Day 4 | Night | Who will play God?

[Kannon]

Duncan had ferried Kiran back to Cala City, making it just before dawn. He opted for parking in one of the cliff bays beneath the castle to remain incognito, but that's where Paul was waiting. The little bastard must have been awake and seen Duncan's thopter approaching.

Duncan 2.jpg (15.98 KiB) Viewed 986 times

Paul 3.jpg (15.05 KiB) Viewed 986 times

"Thufir's waiting for you, Duncan. He seemed rather intense about it."

"Shit. Right. Thanks, Paul. My lord Duke, I mean."

"It sounds in your mouth as if you are making fun of me."

"I am truly not. Kiran, this is our Duke. Until his father comes back, at least. No better hands to leave you in. Remember what I said."

He gave them a kiss on the cheek and rushed into the castle by a steep staircase.

Paul took a deep breath and looked at the Muadh.

"Spend energies on those who make you strong." He commented with a small smirk in wording that felt like taken straight out of the Azhar Book.

[Kiran Alsahar]

They turned red at the kiss, but raised an eyebrow with an amused look. "Weren't you just saying he was making fun of you...?" It felt natural. They weren't that different in age, or... a lot of things, actually. It was slightly unsettling on a subconscious level, but also familiar.

[Kannon]

Paul didn't know how to feel about being addressed this way by someone who he practically didn't know, and his subject no less. If Kiran realised more and could find it natural, they had an advantage. Duncan must have emboldened them, or it was just a timely reminder that respect wasn't given but hard-won. What he chose to do was to trust Duncan and roll with it, for now.

"We banter. He pulls my leg at times. I have no better friend."

[Kiran Alsahar]

"Ah... I see. We met oddly, but I've been glad to know him briefly, " they said before nodding. "I'm Kiran al Sahar of the Muadh. I'm an aylonit, though I'm not sure if you're familiar with the term. I imagine you've been briefed extensively, though."

[Kannon]

Paul nodded.

"My understanding is that the Muadh living on Caladan have a diverse set of religious leaders and customs. My father's dealings were mostly with Archvicar Torono. I am familiar with the word you use to describe yourself, Kiran al Sahar. It is from Hebrew, one of the ancient languages of Old Terra, forgotten by all but the secretive Jewish communities and those who make it their job to preserve humanity's most obscure knowledge."

He left it to their imagination who 'those' could be.

"Given how Jews rarely syncretise with Buddhislamics, I'd rather trace the word to the inspired work of an outside religion-maker. But it may have been so long ago that fault lines of syncreticism no longer exist. When we settled on Caladan, the Muadh had already been here."

[Kiran Alsahar]

"They do. There's Archvicar Torono, the aylonit like myself, and the Young and Old Mothers from the southern Muadh. The logic behind the aylonit system being built makes sense. I've gotten the impression that the practice related to aylonit was introduced by religion builders before the system in the South, since they mentioned having them before intervention," they mused, thoughtful.

"I suppose I'm just glad I wasn't locked down into having to be male or female. That's all I've seen out here. It's been an odd experience."

[Kannon]

"Being strictly gendered is built into the fabric of our Imperium." Paul agreed upon reflection. "From the patriarchal modes of power that constrain everyone up to the Emperor himself who has many daughters but no heir, to the exclusive femininity the Sisterhood represents." He thought of his own experiences with his mother's teachings. "It looks like it takes some form of transcendence to escape this. I have never seen a navigator but I doubt it matters to any of them who they were once born as."

[Kiran Alsahar]

"Huh. From the perspective of my culture, I admit having a bunch of daughters and no heir sounds odd. If a saris showed up instead of an aylonit - not that they have, but the potential exists - they'd have the same duties I do. But then, there are other Muadh and wanderer cultures with much stricter roles, so we're kind of the odd ones out here. Our perspectiveis just one."

"A navigator? I don't know much about them.

[Kannon]

"I don't think it was his choice. His first wife was a Bene Gesserit, all his five daughters are hers. He has had no children with any of the following wives. I suspect the Bene Gesserit have some way to choose who they would give birth to... Why they would deny the Emperor an heir is a question I don't know how to answer. That they would dare and get away with it, that's troubling at the very least. My father said that the Emperor's Truthsayer is always there, whispering into Shaddam's ear. I think they have too much power."

My mother followed their call like a dog.

He shrugged after a moment of gloomy introspection, wondering how much of his mother's tutelage was pre-determined by some hooded crones.

"The Muadh communities on Caladan can maintain their diverse traditions because the Atreides are not religious oppressors. For a moment, my father was really angry with you for the ailar thing until we realised it wasn't your fault. There are worlds, however, where you would be persecuted under any flimsy excuse. Some still hear the war drums of the Butlerian Jihad in which Buddislamics refused to take up arms against the Thinking Machines and were consigned in the minds of many to complicity."

This returned his thoughts to the question.

"I don't know much about them either. I have never seen one, even a sketch of one. Few have. The Guild guards their secret closely. All we can assume is they were humans once, but they have changed so much in order to predict routes through foldspace that any human concerns, including gender complexities, are now beneath and beyond them."

[Kiran Alsahar]

"Huh... I got the impression from a conversation earlier that they have a long term plan on that scale. They've been cultivating power for a long time for whatever it is," they said as they started to walk. "Shall we? I'm enjoying the conversation, but having it just hanging around the hangar seems less than ideal." They said it with a small grin.

"I do appreciate that. I think that's why I and others in my community are interested in working more with you. Your family treats us with some level of respect and was willing to learn and change. Just the latter puts you head and shoulders above a lot of people. Even sacrificing enough pride to change your mind isn't something everyone is capable of."

"Fascinating! I've noticed there's a lot of secret techniques, conditioning, stuff like that going on... and more the higher you go."

[Kannon]

"This seems to be the rule of our society. To do anything advanced, we must advance ourselves to not let the machines slither back into our lives through the slits of our complacency." Normally, he would say this with greater conviction. He smiled back, faintly. "Yes, the walk. Let's go climb some stairs."

"Bene Gesserit have been a fixture in the Corrino Imperium since the beginning. As has been the Guild. If any institution holds this long, it must have mastered being organised around some central idea. With the Noble Houses and the Guild we more or less know what that idea is. With the Sisterhood, however... yeah. They seem to have usurped some regulatory capacity and become too indispensable to be dislodged from it. My mother is one and this is as much as I could have figured out about them. She has taught me things... that serve me well. But she would never tell why."

He smiled to wash away exasperation. "My father I think I do understand, at least. He's an honourable man who abhors injustice. It is difficult to follow his example, but at least I know what the example is."

[Kiran Alsahar]

"Maybe that's why you read as a saris to me initially," they mused. They did smile at the description of his father. "I've heard that. I hope I have a chance to meet him eventually."

"I don't really know what the Bene Gesserit want," they admitted, "I got the impression they're not much for tolerating even small potential disruptions, but they'llalso wait and see under the right circumstances. I've only seen the path the current circumstances lead to. I struggle to understand it myself, why someone would think it's a good idea."

[Kannon]

"Guess I am not manly enough, as Duncan keeps reminding me. Short and narrow in the shoulders." Paul laughed with a touch of bitterness. "But it's sometimes good to be underestimated."

The latter confession piqued his interest immediately.

"What do you mean by 'seen'?"

[Kiran Alsahar]

"It's more like because it feels more like... Someone who has more insight than they're supposed to," they said. "Is it important to you to match the social expectations that come with the idea of manliness?"

"When we were under the influence of the extreme strains of ailar, we shared dreams... visions... memories... whatever you want to call it. That's what I mean when I say ailar enables connection. You share visions, if you're capable of them."

[Kannon]

"It is." Paul admitted. "I am a noble of the Imperium, a marriage material for alliances, the purported future of a Great House. I must project charisma and inspire the masses. Cultivate my air of bravura. Be a warrior, a strategist, a diplomat. To rule with eye and claw, like a hawk among lesser beings, my father would say. I must somehow fit in the large footsteps he has been pressing into everyone's imagery of what it means to be an Atreides Duke. With the Harkonnen constantly at our throats, it may all crumble if I do any less. And if I fall short, then everything, including the gentle fate of your Muadh on this planet, can be unmade." He rubbed a droplet of sweat off his temple. "No pressure, huh."

He felt relief when his mind was removed for a moment from those considerations.

"Ailar has these properties? I thought visions are what melange grants." He felt uneasy that the plight of his House was so tempting to try given his own internal struggles. "What were they, those visions? I imagine in Duncan's case they could be quite... improper."

[Kiran Alsahar]

They let out a little laugh at the no pressure. "Just a tad."

"Unfortunately, it was polluted and an extremely high dose, so I remember very little," they admitted with a sigh. "Something happened that made everyone there feel as though they shared a close bond, then another brought up a terror of the Tleilaxu, the third was an idea about a golden path which... is a thing," they said, expression briefly sour, "and finally an oath of the Bene Gesserit, but one I don't think those of now would recognize."

"Under normal circumstances, I remember a lot. I had a conversation with the Old Mother of the southern Muadh, saw her younger self and her memory of the jungles of the south. Learned from her that way."

[Kannon]

"What does Duncan's mind have to do with Bene Gesserit oaths of any kind and age? Must have been coming from one of yours." Paul seemed genuinely befuddled. "He barely tolerates them... Wait. What's a golden path?"

A strange sense of foreboding gripped him at these words, his body lined up the way his mother had imprinted into him for the situations of extreme danger. There was more to unpack from what Kiran had said, but Paul couldn't think of anything else right now.

[Kiran Alsahar]

"I legitimately wish I could tell you, but he did seem to be the focal point," they mused.

At the golden path question, they sighed, eyeing him as he tensed. "A fucking nightmare is what it is." They were blunter than they had been until now while getting a feel for Paul. He liked Duncan, so he could probably tolerate a little language. "It's a path to preserve humanity in the long term though violence, tyranny, oppression, and from comments about humans evolving, probably a breeding program because it's always about breeding." They rolled their eyes to the ceiling and made a gesture with both hands like they were throwing something over their shoulders.

"Paths like that are what explorers are for."

[Kannon]

"It sounds a lot like what the the Corrinos have been doing from their Golden Lion Throne for the last ten thousand years, preserving humanity after the Time of the Machines through violence, tyranny, oppression, all the while cultivating noble bloodlines, mentats, navigators, all that. Between the beginning and the end of the jungle affair, Shaddam managed to obliterate three Great Houses in bloodbaths of Sardaukar making. We live in this dystopia, we've got used to it, so what would be the difference?"

He couldn't bar the gloom. He challenged their assessment despite himself, or to hide his own deeper instincts, which rattled at the wording that incited his own dread. The Golden Path. I must not fear...

"I don't know to how much cruelty you'd been exposed to before. I can't say I have been, of which Gurney Halleck never fails to remind me. Caladan is a sheltered place, most of the time. Did Duncan say the same about that dream?"

[Kiran Alsahar]

"A lot more than I was before I left home," they replied, lips pressing into a thin line briefly. Even if they didn't have clear memories of it, the experience of the horrors in Duncan's memories stuck with them. It echoed in their subconscious, influencing their emotions. "The Corrinos would presumably be perfectly happy to hold onto their power forever. That's not the intent with this. A long, empty, forcefully imposed peace to remind people not to trust charismatic leaders. To get people to want to leave their comfort zone and inspire a new age of exploration and the spread of humanity across the stars."

They ran a hand through their red, wavy hair, not unlike their companion's but for color and style. "The aims aren't wrong, but the whole 'ends justify the means' thing doesn't tend to go well."