Day 4 | Evening | We Are Servants

[Kiran Alsahar]

"What's with that, anyway? The hyper-independence thing," they asked. "I mean, I'm just dipping my toes into your culture. I have no idea what's going on besides what I've read."

[Laila Bridger]

"Hyper-independence?"

Laila seemed to come out of her concerns a bit... amused.

"The faufreluches are all about forbidding any meaningful independence. There's supposed to be a place for everyone, and everyone stays in their place. In theory."

She gestured to herself.

"I was supposed to stay on Ecaz, serving House Ecaz, and doing as I'm told. You can see how that worked out, and I'm not unique, but it's a system that tries to keep everyone neatly... in silos. It's not real independence, but it's a system of control."

[Kiran Alsahar]

"I guess that's a better way of putting it. The silos," they said with a nod. "A system of control, huh."

[Laila Bridger]

"The idea is, we all answer to someone. All the way up the Emperor, of course. The idea being, the central control provides stability."

She nearly spat the last word.

"But the siloing off also keeps anyone from uniting in any other fashion. I killed men on Grumman who probably loved their mothers and whose mothers loved them, but because their lord had some issue with mine, there we were, killing each other. So how stable is it, really?"

She glanced at the book Wanna had left, the one Kiran had gotten open.

"Then you have other players in the system. And they benefit from the centralization, too. If you're in the Guild or the Sisterhood, a simple vertical framework is easy to negotiate with and manipulate."

She picked the book up, fiddling with it somewhat absently.

"Bet there's a lot of stuff in here about how clever we are for being able to navigate a vertically-oriented patriarchy as a sisterhood..."

Her shock when it popped open was perhaps a bit ill-concealed.


--
Holy shit
Open Da Book? Coordination: 3eA+3eD+1eS 1 success, 1 advantage

[Kiran Alsahar]

Kiran smiled as she opened the book. "Well, they were a sisterhood. Of course, maybe they're the kind of assholes that think I'm close enough. Who knows?"

[Laila Bridger]

"I mean, most patriarchal assholes who look down on women would be only too happy to include you in the mix. They'd fixate on the ways in which you fit their notions of the feminine."

She was perusing the book where it had opened.

"Oh, here's a pearl of wisdom... 'Before us, all methods of learning were tainted by instinct. Before us, instinct-ridden researchers possessed a limited attention span — often no longer than a single lifetime. Projects stretching across fifty or more generations never occurred to them.'"

She waggled the document at her sibling.

"Hear that? That's the sound of certainty, at first glance. But doesn't it also sound a bit desperate?"

[Kiran Alsahar]

They scoffed at the comment about how people will seek out ways in which they fit the definition of feminine. "The outside world is pretty obsessed with binary genders in general."

They rolled their eyes. "It does. It also comes across incredibly presumptuous. Maybe they were like, 'You know, it would tale multiple generations to do this, but to keep everyone on track, we'd basically have to indoctrinate everyone who comes after, and that's pretty ethically questionable. I will rely on future generations to do what they think is right with the knowledge I've created.' We don't know."

[Laila Bridger]

"The outside world is pretty obsessed with binary genders in general."

"Silos, Qi Ran. Silos. If everything has a place to be, then the urge to simplify is strong. The Honor Guard I was part of? We were seen as deeply weird. Some of those Grumman boys were insulted to be fighting against women. It didn't fit their notions of war."

"It does. It also comes across incredibly presumptuous. Maybe they were like, 'You know, it would tale multiple generations to do this, but to keep everyone on track, we'd basically have to indoctrinate everyone who comes after, and that's pretty ethically questionable. I will rely on future generations to do what they think is right with the knowledge I've created.' We don't know."

"I mean... the oath? That's some... I believe it. I believe in it. As a basic worldview. But statements like that one... it's as if they think they know what humanity should be. Even that comment she made about guidance. How gentle is the guidance, really?"

She flipped through the book, scanning idly... and blinked.

"But then this same book has this.'The search for an ultimate, unifying explanation for all things is a fruitless endeavor, a step in the wrong direction. This is why, in a universe of chaos, we must constantly adapt.' And that... I mean. I was a dead-end this time a week ago. I was set in what I was and what I was going to be and do. I feel like there are... contradictions in ideal and method in play here."

[Kiran Alsahar]

"I can see how they wouldn't see that as a contradiction with some mental gymnastics," they mused. "For all their talk about humans in here, they're really busy redefining what that means. Our instincts are part of what make us who we are. Without all those squishy bits that make us messy and complicated, we might as well be fleshy thinking machines."

[Laila Bridger]

Laila nodded.

"It wasn't denying instinct that got us here. It was channeling it. Even the Litany admits that you let your fear pass over and through yourself- you have to acknowledge it to surmount it."

She cocked her head.

"I think... the secret is in mastering your instincts, rather than letting them master you. But mastery isn't denial, even if they seem to think it is."

[Kannon]

"Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty."

It appeared with the next page right after Laila had spoken.

[Laila Bridger]

"Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty."

That... was food for thought.

Laila was still reeling from all she had been through, pulled in a thousand different directions by love, terror, yearning, hatred, resentment, but...

But whose discipline? I need... I need more than a damn book.

I am a Bene Gesserit. I exist only to serve. I stand in the sacred human presence. As I do now, so should you stand some day. I pray to your presence that this be so. Let the future remain uncertain for that is the canvas to receive our desires. Thus the human condition faces its perpetual tabula rasa. We possess no more than this moment where we dedicate ourselves continuously to the sacred presence we share and create.

But serve how and whom?

How to share and create the moment?

What's the price of a teacher?

She knew she couldn't be like Wanna. Because in Wanna she had sensed service to an order rather than a purpose- Laila had served at the orders of others, and it had simply led her to the past three years of walking death. She couldn't be... normal to the Sisterhood.

Wanna had been trained into what she was. She had walked open-eyed down the road to becoming a Bene Gesserit, making conscious choices to do so along the way.

Laila had almost literally sleepwalked into the oath only after waking to her own humanity and going through a terrifying ordeal.

Will they know what to do with us?

Will they understand the difference in context?

Wanna hadn't seemed too intent on understanding them beyond a basic feeling-out process.

And if that's all they're prepared to do before judging us, then we are very much in trouble.

Laila tried to calm herself- it would have been easy to be calm, stoic, all of that before she'd reawakened to herself.

Hadrian woke me into it.

But what does that mean?

I didn't wake myself, and the dreams didn't do it either, because that came first.

"I... do you want to keep this with you? Or could I..."

She sighed.

"I think we both need more than a quick read in a tavern to really... get much out of this... but that line right there, that hits hard, because..."

She trailed off.

Kiran would know, she didn't need to just keep talking.

We can't do it alone. Whatever we think, whatever we feel, Kiran and I are just two people, two people the Sisterhood now have at least a cursory eye on.

But the feeling that the Sisterhood might have found her more tolerable a week ago wasn't the most reassuring.