"Nothing is done entirely for nothing, said the fox of dreams. Nothing is wasted. You are older, and you have made decisions, and you are not the fox you were yesterday. Take what you have learned, and move on."
The Sandman: The Dream Hunters is a standalone story in the universe of The Sandman (1989), written by the comic's author Neil Gaiman. It was originally published as a novella in 1999, featuring painted illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano. In 2008 a four-issue comic book version with art by P. Craig Russell was released.
The story is set in feudal Japan, where a kitsune, as part of a bet to draw a young monk from his temple, shapeshifts into a beautiful young woman. She eventually falls in love with him. When she learns that there is a plot by a Kyoto onmyōji to trap the monk in a dream, she sets out to save him and appeals to the Dream King. The monk, in turn, sets out to save her. Along the way, various other Sandman characters appear in minor roles.
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: Dream defies this trope as shown in the quote at the top of the page.
- Animal Eyes: The monk knows that the beautiful young lady on his doorstep is a fox in human form, because she has animalistic eyes (rendered in the comic as bright green).
- Appearance Is in the Eye of the Beholder: The kitsune sees Dream as a giant fox the color of the night sky. The monk sees a gaunt Japanese man wearing a robe made of tormented souls.
- Asian Fox Spirit: The protagonist is a shapeshifting kitsune. She spends most of her time in fox form but occasionally takes the form of a beautiful woman.
- Baku: Baku appear as background fauna as dream-eaters. They can be invoked if one dreams something of ill-omen.
- Bold Inflation: In the original novella, Morpheus's speech is rendered in bold text to emphasize his power.
- Cunning Like a Fox: The kitsune is confident she can catch a baku to save her love, because foxes are crafty creatures.
- Eye Scream: As part of her revenge plot, the kitsune bites out the onmyōji's eye.
- Imposter Forgot One Detail: The monk immediately clocks that these warriors trying to intimidate them are the work of a badger, because while the magick is otherwise spotless, the last horse's tail is that of a badger.
- Interspecies Romance: The kitsune heroine falls in love with a human man. Fox Morpheus cautions her that these things don't end well.
- Master of Illusion: The kitsune uses magic to make the onmyōji believe she lives in a grand house with dozens of servants. When he comes to, it's in the ruins of an old estate.
- Multiboobage: The Mother (of the Sandman's Three-In-One) has several pairs of breasts extending down her torso. The narration compares her to a female pig or rat.
- Prematurely Grey-Haired: The onmyōji once took a journey to China to learn mysticism. He gained that knowledge but also went gray early.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: A monk is cursed by a onmyoji to die from an entrapping dream, so that the onmyoji can find peace with himself. A fox, who had earlier fallen in love with the monk after trying to trick him, attempts to save the monk. In the end, the fox, with the help of Dream of the Endless (or as he is referred to in the novella, the King of Dreams), usurps the monk's dream so that he may live. However, the monk travels to the realm of dreams so that he may claim his own dream and save the fox. By sacrificing himself, the monk rendered the fox's quest in vain, much to the chagrin of the fox. Lampshaded by Dream's raven, who complains that the story was pointless.
- Together in Death: Maybe. The narration says that after their tragic separation, the fox and the man may or may not be together in the Dreaming.
- Zen Slap: The monk decides to take a fox to a nearby village, hoping that he'll find a doctor to see why she can't wake up. He is stopped by an old man who hits his head with a stick for deserting his temple and "meddling in the spirit's affairs"; but, when the monk insists on helping the fox, the old man grudgingly gives him a paper strip, telling him to sleep with that under the pillow. The strip will take him to the realm of dreams, where the spirit of the fox is. After this, he disappears, making the monk suspect that the mysterious old man was Binzaru Harada, a former disciple of Buddha that is forced to wander the living world as an old man doing good as a punishment for having misused his powers when he was alive.
