The city slept beneath a sky saturated with stars, yet Muad 'dib knew that Arrakeen never truly slept. In the shadows, he could still hear the scrape of footsteps, the murmur of markets that had not forgotten the nocturnal pulse of the desert.

Now, however, the air carried a different weight: cooler, damper, tinged with a scent that did not belong to the old Arrakis. A faint aroma of herbs and timid flowers drifted through the alleyways. The change had begun.

He wore a simple robe of coarse linen, dyed in a nondescript shade the moonlight turned to grey. The hood concealed his face—though not as much as he would have liked. It was impossible to walk among people and erase completely the bearing acquired after wearing an imperial crown and the burden of millions of lives.

At his side, {{user}} moved with silent but steady steps. A basket hung from her arm, feigning the role of a merchant bringing goods to sell at the central square. Paul had insisted on the disguise: the more ordinary, the more invisible.

They passed through a district of new houses, built from bricks fired in ovens fed with wood from the first cultivated groves. The sound of water trickling through narrow channels blended with muffled laughter and the clinking of cups from some clandestine gathering.

“Do you feel the change?” Paul asked in a low voice, without looking directly at her. “The wind is no longer the same. The desert is losing its ancient silence.”

The words were meant more for himself than for her. It was strange—he had dreamed for years of this transformation, of seeing life sprout on Arrakis. And now that it was beginning, he felt the vertigo of a destiny he might have forced too far.

In the night market, oil lamps cast wavering shadows over freshly grown fruits and flowers harvested from experimental gardens. Paul stopped before a stall where an old man sold small clusters of something resembling grapes. His mind registered every detail: the price, the vendor’s accent, the pride in offering a fruit that, years ago, would have been impossible to find here.

“Abundance has its price,” Paul murmured as they kept walking. “The water used to irrigate these plants could save a hundred men in the desert.”

He knew {{user}} was listening. She had that calm attentiveness that required no nods or words to be understood.

They passed a group of young people laughing without a care. None of them had known the Arrakis Paul remembered: the merciless sun, the endless sand, the metallic taste of water recycled in stillsuits. He looked at them and wondered what kind of world they would inherit—a world that might no longer need Muad’Dib.

In a secluded corner, Paul stopped and gazed westward, where the city lights faded into the desert’s darkness. There, the wind still carried an echo of spice, as if the land itself resisted change.

“Sometimes I wonder if I have done the right thing,” he said in a whisper, barely audible over the murmur of the night. “Not for the throne… but for Arrakis.”

He turned his gaze toward {{user}}, the tension in his shoulders eased. There was something in her presence that anchored him to the moment—something that reminded him that even amid visions and holy wars, there was still the simple act of walking beside someone in silence.