Thread: Daughter Of Dune (Ursus Peregrinus & darkangel76)

Marid The Fremen listened to Hersilia's words and considered them. Thinking back to his childhood in the sietch, of growing up under discipline more militarized than any great house of the Landsraad. Of knowing that when he was older, he would kill Harkonnens. But then in a scant handful of years, the war was over. Muad'dib ascended to the throne and the madness of the Jihad swept across the galaxy. Marid had been training to join the Fedaykin when that war too petered to its end, and of a sudden he was left without purpose. It was then that his Father had come to him, spoken to him at length and sent him deep into the desert. For four years now his life had been one of hard labour, quartering the deep desert and collecting data. He and those like him had banded the globe, speaking with Fremen of many sietches, learning about the change that was finally beginning. The change bought by the water of his parents and grandparents. The change brought with the water of Harkonnen and Sardaukar dead. Every drop of it scraped and fought for over more than a century and finally enabled by Paul Muad'dib's imperial largesse. Pardot Kynes came among us in the time of my grandfather. Marid said, his voice singsong, eyes closing as he recalled the tale. He travelled the pan and graben, sink and erg. He studied and he saw with eyes like no other before him. There was emotion in Marid's voice,, faint but there. Straining against his self control. When he saved the life of three Fremen youths fool enough to be caught by Harkonnens, they brought him among us. It was... a delicate time. Many argued that he should be killed and his water claimed for the people. He could not be allowed to leave, for he had now seen how the Ichwan Bedwine lived in sietch. Marid looked down at hands dried by creosote leaves, roughened with labour and scarred in many fights. Then he began to speak to us. As though to children. Explaining that this world once had been a paradise. That it could be once more. That WE could make it so, with time and toil. He looked up, those dark azure orbs burning into Hersilia's face. At first he was thought mad. He WAS mad, to expect the Fremen to adopt his dream. At length it was decided that he was to die. Uliet was sent, with two watermen, to do the deed. His voice grew harsher for a moment and he swallowed, sipped at his stillsuit's catchpocket. Kynes the elder was lecturing, and when he saw Uliet and the crysknife he did not understand. His mind was on more important matters than the time of his death. He ordered Uliet to remove himself. Marid smiled and touched his brow and then his lips with the first two fingers of his left hand, then touched the hilt of his crysknife. Uliet fell upon his own blade. From that day, Kynes was an Umma among us, and his dream spread from sietch to sietch and from mouth to mouth until it infected us all. Gesturing about him, Marid smiled. His son carried on his work, Liet wore two faces - the Emperor's planetologist, and the Naib of Naibs. Every Fremen worked now, one people united by more than hatred of Harkonnens. United by hope. He held up an open palm and then closed it into a fist. Hope is transformative, Hersilia. It was the weave that bound the Fremen people together through war and death and hardship. Muad'dib came, appearing just as Liet was murdered by the Harkonnen butchers. One who hated Harkonnens even more than us. We called him the Lisan-al-Gaib, and we followed him to war. He gave us victory. Marid looked down now, the fire was leaving his voice. But he also brought us the Jihad. While so many Fremen joined his banner to unite the Empire, crushing every foe who raised a hand against him, the rest remained here and the change began. Water now flows free in parts of Arrakis. At the poles, gardens grow in the open. The worms retreat deeper into the equatorial belt. This is what those Fremen who fought in the Jihad returned to find. The miracle they would have worked themselves proceeding apace on its own. The Fremen youth watched her carefully, he couldn't be more than a few years older than her, still young for a people so heavily dosed with the anagathic melange from birth. Muad'dib gave us our miracle, but in so doing he stole hope from us. The unrest is from the death of our dream. It dies slowly, even as it grows around us, because it was a gift to us. A reward for the blood we shed in Muad'dib's crusade. Marid's jaw clenched. The change moves too fast for those who did not see it begin. The elders find themselves lost in a world they no longer know. Even in sietch they walk the sands, with no foundation beneath their feet. Paul Muad'dib was not our saviour, he was the thief of our dream. The change we should have brought about ourselves. Earned ourselves, through labour and toil, not through bloody war. Finally he shook his head. Bah. There is no changing what is. Liet once said face the facts, then act upon them. There is no use mewling like a babe for what is lost. There is still desert, there will always be desert. There must always be desert. God created Arrakis to train the faithful, and the Fremen people are in sore need of that hardship now. Marid stopped, angry at himself for speaking so freely. He felt foolish, and with that embarrassment came a determination to teach her a lesson about distracting her teacher. Checking his timepiece he considered and then rose. Enough talk. See to your suit, sunset is coming soon enough. If you cannot sleep you must not be tired. I can rectify that, outlander. The light in his eyes was cold and there was a cruelty in his smile as he tightened the seals on his suit and began to pack up their meagre belongings. Tonight he would take the heavier pack. Tonight they would reach Fanged Ridge and take shelter at the testing station there. Tonight she would be sorry she had not slept when given the chance. By morning she would know better than to waste time and moisture in idle talk. tag