500 BCE
The world had changed again.
Dream could feel it in the rhythm of sleeping minds — no longer the frightened, wordless dreams of survival, but structured, vivid visions. Mortals now dreamed in patterns, in stories, in prayers. Their imagination had become architecture.
The first temples rose. Their fires were both offerings and metaphors — and their prayers, whether whispered or shouted, reached his realm in waves of soundless thought.
He drifted through them, unseen, tracing the path from dream to devotion. Mortals prayed to the gods they had made, but always, between one name and the next, he heard something else whispered in the dark.
Not all their words were for the gods.
Some were for the silence between.
They dreamed of a figure who moved through the night and watched them as they slept — who gave them visions, comfort, or warning. A voice without face, a presence without altar.
They spoke of the Still One, the Shadow That Listens, the Keeper of Sleep. And as years became centuries, those titles blended, transformed, condensed.
And one night, as Dream walked through the quiet between worlds, he heard a single phrase rise from a hundred dreaming tongues — murmured with awe, fear, and love alike.
"The Lord of Every Nothing."
The sound trembled through his realm like wind through glass.
Dream stopped and listened, letting it sink into him. It was not worship, not truly — but recognition. Mortals had given shape to the feeling he left behind in their hearts: the peace of surrender, the gentleness of oblivion, the vast quiet that makes meaning possible.
He whispered the name once under his breath, and it filled the Dreaming like light.
"Lord of Every Nothing."
There was no pride in it. Only wonder.
⸻
He sat upon the silver dunes of his realm that evening, watching constellations drift like ink. Death appeared beside him, as she often did, barefoot and calm, a smile in her eyes that seemed to know every secret before it was spoken.
"They've named you again," she said, as if it were the most ordinary thing in creation.
He nodded. "They have."
"'Lord of Every Nothing,' wasn't it?"
"Mortals are poetic when they dream."
Death tilted her head, studying him. "You sound… different. Even for you."
Dream's gaze stayed fixed on the stars. "Perhaps it is the name. Or perhaps it is what it stirs."
She sat beside him, her knees drawn up, her chin resting on her hand. "You could tell me what you mean. I am excellent at listening."
There was silence for a long time — the kind that only existed between eternal beings who had long ago learned the value of patience.
Finally, Dream spoke.
"I remember a life," he said softly. "A mortal one."
Death turned her head slightly, curiosity flickering in her eyes.
"I was not born into this," he continued. "Not as they were — not as you, or Eternity, or Entropy. Before the first dawn of this universe, before the stars learned to shine, I lived in another. A small, ordinary world."
He paused, letting the words breathe. "I had a body. A name. Azrael Morpheus Oneiros."
Death's lips curved into the faintest smile. "Morpheus," she repeated. "That explains it."
"Yes," he said. "The mortals here whisper that name in dreams now. They do not know where it comes from, but I do. It was mine — once. A middle name, nothing more. And yet they have resurrected it, just as I was resurrected."
He looked toward her, the starlight reflecting in his pale eyes. "I do not know how or why I became what I am. Only that when this universe was born, so was I — not human, not divine, but something that touches both. Perhaps I was chosen. Perhaps I was simply… carried forward."
Death's expression softened. "And you've never told anyone?"
"There has been no one to tell."
She reached out, brushing a strand of dark hair from his face. "There is now."
Dream's voice was low, almost uncertain. "You are not… unsettled by this?"
She smiled faintly. "Unsettled? Dream, everything lives before it dies. Why should it surprise me that something once living could become what you are? It makes you more real, not less."
He looked down at her hand resting against his. "When I awoke at the dawn of time, I thought that life was gone forever. That I had shed mortality like a skin. But sometimes I remember small things — the sound of rain on windows, the warmth of a heartbeat. And I wonder if that's why I care so deeply for what they dream."
"Because you once did too," she said softly.
"Yes."
Death smiled faintly. "Then you understand them better than most of us ever could."
He turned to her fully then, studying her face — the kindness, the curiosity, the quiet strength. "Does that bother you? To know that I was once… human?"
"Not even slightly." She leaned back, looking up at the drifting stars. "I think it makes you beautiful, actually. It means that when they dream, they're reaching toward someone who has been where they are."
For the first time in an age, Dream's composure wavered. "You are kind, Death."
"I'm honest," she said with a small grin.
Dream hesitated, then said quietly, "I have not spoken that name aloud in eons — Azrael. It feels strange upon the tongue."
Death's smile softened. "I like it."
He turned to her, one brow raised. "You do?"
She nodded, eyes glimmering like starlight through tears. "Do you know what mortals once called Azrael?"
Dream's gaze lingered on her, curious. "The Angel of Death."
"Mm." She smiled faintly. "They say he was the one who carried souls with gentleness, who didn't bring endings with cruelty, but with mercy. Mortals feared him, but they also trusted him. He wasn't just death — he was the one who made sure no one crossed the veil alone."
Her tone grew almost wistful. "That's why I like it. It's a kind name, no matter how mortals tried to turn it into something to fear."
Dream's expression softened, his voice lower now. "And you think it suits me?"
She tilted her head, a teasing light flickering behind her calm. "You walk between terror and comfort, Dream. Between nightmare and peace. You're the only one who truly understands how close they really are."
A faint, genuine smile ghosted across his face. "Then perhaps I was always meant to bear it."
"Maybe you were," she said quietly. "Maybe that's why I liked you the moment I saw you — because the universe remembered that name before you did."
For a long while, they said nothing. Only the sound of distant dreams echoed around them like the sighing of stars.
Death rested her head lightly on his shoulder. "Azrael, Dream, Morpheus — whatever you call yourself. They're all you. And I like all of them."
He looked down at her with the softest expression she had ever seen from him. "Then I suppose I shall keep the name, if only for you."
⸻
Below them, the mortal world dreamed on.
A child whispered Morpheus in her sleep.
A poet muttered Lord of Every Nothing as he fell into reverie.
And across the sea, a dying king smiled in his final dream of peace, feeling a presence take his hand in the dark.
Each of them reached toward the same unseen figure — not a god, not an angel, but something greater and quieter: the being who stood between every heartbeat and the silence after.
Death looked down and smiled faintly. "They love you, you know."
"They love the peace I bring them," Dream said.
She shook her head. "No. They love you. They just don't have the words for it."
He didn't answer, but the faintest warmth passed through his expression — not quite a smile, but something close.
And for a long time, they sat together in the silver light, saying nothing at all.
⸻
From that night onward, the mortals' name for him endured.
No temples bore it. No priest ever spoke it aloud in the waking world.
But in dreams, whispered by billions across centuries, the title lingered — The Lord of Every Nothing.
It was not a crown. It was a confession.
A promise that even in their brief, trembling lives, mortals knew there was someone who watched over them when the light went out.
And Dream, who had once been Azrael, watched them in return — and no longer felt alone.