worm_dancer | (no subject)

Location: Station Sector 3
Who: Sheeana, OPEN
What: Sheeana meditates on her new responsibilities and wonders if she's a bit of a worrywart
Warning(s): wordiness

She stepped down from the crumbling plasteel blocks into the orange sand. After the built up optimized environments they'd all recently come from (crystal towers, togas, etiquette, all the things a desert creature sneered at), it was a relief to feel it under her feet. Small plumes of sand sprouted from all over the basin and tiny sandworms (no more than fifteen feet long each, yet carrying the heritage of leviathans) sprouted up before her and begged for attention like eager puppies. "Of course. I've neglected you lately, haven't I?"

So, while the rest of the crew was celebrating with Qhalavian liquor they'd just 'liberated', Sheeana danced for her worms, whirling and stomping rythmlessly until they seemed temporarily satisfied. They swayed with her too, remembered flames within frames made by little crystal needleteeth.

She sat down with them and let them climb over her. She poured out her concerns over the crew's growing overconfidence to them, not expecting an answer though she knew the man inside them could give her one if he could only speak. Ah, but would you want that, Leto?

And then she noticed someone coming through the doorway that only opened with a violent impact, blue irising open to reveal her sitting cross legged with her children/ancestor. I shouldn't be surprised. My sietch knows to find me here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The worms turned, hissed a pathetic, squeaking remnant of their mighty roar, attracted by the rythm of his feet. "Hush." She commanded them. "He's a friend." It was nothing personal. Sandworms of her time were far more territorial than they had ever been.

They crept to him, circling suspiciously around his legs.

He looked down, unsure of the sandworms but sure of the Force and his ability to get out of the way. "Hello there," he said, projecting toward them that he was, indeed, a friend; nonthreatening, calm. "You're all looking well."

Luke looked up at Sheeana, keeping himself from dancing from foot to foot in an effort not to step on one of the things. "You too. What are you doing hiding down here? Everyone else is relaxing."

They seemed alright with that and rolled (though really each side was the same, so one might wonder at the point of the motion), showing plates they wished scratched and stroked. One of the most powerful minds in any universe they may have contained but they were still animals most of the time.

She turned to face him. "Aye. I should be up there monitoring the social dynamics, as is my duty. But I am disquieted by the sense of easy triumph."

Luke knelt and began obliging the sandworms, scratching one here, rubbing one there, according to the different vibes he got through the Force. It was kind of like having a whole herd of pittins demanding your attention at once. Pittins with big, pointy teeth.

"You think there's something else on the way?" Luke asked, keeping his voice calm as he gave the worms what they wanted--attention. Inwardly his mind was working. It was entirely possible they'd missed something...

The worms made more hissings, this time pleased, and rubbed at his legs.

Worry (allowed, poised as with everything a Reverend Mother did) danced across her face. "I don't know. I wish I could look. I have Atreides ancestry, I know that it would be possible with enough effort. But then..." She looked helplessly at the worms. He knew the signifigance of that and of her dilemna. Look for danger and you could make an even greater one in the looking. "And you know how vulnerable we are after an easy victory."

He sat on the ground across from her, rubbing the last few sandworms that he hadn't been able to reach for the mass at his feet. They really weren't all that bad--at least, not at this size and not right now. Sheeana and the others of her world had told him that they could be quite deadly when they got bigger, and he had decided it would be good to believe them.

"When our guard is down. We do pretty much paint a target on our backs every time we get home from a successful mission." Luke sighed, stretching a bit. "Hopefully that won't happen though."

"If hope were water, beggars would bathe. An old Fremen saying." She sighed, a cynic, less content than her worms. Most of them burrowed down into the sands again, satisfied. "I should be monitoring the Bacchanalian flux though."