Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The newcomers were brought to the sietch as the sun settled into the sky overhead. They were of us now, Stilgar had declared it so, that was what had been proven by the spilling of Jamis' blood. Had he not made that ill-thought challenge he would still be alive, and they would be only guests. 

The Lady was a beta, and the boy to whom I had given the knife an omega. Both were very beautiful. Both were witches.

My people whispered of prophecies. I did not believe them one bit.

~

Upon the morn Stilgar instructed me to train the boy in the ways of the desert. I was loyal to my chieftain; I did not object.

Time passed in burning days and frigid nights. The stranger learned quickly. My people whispered even more.

I woke often to a fading premonition: I felt I was rocketing towards something far bigger than I was, and far faster than I had intended. The sands were changing under my feet. I didn’t know what to make of it- I was uncertain of which way to turn.

I told myself it didn't matter that Paul Atreides was so beautiful.

~

On the day it happened, I didn’t notice it, not at first.

We dressed in our desert suits side by side- the sun was falling, night was coming, it was time to train- and perhaps he was a little quieter than usual, perhaps he was a little clumsier, but these differences were barely visible. The sweet smell of him was distant and faint, hardly any stronger than what I found normal.

Once we were out in the desert, the suits obscured such things completely. The only smell was that of my own skin, and that of the Spice, heady and warm and ever-present. I took him through the rocks and out across the plains, showing life as I had always known it, making cautions and observations and laying paths. He was well accomplished by now; apparently his combat skills were coming along also, though I only watched him at that sometimes. We, the Fremen, were preparing for war with the Harkonens, and many of my people were sure this stranger was going to lead us through it.

(When the time came, would he be strong enough to ride a god?)

On this night, however, he seemed distracted, and first I scolded him for it, then later I became concerned. His legs trembled in order to stay silent as we crept through the cliffs- usually, they were steady and strong. 

“Are you ill?” I asked him when we reached the summit of the mountain (the summit of this night’s journey). “Did Stilgar work you too hard?”

Paul looked up at me, surprised; his eyes, which were only just beginning to turn blue from the Spice, seemed unfocused. I found myself frowning.

“I’m fine,” he replied after too many seconds had passed. “...I’m well, Chani.”

I guessed that he lied, but this was not his usual type of lie- it seemed more vulnerable than calculating. Even his voice sounded uncertain.

“We’ll return now, then,” I declared, and he said nothing more. We made our way quickly and quietly back through the rocks, moving as shadows did, observed only by the lazy eyes of the moons drifting idly overhead.

~

When the suits came off, that's when it was obvious; his zipper parted and his mask lifted away and I felt like someone had struck me across the face. All the corresponding instincts in my own body roared to life and for one long whirling moment I lost my mind to him completely, and I had no thought save that of this sudden, burning, overwhelming desire.

I had lost my balance; I came back to myself leaning unsteadily on one wall, my own clothes only half removed and my mouth stupidly open. I closed it, but that didn’t spare me from the onslaught; I felt like I was breathing him in. His scent was sweeter than anything that could be grown on Arrakis. I imagined the flowering fruit trees of distant worlds, pink and white petals, and rich life-giving soil after rain...an image that was foreign to me, so much so it was absurd that I should think of it. Perhaps he was a drug to me, the hallucinogenic sort- or perhaps it was simply that I was of age, and never yet had been around an unmated, heated omega, nevermind one so wildly beautiful.

Audaciously, Paul had not turned to look at me yet; he had stripped with more grace than could be expected of him and was dressing again in simple, white underground clothes, his movements barely hampered at all by that which had incapacitated me. Bene Gesserit witch-training, surely, any normal omega would be insensate, flooding the air with such powerful pheromones.

“Paul,” I said, and my mouth was dry, but swallowing didn't help. Paul did turn to me then, and I saw that his cheeks were flushed, pale pink instead of harsh white, and I had to dig my nails into my own palms to keep myself from spinning over the edge. This had been building inside of him all day. It seemed impossible that he had managed to keep up with me in the slightest. The irrational alpha section of my brain suddenly felt guilty for having been sharp with him. “...do you know what…?”

He could have asked to stay home, if he was predicting a heat, surely he knew I wouldn't have minded- the Fremen were not barbarians, no matter what was said of us, we took care of our omegas, respected them, did not abuse them in the way the Imperium did. Had he not learned that? Surely he would have preferred to be nesting, not traipsing around outside- today, I would have helped him build one, if he wanted me to- and besides, it was dangerous, running about so freely in a state like this…though what did I know? He had managed himself well enough.

(My thoughts spun like this, too fast- I did not have my usual control over them.)

Paul considered my poorly phrased question; I had stepped closer to him unintentionally, and I could see now how his breathing was elevated, could see the tremor in his fingers. His eyes looked dark. I saw him wet his lower lip- the faint motion of a pale pink tongue.

(May the gods have mercy on me.)

“I didn't,” he said at length; his voice was very quiet. “...this is the first time.”

I nodded, and bit the inside of my cheek, tasting a brief wash of blood. It was amazing, actually, that there was still blood at all in my head, it felt like it had all gone elsewhere. His expectant eyes had trapped me- sometimes I found him more a serpent than a mouse. I didn't want to make any assumptions on what he wanted from me.

“We should find your mother,” I said, more sensibly than I felt, and he agreed; I had an urge to take his arm as we walked, but his balance seemed fine. Unnaturally so- I thought it again, he was amazingly composed. I felt oddly nervous on our short way through the corridors to Lady Jessica’s quarters- I feared our encountering someone. I couldn't stop staring at the pale line of Paul’s neck. He looked deeply vulnerable. I knew he wasn't.

We reached our destination uninterrupted, and I found myself leaning on the opposite wall as Paul knocked, needing the cool stone against my back. Perhaps I was trying to put distance between us, even though this was entirely futile. The door opened. I heard a murmur of conversation, very quiet- not in a language I knew. Lady Jessica was a beta, but surely she would notice it too, would notice it immediately…

“Chani,” Paul said conversationally, and my posture snapped to a soldier’s attention. Absurd. He wasn't given the chance to finish whatever he had intended to say; he was already being pulled inside and before I could protest it he was gone, Lady Jessica replacing him in the door, which she closed and locked very abruptly behind her.

“Thank you for today, Chani,” she said, and I dipped my head to her. “For now, you are dismissed.”

“Are you leaving him here?” I had to ask- she was turning to leave- she had never spoken to me like that before, like I was a servant in her palace…the air was still swimming with Paul’s scent, and it made me stupid.

“I need to go to your medicine maker,” Lady Jessica told me rather sharply. “For suppressants. You are dismissed.”

A blink, the world shifted; I was halfway down the corridor with this last word still ringing in my ears, and I knew at once that she had bewitched me, had cast a spell to make me leave. I turned back, looking towards her door; she had already gone, and the corridor was silent. For a moment, I hesitated- but that was foolish. I had no claim to anything here.

Still, suppressants, I thought as I continued to push myself away from where my groin wanted me to be most; those were cruel devices, endocrine and hormone blockers used commonly in the Imperium- I knew of them only for that, knew they were available for sale in the feudal cities, knew that they could make their users desperately ill. The Fremen didn't use such things. Lady Jessica would be disappointed. 

…an unhappy suspicion occurred to me. Paul was a little old for this to truly be his first heat. The ones before this, then, had perhaps been taken from him. Another of the Imperium’s injustices.

At the moment, I was too inclined to think of him sentimentally. I knew he needed no pity of mine. What I needed, then, was to get this out of my head.

I went to the training room; my muscles itched to move despite the trek we had taken that day (the trek, during which Paul had been warming under his clothes- no, I must stop thinking of him). There, I went straight to the cleaning rack; the brushes could wick away the day’s sweat and oils, and anything left of him that perfumed me…

So focused was I on this task I walked past Stilgar nearly without seeing him; he said my name and I startled, then was ashamed of my own unawareness. I was acting like a child, untrained and undisciplined. I bowed to him, and felt the skin all across my spine itch.

“Whose scent is that, all over you?” he asked me; he seemed amused by my reaction more than irritated. “I didn't think anyone here was due…”

As a senior alpha and our chief, he had reason to keep track of things, and yet still some part of me flushed with absurd jealousy. I had to bite it back. I was acting like some hormonal tween, that was the strength of the effect he had on me.

“Whose do you think?” I murmured this reply, and Stilgar raised one eyebrow.

“Then you should be with him,” Stilgar told me. “...whether you believe in him or not.”

“His mother doesn't want me there,” I said. Stilgar hummed. It was torturous to stand here, respectfully still, when the ache in my insides still pulled me so desperately back from whence I came.

“What he wants is more important, isn't it?” Stilgar said at length; but at least he seemed to take pity on me then, for he stood to leave, clapping a hand to my shoulder in a patronly way I hadn't abided since I was a child.

“No watch duties for you today, Chani. Your time is free.”

Then, I was left alone.

~

I did brush my skin. I brushed it so firmly it felt raw, and I oiled my hair to clean it, but I couldn't clean the inside of my nose nor the forefront of my mind, and Paul was lodged very thoroughly in both these places. I moved until I was tired, until I felt vaguely sick to my stomach. I supposed I should try to eat, to sleep. I doubted such a thing was possible. I sat on the same bench Stilgar had and covered my face in my hands.

-chani-

A silent whisper. At first I thought it was my own mind that said this, but an illusion of that damned scent spilled into the air around me, and in an instant again I was so aroused it was as though I were the one in heat.

-chani, come-

I was in the corridor before I even realized my intention to move. I had not heard his voice on the air, but rather in my head, like a memory. Magic. Beautiful Bene-Gesserit witch magic, and I was utterly helpless before it. 

My feet led me not to where I had left him, but rather his own room; I was not interrupted by anyone on the way. It felt, to my desire-addled brain, as though everyone else in the sietch had vanished. I did not bother to knock on his door when I reached it. Regardless, it was unlocked.

Any breath taken in this room was uncannily like one taken buried in the cloud of a Spice refinery- only, I didn't doubt, far more addictive. I was dizzy, yet I felt perfectly awake. The anxious feeling in my chest settled, all the itches went away. I supposed I had been worried for him.

Paul was in bed on his belly, head resting in folded arms; a sheet covered him from the waist down in an attempt at demureness, but he looked heat-ravaged in a way he hadn't before, dark hair clinging to a damp, shining forehead. The flush on his face had deepened almost to red, and his eyes looked black for how far his pupils had expanded. He could have asked me for anything then, in a perfectly ordinary voice, and I would have given it to him.

“You heard me,” he said, unnecessarily.

“Yes,” I replied, equally so.

Paul looked pleased, smiling with a certain self-satisfied mischief, and I was amazed by him all over again.

“I’ve never tried to do that at such a distance before,” he explained, conversational and entirely ordinary, like he wasn't a beautiful heat-stricken omega and I wasn't an alpha and he hadn't called me here. “But I suppose you weren't really very far away. Tea?”

He gestured to a little table next to the bed; there was a chair too, and I supposed I was permitted to sit there, so I did. I took some of the drink; it was rude to refuse liquid in any form. Paul watched me, still smiling a terribly sly little smile, and I thought as I always did that he was a gorgeous little witch.

“Your mother didn't find any drugs for you,” I said when I had finished, a statement and a question, and Paul shook his head. “I’m glad.”

The admission was bold; I felt myself flushing in the face and Paul grinned at me. He shifted in the bed. I was close enough to touch him now- I only needed to reach. His scent was perfect. I was going to lose my mind.

“I haven't done this before,” Paul told me, but he didn't sound vulnerable so much as curious. “I couldn't- male omegas have a kind of…sub-status, legally, in the empire. If anyone found out I wouldn't be able to inherit, so I had to pass for beta. Atreides needed an heir…I suppose it doesn't now.”

A note of melancholy. In my current state I felt desperate to comfort him, but he still hadn't given me any explicit permissions. Gods, I was wrapped around his fingers. I had little doubt he knew.

“What about female alphas?” I asked him, and he laughed. My heart stuttered, and surely it showed on my face; I continued speaking to futilely cover it up. “What does your Imperium think of me?”

“Legally?” his voice was the most sinful purr. “Legally, you don't even exist.”

“No? It's hardly uncommon among my people. Is that why your mother doesn’t approve of me?”

“Mmm. Maybe.”

…perhaps I would expire before he let me touch him.

“Paul,” I began, and my voice felt strained in my throat. He was kicking his legs under the sheet, nonchalant and playful, and yet so clearly he was enveloped in that deep, consuming heat, the kind that should have left him shameless and desperate. It was unfair that I should be the one who felt like I was losing control. “...why did you call me here?”

He didn't answer in words. He sat up on his elbows and beckoned with two white fingers, and I was done for completely.

~

It took days to satiate him. I had neither the time nor the desire to think much. I left his side only to fetch us food; our bodies produced enough water, recycled through the sheets, to refresh us. I did not see Lady Jessica in those fleeting trips beyond our haven. Those of my own kind I met congratulated me. They thought he was our Messiah, and I was now his mate; I had gone and given myself a position in this new hierarchy that I hadn't expected, nor dreamt for. But I barely heeded them. I had a mission; Paul needed caring for.

His composure came and went in waves, but the cleverness in his eyes never left. In the thickest of it he couldn't speak but for the pleasure-wracked noises I, struggling, wrung from him; in the mornings he was quite sensible. When the moon was high outside he spoke in tongues. I learned swiftly not to be frightened by this. Our bonding tricked my brain; I could no longer find him alarming or disturbing. He was beautiful beyond all measure, perfect in every measurable way, and he was mine.

“I knew it would be you,” Paul told me in a wanton voice, his bare legs already parting again. “I saw you over and over again, in all my dreams…”

Before I would have resisted this, disliked the thought of my fate tied to another through black magic or false ‘destiny’, but now his words only made me happy. My heart and mind both melted with every little movement he made. I was certainly in love with him. I would certainly follow him anywhere, even to the blackest depths of the universe, and I told him so in the way animals did, every time I spilt inside him and tied our bodies together.

“Little mouse,” I called him, and I pressed kisses to his sharp cheekbones and fevered forehead. “My little desert mouse.”

This made him laugh.

Kissing was his territory, though in every other way he submitted to me, as was his due; when we kissed I heard him in my head, saying things I understood more and more every time our mouths met, flickers of images and sounds and scents that sent me spiralling away from the warm room and his burning body. I saw some of what he did- of what was yet to come. Even this, in my current state, could not frighten me. I always remembered where and when I really was, though the same could not perhaps be said for him- when his eyes became too distant, reflecting the colours of too many other worlds, I would bite him and take him until he came back to me.

My only fear was this: that I would not be able to care for him in the way an alpha should. He was wilder than me, and certainly more powerful- it was to him that my people looked for their salvation, and the vengeance of the hundreds of dead Atreides clansmen sat on his slender shoulders. I had a premonition of my own, entirely separate from his, and it was this: his visions might one day drive him mad. 

...but when his spine arched and he cried out for me, pupils pure collapsars of desire, when he whimpered my name in some umpteenth release, I did not fear anything at all. I felt only that brutish, conqueror-alpha instinct: satisfaction and pride, at having claimed and pleasured the loveliest of all possible mates.

Perhaps I had lost myself. I didn’t care. His scent spiraled around and around inside my head, and I wanted it there.

~

On the third morning I woke and, on instinct, reached for him; I found him still asleep. The fever on his skin had cooled, his scent had settled on the air. It was over, then. Responsibly, I should then go fetch food, and medicine for the pains he would surely feel. I waited to do this, watching his sleeping face instead. There seemed no way- and no need- to fully describe his beauty to me then.

A realization: there was no turning back now.

~

I found Paul sitting in an alcove above the room of ceremonies; he was looking down into it, contemplative, and he did not notice my approach at first. As such, I saw something that stopped me in my tracks, shocking me to my core: he had a hand on his flat stomach, and was stroking absently there.

Paul turned to look at me. His eyes were very blue now, though not yet entirely so. In his face the colour looked alien, though the opposite should have been true.

“Chani,” he called, and with a gesture he bade me sit with him. “What do you think of my new name? Does it suit?”

Muad’Dib; desert mouse. It suited perfectly. I barely noticed.

“Are you pregnant?” I asked him. The words came out feeble and dry. He smiled just a little, and inclined his head.

“It's too early to tell,” I said foolishly, like I didn't already believe him.

“Not too early for me,” was his reply.

I reached out, and he let me touch; there was nothing to feel but the cloth he wore and the faint warmth of his skin. No heartbeat, not yet. Still, my hand came away trembling.

“It’s a boy,” Paul told me, his irises glittering almost wickedly. “I’d like to name him after my father, Leto.”

“Do you already know everything that will become of him?” I asked helplessly- this seemed an almost terrible possibility- but Paul’s eyes widened, his sly look fell away, and he turned back to the expanse before him.

“No,” he replied softly. “For some reason, I see only a baby.”

He was thinking; silence fell between us, without further need for talk. He looked at something I couldn't see, and I looked at him. Eventually, I gathered myself to my knees and bent, pressing a kiss first to his stomach and then to his cheek. When I drew away his eyes were on me, as I had intended.

“There can be no doubts now,” I told him in a new voice, one that felt stronger than I truly was. I realized that the last of my own doubts were gone- in the end, I too had given in, had become superstitious. “Anything that brings life in the desert is sacred. I’ll hail you, Paul Muad’Dib, Voice-from-Other-Worlds.”

Like a vassal, I kissed the back of his hand, and this gesture with no audience was honest in the purest way.

The smile he gave me in response was soft and strange. I didn’t understand at all.

Chapter Text

I saw how Paul wanted to laugh as he disembarked from the sandworm- I saw too how he suppressed himself so that it was only a grin, so that his boyish delight showed through only in his blue-tinted eyes. This deadly challenge that claimed so many had been easy for him. How could I have expected anything else?

I approached through the throng of his supporters, passing by the cries of congratulation and the outstretched palms. I took the hooks from his hands; he relinquished them only after a moment, as though he had forgotten they were not truly part of him. Once at his side I saw that he was trembling. There was a sheen of sweat on his fair skin.

“Well done, Usul,” I murmured in his ear. The smile he gave me in response was one of pure joy.

~

It was hard not to be a little jealous, sometimes, when it came to Paul. He was just too beautiful, he existed too strongly; in any state he was like light in a dark room, and the cave-walls of the sietch glowed wherever he set foot. 

I watched him train the warriors from a shadow. He was younger than most. A solid handful of them were alphas- alphas I had known from childhood, my close companions, many of whom were mated and some of whose mates were in the room. I reminded myself of these things sternly. Wise elders would surely laugh and shake their heads at me; I was just like any other young and inexperienced alpha, feeling so protective of what was obviously mine.

Still, I hid and watched. Paul touched the others with no hesitation; he straightened their arms and bent their legs, turned them aside to practice the fighting form on each other, and the air smelled faintly of him more than anyone else. In the darkness, I bit my tongue.

I tried to concentrate on what was being taught. This martial art was a kind of black magic- it was that which had been developed by the Bene Gesserit, and once mastered it appeared effortless. No one had any qualms about learning it, not when Paul was their instructor, no, no sane person could bear to look away from him, to ignore him when he called. Lady Jessica had faced a little more difficulty when she had been the teacher- but since taking the Water of Life she had been given other duties.

“Chani,” Paul called, which broke me from this reverie; his eyes had pierced the shadow, he had become better and better at doing so, I could barely hide from him anymore. It was quite likely he had known I was lurking here all along. He held out one hand; in it was a dull-edged training blade. I obeyed these summons. I was no different from anyone else.

“Why watch if you won’t join?” Paul asked me, and I answered only with a scowl. Nearby, an older female alpha laughed knowingly, and I felt my insides warm.

I took the blade, and we fought.

I had much experience with him now, and yet still he eluded me- it was more than just a superior form, it was that this, to him, came naturally. This grace was ingrained in his blood and for all my strength I was helpless before him. He disarmed me once; I yielded twice to his blade against my throat. Upon this second defeat I saw that his sweat had barely broken and on his lips there was, for just an instant, a sly little smile. Suddenly, I wanted him very much. The birth of this desire was as fast and brilliant as a lightning strike. My heart and groin both ached with it; I wished the training room were empty, that we were alone, and that I could take his blade and pin him to the wall, and this time he would let me because we weren't fighting, not anymore...

“She could have avoided that last strike by pulling back her arm,” Paul was saying this, his voice perfectly educational; I saw we had gathered a crowd, the others had stopped their own sparring to watch. I hoped my state was not too apparent. “But the technique requires more than speed of body, it's really about the speed of mind…”

His posture had relaxed, he was not speaking directly to me; I felt a bit of mischief, a spark of frustration rise up in my heart, and the moment he looked fully away I moved. I was still learning this technique, this ‘Weirding Way’, but in the moment I thought I felt it- I thought the atoms of the world around me slowed ever so slightly in their vibrations, or elsewise those in my muscles sped up, I was in that magical space, moving faster than the human eye could see-

-I had him. His back hit the floor and my blade was at his throat. His body was warm against mine. I wanted him to look more surprised, wanted him to flush and squirm for me, but his eyes were hollow- as strange and impenetrable as always.

“Was that fast enough for you?” I asked softly. He blinked, refocusing- had he gone somewhere?- and gestured downwards with his eyes; I felt it then. His own blade was held in a reversed grip, the end of it pointed up under my ribcage. The thrust of a sharpened weapon here would pierce my heart.

I felt something else, suddenly, as well- a slight shift in the balance of his form. A faint swell.

There were a few calls from the other warriors- they only realized what had become of me now. I sighed, blowing a strand of hair from my face, but found I wasn't in poor humour; I stood and held out a hand which he took, pulling him to his feet. He smiled at me like I’d done just what he’d wanted me to. I thought, as I often did, that he was both terrifying and perfect.

I stood back and folded my arms to let him speak. The lesson continued.

~

That night when he returned to our room I accosted him. For a moment he seemed surprised by my ardour, and then he gave in; good. He did not see every little thing before it came to pass.

The kiss broke only when he needed to breathe and when it did I bit his ear, causing him to writhe just as I had wanted him to that afternoon. My hands found their way up under the folds of the white tunic he was wearing, untucking it, pressing rough palms to his warm belly…my suspicions were confirmed. A thrill brighter than any sun ran through me.

“You’re showing, Paul,” I told him, the words a harsh whisper in his ear. He looked down-

“I am?”

-but there wasn’t much to see between the press of our bodies. I refused to move away even slightly. It was a very small swell, something only an expert in his figure would notice- fortunately, I was such a thing.

“Took you long enough,” I told him, but my voice was softer this time. Feeling him this way made me want to be gentle, as protective instincts of another kind rose from the part of my mind that was wordless and animal.

Paul hummed softly, contemplative; I kissed him again, as deeply as the first time, distracting him. My hand, unable to pull away, rubbed circles over this proof of life, this place where he had grown the seed I had given him. In anyone else this might have been the first sign- the heats of male omegas were often irregular, and there was no other way to know until the clues became unavoidable, until his scent began to change…another thrill. The thought of how he would look in the depths of it made me feel wild.

I did not let him rest that night. 

~

Time passed. Our feud with the Harkonnens- with the Imperium, as I saw it- escalated in fits and starts. They had sabotaged their own works to disable House Atreides, and while that had worked tragically well my people would not let them rebuild their advantage. 

Paul’s training in the Weirding Way had been invaluable, and so was his military strategy. Stilgar and his council never made a decision without Paul’s advice, not anymore.

Paul was also very obviously pregnant.

In some ways, my status shifted.

I supposed I hadn't expected this when he had called me to his side those months before, in his heat- but I hadn't been thinking at all then. Now, I was mate of the Messiah, I had sired his coming child- I was looked at differently. When I was congratulated, it was with strange undertones of wonder, even of surprise.

…I found that for the first time in my life, I did not know precisely what was expected of me.

“News of the baby?” I asked Paul whenever he came back from one of his visions.

“No,” was ever his response. “No, I only see war.”

Here, at least, I knew my place; I kissed his forehead and his belly and comforted him, comforted them, the due of an alpha to my family.

Despite my best efforts, the sepulchral look in his eyes never changed.

~

I returned from a two-week mission in the deep desert, hunting Harkonnen (and sometimes Sardaukar) scouting parties and their attempts to set up spice harvesters. I- like all of my warrior companions- was eager for news, and the biggest was this: Lady Jessica, our alien Reverend Mother, had given birth to her babe at last.

When I was clean and fed I went to visit her, bringing with me the customary gift of my own water. I felt tentative. Paul’s relationships with us were separate spheres, I did not interact with her often, and even then only in the company of others- and I still held a lingering sense that she did not approve of me.

The mother and child were alone in their recovery chamber when I went. This felt unusual, but then, she was not of my people- perhaps she had not desired the constant flood of admirers and respect-payers that was customary with Fremen births. Regardless, when I knocked she let me in.

Lady Jessica lay back in bed with the baby, who sat upright in her arms. The sight startled me at first a little, and then upon a second glance very much; the child did not look like a newborn infant, rather a toddler, already at least a year old. Wispy red curls haloed her head and when she turned to look at me the expression on her face froze my heart where I stood.

Those were not the eyes of a child. 

“Alia, this is Chani,” Jessica murmured softly; I saw her better now, my initial impression of the scene had been taken over by the babe: the Lady was exhausted, her skin more ‘pallor’ than pale, gray shadows present under her eyes and cheekbones. The birth had clearly been hard on her. “This is your brother’s mate.”

“His alpha,” the child said- corrected. This was not the voice of a child, either. Instead, I thought wildly, it was something like that of a high priestess.

“Yes,” Jessica agreed with a sigh.

I moved and placed my gift on her bedside table with a bow. These were automatic movements and I did them silently, for my voice had become constricted in my throat. When this was done Jessica gestured for me to sit on the bed beside her- an invitation fittingly intimate of a mother-in-law- and I did so, though only after hesitating long enough for my discomfort to be visible.

“Are you frightened by her?” Jessica asked me. I looked at Alia, who looked back at me- her eyes were frighteningly intelligent, they reminded me of her brother; but no, they were not so somber as his. They looked full of that wicked mischief that I saw in him only rarely.

“Will Paul’s child be this way?” I asked instead of answering, a betrayal of my thoughts. Alia smiled at me sweetly, knowingly, and a rise of gooseflesh shot across my back.

“I don't think so,” Jessica replied; she too was looking at her child, and she brushed some of Alia’s soft hair from her forehead. “The cause, I believe, is the Water of Life, and he has not taken it.”

“Not yet,” said Alia.

“He can't,” Jessica told her somewhat sternly. “He’s a male, it will kill him.”

Alia did not reply.

I felt dizzy. I was not used to this chilling kind of magic, I had not expected it. I understood now quite well why no one lingered in the mothering chamber. I could feel the blanket upon which I sat licking away dutifully the sweat that had formed on my palms.

Alia turned back to me, and held out a hand- I was close enough that her palm could reach my cheek, could press there. Her skin, at least, was as soft and fragile as could be expected of her age.

“Mama doesn't dislike you,” she said, again in that clear, carrying voice. “She’s just afraid she made a mistake.”

“Oh,” I replied out of politeness; the syllable came out like a croak. Alia seemed amused by my disconcertion. Jessica, to contrast, looked irritated. I gathered myself enough to consider, for a moment, the meaning of what Alia had said.

“A mistake?” I asked, and Alia dropped her palm from my cheek, head swivelling around eagerly to await her mother’s response. Jessica frowned at us both, and then with another beleaguered sigh adjusted the hold of Alia in her arms, and replied:

“My instructions were to produce a daughter with Duke Leto. That daughter would have married a Harkonnen and produced a son- the son. This was the plan of the Bene Gesserit.”

“But you had Paul,” I murmured, entirely unnecessarily. It did not surprise me, this assertion that mothers could choose the birth-sex of their children- if the mother was a witch, why wouldn't there be such a spell?

“I had Paul,” Jessica echoed softly. “I skipped a generation. And now…well. The Kwisatz Haderach, you see, has always been predicted as an alpha.”

…I did not answer this. Alia did not either; her uncanny blue eyes darted back and forth between us, as though she were watching some riveting interaction of great fighters. Jessica was looking inward, at something I could not see.

“I was too arrogant,” she said quietly, almost as though she had forgotten I was there. “And now he’s with child, so there’s no avoiding it…”

“I don't know about the witches’ prophecy,” I said, my voice surprising even me in its sudden strength. “But here he is doubted by no one. In fact, he is more worshiped for it.”

This was true- life-makers were always greatly respected by the Fremen. After all, they had a stronger connection to Shai-Hulud than those without such power. And moreover, Paul was almost undoubtedly the Mahdi, and moreover, Paul was beautiful, and moreover Paul was even more beautiful pregnant. I saw the reverence with which he was regarded in every room he entered.

“Mama?” Alia prompted; a silence had fallen between us for some time. I couldn't help but think that Jessica did not look convinced in the slightest. “...what’s your response?”

“I am tired,” Jessica said somewhat tightly, and I did not doubt her; the evidence was stricken across her face. “Leave us for now, please, Chani.”

I did not wait to be enchanted this time; I stood and bowed to her, and then after a second’s thought to the baby, who reached out again with one grasping hand for me. In response I gave her my forefinger, which she clasped in her tiny grip with the formality suited to an ambassador.

“It was nice to meet you, Chani,” she said sweetly. “You seem very good.”

“Thank you,” I replied. “It was nice to meet you, too.”

Then, I left; then, I went to find him.

~

Paul was in our chambers. He looked like he had been sleeping until very recently, his hair still mussed and his eyes unfocused; I knew he didn't truly sleep very much, not anymore, not in the way people were supposed to. He always woke tired from the racing of his dreams.

“Welcome back,” he said to me lightly. “I heard that you’d returned. Have you met Alia?”

I didn’t answer him. My heart was still beating too strongly from my conversation with Jessica- and yes, from meeting Alia, and her startling presence. But this was a righteous anger I felt inside me, the teeth of the injustice had bitten my heels all the way here.

I went before him and knelt, my expression surely a glare. I took one of his soft hands- the one without the Atreides ring- and kissed it. The scent of him filled the air around me. I understood then, as I had for some time, why to my people he was so worshiped, so beloved.

“You are not lesser,” I told him fiercely. “In fact, you are more.”

Paul was quiet. His lips had parted in an expression of faint surprise, but it was not a surprise that reached his eyes.

“You are my life, Paul,” and this admission pulled at something as it came out, too honest and too fast. Once it was in the air I felt breathless, as though this truth had been torn from me. “...and you are more than worthy of it."

Slowly, and in a manner as liquid as quicksilver, Paul lowered himself before me, until our eyes were at the same level, his knees slightly parted around mine. I thought he looked unbearably far away.

“Sometimes I wonder if it would be better,” he began carefully, “if the Fremen treated their omegas more like the Imperium…if you locked me away in some gilded cage, and listened to nothing I said…if I existed only to serve you-”

“No,” I interrupted, I couldn't even picture what he described- it was perverse, one of the Imperium’s corruptions of the natural order, and trying to imagine Paul that way was impossible. “That’s absurd. Absurd, Paul. No one wants that.”

Paul looked down at the places where our legs brushed, at our hands which were still entwined. There was silence for a long time, and when he finally met my eyes again I saw that his were damp, and in them there was some inexplicable horror that startled me, for it contained both a depth and a resignation that seemed colder than even the blackest outreach of space.

And all he said to me was this:

“...you have no idea what I’ve seen.”

~

I held Paul in my arms as he slept, running my fingers through his soft hair to comfort him. He had cried after that admission, something rare, and his cheeks were still red and stained from it. My alpha instinct told me I was guilty: he was very far along, he was surely sensitive like this, I shouldn't have left him alone even if it had been he who bade me do it, in one of his guerilla-strategy plans with Stilgar. I should have been here to help him.

Rationally, I knew this wasn’t really true. This wasn’t about imbalanced hormones. This was the stuff of magic, and great destiny- perhaps, terrible destiny. These were the things about him that I could not, and perhaps never would, fully understand.

I decided in that moment- warm in our bed, his sweet form in my arms, rounded with the child we had made- that I didn’t care.

Whatever horrors he saw didn't matter to me- I had already said my piece. I would stay with him, and protect him with all my strength.

(Again, my only fear: would that strength be enough?)

Those intangible sights that haunted him had no hold over me. I knew only my own path, and it was very clear.

Paul sighed unhappily in his sleep, and I kissed his forehead to soothe him, and together we rested there.

Chapter Text

Weeks passed in and out of the sietch- hunting, fighting, planning, training. The weeks became months. There was blood on my blade as often as not. Shai-Hulud stirred deep in the desert, and my people felt him shifting there.

Paul woke me during our period of rest.

“Chani,” he whispered, and I rose at once; I was used to him speaking during his visions, sometimes to me and often to something I could not see, but this did not seem his state now. “Chani, are you…um…”

“What is it?” I asked, blinking my eyes to open them, hoping my voice was clear. Paul was sitting up slightly, and even in the relative dark of the room I could see that his cheeks were flushed.

“I want to move the bed.”

“What?”

The look Paul gave me was one of overbright eyes and vague embarrassment.

“I want to move the bed,” he hissed. “It's in the wrong place.”

“Oh- oh,” was my response, and the shock of understanding what he meant launched me up, and then to my feet. “Yes, of course. Whatever you want.”

Omegas nested twice during their reproductive cycle- first in heat, and then shortly before birth. To my knowledge, he hadn't done it at all the first time. But now-

-my heart beat too quickly as we adjusted the lay of the mattress. Paul avoided my eyes, still faintly red-faced, but mine was a gaze of pleasure. He had carried the babe quite deep, the changes to his body had ever been few enough to deceive the eye; if this behaviour was what I thought it was, then the end of his trial was near.

“Is that better?” I asked him when we were done, and in response he gave me a heatless glare. Cute. He was rarely so cute, this was a delight.

We both settled back to rest, but I did not sleep- I couldn't, excitement and fear both had begun taking over my heart. When we rose I would have to inform the healers. My hand found his stomach and pressed there; it was only a matter of time.

~

News of Paul’s condition spread through the sietch like a fire. Idle talk was never much among the Fremen, but what little there was focused on these things only: the Mahdi is nesting, the Mahdi’s baby will be here soon. Prayers for the birth to go smoothly, that the baby would be healthy and strong. I was not given any missions that lasted longer than a day. The excitement that would normally be reserved for the immediate family had taken over the entire tribe; another expression of just how much Paul meant.

I loved him now more than ever. Cynically one might say it was his scent warming our bond, that of course I would feel affectionate, his pheromones demanded that of me- but it was more than that. He was rarely so easy to understand, rarely so purely human in his thoughts and behaviours, and so seeing him this way endeared me.

In this new state he did not leave our quarters often, and when he did it was only to speak with his mother and sister (who now looked to be around two years old, and whose growth seemed to have thankfully settled into a more natural pace). He had taken to rearranging the furniture. I brought him soft things, offerings that were easy to come by as I only barely needed to step out into public before such gifts were being pressed into my hands by people I barely knew. For the Mahdi, said these people, old women and priests and children; you take good care of him, girl.

“How are you?” I asked him, having heard him sigh.

“I keep thinking of the apple trees on Caladan,” he told me. “I believe it would be spring there, now, and they would be covered in white blossoms.”

“That sounds beautiful,” I said, and I felt a little sad for him, though he mostly looked embarrassed, as he always did these days.

“I know there isn’t anything like that here,” he continued with a shrug. “Though your mother told me- there was once a plan to make Arrakis a garden planet…”

…our conversation moved on but later these words of ours followed me, and I went out into the desert under the moon to search. No, there were no flowering trees on my Arrakis. I still looked.

In a shadowy place between the rocks I found a growth of red amarinth; shelter and nest-foliage for the desert mice. The fit of this pleased me, and I cut a length.

Paul was delighted by my gift, moreso than I felt was deserved.

“It isn't really what you were thinking of,” I mumbled even as I handed it to him.

“No, Chani, it's perfect,” he said, and with much intent he laid it on the mantle over the bed, where the length of it suited. “Thank you.”

He kissed my cheek and I melted just a little.

“So how’s it coming along?” I asked him in an attempt to hide the feelings on my face; I gestured to our living space, which had been quite thoroughly converted to a nest, and after a moment’s consideration he shrugged.

“I think it's finished,” he murmured. “Don't you?”

His hand had come to rest over his stomach. I knew what he meant, and my own gut tensed. Now there was excitement, now there was fear.

“Soon?” I asked quietly, unnecessarily. He didn’t bother to reply.

Perhaps he hadn't heard me. In that moment, it seemed to me he was elsewhere.

~

“Chani.”

I was woken. I had not thought I was sleeping deeply, yet when I reached for the warm place beside me Paul was gone from it; I opened my eyes and found him standing in the dark, his back very straight, his eyes looking past me to something I couldn't see at all.

“Is it the baby?” I gasped, but he shook his head, lips pursing as though to hush me. 

“It's…” he seemed to struggle with his words. “I think it's real. I think it's now, I…”

He blinked and his focus came back; his eyes found me and pinned me where I sat. The next words he spoke with all the strength and sharpness of a war general:

“The sietch is under attack. The Sardaukar. They had help- you must go and warn the sentinels.”

I was not waiting for him to finish these words- on the fifth of them I was standing, by the eighth I was dressed, and by the last I had my knife in my hands. It made sense- there had been fewer Imperium raiding parties in the last weeks, fewer probes into our territory- I knew many had thought them discouraged, but perhaps instead they had been saving up for something greater. I was at the door.

“Will you go to Stilgar?” I asked.

“...no,” was his reply, stilted and soft. “No, I must stay here.”

“Paul-”

“Go,” he hissed in response to my tone, his eyes flashing with the light of some other world; in the moment, he looked like nothing more than a witch. "If we don't act, there will be blood spilled.”

“But- is it time-?” 

The question I had to ask- I realized his scent had changed whilst I slept. I could see already the sweat forming on his brow. To leave him now would be anathema, I knew I could not do it, could not bear to...

...but Paul was shaking his head, and he stepped away from my reaching hand, back into the darkness by our bed.

“Leave me,” he said.

He gave me no choice.

~

There was a battle. 

Somehow, the enemy had evaded all our traps, had found the entrances that had been such well-kept secrets. They had with them desert suits and stealth technology; they were well-prepared. Perhaps my people had become too arrogant, thinking ourselves easily superior to the other-worlders.

Without Paul’s warning, it would have been much worse; it was bad enough as it was. I cried out alarum as I ran through the halls, triggering the machinations of the sentinels, rousing any warriors on the sleeping shift. Those who were awake were in the training room, and by the time I reached them the fight had already started, and so they fought without protection. The ground was bloodied fast. 

My own knife had a sharpness to it, a fervour I did not expect- my killing sense felt clearer than it ever had. I knew why. This was a prehistoric instinct: my mate was in labour, and his nest was under attack. This was what alphas were made for.

I felled the Imperium’s great warriors with extreme prejudice.

After, I could not have proclaimed the duration of the battle; the flickering lights and the smell of blood, these things seemed both of an instant and an eternity. I only knew to stop when my muscles burned and my eyes strained, searching every shadow for a new foe, but I did not find one; the dead were piled at my feet. Calls echoed through the corridors- checks and points- the entrances had been sealed off, a scout had been sent out into the sand to look for a second wave, but they had not seen one. The Sardaukar’s gambit had failed- instead of surprising us while we slept and slitting our throats, they had trapped themselves in an unfamiliar playing field. They had entered the desert and it had swallowed them.

I did not wait around to see how many of my people had been killed. I had only one thought. The order I had been given had faded, and I did not heed it anymore. I ran back through the bloodstained corridors, back the way I had come, and perhaps I looked mad because those I met let me pass without saying a single word.

The door to our rooms was open.

(No sight had ever struck me with a greater fear than this.)

Inside, the air smelled of blood. My heart beat so fast I did not hear it; it had become one long, unending, painful drone.

There was a body on the ground- an enemy warrior. His throat was slit; this explained the blood on the floor, but not the blood on the bed. The sheets were soaked black with it. From where I stood, the room looked empty.

…I heard then a very soft, muffled cry.

The doors of the wardrobe against the far wall were slightly ajar. Drops and smears of blood formed a trail that led there. I approached. I did not hear my own footsteps, nor even one single thought- my whole world had narrowed to the sight of the shadowy crack between those doors, and a sound like the roaring of a vast and turbulent ocean, something I had never seen.

I opened the wardrobe.

Something flickered before my eyes- then I felt the press of cold metal against the soft point of my throat. I froze, and my vision adjusted; from within Paul looked up at me, and his eyes were wild, blue and glowing in the dark like a sandcat’s. His skin shone like glass with sweat, his hair was slicked to his skull with it, and there was not a touch of colour on his face anywhere, not even his lips. He looked gray and hollow, like a spaceship, like those who were dead and dying. The blade I felt against me held a faint, vibrating tremor, when his hands were only ever perfectly still.

…he had taken a blanket from his nest, and there was a bundle in his arm.

After a moment he recognized me, I saw so in his eyes, and the knife retreated, slowly and without the perfect grace I associated with him. His white lips parted as though to speak, but he was interrupted by the same sound that had drawn me here- another tiny, fragile infant’s cry.

I had fallen to my knees. We were both fixated on that little bundle; Paul dropped the knife at his side, but I didn’t hear it clatter, and with this now free hand he shifted some of the soft fabric away so I could see.

“Look, Chani,” Paul whispered. “Isn't he perfect?”

He was.

All the work had already been done: the cord cut, his lungs cleared, his body wiped clean. A tiny child, unblemished and faultless, with wide blue eyes that looked up at me with great and innocent concern- his fists were curled under his chin and he frowned at me, blinking as though uncertain of his desire to cry. I had never seen anything so wonderful.

With some of Paul’s prompting I took him in my arms; he was so small, practically weightless I thought, and yet his skin was rosy with health. He complained at the shift only briefly, and then reached out to grab at my nose and chin, as though he recognized me. He smelled of milk and something else, something sweet I could not name. Even though I had known he was coming for months I still felt disbelief: this was my son. This was my son.

“Hello, Leto,” I whispered, and he looked at me, and I loved him. “Hello, hello.”

The child wailed and I laughed, and so did Paul, and for a few moments all hardships and all sorrows were forgotten. Life had been made in the desert. This moment was beyond sacred. I never could have anticipated this feeling, this perfect love- I had not even known my heart had depth enough to feel it.

“Chani,” Paul murmured. “It didn’t go well.”

I looked back up at him; where Leto was pink and warm, Paul was white and cold. His skin where it brushed mine felt like ice, like a chilled cavern-wall. 

...there was blood everywhere. For a moment, I had forgotten.

“Will you take him to my mother?” Paul asked, even though it seemed to pain him to say so. The words passed his lips breathless and faint. “I…I can’t.”

“You need help,” I said, obvious and unnecessary; Paul did not answer me. He sat back into the shadows of the wardrobe, arms empty and eyes unfocused, he looked like he was slipping into a vision. It seemed to strain him slightly to breathe.

(My mind supplied a wild, irrational thought: I would not trade them. God, Maker, listen when I say this: I will accept no exchange.)

“Wait here,” I told him, my love; I kissed his cold lips and stood, our child held snug and firm in my arms. “I’ll make sure he’s safe. I’ll bring help for you. Just…wait for me. Promise me you’ll wait.”

Paul's eyes closed and opened very slowly, and I thought I saw within them the light of stars that had yet to be born. He nodded. That was an agreement, and somehow it left me reassured- I did not doubt his will.

And thus, for the second time that night, I left him.

~

Days passed.

It was uncertain, whether or not Paul would die.

I did not allow myself to think of this.

He had kept his promise, he had still been there when I had returned with the Mothers, Leto having been safely secured with his grandmother. Paul had waited to hear me tell him this, and then he had stayed no longer. Where he was now no one could say. He had left us all behind.

My one reassurance was that his eyes flickered behind their lids, that his lips moved, tracing words I could not make out. These were signs that his body still clung to his spirit tightly enough for it to mirror what he did- should it lose its grip, that would be the end, that would be death. I prayed he would not stray too far. I prayed a good many things.

I was told that what had happened medically was well understood: the birth had been too quick, too stressed (he had bested that Sardaukar warrior, he had slit his enemy’s throat), and his hips had been too narrow. A common enough problem for male omegas. Though of course, nothing about Paul was common. I was told that the amount of blood he had lost should have killed him, that it might yet. I was told by Lady Jessica’s cold and accusatory voice that his recovery depended now on chance. I believed it depended on his own strength, and on his ability to find his way back to me- and the first of these things I did not doubt, but the second frightened me.

I spent my time in the sietch. No one considered even once to give me a mission that would take me away from my family. I cared for Leto; as happened often enough with female-alpha male-omega pairs, my body had begun to produce milk. Leto was healthy and strong, Paul had done his work perfectly, but still the babe cried often, even when everything had been done to assuage him- I thought he must have known that something was wrong. He was missing the one who had held him first, the one who had been holding him all this time…Lady Jessica, who watched him when I slept, was an imperfect substitute.

(This was an uncharitable thought, but I couldn’t help it- I knew she blamed me for what had happened. Even now, she did not realize that Paul was the one who decided everything.)

My rest was torn apart by odd and terrible dreams, even though I had never before been inclined to nightmares. I saw invasions of faceless enemy warriors bursting through the walls of my home, shredding stone like it was paper. I saw Paul dressed in white, alone in the desert, and though he spoke to me I could make out none of his words.

When I woke from these things my only comfort was Leto, who I would hold and kiss and speak to, reassuring him of his safety and his belovedness. Somehow, the way he would look at me with those confused and wary blue eyes always returned the sentiment tenfold, and I too would feel secure. I was reminded of the truth: we had won the battle, and only two Fremen lives had been lost (warriors both- one young, one old, well mourned for and celebrated for their honourable deaths). 

I knew that what I had were nightmares, and only that. I did not have Paul’s gifts. I wondered if Leto would.

The sietch waited alongside me with bated breath for our Mahdi to return to us. No one- priest or priestess or warrior or child- wanted to discuss what it would mean if he didn’t.

In my prayers, I asked for nothing.

Rather, I demanded.

~

Paul woke on the morning of the third day. 

Leto had been fed and cleaned, but still he cried especially loudly; I sat with him and Alia, who watched her little nephew with curious and vaguely disapproving eyes (she had tried to converse with him more than once, but of course he knew no words yet). I lifted him against my chest and kissed the top of his tiny head, whispering tonelessly in his ear the words of a lullaby. He did not push me away, he was not dissatisfied, rather he clung to me desperately and cried all the louder, as though afraid I would be ripped away unless he held on with all his power.

“Why is he so noisy?” Alia asked pertly over his wails, and I did not answer her. But then, I realized, it did not seem like she had addressed me- she was looking over my shoulder, eyes focused on someone else, even as she spoke again: “Can you make him stop?”

I turned with something like lightning in my heart, and was met with the most welcome sight. Paul was sitting up in bed, and though his skin was still pale and drawn and feverish his eyes were open, the blue as bright as the sky on a cloudless day. Wordlessly, he held out his arms and I went to him with joy, transferring Leto gently over, and it was precisely as I had thought: the child quieted almost immediately, letting out only a last few hiccuping sobs. All he had wanted was his mother.

I wrapped my arms around them both and kissed Paul’s temple, the top of his head, his pale cheek- anywhere I could reach- I felt desperate to ground him to me again, and to thank him for returning, something which (for all I knew) might have been a terrible task.

“Leto is very healthy,” I told him even though he had not asked. “And his grip is strong. He eats very well…”

“A little warrior,” Paul rasped with a weak smile, and I kissed him again, on the lips this time, before bringing him a water wire to drink from, which he did gladly. When this was done he looked much more like himself, and with an adjustment of the pillows he sat back comfortably with Leto in his arms, reminding me in mannerism quite sharply of Lady Jessica.

I told him everything that had happened in detail, a great unspooling of my thoughts: the battle, the victory and the losses, what had happened after; what his mother had said to me, the ways in which I’d worried, every little thing Leto had done (Leto, who had fallen asleep, comforted at last by Paul’s embrace). I did not think I had ever spoken so much at once before.

“...everyone will be very glad to hear you are well again,” I told him, which seemed an understatement. “No one doubts that your warning saved many lives. We were unprepared.”

“I could have saved more,” Paul murmured, breaking his long silence and quelling my little tirade at last. “Should have.”

“What do you mean?”

Paul thought before answering, looking contemplatively down at Leto’s tiny, sleeping face.

“I saw what was coming almost as it happened,” he declared, and each word sounded like something carefully picked. “And I didn’t think…for a moment there, I thought it wasn't real. I thought it was a more distant future- or something that wouldn't come to pass…”

His still-frail voice trailed away. My hand ran circles across his shoulders; his recovery had left him thin, I could feel his bones through his robe. It was as though he had been gone for far more than three days.

“What I see is incomplete,” Paul continued at length, even more quietly than before. “There are so many gaps in my visions, I…I don’t know what will become of him at all.”

I knew which ‘him’ was meant; I pressed my lips to the top of his head again, thinking then that I understood the disquieted tone that had slipped into his voice.

“That doesn't matter,” I told him, and I believed it so completely. “You have always done more- been more- than most. You have not failed in any way.”

Paul did not answer me. He was still looking down at Leto’s face, so I did as well. It was perhaps too early to really tell, but I thought with some pride that he looked like both of us.

“Most parents do not know the futures of their children,” I murmured, sensing that Paul had not yet been completely reassured. “We will manage as well as they.”

Another understatement- surely, we would manage much better.

Paul only hummed, and after a moment he tipped his head back to kiss me, and I felt an incredible happiness.

“Will you bring me the amarinth from our rooms?” Paul asked me when we had parted, sweet and vaguely shy, and I would have done anything for him then. “I know it will have dried, but…”

I did this with a glowing heart, and on my way those I passed surely knew that all was well again, I saw this understanding touch their faces as they met my eyes. Word would spread. Our desert mouse was recovered. The Sardaukar had overstepped, but they had not won- it would be time soon to retaliate. I had no doubt that we were going to win.

When I returned to the recovery room, the shrub stalk in hand, Paul did not see me at first. He sat as I had left him with Leto in his arms, and Alia had crawled across the bed to sit at his side, one tiny hand cupped over his ear as she whispered something there. His cold blue eyes, which looked out at nothing, were vicious and adamantine.

I paused in the shadow of the doorway only a moment- and then they saw me, and then the spell was broken. Paul smiled and beckoned me over and I sat with him and our baby, and everything was gentle and right, and I was nothing but happy.

~

The night has deepened to its darkest hour- the dawn will come soon, but it is not here yet. This is what is called the ‘witching hour’. Though I cannot see them now, the moons of Arrakis eclipse one another overhead. The stars vibrate. Everything is well aligned- like this, the channels open. Voices can be heard, for those who know how to listen.

I am alone in these corridors, I am the only one still awake. My child and lover both are sleeping, but despite the weakness in me- the tear deep inside that I can still feel- I cannot join them.

I have spent too much time sleeping. In fact, it is all I have ever done. It is time now to wake up. Perhaps I hoped once that I wouldn't have to, but there’s no helping it- even the brightest path I can walk is tenebrous. There are no other answers, no clever escapes- the chance to truly change things passed us all by long before I was born, I know that now.

I know also that you are listening.

...ah. I think you are surprised. You have no right to be.

Let’s see what you’re wishing for- what fortunes you are trying to sow in me, what thoughts you want to place in my head. Do you hope that I will be too weak, that it will kill me, the Fremen's oxymoronic poison? Or do you hope instead that I will cower in the last instant?

Perhaps it would be better if I did. Regardless, it is too late now.

(You think I would give up on account of the babe, of the alpha- you think my biology would demand it- no. It is for their sake that I will do it. It is for their sake that I must.)

Don’t run from me.

Yes, I’ve caught you, I’ve dragged you back. Where exactly did you think you were going?

Why do you recoil in this way? Shouldn't you be proud? Shouldn't you be overjoyed? Your plan worked- you made me, and you did it perfectly. After so many centuries of effort, you have exactly what you wanted.

It is a pity I will never be yours.

You’re too late, you see- I am already spoken for.