Night Terrors

Twenty-Nine

Nim looked in, looking as elegant and gentle as Dream described her. Her soft heart-shaped face, her smooth flawless green skin, her beautiful green waves, her gentle opal eyes. She even had a perfect smile, her lips curling into a soft, welcoming grin.

She was as perfect as Dream remembered her.

"It's been so long since I've seen you two. Oh how you've grown!" A gentle hand lifted to caress her elder son's cheek, only for her wrist to be roughly grabbed before she could touch him.

"Nim," Nightmare growled. "It hasn't been long at all since I've seen you. You plague my nightmares."

"Nightmare!" Dream snapped, in a surprisingly aggressive manor. He turned back to the goddess, hoping his rudeness didn't scare her away before he could enjoy the perfect beauty of his mother. "I'm so sorry, ma'am— mother! I just, he's just tired! We both had troubles sleeping! Don't even think about anything he says!"

Nim smiled gently, pulling her hand away from the negative god's grip, gently caressing his cheek gently. She watched as he flinched at the unfamiliar touch before leaning in, just happy to be given the smallest bit of affection from his mother.

He couldn't remember her ever speaking to them, especially not so kindly, but he ignored that. He was just happy to have a mom. His mom.

"Oh Daydream, look at you. You're such a handsome young man."

"Um, thanks!" Dream blushed a bit. He was so used to complements, but he'd never gotten one from his mom. It was so new and flattering.

"These must be... your friends." Nim's smile tightened as she looked at the other skeletons in the mansion. She took a small breath, knowing it'd be a lot more difficult to act perfect for Dream with all those filthy mortals around.

"Yes! Let me introduce you!" The golden twin's eyes filled with stars as he hopped up and down, excited for his unofficial family to be even closer to his biological family.

"You can give up now," Nightmare quietly said as his brother skipped over to the watching crowd.

"In your dreams," Nim growled back before walking after her smaller son with a picture perfect smile plastered on her lips.

"This is Blueberry. He's been trained to be a royal guard! And this is Ink. He's super artsy, and he can create real things with his paintbrush! They're my best friends. We're a trio, called the Star Sanses! And we used to protect the multiverse, but there's not much of a use for that anymore."

Ink waved as Blue went in to shake Nim's hand, both saying small greetings as they did so. As perfect her smile was, Blue could tell something was off. It didn't quite reach the eyes. It was those small things that he noticed from himself, that someone had to be careful about.

But he shook it off, for now, assuming she didn't like big groups of people that much.

"And the teary-eyed goth is Killer!" Dream stepped closer to the bad guys, who were definitely sensing her bad vibes. Still, the empty eyed skeleton assumed that being respectful to the god's mother would be fine, until he was told to do elsewise. "He's Nightmare's boyfriend!"

"Dream," Nightmare sternly said, crossing his arms as he watched his brother introduce his gang to that vile woman.

The sun god giggled. "They're so cute!" He moved on, going to Dust, who had Horror trying to hide behind him. "The one in the hoodie is Dust, and this big guy is Horror! Come on, say hi!" Dream held out his hand for Horror to take, but the monster only shrunk more when the tree spirit cast that weirdly motherly judgmental look upon him. "He's just shy!"

"I'm sure he is," Nim replied, her opal eyes focusing on the rest of the gang.

"This is Error! He likes to knit! Isn't that cool?" Dream waited for her to reply, but when she stayed silent for a minute, he quickly moved on. "And this is Raspberry, or Razz! He's cool too!"

"What is he wearing?" Nim sternly squinted a little at the edgy skeleton's outfit.

"Clothes. Duh." Razz rolled his eyes, crossing his arms.

"Barely," she quietly mumbled.

Dream quickly moved on. "A-and this is my Crossy!" He hugged the black and white man when they got to the end of his introductions. "He's super cool! I should show you his knives! A-and he, uh, he's super nice...?"

At this point, the sun god was desperate. He just wanted his mom to smile more, or to say something. He was afraid. What if she didn't like his friends?

"It was so nice to meet all your friends," Nim finally said. She made no comments towards the obvious relationship between the two. She could let her perfect persona slip if she did. "Can you show me around some more?"

"Okay! There's plenty to see!" Dream quickly started to walk to give her a tour.

The tree spirit glared at Nightmare as he grimaced back, following them to make sure nothing happened.