house atreides and allies group text

[terriblepurpose]

House Atreides


Allies


Shed? Heresy Hut


Questionable Mentor Containment Zone (Filter Name: HashbrownCobraKaiRules)

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Comments

[terriblepurpose]

If this has been a war, why don't you ever want me to fight?

[hearthebell]

Because kings and generals delegate. They have to, or no one is left to lead.

That's what you were being raised to do, isn't it?

1/2

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul is speaking all he says to his Omen, who watches him with wide, black eyes as he sitting in the rising waters of another repetition of ice cold bath water, fully clothed and shivering with it. It makes his words less careful than they almost always are - and it's safe, here, with the old man.

There is a ghost in his mouth, so far from the high, dark cliffs of his ancestors.]

What if

2/2

[terriblepurpose]

What if that's not what I want to be?

[hearthebell]

Then you would probably be a good king or general, in truth.

That being said, what you want matters to me. You shouldn't need to sacrifice your happiness for the many, which absolutely comes with the job of any leader.

[terriblepurpose]

I was starting to think I could stop, and it would be all right. When he came to Kaworu’s birthday party, and he stayed behind that line, and I thought

I think I was starting to be happy.

I don’t think people like us are meant to be, are we? Not really. It’s not what we’re for. We’re supposed to be for other people, and I don’t want to be. That’s why I always get something wrong. Why I never see it until it’s too late. I don’t want to see it.

[hearthebell]

It's not always the case. Occasionally, someone is born who is uncommonly selfish, destructive and cruel, but in ways that just happen to result in being a net gain for other people, who will call him "hero."

I don't think he deserves to be called that any more than the man who quietly does what's less dramatic, but more difficult, resulting in radical preservation over radical change.

[terriblepurpose]

What about the man who does nothing? Who changes nothing, saves nothing? What do you call him?

[hearthebell]

I would call him beloved.

In which case, someone else is certainly acting, for him.

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul could tell himself the dampness around his eyes was steam, but who would he be telling himself that for, while he sits here alone and not-alone? Sophia nuzzles under his jaw, soft and gentle.]

I don't think I can do this without you.

So you have to stay. You have to tell me you'll stay. You won't go anywhere I can't bring you back from.

[hearthebell]

I think that you could, but it's a moot point.

Something has been done, already.

[terriblepurpose]

[The bond between them shivers when Paul has those words imparted to him by his Omen, a flashfire sear that comes and goes swiftly.]

What did you do?

[hearthebell]

I jogged his memory a little, since he seems to need a reminder that he's not the only one with power over pain.

He'll stop celebrating soon, turn in early, and have great difficulty sleeping, if he can at all.

[terriblepurpose]

I don't understand.

What is that meant to do for her?

[hearthebell]

It dents the walls of her prison, to remind the so-called god that he's a man.

Men make mistakes. Men can be broken. Can you not see that he's cracking?

[terriblepurpose]

I see it.

Is that what we want? To break him?

[hearthebell]

Because I am uncommonly selfish, destructive and cruel, I believe that I do want that.

I would settle for taking him down a peg or two.

[terriblepurpose]

I don't think that's what you are.

I trust you. You've been more right about all of this than I've ever been.

Don't forget that I trust you.

[hearthebell]

I don't forget. In fact, I think of it often.

Sometimes, it's the truest thing I know.

[terriblepurpose]

[Paul thinks of all the times he's given Lazarus reason to doubt him, all the times that the distance between them had seemed insurmountable. He presses his forehead to his knees with a deep, wounded relief, and the fire behind his closed eyes recedes.

Paul believes him.]

Good.

[hearthebell]

Can you also settle for taking him down a peg or two?

[terriblepurpose]

[How can he explain that he would settle for nothing from the man who once was his Teacher? That he had settled for it, for the sake of this world and the people in it, and that he now feels the unsettling in him like the low groan of a burning house about to collapse?]

I would. I will.

[He can't explain. Not like this. But he can settle, settle, into the security of Lazarus' sureness, this man who so often seems like he might be glass while always, when he needs to be, found to be steel.]

[hearthebell]

It's alright if you're not sure.

I know it's a lot to ask for.

[terriblepurpose]

I don't trust anyone by mistake, anymore.

I am sure about you. You're one of the only things I'm sure of.

That's because of you. Don't discount yourself like that. Not to me.

[hearthebell]

Your sureness matters to me.

I won't, then, if it's like that.

[Deserving this level of trust is, however, its own kind of pressure.]