#breathes arrakeen air

[sebastianswallows]

The Little Death — 2. A dream of life

— PAIRING: Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x Bene Gesserit!Reader

— SYNOPSIS: A Bene Gesserit gets left behind in the Arrakeen palace. When Feyd becomes the Planetary Governor, he finds her there in hiding. The Harkonnens don't traditionally keep them as truthsayers or concubines like other Houses do, but Feyd might have a use for her. After all, he's never had a Bene Gesserit of his own before.

— WARNINGS: a bit of voyeurism

— WORDCOUNT: 2.4k

— TAGLIST: @elf-punk

The best art imitates life in a compelling way. If it imitates a dream, it must be a dream of life. — Darwi Odrade

She confessed with regret that she did not, in fact, have one of those pain boxes. A Gom Jabbar was available in the palace and in fact was in the Harkonnen's possession as far as she knew, but that was just a poisoned needle tipped with meta-cyanide. What he was after was the… active part of the humanity test. That was only at the disposal of those sisters qualified to carry it out.

She was certain Feyd would do away with her once she explained how and why she didn’t have what he was after and prepared herself internally for death. But it never came. He paused in thought and nodded, and his cool eyes moved away from her with a shadow of sadness to them. Then he turned around, his broad shoulders clad in black exposed to her, and walked toward the table.

“You will come with me.”

He picked up a shigawire reel and shoved it in a compartment of his suit, a small pocket at the side of his chest, then walked right by her on his way out of the room. She followed obediently.

The palace was quiet, free of the usual fuss that filled it during the day — servants scrambling, scraping like traumatised automatons just trying to survive — but as they walked past the way she came she heard a violent sound from the direction where her old room was. They’re destroying my things, she realised.

Her eyes turned to Feyd-Rautha’s back once more, the smooth black of his clothes and white of his skin, and she wondered what plans he had for her. Would he be more subtle with his killing than his brother was, or… more creative? Would she be able to use the stunning word and paralyse him in time to get away? Would she have to kill him instead?

“Am I going too fast for you?” he asked over his shoulder. It was not an honest question, as she could tell from the smile in his voice.

“No?”

“Funny. I can hear you breathing.”

She bit her lip and glared at the back of his head.

They passed from the most shadowed places of the palace into the well-lit ones where snow-white lamps hung in the air. There were more guards in this area too, and she gradually realised they weren’t going to the prisons. They were going to his quarters.

“After you,” he said, stopping in front of a jaundiced pair of double doors guarded on each side by armed guards as still as statues.

She looked up at him warily as she stepped forward. He was still smiling in that cocky, boyish way, but something was incongruent. His awkward pose — not quite facing her, not quite to the side — the bent of his back as if he tried to make himself seem shorter, his arms somewhat aimless at his sides… He was trying to be polite and he didn’t know how.

She stepped inside. His room was nothing like what she imagined. The natural pale yellow of the Arrakeen stone gave it a softness that was at odds with the black linens on the massive bed. Moonlight streamed from the twin window slits on the opposite wall, and on the smooth tables lay an array of little boxes, pots, and cases left half-opened. There was a scent of ink there that cut through the modest smell of disinfectant. He’d only just moved in… He hadn’t had a chance to make the place his own yet.

As she analysed these new surroundings, Feyd stepped in and the doors closed behind them, leaving them alone. The palace seemed all the more distant now.

“My lord na-Baron?”

“Hm?” he muttered as he walked right past her, going to place something inside a drawer by the bed — the shigawire reel.

“W-what… what would you have me do?”

“You can do whatever you like.”

Her eyes slid toward the door. “Can I leave?”

She didn’t expect him to say ‘yes’, but she expected even less what he said next.

“Leave?” he chuckled, looking at her over his shoulder. “Where would you go? You’re my Bene Gesserit now.”

And he continued preparing himself for the night as if it was the most normal of circumstances. A part of her, the most human part, felt offended, but from the periphery of her mind, her training whispered to her what was really going on.

Feyd-Rautha kept his back turned and his attention on the objects in his possession — diskettes of reports he sorted for later reading, the daggers at his belt, the signet ring around his finger — and he spoke to her most dismissively and distantly. He was treating her like a stray cat he had just found and brought into his bedroom. Now he was letting her explore her new home, but he still did not dare to look at her directly, to watch her as openly as he desired. In his every move, however casual, there was nervous self-awareness. Completely opposite to how confident he’d been before he met her.

She’d served the Fenrings before, and the Atreides after them, but until now she had never quite felt owned. Still, if it was a kitten the Harkonnen wanted, that was what she would provide.

Without addressing him, she stepped sideways and turned, letting her posture loosen. Her head tilted back in a light stretch to relieve the tension of expecting death. She moved in a wide arch, slow steps, small sounds, while her fingers traced the surface of the wall for no reason in particular, just to absorb its texture.

“Why do you want me?” she asked in a low and silky voice. Seduction seldom failed with arrogant young men.

“I told you,” answered Feyd rather too quickly, his head bowed as he pretended to clean one of his blades.

“You’ve never had a Bene Gesserit of your own…”

“And it’s about time to have one.”

“Would the Baron approve?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, finally looking up at her. He smiled at the sight of her slinking across the room, dark dress trailing behind her. “Things can change, even in House Harkonnen.”

She paused mid-step to smile back at him. “Changes awaken something in us…”

He gave a noncommital hum and started walking to her, his head tilted in a thoughtful way.

“What sort of things do they teach you?” he asked. “At your… Bene Gesserit school?”

“Many things,” she said with an inviting tone. “Control of the self, the mind, the body… Understanding of history. Political strategy.”

Feyd came to a stop before her, a trepidation into his step. He walked until he cornered her in a darkened divot of the room. Standing a full head taller, he looked down into her eyes.

“What do you want to know?” she whispered.

He frowned, that strange smooth brow ridge wrinkling quite innocently, and his eyes betrayed transparent thoughts. He didn’t know what he wanted to know, but he knew he wanted something.

“What does… a Bene Gesserit do?”

“That depends on what our master wishes.”

“But what do you usually do?”

“We teach. We advise. When asked, we serve.”

“Did Paul Atreides have one?”

“Yes. His mother, Lady Jessica.”

The hints of jealousy were faint. There wasn’t much to envy in the dead… But he looked at her with that strange look in his eyes again, that speck of a little boy lost, and something in her instinctively wanted to cup his cheek, to pet him, and hold him close. She did not doubt that something inside of him wanted it too, and her body was just responding to the subconscious observation.

“Can you kill?” he asked.

“If I have to.”

“And have you?”

“Not yet.”

“In that way, I’m better than you, Bene Gesserit,” he chuckled.

And suddenly, his hand came up to grip the back of her neck. She was startled by how quick the movement was, how his body gave no tells that he would make it. A true predator. He pulled her closer, strong fingers tightening against her nape, pressing her against him. Beneath his armour, the plates of his body were strong. Every feminine part of her responded with a cascade of lust — not at the hidden hint of beauty but at the symbol of his pride. He wasn’t just a pampered princeling living through his allotted years of beauty. He brought his body to the peak of its potential. The motion pulled the veil off her head, and his eyes went to her soft mane of hair. His grip stayed firm, but his gaze traversed this new part of her as if it were a landscape, with hills and dales and quiet streams, all flowing down.

“Na-Baron,” she whispered, hand coming up to grip his wrist.

“Shut up,” he said, blue eyes still focused on her hair. “Go to sleep.” And then he let her go.

He turned from her and walked away with the energy of someone ready to run off — but there was nowhere for him to go, and his steps slowed. She watched him as she rubbed the sore back of her neck, watched how his head bowed for a moment as if he’d just woken up, how he walked toward the large square bed, how he started taking his clothes off…

He was a strange sight indeed. A broken psyche that reflected the duality present in his features — cold and frightful, soft and gentle, brutal but not so much from the absence of affection as from the presence of cruelty on top.

“Where shall I sleep?”

“Hm? Oh…” He looked around as if only just considering that fact. “Whenever you like,” he said, giving up quickly on thinking about it. “But here, in this room. You don’t get out of my sight, little witch. Not until I decide I can trust you.”

He pulled the layers of clothes off. First the armour on his back and shoulders, then the belt around his hips, and the second skin of the black suit that hugged his body.

“And… what shall I wear to bed?”

He paused and turned to look at her. His chest was as white as his face, but strong and chiselled, far less delicate. It shone with the sweat of a long day beneath the yellow light.

“Wear?” he rasped, his lips twisted in a quizzical smile. “Why should you wear anything?”

She settled for sleeping in a chair in a corner of the room. Feyd had gone to sleep completely naked, and he’d not been shy of parading his body around. She watched without fear, without shame, taking note of all the ways his muscles worked, the stretch and give of the skin, the scent of sweat, of blood.

Noting how much he seemed to like her hair, she did not cover it again, and after he fell asleep she quietly took the top layer of her clothing off. The Harkonnens were used to having their servants quite exposed, but she was not about to give him cause to think that that was what she was. If she wanted to survive, she had to walk the tightrope of perception. She had to be above him, as well as below. A knowledgeable Bene Gesserit sister, with all the guileless charm of a kitten.

She remained in her shift, a long grey piece held up by two thin straps, and used her dress as a blanket. She did now sleep but instead pretended to as she entered a state of Prajna meditation.

The secret pathways out of the room became known to her, faint currents invisible to the conscious mind. A spy hole existed in the western wall, covered on both sides by thin material. To the north, a doorway with no handle led into another room. Beyond it, sounds of restless sleeping. Three figures — feminine? Outside, the guards stood watch, but one was close to sleeping.

She was almost at the point where exhaustion caught up with her too, and like a slow receding wave her meditation ended. Her body lay relaxed and limp, head resting on her shoulder, hands folded. But with the last thread of her extended senses, she caught the taste of struggle in the room. Rapid heartbeat, frantic breathing, shifting eyes behind closed lids. Feyd-Rautha was dreaming.

Soundlessly, she slid off the chair and left her dress on it. The floor beneath her naked feet was cold as ice, it made her want to shiver, but she maintained control of every muscle as she walked toward the bed. Feyd’s body was twisted in the silken sheets, twitching, tense. Jolts disturbed his restful state as if in his mind he tried to get away from something. She could almost see the phantom trace of touches on his skin.

He slept on his front, arms thrown above his head, legs spread. His tossing made the sheets slip off his back to reveal a taut, tense expanse that ended in soft cheeks. Beneath them, the faintest hint of hairless, purpling swells and a limp length. He was so vulnerable…

As she got closer, she could hear him mutter words in a foreign language. Was that what they spoke on Giedi Prime? She could make out influences of galactic language all the way to those of the old Earth, but it was just enough to only guess what he was saying. The tone, nevertheless, was clear. He’s afraid, she thought.

She crouched at the edge of the bed where his naked foot hung off the side, her brow crested with worry. He was dangerous, she dared not touch him, and however much she wanted to wake him as a simple human kindness she wanted even more to see where his nightmares led.

With a long and frightful wail muffled by the pillows, Feyd dragged his strong beautiful body upwards, curling like a snake. He pulled his knees up to his chest and started shaking. Every now and then, his foot would kick. The sign of running in a dream. The whiteness of his body, pure and pale as chalk, the hairlessness of even his masculine parts, it made him look so fragile, so defenceless. A fascinating specimen. To think, the step just before the Kwisatz Haderach would look like that...

She let her body fall down to the floor and propped herself against the mattress, her cheek upon the bed. And she watched him, following the shadow of his dreams, for as long as the night went.

#Feyd #Feyd Rautha Harkonnen #Feyd Rautha #Dune #Dune part 2 #Dune fanfiction #Dune imagine #Feyd Rautha x reader #Feyd x reader #Feyd Rautha fanfic #Feyd Rautha imagine #sswallow;fanfics #sswallow;made a thing

[lvsifer]

Paul Atreides denies him an easy death. Feyd-Rautha has to deal with his new position.

tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Slow Burn, Sexual Tension, Explicit Sexual Content (in the later chapters), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, feyd-rauther is his usual little freak self, will include mentions of noncon later on

Read all under the cut:

Paul Atreides denies him an easy death. Feyd-Rautha does not bleed out in front of the emperor and the terrorist’s household, his Fremen filth and whore mother. Instead, Feyd-Rautha dreams of death on the dirty floor of a prison cell. 

Blood rusts over his mouth, dries to flakes before his body hits the stone, and Feyd-Rautha tongues at it as his hands try to staunch the bleeding of his wounds. He presses where Paul Muad’Dib Atreides has pushed inside him with his blade, hot from the desert air, a pleasure so close to pain or pain so close to pleasure, Feyd-Rautha cannot name the difference.

He writhes now where he lays in a silence more shameful than defeat. All his life he has fantasised of dying in battle, perhaps in the arena, broken by a stronger hand with the rush of fighting still hot in his blood and the screams of the masses in his ears. Triumphant. Foolish of him. Such wishes come to nothing. This is one lesson the Baron could not teach him, not while he had held Feyd-Rautha under the monstrous wing of his tutelage. Sheltered is what he had been, he realises as flies start to buzz around him, landing on his opened flesh. He swats them away, but they circle him as merciless as any blood-drinking desert bird. No, he rots as any piece of meat left under Arrakis’ pitiless sun.

But he will not die. Or have they thrown him into this cell to find an ignominious end and shame the house of Harkonnen? But what advantage would that bring? Half-delirious, Feyd-Rautha shoves a swath of his leather pteruges over his wounds and pulls it tight against his opened skin to shield it from the flies and what eggs they might burrow into his flesh. A shaky exhale flees his lips as he tries to slow his breathing. What would Uncle say if he saw him like this, disgraced and defeated? Would he have fallen from the favour he clawed his way into? Then again, Uncle is dead. Slaughtered like a pig. The memory stirs Feyd-Rautha’s blood and he moans through his teeth. 

The door opens. Feyd-Rautha looks at the upside-down figures, dark-robed, Suk-braids over their left shoulders, a man kneels down beside him, painted lips, cold eyes, and a finger presses into Feyd-Rautha’s mouth with a salve so bitter and tingling he forgets all else for a moment. 

Then darkness sears his eyes shut.

When next Feyd-Rautha wakes, it’s in an airy room. Black night outside. Translucent white curtains billow and desert wind scatters fine dust over the luxurious trappings of the room: a massive wooden table shining with polish, jewels set into silverware, finely wrought tapestries depicting one of the Arrakeen beasts, a sandworm— 

A figure moves from between the curtains, a slow, irregular step. The tall and lean silhouette of the would-be emperor. Feyd-Rautha feels for his wounds, bandaged, then tests his muscles and grits his teeth as pain shoots through him so incandescent he sees lights behind his lids.

“Cousin,” Paul Atreides says in his slow, dragging voice, a voice that holds witch-power as they all heard when Muad’Dib silenced Shaddam’s Truthsayer. 

Feyd-Rautha groans as he tries to sit up. 

Paul watches his efforts from above with cold blue-within-blue eyes. Eyes that are not his own, it seems, eyes that shimmer with a strangeness that makes Feyd-Rautha shiver. 

Paul slinks closer, desert-creature, false prophet, predator. Killer. Except, of course, Feyd-Rautha is alive and by his wish. Or has he died in that filthy cell?

“You recover well,” Paul says. “But I will need you to heal faster.”

Feyd-Rautha sits up with all his strength, feels one of the stab-wounds’ stitches rip. Blood blooms through the white bandages on his torso. Paul tuts. Then Paul is beside him and pushes him back down, efficient, his hands warm on Feyd-Rautha’s skin, black dusty curls brushing his cheek, and Feyd-Rautha breathes him in, spice and desert and a hint of the acrid stench of stillsuits, and beneath it something boyish and honied. Feyd-Rautha wants to sink his teeth into it, tear him apart. 

“Why?” Feyd-Rautha rasps. “Why didn’t you kill—”

“I don’t waste my resources,” Paul says. 

The Atreides lets go of him as though he’s handled some unruly hound. 

“Resources…?”

“Don’t play dumb, Harkonnen,” Paul says evenly, and after a moment’s hesitation he sits on the mattress beside Feyd-Rautha. The oddness of it strikes him, no-one has ever sat beside his sick-bed, certainly not Uncle, nor maid or doctor. He would have killed any who’d have tried. He looks for a weapon now. His eyes sink to the crysknife at Paul’s hip. Iron tang of blood in his mouth.

“Try it,” Paul says, steel in his voice that he’d already shown when confronting the emperor. Power too, the fierceness of a demigod. 

“I just might,” Feyd-Rautha says and finds Paul’s gaze, grins, “Make you kill me after all, cousin.” He bares his black teeth, “All this for nothing.” 

And Feyd-Rautha spits his blood into Paul’s face. Paul does not flinch. His blue-within-blue eyes seem to burn in the glint of the glowglobes. He’s beautiful like that, with his blood on his face, and it hits Feyd-Rautha unexpectedly. Time stills around them. Breath does not come easily as he inhales. 

“I rule you now,” Paul whispers, dips two fingers into the blood on his cheek and sucks it off his fingers, “Your water is mine.” 

A shiver runs down Feyd-Rautha’s spine, humiliation and with it the hook of desire low in his stomach. If Paul notices what it does to him, he does not show it. 

“What do you want of me?” Feyd-Rautha curls his fists in the bedding.

“You’ll know soon enough, Baron,” Paul says and stands. “Heal quickly.” 

With that, he leaves.

The rush of wind and sand fills the room. The grating of it, abrading all it touches. Feyd-Rautha bites his lip, breathes in deeply until all scent of the boy-prophet has gone and cold darkness envelops him whole. 

This planet holds nothing but strangers now. The only family Feyd-Rautha has left is Paul Atreides.

#feydpaul #paulfeyd #paul x feyd #paul atreides x feyd rautha #feyd rautha #feyd rautha harkonnen #paul muad'dib #dune #dune 2 #dune fic #dune smut #dune fanfiction #paulfeyd fic #feydpaul fic #writing the sin #literally just wrote this in a fit of madness

[fluxofthemouth]

@succubus-lili

Arrakeen is beautiful at night. The air here is so much cleaner than it ever was on Giedi Prime, and the city lights shine crisply against the desert sky. The ambient noise tells a story of prayer chants and nightlife. Even the Emperor's palace, an affront to any real god if such a thing could exist, is not excluded from this. It makes for a fantastic landmark. And if nothing else, it offers implicit reassurance of safety and plenty. Any asshole who can build a house that big is someone who knows where the water is.

Piter often tells himself that he's better suited to a quieter city like Carthag. That's probably true, but it's also a defense mechanism against feeling left out. He can't live in Arrakeen. Not when there's a real risk of being recognized as a former enemy of the Emperor and executed.

Tonight, as he returns to his mother's Grand Arrakeen hotel, that loneliness feels more poetic-tragic than bitter-tragic, somehow. For a moment, he allows himself to consider just how excluded he feels from all of the forces, ideas, and people that came together to make all of this and now get to revel in belonging to it. Funny, that an entire intergalactic 'world' order could change within his lifetime, and he's had to dance for fools and dodge shit in both of them. Briefly, before he lets himself in through the staff entrance with an unauthorized copy of the key, he turns and looks at the city. He allows himself to want to know what it's like to be part of something like that. Which requires him to admit to himself that at the moment he isn't. Then, with nothing else he can possibly do about any of it, he turns back around and walks into the hotel with a sigh.

He's already dressed as an employee. This is an easier and much more straightforward identity to present himself as, compared to the story he could elaborate on, about being the son of the owner. A man died. Who gives a shit. Piter is known to the real employees, and it doesn't take them long to set him up with a large cart, a tarp, and a slew of janitorial supplies. The rest of what he needs, he brought himself. Thus armed, he takes the elevator to the twelfth floor and counts his way to his target's room.

The man is dead, right? Doomed since this morning via a poke from a needle carrying a slow-acting poison? He might have felt a little unwell all day, but nothing would have felt bad enough (hopefully) to send him searching for a hospital? Then he'd expect to sleep it off, and the full force of it would hit him like a truck? Out of the sight of most of the other guests? Piter has several knives on him, in case he has to finish the guy off. Or in case the prostitute the target was with decides to take issue with the trajectory of things. Piter really hopes he won't have to use the knives. And he really does feel bad for the kind of evening he's inflicted on the prostitute. As much as his purpose here is cleanup, his purpose here is also to make amends with her on behalf of the hotel.

He puts his ear to the door when he gets there, but he can't make out any sound that means anything to him, for better or for worse. He takes a deep breath, then knocks on the door with a confidence he doesn't feel fully.

"Hotel staff; may I come in?" he asks, in a tone of polite gravitas. "I understand there's been a death here?"

He can't imagine what the woman must be experiencing, to have just watched a man die, and to have now quite suddenly gotten "caught" next to him (and it can't have been long ago). Will she think that Piter thinks that she did it? Will she think, perhaps, that he's come back to finish the job and kill her too? Did she already call another service for help (police? hospital?), and will Piter arrive only in time to see the body being taken away? He's given thought to what he needs to say to encourage cooperation, and he gives it more thought now.

"You were with someone who took actions against management that had to be corrected," he apologizes, through the door. "We apologize for any distress you may have experienced. Would you allow us to upgrade your room free of charge?"

#succubus-lili #here's this!!

[fieriframes]

[A person cutting a piece of pizza, caption: We will kill until no Harkonnen breathes Arrakeen air.]

#s21e07 old school joints #guy fieri #guyfieri #diners drive-ins and dives #harkonnen #breathes arrakeen air #person #indoor #food #table #pizza

[fierifiction]

We will kill until no Harkonnen breathes Arrakeen air. There he stands waiting in the dark night. Gethsemane in black and white breathes Arrakeen sky. A white man in shadow breathes Arrakeen day. Tyrhogg girds his feathers with feathers breathes Arrakeen night. Celestia. They see.

#s21e07 old school joints #guy fieri #guyfieri #diners drive-ins and dives #harkonnen #breathes arrakeen air #person #indoor #food #table #pizza

[inknopewetrust]

Crashing // Epiphany V

Summary: As Paul’s visions see fruition, the fears he instilled in you materialize.

Pairing: Duncan Idaho x Fem!Reader; Paul Atreides x Aunt!Reader)

Word Count: 4.6k

Warnings: heavy spoilers for Dune (2021), descriptions of injury, language, angst.

Quick Links: Series Masterlist // Next Chapter

The sands of time evolve slowly.

Each grain a memory of the past slowly billowing in the heat; whispering quietly the secrets of its history, it is death and defeat in the sweltering air of Arrakis.

And then, the sweat kisses.

It trembles against soft, dewy skin in the wicked warmth. A swollen tear drifting from one’s cheek to chin, only to realize that it is not sweat that lingers—but sadness.

Arrakis had summoned death. It had blessed the very souls of the past to come and conquer, bleeding House Atreides dry. With the smallest twitch of the finger, you thought you could feel Caladan’s walls. The cool concrete that begged to be welcomed once more but remain unloved and unlived for as long as time may tell. Running a slight hand along its cracks, Caladan called out differently than Arrakis. Its castle was quiet and filled with a palpable, wet air that Arrakis and its homestead lacked.

And like a ghost, you felt its honor.

Silence heavy, unnerving. You could feel your feet tapping each stone calculated and careful. In the night, it was always so—gentle steps and harbored breaths, no one can hear what a good soldier forgets.

But you did not forget, at least you cannot. Because you had seen this before—the halls, the dimmed rooms, and pattering rain drops that eked down from the minute cracks in the ceiling to small puddles on the floor. You had been there before—in Caladan on a chilly night like that.

It felt empty. Chilling your spine as the hard ground gave away to something soft and hot. The sweat not tears nor sea water but pain-filled panic that had been flowing for hours without a clear recognition of it happening.

Jolting awake in the heat, you nearly screamed at the sensation brewing in your thigh.

“Quiet, quiet, Y/n.” Jessica muttered as she pulled tighter, and the burning stung stronger. She was dressing your wound in scraps of cloth she ripped from your clothes. In the dunes, there was nothing to help you. “I need to stop the bleeding otherwise there is not path for you.”

The morbidity of her words did not go unnoticed, it was what she had intended. From the moment you had fallen unconscious inside the halls of Arrakeen, your memories were jaded. The thopter was nothing more than a blip, a second, in your history and the sensation of being pulled into a tent was even less familiar. Throwing your head back against the sand, all you could do was grit your teeth and try not to cry.

“The city is destroyed. There is nothing left.” Jessica glowered in the dark sepia of the billowing tent. The winds of the early morning hours harshly meeting the exposed material as the sand began to diminish the filtering light on the sides. Paul sat with his knees pulled to his chest, watching his mother work on your leg. “I do not think anyone could survive such a thing.”

“Don’t say that.” You told her, groaning as she pulled the cloth into another knot tightly––almost physically manifesting her disagreement. “You underestimate the very people we call friends, family.”

“The Harkonnen said you shouldn’t have survived but you did. None of us were supposed to live, Y/n.” Paul spoke up. His voice was harsh from inhaling the sand and the dry air did no one favors.

“But we did. We can’t assume the others are too just because we were lucky.”

“Were you lucky or was Duncan there to help you?”

Jessica paused. Her hands retracted, her eyes avoiding you as though they had hashed out an entire day’s worth of conversation without you. Paul stare was unwavering. It was as though he had no emotions behind his eyes or feeling that expressed relief you were alright or that he had lived through something unimaginable. Then he started twisting his finger, calling your eyes to his hand as he watched the beads of sweat fall from your brow and then your eyes returned to his.

The ring on his finger was Leto’s.

“Who did you get that from?”

“Why wasn’t Duncan at his station, Y/n?” It was a constant battle of words. The thoughts he had been harboring in the hours since his vision had built up and there was no room for excuses now.

“Paul, where did you get that?” Your voice was a mere whisper from what it was.

“My father...” Paul almost laughed, looking to the ring with a fondness he was never prepared for. “This belongs on my father’s finger.” He returned his gaze to you. “I’m a Duke because my father was left unprotected.”

“We were ambushed, Paul. No one was protected.”

“But you were.” The hues of the tent were red. A blood red––a significance that meant something different to each of you. “You were protected. And you lied.”

“I didn’t lie, Paul.”

“You lied. You lied to me, to my father, to everyone to protect YOURSELF!” He yelled; his fists clenched tightly and the ring standing out against his boney fingers. “He’s dead because you were selfish.”

Like waves washing over broken sand, everything was losing its shape. Leto was dead. Your brother, however selfish or protective his intentions had been, was gone forever and the last conversation you had was filled with harsh words. Looking away from Paul, the tears that had gathered in your eyes were beginning to bubble over. Jessica sat back beside Paul.

“I thought my dreams were nothing more than that because you assured me... now I have nothing, and I see a horrible future I know is true because you lied.”

“What was I supposed to do, Paul?” You sighed. Your voice fractured and sad, tears wasting the water of your body as they fell onto your cheeks and onto the ground. “My entire life is an image I must maintain. I can’t be who I am, I can’t love who I love because I am told not to.”

“The choices you made were nothing but your own.”

“It was not as though I made them all myself... if you knew anything about life you would recognize that. We could not cost one another our dignity; to be judged by everyone for something beyond our control.”

“I wouldn’t have judged you!” His own sadness breaking his angered façade. Fists unclenching and his fingers ran through his hair. “I trusted you!”

“Do you truly believe that it was easy? Especially after you said what you saw!?” You exclaimed, choking back the depressed sobs that were threatening to overtake any sense of words you could make up. “We thought about telling you, for the sake of the dreams, but it takes a lot to break honor, Paul. You could not have asked that of us.”

“He saved you. My father died because no one was there for him.”

“Blame the others too! We were all supposed to die. We were sent here to die because we are a threat. It should not be me, the one who lingers in shadows for a semblance of political honor to help you realize that.”

Paul shook his head, distressed and irate. He was grieving, he was traumatized; the images of what he witnessed nothing like the books and films had showed him. For a moment, he was as weak as he was when he was a little boy––crippling, asking for his father to return although he was already gone.

“He did not need to die.” He muttered in return.

“Would you rather me die? To have your father here, my brother, my brother, in my place. We grieve now in his memory but do not be so daft to believe that what you conceive as a mistake is such. The Harkonnen’s planned this and had help from the emperor. Think no differently that the fate of this house would be changed if Duncan hadn’t been with me.”

“If you saw what I saw, the war in my name... maybe you would have thought differently.”

You tried to sit up, pushing on your arms as your blurry vision clouded both judgement and action. The pain of your leg throbbing, red and irritated from the sand.

“The world never revolved around you, Paul. Just as it does not me, or your mother, or Duncan. Just because you believe you are who the tales say they are waiting for does not mean his death falls on his own family’s guilty hands. My hands are not stained red.”

“You are a distraction.” Paul’s eyes were red and glistening, his jaw ground tightly as Jessica laid a hand on his arm. “We could have been prepared if my father’s judgement was not shaped by the problems in his house.”

“Paul...” Jessica whispered, trying to end what was happening before the worst begun. “Do not speak words for which you will regret.”

“No, Jessica.” You told her, trying not to writhe in agony as you moved upwards. “Ambition can cripple even those who do not have a choice in the matter, I know that. But without ambition, we would be nothing––this house would be nothing. The choices my brother made behind blackened curtains have led us to this path and whether my small, meaningless existence in its legacy impacted his inability to protect us, I cannot be certain anything would have changed.”

“You play a larger role than you believe... it is cowardice that bleeds from your honor.”

“I did what I must.”

“I can see you in the sand.” He said without an ounce of emotion in his voice. Flat, uncaring. Paul was a void of himself at that moment. “Hiding, cowering in a hideaway.”

Still, even with his visions of the future, Paul did not want to believe what he saw would come true. However, in his own pain, he used the possibilities of what could happen to further wound you.

“The pain I see in your future...” From the moment the conversation began, the culmination would lead to grim words being shared. Paul’s anger, his sadness and pain were built within the gift he had been bestowed. And the rumblings of words he should not say began to fumble out like China falling from a delicate shelf. “You deserve it, Y/n.”

There were no words left. Paul had all but sealed your fate with his hatred. Red, burning and bleeding in the sand––the sky filtering that brutal color as the sun began to break above Arrakis.

Jessica kept to herself. Her mind racing of memories and thoughts––what she could have done differently, could have done better. Paul barely spoke another word, but his sporadic coughing cleared the heavy air.

Leto was dead. You could only imagine how or where. You would never see his smile again or reminisce about your childhoods, even if they were vastly different, they were yours. Leto would never neglect your responsibilities, find that half-built study space, or understand that you too had found a love that was unwelcome to the institution. Maybe, if heaven existed, he saw that truth now and could accept it.

If Duncan had joined him, maybe he could tell Leto how much you meant to him.

That was the if you did not want to imagine.

Was Duncan alive? If he was, nothing would ever be the same. The last evening you shared was far from normal and if life ever returned to it, was there a possibility for what had existed to continue? As you folded into yourself, you thought you could smell him on your clothes. They did not understand––Paul did not understand––how difficult life was or how difficult love was. In a war, in a revolution, in a massacre, little could be salvaged in the night as foreigners attacked without forgiveness.

In the sandy dunes of Arrakis, nothing would ever be the same. There was little hope in the tent and the fractures were so deep, so large, that the lines for reconciliation were mere strings being snipped every second.

Maybe you did deserve the pain... but you knew no one, not even yourself, should. It was not your fault love existed. It was not your fault that Paul’s belief he was the savior villainized everyone who punctured his visions. But whatever was to come next, you were not sure you were prepared. Pain could only run so deep before the people inflicted cannot survive.

The beacon sounding its steady beats reminded you of that.

Its rhythmic beats came on quickly.

A heavy silence lingered over the three of you after Paul’s final blow and no one so much muttered a word or heaved a sigh as the air remained thick and unwanted. In the pile of Dr. Yueh’s package, a beacon hidden from your view began to sound. At first, you believed it to be a tracking device stored by the Harkonnen’s to finish what they started but neither Paul nor Jessica was alarmed by the noise.

From the second you woke, you understood that you had missed a great deal of the tragedy that befell House Atreides. Their discovery that Leto was dead, the realization that Dr. Yueh had been the one to sell them out, the grand vision Paul had which decided the future––all were missed, and you were left to put the pieces together as the boy’s silence became unnerving and Jessica’s grief was instilled in resignation.

Your eyes trained themselves on the strange, vein-like structure of the tent. Watching how the water bubbled in clots and flew freely, collecting the water from each of you. Its movement ticking away at the sun, the clock, and all relative feeling of time because as you laid there, still, it was easy to let your mind wander to those who had died and those who you wish to know were alive.

Then the beats became clear.

They startled you, making you turn your head in the direction of Paul and Jessica––the latter of which had been sleeping soundly next to her son––who were both aware of what the beacon’s sound meant. Paul shuffled over a pouch, pushing it into Jessica’s hands, pointedly ignoring you.

“Someone is near.” He continued to sift through the small package of materials before landing on a sand compactor––the one Duncan had shown Gurney not too long before.

“You need to drink.” Paul told Jessica as she slowly lifted the spout to her mouth. “It’s recycled water from the tent. Sweat and tears.”

Jessica pulled back, her face contorting in a near-disgusted form but she drank again despite the salty nature of the water. Without looking at Paul, she passed the pouch to you and told you to drink as well. She knew not how much blood you had lost, and the desert was not kind to those who were not in peak condition. As you drank what you could, Jessica eyed the wound on your thigh.

She knew that it would be a challenge getting you to walk, much less run, in the arid landscape that spanned the entire planet.

Paul turned on the sand compactor. The whirring sound brings you back to reality as the luke-warm water settled within you, grateful that your body was given something rather than having something more taken from it. Without offering help, Paul turned to the exit.

“All right, let’s go.” And the sand compactor blew a hole out from the sand, letting the early sun in.

Paul exited first. He gazed into the dunes of Arrakis with a different perspective than the one he had arrived with and in the distance, he could hear the sound of a thopter coming towards the beacon’s signal inside the tent.

“Come on.” He grabbed Jessica’s hand, pulling her out and leaving her to help you.

“Try not to put pressure on your leg.” She spoke quietly, as if her voice would alert the Fremen or summon the sandworm.

You lifted up carefully, trying not so much as brush that leg against the sand but every movement was aching. Jessica could see the pain in your face. The way you tried to lift it up but even that was a challenge that was hardly met. She extended her hand and much as she could from the outside, opening her palm to greet your own in hopes that maybe her own strength would be enough to pull you out of the tent. She looked in your eyes, concerned but motivated to help amidst her own son’s beliefs that life would be different if you hadn’t lied to him. Jessica knew you. She knew your heart and mind are always acting soundly and strongly even if distracted. Jessica blamed no one besides the emperor and the Harkonnen for what happened hours before.

“On three. Alright?” She nodded to herself, to you, in pseudo-confidence that it would neither hurt nor cause more complications to the journey to safety.

“On three.” You repeated. Her hand tightening its grip on yours and as she counted, you took a deep breath and then she pulled. You managed to get the best of your two legs out of the tent and held onto the outside of the crippling, sand-covered tent as a result. At the same time, the attention shifted to the thopter flying over the three of you–clearly a savior and not an enemy.

Paul was the first to recognize the chaotic flying nature of thopter. It was distinct and familiar, nothing foreign about it. It washed over Jessica as Paul mumbled a single word: “Duncan.” and shuffled down the sand the best he could. Relief washed over you like rain and Jessica squeezed your shoulder.

“Go, Jessica.” You told her, gripping the tent to show her that you could do this on your own. “I’ll be alright.”

“Y/n–”

“I’ll be alright.” She saw through you but followed her son anyway.

You slowly made your way down the dune. Each step becoming one closer to no longer being scared, to no longer being alone. The thopter landed when you were halfway there, and Duncan came running through the plumes of sandy dust toward Jessica and Paul. Seeing him embrace the two of them was heartbreaking. House Atreides was a shell of what it once was and, in all capacities, the emperor and Harkonnen succeeded in their mission.

Duncan kneeled before Paul, distraught in his own right, and pledged his allegiance to his new Duke. Duke Paul Atreides. And unlike Paul had offered you, the young liege put a hand on Duncan’s shoulder, not turning him away as he had you. Duncan looked up at him again, shaking his head.

“There is nothing left. There is no one left.” Arrakeen was nothing more than a wasteland. “They destroyed everything.”

“We have to find the Fremen. It is the only chance we have.” Paul told him what Duncan already knew. It was the only possible solution to concede when all other roads were nothing more than dead ends. Duncan nodded anyway––he was now taking orders from the boy he had helped train. The boy he had seen as a babe and the young man who slowly came into his own. A mere child of a leader he had grown to have a deep, familial respect for and with that, his mind always wandered to you. Even as Paul remained angry with you, he saw the concern in Duncan’s face.

“We need a medkit.” Paul told him, glancing over his shoulder, directing Duncan’s attention to you slowly descending the dune.

And the look that came over Duncan’s face made Paul feel guilty about what he said.

It was just what Gurney Halleck had told him to look for. If just for a moment Paul was able to witness something so pure, so innocent that the mind did not register whether it fulfilled the persona of the person it was appearing on, then he would understand. Paul retracted the hand that Duncan had sworn his fealty with and let him go.

The dune was steep and slippery—the grains of sand ready to fall quickly with every inch and the blood rushing back toward the wound made it even more difficult. The motivation, however, was still surging. It ignited inside of you like an eternal flame because the one hope you had allowed to fester into an unimaginable dream had come true.

Duncan was there in the flesh. His hair blowing wildly, the stillsuit worn haphazardly as he reunited with the people he loved most. You watched as he clutched them tightly against his body, relieved that the seeds of House Atreides had not fallen into a dark, lonely night. And after he pledged his loyalty and as the sand continued to run with your haggard steps, he looked up.

Even with such a distance between you there was no denying the peace that came with knowing the person who meant everything had survived. Duncan removed himself from Paul and Jessica’s company, running to you as if it were the final mission he would ever complete.

Knowing he would come to you, you stopped moving, barely holding yourself up on one leg as the blood began to seep down your leg in measured trickles.

“Your alive.” It was the first thing you could hear Duncan say. He needed to say it out loud to be real.

“Barely.”

As he ascended the dune, Duncan shuffled his feet to lessen the amount of spraying sand—not wanting to cause further irritation to you if he could help it. He reached out one of his gloved hands toward you, helping you down and toward him. As the two of you drew closer together, there was no denying the horrifying anguish of the situation.

You could reach out to him now—allowing Duncan to wrap his arms around you in an embrace you greatly needed and the feel of your hands cradling the back of his head was all he needed. For a moment, everything was fine. The world faded away and Arrakis was nothing more than the ground on which your feet stood.

Duncan smelt of fire and fuel. His hair was knotted from the wind but the touch of his fingers clutching your body, the feel of his face buried in your neck—he was alive and real and no matter the amount of reunions you had been faced with over the last few months, this one would be cemented in your memory.

“Leto’s gone.” You whispered as you both backed away from the embrace enough to see each other’s faces. Duncan rested one of his hands on your waist, holding you steady so you did not have to and the other rested on your cheek.

“I know…” his thumb moved in a comforting stroke. He needn’t say “I’m sorry” or “If I can help…” because it was just as much a loss to you as it was him.

But you never truly appreciate the people around you until they’re gone. When only the memory remains and the “what if’s” become more prominent than the past.

“If you would not have made it…” again, your voice was nothing more than a fractured tune. Emotion wrought and high, the thought of Duncan dying was almost too much to believe.

“I’m here.” He replied softly, pulling your head down to where your foreheads met and the simple connection was a blessing. “I’m here.” He repeated once more.

“Duncan…” you started, pulling away and holding onto his arms for support. His normally stoic gaze was concerned, eyebrows furrowed and conflicted with both duty and honor, love and lust.

“Harkonnen soldiers had Paul and Jessica when I found them. They said I was not supposed to live, but incapacitated me rather than kill me—something about taking me prisoner for the Baron’s own liking.”

“But you gave them a good fight?” He offered a small smile, just the tiniest hint of amusement that you had gone from cowering under a bed, following his orders, to fighting trained killers in the hall.

“I tried.” You sniffled, lifting a hand to wipe away the tears that continued to fall. “I’ve lost a lot of blood and I cannot trek this desert like this.”

“I found Kynes. She knows where to take us.”

“She’s the Judge of the Change… how can she possibly be on our side?”

Duncan shook his head, not entirely sure himself. “I think there is more to her than we realize… too much of that nowadays, huh?” Again, the quirk of his mouth and the way his eyes crinkled at the sides made you feel butterflies. The almost child-like appreciation that he knew what you needed—no more heartbreak, no more pain if he could control it.

“Put your arm around me.” He shifted himself to line up next to you, the side of your bad leg. It was a strategic move in the desert because carrying someone else’s body weight wasted energy and water that he would need if something were to go awry. So, you leaned against him and tried to move as efficiently as possible in the sand.

“Kynes can clean it on the thopter, but it will be hours until we reach the station. You need to do what she says, ok?”

“I do not believe I am in a position to say otherwise, Idaho.”

The two of you managed to reach Jessica and Paul, the boy watching with a careful eye, none too filled with apologizes yet. Duncan ordered them to get to the thopter quickly and Kynes was there to greet them.

“For a moment I thought you had not made it to Paul and Jessica.” Duncan admitted, continuing to hobble with you toward the vehicle as the wind picked up around you. “God, I was not ready to believe that.”

With every step you drew closer, Duncan knew times for privacy would be the most scarce delicacy in the world. As the sound of the thopter’s wings and engine whirred loudly around you, he turned, looking you in the eyes and gripping your face with such passion it nearly stung.

“I will not leave this planet without knowing you are safe, Y/n. I may serve your name and family but I serve you. I, fuck…” only in times of complete complication did Duncan use such language before you. He was trained not to—protocol for interacting with the ‘ladies’ of the house.

“I love you so fucking much and I will be dammed if you go before me.”

Before you had a second to respond, he brought his lips to yours in a fury of passion and pain. You had both thought the same of one another—that death was a real possibility and neither of you had said what you wanted to. There was much unknown about tomorrow, but so long as the truth was set free, death may be greeted without fear.

“I love you, you know I do, so much.”

And before Duncan pulled you up into the thopter and helped buckle you in, you held his hand tightly and reiterated the proclamation from times before love was admitted proudly—no longer a secret, but an oath.

“There will never be anyone else, Duncan. I am with you now, forever, however long that may be.”

It could not last forever.

As Kynes cleaned the wound of blood, you gazed at Duncan as he flew above the dunes and through the afternoon and night.

A sickening feeling washed over you when night fell. It was as if the universe was warning you that forever was wishful.

For tomorrow was judgement day.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading and I appreicate the paitence waiting for this part. As always, likes, reblogs, and comments are always appreicated :)

Tag List: OPEN. If you'd like to be tagged for the final two parts, just let me know!

@mistalli @srodulvroux @howlerwolfmax @trifoliumviridi @carlimel @charmingvalkryie @whovianayesha @joficrec @sunsetmando @greenvita @naps-over-degree @cosmic-lavender @travelingmypassion @irithielsmultifandom @hoppelessdreamer @eventhedarkestlightshines @versacesangel @happypatrollight @junglxqueen @comfort-reads @zezeungormus @kiki-ren @ightimmaheadin @jessyballet @imagineadream @darklyndivinely @springholland @superl-awesome @greinch @livszolland @morriganwarrior

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#duncan x reader #duncan idaho #duncan idaho x female reader #duncan idaho x reader #jason momoa x reader #jason momoa #dune fanfic #dune #x reader #fanfic #fanfiction #x female reader #dune 2021 #dune fanfiction #paul atreides #paul x reader

[lex-the-flex]

Hi! Thank you for replying! Could I request a 2021 Paul Artreides x platonic! (Maybe best friend) reader where reader comforts him after they all with his mom ran away from destroyed city and stayed in a tent and he shouts at his mother from frustration (right after this)? Or right after Duncan finds them (the reader was searching together with him then) and Paul and reader reunite? And reader comforts and tell him how much they appreciate him. Which one you prefer! Maybe gn or m reader? Sorry if this is too complicated. Thank you in advance!

Spice in the Tent

Paul Atreides x reader

Warning(s): MEGA angst, fluff, and Paul being touch starved.

Cracking open your canteen, you took a sip of the cold liquid inside the steel canister while surveying the vast desert ahead of you. Lifting your compass into view, the bright sands glow inside the perfectly crafted cylinder. Extending the scope, a single crack litters the top left angle of the compass, allowing Spice a way in - or out. 

Blocking the sunlight with your palm, you knew to head for the dunes in the Western regions, as those were the coordinates that Duncan Idaho gave you. While he was in the air, you were on the ground. It was vital that you and Duncan made sure that the last two members of House Atreides survived, despite the attack on Arrakeen. 

Climbing higher into the dunes, you finally reached the top and decided to take a break. Sitting down in the sand, you removed the stillsuits mask, taking in a deep breath of fresh air. It felt nice to truly breathe again. 

Then the calmness of Arrakis is disrupted the sound of a small mouse running along the sand, trying to avoid something. From a few feet below you, the sand erupts, causing a hole to form. Standing from the surprise, you equip a compacted axe and grip the base tighter. 

Emerging from the sand, Paul Atreides sticks his head from the terrain, with a sand compactor in his hand. Seeing you, he frantically climbs from the buried wreckage of his ship and sprints toward you. 

Embracing you, his hands are tight around your shoulders, as he has longed for the touch of another human.

“I’ve missed you. So much, Y/N.” He admits, burying his head in your neck. 

“I’ve missed you too. I’ll never let you go, Paul Atreides.” You reply, squeezing him just a little tighter. 

#Paul Atreides #paul atreides x reader #paul atreides x you #paul atreides request #timothée chalamet dune #timothée chalamet #timothée chalamet x reader #timothée chalamet imagine #timothee imagine #timothee chalamet x reader #timothee chalamet #timothee chalamet x you #timothee fanfic #timothee blurb #dune #dune 2021 #dune frank herbert #dune fanfiction #dune film

[dune-thedewcollectors]

C'mon secrets/children I know you want to look. Just one of these stories would let you know we ain't no slouches when it comes to narratives. Given there are limitations to fan fiction and the fluctuation of quality being the worst. But I would argue that yes there's alot of content out there and not necessarily all bad but the old cliche comes to mind style over substance. Do I see much passion for what I love out there? I see pretty pictures I hear the same old noise I been hearing for years. And yes I need to shake the leaves in my own tree. And challenge my knowledge my love and breath Arrakeen air once more. The Dew Collectors, huh? Dope! We sound like a pretty serious outfit, Toby.

C'mon secrets get one in you.

[sebastianswallows]

The Little Death — 1. Captive of your desires

— PAIRING: Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x Bene Gesserit!Reader

— SYNOPSIS: A Bene Gesserit gets left behind in the Arrakeen palace. When Feyd becomes the Planetary Governor, he finds her there in hiding. The Harkonnens don't traditionally keep them as truthsayers or concubines like other Houses do, but Feyd might have a use for her. After all, he's never had a Bene Gesserit of his own before.

— WARNINGS: choking and death threats

— WORDCOUNT: 2.2k

— A/N: I couldn't resist. I had to write more for him. Reader, I love him. This fic might go a little wild, because I want to play into this naughty boy's love for pain. Expect some subby Feyd, some inkpies, generally a messed up dynamic with an equally messed up reader. Hope you enjoy, my lovelies! 🖤

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty. — Bene Gesserit Coda

House Harkonnen fell upon Arrakis like a hammer — with a deafening crash and destructive reverberation. After the palace was ransacked and the most important figures murdered, their bodies piled high and set alight, the stragglers were hunted through the streets and homes of Arrakeen. There was a week of slaughter. By the end, nothing moved. All spice production had ceased. Then the violence left the city and spread out into the desert, and the whole hemisphere of the planet was captured.

Arrakeen sat near the northern pole, on thick bedrock surrounded by natural fortifications that protected it from worm attacks. It was a difficult place to escape from. Those who remained were understood to be loyal to the Harkonnens, or at least indifferent to who held the power. The Atreides rule had been brief enough to not have garnered that many supporters. Only the rumour of their goodness and grace had been planted, and the Harkonnens returned before those could take root.

There can be said to have been a second Harkonnen takeover once Feyd-Rautha arrived. The Baron’s youngest nephew. Word was spread — or rather, been carefully planted — that he was the kinder, gentler of the Harkonnen brothers. The people greeted him like a saviour. Inside the palace, the atmosphere was more subdued.

It was a stark contrast to the transition from when Rabban came to power. No mass killings, no ransacking of rooms, just an orderly takeover through which the cold and calculating presence of Feyd-Rautha flowed. Furniture was rearranged. Staff was brought in from Giedi Prime. Brand new equipment arrived, especially for the spice harvesters.

The message was clear. The new planetary governor was thorough and exacting. Most of those in the palace breathed a sigh of relief, but there was at least one breath that stuttered.

She was there at his arrival, watching from a distance together with the throng of Arrakeen locals, Fremen and others, who gathered to see the procession. It was early in the morning, just before sunrise. He walked differently than other Harkonnen she’d seen. Rabban stomped through like a bull. The servants grovelled. The Baron was so fat he had to be suspended in the air. But this one, this one strolled through with confidence. Sleek and slender, he was beautiful in an inhuman way. That much she could make out from a distance.

He struck out at Fremen sietches on his very first day, using artillery fire and on-the-ground troops. An old way of doing things, but effective. It painted the new governor as precise, determined, and strangely honourable, and then word spread around the palace that he’d struck his own brother to the ground and made him kiss his feet. The word ‘humiliation’ was uttered. The news sewed a sliver of hope in the hearts of the longsuffering palace staff.

She had evaded close contact with the Harkonnens until then. It only made sense, as she was in hiding, slipping through the cracks of their negligence until she could procure safe passage off-planet, but that was getting more difficult by the day. What they lacked in caution, they made up for in paranoia, and all comings and goings were kept behind esoteric layers of bureaucracy. She was in the process of making contact with a smuggler when Feyd-Rautha gained governorship of the planet, and all her hopes were dashed.

It was the evening of his second day on the planet when she was called. The servant that summoned her looked at her like she was an apparition — which, in a way, she was. She had managed to remain undetected, keeping herself busy, staying out of sight, acting like she was meant to be there. She’d become part of the scenery and could dispel suspicion if anyone got too close. Her Bene Gesserit training was good for that if nothing else. But there was no escaping this. Somebody had finally found her and knew exactly where she was.

She followed the servant — a heavily armed pasty-white figure, crooked and willowy — to the chamber door of what she knew to be the largest office of the governor. He opened it for her, pushed her in, and locked the door behind her.

Like a tiny sun, a glowglobe floated through the room, its light falling on the smooth black surfaces of the furniture and the pale stone of the walls. She folded her hands before her, hidden by the long sleeves of her dress, and followed what the light revealed. The room was large and windowless, stripped bare of any useless item. The table was empty, the chairs were in their place, and upon the plinths set in the corners, no potted plants or works of art stood. Only one thing moved there, together with the light. Feyd-Rautha paced slowly, quietly, on the other side of the room.

“My lord na-Baron,” she said in a smooth and submissive voice. Her knees bent in a slight curtsy — respectful, but not too much. “You summoned me.”

She wore a garb that didn’t belong to any particular function. The long black dress would have fit just as well in the kitchens as in the cleaning staff, and the head covering was suited for the Arrakis weather, worn by any female. All of those with hair, anyway. The light material bent around her, giving her a slightly oval shape, soft and harmless. But when she looked up and caught the na-Baron’s gaze, he would have seen a sharper look there than that of any servant.

His eyes were cunning too. They looked upon her knowingly and with amusement, a strange manner for a Harkonnen.

“Who are you?” he asked with a playful squint.

His voice scratched across her skin like kitten claws. He didn’t sound the way he looked, and she admitted it surprised her. His tone, nevertheless, was gentle. Deceitfully kind. He could kill me in an instant, she thought, and take pleasure from it.

“My lord, I —”

“You were not on Rabban’s stafflist. I know that, because he didn’t have one. And you’re not on mine, because I didn’t ask for you. We have as of today an account of all the palace workers, but the list comes up with one extra room unaccounted for.”

Nights in Arrakeen were cold, but her skin just turned colder. What rotten luck, to be in the palace right when they decided to actually investigate who worked there and did what. It’s my own fault, she said to herself. I relied on their incompetence for far too long. Now I pay the price. So be it.

“I have been a servant in this palace for many years, my lord na-Baron,” she said with a slow bow of her head. “And I wish to serve you as well.”

“Is that so?” he purred, coming closer. His steps were lazy, but the pace was measured. He had more control over his body than his playful swagger let on. “Many years, you say? You worked for the Atreides, then?”

“And for Count Fenring before them.”

He stopped. She looked up at him from underneath her lashes and smiled in quiet satisfaction. Lady Fenring was a skilled Bene Gesserit sister and had lived in Arrakeen with her husband for many years before the Atreides decided on it for their capital. She was the most logical choice as a secret envoy to the Harkonnen heir. And if Feyd-Rautha met her, it could only mean one thing.

Uroshnor, she thought. He’s likely been imprinted with the usual prana-bindu phrase. It would stun him, if only for a moment. But long enough… It didn’t provide her a means of escape, but it gave her hope. It gave her room for manoeuvre.

“I am not a spy,” she said, straightening her back.

“Of course, a spy would say that.”

“You may test me in any way you wish,” she said with a playful chuckle.

Feyd’s eyes darkened at her proposition, a smile bending his full lips as he stepped closer. Oh, he could think of many ways to test her…

“What are you, then?” he asked, his voice scratching low and close as he stopped close enough to touch.

She could see now that his eyes were a clear blue. Not the sort of blue brought on by long-term spice exposure, that dark electric shade, but blue like water, like the sky, like a shard of ice. His jawline was firm — that of a biter. But his lips were pillow-soft and curled around the edges in a smile that wouldn’t go away. Lips made for laughing, made for kissing, made for love. He’s such a delicate boy. The thought ran through her mind before she realised.

“I served the Lady Fenring as a housekeeper,” she said.

“Lies.”

“My lord?”

“You’re one of them, aren’t you? A damn witch.”

She remained completely still, her eyes locked on his. He was trying to dominate her with a hard incessant glare, but she held his gaze merely for the pleasure of it. What a comforting colour they were on such a harsh planet… No matter the malice behind them.

“You’re a Bene Gesserit. I’ve met your kind before,” he continued, looking down her body in a cruel, suggestive way. “You hold yourselves the way no other women do.”

“Perpans not like Harkonnen women.”

He chuckled, the sound scraping up his slender neck. “All women in the known universe are the same, given the right circumstances.”

“But not the Bene Gesserit.”

“Yes, not you,” he sighed, head tilting as if his mind was trying to escape a painful memory.

His eyes stayed upon her figure, trailing down the contours of her dress. Then he reached out a hand and touched it, his fingers tracing a silky pleat so lightly that it barely moved. She felt it still, the slight disturbance his caresses caused, but willed her body to stay motionless. There was no trace of aggression in him now.

“Why are you still here?” he asked.

“You have not dismissed me, my lord na-Baron.”

He chuckled faintly. “I mean on Arrakis.”

“I wish to remain in the palace.”

“Why?”

“The deserts are harsh.”

“Many prefer that to serving a Harkonnen.”

“One master is as good as another.”

“I’m sure it must’ve felt like that to you,” he said, looking her in the eye again. His fingers left her dress and went to rest upon the hilt of a dagger at his belt. “So I take it you were one of Lady Fenring’s servants. A… fellow sister, would you call it?”

“I was part of her staff, yes.”

“And you didn’t leave with her and the Count when the Atreides came?”

“I remained behind to assist with training their staff,” she said with a bow of her head. Even now she retained a certain respect for that dead House.

“And Lady Fenring,” he hissed, the name dripping from his mouth like poison, “she never wanted to retrieve you?”

“I believe they think me dead.”

“Yes, she is not the sentimental sort,” he chuckled, and his cold gaze caught hers.

A dangerous thought was taking root behind those eyes, she could see it germinating. She waited, reading his body, scanning the minute changes in his expression, and tried to determine what went on behind that pallid mask.

There was envy there, and regret, and longing. The Harkonnens never kept Bene Gesserit truthsayers, nor were there any among the Baron’s concubines — all of them were young boys anyway. They were unique among the Great Houses in that way, and although she knew that Feyd’s mother had been a Bene Gesserit herself, he probably didn’t know what it was like to be raised by one. Why else would he be looking at her now as if he wanted to peel her clothes away, and then her skin, and reach toward her heart and grab it?

“How can I help my na-Baron?” she asked, her voice a whisper, her gaze a caress.

“By not getting above yourself,” he rasped with the air of slapping her offer away.

Her heart stuttered in her chest and she bowed her head to hide her terror. Did I read him wrongly? she thought to herself. I must not fear.

“House Harkonnen has no use for witches,” said Feyd.

She felt his strong hand grip her shoulder, slipping past the veil to curl around her neck. He stayed there, holding her in a half-choke just firm enough to feel her heartbeat in the palm of his hand.

“I ought to kill you,” he said sweetly, “and feed you to my darlings.”

Her lips parted, swelling slightly, and she felt her face go pale. The little death takes on a whole new meaning, she thought with grim amusement.

“But I do want to know one thing…”

“Yes, my na-Baron?” she asked in a shaky voice.

He breathed in sharply at the sound of it. He liked it. When she looked up into his eyes again, the grip around her throat felt not so much murderous anymore as it did greedy, possessive.

“I want to know… Do you have one of those pain boxes too?”

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