Ghanima's Office [9.06]

[atreideslioness]

Ghanima was in her office after class today, pour over various religious texts. Just because she knew most of them by heart didn't mean that there wasn't something she'd missed earlier.

Any popcorn or giggling that might be going on, well, that was something else altogether. Ghanima had an odd sense of humor.

[OOC: Open door, open office,

Comments

[notyourpawn]

Leto had told her that she needed to speak with Lady Ghanima -- and how strange, that he was Leto-just-Leto to her but that she was Lady Ghanima, though they were twins -- though perhaps it wasn't so strange, considering that she was a teacher and he was ... whatever Leto was, to her -- and now Alice had lost her train of thought. Yes. She needed to speak with Lady Ghanima, and she couldn't pretend not to be nervous as her hands twisted against one another. She would have had them bunched in her pinafore, had she been wearing it; one more reason that reasonable, practical clothes were sometimes unpleasant.

She knocked on the open door, willing herself not to fidget.

[atreideslioness]

"Come in," Ghanima called, looking up from her current text. "Miss Liddell. Do not lurk in doorways, when I have perfectly good lemondrops on my desk."

[notyourpawn]

"Thank you," Alice said, bobbing out a quick curtsy. Nearly reflexive, at this point; she couldn't manage to resist the impulse.

She walked to the nearest chair, resting a hand on its back, unsure if it was presumptuous to plop herself in it if Lady Ghanima might be busy with other matters. She was overthinking this. Perhaps she hadn't realized how important this was until now.

"I wished to speak with you, if I'm not interrupting. Though I might partake in some of your lemon drops, since you've kindly offered them."

[atreideslioness]

"My door is always open for you, Alice," Ghanima replied, tilting her head with a bemused smile. Yes, someone had most likely been talking with Leto, then. "And an interruption from classwork is always welcome."

[notyourpawn]

"Thank you," she said, again. Next time she had to have a conversation of this nature, she was going to dig out her pinafore, just so she could shove both hands in her apron-pockets and look every bit as awkward as he felt. Why did no one wear aprons over their clothes? Perhaps she would start.

For now, she was going to sit down. And fold her hands in her lap. And fold them over themselves again. And twist them round the other way.

"Leto ... said that you wished to speak with me?" she managed.

Leto had offered her a home. Lady Ghanima might inform her that Leto was in no position to do so.

[atreideslioness]

Were Ghanima a younger version of herself, this would be where she repeatedly hit her head on the desk, since Leto had clearly failed to make it clear she was in support of this idea.

But she could only be this Ghanima, in this place, and instead she'd beat him into the sparring mat for it later.

"Alice, stop twitching," she sighed, picking up the dish of candies and moving to shut the door before sitting beside the other girl. "Leto said I wished to speak with you, because I want to make sure you know what you want, and he's not being roguishly charming again."

[notyourpawn]

To be fair, that was far more Alice's fault than Leto's; he hadn't said that Ghanima disapproved -- only that she would need to speak with Alice, first. Alice's own fears had managed the rest.

Alice stilled, so much as she could. No twitching. Right.

"He ..." She bit her lower lip and tried to find words for this. It was difficult, exposing herself like this. "He's going to Arrakis, once he graduates, and I have no home. He said that he should like for me to come with him, if I would like to, and ... I believe I would. Arrakis ... the Fremen make sense to me. I don't feel like such an odd duck. I was never a proper gentlewoman, in my own time. I never will be."

[atreideslioness]

"I told him that we would find a way to make it a reality, if it is what you want," Ghanima replied gently. "But I will not lie to you, Alice, it won't be easy."

Alice had been there, for the first final of Ghanima's Mad Monarchy class. She had seen Leto's wormskin and Alia's fall. Ghanima had to content herself that the girl knew what she was getting in to; at least the basics of it.

"If you decide you want to make your home in the Imperium, we would be happy to have you. However, you may not be able to go to Leto's time with him," she cautioned. "It may be easier for all involved if you go to my section of the timeline instead. He will be a few years older, but we won't have to worry about paradox."

[notyourpawn]

Alice nodded, carefully, still choosing her words as if each was a glass plate she was taking from a heavy shelf.

"At which point ... I wouldn't know anything that I shouldn't, that might slip to him," she added. She had been careful to avoid mentioning Alia's suicide, or the change in his appearance, but it would be a relief not to have to dodge.

[atreideslioness]

"Exactly," she agreed. "And he wouldn't have the burden of trying to keep you secret from me, since I can't know a Lady Alice until I come to Fandom."

[notyourpawn]

"Right," she said, nodding. Still trying to measure her words. Still worrying. Still --

She bit her lip. "He looked different," she said. "In that vision. He said once that ... that there were things he had to do, and -- I don't want to make that harder. On him, or any of you. I ... I don't know what I might be upsetting, by doing this. That was why I thought you'd need to talk to me."

[atreideslioness]

"I wanted to talk to you, to make sure that this is what you want, nothing more," Ghanima assured her. "If this is what will make both of you happy, then we will find a way to make it work."

"Leto has many sacrifices to make. But, perhaps, knowing that there are people waiting for him on the other end of those choices is what helped him make them in the first place."

[notyourpawn]

"What sort of sacrifices?" Alice asked. "I don't know ... if it's all right to ask, even. Will he be ... in pain? Not himself? Is he going to ..."

She couldn't ask that, if he was going to condemn himself to a sudden death. And yet. There was so much she didn't understand.

NFB YOU RADIO SQUIRRELS

[atreideslioness]

"He'll be changed," Ghanima said bluntly. "Physically. Mentally, as well, and he will have better control of his inner sharing. Changes that are necessary, for him to rule as we must rule."

This next part was perhaps the hardest to say, knowing what she did. "It is very likely that there will never be children, Alice, but you will have Leto, and the rest of us."

Re: NFB YOU RADIO SQUIRRELS

[notyourpawn]

That was a more serious thought to consider. "So there would be sacrifices from me, as well," she said.

No children of her own, no Victoria or Abeni. A family she was adopted into, but never one by blood.

Re: NFB YOU RADIO SQUIRRELS

[atreideslioness]

"Sacrifices are always asked of those who love," Ghanima replied quietly. "Especially those of us who live under the banner of Atreides."