Chapter Text
Good food and good friends,
Alongside these two:
Good wine might be nice,
And one woman true.
All things found,
All things lost;
But some things never seen,
‘Tween lives and ‘tween deaths
And ‘tween frost and the green.
– Chorus of Common Chusuk Drinking Song
Dufa-of-Aegir, 10191 A.G.
It was a beautiful, sunny day outside at the Chapterhouse, and so of course it was also dinnertime in a windowless cafeteria. For once, the meal wasn’t something made entirely of starches and mystery sauce though. Something with capers, spare bits of lamb, steamed green peppers, and red onions, all on top of wild rice (as gamey and strong-tasting as it sounded), was a welcome change from the endless series of gelatinous vegetable stews for Yakoba. The Sisterhood Guards looming over the back of the kitchen and at each entrance were an additional novel sight, though in an ominous way that contrasted with the pleasant change in routine she had on her tray. More than a few initiates started lines going to and from nowhere at the cafeteria entrance because they thought the Guards were at the front of queues, adding a downright surreal element to the evenings as students adapted to the new state of affairs.
Someone tried to kill Maryam, and because of them Borte had been stuck recovering in bed for a week.
Off in the distance, she could see Borte– fresh from the infirmary– bobbing over to where Maryam sat. Finally,she thought, we can have dinner together, a chance for a little bit of norm–
“H-hi, Yakoba,” Helena said from behind her.
It took every ounce of her training not to jump up a meter in the air and yelp out of surprise. “Ah! Hi, Helena!,” she choked. That new cellmate of hers was too quiet. “How are you doing?”
“Ah, q-quite well! Would… you mind eating with me?”, she said. Helena apparently was about the same skill level as Maryam and Yakoba, but she hadn’t had a chance to talk to either of those two since their cells were re-shuffled to see what the girl was like around other people. In the two days that she knew her, Yakoba found out most of what she knew about the quiet Helena through passively noticing her cellmate rather than talking with her. Despite seeming normal if mildy insensitive in their first conversation, Helena became strangely shy around Yakoba.
“Uh… sure, Helena,” Yakoba lied. She really wanted to be around literally anyone else in her free time right now. “I was going to eat with my friends, do you want to join?”
The girl looked flushed for a moment. “Friends? I mean… sure.” Helena didn’t really seem to have friends, or act like she’d ever had any otherwise. Her chubby, pale face didn’t seem to have any emotions other than a blank (‘pensive’ or ‘determined’ if you put it politely) expression and varying levels of mortified or apologetic, which were all equally likely given any situation she saw her in.
Yakoba lit up, finally getting at least half a break from her. “Great!” She kept walking, Helena following in her shadow “One of them, she’s Maryam, I think you know her? She was the one who made the bracelet, and the other is Borte, wh–”
A sudden clatter came from behind as Helena tripped, almost dropping her tray. The girl looked white as a sheet from the near-food loss experience. You couldn’t go back for seconds, no matter what the situation was.
“I’m fine! It’s, it’s all right…” Helena said, trailing off. The next ten meters or so to the table were thankfully incident-free.
Borte looked a little different since her recovery in the infirmary. Rather than a mass of hastily-braided red hair ready to explode in all directions, she (or somebody else) had carefully re-braided her hair so it was just one long continuous plait going from over her forehead to the small of her back. Compared to Maryam’s wavy bob, Yakoba’s messy bun, and Helena’s long limp hair, it seemed a little pretentious for an initiate. But, to be fair, nobody else wearing blue-and-grey here had battle scars.
“…Anyways, I asked one of the guardswomen who ‘debriefed’ me or whatever if I could get dark blue instead of light blue for edging on my new uniform, seeing that I’ve fought as much as any of them have, but she just yelled at- hey, Yak!” Borte’s face lit up at the sight of the other girl.
That smile was infectious, Yakoba had to admit, and she grinned back as she set her tray down and went around the table to hug one another. Helena stood awkwardly behind them.
“Ah! Not so hard,” Borte yelped. “Look at you, trying to break a poor girl in half with your training while she’s down!” Yakoba wasn’t hugging hard- instead, it was Borte squeezing the two of them like a vise, even after the gulp of pain. She relented her own hug, if only to play along.
Maryam interrupted the mutually-destructive embrace. “Hello, Helena? Is there something we might do for you?” The heir looked across at Helena, either oblivious to why she followed her cellmate there or just running on aristocratic autopilot.
Helena looked flustered. “Oh, ah… Maryam, hi. I was… going to eat with Yakoba, my cellmate. My new cellmate!” She glanced around and turned to Yakoba. “Are we eating with them? It feels like the table’s crowded already.”
To be fair, Borte had somehow gotten an extra tray of food again for them all to share.
Yakoba and Borte finally released each other from their test of strength, and the tall girl moved back to the table. “Of course we are, Helena. You three share a lot of classes, right? I’m jealous… probably won’t make it to your current levels for, ah, two years at best.”
A flash of hesitation crossed Helena’s face before she returned to that blank expression and sat down. “Yeah. Off the top of my head we have Weirding, Anticipatory Language Acquisition, and Azhar Book Studies together…”
“Mm, Don’t forget that the two of us have Remedial Algebra together too!” Borte said. A few bits of rice flew from her mouth as she crammed food in there while she talked. “By the way, glad I could miss that test Tuesday, mmph. Not so glad that I haven’t had a good meal in a week, though.”
Borte then interrupted herself. “And, mm, I– Oh! Thank you for, mm, finding my toe last week.” Yakoba couldn’t tell if her spitting out rice while talking was a calculated attempt to disgust Helena as some sort of test, or just Borte being Borte.
“Oh… it’s no problem,” Helena said. “I was there, and when I saw your feet I noticed and so… It felt like the right thing to do.” She looked down at her food. “Thank you for your bravery, Borte.”
“Thank me! Well, sure. I suppose I deserve thanks for that, Helena.” Borte said. Finally, the thresher on the front of her face paused for a moment.
Maryam glared at Borte and rolled her eyes. “Borte, you make my family’s swordmaster look positively humble.” She turned back to Helena. “Your gratitude is respectfully accepted, Helena… at least by myself. And I’m happy to see that Yakoba has you as her new cellmate. Both of you have things you can complement the other with in your classes.”
Maryam really likes to suggest what other people do, Yakoba thought. I can handle Prana Bindu on my own and meditation with Myuller. She’s not a teacher, for goodness’s sak–
“Like… helping me with mathematics and history, I suppose,” Helena said. “I heard you don’t take any of those courses anymore, since you need to focus on core curricula and are already above your age’s level.” A strange look mixing what seemed to be a smile and fear came on the girl’s face as she looked at Yakoba. “That’s impressive.”
How does she know anything about that? Yakoba thought. We don’t share any classmates, let alone classes, and she’s mostly a loner. She tried not to think any more about how or why she learned all that in just a few days.
Breaking eye contact with Helena, Yakoba desperately changed the subject. “So who are you two cellmates with now?”
Maryam and Borte glanced at each other and then smiled at Yakoba.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
“It’s great!” Borte said. “I don’t have to deal with a roommate I don’t know, and Durru was getting tired of me anyways. A win-win all around.”
“Well, that’s good then. Helena and I are getting along.” Yakoba kept her annoyed disappointment to herself. It was bad enough that she had such a hasty goodbye with Maryam, but now those two were rooming together while she was… well, Helena isn’t all bad, just annoying in a way opposite to how Borte is, she thought.
“Yes!” Helena said. “No problems so far.” She forced some kind of smile onto her face.
“I’m so relieved to hear that. You know,” Maryam volunteered out of nowhere. “I was told by my mother that I was almost named Helena like you, after my paternal grandmother.” She paused, lowering her brow to the edge of seriousness. “But my father didn’t like the idea, for some reason.”
“Are you named after your other grandma, then?,” asked Yakoba. It wasn’t often that you could glean bits of Great House family drama directly from the dynastic heir herself. Maybe she really was making those ‘connections’ her idiot father always pushed her to make.
Maryam shook her head slightly. “No. My mother, Lady– apologies, Sister Jessica, was raised up in the Order. We both don’t know who my other grandparents were.”
“Oh?” Borte said. “Then why Maryam? That’s not a very Caladan-ish or Atredies-y name.” The girl furrowed her brow and narrowed her eyes like she was cross-examining Maryam. “You all have names like, ‘Artorias,’ or ‘Yuri-dice,’ or ‘Douglas,’ or ‘Xerox,’ right?”
“Maryam is very much Caladanian, lass!” The Na-Duchess shot back with a stink-eye. Borte had a tight-lipped but maniacal smile at once again breaching her cellmate’s formality. Maryam then collected herself. “…Though, usually it’s written Mariam. But that’s beside the point.”
Helena sat with an uncomfortable look on her face. “That’s… interesting,” she said. “I never got to ask my mother why my name was given. I was six when I was given to a juvenile school… my father was dead then, and my mother was very ill at the time.” She started to eat, still looking across the table at Maryam and Borte. Somehow her teeth could shear through the tough lamb meat as if nothing was there.
“I’m… very sorry to hear that.” Maryam said. Despite her stuffiness, she did have a sympathetic heart, as Yakoba could attest to.
“It’s fine,” Helena said. “It’s been a long while now.” The expression and tone she was using was uncanny and impossible to read.
Yakoba looked concerned at her cellmate, and decided to change the subject. “Helena… do you have any hobbies?”
The other girl quickly turned her head and moved to a more normal expression. “Yes! I… uh, like knitting, but I haven’t had a chance to do it in a while. There’s a lot of spun wool made here, apparently, though being able to buy it or have the time to work on it is impossible for us initiates.”
“You ever snuck off to work on knitting?” Borte asked, grinning. “I know Maryam here loves reading and swordplay, but the most we ever get to do here is work with knives. And Yakoba just wants to lock herself in the printing rooms for those silly games she makes.”
They weren’t just ‘silly games,’ Yakoba fumed. They were narrative experiences with strategic depth. Just because she’d never had more than an hour to explain the rules to them didn’t mean they were ‘silly.’
“Hush, Borte. You don’t even have a hobby!”
The girl protested. “Sure I do! I’m–“
“Watching filmbooks is not a hobby!” Yakoba said, continuing her glare. “You’re just watching them, you’re not even doing anything!”
Borte stuck her tongue out. “Watching is a form of doing, lass.” She settled into a casually triumphant pose. “Besides, I’ve seen all sorts of things you wouldn’t believe on them, like boys, or sandworms.”
The other three looked at Borte with a mix of disbelief and exhaustion.
“Borte, I swear. It’s like all you think about is ‘boys’,” Yakoba said. “You haven’t even been chaperoned around them, for goodness’s sakes.”
The Middle Lass scoffed. “What, is it my fault I’ve never met one?” She pointed accusatorially with her fork. “Unlike me and Helena, you two have had plenty of boy-access growing up, what with your weird animal ‘academies’ where you disguised as a boy, and your ‘castles’. And you two didn’t even do anything with that!”
Yakoba didn’t think often or fondly about her early adolescence, but Borte’s idiocy put it front-and-center that somehow, despite all odds, she was the most experienced with romance of the four of them.
Borte kept going on, now jabbing at Maryam with the fork like a fencing sword and grinning like a lascivious idiot. “Like, well, Mister Dunk, for instance. You go on about how great 'Mister Dunk' is, but did you ever kiss him or whatever?"
Yakoba saw a faint twitch in Maryam's shoulders– a suppressed urge to lay Borte out across the table. Helena’s body language got even more tense, somehow.
"Borte, I've known him since before I can remember," the Youngest Lass started. "He's like family–"
"But not actually family, right?" Borte went on, raising an eyebrow over her sunken eyes. "I mean, he’s your servant, you’ve got rights, and you've shown us pictures of your House– he's super-hot!"
Maryam shuddered.
Yakoba tried to intervene. “Borte, Mister Dunk is, um… almost thirty years older than us. It’s not an appropriate thing to even think about, any way you look at it. And we really should change–”
“Eh? I don’t think that matters. The Proctors never’ve said that was a problem, so–”
“Please shut up, you po-, you dirty, filthy girl!” Helena shouted at the top of her lungs, standing at her full height.
The entire cafeteria stopped and stared at their table. Helena sheepishly sunk back into her chair, and Borte’s eyes were wide open in shock.
“But–” the Middle Lass started.
“Borte, no,” said Yakoba.
Maryam composed herself and cleared her throat. “Borte, men aren’t just things to gawk at and play the fool about. And neither are your fellow students, or any sort of people for that matter.” The girl’s gaze locked with Borte’s as she dipped one hand below the table, and then those green eyes and dark brow turned unrecognizable for a moment. “Behave yourself or remove yourself, friend.”
Across the table from them, Yakoba saw a stern expression that could only have been copied from her parents, but warped with some sort of experience. Like of someone who knew what death looked like. Was she signing with her other hand?, she thought.
Borte started to protest, but then just pouted and rolled her eyes.
Maryam faced Helena again. “Again, I have to apologize. Borte is… a contrarian at times as you know, and she’s still coming down from the highs and lows of her recovery.” She placed her other hand out on top of Helena’s. “If you come with Yakoba to meet Borte and I, I will personally make sure we are on our best behavior from here forwards.” She side-eyed Borte. “Courtesy to others is best practiced, and learned, by always observing it.”
Helena watched Maryam’s speech with a ponderous expression. “Thank you, Maryam,” she said, and nodded.
With Borte temporarily admonished by one of the few forces in the universe she respected, the conversation and dinner slowly shifted towards a less uncanny or combative one. Discussions of knitting, card games, and old court gossip from Caladan was sometimes joined by anecdotes from random filmbook dramas (though Maryam insisted that those intrigue plots were overblown and unrealistic).
For once, Helena looked a little less shell-shocked, though Yakoba noticed that she still had a huge amount of nervous energy behind her posture. She kept shifting her eye position to see more of Yakoba from the corners of her eyes when she thought nobody was looking, as well. A common Bene Gesserit trick, yes, but why on her?
“Er... how’s Proctor Myuller?” Borte asked, this time swallowing food before asking. “Did she teach you any secret tricks?” A slight shrinking of Helena’s pupils could be seen– Yakoba hadn’t told her cellmate about her predicament yet.
Yakoba finished her last bite of dinner and put down her fork.
“Oh, nothing much so far when I go to her office. Just reviewing the basics of meditation and sometimes prana-bindu stuff.” She didn’t want to bring up that interrogation she was given to herself, much less to anyone else. Whatever was going on with that cross-eyed vision the proctor pulled out of her felt Other– like a terrible shadow lurking and ready to take her over.
Helena piped up. “Y-you’re being taught by Myuller directly? She’s terrifying!”
Yakoba put on a reassuring face. “She’s not all bad, Helena. I mean, she does constantly remind me of how I’m nowhere close to surviving a Humanity Test, and she does yell and use the Voice on me a lot, and sometimes she talks like I’m not actually there, but… well, yeah.” She paused, poking her food. “I guess she is kind of terrible, though she does seem to care about me.”
“Well, it’s been only about a week at most, right?” Maryam said. “Direct teaching takes time, and it really is more effective to learn the Way that way, one on one.” She looked at Yakoba with a kind face. “It sounds like she’s trying to speed your other studies up as well, is that right? You could catch up to us sooner than you think.”
A sympathy smile spread on Yakoba’s face. “Maybe so… Oh–” She paused to recollect the details. “Yesterday, she said she couldn’t see me on Monday the week after next. But she wants to arrange for me to go with her on a trip this Sunday.” She looked down at the empty plate, disappointed that the actual meal was finished.
“Really?” Borte said.
“Yeah, but I don’t know what kind of trip. She said it was too important for her not to do, and that I needed to come along.” Yakoba pushed a spare grain of rice around with her fork.
“I bet it’s a crime trip, right? You’re getting Myuller to help you run drugs for our new gang.”
Yakoba groaned. “We don’t have a gang, Borte!”
“And if we did, we don’t sell drugs,” Maryam interjected. “That’s irresponsible.”
Borte lowered her brow for a moment. “Well, I think we should have a gang, with a cool name like ‘Elacca Scrubbers’. We’ve got four people in the friend group now, right?” She winked at Helena, whose eyelids faintly twitched. “If there’s three witches, it’s a coven, and if it’s four friends, then it’s a gang.”
Helena balked. “I… find you all nice company, but I don’–“
Maryam glared at Borte again. “Borte, we are just a friend group. It’s not like we have to have it notarized somewhere, like if the two or three of you were appointed as my ladies-in-waiting.”
The patently ridiculous image of Borte and herself trying to blend in high society flashed through Yakoba’s mind– though, the idea of wearing some kind of tailored gown did seem nice.
“I’d rather not be part of a gang!” Helena squeaked. “Thank you for your company, Maryam, but I really mustbe going. I’ll see you at bedtime, right, Yakoba?” The tone was definitely pleading, bargaining even. Borte could be a pain and a handful, yes, but why was she so distraught?
The three stared with varying levels of concern and confusion as Helena gathered her things and left. For once, Borte kept quiet, simply finishing her food with one eye out for how far away Helena was from them.
Once she was gone from the hall, she spoke up again. “Well, she’s nice enough. Are you going to bring her every lunch?”
For once, Yakoba was the one flustered. “Bring her? She practically ambushed me and asked to come along. She didn’t know I was going to sit with you two.”
A split-second expression of surprise turned to amusement on her round face. “Oh! Ohhhh!” Then, a half-barking chuckle. “Well, let her down easy when it comes time, Yak.”
Before she could process Borte’s reaction, Maryam interrupted, expression as sober as ever. “Once you’re back from your trip Sunday, the three of us must take time to talk. There are some… things I need to discuss with you two, at the same time, especially after what happened. Can you arrange with Sister Atti to let us meet at her place?”
Yakoba sighed. “You’ve asked that dozens of times, it’s the same answer! You know that she only hosts adopted initiates.” She paused. “And, Borte’s also explicitly been banned, regardless of whatever rank she attains.”
Maryam sat back with some resignation. “Well, I will figure out some other arrangement, or we will just sit outside if it comes to that.” She turned to Borte. “Do you have any ideas?”
For once, Borte was introspective. “…There’s a backroom used for repairs in the filmbook library. I think I know where to get the keys. And a carafe. You’ll need at least water after your trip, Yakoba, right?” She stood up, an audible warped hum coming from her medical-grade suspensor belt. Against their best judgement, the sisters at the infirmary decided to give her one to lighten her step while her feet continued to heal.
“I guess,” Yakoba said. “I think we’ll be going to the city, from what she implied.”
“You’ll have to tell us all about it, just have to!” she said, scarred face smiling. Borte swept her tray away, and with a light-footed limp bobbed off to an exit.
Maryam kept talking as the other two grabbed their own things. “I know it hasn’t been the best situation for you lately, Yakoba. I really hope it turns in your favor soon. And you’re already getting moved to a higher set of prana-bindu courses next month, right? That’s excellent!” Yakoba followed Maryam out between the other tables full of students, keeping an awkward shuffle to match the girl’s shorter legs.
She looked over her shoulder at Yakoba and smiled as they dropped off their trays. “You’re learning exceptionally well, Yak. I really hope I’ll see you in the same classes as us at some point. You’re a whole lot more than what you think of yourself.” Something about how she said it made it feel both sincere and hollow at the same time.
Yakoba’s feet slowed as a feeling of frustrated dread passed over her. Something, too many things, were being hidden from her, and at the same time this charade was going on, she felt like she was being dragged first by Myuller, and now by her best friends into assuming terrible purposes meant for somebody else. The weight of it all felt like a knife’s edge under her feet, just like with Borte’s injuries, and she was already too weary to dance on it any further.
She kept walking behind them.
Chapter 13 Selected Glossary
- Powindah:
- Pejorative Bene Tleilax term for those not from their society, rarely used in the presence of outsiders. Often translated as "unclean," "filthy," "unbeliever," "infidel," or "impure" in the very rare case that an Islamiyat-to-Galach translation is needed.