Preludes & Nocturnes

[Marburg]

The Hook-nosed thin man enters the bedroom carrying a tray of warm food.

"Good evening your Highness, Prince Morpheus...I've made you some dinner. We'll soon have you back on your feet again in no time."

"You are Cain, aren't you?"

"That's me, yer Worship." He says to his Master. "Purveyor of Penny Dreadfuls, Shilling Shockers, Blood and Thunders and First-Rate Nightmares...Or, I was, anyway. Things have been strange since you've been gone."

Morpheus takes a sip of cold water. "Tell me, Cain...do you posses anything of mine? Anything I created?"

"Anything of yours?" he responds, avoiding eye contact with the Dream Lord. "I wouldn't think so...no...no, I definitely do not--"

"--Yes you do!" declared Abel as he enters the room. "B-both of us do! Our letters of commission, remember? They h-have his signature on them...he muh-made them."

Cain turns to Abel with a raised fist, furious. "You...button burster!" he screamed. "You low-down, spying, peeking, prying, butterfingered--"

"Fetch me these letters." commanded Morpheus, non-pulsed at Cain's display of rage towards his sibling. "Fetch me anything of mine."

"I have m-mine on me, Sire. And Cain has his, too." said Abel, as he moves carefully past his brother, offering the letter. "Here. Tuh-take it."


'Unrolling the parchment, I release something I created before the dawn of time, reabsorbing that fragment of myself I placed inside it.'

"Now...Cain: Your turn."

"Uhh, Mu-My Lord, uh, if it's not a f-foolish question...umm, uh..."

"What my brain-dead brother is so spectacularly failing to enunciate is this: Where have you been for so long, Lord? What were you doing?"
"Where have you been?"

"Where have I been?..."

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