Disclaimers, etc.: see chapter one.

A Different Path

By Eugena

Chapter Two: Perspective

A son. His mother's grandson and not her own son would be the Messiah.

Did he feel left out of this path? Paul had accepted being a tool of fate, making Fate itself his god, even as he became a god underneath it. Yet he looked so fondly on the woman who was his sister, yet grown. Although she seemed vulnerable to the attack by Harkonnens and politics, she was happy. Duncan had lived long enough in this path to become her lover.

Duncan would never again walk the path of Paul's life. He, his mother, and young sister were exiles. He was destined to become a god, although he would never acknowledge himself as such. As a trade, he would forever call his sister a goddess, and he would forever make amends due to the possible future he took from her.

She reminded him of Irulan. That is to say, this grown Alia did. Why couldn't women be seen as strong? Why did it take a male to rule and a male heir to carry on the line? So far evolved in this future, and they were all still looking to the man when it was the woman who carried the next generation. Paul worshipped the woman before him, and he desired to steal her into his own timeline and life. The goddess St. Alia of the Knife could be born sooner. Her ascension to power be given now.

Yet this Alia was not preborn like his sister. She was normal, the true treasure that both he and his mother stole from her and from her children. Could this woman before him forgive him on behalf of a goddess chained inside a child?