This was very good. We follow Dream and Delirium as they go off and try to find their lost brother, Destruction. But it also nicely ties up the story of Orpheus. Brief Lives in this one definitely seems to not only refer to humans, but also to the Endless themselves.
“Brief Lives” has Delirium coming more undone than usual and is determined to find Destruction. She thinks if she can find him, he can come back to the family and things will be better. I also kind of want to ask her has she met her other siblings cause some of them are pretty crappy. She goes off to ask first Desire who says no. Then she goes and asks Despair who in a surprise (to me) also says no. Only when Delirium goes and asks Dream does he say yes. This story follows the duo as they retrace a list that Delirium has of people who may know where Destruction is. Entwined with this is also Orpheus.
So at times I did laugh at certain people talking crap about Dream. He has another bad love affair that ends. When he was outside in the rain I maybe started snickering about the conversation about him was going on. He does feel a bit dramatic at times. Him helping Delirium is about taking his mind off of the bad love affair, and he is sure they won’t find Destruction. When things start going south though I liked how Dream decided that he was going to find Destruction, and make amends for all the people that got hurt along the way. The ending between him and his son was so sad though.
Delirium we get to see different versions of her. We see her as she first was, and then we even see a part of her put back together mostly (sane) and out of the siblings, I think I like her the most next to Death.
Desire is exhausting. The end.
Despair and Destiny at times make me shake my head. Destiny also gives a prophecy to Dream and I was initially confused by what it meant til we get to the end.
The other characters in this one were interesting, we get to meet a version of the goddess Ishtar (former lover of Destruction) and a lawyer with ties to Destruction.
The writing and illustrations were very good. The overall flow of this volume works too.
The ending was heartbreaking and you have to worry about what comes next for Dream. It feels like nothing good.
