I liked Alia the most and I really didn't like many of the other characters because of how they treated her. Because Alia was only a lost little girl and all everyone did was watch her fall, tell each other they couldn't save her even when they could have, then blamed her for become the person she became. They were looking for someone to blame and she was convenient. I think it was their fault for not saving her or even believing in her in the first place. The only one who ever did believe in her was Paul.
Title Alia
Summery: Madness in parts. Because the descent is slow and yet no one reached out a hand to stop it.
She is the sister of an Emperor.
She is the sister of a legend. She is the sister of Paul Atreides and on the planet of Dune, of Arrakis, and they call him Maud Dib. He is a man, an emperor, a legend, and he is her brother.
They called her the Abomination, a freak. Pre-born was the term. But it wasn't enough. She was isolated, feared, hated, despised, and no one would come close to her.
The children exiled her. The adults feared her.
But there is one person who had always understood the burden of accepting the consequences for a choice not made by them, her brother.
Even when their mother cannot understand, he alone does.
She is mad. She is angry. She is alone.
She has been abandoned.
Paul is gone. She is alone. But she had known, had understood at some point, that when he had left with Chani that last time he would not be back. She had hated it, loathed it, feared it, despised it, had been terrified of it - but she had let him go.
Because Paul is Paul and no one else: he sees the future, he is the impossible, and he is her brother. She loves him and he loves her but Chani is leaving, Chani would not be back and Paul needs to be with her when it happens.
So she let him go, because Paul is Paul and he would do what he had to.
But her mother - if any one, anyone else she would have wanted to understand her and stand by her, and to have and hold, and wanted to scream out that the world is unfair! in the arms of, it would have been her mother.
But her mother abandoned her.
Her mother who betrayed the Bene Gesserit to have a son for her Duke, who betrayed the Empire to save her son, who betrayed her, Alia, even before her birth to awaken her into consciousness in such a trial. Memories upon memories, Alia had never been a child. Lifetimes existed within her, and she was more than born with a conscious, she was born Adult, Old, and Timeless. She was born Grown in a way Leto and Ghanima never were.
She loves them and hates them. The twins who are all that's left of her brother who left them so she wouldn't be alone. Because they were pre-born but they don't understand and she wishes they never have to, but it hurts because they never will.
They don't understand because destiny and responsibility and change never weighed as heavily on them as it did on her and Paul.
Messiah.
Abomination.
Sometimes they were one and the same and Paul and Alia would hold each and hope the storm would pass.
And it always did, because Paul knew it would, and Alia believed in Paul. Believed in everything he had ever done and said and saw and promised and whispered to her.
She walks these walls, these corridors of an empire that she had not wanted. She had only ever wanted her brother.
But she is alone now.
Paul is gone and she sees his children and knows they are pre-born and knows they don't understand. She once had Paul like Ghanima and Leto have each other. But Paul is gone and she is alone and even though Paul left her them, left her his two children who are also pre-born, they don't understand and so she is alone.
She is lonely and alone and her mother betrayed her, abandoned her, and Duncan was a gift, a gift to Paul who never came back.
She wants to rage and scream and the silences only whisper Paul, Paul, Paul so she lets the voices come. She takes the spice and loses herself in the visions and tries to see the future because that is what Paul had seen. It lets her feel closer to him and not so alone.
Paul is gone, gone, gone and she is never going to get him back but maybe she could still understand him.
But her vision is incomplete.
" Forgive me. Sister."
And for one precious moment, she's not alone. She's with him again, her brother, her Paul.
For one precious moment she is ALIA! No one else in her mind, in her memories, in her body. Just her. And her brother.
This sun brunt, starved, desperate, half-crazy blind man who has been cursing Maud Dib's name - her brother. Her brother who is back and she doesn't resent Ghanima and Leto, doesn't hate her mother, forgives Irulan. The empire is falling, there is double crossing and politically intrigue and her people are rebelling - but none of this matter because she's never wanted an empire.
There is peace, and love, and joy, and understanding, and she's not alone.
And then it's over. One cry of 'Jacarutu!' and a chrysknife into his body and he is sinking, sinking to the ground of this treacherous city and her guards are pulling her away.
It's wrong because that's not possible. Paul is gone. Paul was gone and he was back and for one moment she was not alone and she was only her and they were going to live happily ever after!
And it's gone and Paul is gone and her guards are pulling her away, sliding her into the palace doors and she is screaming and crying and breaking on the inside but no one notices because what's one more voice in the numbers inside her?
It was cruel, and beautiful, and pain, and love, and hurt, and betrayal, and life because they gave her to Paul, then took Paul from her, then gave Paul back, only to take him again. And she is standing on the throne and Farad'n is coming with her mother and then Irulan but her niece, her niece the last part of Paul-who-she-lost-again, is not there and she's says:
" Where is she?"
But that still barely matters even when Leto comes and her Mother abandons her again and she is left alone once more. She is being dethroned and dishonored and killed but none of that matters. Because she's never wanted an empire, never wanted the memories, never wanted to be regent, and lonely, and alone and she knows Leto and Ghanima are going to be okay because they have each other so she knows it's okay to leave them now. They can take care of each other. She doesn't regret any of it: the losing, the hate, the dishonor, because none of it really matters. She never wanted this life, and she had never hated and loved it more because there's only one thing she had ever wanted and never regretted being born for.
Death doesn't scare her anymore because this time she knows for sure he's there waiting for her. She touches her mother one last time in benediction and forgiveness, so that she knows Alia doesn't hate her anymore.
In the end her mother loves her, but that's not enough to keep her here. There's only one thing she's ever wanted and she knows her mother will understand.
" I want my brother."
Her eyes close and she falls into open arms.
. : this is my legend : .