THE GREEN DAY 3 | SPACE MEN HAVE A HEART TO HEART | RATING PG-13
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MENTIONS OF FUTURE DEATH & PAST GRIEF
AFTER GIVING CHRIS A BASIC INSTRUCTION IN THE WEIRDING WAY, PAUL AND CHRIS HAVE A HEART TO HEART, TALKING ABOUT GRIEF, FATE, AND THEIR FUTURES.
The stilltent wasn’t difficult to find. It stood out like a sore thumb among the thick vegetation near the overgrown housing of Derleth in the small area of land that had been clear enough of thick trees to permit it. Paul had done his best to rid a space in front of the tent of brush and bushes and young trees small enough to hack away at with his crysknife. That was the area he had chosen to begin training Chris. A lot of it would be mental, to start, along with some basic movement exercises with which to practice precise muscle and nerve control. It would be slower for those who had not ingested the spice melange of Arrakis to learn, but Paul was convinced it could be done.
After the session, he leaned back against a tree, casting a glance at his student. “How did you find it? Do you think it will be useful to you?”
Chris had been impressed by the stilltent (and may have made some sketches and photos on his PADD to possibly adapt the design for Starfleet even if that might be considered a violation of General Order One by some. The training had been intense, but helpful, and reminded him of the control Una had whenever they were sparring. By the time he was finished, he was down to his black undershirt and pants, and wiping sweat from his face.
As he caught his breath, he smiled at Paul. “Oh, it’ll definitely come in useful. Challenging though, because it’s not my default way of thinking about the body or movement - at least, not in combat. But when you do it, it’s how I ride - everything is just perfectly in sync.”
Chris raised an eyebrow. “Would you be willing to keep training an old man? I feel that more practice at this could only be a benefit.”
Some of the culture shock had yet to wear off, and Paul could not help but find it strange to see perspiration wiped away and not preserved. He reminded himself that they didn’t need to reclaim water here. In fact, in the lush and overgrown world they had landed in, water was abundant.
“It will take time, but when it comes, you’ll find that in battle, you will almost always be at a great advantage. A lot of it is all in mastering this,” he pointed at the side of his head with his index finger. “Once you can do that, the rest of it falls into place.”
Paul smiled, amused. “Are you what your world considers old? Or is that just how you consider yourself? Either way, I would be willing.”
Chris smiled. “One of my mentors used to say something similar - 90% of it is in your mind. The body just follows through.”
He chuckled. “In my time, it’s not unusual to work until you’re 90 or 100 as a human. And I’m in my early 50s. Being here, though… I think I’m one of the oldest people here - which makes me feel old at times.”
He ran a hand over his hair. “I also know my future, which… I don’t know if it makes me feel old, but it certainly affects how I see things.”
“I hope you listened to your mentor. They are right, though I would be inclined to say it’s more like 98%.” Paul’s power was almost all centered in his mind, made stronger still by his time in the desert on Arrakis.
He shrugged. “I don’t think it is the number that makes one old as much as how one feels, and what life experiences one has had. There are days that I feel impossibly ancient in mind. I may be seventeen, but I have already been a father, already lost my son in infancy. Grief can age you too. Anger, revenge, war, all of those things. But the number itself? It means little.”
Paul’s attention sagged on Chris’ confession. “I do as well, and I feel the same way.”
“Grief and war age a person quicker than many things. And sometimes stop you from ever sleeping soundly again.” Paul’s confession surprised Chris - to have been a parent and buried a child at that age - was horrific and reminded Chris of some of the planets he’d visited, particularly non-federation ones.
“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine having lived through all that by your age.” Chris raised an eyebrow. “You’ve seen your future?”
“Indeed.” Paul had never been able to sleep soundly, even before the war. Many of his visions came through to him in dreams and they made for restless nights. He thought of his son often, though he hadn’t gotten to know him in any meaningful way. Leto II Atreides, named for Paul’s father, had been the only innocent thing left on Arrakis, and the Harkonnens had killed him in a raid. He hadn’t been able to speak of him aloud for some time.
“I have. I always have. Saw my own death once, but my visions don’t always come to pass.”
Chris gave the younger man an empathetic smile. “I can’t say I know how it feels. I’ve never had children of my own, but my crew is my family - and I have lost and buried more of them than I would like. The most recent war decimated our fleet.”
Christopher ran a hand over his hair. “As for visions of the future, there’s only been the one. Although now I have it - or echoes of it - frequently. We needed a time crystal to launch one of our ships into the future, and to get it required a price. Well, turns out the price was seeing and accepting my future. It was my choice to say yes to it - not just because we needed the time crystal but also because of what I saw. Although it ends my career, I am incapable of doing nothing if others are suffering and in danger. However.. now it haunts me. In a different way than other events of the past haunt me.”
“You do know how it feels, then,” Paul replied. “Losing a parent, a friend, a mentor, a son. It all feels much the same, all hurt in some of the same ways.”
He nodded in understanding as he took a seat in front of the stilltent, crossing his legs underneath him. “I see. It is not something I would wish on anyone.” Paul remembered how that singular vision of his death had forced itself upon him, how he had come to accept it, and then it had never come to pass. Not that he wasn’t grateful for that, but it was something that lingered still, though it was no longer relevant. “Mine is different. It is an innate power, clairvoyance likely across time and space. They call me the Kwisatz Haderach, which means shortening of the way.”
Chris joined him on the ground, propping one knee up and resting his arm on it. The more he learned about Paul, the more he thought this man was unlike any other he’d met in all his travels. He’d met telepaths and species with psionic abilities, but Paul was something else. Although the younger man had clearly survived and endured much already, Chris still found himself wanting to protect him.
“Neither would I. It was… almost torturous to experience, and yet I wouldn’t suggest anyone take my place.” Then again, he was always willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good. “How does it work, if you don’t mind me asking? I’ve met species who have psychic abilities or can see the future - even been through some experiences that made me wonder whether fate is actually a thing in the universe.”
Paul turned his head to consider Chris for a moment, his eyes fixed on him. Where there should have been whites in his eyes, there was a light blue instead, giving them an eerie quality. “That doesn’t surprise me to hear. You seem rather self-sacrificing. Best not let that get you into trouble one day.”
He paused, the answer to the question still a bit of a sore spot for him - something he had yet to allow himself to fully process. “I was bred for it, to put it simply. The Bene Gesserit had a secret breeding program to create a male member of their order, the Kwisatz Haderach. They did not mean for it to be me. My mother was supposed to produce a female and she was to give birth to the Kwisatz Haderach, yet she had me, a son, instead, and I became so.”
Paul’s eyes were unusual, but a lifetime among alien populations meant he wasn’t too surprised by it. Chris wondered if all humans had eyes like that in the future and whether it was a genetic modification or some interspecies breeding.
“I imagine it must have been quite the challenge - with the burden of that type of prophecy but also having disrupted it.”
His eyes used to have normal whites. It was a larger and constant intake of the spice melange that had turned them blue. They had been able to stay that way in Derleth because he reset every week with a replenished amount.
“I am shackled to my destiny, yes. The disruption is more complicated. My mother disobeyed the Bene Gesserit orders to have a girl purely out of love for my father, who wanted a son and heir, and I will not allow myself to be controlled by them.”
Chris couldn’t help but lean forward a bit. “Wait, your mother was able to determine whether she was having a daughter or a son? Through genetic engineering or?”
Paul wrinkled his nose at that. “No, of course not. I am not a Bene Gesserit woman so I don’t know for sure, but I think it isn’t much different from the Weirding Way. She had enough control over her own body to be able to choose whether I would be born a male or female.”
Chris raised an eyebrow at him, somewhat incredulous. “I.. wow. Fascinating. I can understand how it could hypothetically work, but it’s just not something I’ve encountered before. Huh.”
He sat back in thought. “Still wrapping my mind around it all. You mentioned being shackled by destiny but also refusing to be controlled by the Bene Gesserit. What’s the role of the Kwisatz Haderach in your society? Are you meant to guide them with your clairvoyance? Or are you a prophet of some sort?”
Paul let out a strained sigh. It was good to get some things off of his chest, but at the same time, answering so many questions was wearing on him. He hadn’t expected it to turn into an interview. “The Bene Gesserit meant to create a being who could bridge space and time with prescient ability, and they wanted that being on the throne. So yes, in the simplest of terms, that was what I was meant to do.” He shrugged. “I can refuse to be controlled and still be shackled to my destiny. To know the future is to be trapped by it. You, more than most, should understand this.”
Chris sat back. “Sorry, didn’t mean to pile on the questions.”
He gave an apologetic smile, knowing at times his desire for knowing things and having the most information about people got the better of him. And it wasn’t like he could read everyone’s personnel files here to get to know their backgrounds. He ran a hand through his hair. “I feel both trapped and confused. Such things aren’t super common in my world, at least not among my species. It haunts me at night and in reflections, but then part of me wonders if that means I won’t die before then? Am I .. not immortal… but somehow protected from death? I think the part that bothers me most is that I don’t save them all. All of that… and it still wasn’t enough.”
He stared at the grass and plants in front of him. “Life would have been easier if I’d stayed on the ranch, I suppose.”
“It’s alright. I can’t fault the curiosity.” Paul brushed his hand over the green things growing in front of him. Such a marvel still, to see life flourishing.
“I understand. It is both a great privilege and a burden to be a leader. You a Captain, me a Messiah. No matter who you are, it is not on you to save everyone. That is something that can only be learned the hard way. Too many variables, too much out of your control, and too many individual decisions made by your people have ripple effects. Nothing is ever enough. It won’t serve you to cast blame on yourself.”
He let out a short burst of laughter, unable to hold it back. “Wouldn’t it just? I’m sure my father would say the same thing. It would have been easier if we had stayed on Caladan.”
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” Chris quoted, thinking of the last time he’d seen Katrina. “I know, and yet even if it is not my fault, my crew is my responsibility.”
After Rigel VII, some of the crew's deaths had weighed heavily on him. Each death since still did, but he knew Paul was right, you could never save them all.
“Wouldn’t be the same life though, if we stayed there. The desert and the ranch formed me and made me who I am, but my home is in the stars.”
Paul plucked a blade of grass and rolled it between his fingers. “That sounds vaguely familiar.” For him, Shakespeare was something of the distant past. Very distant. More than ancient.
“Right. For me, my home is in the desert. When I return to it, I will never leave it again.”
Chris smiled softly. Home was a strange concept when you spent your life traveling among the stars. But perhaps that was why he tried to make his quarters feel as much like home as possible.
“I suppose there could be something to be said for trying to make this place a bit like home.”
For someone who came from a place that had colonized beyond its home planet, Paul wasn’t that well-traveled. He had lived on Caladan, then he had lived on Arrakis. His future was there, on the desert planet, so he knew that whatever Derleth threw at him was the only travel he was meant to do beyond Arrakis.
“However it will let us,” Paul said, letting the grass flutter back down to the ground. “The resets can be complicated some weeks.”
Chris chuckled as he looked around. “Well, this week certainly threw me for a loop. As did spending my days as a horse during my first week.”
He smiled as he watched Paul, thinking back of the grass areas of the Academy. “I suppose that means we’ll just have to be creative as to how to create a sense of home when the world is constantly changing.”
He couldn’t help but laugh at that. “That was one of the better weeks for me. I was a red fox all night. Just a fox. I got a break from the complexities of my mind.”
Paul sighed, turning his attention from the grass back to Chris. “I used to think I could find a home in some of the people here, but turns out they can be taken away just as suddenly as they come.”
“I can understand it. Horse me didn’t have nearly as much to worry about,” Chris said with a smile. He could feel the pain in Paul’s words, and could only imagine how difficult it could be - to be somewhere like this, come to trust and rely on people and then lose them. Chris reached an arm out, squeezing Paul’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. Losing someone is never easy. I won’t make promises I can’t keep, but for as long as I’m here, you have a friend in me.”
Paul cast a glance at Chris’ hand, the weight of it as reassuring as his words were. He appreciated that he wasn’t being fed promises or simple lies about how everything would be alright. It wasn’t alright, it wasn’t likely to ever be. All they could do was make the best of it while they were living it. “Thank you.” He looked back at Chris. “You have a friend in me as well.”