It is quiet in the Dreamlands. It so often is.

Dmitri stands alone with a book in his hand, looking out across a barren gorge. A castle stands in the distance, teetering on the edge of a precarious cliff. He resided there once, before the Golden Man passed through, on his way from world to world. The land is still blighted from the Destroyer's passage.

Above him the sky is a dark, blood stained red, and the moon shines over head. If he closes his eyes, and peers with other senses, he can see cracks in that firmament, spidering out like some busted window pane, cutting across the universe entire. It is a desolation far worse than anything the Destroyer could manage, or anything he had ever imagined possible. He shudders at the thought.

A voice, high pitched and youthful, interrupts his musings. "Yeah, some things don't do well to think about, do they?"

He turns to find a teenage girl with blonde hair and freckles across the bridge of her nose. She mock shudders at his attention. He studies her, and turns his other attentions at her, and is not comforted by what he sees. There's a glimmer of a shadow there which he can't quite perceive, but it's still there, just beyond his reach, and that's enough to make him turn away.

"Yeah, yeah," she prattles on, "I'm sure I'm quite scary and all that. Quite the complement, coming from a walking nightmare like yourself."

He turns his hollow eyes upon her, but not for long. "I saw what happened at Brockton Bay."

"And I was there," she snaps back, before turning her attention back towards the castle teetering above the blight. "Shiny digs. Felicitations and all that."

"It's not mine," Dmitri says.

"Well no," the woman says, "I suppose you wouldn't want to lay claim to it, seeing as it is now." Here she paused, and gestures towards what lies underneath that castle, down in the abyss beneath his feet. It had once been beautiful and verdant, overflowing with life both strange and miraculous, but all that's left of that valley is rotting fetid swamp. Shadow-things pulsate within the mire, crying out, trapped in a half life.

They stand side by side, in silence, this young woman who is anything but and the Nightmare of Earth Bet. The girl gives him an exasperated half smile. "Go on," she says, "I bet you're dying of curiosity; I suppose I would be too. So go on, do whatever it is you Sleeper-types do."

Dmitri studies the young woman with the freckles and takes the invitation, though some part of him dreads what he suspects he's soon to find. She turns her eyes upon him, catching his own eyes, and he can see his face reflected in each iris. They are looking at one another, and he's now reaching out with his mind, casting his consciousness towards her own, and what he sees surprises him. He sees a human on the precipice of becoming something more, and lingering there in the deepest shadowed corners of her soul, he can sense something else, something he'd only caught a glimpse of before. It's ancient, far older than the Golden Man, far older than anything he's ever met at that, older even than Father Dagon beneath the sea.

He feels its attention turn, and he can sense a wicked smile draw wise, a terrible smile void of face or body, and in that same moment, he sees the stars die out, and he finds himself faced with the image of a dead universe, empty of anything save the Outer Ones themselves.

And then there are the two Dreamers, standing in the wreckage of the Dreamlands. "I see," he says.

"You don't," she answers, and he can't challenge the words. But he can still speak with her, whatever she might happen to be. How long has it been? Since he'd had company, in places such as these?

"I still wonder why you came here. Surely you have more important things to do than speak with me?"

"Oh?" she asked, and her mouth stretches into another smile. He could see her practically twitching with amusement, toying with him, like a cat to his bird. She seems to do that a lot. Smile. So much so that, in a million million years from now, that smile will be all that's left of her.

"You were at Brockton Bay. I'm sure you had a hand in how things played out."

The blonde woman shudders at the memory, and isn't that interesting in itself? Considering the horrors he'd seen sleeping in her soul. "An interesting reaction, given what you are."

"You weren't there," she grouses, arms crossed, looking steadily ahead. "Trust me, what happened in Brockton Bay, that's not something I'm at all interested in reliving."

"Yet you carry far worse knowledge within you." He's watched her, studied how she held herself so tense, practically shaking. "And it spooks you, to know all this. You who would so prize what you might know, it's ironic isn't it? That you would choose to forget, to pretend to be less than what you are?"

Lisa shrugs, not bothering to deny his challenge. "I am what I am, what I choose to be."

"So are all of us," Dmitri agrees.

Lisa chuckles in spite of herself. "For such a bogeyman, you're really not so bad. Really, I'd never have guessed you went around eating cities."

Dmitri shrugs, "All is relative, no? Even us bogies have their bogies, and we both know what happened the last time one of your kind came under threat."

"I'm not like Taylor," Lisa snaps, and perhaps she's being truthful (she's not the One she serves after all), but neither is she anything save what she is.

"You aren't," he agrees. "Yet we both know where you'll still be standing a billion years from now, when the rest of this has dissolved to dust."

Lisa doesn't say anything to that. He smiles softly, "You keep clinging to humanity."

Lisa shrugs, "As long as she still fights, so will I. Besides, I figure I have more than a few centuries to keep on living, before all this comes tumbling down."

Dmitri frowns, "You've much less time than that."

Lisa turns to face him, and he can see the surprise on her face. He chuckles softly, "So there are some things even you don't know."

She looks at him, and in an instant, something far older seems to awaken from within her. Its gaze is enough to send shivers down his spine. "Zion," it says.

"He is a danger. I know quite well what the – what do you call it again? Yes, Endbringer. I know what the Endbringer did to your charge. That will pale next to the damage a Destroyer might do."

The woman closes her eyes and she's Lisa once more. She's rubbing her forehead, exasperated. "Fuck, I really don't need this, you know? Just a few years, me and Taylor, maybe hanging out on a beach somewhere, soaking in the sun? Is that too much to ask?"

"I assume you can't just dispose of the Destroyer?"

Lisa frowns, "Taylor could." She laughs. The laugh sounds bitter and raw. "Of course, she'd dispose of everything else too, so yeah, that's not an option I'd really like to put on the table, and as for myself... well, I'll admit, I'm not sure I'm much more useful in that respect. Gotta keep Taylor on the straight and narrow, and I don't think our powers work quite like that. If I were to fight Scion, I doubt I'd be returning from it"

"Not as you are now," the Sleeper observes. Lisa shudders violently beside him.

"So I guess it falls to the rest of you then," she says, matter of factly, almost blasé. She turns her head to face him, and with a great deal more honesty, she adds a quiet "Good luck."

The Sleeper shrugs. "I had made plans to flee should the Destroyer show his true face. Tumble back into the Dreamlands, and I find a new place to settle down. I suppose that's not much of an option anymore is it?"

Lisa laughs. "Nope. Sorry. If everyone dies, you'll be going down with the rest of us."

The Sleeper smiles thinly. "Like with Brockton Bay?"

Lisa scoffs. "Oh trust me, it'll be much worse than Brockton Bay."

"No pressure," the Sleeper says, and then he's gone. Lisa stands alone, looking out at the blight.

When she closes her eyes, she sees the stars blink out.