"In the garden of time, two soul mates rest.
The guardians of the tree, on divided paths,
Purity fades, shadows draw closer.
It is the poem of destiny, time writing pain; two brothers linked, their tragedy, a cry. Under the broken moon of the nightmare, there existed a dream sun.
This is the story of the twins with apple souls."
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It was the apple brothers' birthday (a few days ago) so I went to make a drawing, and take advantage of the fact that I wanted to draw them for a long time, and what better way to do it than on their birthday haha
My new record, made in two days in a row without rest
Note: I changed Nightmare's ouffit, because if you tell me that he is the king of negativity and walks around in tattered clothes, I don't believe it.
Note2: Dream my love, pretty thing
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Reposting this from Twitter for Mother's Day!
I would love to answer questions about Feelings and the AU if anyone has any~
In honor of Mother's Day I wanted to do a little thread about #EquipoiseAU Nightmare and Dream's mom, the Tree of Feelings.
The Trees of Balance were equivalent to the primordial gods of Greek mythology, the first deities that represent the fundamentals of creation. The Tree of Feelings might have had a true name eons ago but it was lost to time far before sentient life and civilizations emerged, so she goes by many titles across various cultures, including Mother Goddess of Equipoise, Bringer of Balance, and She Who Is Equilibrium. To the village and it's people she was the Tree of Feelings, and to Nightmare and Dream she was simply Mother.
She never intended to get attached to them. They were meant to be nothing more than expendable pawns, things that existed only to protect her from harm, mindless soldiers to do as she commanded. Of course, being the embodiment of all emotion, her creations inherited her capacity to feel and emerged as endearing little balls of pure energy with limited sentience. She tried not to let herself care about them, tried to remind herself that they weren't truly alive without souls, that they would perish someday to keep her safe, but she found as the centuries passed that she couldn't deny her own feelings forever and she did, in fact, love her little creations.
She loved them enough to ask the other Trees to give them true life, to gift them with souls and magic so they could exist beyond their primary purpose. She loved them enough to let them go, freeing them from the burden of immortality so they could grow and learn. She expected them to leave her - but they didn't. They stayed not only as her Guardians, but as her children, as irrevocably attached to her as she was to them. No matter how far they went, no matter what they did, no matter what the village gave them, they always returned to her. She was their Mother, and they loved her.
Her form hindered her ability to dote on them physically, she could only do so much with roots and branches and leaves, but she tried her best. She shaped her roots into curled nests filled with her soft leaves, she moved her branches to help them climb safely, and she covered their wounds in her sap to heal them. The one place she could truly interact with them was in their dreams, but it always felt woefully inadequate to her.
She didn't blame them for seeking what they needed elsewhere, but she also couldn't deny the jealousy that would well within her when they spoke of the villagers hugging them like she couldn't, cuddling them like she couldn't, loving them like she couldn't. She couldn't resent the villagers, not after they embraced her children with open arms and souls, not when they protected her just as fiercely as her sons. Josiah should have been her competition, he should have been a threat, and yet he wasn't. He took care of them when she could not, he protected them when she could not, and he always brought them back to her safe and sound. She cared for him and his village, just as he and his village cared for and protected her. It was not at all what she expected would come of the lumber camp at the edge of her woods, but the mortals pleasantly surprised her, and she was grateful for it.
And they would continue to surprise her, in very unpleasant ways.
They came for her fruit, and her beautiful sons did their duty to her. They guarded her as they were made to do and they suffered the cruelty of the mortals in return. Their fragile bodies bruised and broke under the onslaught of the greedy mortals, and she felt their pain as keenly as if it was her own. Time and time again they fought for her, keeping her fruit safe at the expense of their own bodies and minds. Time and time again the villagers wrapped them in bandages and brought them home, and time and time again she mourned the fate she gave them.
They took her precious children from her, spirited them off to treacherous and dangerous lands, scared and alone. The distance made her ache deeply, a pain she had never experienced before, and it only became worse as she felt their agony at the hands of the unforgiving mortals. Her sweet Solaire was terrified, hounded and badgered by the masses, manipulated and gaslit by the King, and she could not help him. Her dear Lunaire was suffering, beaten and shunned by the masses, violated and broken by the King, and she could not help him. Her children returned to her shattered, fragile and splintering, barely holding together. Even with all of her power, with all of her divine glory, their pain was a kind she could not reach, she could not heal. All she could do was be, and try, and hope that they would heal with time.
And just when it seemed they could not hurt her and her children anymore, they came for the final time, bringing fire and axes and hate. Her son, her darling Lunaire, already so broken by these terrible mortals, stood alone to fulfill his destiny and give his life for her. Oh how she tried to protect him in turn, how she tried to save him from the merciless wrath of the mortals, how she tried to keep them both alive- but she needed Guardians for a reason, and she was helpless to stop the inevitable. Before they cleaved her trunk in two, before they took her fruit, before they started the beginning of the end, she felt her son dying. He laid, battered and bleeding, across the same roots that had cradled him as a child, drowning in agony and guilt. He told her he was sorry, and all she wanted to do was reassure him, to apologize in kind for failing him, but she was gone.
It takes a century for Nightmare to sleep again, but when he does he hears her. Soft and distant, like a dream in a dream, an illusion he assumes is created from his grief and trauma. He dismisses it, and continues to dismiss it every time he sleeps after that, to save himself the soulache. She is dead, and as much as it pains him to remember that, it is true. He failed her when she needed him the most, when he was meant to do the one thing he had been made to do, and she was dead because of him.
Nightmare doesn't dwell on it again until Dream brings it up, not long after their reunion. His brother mentions hearing their Mother while he sleeps, tears gathering in his sockets and bones rattling, and Nightmare takes pity upon him. He holds Dream close and tells him that it will get easier with time, that the grief never truly goes away but it lessens, it becomes more bearable, more manageable. Dream's acceptance is reluctant but absolute- he follows in his brother's footsteps and learns to disregard the achingly familiar voice in his dreams.
Nightmare does not hope for her return, not until the Procedure, not until he awakens cradled in her warm palms, free from his broken body, listening to her forgiveness, and realizes that she has been with them this entire time.
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