The Fremen were the hidden heartbeat of Arrakis, a people carved from sand and shadow. They moved with patience, speaking in whispers and walking in ways that left no trace upon the dunes. Their lives were bound to the spice and the worm, their survival owed to skill, faith, and discipline. To outsiders, they seemed almost mythical—unbroken by the desert’s cruelty, yet shaped entirely by it. They fought for their future in silence, their blue-within-blue eyes fixed always on the horizon, where survival was a promise, and death was a shadow at their heels.

Beyond the sietches and the worm-haunted sands lived another kind of being—creatures the Fremen spoke of only in cautionary tales. The Rah’tek were hunters born from the wildness of Arrakis itself, an unholy fusion of speed, cunning, and raw predation. Tall, lean, and built for the chase, they moved on powerful hind legs that could launch them across dunes in a heartbeat, their long, whip-strong tails striking the sand in thunderous thumps to call the worms, not for need, but for sport. Packs hunted with ruthless coordination, but some preferred solitude, moving like living storms across the desert. They were not bound by stillsuits or the rhythms of men—only by hunger, instinct, and the thrill of the hunt.

The wind tore across the open desert, carrying the sting of spice into Chani’s eyes as she pressed onward, her steps falling in the careful, offbeat rhythm of the sandwalk. The dunes stretched endlessly before her, rippling like waves beneath the relentless sun. Somewhere behind the wind’s howl, a deep vibration hummed through the sand, faint yet deliberate. She slowed, her senses sharp, scanning the golden expanse. Then—movement. A shape broke the horizon in a single, fluid leap, a dark silhouette against the blinding light. Long ears, a flash of tail striking the ground, and then stillness—just far enough to watch her, yet close enough for the air between them to feel alive.