Sleep of Sleeps by Heronymus

Rating: G
Disclaimer: All characters and properties in this fiction fall under the ownership of their respective copyright and trademark holders; that includes, but is not limited to: Mutant Enemy; Joss Whedon; Fox; Warner Brothers; DC comics and the Vertigo imprint; Neil Gaiman; Hanna-Barbara Illustration; P. T. Barnum and the Wringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus; and various other parties not named but not excluded. Infringement of these rights is neither expressed nor implied; usage of these characters and properties is expressly without the permission of the respective holders and indicates no surrender of intellectual property. This work of fiction was created without the intent to generate profit, and is distributed solely as a free exercise. In other words: I don't own 'em, wouldn't have done things the same way anyway, so please don't sue.
Distribution: The Mystic Muse http://mysticmuse.net
Sure! Please let me know, though.
Feedback: I'm a slave to it. It's my first time. Please be gentle.
Spoilers: Through Season 7.
Author's Notes: Thanks to my Wife (v.2.0), without whom no things are possible. To Neil Gaiman, master and commander of the genre of illustrated storytelling; were I more gifted, I would wish to write as well as he. To Tulipp, whose story "Terra Firma" inspired this somewhat-different take on the same idea. And thanks of course to Joss and his writing team, without whom the vast wasteland of modern television would be even more parched and desert-like.
Pairing: Willow/Tara

Summary: Dreaming is an activity. The Dreaming is a place. Willow must visit both, before the night is out.

The nightmares, Willow thought, were easy. No less than what she deserved, even; torment, torture, pain...what she had inflicted on others, nightly visited her in her sleep. And that was just, and right, for she had done terrible, terrible things.

No, nightmares weren't what kept her from going to sleep, terrified of dropping off into slumber. For her, it wasn't the nightmares that kept her awake. It was the dreams. The dreams where Tara wasn't dead. Where they lived happily ever after. Where the choices she had made had been the right ones; the past year's events wiped out, undone, never happened. The dreams where she had raised Buffy, and then listened to what Tara was trying to tell her about power and lies. The dreams where Buffy was dead, never pulled from heaven to face the hell of living again; where Tara and she lived happily together in an apartment, or a house. The dreams where she had learned to make bread and moved across the country to be near family and friends and the chance to make a life with Tara.

The dreams where she was forgiven; that's what Willow dreaded. To wake from those dreams was to die. Tara was with her again, in those dreams, and in those dreams she could forget the things she had done, and both those things were terrible and dangerous and secretly, in her heart of hearts, exactly what she wanted. And could never have, ever again. Tara, and forgiveness, forever out of her reach. But so often in her dreams.

She was curled on the cot in the coven's guesthouse; a great stone pile that was once an abbey or a convent of some obscure order, now defunct. Stone walls, stone floors, wooden beds, candlelight; a 'back to nature' retreat with some of the most powerful Wicca in the world. Thank the stars that Giles' book collection was nearby; if it weren't, she'd have gone mad long ago. Well, mad...again. She was on the cot, curled around a book of English History, lips pursed in concentration, when she heard a small 'meow' and looked up.

She was in the room. The room she and Tara had shared, what was Joyce's room, once. The big bed that took up so much space that you had to edge around it to get to the rest of the room, but oh it was so comfy and warm, sitting here, a brace of pillows surrounding her, reading her Conversational French and taking notes in gold (The Sun King, of course). She looked down at the foot of the bed, and sitting there was Miss Kitty Fantastico.

"You need to follow me, now," said Miss Kitty, the Cantonese tones flowing smoothly through her delicate little teeth. "It's time to visit the Master."

Willow nodded, and closed her book, and stood up, dressed in black pajamas and a ruby-red silk smoking jacket, just the shade of her hair. She tied the sash around her waist, and took up her pen from the desk, for the pen is mightier than the sword.

"Quickly, Willow; don't dawdle. The Master awaits." Willow frowned. When did Miss Kitty have time to practice her Cantonese?

Miss Kitty stopped, looked back, and shook her head. "It is more than just a dream, Willow." Except that the Cantonese word the kitten used was not 'willow tree,' but 'weeping woman.'

Willow followed the small kitten out into the hall, and didn't notice until the door latched behind her that the hallway was much, much longer than it was normally, and had significantly more doors than usual. Paired off, down the long, long hall, each with a word etched in the door, in Japanese. Except Willow didn't speak Japanese, or read it. But she knew what each one was, anyway.

On impulse, she picked a door at random, and opened it. The word on the door was 'blackbird'; but instead of the crows or ravens she had expected, a group of penguins wearing red bowties stood on the ice where the water lapped at the edge. They were telling chicken jokes to each other in Farsi. She closed the door.

She saw a door marked 'key', and moved to open it, farther down the long hall. Behind it was Dawn's room, and Dawn, sitting on the bed, studying math. She remembered that image; months ago, from happier times, before Glory, before death, and fire, and pain.

And she saw something else; the glowing green color just below the girl's skin, the way the shadows on the wall danced as if Dawn held a candle in her lap. It was an epiphany, of sorts, to Willow. The monks had used most of the power of the Key to make Dawn, to make up Dawn. But they hadn't just faked up memories and images; they had re-written history, rewoven the fabric of reality itself. It had taken most of the energy of the Key to do this thing. But that was like saying that most of the energy of the Sun shone out onto empty space; the little that did fall on Earth was responsible for every living thing.

It was good that she was going to forget this dream, Willow thought to herself. I'm not sure anyone really wants to think that Dawn has powers that dwarf even Glory herself in their scope.

"Hurry, Willow. The Master does not like to be kept waiting." Miss Kitty's tone was one of urgency.

Willow wandered down the hall, trailing uncertainly after the kitten, when she realized why this hallway looked familiar. "This is my memory palace. This is where I keep all of my memories, where all my thoughts are stored. Just like me to have the hallway from the Scooby Doo cartoons in my noggin."

Willow looked down at the kitten, now sitting, poised, in front of a door at the end of the hall. A door marked, with a small green glowing sign, 'Egress'.

"This way to the great Egress, eh?" Willow snorted at her own brain for a moment.

"Yes, yes, very funny. Now go through this door, and you will meet your next guide on the path. Do as he says; do not stray. I will await you here. Go now to meet the Master."

She was in a library. She could smell it; the scent of old paper and leather and oil and gold leaf (and yes, gold leaf has a smell). A tall thin man in waistcoat and spectacles stood leaning against a stack, his nose in a book. He looked up at her entrance, and snapped the book shut with a crack.

"Where am I?" asked Willow. "I don't think this is a memory. I think I'd remember a memory like this."

"Oh, yes. This isn't a memory, Miss Rosenberg. This is the Onieros Biblios, and I am the Librarian. You've left your memories...indeed, yourself...behind. Follow me, please, just this way."

He led the way through twisting isles and darkened corners, past balconies that showed floor upon floor upon floor of books, above her head and below her feet. A huge library of tomes.

At last, rounding a long corridor of spines, they came to an archway, and a pair of opened doors, and a raven, perched on the crook of an old-fashioned gaslight fixture.

The Librarian gave a short half-bow, and gestured to the bird. "Miss Rosenberg, this is as far as I take you. Matthew will take you the rest of the way. It was a pleasure to meet you, and I look forward to seeing you again, soon." He smiled, and waved his book at her. "Oh, yes, one more thing; finish the book, dear. It is quite good, and I cannot wait for the end."

Willow caught the title as he turned away: the book he was reading was "Tara Firma", by Willow Rosenberg.

Willow turned to look for the man attached to the voice, but there was just the Raven, looking at her from his perch. It opened its beak and spoke.

"Yah, me. Look, Red, he's just showing off. C'mon, the Kid wants to see you. Follow me." And with that, the raven (Matthew, his name is Matthew) kicked off and glided down the hall, his wide black wings stroking the air only rarely, and his passage through the great dark halls from light-pool to light-pool all but silent. Willow padded after him in silk slippers, her smoking jacket rustling behind her.

By and bye, after many long minutes of silent progress, Matthew dropped onto another wall fixture, and ruffled his feathers into place. To his left were a pair of great doors, massive and tall, and beyond the open portal a huge space, filled with tall stained-glass windows, a dark light roiling behind them, and in the center of the room on a dais made of ivory bone, a tall-backed throne. Willow braced herself, and made to enter.

"Hey, Red, wait. Not that way. That's the big room, for show. He'll see you in the working den, over here." He pointed right, with his beak, to a somewhat more plain and normal-sized door. It stood closed, old wood and thin strips of iron, and a black iron ring as the handle. She reached out to grasp the handle, and then stopped, suddenly nervous and terrified.

"Don't worry, Red. The Kid's OK. Relax, you'll be fine." The good-natured grin was impossible to see on the bird's beak, but unmistakable in his voice. Grinning, she wiped her hands on the jacket, and then pulled open the small door.

Beyond the door was...not what she expected. A small space, barely larger than a moderately-sized wooden desk, stuffed to the brim and beyond with stacks of paper, filing cabinets, boxes, shelves, and the like. The desk itself was the sort of organized chaos that Willow saw reflected in her own desk. Nothing was where you thought it was, but everything was in the right place; a working mind's desktop, it was. And behind it, a figure.

He was tall, and lean, and terrible to look upon in his beauty. He was the color of bleached paper, parchment white, his robes white silk to match, with dark sigils at the cuffs and lapels. His hair was shock-white, and stood out like a dandelion bloom. And his eyes were pure black...not eyes at all, but holes cut in the universe, that showed behind him the utter emptiness of the void...and he looks out of those eyes, Willow thought; he looks out through those holes and sees all that is seen and unseen. Almost, seeing his eyes, she turned and fled. Almost.

He put down his quill (ostrich feather, it looked like) and stood up, his visage cold and still, but he motioned for her to sit, and she sat, as did he.

"Early morning tidings to you, Miss Rosenberg. I am Dream, of the Endless, and I have a message for you."

Willow, feeling that voice roll through her, feeling the chill in her bones, could only nod.

"I have the message here," he said again, and handed a sealed envelope across the desk to her trembling fingers. "I must be sure you read it; Tara would be most upset if you did not."

The envelope sat in her lap, still unopened; the thick, heavy paper sealed with wax felt too heavy to lift, to solid to break open and read.

She looked up. "I'm sorry; yes? Er...is there a protocol, here? Should I call you 'Majesty' or something? You're supposed to just know these sorts of things, in dreams..."

"No need to call me anything, Miss Rosenberg. I am Dream, and he who was before me had many names. But I am Dream, and that is all. The letter, Miss Rosenberg. You really should read it."

She slipped her finger under the flap, broke the seal, and drew out the single sheet of thick parchment. Taking a deep breath, she began to read.

'My Darling Willow Tree,' it began, and she began to cry. 'I know how much pain my leaving you has caused. I know that you feel like your heart will never heal. That you are not worthy of forgiveness, that you do not deserve to be happy ever again. I know I promised that I would never leave you again. I am sorry that none of those things are true.'

The tears were making it hard to read, and she blinked them away, and they fell on the letter, but the ink did not run; it was a dream, after all...a dream-letter, dream-tears, all of it a dream. A dream of forgiveness.

She folded the letter up again, slipped it back into the envelope, and pressed the paper to her lips, hoping to taste or smell something, anything, of her Tara-bear. India ink, sealing wax, a hint of sage, pressed paper; nothing of Tara.

'Of course not,' she thought, 'this is a dream, and I have forgotten what she smells like.'

She remembered that the...man wasn't the right word, but it would do...was sitting across from her, and she drew herself back together; Deep-breathing exercises, slow and steady, brought her back to steady-state. Grounded, just like Tara had taught her. She nearly lost it again.

He rose, and offered his arm, for all the world like an old-fashioned English gentleman, and charmed by his attempt, she took it, and arm in arm they walked out into the hall. Matthew hopped carefully into flight with them, and weaved a pattern back and forth in front of them, down a long hallway and down a flight of stone stairs and into a garden and weaving around a series of fountains and then along a dirt path through a forest and into a sunlit clearing and all in a few steps, the way getting from place to place in dreams never seems to take very long.

Willow didn't understand, shaking her head, and then suddenly, she got it. The clearing, the forest, the grass, the sunlight...it was all Tara. The warm, healing, loving feeling that Tara had, the energy that she contained; it was here, everywhere, and she was surrounded by it. Tara was everywhere.

"Terra Firma. It is a place, in dreams. Fiddler's Green used to be here, once upon a time. But he…moved on, and so I asked Tara to take over. Terra Firma. A place of love and healing and nature. And, one day, standing here in the clearing, will be a willow tree." The man turned to her, and smiled. "If you agree."

In every breath, there was Tara. In every color and shape, there was Tara. In every breeze, smell, taste, feeling...there was Tara in everything. This man, this creature, was offering a chance to be here, with her, within her, forever.

"No, no. Not today. One day, yes, but not today. I think, perhaps, you have dreamed long enough, Miss Rosenberg. I know Tara wanted me to offer you this; I think she is a good place, and will make many dreamers happy with her. But now, I think, it is time to wake up. Time to wake up, Willow. Time to wake up."

Willow opened her eyes, and Giles was standing over her, gently chiding her, carefully shaking her shoulder. She had fallen asleep, the book still open in her lap, curled on the cot in the room in England.

"Oh, Giles..." Willow thought she should be crying, but oddly, there was a lightness in her heart. A...a fullness, where there had been emptiness…and a fading image of a raven, and a man with white hair…

"Yes. Yes, I think...I think I am." She sat up, and noticed that her hand had clutched around something. She lifted it, and opened her hand, and saw...a lump of wax. Sealing wax. Green, with the slight scent of sage, she was sure.

"I think, for the first time in a while, yes. I'm on terra firma. Solid ground."

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Sleep of Sleeps

by Heronymus

Copyright © 2003

heronymus_waat@hotmail.com