All characters from the Dune Universe are property of the Frank Herbert Estate. All characters from the Buffyverse are Property of Joss Whedon. Everything else belongs to me.
Religion serves a legitimate purpose. It reconnects you to the divine, which is that source of yourself that remains in the outer world. Forbid not men to approach the temple with supplications and prayer. For in the absence of a living faith, ritual becomes the bones of the dead and the temple is changed from a fountain of living water into a desert.
-Alison Winters
"The aesthetics of religious engineering"
The Missionaria Protectiva
Overnight the Fish Speakers had gone mad.
The destruction of the ""Leit-Kynes" the day had before had kicked the Fish Speaker security into overdrive. The entire planet was under martial law. Field commanders were authorized to use deadly force. People were taken in the middle of the night and never heard from again. The planet once again felt as if it was under Harkonnen rule.
This was her second day in the cave. Surayya and her crew had made camp where they found the teleporting slayer and the watcher. They kept radio silence and avoided lighting a fire against the cold desert night. They huddled together to keep warm. Oddly enough, the watcher didn't mind. In the morning they buried the dead slayer in an unmarked grave.
Karif prayed over her body.
"Bless the Maker and all His Works. Bless the coming and going of Him. May His passing cleanse the world" Karif said as a prayer to Shai-Hulud the worm who is God.
They gathered in the cave to avoid the heat and to plan their next move. Surayya knew she had to move her fleet from orbit. At some point, someone is going to be stupid enough to attempt to board a slayer ship to take the atomics. There were too many dead here; she did not want Fish Speaker blood on her hands. Besides, she needed the slayers to do something more important than fighting Fish Speakers.
They needed to get a handle on what it meant to carry the essence of Spike. Specifically, what it meant to carry the essence of a ten thousand year old being that was mystically connected to a large portion of space-time. The slayers needed to research and practice their new found abilities in peace.
Surayya made a decision.
"Listen up." She said to all before her. "I'm going to contact the flag ship and order Afari to move the fleet out. I'm going to have the slayers research what it means to carry the essence of Spike."
Surayya began to retrieve the radio equipment in one of the back packs.
"The "Memories of Dawn" will be over the horizon in three hours. I'll transmit commands and then we move out. No doubt, Fish Speakers will triangulate us within the hour I transmit." Surayya sat the equipment in front of her.
"We can't use the shuttle. The heat trail alone would make us an easy target." She said.
"Master…" Karif began to say.
Surayya's eyes went wide. "Don't call me that!" She said. Surayya recognized the honorific used in freman clans to signify the sietch leader. She was not a Stilgar.
"My name is Surayya. Call me that or captain."
"Captain." Karif said, "Time is calling you." His voice was sincere.
Motorria jumped in. She recognized that phrase from the old freman call to worship. The core of freman belief was that Humans occupied both this world and the outer world and that the greater parts of ourselves were still in the outer world waiting to be born. That was the belief that made Muad'Dib so powerful among the freman. Muad'Dib was the voice of that outer world.
"Time is calling you." Karif said again. His blue within blue eyes were employing her for a specific response.
Motorria knew the response from her memories of the Missionaria Protectiva. The effects of the Panoplia Propheticus kept the fremen tight in the Bene Gesserit grasp.
"The daughters of Senaya hear the call of time." Motorria answered from memory. She crossed her arms together palm down. "Dawn comes, day comes and then night." She uncrossed her arms and turned her palms up. "He waits for us. Bless the coming and going of Him." Motorria said referring to Shai-Hulud.
Karif pulled three viles of a blue liquid from his robe. "Hear the voice of the Outer World." Karif handed one vile to each of the three slayers. "Answer the call of time."
"What was the kid playing at?" Surayya thought as the grasped the vile of blue liquid. She opened the vile and took a whiff. "Pure spice essence!" she thought. Surayya looked up at Motorria and Lisa. She could see the look of surprise on their faces. Between them they were holding enough wealth to purchase supplies for the fleet for the next five hundred years.
Surayya had no fear of the blue liquid. She was a reverend mother. She could easily convert it to the water of life.
"Drink." Karif commanded.
"So, the kid's been schooled in the voice." Surayya thought to herself as she filed that observation away for further analysis. "I hope he's not trying to get a spice orgy out of this." Surayya smiled as she signaled to the other slayers to consume the liquid. They drank the entire contents in one smooth motion.
The effect was immediate.
It felt as if fire was poured down their throats. Every vessel in their bodies constricted. The slayers began to cry tears of blood. Their limbs twitched as they loss muscle control.
'Poison!" Surayya's mind screamed. Yet there was something familiar about the feel of the drug. She could feel her mind begin to drift away. It became hard to focus on the here and now. For the slayers, time began to splinter.
"You will survive." Karif said. He moved around the cave making sure the slayers were as comfortable as he could make them. "This is not ordinary spice, this is not for heretics." He said. "Our own slayers have taken it many times. This spice has been blessed by magic."
Karif watched over the slayers as they entered the sacred trance. Soon, they would hear the voice of Shai-Hulud. He was jealous of them. This was something he would never be able to do. He was not a slayer. He watched over them and counted the hours until the "Memories of Dawn" would be over the horizon.