Hondara handara tsukadoroba
Leave me alone if you want to survive
I’ll burn you and crush you
Survival of the fittest for generations to come
Salusan lullaby
Madoka woke up gently to the flap of the ‘topher, there was no muzzle, no handcuffs, somehow Homura always ended up saving her right in time, she had been captured and sedated but she was safe now.
“Not yet” Homura said
“Telepathy?!” Madoka cleared her head, she started thinking of nursery rimes.
“I just knew what you’d ask” Homura landed the ‘topher “We need to leave”
“Back to Wallach?” Madoka was still a bit hazy, the men of Walpurgis had used a strong dose of sedative knowing how quickly Bene Gesserits metabolized them.
“Arrakis” Madoka wondered why they’d be going to the Imperial capital, what was she thinking?
Homura checked her pockets, Madoka never fully knew how well armed she was, even for a Salusan, Homura always overprepared. Homura was trained to become Sardaukar, then a few months before she’d formally join the army the Padisha Emperor was overthrown, instead she got recruited by the sisterhood.
Madoka noticed what Homura was muttering.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
She was just as nervous as when they met for the first time. She has mastered hiding her emotions but she had not mastered her emotions yet, perhaps she never would, at this point Homura had risked too much.
Madoka had dreams, she knew they could become reality, dreams where right then and there they would go to a different place, Salusa Secundus, where they’d find a nice house in the jungle and hunt for their food together. Dune was also in her dreams, the harsh sands of Arrakis, this was a different possibility. Homura perhaps saw the same images, perhaps she had seen a different dream.
Arrakis right away brought a bad taste to Madoka’s mouth, Arrakeen was still the only city with a port, the Emperor made it this way so he’d know who came in or who didn’t. Madoka shuffled a deck of cards she kept in her pocket, a cat tarot, a replica of a relic from old terra. Kitty White was a symbol of calmness, of an idyllic future, so Madoka preferred to use that old deck instead of the Dune tarot.
The devil, the king of cups, the king of swords, the king of pentacles, the king of wands. “Sayaka and Kyouko are here too” Madoka didn’t need to think much on who the devil was, his palace was right there.
“This is what Walpurgis wanted” Madoka muttered “Four bene Gesserit assassins trying to dispose of the Emperor”
Homura sighed “Every other future ends with her, unless we go directly to the Tyrant. We need to prepare Madoka”
Madoka shook her head “I doubt weapons will make any difference”
“We are prescient, we have that advantage” Homura rested in the shade, she was starting to feel her body losing too much water.
“We need to leave the open quickly” Madoka didn’t want to say a thing but if the desert alone could kill them what chance they stood against Leto II Atreides?
Homura nodded, they walked through the streets of Arrakeen until they reached a grilled meat place, Homura knocked on the backdoor with a strange rhythm, the door opened right away, at the other side a guy who was clearly washing dishes with sand, he stared at the two women in front of him, barely adults.
“You want the water?” The man said in Sardau
Homura replied almost instantly “Tradition dictates we do”
The man stepped aside and let them in. The guy cleaning the dishes, the one cooking and the one cutting meat were too corpulent to be common folk, these clearly were former Sardaukar who had been left in the planet after the fall of House Corrino.
“Bene Gesserit has Sardaukar now?” the butcher placed his knife on the board and served some raw meat on a plate, he added some salt and spice and mixed it with chopsticks.
Homura took the plate and ate a piece of meat, she handed the plate to Madoka who forced herself to do the same. “My options were mercenary work or the Bene Gesserit, at least now I have sisters”
The butcher nodded “More honorable than cooking for a living” He laughed.
Their only allies, three old and rusty soldiers who had lost a battle long ago. Their bodies had gone fat, their muscles had atrophied, yet they knew Arrakis, they survived it in their own way. Madoka somehow knew to trust these people, after all societies survive harsh planets when they have a strong sense of community and religion. Homura’s own strength came from this very sense of community, she would die for Madoka just like these men would die to protect them.
Madoka began to feel the effects of the spice in her body, a golden highway covered in blood, forcing humanity to continue through pain, Homura was there to cut down the way and allow humanity to die peacefully. A slow yet comforting end, a nice sleep unlike the other where humanity fought like a wounded animal.
Homura was given a small box, a lasgun pistol and a rifle, five energy cartridges, smoke grenades, shields and slow pellet throwers. She took out the throwing knives from her sleeves and instead placed the grenades there. They didn’t ask Homura what she was planning, they had learned that asking too many questions slowed things down, this way they also lacked the knowledge of the plan to truthsayers.
Madoka saw herself cleaning the blood off from the road, the blood itself was the road. Homura stood over protecting her, lasgun in hand. Somehow Madoka wished more for the future in which they eloped to Salusa Secundus.
Editorial 