper.
"Necessary art."
And with those words, they withdrew. No bow, no gesture, no sound. One moment present, the next dissolved into the void, leaving behind a coldness that clung to Dream's cloak like frost.
For a long while, Dream remained alone in the vast silence. He felt no hatred toward his brothers. They were not cruel, for cruelty required intention. They were inevitabilities, as natural as breath, as certain as nightfall. Yet their touch unsettled him. In their presence, he had felt the weight of an end that could not be softened.
When he returned to the Dreaming, it was as though the realm itself sighed in relief. The skies lightened, and the rivers ran freely once more. Waiting at the heart of his domain was Death.
She stood beneath a flowering tree whose blossoms fell in endless cascades, each petal a soul's final sigh. Her expression was calm, warm — a balm after the cold emptiness of Oblivion.
"You've seen them," she said softly, her voice carrying the weight of understanding.
Dream inclined his head. "Entropy and Oblivion. They are endings without grace, silence without song. I wonder if, when they reach me, any dream will remain."
Death's gaze softened. She stepped closer, her hand reaching for his. The touch was cool, but not the cold of loss — rather the quiet of rest after exhaustion. She did not hold him as ruler to subject, nor even as sibling to sibling, but as one who chose to understand.
"Dreams don't truly die," she said. "Even when they fade, they leave their mark on the hearts that held them. They shape lives, choices, destinies. Even I cannot unmake that. Not completely."
For a long moment, Dream simply studied her face. Where Oblivion had been void, she was fullness; where Entropy had been dissolution, she was transition. His voice, when it came, was quiet.
"Then perhaps you are the only reason I will endure."
A smile touched Death's lips, soft and unguarded. And in that smile, Dream felt warmth return to him — not the heat of stars, but the comfort of knowing he was not alone in the balance between light and darkness.
He let the silence stretch, but it was no longer hollow. It was shared.
When Death's hand finally slipped from his, Dream found himself wishing it had not.
And in that wish lay the first stirring of something more than kinship — a bond not forged by inevitability, but by choice