( it's hypnotic, this wall of scorned, angry women — intimidating, even scary, if paul was the type to be scared. no, that's not fair. there's plenty that scares him, and plenty that used to. the bene gesserit may have at one point been on that list. now? he wonders at the spot where his mother could or should be, about where his lines blur with hers, theirs, ours, we. he could stare at the women for hours, memorizing a thousand of them. he has, in the past. but now?

he casts them away, blinking for the first time in a few minutes, head rolling as he falls back into himself. out of the galaxy, off starlight paths, back to the floral line of fairy lights that guide him right back to alina. he turns, hand to her arm and the top of her head, encouraging her to roll on her back. she doesn't have to, if she doesn't want to. regardless, paul bends to kiss her head, scooting back against the headboard.

i didn't marry a perfect man. i married you. maybe the kindest thing paul, the prophetical messiah and destroyer of the known world, has ever been told. )

I think ... it's alright to be angry. ( he loves her hair, the way it feels between his pinched fingertips. like the silk of fresh leaves. like mouse fur. like a secret. ) But it's not alright to be cruel. I don't want to be someone that hurts the people I love.

( one day he will be, he thinks. there is a certain inevitability to his cruelty. but, if he can manage one thing, let it be maintaining the softness between him and alina here tonight — cultivate it, protect it like a soldier. no darkness will seep in here, where alina is light and love and the axis by which his world tilts, singing alina, alina at the center knot of his heart. )

I didn't marry perfection, either. But I love you, my Alina, and I always will.