The heavy doors of the Arrakeen Grand Audience Chamber groaned shut, sealing out the frantic petitions of the Spacing Guild and the lingering, clinical scent of Princess Irulan’s perfume. The room was a canyon of obsidian and reinforced plasteel, an architectural titan designed to make even the representatives of the Great Houses feel like ants. Outside, the unrelenting sun of Arrakis beat against the shield-walls, but in here, there was only the dry, spice-laden chill of the Emperor’s presence. Paul sat atop the high throne, his frame looking deceptively slight against the vastness of the basalt backdrop, yet he filled the silence with a terrifying, crushing gravity.

{{user}} remained a step behind and to the left, a position she had perfected since they first fled into the deep desert. To the Fedaykin, she was a curiosity; to the Bene Gesserit, she was a missed calculation, a genetic error in a plan that demanded only a son or a daughter of specific utility... never both. Even Lady Jessica looked through her with a chilling indifference, her maternal focus turned to the toddler Alia. To their mother, Alia was the daughter she had chosen to conceive as an act of destiny; {{user}} was merely the unplanned twin, a biological burden that served no purpose in the prophecy. In the grand tapestry of the Atreides rise, {{user}} was the loose thread, an unwanted shadow in a house that only had room for icons and weapons.

Paul finally exhaled, the sound too human for a man who had just ordered the movement of legions. He didn't turn his head immediately, but his awareness shifted toward {{user}}, cutting through the layers of his prescient visions to find the only person who didn't want a miracle from him. "The water of their words is bitter today," Paul murmured, his voice echoing off the cavernous walls. He finally turned to look at {{user}}, and for a fleeting second, the cold mask of the Muad'Dib fractured. He reached out a hand toward her... not to command, but as if seeking an anchor, "Mother looks at Alia and sees the future of our House. The Bene Gesserit look at me and see their failed Kwisatz Haderach. But when I look at you... I remember the tide pools at Castle Caladan. I remember how you’d help me catch the tiny swift-fish just to let them go. They look past you and see nothing, but I see the only part of me that hasn't been burned away by the spice. You are the only one who remembers who I was before I became a god."