#cheni

Insight and Discernment 

Paul was used to prophetic dreams, having had them for most of his life, it was something he thought he was used to. Visions however, were new thanks to exposure of Spice. Seeing multiple possibilities for the future and learning and gleaning knowledge from said multiple possibilities of the future was something, that thanks to the enhancing properties of Spice was not only useful but poignant, but when all those possible futures had to be closed off, cut off, because of other’s people’s choices and having to react to their reactions, there was a sadness at the loss of the possibilities. Of what could have been but couldn’t be. 

But dreams, enhanced with Spice, if his dreams had always felt real before, now they were just as vivid as real life, if not more so. Touch, taste, scent, sight, sound, all of his senses were enhanced now, the visions, the dreams, they were starting to blur into one and the same thing now. 

Before the exposure to Spice, she had always been helpful, kind, sweet even, allusive, flirtatious in a way that hinted at intimacy but never close enough to be so, he could hear her voice and knew it as well as his own, or his mother’s. A close friend and companion that his entire being told him that she was his destiny, his everything, but one that he didn’t know the name of yet, but a face he could sculpt from clay with his eyes closed, or draw in a notebook from seeing it countless times, from caressing and holding it countless times too. Those blue in blue eyes that hypnotized him every time he saw them, a smile that beckoned him, intrigued him, motivated him to do whatever it would take to see just one more time. A body that was still so hidden by loose, billowy garments that only made her more ethereal, a form whose outlines were blurred by sands and dust and stark sunlight, but her skin, soft in places that weren’t exposed to the ever blowing and downright corrosive sands, but on her face, where skin should be softest, was rough, rough from the sand blasting it, rough from tears collecting dust, grit and sand as she cried over the fate and oppression of her people. The skin under her eyes, puffy from lack of sleep and having to constantly be on the move, but even still, to have lips softer than the pillows he usually slept on and a taste he found impossible to describe or even have a point of reference for- usually had him eager to go to bed, eager to see her again, be with her again. See her smile again, feel her touch and hear her voice and smell her scent again. See a world that was foreign but was becoming more and more familiar to him. 

That’s why the vision at the first exposure of spice- of his beloved- stabbing him, didn’t make any sense. She had never shown any aggression towards him before. Finally getting so close to the edge of intimacy only to be betrayed, to be stabbed in an embrace, one he had thought would have been out of fondness, affection, dare he hope- love? It’s why it hurt so bad and why he was left, powerless, barely upright on his knees as if the air had been pulled right out of his lungs and power from his legs. Because what could a giant sandworm do to him that would hurt worse than her betrayal?

But after the second vision, the one where he saw a war burning through the universe like a fire, a war waged in his name. Which at the time terrified him- but to see her, his beloved, at his side through all of it, despite the horror of the violence, her presence brought him peace, confidence and comfort.  

But what comforted him the most, almost as much as his mother- as his mother had tried to do when he was awake only moments before- when he was alone with her, hiding in a tent in the ever rising sand, reeling from the sudden and tragic catastrophes- was the simple fact that once he fell asleep, he was finding himself awake in a new dream, and being with his beloved, it was her- his nameless, but almost all too familiar companion, his head in her lap, a tent, similar to the one he had fallen asleep in this night, but now the tent itself was slightly different but it surrounded the pair like a protective cocoon, as he was laying on a rather uncomfortable bedroll in the sand, but the discomfort was only because it was not the same soft mattresses he was used to sleeping on before. 

But her presence more than made up for the stark contrast, he could be lying on a hard rock with his head in her lap and be infinitely more comfortable there, than in all the fancy mattresses and beds he had grown up sleeping on- but sleeping in them alone, because what could the comforting, wonderful presence of his beloved compare to a bed? A bed was just a bed, but the more he dreamed of her, envisioned her, she was becoming synonymous with the sense of the term home- than any actual place. As if wherever she was- was where he was meant to be, and where he belonged. 

The sound of winds whipping the sides and sand flying through the air outside was a soft roar he was trying to tell his brain to put into the background as his ears and concentration focused his ears to strain to hear for her- hear for her breathing, hear for her voice, her wonderful, soothing voice that his heart yearned for his ears to hear more of.  

The space was small yet not at all constrictive or claustrophobic. In fact it was cozy, comforting, intimate even. A scent, spicy, almost like cinnamon, almost peppery, maybe a little sweet even. Again something he only knew in these prophetic dreams but nothing he had ever experienced in the waking world before coming to Arrakas, and coming into contact with Spice first hand. All the dreams had given him a small sample of it’s scent, it’s taste, like smelling the perfume from someone passing you on a walkway, only getting a hint, a passing inhale then gone just as quickly as it appeared and only lingered in your nose and memory but gone with the next inhale and exhale. Before though, Spice had come with consequences, visions. But now, it only acted to enhance the atmosphere, like incense, it was pleasant actually, as it seemed to dance in both his nostrils and on his tongue. But he could clearly differentiate between the scent of theSpice, the scent of the atmosphere, and the scent of her, his beloved. Again, a scent, his heart yearned to smell in the waking world until he actually did and once he had a name for it and point of referance it was one that was both forign yet all too familiar.  

But here, he had taken up a familiar stance that he had walked in on seeing his parents take up, when his father’s head would be in his mother’s lap as she would gently stroke his head and comb her fingers through his unruly hair and gently scratching his scalp, an intimate, comforting, familial moment. One that showed how close and comfortable his parents were with each other. 

Now his beloved was doing the same to him. Her fingers were rougher than her mother’s ever were but that was because her mother was a priestess and a highborn lady, a concubine of a Duke who never knew hard, manual labor, where as his beloved’s hands had known nothing but. Her fingernails -much shorter than his mother ever kept hers for the same reasons. But he wouldn’t have his companion’s features changed for anything. He liked them and preferred them because they were her features, which made her unique and made her, her. 

“You stabbed me.” He found himself accusing her in a soft, petulant whisper as she frowned and tilted her head and raised a quizzical if not disbelieving brow at his accusation.  

“I did? When?” She asked, her voice soft, soothing but still alight with amusement. 

“I don’t see any stab wounds.” She noted as she gave the rest of his rather bare body laid out before her as he looked down and indeed did not see any sign of a stab wound. 

“I...I had a vision, you went to kiss me and instead you stabbed me.” Paul tried to recall. 

“Ah I see,” she nodded in understanding. 

“I had a vision you betrayed me,” he repeated with a pout. 

“By stabbing you, pretending to kiss you and stabbing you instead.” She repeated for clarification. 

“Yeah.” He nodded. 

“I thought not all your dreams came true?” She questioned. 

“They don’t. At least, not like I dream of them or not at all, they are...premonitions.” He clarified. 

“And your visions? Have they come true just like you vision them?” She questioned. 

“I...I’ve only had...not that many. I don’t know.” He frowned. 

“Hmm, is this one of them?” She asked, tilting her head in the opposite direction to change her point of view of him. 

“I...I don’t know.” He confessed. 

“Well, there were days when your arrogance and your entitlement, your whining and complaining- irritated me to the point that it did make me want to stab you.” She confessed with a sigh and her voice hitching higher as she fought back a gigle but an amused grin and playful delight danced in her eyes all the same. 

“However, that was only in the beginning, I like to think you’ve grown up and out of those habits and have matured past that.” She reminded him. 

“When I first saw you, you were an outworlder, a boy in a foreign, and hostile place. You had already been betrayed by the people you never thought would, so you were especially suspicious of everyone. And I think your vision then was trying to warn you that the people that you think or thought rather, that you could trust implicitly were going to betray you, but they simply used my face, because it was my face you were the most familiar with and trusting of- in your dreams. Because as I have told you before and I will tell you again and I will continue to repeat it until there is no doubt in your mind, heart and soul, that I will never betray you, either in faith, confidence or any other way you can imagine. You have my heart, mind and soul just as much as I have yours. Why would I hurt the one person that I want to protect above all else? And the one person who I know in every drop of water in my being and theirs, feels the same way about me?” She questioned him in all seriousness, her previous amusement gone, replaced with a gravatas in only a heart beat of time. 

“You’re right,” he conceded, feeling peace that that particular vision had come true in a prophetic way, but not in the literal way of how he had seen it or envisioned it and she made sense. She was perfectly logical and reasonable in her explanation of his vision. And he appreciated her clear insight and discernment into such matters because of how objective her point of view could be.  

“I always am.” She softly giggled with a bright smile, coming from those blue in blue eyes, the weight of seriousness lifting in a flash and the freeness and ease returning to the air around them. 

“You are.” He readily agreed as he reached up to palm her cheek, smiling when she leaned into his touch as he did the same, letting their shared touch ground each other before she moved to lay next to him but grabbed both of his hands with her own. 

“See? No crysknife. No harm, only pleasure.” She insisted as she looked from their intertwined hands between them then craned her neck to bring her face within kissing distance of his as he eagerly met her kiss and kissed her. Really kissed her, kissed her with all of the pent up passion and adoration, appreciation, reverence and desire he had for her as he was the first to break his hand’s union with hers in favor of wrapping his arm around her tight as the other hand held her head, his fingers threading through the hair on the back of her head to keep her face next to his as his body was now flush with hers he could feel the heat of her body as much as he could sense the desire her body had for his, which was only eclipsed by his body’s need for hers as the kiss deepened. To taste her, his beloved, was a wonder of the universe. It was both too much yet not nearly enough. He wanted more, needed more. More of everything, to see her, to hear her, to feel her, to taste her, to smell her, To be drowning in her. To be perfectly overwhelmed by her. His beloved. 

Side by side, her leg hiked up over his hip, their little pieces of clothes that had been worn earlier now vanished as his arm that had been wrapped around her to keep her close, was now greedily exploring, claiming and possessive in his sense of touch. She was his and he was hers. Two became one and the universe for being so big and so expansive, was now shrinking down to the confines of this tent because nothing outside of this private, personal, comfortable, intimate space mattered and didn’t seem to exist in this moment. 

“Mahbubi,” his beloved keened when he rolled over her and thrusted his hardened member into her core, her essence in anticipation for him, making it a smooth glide as the feeling of being filled helped her feel whole, complete, with him. 

“Mahbubi.” He mirrored in a coo in turn, his voice soft, velvety deep and sultry and it made a shiver go down her spine. It was a word that meant ‘my beloved’ to her, in her native tongue. And one that they often used for each other, to each other. Like how one would say ‘Honey’, ‘Dearest’, ‘My Love’, an affectionate term of endearment. This- ‘mahbubi’ was theirs, when names were not known so could not be used, but often didn’t need to be used either. 

Her arms were wrapped around his shoulders now, even though he was always on the lean side, the strength and stamina in his body was usually always underestimated because of the lack of bulk in his muscle but that did not make him any less strong, or quick or powerful. His smaller frame was actually a blessing. Because he did not dwarf her. His body never intimidated her. But rather, she felt as an equal in his presence, if not more precious, because he thought her so. He knew she was strong and powerful in ways he would come to fully understand one day and wanted to imitate. But who she was to him- his precious beloved, his. It was a powerful idea and notion and one that she yearned for as well. To be seen by him- as herself, cared for, by him- as herself, loved, by him- for herself. It was all she wanted and all she wanted him to and know was mirrored and returned by her in every drop of water in his being. 

His arms reached under her, his forearms under her shoulder blades, his elbows planted on either side of her ribs, his hands curling to the soft appearance of her equally underestimated strength she carried in her shoulders, with weight that she carried in them that he was just now only starting to grasp, a burden he would share and make lighter for her as she would do the same for him. 

Her legs, lean but powerfully strong, had parted to make room for his body to be in the cradle of her own body, a place she wanted him to find comfort, love, appreciation, solace. Then she had planted her heels into the bed, right behind his legs, just above his knees but on his lower thighs, that were planted into the bedroll itself to gain traction and footing, to keep his body close, but also to allow his lower body the freedom of movement to power stroke after stroke into her, her smaller, humble breasts were pushed against his chest as his it rocked against hers, her skin starting to perspire precious beads of sweat, making it so his skin ever so deliciously glided against hers, his weight a comforting and grounding force on her. His kisses to her mouth, her cheeks, her jaw, her neck, her shoulder, her chest, each one precious, powerful, meaningful. His tongue tasting those precious beads of moisture, appreciating and carving it’s taste into his brain as her taste, added to the taste of her mouth. Precious, delectable flavors he hungered for as she did the same to him, biting his earlobe as her hands made fists into his curly, unruly hair to keep his head right where it was just as he was using his elbows to lift himself off of her by a few precious centimeters just to lower himself down to suckle at her breasts, the sensation striking her own prophetic notion of their children latching on and feeding her nourishing milk that she would make for them someday in the near yet distant future. 

But now, the sensation only brought her pleasure as her back arched off the bed to push her breasts into his mouth that much more as he went from one to the other so that neither felt neglected as he left a wet trail of his saliva on his mouth’s journey on her body before he removed one hand from her shoulder to lick at his dry fingers and put his fingers between them, in the midst of the protective tuft of hair to keep her sex safe and protected and to keep any moisture from escaping such sensitive and delicate tissue, to find her clit, her nub, to circle it, press it softly at first, his touch growing in firmness until her body answered with how much pressure his touch needed to please her best- as her body wrythed beneath him when he found the right pressure, the right speed, the right spot to work his fingers because he was dangerously close to finishing and the shame of being so selfish as to find his ecstasy without or before she found hers was too great a burden for him to bear, his father had imparted such knowledge many times before for him to not know how to pleasure the one person who mattered the most to you. 

“Mahbubi” he grunted, almost growling and snarling in a possessive, powerful yet needy tone in her ear as he continued his ministrations on her as her voice was helpless to do anything but moan and keen in return, the pitch and volume betraying how much pleasure he was giving her and how oh so close she was, just a little more, just a little longer, he could hold back his own pleasure, only to ensure her own. 

“Mahbubi!” She cried as her hands almost became clawed at his back as her whole body began to tense and she arched her back again and canted her hips to feel the friction and angle of him inside of her that much more keenly before she reached her peak, a sharp gasp, a keening cry of release as her legs suddenly clamped tightly around his waist as her hips ground into his and his fingers and prolonging her orgasmic release that much more intensely and longlasting and just as her body was starting to relax as she was riding the slow decent of the back of the wave of her orgasm did he pull his hand away to place his hands on either side of her head to really give himself the traction and support his body needed to power into her almost animalistic strokes as her essence made her canal especially slippery and within a few short minutes with his faster, harder strokes did he finish himself, pumping her full of his seed which he would be reserving for her, only her. His beloved, his Mahbubi as he pressed his hips into hers as hard as he could, delivering his precious seed as deep into her womb as he could. Knowing one day, eventually that seed would take root before he collapsed onto her. Letting his body relax fully onto her, feeling her still being able to breathe easily under him as she held him close, cheek to cheek as they both tried to catch their breath again before she rather absentmindedly started to gently run her rough fingertips over his back, the feeling soothing him further as the soft stroking turned to scratching, with what little tips of fingernails she had, which his body happily welcomed. 

“That feels wonderful, thank you.” He thanked her appreciatively as he reached up and still held his cheek to hers but held the other side of her face with his hand before softly stroking the rough apples of her cheeks with his thumbs before petting her head and hair, in an equally comforting, soft, gentle, comforting and nurturing touch. 

“Thank you.” She mirrored with a pleased murmur as she stopped her scratching to hug him tightly for a moment before his softening and shrinking member broke the seal it had created between the head of his cock and her womb before he rolled off of her but went to lay down beside her, facing her as she rolled with him, keeping face to face before she scooted down, her head turning upwards so that her ear was pressed to his chest, his heartbeat, while still faster and harder from his exertion gradually slowed as a soft blanket that had been laying on the edge of their bed roll was unrolled to cover the lovers to keep out the chill of the night was starting to come in. 

“Rest Mahbubi.” She urged him as sleep beckoned her mind and body. 

“The best rest is in your arms Mahbubi.” He answered her with a fond but sleepy grin as he let his arm be her pillow and wrapped the other around her possessively as she had curled the arm of the side she was laying on to rest under her breast but the other was wrapped with equal possessiveness around him.