Desert Rose
Synopsis: The Water of Life opened Paul Atreides' mind. He could suddenly see every possible future that he used to dream of, but there was only one path that led to a greener future for Arrakis and for the universe. A very narrow golden path. And it all started with you.
Starring: Timothee Chalamet as "Paul Atreides"
Form: Written
Genre: I wish I could tell you.
☀️Sunny says: she is supposed to be studying. I finally watched both the Dune movies and I have been ITCHING to write this. Please don't mind me, this is just a little something-something to quell the worms gnawing at my brain.
Paul had always dreamt.
At night, when he closed his eyes, he had seen it all. Arrakis in his palm. The empire bowing at his feet. The Fremen following behind him— all mostly oblivious to the way his fist was beginning to tighten around their belief, squeezing off any chance of mutiny that would challenge his place as the Messiah.
And sure, not every dream he had would come to fruition the way he had once thought it—Jamis was one example of that. The duel and the warrior's death was proof enough for Paul to know that his dreams only showed him possibilities of the future. Different strands he had to meticulously untangle in order to find the right one, the right string of events to cling onto so that everything would fall into place in the best way possible.
Not all of his dreams happened in real life the way they did in his mind, but this one...he had to make sure that he gave fate no choice but to bend to his will.
You had nearly caught him off guard.
When he had stepped forward to challenge the Emperor, a flash of Arrakis sun had reflected off of a silver link in Princess Irulan's headdress. With a warrior's instinct, his hardened gaze had flitted over to the source, landing on the extravagantly elegant princess who very pointedly avoided his gaze out of fear.
In his dreams, he had seen her. He had seen a future where he led the empire into prosperity with her by his side. There was a golden path—a very narrow one leading to a brighter future—and marrying Princess Irulan was one of the only ways to secure that future for himself and his people. Paul had accepted that as one of his many responsibilities.
But when his gaze had very briefly landed on you, it was like he had seen a mirage. Like the merciless sun had played a trick on him and shown him an oasis of impossibility. He blinked his azure eyes back into focus and realised you weren't just a trick of the light—weren't just his mind trying to pull one over on him in one of the most important moments of his family's entire legacy.
You were real.
Standing amongst the bleak Harkonnen, you were a vivid splash of colour. You were a beacon of light amidst their darkness.
He had assumed you would be Fremen. In his dreams, when you softly smiled up at him, you had the eyes of Ibad. Blue like Chani and Stilgar, but so much more vibrant. And beautiful—so beautiful. Beautiful enough to stop his heart and start it all over again. You would always looks at him like he truly was a hero predestined to save the universe. You would always smile at him with his hand clasped tightly in yours. You would always promise to stand beside him through both peace and violence.
"Mahdi, just as this destiny has always been yours, as have I."
The you in his dreams was much more different than the you that stood a few paces away from him in this moment.
Your hair was still the colour of the salt flats in the southern regions of Arrakis—unusually stark white. Instead of the bright halo he knew you to have, your hair was braided down and tied back with a black band to keep it away from your perfect face. Your sense of freedom had been lost among the brutality of Giedi Prime—oppressed for the sake of your own safety, Paul assumed.
The edges of your features were sharper than he had dreamed—not gaunt, but sculpted—and he briefly wondered whether you were an unfortunate Fremen married off to a Harkonnen savage. That would explain your cobalt irises contrasting against your black robes. Despite everything, your skin still glowed bright with life against the raven material. It was almost like there were gemstones embedded within the pores of your rich brown skin with the way the sun glittered across it.
You were a dream come to life.
Reluctantly, he settled his gaze back onto Emperor Shaddam.
"You have to answer for my father."
Almost immediately, the Emperor shot back, his whisper as sharp as a dagger. "Do you know why I killed him?" He didn't give Paul a chance to retort, taking a few steps towards the young messiah. "Because he was a man who believed in the rules of the heart. But the heart is not meant to rule."
Paul could hear his own heart thumping in his ears. His teeth grinded harshly against each other as he struggled to not unsheath his blade and plunge it through the emperor's throat.
"In other words..." Shaddam scowled slightly. "Your father was a weak man."
Silence filled the air. The last living Atreides glared down at the traitorous Emperor for a long, quiet moment. For just a second, he looked past Shaddam and saw you again.
You were watching with bated breath just like everyone else, but the pinch in between your brows indicated a much deeper concern. Paul wished he could see into your mind and page through all of your worries, all of your memories, all of your history. But he couldn't become distracted now.
He glanced back at the coward in front of him. "Stand. Or choose your champion."
When Feyd-Rautha took a fearless step forward, Paul realised something that made his blood boil just a bit more than it already had been.
The way you parted your lips to speak up, but pursed them to stop yourself. The way your hand reached out to Feyd slightly, but curled into a fist at your side when he stepped just too far out of reach. The way your cerulean eyes stayed fixed on the Harkonnen na-Baron with a sort of silent despair told Paul everything he needed to know.
"I'm here, Atreides." The Harkonnen heir stared dead into his eyes, his lip very slightly curled at the corner. "I need a blade."
"Accept mine." And once again, the Emperor formed an alliance with a Harkonnen to take down the House of Atreides.
As he prepared for the duel, Paul kept glancing in your direction almost against his own will. He watched with a clench in his jaw while you pulled at Feyd's sleeve and admonished him in a hiss of whispers.
The heir apparent only chuckled in typically smug fashion. He raised a hand to brush your cheek and you turned your face away to reject the action. Then he carelessly clutched your jaw in one hand, fingers squeezing so hard you winced in his grasp, and Paul felt his stomach turn multiple times over. Feyd loomed over you, pressing his forehead against yours, and whispered something that hardened the concern within your eyes. Your hands—Paul remembered them to be soft and gentle—furiously pried Feyd's fingers off of your scowling face. You continued to glare at him even as he accepted the emperor's blade. You burned a hole through the back of his head even as he met Paul in the middle of the makeshift battlefield.
Paul smiled to himself at the contempt in your expression. It was a sick feeling really—why did it make him feel lighter knowing that you were so very upset with the na-Baron?
You were either his concubine or his promised bride, but either way, it wasn't willingly. And something built on such a fragile foundation was always prone to shattering easily.
He had to kill Feyd-Rautha. For the empire, for his father's legacy, for you.
Paul raised his chin and held his dagger above his forehead. "May thy knife chip and shatter."
Feyd gave him an amused smile, and Paul almost thought his cousin was going to laugh. Instead his pale counterpart nodded his head slightly. "May thy knife chip and shatter."
And then he lunged.
Paul couldn't help it.
Regardless of how close he came to an untimely demise with every swing of Feyd's dagger, he still found his gaze drifting off to watch your every reaction to the duel. Which was definitely how the na-Baron had gotten ahead of his defences and plunged his very own knife into the duke's side.
It was an unexpected hit that had all the Fremen gasping. Their otherworldly messiah receiving a near fatal blow in a battle that would decide the fate of the entire empire would have anyone feeling anxious. Despite all of that, Paul could only focus on you.
While his breathing became shallow, his line of sight caught on you. And the way you gasped and bit at your lower lip to prevent any other sound from slipping past nearly made him smile through the excruciating pain.
Feyd shoved him back to the edge of the makeshift battlefield, the crysknife still lodge deep in Paul's side. The Harkonnen tilted his head to the side the way a viper would when stalking its prey. "You keep looking at my pet, cousin."
Paul grinded down on his molars. Feyd grinned, his mouth parted wide to reveal his black teeth. "It's alright. I'll grant you the most beautiful view while I tear your dying breath out of you."
They met in the middle once again and Feyd immediately had the emperor's blade pointed right above Paul's heart, dangerously close to ending the prophecy before it even began.
Paul glared straight up at his cousin as he held the blade away in his palm. The edges tore through his glove, slicing into his palm.
Everyone held their breath as the messiah held back the brute for dear life.
In the corner of his eye, Paul could see you clutching the dainty necklace hanging off your collarbones, muttering anxiously to yourself as you watched. You blinked, and for a little more than a second your eyes rolled back to reveal the whites, and something clicked in Paul's mind.
When your precious blues rolled down again and you sighed to yourself almost in resignation, he knew what he had to do.
Using Feyd's own force, he pulled the Harkonnen closer, allowing Emperor Shaddam's blade to sink in.
It was like the air was completely sucked out of the room.
A shocked hush fell over the Fremen.
The Harkonnen snarled in premature exhilaration.
The Emperor's people watched on in unsure anticipation.
Then Paul pulled Feyd even closer and the sound of a bone cracking ruptured the quiet all around the two fighters. The Harkonnen held Paul's cheek with an almost gentle caress. His voice was a raspy whisper. "You fought well, Atreides..."
Raven blood seeped past his lips, his grip loosened on Paul, who pulled the very same crysknife that was in his own side just moments prior out of Feyd's chest. The Harkonnen fell to the floor with a sickening thud.
You gripped your necklace, pinching your eyes closed as if you had expected this very outcome but it still stung to see it play out in real time.
The Emperor was frozen in shock.
The Fremen cheered out in a chorus of cheers.
Paul pulled the emperor's dagger out of his shoulder, and then walked past Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen's corpse, approaching Shaddam with a steely look in his blue-stained eyes. He dropped the dagger at the dethroned man's feet.
Princess Irulan took a step forward and held an arm out in front of her father, shielding him from the remaining Atreides. "The life debt has been paid! Spare my father and I will be your willing bride."
Paul tilted his head, he could hear his mother's voice in the corners of his mind—could hear her urging him to take the princess as his prize, take the Corrino name as a stepping stool to gaining power over the entire empire.
But Paul had just defeated Shaddam's champion. Therefore Paul would take the title of Emperor regardless of who he took as his bride.
A golden path.
A very narrow way through.
He raised his hand, glove bloody and torn, and pointed straight past the Princess. Everyone gasped again, following with their eyes until all the eyes in the room were on you.
You probably felt like a bug under the Arrakis sun.
"I will take her as my empress." Paul could feel his mother—pardon, the Reverend Mother—trying to worm her way through into his mind, trying to warn him of the possible consequences of going against the plan her and his unborn sister had so meticulously put in motion for him. He snarled slightly, warding her out of his head.
Focusing on you, he raised a brow expectantly. The remaining Harkonnen servants cowered behind you, even going so far as to push you a few steps forward. It seemed the murders of their Baron and his heirs had left them with little hope and a lot of fear for the Fremen Messiah.
You stumbled forward, the force forcing you right past Princess Irulan with an unintended shove. The blonde royal looked up at you with very evident confusion on her face. Her father seemed more relieved with the sudden shift, taking the opportunity to pull his daughter closer into his side and further away from the vengeful Atreides heir.
Paul had seen the path that would lead to a greater future for all, and it started with you by his side. He held his hand out, his bloody palm facing up. It was an almost peaceful gesture if one overlooked the context that led up to this moment. Who would think to reject the Messiah, the Otherworldy Voice, the people's saviour?
There was no real choice in the situation.
Paul waited patiently, admiring the way the Arrakis horizon shone across your bronze skin. "Well?"
It wasn't really a question of whether you accepted his offer. It was more a question of when you would accept it.
Your eyes flickered from his hand to his face, your chest heaving with shallow breaths. This wasn't meant to happen. It was written all over your face.
"No."
Most of the Fremen gasped, while others cursed in chakobsa.
The Harkonnen servants meekly clutched at your robes, their faces scrunched up in panic. "My lady!" One screeched. "Mistress, please!" Another begged. "You have to!" Yet another exclaimed.
You pried their hands off of you, taking as much a step away from them as you could without being any closer to Paul Atreides.
How dare you reject Muad'dib's merciful offering?
It was clear that everyone was thinking a similar variation of the same question.
Despite the rejection, Paul still smiled at you. That was the first time he had heard your voice in real life. It was exactly as he had remembered from his dreams—maybe a bit more terse in tone, but still soft and angelic as in his mind. He smiled because he loved your voice. And he smiled because he had his voice.
"Come to me."
You immediately took a step forward, complying as everyone usually did when commanded to by the Voice. Then you took another, and Paul's smile dropped slowly.
A body commanded by the Voice usually moved quicker than this. You...
You seemed to be fighting it.
Your fingers shook at your sides, your breathing became more shallow, and your eyes...
You had to be a Mentat with the way your bright blue eyes kept rolling back to show the whites, then rolled forward, then back again, then forward again, and then back again.
Your logical mind was fighting Paul's command.
He had never seen that before.
No one could combat a Bene Gesserit using the Voice. No one should be able to combat the Messiah using the Voice.
The Fremen murmured in bewilderment while the former Emperor's people watched on in horror. Paul could feel his mother trying to breach past his mind's walls once more.
You took another step forward, then you let out a shaky breath and pinched your eyes shut. Your white lashes brushed over the apples off your cheeks as a war waged in your own mind.
Then you took a step back, breaking from the command.
The Fremen muttered in tongues, looking between their saviour and this abomination of a woman in astonishment.
Princess Irulan would have lunged forward to steady your shaking form had it not been for her father holding her back. Instead, she called out to you in a fragile voice. "Lady Hawat!"
Your eyes fluttered open, blue irises flickering around in a panic. You were just regaining your right mind, probably wondering what you had done under the new Emperor's influence.
Paul expelled a breath, dropping his hand to his side. This all made a lot of sense. "Lady Hawat." He said lowly, testing the title and name on his tongue. He'd never said it before, not even in his dreams. But... "Are you familiar with the late Thufir Hawat?"
You bit your bottom lip—a habit that Paul came to realise you used to stop yourself from bursting at the seams. You took another step away from him for good measure—or to taunt his fruitless command, he wasn't sure.
"Who?"
You knew him.
The way you scowled and your pale brows drew together gave it away. He could sense the loathing simmering just beneath your skin at the mere mention of the Mentat who had served the Atreides family for three generations of dukes.
"He was your father, wasn't he?"
Far behind Paul, Halleck Gurney's eyebrows furrowed together in a dawning realisation. The resemblance was rather uncanny now that he considered it. The salt-pale hair and the freckles scattered over your cheeks and shoulders were a testament on their own, your pale blue eyes were the only true phenotypical difference.
Those same eyes looked Paul up and down with poorly disguised distaste. "That man has been dead to me since he abandoned me and my mother."
"And yet you inherited all of his traits."
"I must have inherited his uncanny ability to disappoint, because I still refuse your offer, Padishah." Your jaw ticked. So did Paul's. The room felt colder somehow.
Perhaps the first time around was a fluke, so he tried again. With a distorted voice, he commanded once more. "Come to me, my empress."
Your lashes fluttered once more, but this time, your movements were much faster. One foot after the other, you walked straight towards him. The corner of his lip quirked up in self-satisfaction.
When just a step away from him, your eyes did that thing again where they rolled back and forth and back and forth. You suddenly bent down and picked up Shaddam's fallen blade and swung your arm up at Paul with no warning at all. He quickly drew his head back, narrowly avoiding the tip of the blade.
The bridge of his nose was nicked, a thin trail of blood trickling down the arch.
The Fremen clasped at each other in fright. Stilgar muttered strings of prayers under his breath. Gurney tilted his head slightly, watching you intently.
You regained control of your own body again and gripped the hilt more firmly. Then you swung again.
And it was yet another duel that the Messiah had to fight.
You were more skilled than Paul would have thought to give you credit for. You had been many things in his dreams—a ray of hope, his loving wife, the mother to his offspring—but not a warrior. Yet, here you were, swinging at him with the force of a veteran fighter.
He ducked and dodged despite Lady Jessica's voice ringing around in his head to show her no mercy and give her to the desert. He wouldn't hurt you, couldn't even if he wanted to. He needed you alive in order for everything to fall into place.
One swing to the left, an elbow to his head using the same momentum, a punch to his already wounded nose. He blocked each attempt. When he trapped each of your wrists in his hands, the dagger clattered to the floor, and the only sound in the room was your exhausted panting.
He pulled you close until your hands were trapped between your chests. He leaned in until he could nudge his nose against your cheek, smearing his own blood against your freckled skin. His voice was low when he spoke again. "Be mine."
Your eyes rolled back and forth, pretty blues turning white and then blue again. The closer he looked, he realised even your sclera was tinted azure. You simply had to be Fremen...
"No." Your response was guttural and final, echoing throughout the whole room.
Paul sighed. He really wanted to have your hand willingly. He wanted you to feel safer with him than you probably had with Feyd-Rautha. But Paul Atreides was also a Harkonnen at the end of the day.
"Take her."
A few Fremen soldiers immediately came forward and pried you away from him, their grips tight around your arms and back. You struggled, obviously. But the men overpowered you despite your squirming.
Paul looked at you for one last time when Gurney stepped forward and whispered in his ear. "The Great Houses refuse to acknowledge your ascendancy to the throne."
So many obstacles. One path.
He sighed, resigned to his fate.
"Lead them to paradise."
☀️Sunny says: justice for Thufir Hawat😭😭he did NOT die in Dune: Part 1☹️
☀️Sunny's playlist:
1. Desert Rose by Faouzia
