Arrakeen, Arrakis, Friday 10,224 AG

[future_sandworm]

"This audience is over." Leto rose from the throne and walked down the steps. His face was expressionless, leaving the Guildsmen to guess the reason behind this action. It was a game, of course, and a game they couldn't win. The cards were all in Leto's hand.

They knew better than to question him openly, so they bowed slightly - just an inclination

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[notyourpawn]

A single text message, typed into her phone and sent out into the ether.

turning and turning in the widening gyre. things fall apart, the centre cannot hold. yeats wrote that, not i. well past my time, long before yours.

She shouldn't. She knew she shouldn't. But on days like this, she missed him more than ever.

[future_sandworm]

Leto's eyes fixed on the phone when he saw the message. Even without the name of the sender he would have known who this was. Where was she?

Alice, where are you?

[notyourpawn]

She was not tearing up, thank you very much. That would be ridiculous. They were words on a screen. Pixels, the little blocks were called. Pixels made blocks which made letters. Infinite pixels could make infinite blocks could make any words you like.

here. i used to be there, but it was too risky. matilda told me so. i can't be where you are; that's worse. so i'm here until a better idea presents itself. or until the situation changes.

[future_sandworm]

There was no use asking where 'here' was. This was Alice, after all.

Matilda? Her dead sister? I can come and see you wherever you are. Or so he hoped.

[notyourpawn]

a dream. my dreams have been changing. matilda and fire and sand and you. you're still with me. but you've obligations now. so do i. but mine scare me.

She was trying her best to tell him. And yet all that came out was nonsense, circular, looping back around on itself. How could she even put this into words? It was too enormous. And yet, too simple. It was the same basic story that was played out every day.

[future_sandworm]

Obligations. Of course she had, but why would they force her to avoid him and speak in far more complicated riddles than usual. And why would they scare her?

He pressed the call button.

[notyourpawn]

Alice stared at the phone as if it had betrayed her. One minute she was safely rearranging pixels with Leto, and now it was ringing and that would be his voice. And he would point out very logical and convincing things and ask why he couldn't come and see her, and she wouldn't have a counter-argument, except to tell him that she didn't want to see him, which was a lie.

Well. Not quite a lie. She wanted very badly to see him. But if she saw him, he might convince her not to abandon their child behind with a note pinned to its chest, and that everything would be all right. But it wouldn't. Alice happened to know that it wouldn't. Her family was dead. Her family died. That was what happened.

That made this parasite a ticking time bomb.

She hunched up over her knees and stared at the phone before pressing the green button, the one that had an icon of a phone on it. She should have pressed the red one, but she didn't. And then, she waited.

[future_sandworm]

Someone answered, but there was only silence.

"Alice?"

[notyourpawn]

And there was his voice. She had prepared herself for it, but preparing one's self for it wasn't the same as hearing it.

She should be holding the phone to her abdomen. Perhaps their child wanted to hear his voice. He was their father, after all.

Her fingers caressed the buttons on the phone, gently, as if she could brush them across his face just as easily. She didn't trust herself to speak.

[future_sandworm]

"Alice?" he repeated. "Are you there?"

He suspected she was, but why she didn't speak he couldn't figure out.

[notyourpawn]

This time, she did press the phone to her midsection. Let the rebellious little parasite have her moment. The usurper had ruined everything, but she was still Leto's, and she deserved to have a moment of his time.

Of course, the parasite would have the rest of Leto's life, so Alice did not feel very selfish in stealing back the phone for herself, and pressing it to her ear, hoping to hear some last few words before she knew she had to go.

[future_sandworm]

There was some backround noise, but still no answer.

"Why are you doing this, Alice?" he tried again.

[notyourpawn]

She was hurting him. Right at this moment. Her confusion and pain was causing him confusion and pain, and probably Ghanima, as well, and there was no way around it. This was all her fault, or possibly all the parasite's fault, or their fault, or no one's fault. Whatever controlled the universe laughing at her once more while it ripped away what little she had.

She wasn't sure she believed in God much any more; she'd become too angry at Him.

"Because I'll break," slipped out, before she could stop it, before she could press the red button and end this call. She couldn't stop the rest of the words, either. "And I can't. Not again."

She found the red button too late. She'd said too much. How was it that he could always do that to her? She stared at the phone in barely-concealed horror. He would call back. And push more, and more, until he'd unraveled the whole sorry tale, thread by pitiful thread. And where would her plan be thenOnly one thing to do. She turned the phone off, waited for the power to shut down, and filled the bathroom

[future_sandworm]

When the line disconnected, Leto clenched his fingers around the phone. A minute later he tried again, but there was no answer.

He would try calling every day. She was scared of something, but what? That was one of the few questions he had no answer to.