D U N E
- ☾ -
D
une was not proud of his name. He didn’t dislike it either, it was just… it was just a collection of letters. And while he had grudgingly come to identify with those four letters, they didn’t really mean anything other than their definition: a huge pile of sand. So it does not warm him at all to hear she likes his name, or dunes in general, except for the wry amusement that comes with trying to remember what it felt like to be so young. To be the age where what you liked- or did not like- carried such heft. Before you had time, and experience, and oh-so-many mistakes with which to define yourself.“I’ve never listened to the dunes though, Dune. What do they sound like?”
What did the dunes sound like? Well, he had never considered it. It was like describing the scent of the sea or the color of the sky just before sunrise- things like that are better left to the poets, in Dune’s opinion. “They’re quiet, mostly. More quiet than field or forest. But when the sand’s just so, and the wind blows just right, they sing.” It was an eerie, keening kind of singing that he was not fond of- it reminded him too much of nightmares. But there was something spectacular about it all the same, something that should be experienced. “I... I could show you, if you like.” It would look wildly inappropriate to leave the party with a little girl, but Elliana was not just any little girl, or at least that's what he told himself.
Whatever makes you sleep at night, etc.
He leads the way through the crowd and into the night. Here by the Ieshan's estate, the sounds of the party overflow into the broad walkways. Crickets and frogs, lured by the lush landscaping, sing away mindlessly. But outside the city, the hush of the desert is absolute- and if they walk far enough, and if they're lucky enough, they will reach the place where the sand sings.
And what on earth are dreams if not our only way of speaking?
