[I must not fear. Fear is the mindkiller. It’s Jessica’s voice in her head, Jessica’s words commanding her obedience, Jessica’s teachings echoed like a stone dropped in a well, tumbling through darkness before hitting still water. Her mother tests her, but her mother taught her, therefore Alia herself is scarcely involved. She is a vessel for Lady Jessica, Reverend Mother, beloved and longed for and loathed at once, a letter from Caladan, a life’s memories implanted in her psyche like a wound, like a parasite, like a warning.
The page is folded, the crease of it drawn between two fingernails, slowly, the movement buying time to pinpoint the exercise – a warm-up, the same ones Paul does every morning, Bene Gesserit taught with a touch of Fremen tradition, though Jessica’s forms lack this latter flavor. Paul moves like the desert, Alia even more so as she shakes back her hair and begins her own forms, reciting the names in a calm, near-monotone.] Alicent Hightower and her sons Aemond and Aegon Targaryen count our house as allies. Jacaerys Targaryen, though tenuous, owes us a debt, as does his mother, Rhaenyra and her husband, Daemon. They all come from one world, one planet, with a contested throne.
[Alia’s forms are closer to Paul’s, closer to the dancelike movements of sandwalking, stilling often to test her endurance, her ability to wait in the shadow of a sietch and watch the horizon for wormsign or enemies. She half-expects Jessica to correct her as she continues.] Lauralae is a gifted, deadly witch and shapechanger. Hawkins Fuller is a keen politician, who I owe a debt of honor to. Alina Starkov has experience with war and tactics, and she runs a shop where Paul works. [Alia lets that sink in, allying the name with Paul’s directly, Paul’s preferences, Paul’s love named before her own.
But then, straightening, calmly:] She is dear to us both. [An understatement, one she knows Jessica will read in the flush of her cheeks, the heightened pulse, the spark of endorphins that rushes through her body. Alia had considered denying the attachment, but – Paul wouldn’t. Paul would be open, honest, transparent as water. Alia will not undermine this. And she won’t harm Alina, even in absentia, even in her thoughts.]
no subject
The page is folded, the crease of it drawn between two fingernails, slowly, the movement buying time to pinpoint the exercise – a warm-up, the same ones Paul does every morning, Bene Gesserit taught with a touch of Fremen tradition, though Jessica’s forms lack this latter flavor. Paul moves like the desert, Alia even more so as she shakes back her hair and begins her own forms, reciting the names in a calm, near-monotone.] Alicent Hightower and her sons Aemond and Aegon Targaryen count our house as allies. Jacaerys Targaryen, though tenuous, owes us a debt, as does his mother, Rhaenyra and her husband, Daemon. They all come from one world, one planet, with a contested throne.
[Alia’s forms are closer to Paul’s, closer to the dancelike movements of sandwalking, stilling often to test her endurance, her ability to wait in the shadow of a sietch and watch the horizon for wormsign or enemies. She half-expects Jessica to correct her as she continues.] Lauralae is a gifted, deadly witch and shapechanger. Hawkins Fuller is a keen politician, who I owe a debt of honor to. Alina Starkov has experience with war and tactics, and she runs a shop where Paul works. [Alia lets that sink in, allying the name with Paul’s directly, Paul’s preferences, Paul’s love named before her own.
But then, straightening, calmly:] She is dear to us both. [An understatement, one she knows Jessica will read in the flush of her cheeks, the heightened pulse, the spark of endorphins that rushes through her body. Alia had considered denying the attachment, but – Paul wouldn’t. Paul would be open, honest, transparent as water. Alia will not undermine this. And she won’t harm Alina, even in absentia, even in her thoughts.]