( she squints a little — which, combined with paul's closeness, only accomplishes alina going ridiculously cross-eyed with skepticism. not even ravka's golden royalty could afford such a luxury, with a war on their soil — and nikolai's father pissing away their coffers, with all the gracelessness of emptying his bladder. her answering twinkle of laughter accordingly says funny joke, i nearly fell for it, half-forgetting the beginnings of paul's life were spent in water-logged luxury, and not the barrenness of arrakis' dunes. )

Weeks? You're pulling my leg. ( punishingly, she nips at his nose. that's the pitfall of paul's presence — for all that her mood has been a rainy cloud in the past week, shifting from depressingly cloudy to ominously stormy again, she can't batter herself against him for long. ) That's better than what I was going to suggest.

( because alina's problem-solving skills and scope of imagination, where celebrations in her honor, are limited to simple comforts and simple solutions no better than slapping a bandaid on an amputated limb. namely: )

I was going to say we could hide in the shelves and kiss for hours. ( mischievously, ) Or run off and build an ugly hut in the forest, where no one can ever bother us. But I think I'd like to see the animals and go riding with you, too. As your wife, you'll have to let me win at racing you.