Day 3 | Afternoon | The Third Dream

[Kannon]

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They found themselves in a large hall, shrouded by near-complete darkness. It had the feeling of an old dome, or even a catacomb, except it was quite hot inside, and very very dry. Duncan was there, his gait had already become recognisable to them by how it sounded, and against the tiles of the floor, it reverberated. The smell around them was acrid, cinnamon-like.

There was another presence, a grinding slither. Approaching, without haste, but not coming close enough to be seen. Heat and smell travelled with it.

"Are they your co-conspirators, Duncan? Is it time you turn against me?"

"Why do you ask questions you know answers for. m'lord."

"You doubt your ability to surprise me. Even if you're right, haven't I told you that the moment you think you know something, it prevents you from learning? Let's play it out, Duncan. You owe me a bit of indulgence."

"Do I?" Duncan seemed to be getting restless.

"If you feel you no longer do, isn't it tempting to at least try to discover a gap in the oracle? The loyal Duncan would want that as much as the defiant one, for the opposite reasons."

"...Very well."

Kiran and Laila felt the unseen attention moving onto them, and with it irrational terror.

[Laila Bridger]

Whatthefuckwhathefuckwhathefuck?!

In Laila's life, most terror was, well. Rational.

You were terrified because artillery had just turned your best friend, the girl whose wedding you were going to stand in, into a shower of body parts.
You were terrified because the trying to stab you was much bigger and stronger and had you pinned.
You were terrified because that creepy guy hanging around the barracks is following you down the street with three buddies.
You were terrified because your thopter was whirling toward the ground under no real control.

This... this was different.

And she hated it.

[Kiran Alsahar]

Once again, the litany against fear washed over Kiran’s mind automatically. It didn't wash away the irrational terror completely- few things could. But it did let their rational mind take the wheel, at least. Unlike the other scenarios, they didn't have an idea of who they were meant to be besides... themselves.

Only I will remain.

That's right. Only they remained right now. It would be okay. No innate role came now, which was a sort of freedom.

"This is... different," they observed. "I'm Kiran, and I'm not conspiring against anything that I know of. I don't know who you are to begin with."

They were tempted to look, but the darkness was probably intentional. Whatever was in it was terrifying, but didn't feel hostile.

[Kannon]

"I am different. There has never been and there will never again be anything like me. And if I have my way, any necessity for anything like me will cease."

The terrifying attention locked on Kiran.

"Indeed, your capacity to conspire is limited. Unlike Duncan, who has had a lot of time with me, you can't begin to know me. I have my vulnerabilities and one day they will be discovered, humanity maturing to realise them. For now, your presence here is Duncan's doing, a defence he is not truly aware of being capable of mounting against what I represent. But his instincts, as always, are correct. You carry a pebble that one day shall contribute to my unmaking. The same way like pebbles are piled higher and higher until they collapse and scatter."

A slither, closer, the air heating up, the cinnamon pungency mouth-watering.

"If you called me God, Kiran, that wouldn't be too far from the truth. And yet, you have a very small fraction of me, a fraction I have been more jealous to control that the Bene Gesserit ever before me. Does it make you god-like, you think?"

[Kiran Alsahar]

"The term god is pretty vague in this case," they replied with a shrug. "I'd have to know more of what you mean, and what fraction you're referring to."

"Certainly, you inspire a visceral, unreasoning terror in my lizard brain, but so does leaning over a cliff, so I can't call it compelling evidence."

[Kannon]

“All proofs inevitably lead to propositions which have no proof. All things are known because we want to believe in them. I won't compel you to believe, Kiran, if you choose your terror to remain unnamed. Fear serves me well in most cases. But I like your metaphor. I am the cliff from which humanity must jump.”

A pause, as if the thought took longer to explore.

"The fraction? Whimsically embedded sperm. We share forebears, you and I. The defiant ones, squirming out of genetic records by a strong instinct not to breed in but to expand and dilute the genetic pool against the wishes of the Witches. This penchant of our ancestors goes back to our very own methuselah, his slave mother, and then his bar girl lover, whose caramel complexion and eyes of the colour of ripe pecan resonate with me as much as they resonated with him and my father, subliminally shouting 'My genes are not like yours!'. Miklos heard the same shout in the eyes of your Muadh foremother after he had abseiled from the Arondi Cliffs."

A terrifying snicker.

"Look at Duncan, how it appals him! It is my irreverence for the myth that keeps eroding his loyalty. I keep bringing your idols down, my dear Duncan, to teach you how."

Duncan decided to say nothing.

[Laila Bridger]

Terror warred with a certain exapseration, and, momentarily, lost.

"Okay, uh... pardon me, if you're just going to talk about how clever and important you are, maybe you should just... crush us, shoot us, whatever it is you have in mind for Duncan's 'conspirators'? 'Cause, uh... I wasn't even the smartest one in my unit, but I think I can whistle a song half-sung. Anyway, god knows most of this is weirder than any fever dream I've ever had, but it seems to me if you keep talking about Duncan like that, then his idols matter to you too. Why do you need to see his response, if your purpose is about all of humanity?"

[Kannon]

"Indeed, why do I? Such insight within your reach!"

The tone turned jovial, but with an edge. A slither, Sweat-drawing heat.

"Violence in exercise of power is boring, one exercised for freedom - infinitely more interesting, especially for one such as I who cannot seek the latter. You would know that, Laila Bridger, wouldn't you? There is no escape from omniscience, only perfection of tyranny. And you are right, Duncan and I have both been sinning with idolatry. In fact, I am the greatest of sinners, forced to worship myself."

[Laila Bridger]

"All that perspective, so-called omniscience, and your standards land on yourself as the idol of choice?"

She snorted.

"Guess it's my turn to be completely unsurprised, whoever the hell you are."

[Kannon]

"Precisely! I nurture you to hate everything I represent! I pervert the very fear you loathe feeling! Indifference is not enough! Crush the shell you crawl into!"

There was an unhinged note as the voice boomed in the dark hall, showing its size.

[Kiran Alsahar]

"And as for that, it's not that I want my fear unnamed so much as I don't regard the terror as more than survival instinct screaming at me."

They shrugged, though the word held more weight to them than the nonchalant response would indicate. Certainly more weight than the word 'god' did.

"Yeesh. If humans are going to develop, it's not going to come from hating anything. All this surface level stuff. Genetics and whatever..."

They blinked and then laughed at themselves as they realized something.

"... No, wait. I think... I think I get it on some level. You really are a human, huh?"

[Kannon]

"They have to reject what diminishes their humanity, that ancient crutch against all terrors that became a terror itself."

The voice lowered.

"I used to be human, more or less. My parents were, before they became gods trapped in the religion of someone else's making. At the very least, I have the power to make my own. Duncan has known us all, and it's why he suffers."

[Laila Bridger]

"And you, Duncan? Awful quiet for the founder of this dubious feast."

[Kannon]

"He goads me, can't you see, Laila? My loyalty is my line of defence. We are his benchmarks, metrics for where his humanity is on the Golden Path. He wants us to rebel, but he will kill us when we do. He wants to be defeated but won't let us do it, foreseeing everything. I can't imagine serving him by killing him even if I knew how, and this is what he preys on. Maybe one day."

The voice laughed.

"My beloved Duncan."

[Kiran Alsahar]

Kiran's brain was still whirring away on what he said before.

"You can say used to be, sort of, but you're really human in... the fundamental nature of things," they said with confidence. "The catalyst of human development remains the same because under all the surface level stuff humans haven't changed a lot in their motivations."

[Laila Bridger]

"So he's just a self-satisfied twat posing you riddles and chortling about how you've almost got it? You can't tell me that's new, you've been around the nobility all your damned life!"

[Kannon]

"So he's just a self-satisfied twat posing you riddles and chortling about how you've almost got it? You can't tell me that's new, you've been around the nobility all your damned life!"

"Your words, not mine. He's better than that, and worse at the same time. There is no more high nobility, he has unmade them all. There is only him, the God Emperor, and all those who linger as a part of his design."

[Kannon]

Kiran's brain was still whirring away on what he said before.

"You can say used to be, sort of, but you're really human in... the fundamental nature of things," they said with confidence. "The catalyst of human development remains the same because under all the surface level stuff humans haven't changed a lot in their motivations."

"Yet. After me, they will have. I am the necessity they must suffer in the meantime."

A pause.

"Sometimes I wish what you say were true. But I am too far gone. You would find my motivations very alien if you knew them."

[Kiran Alsahar]

"Yet. After me, they will have. I am the necessity they must suffer in the meantime."

A pause.

"Sometimes I wish what you say were true. But I am too far gone. You would find my motivations very alien if you knew them."

"I don't know. It just looks an awful lot like you care about humanity, so you're trying to help," they said. "If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me."

[Kannon]

"What I have been doing to humanity cannot be described in your gentle words. No garden enjoys pruning. You should know that Bene Gesserit call me Abomination. I have never protested that description."