The Empty World | The Empty World Sequence [complete | rewriting]

Twenty-Three

She shushed him.

Morpheus stood there on the pebbled path, above the city and valley, beneath a full, smog-tinted moon, in firelight. Outside. On Earth. He was really back. And, Mother was so present he could feel the glossiness of her hair under his fingers. He was afraid to think he enjoyed this, because it might mean he was missing something all those other times.

"Ssshh."

Morpheus' eyes watered. He didn't want to be so affected by just one hug. "Mom!" he complained. He blinked to clear his eyes and felt the heat of a tear on his face. "Opium, it's OK."

He felt the absence of Mother's touch more sharply than ever. Morpheus could feel, now, only the presence of her soul. He saw her, standing close, holding a flower in her hand. "You...."

Morpheus wiped his face. It was wet, just a little wet. But, he knew. That flower had been his tear. He didn't know how any more than he really knew how new flowers sometimes grew where blood had been spilt, or full Angels cried flowers. Jibril cried posies, so he'd heard, and some lilies, or desert blooms. His flower looked like an orchid, darkly purple, black, exactly like the one he knew would be tattooed on his back.

Did he cry these because he remembered having the tattoo he would have, or would he adopt the tattoo because he cried these?

"Are you really all right?" Mother asked.

"Do you want me to take that?" Which wasn't, Morpheus knew, an answer.

"Let's go sit." She kept the flower in hand as walked off towards the fire pit. Morpheus could see Absinthe and Laudanum there with other members of their adopted, Earthly family. Ganymede and Dolores were there, Spider, Shio, Melalie, Ardor, Psyche, Splendor, Absidus, Shade, and Joy.

"No. We really need to talk. About at least two things."

Mother seemed to nod. "Just come say Hello."

Morpheus spoke first to River and his Djinn, "Wait on the terrace." Then, looking down at his mother he said, "I am back. You understand? I'm back, and I have goals here. I want to be part of this," he gestured toward the group making campfire pies and popped corn, "family. But I've just returned, Julien went right back to-" He sought for the best word, "mixed messages. Athen- surprised me. I want to know where I stand. I want to have time to put my things in my own room."

"OK," she snipped, and then more calmly: "OK. I'm gonna go tell them Athen is recovered. Where do you want to talk? Your room?"

Morpheus tried to think of a safe, neutral place where others were not likely to be. "The Library?"

"We'll see if no one's there." Mother left Morpheus, momentarily, to speak to the others.

The Palace's library was not unlike the library Morpheus had visited within Dream. It had a certain librariness apart from it's collection of media, which was mainly to say it had wood-trimmed walls, work surfaces, seating, and ample lighting. Morpheus noticed here the usual silence was replaced by the low hum and whir of devices that controlled the temperature and humidity of the several glass-enclosed interior chambers.

Morpheus directed his Djinn to set his things on an unused reading table near the transparent door to the Scroll Room. River hopped from Hepburn's skirt-pocket onto the table. "You want me around?"

"Yeah." Morpheus nodded, taking a seat.

River stretched out beneath one of the table's pair of reading lamps.

Morpheus took the plastic jewelcase containing the mixtape from the tabletop, just as Loren set it down. He flipped the case until he could see the hand-written track listing in Julien's cursive script. They were all Madonna songs: Secret, Sanctuary, Beautiful Scars...