Chapter 2: Get your act together!

(FYI: Chapter name based on a slogan for our school talent show)

For the record, let it be known that I used the word "drabble" in the introduction without knowing what it means. I still don't. I just like the word.

I also don't know how Naruto can know his lines and still have no clue what's going on. Maybe the actors are being prompted by in-ear communication devices, like in Fahrenheit 451... But that's just the way I decided to write this. If you don't like it, then YOU try writing it. By the way, for the most part they are quoting directly from the book (I have it on my desk right next to me so I can keep copying the lines.) (And Hannah, I don't care how long it takes to read the book. You can take breaks to read other books(I do that all the time.) But READ it or BELIEVE...)

One final note: I got sick of calling myself "the director." From now on, I'll just use my name, Julia. (That is my real first name, even though my last is fake.)

(Enough parentheses already!) On with the story!

The curtain was still down, but a deep voice was seemingly booming from no particular place in the theater.

"TEN THOUSAND YEARS AFTER HUMANS REVOLTED AGAINST THINKING MACHINES, ANOTHER POWER SHIFT IS ABOUT TO TAKE PLACE. HOUSE ATREIDES HAS LIVED AND RULED ON THE PLANET CALADAN FOR TWENTY--SIX GENERATIONS. FOR EIGHTY YEARS, THEIR ENEMIES, HOUSE HARKONNEN, HAVE HAD CONTROL OF THE DESERT PLANET ARRAKIS, KNOWN AS DUNE, SOLE SOURCE OF THE LIFE--EXTENDING SPICE MELANGE. NOW, THE HARKONNENS HAVE BEEN REQUIRED TO PULL OUT, AND THE ATREIDES TO MOVE TO ARRAKIS AND START A NEW RULE. ONE WEEK BEFORE THIS MOVE, A STRANGER HAS COME TO VISIT CASTLE CALADAN--AND THE HEIR TO THE ATREIDES DUCHY..."

The curtain rose on a dimly lit stage. Naruto was lying on a bed, pretending he was pretending to be asleep. Temari and Ten Ten were quietly standing nearby, obviously having a conversation.

Ten Ten had the first line. "Is he not small for his age, Jessica?"

Her companion answered. "The Atreides are known to start late getting their growth, Your Reverence."

"So I've heard. Yet he's already fifteen."

"Yes, Your Reverence."

"He's awake and listening to us. Sly little rascal. But royalty has need of slyness. And if he's really the Kwisatz Haderach...well..." She trailed off and then abruptly turned to leave, dragging Temari with her. As she left, she turned to address Naruto. "Sleep well, you sly little rascal. Tomorrow you'll meet my gom jabbar."

As soon as they were gone, Naruto spoke up. He was reciting his lines, but he really did want to know. "What's a gom jabbar? Something of Arrakis I must know before we go there? And what was that other thing she said...Kwisatz Haderach? And why does she treat a Bene Gesserit Lady and duke's concubine like a common serving wench?"

He pretended to fall asleep for real, until the stage lighting faded out and then suddenly came back on full strength. Temari returned, asked how he had slept, then got down to business. "Reverend Mother is waiting."

Naruto immediately answered back. "I dreamed of her once. Who is she?"

"She was my teacher at the Bene Gesserit school. Now, she's the Emperor's Truthsayer. And Paul... You must tell her about your dreams."

"I will. Is she the reason we got Arrakis?"

"We did not get Arrakis. Now don't keep Reverend Mother waiting."

The boy now got up, almost unrecognizable without his usual wardrobe containing only orange. The only vivid part of his costume was the brilliant red hawk crest of the Atreides. He continued with his lines, hoping that both he and Paul would receive an answer. "What's a gom jabbar?"

Temari acted nervous and turned toward a window painted onto the set. You'll learn about..." She paused long enough to inhale. "...the gom jabbar soon enough."

"Well then," Naruto said out of the blue,"WHAT THE HECK IS A CONCUBINE!"

Temari lost her nervous expression and turned to stare at Naruto in angered shock. Her expression now said, in no uncertain manner, WHAT THE HELL DID YOU SAY THAT FOR!

Then, she looked up to see Julia watching from the wings, mouthing the words JUST TELL HIM!

Temari sighed, then leaned over to whisper in Naruto's ear. His eyes went wide as dinner plates and he screamed out again.

"YOU MEAN... MY PARENTS... AREN'T... ACTUALLY... MARRIED!"

(Author's note: I know Temari said "wife" in the last chapter. I apologize for the inconsistency, but it worked better with the scene and it was better for the "What's a concubine?" scene to be held until they were on stage. And I couldn't cut it out, the concubine angle is too important to the story. This is rated T, after all.)

Ten Ten was alone on stage long enough to say her line. "Damn that Jessica! If only she'd borne us a girl as she was ordered to do!"

Then Temari and Naruto entered, the first still trying to regain her composure after the concubine incident, the other looking at her in disgust because of that same scene, apparently forgetting he'd brought it on himself. The sand ninja remembered just in time to hesitate when told to leave by the Reverend Mother, whose eyes flicked back and forth between the two people sharing the stage with her as she recited her line. "Jessica, you know it must be done."

Seeing her fellow actress's straight face, Temari rallied herself for her few remaining lines in the scene. She turned to her short, blond costar. "Paul... this test you're about to recieve... it's important to me."

"Test?" asked Naruto, suddenly snapping to attention.

Temari discreetly rolled her eyes, said "Remember that you're a duke's son," and made her exit.

Back on stage, Naruto's own emotion was coming through in his lines. "Does one dismiss the Lady Jessica as though she were a serving wench?"

"The Lady Jessica was my serving wench, lad, for fourteen years at school," replied Ten Ten," And a good one, too. Now, you come here!"

Naruto obeyed, then looked down at himself with convincing surprise. "You're using the Voice on me?"

Ten Ten took no notice. She produced a mysterious box with one open side. "Put your right hand in the box." Then, when Naruto started backing away, "Is this how you obey your mother?"

Naruto's hand slowly entered the box. He flinched. Ten Ten held something up to his neck. This time, an explanation was forthcoming.

"I hold at your neck the gom jabbar. The gom jabbar, the high-handed enemy. It's a needle with a drop of poison on its tip. Don't pull away or you'll feel that poison."

Naruto began sweating. Whether all of it was from the hot stage lights, he couldn't say. It would appear that he was actually getting into character now.

Ten Ten was also taking pride in her performance as she continued the so far one-sided conversation. "A duke's son must know about poisons. It's the way of our times. Poisons that go in drink and poisons that go in food. The quick ones and the slow ones and the ones in between. Here's a new one for you: the gom jabbar. It kills only animals."

An artificial anger sign appeared just behind Naruto's head. "You dare suggest a duke's son is an animal?"

"Let us say I suggest you may be human. I warn you not to try jerking away. Believe me, my hand can drive this needle into your neck before you escape me."

"Didn't that last line come close to--"

"I couldn't care less about that stupid catch phrase you picked up at the dubbing place! Now keep up with your lines before you ruin this scene any further!"

"Oh, right," said Naruto, remembering what it was they were supposed to be doing. His voice had lost its simulated emotion by now, but he began asking the necessary questions. "Who are you? How did you trick my mother into leaving me alone with you? Are you from the Harkonnens?"

"The Harkonnens? Bless us, no! Now, be silent. Here's the way of the test: If you withdraw your hand from the box you die. This is the only rule. Keep your hand in the box and live. Withdraw it and die."

Naruto proudly replied, "If I call out there'll be servants on you in seconds and you'll die."

"Servants will not pass your mother who stands guard outside that door. Depend on it. Your mother survived this test. Now it's your turn. Be honored. We seldom administer this to boys. Now, you will feel pain in this hand within the box. But! Withdraw your hand and the gom jabbar takes you. Understand?"

"What's in the box?"

"Pain."

Naruto looked concerned as his unpredictable acting talent suddenly returned. He really hoped Paul would be able to make it, not caring that the alternative would get him off stage faster.

The stage lighting began to take on the faintest tint of red as Ten Ten continued with her lines. "You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? That's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind."

The light went a little redder. Naruto started breathing harder. He glanced at the hand in the box, clearly beginning to feel pain as predicted. "Why are you doing this?"

"To determine if you're human. Be silent."

Naruto clenched his visible hand. He glanced from the box to Ten Ten to the box and back to Tenten...

He gasped and sweated and trembled as the light grew redder in sympathy with the incredible pain that came from that box... The pain that couldn't get worse, yet somehow did...

Then, suddenly it was all over. The red light flooding the stage snapped back to white. Naruto looked up in shock.

Ten Ten spoke. "Enough! No girl ever withstood that much. I must've wanted you to fail." She took the hand that held the gom jabbar from his neck. "Take your hand from the box, young human, and look at it."

Naruto hesitated, then withdrew his hand. He held it up and stared at it as though surprised to see it intact.

Ten Ten noticed and explained. "Pain by nerve induction. Can't go around maiming potential humans. There're those who'd give a pretty for the secret of this box, though."

"You did that to my mother once?"

"Ever sift sand through a screen?"

Naruto nodded.

"We Bene Gesserit sift people to find the humans."

He then told her that he could sense truth. Hearing this, she said, "Perhaps you are the Kwisatz Haderach. Sit down, little brother, here at my feet."

"I prefer to stand."

"Your mother sat at my feet once."

"I'm not my mother."

"You hate us a little, eh?" Looking offstage, she called out, "Jessica!"

Temari then came back on stage. She smiled at Naruto and said, supposedly to herself, though the whole audience heard, "My son lives...and is human. I knew he was...but...he lives. Now, I can go on living."

"Some day, lad," said Ten Ten in response, "you, too, may have to stand outside a door like that. It takes a measure of doing."

"Why do you test for humans?" asked Naruto.

"To set you free."

"Free?"

"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."

Naruto moved on to the next question. " You say maybe I'm the...Kwisatz Haderach. What's that, a human gom jabbar?"

"Paul," interrupted Temari, "You musn't take that tone with--"

"I'll handle this, Jessica." Ten Ten again. "Now, lad, do you know about the Truthsayer drug?"

"You take it to improve your ability to detect falsehood. My mother's told me."

"Have you ever seen truthtrance?"

"No."

"The drug's dangerous, but it gives insight. When a Truthsayer's gifted by the drug, she can look many places in her body's memory. We look down so many avenues of the past...but only feminine avenues. Yet, there's a place where no Truthsayer can see. We are repelled by it, terrorized. It is said a man will come one day and find in the gift of the drug his inward eye. He will look where we cannot--into both feminine and masculine pasts."

"Your Kwisatz Haderach?"

"Yes, the one who can be many places at once: the Kwisatz Haderach. Many men have tried the drug...so many, but none has succeeded."

"They tried and failed, all of them?"

"Oh, no. They tried and died."

Now that the actual play has started, how about some reviews? Sorry if it's confusing! It's hard to balance the humor of Naruto with the drama of Dune. Speaking of which, I intend to be true to the plot, for the most part. Of course, at this rate, it will take me forever to finish... Maybe even longer than it would take my friends to read that terrifyingly thick book(hint, hint) Come on, it's only 487 pages long!

Up next: Orochimaru shows up. With the part I've picked for him, he won't be able to help being a good actor. Cue Maroon5 tune: And he wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiill be bashed, And he wiiiiiiiiiiiiiill be baaaaaaaaaaashed... Feel free to send suggestions as to how I may torture him while I have the complete control afforded by fanfiction!