The familiar city of Akolta sat destitute awaiting him, so packed to the brim with people that many tents had been raised outside its borders in all directions out of necessity. Dust-stained and motley in muted color, they made what looked to be a gigantic faded patch blanket surrounding the city, slowly squeezing the life out of it.

The dirt road turned into a cobbled one as he grew closer, though the decades and centuries had worn down the stones, and wind-blown dirt and debris stacked in piles where the road was no longer even visible. Any carts would have great trouble traveling through here, though why they would ever wish to go in the direction Yezen had come from, he could not say. As he grew closer the city began to loom over him, and the large tower in the midst of the city – – already impressive in the distance – grew to where it seemed never-ending, reaching far and high up into the grey clouds above. And, eventually, the inevitable hit him.

The smell of refuse and waste from thousands of people crashed into him like a foul wave as the wind turned, and as he grew closer he saw piles of more debris and discards growing in decaying, festering mounds, for there was no one to move them; nobody to order their disposal. They lingered still far away enough from the city that it harmed few but those daring the roads for travel, and its citizens would as of yet be spared most of the stench; however as the city would expand, drawing unto it more people, they would only remain so for a time before the foul-smelling reality would catch up with them, too.

Yezen was glad he would not be here to deal with that mess.

He passed tents and their inhabitants, though few threw him more than a look, preoccupied with their own daily dealings. Yezen had put up his hood just in case to cover his face – and his eyes – unwilling to draw unwanted attention, but it seemed few even bothered to spare a first look for the old traveler, much less a second. Most were clad in tatters which made his own garbs look whole and clean by comparison, and everywhere in between the tents he saw unattended children running about barefoot, narrowly avoiding the sharp edges of a rusty sheet of metal by inches alone before dashing off wherever, laughing all the while.

Yezen passed by stands, selling scraps of questionable grey meat on skewers, and though they did carry an appetizing smell he questioned whether his stomach could handle it, accustomed now to living on nuts, berries, and whatever else he could get his hands on from nature’s pantry.

The unending noise grew even louder as the people grew more plentiful, and soon there was not a direction he could look where he did not see people wandering to or fro, or gathered in small groups handling this task or that, or just simply in conversation. So many people here, now. The city had expanded a great deal since his last visit, and not for the better of its already packed inhabitants, he guessed. As he walked, every so often one of the great steam vents attached to the city walls would exude its warm vapors on those living outside with a loud hss, and the already sweaty people grew more damp, and their spirits quieted just a little more.

Finally, he passed by many gates to reach the inner parts of the city only to end up staring at a crowd that was – if possible – even more depressing than the one outside. Their clothing was not as patched or filthy as the scraps the people outside had been wearing, yet their expressions spoke a different tale. In the encampments outside people had looked starved and exhausted – but free.

Up here, things seemed rather the opposite. Those who had anything to guard did so viciously, with either themselves or their guards being armed to the teeth with cudgels, brass knuckles, daggers and simple maces or whatever else could serve as well to bash someone’s brains in. The rest walked with their heads down, trying to not draw attention to their person in what business they carried, and presumably wisely so.

Yezen looked at them all and felt naught but the bitter aches in his body, and the hunger which had been a steady companion for as long as he could remember. Following the public example, he turned his gaze to the ground, following the once-familiar path, knowing it wouldn’t have changed. On bare feet – for he had walked through the soles of his last pair of boots long ago – he wandered the path of soil and waste, slowly toward the old house.

Set in sturdy, reinforced wood it was beautiful and old, birthed in a time so far gone there were few alive who could still hope to remember. It, like the rest, seemed out of place here in the dark and the gray and the filth – almost as if it deserved something better – but here it stood nonetheless, and it gave no sign of faltering any time soon. The sign was new, though, as were the guests leaving the large house with their bags packed, hoping for luck in other places.

Yezen climbed the few steps with some effort, wondering much in those few seconds of the cruel tricks life had played on him, and would play on him still – play on them all.

Then he took a deep breath, and entered.

Memories came to him then, washed over him.

Memories of a life he did not want to remember.

Memories he did not need.

“So,” said the man behind the counter up ahead, speaking before Yezen had even passed the threshold. “You finally came back.”

Yezen opened his eyes, unaware that he had closed them. The once light wood of the bleak furniture and the decorative rafters had grown in darker, every day closer to rotting, and a faint scent of mildew and decay had seeped in through the floorboards. The lobby was empty apart for two men: one lounged on one of the few cushioned seats, fast asleep with a scarf wrapped around his face. He snored softly, the chair creaking beneath his weight now and again.

Yezen looked up, meeting the other man’s empty eyes. The color had faded since the last time there had been a spark of life in them; faded as it always did, and grown even colder with the years.

“Nothing’s changed, Aldan,” he replied softly. “I–“

“I know why you’re here,” the man cut him off. He was inches taller than Yezen, and sinewy strong where Yezen had grown gaunt. And he did not smile. Not anymore. “And for what it’s worth, you will find safe harbor behind my walls. If you will have it.”

Yezen nodded, relieved. “I will accept it, and pay for the accommodation.”

The man returned a respectful nod, then threw him a small key, polished until the rust was almost gone. “I trust you’ll find the way to your room?”

Yezen nodded. He was almost certain of that. He shot the man another glance, then began dragging his beaten bones down one of the hallways, his soles complaining loudly at the feel of uneven, coarse wood rather than soft soil beneath his toes.

“Yezen,” the man called after him.

He stopped and turned to face the man, but said nothing.

“The rumor of your arrival…” The man, despite his empty eyes, looked mournful, almost sad. “I can’t protect you outside of these walls. I’m… sorry.”

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Yezen nodded, expecting nothing less, before he turned and continued dragging his beaten body down the hallway.

The evening soon grew late, and the gray sky even darker. Yezen had made his way from place to place, and now he sat quietly in the fourth establishment for the night, desperately holding onto hope. This one seemed to cater to finer folk than the others he had visited, and so it was he sat on a fine seat, sipping spirits finer folk should have been sipping, yet granted to him of no cost. The drinking establishment was packed to the brim with all manner of people, refined as not, all desperate to talk to him, offer him what they could. All except one, for in one corner sat a hooded figure, almost out of sight, face covered. Ever the elderly brother, Aldan had thought himself clever to hide among the many, but Yezen had made him at the very first crowd he had revealed himself and spoken to. In the end, it didn’t matter. He could watch if he wanted. He had to tell himself that it didn’t matter.

He waved to the establishment’s owner to bring forth the next applicant, a young father with a pox-scarred face carrying a child in his arms, no older than five or six.

“Please,” the man cried as soon as he grew close to Yezen’s feet. “Mercy, I beg of you.”

Yezen cocked a brow, but said nothing. Mercy? Mercy would have had them all killed, had she existed.

The man sat his daughter down on the stool before Yezen. She was delicate for her age, with proportionate features and finely-combed blonde hair, reaching to return to the comfort of her father’s arms.

“Please,” the man beckoned again and brushed the child’s hands away. She looked around with her lifeless eyes, trailing lifeless tears down her cheeks, terrified. “You can see that she will be a beautiful woman one day. Let her Dream. Let her join her mother in the Prism, and live forever there.” He reached into his pockets and pulled out a small, bulging sack of coin, then placed it before Yezen’s feet. “Please,” he begged again, desperation in his dead eyes. “I will give you anything that you ask.”

Yezen shook his head. It would have been a waste, he knew that. What would a Dream have let this girl accomplish, that she could not already? No, of the few precious dreams he still carried – the last few droplets of water in a once overflowing water skin – he would not waste one on this one.

“No,” he said, needing only a glance at the dullness in the child’s eyes. “It would be a waste. And of what few dreams I have left, I would not grant her one so that she may go to that place, become one of… one of them. This is my verdict.”

Despite the man’s cries, guards soon came to take him away, and another took his place. And then another, and then another. People came to him, offering wealth and lands, riches and rubies and even themselves, only for a chance to Dream. He much preferred it this way. In the past, some had tried taking the Dreams from him by force – an unspeakable crime not even his own family had seemed averse towards. Those, he had bestowed his Nightmares upon instead.

He felt no guilt for that.

The city of Akolta seemed a lost cause. No matter where he went, he could find none that could offer him what he wanted, not in the finest halls in the upper city nor the lowest levels where the steam vents breathed fiery water. People plead and begged as they always did, but he found little pity for them. He had lived too long – seen too many of the atrocities of man to give in to empathy for their woes. Many threatened him. Cursed him to bring the Overseers upon him that they may squeeze him like a sponge for any measure of color he would not share with them. Where they had first hailed him as a savior, they now spat at the sound of his name, and a few began throwing things in his direction, though these were often culled by their equals.

Subdued by their own selfishness the crowds – by the lonely hope that they may be singled out, chosen, and redeemed – protected him.

Until they knew for certain that they weren’t.

He would have to leave before the city stirred in the morning. He knew that well where he sat upon his childhood bed, the room untouched since his departure, holding a wooden square plaything with frayed yellow tassels in his hands. Come sunlight the entire city would damn his name, hoping to take what they were not given. This was always how it went. With hope lost, humanity became animals, and like animals they yearned for something – anything – to sink their teeth into.

And Yezen was cursed to be named hope.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” a surprised voice spoke from the door opening. A round-faced, friendly-looking woman peeked into the room. “This door is just never open, we were told never to go in here, but I saw it open and so–“

Yezen looked up solemnly, meeting her eyes. She looked to be in her late thirties, and not much to look at with a homely, pudgy face. He barely gave her a glance, for she was simple in all the words, clad in worn maid’s attire and…

He flew to his feet. He ran forth before she had a chance to react, pulling the woman into the room and closed the door behind her. She squealed and yelped as he grabbed her by the shoulders, face inches from hers. She looked as if about to scream, though when he did not move, she paused, confused.

He looked into her eyes, questing, searching. Had he been wrong? He could have sworn that he saw…

Oh, gods.

At the surface her eyes were pale and grey and dead, yet deep, deep within he could swear that he saw a speck of a swirl of… green.

It taunted him, so small and fragile. But it was enough.

“What are you doing?” the woman asked, distraught, though he had long since let go of her shoulders. Her breath was warm against his face. She gave him a concerned look. “Please don’t hurt me, mister.”

But Yezen only smiled. Wide and heartily he grinned, feeling joy to skip and dance and sing that he had found something which he had begun to doubt had ever existed in the first place.

“Forgive me,” he said, and the woman relaxed a little. “And you’re welcome.”

The palm of his hand found her forehead, and he laughed as he let the Dream flow from himself and into her. It was a release, a pressure-valve opened that took something from him and gave it to her at both their pleasure, the most intimate gesture one could hope to imagine.

When all was empty and drained from inside of him he grabbed the woman and let her slide to the floor. There she half-sat, this ordinary woman, eyes wide-open and bursting with color.

And he watched her Dream.

Oh, how she Dreamed.

Yezen grinned even as he wandered the night, daring the quiet streets of the city as he made his way toward the derelict town hall. A few more hours until dawn, when they would come for him in anger. Enough.

A single soul appeared from within to greet him as he arrived at the rundown building, the streets otherwise mostly empty. With jet-black hair and black clothes, she moved almost like a shadow as she sauntered forward. Yet the smile upon her face was the most noticeable thing, for she looked almost as joyous as he felt. Yes, he thought as she took his hand and led him forward into the building, having known to expect him. One final task.

People awaited him in the squalor. A dozen there were, sat on hard benches, waiting for him as they would have for many years now. One after another they rose to greet him, reverence in their eyes and joy upon their faces. An old man shook his hand. A young girl, one arm draped in bandages gave him a warm hug. One woman sat in a corner, nursing a babe, giving him a nod and a wide smile so genuine it made his heart flutter.

“He has come, at last,” the black-clothed woman announced with happiness in her voice, praising his arrival as she let go of his hand, and the others gave to him their greetings. “The Dreamwarden is finally here.”

Yezen looked at them all. These people, at last and at least, he could give what they desired most.

“You are sure, then?” he asked, finally. “Once it is done, it cannot be undone.”

The woman began rolling out blankets throughout the room for the people to lay down upon. Yet as Yezen looked at the people he could already feel the felicitous air of the decision that had already been made, the joyous atmosphere, and he knew that it was a needless question.

She turned to him, then. There was pain in every slow, laborious motion of her stiffening joints, but she masked it well.

“Very,” she offered him with a hearty smile.

When she was done with her work at last, she strode up to him, grasping his hand in hers.

For someone like Yezen, the gesture was enough to make him blush.

“Let us now rest, at last,” she bid with a smile to the others, and one by one the people took their places upon the blankets.

Couples and pairs lying next to one another held hands, while others caressed trinkets or other worldly possessions, though the older man Yezen had noticed earlier lay simply still, staring up into the roof. Beside him there was only a hauntingly empty blanket.

The woman with black hair took her place last, having helped the mother and her babe to rest in comfort. She sat down upon her own blanket with a content sigh, looking up at him.

“Thank you, Dreamer,” she said. “For this gift.”

He nodded, and she laid down and closed her eyes.

The room stilled; the anticipation of what was to come filling their hearts and the very air of the place itself. Yezen watched them for a time, gathering the courage to give to them all that they wished for. He laid aside his pack, rolled up his sleeves, and he forced himself to draw in a single, long, steadying breath.

Then he walked among them, come here for their final rest, and one by one, he placed his hand upon theirs.

And to each of them he gave then of his darkest Nightmares.

One after another, their eyes burst open, alight with color as sanity fled them.

And Yezen felt only relief.