trans_9 | "This is Siaynoq." She said. "All that remains of the Tyrant's greatest ritual." [OPEN]

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"This is Siaynoq." She said. "All that remains of the Tyrant's greatest ritual." [OPEN]

Sheeana doesn't like to train in the sensorium. There's something about the guarantee of safety, the artificiality of the sorroundings...It dulls her edge. Her reactions are a fraction of a second too slow.

Instead she's brought her little maker to the park with her. Purple grass. Strange, crystalline trees. Bags of multicolored sand lie in a heap a few meters away, where she's dragged them from the nearby playground.

The sandworm is barely seven feet long on its diet of scraps and sickly from the humid environment. Even still, it rears back and snaps at her with impressive speed on the purple grass. Sheeana dodges back and twists side to side. Each snap of the tripartite jaws closes just a few inches from her. She is a literal blur of motion, dancing evasively then vaulting over it like a naked ancient Greek on a vase.

There is something to this scene of a boy wrestling with his dog. It can be seen on the Dune waif's little crook of a smile.

She draws her crysknife. The bone-white blade is the tooth of an adult maker, and she tells her charge so: "Someday you'll have teeth this big too."

She feints playfully at it, careful to keep her arm from getting caught in it mouth with its rows of little daggers and blazing internal fire.

She doesn't realize she's not alone at first.

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Two observations in simulflow:

-That alertness, the muscles always ready to strike like a Weirding Way adept...that must be where he learned that.

-If the order is healthy, he wasn't born to it. Such organizations seldom look close to home for recruits. They need hybrid vigor to survive. I'm proof of that.

"Where you live or where you were raised? And are you Jedi teachers as well?"

"Where I live now, I guess." Luke tilted his head. "Very perceptive. I grew up on a planet called Tatooine. If you and Arha are from the same place--it's like the planet you both call home. Completely desert."

He thought about her second question a moment. "We can be teachers," he said after a moment. "We mostly protect and negotiate, and if all else fails, we are called upon to fight."

"You are a desert creature then." Like me, taken from your home by your order. Does Tatooine still exist, then?

The worm travels toward him, somehow sensing for his good intent. It's sniffing (well it would be if it had a nose), deciding wether to beg for pets or bite him. At least in Sheeana's presence, this worm is thoroughly domesticated. "I have given you my name, but you haven't done the same. And who calls upon you to fight?" At this range, she can smell a chemical difference to him. Something extra, but organic, a subtle cellular activity, a buzzing like ozone. What could it be?

He smiled; Arha had put it the same way. "I'm Luke Skywalker, Grandmaster of the Jedi Order--and yes, I'm a desert creature."

What struck him the most about Arha and now Sheeana was how perceptive they were, how their blue-in-blue eyes seemed to pierce even him. With his gaze, Luke had been said to see through others; now it seemed he was the one who was transparent, a glass containing his thoughts for them to see. And oddly enough, he didn't feel any trepidation, knowing through the Force that he could trust Arha, and Sheeana.

And the question she'd asked was a sticky one. After Caedus' atrocities, the Jedi Order had had a discussion on exactly where its loyalties lay, and the idea had been put forth--and widely accepted--that the Jedi could be their own autonomous group. So really, the question got down to the core of the purpose of the Order itself. Who did they fight for?

"We fight when there are people who need defending," he said at last, carefully. "Jedi are guardians of peace and justice, and they always have been. Where those things are not, the Jedi will do their best to put it right."

Where she the type to openly display her emotions, she would have given a little frown. "I wish we had that luxury. Our order is hiding like rats from an onslaught by women from outside our galaxy." The term the scattering would have no meaning to him, but that was where they were from. "They are more numerous and deadlier than us, with an army of sexually bonded slaves. And the most terrifying thing is, they are fleeing from something. We are balanced and know how to flow with the universe's movements, so we will win...But billions have already died in the conflict. Have you Jedi ever been hunted?"

If she could reframe their problem, place it in a different universe, it would become clearer to her. Duncan had used that technique plenty of times.

Luke nodded solemnly, thinking of the way his own father had hunted down and killed younglings in the Jedi Temple; how the Emperor's orders had resulted in dozens of Jedi across the galaxy being killed.

"We've been hunted," he said. "The Purges are spots in our Order's history where everything goes blank for a long time."

The worm decided that Luke wasn't a threat and made its lithe and undulating way to his feet.

"Our history is never blank. We have it..." She tapped her temple with a fingertip. "Here. Every Reverend Mother back to the founding of our order."

Luke knelt, holding his hand out to the sandworm to--sniff? nuzzle?--do what it wanted, but kept his eyes and most of his attention on Sheeana. "Your Order has an oral history?" he asked.

The worm went up to Luke's hand, presenting the underside of its plates to be scratched.

Sheeana couldn't help herself. She laughed (it was a small laugh that sighed like the mineral shush of sand shifting). "No, no. Every Reverend Mother, that is one who has gone through the Spice agony, has the memory-lives of all previous Reverend Mothers within her."

Luke obligingly scratched the worm lightly, feeling how the Force swirled through it--different than Arha's, but the same creature. It seemed to enjoy the attention he gave it, and he smiled and sent it thoughts of welcome and wonder, hoping it would understand.

"You inherit the memories of all the--the Reverend Mothers before you?" he said, trying to understand. "What's the Spice agony?"

Within the worm, Leto stirred, pausing, struggling away from his endless dream. It was a subtle thing, easily missed but like Sheeana, there was more than one person inside there.

"Their memories and personalities. Our order knows history because we carry it. Thus we have no need for histories. How much has Sister Masaari told you about the Spice?"

There, a flash--

Luke's brow furrowed for a moment, but he let it go. He didn't know these creatures very well, and whatever unusual things sent out in the Force could be perfectly normal for them. He thought it rude to ask so soon after meeting Sheeana and her worm. It seemed like the kind of question for later on.

"Not a lot," he said. "I know it smells like cinnamon and without it, she would die--and probably you too, since you have the same eyes."

Within his endless dream, Leto sensed one like his father. This was reflected in the worm's agitation. Sheeana knelt to cradle it like one would a beloved pet. Calm yourself, Tyrant. I think we can trust him.

"Yes it is an addiction, a dear coin to pay in. But because of it...Well, there are reasons the Spice is the most valuable substance in our universe. It expands consciousness, allows interstellar travel and extends life. And by ingesting a variant of Spice that is normally a poison, a Bene Gesserit acolyte becomes a Reverend Mother...If she survives, of course." She doesn't mention that the sandworms are the source of it...He'll figure it out soon enough from the heavy scent of the small one's breath.

"So it's a drug--a stimulant that enables to you to these things," Luke said, watching the worm squirm around. He wondered if he'd hurt it somehow, with its sudden change in attitude. He could feel its agitation in the Force, and sought to soothe it. Then something she'd said came to mind.

"If she survives?" Luke repeated. "You get dosed with poison as part of your Trials?"

Slowly the worm started to soothe, becoming a little less agitated, less frenetic in its movements. Slowly it settled into a sway.

"The final test. If the potential Reverend Mother can convert the poison in the Water of Life within her body, it unlocks the Other Memory I told you of. It's a final test of our bodily control. Once that has passed...Well, it's pretty much impossible to poison one of us. Nor do we get diseases."

"The Force grants that to Jedi. How do you convert the poison, though?" That would involve bodily control down to the molecular level, Luke thought. While something like that was needed for those Jedi able to hide themselves in the Force, he didn't think it could go farther than that.

She gave him his answer, exactly as he suspected. "We have total control of our bodies, down to the chemical processes of our cells. We alter the molecular structure of the poison slightly. The process, however, well earns the name Agony. We can stop or speed up our own hearts, go into hibernation, prevent sweating, even cease to age, though we are forbidden to do that. Is it not the same for you?"

From its position folder under her palm, Sheeana absentmindedly pricked her fingertip with the tip of the crysknife. It took a few seconds for a tiny drop of blood to well up there which she allowed to fall between her lips before sheathing the blade. Old habits died hard.

"We can do some of those things," Luke said. "We can go into a hibernation state, control aspects of our bodies, but we Jedi don't have the molecular control that you seem to. Probably because of the difference in the way our abilities manifest themselves in day-to-day life; we use ours externally, in defending our charges and the like; yours seem to be more internal."

He caught a glint of something and saw her sucking her finger, but didn't press it. It seemed a reflexive action almost.

"It is my opinion that the greatest battles a person will face are usually internal. Without achieving mastery of oneself, no external change is possible." She smiled, remembering the haughty, imperious little thing she had been when the Bene Gesserit had first appeared to her.

"We have our own charges to protect, but we try to avoid getting involved as a political force in our own right. Bene Gesserit do not hold power anywhere but our own planet of Chapterhouse. Thus we protect ourselves. I hope for your sake your order follows a similar precept." This was fascinating to her, the differences and similarities. That there could be an order so similar to her own, yet composed (if Luke was any indication) of men...It was something she would not normally have thought possible.

Well, Luke couldn't argue with that statement. A Jedi did face many internal challenges along his or her path in life; temptations from the Dark Side, struggles with their own role in the Force. Luke himself had faced those foes. Sometimes, he still did.

"Jedi try to avoid politics as well, but sometimes, it seems impossible to not get involved." He thought of the recently-concluded war, the sentiments that the Jedi themselves could be an autonomous nation, a consortium of Force-users that could in their own right hold political clout. Part of that, surely, was that he was brother to one of the most celebrated senators in the Galactic Alliance, and a hero himself. "We defend and advise, we don't try to rule."

"But the temptation is there." It's a statement of fact. She knows. Like those Whores have. And in the process they endanger themselves and everyone around them. Four years as the haughty little princess of the Priests of the Divided God had taught her something of the pathological high of rulership. It was an addiction that could prove fatal.

"It always is. Jedi in the past have made the mistake of thinking they may know better than the politicians and sought to change government itself." He sighed. "That never went well."

"I wouldn't think so. Attempt to rule and you build up a reservoir of hatred against you. It always fails in the long term." She paused a moment, considering wether to reveal this to him. Odrade-within whispered to her: An outside perspective is a commodity of infinite value.

"We fear that the Honored Matres who now hunt us may be an offshoot of us who did exactly that."

"What would it benefit them if they caught you?" Luke asked. Politics always hinged on who benefited how much and where, at least in his experience. That was the simplest way to think of it.

"They want our abilities to fight whatever it is they're fleeing from. They've forgotten everything about Prana Bindu except the aspects related to killing..." A grudging admission: "Which they've improved upon."

"Seems typical, I bet they grew up with this threat around them and had to adapt." It had been encountered in other races around the galaxy he was familiar with. "But then why would they want knowledge that wouldn't help them survive?"

He was partly asking her, partly thinking out loud, sitting on the ground now with an expression of thought on his face. Being used to constant demands on his time and expertise, even sitting here was making him feel lazy. Not that he hadn't needed a vacation.

"Their enemy apparently can engineer plagues, something they didn't count on. Thus they've come swarming back into the old empire. We've lost so many sisters..."

Add Darwi's name to the list of probable casualties... Her mentor had embarked on a dangerous mission to Spider Queen's lair. She probably wasn't coming back.

She sat across from him and the worm slid into her lap.

Luke shuddered, thinking of the viruses that prevented Boba Fett and his granddaughter from returning to Mandalore, or the ones that had killed during Caedus' civil war. It was so unnatural it made his skin crawl. "They think you have a way to stop these engineered viruses?"

"We can stop it from harming ourselves with our bodily control. They want us to re-teach them that. They've forgotten everything but fighting, ravaging, killing, pillaging, enslaving then moving on." Precious secrets. But a Bene Gesserit would die before revealing them. And with women who could stop their own hearts at any time, that was not an idle threat.

"Why don't you work together to stop the threat at its source?" Luke asked, a little puzzled. Without being there, able to pick up on emotions and read the situation for himself he had no idea if he was getting an objective view. While he implicitly trusted Sheeana, it fell to a Jedi to be as impartial in such things as was possible.

"It sounds like all of you have great ability. Wouldn't it be easier to band together?"

Sheeana inhaled and then exhaled slowly, a technique taught to children to promote calm. Basics. Back to basics. "That was Darwi's plan. She indoctrinated a captured Honored Matre in our ways and set her to assassinate their current leader. We were to teach them, show them balance."

"But I don't trust them. I watched them glass Arrakis in a fit of pique. If our woman is knocked off her throne...They have a tradition of ascension by assassination you see...Then we're all dead. There's twenty of them to one of us and each more deadly. So me and a minority of other dissenters stole a No-ship and a sandworm and fled for the uncharted parts of the universe. I felt...As if I could paint this great blank canvas myself. That was two days before I was captured." She didn't bother to hide from Luke the frustration and pain of being constricted again. Her years of BG training had taught her responsibility but at heart she was a wild thing and chafed at being caged.

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"This is Siaynoq." She said. "All that remains of the Tyrant's greatest ritual." [OPEN]

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