[Daughter, she says, and Alia hates herself for the rush of warm, satisfied giddiness that races through her, like she hasn’t heard it a thousand times before, like the missives from offworld don’t address her as such again and again. Jessica’s concession, her one allowance to the connection of blood and bone that binds her to her mistake of a child, conceived in preemptive despair, nurtured in mourning, born in war. If Paul had been Leto’s joy, Alia was his eulogy.
There’s a thought to arrive in the state she’s become accustomed to – light, airy clothes, unsuited for the sun or snow, the clothes of the frivolous, carefree girl she’s never been, not since that first shattering awareness inside Jessica’s body. Alia had worn a veil since near-infancy, had taken her first tottering steps in a Sisterhood cowl, had studied histories she already knew swathed in layers and layers of silk. The carnal fervor of her temples had come later, when Jessica was back on Caladan, paying tribute to Leto’s bones.
But she eventually chooses something in the middle, an unconscious echo of Jessica’s own clothes – dark, long-sleeved, close-fitting, her hair in a neat braid. Alia can’t veil the wideness of her eyes, the soft shape of her mouth (Paul’s mouth), the way she stops inside the doorway and adjusts to the quiet thrum of Jessica’s presence, in the same room as hers for the first time in years. It’s like a heartbeat she forgot she had. It’s like a nightmare she’s had every night.
Alia waits by the door, waits to be summoned closer, face expressionless, arms crossed over the papers she’s brought – accounts of the allies Paul has made, writ emotionless and spare, none of the emotion or warmth that had made such alliances, none of the tenderness either sibling feels for those listed. These feelings Alia pushes away, locks tighttighttight into the vault of her chest, and prays her mother will not sniff out.]
no subject
There’s a thought to arrive in the state she’s become accustomed to – light, airy clothes, unsuited for the sun or snow, the clothes of the frivolous, carefree girl she’s never been, not since that first shattering awareness inside Jessica’s body. Alia had worn a veil since near-infancy, had taken her first tottering steps in a Sisterhood cowl, had studied histories she already knew swathed in layers and layers of silk. The carnal fervor of her temples had come later, when Jessica was back on Caladan, paying tribute to Leto’s bones.
But she eventually chooses something in the middle, an unconscious echo of Jessica’s own clothes – dark, long-sleeved, close-fitting, her hair in a neat braid. Alia can’t veil the wideness of her eyes, the soft shape of her mouth (Paul’s mouth), the way she stops inside the doorway and adjusts to the quiet thrum of Jessica’s presence, in the same room as hers for the first time in years. It’s like a heartbeat she forgot she had. It’s like a nightmare she’s had every night.
Alia waits by the door, waits to be summoned closer, face expressionless, arms crossed over the papers she’s brought – accounts of the allies Paul has made, writ emotionless and spare, none of the emotion or warmth that had made such alliances, none of the tenderness either sibling feels for those listed. These feelings Alia pushes away, locks tighttighttight into the vault of her chest, and prays her mother will not sniff out.]