( in a moment of incidental karma, alina lapses into the same stunted heartbeat of silence. prophecy seems a divine gift, until you've glimpsed it through your own two eyes, without the rose-colored tinge to soften it — but it's almost soothing, that knowledge. misery loves company, like calls to like.
she expels a half-constricted breath, through the noose of anxiety tightening her throat. )
that explains why you look at me the way you do.
( like you know too much. like you're haunted by ghosts i can't see. like you've traveled somewhere i can't follow, unknown and uncharted by even a mapmaker's hands. )
you never answered. were they terrible? is that why you haven't wanted to tell me?
( they're complimented by the unavoidable truth of a holy war paul has initiated. banners flying, fires raging. the padishah emperor, the muad'dib. he was warrior and mystic, ogre and saint, the fox and the innocent, chivalrous, truthless, less than a god, more than a man.
everything he's ever tried to keep from her — there, waiting, a thorn she can never quite fish from her skin. the same paul who laid her down in bed and promised her children in between soft, giggling kisses, ordering the slaughter of thousands in payment for the death of his father, for the suffering of fremen. to think about alina seeing that part of him — nausea cramps his stomach. he's going to have to beat all this softness out of himself, eventually. the reverend mothers seem to think so. )
the suns soak into you like water filling a basin. you illumine every part of me. i protect every part of you. it's selfish.
( her stomach flips, soars, and promptly plummets in the span of a single breath, her hope an injured bird that doesn't dare to try taking flight a second time. selfish, paul says, and it feels like revisiting a graveyard of heartbreak: the vengeful bite of wood at her back, the darkling's hands staining her body with his resentment, kiss-bruised by the taste of his loathing. held in contempt, even as she was held in want, like a bad sugar craving that rots the teeth, like the euphoric high of a poison that corrodes the vein.
something filthy, only to ever be loved in the space between heartbeats. wanting makes us weak. paul doesn't have to say it for her to hear it. )
if they're so wonderful, why do you make "perfect" sound like the most terrible fate you could imagine for yourself?
( — because it does sound perfect, is the thing. what's so selfish about being happy? she could ask, if she were not already aware that happiness was the first part of her she martyred, the moment she became ravka's sun saint. )
in ravka, my people have a saying. "like calls to like." it means ... i was made in your image, and you were made in mine. what lives inside of me is drawn to what lives inside of you because we were made by the same hands, from the same blood and bone, by the same making at the heart of the world. i balance you, as you balance me.
that idea used to frighten me, but your dreams make it sound like it has a chance to be something beautiful. how could that be selfish?
Edited (sry i nitpicked this twice i'm banning myself from edits and going 2 bed) 2024-07-13 04:51 (UTC)
he's heard these words before. he remembers them suddenly, with the tangent grief of forgetting a dreaming memory that felt indescribably important at the time. he remembers the strength of it only now that he's been reminded, and it makes the space between each devouring dream seem almost dull, lifeless by comparison. like calls to like. despite the written word, he can hear it in alina's voice, between her shyly grinning mouth, hair sandswept across her face. so. maybe he won't see her on arrakis, if that particular dream is coming true here — maybe he's just incapable of taking his dreams out of the sand, like it's some sort of metaphor, not just arrakis. if that's the case, then he's been worrying over nothing. )
you're quite romantic, you know. i feel the same way.
( that alina balances him. that, probably, if there's anyone out there to understand him other than alia or jessica, it's probably alina — and that, in its own way, makes her family. of course, he has no real reason to believe this. as far as he knows alina is some public official who is constantly being proposed to by a literal king because because she's equal parts beautiful and significant, though he couldn't say why. only that his dreams detail the necessary path forward, and that if the path doesn't include alina, he's dragging her into it anyway.
which is, as stated, selfish. )
being tied to you is not a terrible fate. not to me. i assumed you would feel differently. that my dreams would be ( presumptive? unrequited? too much, too soon, too intense? )
well, they're not normal. i figured that would frighten you more than it would make you happy — that i'm strange and that i've dreamed of you.
( that i'm a freak, he typed, before deleting it. it's hard to make bold claims like that when he doesn't know what alina is — not a freak, in any case, which is reserved solely for him. )
( you're not the only one with strange dreams, she writes, a lifeline thrown out to save paul from drowning in his otherness. selfishly, she deletes it. she knows what comes next in that sequence of events, without needing a prophetic dream to warn her — paul, innocently taking an interest in her. alina, trying not to shipwreck herself on the truth of what she is.
a second attempt: you're not strange. a sweet lie that would dissolve as quickly as sugar on the tongue. really, it's rejection bowtied into a kinder package, returning his own gift of honesty back to him — saying i don't want to know what you are. i only want to know the version of you i dreamed inside of my own head. soft sheets tangle around her legs when she shifts onto her back, like she's caught herself in a fisherman's net, unsure of how to wiggle her words free. )
if you were made in my image, then you can never be strange to me. you can only be known. i'm alina. and you're ( my ) paul. and if you're strange, then i'll be strange with you.
i've never been what ravka considers normal, anyway. it's comforting to hear of a future where i'm not alone in that. it's more than i've let myself hope for. fate hasn't been very merciful to me, in a lot of ways.
( it's not not frightening, but — thinking of destiny makes the collar around her throat want to cinch tighter, eternal slave to a force greater than herself. so: )
i do wonder about something, though. do you think your prophetic dreams are more or less binding than your never-ending quest to put a baby inside of me?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
she expels a half-constricted breath, through the noose of anxiety tightening her throat. )
that explains why you look at me the way you do.
( like you know too much. like you're haunted by ghosts i can't see. like you've traveled somewhere i can't follow, unknown and uncharted by even a mapmaker's hands. )
you never answered.
were they terrible? is that why you haven't wanted to tell me?
no subject
they're wonderful. perfect.
( they're complimented by the unavoidable truth of a holy war paul has initiated. banners flying, fires raging. the padishah emperor, the muad'dib. he was warrior and mystic, ogre and saint, the fox and the innocent, chivalrous, truthless, less than a god, more than a man.
everything he's ever tried to keep from her — there, waiting, a thorn she can never quite fish from her skin. the same paul who laid her down in bed and promised her children in between soft, giggling kisses, ordering the slaughter of thousands in payment for the death of his father, for the suffering of fremen. to think about alina seeing that part of him — nausea cramps his stomach. he's going to have to beat all this softness out of himself, eventually. the reverend mothers seem to think so. )
the suns soak into you like water filling a basin.
you illumine every part of me. i protect every part of you.
it's selfish.
no subject
something filthy, only to ever be loved in the space between heartbeats. wanting makes us weak. paul doesn't have to say it for her to hear it. )
if they're so wonderful, why do you make "perfect" sound like the most terrible fate you could imagine for yourself?
( — because it does sound perfect, is the thing. what's so selfish about being happy? she could ask, if she were not already aware that happiness was the first part of her she martyred, the moment she became ravka's sun saint. )
in ravka, my people have a saying. "like calls to like." it means ... i was made in your image, and you were made in mine. what lives inside of me is drawn to what lives inside of you because we were made by the same hands, from the same blood and bone, by the same making at the heart of the world. i balance you, as you balance me.
that idea used to frighten me, but your dreams make it sound like it has a chance to be something beautiful. how could that be selfish?
no subject
he's heard these words before. he remembers them suddenly, with the tangent grief of forgetting a dreaming memory that felt indescribably important at the time. he remembers the strength of it only now that he's been reminded, and it makes the space between each devouring dream seem almost dull, lifeless by comparison. like calls to like. despite the written word, he can hear it in alina's voice, between her shyly grinning mouth, hair sandswept across her face. so. maybe he won't see her on arrakis, if that particular dream is coming true here — maybe he's just incapable of taking his dreams out of the sand, like it's some sort of metaphor, not just arrakis. if that's the case, then he's been worrying over nothing. )
you're quite romantic, you know.
i feel the same way.
( that alina balances him. that, probably, if there's anyone out there to understand him other than alia or jessica, it's probably alina — and that, in its own way, makes her family. of course, he has no real reason to believe this. as far as he knows alina is some public official who is constantly being proposed to by a literal king because because she's equal parts beautiful and significant, though he couldn't say why. only that his dreams detail the necessary path forward, and that if the path doesn't include alina, he's dragging her into it anyway.
which is, as stated, selfish. )
being tied to you is not a terrible fate. not to me.
i assumed you would feel differently. that my dreams would be ( presumptive? unrequited? too much, too soon, too intense? )
well, they're not normal. i figured that would frighten you more than it would make you happy — that i'm strange and that i've dreamed of you.
( that i'm a freak, he typed, before deleting it. it's hard to make bold claims like that when he doesn't know what alina is — not a freak, in any case, which is reserved solely for him. )
no subject
a second attempt: you're not strange. a sweet lie that would dissolve as quickly as sugar on the tongue. really, it's rejection bowtied into a kinder package, returning his own gift of honesty back to him — saying i don't want to know what you are. i only want to know the version of you i dreamed inside of my own head. soft sheets tangle around her legs when she shifts onto her back, like she's caught herself in a fisherman's net, unsure of how to wiggle her words free. )
if you were made in my image, then you can never be strange to me. you can only be known.
i'm alina. and you're ( my ) paul. and if you're strange, then i'll be strange with you.
i've never been what ravka considers normal, anyway. it's comforting to hear of a future where i'm not alone in that.
it's more than i've let myself hope for. fate hasn't been very merciful to me, in a lot of ways.
( it's not not frightening, but — thinking of destiny makes the collar around her throat want to cinch tighter, eternal slave to a force greater than herself. so: )
i do wonder about something, though.
do you think your prophetic dreams are more or less binding than your never-ending quest to put a baby inside of me?