#like dont get me wrong Sandman is great but that part always makes me sideeye a bit

[ibrithir-was-here]

Almost killed my battery but here's drabble number 4 in the Endless Heirs AU! Another one with some spoilers for the books/setting up the events that caused the AU in the first place. Hope you like it!

Onus

Duty was a word Dream knew well, duty and its many synonyms. Responsibility, obligation, charge, onus, mantle, burden, cross to bear. He knew his duty, it's weight and measure, it's importance and its perils. 

He loved his realm of course, as any good king would love his country and the people in his charge. He guided and guarded and did his best to ensure that the function of the Dreaming and its inhabitants, both the dreams and the Dreamers, went on unhindered.

It was an unending obligation, for of course it was as endless as himself. And for eons untold he had shouldered it without complaint, without a single sigh, at least not one that he would ever let anyone hear. For someone had to fill the function, and there was none but himself to do so.

Until now.

Now there was Daniel, a child born from a love that stretched beyond Death's visitation, a child born from the Dreaming, born from Dream himself, for the Dreaming was him and he was it. 

Dream had known, the first time he saw the child, this being born from his own power, that here was one who could take up his mantle, one who could lead the Dreaming, keep it strong and secure--one who could release Dream from the burdens he bore.

And then Dream had held him. 

It had only been for a moment, the Corinthian had rescued him from The Tricksters, and brought him to the Dreaming for safety before returning him to his mother. Daniel was crawling about in the throne room as the Corinthian reported to Dream what had transpired. Dream had felt a tug on his robe, found Daniel at his feet reaching up for him, and Dream without really thinking had lifted him into his arms…

Dream had loved being a father, had never stopped feeling like he was one, even as the millennia built up between who he was now and the person he had been the first time Orpheus had been settled in his arms. 

Watching his son grow, learn, change and shape his own self; it was the closest Dream had ever felt to what he imagined it was like for dreamers to experience his realm. 

Watching something beautiful and terrifying and wonderful come to form in front of your eyes, knowing at some level you are responsible for its creation, and yet having no idea what could come from it next. Both frightened and ecstatic to see where it all might be going, and standing in awe of watching a story shaping itself.  Never knowing if it will be a triumph or a tragedy, but knowing the beauty of it came from letting it create itself.

The moment Dream had held Daniel, he knew he couldn't take that from him. 

Part of him knew Daniel could and would take on his mantle one day, the circumstances of his birth had bound their fates together. But he would do everything to ensure that Daniel took that role knowing what it entailed, and having the right to shape it as himself. As Daniel Hall, his own being, with his own thoughts, his own soul, his own life to live before he took up that onus. 

And Dream would do all he could to see that life was a long and happy one, he owed this child, this son born to him through strange and wondrous means, that chance, that choice. He would be there to guide and guard him, he would choose to live on as Dream of the Endless, so that Daniel could live on as himself.