Calliope - In The Arms Of Morpheus

Chapter 9

Morpheus exhaled to get ready to restart his exercise.
Reach back, grab the arrow, load it into bow, aim at target while stretching arms and back muscles, let go.
Miss.
Again, until he would be so lost in the rhythm, that the ultimate concentration would come, his thoughts would clear and sort themselves.
Reach, grab, load, stretch, go.
Rim.
Reach, stretch, go.
Rim.
Breathe. Relax.
Reach, stretch, go.
Hit.
There, his shoulders eased into the movement, the arrows started to fly smoothly towards the target, set up on the other end of the vast space across his gothic throne room.
Reach, stretch, go.
Hit.
Morpheus was stuck in an endless circle of impossibility: Erato's biggest desire was the perfect lover, which he could give her, at least in her dreams.
Reach, stretch, go.
Hit.
But only if he knew how to create such a dream.
Reach, stretch, go.
Hit.
That was only possible, with Erato's help, and only, when in her good graces, which he needed that perfect-lover-dream for. A frustrating problem, not solvable, right now.
Reach, stretch, go.
Rim.
Maybe tackling other problems would help him come up with better ideas on that one.
Reach, stretch, go.
Rim.
Morpheus needed to make sure, that the creature, he had brought into the living world, did not ripple the tapestry of reality. It was foolish to believe this could have worked, even more so, impulsive, because he had let Desire influence him.
Reach, stretch, go.
Miss.
Morpheus sighed and let his bow drop. This wasn't a good day for his archery practice.
Leaving bow and quiver on his throne, he walked down the three steps to the platform, then down the free hanging staircase to the vast space on his throne room's floor. When he passed the target, he waved his hand and it vanished. With another wave, he opened the several stories high gothic double glass door to the library and walked towards the row of books where he heard his librarian rummage behind.
"Greetings, Lucienne." Morpheus stepped around a large bookcase to the librarian of dreams, who was sorting through the biographies of the living in the dusty sunlight of the biggest library that ever existed.
"Greetings, Master. How are you today?" She asked him politely, peeking at him from above her round glasses with the usual soft smile, that suggested that the fates of everything existing had taught her the luxury immense kindness.
"Summoning the strength to withstand my sibling's power of wantonness." She was the only being able to bear and understand his absolute honesty.
"How may I help you today, Lord Morpheus?" Lucienne smiled, dusting an invisible speck of dust from her frock.
"I have set a creature into the waking world, that may prove to be unfit to exist in the point of time, I released it into."
"Oh," Lucienne put her book away. "I see. Creatures from the dreaming may not have a book here."
"True." He nodded. "I need you to read the last pages of the last person, who saw Hippolitos. Please find the book of the muse Calliope."
A few minutes later, they sat in one of the Library's reading nooks. Lucienne sat, with a steaming cup of tea on an end table in her half of the bench, stretching the entire width of the large window overlooking his realm. Morpheus rested his black booted feet on the middle part of the bench, leaning against the window frame, facing her, and arranged his cloak, so it flowed comfortably around his legs.
"Let's see." Lucienne pushed her round glassed onto her nose, shifted her black panted legs, so they were folded underneath her, and leafed though the big leather bound volume with the golden title 'Calliope - Muse'. "Where would you like me to start?"
Morpheus shrugged. "Please find the last page I'm on, and skim, so you could recap what happened to the pegasos." And tell me how Calliope has fared.
"This may take a while." Lucienne smiled at her inside-joke. She knew that time was of no importance in the Dreaming - for them, it wasn't linear anyway there.
After a few minutes, Lucienne stopped reading a couple of pages before the end of the book. "Well," she sighed, "a lot has happened since you left Hippolitos in Calliope's care."
That was understood.
"Thalia appeared and recognized the pegasos from her dreams. To arbitrate the argument to whom he may belong, they went to seek out Erato's advice."
Oh no.
"She decided that Hippolitos should be 'sent back to its giver', by sacrificing him to the gods on Calliope's inauguration day."
Usually, Morpheus could not afford to let himself feel someone else's pain. But this time, Calliope's grief sliced right though him. "How many days do I have to save him?" He sat up to, ready to go.
Lucienne shook her head. "It gets worse." She leafed on, skimming further, her eyes getting wider and wider with every line her eyes hastened across.
"Oh no." She mumbled under her breath. "No, don't!"
Morpheus knew better than to disturb her.
"Oh sweet little innocent girl, you can't just-..." Lucienne shook her head. "Ah good. Maybe. We'll see." She looked up to him, closing the book around her finger, after having read the last page. "That foolish girl did the worst thing you could do in that situation."
He swallowed.
"Instead of asking for help, she traded access to the stables, for a disgusting kiss from a guard, stole Hippolitos and fled in the middle of the night." Lucienne reached for her cup of tea and took a sip. "At first, she guided him up mount Helicon, away from any settlement. But unprepared as she was, with no provisions nor proper clothing, and a rain storm approaching, she was soon wet, frozen and exhausted. They found a cave up above the sacred well of the Hippocrene where she slept on the floor, guarded by the pegasos."
Hippolitos would keep her safe. Those creatures were originally created to watch out for their owners, once the almost impossible task of taming them was completed. They had become friends, it seemed.
"She was on the brink of death that night in the cave." Lucienne shook her head, as if that could change of Calliope's book. "But the pegasos may have saved her."
There seemed to be hope that her book had not ended yet, then.
Lucinenne re-opened the book where her finger had been. More pages had manifested behind her finger. Adjusting her glasses, she quickly read on, then shot up from her sitting position, dropping the book on the bench, as if it was on fire. "Come Master! We need to hurry."
"Why the haste?"
"Hippolitos has brought her to a safe place. We need to make sure she doesn't die in the sand."
Morpheus rose. "Where do we need to go?"
"Muse Calliope is right in front of the gates of horn."

(Are you guys ready for a littl tendernes? Then be so kind and vote for this chapter, before you read the next one, in which Morpheus and Calliope finally meet again.)