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houserautha · 3 months

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This Body, This Flesh

Summary: You thought what you wanted more than anything was for Feyd-Rautha to return from the dead. You were wrong.

Pairing: Feyd-Rautha x F!Reader

Word Count: 1.3k

Warnings: mentions of fighting and death, angsty, some kissing

A/N: Dune Wiki describes a ghola as, “an artificially created human, who was replicated from a dead individual”. When I first read about a ghola in “Dune Messiah” (I’m reading the series for the first time, like a bandwagon fan) I thought it posed so many interesting possibilities and unnecessary angst😂😈 Excuse any inaccuracies

Feyd-Rautha was dead.

You had been there when Paul Atreides slipped the crysknife into the soft flesh of his jaw and into his skull.

So then why was he standing in front of you?

Your knees quiver. Was your mind playing a trick on you? Perhaps your grief had warped your sanity. You close your eyes, shake your head as if to dislodge the vision.

“Go away,” you choke out. “I know you’re not real.”

The Feyd-Rautha — if it could be called that, he certainly was a figment of your imagination — tilts his head slightly in a move purely reminiscent of your lover. “You are not pleased to see me,” he rasps, the same voice you heard when you could not sleep, haunting your dreams.

You feel the burn of tears behind your eyes. You close them. “Of course I’m pleased to see you. But you — you’re not real.”

“Maybe not as I once was.”

In the distance, the sound of fervent footsteps slapping the ground, accompanied by panicked breathing, force you to open your eyes. It’s a servant. A young one, wide-eyed and reddened, either by shame or exertion or both.

“Lady Y/N, my humblest apologies —”

You snap at him, “What is this?”

“Lady Y/N —”

“I am a gift. For you,” Feyd-Rautha says. His dark eyes are unsettlingly familiar, studying you as you grapple for a response.

“What is he…?” Your eyes flicker to him, then back to the servant, “…it… talking about?”

Your heart pounds furiously in your chest. This morning you lay awake, blinking the sun and tear-prompted crust from your eyes, and thought only of seeing Feyd-Rautha again. And now he was here. Your mind refused to cooperate with your battling emotions, waging war within you.

“I was supposed to explain, Lady Y/N. I apologize. I tried to stop him but he insisted on coming here straight away.” The servant shuffles his feet. “I-I couldn’t outrun him. He is a gift. A ghola. From the Bene Tleilax.”

A ghola.

Of course.

The foolish, childish hope that the real Feyd-Rautha had miraculously been resurrected slowly wanes, slipping through your fingers. Your chin wobbles as devastation seizes you.

The servant, mistaking your stunned silence, eagerly adds, “The Baron wanted you to have him.”

You offer a stiff nod. “Thank you. You may leave us.”

“Should I extend your gratitude to the Baron?”

“No.” On a different occasion, you might’ve ripped the boy’s head from his neck for proposing such a thing and implicating your rudeness. “Leave.”

The servant scurries away.

Feyd-Rautha is watching you closely, but does not speak.

You, on the other hand, are afraid that if you don’t you might tear apart at the seams. “How…How much do you remember?”

The urge to cross the space between you to touch him, to touch the fatal spot where the knife had slid in, robbing you of him, is too strong. You hope he doesn’t notice you staring. To refrain from indulging in the urge, your hands clench into fists at your sides.

“Not much,” the ghola admits. “Just…fleeting glimpses.” His gaze sweeps your surroundings, landing on you in almost a pleading way, like he’s hoping that you will give him answers. “I needed to come here. To you.”

“This was our room,” you tell him. You hesitate. “Do you remember me?”

“You’re Lady Y/N.”

Disappointment stabs at your heart. “You don’t.”

Feyd-Rautha — no, the ghola (you mustn’t let yourself think of them as one and the same) — shakes his head. “No.”

A strangled sob escapes from you unwittingly, and you turn away.

A gift? No. This was the most severe punishment: The man you loved returned to you, but with no memories of the life you shared, none of the substance that had initially captivated you about the na-Baron. The voice, the features — every goddamn look and gesture, but nothing more than a Bene Tleilax puppet.

“I may not remember you, but something in this flesh does.”

Hope flutters traitorously in your chest. “What?”

“I don’t know how to explain it.” The ghola takes a tentative step toward you. “I may not recall the memories of your past together but this body standing before you, this flesh, carries the echos of your bond. In this physical form, I am a testament to the love you once knew, a vessel for those memories.”

Moved by the ghola’s admittance, tears flow freely down your cheeks now. “You kept saying…you. Not our.”

Of course he didn’t. Why did you mention it?

“Yes.” His jaw clenches. “I’m sorry.”

You laugh bitterly. “Don’t apologize. Feyd never would’ve done that.”

Feyd-Rautha — what remains of Feyd-Rautha, anyway — flashes you a look of regret. Guilt. “I do not wish to make you uncomfortable, Lady Y/N. I can leave.”

“No, please, don’t,” you say. You scrub the tears from your face, embarrassed by the display of vulnerability. “None of this is your fault.”

“May I come in?”

He had been standing in the threshold of the doorway, reminding you of the many times that Feyd had done the very same thing, discussing battle strategy and politics and even lovemaking. You avert your gaze and wave him in, hoping he didn’t see the sudden blaze of your cheeks.

However, you notice him stride past in your peripheral identically to your lover and settle on the edge of the bed. To keep yourself from further jabs of pain, you feign an interest in the view outside the window, fingers tapping restlessly on the pane.

“What was he like?” The ghola asks finally.

“You don’t know?”

You pose the question carefully, hopefully in a manner of nonchalance. What would the ghola think of their bloody origin? It must be terrible to belong to someone else entirely. Especially someone such as Feyd, who answered with his blade faster than he asked questions. A man with no restraint, no fear, and until the very end, no consequences.

You squeeze your eyes shut in an attempt to ward off the images of his final moments.

“I’ve seen…things. I was hoping that you would be able to elaborate.”

“Don’t you want to be your own person?”

“What do you want me to be?”

An innocent enough question. You swallow. “I want you to be someone who is gone.”

The flow of the conversation brings you to face him, reflexive, and the action pains you all over again. “I’m sorry, this is incredibly hard for me.”

His chin dips. “I understand.”

He rises to his feet and starts toward the door. Without thinking, you chase after him. You’ve let your emotions get the better of you and, before you know it, you’ve pulled him against you.

Fuck, he even smelled just like Feyd.

You find that everything is the same as you remember it, your muscles moving all on their own, pushing you up on your tiptoes and your lips on his.

He embraces you then. Immediately. Without any awkwardness or hesitation, and it’s just enough to make you forget that it’s not him.

The kiss is wild, desperate, full of unspoken things that you wish you could’ve told him as he bled out before your eyes. Pleasure uncoils from inside you like a snake seeking the warmth of the sun, slipping out from the darkness and into the light.

Feyd-Rautha grabs hold of your waist and together you stumble backwards, unable to differentiate where he began and you ended. He pushes you against the wall as your kiss deepens. Your hands rove his body — the slope of his shoulders, the plane of his chest, the ridges of scars from past fights that are only all too familiar to you. A thought emerges, unbidden:

This ghola had never been in those fights.

Couldn’t retell the story of each one affectionately the way Feyd did, as if they were done by a lover’s touch and not the blade of an enemy.

You plant your hands on the ghola’s chest and shove. Hard. The heat in your belly, unable to separate what you were feeling from what you knew, rebels against this, the absence of his touch. You have half the mind to reach out and pull him into you again.

The ghola just stares.

“This is wrong,” you manage to gasp. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

His lips swollen by your kiss, the ghola stammers, “I-I didn’t —”

“You should go.” An indescribable pain crashes over you, dragging you into the depth of its severity.

He nods once. Then again.

The ghola brushes past you to leave and every fiber of your being screams at you not to let him go. But you don’t listen. Instead you wait until he’s gone, ensuring that he’s not coming back, and then collapse to the ground on your knees.

You mourn the man you loved. You mourn the person you were before. And you mourn the fact that this ghola has taken from you the opportunity to mourn.

Feyd-Rautha was dead.

#dune #feyd rautha #feyd x reader #feyd x you #fanfic writing #writers on tumblr #writing #angst #ghola

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iconsumethesoulsofthedamned · 26 days

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Low key exactly how I imagined Chani’s death

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hclarcq · 8 months

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The ghola, Hayt: A being reconstructed from the dead flesh of the original man whose appearance “positively melts the female psyche,” a Tleilaxu thing who is both man and mask, bearer of gleaming metal eyes, a Mentat, a Zensunni philosopher, a swordmaster — a complex character, indeed. Truth be told, I did swoon a few times while painting this, though thankfully my psyche remains intact. • Created for the illustrated edition of Dune: Messiah from The Folio Society

#foliosociety #frankherbert #dune #dunefans #dunemessiah #ghola #bookstagram #lovebooks #booklover #illustratedbooks #bookillustration #fiction #newbooks

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beelze-bruh · 5 months

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Dune leftovers (more to come in the future I just burnt out my special interest reserves for now)

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2090s · 1 year

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Ghola Memories

Illustrated by Klaus D. Schiemann

#dune #dune book #ghola #klaus d schiemann #illustration #scifi #scifiart #black and white #duncan idaho #frank herbert

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aasamshathegachagirl · 11 months

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Half of the gym leaders in my region

Rocko and Flori are married for 6 years

Bullga and Gralli are twin sisters

Snona and Pcyhia are engaged

Poien and Ghola are dating for 6 years

Norman is dating the fighting gym leader for 4 years (Her name is Figan)

#do not repost or steal #ask me anything #pokemon #Rocko #Bullga #Snona #Pcyhia #Poien #Gralli #Ghola #Norman #Flori

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elvencantation · 1 year

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another gem from the dune meme account i run with my book club 😂

#duncan idaho #ghola #god emperor of dune #dune #tleilaxu #bene tleilax #frank herbert #frank herbert's dune #spicy dune memes #dune memes #hi is this witness protection #my reels #from instagram

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roqcke · 1 year

Photo

Soportarse uno mismo puede ser la tarea más pesada del mundo... Hayt #Dune #duna #frankherbert #mesiasdedune #ghola #duncanidaho #dunequotes #citasdedune https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm1cNUJuMJH/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#dune #duna #frankherbert #mesiasdedune #ghola #duncanidaho #dunequotes #citasdedune

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the-gom-jabbar · 3 months

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Paul: Muad'dib, Usul, Kwisatz Haderach, Mahdi, Lisan al Gaib, destroyer of 10,000 worlds resulting in the death of 61 billion people

Also Paul:

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renethepessimisticfanboi · 14 days

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Prince Paul x

Knight Feyd AU

What if Duke Leto had managed to stage the coup the Emperor feared.

The people Prince Paul trusted could be counted on a single hand with fingers to spare. This was why Paul immediately protested his father's choice to bring back Duncan Idaho and the bested Na-Baron as ghola slaves.

As a ghola, Feyd remembered nothing of his life before he was woken from his suspension pod. Once the artificial amniotic fluid dried, Feyd was dressed in Harkonnen garb as a symbol of Atreides' conquest.

The beautiful stranger wearing Feyd Rautha's skin brought back memories of the duel and the innocence of their boyhood rivalry. Memories Paul swore to take to his grave before ever sharing a bit of it with Feyd's long-haired doppleganger.

The true Feyd Rautha Harkonnen had fallen with his house. Paul being the one to finally best the champion of the arena in combat. With his dying breath, the true Feyd Rautha gifted Paul with words of praise and a congradulatory kiss. Sometimes Paul's mind tortures him with the sticky taste of Feyd's blood on his lips. A sick reminder that the true Feyd Rautha, his Feyd, was gone forever. Ghola were genetic copies. Close siblings to the originals, but not the same. While his mind knew this imposter was not his Feyd, his body and his heart were struggling to accept this reality.

At times, Paul saw glimpses of a boyish Feyd Rautha in his ghola. Back when he would run off from the Harkonnen Courtiers to tease and jeer the heir of Attreides. Dragging Paul into a competition or game young Lord Paul would have never chosen to engage with otherwise.

That playful, chaotic, and competitive part of Feyd came from someplace deep in his bones.

As time goes by, Paul is charmed by the Feyd ghola but the heartache doesn't leave him. Eventually weakening Paul's resolve against the Bene Gesserit's prophecy. Accepting the twisted fate they had for him. After all, Chani left him, he murdered his only childhood friend, Duncan died protecting him, and Gurney died during their coup. becoming a prince has cost Paul some of the dearest people to him. The visions pull Paul into madness.

The ghola versions of Feyd and Duncan team up with the Fremen to rescue Paul from the Golden Path. As always, Duncan doesn't bend when facing the impossible. Remembering his extraordinary life as a legendary swordsmaster. The first ghola to ever do so. Unlike Duncan, Feyd's past life isn't something that he finds any comfort in. Remembering his life as the Na-Baron filled his body with terror. Though his mind remembered nothing of the fallen House Harkonnen, the body has a kind of memory all its own.

The Feyd ghola is unsure if his mind can survive the pain of that life a second time. He was not the masochist the Harkonnens groomed the late Na-Baron to be. The only way to reach a future where Paul doesn't die from madness is if Feyd's mind doesn't break under the trauma. Like centuries of ghola before him.

#dune #paul atreides #feyd rautha harkonnen #feydpaul #angst #ghola feyd rautha

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pantalaiimon · 4 months

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I've seen dune part 2 twice now (both within a 24 hours interval lol)

the expectations were humongous, the hype was real

and at first, I was a bit thrown off by how much it veered away from the book compared to part 1 - so much so that I was thrown off the pacing of the movie and had trouble getting into its rhythm (because i kept thinking back to changes from 5 minutes before), anyway that first viewing experience was a mess for me

now that I've had more time with it, I can safely say I love the movie. I think I prefer part 1 in some ways (I prefer contemplative & moody to action-packed & drama), but I also love how part 2 leans even more unapologetically into the utter weirdness of the source material, and how cinematic it is

it looks gorgeous (even moreso than part 1), the acting is good to superb, but the dialogue could be better (compared to the books and to part 1), and hans zimmer recycled the first score which I found to be a real disappointment: even though it's still good, it's too repetitive

now unto specifics (incl. potential spoilers):

I am 100% harkonnen trash (which could mean anything, as paul states quite clearly he's harkonnen too, so...) (but yeah i'm harkonnen trash as in I absolutely loved the whole giedi prime sequence, and have soul-binding devotion to & utterly unhinged sexual desire for Feyd-Rautha (yes, even bald and less scheming than in the book), because boy is he twisted in interesting ways

Alia was robbed of a lot, BUT I love the fucked up deranged codependant mother-daughter relationship she and Jessica have got going. actually i live for it, for the abomination. bring it on. Also Jessica, who was the most OOC character to me in part 1, switched to being the most IC in part 2 and i couldn't be happier?

more desert lore, from details like wind traps, to weather & travel conditions, to hints of the sandtrouts, and the whole ecological system linking spice, worms, desert & water. yay for fascinating and immersive worldbuilding (that movie makes you feel the desert, unlike the first one)

more charlotte rampling is always a good move. also sets up dune messiah beautifully. on that note, irulan was well paced, that is, she's allowed to stay muted and observant rather than front and center, again, setting her up nicely for dune messiah. however, stilgar's arc was pushed way ahead and it displeased me, because I feel it lessens the mourning and regret I remember feeling reading the books as he evolved, and how tragic his changing was (highlighting through him, that of his whole people, and their downfall into fanaticism). if the movie rushes to the end result, I care less about that change, for i can't realise and mourn for what was lost along the way. on a similar note, as they played paul as more moral at the beginning of his journey (to make him more likeable), the switch to his mahdi era was a bit jarring. so yay to mohiam & irulan character arc pacing, nay to stilgar & paul.

chani was also allowed more breathing room and dimensions/depth/inner life than in the books, and as I remember finding the book lacking in that respect, can't fault the movie for fixing this.

the ruthlessness of the politics of the landsraad and the intricacies of the manipulations by the bene gesserit were perfectly show-cased. The commentary on the dangers of messianic religions and its melding to politics was too overt for my liking. especially at this stage of the story, it's less of a warning to the insidiousness of fundamentalism if there are glaring neon signs at the onset of that path telling you "do not go, there be dragons"... I know villeneuve wanted to set up herbert's course-correction from dune messiah earlier, but it's too much too early imo

anyway, to conclude, i'd like to lick feyd-rautha's abs

#and kiss his boots - he doesn't even have to hold me at knifepoint like he did rabban #unless he's feeling like adding some knife action anyway i'm not picky #ramblings #Dune #dune spoilers #'i am a serious decade-long dune fan and not hormonal trash' i chant as i try to restrain myself while writing abt feyd #no but it's crazy: i'm the girl who always said #'i don't care for ANY character until God Emperor and then I love Leto II & hwi & moneo & DARWI & miles & the last duncan ghola etc'#and now we have an anomaly (and frankly an abomination): i am wayyyy too into feydy-boy

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