[The pain her words cause is unlike that Alia is accustomed to -- it throbs like a bruise, it rests beneath everything Quentin says and does, this longing for home, for the crashing waves and salt spray and endless horizon. It echoes her own longing for Arrakis, for the spiced sand and heated sun, for the life of a Fremen, the life she lived as a child.

Her thumb strokes over Quentin's palm, and when his eyes brighten, glow, shimmer like spice, it feels like being seen, being fully understood. Alia sighs, a whisper of sound, squeezes Quentin's hand. Like me, you are like me she presses to his mind, recollections of her own strangeness, her own forward sight, the power trapped within her slight frame.

Then she reaches up, touches his cheek lightly, soothing.] The stars gave you the power to find your way, always, remember? It wouldn't have been given if you weren't meant to find a safe port in time, Quentin.