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purplecloaks · 2 hours ago

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The Gathering of Claims (Part Two)

Pairing: Dark! Morpheus x Virgin! Reader

Warning: Smut, Dub-Con, Breeding Kink (all in later parts), mostly kinky stuff - short fic series

The silence pressed down like a stone on your chest. The air itself seemed to wait.

Your throat closed, your heart battering like a bird against a cage. All around, gods hissed and muttered, their fury sparking like embers, but you could not look at them.

You could only look at him.

Dream’s gaze was steady, pale fire locked upon yours, unblinking. You wanted to speak—protest, plead, scream—but no words formed. The chains at your wrists thrummed, trembling like plucked strings, as though they too recognized the futility of their purpose.

Then—crack.

The circle at your feet splintered, silver shards scattering across the marble like stars torn down from the sky. The symbols on your wrists writhed, unravelling into smoke. They did not release you; they fled.

The gods roared, half in rage, half in fear. Thunder shook the dome of stars overhead. But you scarcely heard it. All sound dulled to the thrum of your blood in your ears as Dream stepped into the circle.

The shadows of his cloak curled outward, swallowing the light, the floor, the very air. His hand lifted—long fingers, pale as bone, inevitability in every line. He did not ask permission. He did not need to.

The moment his hand closed around your wrist, the hall vanished.

The marble, the torches, the cacophony—gone.

You gasped, the sound catching in your throat, for now you stood in silence deeper than night. The ground beneath you was not stone but shifting mist, endless, fathomless. Above, no stars—only dreamstuff, vast and infinite, glowing faintly like constellations still unformed.

You staggered. His hand steadied you, cold and sure, his presence vast as the sky itself.

The Dreaming. You knew it without being told.

Your knees threatened to buckle, your lungs fighting for air that was too heavy, too strange. Fear surged sharp as ice through your chest.

“You—” Your voice cracked. You swallowed hard, tried again. “You had no right. I did not—”

Your words faltered beneath his gaze. His eyes burned pale, endless, a fire without warmth.

His grip did not loosen. Shadows bled outward, restless as hounds scenting prey. His stillness was worse than thunder, worse than any god’s rage.

“I had every right.”

The words were quiet, but they struck like iron driven deep.

Your breath caught. “No. You cannot—drag me here. I am not yours. I never—”

His hand rose, pale fingers brushing the line of your jaw. The touch was cool, final.

His hand lingered at your jaw, cold as marble, shadows restless at his feet.

“I can. And I did.” His voice was low, inexorable. “By law of the Gathering, by law older still. None may contest me.”

Your breath shuddered. “The Endless do not claim.”

His gaze did not waver. “The Endless are not forbidden.”

“What do you want of me?” you whispered, your voice raw. “You have no need of heirs. You are function.”

For the first time, something flickered in his face—not hunger, not greed, but a shadow of something colder.

“I have taken companions before. They were given the illusion of choice. You will not have such illusion.”

His pale eyes burned, the fire of inevitability set against the dark. “You will fulfill my needs. You will remain here, at my side. You will bear my child. And you will be mother to what comes of us. This is written.”

The Dreaming shifted around you, vast and oppressive, the mist curling like script across an endless page. The weight of his words pressed against your chest, heavy as stone.

His voice dropped, dark and final, a tolling bell.

“You belong to me.”

The words sank deep, and the Dreaming stirred. The mist at your feet shifted, glowing faintly with sigils you did not know but somehow recognized: marks of binding, of permanence. They wound themselves into the air around you, into your very skin.

“No,” you gasped, trembling, your chest tightening as the symbols seared cold against your flesh. “I won’t. I will not—”

His hand tightened at your jaw, forcing your gaze to his. Pale fire caught you, relentless, inescapable.

“You will. There is no will but mine, here. There is no choice.”

The shadows rose higher, pressing close, their edges searing with starlight. The circle you had fled in the gods’ hall had only been broken to be remade here, stronger, inescapable.

He leaned closer, his voice quiet as a coffin shutting:

“The gods would have made you a vessel. But I will make you a queen. You will bear what I place within you. You will mother it. You will not flee. You will not be released. For I am Dream, and what is mine does not escape me.”

The Dreaming itself trembled under his words. The mist solidified at your feet, chains of night coiling up to embrace you, searing the truth into your bones.

Dream’s hand fell from your jaw, though his gaze did not relent.

“You are bound. You will not leave.” His voice was low, hollow as the tolling of a distant bell. “The Dreaming itself has sealed you to me.”

He straightened then, tall as a shadow against the vast dark. With a single thought, the mist shifted. A figure emerged from it, sculpted of parchment and starlight — a servant of dream-stuff, faceless yet bowing low before its lord.

Dream’s pale eyes never left yours.

“She is to be shown her chambers.” His words cut through the silence, cold and exact. “She will have three days to grow accustomed to this realm. Then she will be brought to mine.”

The servant inclined its head in silent obedience.

The air thickened as he stepped closer once more. His presence pressed against you, vast, inescapable, until your breath faltered. His words fell soft, final.

“You will rest. You will eat. You will learn that the Dreaming does not bend to you — you bend to it. When I summon you, you will come. There will be no resistance.”

The shadows coiled around your wrists one last time, cool as iron, then slackened.

“Go,” he commanded, quiet as stone closing over a grave.

The servant reached for you, guiding you toward the rising shape of black towers in the mist. Behind you, his gaze burned steady, following, unblinking, until the great doors of his fortress swallowed you whole.

You did not need to look back to know: in three days, he would summon you. And then there would be no reprieve.

.......................................

The faceless servant moved with silence, its body a shifting script of dreamstuff. It did not grip you but you felt compelled to follow, the chains of night tugging faintly at your wrists as though unseen hands guided each step.

The corridors stretched on, vast and alien. Walls rose like cliffs of black stone, etched with constellations that shifted whenever your eyes lingered too long. The air smelled faintly of myrrh and rain-soaked earth, heavy and strange, almost sweet. You did not belong here. And yet every stone seemed to whisper otherwise: you were caught, you were bound, and the Dreaming had already woven you into its design.

At last the servant stopped before a tall, arched door wrought of silver and onyx. Sigils glowed faintly along its edges, curling like vines. The door opened without a sound.

The chamber within was beautiful—terribly so.

Velvet curtains drifted from a high, vaulted ceiling, heavy with shadows that moved as though alive. A vast bed dominated the room, its frame carved from dark wood that seemed to breathe faintly, etched with patterns you half-recognized from the chains that had bound you. The sheets shimmered with a light that was not light, silver-threaded and soft as cloud.

A table stood near the window, already laden with fruits that glistened with dew, breads still warm, goblets of wine the colour of midnight. The window itself looked out upon a landscape that shifted with every blink — green fields one moment, storm seas the next, then endless sky.

It should have felt like luxury. Instead it felt like a cage, too perfect, too absolute.

The servant bowed once, its form dissolving back into mist. You were alone.

And yet, not alone. The walls seemed to hum faintly, as though listening. Shadows lingered at the edges of the room, curling lazily but never leaving.

You heard his voice then, low and inevitable, though he was nowhere to be seen:

“Three days. Then you will be brought to me.”

The silence closed in after, vast and absolute.

You sank onto the edge of the bed, your hands trembling against the silver-threaded sheets. You could not tell if you wished to scream, or pray, or surrender.

But one truth burned cold in your chest.

You were his.

................................

That night, the bed in your chamber swallowed you whole. The sheets were softer than anything mortal hands could weave, but they burned cold against your skin, too fine, too absolute, as if even rest had been shaped into a trap.

You lay rigid, staring up into the vaulted ceiling where shadows writhed like smoke. The silence was thick, humming faintly in your bones. It was not the silence of peace but of something vast, waiting. Watching.

You tried not to close your eyes. You tried to resist the heaviness that settled over your body. But the Dreaming pressed at you, patient, irresistible. Your lids sank despite yourself.

And the moment you drifted—he was there.

Not in flesh, not in shadow, but in dream. His presence filled it utterly, swallowing horizon and sky until there was nothing else. He stood as he always did: tall, unyielding, pale fire burning where eyes should be. His coat spilled outward, black as the void, restless as wings beating against the dark.

You stumbled back in the dream, heart hammering. “Leave me. Even here—leave me.”

He did not move. He did not blink.

“There is no ‘here’ apart from me.” His voice rippled through the dreamscape like thunder rolling under the sea. “You are bound in waking. You are bound in sleep. The Dreaming answers to me, and you now dwell within it. There is no corner I do not reach.”

The ground beneath your feet shivered, rippling outward in patterns like chains, glowing silver. They coiled around your ankles and wrists in the dream just as surely as they had in the hall.

“Rest,” he commanded. “You will need your strength. In three days, you will stand before me not as captive, but as consort.”

The word struck you like a blow. Consort. Not vessel. Not heir-bearer. Something darker. Something permanent.

You gasped, struggling against the chains even as the dream pressed heavier, dragging you down. “I won’t. I will not submit.”

The pale fire of his eyes deepened. The shadows curled tight around you, not yet crushing, only reminding.

“You will. It is written. The more you resist, the more the Dreaming itself will break you. Sleep now. When next you wake, it will be one day gone.”

The chains tightened, and the dream folded in on itself like a closing hand.

You woke with a start, heart racing, the silver-threaded sheets clutched in your fists. The chamber was unchanged. The food was untouched. The shadows lingered at the edges, patient, watchful.

The First Day

You would not eat. The silver-threaded sheets still bore the impression of your restless sleep when you rose. The air of the chamber was thick with a perfume you could not name — something sweet, cloying, like crushed lilies left too long in the sun. It made your throat ache.

You tried to resist the walls, tried to pace out some escape, but the chamber itself shifted to contain you. The tall windows revealed landscapes that promised freedom — a meadow full of wildflowers, a wide river shining in the sun, mountains white with snow. Yet each time you pressed close, the image quivered and broke, dissolving back into a blank, roiling mist. You struck the glass once with your hand; the mist rippled like water, cool and merciless, and shadows curled up in warning until you pulled back, shaking.

Hunger clawed through your stomach, but you left the table untouched.

That night, sleep seized you like a predator.

The dream was a plain of black sand under a sky without stars. He stood in the center, tall and immovable, his coat spilling outward like an endless shadow. Pale fire burned in his eyes, so stark against the void that you had to look away.

You whispered, hoarse, “Leave me.”

He did not. His voice was low, inevitable. “You waste your strength. Tomorrow, you will eat. You will need it.”

You spat into the dust, though your throat was dry. “Never.”

When you woke, the bread on the table was steaming, fresh-baked, the fruit heavy with dew as though plucked only moments before. The smell tormented you until your hands shook.

The Second Day

You ate. Not much — a single slice of bread, half a pear. The sweetness of it clung to your tongue like guilt. The shadows at the edge of the room curled tighter afterward, satisfied, as if your small surrender was theirs to claim.

The chamber pressed closer that day. The velvet curtains breathed faintly when you passed. The carvings in the stone seemed to shift when you glanced away, curling into symbols you almost understood before vanishing again.

That night, the dream had walls.

A hall of black stone, impossibly high, torches burning with dark flame that gave no warmth. Your steps echoed against the floor, but his did not. He was simply there, filling the end of the hall, pale fire watching.

Your voice cracked when you asked, “Why me? There were others. There are always others.”

His reply was cold, final. “Because you are written into me. And I into you.”

The torches flared, their flames bending toward you. Shadows slithered across the floor, wrapping cool fingers around your ankles. You woke gasping, the sensation of chains still tight against your skin.

The Third Day

The chamber no longer bothered with illusions. The window showed only black mist. The food was strange now — bread that tasted faintly of ash, wine bitter as iron on your tongue. Even the air pressed heavier, smelling of storm and smoke.

When sleep took you, you opened your eyes into a throne room.

He sat at the center, vast and terrible, his throne wrought of night itself, the weight of him heavy enough to still your breath. Shadows seethed at his feet like a restless sea, whispering.

Your knees buckled before you could stop them.

His pale fire burned through you. His voice carried the inevitability of bells tolling at the end of the world.

“Three days are ended. You are ready.”

Chains coiled up your arms, silver and black, heavy as inevitability. They did not burn. They were colder than stone, final.

You struggled, voice breaking. “I will never—”

His eyes deepened, pale flame consuming.

“You will. When next you wake, you will come to me in flesh, not in dream. Your resistance ends here.”

The throne room fell away into darkness, swallowing you whole.

@crispyduckpirate @stranger-chan @hiraethmae

@friendstolobsters @queenofstresss @iamempty13

@marsmallow433 @eveiiiscorner @villain-in-the-dark @boywivlove @anatheladybug

@new-author3 @drunkennunicornn

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purplecloaks · 2 days ago

Text

The Gathering of Claims (Part One)

Pairing: Dark! Morpheus x Virgin! Reader

Warning: Smut, Dub-Con, Breeding Kink (all in later parts), mostly kinky stuff - short fic series

You had never seen such a hall. Its ceiling was not stone but sky, constellations wheeling overhead, stars burning too near. The walls shifted like smoke, like flame, like ocean — every pantheon represented in turn.

And at the center: you.

You stood on bare marble, a circle etched in silver beneath your feet. The chains at your wrists weren’t metal, but something stranger — symbols meant to keep you still. Your bloodline had brought you here, they said. Fertile to the divine. A vessel strong enough to carry the children of gods.

You did not feel strong now. Your heart pounded like a trapped bird.

All around you, deities shifted in their seats. Golden crowns, antlers, wings, scales — every shape of divinity, eyes gleaming with hunger. And above them, high on the gallery, some of the Endless watched. They never took part, it was said. They only observed.

Their presence was worse than the gods.

Death, calm as a river at dusk, her dark eyes steady, unblinking. Destiny, robed in the weight of inevitability, his vast book open though no hand turned the pages. Desire, sprawled like a cat in silks, a slow smile curving lips too sharp for comfort. Delirium, hair flickering through impossible colours, eyes wide with laughter no one else heard.

And there — Dream. Tall as shadow, still as stone. His coat spilled across the marble like midnight pouring from a vessel. The pale fire of his eyes burned down at you, unrelenting, unblinking, as though he had never looked away.

Your stomach twisted. The gods’ stares were hunger, yes — crowns, thrones, heirs reflected in their gazes — but the Endless were something else. They looked with knowledge. They looked with inevitability.

You did not want to be here. Not with their eyes on you. Not with his.

***

After your sister returned from her assignment, she told you stories of the Dream King.

She had stood where you stood now, once — bound in silver, weighed beneath the gazes of gods. Titania and Oberon had chosen her then, their fae court shimmering like starlight, their smiles sweet as poison. She had borne them a child and been released, her body returned to the mortal world, but her eyes forever changed.

In the nights after, she would whisper to you when the house was quiet, voice trembling as she braided your hair.

“They dress you in silk and call you beautiful, but they never see you. Only what you can give them.”

And sometimes, softer still:

“Pray it is not the Dream King who looks at you. The gods may bargain, they may release — but him? He does not let go.”

You had laughed then, nervous, trying to shake off the chill in her tone. Dream was a figure of legend, an Endless who watched but did not play the games of gods. The Endless never partook in the Gathering. They had no need of heirs, no craving for legacy. Their function was eternal.

But they were not forbidden.

And now his gaze was on you — pale fire, steady, unblinking. And you understood why your sister had never smiled when she spoke his name.

***

The first to rise was crowned in gold, his voice a roar like the sun itself.

“She will bear me a son, heir of light, conqueror of empires.”

Murmurs rippled through the pantheon, voices of assent, envy, disapproval.

Then the war-god slammed his spear against the marble, thunder cracking at your feet.

“She is bred for battle. She will carry my heir, son of war, who will lead armies to glory in my name.”

One after another, they rose. Gods of storm and sea, gods of serpent and stone. Each voice another chain, each claim another shackle. Your head spun, your chest tight.

And above them all, the Endless still watched.

They never claimed. But they were not forbidden. And as the gods fought and snarled, you felt his gaze steady and pale upon you, more unyielding than iron.

You remembered your sister’s words, whispered in the dark.

Pray it is not the Dream King who looks at you.

And still — he looked.

***

Your throat tightened. Every voice that named you, every boast of heirs and legacies, pressed down until your lungs felt too small to hold breath. You wanted to scream that you were no vessel, no crown, no womb for their games — but the words shriveled in your chest, lost beneath the thunder of their claims.

The gods’ hunger was frightening, yes, but it was familiar in its shape: desire sharpened into greed. They looked at you as men at a feast look at meat. It was terrible, but you understood it.

His gaze was something else.

Dream did not look at you with hunger. His eyes held no flicker of triumph or greed. His stillness was worse. It was inevitability, ancient and inescapable, burning pale as moonlight against shadow. He looked at you as though the matter was already decided, as though you had been his long before this moment, and all that remained was for the rest of creation to realize it.

Your heart stumbled in your chest, a trembling rabbit caught before a wolf who had not yet chosen to bite. Cold swept your spine, even as heat flushed your face, the weight of him pressing harder than any chain.

You dropped your eyes, desperate to break from that stare. But the moment your gaze fell to the marble floor, you felt the pull — as though shadows coiled beneath your chin, urging you back to meet him again.

You were not meat to him. You were not prize, nor crown. To him, you were inevitable.

And that was far, far worse.

***

Another god rose then, his robes a mantle of shifting seafoam, voice gathering like a tide about to crash.

“She will—”

The rest of his words never came.

The air thickened, shadows spilling like smoke across the marble. A hush dropped over the hall as Dream moved.

He did not wait. He did not yield the floor. He descended from the gallery in silence, every step a tolling bell. The torches guttered. The silver circle at your feet splintered with a crack that echoed like thunder.

The sea-god faltered, his mouth open on the claim that never found breath. None dared laugh now. None dared speak.

Dream stopped at the edge of the circle. His cloak of night curled outward, swallowing the light, and his eyes fixed only on you. Pale, relentless, burning with inevitability.

When he spoke, his voice was low, but it carried through every corner of the chamber, silencing even the gods themselves.

“She is mine.”

The words fell into the chamber like a stone dropped into still water.

***

For a heartbeat, silence. Then the hall erupted.

The sea-god who had been about to claim you recoiled, his face twisting with fury. “You break the order of the Gathering!”

The war-god slammed his spear against the marble, thunder booming in answer. “The Endless do not claim! It has never been so!”

A goddess of fire leaned forward, flames sparking in her eyes. “What need have you of heirs?”

Their voices tangled, rising higher, fury and disbelief shaking the hall. The silver circle at your feet shivered, cracks widening under the weight of their rage.

And still he stood, shadows restless around his frame, his pale eyes never leaving yours.

Unmoved. Unyielding.

When at last the cacophony reached its peak, his voice cut through it all like a blade of cold iron. Quiet, steady, undeniable.

“I do not seek heirs.”

The chamber stilled again. Gods leaned forward, watching, listening.

“I do not seek thrones. I will not speak of legacy. I lay my claim because I want her. Because she will bear my child. Not for function. Not for Dream. For me.”

The silence after was heavier than thunder.

***

The silence hung, brittle and heavy, until it seemed the whole hall might collapse beneath it. The gods stared, aghast, some with fury, some with unease. But above them, in the gallery, the Endless remained as they always were.

It was their stillness that frightened you most.

Destiny did not raise his head from the book that had never stopped writing itself, but one pale finger paused at the margin, as though marking a line newly etched across the page.

Death’s lips pressed into the faintest line. Her dark eyes flickered once toward you, then back to her brother. Her gaze carried no surprise — only sorrow, and the weariness of one who had seen this path before.

Desire was smiling, teeth white and sharp. Their long fingers tapped against the arm of their chair in amusement, golden eyes bright with delight. “At last,” the expression said, though no words left their lips.

And Dream.

Dream stood among the gods, tall and terrible, shadows restless as hounds at his feet. He did not look back at his siblings. He did not need to. Their gazes were heavy upon him, but his pale eyes remained fixed on you, unblinking.

Inevitable.

@crispyduckpirate @stranger-chan @hiraethmae

@friendstolobsters @queenofstresss @iamempty13

@marsmallow433 @eveiiiscorner @villain-in-the-dark @boywivlove @anatheladybug

@new-author3 @drunkennunicornn

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