let me look at the sun | open

[terriblepurpose]

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

Comments

[hopticulture]

[She steps back as he stands, not out of fear but more to have an easier time looking up at him (and for him to look down at her). He sounds careful, when he doesn't need to be.]

You don't have to apologize, it's not your fault. [She rubs her forearm, feeling self-conscious now.] This has happened to me too...other people showing up in my memories.

[Like the memories he say of hers, and what seemed to be potential futures too. That was new.

Nevermind the fact that this seemed more nightmare than memory. She wonders why.]

I know you didn't mean to hurt anyone.

[terriblepurpose]

[It's a funny thing for Haru to say, after he put two knives through a body hanging over her, and it catches at something in Paul's throat. He tears at his sleeve and wraps cloth around his hand instead of looking at her.]

People still get hurt. [Said quietly, and more than he meant to say.] I didn't expect that to happen.

[Or for anyone to see that he has visions. What they're of. The way that this place has tilted and distorted an already broken thing. He knows he's not the only paleblood in the city who dreams of the future, it's just - he knows his must be worse.]

Are you all right?

[Another pointless question. He's on a streak.]

[hopticulture]

[She shrugs her shoulders, not being dismissive but more signaling it's water under the bridge.]

We don't expect a lot of things to happen, but it can't be helped when they do.

[Where Haru is now, as a person and what she's been through...all have been through unexpected and random circumstances. Being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Accidents.

It's something she's learned to live with, shaping herself through the cards she's been dealt on the daily.]

I'm alright. Just cold. [And she crosses her arms beneath her chest at that. It is a bit of a pointless question, but since he asked her, it would feel rude to not return the acknowledgement of...everything that just happened.

What this boy had gone through.]

Are you okay?

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul half-opens his mouth to protest before he answers - something like, I know you aren't all right or How can you say that? - but her matter-of-fact acceptance stops him. She's fragile looking, but there's more to her than that. She walked through a nightmare to get close enough for him to hear.

So instead, he says:] I am. Thank you.

[In a final fit of idiocy, he reaches for the lapels of a coat he isn't wearing to offer it to her, then drops them. He's about to go on, when he sees a familiar antlered shape approaching from behind her. With some urgency, he looks down again.]

I don't - [he hesitates] - this isn't something I want people to know. It's a bad dream I have, sometimes, but it's - private.

[hopticulture]

[She recognizes his failed gesture, and despite everything she laughs, rubbing her cheek with the back of her hand before bending down to instead wring out the hem of her skirt. It runs a light pink into the sand, from blood left over.

When she looks back up, Paul looks serious, and in a very animal-like gesture, she tilts her head at his sudden urgency.

Ah. Well, he doesn't have to worry. She's been at the mercy of gossip, hates it. And she understands vulnerable people needing to protect their most vulnerable moments from others.]

I promise I won't tell. You'll find that I'm pretty good at keeping secrets.

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul can't read Haru the way he would be able to read most people. The intersection of humanoid and lapine traits make her a near-mystery. He should therefore have no grounds to believe her, no evidence to base it on. All the same, he does. It's a gut feeling, or some lingering trace of prescient sense, or both, but he does.

He smiles at her, shakily relieved, and then nods at the approaching stag.]

You should go. Get warm. [A pause, then:] I promise I won't say anything either.

[He doesn't know who he might say it to, or, truthfully, what he saw. But it was hers, a sight he wasn't meant to see, and that's reason enough.]

[hopticulture]

[It's not as though she understood half of what she saw anyway.

She smiles back, turning her head to look behind at Paul's gesture and pausing at the sight of the familiar animal. Before she touches the creature, to go in its direction and out of this memory, she looks back to Paul.]

You should go too. [A suggestion, knowing the dangers of being left alone with your thoughts for too long.

But she won't press the issue further than that; placing her hand against the stag's flank, she finally turns and disappears back into the physical world.]