II: Bloody Appetites
Feyd showed a great degree of thought when it came to my own preparations for relocation. All of my things were packed by castle staff, a lower status than me by all means, but they refused all my offers to assist them.
Every inch of my personal space was invaded and packed into solid metal trunks. They were locked with the seal of a blue griffin. It was a sleek fitted piece of equipment that had no visible joints. It remained unable to be infiltrated without knowledge of how it is unlocked.
I remained still as I waited for direction. My hands clasped together. The only motion to dispel my growing anxiety was the crunching of my fingers together.
A short night of slumber - I was up hours before normal - awakened many more ponderings. Like, what was Arrakis? What did a Bene Gesserit companion do? Why would my position in his house matter to the Baron?
I swallowed. Fear. It was trickling throughout.
Just the slight touch of its warmth, had me forcing it back behind walls. It was not permitted to the light. I only allowed it in the silence of night, when Feyd was absent, where feelings would not be seen by any thing. Even me.
The sudden change in Feyd's placement - a new world - was so uncommon that I wondered what it meant: Good, or bad?
Feyd's 20th birthday celebration was still underway. He intended to leave during his own parties.
Again, I laced my knuckles together until they visibility ached.
Something was different in Harkonnen House.
A dress was brought early that morning. It was a deep dark blue, almost black. The fabric clung to my skin. It hugged my curves and draped against my swollen chest. The sides of my breasts were exposed at all times.
A slender silver chain wrapped around my neck to hold the dress in place. I thought to cinch it tight enough to stop my air. My hands grasped the chain, curled into a fist, and pulled.
The strength of the chain wavered.
A faint pink line imprinted around my throat.
It was not enough to withstand what I'd need to fully be dead.
Repercussions for an attempt would be met with many awful actions: some themselves anything but death.
There I stood on the threshold of my chambers with my few belongings in trunks in wait for some signal that it was time.
Feyd Rautha Harkonnen sent for me by messenger. The sullen woman stood expressionless, a face I mirrored, as we walked the long halls of the guest wing back to the main entrance hall of the massive metal castle.
The care of my body being displayed slipped from my mind. Should my nipples be seen by the whole of the Harkonnen nobility, my care would be absent. It was theirs, no matter. Life or death, they could flay my flesh from bone and hoist my breasts on flagpoles should they feel the need.
Darkness changed to lightening, a very thick foggy dim. The first light of day here on this monster planet. I flexed a long stare upward at the appearing dark sun. It was no longer a strange sight as when I'd first arrived on this planet.
What would Arrakis be like? A black sun? No sun? Two suns? Who knew.
I hated the way I felt when I broached the departing party. So many guards armed in fitted suits of black interlocked plates. The energy of the space filled with their hunger. A hunger for violence and victory. I knew it well.
Then there was the gaggle of less likeable men: advisors.
My ridiculous shoes of sleek silver metal clicked against the long tile floors. A beckon to my presence like a dinner bell for the eager.
Feyd directed the people of his house to their duties. He was lost in conversation with one of the captains of his forces that he momentarily ignored my presence completely. The directions spoke of when they arrived to Arrakis.
The captain then left to load with the rest of soldiers under Feyd's command.
Numbing ice ascended the length of my chest. It controlled breath. It refused to allow breath out of the calm succession I perfected long ago. The ice coated my palms. Not an ounce of sweat was allowed through.
My mind, too, flicked away every thought other than the moment.
I let my pale eyes stare ahead with interest in nothing other than the walls. My ears deafened to the conversation around me. The hollow and shrill cries throughout the castle corridors. They stayed on the other sides of my ears. Their entry not granted.
"The heighliner has loaded, na-Baron."
Feyd's voice ceased.
Weight filtered through the air. A dense breath filled my lungs. I felt the intensity of the moment as it surrounded them all.
"Arrakis awaits, witch," Feyd stated.
Heavier fell my chest.
Witch. Liar.
"Yes, na-Baron."
He clenched his jaw. "The witch is not to be regarded by any who is not given my express consent. Do not look, touch, speak or maim her."
The young heir marched forward.
Massive doors parted. The wall now split with the world grown within their view.
Feyd paused. He tilted his head to his left shoulder. "Try to keep up, witch."
I followed him out, through the courtyard of the castle, out to the landing fields and royal ship bay. The fight of quick steps strangled my pace. I recognized the sight as the depot that I was brought to the planet from my old planet.
The heighliner overtook the sky. It splintered the distance with its bulbous dark grey body.
Feyd kept a close distance. We were never more than an arm's length away. The slightest comfort there was in his presence eased the minute concern growing within my mind.
Heighliners had portioned pods for passengers. Royalty traveled in larger pods than the common transports. A Guildsmen led us into the belly of the ship along many sectioned metal pods, fitted with a single door. No window. No other escape than the singular entrance.
I looked at Feyd. His lack of concern told me that it was typical to be locked within a metal box to travel through space. Even with his status as the Baron's heir.
The pod was massive. It was fitted with daily comforts like chairs, a dining room, kitchenette, bedrooms, library and a small washroom, absent a tub or shower. It was all smooth grey metal. The lights were brighter than kept in the castle.
My forearm rose to cover my burning eyes at the sudden surge of their light.
Feyd and his advisors, men I recognized with their books, leather bound notes and a pencil always in their hand, overtook the dining room. Gadgets of every size fell to its surface. A large round planet popped up from a hologram. It held a tan crust. There were glittery gold sections that shimmered under the bright lights of the ship. Names of places scattered throughout.
The planet spun under a man's finger. He spun it and pointed at a large dot marked on the orb's surface.
Feyd kicked his boot heels up to the edge of the table. He reclined in his seat as the men rattled on. Spice harvest, whatever that was, was under attack.
He was approached by a man. His fingers fluttered a dismissal.
"Ask the witch," he said.
Right. Me. The witch.
The man was a servant by the way his eyes stayed at the floor as he approached me. The withdrawn way his voice spoke was what I imagined I often sounded like toward Feyd.
It made it all the more curious as to why he refused to leave me alone.
"Na-Baron's things," the servant said. "What room?"
I blinked my surprise away. That task was reserved for high born women: ladies of court. Not a prisoner witch.
But as it was commanded by the Baron's heir, it was in no one's power to ignore the direct order. Not even me.
"Follow me," I said.
The two closest bedrooms were similar in size. One was far grander with elegant drapery and fixtures of gold. Its bed was piled with furs. The long-haired bedspread tickled my fingers. I ran back to a section of my mind I'd long abandoned entering.
My hand snapped back to my side.
"This one is for na-Baron," I barked. "Put his things away. Over there."
The rest of the rooms went to the nobles on board. Fellow creatures of Feyd's advisors committee and board placed next. They needed to be close. All the animals stayed in packs like foul hunters. I left them to their own domain, with me on the outskirts of it in the last, smallest room.
It was pale blue. The wallpaper was faded, but pretty. The space was just wide enough for a bed, a chest of drawers and a small desk. The floor was covered in a short rug. I slipped out of the cold heeled sandals and wiggled my toes through the fibers. The softness teased the soft divots of my feet, tickling and tingling up my legs.
Harkonnens did not favor soft textiles. It had been an age since I'd last felt the touch of fuzz.
Cold and hard.
It was the world I knew. After years being trapped as the Harkonnen prisoner meant for fresh meat, I recognized only ice and metal and darkness as the sensations of life.
Now, it was clear that the journey would take me to places unlike what I had known. Perhaps to some ones I did know, once.
I relaxed into my stance. The weight of my body, and all the weight of its many nuisances, fell against the bottom of my feet and settled into the grounding of the moment.
There came a point where we were sealed inside. Its suction as the only door sealed shut sent a resounding clench to my stomach.
No turning back now, I thought.
I spent the first few hours alone in the confinement of the room. I'd not been told how long to expect the journey. So, I pulled a few small belongings from the leather knapsack sat in the corner of my room and placed them around.
It was not much. But they were something.
A small vial of perfume was my treasured possession. It smelled divine. I'd been so enthralled by it when a member of another house visited Feyd's court that she offered me a small sample. I dared not wear it. I only uncorked the vial to steal sniffs.
There was a ring, too. Feyd once left it after he visited. I gave it back the next time he came, but he kept forgetting it until it became a permanent fixture in my chamber. I placed it upon the dresser as I did in the castle. In case he wished to take it back.
The pod was busy. There was not motion, but its air was filled with focus like the urgency of the journey was tenfold. The voices carried throughout the cramped space.
I slipped a book off the shelf of the library and took it back to my room to appraise it in private.
The energy of the pod was not what I should tangle myself in with the caged monsters. It reeked of trouble.
The Harkonnens shared a language with all the others in the Imperium. Most everything was written in the common tongue. I'd riddled pieces of it myself over the years from scraps of paper, official decrees, and packaging in various forms. My knowledge neared total fluidity.
The book I grabbed was of the history of Harkonnen house. The images were ones I recognized. The language deciphered easier that way.
"Where is she?" Boomed down the corridor.
"Right this way, na-Baron."
My chamber door was ripped open.
"Witch," Feyd pronounced. He said it with ease as if it were always the term he called me.
He examined the height of the room above our heads. His eyes followed the lines of the room as he mapped it all in his brain. The entire space now logged within memory for a time when it was needed.
The ring on the dresser held his gaze for a second longer than the rest.
"Come with me," he finally stated.
The book dropped from my hands. I left it lying on the bed as I followed instruction as I knew I should.
The silken dress turned cold. The vacuum of space was frigid. Every inch of my skin was coated in the stinging ice. My nipples ached. The fabric did not hide their rigid tips beneath its protection.
My chin remained level with the floor as I glided behind Feyd's thundering march. Each hand remained stuck at my sides. The beat of my heart slowed.
Numbness consumed my very essence. All that was me blanked away.
The advisory table - former dining table - was filled with various packets and gadgets. The hologram still showed the same brown planet as before. Glittering gold fields speckled sections with its allure.
Words stopped the moment I breeched the air.
My feet stood on the edge of the room. Eyes of the many men stared right through me to the fatty bloody tissue they all yearned to consume. To be torn apart across the clean pale floor, it was not too bad a fate.
Blood loss was not slow. Not with their love of blades.
I could be released from this imprisonment in no more than three minutes.
Feyd-Rautha took his seat at the head of the pointed table. His boots again rested at the lip of the table as his hands drifted behind his head.
"Na-Baron?" I asked after he said nothing.
The young heir stared down at the table of men before him. He met each of their gazes as the silence crept through the room. The broiling want of challenge surrounded his stare.
Did he seek revolt? Was he hard-pressed to relieve his violence in whatever way he could?
Rumors of his filthy harem were not uncommon within the castle guests. Most shared their information with the others. One such guest told her that Feyd's harem was as perverted as they came. He fucked them and killed them at will. His appetites were not so clear cut, as he would kill a slave as he fucked her and then continued to use her flesh until he wanted no more of it.
Time with me was a shadow of the stories of his personal slaves.
"The witch will be present for everything. Unless I say so, she is to be ignored. She is not here for you."
A chair was pulled out on the other side of the table. I walked through the sea of Harkonnen men to get to it.
My eyes stayed even with the chair. I did not spare a look at a single thing other than the safety that Feyd allotted me.
The meeting resumed as he declared. My presence was largely ignored. Whatever qualms at my witness were forgotten at Feyd's command.
There were displays of equipment and discussion of sabotage. Fire engulfed massive machines in a land of pure desert. It was bright with yellow and tan and brown and red. Actual color. Blinding white light of a sun as it glinted against metal machines in a sea of sand.
My eyes devoured the large saturation of hues as they played their videos. The relay of news escaped my notice. Why the machines burned did not matter as much as the beauty of their destruction. Orange. Actual orange.
I dared not look away. I'd be awash in the monochrome world I'd been trapped inside for years.
The only color now was black, grey, white and blood red.
"What say the witch?" Feyd suddenly said.
My mind zapped back to cold space.
"How do you deal with rats, witch?" He asked again, more amused than stern. It was a playful wondering.
The screen drifted back to mind. "Burn them, na-Baron."
The creeping blackness of his mouth grew into his haunted smile.
His eyes raised to the rest of his advisors. "You heard her. Burn them. Burn them all. Their nests. Their havens. Their equipment, their bodies. Burn it."
The true revenge of the Harkonnen was not the brutality, savagery, their blood lust; it was that you become one of them.
Monster was I. The one they made.
Hours dragged by.
There was a stopping and lingering feel amongst the ship that dragged the journey along at an annoying pace.
The monsters grew hungry. Their appetites were a constant chore to uphold. Fury grew when their stomachs reached low levels.
Feyd himself was restless. The scowl deepened the longer he was denied his food.
Finally, the royal staff cleared the table. It was used as an open surface once more with the papers cleared away, books stacked in corners and the many miscellaneous gadgets stashed to their cases, so a spread of dinnerware could be placed.
Attendants to their masters, servants of Harkonnen House and other staff presented a meal they were allowed aboard the heighliner.
The plate presented appealed to the monsters: paper-thin meat, bright red and raw with a puddle of pinkish red juice below.
I glanced down at the stack of raw meat with a restrained ounce of disgust.
My face must have given way more than I thought; the monsters released bemused chuckles.
It had been a many long years that I was captive of the Harkonnen hospitality. If I had not devolved my tongue, I'd have not lived long enough to meet the Baron's heir.
I made a point to force the prongs of my fork into the bloody meat and shove it within my mouth.
Whatever possessed them brave enough to laugh slithered back down to their monstrous insides.
Feyd chewed. His mouth savored the tender cool meat. The corner of his mouth dribbled a show of diluted blood. His tongue eagerly licked it before it dripped farther.
"Mmm." He snapped his fingers. A servant approached closer. His head bowed toward the floor, never lifting to meet his master's gaze. "Where did this meat come from?"
"Slave," the servant said.
The table rumbled up a tone of approval. Their love of taking life caught in its web only filled their appetites deeper with delight at the pain they caused.
"Slave is the most tender, na-Baron," one stated from farther down the table.
I hated the way my throat seized at its own will.
A thing like me they dined upon.
Feyd chuckled. "Slave." He acknowledged the servant once more. "From where?"
Rest their soul from wherever they were.
I mumbled a silent curse of jealousy. Their suffering was over. Mine was nowhere near ready.
"Royal slaves from the Baron, na-Baron," the royal servant replied. Trembles coursed the length of his arm as he stood there in wait. "He said you'd know which ones."
All at once, the room was quiet.
Nay, silent.
Not a single breath erupted as they awaited his reaction.
My fingers clenched my fork in case it grew out of control.
Feyd was sudden in his swipe. He thrust the blade – hidden within the plates of his armor suit – through the servants throat. A waterfall of blood spilled over onto the floor and partially Feyd.
They all watched on as the body dropped to the floor, bled out.
Feyd's focus followed the servant to the floor. Any shred of amusement was long gone to the coldness of his monster form.
He then turned back to his plate, pierced another piece and mused, as if to himself, "they are delicious."