#there's a boatload of issues he has to address/ go thru

[ennas-aesthetic]

Read your newest part of the retired!dream, loved it! Dream finally knowing what it feels to be truly loved was so heartwarming🥺. I'm a bit lost though, when did Dream get that scar? He said he kept it but I don't remember in the comics him getting injured

Aaaw thank you! I put Dream through the wringer in my last fic, so I guess he deserves the happiness he gets in this AU. :'DD

Re: the scar on Morpheus' cheek, that's actually a GREAT question, but I'm afraid we're going into spoiler territory for this one. So this is a fair warning to anyone and everyone who might see this and not want the Sandman Comics spoiled. Spoilers Zone from here on out:

You're sorta correct on Morpheus never getting injured in the comics. The Endless are more than humans, more than gods. It would take an entirely eldritch and primordial being to hurt the Seven enough to make them bleed.

Which is why the one time Endless blood WAS SPILT, it was both blood-curdling and terrifying, because YOU KNOW that it is a grievous threat indeed.

Dream gets the scar on his cheek during The Kindly Ones (volume 9). When he goes to Nuala after she called him for a boon, the Furies through Lyta Hall were able to enter the Dreaming so they may destroy it. After he comes back, Dream confronts them and demands them to leave; in retaliation they struck him with their barbed scorpion whip on his cheek.

Below is what the scar looks like up close.

In the next few panels Lucien actually asks him if he would be keeping the scar. In turn he says this:

And (hoooo boy prepare yourselves for this one) until his last conversation with Death, you can actually see that Dream still DOES have the scar here. He has it until he... well, you know what happens after this conversation.

The scar is quite significant arc-wise for Dream. In the panels above he says that Alianora foretold that he would receive two scars: one on the cheek, one on the heart, the way he did to her. This is expounded on in Sandman: Overture, where Alianora, his former lover, got a scar on her cheek when she defended and rescued Dream from the two gods who held him prisoner. (Of course, the scar in her heart was when Dream tire of her and grew cold and distant. Seriously, if anyone reading this hasn't read Overture yet, check it out. It'll reframe everything you know about the original comics in the best, most heart-breaking way possible.)

In the AU, while I'm keeping the details of HOW Dream gets to walk away very vague, I'd like to think that most of the events during The Kindly Ones STILL happened. I'd also like to think he kept the scar because while his self-destructive spiral was averted, Dream still hasn't fully healed and processed his issues, and thus considers it to be a literal symbol of self-flagellation. He is fully capable of erasing it, but it remaining there is a choice he made.

What he hasn't calculated is that people will be kind and caring and concerned. What he hasnt calculated is that being human means being subjected to the mortifying ordeal of being known, to reap the rewards of being loved. 😌

Hope that answers your question! :DD