"It's only a kiss."

The sandman didn't say anything in reply and only stared at her quietly, his dark eyes darker still under the coal coloured sky.

"It's only a kiss."

The dreamer said it again, arms by her sides. Her long, dark hair wove about her whenever the wind blew, embracing her like arms of the night.

"What good's a kiss?" she asked, but the wind howled over her and carried her words away with it.

"That's like asking 'what good's a word'," he rasped.

She stared then whispered without tenderness, "What good is a word?"

The stars blinked above them. The way their light swept out and receded made them look as though they were reaching out to one another only to realize they were out of each other's reach, and pull away. Even the moon, which lay in a crescent on its side, seemed weary of its endless chasing of the sun.

"Even 'I love you'?" the sandman said, his voice cracking and crumbling. "Even words like that…are meaningless to you?"

She stepped towards him, her bare feet barely breaking the grass beneath them. The way light undulated upon her made her seem ethereal and faraway, uncatchable and untouchable, as though she was not the dreamer but the dream. Her hands took his and held them, her palms warm around his frigid fingers.

The dreamer looked up at him, and he sobbed against the cruelty in her gaze, the unkind, unloving, unfair indifference that weighted those heavy lashed eyes, and yet he could feel his heart begin to ache for her merely from her touch.

"I love you," he croaked listlessly. He lifted his hand though it trembled and pressed it against her face. "I love you."

She smiled at him weakly.

"This is my last dream," she said. "What good will it do saying those sort of things now?"

"It must be worth something," he replied, gripping her as hard as he could. "There must be a reason…that you came here. There's a reason. There has to be a reason." He swallowed down the pain that was seeping into his words. "Otherwise…otherwise, what was the point?"

She leaned forward.

"Who needs a point?" the dreamer told him beneath her breath and, gently, their lips touched and intersected.

The sandman didn't try to stop the tears and they poured out from the edges of his eyes while he kissed her back, trying to communicate everything that he wanted to say but couldn't.

A sob racked his body when she pulled away. Her grip loosened on him and when he tried to clutch her harder, to keep her with him, his fingers slipped right through.

"It's pointless, so I won't say it," she breathed against his lips, face glistening with his tears and hers. "I won't tell you that I love you."

For a second she shimmered, and then there was no sound. Her body fell away into stardust, leaving a gentle residue on his hands, and he knew she was gone from his world and theirs, having joined those desperately reaching stars.