the test of techniques/the forms/and stances/the flow/the rythm/the internal answers [open]

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

God knows where she'd gotten the blades.

They hovered in the air, little menacing antigravity buzzsaw shuriken. Violence lay coiled within them, not directed outward but in, at Sheeana who stood poised with her arms spread. This was the attitude with which she called the great worm. Her toes curled in, feeling the strange, unfamiliar grass (coarse, yes, like the rare poverty grasses that sometimes grew on the leeward side of the dunes but still far too thick for her liking and multicolored). She opened her awareness, allowing herself to become part of the place and her of it.

Seven, a warm up. Their timer finished counting down, they converged in on her

There was a series of contortions that blurred in and out of visibility. She leapt. She hugged the ground. At one point she found herself poised on one hand, feet thrown up into the air like a Minoan athlete over the bull.

For practicing the Weirding Way, no artificial lightshow would do, no matter how real feeling.

Comments

[deep_sky_diving]

"Oh, naw," Tess says, with what's almost a laugh, and tightens a moment against Sheeana. Soft, certainly, but there's something harder underneath: with a suit so slim and elegant, her body's been subtly reinforced for the rigors of space travel, too, with harder bones and stronger muscles and ligaments, with more-efficient lungs and a larger heart. She and the suit are a system meant to work together. "It's the book fer makin' yer own jumper, and how t'set it up so you can land somewhere without goin' smush."

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

Like the Missionaria Protectiva...But not nearly so sinister. She thought of the planets that would never rise up with the banner of the cult of Sheeana. She could not help but feel this was for the best. The Missionaria was a dangerous instrument.

"So you insert information where it will do the most good. That is a laudable goal. We Bene Gesserit are charged with one great task: help humanity to mature. Tyrants have a soothing effect on the psyche of their subjects. We work to make humans mature enough to reject them anyway."

[deep_sky_diving]

"That sounds like a great thing t'do fer people," Tess says. "Yer religious at all?" she asks. After Sheeana's own assumption about her, it seems like a safe thing to guess at.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

Sheeana laughed and quoted from the Acolyte's Oath. "'Religion is the emulation of the adult by the child.' I am interested in 'moments of mystery' as you might call them: revelations, trances, orgasms..." She let that one hang there for a few moments and swung the worm around as they reached a dead end. "...And we have created religions for our own purposes...But for a Reverend Mother, Other Memory is all we need for an afterlife."

[deep_sky_diving]

Mention of that last one makes Tess' face go a little red, but that doesn't stop her from clinging a little tighter again to Sheeana as the worm circles around. "I guess we're kinda like that. Y'can't really be a good grasshopper if y'ain't interested in stuff y'ain't never run into before. Without that yer just a weird cricket." Insect-based labels are a big thing where she's from, apparently.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

Sheeana turned the final time, ending back at the park they'd started at. She knew it was best to ask her while adrenaline and flirtation were still fresh in the girl's veins...though she did not know how quickly her friendlies would compensate for this. She brought the worm to a halt.

"Tess, I am going to make you an offer that I want you to give thought to. As Mother Superior, it is my task to keep this organization alive and we are always looking for new blood...hybrid vigour. I think you have the kind of traits that could eventually make a good Reverend Mother. I would like you to consider that for at least two days. In the library you will find records concerning our order...and not all of them friendly. I request you take in all points of view then come back to me with your decision."

[deep_sky_diving]

Tess' breath is quicker—but not as quick as it should be. Her subtle artificial enhancements make her more like an athelete than like someone as soft as she looks. Still, the adrenaline is there, and she's done nothing to make it go away. That would cheapen the experience. But that doesn't keep the clever little backend parts of her mind from cataloging some things—like that 'we' should barely apply, with the limited population on the ship. But—

Her face lights up. To refuse to at least look over the material Sheeana is talking about would be unthinkable. "Sounds interestin'," she says, with a broad, curious smile.