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Barbaric arts of my time reveal me as outsider. Favorite poetry: epics. Popular dramatic ideal: heroism. Dances: wildly abandoned. Stimulants to make people sense what I took from them. What did I take? The right to choose a role in history.
-Leto II (The Tyrant): Vether Bebe Translation

Recreating one's homeworld on the ship wasn't the most creative move she could make, Sheeana knew. And she did her level best to avoid using the sensoriums wherever possible. She would not become dependent on their artificial comfort like so many others did.

But there were certain things unavailable in the city for her and music was one of them. So she found herself in the plaza at Arrakeen. The sun beat down on the cracked and ancient concrete, on Fremen travelling into the city to sell their goods, on pilgrims, on priests in their white robes. The heat was oppressive to most but to her it was life, and each ray that soaked in through her skin made her blood pulse closer to her skin.

She stood in the exact center. Old music, also native Rakian, came through from phantom instruments and she kicked her heels up. She went whirling, abandoning herself to the frenzy of movement, spinning until she was half blur, one leg held out to balance her like a figure skater. Arms flung out and aided her momentum, dark hair whipping about. She used this momentum to launch herself into higher and higher spinning leaps, sometimes coming down on a foot and sometimes on a hand. Everything melted away in the flux.

If left alone this way she could easily keep going until she collapsed. Luckily she'd left the door unlocked. She didn't much care either way if she were watched.

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Katara stumbled into the Sensorium and was immediately struck by how much it reminded her of when she and the rest of the Gaang were hiding in the Fire Nation. The town squares definitely caught her interest, but she didn't really plan on staying: this was someone else's simulation. When she saw the flurry of movement, her eye caught the dancer and then marked the music it was spirited with an air of gypsy in it somehow to her. She found herself quietly flexing her toes, then balancing on the balls of her feet to the music herself.

But it wouldn't be long before the music swelled and started to sweep her in the same circle with her teacher. Though it was difficult, she mimicked her teacher's speed in the music, dancing her own trial dances she'd learned from the different corners of the world she had traveled. It was like the time she'd danced with Arha, and even before when she'd danced in the cave with Aang, their dance more of a tease with an element of fighting in it. Katara flipped a few times, her legs kicking up the dirt faster, and now she moved the rest of the body to the beat as if she were avoiding projectiles, and the moves came as easily as if she were practicing Prana Bindu with her teacher.

Sheeana willed the tempo down (http://thedune.ru/audio/albums/Brian%20Tyler%20-%20Children%20of%20Dune%20-%202003%20Soundtrack/Children%20of%20Dune%20-%2023%20-%20My%20Skin%20Is%20Not%20My%20Own.mp3) so Katara could match her pace and she pulled herself back until she was more visible and less blur.

She circled Katara until they were like two desert cyclones turning around each other. Imaginary Fremen whooped. "Sacred Ones!" they called.

The change in the music reminded her a little of the sights and music they'd heard on that earth mission. It made her slow her pace down, but she matched her teacher perfectly: music was a joy she could see they both shared, and only wished she could show it with her closer friends. Still, she thought that it wasn't something she was ready to publicly show just yet anyway.

The praise brought a flush to her skin but she was smiling, and the movement continued in its fluidity, Katara mimicking her martial arts in water bending, as it was itself part of a dance. She didn't know what kind of music this was called, but she liked it a lot.

Sheeana snatched Katara's hand, spun and lifted her, allowed the girl to do the same as the musicians moved on (http://thedune.ru/audio/albums/Brian%20Tyler%20-%20Children%20of%20Dune%20-%202003%20Soundtrack/Children%20of%20Dune%20-%2025%20-%20The%20Golden%20Path.mp3). She was flushed and smiling too, but starting to wobble. She'd been obviously at this for a while. Seeming to sense that, the "musicians" took a rest before she fell over. She looked over at Katara. "Have you done this before?" Katara looked like she had. Prana Bindu would improve your ability to dance, but she had never gone over it in lessons.

A few seconds later, a dusty Fremen girl, prematurely aged by harsh life, wearing a much patched stillsuit and carrying an infant in swaddling clothes shouldered her way through the watching crowd to them. "Holy Sheeana! Please, I beg you and your consort to bless my ch-"

"Stop that." She said it to the sky though, and Stacy responded by making the woman disappear. Her eyes darkened at that. Was Stacy trying to provoke me with that? Or was it my own unconscious? I have too much of those priests in me. I can't escape it. Always I have to be the center. Look at my behavior lately...

Now it was Sofia's turn to watch as Sheeana twirled about. She tapped her foot to the rhythm. "May I join?" She called.

In the last dance Katara surprised herself: she shook and shimmied for the entire song, and had an idea that could Aang see her like this, well, it would make things between them WAY more awkward needlessly. When Sheeana stopped she stopped with her and grinned. "Actually, yes. Besides my bending, which is dancing at its core, I've actually danced in my world too. It's always been a bit of a secret thing I like to do when no one's watching."

Here though, Katara regarded her teacher carefully. The girl certainly wasn't real, just a part of the backdrop, but she was also not used to hearing her teacher addressed as "Holy" anything. So at Sheeana's reaction, Katara definitely marked the reaction. The name: something about being revered by her people bothered her.

"Why teacher?" She asked.

Sheeana nodded and crooked her hand to beckon her over into the clearing amidst the crush of bodies. She willed the tempo down (http://thedune.ru/audio/albums/Brian%20Tyler%20-%20Children%20of%20Dune%20-%202003%20Soundtrack/Children%20of%20Dune%20-%2023%20-%20My%20Skin%20Is%20Not%20My%20Own.mp3) as the next song began to help her adjust.

"Not a single soul saw you?" Sheeana asked her in a tone of amused disbelief as she went back into the crowd, amidst the stalls. Stalls sold all manner of goods, sweet paradan melons, flaky baklawa, ~~easily knocked over cabbages,~~ religious trinkets and "relics" purportedly touched or blessed by Leto or Muad'dib themselves, the assorted detritus of thousands of years. There were suddenly watercoins in their pockets, so it was all there for the choosing if they wished.

"I never asked to be 'Saint Sheeana', but because of my ability to command the worms and the priests, they came anyway. So many of them, and then my cult began to spread offworld...Even after Dune was burnt, the Sisterhood still wanted to use that worship as a weapon against the Honored Matres. It was a dangerous idea, but we were desperate..."

Sofia danced rather than walked her way over. Between the music and the mass of people, it was all so invigorating.

They danced for several songs, Sheeana leading her but never going faster than she could follow. Eventually Sheeana began to wobble, having been at this for quite a while and was forced to call a break and leave the clearing.

Fortunately the splendor of the marketplace at [Arra]Keen was available to them. Stalls sold all manner of goods, sweet paradan melons, flaky baklawa, religious trinkets and "relics" purportedly touched or blessed by Leto or Muad'dib themselves, the assorted detritus of thousands of years. There were suddenly watercoins in their pockets, so it was all there for the choosing if they wished. The crumbling magnificence of the former Atreides Citadel, with its great pillars and old statues rose irrationally high on the north end.

Tess has finally discarded the pseudo-scab across the side of her face, though the skin underneath is mottled with the paleness of fresh growth. She seems more energetic, though—perhaps the healing process is finally done, or done enough. Without the suit she lets out a hiss of breath as she comes into the desert heat, and she conjures up a mishmash of white robes to temporarily replace her jumpsuit.

One more deep breath and she melts into the crowd, discomforts forgotten to slip through that part of the city. Some bartering, a trade of imaginary coins—she is an outsider, but she knows the ways that all places are really the same under the surface, and how the same patterns emerge again and again. With some small fruits she makes her way to Sheeana, adeptly juggling and making them vanish and appear between her sleeves, drawing her own small following of a crowd.

Maybe that awareness was what caught Sheeana's eye in the firstplace. Regardless...Is she challenging me? She shot her an inquiring look.

If the answer was in the affirmative, Sheeana would start pulling audience members out to her, using Voice to force them to do tricks, leading them on with the power of suggestion. Though true Rakians of her time would worship her anyway, she did not activate that to keep the playing field level.

If not she would greet her and tell her she had one of the essential skills for surviving a new place.

Tess' smile at Sheeana is as innocent as it always is, though her eyes—far more indicative—lack the sort of drive they'd have if she was really trying to challenge Sheeana. The fruits flick between her fingers and then up her sleeves, just like that, and she breaks up the crowd observing her with pleasant laughs and gracious smiles, then moves to closer approach Sheeana.

Sheeana dismissed her 'thrall' too and met her student. She made as if to touch her face with her fingers but stopped a couple inches short. It was pale and new but she was whole instead of grossly scabbed like a few days ago. You're better? went unspoken.

They had coin enough between them and a world's treasures to buy, at least for a few moments.

Tess takes Sheena's hand with one her own, her eyes happy and bright. She squeezes, then pulls the hand close enough to touch the new skin. It's a hint more delicate than the rest, but firm enough—and soon enough her Friendlies should help the skin tone even out.

And then Sheeana gets pulled wordlessly along. Some of those pastries look quite good...

Sheeana recalled something Leto had said, shortly after he began his transformation. My skin is not my own. Tess wasn't the God-Emperor but the signifigance was strange to her.

She haggled down a plate of baklawa to a reasonable price and offered her half of the sweet dessert. It was far closer in taste to the real thing than the pale imitation she'd had to serve at her initiation.

But for Tess, it's more than just her skin. So much of her has been rebuilt from the inside-out, to be a grasshopper. Bones layered with shock-resisting composites; skin and blood cells with resistive cellular scaffolding; brain with backup functions and emergency reserves. She is, in every way, something not quite human anymore, as people of ages past would recognize it if they could somehow determine the differences.

Tess bites into the baklawa and lets out a pleasant giggle at the taste.

But—she would object if the topic were raised—she lives, and feels, and loves and hates and envies and hopes and does it all, when she chooses, with an intensity that would drive a weaker mind mad, all without compromising her goals and principles. Human enough? After all, the body is only a vessel for the spirit...

Well yeah. Leto did all that stuff. Died for it too. ~~Hwi Noree is a Mary Sue.~~

But back at what was actually being thought and said, Sheeana was irrationally glad she liked the cuisine of her homeworld. She managed to haggle down tabara (honey-cake with a puddinglike consistency) and some slices of sulfured paradan melons, a Danian import and she beckoned to a crumbling bench where they could sit together and "people" watch.

"The plaza square in Keen. On my homeworld of Rakis, if you couldn't tell."

Katara saw enough of them, but she also knew they were there because of Sheeana's memories: and if she wasn't particularly find of that, it must still be because Sheeana herself was feeling ill at ease somehow. She wondered if it had something to do with all of the negative feedback she;d been getting from the people of the crew. She hadn't gotten that involved herself for a reason: all it did was ignite things, and honestly the crew never really seemed to agree on ANYTHING. In any case, while Katara had been enjoying herself, she had noticed some of the reverence given to Sheeana, but had dismissed it as being captivated by her dancing.

"I see," Katara said. She had always wondered about that part of the Bene Gesserit, where they were hunted down and forced to reform with Sheeana's help. She herself was beginning to form her own ideas of the Bene Gesserit and the Honored Matres... it actually made her think of the old feud between the Harkonnens and the Atriedes house. But even then, she still obviously favored one over the other. "Does it bother you that much?"

It did, but Sheeana concealed her true feelings about it behind a casual shrug and haggled down some sulphured paradan melon and two slices of baklawa with a vendor. Done, she offered half to Katara as they walked.

"I've never told you, but just before finding myself here, myself, Duncan and several accomplices stole a no-ship and a sandworm and fled Chapterhouse. I was sick of living out someone else's destiny, of being the hope for billions in the old empire and for our entire order." Now didn't that sound familiar? "It was a petty, selfish act. And now i'm the center of attention again. Negative or positive, it's only a hair's breadth of difference."

An unlocked door just begs to be opened. Then again, so does a locked one for that matter, especially when the person doing the opening is as nosy as the man who is standing in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest as he leans against the frame, watching Sheeana as she leaps and tumbles about the room with grace and elegance.

"Well, ain't you just a nimble little minx," Sawyer said with a slight grin. There were things about gymnasts that every man could appreciate and Sawyer was one who definitely appreciated them.

Sheeana dropped the tempo (http://thedune.ru/audio/albums/Brian%20Tyler%20-%20Children%20of%20Dune%20-%202003%20Soundtrack/Children%20of%20Dune%20-%2016%20-%20Trap%20The%20Worm.mp3) so she was now no longer flitting in and out of the limits of human vision (though by no means slow) and more sensously, displaying the skills of uh, display she'd been taught. There was always plausible deniability, of course, but enough to keep him interested. She offered him a teasing smile as she turned.

Sawyer remained still, watching appreciatively as Sheeana switched things up a bit. "You tryin' to get a rise outta somebody there, sweet heart?" he asked, grinning at her wryly.

Katara took the food and ate as she walked, liking the taste of both. They were new, and the melon was delicious to her, buts he didn't let that stop her from trying to find out about her teacher and why she'd reacted the way that she had.

"And you don't like it," Katara finished. "I guess its hard to ignore it all if those people ares till in your memories, and they changed a part of what you used to be. Aang tried to get away from his destiny before too: it took away all of the people he cared about, and changed his life drastically. Unfortunately, there was a pretty bad storm, and to preserve himself and his waterbison, he suspended himself in the Avatar state, unaware he would be there a hundred years. A lot can happen in that time, like a whole nation of people being destroyed, and others being subjugated under the thumb of a violent military."

She sighed. "I can see why you would want to go, and why you would know that doing so would lead to certain consequences."

One final and pop of the hip and she slowed and approached him. "Keeping in practice. I cannot get music in the city. And without dance I become...tense." The implication was sexual tension, although she actually meant the Wild Place within her, only one of which's aspects was sexual.

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