deercountry | let me look at the sun

Entry tags:

let me look at the sun | open

Who: Paul Atreides, open
What: Event catch-all
When: Month of December
Where: Archaic Archives, streets of Trench, the forest's edge, memories
Notes: Go ahead and contact me at

terriblepurpose or by PM if you'd like to discuss any starters or suggest new ones! For tagging in your character's memories to Paul, feel free to start with whatever your preference is.

Content Warnings: Violence, body horror (lockjoint), death, religious extremism, extensive Dune spoilers, suicidal ideation, funerals, grief

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[Paul actually laughs at that, wryly, though he keeps it soft, especially as they move farther away from the incense. He's keeping a watch on their surroundings, and he's seen no sign of beasts near, but caution is a habit.]

No. Not at all.

[The idea of deciding what to do with himself was strange for Paul too. What he would do was what he was, a ducal heir, the future of House Atreides. Nothing has changed that. He won't let anything change that. But here - sometimes he wonders if he can call himself Atreides at all. But then, who does that leave him?]

I'd like to think blood type matters less than personal inclination and aptitude. What did you do, before you came?

[Even much less keen minds than Lazarus' would notice Paul's omission of his own answer for that.]

[L holds the blood-spattered cloth, with the winter mourning within, close to his chest as they walk. The cold, now, is actually starting to bite through him, though like most pain and discomfort, he can ignore it for quite some time.]

Is that so?

[A pause, after Paul tries to turn this around on him. It seems they both rely on the desire most people have to talk about themselves, among other similarities.]

Not much at all is analogous to what I did. It might take some time to explain.

[With any luck, the vague answer has bought him some time.]

And you?

[Worth a shot.]

Fair enough.

[Paul tips his head back and looks up at the stars appearing through the veil of clouds, sounding only as dismayed as any player of games whose gambit was spotted in a casual match.]

It doesn't matter here. I was a duke's son, so what I did was learn.

[There are times where showing true emotion is appropriate. It would be stranger for Paul not to sound wistful, so he allows it into his tone.]

Sometimes I wonder if it's still in this sky, our planet.

[L's own gaze travels skyward, though with the lackluster ennui of someone who knows he won't recognize anything they see from his own world.]

I've been studying Trench's star charts. Nothing resembles Earth's constellations... I suppose that you've discovered the same, given your predilection for learning.

This planet is supposed to be a preserve. No human life, by Imperial Decree, although whether or not the planet they mean is the original Earth, or a dopple, I'm not sure.

[Paul shrugs, not particularly interested. Earth is an ancient story, long eclipsed by other worlds. Of all the mysteries here, it's one of the most academic to him.]

It wouldn't be the same planet, but I suppose we'll never know, unless a ship comes down from the sky. So. What did you do?

[L mulls that over, briefly. He's aware that Paul is not the only Sleeper in Trench who hails from a planet that is not Earth; he also knows that there's only so far a line of questioning can improve his understanding of one, especially considering any Earth in Paul's world could well be distinct entirely from the one in L's.

It's almost more practical, he thinks, to consider all of their respective situations as different dimensions, each with their own timelines and rules. More practical, insofar as the existential crisis isn't paralyzing.

One use, at least, is it makes some things seem so trivial in comparison. So small.]

I looked at what happened after, and used it to figure out what came before... then used those pieces to deduce what was likely to happen next. There was no magic involved, just... usually someone else's oversight or miscalculation, whether they'd lost something important, or tried to get away with something unforgivable.

[It's a long-winded way to say...]

I solved puzzles. I sat in a room all day, and solved puzzles.

[He knew it. Paul is not smug, but he is satisfied to have been so close in his approximation. Of course, it won't be the same thing, but if Paul had to describe a mentat, he could do much worse than that. And the thought pulls him away from other, more personal ones.]

You've never heard of anything called a mentat before, have you? [Rhetorical, but mildly triumphant.] If only they had the school here. You'd fit in.

[He does briefly think of their twisted brethren, but for all Lazarus' bentness, he doesn't seem to be broken. There is a meaningful distinction to be made between strange and aberrant, which does remind him to add:]

It's a respected profession.

No... it's not familiar to me. Not by that name, at least. I can infer things about it, based on what we've been talking about, so... I don't doubt that if I'd been born into your world, I would have had a place to "fit in."

[Wasn't that the purpose of the orphanage? Somewhere for kids like him to thrive, only for so many of them to end up broken, mad or dead before they were grown?

A respected profession, indeed, a desired future to fight over.]

You mentioned study, the vocation of a Duke's son. Was that your school?

[The concept of a life made up of choices is one Paul is beginning to accept is true of some other people, but he hasn't made the leap to generalization yet. A person ends up where they are put, in Paul's view of things, and alternatives don't factor in.

You can only be who you are, no matter what else you might want.]

One of my teachers, Thufir Hawat, [was] is a mentat. I picked up some of the conditioning. But there was weapons training, statecraft, military strategy, sciences...a ruler has to know everything about what he rules.

[He's not bragging, or lamenting, nor shy of speaking of ruling. Instead, he's solemn about the responsibility, the weight. Never mind that he has no fief to rule, no House to answer for here. This is who he is, who he will be.]

I don't suppose you've ever considered being a subject?

[Likely no, and he knows that.]

[It'll be a trial by fire for the detective. He's who he is, down to the very core of his soul, but if he could change his fate by exploring a different path, why wouldn't he try?

At worst, he would just reaffirm to himself that his room was a sanctuary, and not a prison.]

Conditioning.

[It does sound like Wammy's House now. Uncomfortably so. Comfortably so, if only because normal is what one knows. He says the word thoughtfully, mulling over all possible meanings without condoning or condemning them.]

A subject? To a test, or a ruler?

[Maybe a bit of both. He's amused, but not cruelly so; there's a sort of gentle bewilderment to it, as if he's just seen a hummingbird moth for the first time and doesn't know what to make of it, while still being delighted that something so absurd could exist.]

If it's considered, and chosen, it must be powerfully incentivized.

[Lazarus' contemplation of conditioning catches Paul's attention, and the mention of a test reels it in. Nerve inductions leaves no physical residue of the pain it causes. His hand burns anyway.]

A ruler, of course. [And because he's talking to someone reasonable:] I don't think we chose what tests we're subject to. We accept them as they come. I suppose not unlike our rulers, most of the time.

[A duke is not an emperor. It isn't the same as being a subject of a House, to be a ruling duke, and Paul would never compare his circumstances to the lives of people who live under a House's aegis, not over it. But he has learned something about what it means to be subject.]

There has to be an exchange, or it's tyranny. You're right about that. A lord is nothing without his House, and he owes it his life. A House without reason to trust their lord is lost. So, yes. Incentives. Order, justice, prosperity, peace.

[Big words, from a hereditary feudal heir, but their irony is lost on Paul completely.]

Nothing I can offer. It was a thought.

Assuming, for a moment, that any ruler could truly achieve those objectives for his subjects... well. I'd have been out of a job.

[His amusement turns dark, and inward, because his livelihood did rely on disorder, injustice, desperation, conflict.]

My thought is that a man needs a purpose, and some challenge or chaos to rise to. In the absence of those things, it won't be long before he creates his own.

[Paul's own smile is wry in answer, hitching his satchel higher on his shoulder as they come in sight of the Lamp. He still hasn't set his own down yet, a small thing that he dwells on, sometimes, though not in this moment.

Then Lazarus goes ahead and says that, and, well. Paul sets his jaw slightly.]

So that's what you're doing here, then? Looking for your purpose. [He's quiet, as he so often is.] ...I think I understand, now. Why you want to be a Night Walker.

[L's remains with him as well, as he hasn't settled anywhere and would only be wasting it by leaving it behind.]

You do?

[There's a new gentleness in his features, softening their harsh edges just slightly. He even smiles a little; they're close, now, to the light that marks that they are officially (and literally) out of the woods.]

That's more than I can usually ask for, with any reasonable expectation, so... thank you.

What's a more interesting puzzle than people?

[Paul smiles back, and he's surprised at himself, he's surprised at all of this. And it's not so bad, being surprised. At least it's different.]

If you think about it, every puzzle comes back to them, sooner or later. I hadn't thought about it that way before. So thank you for that.

[For the other ways he made Paul think, too. He'll have plenty to keep himself busy with later, new puzzles to work through instead of digging his fingers back into the unsolvable one of himself.]

[The gentle smile turns into a canny, impressed half-smile, wider, if only on one side.]

Truly... Even nature's mysteries are only thought of in that manner because people have an interest in solving them. A sort of curiosity that isn't content to say "this is just the way things are."

In that vein...isn't a subject encouraged to be content with the status quo if it's widely accepted that a ruler is good?

If a ruler is good, their subjects don't need to be suppressed to be content. Give people what they need, and some of what they want, and out of ten thousand, only one will ever ask why. It's easy to answer any one person's questions.

[Paul's smile ticks up on the opposite side of Lazarus', an unconscious choice.]

It doesn't hurt to have a good propaganda corps.

Propaganda? No... it doesn't hurt. That's why it's so effective.

[He says it in a vague, almost dreamy tone.]

In a kingdom of a certain size, though... even one in ten-thousand could be a formidable army. Something to think about.

[Paul tilts his head at that, smile unchanged.]

It is, isn't it.

[In the fey light of the Lamp Paul doesn't look like a duke's son, disciplined and mannered. He looks like someone with a question about the way things are, a question held like a knife.]

I think I was lucky to meet you tonight. I'll see you again.

[Not a prophecy, exactly. But he will.]

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