Who: Paul Atreides, Ortus Nigenad, and you What: December catch-all, open and closed prompts When: December Where: Various Content warnings: Grief over loss of a parent, eugenics, psychological horror, child abuse, child death
Paul sits alone by a fire. Occasionally, he picks up a stick leaning against the log he sits on to prod at it, stirring the flames in a crackle of sparks. The sun is nearly set, and impossible to see through the tall, close conifer trees that enclose the clearing, the fire, and the boy. When he breathes out, it hangs as pale mist in the chill air before it dissipates.
He's dressed for the weather, but not like he is back in Trench, where he lines his black hoods with fur and stitches silver charms onto the back of his coat to ward off evil. This coat is tailored and elegantly simple, woven of the finest wool that Caladan can offer up to its ruling House, and it fits him like his supple leather gloves.
"My father will be back in a few minutes," he says, to anyone who has arrived in this quiet memory, "If you want to join us."
Somewhere beyond the trees, the sea birds call to one another, and waves break on a rocky shore. Paul swirls the embers of the fire with the blackened end of his stick and hums a rise and fall of notes, a fragment of a melody that fades before it can be captured.
Midoriya was aware Winter Mournings could be dangerous from the start when he entered one for the first time last year. As then, he's in full Hero gear and warm Trench-made winter cloak. His jumpsuit matches the trees. He lowers the mask covering his nose and mouth with a puff of visible breath ghosting around his face. Instead of staring at Paul in apprehensive silence as he did a year ago, his large (but not so large now) green eyes sweep their surroundings out of habit.
"We stayed together... Thank goodness..."
He could have ended up anywhere. He breathes deep of the smell of forest and settles on the log. It seems prudent to stay close and warm together. He runs a gloved finger along Paul's temple and looks at his hair as it used to be and the tailoring of his woolen coat without really seeing them. He presses a kiss to his cheekbone.
"Is that okay?" he asks softly.
There are photos of each of their mothers in Midoriya's apartment and in Paul's crisp memory. Midoriya has never seen Paul's father. He knows House Atreides--the original one--was betrayed violently. Midoriya held Paul as he wept because of what he was.
Paul leans into the kiss with half-closed eyes, gentled by closeness. He's glad that Midoriya is here for this memory, already softened by Paleblood runes painted on the shivering air and blown into shimmering dust over the fire.
"It's okay." He sets the stick down again and picks up Midoriya's hand instead, intertwining their gloved fingers and squeezing lightly in reassurance. "I want you to be here."
With his free hand, he signs their all clear signal in assurance that no threat is lurking out of view in the memory, slipping naturally between the two forms of communication. It has something to do with nostalgia, and something else and more important to do with the security that being near Midoriya evokes.
[ winter mournings had been the ritual that brought paul and falco together, a bond first wrought across a battlefield of showering bombshells, bullets and debris, gunfire that confused the senses and trenches flubbed in either mud or cleaved bodies. it's been a year since then, a full year since they didn't know each other's name, and the elder carried the younger to safety. falco has not forgotten the heat of his encircled arms in the chaos, and every moment he has a chance to, he's sure to spread his growing arms around paul no matter the time, whether it be soothing or turbulent.
falco makes a wreath destined and designed specifically for each special person in his life. paul's piece of antler is dyed gold and sprinkled with white at its tips, with a silver knot tied to the end of a crimson string that dangled from the antler's base. with it is a pair of golden feathers, small and arched. sadly, they're not from him, but they could pretend it wasn't from one of falco's golden, fashionable hens for just a moment. it was gold.
it is not much of their choice at all when its paul's antler that brings forth a memory somewhere, someday, and bracing for what should come was an instinct. the ritual, should there be memories, were usually of hardships and times of survival. he does not expect, though it brings him some ease, when he's able to join paul around the girth of a burning fire and . . . his father?
he briefly remembers the sweet melody of the mother's hum. loving and gentle. conversation had not kept paul's father in shadows, but falco has yet to know him better. ]
I'd love to.
[ then again, paul had paleblood— what were the odds that the danger has been sweeped away? it was greater than it was less. oh, and what was this sudden feeling of jittering? the cold, or nervous (excited) anticipation? falco wraps his black-wool mantle a little tighter around him to ward off the cold that may be causing it, but greater than that would be the pressure of paul's larger frame being angled into by a teen growing lankier by the day. ]
[Paul leans comfortably back, still (as ever) a little surprised at Falco's continued growth. Only a year ago he'd been reasonably sized to carry, and now - Paul has not gotten sturdier at the same pace Falco has simply become more substantial in every aspect.
But the younger teenager is right. Paul has swept away the challenge that once inflected this memory, and he hums amicably as he slings his arm around Falco's shoulders while he's still taller enough for it to be easy.]
We're safe. Don't be worried.
[He'd never let Falco wind up in danger in a dream he controls now. His Paleblood magic a year ago is nothing compared to what it is this winter. He could spindle and fold this whole forest like paper within the confines of a Mourning. It's the only time where he can brush against the mastery of dreams possessed by his mentor Lazarus.]
He's bringing fish, if you're hungry. It won't count when you wake up, but it's still good.
Oscar had avoided the Winter Mournings last December. He had heard of them being potentially dangerous, and at that point he was in over his head with both adapting to his Paleblood senses and chasing after Dipper Pines. Last December had proven to be dangerous for other reasons that were unrelated to the Mournings or even Dorothea. In comparison to the beast fight he had been tangential to, the possibilities represented here were relatively mild.
Uncertain but curious, Oscar tucked his hands into the pockets of the trench-made coat that he had gotten made in a thick fabric of jewel-toned green. The cut was a tad more refined than the comfortable work clothes he had taken to wearing in Trench, but had gotten it at the same time he had gotten his clothes for Ruby's wedding. A piece that could be worn for all occasions seemed appropriate at that moment.
"If you're okay with it," Oscar said carefully, casting Paul a sheepish smile. He was curious about the man who was Paul's father, but he wasn't going to impose his presence. Matters involving princes and kings weren't anything that he was comfortable with-- and, to reinforce that, he added:
The air is cool and Kaworu doesn't feel dressed for it. The moisture in the air is heavy and makes the cold cling to his body like he's wearing it as an extra layer. And there's something about the way that Paul is dressed that makes him feel awkward... small even, in his oversized coat that used to belong to Midoriya.
He glances over the fire and then out to where he knows the sea is. He doesn't know how it's there other than he can simply feel it. Paul's father is something that they haven't spoken much about. For Paul it's painful and for Kaworu, it's beyond his understanding. He's never known parents or fathers or how children behave around them.
This time, instead of the beach, Kiriona finds herself in a clearing. She can still smell the sea from here, though. It's as nice as she remembered it.
The problem is that Gideon belongs in a place like this. Gideon was able to help, to fit in here. The memory of Paul's father's hand on her shoulder is a weight. Kiriona wraps her arms around her fine coat and shudders, even though she can't, strictly speaking, feel cold anymore.
(That's not quite true. It's just that she's cold all the time, now, and used to it.)
The seagulls cry, and Kiriona thinks it might be nice if they went for her eyes, this time.
"Okay," Kiriona whispers, like she's back at the Ninth, hiding. "Should I be your bodyguard, again?"
The balcony that looks over Arrakeen in the last fading light of evening is made of the same rough sandstone as the rest of the rest of the palace exterior. It is cut for practicality, not beauty, stark and angular, and in this it resembles the more humble structures that dot the desert city below. The stone radiates the captured heat of the day, a dry, relentless, unbearable heat that seems intent on sapping the mind and the body of all of their strength.
This particular balcony is set high. A person leaning against the flat, low wall that hems it in can see the first stars appearing over the mountaintops if they look carefully through the haze of sand carried on the high winds. The lean, black-clad teenager whose hands are folded neatly in front of him seems to be looking at those stars, his expression distant and preoccupied.
"My father will be here soon," he says, without turning to face the person who has appeared through frigid winter magic to appear on this desert world, "We're going to have a conversation. Nothing bad happens. It's not a long memory."
He pushes up then, bracing his palms on the balcony edge instead of his elbows, and breathes out slow and smooth. He's wearing black, as he almost always is, but these clothes are finely cut and fashioned in their simplicity, their black a deep and true black, broken only by the silver winged pins at his collar and the white undershirt that rises above them. His ears are unpierced, his ragged, wild hair here carefully shaped and cared for. There are no scars on his hands.
"This is Arrakeen. The capitol city of Arrakis, which is the planet we're on. We have a little time if you have questions."
It's such a chance, going from the cold Trench air to - this. Paul's world, Daniel realises the moment he witnesses the boy standing there. The heat reminds him of the summers of his youth, of moving out to the Valley and having no airconditioning in their little apartment to speak of, but somehow worse. Maybe it's the switch from how cold it was in Trench to this, he thinks.
(Wait, it's strange though, isn't it? He felt the cold in Trench, but that's because he's always felt it, month after month since arriving there, Daniel's sense of temperature having completely shut down the moment he became a coldblood - yet he can feel the heat here. Maybe because it's a memory?)
.. or maybe it's just worse here. The scenery Daniel can see as he glances out from over the balcony is very different from anything he's ever seen before, after all, even amidst his travels. A world that looks incredibly foreign to him, though perhaps he should have expected as much with how different the things Paul is used to have seemed from the things Daniel is used to.
He stares over at Paul's form again, at the way the boy doesn't look at him. Briefly Daniel wonders if the boy even realises he's the person who has invaded this memory, or that Paul is trying to delay finding out who will be watching this for as long as he can. Is this just the spiel he would have given everyone?
".. I suppose I should be the one apologizing this time around then," he opts to start with because of that, not wanting to startle the other too bad. Especially since Daniel assumes he's a particularly awkward intrusion. "Sorry for intruding on your memory."
Daniel breathes in, and then slowly breathes out. He glances over his shoulder, but there's no one else arriving yet. It seems that Paul was right about them having a few moments.
"Is it still alright for me to ask anything?"
There's no emphasis on any particular word in that sentence, but in the meaning there is definitely an emphasis on the me part of that statement. Maybe Paul expected someone he was friendlier with, or more neutral. Not that things are necessarily bad between them, but.. well, considering the strange square-shaped connection they have alongside Johnny and Robby, Daniel is aware he's a more awkward factor.
Twenty date palms rise in parallel lines like an honour guard inside the enclosure of an angular sandstone palace. The day's heat is not yet at its zenith, but it is beginning its approach under the harsh, pitiless sun. The young man dressed in black who walks across the courtyard to where a hooded gardener ladles water over the roots of a palm is not dressed for this weather, but it doesn't seem to overly trouble him.
In a half-buried chamber, a cluster of pilgrims herald his approach with cries of Lisan Al Gaib!, but the boy ignores them with a faint crease of discomfort touching the corner of his mouth.
"Hello," he says, forthright and polite, to the labouring palm-tender.
The young heir and the gardener converse briefly over the trees and their water-cost.
"Old dream," the gardener concludes, and the boy stands in contemplation a while longer before he turns to head back towards the palace, as he did when this memory was first lived. But that is where he deviates, because this is the point at which he turns to the man shadowing him who looks more at ease in on this desert world than Paul does.
"This wasn't one of the memories I expected to see," Paul says, adjusting the cuffs of his sleeves. "I apologize for it not being more engrossing."
Altaïr has been foiled in his search. Any more knowledge would only have brought him sorrow, but he sought to pick his memory feverishly apart anyway. He sighs inaudibly and sets his confusing mire of emotions aside.
He has no memory of this place. It is inexplicably smooth-walled like the ziggurats, pyramids, and necropoleis rising in arid plains and stretches of sand like solitary mountains, but these are not ruins. He observes a functioning complex preparing for the hottest hours of the day.
He has shadowed the known one in black close enough to overhear--innocently; Altaïr would never admit to eavesdropping. He wisely lingers in the shade of a date palm in his dusty whites. His linens allow him to stave off the worst of the heat as he makes frequent trips to arid Damascus or Jerusalem in the height of summer, but the fact remains that Altaïr is from the mountains and accustomed to snow in winter. He feels the first pricks of sweat as his body rushes to acclimate to coming from Trench.
Tongue of the Hidden. Prophet. Paul couldn't be more off the mark; there are several points of engrossing interest in this memory Altaïr tucks neatly away like strange knives. Altaïr lifts his stubbled chin slightly to indicate Paul.
"Why do they call you that?"
In the service of being direct, he's dispensed with the Middle English he tried on Paul when they first met. His native Arabic rolls off his tongue, accent and dialect inevitably wrong, but much closer to a language from Paul's universe than Altaïr would ever have suspected. It and the calls of pilgrims make Altaïr suspicious of the god-disillusioned young man in military boots who claims descent from the House of Atreus.
It's Robby's mother that Paul can't stop watching.
There are many things happening in this memory, layers upon layers of history and interpersonal dynamics and context that Paul only grasps in parts, and all of it adds up to a story that's unfortunate, complex, and far from rare. He could be paying attention to the tripwire quickness of Robby's strike, to the quiet desperation of the disarray around them, to the stranger who lies easily and badly, to the disorienting flow of emotions the Robby of the past goes through at all of it.
(Or he could close his eyes, and not look at any of it.)
But she's the heart of it. She's magnetic in her fluttering vulnerability, her sweetness thinned and sickly. She's like a wilted hothouse flower, petals bruised and drooping, and it's far from the first time Paul has wished he could see less of people when he looked at them.
She says I love you after she lies to herself and her son. Paul's stomach flips queasily. When the Robby who was issues his threat, a last ditch, futile attempt at warding against a man who only goes by Rick, no last name, no ties of identity, Paul doesn't think that this is the first time Robby has felt like he's had to try to protect her.
Paul has some idea of what that feels like. He doesn't need to watch Robby's face when he presses his forehead against the door. He only needs to look at his shoulders.
This isn't the way Paul had hoped their next conversation would start. That's the danger of Winter Mournings, the dice that Paul keeps rolling, and sooner or later it was bound to come up as something like this - but he's still sorry that it was this, of all things. Another glimpse of more than he thinks Robby would want anyone to see of his past, let alone Paul.
He stands there no less an intruder than so-called Rick, sharply out of place in this setting, shifting his weight from one foot to the another as he looks around. He puts his hand on the back of a couch, noting the spun roughness of the upholstery as an absent afterthought.
"What's Cabo?" He asks, quietly, for something to break the silence.
The red-headed infant sobs in sucking, exhausted hiccups, the wet and expended wails of an infant not yet habituated to isolation. Her tiny feet beat against the back wall of her crib as she works out of her tiny socks again. No one comes to slide them back over her tiny toes.
There is a dull, rusty stain on the diagram of the human skeleton on the smooth gray wall above her crib, one tipped with five points before it sloughs down the reprinted flimsy. There are no other children in the cots around her. The ventilation system hisses smooth and nearly silent.
Gideon the Smallest snuffles in her bassinet, infinitesimal, pathetic.
The creche door slams open with a shocking burst of noise, revealing an unshorn, roughly painted teenager. He cuts across the room as shears might, limbs stiff, his black eyes wild and empty wastelands. When he looms over the infant’s ivory crib, he does so with clenched fists, and he stares at her as if he does not know her.
Gideon snorts weakly, a fluttering suction of noise that surprises her, and sinks into a thin, pallid whimper, her little fists tucked under her chin.
Ortus Nigenad leans over her cradle and he draws her up to his chest, a reedy stutter of breath in his throat. He cradles her even more carefully than he did the first time, like he’s afraid she’ll come to pieces in his arms, and looks at her screwed up, snotty baby face with a mask of tragedy stamped over his own.
“I know,” he says, pressing his gray-tinged brow to her sticky one, “I know.”
They stay like that a moment, the last not yet cavaliers of the Ninth House, and Ortus takes a hard, heavy breath. He carries her over to the changing table and sets her down, provoking a fresh whimper, and hikes her infant’s dress up before he starts to attend to her most urgent need.
“There’s formula ready in the refrigerator,” he says, low and controlled, the first acknowledgment he’s made of the stranger here with them, “Please put a bottle in the bottle warmer and turn it on. She’s hungry.”
[If interested in tagging in on this prompt, please message me to discuss first due to the sensitive nature of the topics at hand.]
[What a miserable scene. Ianthe looks at this sad grief-stricken shell of a man and doesn't recognize him as anything other than a much younger version of the miserable sack of a man she walked past prior to finding herself here.
The Ninth House. She recognizes the interiors from her brief visit - her very brief, very bitter visit, and even standing a few feet away, she can make note of the familiar golden shine in those scrunched up crying eyes.
Kiriona made for a hideous baby. She wonders if that'd help her get over being a corpse. Probably not, she's rather down in general nowadays. Maybe she learned it from Mr Potato Head as she has not so lovingly dubbed him in her head. She watches it all like a vulture circling a dying animal, her eyes sharp and the expression on her pale sicky face thoughtful.
Normally, she would respond to such a request with a cutting joke or by tossing the formula at his head, but such an interruption just takes away from it somehow - the private secrecy in this moment. She jokes about a lot of things, but her appetite has always been starved. The last thing she wants to do is ruin the feast before her.
So she hands him the formula with her skeletal arm, and steps back.]
Is babysitting always this bloody sad in the Ninth House?
Anna has never been responsible for a child before.
For a number of reasons, she'd written it out of her life. Crossed it off her list of possibilities for one reason, then another, then a third, and now... she has the chance to tend to a young Kiriona Gaia. A young Gideon Nav, she corrects herself, only temporarily crossing something else off a different list. She's never been on the Ninth House before, but she can assume that that's where she is, and she recognizes the person tending to the baby, as well. This is home to them, and she might be the first pre-Resurrection human to set foot on it. Wonders never do cease, do they?
She looks around this room and finds what she's looking for quickly enough, and it's only when the bottle is in the warmer that she brings herself over to Ortus' side. She's in her heavy winter coat, and there's still some snow dusting her shoulders, but she's not carrying herself with any tension. It's draining away as she looks down at the baby. Despite everything, it's still her.
"It won't be long," she says, a strange sense of reverence in her tone. This is a memory and she is a guest, and she needs to treat it properly. "How has she been sleeping?"
Altaïr does not have the immediate need to attend to an infant's cries. Someone else always took care of that. His few interactions with children were to teach older boys what it meant to wield the blade. He expects someone to come in presently--but not in this manner.
His hand hovers near the knife hilt positioned at a ready angle in its sheath on his back. Everything about this sets his nerves on end. But the painted person who entered so loudly quietens his demeanor and handles the baby more delicately than glass. Altaïr's blades stay sheathed.
Altaïr knows he has landed in another person's memory by mistake, which was a possibility he'd allowed for, so he is more disappointed than surprised. This person doesn't seem troubled by his presence here. By now Altaïr knows what a refrigerator is, and he grabs the bottle from it with an efficient calloused hand, but he stalls when he looks at what is called a bottle warmer.
"I do not know how to use this." And, "Is this your child?"
"On it," Ezra replies, quietly, and turns to do just that.
He's pretty sure this is another memory. Ortus's, so in that sense what happens here only really matters to Ortus, but -
There's no reason not try to help, in this small way.
And maybe in another small one?
"Most babies I've spent any time with were... Force-sensitive. A little bit empathic? So it might not work as well for her, but I can, um. Try to project calm and safety? Maybe-"
He glances around. Something terrible happened here. He's not picking up details - he's not truly psychometric. But the heavy sense of death and despair hang in the air is palpable to him.
"...shield her a little," he adds, voice low, not sure if that will make sense to the older man.
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deercountry2022-12-08 11:40 am
Paul Atreides
open
winter mourning - semi-open
He's dressed for the weather, but not like he is back in Trench, where he lines his black hoods with fur and stitches silver charms onto the back of his coat to ward off evil. This coat is tailored and elegantly simple, woven of the finest wool that Caladan can offer up to its ruling House, and it fits him like his supple leather gloves.
"My father will be back in a few minutes," he says, to anyone who has arrived in this quiet memory, "If you want to join us."
Somewhere beyond the trees, the sea birds call to one another, and waves break on a rocky shore. Paul swirls the embers of the fire with the blackened end of his stick and hums a rise and fall of notes, a fragment of a melody that fades before it can be captured.
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"We stayed together... Thank goodness..."
He could have ended up anywhere. He breathes deep of the smell of forest and settles on the log. It seems prudent to stay close and warm together. He runs a gloved finger along Paul's temple and looks at his hair as it used to be and the tailoring of his woolen coat without really seeing them. He presses a kiss to his cheekbone.
"Is that okay?" he asks softly.
There are photos of each of their mothers in Midoriya's apartment and in Paul's crisp memory. Midoriya has never seen Paul's father. He knows House Atreides--the original one--was betrayed violently. Midoriya held Paul as he wept because of what he was.
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"It's okay." He sets the stick down again and picks up Midoriya's hand instead, intertwining their gloved fingers and squeezing lightly in reassurance. "I want you to be here."
With his free hand, he signs their all clear signal in assurance that no threat is lurking out of view in the memory, slipping naturally between the two forms of communication. It has something to do with nostalgia, and something else and more important to do with the security that being near Midoriya evokes.
"I want you to meet him."
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his face when all might came over to his house
father figure fail reel
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falco makes a wreath destined and designed specifically for each special person in his life. paul's piece of antler is dyed gold and sprinkled with white at its tips, with a silver knot tied to the end of a crimson string that dangled from the antler's base. with it is a pair of golden feathers, small and arched. sadly, they're not from him, but they could pretend it wasn't from one of falco's golden, fashionable hens for just a moment. it was gold.
it is not much of their choice at all when its paul's antler that brings forth a memory somewhere, someday, and bracing for what should come was an instinct. the ritual, should there be memories, were usually of hardships and times of survival. he does not expect, though it brings him some ease, when he's able to join paul around the girth of a burning fire and . . . his father?
he briefly remembers the sweet melody of the mother's hum. loving and gentle. conversation had not kept paul's father in shadows, but falco has yet to know him better. ]
I'd love to.
[ then again, paul had paleblood— what were the odds that the danger has been sweeped away? it was greater than it was less. oh, and what was this sudden feeling of jittering? the cold, or nervous (excited) anticipation? falco wraps his black-wool mantle a little tighter around him to ward off the cold that may be causing it, but greater than that would be the pressure of paul's larger frame being angled into by a teen growing lankier by the day. ]
—Will we be okay here?
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But the younger teenager is right. Paul has swept away the challenge that once inflected this memory, and he hums amicably as he slings his arm around Falco's shoulders while he's still taller enough for it to be easy.]
We're safe. Don't be worried.
[He'd never let Falco wind up in danger in a dream he controls now. His Paleblood magic a year ago is nothing compared to what it is this winter. He could spindle and fold this whole forest like paper within the confines of a Mourning. It's the only time where he can brush against the mastery of dreams possessed by his mentor Lazarus.]
He's bringing fish, if you're hungry. It won't count when you wake up, but it's still good.
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Uncertain but curious, Oscar tucked his hands into the pockets of the trench-made coat that he had gotten made in a thick fabric of jewel-toned green. The cut was a tad more refined than the comfortable work clothes he had taken to wearing in Trench, but had gotten it at the same time he had gotten his clothes for Ruby's wedding. A piece that could be worn for all occasions seemed appropriate at that moment.
"If you're okay with it," Oscar said carefully, casting Paul a sheepish smile. He was curious about the man who was Paul's father, but he wasn't going to impose his presence. Matters involving princes and kings weren't anything that he was comfortable with-- and, to reinforce that, he added:
"I'm not sure what a farm kid can offer in this."
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He glances over the fire and then out to where he knows the sea is. He doesn't know how it's there other than he can simply feel it. Paul's father is something that they haven't spoken much about. For Paul it's painful and for Kaworu, it's beyond his understanding. He's never known parents or fathers or how children behave around them.
"What will you do when he does?"
He has to know if he's going to be joining them.
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"I'd be honored to meet your father, Paul," he says quietly.
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The problem is that Gideon belongs in a place like this. Gideon was able to help, to fit in here. The memory of Paul's father's hand on her shoulder is a weight. Kiriona wraps her arms around her fine coat and shudders, even though she can't, strictly speaking, feel cold anymore.
(That's not quite true. It's just that she's cold all the time, now, and used to it.)
The seagulls cry, and Kiriona thinks it might be nice if they went for her eyes, this time.
"Okay," Kiriona whispers, like she's back at the Ninth, hiding. "Should I be your bodyguard, again?"
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closed
daniel larusso
This particular balcony is set high. A person leaning against the flat, low wall that hems it in can see the first stars appearing over the mountaintops if they look carefully through the haze of sand carried on the high winds. The lean, black-clad teenager whose hands are folded neatly in front of him seems to be looking at those stars, his expression distant and preoccupied.
"My father will be here soon," he says, without turning to face the person who has appeared through frigid winter magic to appear on this desert world, "We're going to have a conversation. Nothing bad happens. It's not a long memory."
He pushes up then, bracing his palms on the balcony edge instead of his elbows, and breathes out slow and smooth. He's wearing black, as he almost always is, but these clothes are finely cut and fashioned in their simplicity, their black a deep and true black, broken only by the silver winged pins at his collar and the white undershirt that rises above them. His ears are unpierced, his ragged, wild hair here carefully shaped and cared for. There are no scars on his hands.
"This is Arrakeen. The capitol city of Arrakis, which is the planet we're on. We have a little time if you have questions."
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(Wait, it's strange though, isn't it? He felt the cold in Trench, but that's because he's always felt it, month after month since arriving there, Daniel's sense of temperature having completely shut down the moment he became a coldblood - yet he can feel the heat here. Maybe because it's a memory?)
.. or maybe it's just worse here. The scenery Daniel can see as he glances out from over the balcony is very different from anything he's ever seen before, after all, even amidst his travels. A world that looks incredibly foreign to him, though perhaps he should have expected as much with how different the things Paul is used to have seemed from the things Daniel is used to.
He stares over at Paul's form again, at the way the boy doesn't look at him. Briefly Daniel wonders if the boy even realises he's the person who has invaded this memory, or that Paul is trying to delay finding out who will be watching this for as long as he can. Is this just the spiel he would have given everyone?
".. I suppose I should be the one apologizing this time around then," he opts to start with because of that, not wanting to startle the other too bad. Especially since Daniel assumes he's a particularly awkward intrusion. "Sorry for intruding on your memory."
Daniel breathes in, and then slowly breathes out. He glances over his shoulder, but there's no one else arriving yet. It seems that Paul was right about them having a few moments.
"Is it still alright for me to ask anything?"
There's no emphasis on any particular word in that sentence, but in the meaning there is definitely an emphasis on the me part of that statement. Maybe Paul expected someone he was friendlier with, or more neutral. Not that things are necessarily bad between them, but.. well, considering the strange square-shaped connection they have alongside Johnny and Robby, Daniel is aware he's a more awkward factor.
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altaïr ibn-la'ahad
In a half-buried chamber, a cluster of pilgrims herald his approach with cries of Lisan Al Gaib!, but the boy ignores them with a faint crease of discomfort touching the corner of his mouth.
"Hello," he says, forthright and polite, to the labouring palm-tender.
The young heir and the gardener converse briefly over the trees and their water-cost.
"Old dream," the gardener concludes, and the boy stands in contemplation a while longer before he turns to head back towards the palace, as he did when this memory was first lived. But that is where he deviates, because this is the point at which he turns to the man shadowing him who looks more at ease in on this desert world than Paul does.
"This wasn't one of the memories I expected to see," Paul says, adjusting the cuffs of his sleeves. "I apologize for it not being more engrossing."
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He has no memory of this place. It is inexplicably smooth-walled like the ziggurats, pyramids, and necropoleis rising in arid plains and stretches of sand like solitary mountains, but these are not ruins. He observes a functioning complex preparing for the hottest hours of the day.
He has shadowed the known one in black close enough to overhear--innocently; Altaïr would never admit to eavesdropping. He wisely lingers in the shade of a date palm in his dusty whites. His linens allow him to stave off the worst of the heat as he makes frequent trips to arid Damascus or Jerusalem in the height of summer, but the fact remains that Altaïr is from the mountains and accustomed to snow in winter. He feels the first pricks of sweat as his body rushes to acclimate to coming from Trench.
Tongue of the Hidden. Prophet. Paul couldn't be more off the mark; there are several points of engrossing interest in this memory Altaïr tucks neatly away like strange knives. Altaïr lifts his stubbled chin slightly to indicate Paul.
"Why do they call you that?"
In the service of being direct, he's dispensed with the Middle English he tried on Paul when they first met. His native Arabic rolls off his tongue, accent and dialect inevitably wrong, but much closer to a language from Paul's universe than Altaïr would ever have suspected. It and the calls of pilgrims make Altaïr suspicious of the god-disillusioned young man in military boots who claims descent from the House of Atreus.
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robby keene
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There are many things happening in this memory, layers upon layers of history and interpersonal dynamics and context that Paul only grasps in parts, and all of it adds up to a story that's unfortunate, complex, and far from rare. He could be paying attention to the tripwire quickness of Robby's strike, to the quiet desperation of the disarray around them, to the stranger who lies easily and badly, to the disorienting flow of emotions the Robby of the past goes through at all of it.
(Or he could close his eyes, and not look at any of it.)
But she's the heart of it. She's magnetic in her fluttering vulnerability, her sweetness thinned and sickly. She's like a wilted hothouse flower, petals bruised and drooping, and it's far from the first time Paul has wished he could see less of people when he looked at them.
She says I love you after she lies to herself and her son. Paul's stomach flips queasily. When the Robby who was issues his threat, a last ditch, futile attempt at warding against a man who only goes by Rick, no last name, no ties of identity, Paul doesn't think that this is the first time Robby has felt like he's had to try to protect her.
Paul has some idea of what that feels like. He doesn't need to watch Robby's face when he presses his forehead against the door. He only needs to look at his shoulders.
This isn't the way Paul had hoped their next conversation would start. That's the danger of Winter Mournings, the dice that Paul keeps rolling, and sooner or later it was bound to come up as something like this - but he's still sorry that it was this, of all things. Another glimpse of more than he thinks Robby would want anyone to see of his past, let alone Paul.
He stands there no less an intruder than so-called Rick, sharply out of place in this setting, shifting his weight from one foot to the another as he looks around. He puts his hand on the back of a couch, noting the spun roughness of the upholstery as an absent afterthought.
"What's Cabo?" He asks, quietly, for something to break the silence.
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cw: minor self-injury (magical ritual)
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Ortus Nigenad
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winter mourning | ongoing cw: child abuse, mass child death, human sacrifice
The red-headed infant sobs in sucking, exhausted hiccups, the wet and expended wails of an infant not yet habituated to isolation. Her tiny feet beat against the back wall of her crib as she works out of her tiny socks again. No one comes to slide them back over her tiny toes.
There is a dull, rusty stain on the diagram of the human skeleton on the smooth gray wall above her crib, one tipped with five points before it sloughs down the reprinted flimsy. There are no other children in the cots around her. The ventilation system hisses smooth and nearly silent.
Gideon the Smallest snuffles in her bassinet, infinitesimal, pathetic.
The creche door slams open with a shocking burst of noise, revealing an unshorn, roughly painted teenager. He cuts across the room as shears might, limbs stiff, his black eyes wild and empty wastelands. When he looms over the infant’s ivory crib, he does so with clenched fists, and he stares at her as if he does not know her.
Gideon snorts weakly, a fluttering suction of noise that surprises her, and sinks into a thin, pallid whimper, her little fists tucked under her chin.
Ortus Nigenad leans over her cradle and he draws her up to his chest, a reedy stutter of breath in his throat. He cradles her even more carefully than he did the first time, like he’s afraid she’ll come to pieces in his arms, and looks at her screwed up, snotty baby face with a mask of tragedy stamped over his own.
“I know,” he says, pressing his gray-tinged brow to her sticky one, “I know.”
They stay like that a moment, the last not yet cavaliers of the Ninth House, and Ortus takes a hard, heavy breath. He carries her over to the changing table and sets her down, provoking a fresh whimper, and hikes her infant’s dress up before he starts to attend to her most urgent need.
“There’s formula ready in the refrigerator,” he says, low and controlled, the first acknowledgment he’s made of the stranger here with them, “Please put a bottle in the bottle warmer and turn it on. She’s hungry.”
[If interested in tagging in on this prompt, please message me to discuss first due to the sensitive nature of the topics at hand.]
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The Ninth House. She recognizes the interiors from her brief visit - her very brief, very bitter visit, and even standing a few feet away, she can make note of the familiar golden shine in those scrunched up crying eyes.
Kiriona made for a hideous baby. She wonders if that'd help her get over being a corpse. Probably not, she's rather down in general nowadays. Maybe she learned it from Mr Potato Head as she has not so lovingly dubbed him in her head. She watches it all like a vulture circling a dying animal, her eyes sharp and the expression on her pale sicky face thoughtful.
Normally, she would respond to such a request with a cutting joke or by tossing the formula at his head, but such an interruption just takes away from it somehow - the private secrecy in this moment. She jokes about a lot of things, but her appetite has always been starved. The last thing she wants to do is ruin the feast before her.
So she hands him the formula with her skeletal arm, and steps back.]
Is babysitting always this bloody sad in the Ninth House?
cw: child death
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cw: child abuse
cw: child abuse continues
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For a number of reasons, she'd written it out of her life. Crossed it off her list of possibilities for one reason, then another, then a third, and now... she has the chance to tend to a young Kiriona Gaia. A young Gideon Nav, she corrects herself, only temporarily crossing something else off a different list. She's never been on the Ninth House before, but she can assume that that's where she is, and she recognizes the person tending to the baby, as well. This is home to them, and she might be the first pre-Resurrection human to set foot on it. Wonders never do cease, do they?
She looks around this room and finds what she's looking for quickly enough, and it's only when the bottle is in the warmer that she brings herself over to Ortus' side. She's in her heavy winter coat, and there's still some snow dusting her shoulders, but she's not carrying herself with any tension. It's draining away as she looks down at the baby. Despite everything, it's still her.
"It won't be long," she says, a strange sense of reverence in her tone. This is a memory and she is a guest, and she needs to treat it properly. "How has she been sleeping?"
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cw: child neglect
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cw: child death, trauma
cw: child death
cw: child death
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cw: child abuse
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cw: child abuse (referenced)
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His hand hovers near the knife hilt positioned at a ready angle in its sheath on his back. Everything about this sets his nerves on end. But the painted person who entered so loudly quietens his demeanor and handles the baby more delicately than glass. Altaïr's blades stay sheathed.
Altaïr knows he has landed in another person's memory by mistake, which was a possibility he'd allowed for, so he is more disappointed than surprised. This person doesn't seem troubled by his presence here. By now Altaïr knows what a refrigerator is, and he grabs the bottle from it with an efficient calloused hand, but he stalls when he looks at what is called a bottle warmer.
"I do not know how to use this." And, "Is this your child?"
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cw: child death
Re: cw: child death
cw: child death
cw: corpse description
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He's pretty sure this is another memory. Ortus's, so in that sense what happens here only really matters to Ortus, but -
There's no reason not try to help, in this small way.
And maybe in another small one?
"Most babies I've spent any time with were... Force-sensitive. A little bit empathic? So it might not work as well for her, but I can, um. Try to project calm and safety? Maybe-"
He glances around. Something terrible happened here. He's not picking up details - he's not truly psychometric. But the heavy sense of death and despair hang in the air is palpable to him.
"...shield her a little," he adds, voice low, not sure if that will make sense to the older man.
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