Despite the rage inside of him, Darkseid decided to let the conversation of two powerful beings flow freely without interrupting it. He was a smart man, and smart people don't charge into the situation without knowledge. And right now he lacked understanding of the situation.
"You see, sister," Desire said slowly, almost lazily, leaning closer to the face of Delirium. "I want him. Mother always said to share amongst each other."
Delirium's different colored eyes opened wider, a look that hardly matched Dreamer's usual timidness.
"She said such things to you?! She hardly ever talked to me". There was a hint of sadness in Delirium's distorted voice.
There was only a chuckle in response from Desire; the glee was almost palpable.
"Anyways, it's not fair!" Delirium almost burst into tears; she stamped her foot in a sudden, girlish motion. "I found him first. TEN years ago. I helped him. Made him interesting! He's mine. Mine to mold, mine to rebuild, mine to… to keep safe." Her voice shifted, shaking, softer; distortion subsided, as if her usual madness had stepped away for a second. "I wanted him to be free of his fate. The elder brother is not nice to him, in ANY universe…"
Darkseid had had enough of others speaking as if he were not in the room.
"Are you two done talking about me?" His presence cut through the room for the first time. Being in the presence of the endless had made him cautious. Too cautious.
Both women looked at him reluctantly; in their minds, he was hardly part of the conversation. And instead of replying to him, the two Endless almost immediately came back to their argument.
"Oh, listen to the little spoiled brat. The poor child still believes gods choose their fate or can alter it somehow".
Desire backed off from the standoff with the other endless, striding over to the window. She pointed to the run-down houses of the lowlies in the distance. Lowlies were the local populace, ones that held no power in the harsh system of Apokoliptian society.
"Mortals – do and can. That's their power." A glass of wine had appeared in the hands of the elder sister; she sipped the sweet drink with gusto, elegantly, almost ethereally. "Gods on the other hand - can not. Not the old ones, not the new ones. Their stories are written from beginning to the end, subject to the changes of mortal pen."
Desire drank the glass in a single gulp, the empty and moist glass broke twilight light like a prism. A rainbow was now projected into the room, coloring each thing and person differently.
Delirium, now orange colored, timidly looked at her older sister. She was never afraid of Desire like she was right now. Her sister usually was not so… antagonistic and violent, at least towards her. So what had changed?
"You don't know what you are playing with here, sister."
Desire walked back towards the bed. The glass was left floating in the air, frozen in the space before the windowsill.
Light of different colors had illuminated the silhouette of the Endless of lust and love. Her face was eerily black, cast in the shadow from the lack of light. Her slow steps unnerved Darkseid; there was no sound to them, no gravity. Despite the power that he was feeling in her, despite the heavy aura that she was projecting into the room. It was as if she were hardly there; her presence was slipping away with every passing moment.
"Follow me, Delirium". The glass, suspended in the air, suddenly broke into bloody red color, a different dimension now stood behind it. There was no window, no Apokolips behind it, only the muted shine of leather.
Suddenly, a heavy gaze fell on him. He was judged and priced like a mannequin behind a glass display at the clothes shop; he was just a new toy for the endless being. Something interesting, just to pass the time.
"Tssk, you lack grace", Desire said, finality in her voice. "But you would do the part".
He wanted to reply, ask what she was talking about, but it was all for nought. The presence that he felt in the air, that of the endlessly powerful lust demon, had vanished, probably slipping away in her own dimension.
"I'll be back soon, Seidy", Delirium had whispered into his ear. It felt ticklish. Her presence was now gone, too.
He felt weak and helpless. Ironic for a god of tyranny and domination. But he swallowed the blow to his ego with stride. Now that the two Endless had provided him with some clues why they were here, a plan began forming inside of his head. The plan to make the all-powerful beings pay for their transgressions.
He looked at the two women who were left lying in various random poses on the floor. A sigh escaped his lips. Now he had to deal with these two, talk to them, ask questions, and explain things. During his days of being a prince of a militaristic Empire, he was never forced to do this – actually talk to people and explain himself and get their side of the story. It was a foreign concept to him.
***
Darkseid had placed two of his women on the bed inside the Dreamer's chambers. He didn't want them to freak out after waking up on the floor. He then pulled up a chair and waited for them to wake up patiently while thinking about what to say.
Luckily, he didn't need to wait for them to wake up for long, only a couple of minutes. It didn't mean that he was prepared to talk to them, quite the opposite. He was still lost on how to start. He was saved by one of the women.
"You have met Delirium before?" Dreamer asked in a shaken tone, her voice was trembling for some unknown reason. Visibly, she was still, but her eyes were animated. They were looking him over from head to toe, as if they were seeing him for the first time.
"Yes, I met her a month ago. Before I became the Emperor." He replied. Apparently, starting this conversation was an easy thing to do; he just needed to get straight to the point.
"Do the two of you know about the Endless? And how much do you know?"
Dreamer looked back at Suli, who had yet to join the conversation. Suli, previously motionless, nodded at Dreamer, gesturing for her to start.
"Yes, I know them from various legends and fairytales. They are said to be one of the cornerstones of the universe, whatever that means."
Dreamer turned her gaze back to her husband to be. After her talk with Delirium, she had changed her opinion on him, though how much she needed to change it she was yet to see. After all, she had only heard things; she still had to confirm them herself.
"I know that much too", Suli added in a solemn voice. Her usually silky-smooth voice was rough, almost rugged. Her breath was drawn out and slow; she was visibly tired. The altercation with the endless had left her in a worse state than the Dreamer. The reason for it was unclear; either Desire's possession took quite a toll on the body of the host, or Suli, for one reason or another, had taken it harsher on herself.
Either way, to Darkseid, it was clear that he was right in the middle of a web of intrigue that the Endless were playing. He had no intention of being a centrepiece of some political games of higher beings, but he had no power to stop that. The only thing he could do for now was make sure that the people on his side had all the necessary information.
"You two, follow me. I will explain everything to you on the way there."
He didn't wait for their response before heading out of the Dreamer's chambers. Her personal chambers were situated on the second floor of the right wing of the palace, the one that had survived the fire. The left wing, which was previously exclusively inhabited by the Queen-Regent, was currently under renovation.