The King is Dead, Long Live The King.

[endlessdel]

Delirium didn't like sleeping, she felt vulnerable in her mortal body and her not-so mortal mind could not switch off at all. She was constantly moving, constantly changing but sometimes her brother caught up with her. Mostly she didn't Dream, sometimes she did.

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[saveyourpoison]

It was more for his own sake than for the sake of his father's words that Orpheus was relieved to find Mania so quickly. He had stumbled his way back from the beach, quite sure that she would know and that he would find her in his father's room. It was where he would have gone as well and she was sometimes all instinct.

When he entered the room there was a sharp pain in his chest that he'd never gone here before, while his father was still here. Now there was only emptiness. And a crying girl on the floor, counting in an almost-rhythm he did not know.

Orpheus knelt next to her. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

[endlessdel]

Delirium paused counting to look at her nephew. It didn't matter that her eyes didn't reflect the change in her mind, she knew what she looked like- clinging to the remnants of her insanity. She couldn't be anything but Delirium, she hadn't wanted to change but they had left her and they had broken her.

"I- I think I am broken nephew. They have all left me, I'm alone." Delirium said, touching his hair fondly. She remembered everything; languages, customs, people. It hurt her. "How do you cope with it? The silence? It's so loud...my realm is abandoned and- and It Hurts Nephew."

[saveyourpoison]

She was scaring him and he reached over to stroke her cheek. "I sing," he said, simply. He didn't know of her noise and her kind of silence, but he knew the awful silence of someone who was supposed to be there and was not. The hole in your heart. The only way he had ever been able to deal with bits of it was to sing.

He didn't know how he was supposed to help, but he had to. They were all that was left and he would never really be enough because he wasn't one of them. He was always a child. Stil, he wanted to be as much for her as he could. Both for the promise he'd made and for her own sake.

Finally he drew her into his arms completely instead of just stroking her. "Do you want me to sing to you?" he whispered. What else could he say?

[endlessdel]

"Oh, is that all?" Delirium asked, not believing it really. Orpheus hadn't really coped when Eurydice had gone and she hadn't coped at all when she had been left at the altar, humiliated. She didn't think singing was the band aid to fix her insanity back to herself but humans had strange ways of coping. "I need a- a new guardian, to make sure they don't hurt me. I think- I think you are the sanest of those I love and I do love Chris, but he is a man. And men hurt me. You will protect me from their needles, nephew."

Delirium settled into the hug and blinked back furious tears. She knew now, and knowing was hurting her. "I- I think I would."

[saveyourpoison]

Orpheus nodded. "It doesn't fix it," he admitted. "But it hurts less when I let it out that way. I don't know what you can do, but I think everyone finds - or need to find - ways to let out things they feel that are too much. We burst if we don't." It was the best way he could describe how it felt to him and it hit him how strange it must be for her to suddenly be mortal. Afflicted by a human condition...

Her suggestion made him confused. He understood the idea of a guardian just fine, but not of needles. But he would keep her safe, yes. Though one thing... "I am a man too," he reminded her. If that disqualified him, it was only fair to remind her.

He rocked her slowly, foregoing the lyre since he needed his hands to hold her, and sang softly. A lullaby his mother used to sing. It was the first thing that came to mind. Later he would make more songs of dreams and of his father, the untangible concept, but for now he just wanted to comfort her and sang of night and stars and places where no one could harm you

[endlessdel]

"Yes, but I am not having sex with you. That would be wrong and iCkY. I am having sex with Chris though, because he is my...friend and I LoVE him even if I would not marry him." Delirium explained, pulling a small face at the thought of Orpheus. It was rather disgusting like snails or puppy dog tails.

His songs were comforting and she cried quietly in his arms. The stars were waiting for her and her family but she had promised never to hurt herself. "I miss them."

[saveyourpoison]

No, she wasn't and he was glad that she wasn't. As much as he loved her, that thought really was disgusting. But the explanation made sense and he nodded to it. Aside from the whole having sworn off women thing!

"I miss them too," he said as the song ended. He was still rocking her and started to sing another one about stars because they seemed to be stuck in his mind. Perhaps it was that he'd seen them right before the dream and right after. Perhaps he'd always think of his father when he looked at stars. The idea was strangely comforting and he wove it into the song without even thinking of it. His song changed and started to remind both of them that Dream would be watching them and Death too, that their family was never far away even when they were out of reach.

[endlessdel]

"I remember that one," Delirium said, softly. "They wait for me. To join them again and sing with them and dance with them. They've been waiting for me a long time, they wish I was Delight again. I can't be her but I don't think I can be Mania for a while. I think I am going to try to be me for a while."

[saveyourpoison]

Mania not bein Mania was a frightening thought, because if his Aunt (and potentially all of her siblings too) could decide to not be themselves, what would then be left? Orpheus tightened his hold around her.

"Being yourself is always good," he said, because it wasn't like anyone ever could deny someone that. And herself was Mania, wasn't it? Or...? Never mind, it hurt too much to think of that right now. "I'll love you the same no matter what." That, at least, was undoubtedly true.

[endlessdel]

"Not really, no. Do you really think you are yourself, or someone's version of you? I have been humanity's conception for a very long time, so had your father but humanity changes and so do we. He never used to be so...stiCk bUttERy." Delirium said simply. The grief was being pushed out already, the sanity creeping in. She had grieved for Dream, she had mourned him- she couldn't be that way again but he had changed her. She would never forgive him for that. "You are very nice nephew...I wish Destruction was here. He would know what to do. He would fiX mE."

[saveyourpoison]

Orpheus wasn't sure he wanted to think about the possibility of being someone else's concept instead of himself. It was a bit much just now... But her description of his father made him smile. He really did have a stick. There. It was a good metaphor and unused as he was to it, he liked it all the more.
Her next words did sober him a bit again, but the smile stayed. "I would like to see him too," he said. His favourite uncle, the one who believed in change and in not just blindly accepting.