InsaneJournal

FIC: Spoil of War--Dune--Leto II/Ghanima--mature
title: Spoil of War
author: lisa roquin
rating: mature
fandom: Dune
characters/pairings: Leto II/Ghanima (and strangely vicariously Paul-Muad'Dib/Chani, Duke Leto/Lady Jessica)
disclaimer: all copyrighted characters and their "universes" belong to their respective authors, writers, creators, production companies, producers and long lists of people that are so very much not me. Quite simply, if you recognize it, it isn't mine. No profit made, no harm intended, just having fun.
summary: "My Ghanima," he whispered. Spoil of War, a war their father had fought to keep their mother with him, a war their father had fought with himself and in so many ways lost. A war that had fallen to him, and the Golden Path he was damned to, but, as ever, she was right. Now he could have this, have her, his Ghanima.
warning: twincest. het.
author's note: set after Children of Dune. I can't remember Ghani's children ever named nor sexes/number of children ever listed, only she'd had them and note that her descendants kept tract of by Leto II
the porn_battle round 5 prompt of Leto II/Ghanima twins caught my attention as I was fiddling looking for some inspiration for finishing up birthday goodies--~winces~ hope you dont mind this one Ped, the idea really, stuck and exploded.

Also, I fail at memory retention and it's been years since I've read Dune Messiah and Children of Dune which have the most immediate bearing on this. Though from what I do remember the timespan between Chidlren of Dune and God Emperor of Dune left untouched enough this shouldn't directly contradict anything in the Dune 'verse.

wordcount: 3085








They'd never been children, his Ghani and himself. They'd had the memories of children, their father and his boyhood lessons on Caladan, no less harsh in their way than their mother's childhood in the sietches of the deep desert of Arrakis. The breeze brushed at his skin, carrying with it a scent that set so wrongly with him, with so many of his other memories. And at the same time caused just as many to ache for worlds Leto had never been too. The scent of the gardens, the faintest hints of moisture in the air, some might call it arid but it wasn't, the moisture was there. The paradise that was a prison, weakening the Fremen, destroying the spice and the worms. He longed for the dry utter lack of moisture of the deep desert, air sharp, stinging with sand and spice along with so many of the Others within. Still more mourned for air heavy and wet, a dampness that soaked to bone and air that tasted of the sea's brine and the oceans of Caladan.

They called him The Tyrant, and that was amongst the best things they called him honestly. The changes in his body, the Golden Path their father had not found the strength to take. They truly had no chance of comprehending what else might have been. They called him The Tyrant, if he'd chosen any other path they would have begged for mercy and wept for the loss of what he was now. Dreamt of what he was now as their fondest hope.

They'd called him Abomination since birth, his Ghani as well. Abomination like their Aunt Alia. Unlike Alia they'd never been alone. Ghanima would never be alone. The music still drifted from the palace ball room revelers celebrating the thirtieth birthday of the Emperor Leto and his beloved twin sister Princess Ghanima. Decades of life stretched before them, before Ghanima yet and each day was a terrible step closer to the day he would be alone on the path he'd had no choice but to take.

Eyes would watch more intensely, they did every year, Alia succumbed to the hordes clamoring in her awareness, the hordes that only a Reverend Mother or perhaps Guild Navigator might even begin to comprehend. His lack of aging would be more noted soon, and his changes.

"Leto," a whisper of sound came from the balcony doorway behind him.

He held his hand out not looking. She was there with the barest whisper of sound, the night's breeze brushing against the layered skirt of her gown.

"Where is your husband?" Leto asked softly.

"Seducing one of the maids who arrived with Grandmother. Not the one who was flirting with him so eagerly though, the shy one instead. I do believe Grandmother's working with them on the breeding program again. She may yet get the Corrino offspring she wanted, just not with the one she wanted. And perhaps we'll get a bit of perspective on what the old crone is plotting now. Father, you, Aunt Alia and myself and she's seeking --redemption in the Sisterhood..." Ghanima shook her head and pressed against him. "The one flirting with him is as Atreides as either of us. A grandchild of Duke Leto as much as either of us, her father born to a planted Bene Gesserit maid years before ours before Jessica became the Duke's concubine. The shy one is the granddaughter of Rabban's get by a Bene Gesserit Whore. That particular match will annoy grandmother to no end and tangle the Sisterhood's breeding plans. Irulan tried to steer him otherwise herself. They want Corrino-Atreides, they'll make do with Corrino-Harkonnen if they get that at all."

Despite their father, their aunt, the two of them, the Sisterhood had not given up the dream of the Kwizatz Haderach they could control. The scars of jihad still visible in places of the Empire. The Preacher only two decades gone to the Desert. Leto himself on the Imperial throne. It was not even the lessons of ancient history they were ignoring with the arrogance that they would not make the same mistakes as their ancestors, but lessons they failed to learn in this very lifetime. Their grandmother and their father's wife the most foolish of them all. They of all the Sisterhood knew better. And yet they were perhaps the most persistent. Their grandmother's eyes on Ghanima's twelve year old son Liet and ten year old daughter Jessica speculating already. Leto wouldnt' be shocked if they were sorting through bloodlines and the Bene Gesserit school's young acotyls for the first seductresses of Liet and even Ghani's eight year old son Duncan already. The youngest acceptable likely already in consideration for Paul and Janus No doubt there were lists of suitors being scoured for the proper political husband for Jessica as well, and with all that plots already hatching to slip such seductresses past Leto and Ghanima, blackmail and favors being traded that their choices of husband for Jessica be given consideration and one chosen by politics.

"You ate an Offworlder's meal tonight. And avoided the spice wine."

"I'll not bear a child such as ourselves," Ghanima said softly. She'd been sixteen when she'd wed her husband. Eighteen when she'd borne the first of her current count of five children. "You shall have another niece."

Leto wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He knew there were whispers. Some even cast aspersions that young Paul's resemblance to his Uncle was less than that innocent familial connection, that their blood bond was much closer and darker. He had never lain with Ghanima, and even if he had, his body too changed since he was sixteen to have ever fathered a child. Paul was only five. They'd sworn so long ago never to go that path, the path that would have made Ghanima his Empress and Consort, and their children the same as they, Preborn, Abomination.

Ghanima at least had found companionship and affection with her husband despite the politics of the match. He was the grandson of Shaddam IV, his mother had plotted assassination attempts of Ghanima and himself. He was hostage to his mother's continued good behavior, yet placed in reach of his maternal Aunt's intrigue and plotting. Irulan plotted more the older she became, plotting that had the heavy hand of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood in it. He'd been drilled in intrigue, in Imperial court politics and all it's deadly intricacies. He'd come to care deeply for Ghanima, become friend and advisor to Leto. He was a fair match for the two of them a good match despite the fact it was only securing the last of the Loyalists to the House Corrino to House Atreides, with the one they'd sought to make emperor instead of Leto the father of Leto's heirs.

"This is the last," Leto whispered. The spice withdrawal was dangerous for Ghanima and as dangerous as the spice was for the daughter she carried. The levels they ingested were far more than most, more than was naturally in the spice saturated Fremen diets they both preferred. What they were changed the normal spice-addiction even the levels at which a Fremen would have living in the deep desert breathing it in with every breath. So dangerous. Such a delicate balance to keep, a knife's edge which his Ghanima's life could hinge on. "I would that Janus was the last." His two year old nephew was such a solemn child, a worrisome child. While not Preborn he had an awareness more than his years and an ever increasing awareness at that. Janus was something else again, a near miss of a Kwizatz Haderach perhaps, perhaps something entirely unforseen and unexpected, not even he and his father were able to catch every detail subtle shifts and things lost in the cascades of prescient sand. Both he and Ghanima already kept close and quiet watch on Janus with heavy hearts and full knowledge of how dangerous the Atreides bloodline had become, and how vital it was to continue even with that danger.

"She's the one who will stand beside you when I'm gone," Ghanima murmured against his neck, "She and her daughters after her. Spice trance has shown me that much, but yes, she'll be the last."

He trembled at her breath and lips fluttering against his skin. His body may be changing, and less than human, but he was not so far changed he did not have the reactions of a man and she was his Ghanima. His twin. His completion. How easy that other path would have been. How dangerously easy. It had haunted his dreams even before his body was old enough to respond to those dreams. His mind was ancient, aware before birth and all the Others there to press even more at him if he would but listen. She was his other half, his soul, his hold to the humanity he'd sacrificed. She could have been his Empress, his Consort, his lover. The temptation of that path had gripped them both almost as long as their awareness had existed. And their awarness predated their drawing breath outside their mother's womb by months.

Her hand slid up over his chest. "Will you still deny us, beloved?" Ghanima whispered in an ancient desert tongue, a language from worlds away and lost to time, forgotten by all but the Others that dwelled within them both. "There's no turning back from the Path you're on, no child well ever come of it. I would have this, would have you have it, to give you solace in the years I am not here."

Once, only once they'd spoken so openly of it Once, only once they'd kissed and let memories and desire run for the course of that kiss, they'd only been nine in living years then. "Ghani," Leto whispered.

"Leto,"

He dipped his head, his lips met hers softly, the flames of what they'd denied a lifetime steadily growing into an inferno. His course was set irrevocably, there was no turning back. The line of Atreides secure with the five children Ghanima had borne her Corrino Prince and the new life she carried now, no more than a day, two at the most, past conception. He'd not seen his twin the day before, kept apart by duties at opposite ends of the palace to gage if she'd avoided her normal intake of spice the day before as well.

His hand slid, moving up to her shoulder, to cup her cheek. Water fat, soft a voice sneered from the ever present Others. So thin, nothing but sinew and bones another voice huffed. Ghanima was perfect. She was as Fremen as he when it came to it, children of the desert they were born in. Lean without an ounce of spare flesh, though her skin was soft not dried and roughened by desert heat and sand and the life of the sietches of the deep desert, though that could be said of many Fremen these days. She was the daughter of an Emperor, the twin of another Emperor. She had been born to privilege. That privilege left her less than gaunt, left her skin fair not tanned and made leathery by sun and sand and endless heat.

"My Ghanima," he whispered. Spoil of War, a war their father had fought to keep their mother with him, a war their father had fought with himself and in so many ways lost. A war that had fallen to him, and the Golden Path he was damned to, but, as ever she was right. Now he could have this, have her, his Ghanima.

"Leto," her lips brushed against his again as she melted against him. Her fingers threaded into his hair, carding through it until she reached the base of his skull then so carefully touched the fine scales on the back of his neck, teasing a fingernail slid between scales to so carefully tease excruciatingly sensitive places. Physical reminders of the changes truthfully just begun, of how he was no longer human. Changes that would take centuries and not render him too far removed from a man, able to hold his Ghanima as a man for the span of her lifetime or until near the end of it at the very least.

He shuddered and nearly crushed her as his arms tightened, his mouth hungry, possessive, demanding against hers. His other half, his voice of reason, his humanity, his soul, his twin.

"Bed, Leto," she gasped softly against his neck when the kiss broke. She stepped back away from him, her hand caught his and she turned, leading him from the balcony and through his private chambers to his bedroom.

"Damisha's going to be displeased," she smiled as the stiletto from his sleeve sliced through the fastenings of her gown.

Leto had no care as to what would displease his sister's servant. Damisha's loyalty to Ghanima was unfaltering and no matter the scowls sent in Ghanima's direction, never would there be a whisper of the repairs necessary to this particular gown. Damisha would see to them herself. He slid the gown off Ghanima's shoulders pushing it downward until it fell and puddled at her feet leaving her naked save for silken stockings and the dancing slippers she'd worn that evening, the crysknife sheath strapped to her thigh, a stilleto sheath strapped to her arm. He knew well that there were other weapons including at least one gom jabbar in the folds of the skirt now pooled about Ghanima's feet. She was as deadly as she was beautiful and she did not need the weapons anymore than he did if she were close enough to her prey.

His own clothing shed like unwanted skin as his eyes drank in the sight of his Ghanima. Her gaze as physical as any touch as she watched his own clothing and weapons, save for his crysknife fall to the floor.

His sheathed crysknife laid on the nightstand as he moved to pull Ghanima once more in his arms. His head lowered, lips met with a soft sighed sound, his, hers, he didn't know and there was no difference they were, had always been one, halves of a whole ripped asunder by the path they'd had no choice but to accept. She fit perfectly against him, as if made for him, which she had, and he for her. The ease they held each other as if they'd been lovers for ages, for all time, and they had, even if they'd dared not cross to the physical in this form before. They'd trained, fought, hunted, danced, a day without the other's company hellish and rare, leaving them both in sharp, foul moods that had the entire palace household treading lightly around them and even the most subtle of enemies within the household not daring to attempt to keep the twins apart unnecessarily, even those hoping for assassination knew that to succeed they must kill both with the same strike and it was that much easier to keep the targets together, they were warier and more dangerous separated.

Her stiletto and its sheath landed with the softest puff of sound onto her puddled gown as they moved onto the bed. His bed. His bed which he'd never let her leave again. His now, in every sense, even that which they'd denied themselves so long for duty. She stood at his side, acted at as his Emperess. She had been his since the moment Awareness had torn them both from safety and any hope of a natural life even being born into the intrigue and danger of an Emperor's household, being the children of an Emperor. They'd clung to each other before they were even born. She was his, he was hers. He'd years since made a lover of her husband, as close as he dared to touching her until now.

He mapped his way down her body with his mouth, tongue, hands. Familiar territory, her body as well known as his own, hand to hand combat training from nearly the cradle a necessity of survival, back to back or against one another, clothed or unclothed. They taught Ghanima's children as they had been, no allowance for weakness, no allowance for less than their best or a scar left for a reminder. The strap of her crysknife sheath unbuckled as he nuzzled and kissed her hip, tongue sliding over skin, upwards once again sliding over, tasting the faint silvery-near-blue marks that would once again darken to red as taut skin and muscle were stretched with this new life, this last child of Ghanima's.

Her crysknife laid on the nightstand next to his own. Stockings slid off, slippers kicked away.

No beginning, no end, no separation, only them. The two of them in the most purely elemental form. He memorized every sound, every spot that drew reaction, her scent, her taste as flashes of other memory tried to encroach.

Chani pressed against the rock wall of a dark cave, legs wrapped around Usul's waist, hungry, ferocious, a near miss with a Harkonnen patrol left the scent of lazguns and explosives on them both, in the air, stillsuits splattered with blood. Wasted moisture but there were things as equally precious and necessary as water.

Jessica, bronze hair spread over dark silken sheets, her Duke teasing, worshipping, love and lust breaking even Bene Gesserit control of reactions if only for a few moments of time.

A Naib of Sietch Tabr whose bones had been reclaimed by the desert and water by the tribe centuries since raged loudly in Leto's awareness at the shame and wrongness, the ancestor and his raging silenced, chased away by the one who most often stood guard on Leto's awareness, his father, as he pressed into his sister's body her tight heat enclosing him, arms and legs wrapped around him as they moved in perfect synchronition. Anything less than perfect synchronicity impossible, she was his and he hers since before they'd drawn breath. Their bodies honed and hardened and trained their entire lives, as Bene Gesserit, as Sardaukar, as Fremen Warriors, as the only two heirs of their father and his Empire which hung in such a dangerous place.

The horde, their incessant clamour, faded, drown by the blood rushing in his ears, slicksweatslide of skin, of Ghanima against him, her soft moans twining with his own harsh ragged breath, until they lay spent, limbs tangled.

"My Ghanima," he whispered against her temple.