what no one would witness

Sietch Baraka, yes Kaleff remembered the name now from his days as a wali learning the different Sietches and the rest of Liet and Pardot’s teaching. His eyes crinkled as he smiled. “A historian, truly?” He asked with an odd mix of amusement and skepticism. 

For a Fremen like Kaleff a historian seemed an absurd indulgence, they had their oral traditions, their Sayyadinas and Reverend Mothers with their long chain of memories. Still if Paul could fulfill half of the promises made then perhaps now was the time for historians. 

“I remember the name from learning the lessons of Liet,” He explained. “But I’ve never met anyone from that Sietch. But why are you here and away from your tribe? Perhaps our reasons are the similar.”

Hagma grinned knowingly at Kaleff’s reaction to his occupation, baring his teeth. ‘I am a historian, truly. For our Sietch one is necessary. But I take other jobs here and there to make myself useful outside the Sietch, also.’

Hagma’s brow did lift when the youth claimed to know his Sietch’s name. Kaleff’s reference to the “lessons” of Liet Kynes was not unusual; though Hagma was not yet certain how he felt about that mysterious influence on the Fremen closest to the imperial houses that sought to establish themselves as Arrakis’s custodians. In many ways Liet felt to Hagma like a glorified historian himself. Such views could not be spoken aloud out of respect, however.

‘I am traveling because I would be a poor historian if I only documented the comings and goings of my own family,’ he replied to the youth’s inquiry. ‘I heard rumors that Sietch Tabr sought allies in a great undertaking, and so I came to observe and hold it all in my memory until I return to my own Sietch.’ 

Poor thing. They know the pain of losing something so precious. How much have they lost, since they came into being? ‘Who destroyed it?’ A sense of urgency in the question, as if angered, as if it were their home which was gone. They want her to name the same beings they have marked as their enemy. They want more justification for their hatred. They say nothing of the human mask; aren’t they also disguised as something resembling a human? And neither she nor the guardian can completely hide their true nature. ‘…Our soil is what we are. It has been destroyed, too. But some of it remains, although it has also been scattered, it has scattered us.’

‘A race much like humans, though more powerful. They drained our planet faster than the humans can devour this one. Perhaps my people have surrendered to that relentless logic and that is why we appease this thoughtless race.’ She took her mask off. Stared at the face it formed with a mixture of shame and disgust.

But in the end the Vitschy had to don a human face again to speak, and her antennae twitched agitatedly at that hard truth.

Xerxes snorted. ‘A little advice? Save it for someone who deserves it.’

He crossed his arms and leaned against the side of Ciri’s van, shaking his head. ‘That man is in the position he’s in because he couldn’t overcome his damnable pride enough to trust or respect anyone less than his precious queen. Anyone else he encounters is too far beneath him.’

It was not hard for him to anticipate what Ciri would say next, so he raised a finger irritably. ‘And ah-- no-- before you start let me just remind you that it isn’t a harmless sin, either. He is a glorified watchman. He has responsibilities. When he fails to recognize the rights of his subjects those rights aren’t vindicated. When he elects disdain rather than mercy, someone feels the sting of either his blade or shackles.’

For a moment, Xerxes bristled. You could almost see impressions of the revolutionary propagandist he’d been in his glory days where the glow from the van’s windows caught on the sharp angles of his face. Then he crossed his arms and merely chuckled.

Xerxes threw back his head and laughed at Camus. ‘Is that supposed to make me feel bad for you? Dear me, it must be devastating to have to make the same hard choices as everyone else trying to survive in the ghastly kingdom you’ve propped up all these years.’

He sat up, his lone red eye piercing straight through the knight. ‘Be glad your queen holds power enough that the renegade yeoman and their peasant following are willing to take her in. Be gladder still that I didn’t share my theory as to whether the nobles are right that your queen does not need to be the one to wield that power.’

‘We only know it cannot be found on our soil. You were not birthed here.’ That is what makes her so intriguing. Wherever she is from, it was unknown to them. How can one abandon their roots? Was it forced upon her, did she choose it? Their human ( ish ) form gestures at an empty, lower hanging branch. If she cannot reach, they could be of help. ‘Did you lose your way? Or were you left behind?’

‘You beautiful creature. What brings you so far from home? Come, sit with us. You are welcome in our branches.’ @tatterdema1ion​

Every hook I baited with that jerk chicken got a gator.

It's the odor, I tell you.

Yeah, either way it's a death sentence.

Come on, come to Papa/Mama, baby.

Well, we're cooked if she already made the call

This is wrong. All wrong.

All rot and black.

This will not be forgiven.

Why would you kill God's innocent creatures?

You play with dead things, you're more than likely to join'em.

He should be canonized.

How can you be such a bitch?

I understand people, and that guy would have happily taken a turn on me if he had the chance.

He wasn't like that.

It's guilt by association.

I'm sorry I killed your boy candy, okay?

Given your black widow status, he was living on borrowed time anyways.

I'm kind of busy right now.

My God, what's that smell?

I went to a Chinese doctor, he gave me some herbs to boil. I know it's kind of pungent.

If you scream, I'm gonna put you right back in the ground where I found you.

I want you to tell me right now how it is you're still alive after all these years and not some moldering corpse.

Jesus, woman, it's a cell phone, all right?

Now you just stay quiet, and when I get back, we're gonna continue our little chat. And you better make it worth my while.

I got an "A" in math. All of 'em. Calculus, trig, advanced algebra.

Look, I'm sure you're a genius.

Look, Pencil Dick, I'm not stupid, okay?

You ate that extra piece, and now you want a freebie.

Get the manager!

I am the manager!

Did they send you to jail?

Help! She's burned me!

You didn't want to join us at first.

So, technically, I'm part of your tribe.

Is this where we all sing "Kum-Bah-Yah"?

Bitch, I will eat you!

You guys have got to start taking care of each other.

We have enough enemies on the outside.

How could they possibly do that?

I'm just looking for someone who had a motive to hurt those guys, who could've screwed with the brakes.

Maybe whatever happened in that room was upsetting.

Shouldn't we have a lawyer here or something?

Had you met them before?

They took me in the back room to try to get me high, but I said no.

She's come a long way with her addiction issues.

I felt bad for him.

He died right after you left.

I have no idea what she's talking about.

She's clearly lost her mind.

She can move things with her mind.

I killed that asshole in the hospital.

I have powers, too.

We're witches.

I have powers, too. We're witches.

[NAME] has clearly suffered some kind of mental break.

Everyone here is a witch.

Please don't send us to jail.

Nobody's going to jail.

Are you in charge here?

I'm in charge everywhere.

Oh. Tough guy.

Come on, give up.

I'm barely trying, you know.

In about ten seconds, I'm going to turn the heat up in that chubby melon of yours, and I'm gonna turn your brains to scrambled eggs.

Frankly, it's been a hard morning, and I'd really rather not work up a sweat.

Just drink the damn water, will you, please?

Do you think [NAME] can fix it?

You're such a goddamn idiot.

I can't believe you told them everything.

I'm supposed to be cleaning up my act.

When this gets out, I'm screwed.

Who cares? This is murder.

Who cares? This is murder. Like, multiple murders.

They're not gonna find any evidence that we messed with the bus because we didn't mess with the bus!

What did you do to that shit-dick in the hospital though?

Now, I forgave your ham-handed mass murder business with the bus-- overexuberance of youth and all that-- but if you haven't got the goddamn brains to know that when strangers come asking questions, we close ranks, then I fear our line is truly at an end.

I couldn't toast a piece of bread with the heat they were putting on you.

You are soft. You're emotional. You care what people think.

Now, if there's one thing you learn before leaving this place, it's that we, even the weakest among us, are better than the best of them.

Are we gonna get arrested?

You are missing the point.

In this whole wide wicked world, the only thing you have

to be afraid of is me.

I know what you did for me, dealing with that asshole, so I'm gonna return the favor.

Resurrection spell. We're gonna bring your boyfriend/girlfriend/dog/father/etc back to life.

Guess that crash was even worse than I thought.

He's still kind of cute though.

I see potential.

I wonder if he's a shower or a grower.

Is this just a joke to you?

All we have to do is follow this recipe.

Find me a saw.

How's the oven?

I wish I could say yes.

She goes through hell and it doesn't even work.

We've been at this for a year.

All I can do is stand around like an asshole while you get sick.

If you want to try this, I'll support it.

I'm not ready to give up.

I should be able to have a baby just like any other woman.

I know it's horrible, but a lot of women do this.

This is about us having a family.

You don't know what you're asking me to do.

This kind of magic-- it's. . . dark.

It's about life and death, and I don't want to play God.

So you're gonna let [NAME] play God instead.

Doesn't that smell good?

You probably don't need to eat, being immortal.

It had been almost one year to the day that Paul Muad’Dib and Reverend Mother Jessica had come to Sietch Tabr. Almost a year to the day when Kaleff and his mother, Harah, had determined he would not call out the out-freyn Atreides for killing Jamis, the only man Kaleff had ever truly called father. 

Kaleff missed his father, but this was the way of the desert. And Kaleff had learned he distrusted Muad’Dib with his wide-eyes and visions of the future. But the offworlder Paul Atreides was a good friend, strange perhaps even dangerously naive and ignorant at times in those matters all Fremen were trained in since childhood but clever in his way and loyal nonetheless. 

Already Muad’Dib and his mother had begun training the young warriors of Sietch Tabr in the weirding way, and now those who had mastered the Bene Gesserit fighting style were expected to go out and share what they’d learned and recruit. 

Jamis’ mother had been of this graben village before she had left with Jamis’ father bringing with her that same stubborn independence that had so defined her son it had played apart in his death. And now Kaleff was returning there to seek others who could be trained in the weirding way. 

He looked up at the carryall and almost laughed. Was this luck or damnation? He thought knowing of course what this meant: worms. 

He looked back over toward the village, his head canting when he saw a Fremen. And Duneman knew the difference between Fremen and village-dweller. But the manufacture of this man’s stilsuit was unknown to Kaleff. Each Sietch had it’s own carefully guarded method, patterns if you will and decoration. Kaleff’s own was decorated with the green of Sietch Tabr, the shoulders of his stilsuit painted red as a member of the Fedaykin. 

He stopped and called out the traditional Fremen greeting, “Subakh ul Kuhar?”

Luck or damnation, he’d have to start somewhere. 

Subakh ul Kuhar?

So the voice called out in Fremen, and Hagma turned, his Jabbar cape flaring out. When he barked the reply he did so more on reflex than anything: ‘Subakh un nur!’

The historian was confronted with a man from Sietch Tabr, the fine stitchwork on that stillsuit a tell-tale sign even from across the road. He was a very young man-- a wali, perhaps? But the youth held himself well. Many Fremen children had that particular dignity that came of growing up close to death, but this one’s expression was hard.

Fate certainly smiled on the life Hagma wore now with munificence, hamdullah.

Glad to have stumbled upon at least one member of the sietch stirring Arrakeen’s sands these days, Hagma placing a hand over his heart as he approached his fellow Fremen. His own still suit was stitched in dull green almost dyed brown, the patterns too intricate and lusterless to follow. It meant something where he came from, but that was a place the youth would not know. ‘Well met, I am Hagma bin Baraka, wandering historian of Sietch Baraka.’ 

He knew that rather bold name was likely to draw raised eyebrows, as was the fact he was named only for his Sietch (for the truth that the Sietch was named for his many lives was too incredible for one of Sietch Tabr to consider). It didn’t matter. Hagma’s accent, Northwestern although he had educated himself well enough to speak the modish Eastern dialect, should tell the boy enough.

Camus scoffs, because he would rather choke than admit to being brothers to such an irreputable vagabond. What he says is true, except for one – Xerxes has certainly not witnessed everything Camus ever did. For one, he never understood how Camus became so devoted to her Majesty, because he was never honoured with her attention or trust. Perhaps even back then she had seen what kind of threat he would pose – she has always been wise, after all. 

And he scoffs again, because Xerxes cannot know what the people want when he has not lived amongst them all these years. He can only pretend to speak for them after having tainted their minds, so they now imagine themselves oppressed, restricted, disadvantaged. The people do not speak for themselves – it is Xerxes Break who speaks for them and pretends his own words come from another’s mouth. Even the simplest of minds can see through that deceit.

The words about her Majesty, however, are as flint to his steely gaze, sparking into rage. His hand not on his sword but on the rebel’s collar, a personal slight. ‘You speak of things you do not know.’ The implication that he is somehow responsible for the Queen’s solitude stings harder than he wishes ( it is a lie, but he does feel guilt and powerlessness, knowing he cannot change her fate ). The rage seeps into his voice which is a low growl, a warning, and then the words spill out quick and heated, a hoarse admission that Xerxes’ words had hit a mark. ‘Always so quick to assume the worst about those above you. You’ve never spoken to her Majesty, you’ve never even met her. What can you know of what has been agreed between us both, of isolation, of being a burden, when you’ve fled and chose the freedom of a commoner over the restrictions and responsibilities to this country?’  So close to his skin, the cold unmistakeably radiates from Camus’ grip. 

‘You are no great hero nor martyr who brings salvation. You are no different than those you claim to hate so much: judgemental, conceited, and self-serving, judging all principles and ideas save his own. A hypocrite, and a coward–!’ He shoves him out of his grasp, having said his piece, though the matter is far from settled - surely now is the moment their swords cross over their irreconcilable differences.

Predictably, Xerxes only had to breathe the queen’s title. That was enough. Camus lashed out like a viper, his fist dragging Xerxes close by the collar, and Xerxes let Camus come, let the knight seize him. His red eye glinted as the space between them vanished. Inside of a knight’s reach was safer than a blade or a spell’s breadth away.

Well-- mostly. Camus’ knuckles were so burningly, blindingly cold that Xerxes could feel sores blossoming at his throat. Nevertheless, he did not draw away. He gazed steadily into Camus’ eyes as the knight struggled with the insidious suggestion Xerxes put to him: The nobility were the ones hurting the queen. This twisted monarchy was her shackles, her exile from humanity. Her duties killed her, and this castle locked out all those who could come to her aid.

Did Camus deny it? Of course. He had to deny it. But the knight’s voice shook with something crushing. The knight babbled. ‘For all that you say, it sounds like you know precisely the loneliness I speak of.’

And so when the knight began to lambast Xerxes with epithets, Xerxes had already begun to twist in Camus’ arms. When Camus tried to shove Xerxes away, Xerxes pirouetted in even closer and slid his gloved hand over Camus’ inside the hilt of the knight’s sword. A duel might be what Camus wanted, but duels were always over too quickly. Xerxes leaned his head back against Camus’s shoulder and squeezed his old friend’s fingers instead.

‘Hypocrite, coward-- oof, those words would hurt if I denied them,’ Xerxes said into Camus’s ear. ‘But of all the trappings of our training I cast aside, responsibility wasn’t one of them.See the nobles for what they are and let us fight your battles with you, Camus. The Silk Palace cannot survive as a monarch’s throne.’

Xerxes hissed the words passionately, but he knew his passion was vain. It was all just one more delay to the inevitable. The rebel leader felt tension coil up Camus’s spine  in his chest, and the next moment the rebel leader was rolling out of the way, cursing as his sword finally sprung from it’s sheathe with a high, tinny roar.

Hagma stood at the edge of one of Arrakis’s many graben villages. A crowd had gathered there to stare with sour, pinched faces at the passage of a carryall overhead. The massive thoptor cradled a spice factory between its jaws, a mess of wire and metal that swung precariously as it was buffeted by thermal drafts.

Judging by the carryall’s low altitude it would soon land. And that was the problem.The men on board, uniformly CHOAM-affiliated outsiders, would undoubtably soar away to their compounds and enjoy their date-palms from behind thick, sturdy walls when the sandworms began to swarm their landing site. Finding nothing left, the sandworms would burrow toward the vibrations they sensed from the village’s denizens. 

Hagma fiddled with the lip of his stillsuit’s tube and frowned thoughtfully into the distance as a low murmur of outrage began to fester on his companions’ lips.

‘It would kill them to move it a few miles?!’

‘They want to come here for work, I have airlocks that have awaited repair for years-- they can tinker with those, not our lives, the thieves!’

The crowd mainly ignored Hagma. Unlike Arakeens of the plains or sinks, Arakeens of the grabens were proud to stand aloof of Fremen and Imperium aid alike, though even their local economies were becoming dependent on what they scavenged and replicated of the Imperium’s technology. They even crafted their own stillsuits, near as good as the Fremen’s.

Their indifference suited Hagma just fine. He hated explaining how faraway and irrelevant his sietch was, or pretending to be about business. He had only come because he was tracking something new and exciting, a murmur of daring intrigue among the Fremen and a closely guarded secret of sietch Tabr. All he’d divined was that someone or something was traveling this way.

And if he, Hagma, were the only friendly Fremen in its path, then just maybe he’d be the lucky historian who got to take a peek at history in the making.

Certainly these graben villagers were fertile soil for mutiny.