[L's attempts at levity are like a balloon drifting loose. It might find and delight a child, or choke and kill an endangered animal.
He senses that the attempt has perhaps the opposite intended effect. Is it because everything, even his jokes, has that undercurrent of tragedy, a life not lived in a completely different way?
He follows suit, reaching for the other cup. He reaches into his backpack for sugar cubes, which he carries with him everywhere for occasions like these, because no one ever gives him tea that's sweet enough.
He drops them in until it's too many to be anything but disgusting, and then he drops more.]
Several reasons... some are easier to explain than others. Some are more selfish than others.
[With each reason, he drops another sugar cube into his tea.]
I'm involved, and it rankles me to leave something unfinished. [Plunk.]
I don't think your grandeur is a delusion, or that this is folly. [Plunk.]
I'm not really a person, at least... not in relation to other people. But if someone like that can do something that's really needed, it can feel like being a person for a little while. That's my selfish reason.
[He sips the tea, more paste than liquid at this point.]
[Lazarus had told Paul that he doled out secrets sparingly. That to give them up was to diminish himself. So either this is not meant to be a secret, or this self-dissection of motive in front of him is a gift. Paul can't tell which, or which he would prefer it to be. The only thing he's certain of is that it's not an attempt to curry his pity; the idea of pitying Lazarus, after everything, is repugnant.
(And how much does the last reason resonate? Enough that Paul wonders if it's intended to.)
Either way, his back straightens and his eyes grow resolute. He adds another link to the mantle of responsibility draped across his shoulders, and nods.]
Those seem reason enough. [He sets down his cup, drained of tea.] Thank you.
I am asking for other help. I won't put this all on a handful of shoulders. That would be folly. [He sets his hands on his knees, tilting his head slightly to the right.] We need to find out when it comes, as close as we can, and I need to find out how to kill it or drive it back.
[No real change comes over him, no pause to see if some intended significance landed or was understood. What makes L peculiar is, largely, his tendency to see some very typical things as strange and alarming, and some extremely strange and alarming things as typical. Eventually, a sort of predictable distribution emerges as a pattern, before it too is dislodged.]
I'm glad, also, that you're treating this with the gravity it merits. Central command wouldn't mean much without teams to manage.
["Armies," he decides, might be a little too grand, create higher blood pressure than is desirable, because...]
We're going to make a stone with my blood and yours after exposing it to the moonlight from the sky well in this chamber. We both repeat the same incantation, and you fall asleep with the stone in your hand. Once you're dreaming, I take the stone in my hand. It warms according to the danger you're in or the injuries you've suffered; if you were to die, it'd become ice-cold very suddenly.
At the point the stone is too warm to hold comfortably... hopefully, before it's hot... the way to retrieve the dreamer is to induce a trance with another incantation. Wherever you are in the dream, you'll see a door near to you, no key required because I'm the one holding it open. You'll have about a minute to get through, which should be plenty of time. Oh, and...
[An afterthought, but one that seems very important to mention.]
Don't let anything follow you through. I'd probably end up possessed, or at the very least corrupted. Just a few drops is fine...
[He rummages in his backpack, handing over a covered, delicate, scalpel-like blade and a vial that already contains a small amount of blood.]
[The strangest thing about all this, Paul thinks as he accepts the scalpel and the vial, is how unstrange it is. Lazarus' plan is practical, realistic and accepting of risk. It's also a plan that relies on trusting that Paul will be able to hold up his end. He's used to both things, but not here, and it's
So he pulls off his left glove and makes a small incision in the pad of his ring finger, pressing the tiny wound against the edge of the vial and encouraging blood flow to the digit. This also reveals the black and silver signet ring on the middle finger of that hand, emblazoned with a hawk.]
I thought you might try to tell me not to get hurt. [He's slightly wry as he says it, a touch of self-deprecation for his lack of confidence.] I keep underestimating you.
[Blood sample collected, he recaps the vial and returns it, along with the scalpel, to Lazarus. The incision he presses against his thumb until it stops.]
Are you sure you're not overestimating me?
[He didn't mean for that to sound so faintly plaintive. He doesn't quite grimace at himself, but it's a near thing.]
[The ring gets a glance, one that does not linger because it doesn't have to. The level of detail L keeps in his memory is not typically reliant on study and examination; otherwise, there simply couldn't be enough time in the world.]
Based on the knowledge and experiences accrued the last time... getting hurt is virtually an inevitability. I'd set the odds at a 95% likelihood.
[He says that with a totally straight face, no sign of a joke or hyperbole for miles.]
...that being said. The odds for a serious injury, not even a life-threatening one, are far lower, at a 3% likelihood. They only increase if the source of your injury traps or impedes you in some way and prevents you from getting to the door, but... don't worry, there's a contingency plan in place for that possibility, as well.
[He takes the vial to the sky well; the blood inside turns silver almost immediately. He removes it, pouring the mixture into a small round mold. When he opens it, a glowing stone sits there, a misty opal with silver and golden flecks that seem to move.
He stares, picking up on that odd note in Paul's question.]
We're doing this; it's in motion. That's not the case, ever, unless I'm sure.
[He sets the stone down between them, lighting a bit of incense next to it. Sage.]
I can write this down if you need it, but this isn't like a set of vows. The order of it doesn't matter, so long as we both say the words, so it's alright if you just repeat what I say.
[The words are slow, clear, richly accented.]
Sheffol isk na Soothchak. Vor mast iske; silakomsi, jakast seechyen pana lohpiskal. Pana jakart watten soothvis, chorlvis, net lehntarvis avie knoch, mefahr, net mistra silakomsa. Avanchorl; avanpiskal. Visanthranosk, jakares saa.
[It only occurred to Paul that he had been alone when he began not to be. Not lonely, that temporary isolation of the spirit, but alone, completely and fully. The first weeks here had been a period of desperation he only could see clearly once it had passed. He had always been a part of a whole, held and defined in a network of binding relationships, and to be without them had left him as a raw, unskinned need more than a human being.
In much the same way, he only realizes how much he had missed this when it's returned to him. This, the firm instruction, the expectation of success, the pattern laid out ahead of him to follow. He's always been a good student. He's never been without teachers. So he watches what Lazarus does intently, and he listens with a well-trained ear to both the instructions and the spell. His blood resonates in answer already, the words like the moon's tug on the sea.]
I have it. [He nods, and it's true. He only needs to hear almost anything once, and he thinks it would be harder to forget those words than most.] Sophia?
[He lowers his right hand to the floor and his mouse omen emerges from his sleeve, sits back on her haunches in his palm. He runs his thumb gently between her ears, which fold back under his petting.]
You shouldn't be left without an omen, in case you need one. [Sophia - her name finally spoken - hops from his palm and goes to Lazarus' side.] Since I'm borrowing yours. She'll listen to you.
[Paul picks up the stone in his bare left hand, runs a thumb over it no less gently than his omen's tiny head.]
I'm ready. [He looks up from their mingled, calcified blood, and he could hardly be farther from the arrogant, commanding young tyrant he had been in the dream, this soft-eyed, attentive acolyte.] On your mark.
[In many ways, L understands Paul's plight, along with the pressure and uncertainty plaguing him. While the weight of a kingdom may rest on the shoulders of its leader, however, what king is without advisors, generals, and ministers? They exist for a reason; their counsel is not worthless, there for show or to fill out a court.
He might say so, if time wasn't of the essence. Another occasion, perhaps; he suspects it will come up again, and that the plaintiveness of Paul's need is not a flash in the pan.
It's alright. He's secure in what he's tested, understands its process in several environments, all of the breaking limits. That easy confidence of a man who knows must be contagious.]
Oh... yes, that makes sense... I'll take care of her.
[He is grateful that Sophia is staying with him, maintaining a sort of balance that isn't strictly necessary, but will certainly be comforting to a man who only learned he had a soul at all in Trench.]
Before you say it... take the stone in one of your hands, get comfortable, however you want to sleep. It'll happen faster than it would with a potion.
[It'll be alright. Lycka cleaves to Paul's side, following him to the bedrolls, and L gives a quiet signal for the soft-eyed acolyte to say the words when he has settled in.
When it's done, he nods briskly, lifting the incense stick.]
Mesk avandajet.
[Go. He knows before the last syllable falls that Paul is out, and rises to collect the stone. He addresses Sophia as he settles cross-legged on the floor.]
Don't fret. He'll be OK; Lycka and I will see to it.
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[Sophia's nose twitches at the assurance, her black eyes turned up to Lazarus, and then she makes another hop, a little closer, to curl up by his knee, her long tail wrapped around herself and held in her front paws. Her sides rise in a breath, or a simulacrum thereof, and she sighs as any animal does when truly settling down to rest.
In the dream, Paul breaks the surface with a cream-colored sleeve held delicately in Lycka's teeth. He is a strong swimmer, when awake, but he concedes to her tugging, her greater ease in an environment she is better suited for than he is. The shore is the same, the grey sand stretching out in either direction. The pale figure, the storm-heavy sky.
The new things his eyes light on are enough to make him press against Lycka's side in the shallow surf and forget all of it. He wades from the water and contemplates them with wide-fixed silver eyes whose burning he does not feel.
When the thunder and the wave come this time, Paul has a long blade and a short blade sheathed at his hips, crafted in the angular and lethally efficient Atreides fashion. They stay with him when he tumbles to hang above the great sea-creature that stirs in the frigid depths, as he curls a hand around the leading edge of Lycka's dorsal fin and reverberates with her searching, sensing song. They stay with him when he stands on the black sand dressed in his simple training kit, facing towards the rising white steps, the silver-grey stranger kneeling at their base and extending a hand to a tiny, smoke-edged bird that flutters on the first step, its curiosity warring with caution as a thousand voices whistle a rise and fall of song.
The stranger lifts their head. In the Waking World, Paul's hands twitch; in the dream, they curl around hilts Paul knows like his own heartbeat.]
Do you see me?
[The choral question, hissed and spat and howled and screamed and cursed. The stranger rises, their head tilted slightly to the left. Paul tilts his own to the right. The bird spreads dream-blurred wings and throws itself into the air.
Duncan's swords slip from their sheaths like whispers, and Paul places one foot behind the other just so on the sand. His sleeping face smiles, and in both worlds his voice is clear and certain.]
I see you.
[The stranger is still and silent. They tilt their head to match his. They draw their weapons, real and not, and flip the knives in their hands in casual arrogance.]
Not yet.
[They close on each other like the teeth of a trap. In Lazarus' hands, the stone begins to warm, but not yet grow hot. Paul's breathing quickens. The air around them both thrums like an impeding lightning strike, the glow of Paul's eyes seeping through their closed lids as they flicker in rapid patterns. Sophia squeaks almost inaudibly, her ears pinned back to her skull.]
[L's dark eyes linger on the mouse, as close a representation as any to Paul's soul. He hopes that her rest is easier than her Sleeper's, because already, he can feel the stone warming more than his hand alone can do.
Not yet... the arragement is built on reciprocals and mirrored actions. They'd both given their blood, they'd both said the words, they'd temporarily exchanged omens, and they had also exchanged no small measure of trust. It means that however much L desires to, he can't yank Paul back just because the stone indicates that he is not merely meditating peacefully at the edge of the waves, and may be handling a good deal more.
In the dream, Lycka's keening whines are anxious, almost kittenish as she circles him close, keeping him afloat and guarded in the choppy water. Once he's waded ashore onto the black sand, floats alongside him through the air, just behind his left shoulder. When Paul clashes with his similar figure, Lycka hangs back, thrashing as though shaking off something frustrating, stretching her many-toothed mouth wide and hissing. She can't sweep in and help, because the chances of her mauling Paul are too high. She has her Sleeper's sense for numbers, even if she is currently disconnected from him.
Back in the waking world, L squeezes the stone, setting his other beside Sophia instinctively for warmth and comfort. Not yet.]
[There is only one way this fight ends. Paul needed to know that Lazarus wouldn't insist he not be hurt for a reason.
It happens quickly, when it does. The unknife becomes a chain, and Paul slackens his left arm, allows the long blade to overreach, drops the point of the short blade in his right, and, with a slight, eager smile he doesn't know he's wearing (as Sophia creeps closer to Lazarus' hand, her whiskers flaring to brush against his skin) he calls, brightly:]
Door!
[The chain wraps around his left forearm and yanks, but instead of pulling away, Paul throws himself into the momentum, dropping the blade in his right hand and reaching for the wrist driving a knife towards him. It's a sloppy move, better suited to a drunken brawl than a duel, and he slams his forehead against whatever passes as a skull under that blank mask of teethed skin, his hand closes around a wrist and twists away a gutting blow.
He almost has time to think good, viciously, before the chain wrapped around his forearm begins to burn, and even that is a marvel as his sleeping body arches against the floor in a seemingly causeless convulsion. Any child of a Bene Gesserit knows a neurotoxin when it burrows underneath their skin, and Paul, still dreaming, splits his mouth in a rictus grin of triumph.]
[With one hand at his side to soothe Sophia, L clutches the stone with the other, feels it warming, heating, hot. When he starts to feel his skin blistering, he crawls to Paul's side, thrusting the stone under his pillow and speaking quickly and clearly. No room for error, now that it's really down to the wire.]
Solknakhan! Sheffol seech pana na chiantal, niskavan!
[In the dream, the glowing edges of a doorway appear. It's radiating light and heat, and it remains open for the time being. It flickers at the edges, and Lycka shrills a warning; there's a minute, suspended between the stone under Paul's pillow and the slender fingers resting on his forehead in the waking world.]
[It takes one and a half seconds for Paul to disentangle himself, using his leverage on the choir's wrist to pull them into a twisting hip throw that pulls the chain, jerking, sucking, from his arm. It takes another nine for him to make it through the door, taking the steps two at a time to that luminous, warming threshold where he hangs half-suspended between waking and dreaming for an impossible timelessness to be sure Lycka comes through with him, clutching at his nerve-scattered arm with that same fierce, pain-tightened smile.
It only fades when he sees the figure standing still, impassive, at the base of the stairs, unmoved by -
- and then Paul's eyes open, sea-green and blinking at moonlight, and he looks up at Lazarus with half-dazed amazement, other thoughts forgotten. There are cool-feeling fingers on his forehead, and his right hand reaches up towards them tentatively.]
Sodium channel blocker. [His voice is thinned, somehow, but he feels otherwise unharmed, the illusory toxin no more than a sense-memory.] Paralysis in response to unexpected attack vector - a jellyfish? But it felt -
[He catches himself short, takes in a breath, his smile warm and shaken.]
[Lycka follows fast at Paul's back, close in case she needs to push or drag him through. He manages, and they emerge together with Paul's waking.
L's fingers curl; he realizes he was holding his breath, and releases the small amount of air his lungs were holding. He'd felt that moment of suspension, too, and while he'd believed that Paul would come back, would have bet on those odds, he also knows that it could have gone very badly if even one small part of this had been out of alignment.
The plan was sound; the language was sound, his skills were sound. This is something to be celebrated, on those merits alone.
What it all means might be a different matter.]
Yes; I'm sound and stable. It "felt...?"
[If their success this time was due to being over-prepared, he doesn't want to be underprepared when the event all this foretells actually comes to pass.
His palm is closed on his own memento of the sensation he'd had access to: a perfectly round burn blister.]
If this portends your exposure to a venomous neurotoxin, something can be done to guard against it, surely.
Muscular. More like an octopus, or something else with suckers.
[Paul pushes himself up on his elbows with only a slight shakiness, swallowing a dry mouth. He has a slightly abashed air of accomplishment to him, and a pervasive sense of distracting relief as he lets his head fall back and looks up at the sliver of moonlight above them.]
I was right. [He closes his eyes, reinforcing the structure of his memory to capture the vision.] I didn't want to say it, if I was wrong, but I was right. It's a shapeshifter, we knew that, but I wondered - it's prescient, Lazarus. It sees the future, and that's how it adapts. I'll have to see how far it can look, next time.
I couldn't have done that without you. Thank you.
[Before the dream, Paul's acceptance of help had a certain sense of concession to it, an allowance he was making for Lazarus. His thanks here lack it. There is a tender new shoot of emotion under them instead, a sort of wondering, bewildered trust.]
Could you pass me my notebook? It's in my bag. [A minor pause.] I needed it to hit me, to know. I won't do that when I'm awake.
[That, though, comes in the tones of someone who has been rebuked about this sort of thing before.]
[L's mind, its own large hadron collider, speeds along with those revelations and all the myriad implications. Is being right the triumph they want it to be? Was he actually right to help with this and enable it?
He nods at Paul's thanks, picking up on the softer note that was formerly absent. It's something he recognizes, though he's heard it very seldom in his life. At least, not directed towards him.
However seldom he inspires tenderness, people who deal with him come to know his value. Not many others could remain cool under pressure and pick up a magical language overnight, after all.]
If it's prescient... is it fair to say that it has at least as good an idea of what's coming as you do?
[He goes to fetch the notebook, careful to avoid the blister on his hand, handing it over to Paul.]
You might not be able to choose whether or not you're hit.
[Paul levers himself further upright, ending up with uncharacteristically curved posture around his notebook when he sets it in his lap. He does frown, slightly, at Lazarus's cautious grasp, but addressing that will have to briefly wait.
Part of him wants to reply lightly, teasingly. To make a small joke of the concern, and to diffuse it that way. But that's a technique that worked for practicing on training dummies, never anything like this.
When he started to do things like this, there had been no tension to diffuse. It was a necessity. There was no time left for coddling. He has told himself this, and it's been true, and it's true here. So why does Lazarus do it? (A question that might as well be: why did he come back?)
First things first: the practical question.]
Even if it does, it shouldn't matter. Being able to see something isn't the same as being able to prevent it from happening, is it? Symmetrical knowledge means it would know what was coming, but that doesn't give it the flexibility we have in our countermoves.
And I know. I've fought before. [His little smile is gone (a flash of a knife, of sand, of citrus and blood), and they're likely both better off for it.] But I'll try not to be. I'm not interested in playing martyr.
[He produces a pencil from up his sleeve (his wrist holster finds more use as storage for stationary than the knife in it, these days) and begins to sketch a half-glimpsed horizon. Sophia returns to his side, and he lowers his free arm to let her run up his shoulder, his face drawn closed in thought.]
You're not, are you? Interested in that. [He keeps his eyes focused on his work.] If you need anything for your hand, the kit is on the third shelf by the entrance.
[Lycka returns to L's side, seeming more languid than usual. It's as though the dream and flying alongside another has left her something like jet-lagged, but she nudges his bony elbow, offers a tongue in a light caress. He reaches out to stroke it softly with his uninjured hand.
At the question, there's a flickering barb in his thoughts, a callback to something else before Trench. Maybe it went unnoticed; maybe telepathy goes both ways. Maybe it's just the tenseness around his eyes.]
No one who doesn't have many screws loose should want that.
[He retrieves the kit, pulling free gauze, salve, a scalpel to drain the blister.]
[Paul continues sketching, his voice quiet, neutral. He finds himself adding the swords, two uneven pillars erupting from the sand, their lines stark.]
I'd rather not find out.
[He flips the page, the horizon not quite finished (he'll come back to it to fill out the details; he'll start it fresh on another page; later, later, either way) and begins another sketch, this one of possible molecular shapes, while the sensation of the toxin is still fresh. He doesn't want to look at Lazarus, suddenly, an avoidance as much of what he might see as of shame.]
Would you be able to wear gloves, or would that interfere with the spell?
[He should have asked. He should have thought about this possibility. There's so much to remember, and he should be able to, and he keeps falling short.]
[He repeats the vague qualifier, as though he's giving a nail a couple more passes with a hammer to ensure it's secure.
Paul doesn't really need to know that L died horribly before arriving in Trench, enmeshed in a fight he believed in, throwing away a valuable piece to ensure an eventual checkmate years down the line. Not now; not today.]
That being said... I'd rather you didn't, either.
[Gingerly tapping some salve on his deflated blister and somewhat carelessly looping and tying a piece of gauze over it, he returns to glance curiously at Paul's molecular sketch.]
Gloves shouldn't disrupt or dampen any part of the spell. In truth... it's just the one thing I overlooked. It won't be the case, next time.
[As long as neither of them say it out loud, then Paul doesn't have to know. He doesn't have to examine what he suspects, or think about what it might say about him that he seems to seek out the company of ghosts.
More unearned mercy.]
I should have thought of it. [He tilts his notebook when he notices Lazarus' gaze, letting him get a better look.] These are just possibilities, based on onset and effect.
[The drawings resemble 21st century biochemistry the way a spaceship resembles a car: recognizably for the same purpose, but at different points of development and scope. Next to branching lines connecting dotted circles, there are radial notations in a cypher-shorthand, giving the sketches an appearance almost like constellations.]
I was born on an ocean world, did I tell you that? We have a type of snail that produces a toxin like this - these are references to antivenom formulations. [He taps the paper, lightly, an almost nervous gesture.] We'll want to stockpile.
[Then, veering back to dark waters:] I'm sorry I keep doing that to you.
[If he's "not really a person", it stands to a kind of disquieting reason that L does think of himself as more of a ghost. It even explains why his presence among the living seems, to him, like a very temporary and tentative thing, audacious, borrowed or stolen.
The living have things to do, though, important tasks and priorities, and so just staying away isn't an option while he has rare and uniquely useful skills and knowledge.
He takes in the drawings' details, compares it to his own working knowledge of chemistry. The significant differences aren't so great; the similarities are enough to draw useful comparisons.]
You hadn't mentioned it, and I probably wouldn't have assumed... but being able to apply this prior knowledge is invaluable. We could synthesize something an antivenom enough, I'm sure, even if blood magic needs to fill in the gaps. We'll want to consider whether it's to be a protective dose, or a cure in the case of exposure... there are benefits and drawbacks to each, of course.
[He shakes his head, dismissing the apology.]
You haven't done anything to me. If I was going to overlook something, believe that any other part of this process would have been catastrophic. This is only inconvenient.
[Paul looks up, the pencil held lightly in his hand, tip just above the page. He looks at Lazarus the way he might look at a shell, or a leaf, an incisive, memorizing observation.]
That's how it starts. Injuries into inconveniences, self-dismissal. [He straightens himself, draws his shoulders back into socket, his voice firm.] People aren't means. They're ends. I'm not going to treat you as anything less, no matter what you tell me, and you're not going to make me try.
[It's a directness that comes more naturally than he expects it to, with someone who, for all his help, is still so much an unknown. It's a commitment to a position that Paul knows as a vulnerability that could be exploited: that there is a limit to what he's willing to do to people.
[Shabby creature that he is, it's not a way L is used to being looked at. Being overlooked, just like the gloves he should have worn, is what he's more comfortable with. The letter on the screen needs no introduction when he does need to be seen; the voice scrambler is safe, when he needs to be heard.
Did, and was.
He nods, attentive and respectful, as though he hasn't sacrificed lives in the service of an end. Not really a person, after all, and he's sure there are things he could tell Paul that would prove it.
He just doesn't want to, yet. Feeling like a person is turning out to be addictive.]
I guess I didn't even realize I was doing that. Truly... next time, I won't overlook the gloves, and you don't need to worry about it again.
[That's true for the gloves, specifically. On a broader level, old habits die so very hard... and that includes a desire to test and confirm implied limits. Does Paul truly have one?]
[The quick ease of the agreement is not meant as a rebuke, or at least, Paul doesn't believe that it is. It still feels like one, like an error rebuffed, and Paul wants to flinch at it. He wants to have resentment burn on the back of his neck, he wants to know the twisting of shame in his stomach, he wants to bite his tongue and taste his own disappointment in himself. Don't let me hurt you is a pathological demand, a morally bereft order, and yet there he is, inflicting it again, and again, but not putting down the blade.
All that he feels in the hollows where these things should be is frigid, pressured numbness. The functional state that he has existed in whenever he's been alone, and most of the time when he is not, interrupted only by flickers of feeling he seems to more remember than experience.
He flips the page of the notebook and returns to work, now jotting down the features of the leviathan he was able to perceive in the new light of his eyes, some of the projections of its roiling, chaotic shape. His expression is drawn, slightly tired. His hands do not shake. His spine doesn't bend.]
Then it's settled. [It is; it's settled that he is going to 'worry', as if that's the word.] You're right about the antivenoms. A prophylactic application might be advisable for several things.
There were no words this time. But the basic structure - beach, ocean, beach - that repeated. Do you have any thoughts on what that might mean?
[L is one of those unfortunate people whose reassurances can sound like rebukes; the opposite has also been known to be true. It's what happens when someone grows obsessed with finding his own pulse, and overcompensates by saying the words that any other living person would surely say, to great and correct and successful effect.
How much of that does Paul understand? Is the real reason L haunts these obligations so happily purely because he found Paul's pulse and mistook it for his own?]
I'll consider some ways to ensure efficacy without overdosing, as well as the time frame for maximum effect.
[Probably completely safely and sanely.
He nods, dark eyes taking on a focused but faraway look as he considers.]
A pattern is almost always significant. If I were inclined to be optimistic, I'd say that it could represent a terminal cycle. A departure from safety, and then a return to safety.
[But L is never truly inclined to be optimistic. He wishes he could mean that and put his faith behind it, but he continues.]
It could also be a rut. Something that's never completed that you can't move on from. A sort of prison fixation.
[And a fatalistic one; doom waits in the water, and it also waits on land.]
It's conjecture. Don't let it influence the way you think too much.
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He senses that the attempt has perhaps the opposite intended effect. Is it because everything, even his jokes, has that undercurrent of tragedy, a life not lived in a completely different way?
He follows suit, reaching for the other cup. He reaches into his backpack for sugar cubes, which he carries with him everywhere for occasions like these, because no one ever gives him tea that's sweet enough.
He drops them in until it's too many to be anything but disgusting, and then he drops more.]
Several reasons... some are easier to explain than others. Some are more selfish than others.
[With each reason, he drops another sugar cube into his tea.]
I'm involved, and it rankles me to leave something unfinished. [Plunk.]
I don't think your grandeur is a delusion, or that this is folly. [Plunk.]
I'm not really a person, at least... not in relation to other people. But if someone like that can do something that's really needed, it can feel like being a person for a little while. That's my selfish reason.
[He sips the tea, more paste than liquid at this point.]
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(And how much does the last reason resonate? Enough that Paul wonders if it's intended to.)
Either way, his back straightens and his eyes grow resolute. He adds another link to the mantle of responsibility draped across his shoulders, and nods.]
Those seem reason enough. [He sets down his cup, drained of tea.] Thank you.
I am asking for other help. I won't put this all on a handful of shoulders. That would be folly. [He sets his hands on his knees, tilting his head slightly to the right.] We need to find out when it comes, as close as we can, and I need to find out how to kill it or drive it back.
What's your plan, for this? The dreaming.
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[No real change comes over him, no pause to see if some intended significance landed or was understood. What makes L peculiar is, largely, his tendency to see some very typical things as strange and alarming, and some extremely strange and alarming things as typical. Eventually, a sort of predictable distribution emerges as a pattern, before it too is dislodged.]
I'm glad, also, that you're treating this with the gravity it merits. Central command wouldn't mean much without teams to manage.
["Armies," he decides, might be a little too grand, create higher blood pressure than is desirable, because...]
We're going to make a stone with my blood and yours after exposing it to the moonlight from the sky well in this chamber. We both repeat the same incantation, and you fall asleep with the stone in your hand. Once you're dreaming, I take the stone in my hand. It warms according to the danger you're in or the injuries you've suffered; if you were to die, it'd become ice-cold very suddenly.
At the point the stone is too warm to hold comfortably... hopefully, before it's hot... the way to retrieve the dreamer is to induce a trance with another incantation. Wherever you are in the dream, you'll see a door near to you, no key required because I'm the one holding it open. You'll have about a minute to get through, which should be plenty of time. Oh, and...
[An afterthought, but one that seems very important to mention.]
Don't let anything follow you through. I'd probably end up possessed, or at the very least corrupted. Just a few drops is fine...
[He rummages in his backpack, handing over a covered, delicate, scalpel-like blade and a vial that already contains a small amount of blood.]
cw: self-injury (magical purposes)
So he pulls off his left glove and makes a small incision in the pad of his ring finger, pressing the tiny wound against the edge of the vial and encouraging blood flow to the digit. This also reveals the black and silver signet ring on the middle finger of that hand, emblazoned with a hawk.]
I thought you might try to tell me not to get hurt. [He's slightly wry as he says it, a touch of self-deprecation for his lack of confidence.] I keep underestimating you.
[Blood sample collected, he recaps the vial and returns it, along with the scalpel, to Lazarus. The incision he presses against his thumb until it stops.]
Are you sure you're not overestimating me?
[He didn't mean for that to sound so faintly plaintive. He doesn't quite grimace at himself, but it's a near thing.]
Never mind. What's the incantation?
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Based on the knowledge and experiences accrued the last time... getting hurt is virtually an inevitability. I'd set the odds at a 95% likelihood.
[He says that with a totally straight face, no sign of a joke or hyperbole for miles.]
...that being said. The odds for a serious injury, not even a life-threatening one, are far lower, at a 3% likelihood. They only increase if the source of your injury traps or impedes you in some way and prevents you from getting to the door, but... don't worry, there's a contingency plan in place for that possibility, as well.
[He takes the vial to the sky well; the blood inside turns silver almost immediately. He removes it, pouring the mixture into a small round mold. When he opens it, a glowing stone sits there, a misty opal with silver and golden flecks that seem to move.
He stares, picking up on that odd note in Paul's question.]
We're doing this; it's in motion. That's not the case, ever, unless I'm sure.
[He sets the stone down between them, lighting a bit of incense next to it. Sage.]
I can write this down if you need it, but this isn't like a set of vows. The order of it doesn't matter, so long as we both say the words, so it's alright if you just repeat what I say.
[The words are slow, clear, richly accented.]
Sheffol isk na Soothchak. Vor mast iske; silakomsi, jakast seechyen pana lohpiskal. Pana jakart watten soothvis, chorlvis, net lehntarvis avie knoch, mefahr, net mistra silakomsa. Avanchorl; avanpiskal. Visanthranosk, jakares saa.
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In much the same way, he only realizes how much he had missed this when it's returned to him. This, the firm instruction, the expectation of success, the pattern laid out ahead of him to follow. He's always been a good student. He's never been without teachers. So he watches what Lazarus does intently, and he listens with a well-trained ear to both the instructions and the spell. His blood resonates in answer already, the words like the moon's tug on the sea.]
I have it. [He nods, and it's true. He only needs to hear almost anything once, and he thinks it would be harder to forget those words than most.] Sophia?
[He lowers his right hand to the floor and his mouse omen emerges from his sleeve, sits back on her haunches in his palm. He runs his thumb gently between her ears, which fold back under his petting.]
You shouldn't be left without an omen, in case you need one. [Sophia - her name finally spoken - hops from his palm and goes to Lazarus' side.] Since I'm borrowing yours. She'll listen to you.
[Paul picks up the stone in his bare left hand, runs a thumb over it no less gently than his omen's tiny head.]
I'm ready. [He looks up from their mingled, calcified blood, and he could hardly be farther from the arrogant, commanding young tyrant he had been in the dream, this soft-eyed, attentive acolyte.] On your mark.
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He might say so, if time wasn't of the essence. Another occasion, perhaps; he suspects it will come up again, and that the plaintiveness of Paul's need is not a flash in the pan.
It's alright. He's secure in what he's tested, understands its process in several environments, all of the breaking limits. That easy confidence of a man who knows must be contagious.]
Oh... yes, that makes sense... I'll take care of her.
[He is grateful that Sophia is staying with him, maintaining a sort of balance that isn't strictly necessary, but will certainly be comforting to a man who only learned he had a soul at all in Trench.]
Before you say it... take the stone in one of your hands, get comfortable, however you want to sleep. It'll happen faster than it would with a potion.
[It'll be alright. Lycka cleaves to Paul's side, following him to the bedrolls, and L gives a quiet signal for the soft-eyed acolyte to say the words when he has settled in.
When it's done, he nods briskly, lifting the incense stick.]
Mesk avandajet.
[Go. He knows before the last syllable falls that Paul is out, and rises to collect the stone. He addresses Sophia as he settles cross-legged on the floor.]
Don't fret. He'll be OK; Lycka and I will see to it.
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In the dream, Paul breaks the surface with a cream-colored sleeve held delicately in Lycka's teeth. He is a strong swimmer, when awake, but he concedes to her tugging, her greater ease in an environment she is better suited for than he is. The shore is the same, the grey sand stretching out in either direction. The pale figure, the storm-heavy sky.
The new things his eyes light on are enough to make him press against Lycka's side in the shallow surf and forget all of it. He wades from the water and contemplates them with wide-fixed silver eyes whose burning he does not feel.
When the thunder and the wave come this time, Paul has a long blade and a short blade sheathed at his hips, crafted in the angular and lethally efficient Atreides fashion. They stay with him when he tumbles to hang above the great sea-creature that stirs in the frigid depths, as he curls a hand around the leading edge of Lycka's dorsal fin and reverberates with her searching, sensing song. They stay with him when he stands on the black sand dressed in his simple training kit, facing towards the rising white steps, the silver-grey stranger kneeling at their base and extending a hand to a tiny, smoke-edged bird that flutters on the first step, its curiosity warring with caution as a thousand voices whistle a rise and fall of song.
The stranger lifts their head. In the Waking World, Paul's hands twitch; in the dream, they curl around hilts Paul knows like his own heartbeat.]
Do you see me?
[The choral question, hissed and spat and howled and screamed and cursed. The stranger rises, their head tilted slightly to the left. Paul tilts his own to the right. The bird spreads dream-blurred wings and throws itself into the air.
Duncan's swords slip from their sheaths like whispers, and Paul places one foot behind the other just so on the sand. His sleeping face smiles, and in both worlds his voice is clear and certain.]
I see you.
[The stranger is still and silent. They tilt their head to match his. They draw their weapons, real and not, and flip the knives in their hands in casual arrogance.]
Not yet.
[They close on each other like the teeth of a trap. In Lazarus' hands, the stone begins to warm, but not yet grow hot. Paul's breathing quickens. The air around them both thrums like an impeding lightning strike, the glow of Paul's eyes seeping through their closed lids as they flicker in rapid patterns. Sophia squeaks almost inaudibly, her ears pinned back to her skull.]
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Not yet... the arragement is built on reciprocals and mirrored actions. They'd both given their blood, they'd both said the words, they'd temporarily exchanged omens, and they had also exchanged no small measure of trust. It means that however much L desires to, he can't yank Paul back just because the stone indicates that he is not merely meditating peacefully at the edge of the waves, and may be handling a good deal more.
In the dream, Lycka's keening whines are anxious, almost kittenish as she circles him close, keeping him afloat and guarded in the choppy water. Once he's waded ashore onto the black sand, floats alongside him through the air, just behind his left shoulder. When Paul clashes with his similar figure, Lycka hangs back, thrashing as though shaking off something frustrating, stretching her many-toothed mouth wide and hissing. She can't sweep in and help, because the chances of her mauling Paul are too high. She has her Sleeper's sense for numbers, even if she is currently disconnected from him.
Back in the waking world, L squeezes the stone, setting his other beside Sophia instinctively for warmth and comfort. Not yet.]
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It happens quickly, when it does. The unknife becomes a chain, and Paul slackens his left arm, allows the long blade to overreach, drops the point of the short blade in his right, and, with a slight, eager smile he doesn't know he's wearing (as Sophia creeps closer to Lazarus' hand, her whiskers flaring to brush against his skin) he calls, brightly:]
Door!
[The chain wraps around his left forearm and yanks, but instead of pulling away, Paul throws himself into the momentum, dropping the blade in his right hand and reaching for the wrist driving a knife towards him. It's a sloppy move, better suited to a drunken brawl than a duel, and he slams his forehead against whatever passes as a skull under that blank mask of teethed skin, his hand closes around a wrist and twists away a gutting blow.
He almost has time to think good, viciously, before the chain wrapped around his forearm begins to burn, and even that is a marvel as his sleeping body arches against the floor in a seemingly causeless convulsion. Any child of a Bene Gesserit knows a neurotoxin when it burrows underneath their skin, and Paul, still dreaming, splits his mouth in a rictus grin of triumph.]
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Solknakhan! Sheffol seech pana na chiantal, niskavan!
[In the dream, the glowing edges of a doorway appear. It's radiating light and heat, and it remains open for the time being. It flickers at the edges, and Lycka shrills a warning; there's a minute, suspended between the stone under Paul's pillow and the slender fingers resting on his forehead in the waking world.]
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It only fades when he sees the figure standing still, impassive, at the base of the stairs, unmoved by -
- and then Paul's eyes open, sea-green and blinking at moonlight, and he looks up at Lazarus with half-dazed amazement, other thoughts forgotten. There are cool-feeling fingers on his forehead, and his right hand reaches up towards them tentatively.]
Sodium channel blocker. [His voice is thinned, somehow, but he feels otherwise unharmed, the illusory toxin no more than a sense-memory.] Paralysis in response to unexpected attack vector - a jellyfish? But it felt -
[He catches himself short, takes in a breath, his smile warm and shaken.]
It worked. Are you all right?
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L's fingers curl; he realizes he was holding his breath, and releases the small amount of air his lungs were holding. He'd felt that moment of suspension, too, and while he'd believed that Paul would come back, would have bet on those odds, he also knows that it could have gone very badly if even one small part of this had been out of alignment.
The plan was sound; the language was sound, his skills were sound. This is something to be celebrated, on those merits alone.
What it all means might be a different matter.]
Yes; I'm sound and stable. It "felt...?"
[If their success this time was due to being over-prepared, he doesn't want to be underprepared when the event all this foretells actually comes to pass.
His palm is closed on his own memento of the sensation he'd had access to: a perfectly round burn blister.]
If this portends your exposure to a venomous neurotoxin, something can be done to guard against it, surely.
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[Paul pushes himself up on his elbows with only a slight shakiness, swallowing a dry mouth. He has a slightly abashed air of accomplishment to him, and a pervasive sense of distracting relief as he lets his head fall back and looks up at the sliver of moonlight above them.]
I was right. [He closes his eyes, reinforcing the structure of his memory to capture the vision.] I didn't want to say it, if I was wrong, but I was right. It's a shapeshifter, we knew that, but I wondered - it's prescient, Lazarus. It sees the future, and that's how it adapts. I'll have to see how far it can look, next time.
I couldn't have done that without you. Thank you.
[Before the dream, Paul's acceptance of help had a certain sense of concession to it, an allowance he was making for Lazarus. His thanks here lack it. There is a tender new shoot of emotion under them instead, a sort of wondering, bewildered trust.]
Could you pass me my notebook? It's in my bag. [A minor pause.] I needed it to hit me, to know. I won't do that when I'm awake.
[That, though, comes in the tones of someone who has been rebuked about this sort of thing before.]
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He nods at Paul's thanks, picking up on the softer note that was formerly absent. It's something he recognizes, though he's heard it very seldom in his life. At least, not directed towards him.
However seldom he inspires tenderness, people who deal with him come to know his value. Not many others could remain cool under pressure and pick up a magical language overnight, after all.]
If it's prescient... is it fair to say that it has at least as good an idea of what's coming as you do?
[He goes to fetch the notebook, careful to avoid the blister on his hand, handing it over to Paul.]
You might not be able to choose whether or not you're hit.
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Part of him wants to reply lightly, teasingly. To make a small joke of the concern, and to diffuse it that way. But that's a technique that worked for practicing on training dummies, never anything like this.
When he started to do things like this, there had been no tension to diffuse. It was a necessity. There was no time left for coddling. He has told himself this, and it's been true, and it's true here. So why does Lazarus do it? (A question that might as well be: why did he come back?)
First things first: the practical question.]
Even if it does, it shouldn't matter. Being able to see something isn't the same as being able to prevent it from happening, is it? Symmetrical knowledge means it would know what was coming, but that doesn't give it the flexibility we have in our countermoves.
And I know. I've fought before. [His little smile is gone (a flash of a knife, of sand, of citrus and blood), and they're likely both better off for it.] But I'll try not to be. I'm not interested in playing martyr.
[He produces a pencil from up his sleeve (his wrist holster finds more use as storage for stationary than the knife in it, these days) and begins to sketch a half-glimpsed horizon. Sophia returns to his side, and he lowers his free arm to let her run up his shoulder, his face drawn closed in thought.]
You're not, are you? Interested in that. [He keeps his eyes focused on his work.] If you need anything for your hand, the kit is on the third shelf by the entrance.
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At the question, there's a flickering barb in his thoughts, a callback to something else before Trench. Maybe it went unnoticed; maybe telepathy goes both ways. Maybe it's just the tenseness around his eyes.]
No one who doesn't have many screws loose should want that.
[He retrieves the kit, pulling free gauze, salve, a scalpel to drain the blister.]
...worth it, though. Sometimes.
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[Paul continues sketching, his voice quiet, neutral. He finds himself adding the swords, two uneven pillars erupting from the sand, their lines stark.]
I'd rather not find out.
[He flips the page, the horizon not quite finished (he'll come back to it to fill out the details; he'll start it fresh on another page; later, later, either way) and begins another sketch, this one of possible molecular shapes, while the sensation of the toxin is still fresh. He doesn't want to look at Lazarus, suddenly, an avoidance as much of what he might see as of shame.]
Would you be able to wear gloves, or would that interfere with the spell?
[He should have asked. He should have thought about this possibility. There's so much to remember, and he should be able to, and he keeps falling short.]
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[He repeats the vague qualifier, as though he's giving a nail a couple more passes with a hammer to ensure it's secure.
Paul doesn't really need to know that L died horribly before arriving in Trench, enmeshed in a fight he believed in, throwing away a valuable piece to ensure an eventual checkmate years down the line. Not now; not today.]
That being said... I'd rather you didn't, either.
[Gingerly tapping some salve on his deflated blister and somewhat carelessly looping and tying a piece of gauze over it, he returns to glance curiously at Paul's molecular sketch.]
Gloves shouldn't disrupt or dampen any part of the spell. In truth... it's just the one thing I overlooked. It won't be the case, next time.
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More unearned mercy.]
I should have thought of it. [He tilts his notebook when he notices Lazarus' gaze, letting him get a better look.] These are just possibilities, based on onset and effect.
[The drawings resemble 21st century biochemistry the way a spaceship resembles a car: recognizably for the same purpose, but at different points of development and scope. Next to branching lines connecting dotted circles, there are radial notations in a cypher-shorthand, giving the sketches an appearance almost like constellations.]
I was born on an ocean world, did I tell you that? We have a type of snail that produces a toxin like this - these are references to antivenom formulations. [He taps the paper, lightly, an almost nervous gesture.] We'll want to stockpile.
[Then, veering back to dark waters:] I'm sorry I keep doing that to you.
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The living have things to do, though, important tasks and priorities, and so just staying away isn't an option while he has rare and uniquely useful skills and knowledge.
He takes in the drawings' details, compares it to his own working knowledge of chemistry. The significant differences aren't so great; the similarities are enough to draw useful comparisons.]
You hadn't mentioned it, and I probably wouldn't have assumed... but being able to apply this prior knowledge is invaluable. We could synthesize something an antivenom enough, I'm sure, even if blood magic needs to fill in the gaps. We'll want to consider whether it's to be a protective dose, or a cure in the case of exposure... there are benefits and drawbacks to each, of course.
[He shakes his head, dismissing the apology.]
You haven't done anything to me. If I was going to overlook something, believe that any other part of this process would have been catastrophic. This is only inconvenient.
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[Paul looks up, the pencil held lightly in his hand, tip just above the page. He looks at Lazarus the way he might look at a shell, or a leaf, an incisive, memorizing observation.]
That's how it starts. Injuries into inconveniences, self-dismissal. [He straightens himself, draws his shoulders back into socket, his voice firm.] People aren't means. They're ends. I'm not going to treat you as anything less, no matter what you tell me, and you're not going to make me try.
[It's a directness that comes more naturally than he expects it to, with someone who, for all his help, is still so much an unknown. It's a commitment to a position that Paul knows as a vulnerability that could be exploited: that there is a limit to what he's willing to do to people.
(Or, at least, he wants there to be.)]
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Did, and was.
He nods, attentive and respectful, as though he hasn't sacrificed lives in the service of an end. Not really a person, after all, and he's sure there are things he could tell Paul that would prove it.
He just doesn't want to, yet. Feeling like a person is turning out to be addictive.]
I guess I didn't even realize I was doing that. Truly... next time, I won't overlook the gloves, and you don't need to worry about it again.
[That's true for the gloves, specifically. On a broader level, old habits die so very hard... and that includes a desire to test and confirm implied limits. Does Paul truly have one?]
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All that he feels in the hollows where these things should be is frigid, pressured numbness. The functional state that he has existed in whenever he's been alone, and most of the time when he is not, interrupted only by flickers of feeling he seems to more remember than experience.
He flips the page of the notebook and returns to work, now jotting down the features of the leviathan he was able to perceive in the new light of his eyes, some of the projections of its roiling, chaotic shape. His expression is drawn, slightly tired. His hands do not shake. His spine doesn't bend.]
Then it's settled. [It is; it's settled that he is going to 'worry', as if that's the word.] You're right about the antivenoms. A prophylactic application might be advisable for several things.
There were no words this time. But the basic structure - beach, ocean, beach - that repeated. Do you have any thoughts on what that might mean?
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How much of that does Paul understand? Is the real reason L haunts these obligations so happily purely because he found Paul's pulse and mistook it for his own?]
I'll consider some ways to ensure efficacy without overdosing, as well as the time frame for maximum effect.
[Probably completely safely and sanely.
He nods, dark eyes taking on a focused but faraway look as he considers.]
A pattern is almost always significant. If I were inclined to be optimistic, I'd say that it could represent a terminal cycle. A departure from safety, and then a return to safety.
[But L is never truly inclined to be optimistic. He wishes he could mean that and put his faith behind it, but he continues.]
It could also be a rut. Something that's never completed that you can't move on from. A sort of prison fixation.
[And a fatalistic one; doom waits in the water, and it also waits on land.]
It's conjecture. Don't let it influence the way you think too much.
cw: discussion of hallucinogenic drug use
cw: discussion of hallucinogenic drug use
cw: discussion of hallucinogenic drug use
cw: discussion of hallucinogenic drug use etc
cw: discussion of hallucinogenic drug use etc
cw: discussion of hallucinogenic drug use etc
cw: basically the worst case DARE scenario
cw: basically the worst case DARE scenario lmao
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