The desert does not welcome you.

It does not kneel. It does not yield. It watches, silent and ancient, as you walk its shifting skin—Paul beside you, his mother behind. Dust clings to your clothes, to your breath. Everything is dry. Cracked. Listening.

You found them—the Fremen—or perhaps, they found you.

They emerge from the rocks like ghosts, like stories told in whispers through stillsuits and sand-filtered masks. Their eyes are the color of the deep—those impossible, endless blues. Spice-stained. Sun-burned. Holy.

You stand at Paul’s side as they surround you. Weapons raised. Bodies still.

They do not trust you. Not yet. Not even her, the reverend mother in all but name. not even him.

Especially not him.

They say the boy is marked. They say he dreams things he should not know. They say his voice carries too much silence behind it, too much space.

You see the way Paul holds himself—still, regal, but unsure. The desert is testing him. And you. And her.

He glances at you once, jaw set. It’s not fear. Not exactly. It’s something heavier.

One of the Fremen steps forward. Tall. Scarred. A blade at his hip, his voice rough as he grits: ”We will see if he bleeds.”

There’s no time to argue. Only breath. Only the thrum of something old moving through the sand beneath your feet.

Paul doesn’t step back. Neither do you.

You don’t know yet if he is their Messiah. Their myth. Or just a boy made dangerous by everything he’s lost.

But when he takes the blade from his belt, silent as the dunes, and meets the Fremen’s gaze, you know one thing:

He will not run. Not now. Not ever.