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H. Savinien ([personal profile] hsavinien) wrote2009-08-17 10:37 pm
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Comics - Sandman shortfic: "Umbrella", PG

Title: Umbrella
Author: H. Savinien
Disclaimer: Sandman belongs to M. Gneil, long may he publish.
Rating: PG
A. N. Written in a bus station. Many things are transitory.

***

 

Dream turned to see his sister tripping along beside him. She smiled up at him sunnily, plastic dolls' eyes glinting from hundreds of tiny plaits in her hair. “Here,” she said. “You don't have an umbrella. You're supposed to, so I made one for you.” She held it out, dislodging a bundle of leaves that had been pinned to her sleeve. The umbrella was green, the ribs and handle coppery, and each section of silk swirling with different patterns and pictures and textures from the pebbled shine of reptilian scales to scratched, chipped linoleum, to a miniature triceratops bellowing to a collage of bubblegum wrappers to a dancer vomiting onto cracked concrete to a spray of feathers to...

Dream blinked.

“It is unique,” he said.

“There was a book,” she said, “and it said you had two umbrellas – a grey one for not-dreaming and a green one for dreaming amazingfantasticalwonderfulinteresting things, so I made it for you. The grey one sounded boring.”

Dream took it from his sister delicately. The metal of the handle was warm and slick with perspiration. He looked up at the kaleidoscopic silk for a long moment, then smiled.

“Thank you, Delirium. It is a fine gift.”