A/N: Based off of Frank Herbert's Children of Dune.
Taking the 2003 Sci-Fi miniseries over the bookverse, which means,
among other things, that the twins are older, Irulan is in love with
Paul, Irulan has a good relationship with the twins, etc. Irulan's
thoughts during a scene in Part II: Leto has been "killed" and Irulan
watches an exhausted Ghanima sleep in Stilgar's care.
I see you in her.
It is never more than an instant: a glance, a breath, a fleeting gesture. The way she narrows her eyes to stare into the desert, easily, naturally; the way her hand finds her brother's, as yours would find Paul's. The shifting waves as she dreams, the sorrows chasing one another across her face, that return me to the moments I would stand above you when you slept alone, watching your careless slumber, hating the way you slept on only one side of the bed, my husband's form almost palpable in the empty sheets beside you. I would stand there and wonder if I called on all my training, if I moved just quickly enough, my knife could find your heart before yours found mine, if I could quench the burning in my chest with your hot blood and earn from Paul Atreides but one look, but one word, even if it was the word that brought the headsman's axe down upon my neck. It would have been worth it, to break your bond and rob him of you. It would have been worth it.
But I robbed them of you instead, of you and him as well, and Chani, deep in the night, you have had your revenge. On the nights Ghanima woke sobbing for her mother, the nights when Leto called his father's name in his sleep, on those nights I held your children in my arms and prayed with all my might that time might run backwards and my body lie cold in the sand before ever my hands mixed the poison. I know the debt I owe, and I have paid it, as best I know how. I have given them all of me; more even than you could have given. You and Paul would still have had each other, but I–I have nothing and no one but the children I made orphans. They are my life's blood; they are my heartbeat.
And now half my heart is gone; now Leto sleeps with you, and Ghani sleeps beneath my hands and cries his name in her dreams, and never has she reminded me of you as much as in this, her great sorrow, the loss that roars up inside her and whirls her soul into an empty vortex even while she sleeps.
When they were children they would play in your bedroom. I would pass in the corridor and hear their laughter, and I would think for half a moment you were alive, that you and he were laughing again, blending his golden chuckle and your surprising light response, sharing your language of love behind closed doors while I scratched at the floor for crumbs not meant for me. Part of the reason I am so slow to see you and Paul in your children is that, despite all they know, the twins offer me what you never would: their smiles; their laughter; their love. Atreides eyes warm with affection are a sight I never knew until your son met my gaze and lisped my name with a gap-toothed grin.
Now his grin is gone forever. Now his sister trembles in her bed, bleached and drained, bereft of everything but the gaping emptiness that threatens to swallow her whole. Now I alone stand with her, my body her shield, while her brother's body rots in the sand and her aunt's soul rots in her body. I am all that your Ghani has left.
I will die for her. I will live for her. I will hold her in the darkness and bring her to the light. Not because she is my daughter. Not because she is your daughter. Not even because she is Paul Atreides' daughter. But because she is Ghanima, and Chani, I love her.
I smooth your daughter's hair from her father's brow; I hold her wavering hand in mine; I use my fingers to sponge my tears and hers from the too-young face. And beneath my hands, beneath my breath, her fever fades; her trembling ceases; her tears are dried. Last of the house Atreides, last of your fearsome and wonderful children, Ghanima sleeps in peace because of my touch, because of my love.
And faint and far away, sifted through sand, I feel something new and strange that catches my throat.
I feel you smiling at me.