Chapter Text
Two ancient and powerful ghosts pored over a dream. It was, for a dream, large. It would, in its present configuration, partially sit around the dreamer's head, rather than fitting neatly inside. Despite that, it had the same cloudy softness as any other dream, and it glowed faintly from within, casting shades of possibility and imagination on the worktable.
The younger of the two ghosts, sporting an elaborate, but sadly cracked mask and a pair of magnificent curved horns, sighed and rearranged their voluminous, star-studded robes. “Is this truly necessary?” they asked, perhaps not for the first time.
“Necessary?” asked the elder, who wore a mask just as fine and just as damaged. They slipped another gear into the cloud, and then a plate with glittering bearings. They were building a clock within, of a type that could, for the moment, only exist within dreams. “No,” they said. “Not necessary. Few things are. We need not constrain ourselves to act only for necessity. There are other motives.”
“But there are so many easier ways to do this. We do not need to wait. You could fit him with a mask and hide his name, even now; there are few who would challenge your claim, and fewer still who could succeed in such a challenge. I do not believe there is any overlap between the groups.”
“Perhaps.” The elder reached for a tall, thin bottle. Within, red flowers floated in a red-tinted solution. They used a dropper to add three drops to the dream. “But this will be gentler than those other, easier, methods, and I must admit to experiencing a certain amount of enjoyment from teasing the child.”
The younger ghost made a noise of dissatisfaction and propped their chin on folded hands. The elder used a pair of tweezers to add butterflies to the dream.
“Watching Daniel navigate certain transformations, obstacles, and binding rules is entertaining. Things which give him some measure of distress, some measure of education, but no harm… Surely, he has vexed you enough that there are some small, gentle torments you may wish to inflict on him.”
“Small or not, there are certainly torments I would inflict.”
“Gentle, Nocturne. He is young, innocent, and, in many ways, fragile. We do intend for him to come into his powers. You, especially, are eager for them. Or am I mistaken?” The elder added silvery chains to the dream, and they hung from the bottom of the clouds like rain.
The younger ghost, Nocturne, made another unhappy sound. “Which is why I would prefer this to go more quickly.”
“I understand,” said the elder as they poured sand into the cloud, “but, come, think of something, add something for the boy. You are the expert on dreams, not I. I am certain your work will contain artistry I lack.”
Nocturne plucked a tiny, golden cage from the many objects on the work table, then a soft, gray feather. “You will not stop me?”
“I intend this dream to be comfortable, if, perhaps, disquieting, but it must not be so soft as to be entirely unbelievable,” said the elder. “Some hardships are required. I appreciate you giving them some measure of variety.” As they said this, they dropped a small, densely illuminated book into the dream, then dipped in a silver spoon and stirred.
“There would be hardships with or without our intervention,” said Nocturne. They added the cage and feather to the dream, then began to pluck stars from their robes. About half of them turned into bells before they were dropped in. “For us, as well as him.”
“Yes, but without difficulty, how could we learn?” The question was rhetorical, and the elder continued without waiting for an answer. “If this method fails, we are no worse off than if we had done nothing, and the child may enjoy it. We both know he is cherished little enough.”
Nocturne took the silver spoon and began stirring themself before putting the spoon to the side and guiding the dream into a bottle. They corked it, firmly, and wound a thin cord around the neck to mark it. “You would say that, Clockwork. I think you cherish him enough to make up for any lack.”
Clockwork, the elder ghost, smiled, their mask moving to display their dangerously sharp teeth. “Oh, do you think so?”
.
Danny didn’t usually think about his dreams. Not deeply. In the dizzy, soft moments before true wakefulness, he might lie still and think ‘that was weird,’ or, walking down the stairs and sitting at the breakfast table, he might share a particularly striking dream, but he did not dwell. Not even when he dreamed of ghost fights gone wrong and dissections. They were things he was afraid of. He didn’t need to analyze that.
Nocturne’s invasion had changed that a little. Dreams could be dangerous, could be another avenue of attack, but the dreams Danny was having now did seem to be just dreams. They weren’t followed up by any attacks, and other than leaving a lasting impression, they weren’t more striking or clear than any of Danny’s other dreams. In fact, beyond those impressions, he couldn’t tell what they were about at all.
Still, those lingering impressions troubled him.
Both because they did linger, like phantom sensations on his skin, and because of what the impressions were. Warmth. The sound of mechanical movement, ticking, ratcheting, chiming. A sense of heaviness, cloudiness in and around his head. Golden bars, meeting above him. The smell of sand and incense.
It was all very consistent.
It didn’t even matter. The dreams weren’t bad. Arguably, they were much better than the dreams where he got kidnapped by the GIW, or worse. Objectively, they were better than the dreams where he got kidnapped by the GIW.
“Danny?” said Jazz, leaning into his field of view. “You okay?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, just… weird dreams, you know?”
“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Jazz.
“Not really all that much to talk about,” said Danny, shrugging. “I think… I’m sleeping in a desert, and there are a bunch of clocks there, for some reason.”
“Hm. You don’t think it’s a…” she lowered her voice. “A ghost thing, do you?”
Danny made a face and looked around to make sure his parents weren’t in or near the kitchen. “I thought about it, but, like, who would give me random dreams? That doesn’t help them take over the world or whatever.”
“It might, if it keeps you up at night,” said Jazz. “You have to sleep.”
“They aren’t keeping me up. They’re just weird.”
.
Jazz was right.
He had to sleep. He needed to sleep. He wanted to sleep. So he was lying in bed, thinking about the dreams. Which, he knew, might contribute to having the dream again.
Danny sighed, deeply, and turned over, deliberately closing his eyes. Considering how permanently exhausted he was, from fighting ghosts at all hours and trying to keep up with school and chores at the same time, he’d fall asleep before too long if he could keep them closed.
He breathed evenly, counting his breaths. In and out, in and out, in and out.
His blankets felt heavy, protective, secure, warm. He snuggled deeper. Comfy. He could feel a clock ticking in his room.
No, that was wrong. He didn’t have that kind of clock in his room. Not one he could hear so easily.
Now that he was aware of the ticking, it grew more insistent, as if it was beckoning him onward. His nose twitched. He could smell smoke. His dad trying to cook? No. It was sweet and thick and heavy, made him want to keep his eyes shut. Incense. And there was another scent, subtler, underneath it. Something warm and mineral, like heated pavement, but more natural. Sand. Hot sand. Desert sand.
Why was he in the desert?
Curiosity, as always, drove him to act. Slowly, he raised his head and opened his eyes. His surroundings were dark and reddish, like the backs of his eyelids under sunlight, broken by glints of gold. Everything was blurry, his eyes not quite able to focus. There was movement, figures dressed in long robes and gold. Dressed in gold. Made of gold? No, that was silly.
His brain was still too fuzzy, still too sleepy, to register alarm, but he pushed himself up, hands sinking into silky soft blankets and pillows. The figures stilled. Danny stilled, too, watching them, blinking to clear his eyes.
“The Blessed One wakes,” intoned one, in deep, bell-like tones.
Blessed One. The term sounded oddly familiar, but he wasn’t a blessed one. He was… His thoughts trailed off into soft, sleepy, confusion.
He pulled himself the rest of the way into a sitting position and rubbed his eyes. Sand fell from them, then small, tired tears. He wiped them on the collar of his shirt.
The first thing Danny noticed was that he was sitting in the middle of a golden cage, the bottom of which was made up like a luxurious bed. The second was that the robed figures were bustling around outside the bars. He’d been right. They were made of gold. And he was wrong. What they were wearing wasn’t robes, exactly.
From their waists down, they wore wide, pleated red pants, tied off with wide red belts, and around their shoulders they wore either red stoles or red jackets. Everything above the waist, however, was made of interlocking golden plates. Their faces, if they had them, were covered in smooth golden masks, their only features rectangular eye holes.
Even considering everything Danny had experienced in his life, these people were… odd.
Danny blinked slowly. What had he experienced in his life?
Each of the figures had picked up a smoking ball on a chain. That kind of thing had a special name. It was on the tip of his tongue… A thurible? A censer? Something like that.
They raised the balls, then, moving as one, wafted the smoke towards Danny. It covered him like a particularly heavy blanket, and Danny wavered before lying back down. He dozed as the figures moved around him, listening to the ticking of the clock. Gradually, he became convinced they were preparing something. He couldn’t tell what though. He wanted to know, but he was sure he’d be told eventually. The clock, though, where was the clock?
He stayed like that, waiting, until his alarm clock in his room woke him up to go to school.
A dream. It had been a dream. Just a dream.
It had been… different. He stared at his ceiling then groped sideways to hit the snooze button on his alarm.
It wasn’t a bad dream. It wasn’t scary, or anything like that. So, why did he feel so… disquieted? It couldn’t be real. He wasn’t even dreaming of ghosts. Honestly, he sort of wanted to fall back to sleep, even if he was just going to wake up there again…
His alarm blared again, the snooze wearing off. He snoozed it again, but this time got up. He did have to go to school.