XXXIII: Made Whole
A/N: Before I continue with the chapter, I urge you to go back to chapter 27 and reread up until this point. I'd forgotten to post a chapter in this story, so there is missing information that may be relevant to the enjoyment of this story. I apologize for my oversight!
The warship was unlike any I was passenger on. It moved and operated differently than a thopter. It was smaller than a heighliner. The only two framings of what air travel were vastly different. This warship being a third, very different option, too.
The warship was much larger than a thopter. It was modern, too. It did not have the constant thrumming of wings. The silence was eerie.
Even with the many soldiers seated in the cargo area, it was silent at the control table.
I held on with my fingers to prevent flying backward. Feyd knew when to brace himself. His hand would grasp mine in place to keep me upright.
Captain Rurik guided the ship's navigator to the coordinates in the desert. His gruff words were easy to discern.
When in sight, he fled the co-pilot position. The echoing of his boots approaching felt like an end drawing nearer.
It was the end.
The attacks, the Fremen. Their vigilante leader, Muad'Dib.
Feyd would gather enough control and spice to begin the plot to overthrow his uncle.
It was all so near our fingertips.
If only, we surmounted this.
The feeling of the rumble within the air as large ancient rocks crumbled to dust. The sietch blended with the rest of the jagged rocks cutting through the warm sands. Now, it was being rendered to nothing.
Blasts from the warship filled the air like electricity. My skin hummed alive with each sensation. I felt every painful shock.
For the death of many, we could live untethered.
Our child would never know the haunted touch of that man's fingers against their body. They would never know the fear- true fear - of being powerless under that man.
Still, guilt churned from my darkest depths. If death was the only way to live, was the life worth living? Death would grant us all reprieve from this constant fight of living. We could be free forever, in no other way to be stolen from our hands.
"The ground." Feyd bayed. He paced urgently. The stomp of his boots vibrated up through the metal plating floors into my feet, into my legs, into my being. Anxiety and thrill, his, only made me more aware of every sensation around me. "I want to be on the ground."
"We've not cleared the-."
"Open this door. Now!" Feyd banged his fist against the hatch.
They complied with their na-Baron's order.
"Do not leave this ship, Lady Mintha." He shouted over his shoulder as he fled the confines of the aircraft for softer grounds.
The rush of heat surged against my body from the open hatch. The planets scorn, its wound hotter still. Opening and crumbling, like its blood flowing.
I looked into the dim darkness, growing darker with every moment. The sounds of the shelling stopped. Calm was alive. It crept through the warm winds, but I knew better than to listen to its lies.
Harsh tongues broke out against the still. Harkonnen. The tongue I used as a language to my own lover broke out against the still night as an invasion to the natural order. A colonizer of an ancient land that was immemorial. Tongues answered back. The desert's language. It was one I knew from the castle, the staff and the locals. Sounds echoed. Out in the night, dancing around in torment of the never ending shift of the sands. There were screams and grunts. Fighting.
I pulled myself away from that open ledge before I convinced myself that the dunes were a better choice than living on with the knowledge of what had been done here.
What I had let be done.
The front of the ship was open. The navigator remained fully encased in the equipment around his eyes. The many cords connected into the board of the ship.
"Are you looking for worm sign?" I asked to distract myself from the slaughter.
"No, my lady."
"Can you see…"
"No. They are not capable of seeing through rock."
"Oh." My fingers pulled at the edge of my taut bodice. "So, what are you looking for then?"
"Outlying Fremen scouts. If they are close, they might ambush us here," he explained. "Muad'Dib specializes in entrapment."
I swallowed. "We are vulnerable here."
"Yes, my lady."
"No one survives ambushes from Muad'Dib."
"Rarely. Yes, my lady."
"Would na-Baron be their target?"
"Their patterns do not indicate any personal vendetta."
My hands rested atop my stomach. I let them hold the womb the way that Feyd often did. It was loving and protective and all I knew to do.
There were ends I would bring to my child to spare them pain, but this. A death in the desert in fiery explosion did not bring me peace.
It brought me fear. Hot and angry fear.
I disembarked from the aircraft into the dunes. The collapsed rocks jutted the ground. There were bodies. The ground showed Fremen and Harkonnen alongside in death. The rock wall was half collapsed in on itself and showed its hollow depth.
The crunch of sand breath my feet filled my ears.
A pair of guards walked with a small child between them. She struggled against the unstable sand. Around her neck was two ropes. Each secured tight within a soldier's hands. Her tiny chubby baby hands were cinched taut together in front as she walked.
When our eyes met, a strange connection zapped through my entire being. They were filled with unfathomable depths. Something about that unnerved me. My hands held tighter to my stomach as I passed.
Blue. Her eyes were a bright, blinding blue.
"You killed nine of my men with one single blade," Feyd said. I followed the sound of his rasp through sunken sandy corridors.
A sietch was an impressive making. The enormity of the city under rock was devalued by the invasion. It deserved a tribute to the grandeur that was used to carve through the hard bedrock of the planet.
"She won't talk," Captain Rurik barked back.
"Tell her that's fine," Feyd purred. "I already know all I need to know….only pleasure remains."
A Fremen woman with striking blue eyes was bloodied and bruised kneeled in the sand. Blood leeched from her brow. Each eye was swollen, almost closed.
Harsh black uniforms surrounded her. Their contrast bright and harsh against the colors of the desert. Even her own body blended into the yellow golden sand where her legs dug deep trenches as she squirmed.
A smooth rock wall steadied my fuzzy vision.
Feyd grabbed a long wand from a nearby soldier's hand. He aimed it at the woman. Its end did not release lasers or projectiles, but fire.
Liquid fire surged. It shot out in a thick stream from its end.
Screams. Horrendous screams erupted from that woman's throat. She screamed so loud that their stopping only came when her voice cracked from the sheer volume.
Feyd and his soldier laughed. They howled at her pain. The full stream of her pain suffocated the air, and they hungrily ate it up.
My eyes did not look away from the woman. Not as her skin melted, hers eyes popped, the sizzling of fat that only fueled the fire higher as it burned.
I could not unsee what was done.
I could not unsee what I was compliant to.
I could not unsee what I'd known would happen but allowed anyway.
I staggered back to the warship. There were passenger seats at the front of the ship with large harness buckles, roomy size, and apart from the cargo area. We'd forgone them on the ride in. But now. They were the only place that felt safe for me.
My hands trembled against the buckles of my seat. It cinched me in place, tight across my chest, suddenly drawing out a sense of containment amongst the roll of my emotions. The pending defeat to all the anger and horror I felt for myself, only secured in place by the five-point harness against my chest.
Knuckles gripped tighter against the seat.
Feyd returned so proud. The smile could not be pulled from his mouth without a fight. He was too thrilled from the anguish of his kill to notice my despair.
The captain congratulated Feyd on the victory.
The warship lifted off the ground. It was fast. A strong motion upward, away.
Darkness crept from the corners of my vision. I fought out against the impending faintness of my mind, as its darkness became blur.
"Where is my lady?" Feyd's voice boomed.
The noise of the men was more noticeable now. Their cheer in their victory had abandoned their nervous silence. The world they knew was protected. Their duty served.
Feyd, too, had done his duty. He did not seek to murder these people for fun. It was because of his forced hand. He relished it, yes, in his sick way. A woman, no less.
Pain was pain.
Sex nor gender nor race could spare from it.
Pain was pain.
And gain of their pain, Feyd could not deny its importance.
Feyd noticed the distance on my face. The buckle latched at the center of my chest shined like a shield.
His joy was momentarily pierced.
"Lady Mintha," fell from his mouth in an audible volume. The rest of the ship was able to hear our words. We could not talk freely as we were accustomed to it. "What say you?"
"Victory met its rightful owner, my lord na-Baron. There is no place your enemies cannot go that will keep them safe."
Feyd smiled at the echoing cheer of his soldiers. It did not reach his eyes. They were kept narrowed, examining every piece of me.
He strode toward my side. He lifted my hand up to his lips. A kiss placed against the backside of my hand.
"You honor me, my lady."
I feigned a smile that hurt my own resolve.
He was forced to remain calm although he knew its deception. He did not believe my joy. It confused him, still. His spirits were dampened. The cheer was muted from the na-Baron as we flew back to Carthag.
My breaths moved through my pursed lips. I forced smooth, calm breaths which steadied my own thoughts.
Sensation of Feyd's stare brushed against the side of my face. It was cold and hard. The familiarity of its touch did not startle me when I felt it creep along my flesh.
He was forced to remain indifferent in front of the men or perhaps because of the Baron's presence. Our separation was unusual. If he did not seek me out nor I him, something was wrong.
I know he yearned to ask why I remained stiff in an actual seat, and not draped off his side as his powerful side piece.
Strange waves of confusion and rage radiated from him. The air around him was a confusing whirlpool, that suffocated the rest of the world along with it.
The fly to Carthag was not long. I only endured a short while of ignoring him before I jolted in my seat as the warship greeted the ground.
My fingers reached to undo the harness, but fingers already clicked the pieces away.
Feyd said nothing as he pushed the straps off my shoulders. He offered out his hand. I gripped it tightly.
Things were fuzzy as I stood on my feet. It took every ounce of my concentration to keep conscious.
We disembarked the warship into the castle. Captain Rurik followed. Our path appeared to be the same as his.
We ascended those grand stairs in the foyer of the castle. My stomach was so twisted at the thought of the Baron's reception of us that I could hardly keep myself from holding it in pain.
There was an absent whirring mechanism in the air.
The Baron was not there.
Feyd looked at the captain. Said captain shrugged.
"He should be here," Feyd said.
Captain Rurik grumbled. "Something's not right."
It altered the na-Baron's composure. "Mintha. Go to our quarters."
Feyd did not ask. Nor did he give me choice. His hand loosened hold of mine.
"Do not leave them until I come for you," he said. "Swear it."
I swallowed. "Why would I?"
"Obey me, Mintha. Go to our chambers and await my return."
He only waited until I entered the corridor of our chambers before leading the captain deeper through the other parts of the castle. I assumed in search of the Baron.
The urgency seemed like an overreaction.
The Baron was possibly lost in his own disgusting delusion of delight that he cared not about our return. There was no question of failure from Feyd. The Baron did not accept failure. He demanded success. From Feyd. His heir.
My hands went to my stomach. The very heir of my mate grew of my own body, destined to further the Baron's power.
I swallowed. The thick globs of disgust were overflown from their source. My own soul disturbed by the sight I'd seen.
Fire. A human's flesh melted from their bones.
I'd lost all humanity in this venture with Feyd. IF I'd been granted the opportunity to retrieve such a status, being made equal to him denounced that.
I no longer could be human.
I was monster.
All the years I'd seen horrid savagery at Harkonnen's hands, I'd felt nothing but envy and sorrow for those slain. I wanted it to be me. Their suffering, made mine. Relief in that final stabbing breath.
The only peace. A sinking serenity at the end of life.
That Fremen woman's death was not relief. It was agony. I did not wish to join her.
I only yearned to see her torture end.
The pain caused by this castle leeched deep into the desert sands. Their thirst equaled that of the dunes. Bloodthirsty for the life water.
Would my child become compliant in the brutality that it would not recognize true nature when it met it?
Feyd would be its father. From his body came this child. What hope was there? It was Harkonnen in blood. Harkonnens meant destruction. There was no other description adjacent, apart from demented.
Demented destruction. Death.
I entered Feyd's castle quarters with a bottled energy I yearned to keep contained. It shook my hands. My own need to explode rose. Explosion was Harkonnen expression. It would not be mine.
My hands gripped the edge of the table. A shaky breath loosed from my lips.
Could I survive this fate intact?
Could I live with what I put into the universe?
My eyes rose to the table. I dropped my hands away from the cool surface back to my sides.
Against the black top of the table sat a cloth of grey. It was slick and thick. Pooled atop the cloth was dark brown blood dripped from the ripped ends of flesh of Harun's dismembered hand.
The colors of the hand blurred with the mixture of tears over my eyes.
Survivors.
There had to be survivors.
And Feyd had left him leaving – dismembered – when Feyd's entirety wanted Harun dead. There was no one to stand in his way if he took Harun's life. It would have been done without consequence.
He did not, because he wanted better.
He tried.
That was reason enough for me. It was a sliver of hope that I would grasp with my entire being. My desperation could be blamed for my eagerness to chase away disgust over Feyd's actions. Perhaps my naivety that he was not a monster like them beasts.
My time with him on Arrakis showed me a new beast completely. A Feyd I could love, would love, for a lifetime.
There was no place else in the Imperium for me.
Apart from him.
I had to make the most of it.
I tucked the hand within my clothes. Wrapped in the cloth, I avoided touching it. It still sickened me.
This was a trophy of his restraint for me. A trophy for me. And I wished it to be with whom it belonged.
The castle was in disarray from the Baron's arrival. It set all the staff on edge. Their panicked feet were quick moving to avoid the main areas.
Even the soldiers. They were nervous. They shifted in their posts. I noticed their low bows as I passed. It was never an observed gesture within Carthag like it was on Geidi Prime.
Was it the Baron, or my position as an heir-carrier?
The edges of the castle grounds were in disarray. The mission with Feyd had stretched their numbers thin. Few patrolled the outer limits. There were gaps. I utilized the weakness in the oversight to slip through undetected. My hurried pace did jostle my stomach like I'd smuggled more than a hand in my clothes.
Thigh high black boots taut against my legs were a terrible choice for Arrakis. As was the rest of the heat holding outfit.
My skin became slick. The slicker of my sheen then made the audible squelch that I liked least of all of this ridiculous fabric.
The city was like I remembered it. Beautiful, open, colorful.
A grandfather held tight to his grandson's hand as they passed. "Lady Harkonnen." They tipped their heads at me. I nodded in acknowledgment.
Further through the city, I knew there were larger homes. They were less broken down than the rest. One had to be for the Faheem family. They might have gone to the harvesters already. It was early. But work never stopped on Arrakis. Spice remained day or night.
"Eh. Excuse me?" I asked someone I caught eyes with on the side street. "Faheem, yes? Harun Faheem. One of these is his." They nodded. "Which one?"
The covered street was dimly lit with artificial light. There were valances hanged below the upper floor windows. The three-story stone building was in a row with four others on the street. Their heights were impressive. The stoops were swept clean. The lack of sandy dust upon the street itself was the height of luxury in Carthage.
A simple door of polished stone protected the street from penetrating the home. It was not sandy gold or a red rock hue. The stone was smooth and crystalline. The faint pink color was knuckles brushed against its beautiful smooth surface as they knocked.
A voice called out from behind the door. It was rather fast. I thought it said, "one moment, one moment."
I heard multiple voices then from behind the solid door when the latch disengaged. Laughter. Excited chortles, a chorus of pattering feet against the hard floors, and rushed small voices flowed out from the home. It was the sounds of family. Children. The instinct zapped throughout my bones. It called out to hollow reaches of my mind, as if in search of something no longer placed there.
Nabil's eyes widened. "Lady Mintha, what-." He turned around. His eyes scanned around before he decided to join me out on the stoop of the house rather than inside. "What are you doing here?" He asked. "Outside the castle."
Nabil was there. He watched as his brother was wounded by Feyd.
Those eyes reminded me of Harun. They brought back those horrible moments. That strong souring of my stomach returned.
I swallowed. "I came to return…" my mouth stumbled over the words.
His eyes narrowed. The pleasant face I'd known as a friend now showed shadows of doubt in me.
I, the cause of their family's injury.
My soul shivered.
Rejection from the people I liked most.
The cost of Feyd's favor rose ever higher.
My hands pulled the wrapped appendage from my person. Nabil flexed his brow curiously as I settled it in his hands. The look changed. Its weight and slight dripping slipped the disapproval of my presence away to some other place.
He pushed the door open. "Come inside. Quick. Follow, follow."
The relief of heat was not significant like the castle. It tempered the sun's vengeance. Those still awake during its darkest hours battled the hot of the days rays. All but the na-Baron battled the savage enemy, the sun.
Nabil led me up. He stopped every few steps to urge me higher still.
There were voices in the house that answered his callings. The swift fluidity of their tongues was too natural for my self-taught ears to catch.
The row house was encased entirely in gold sandstone. The raw edges of the stones were smoothed away as a continuous material throughout. A brush against the wall was a chill compared to the air.
Nabil led down a dark corridor. It was short. The end showed a pair of doors on either side of Nabil's hips. He gestured to his right. I slipped past inside, strangely aware of the eerie encounter that could have turned to violence had it been done under Harkonnen supervision.
Though, even the Harkonnen's could not have illicted such guilt in me.
Harun sat in bed. His arm was wrapped in linen strips of pale cloth. The stump was absent a hand. Deep puffiness filled the flesh around his eyes. Though there was often a subtle shimmer of blue to the iris' color, redness stained the whites.
I blinked. My throat blocked with the knot of tension. My knees trembled.
He noticed me. A flex of his brow dropped it low. It jumped to his brother, in question or accusation. It had not occurred to me, until that very moment as I stared at the intimate devastation of Feyd's mutualition, that it was wrong of me to be there.
Now that I faced the impact of Feyd's entitled violence did I realize that it was not my place to comfort those he left in his wake. It was cruel. I was by Feyd's side. Whatever he did was by my own hand if I did not stop it.
I managed to muster the courage to say, "I should go."
I ran from the room. My feet clambered across the floors on the path I only faintly recalled from moments before. Tears rimmed my eyes. My body was ready to collapse into a pool of cool water without care of what the Baron brought to Arrakis. I only made it half way. There came an obstacle that pushed me backward. It had me tripping backward over myself and scrambling into the room with the victim of my actions.
A woman carried a naked infant in her arms. The infant was scrawny and new. It had a coating of light little hairs all over it. Apart from the dense dark hairs slicked against its head. Bright alert eyes of the little body struck me speechless.
As was the apparition of the woman – for that's what she had to be. She was pale. The life of her body was minimal. The flesh was a shell over her bones, but not her soul. It appeared gone from existence while she was forced to carry on.
She said nothing as she followed me into the room. Her eyes stared ahead unseeing.
I was a ghost to her. Nothing.
Nabil just uncovered the severed hand from the wrappings as I fell back into the room against the back wall. More of the family walked inside the room in my absence. Their mouths exclaimed short little words when the bloodied hand showed.
Harun sat higher in bed. He touched the fingers he once knew as a part of himself. The brown flesh of his attached fingers entangled with the vapid paling complexion of the others.
The emotions of the room peaked when the woman and infant entered. All eyes of the room turned to her.
She asked what was going on. Her arms nearly dropped the infant when she saw Harun with his severed hand.
"Harun," she murmured in disbelief.
"It is returned to me," he said gladly.
"Deserts blessed!"
She approached the bed. The happy smile on her face now reflected in his. The infant cooed. It made her face drop in sorrow, smiling softly and touching the soft cheeks of the young face. Happy tears filled her eyes.
Harun swirled the tips of his fingers against the baby's slight curls.
"Now I shall meet the maker whole," Harun said with pride.
The family, the brothers and all their children, forgot me altogether. My part in their story no longer mattered. His hand returned cheered their woes to joy. They hugged and celebrated. None of which was directed at me.
I was outsider here.
No matter how much I adored these people and the planet they hailed from, I was no more a native here than a Harkonnen was. My place was somewhere else. It did not belong amongst these people and customs and families that I did not understand.
I slipped away from the house with a shallow beating in my chest. It ached at the loss of their friendship, and the comfort I felt in the city. As I stared out amongst the natural beauty that was this place, I knew that it would be bittersweet. I'd think of this moment before I began to attach to someone. I'd recall the fascination I once had for these people and how welcome they'd been to me. And how I'd betrayed myself in allowing harm to befall them. Because of me.
I had to let Arrakis go.
There was a bigger journey that mattered more. An inner calling that won out against all else I thought mattered.
My family had work to be done. I knew it in my bones. The happiness Feyd thought awaited at the birth of our child would not come until he proved to me that it was a job I'd not regret allowing him entrance to.
I refused a Harkonnen legacy. I refused their brutality. I rejected their selfishness. I recoiled at their sickened actions.
No more.
It was either the Baron who would die, or my family.
There was not place for both in this Imperium.