Rin Taal
Guide, rescuer, and musician
Rin listened through Muad's answer without trying to interrupt him, though the gradual tightening of her fingers around his offered a quiet indication that she was following more than merely the words. She understood the shape of his argument even where she did not entirely share it. Muad spoke from experience, and experience had taught him to distrust promises offered by institutions large enough to forget the individuals beneath them. Rin had lived long enough to understand that instinct herself. She had watched governments rise beneath declarations of noble purpose and watched others collapse beneath the weight of what those purposes became once power, fear, ambition, and simple convenience entered the equation. None of that made her eager to place Veradune beneath another banner, but neither did it make her willing to decide the Republic's intentions before its actions had fully revealed them.
"I don't think anyone is asking you to keep looking forever." Her thumb moved once against the side of his hand before she glanced toward Marta and Chek, including them in the thought rather than speaking as though their opinions belonged to her. "And I don't think Veradune should stay somewhere simply because leaving would be difficult. But there is a difference between knowing what someone might become and knowing what they are. If the Republic gives us reason enough to leave, then that becomes part of the decision our people make." A faint smile touched her mouth before she looked back at Muad. "You don't have to convince me that governments can disappoint people. I've been around long enough to have noticed."
His apology softened her expression more than the argument preceding it had. Rin knew enough of Muad by now to understand that the force behind his words had not come entirely from politics. He was talking about people he considered his own, and beneath all the cynicism and certainty lay the simple fact that he did not want them used, discarded, or hurt in the ways he had been. The dyad made that harder to overlook than it might once have been. Rin did not need to pull at the connection or deliberately search him to catch impressions that escaped through it, and affection moved through her before she could decide whether she particularly wanted him noticing that in return. "I know." The words were quieter. "Getting worked up because you don't want your people hurt is hardly the worst flaw you could have." Her eyes warmed with amusement. "I'm sure I can think of several others if you'd like."
Muad's question about the festival drew Rin's attention toward Marta and Chek. They had been here for far more of it than she had, and whatever answer they offered would carry considerably more weight than anything Rin could provide from her own brief experience. His next request, however, was something she could answer without stealing the question from them. When he tilted the empty glass and asked whether being cut off from Chek's alcohol extended to water, Rin gave his hand one last squeeze before releasing it and rising from her seat. "Water, I think we can safely allow." The amusement remained in her voice as she moved to retrieve it, leaving Marta and Chek the opportunity to explain the festival and whatever purpose lay behind it while she saw to their guest.
By the time Rin returned with the water, Muad had turned the conversation toward an invitation of his own. She slowed slightly as she listened, not because the offer surprised her but because she recognized the sincerity beneath his humor almost immediately. Siskeen was his home, his people, and he was offering Marta and Chek a place within it for however long a visit might last. There was something unexpectedly pleasing about hearing him invite two people who had mattered to Rin for so much of her life into another part of his. She set the water within his reach with a small smile before reclaiming her place beside him. "I think you'd find plenty there worth seeing." Her gaze moved toward Marta and Chek before returning to Muad. "And I'd like that."
The admission was simple because there was no reason for it not to be. Rin could imagine Chek among the forges Muad described, exchanging techniques with smiths who might have decades of experience and still seem impossibly young beside him. Marta would find her own interests, because Marta invariably did, and the thought of showing them another place that had become connected to Muad felt less strange than Rin might once have expected. His threat to locate something stronger than whatever Chek had already inflicted upon him earned a quiet laugh, though she suspected that particular contest could become dangerous for everyone involved if either man took it seriously.
Conversation continued around them, but Rin eventually noticed Muad had grown quieter. His attention had settled upon Marta and Chek, and following his gaze made it easy enough to understand why. There was nothing grand in the way the couple existed beside one another. Chek did not need to reach constantly for Marta, nor she for him. A glance carried whole conversations. A touch could be absent-minded and intimate at once. Their teasing possessed the confidence of two people who had learned centuries ago that disagreement did not threaten what lay beneath it. Rin had known them long enough that much of it usually escaped notice, as familiar as the shape of Chek's forge or the sound of Marta moving through their home. Seeing them through Muad's attention made her look again.
Then he looked at her.
The dyad made the moment considerably harder to dismiss than a glance should have been. Something shifted across the connection, warm and unexpectedly deep, carrying affection threaded through with an emotion Rin could not quite name before her own awareness brushed against it. She did not reach farther. The bond had already taught her that closeness did not grant permission, and whatever thought had brought that particular feeling into Muad belonged to him until he chose otherwise. But her pulse still changed beneath his gaze, and awareness of his hand beside hers became suddenly, inconveniently precise.
Rin had been attracted to him before the dyad. She had known that much long before she was prepared to examine what else had begun growing around it. The connection had only made pretending easier in some ways and impossible in others. There were moments when she caught the heat of his attention before she saw it upon his face, moments when some echo of her own desire crossed the bond quickly enough to make her wonder which of them had begun it. Nothing had happened between them that gave either a claim upon the other, and Rin was not certain yet what she wanted to happen. She only knew that when Muad looked at her now, after watching two people who had spent centuries choosing one another, something inside her answered strongly enough that she was grateful Marta and Chek could not feel the dyad too.
Her gaze remained on his for a few seconds longer than necessary. Then Rin's hand shifted the small distance separating them until her fingers found his again, her thumb tracing lightly across his knuckles in an almost unconscious answer to whatever had passed between them. She did not ask what he had been thinking. She did not need to turn every feeling between them into a question simply because the dyad made it possible to know one was there. Instead, she let the moment remain what it was, something warm and unfinished between them, and a small smile softened her face as she glanced toward the glass she had brought him.
"Better?"
The question was innocent enough. The warmth still moving quietly through the dyad was considerably less so.
Muad Dib
"I don't think anyone is asking you to keep looking forever." Her thumb moved once against the side of his hand before she glanced toward Marta and Chek, including them in the thought rather than speaking as though their opinions belonged to her. "And I don't think Veradune should stay somewhere simply because leaving would be difficult. But there is a difference between knowing what someone might become and knowing what they are. If the Republic gives us reason enough to leave, then that becomes part of the decision our people make." A faint smile touched her mouth before she looked back at Muad. "You don't have to convince me that governments can disappoint people. I've been around long enough to have noticed."
His apology softened her expression more than the argument preceding it had. Rin knew enough of Muad by now to understand that the force behind his words had not come entirely from politics. He was talking about people he considered his own, and beneath all the cynicism and certainty lay the simple fact that he did not want them used, discarded, or hurt in the ways he had been. The dyad made that harder to overlook than it might once have been. Rin did not need to pull at the connection or deliberately search him to catch impressions that escaped through it, and affection moved through her before she could decide whether she particularly wanted him noticing that in return. "I know." The words were quieter. "Getting worked up because you don't want your people hurt is hardly the worst flaw you could have." Her eyes warmed with amusement. "I'm sure I can think of several others if you'd like."
Muad's question about the festival drew Rin's attention toward Marta and Chek. They had been here for far more of it than she had, and whatever answer they offered would carry considerably more weight than anything Rin could provide from her own brief experience. His next request, however, was something she could answer without stealing the question from them. When he tilted the empty glass and asked whether being cut off from Chek's alcohol extended to water, Rin gave his hand one last squeeze before releasing it and rising from her seat. "Water, I think we can safely allow." The amusement remained in her voice as she moved to retrieve it, leaving Marta and Chek the opportunity to explain the festival and whatever purpose lay behind it while she saw to their guest.
By the time Rin returned with the water, Muad had turned the conversation toward an invitation of his own. She slowed slightly as she listened, not because the offer surprised her but because she recognized the sincerity beneath his humor almost immediately. Siskeen was his home, his people, and he was offering Marta and Chek a place within it for however long a visit might last. There was something unexpectedly pleasing about hearing him invite two people who had mattered to Rin for so much of her life into another part of his. She set the water within his reach with a small smile before reclaiming her place beside him. "I think you'd find plenty there worth seeing." Her gaze moved toward Marta and Chek before returning to Muad. "And I'd like that."
The admission was simple because there was no reason for it not to be. Rin could imagine Chek among the forges Muad described, exchanging techniques with smiths who might have decades of experience and still seem impossibly young beside him. Marta would find her own interests, because Marta invariably did, and the thought of showing them another place that had become connected to Muad felt less strange than Rin might once have expected. His threat to locate something stronger than whatever Chek had already inflicted upon him earned a quiet laugh, though she suspected that particular contest could become dangerous for everyone involved if either man took it seriously.
Conversation continued around them, but Rin eventually noticed Muad had grown quieter. His attention had settled upon Marta and Chek, and following his gaze made it easy enough to understand why. There was nothing grand in the way the couple existed beside one another. Chek did not need to reach constantly for Marta, nor she for him. A glance carried whole conversations. A touch could be absent-minded and intimate at once. Their teasing possessed the confidence of two people who had learned centuries ago that disagreement did not threaten what lay beneath it. Rin had known them long enough that much of it usually escaped notice, as familiar as the shape of Chek's forge or the sound of Marta moving through their home. Seeing them through Muad's attention made her look again.
Then he looked at her.
The dyad made the moment considerably harder to dismiss than a glance should have been. Something shifted across the connection, warm and unexpectedly deep, carrying affection threaded through with an emotion Rin could not quite name before her own awareness brushed against it. She did not reach farther. The bond had already taught her that closeness did not grant permission, and whatever thought had brought that particular feeling into Muad belonged to him until he chose otherwise. But her pulse still changed beneath his gaze, and awareness of his hand beside hers became suddenly, inconveniently precise.
Rin had been attracted to him before the dyad. She had known that much long before she was prepared to examine what else had begun growing around it. The connection had only made pretending easier in some ways and impossible in others. There were moments when she caught the heat of his attention before she saw it upon his face, moments when some echo of her own desire crossed the bond quickly enough to make her wonder which of them had begun it. Nothing had happened between them that gave either a claim upon the other, and Rin was not certain yet what she wanted to happen. She only knew that when Muad looked at her now, after watching two people who had spent centuries choosing one another, something inside her answered strongly enough that she was grateful Marta and Chek could not feel the dyad too.
Her gaze remained on his for a few seconds longer than necessary. Then Rin's hand shifted the small distance separating them until her fingers found his again, her thumb tracing lightly across his knuckles in an almost unconscious answer to whatever had passed between them. She did not ask what he had been thinking. She did not need to turn every feeling between them into a question simply because the dyad made it possible to know one was there. Instead, she let the moment remain what it was, something warm and unfinished between them, and a small smile softened her face as she glanced toward the glass she had brought him.
"Better?"
The question was innocent enough. The warmth still moving quietly through the dyad was considerably less so.
Muad Dib
