Oil-black meets green, and the lanky boy with a stack of books in his arms and a ink-dark mouse on his shoulder blinks when addressed. He's dressed in black as well - a sensible color - up to the neck, even his hands in gloves despite being indoors. There's a dark bruise wrapping up his neck to his jaw on the right side, a delicacy to the way he holds his left arm, but otherwise he's just a tired looking young man with deep violet half-circles under his eyes.
(Lockjoint nestles in most of him in the form of fine crystals, small wounds of excision marking where someone went to work easing it earlier. There are five deep punctures in his left calf, stitched carefully closed, and he's dappled with bruises and injuries of varying ages from neck to toes. He holds his left arm that way because his shoulder is sprained and littered with tiny scabs.)
"No," Paul says, as if called on by a teacher, "And I don't think it's that they see it as a normal fact of life."
The stranger's eyes should be, by all rights, much less strange than many of the things Paul has seen in Trench. They're set in a normal human face, one asking a normal human question, and Paul thinks that may be exactly why they're more unsettling. He glances away, adjusting the books (Moon-Blood Divination; Lacuna and Lethe; The Southern Constellations, Theorized) in his arms.
"They act as if they don't know what you mean when you ask them, but these people aren't fools," Paul explains, as his mouse twitches her ears, "I can't believe that none of them have ever asked themselves how we come here, or why. Most people might take it on faith, but all of them? It's not plausible. There has to be something else."
"Faith," he echoes: a little wry, like it's funny. It is, a bit. All the myriad things he's been accused of, and here is a world in which people worship vast inhuman creatures which warp human spirits into squids. The mundanity of it is consistently insulting. A proper eldritch god should be more unknowable in its workings, more spirit and spectre and gnashing teeth, yet here he stands humbled by the apparent themes of blood colors and squids.
Still: a good, snappy reply. Altogether promising. John tips his head in acknowledgement, and resumes drumming his fingers on the wood.
"My curiosity is about the nature of their faith. It seems the locals assign dominion of rebirth to the Pthumerian Mariana; she is the sea, and a broader force of cyclical change. It's a tidy association." Tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap. "But it's all peculiarly high-level, if you ask me. No one seems interested in the minutiae. I ask, when has humankind failed to pore over the minutiae of anything? Why no interest in the mechanics of death, or the currents beyond?"
Tap-tap, and the rhythm breaks so he can rub the crease between his eyebrows.
A muscle in Paul's jaw twitches at the name Mariana, an unacceptable lack of control, but it's shocking to hear thoughts Paul has kept his own counsel on coming from someone else. This place breeds a bizarre complacency; Paul can count on one hand the number of people he's met who have seemed to have any interest in all in understanding what's going on, and none of them have cut so directly to the heart of the matter.
"Exactly," he says, and the mouse on his shoulder rises on her long back legs to press her tiny paws to his jaw. Paul inclines his head to her, eyelashes shading his eyes, and listens to unvoiced words.
"You have to concede your bias," he says to her, and looks back to the stranger, "She says all taboos have a purpose, which is true. Cultural cohesion and storytelling, avoidance of environmental danger, disciplining of the tribe to a shared purpose - but there's always an exception, there has to be, otherwise the taboo can't be reinforced or transmitted. So if I am struck down for my impudence, I'll go to a disciple for absolution, hm?"
That last is directed only at Sophia, who wrinkles her nose and scrambles over his collar to hide inside of it, her tail flicking irritably. Paul tsks, setting his books aside on a stray table. He doesn't presume to sit down, but he does step closer, his interest plain.
"My name is Paul," he says, and he dips his head in greeting, one mind to another, "I should ask you why you're asking questions you know we aren't meant to be asking."
John's gaze shifts ever so, to focus on the mouse and not the boy. There's a heavy interest in his gaze. He has not seen many Omens, certainly not in interaction with their casters.
Another nail in the coffin, when compared to his Omen. But the state of his soul is hardly news to him. Even if he doesn't delight in Trench's on-the-nose reminders.
"They've a funny relationship with absolution, here." He says it as mild observation, attention resettling on Paul. "Were you around for the flower ritual? It's all remarkably decentralized, divorced from the pantheon. A lot of vagueries about letting go. There's blood at the core of it, but it's always your blood that matters. For all the fuss about patrons, I've yet to see an example of patronage."
He leans forward over his knees, tips his head politely but does not return the introduction. Instead he closes his book, quite gently, and says:
"The same reason as you, I'd suspect. We won't get far taking only what we're given. Someone ought to press a bit."
Paul knows he should leave. It's not prescience that tells him this, or a quiver of the new magic in his blood. It's common sense. If you meet a stranger without eyes or a name who openly discusses what already borders on blasphemy against your powerful hosts, in one of their own houses, you walk away.
"I wasn't here for that," Paul says, evenly, "They work hard to make us at ease here, don't they? They're accommodating gods, asking for such a simple sacrifice."
"And now this month, letting us revisit our memories," he goes on, resting his right hand on the back of a chair, his left arm relaxed at his side - a certain tension in the flex of his fingers, "It's unfortunate it's only the painful ones. But I admit, it builds bonds between people. There's a logic to it. All in exchange for a few bones, some blood - it's a kind of patronage, one way or another."
"Still. There are missed opportunities."
If this is a trap, so be it; this world is a trap. Paul Atreides has spent his entire life learning how to see, and all he has done since he's come here is look. Where would he walk to that would be any safer than here? He keeps his expression carefully schooled to politeness, but he can't quite hide it in his eyes: the brittle edge of an awful, seething frustration.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(1)
(Lockjoint nestles in most of him in the form of fine crystals, small wounds of excision marking where someone went to work easing it earlier. There are five deep punctures in his left calf, stitched carefully closed, and he's dappled with bruises and injuries of varying ages from neck to toes. He holds his left arm that way because his shoulder is sprained and littered with tiny scabs.)
"No," Paul says, as if called on by a teacher, "And I don't think it's that they see it as a normal fact of life."
The stranger's eyes should be, by all rights, much less strange than many of the things Paul has seen in Trench. They're set in a normal human face, one asking a normal human question, and Paul thinks that may be exactly why they're more unsettling. He glances away, adjusting the books (Moon-Blood Divination; Lacuna and Lethe; The Southern Constellations, Theorized) in his arms.
"They act as if they don't know what you mean when you ask them, but these people aren't fools," Paul explains, as his mouse twitches her ears, "I can't believe that none of them have ever asked themselves how we come here, or why. Most people might take it on faith, but all of them? It's not plausible. There has to be something else."
no subject
Still: a good, snappy reply. Altogether promising. John tips his head in acknowledgement, and resumes drumming his fingers on the wood.
"My curiosity is about the nature of their faith. It seems the locals assign dominion of rebirth to the Pthumerian Mariana; she is the sea, and a broader force of cyclical change. It's a tidy association." Tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap. "But it's all peculiarly high-level, if you ask me. No one seems interested in the minutiae. I ask, when has humankind failed to pore over the minutiae of anything? Why no interest in the mechanics of death, or the currents beyond?"
Tap-tap, and the rhythm breaks so he can rub the crease between his eyebrows.
"Why squids?"
no subject
"Exactly," he says, and the mouse on his shoulder rises on her long back legs to press her tiny paws to his jaw. Paul inclines his head to her, eyelashes shading his eyes, and listens to unvoiced words.
"You have to concede your bias," he says to her, and looks back to the stranger, "She says all taboos have a purpose, which is true. Cultural cohesion and storytelling, avoidance of environmental danger, disciplining of the tribe to a shared purpose - but there's always an exception, there has to be, otherwise the taboo can't be reinforced or transmitted. So if I am struck down for my impudence, I'll go to a disciple for absolution, hm?"
That last is directed only at Sophia, who wrinkles her nose and scrambles over his collar to hide inside of it, her tail flicking irritably. Paul tsks, setting his books aside on a stray table. He doesn't presume to sit down, but he does step closer, his interest plain.
"My name is Paul," he says, and he dips his head in greeting, one mind to another, "I should ask you why you're asking questions you know we aren't meant to be asking."
no subject
Another nail in the coffin, when compared to his Omen. But the state of his soul is hardly news to him. Even if he doesn't delight in Trench's on-the-nose reminders.
"They've a funny relationship with absolution, here." He says it as mild observation, attention resettling on Paul. "Were you around for the flower ritual? It's all remarkably decentralized, divorced from the pantheon. A lot of vagueries about letting go. There's blood at the core of it, but it's always your blood that matters. For all the fuss about patrons, I've yet to see an example of patronage."
He leans forward over his knees, tips his head politely but does not return the introduction. Instead he closes his book, quite gently, and says:
"The same reason as you, I'd suspect. We won't get far taking only what we're given. Someone ought to press a bit."
no subject
"I wasn't here for that," Paul says, evenly, "They work hard to make us at ease here, don't they? They're accommodating gods, asking for such a simple sacrifice."
"And now this month, letting us revisit our memories," he goes on, resting his right hand on the back of a chair, his left arm relaxed at his side - a certain tension in the flex of his fingers, "It's unfortunate it's only the painful ones. But I admit, it builds bonds between people. There's a logic to it. All in exchange for a few bones, some blood - it's a kind of patronage, one way or another."
"Still. There are missed opportunities."
If this is a trap, so be it; this world is a trap. Paul Atreides has spent his entire life learning how to see, and all he has done since he's come here is look. Where would he walk to that would be any safer than here? He keeps his expression carefully schooled to politeness, but he can't quite hide it in his eyes: the brittle edge of an awful, seething frustration.
no subject