#plotbunny free to a good home if anyone wants it?? idk

[avelera]

Hob Gadling... 21st Century Translator to the King of Dreams?

Not sure if this is a plotbunny or a headcanon but... man I was having some discussions about how Hob like Dream would have spent most of his life believing in the Divine Right of Kings and how actually, Hob would be more sympathetic than derogatory towards Dream for being maybe a century or two out of date on the latest, cutting edge societal thinking post-imprisonment, and now I am thinking about Hob on the down-low becoming Dream's 21st century translator.

Like, Dream has missed 106 years and it's kind of embarrassing, it's hard to reconstruct all of that just from dreams too, especially since not many people are alive from that whole stretch of time and he'd basically have to dig through archives...

SO ANYWAY, what if they meetings become a sort of stealthy tutoring session for Dream? With Hob actually being super sympathetic to Dream being a king who doesn't maybe want to reveal how out of touch he is post-imprisonment, and who better than a history teacher to catch him up or at least be available whenever he has a question?

And along those lines things like "Ok but kings can't just stop being kings??" (ie, "I can't ever given up this burden of being Endless, my only choice is self destruction and letting a successor take over??") as a question from Dream and Hob being actually EXCITED and SUPPORTIVE instead of dismissive or going all "down with the monarchy" on Dream's ass because his subjects don't have free will (because Dream doesn't think HE does either! And surely that has to count for something, especially if he's trying to be better??).

So Hob actually sitting Dream down and explaining "You know, I was born a peasant, and I thought so too! But let me walk you through how thought has changed on that count, and why, and why some people find it offensive today, because it was crazy for me too to look back and one day realize everyone had just agreed almost overnight that Kings are just Normal Blokes and maybe we shouldn't have them anymore!"

IDK I feel like I've seen one end of the spectrum in fic which is like... politics and history and what Dream has missed just doesn't come up, except as the occasional joke, and on the other end of the spectrum there's Dream being a monarchist (obviously, he's a monarch) and that just setting Hob off and Hob getting angry and lecturing Dream on the past century of thought that he missed out on (and to be fair was already pretty behind the times on to begin with!).

But I've never really SEEN (doesn't mean it doesn't exist!) history teacher Hob being EXCITED and SUPPORTIVE about getting the chance to explain to another immortal (and one he cares about!) how things have changed and how exciting it is and how certain fundamental assumptions he ALSO spent most of his life adhering to can suddenly change and then vanish as if they never existed except as relics? And maybe Dream actually responding well, if shyly at first, to someone who is willing to discretely educate him on what he missed, instead of just berating him or side-eye him for not already knowing these things because he was IMPRISONED? (And unwilling to change before that but also IMPRISONED?)