Open Intro:"A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct"

[thekillingword]

They'd explained to him what was going to happen: the Spice was going to leave his body, something that would normally result in a painful death. A chemical substitute, without Spice's psychoactive properties but similar enough to keep him alive, would be pumped into his veins. The process would be painful.

Paul had insisted on being tied to his bed rather than sedated. If he could face the Gom Jabbar, he could face this.

For days, those around the infirmary might hear his groans of pain, involuntary straining at the bonds that held him. What could possess a teenager to put themself through this?





Paul had never been one to resist looking, even when he wasn't going to like what he saw. Clearly this Q, the playful god, was trying to tempt or torture them. He thought himself immune to the former, at least. And talking to his father would not be so bad. If he truly were the Kwisatz Haderach, he'd have to get used to talking to the recently deceased.

So he headed to the holodeck. He expected to meet the old Duke, kind and wise, Leto Orestes Atreides I. The young man smirking at him from on top of a rocky outcrop was his own age, new to him, though strangely familiar.

"Have you come to gloat then, father? Leaving the Golden Path to me while you explore the far reaches of an unknown universe?" The boy said.

Paul, astonished, betrayed nothing with his face, though his thoughts churned.





Paul shook his damn head, looking down from a hillock at the cracked earth, the rows of plants that were withering in the sun. All around him were various mechanical parts, rather primitive in comparison to what they were used to on Enterprise. They would have to do. These people...They'd placed their trust in technology to save them. That had been their mistake.

"It's all wrong...How am I supposed to make a windtrap out of these materials?"