[And Alia would -- she has before, she will again, she dug her fingers and her teeth into Hayt's artificially-grown heart and made him her own (inasmuch as she could, because he was always Paul's, always his Duke's first, before Alia was more than a spark of potential betwixt Leto and Jessica), she does not know how to love without a knife in her hand, without her teeth in a throat. To hold back is unfamiliar, it's the throb of a bruise on her pale cheek, it's the hollow ache she carries from Alina's panic as if it were her own, but -- it is also the laughter at the lakeside, braided curls and pink mouth and warm eyes. The lakeside wins, masters the streak of wrong that runs deep through Alia, that hems her in, makes and undoes her. Alina by the water in her heart's mind won't let her lose control.
She's in the hall, thoughts pulsing with each footstep towards the shared rooms she knows like true north. There isn't another message, her device left in a pocket of her robe, the fabric billowing around her (like Jessica's on Arrakis, in the first rush of spice-laden air, following her Leto, her love into oblivion, why would Alia remember that now, here?) until she's at the door.
The knock is almost soft, hesitant, knuckles rapping gently. She knows Alina is there, feels her presence even if she doesn't reach out and into her mind again -- a warm, steady flame, the glow of an ember, flaring and stilling, again and again. Still, she asks, in a soft voice, Alia-the-girl, not Alia-the-knife:] Are you there? It's me.
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She's in the hall, thoughts pulsing with each footstep towards the shared rooms she knows like true north. There isn't another message, her device left in a pocket of her robe, the fabric billowing around her (like Jessica's on Arrakis, in the first rush of spice-laden air, following her Leto, her love into oblivion, why would Alia remember that now, here?) until she's at the door.
The knock is almost soft, hesitant, knuckles rapping gently. She knows Alina is there, feels her presence even if she doesn't reach out and into her mind again -- a warm, steady flame, the glow of an ember, flaring and stilling, again and again. Still, she asks, in a soft voice, Alia-the-girl, not Alia-the-knife:] Are you there? It's me.