trans_9 | Hear the desert sigh Sing the city's lullaby [closed]

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Hear the desert sigh Sing the city's lullaby [closed]

A quick message to the comms had summoned her wayward sister to her. Now Sheeana stood in the statuary, beneath columns both Doric and Ionian columns and a curved roof like that of a cathedral. The floor was marble and inexplicably maintained to a reflective sheen, showing the impromptu aba robe she'd tied together from some dusty old curtains in an alien office building, spare features still with no waterfat but with a quirked up smile and mischevious eyes that made her a valued seductress for the Sisterhood.

Outside, her worm paced in a nearby pen. She'd commanded it to stay there and asked Arha to leave hers with it. This process could agitate both of them.

It was time for them to Share.

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Arha moved carefully, leaving her worm a decent distance from Sheeana's and moved into the building, seeking out anything that might be disturbance. She had little desire to be interrupted and there was must that needed to be Shared. Five thousand years of life and death, of motivation, of fear and joy and life. It would take time and she was ready for this.

It would help her in many ways and she remained undaunted by the task at hand.

This way, should one of them be killed, the knowledge would live as well. It was not something to be done lightly, but in this case, and with what they faced on this ship, it was best for the Sisterhood and for themselves. She finished a careful sweep of the area and saw nothing but Sheeana.

"I have come," Arha said, her voice echoing.

Sheeana smiled. The worms, their constant companions, were safely stashed nearby, like children left at home while the adults were out.

"Approach, sister." No minced words. It wasn't the Bene Gesserit way. It was either said flat out or it didn't need to be said. Besides, after this there would be no more secrets between them.

She bent her head. When their foreheads touched, the Sharing would begin.

She had seen a Sharing only once. It had been between the Proctor and another Reverend Mother who was dying. An important woman, by all accounts, whose history and knowledge was too scared to lose. She was one of those who studied genealogies, who helped to define and shape the Bene Gesserit breeding program. Gatherers in information, sewers of fate.

Arha bent her head, her forehead to Sheeana's.

They were among the only ones of their kind and they should not have secrets. It felt, at first, like a desert wind howling in the distance, a great gabble of voices, a flash of information, a rocking of foundation and purpose. Color, light, sound, all condensing into one moment. Arha's fingers curled around Sheeana's shoulders to hold herself steady, but that was her only movement, besides the steady give and take of her breath.

All of her life, each part, threaded forward. From her first awareness in her mother's womb, to her birth cry on that distant colony world near Chapterhouse, to the moment she was given to the Sisterhood. Her earliest days, her quick mind in training, potential, her uniqueness. The event. The one that set her apart.

"Arha!" It was no game when Jelena Martis fell. The dark eyes of another student, Haree Kifana, were bright with triumph, though they were yet only five. Arha whirled, moving fast, faster as Jelena tumbled, her head bouncing against the stars while Haree laughed. A pretty child, Haree, but poisonus and cruel even then. There were broken things.

Arha could feel them even before she arrived.

Jelena's head, the bright red blood (so bright), her fingers now covered in it. The surge came without warning, spitting fire, pulling energy from Jelena and Arha both. She knew what needed to be done to fix the girl. Here. Synapses. There bone, jagged pieces knit whole, scalp and blood and tissue. Exhaustion set in and Arha sprawled, starving, tired, shuddering against the cool marble floor.

"What's this!" There. There came the voices. Haree screaming as someone slapped her upside the head. Gentle hands (Kalim), a stern voice (the Proctor). Food, then sleep, then more sleep. A day of sleep. And she woke in the desert, lived in the desert, was taught all things in the desert, her food Spiced, the air Spiced, until her eyes were Ibad blue. Kalim didn't understand what had happened, but the Proctor did.

Arha did.

It was unique, a unique gift, a mutation. Then came the Worm and her affinity for it, for creatures. She was connected to the desert by blood, and then she was connected to it by Worm, by the Worm she had absorbed. By the Worm that nearly killed her from its death and desert knowledge. And it had changed her.

When their foreheads touched, other things touched too. There was a great gibbering as four thousand years stampeded into the other woman's head. Sheeana felt it as a shudder that shook her, like the Water of Life in the few moments before it began to hurt. Her body tensed and convulsed a half second, forcing them to cling to each other for balance. A fitting metaphor.

She was turned internally. Herself flowed into Arha and Arha flowed into her. Caught in the middle, she was spun and it took some time to catch her balance.

I am eight. I wear a much patched stillsuit and walk rythmlessly, looking for deposits of Spice on the sands. I am proud that I am big enough for this duty. The economy of our little pioneer village depends on this, looking for melange scraps left behind by the worms of our time: smaller than the ones of Muad'dib's time, but so much faster and more intelligent. That has been the routine of my life up to now, playing, searching, learning, avoiding the priests of the Divided God. We Fremen were much degraded by our millenia under the Tyrant. We are the second iteration and our knowledge is still clumsy, filtered through a kind of historical recreation.

Then the moisture barrier failed. I could only watch as that tripartite mouth opened and that horrible screeching roar issued. A spiral. It was a neat spiral that swallowed everything i'd known until then. Family. Friends. Home. No longer bothering with maintaining my rythmlessness, I ran to it and screamed for it to eat me too. Begged it. What was my worth if I could not be with them? I was livid.

Instead it sat in front of me like a loyal dog. Knowing nothing else to do, I clambered on that great leathery head and it took me where I wished.

That was when the priests of the Divided God came for me. Four years I spent as princess of those poor, silly sots. I learned that the reason Shaitan obeyed me was the revenants of Leto 2, the divided god. All was going well until...

There was an attempt on my life and it was women in black robes who saved me. They had knowing looks, eyes that penetrated through my hapless caregivers. They could do so many things. I was fascinated. They would not submit to my orders.

Chief among them was Darwi. Gentle Darwi, who deflected my brattiness like one deflects an attack in the Weirding Way. Darwi of the wisdom. She was the one who would teach me her heresy: Love. She whispered it to me as we left the only planet i'd ever known.

Just in time. The Honored Matres where there with their rage and their questing and their obliterator weapons. "Cossacks" the old Rabbi would later call them and Other Memory would confirm the appropriateness of the term. I watched from the window as everything I knew was once again annihilated. Shaitan was once again with me, in the hold.

They introduced me to their ghola: Duncan Idaho. Something awakened in me there and I asked Darwi about it, who gave me a typically roundabout Bene Gesserit answer and patted my head.

I spent years there, learning everything they could teach me. I was a literjohn to be filled with their knowledge. From their captive Honored Matre I learned the forbidden things: sexual manipulation. I could bond a man to me, and knowing this, I knew there were ways for the Bene Gesserit to undermine those Whores from the Scattering.

I would later learn that they had intended me to control Duncan and that he had initially assesed me as "that little twit from Arrakis". The resulting hurt I assesed with my newfound awareness. How foolish of Lucilla to think she could control him. We were both wild things.

I was the youngest recorded to have survived the Agony and from there I went to desert watch. Chapterhouse was becoming a second Dune and I was to mastermind the transition. "I am mother to worms that may never come." I remember saying that in those years of waiting. Lots of different sexual partners, which was an interesting diversion and a way to sharpen my skills but not really satisfying. I am a desert creature.

Six months ago, success. The worms were small but they were there. Darwi too had a plan, but one that required confronting Spider Queen in her lair. Dangerous. I wished her luck but did not try to persuade her from going. Such was not the Bene Gesserit way.

Just before I was snatched up, the lighters landed. Murbella, the captive HM and now a Reverend Mother was now head of both orders. I could not abide it. I would not be teacher to those whores. And it hurt Duncan so. So we stole the No-Ship and set off, artists on a new and infinite canvas.

In retrospect, everything I have ever done has been influenced by the Tyrant...No, I know him well enough by now. By Leto the Second. His revenants ate my village, his priests took me in, his ghola was my friend and his Scattering produced the whores. I did not ask for his Golden Path, but he has paid it anyway. I will accept the gift and pay it forward.

She was a moment gaining equilibrium. It didn't need to be said because they both knew it: We are alike.

Manipulated. Used. A product of breeding, and of time, of people who were dead or dying or simply absent. Everything tied together, all voices blurred and shifted. She studied them all, sifting and sorting, understanding, and accepting. Arha breathed it in without reservation. The knowledge ached, so many sorrows, so many triumphs. In the memories that fell into place, she found herself like a grain of sand.

An older self, her own self, one voice among thousands, the eyes the same, the face a little more won but well aged. It was her, there, with a child upon her knee. A grandchild, a great grandchild. Fine lines, desert caressed, long red hair. A seitch. Small memories. She did not look long, for it would be something to come back to.

So. I am here in you. Distant, but here. Perhaps it explained the affinity, the identification. A piece of Self knowing Self in a different form. Arha lad to lean into Sheeana and draw in the, thankfully, drier air. They were more alike than could be imagined.

The history sank itself into her like a weight and Sheeana's experiences weighed heavily. Arha did not cry for she was Fremen, but the sorrow was there.

Sheeana took a great shuddering breath. Another ancestor. Me to Siona to her. And then from Siona to...Ghanima. It must be...

She grasped the other woman to herself. Darwi, you would be proud of me. I am a heretic too.

"The gene..." She didn't need to say the rest. The gene that lets me command the worms. It's not just because i'm related to Leto. It's a distant descendant of the one you have. Much mutated, more powerful, but the ancestry is clear.

"Yes," Arha murmured, her fingers light against Sheeana's hair. Family, though so distant as to hang on a thin thread, was family. She didn't think she had family, not known. One breeding experiment lead to another and another until the lines flowed a certain way, in a certain manner. The woman who could command worms was far, far along a chain of evolutionary genetics that had come from herself. It was a wonder, an oddity, a thing that when realized made her want to laugh.

"And now I truly feel like an ancient thing." It was said with wry amusement. All Reverend Mothers were ancient in their own ways, with Other Memory paving the road of knowledge and its many, many paths. Arha was weary, but would not give into it. Such a Sharing was draining, shocking, enlightening all at once. "But we are known. I am proud to know I have, in some infinitesimal way, been a part of your creation. Ancient as I may be, here I stand. Here you stand, not alone, we two. And this is a great strength."

"If I ever get a chance, I will introduce you to Duncan." A little bit of Sheeana's normal wryness reasserted itself. "You two would get along."

She leaned against her. This sharing had been unusually tiring. She'd had to let four thousand years flow from herself. The Tyrant's reign, the famine times, the Scattering, the war with the Honored Matres...It had poured like heavy cream and now she felt herself a half filled cup.

"Sister I fear Shai Halud may grow agitated without our presence. Let us reassure them and I can show you my progress on the sandpen."

Arha arched her eyebrows slightly. Ah, yes. Duncan. There was a gleam of amusement in her eyes that was quickly smoothed over as she half supported the other woman.

"I would be interested in seeing that," she murmured. "And Duncan seems...fascinating." Her tone shifted with notes of veiled amusement buried in with the inherent curiosity.

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Hear the desert sigh Sing the city's lullaby [closed]

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