Title: Forget-Me-Not
Day/Theme: Aug. 19 'At most, flowers'
Series: The Matrix
Character/Pairing: Morpheus
Rating: PG
Background: Avalon is the name for the first surface human city in DegSep. I liked it, so I snagged it.
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Few people asked him why he had taken the name of the Lord of Dreams. At times, he suspected it was because they did not understand the significance of that name. Morpheus, the son of Hypnos and the nephew of Thanatos. Their blood followed him all the days of his life, and he could not turn away from either the Matrix or the death that hunted him there in shadow-clothes.
To claim the name of Morpheus perhaps seemed pretentious, but he did bear the power of dreams in the world of sleep. He dreamt himself stronger, faster, more powerful than a human had a right to be. He provided the means, the nightmare required, to rouse someone, to free their mind from the Matrix.
He treasured all the minds he had freed, but it was Neo he had loved the most. That one, that fated one, had become his son in scarcely a breath of meeting him.
And Morpheus had no idea how it had happened.
Six months was too short a time, especially when both their responsibilities drew them apart. They had worked side-by-side, however, and his boy had confided in him and trusted him. Only six months, when he could have taken a lifetime with Neo and Trinity and never have felt his time wasted.
But to end the war required the intervention of someone Hypnos would obey. Thanatos demanded a high price, an incalculable price that Morpheus could never have allowed Neo to pay.
But the decision had not been his to make. Neo was the one on who everything rode; he was merely the guide out of the darkness of sleep.
The sacrifice made, the virus destroyed, and so the war ended. Peace, unimaginable dream a year ago, had come at last.
Neither side trusted each other. He did not expect anything less. He urged that they should trust, because he knew the price paid. It had been a gift from the Architect, the recording of all that Neo had done once he entered the central temple of the God of Sleep. He knew what his boy had lost in order to make it that far.
In his own wisdom, he stood before the tomb the Machines had built around the body of his boy and laid three sprigs of forget-me-nots on top of it. They were slightly crushed by the journey from Avalon, but they had not lost the beautiful blue color.
He smiled slightly and rested his hand on the tomb. This, then, was the last journey. Now he would finish his days as he had begun them.