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Being from (Ar)Rakis, Sheeana's first thoughts on the dark dreams that had been afflicting her fellow crewmates had more to do with hurricanes and sandstorms than clouds. The metaphor was the same though.

That was her thought as she sat in the lotus position in front of Arha's door (she would not leave her if she had another such dream, but would not tempt herself into sleep by joining her either). Sandstorms. She missed them so, the beating, suffocating, gritty howl of them. Real weather, to rasp at the skin, to shape both person and landscape. Sand or rock crunching underfoot, screaming winds, danger that could be understood and grasped by human hands. I am a desert creature. I need the environment I was born for.

She longed for them as for the touch of a lover.

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"If you're asking for a rough assessment, then I can't give many recommendations," She replied wryly. Human beings weren't actually her strong suit. She knew how to spot people with real talent, and how to force them into their place, but social machinations had ever been Daisuke's realm of expertise. That, and she hadn't done much socializing, "Your best bet would be to try and find a few people you know can handle whatever comes their way."

She didn't mention that the problem seemed to have an accelerating trend. If Sheeana couldn't figure out the implications then there wasn't anything Motoko could do to help her.

"How can you be so sure you're not a ghost as well?" a half-teasing little smile, like a cat poking at its dinner before killing it, "I mean, have you ever actually seen your brain?"

"Heh...I already have that." She wasn't actually too sure about that. Herself, Khel, Ghanima Atreides and Katara (such a quick learner!) she knew...But she had less confidence in the other two Reverend Mothers. Arha had just proven herself vulnerable and Alia...was a timebomb in a pretty casing.

"Descarte's paradox, eh? Well, a Reverend Mother has a unique perspective into the machinery from which consciousness arises. In a way, I have seen my brain and I am very intimately familiar with my genetics. Still, that too could be an illusion. It's one of those intellectual problems that doesn't go anywhere."

"At once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits," Motoko agreed. She knew that her favorite hobby was a waste of time, that it ultimately affected nothing— except in those brief dying moments when the world hung on a wire. But those were irrelevant as well. She pressed on the seam-catch running invisibly along the inside of her wrist and when it eventually buckled under the pressure and lifted apart let it go, enjoying the faint tearing sound as the skin reknit itself over the panels.

She could argue that she knew more of daily brain-function than Sheeana but what would it win her? Not a damn thing. The artificial victory of it would be a waste of time, so the Major stayed silent. There was nothing for her to say.

Sheeana was both disgusted and fascinated. The Butlerian Jihad had left a long residue that reached across history, and some of her Mothers-Within recoiled.

It lifted open and there was circuitry underneath, wires replacing the bloody mess of flesh. Clean and elegant. Still, Sheeana preferred it when things were messy.

She leaned forward to observe more closely.

Amused, she held out the arm to spare the girl any pretense and briefly rippled the panels from wrist to elbow like a slow-motion fluffing of feathers on some exotic, mechanical bird. Oddly hollow within, showing the artificial muscle so much narrower to the bones than the natural counterpart, shielding and baffles for bulletproofing, wires and hydraulic lines.

This was no more Motoko's hand than Sheeana's, but as the panels fit themselves back together in a complex folding puzzle the truth of the machine lying underneath faded under the very realistic facade.

Clean and elegant indeed.

Sheeana was fascinated by the precise mechanical ballet. She slowly took the arm in her hands, stroked the inside of the wrist with her thumb. The skin felt the same but there were unfamiliar vibrations beneath. The scent was new, clean. Like the interior of the no-ship.

Perhaps it was the thrill of violation, of doing contrary to the Jihad. Whatever it was her fingers tingled almost as electrically as Motoko's.

Motoko's fingers closed around Sheeana's wrist in reply. It was an easy grab with her arm hovering over the Major's palm like that. The cyborg's skin was warm, textured just right, but her grip, though gentle, was pure steel.

Like a threat.

This feeling, this moment was familiar. Intimate, private, but still...anyone could walk along and see them. The woman in the bedroom could wake. Close tension of the moment, the distance between them and casual, necessary touch. Aside from that which was required for combat, Motoko had not touched another human being for more than four months. It was tantalizing, the tripwire gaze and the will-they won't-they. She felt her cyberbrain slip over, dipping into her adrenaline and curbed it gently, with no little amusement. It had been a long time.

Sheeana was shameless, an attention seeker in fact. This was her way of protesting her confinement. She'd done it on Chapterhouse before. Tales of her behavior with men spiced the food, acolytes giggling over their stews.

Even as she felt those fingers close over her wrist she regarded Motoko with a smile upon which mischevious, dirty suggestions seemed to play unspoken.

It was enough, she could feel Sheeana's pulse, the smile, the microexpressions flashing honestly across the girl's face. Arousal, fresh and strong. The Major used the leverage of her grip to pull Sheeana towards her, leaning at the same moment into the girl to mask the shifting weight as she drew her legs up under her.

Warm breath, so close and yet...

Motoko pulled away, coyly, just before the touch and moved off down the hall. Never let it be said she gave anything easily, and wasn't leaving the girl wanting at least half the fun?

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