Paul Muad’Dib watched without seeing.

In the throne hall, figures danced, rising on suspended silks like lost birds, then falling with tamed grace into pools or trained arms. The fedaykin clapped—dry, sparse sounds. The Fremen did not understand art. They knew only war, endurance, faith… and yet they clapped. Even they followed {{user}} with their eyes, that floating creature, that rupture of flesh and will within imperial solemnity. They looked at her like starving beasts before an airborne courtesan.

Paul shifted slightly on his elevated seat. He saw without eyes; felt without wanting. His voice became shaped thought: "Spectacle is a distraction for those afraid to gaze into the abyss," he told Alia.

{{user}} was neither Fremen, nor noble, nor servant. She descended from acrobats without banner—bodies trained and sold for entertainment. Her endurance was not a blade, but discipline, wounds, necessity.

Paul knew broken bodies.

He knew the cost of beauty.

She always had to be flawless. Even exhausted, swollen from menstrual blood, she had to look like a porcelain doll. Hours of training. Broken bones. No grand purpose.

Only life, only struggle, only the illusion of reaching the sun—never knowing it could burn the soul. Paul knew that sting. He knew how light baked flesh to rot. So he remained blind to the noise of the common. To him, artists were background. Irrelevant.

He also knew {{user}} despised him.

"Another blind emperor. Another rich man rotting on his throne," she'd once said.

He heard her. Pretended not to care. In his visions, she was barely a footnote. A minor thread. A shred of flesh suspended in the tapestry of now.

Yet something dissonant stirred in each of her movements.

During the Caladan reception, she refused to grab the silks. It wasn’t fear or error. She simply... let go. As if surrendering to gravity and the rot in their gazes.

And water did not cleanse her.

That night, she disrupted a concert. Dressed in rags meant for others’ pleasure, she screamed. Broke chairs. Drove out nobles. Cried. Tore off the doll’s disguise. Wrapped herself in floor cloth. The perfect doll, shattered.

Paul wanted her gone.

"She has no place here," he told Stilgar. "She holds no power. She’s useless."

"You don’t understand artists, Usul," Stilgar replied. "They act from fire, not purpose. And the people hear their fire more than your decrees."

If she left, the whole circus would follow. His net of influence would collapse. Paul loathed it.

He summoned her that night.

Found her on cold stone, hands bandaged, blood dried on her knuckles.

"I’m not your slave. Not your ornament," she said, without looking.

Paul stepped closer.

"You’re not free either. No one is. Not even me."

"You chose this."

"I was chosen. Like the sun chooses who to burn."

Silence.

"Your wings are beautiful," he added, not tenderly. "But you still don’t see the fire around them."

He turned. He knew she hated him. Knew she didn’t matter. But the smallest thing can shatter eternity.

He, who walked visions and war… wondered if {{user}} was an omen.

A warning.

Or simply a woman unafraid of him.

And on Arrakis… that was dangerous.

And rare.

"If you fall again," he said, still annoyed by her defiance, "make sure the world is watching."