It had started with filling the pipe. The former Baron liked to smoke while bathing, and his hands were inevitably covered with inky sludge when he leaned back in the tub, so it only made sense, once he announced quite loudly over dinner that he thought Feyd cleverer than his eldest nephew, that the younger boy should spend more time getting to know his uncle privately.

Feyd had never met his father: Rabban had killed him when Feyd was still in the womb, and Feyd had never gotten the full story. Their mother spent quite a bit of time afterward trying to ingratiate herself with the Baron, but he seemed to find her annoying. This is the conclusion Feyd came to at the age of nine, anyway. She hovered over his uncle with an obsequiousness the boy found distasteful, even at his young age, and he avoided looking at her whenever she started up.

"You there," rasped the voice of the Baron, and the boy looked up from his steak, careful to hide any trace of annoyance, and the giant laughed with a rumble. "I thought so," he said with a gleam in his beady black eyes. "How old are you, child?"

"Nine"

"With more sense than your brother had at nineteen."

Feyd merely peered at him. There was nothing to say to that.

"Clever boy," said the Baron, taking a bite of meat and washing it down with wine. "You might just have a head on your shoulders after all."

His mother looked back and forth between the two of them as if trying to keep up. Even at the age of nine, Feyd knew she had more of his brother in her, save for her looks. He didn't recognize himself in her or any description he'd ever heard of his father, so he mostly kept his head down, observing the adults around him while knowing that he knew better.

"Where have you been hiding this one, Emmi?" asked the Baron, turning sharply toward Feyd's mother.

"He ate in my chambers, my lord, until his recent birthday."

"I want him seated next to me tomorrow night." He turned to Feyd, his eyes narrowing. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, my lord." It was true. Anything to break up the monotony of his current routine would give Feyd something to look forward to. He spent his days fencing, but there was little else to do between visits from the swordsmaster.

"My lord," scoffed the Baron. "Call me Uncle."

"Yes, Uncle."

"Very good," said the Baron, and at that moment, a servant girl walked forward and cleared her throat. "What did I tell you about interrupting me mid-sentence?" growled the giant and with his dinner knife slashed the attendant's throat. He didn't even look at the girl as she fell to the ground, gurgling beside him. "I'll need a new slave," he shouted to the guards flanking the dining room doors. "She's supposed to draw me a bath."

"Feyd can do it," replied the boy's mother, "Can't you, darling?"

"Of course," said the boy, eager to be free of the dinner table. "I'll do it right now if you point me in the direction of the bathchamber." He wiped his hands on his napkin and rose from his chair.

"Sit down, boy," snapped the Baron, though Feyd could tell his uncle was pleased. "We'll walk together once we've had our dessert."

"Yes, Uncle," said Feyd, sitting back down in his chair. Walk was an exaggeration, Feyd knew: the Baron never walked. The gravity from the weight of the man would be too much for his bones. No, Feyd's uncle floated, aided by machinery that lifted his rolls of fat to lessen the pressure of his heaviness, but Feyd would allow an exaggeration from so great a man, especially after observing the severity with which his uncle responded to impertinence. He looked down at the blood pooling around the meat on his plate.

"Are you going to eat it?" asked his uncle, fixing the boy with new attention. He raised his brow and his lips quirked in an ugly smirk.

Feyd cut off a piece and put it in his mouth, chewing and then washing it down with a sip of wine, as he returned his uncle's gaze.

"Very good," crooned the Baron. Then he snapped his fingers. "Dessert," he said to the servants in the archway. "Get to it!"

His uncle needed help disrobing. It was an honor, Feyd understood, to help such an important man with such a vulnerable task, but he averted his eyes as he unsnapped the fastenings on the back of his uncle's collar. He didn't want to see the clammy flesh underneath them. Was it because the flesh was frightening, or was it because his uncle was frightening clothed, and Feyd worried the Baron would be disappointingly non-frightening underneath the black fabric? Feyd didn't know, but he stared at the cloth as it fell to the ground and waited to lift his eyes until he could see in his peripheral vision that his uncle had lowered himself into the steaming basin.

"Look at me, boy," said the Baron, and Feyd did. "My pipe is on the left nightstand of my bedchamber. Fetch it for me."

"Yes, Uncle"

"And in the top drawer is a black leather pouch. Bring that as well. And the lighter beside it. Don't open any of the other drawers."

When Feyd returned, the Baron was looking at him with a wry smile. "Still got your blood inside of you, I see. The second drawer is rigged. Now. Open the pouch and take a pinch of tobacco and fill the pipe."

Feyd did as instructed and handed the device to his uncle.

"Light it."

"How?"

"There's a button on the side. Now you have it."

Feyd crouched down, shielding the flame with his left hand until the Baron leaned toward him with his pipe. The dried leaves caught the fire and smoldered as his uncle took a deep inhale before leaning back with a sigh of pleasure. The smell of incense filled the bathchamber, and Feyd stared at the great basin his uncle reclined in.

"I suppose you're wondering about the black water," rasped the older man before taking another pull of his pipe.

"Yes"

"Medicinal," said the Baron. "Better than eating. Better than pills."

Feyd nodded.

"You don't ask many questions."

"Do you wish me to?"

"Clever, clever," said the Baron with a chuckle. "Your brother always asked the stupidest questions, so I sent him to Arrakis. The bath does wonders. Essence of the Black Sea. Harvested from the drowning under the light of the largest full moon." He paused, before looking at Feyd with annoyance. "Talk, boy."

"What does it do?"

"It makes me strong. It would make you strong, too, if I allowed you to bathe in it. Maybe someday."

"Very kind of you, Uncle."

"Pshhhttt," tutted the Baron before taking another draw of his pipe. "I haven't offered you anything yet. Enough with the platitudes. You're starting to remind me of your mother. Tell me something real."

"You don't like my mother," said Feyd.

"No," said the Baron, his expression shifting to pleased.

"And you're still deciding if you like me."

"That I am, darling boy. That I am."

Feyd said nothing else. He knew it was cleverer to be silent than it was to volley back when he had nothing of substance to add to the conversation.

"Yes, perhaps you'll have what it takes," said the Baron before blowing out a puff of smoke.

The baths became a nightly ritual. The Baron ordered a plush chair brought in for the boy so he could sit beside the tub. Feyd looked forward to these evenings, for during each session, his uncle revealed to him more about the inner workings of Giedi Prime. The Baron told him of the raging seas and volcanic explosions that were common on the other side of the planet. Having never ventured far from the palace, Feyd listened with rapt attention. Someday, he wished to see the magma as it slid down the rocks into the crashing black waves. Someday he wished to swim. He had never seen the waters, but he imagined them as inky as the medicine bath.

"Suppose our mining strips the soil," said the Baron, interrupting Feyd's daydream, "making it difficult to grow food. What would you do?"

"We could fish," said Feyd. "And we can leverage our connections off-planet to import food."

"Right you are, my boy, and indeed we do! But you're wrong about one thing."

"What?"

"Think, child."

Feyd did. Fishing was commonplace, so that wasn't the problem, which only left the imports. But they imported food as well.

"I can see your thoughts in your eyes, boy," said the Baron. "You'd best be careful with that."

"Diplomacy," said Feyd. "The problem lies with diplomacy."

"Indeed," said the Baron. "It would be foolish to rely on the whims of the Landstraad for something as important as a food source. Especially as the fish grow fewer in number each year."

"I see," said Feyd, "Then what about…" he paused to think. "What about colonies?" The Baron smiled so he kept talking. "Manned by prisoners or slaves. Like Arrakis."

"Clever boy. Just like Arrakis."

Feyd returned his uncle's smile.

"And how do we keep a colony under control?"

"You have my brother in place on Arrakis," replied the boy. "Though you don't seem to like him much."

"He's not good for much," rasped the Baron, "but he's good for something."

"Violence," said Feyd.

"Yes. But what else?"

"I don't know."

"There's a reason he's there and you're here, dear Feyd."

"He's a man, and I'm still a boy.

"He was a boy once, too," said the Baron, closing his eyes for a moment and sinking deeper into the sludge. "But I never told him of the seas or the soil."

"You didn't find him clever," said Feyd.

"Precisely!"

"Which means you saw his lack of cleverness as an asset with regard to Arrakis. Why?"

"Because there are weapons and those who wield them. Never forget that, my darling. Your brother is a weapon. A hammer. He's good for hitting things with. But you, Feyd. You just might have what it takes to wield a sword."

"I see."

"Time will tell," said the Baron, taking another pull of his pipe.

Years later, it occurred to Feyd that neither he nor his uncle had thought to import soil. He watched as laborers spread it over the floor of the largest room in the black palace: a blend from Caladan, which was known for its fertility, and which was used on the Emperor's own grounds. He would have trees brought in and shrubbery, but he would leave some areas untouched for the Princess to do whatever she wished with. Perhaps she'd plant wildflowers. There was something wild in her to be sure, and he'd provide her with more seeds than she'd have room for. He was curious about what she'd do with the plot of land – what she'd choose to cultivate. He wondered if she'd have her handmaids do the digging or if she'd sully her own hands to play in the dirt. He was starting to get a sense of her, even as she tried to hide from him, and he had a feeling it would be the latter.

It would have artificial sunlight, wind, and rain, but he knew not to make it too much like home, for she'd forever consider it an imitation, and it would make her long for Kaitain more and not less. So no Floracaelum trees. No, he would take inspiration from the textures and the colors of her home planet and make something alien – give her new favorite trees, new favorite fruits. And he'd hide wonders in the garden for her to discover, engineered by the Bene Tleilax. She had asked for a garden: he'd give her one. And he'd make it so big that she could forget she was indoors.