the sandman: brief lives

i like destruction... hoping to see more of him in the next story arcs...

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ORPHEUS: She was a remarkable woman.

ANDROS: All women are remarkable.

~
DESTRUCTION: So, my sister. This is a good time for you. Are you pleased?

DESPAIR: Pleased, oh my Lord of Destruction? I am neither pleased nor displeased. I simply am.

~
DESPAIR: Some things are changeless. People love, and die, they dream, destroy, despair, go mad. They fulfill their destinies, live out the course of their lives. We fulfill out function, as they fulfill theirs. That will not change.


~
DELIRIUM: What's the name of the word for the precise moment when you realize that you've actually forgotten how it felt to make love to somebody you really liked a long time ago?

MORPHEUS: There isn't one.

~
DELIRIUM: Is there a word for forgetting the name of someone when you want to introduce them to someone else at the same time you realize you've forgotten the name of the person you're introducing them to as well?

MORPEUS: No.

~
DELIRIUM: What are you looking at? You're looking for something. Aren't you? I mean, the way you keep looking at things. You're looking for... some... why don't you have proper eyes? Instead of those things? Everyone else in the family's got proper eyes. Um. Except Destiny.

MORPHEUS: Destiny is blind.

~
DESTRUCTION: Times are changing, my brother... And this is what the invisible college has become. Have you been here before?

MORPHEUS: I do not believe so.

DESTRUCTION: They are using reason as a tool. Reason. It is no more reliable a tool than instinct, myth or dream. But it has the potential to be far more dangerous, for them. They are exploring and creating, defining and dissecting...

MORPHEUS: This is why you wished to speak to me? To show me that they are cutting up apes? That is nothing new. Do they think that they can impale the soul of it on their knives? That if they cut deep enough, they can extract its dreams, naked and writhing and screaming, from its head? Reason is a flawed tool at best, my brother.

~
MORPHEUS: So they begin to reorganize their lives on principle of reason. Well, what of that? It does not affect my domain; and it will do little to yours that will not change once more. As you say, you have been here before. In many times, in many worlds.

DESTRUCTION: Aeon after aeon. From the dawn days when time was fresh-minted. And for how much longer?

MORPHEUS: As long as they need us.

DESTRUCTION: Are not light and gross bodies intraconvertible? Alas, they are. And from that follows the flames... the big bang. The loud explosions.

~
DESTINY: I am Destiny. I am what must happen, will it or not. And I am your brother. If I could live your life for you, I would. But that is not within my power.

MORPHEUS: Life, Brother? A strange way of describing our existence.

~
MORPHEUS: I have never needed you to instruct me on my duties, Brother: now, I would hazard, less than ever. I still perform my responsibilities, after all.

DESTRUCTION: I don't. Not any more. But you know that.

MORPHEUS: And what of your realm?

DESTRUCTION: I'm sure it's still here, in its fashion. People and things are created; still exist; are still destroyed. They tear down and they build. Things still change. The only difference is that no one's running it anymore. It's nothing to do with me any longer. It's theirs. They can make their own destruction. It's not my responsibility. And it's not my fault.

~
MORPHEUS: My brother? How could you leave?

DESTRUCTION: How? Or why?

MORPHEUS: It makes no different.

DESTRUCTION: Because there's no such thing as a one-sided coin. Because there are two sides to every sky. Destruction did not cease with my abandonment of my realm, no more than people would cease to dream should you abandon yours. Perhaps it's more uncontrolled, wilder. Perhaps not. But it's no longer anyone's responsibility. I took my sigil with me: I didn't not pass it on.

~
DESTRUCTION: I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend. I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments.
Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust.

But I can pretend.

~
MORPHEUS: Will you return? Will you reassume you role once more?

DESTRUCTION: Of course not.

DELIRIUM: I thought you would.

DESTRUCTION: I'm sorry, lassie.

MORPHEUS: But you are the Endless. We... We have responsibilities. You are the embodiment of Destruction. You are of the Endless.

DESTRUCTION: The Endless? The Endless are merely patterns. The Endless are ideas. The Endless are wave functions. The Endless are repeating motifs. The Endless are echoes of darkness, and nothing more. We have no right to play with their lives, to order their dreams and their desires. And even our existences are brief and bounded. None of us will last longer than this version of the universe.

DELIRIUM: Except out sister.

MORPHEUS: So we suppose.

DESTRUCTION: I filled my role more than adequately for over ten billion years. A two-sided coin: Destruction is needed. Nothing new can exist without destroying the old. Things are created. They last for some little while, and then they are gone. Empires, cities, poems and people. Atoms and worlds. One cannot begin a new dream without abandoning the last, eh, Brother? Our sister defines life, just as Despair defines hope, or Desire defines hatred, or as Destiny defines freedom.

MORPHEUS: And what do I define, by this theory of yours.

DESTRUCTION: Reality, perhaps.

~
DESIRE: It's strange, my twin. I thought to be delightly to see this day. He's humiliated me. He's been rude and boorish. He's stuffy and stupid and thinks he knows everything. And there's just something about him that gets on my nerves. But I can't help feeling sorry for him. He was like a disaster waiting to happen.

DESPAIR: You cannot seek Destruction and return unscathed.

DESIRE: Delirium has.

DESPAIR: Delirium has been scathed enough in her time.