Not much happened for most of the day, Dream found three other kids trying to climb the outside of the tunnels and two going up the slides, and he was impressed with the amount of patience caretakers actually had already.

Amy ended up braiding pipe cleaners- why did they even have those- and tried attaching them to his triangles, and Dream just let her. One of the other boys was trying to clean out his ears using them, which was.. how was that not painful.

But another kid, Ralph, started tying pipe cleaners into stick figure animals that he stood up on their own legs and played with. Given that he kept adding more of the same color to each, Dream just let him take over the wires just to see what he'd do with them. Only other child playing with them by that point was making flowers anyway.

He was still careful with Angie regardless, telling her that her mom was probably going to pick her up later. Melissa had pointed out how lucky it was she had opened up so quickly, as it was fully possible she might never be brought back and they wouldn't have been able to record a confession like that in that situation.
Her drawing was kept at the desk when she was finished.

The boy with the pipe cleaner figures eventually put a sort of dragon on the desk as well, giving it wing fingers and everything. The only thing it was missing was something to act as membrane between them.
Given that it was made of the blue ones, he ended up suggesting a few wing colors to the kid.

Elwin ended up going with purple, so Melissa found some purple packing paper and cut it to shape, and eventually the little dragon had wings and the boy begged it to stay.
Obviously it was going to stay, it looked awesome.

The flower girl ended up building an entire bouquet of flowers, using construction paper for the petals and offering.. three of them to Dream. He almost laughed when she ran up with the entire bouquet, paused, then picked out the trio, handing them over and scurrying off. He ended up wearing them as a necklace, grabbing more tape to keep the paper mask on.
Though he really laughed when he found Melissa got 8 more flowers, sticking them in an empty cup on the desk like a bouquet.

But then she warned that eventually the lights were going to dim, because there was supposed to be a naptime. Did Nightmare hiss at that? Yes. Was he at all ashamed? Unfortunately no, he was fully willing to act childish over having to at all interact with children. He refused to acknowledge that fact or that it was ironic.
Dream was just waiting, both itching to put him through the same thing and simultaneously terrified that he might do something violent.

They did inevitably get all the kids to settle down by the pillows, some climbing into beanbags and others trying to build an unnecessarily big pile to sleep on. Many asked for blankets, and at first Dream had no idea what to do, but again Melissa was an angel and happened to know where some where.
And of course they were themed blankets.

Just as the last blanket was being given out, the lights abruptly shut off- nearly all the kids screamed, and the sudden darkness almost made him black out, stumbling and leaving Nightmare in the forefront. He immediately tried to retreat, but Dream stayed stubbornly in the back, waiting to see what he would do.
For a few seconds, Nightmare just stood there.

Melissa was squinting over at him in the dark, nodding for him to do something, one of the girls starting to cry. Oh fuck everything, he really had to do this, didn't he?

Nightmare ended up gently shushing her, reassuring that everything was still the same, it was just darker now. “You're not Sunny!” She cried out in terror.
“No, I am not. He cannot stay in the dark like myself.” He paused, still wishing he could give his own name before letting go.
“You may call me Moon.”

“Are you the man on the moon?” One of the boys called out anxiously. He felt his head tilt at that.
“No. Unfortunately no one lives up there. It's a very lonely place.”
“But you can see the whole world up there!” Another cried out.
“That is why it is lonely; everyone is still down on Earth and you would be the only one up on the moon.”
“Is there really nobody on the moon?”
“No. It is vacant of life.”
“What's vay can't mean?”
“Lacking. Empty. Without. Another word I would use is devoid.”

He hesitantly settled atop an unoccupied beanbag, well aware of the many eyes peeking at him.
“Why is your voice so scary?” One of the boys asked.
“It is the way that I am. I hardly think it is frightening, though it can be.”
“One of my teachers tells stories at naptime, Mr Moon. Do you tell stories too?” A little girl asked, sitting up from her pillow pile.

Nightmare.. hesitated, suddenly aching from the question. “Not.. usually.” The reply came out strained.
“Please?” She pleaded, several others joining in chorus.
“Quiet, quiet, the lot of you are discordant.” He muttered.
“What's dis cord ant?”
“It means all of your voices together at once sounds unpleasant.”
“I'm sorry..” Another piped up sadly.
“It is not your fault, the act of harmonizing is very difficult. Appreciate your choirs when you hear them.”

“What's harmizing?” “What a choirs?” “Why do you talk in so many big words?” Several others asked.
He held out a hand in slight frustration, waiting for it to fall silent.

“I speak with a full vocabulary because I believe you are capable of learning it yourselves. You are young, but not stupid. The only reason you do not know them already is you have not been alive long enough to hear them before. As for what I said before, harmonizing is.. in small terms, the opposite of discordant. Harmony is when tones align in a way that sounds pleasant. People need to go to a school or class together in order to learn how to harmonize and sing together. People who learn to sing in harmony do so in groups known as a choir. Many songs you hear have choirs in them.”
There were many oooo’s and aahhh’s as different kids seemed to understand that.

“Can you tell us a story like Mrs Hawkins?” The girl from earlier asked again.
He hesitated again, staring at the pleading faces. He was tempted to just say no, but he couldn't walk away if they started crying.
Really tempted.

“Not all of my stories have happy endings.” Nightmare ended up saying.
“Can you tell us a good story?”
“A good story and a happy one are not the same, but.. I will think of one.” He almost immediately regretted that, cringing as he tried to think of something he could tell a gaggle of children. He had many books more or less memorized, but they were all long and far from child friendly in some cases. They didn't need to hear about gruesome deaths and violence.

Instead, he sort of just started talking. Nothing overly personal, but a mess of words regardless.
“Once there were two siblings. They had a mother, but.. for as long as they could remember, she had been very sick. She could do nothing more than speak every now and again, so to keep her alive, it was they who cared for her instead of the norm.”
Nightmare..? Dream was uncertain.

“But something about this woman, her blood could heal wounds, cure all disease save for her own, the one sickness she could not overcome. So people came, looking to cut her, hurt her just for a drop of that blood.”
“Eeewwww..” One of the girls commented.

“And her children had to protect her. If they could have, they would have moved her, but they were small and she was heavy, so they could not take her from the home to a place none could find her. So in her place, one of the siblings would offer some of his own blood, though it could only cure disease, not heal injuries.” He hesitated, aware of Dream mentally regarding him uneasily.

“And for a while, the people forgot about their mother, happy to have their easy cures. The blood giving son drifted further and further away from their mother, and without his help, she grew weaker, speaking less often.”
“No..” Someone mumbled.

“And as he was loved and cherished by the people, they also began to turn their eyes to the brother who did not choose to help them, but stay at his mother's side. Their gaze was not a happy one, for even with the blood that cured disease, they still wished to heal wounds, knowing she still could. Even when injuries could heal on their own, given time. Of course, to protect his mother, the boy.. refused to let them near her. This angered the people, and eventually, they began to hurt him.”

“But he just wanted to help her!”
“I know.” Nightmare stated softly. “Keep your voice down, others are sleeping.”
“Okay…”

He went on, hesitant as he searched for the words he needed.
“He tried to tell his brother at first, but in the beginning the wounds were small, often only words. And the cherished brother who had only ever known love and adoration from the people couldn't imagine they were capable of such cruelty, even though there had been a time when they had actively harmed their mother out of greed.”
That wasn't supposed to be that emotional.

“So he stopped trying, and the abuse grew worse. They would call him names, break his things, throw rocks and sticks and then begin to beat him. Kick and punch at the child who just wanted to keep his mother safe. Sometimes. He would fail. All because his cherished brother was no longer at his side, like a traitor.” He flinched at his own growl.
Children. He was talking to younglings.

“But it made no difference what he did. Talking, crying, fighting back, doing nothing, all resulted in the same: beatings from the people as they took more joy in hurting him than taking blood from his mother.”
“Why?”
“Because sometimes, little Rosie, people like to hurt others when they don't get their way.”

Nightmare took a moment to collect his thoughts, ignoring how Dream quailed internally, asking him how much was true, they were just kids, that couldn't be right-

“Eventually, he became angry at the world for the abuse, angry that he was always hurting, angry that he couldn't have any belongings to himself without someone breaking them to hurt him, and angry that they couldn't go somewhere else to hide, because they couldn't take their mother with them. He was furious even with his brother- especially his brother, for he had failed to see how shallow and conceited the people around him were, only there for the blood that cured disease. He was so angry that his own brother, twin, couldn't see the cracks and bruises that littered his broken body. In fact, his anger became so great, it became all he could feel.”

His fists clenched, uncaring of the morbidity of the coming statements.
“He stopped caring for his mother. Because if they all would hate him simply because he loved her, then he felt they deserved nothing she could give them. In a day, he took all of Mother's app- blood for himself, to heal himself and to spite everyone else. Of course, without blood, she finally died, and even though it hurt, he decided to make everyone else hurt as much as he did. It was only fair. They had spent years torturing a child who loved his mother, so now he would come back using her power to take everything from them.”

“And he did. Every human and monster that dared spit, kick or beat him died under his newfound power, granted by the blood he now had- so much was it, he had become coated in it, becoming new limbs he used to destroy those that harmed him before. His brother was powerless to protect the empty vessels of hatred that praised him, instead running home to what was left of Mother. The shock of seeing her dead was so great, he turned into stone, frozen in surprise for centuries to come.”
“But why..”

“Anger can be a vile thing, little one. Sometimes harsher than unmanaged greed itself. If you never tell others when you are angry and the cause of it continues, that anger will grow and grow until you can no longer contain it inside any longer, and in that state, you can do many things you will come to regret. What those villagers did had earned their endings, but the matricide was just as unforgivable and.. became a regret that never left.. his mind. When he returned to sanity. And the consequences never left him.”

“Did he die too?” Someone whispered.
“No.” He replied curtly. “He became something else. All that blood became part of him, and beneath it his body decayed into fluid. He was something else entirely, something that could become any shape, any form, and all that beheld him were afraid.. because he was terrifying to look at. And for the longest time, he did not mind these consequences. He wanted to be frightening, because no one would dare hurt him if they were too scared to try. But it was lonely, very lonely. He had no one to talk to when all others feared him. No one but other people who had snapped like he had, and harmed others in their anger and pain.”

“He found these people, left alone just like himself, and. Allowed them. To join him. Together. Never again would they be abused as they had before, for they refused to allow it to happen again. Mother was dead, and he had no brother to call his own any longer, and those that did not know pain looked upon him with fear… but perhaps, he could. Continue. Without the world's approval. He could have new family found in those that had been hurt, abused and broken like himself. And that was.. not so terrible.”

It ended on that awkward note, Nightmare standing on the beanbag, shoulders tense as he realized that was far beyond what a bunch of children not even a decade old could comprehend. Too complex. He really had just vented about the past to a bunch of children, then made himself regret it by reminding himself what he had just lost.

The children were quiet, most of them asleep as he stood there.
Melissa was staring, over by the desk, eyes pensive.
She could tell it was personal. She could tell.

Unable to teleport, Nightmare simply leapt off the beanbag, latching halfway up the play structure and retreating to the top, forcing darkness on Dream until he couldn't stay awake just for a chance to be alone.
Where it was silent.