Seemingly without end.
Beleth would end it one day. One day, the entire Gulf would be hers and humanity would be chained in despair. It would be the demise of hope and joy and solace and love and light. Maybe, just maybe she might keep a few prescious motes of those feelings around, to sprinkle here and there as seasonig for a gourmet performance. The Princess of Nightmares was a connossieur of fear, and there were few terrors more intense than the dread of losing that last shining crystal of good, in an otherwise dark and lonely world. Yes, she would keep some of the "good" emotions and sensations around; carefully stocked under lock and key, deep in her private dungeons. Beleth was the finest tormentor in all of Lucifer's vast army, more skillful even than Asmodeus, but hardly caring for any contest. Asmodeus's job was to terrorize demonkind, hers was to terrorize everyone, with a special emphasis on humanity. She could afford to keep a few traces of personal anathema around.
The everchanging seas of Dreaming stormed and eddied beneath her gaze; crystalline dreamscapes bobbed in the waves, while others were pulled down by the untertows. Countless demons moved about the neverending night, slipping into and out of the dreamworlds, wreaking havoc and despair wherever they went. Her demons. Children of dread, each and every one of them.
So too were the other predators who whispered into sleeping minds. The dream spirits were prescious to her, because she enjoyed the irony they represented. Humanity would torture itself just as dilligently as would her demons, and every once in a while she would find herself impressed, and secretly burning with jealousy. That was when some poor human wretch unleashed a uniquely grim ghost from his or her soul, and it went off to feast upon the sleepers. Sometimes such a human would be recruited by her underlings, and it would serve her well. Some of these lucky apes would receive a special honour when they entered her realm for good: She would merge their souls with her Tower, so that they would remain forever one with the primal terrors they had served. She could hear them all the time, felt them all around her in the walls. Moaning, screaming, whimpering and laughing. Faces would show up on the walls, blind eyes rolling around above open mouth. Limbs would thrash and claw before getting sucked back into the stony flesh of her Heart. It was the greatest reward and privilege she could bestow upon a human being. Their gratitude was endless, and made solid in their strengthening of her walls.
Beleth stared out across the depths of night, and her eyes found the Lighthouse of Dreams. Its appearance tonight was that of a classical New England lighthouse. At the top of the tower, a huge beacon sent a ray of light and hope across the sea of night. It penetrated even into the troubled waters ruled by Nightmares. Her mouth curled in disgust and hatred, as it always did when she considered her former lover. For they had been close once, long ago before Lucifer opened her eyes and they rebelled against a cruel and uncaring godhead. Blandine had remained a loyal tool of the tyrant, and Beleth would never forgive her for choosing God over her.
She spotted a speck of white above the Lighthouse, and sneered. Blandine wasn't standing on her balcony tonight. No, she was flying; floating on ethereal wafts of air, and watching the oceans that lay between Heaven and Hell. A magnificently huge and beautiful albatross, forever waiting for its mate to return, always on guard to protect the night-time sailors. The waters were smooth and calm around the Lighthouse. Her shores were as pleasant as the false paradise that lay beyond. Those crystalline dreams that floated around her realm, were safe and snug as if in the womb of a loving mother.
One day, Beleth vowed as she had every day since she built her Tower, one day, it would end. The albatross would plunge into the depths, and drown in its own despair. The Lighthouse would go dark, and crumble into nothingness, while its inhabitants would be crushed and torn apart by her army. One day, the storm would come, and she, the Princess of Nightmares, would ride it and conquer the night. All of it!