[homelander’s thoughts click, teem, a mass of careful, calculated things in a dark huddle, plotting their next word, next move, keeping one step ahead of everything that pursues them. alia doesn’t delve too deeply into them, lets them slip by, curious fish in the water’s depths. instead, he cradles her face and she tips her head, presses the chilled flush of her cheek to his palm.]
On Arrakis? Immediate actions, mostly – I feel the intent of them in the currents of air, the scent of sweat and skin. A man would think to move and I would already have him skewered. [the words tumble out like a sing-song, alia’s eyes closed, one hand settling on homelander’s bared thigh, thumb stroking back, forth, back, forth over the ripple of muscle.] Here? It comes and goes.
[a mild, wrinkle-nosed look of displeasure, then she stills, eyes still closed, before lifting her free hand out, pointing at rippling lake water. an instant later a fish, gleaming gold, glittering like spice-laden sands, flicks above the water in that exact spot, catching a drowsing insect in it’s maw.] It’s easier in here. The lake. [her eyes open slow, lift up to his face, gazing like seeing him for the first time, a quiet wonder in the wide-set stare of them.] All the living things swimming and squirming and singing wake me up, I think.
[softer, a voice like the soft lap of water against them, stirred by the wind and the sun and all those living things:] Can you feel them too? If you try very hard?
no subject
On Arrakis? Immediate actions, mostly – I feel the intent of them in the currents of air, the scent of sweat and skin. A man would think to move and I would already have him skewered. [the words tumble out like a sing-song, alia’s eyes closed, one hand settling on homelander’s bared thigh, thumb stroking back, forth, back, forth over the ripple of muscle.] Here? It comes and goes.
[a mild, wrinkle-nosed look of displeasure, then she stills, eyes still closed, before lifting her free hand out, pointing at rippling lake water. an instant later a fish, gleaming gold, glittering like spice-laden sands, flicks above the water in that exact spot, catching a drowsing insect in it’s maw.] It’s easier in here. The lake. [her eyes open slow, lift up to his face, gazing like seeing him for the first time, a quiet wonder in the wide-set stare of them.] All the living things swimming and squirming and singing wake me up, I think.
[softer, a voice like the soft lap of water against them, stirred by the wind and the sun and all those living things:] Can you feel them too? If you try very hard?