( if nothing else, alina is a predictable pawn on the chessboard, making equally predictable moves — paul hints at even the slightest suggestion he might advance, and she scrambles backward so panicky-quick she stumbles with it, a pathetic hiccup burbling in her chest. in an instant, she's a child again, orphan girl watching her border town turn razed and ravaged, set to lose everything in a single night. all it's ever taken is one bullet implanted in a ribcage, one spark of fire to the wooden skeleton of a home, to see everything you've built burn down to ashes.
what's left, in the aftermath: the devastation, the shrill ringing of her ears from artillery fire, the same numbness that comes with seeing war-torn ravkan cities when she looks at paul, seeing everything he's set abalze. seeing him destroy it and still tell her you did this — here is what's wrong with alina starkov. here is all the ways in which she is broken. here are all the ways she should be grateful paul tolerates her flaws, anyway, even if he has to live inside of his sister's cunt to make it bearable for him. here are all the ways he allows her the freedom to be happy — she must be the unrepentantly selfish one, to deny him the same right. she chokes on a shrill sob, a sound cut off at the knees by the gritted bite of her teeth. blood oozes a stain into her chest where she cradles the wound defensively to her chest, dirtying the neon-bright smear of paint. )
I'm not doing anything! ( the veins under her skin crackle, defensively bioluminescent, despite her best efforts to contain it — the subtle, flickering lights of lanterned jellyfish, warning predators to keep away. ) You did! There is no us anymore! You ruined it! You ruined everything!
I thought — that I was wrong to doubt you, that I could trust you. I let you inside of me. I let myself believe your lies, and your promises, this whole time — you were with her, telling her the same things, sharing the same things. It was supposed to be special, and you ruined it.
( it's unfair that she should have so little to turn on him when's twisting knives into her gut, when he can't even bring himself to deny her suspicions. for lack of anything better, she wrenches off the bracelet on her wrist — tosses that, too, like it's a shackle to shed, chest laboring under her bursting hysteria. )
Alia has lived in your shadow her entire life, and now you expect me to live in hers. ( what's a shadow of a shadow? easily: nothing. she sniffles, refuses to let it rain on her fury. instead, she swipes angrily at the leaky faucet of her eyes — another sacred piece of her she's given over to paul. ) When you told her you loved her, did you bring up my name? Or am I the only one who gets scraps? How generous you must be, Paul Atreides, to give me Alia's crumbs.
( she knows the answer, of course. alina and alia might be his two arms, but it's a fitting analogy: you always favor one hand over the other. writing hand, sword hand. that's alia, reliable, important. alina is just the spare, as always. she shakes her head, a slow motion, as she skids further back. digs down deep for the one thing that might come close to the same punch to the solar plexus he's given her tonight. )
You want me to be happy so badly, then leave. Bring Mal back. ( she chokes on a wet breath. ) I wish you were gone instead of him.
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what's left, in the aftermath: the devastation, the shrill ringing of her ears from artillery fire, the same numbness that comes with seeing war-torn ravkan cities when she looks at paul, seeing everything he's set abalze. seeing him destroy it and still tell her you did this — here is what's wrong with alina starkov. here is all the ways in which she is broken. here are all the ways she should be grateful paul tolerates her flaws, anyway, even if he has to live inside of his sister's cunt to make it bearable for him. here are all the ways he allows her the freedom to be happy — she must be the unrepentantly selfish one, to deny him the same right. she chokes on a shrill sob, a sound cut off at the knees by the gritted bite of her teeth. blood oozes a stain into her chest where she cradles the wound defensively to her chest, dirtying the neon-bright smear of paint. )
I'm not doing anything! ( the veins under her skin crackle, defensively bioluminescent, despite her best efforts to contain it — the subtle, flickering lights of lanterned jellyfish, warning predators to keep away. ) You did! There is no us anymore! You ruined it! You ruined everything!
I thought — that I was wrong to doubt you, that I could trust you. I let you inside of me. I let myself believe your lies, and your promises, this whole time — you were with her, telling her the same things, sharing the same things. It was supposed to be special, and you ruined it.
( it's unfair that she should have so little to turn on him when's twisting knives into her gut, when he can't even bring himself to deny her suspicions. for lack of anything better, she wrenches off the bracelet on her wrist — tosses that, too, like it's a shackle to shed, chest laboring under her bursting hysteria. )
Alia has lived in your shadow her entire life, and now you expect me to live in hers. ( what's a shadow of a shadow? easily: nothing. she sniffles, refuses to let it rain on her fury. instead, she swipes angrily at the leaky faucet of her eyes — another sacred piece of her she's given over to paul. ) When you told her you loved her, did you bring up my name? Or am I the only one who gets scraps? How generous you must be, Paul Atreides, to give me Alia's crumbs.
( she knows the answer, of course. alina and alia might be his two arms, but it's a fitting analogy: you always favor one hand over the other. writing hand, sword hand. that's alia, reliable, important. alina is just the spare, as always. she shakes her head, a slow motion, as she skids further back. digs down deep for the one thing that might come close to the same punch to the solar plexus he's given her tonight. )
You want me to be happy so badly, then leave. Bring Mal back. ( she chokes on a wet breath. ) I wish you were gone instead of him.