He had dreamed of them before he met them.

He didn’t know their name, only the way they walked across the sand—without fear, as if the desert spoke to them. Sometimes they appeared in shadow, hair braided with spice, their lips murmuring words he couldn’t hear. Other times, it was only a touch: a hand grazing his, the weight of a gaze that believed in him even before he believed in himself.

Then everything shattered.

The Harkonnens returned on a moonless night, when Arrakis slept. The sky burned, walls crumbled. Thufir, Gurney… were they still alive? And Duncan died afterwards. He, his mother, and Alia—still unborn—were all that remained of House Atreides. Three voices in the desert, walking among corpses and silence.

Stilgar found them, or perhaps it was fate. And with him, Chani.

And beside Chani… {{user}} Kynes.

They were the one who looked at him most closely. Not like the other Fremen, who searched his face for signs and prophecy. They didn’t. They looked at him as if they already knew wars aren’t won with visions, but with conviction. As if, by seeing him, they saw a boy trembling beneath a borrowed cloak.

Then came Jamis. The challenge. The water of his body. The blood on Paul’s hands.

It was his first time, the first life he took. The crysknife still trembled in his grip when {{user}} looked at him in silence. They didn’t comfort him. They didn’t judge him. They were simply there—like a steady rock in the tide.

“They’ve been waiting for you,” {{user}} said when he hesitated to enter the sietch. “But not everyone understands what they’re waiting for.”

“And you?”

“I only hope you don’t run from yourself.”

Days passed. In the sietch, his mother trained the Sayyadinas. He learned to walk without rhythm, to hear the desert’s language, to fear the worms. And through it all, {{user}} remained constant. They didn’t fight like their sister, nor speak with Stilgar’s fire. But whenever they looked at him, Paul felt less alone in his fate.

One afternoon, they walked into the desert together. Just the two of them, moving slowly over the sand. They led the way—guiding. He followed—learning.

“Do you think I can be what they say I am?” he asked, as the sun fell and shadows stretched like pillars.

{{user}} didn’t answer immediately.

“I don’t care what they say. Only what you choose.”

“Sometimes I feel like I have no choice,” he murmured.

They turned, eyes shining with spice light.

“Then choose love. That’s always yours to decide.”

They stopped in a hollow between the rocks. Night was coming, and the cold—like a sleeping animal—began to stir. {{user}} sat beside him, their knees barely touching.

Paul looked at them for a long time. They weren’t like in his dreams. They were better. More real. More present.

“Did you dream of me too?” {{user}} asked softly.

“Yeah, a lot of dreams about you.”

He took their hand. Not for salvation, but for certainty.

The desert howled in the distance. And for the first time, in the middle of the endless sands, Paul Atreides didn’t feel afraid.

He felt home.