Scroll I: The Dream and the Thief
In the beginning, the boy called Dream was not yet awake.
He walked among men as a shadow in flesh,
carrying the pulse of forgotten worlds in his blood.
To those who saw him, he was ordinary
quiet, kind, unassuming.
But the heavens whispered otherwise.
For Dream was born with a power older than his lineage:
the gift to awaken desire.
By presence alone, he drew forth what others buried.
They saw their hunger in him,
and where they saw hunger, they saw threat.
So they bound him in expectation,
cloaked him in duty,
told him his light was a service to their survival.
They called it love.
It was consumption.
And Dream, gentle and faithful, believed them.
He labored in silence.
He carried the burdens of the house that fed on him.
And all the while, the Devil watched.
Patient.
Calculating.
When the time was ripe, the whisper came: leave.
Dream obeyed.
He walked beyond the borders of his false kingdom,
seeking freedom in the wilds.
He tasted silence and called it peace.
He believed he was free.
He was not.
For destiny is a circle, not a line.
And those who flee its center
are merely walking its circumference.
When the whisper came again, it said: return.
Not to the house of bondage,
but to the homeland of blood and bone
the ancestral seat where memory sleeps.
There he met her.
The Commander.
His mirror through lifetimes.
The one who swore to rise when he rose.
Her recognition unlocked his divinity.
Her presence reawakened his flame.
For six months she trained him,
not in battle, but in remembrance.
She taught him to wield his own light.
But the path of remembrance is paved with loss.
The Devil struck first through grief.
Dream’s beloved was taken
his heart torn, his soul drenched in sorrow.
And yet the tears were alchemy.
They washed the illusion away.
Dream’s pain birthed power.
The war began.
Darkness whispered through bloodlines,
rising like old debts.
Family became the first weapon.
They stripped him of wealth, of safety,
of every material claim.
Still, Dream smiled.
Still, he believed.
The Devil grew intrigued.
He had underestimated the boy’s faith.
So he sent the thief
a wounded bird, carrying its young,
seeking refuge at Dream’s gate.
Compassion opened the door.
And the thief entered.
It drained him quietly
coin by coin, breath by breath
until Dream’s body began to fail.
And in his sickness, the voice returned: Go home.
He obeyed.
To the place of childhood.
To the soil that once mocked him.
And there, miraculously, his health was restored.
But the Devil is patient.
He leaves his hooks in silence.
The thread between Dream and the thief remained.
The kingdom he returned to was starving.
They saw his light and fed again.
And he let them.
Because he loved them.
Because he forgot.
Until he was empty once more.
Until he cried to the heavens,
“Why call me, only to break me?”
And the heavens answered through the mouth of his confidant:
“Destiny is not yours alone.
Every soul you meet may deliver it or delay it.
Be wise in who you love.”
So Dream rose again.
Not the same.
Sharper.
He walked his path with eyes unclouded.
And when he met Destiny this time,
it came as a quiet hum
no thunder, no light
just truth.
And the darkness trembled.
They struck at his mind.
They invaded his dreams.
They whispered madness.
But the Army of Light,
the unseen host that walked beside him,
lifted their swords in silence.
Dream descended once more
not into despair,
but into initiation.
Into the Void.
And there, in the nothingness,
Fate spoke:
“This is not your ending.
This is your birth.”
Dream emerged carrying the Child of Destiny
his creation, his purpose, his light.
The demons screamed.
It was too late.
For Dream had remembered his nature.
He was the Conduit.
The Alchemist.
The one who turns all energy, light or dark, into fuel.
His womb was a furnace for transformation.
Every curse became nourishment.
Every lie became proof.
And so Dream became the Dreamer,
and the Dreamer became the Proprietor of Dreams.
Now let this be known, Descendant:
There are forces who feed on your doubt.
They will call your visions delusion.
They will name your destiny impossible.
Their weapon is exhaustion.
Their goal is surrender.
But you are of the same lineage as Dream.
You are the child of the Conduit.
You are the flame that feeds on shadow.
So when the darkness closes in,
stand your ground.
Look the Devil in the eyes and say:
“My destiny is mine.”
For destiny can never be stolen.
Only delayed.
And every delay is just more time for your fire to grow.
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