“Dune” is the kind of low-class name common in his rough and tumble neighborhood, an epithet completely without imagination; he was acquainted with dozens of Suns, Sunnys, Rockys, Sandys, Sols, Sages. Desert children born of parents pressed too thin to attempt something original; they looked up and stated the first thing they saw.
His name didn’t bother him-- he had enough problems, real ones, to spare concern for anything so trivial-- but the way the dreamer says his name catches his attention. It does not have the sneer the older (and, often, richer) children used when laughing “Dune the Loon!” It does not sound tired, or pitying, or full of scorn. No, it floats the scant distance between them something light and gentle. The sweetness of it almost shatters him; he was so very unaccustomed to kindness.
She says it suits him. Perhaps it’s meant as a complement but he treats it with skepticism, brow furrowed with uncertainty-- What does that mean? How do you know?
Am I like so many grains of sand?
He does not reassure her you can dream whoever you wish to dream and he does not reveal that he is not, in fact, a figment of the dream but an intruder. It doesn't matter. He's still thinking, perhaps with too much self-absorbsion, how his name suits him, until she steps forward again.
The ponderous expression snaps into one of surprise. The boy inhales sharply as she reaches out, but he doesn’t step away, not immediately. Tension mounts in his limbs, ready to spring away like a wild animal, but he lets himself be touched.
The dreamer would find Dune terribly normal to the touch. Warm flesh, firm muscle, no magic here, no element of dreaming. He doesn’t think to reinvent himself here, to present something… more to the dreamer who had given him the seawater cave with its strange lights, stranger trees. Gone were the days of starvation, but the body clings to its trauma; he would always be lean, almost gaunt, even after long years of labor sculpted knotted layers of muscle beneath the skin. Her touch on his shoulder draws the attention to the stark differences between them. She is so open, so delicate, so (seemingly) innocent. He would be shocked to learn she is his elder, if only by a season. Between them lies a sea of difference: she was born and raised a princess, he a pauper.
But, actually, between them lies not much of anything at all. She’s closer than sunlight now, sweet as date syrup, oblivious to the quake of his heart, filling his ears with ringing. It hurts his head, that pleasant smile she wears, and he takes a few trembling steps back. His muzzle lowers to his chest, the same gesture he made when introducing himself, and then gestures to her, reaching out to gently bump her satin skin before drawing back once again. As though her name was physically rooted there in the chest. Search for it, read it out loud-- what does it say, scrawled on the inside of your breast?
Suddenly, an eruption of birds from an upside-down tree. There is a flurry of angry chirping as the tiny creatures, iridescent wings sharp and jagged as broken glass, swoop and scream and scurry over the heads of the dreamer and Dune. He watches, enraptured but wary, attention lingering always on the periphery. If this girl, for all her sweetness, dreamed of birds with wings to cut, what beasts did she imagine feasted on these creatures?
There were dark shadows here, somewhere. He was certain of it.
His name didn’t bother him-- he had enough problems, real ones, to spare concern for anything so trivial-- but the way the dreamer says his name catches his attention. It does not have the sneer the older (and, often, richer) children used when laughing “Dune the Loon!” It does not sound tired, or pitying, or full of scorn. No, it floats the scant distance between them something light and gentle. The sweetness of it almost shatters him; he was so very unaccustomed to kindness.
She says it suits him. Perhaps it’s meant as a complement but he treats it with skepticism, brow furrowed with uncertainty-- What does that mean? How do you know?
Am I like so many grains of sand?
He does not reassure her you can dream whoever you wish to dream and he does not reveal that he is not, in fact, a figment of the dream but an intruder. It doesn't matter. He's still thinking, perhaps with too much self-absorbsion, how his name suits him, until she steps forward again.
The ponderous expression snaps into one of surprise. The boy inhales sharply as she reaches out, but he doesn’t step away, not immediately. Tension mounts in his limbs, ready to spring away like a wild animal, but he lets himself be touched.
The dreamer would find Dune terribly normal to the touch. Warm flesh, firm muscle, no magic here, no element of dreaming. He doesn’t think to reinvent himself here, to present something… more to the dreamer who had given him the seawater cave with its strange lights, stranger trees. Gone were the days of starvation, but the body clings to its trauma; he would always be lean, almost gaunt, even after long years of labor sculpted knotted layers of muscle beneath the skin. Her touch on his shoulder draws the attention to the stark differences between them. She is so open, so delicate, so (seemingly) innocent. He would be shocked to learn she is his elder, if only by a season. Between them lies a sea of difference: she was born and raised a princess, he a pauper.
But, actually, between them lies not much of anything at all. She’s closer than sunlight now, sweet as date syrup, oblivious to the quake of his heart, filling his ears with ringing. It hurts his head, that pleasant smile she wears, and he takes a few trembling steps back. His muzzle lowers to his chest, the same gesture he made when introducing himself, and then gestures to her, reaching out to gently bump her satin skin before drawing back once again. As though her name was physically rooted there in the chest. Search for it, read it out loud-- what does it say, scrawled on the inside of your breast?
Suddenly, an eruption of birds from an upside-down tree. There is a flurry of angry chirping as the tiny creatures, iridescent wings sharp and jagged as broken glass, swoop and scream and scurry over the heads of the dreamer and Dune. He watches, enraptured but wary, attention lingering always on the periphery. If this girl, for all her sweetness, dreamed of birds with wings to cut, what beasts did she imagine feasted on these creatures?
There were dark shadows here, somewhere. He was certain of it.
@
