Private Tit For Tat

Muad Dib · Thursday at 8:39 PM

He awoke slowly. The silk sheets of the bed hugged his body with a velvety caress. Not as soft as the skin belonging to the woman nestled against his chest. Her golden hair lay splayed along the pillow with more than a few strands straying across her face. Gently, his fingers gathered them back behind her ear before leaving a feathered kiss against her forehead. With conscious effort, he eased from the bed, trying not to wake her from deep slumber. When he passed the dresser, he claimed his dark trousers and cream colored tunic. He paused in the doorway of the bedroom, watching her in the embrace of a restful sleep. Carefully he closed the door behind him before turning to the large living room adjacent to the sleeping quarters.

They had arrived on Olanet the night before, caught in torrential rain that drowned every detail of the outside, in hurricane-force winds. The lights were off when they entered the doors on the eastern side of the palatial mansion; floor-to-ceiling transparent steel glass would have allowed the evening stars and moons to cast a luminous glow on the neighboring garden and reveal the interior. But the storm kept everything shrouded. Instead, they eased through the shadowed living room that Derek affectionately called his war room.

It was anything but a war room. Where the glass walls revealed the landing pad outside before nearing a stone wall perimeter against the edge of a cliff that overlooked the ocean, the interior held a long dining table of mahogany with twelve equally ornate chairs along its length. Near the corner opposite where the guest bedroom lay was a massive desk with piles of papers littering the gargantuan frame. A chair lay tucked behind it. But it was the other half of the room both brothers appreciated. The marble floors stepped down into the rest of the room. Opposite the glass wall was a magnificent fireplace, a mantle with several items of personal interest. Several static pictures of adults and children smiling hung in the frames, while miscellaneous items littered the space between. An old pocket watch, the exterior scratched from long use. A journal with an imprint of a torch on the old cream colored leather. A small crystal that glowed red. Even a clock at the center, made entirely of crystal and glass. Each tick of the second hand released a faint chime.

On either side of the fireplace, and well above the mantle, were bookshelves filled with innumerable volumes that stretched two stories into the solid beams of the rafters upwards. An old ladder attached to the shelves on either side. In front of the white balinka rug placed before the fireplace was a large sectional, each end curving out with an equal stretch of couch. A glass coffee table ran the length of the sectional; more artifacts and books cluttered the surface. It could easily have been mistaken for a library due to the sheer number of books. Two stories up hung a pair of massive chandeliers, intricate crystals hanging delicately from gold cordage. Every crystal glowed with a soft yellow ambient light, which transformed the otherwise imposing room into a cozy, intimate space.

Muad pulled his pants on, securing the belt and his ever-present kal at the small of his back, before slipping the tunic over his head. Hands shoved the sleeves up as he silently padded over to a long hallway beside the desk. Down the long corridor, he shook his head at the sounds of several offices busy at work. When he became senator, he swore there was no way he was going to go into the "office". So he brought the office to him. Half the mansion had turned large bedrooms, dining rooms, and other rooms he had no idea what the purpose was for, into remote offices for advisors and the like. Thankfully, Derek had the same idea when he was senator, so the rooms were already prepared.

But it was the weekend, and any work the members on his staff performed was meant not to bother him with anything, sort of an invasion. With half the mansion renovated into workspace, it still left nearly ten thousand feet for privacy. He entered a small alcove in the kitchen and started making something to eat, planning to return to the war room. Then, if Rin hadn't roused and begun exploring, he would wake her gently.

Rin Taal

Rin Taal · Thursday at 9:48 PM

Rin did not wake when Muad slipped from beneath the sheets. She had slept more deeply than she expected, lulled by the steady rhythm of the rain against the windows and the familiar presence beside her. Sometime during the night, she had apparently migrated closer, finding his warmth without ever consciously deciding to do so. It was becoming an increasingly familiar habit, one she suspected Marta would have found deeply amusing after their conversation. The brush of his fingers through her hair and the kiss against her forehead stirred something at the edge of sleep, but not enough to pull her completely from it. She shifted into the warmth he left behind instead, one hand settling where his chest had been before sleep claimed her again.

It wasn't until several minutes later that Rin became aware that something was missing. Her brow furrowed against the pillow before golden eyes slowly opened, finding an unfamiliar room washed in the soft gray light of morning. For one confused moment, she couldn't remember where she was. Then Olanet returned to her in pieces, beginning with the storm that had battered their arrival the previous evening and the mansion they had barely been able to appreciate through the darkness and rain. The next memory came with the realization that the other half of the bed was empty, though the lingering warmth beneath her hand told her Muad had not been gone for long. Through the bond, she could feel him nearby, awake and perfectly well, which dispelled any concern before it could form.

Rin remained where she was for another moment, looking at the indentation he had left in the pillow. After everything Marta had told them, she had expected the connection to feel somehow different once they left Veradune. Instead, it felt remarkably ordinary. Muad was simply there, resting somewhere at the edge of her awareness without intruding upon her thoughts. There was comfort in it she hadn't anticipated, particularly after learning just how extraordinary their connection might become. Marta's warning remained with her, but so did the far simpler truth Rin had carried away from the conversation. Whatever the Force had done to connect them, everything they chose to place within that connection remained theirs. She had meant what she told him. She would have chosen him anyway.

A small smile found her as she finally pushed herself upright and swept the loose fall of hair away from her face. Much of her long, warm brown hair, threaded naturally with lighter sandy-blonde and sun-gold strands, had escaped its braids during the night. Several loosened sections hung around her shoulders while wisps framed her face, leaving the rest in a state that would require patience and a mirror to properly repair. Rin looked down at herself, then toward the closed door, and briefly entertained the idea of simply remaining exactly where and as she was. The bed was exceptionally comfortable, the storm had left the morning cool, and she could feel Muad somewhere beyond the bedroom. Unfortunately, the faint smell of food eventually reached her, providing an argument even the bed couldn't overcome.

She dressed in the clothing she had abandoned the night before, taking enough time to gather her hair into some semblance of order before quietly opening the bedroom door. Only then did Rin get her first proper look at the room they had crossed in darkness the previous evening, and she stopped just beyond the doorway as her gaze traveled upward. She had known the mansion was large. That had been difficult to miss even in the middle of a storm, but knowing something and actually seeing it were very different experiences. The scale of the room alone made her pause, though it was not the marble, chandeliers, or expensive furnishings that held her attention for long.

The books caught her first. There were enough of them to make Rin temporarily forget the sheer scale of everything else around her. Her gaze followed the shelves upward toward the rafters, lingering upon the ladders before dropping to the fireplace and the collection arranged across its mantle. Those interested her even more than the grandeur of the room. The mansion itself spoke of wealth, but the battered pocket watch, old journal, photographs, and peculiar little objects spoke of people. Someone had chosen to keep each one. Someone remembered where it came from and why it mattered. Rin found herself drifting closer, careful not to touch anything as she studied the photographs, then the strange red crystal, before her attention settled upon the delicate clock at the center. Its quiet chime seemed almost impossibly small inside such a massive room, and for several moments she was content simply to listen to it while taking in pieces of a home that already told her more about its occupants than the size of the building ever could.

The sound of movement elsewhere finally reminded her that she had originally come out looking for someone. She followed the smell of food toward the kitchen, although the bond made locating Muad considerably easier than following her nose. Rin slowed when she found him in the alcove, content for a few seconds to lean lightly against the entrance and watch him without announcing herself. There was something almost amusingly domestic about the sight after the strange road that had brought them here. She had met him bleeding beside a crashed ship, traveled with him through danger, watched him nearly die and then somehow found herself sharing a bed with him without either of them quite understanding when that had begun to feel normal. They had not crossed the lines that might ordinarily be assumed from that arrangement, despite Muad's remarkable inability to explain it to anyone without making it sound otherwise. Somehow that made the simple intimacy of waking beside him feel more meaningful rather than less. Now he was standing in a kitchen making something to eat as though this were simply another morning, and Rin found herself liking the sight more than she probably should have.

Her smile deepened before she finally spoke, the familiar words coming so naturally that she barely thought about them. "There you are." Hearing herself say it brought Marta immediately to mind, and the realization warmed something inside her. She had carried those three words away from Veradune long before she ever understood how deeply the older woman had shaped her. Now they had followed Rin across the galaxy and somehow found Muad too.

She stepped farther into the kitchen, still looking faintly sleep-tousled despite her efforts to repair her hair, and glanced toward whatever he was preparing. "I was beginning to think the bed had eaten you. Which would have been unfortunate, because I was actually getting used to having you there." Her ears warmed almost immediately at her own admission, but Rin refused to retreat from it. After everything they had discussed with Marta and Chek, pretending she hadn't grown accustomed to his presence seemed rather pointless. There was a difference between admitting she liked waking beside him and pretending they had crossed a line they had not, and for once she wasn't going to let embarrassment turn something simple into something complicated.

Rin moved beside him and glanced toward the corridor she had noticed on her way in, faint sounds carrying from somewhere deeper within the enormous house. There were clearly people awake and working despite the hour and what she understood to be the weekend, which sharpened her curiosity. "I thought this was supposed to be your brother's home. I didn't realize we'd wandered into a government building last night." There was humor in the observation rather than criticism, though curiosity drew her eyes toward the corridor again before she looked back at Muad. "There are people working down there, aren't there?" The idea that someone had apparently decided the easiest solution to avoiding an office was to put the office inside the house struck Rin as the sort of logic she suspected made considerably more sense to Muad than it did to her.

Her attention wandered back toward the vast room beyond the kitchen while she waited, and this time the morning light drew her gaze past the furnishings to the towering transparent walls. The storm had hidden almost everything when they arrived, reducing the outside world to darkness, rain, and fleeting shapes beyond the glass. Now Rin could finally see what had been concealed from her. Her eyes caught first upon the grounds immediately outside, lingering on a garden she hadn't known existed before traveling farther toward the stone perimeter. Beyond it, the land seemed to simply disappear, giving way to an immense stretch of water extending toward the horizon. The discovery held her for several seconds. She hadn't known either was there, and quiet wonder softened her features as she took in the view. Apparently the books weren't going to be the only thing capable of distracting her for hours.

Food eventually won enough of her attention back for Rin to reach over and steal a small piece of whatever was easiest to claim. Her expression remained perfectly innocent as she sampled it, although the quick flick of her golden eyes toward Muad suggested she knew precisely what she was doing. "You were taking too long." The excuse came before any accusation could possibly be made, and she leaned lightly against the counter as she chewed. Her gaze wandered over him for another moment before softening. There was something peaceful about seeing him like this, away from ruins, caravans, artifacts, and battles. Marta and Chek's words returned to her unexpectedly, particularly the reminder that a life containing violence did not have to belong entirely to violence. Rin had understood the lesson when they shared it, but standing here now made it feel less abstract. Peace did not necessarily mean abandoning everything they were. Sometimes perhaps it was only this, a quiet morning stolen between whatever waited on either side of it.

She bumped her shoulder gently against his arm before tipping her head toward the enormous room behind them. "So, once you feed me, you're showing me around." Her gaze drifted toward the windows again, amusement and curiosity brightening her golden eyes. "Because I saw almost nothing when we arrived, and you've brought an explorer into a house with two stories of books. I've also just discovered there's an entire garden outside and apparently an ocean at the bottom of the property." Her attention returned to him with a small smile, the excitement of discovering somewhere new already beginning to push away the last remnants of sleep. "You really should have anticipated the consequences."

For all her eagerness, Rin made no immediate move toward the door or the shelves. Instead, she remained beside him, comfortably close without needing to think about exactly how close that had become. There would be time enough for the books, the strange objects on the mantle, the garden and whatever lay beyond the edge of the property. For now, there was breakfast, a quiet morning after the storm, and the warmth of Muad's presence resting against hers through a connection they were only beginning to understand. After Marta and Chek's warnings, Rin knew there were questions ahead of them that neither could answer yet, but she also knew they didn't need to answer all of them at once. Sometimes the next mile could simply begin with breakfast.

Muad Dib

Muad Dib · Thursday at 10:44 PM

It had grown amazingly familiar, the way he could sense the moment she stirred from sleep. The grin tugging at his lips as he caught a glimpse of a reflection- the untidy mane of her hair- could not be suppressed. However, he did consciously remove his sight from hers. After everything discussed in the mountainside kitchen, he still felt a bit of wonder at their bond. And he looked forward to exploring it further still.

One skillet held the makings of several omelets while the other cooked the meat. Bacon, sausage links, and slices of nerf steak simmered away as he felt her presence behind him. This wasn't due to their connection but thanks to his nose. The familiar scent of sandalwood and vanilla managed to pierce the haze of cooking food. When she appeared beside him, snatching a piece of bacon, he let out a little growl. "You should wait for the chef to finish. Although I'm not wearing the apron that demands the cook gets a kiss. It should still count." He winked at her as he turned off the range and grabbed the skillets before leading the way back to the long lacquered table beside the glass walls. The pans were distributed onto the table without any cloth to keep the heated metal from the wood.

"Don't worry about the varnish. Derek took care of that a long time ago." He moved to the wall behind the desk and touched a spot that raised it, revealing fine china and cutlery. He collected enough for three before returning to the table. "I'm glad it was storming last night. Otherwise I would never have been able to get you into bed before exploring became the first thing on your mind." He tossed her a pointed wink and a smile, clearly too satisfied with what he said. Once the table was set, he moved to where she was still glancing at the view outside and wrapped his arms around her waist. Their foreheads found the comfortable pose against one another.

"You know, I have this insatiable appetite. I wonder where it came from …" His nose caressed her cheek as his lips angled for her ear.

"It's probably because your diet consists of what normal people would toss in the recycle bin." The voice came from across the room; the deep bass timbre sounded like Muad, yet different. It was the difference between rotgut whiskey and a fine wine allowed to breathe the appropriate amount of time. Muad smirked as he pulled back from Rin, the teasing intention of what he was about to do clearly evident in his eyes. "Rin Taal, meet Derek Dib. My much older brother."

A deep laugh followed Derek as he walked across the marble floor. He was dressed formally: black slacks, a jacket, and a buttoned-up shirt with only the top button unclasped. The color accented his equally dark hair and stubble. He was paler than Muad. But the most striking difference between the two was the eyes. Where Muad's glowed a bright blue, Derek's eyes burned a deep crimson like the coals in a fire. However, the genuine smile on his face disarmed the stern gaze and sharp features.

"If I'm older, then I am a fine wine. You, sir, are moonshine fresh from the still." Muad disengaged himself from Rin's body and slipped into one of the ornate chairs, a smirk on his face. Derek approached and extended a hand to Rin before taking her fingers and raising her hand to kiss the back of her hand lightly. "A pleasure, Miss Taal. It is, Miss, correct." His eyes flashed a bright red for a moment before releasing her hand and moving to the other side of the table where Muad had placed the third set of dishes. "You realize I can still kill you? At the very least, I can poke some holes in your ego and let you deflate some. But the smell would be horrible."

The brothers glared at one another, each reaching for the cutlery. Derek gripped a knife. Muad a spoon. The tension mounted for several seconds before Derek glanced down and saw what item Muad held. Then a small smile etched his lips upward.

"You cheated, bastard."
"Whore."
"Warmonger."
"Is that an insult? Slimy politician."
"That one doesn't count. You're the senator, I'm merely the president."
"It still stands."
"Touche."

As Derek divided the food between the plates, Muad reached out and found Rin's hand, even as he slouched in his chair. Derek's crimson gaze took in the gesture while he finished with the food and sat.

"Serious?"
"As a Jawa arm wrestling a Wookiee."
"That is the most decidedly vivid picture you have described."
"I'm in."
"Is she?"
"Why don't you ask her yourself?"

Derek steepled his fingers in front of his face, eyes peering over the top, as he looked Rin in the eyes and asked, "What are your intentions with my baby brother?" The slight curve of a smile twitched the edges of his lips as he waited for a response. Muad merely smirked beside Rin, absolutely no help at all.

Rin Taal

Rin Taal · Thursday at 11:19 PM

Rin's gaze followed Muad as he carried the skillets toward the table, though the faint smile on her lips had considerably more to do with his comment about the apron than breakfast. She stole another bite from the strip of bacon in her hand and made no effort whatsoever to look repentant. The view beyond the glass kept drawing her attention back, mostly because she was finally able to see what the storm had hidden from her the night before. She had known the house was large from the portions they had crossed upon arriving, but daylight gave her the first real sense of just how different this place was from the homes carved into the mountains or nestled among the forests of Veradune.

His comment about getting her into bed earned him an immediate sideways look. "You make that sound considerably more impressive than it was." The warmth beginning at the tips of her ears betrayed her despite the dryness of her response. "There was a storm outside, it was late, and I was tired. You did not overcome some great obstacle." The last of the bacon disappeared into her mouth before she added through their bond, Although you're right. I would have explored.

Rin had only just turned toward him when his arms settled around her waist. There had been a time, not very long ago at all, when that kind of easy closeness would have startled her. Now she relaxed against him almost before she consciously decided to do so, her hands settling lightly against his arms while their foreheads came together. The warmth of him at her back was familiar after the nights they had spent sleeping beside one another, but being held by him while fully awake was something else entirely. Something she was still learning how to accept without examining it until all the warmth had been reasoned out of it.

His nose brushing her cheek brought the color in her ears a little higher, especially when his voice dropped near one pointed ear. She could already feel the direction his thoughts were taking and had just begun turning her head toward him when another voice cut across the room. Rin went still, her eyes shifting toward the newcomer first and then immediately back to Muad when the introduction came. For several seconds she simply looked between the two men. There was enough similarity that she could believe the relationship once it had been named, despite the differences between them, but one particular word caught and held her attention.

"Older brother?"

The question escaped before she could stop it. Her golden eyes moved from Derek to Muad and back again, and the confusion in her expression only deepened. Muad had told her enough about his age that she had finally accepted, somewhat reluctantly, that the human beside her had somehow lived for roughly a millennium. That alone had raised questions she had not yet gotten around to asking. Discovering that there was an older brother standing in front of her immediately added several more. Rin had spent long enough among species with wildly different lifespans that longevity itself wasn't particularly strange to her, but humans were another matter entirely. She knew enough about them to know this was not normal.

Are humans supposed to live this long now? The thought escaped across the dyad before she could contain it, carrying with it a vivid mixture of curiosity and disbelief. Her eyes narrowed slightly at Muad as another followed. Because I feel like this is something you neglected to mention.

There would be time to interrogate him later. For now, Rin accepted Derek's offered hand, only to find herself caught slightly off guard when he raised it to his lips rather than simply shaking it. The gesture was formal enough that she recovered quickly, though her ears still warmed faintly. "Rin is fine. And yes, Miss, technically." A small smile appeared as she withdrew her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

Then the brothers started insulting one another, and Rin slowly lowered herself into her chair while watching the exchange unfold, her expression moving from uncertainty to growing amusement. By the time Muad answered a knife with a spoon, she was openly smiling. There was something almost reassuring about it. Whatever strange circumstances had allowed these two men to accumulate lifetimes that should have been impossible for their species, apparently several centuries had done absolutely nothing to prevent brothers from behaving like brothers.

She reached for her fork once Derek had finished dividing the food, only to feel Muad's hand find hers. Her fingers curled around his automatically, and the ease of the movement gave Rin a brief pause. Somewhere between Batuu and Veradune, reaching for him had stopped being something she thought about. She simply did it now, and judging by the way Derek's crimson eyes dropped toward their joined hands, he had noticed too. The short exchange that followed made Rin progressively more suspicious as she looked from Derek to Muad, watching something pass back and forth between them in a language consisting largely of implication. Serious? That drew her attention toward Muad. I'm in? Her brow climbed. By the time Muad cheerfully volunteered her for questioning and Derek steepled his fingers, Rin knew she was being set up.

"What are your intentions with my baby brother?"

Her fork stopped halfway to her plate as Rin stared at Derek, then turned her head very slowly toward Muad. The smirk on his face told her immediately that absolutely no assistance would be forthcoming. Her golden eyes narrowed at him before she returned her attention to his brother, trying to decide whether she was supposed to take the question seriously or whether this was simply another layer of whatever strange ritual the two men considered sibling affection.

"My intentions?"

It wasn't that Rin hadn't considered what existed between them. Marta and Chek had made avoiding the subject almost impossible, and the medallion resting beneath her clothing had made it more difficult still. She knew she wanted Muad in her life. She knew she wanted whatever came after the strange collection of days and choices that had brought them this far. She knew what it had felt like when his heart stopped beneath her hands and exactly how fiercely she had refused to accept a future in which he was simply gone. None of that prepared her to summarize it neatly for his older brother over breakfast.

Her ears slowly turned red as she glanced at Muad again. Then something in her expression softened, and she gave his hand a small squeeze before looking back toward Derek. "At the moment? Mostly to keep him alive." The answer began lightly, but the humor softened around the edges as memories from Batuu surfaced. "I've had to do that more often than I think should be necessary considering how little time we've actually known each other. He has a remarkable talent for nearly dying, usually while doing something he believes is completely reasonable."

She could feel Muad beside her, the presence of him warm and familiar against her own, and it made what came next easier to say without trying to turn it into something larger than she was ready to define. "Beyond that, I'm still figuring it out." There was no embarrassment in the admission, only honesty. "We met on Batuu. We thought we'd say goodbye there and probably never see one another again. Then we found each other again on Veradune, and neither of us seemed particularly interested in making the same mistake twice." Her eyes dipped briefly toward their joined hands before returning to Derek. "So we're seeing where it goes."

A hint of a smile returned as she glanced sideways at Muad. "Assuming I can keep him alive long enough to find out."

Then Rin looked back at Derek, curiosity finally overcoming the interrogation she had just endured. Her gaze traveled between the brothers once more, lingering on the differences in their eyes before she tilted her head. "Now I think I get a question." Her brow rose as she gestured lightly between them with her free hand. "How are you his older brother? Because I had only just started accepting that he has somehow been alive for around a thousand years, and now there's another one of you who is apparently older."

Her gaze slid toward Muad, carrying a mixture of affection and accusation that passed just as clearly through the bond as it did across her face. "I feel this should have come up."

Muad Dib

Muad Dib · Friday at 1:44 PM

The steepled fingers slowly eased away as blood-red eyes continued their appraisal of the woman as she spoke. While she spoke, they flickered from her face to the openly held hands, to Muad, who wore a rather self-satisfied smirk, and back to Rin. Once she finished her commentary on her intentions, he merely nodded, a glance down at the table before raising back to the young woman who sat across the mahogany table. "You are considerably liberal with information. That is an endearing trait, especially given my profession. Unfortunately, you summed up my brother spectacularly well." Crimson eyes turned to Muad as he finished dryly. "A remarkable talent at nearly dying, usually doing something he believes in." He rose from the table. "Excuse me for a moment."

As he left, Muad couldn't contain his amusement any longer. A short laugh escaped. "I do believe you broke him." Another laugh followed. "Derek isn't what you would call a sharer. That's one of my charming traits, as you recall." He reached across and stole one of the pieces of bacon from off Derek's plate as the sound of footfalls heralded his return. A tray with two pots, several cups, and saucers filled the space. A bowl of sugar cubes and a fluted glass held cream. As he sat back down again, his eyes flickered to his plate, noticing the absence of bacon before looking at Muad, who meticulously, and with great pleasure, licked his finger clean.

"I do not believe we should continue without coffee or tea. Which would you prefer, Miss Taal?" Muad raised his hand. "I'll take the caf with plenty of milk and sugar." His smirk revealed that Muad was enjoying breakfast entirely too much. "Of course you do. You are an uncouth barbarian." Derek made a point of ignoring Muad as he prepared his tea with a splash of cream and a single cube of sugar. He slowly stirred the tea three times clockwise, then twice counterclockwise before tapping the spoon and setting it on the saucer. The cup was collected and held in the palms of his hands as he returned his attention to Rin. Muad busied himself making his own concoction.

"Keeping him alive and keeping him out of trouble are two very diverse scenarios. And while you may excel at the former, the latter is a lost cause. I am speaking from experience." He tipped the cup, taking a sip of his tea before replacing it on the saucer. When Rin asked her question, hand waving in the air before she turned to Muad, Derek excused himself from the conversation. "I believe that inquiry was delivered to you, dear brother." He busied himself with breakfast as he kept his mouth shut to the conversation.

"Thanks a bunch," Muad snidely retorted before turning in his seat toward the woman who held his hand and heart. "In my defense, I did tell you I had a brother on Siskeen. Which is more believable? My parents lived a thousand years then decided to pup another kid, or a sibling managed to live just as long as I did?" He winked at her while still feeling her exasperation. "I figured you would have asked me by now how I've managed to live this long. By draining the life from other people." The comment was spoken matter-of-factly with no indication he was lying. Derek choked on a piece of his omelet. Without turning from Rin, Muad commented, "Serves you right." Then his smile split his face while he shook his head, revealing he was jesting.

A thought occurred to him at that moment. They were still so new to each other that what he said could have been true, which would have been a horrifying revelation, especially over breakfast. "Sorry, darlin', it was a bad joke. We had very different upbringings. And I didn't even know I had a brother before he tried to kill me." Derek cleared his throat and raised his hand to forestall Muad. "That is a gross oversimplification of the facts. I was raised by the Baron Do Sages to respect balance. And I was sent on a mission to remove someone who was tilting the scales toward darkness."

"Are you telling the story or me?" Muad sent a glare at Derek, who merely waved his hand. "I apologize for the intrusion. Please, continue." Muad turned back to Rin with a rueful shake of his head. "As I was saying, these Sages have a death cult thing to extend their lifespans. Sometimes they would siphon off their life force to imbue it into another being sent on a mission. Through a series of events that saw him cursed by some Dathomiri witches, dunked into their ichor, a bond our uncle tethered us with, and the siphoning ceremony … he's kinda immortal. Unless you take his head. Or take a chainsaw sword to his heart." Derek's head tilted down, and he closed his eyes at the second part—clearly a sore subject. Muad continued.

"So, he's been skipping around the galaxy about two years longer than I. And you can ask me any questions you want." At that moment, a hulking woman nearly a head taller than the men at the table sauntered in. Red hair fell to the shoulder of her beskar'gam, her light complexion complemented by a trail of freckles tracing along her cheeks and nose. Green eyes held humor and familiarity as she headed toward Muad. "Any new scars from your last trip, ba'buir?" Muad rose, his hand leaving Rin's as he caught her in an embrace. The two danced sideways in the ferocity of their hug, both grinning wide. Derek continued to fork food into his mouth economically as he answered the unspoken question Rin must surely have had. "Rin Taal, meet Jade Dib. Jade, meet your grandfather's friend, Rin."

Muad turned sideways and held out his hand to assist Rin to her feet. But before Rin could do much of anything, she was swept up in a bear hug, nearly crushed by dark blue beskar plates. "So you're the one everybody is talking about? You're very pretty. And I love your braids!"

"Jade." Derek shook his head slightly, indicating not to continue. But stopping a teenager from talking was akin to asking the sun not to rise. "You're on all the news feeds. I mean, you can't really see much other than y'all running through the rain, but the thermals show y'all went straight to the bedroom. Congrats ba'buir! I guess the only bachelor left is Uncle Derek." As quickly as she hugged the Zorren woman, she was released. One gauntleted hand reached over the table and swiped a strip of nerf steak from Derek's plate before she literally skipped away and down the corridor. A shout echoed from the hall. "Good for you, ba'buir! She's beautiful." And just as suddenly as Jade appeared, she was gone. Muad sheepishly looked at Rin before he motioned back at her chair. "Breakfast?"

Derek shook his head forlornly before turning an accusatory glare at his brother. "See? This is the kind of example you set. If you really want to know how mere mortals live so long, you should ask him about our uncle, Rhaegar. He's lived our lifespans thrice." A small, smug smile crossed his face as his crimson eyes flashed brighter for a second. Then he turned his gaze to Rin. "Tell me, why do I sense you along my bond with my brother? I could do without the extra assault of his emotional state every time he looks at you. Or thinks of you. Or imagines somewhere he wants to take you. Or … other things he dwells on with your complicit involvement."

Rin Taal

Rin Taal · Friday at 9:37 PM

Rin watched Derek's hands slowly separate, still not entirely certain what she had said that warranted quite so much scrutiny. His observation that she was liberal with information only deepened that confusion. She had answered the question he asked. Perhaps she had answered it more completely than necessary, but there had hardly seemed much point in pretending Muad meant less to her simply because they hadn't yet decided precisely what to call whatever was growing between them. When Derek excused himself and Muad immediately declared that she had broken his brother, Rin turned toward him with genuine bewilderment written across her features.

"How did I break him?" Her brow furrowed as she watched Derek disappear from the room, then returned her attention to Muad. "He asked me a question. I answered it." The explanation seemed perfectly reasonable to her, although Muad's amusement suggested she had somehow missed something. His reminder that sharing was supposedly one of his charming traits earned a small roll of her golden eyes. "Yes. I remember. Sometimes before anyone actually asks."

She caught him stealing Derek's bacon and had just opened her mouth to comment when footsteps announced the man's return. The appearance of the tray immediately earned Rin's approval, especially once Derek asked which she preferred. "Caf, please. Black." She watched Muad begin transforming his own cup with milk and sugar before looking between the brothers again. There were similarities she hadn't noticed immediately, little things buried beneath the far more obvious differences in their mannerisms and appearance. Perhaps she would have seen them sooner if she had known to look for them.

Derek's distinction between keeping Muad alive and keeping him out of trouble drew a quiet laugh from her. "Oh, I abandoned any ambition of accomplishing the second one shortly after meeting him." Rin accepted her caf once it was available, curling both hands around the cup and breathing in the warmth before taking a cautious sip. "Keeping him alive already seems like a full-time occupation. I don't need to make it impossible." The affection beneath the teasing was impossible to conceal, particularly with Muad sitting close enough that the bond carried what her voice did not.

Then Muad attempted to defend himself by pointing out that he had mentioned having a brother on Siskeen. Rin slowly lowered her cup. "You did." She gave him a look that suggested his defense was not nearly as convincing as he believed. "I assumed, apparently wrongly, that you meant a chosen brother. Someone you considered family rather than someone who was actually born to the same parents." Given the lives both of them had apparently lived, it hadn't seemed an unreasonable assumption. She was preparing to ask another question when Muad casually informed her that he had survived a millennium by draining the life from other people.

Rin stopped moving.

The horror that flashed through her golden eyes lasted only until Derek began choking and Muad's grin finally betrayed him. She stared at him for another heartbeat before her expression flattened. "That wasn't funny." Unfortunately, the faint twitch threatening one corner of her mouth weakened the reprimand considerably. She nudged him with her knee beneath the table before taking another drink of caf. "For perhaps three seconds, I was reconsidering several recent life choices."

The actual explanation proved considerably stranger.

Rin listened without interrupting as Muad described Derek's connection to the Baron Do Sages, the siphoning of life force, Dathomiri witches and ichor. Immortality was hardly an impossible concept to Rin. Her own people could live for millennia, and she had grown up surrounded by people for whom centuries were measured very differently than they were by humans. It was the sheer number of extraordinary things apparently required to make these particular humans survive that fascinated her. She was following well enough until Muad rather casually added that their uncle had tethered the brothers together.

Her golden eyes narrowed slightly as she looked from Muad to Derek and back again. "Uncle?" The look she gave them suggested that every answer was somehow producing another branch of questions. "You have an uncle involved in all of this too?" She paused, reconsidered the wording and gave a small shake of her head. Obviously they had an uncle. That wasn't what surprised her. "No, never mind. I mean an uncle who was capable of doing something like that." A quiet laugh escaped her as she rubbed one hand briefly over her forehead. "Your family is becoming considerably more complicated the longer I sit here."

She remembered enough of what Muad had told her previously to know he had not completely hidden his longevity from her. What he had given her, however, had been fragments rather than anything approaching an explanation. Rin turned slightly toward him, curiosity replacing her earlier exasperation. "You told me something vague about how you've managed to live this long, but nothing solid enough for me to understand it." She gestured lightly toward him with her cup. "So how did you get from being an ordinary human with an ordinary human lifespan to...this?" Her gaze traveled over him deliberately before returning to his eyes. "Because apparently I should stop assuming anything about your family is ordinary."

She never got the opportunity to hear the answer.

The red-haired woman entering the room caught Rin's attention, but the casual question about new scars made her glance toward Muad with immediate amusement. Apparently his tendency to return from trips with additional damage was well established. Then came ba'buir, followed by the embrace between them, and Rin's understanding of the family arrangement changed yet again when Derek supplied the introduction.

Granddaughter.

Rin barely had enough time to process that information before Muad offered his hand. She accepted it automatically and rose, only to find herself engulfed in dark blue beskar before she had managed anything resembling a proper greeting. Surprise escaped her in a soft sound as her arms instinctively came around Jade in return. The girl was considerably larger than Rin, and the enthusiasm behind the embrace nearly lifted her from her feet.

"It's nice to meet you too." Rin laughed as she recovered from the initial surprise. The compliment about her appearance and braids brought warmth into her ears almost immediately. "Thank you. I..."

Then Jade mentioned the news feeds.

Rin's smile vanished.

Her golden eyes widened as the girl cheerfully explained that thermals had apparently recorded them crossing the house and going directly into the bedroom. Heat exploded across Rin's face and raced all the way to the tips of her pointed ears. By the time Jade congratulated Muad, declared Derek the remaining bachelor and disappeared down the corridor with part of Derek's breakfast, Rin was still standing exactly where the girl had left her.

"News feeds?"

The question emerged faintly. Rin turned her head toward Muad with painful slowness. Somewhere through the bond, embarrassment collided with disbelief and the dawning realization that strangers apparently believed considerably more had happened the previous night than actually had. "There were thermals?" She closed her eyes briefly, wishing for the first time that morning that the storm had been considerably worse. "Of course there were."

Only then did she realize Jade had already vanished before Rin had properly responded to her compliment. She looked toward the corridor and raised her voice just enough to carry after her. "Thank you! I like your hair!" Whether Jade actually heard was another matter, but Rin felt marginally better for having tried.

Muad's sheepish suggestion of breakfast earned him a long look before Rin finally reclaimed her chair. She could feel the heat lingering in her ears and suspected it would remain there for some time. "Yes. Breakfast." She reached for her caf and took a considerably larger drink than before. "Then perhaps someone can explain why our sleeping arrangements are apparently galactic news."

Derek's contribution regarding Rhaegar nearly made Rin choke on the caf.

She lowered the cup and stared at him. Three times their lifespans. Whatever questions she had accumulated about Muad's longevity multiplied instantly, but Derek moved on before she could decide which one to ask first. His next question was enough to drive every thought about ancient uncles temporarily from her mind.

Rin became very still as he described sensing her through his bond with Muad.

The first part fascinated her. The second part brought the color straight back into her ears.

Her golden eyes slid toward Muad when Derek mentioned his brother's emotional state whenever he looked at her. That alone was intimate enough. Then came the places Muad imagined taking her, followed by the ominously broad category of other things, and Rin's gaze narrowed while warmth spread steadily across her cheeks. The bond between her and Muad made it unfortunately easy to imagine precisely which thoughts Derek might be referring to.

"I would like it noted that I am not responsible for everything that goes through his head." She managed to sound remarkably dignified considering the color of her ears. Her gaze remained on Muad for another moment before returning to Derek. "Especially the things involving my underwear."

She regretted saying it almost immediately.

Rin closed her eyes and brought her caf to her lips, taking a slow drink while wondering whether spending time around Muad was gradually destroying whatever filter she had once possessed. When she lowered the cup again, she deliberately ignored whatever expression either brother might be wearing.

"As for why you can sense me..." Her embarrassment softened into genuine thoughtfulness. "Marta believes Muad and I have formed a Force dyad. We're still learning what that means ourselves. Our connection has become much stronger than the bond we had when we first met, and apparently it doesn't always respect the boundaries either of us expects it to." Her eyes moved toward Muad, lingering there briefly before returning to Derek. "If you're already bonded to him somehow, maybe you're sensing me because I'm connected deeply enough to him that the two bonds are touching."

Rin wrapped both hands around her cup again, considering Derek with open curiosity. There was far more she wanted to know now than when breakfast began, and somehow she suspected meeting the rest of Muad's family would only make matters worse.

"Although if you can actually feel everything he feels whenever he looks at me..." A small, sympathetic smile finally broke through her embarrassment. "I'm not sorry."

Muad Dib

Muad Dib · Friday at 11:30 PM

A slow sigh escaped from Derek. As though he was used to a certain amount of liberal, off the cuff, speech from his brother. "I am going to assume the comment about your … under garments isn't indicative of how forward you are with strangers." Crimson eyes flickered toward his brother. "I'll place the blame on his incorrigible ability to affect others. And possibly the bond. Muad, check yourself. Your thoughts are drifting to a memory that I do not need to see." Muad smirked, his hand tightening in Rin's. His only response was two words and a smirk. "The pavilion."

Derek took another sip of his tea before he leaned back. Unlike his brother, he didn't lounge. It was merely to brave his back against the seat like any other sensible being would do. "I will take care to keep a guard on our bond. I don't need to delve into personal matters. Or memory. But if I can sense you, then the chances of a dyad bond would potentially allow you to sense me. Muad never does anything half way. Instead of an ordinary bond, he finds someone who becomes his echo. Or he becomes your echo. Just, do not forget that even though this exists between the two of you, you are still separate entities."

Muad was busy eating and staring appreciatively at the color in Rin's ears and cheeks. He tossed her a soft wink before glancing at Derek. "Yeah … about the news thing … About eighty years ago, when the Confederacy rose again, they wanted me to become a Viceroy. Horrible mistake. So I offered Derek here as tribute." His red eyes brother wiped the corners of his mouth with a cream colored cloth napkin and merely shook his head at the memories.

"So, Derek became the Viceroy. The system was in disarray. Different factions were fighting on all three planets. And there was a lack of funds. So when I decided to start my companies, they were set-up here. Took about two decades but we forged peace accords, started businesses, formed alliances with other systems and companies. Now our system is the United Siskeen Coalition. Three planets, Olanet, Siskeen, and Kaer working together. Derek hear became the President of the Coalition, hence his celebrity status. I'm just the owner of a few companies, occasional commander of our military forces if we have to answer the call outside our system, and a temporary Senator of the High Republic. So, I guess you could say we're in the public eye."

"Don't forget you have ties with several prominent mandalorian clans, as you lead one of them yourself. And you have interplanetary relationships with either well placed political figures, people of power, and royalty. And you should ask him about his marriage to a bear some day." Muad smiled at his brother, the expression less than true to the twisted lips. "Thanks again. So, yeah. There may be a bit of notoriety here. Especially since Derek here is officially bachelor number one!" Muad couldn't contain his laughter as he then turned a wary eye to the woman beside him. "I mean, if it bothers you, I can leak it to the press that I'm still available for courtship." A smirk stretched across his lips as he arched an eyebrow at Rin. Then he motioned toward his brother silently eating his breakfast.

"Derek's got a curse too."
"No. No I do not."
"Yes you do."
"Other than being your brother, there is no curse."
"You see, Derek is cursed in the love department. He can get them but they just don't stay."
"Thank you Muad."
"Well there was Mayumi, the pirate Queen. Then that one Jedi girl …"
"Elva."
"That's right, the Bothan. Then there was that witch, what was her name?"
Derek sighed. "Nerys."
"That was part of the reason he got cursed. She was the daughter of an elder who did not care for his only daughter getting with an off worlder. There was that shapeshifter, a shido, the other witch who was a royal, then his aunt, my little Gin'ika."
"Firstly, that was complicated. And secondly, you forgot one."
"Did I? Just one? You've left a trail of broken hearts, brother."
"Yes. Arabella."

The two grew quiet as they stared at each other, red eyes and blue eyes. The tension slowly grew between them to become palpable. Then Derek looked away.

"I apologize. That was uncalled for."
"It was nine hundred years ago and you still think that's a trump card? Stop beating yourself up about it. But, if you look at Rin, I swear to the gods I'll make sure you become the next bachelorette." He had said it with a smile on his face. But the humor didn't reach his eyes. Instead there was a cold spot that drifted down the bond. Though said in a jesting manner, there was no denying he also spoke true. Derek merely nodded.

"I see you are serious with Miss Taal. Good for you, not so much for her. But speaking of Alderaani … this came in." He reached inside his jacket and pulled free a datapad to slide across the table. The moment of Muad's frigid manner melted away as he took the device and glanced at it. With a sigh he slid it back to his brother. "It was only a matter of time." Derek only nodded. "Has the seventh fleet been recalled?" Another unspoken affirmation. "Do we know the likely sector?" Again, his brother nodded. "Did you tell my Knights to get ready?" Derek looked to Rin, before slowly answering. "They've been notified, leave has been cancelled. They merely await your orders. And the destination."

The crimson eyes narrowed and Muad leaned back and smiled. Derek turned his head slightly while Muad then nodded. The elder brother slowly shook his head as Muad then shrugged. It would be clear to Rin they were having some form of conversation as Muad leaned forward and tapped the table with his nail once.

"Well okay, dear brother." Derek looked at the young woman across from him. "The Sith Order have been probing the western edge of Republic space. They're just testing, learning how they respond. War was inevitable. Now it nears. And Muad will be leading our USC forces when it does. I was, unsure, how much the two of you were sharing. It could be days, or weeks. But it is coming."

"If you have any questions, or history, you would like me to tell you about Muad, feel free to ask. I may not see you after breakfast, with the itinerary my brother has planned for the two of you."

Rin Taal

Rin Taal · Saturday at 12:04 AM

Rin's embarrassment did not improve when Derek chose to comment upon her sudden willingness to discuss her undergarments at breakfast. Her ears remained distinctly warm as she stared into her caf, deciding that perhaps if she concentrated hard enough on the dark surface she could disappear into it. Unfortunately, Derek absolving her of responsibility by blaming Muad only encouraged the man sitting beside her, and the tightening of his hand around hers warned her a heartbeat before he spoke.

The pavilion.

Her golden eyes slowly turned toward him. "You are not helping."

The rebuke lacked any real severity, particularly when the memory was already threatening to follow his words through their connection. Rin firmly pushed it away before Muad could drag her any deeper into recalling precisely what he had seen that day. Derek's assurance that he would guard his own connection with his brother was considerably more welcome. More importantly, his reminder that the dyad did not somehow make Rin and Muad a single person resonated with what Marta had told them. Whatever existed between them, whatever it eventually became, she did not want either of them disappearing into the other.

"Marta said much the same thing." Her expression softened as she glanced toward Muad. "The bond connects us. It doesn't replace us. I think we're both still learning where those boundaries are, especially when neither of us exactly knows what we're capable of yet."

She listened as Muad finally explained why their arrival had become interesting enough to appear on the news. By the time he reached the part about offering Derek as tribute to the Confederacy, Rin had already decided she wanted to hear Derek's version of that particular story someday. The explanation that followed made considerably more sense. Derek wasn't merely wealthy or locally prominent. He was the President of an entire coalition, while Muad somehow managed to compress business ownership, military command and a temporary position in the High Republic Senate into the phrase a few companies.

Derek naturally made matters worse by adding Mandalorian clans, political figures and royalty.

Then came the bear.

Rin slowly turned toward Muad. "A bear?" There were already too many questions waiting for answers, so she reluctantly filed that one away with everything else she had learned over breakfast. The suggestion that Muad could announce his continued availability for courtship, however, received a much more immediate response. Her golden eyes narrowed while her fingers remained comfortably threaded through his. "You could."

The words carried just enough challenge to answer his teasing before Rin's attention shifted toward Derek. Muad had, after all, been particularly enthusiastic about declaring his brother bachelor number one. A small smile slowly appeared as she took another sip of her caf.

"Although, since your brother seems so concerned about finding someone for you, I have an older sister and a younger sister." Her golden eyes gleamed with amusement over the rim of her cup. "I could always introduce you."

She lowered the cup again, the smile lingering as she glanced between the brothers. Whether either of her sisters would appreciate being volunteered into Muad's increasingly complicated family was another question entirely, but the possibility amused her enough that she wasn't about to withdraw the offer.

What followed between the brothers was strange enough to be amusing at first. Rin ate while Muad enthusiastically cataloged Derek's apparently disastrous romantic history, although she began to feel increasingly sympathetic toward the older brother as name followed name. The casual mention of his aunt earned another questioning glance, but she resisted adding anything to her growing list. Then Muad forgot someone.

Arabella.

Rin's amusement faded almost immediately. She knew the name. After everything that had happened with the runestone, she could hardly have forgotten it, but knowing the name was very different from understanding why it carried enough weight to change both brothers so completely. She looked between them, feeling the shift in Muad through the dyad even before his warning to Derek turned unexpectedly cold. Whatever history lay behind Arabella, it was old, painful and considerably more complicated than anything Rin knew about her.

Her fingers tightened around Muad's, not in reprimand but acknowledgment. She could feel enough of what moved through him to know Derek had touched an old wound, but breakfast hardly seemed the place to demand that he tear it open and explain it. If Muad wanted her to understand who Arabella had been to him, he could tell her when he was ready.

Derek's teasing response helped ease some of the tension, and Rin gave him a faint smile at the unfortunate portion directed toward her. "I appreciate the concern." She glanced sidelong at Muad, warmth gradually returning to her expression. "I've already discovered what I'm getting myself into."

Or at least she had thought she had.

The datapad changed everything.

Rin fell quiet as the conversation shifted from family teasing to fleets, sectors and mobilization. The speed of it was striking. One moment the brothers had been trading insults across breakfast, and the next both seemed to settle into roles they had apparently occupied many times before. Muad's posture changed. Derek's answers became economical. Even the silent exchange between them carried a gravity Rin could recognize without understanding a word of it.

Her caf remained forgotten beside her plate.

The Sith Order.

Rin knew enough of the galaxy beyond Veradune to understand what probing a border meant. You didn't repeatedly test another power's defenses without wanting to know where those defenses bent, where they broke and how quickly they responded. Derek's explanation only confirmed what she had already begun to suspect. This wasn't speculation over something that might happen years from now. Fleets were already being recalled. Leave had been canceled. People were preparing to fight.

And Muad would be leading them.

Her gaze settled upon him for several quiet seconds. There was worry there, inevitably, but not surprise. She had known what he was. Perhaps not every title, responsibility or strange chapter of his very long history, but she had seen the warrior beneath all of it from almost the moment they met. She had fought beside him. She had watched him nearly die. She had dragged him back when he did. Nothing about the man sitting beside her suggested he would remain safely on Olanet while others marched into battle.

The thought of him walking into another war settled heavily in her chest, especially after everything Marta had told them about the bond they now shared. Rin couldn't pretend his danger no longer affected her in ways it hadn't before. At the same time, she refused to let that connection turn her into someone whose only purpose was following Muad wherever he went. Derek's earlier reminder was important. They were connected, perhaps more deeply than either fully understood, but they remained two people capable of making their own choices.

Rin looked down at their joined hands, her thumb moving once across his knuckles before she raised her eyes toward Derek again. "What role can I provide?"

She saw the question register and continued before either man could mistake what she meant. "I'm not asking what Muad can have me do. I'm asking what your forces might actually need." Her gaze moved between the brothers, calm despite the concern she knew Muad could feel through their bond. "I protect. I know how to scout routes, keep people moving through dangerous territory, recognize when something along a road isn't right and get people out when it becomes worse. I can fight when I need to, and I can heal well enough to keep someone alive until they reach somebody better at it than I am."

The prospect of war didn't excite her. Rin had never needed battle for its own sake, and she had no interest in pretending otherwise. What troubled her more was how quickly the quiet stretch they had found seemed ready to disappear beneath something much larger. She had already finished the caravan season, returned home to Veradune and found Muad again at the festival when neither of them had expected the other to be there. From there had come Marta and Chek, the discovery of what their bond had become, and finally Rin's decision to leave Veradune with him without knowing exactly where the next stretch of road would carry them.

Apparently, the answer might include a war.

Her fingers tightened gently around Muad's as she looked between him and Derek. Following Muad blindly simply because of what existed between them sat poorly with her, and Marta's warning was still too fresh for that. Rin had her own skills, her own judgment and her own reasons for choosing where she went. If she stepped into this, she wanted to do so because there was somewhere she could genuinely help, not because the dyad made the thought of separation uncomfortable.

"I only just left home again, so I'm not exactly in a hurry to turn around." A faint smile touched her lips before her expression grew more thoughtful. "If war is coming, and there's somewhere my skills would actually be useful, I can help. Just tell me where you need someone who knows how to protect people and keep them moving."

It wasn't a declaration that she intended to follow Muad into every battle he fought. Rin doubted either of them would survive very long if they began thinking that way. It was simply an offer to stand where she could make a difference, and perhaps to add whatever skills she possessed to the people already preparing for what was coming. Where that ultimately placed her remained to be seen.

Only then did Rin turn back toward Derek's earlier offer, a trace of warmth returning to her expression despite the heaviness that had settled over breakfast. She considered the invitation to ask for stories about Muad and glanced toward the man beside her. There were probably several centuries' worth of embarrassing material sitting across the table, and Derek had just given her unrestricted access to it.

"And I am absolutely taking you up on the stories." A small smile tugged at her lips as she finally reclaimed her caf. "I have sisters. I know better than to waste an opportunity like that."

Muad Dib

Muad Dib · Saturday at 1:49 PM

As Rin's offer to aid in the inevitable war settled between them on the table, Derek's eyes went to his brother's with a raised eyebrow. Muad merely shrugged before Derek's red haze returned to the woman. "Your offer of assistance is much appreciated. And though we do not know the final theater the battle will play out on, if you wish, we can have you assisting with refugees and survivors. Your skills as a … guide, rescuer, musician will be utilized to great effectiveness. And your abilities as a healer." He allowed his lips to twitch into a shadow of a smile. While neither had spoken the litany aloud, his own bond with his brother had moments where thoughts and emotions bled through. A phrase that should not have been known to him leaked through the connection.

"Regardless of the weight of the nearing calamity, there could be weeks of the Sith Order testing before action becomes a necessity. I would only say, enjoy the time you have, while you have it." Muad's head turned toward Rin's, the tether of their hands simply an extension of their bond. Then he grinned. "You know, Asil would probably love to collect an antique like Derek." His teasing words were spoken in such a way as to elicit a response from his brother. He wasn't disappointed. Derek eyed his brother with a veiled glance.

"While I thank you for the opportunity to be matched to one of your sisters, I have a complicated life that has more than its share of obstacles. I'm old. I've already experienced most of what most people would wish to. Several times over several lives. It would be unfair to anyone who would wish such a life. I am content with my status." His eyes were averted as he drank his tea. For an ever-brief moment there was a vulnerability, a longing, almost a wistfulness that crossed his controlled features. But as quickly as he set the cup on the saucer, his expression returned to its more neutral look. However, Muad reached across the table and latched onto his brother's hand. The two shared a moment of silence until Derek nodded and Muad released him.

The pain from a life of loneliness echoed through the brothers' bond, and possibly bled into the dyad. Images of a dozen women flickered in their minds' eyes, along with shades of others. In that one way, Muad had been relatively blessed. He had never been placed in the position of burying children born from his body: Clansmen, some of his House, friends. Even adopted children. But never one formed in love with another person. Not even Hannibal and Jia could compare. Then Derek's carefully crafted visage slipped back on, like a mask.

Meanwhile, Muad silently thought about the coming battle and how quickly Rin had volunteered her services. He wasn't surprised, and a small glow of pride warmed him at her willingness to jump in and help people—complete strangers. But then again, that was how they met. It was one of the many reasons he had fallen for her. The size and strength of her heart. And despite his knee-jerk reaction of wanting to keep her safe, it wasn't his place to direct her path. No matter how strong the urge compelled him to do so. Especially since he knew he would be in the thick of battle. All he could do was trust her instincts. The warmth of pride tinged with mild concern drifted from him. You just can't help yourself, can you, ner dala?

He went back to his caf, a satisfied smirk on his face. Derek tapped lightly on the datapad. "Tobias ordered a pair of your space stations." Muad lifted an eyebrow, his only response. "For Atrisia. I believe that is acceptable. But the company is waiting for your final authorization." Muad nodded as he mused. "I owe Atrisia. It's approved." Derek finished his meal and refilled his tea as he took a moment to enjoy the reprieve before his day officially started. A twitch at the corner of his lips as he turned crimson eyes back to Rin.

"You are aware Muad is a mess, correct? He has accumulated more enemies than a dozen lifetimes. In fairness, he has also accrued as many allies. You seem like an intelligent woman, a … friendship with him notwithstanding. You should find someone who can offer stability and the chance at a normal life. Someone who doesn't needlessly rush into danger, risking his life with every breath. Even with a dyad, it doesn't mean the two of you have to extend the friendship into uncharted waters." He rose from his seat, hand running down the front of his shirt and suit jacket, an unconscious action from a thousand years of repetition.

"However, if you do decide to pursue a future with him, I gladly say welcome to the family." He let his lips curve into a warm smile before it eased away, and he retrieved the datapad to slip back into his suit jacket. "It has been a pleasure making your acquaintance. If the two of you do not have dinner plans, I'd welcome the opportunity to answer your questions then. And perhaps share a few stories my brother would not wish spoken." He inclined his head into a nod before glancing at Muad, and then strode from the room, down the hall to disappear into the other side of the house.

"Well, that was melodramatic. But that's Derek for you." He grinned at Rin as he sipped his caf. "When you're done, I've got plans. The bedroom has a massive assortment of clothes. I aim to get you wet today. Need to find some swimwear." He leaned forward and kissed her temple. "When you're ready, let's change." His eyes glowed with excited mischief as the prospect of spending time with Rin washed over him.

Rin Taal

Rin Taal · Saturday at 3:10 PM

Rin accepted Derek's answer with a small inclination of her head. Refugees and survivors were work she understood. Guiding frightened people through unfamiliar or dangerous ground, finding those who had become separated from others, keeping someone calm enough to put one foot in front of the other when everything around them had fallen apart, those were things she knew. Healing came with its own limitations, but she could do enough to matter when someone was hurt and help was scarce.

It was the particular way Derek described the rest of what she could offer that made her pause.

A guide. A rescuer. A musician.

Her golden eyes remained on him for several seconds longer than they otherwise might have. Those weren't things she had told Derek. They hadn't come up over breakfast, and she couldn't remember Muad saying them aloud either. Yet Derek had spoken them with the easy certainty of someone who already knew.

Rin's attention slowly shifted toward the man beside her.

After everything Marta had explained, the answer wasn't particularly difficult to find. Derek and Muad had their own bond, one that had existed long before Muad had crashed into her life, and apparently information could travel through it without either brother consciously deciding to share it. The realization didn't frighten her. It did, however, make her suddenly and painfully aware of just how many things Muad knew about her now, and how many memories she would rather not have wandering accidentally into the mind of his older brother.

Especially after the pavilion had already become breakfast conversation.

I hope you're able to keep some things private.

The thought traveled toward Muad with dry affection, although the warmth creeping into the tips of her ears undermined whatever dignity she might have hoped to preserve. She gave his hand a small squeeze beneath the table before returning her attention to Derek.

"Then that's where I'll help." Her voice carried no hesitation. There were questions she could ask later about where, when and how, but the decision itself required very little thought. "When you know where people are going to need me, tell me."

Derek's advice to enjoy the time they had settled differently.

For a moment, Rin found herself looking at Muad again. Time. It had been a constant subject since Veradune, measured in years and centuries, in the lives Marta and Chek had shared and all the lives they had buried along the way. Rin had spent so much time worrying about how quickly everything between her and Muad was happening that she had almost forgotten how quickly it could all be interrupted. Somewhere beyond this house, governments were preparing for war. Muad would go when the call came. She knew that without needing to ask him, just as surely as she knew she would help wherever she could.

Days or weeks suddenly didn't sound particularly long.

That realization settled heavily beneath her ribs. There were still so many things about Muad she didn't know, so many pieces of his life she had only begun to glimpse, and for the first time Rin found herself resenting the possibility that something beyond either of their control might steal away the opportunity to discover them naturally. She didn't want to rush simply because war was coming. She didn't want fear deciding the pace of whatever existed between them any more than she wanted the Force deciding it.

She simply wanted the time to find out.

His immediate attempt to offer Asil an antique rescued her from dwelling on it, and Rin hid a laugh behind her caf as she looked between the brothers. "I'm beginning to think introducing either of my sisters to this family without warning them first would be cruel."

Her amusement remained as Derek politely declined the implied matchmaking, but it gradually faded as he explained why. His reasons were sensible. His life was complicated. He was old. He had already experienced what others might want from life several times over, and asking someone else to share the burdens that came with that longevity would be unfair.

Then he said he was content, and Rin watched him over the rim of her cup as something inside her quietly ached. She didn't believe him.

Perhaps she might have accepted it if she hadn't seen that brief fracture in his composure, the longing that appeared and disappeared so quickly she could almost convince herself she had imagined it. Then Muad reached across the table and took his brother's hand, and the bond between the brothers betrayed what Derek himself would not.

The loneliness reached her before the images did, and what struck Rin hardest was how old it felt. This wasn't the sharp loneliness of someone newly abandoned or grieving. It had been carried, folded away and lived around until Derek knew exactly where to put it so that no one else would see. Through Muad came fleeting impressions of women Rin didn't know, faces and feelings without enough context for names, stories or endings. She didn't reach for any of them. They weren't hers to examine. The emotion beneath them was enough.

For one brief moment she wanted to say something, but Rin stopped herself.

There were wounds that became more painful when someone noticed them before you were ready to admit they existed. Derek had not offered this one to her. It had escaped through a bond he couldn't entirely control, and acknowledging it aloud would only strip away the privacy he had tried so carefully to preserve.

So Rin lowered her gaze to her breakfast and gave him the dignity of pretending she hadn't seen anything at all. She did, however, keep her sisters in mind.

Not because Derek needed to be fixed. Rin disliked the thought almost immediately. Loneliness wasn't a problem solved by placing another person in front of someone, and neither Asil nor her older sister existed to repair a stranger's heart. Still, Derek's insistence that the door was firmly closed sounded considerably less convincing now.

Perhaps one day she could simply arrange for one of them to meet him. Nothing more than that. No expectations and certainly no announcement from Muad about ancient brothers and available sisters. If anything happened afterward, it would belong entirely to them.

If there is a future.

The thought came quietly and took some of the warmth from her amusement. War was coming. Derek had just told them as much. Whatever Rin might imagine for anyone months from now depended upon all of them reaching those months first.

Muad's presence pressed warmly against hers through the dyad, and Rin instinctively tightened her fingers around his.

You just can't help yourself, can you, ner dala?

The unfamiliar words brought her attention fully back to him.

Rin's ears twitched as her golden eyes slid toward Muad. She didn't know what ner dala meant. Mando'a, presumably, but the language was his, not hers. The warmth accompanying it through the dyad told her considerably more than the words themselves did. Whatever he'd called her, it had carried affection with it, along with something deeper that made heat begin creeping into the tips of her ears.

She could have asked.

The question nearly crossed the bond before Rin caught it. Asking Muad what an unfamiliar phrase meant seemed particularly unwise when he was wearing that expression, and she had learned enough about him to suspect his explanation would somehow leave her considerably more embarrassed than she was already.

Perhaps she'd ask someone else later. Or perhaps she wouldn't. There was something unexpectedly pleasant about having a little mystery left between them. Her thumb moved slowly over his knuckles.

No, she answered, letting her amusement and affection travel back through the dyad instead. Apparently I can't.

She listened as the conversation shifted briefly toward Atrisia and the pair of space stations, and the contrast almost made her laugh. Only moments earlier they had been discussing war, relationships and things measured in centuries. Now Muad casually approved the construction of something enormous before returning to his caf as though Derek had asked whether he wanted another piece of bacon.

Rin had spent most of her life measuring problems in roads and people. How far until the next settlement. How many wagons had fallen behind. Whether everyone had enough water. Whether the child with the fever would make it until morning. Whether the trail ahead remained safe. The brothers measured things in worlds.

There was something intimidating about that difference when she allowed herself to think about it too long. Muad belonged to a life of senators, armies, clans and governments. Rin belonged to roads, camps and people whose names rarely appeared anywhere important.

Yet his hand was still holding hers beneath the table. Perhaps the scales didn't matter as much as she thought.

When Derek turned his attention back to her, however, Rin discovered that apparently his final task before leaving was to systematically explain why becoming involved with his brother was a terrible idea. She listened without interrupting as he presented the evidence, and the worst part was that she couldn't exactly disagree with any of it. Muad was a mess. The number of enemies he had accumulated was apparently impressive even by the standards of someone who had lived a thousand years, and his complete inability to remain away from danger had already become painfully apparent.

After Batuu, Rin could probably contribute examples.

Her gaze moved toward Muad while Derek continued, and affection slipped unexpectedly through the exasperation. In the short time she had known him, Muad had nearly died with such enthusiasm that keeping him alive could reasonably qualify as a full-time occupation. Their first meeting had begun with a crash, continued with violence and ended with him in a hospital. Somehow, things had only become more complicated afterward.

Normal was not a word Rin would ever use for him, but normal had never been something she particularly wanted.

Derek's reminder that the dyad didn't require them to become anything more than they chose struck deeper. Rin's humor faded as she looked at their joined hands. Marta had told them the same thing. The bond wasn't a command. It wasn't destiny reaching into their lives and forcing them down a particular road.

That mattered to Rin more than she had realized.

Because when she looked at Muad now, she wanted to know that the warmth in her chest belonged to her. That the way she sought his hand without thinking was because she wanted to touch him. That she had stayed beneath the willow because she hadn't wanted the night to end. That every mile after Batuu had happened because two people who should have said goodbye had instead found reasons to keep walking toward one another.

Whatever this became, she wanted it to be theirs.

Then Derek welcomed her into the family. The words caught Rin completely unprepared, tightening something beneath her ribs before it loosened so suddenly that she had to draw a quiet breath. She hadn't known she needed his acceptance.

Not permission. Never that. Her choices concerning Muad were hers, just as his were his. But Derek was his brother. After nearly a thousand years, there couldn't be many people left who knew Muad as Derek did. Rin had watched them insult each other, needle old wounds, laugh, argue and communicate entire conversations without speaking. Beneath all of it was a love so old that neither seemed to need to acknowledge it.

And Derek was telling her there could be a place for her beside them if she chose it.

The relief that washed through Rin was startling in its intensity. For one dangerous moment it made everything feel more real. Not the dyad. Not visions of distant possibilities or the image hidden beneath her shirt on Chek's medallion. Something much simpler and, somehow, far more tangible.

A family opening a door.

Her golden eyes softened as she inclined her head toward Derek, and when she smiled, there was no teasing left in it.

"Thank you."

Two words were enough. Anything more might have revealed considerably more than she was ready to say aloud, especially when she and Muad hadn't even kissed. There were still so many miles between this and whatever future might someday justify Derek's welcome.

But for the first time, Rin wasn't quite as frightened by the distance.

Then Derek offered stories Muad wouldn't want told, and the emotion threatening to overwhelm her found a much safer place to go. Mischief returned immediately, brightening her golden eyes as she glanced toward the man beside her.

"I'll have many questions." Her gaze lingered on Muad just long enough to make her intentions perfectly clear before she looked back to Derek. "And I'd like to hear anything you think Muad doesn't want me to know."

A brother with nearly a millennium of embarrassing stories was far too valuable to waste.

"See you tonight, Derek."

Rin watched him walk away, and her amusement slowly softened into something more thoughtful as he disappeared down the corridor. The loneliness she had felt still lingered faintly in her memory. She wouldn't mention it. She wouldn't tell Muad she had noticed, either. Derek deserved to decide for himself whether that part of him was ever discussed.

But she had two sisters. Her lips curved around the edge of her cup.

There would be no matchmaking. Rin absolutely refused to call it matchmaking. Perhaps, someday, one of her sisters simply happened to visit while Derek happened to be nearby. If they spoke, that was their business. If nothing happened, then nothing happened. Perfectly innocent. Rin took another drink of caf, increasingly pleased with a plan she was absolutely not making.

The thought helped return some warmth to the room after everything Derek had said about war. She finished the remainder of her breakfast slowly, unwilling to rush simply because Muad apparently had an itinerary waiting for them. There might be weeks before the Sith moved. There might be days. For once, Rin didn't want to spend the time they had worrying about how much remained.

She wanted today. More than that, she realized she wanted what today represented.

Veradune had been hers. She had brought Muad into the world that had shaped her, let him sit beside her fire and walk beneath familiar trees. He had met her family, eaten at their tables, stood in Chek's forge and listened to Marta speak of things Rin had grown up knowing. Muad had been allowed to see pieces of her that couldn't have been explained aboard a ship or exchanged through conversation. He had seen where she came from.

Now the direction had reversed.

Olanet was unfamiliar to her, but it wasn't unfamiliar to Muad. Somewhere beyond those glass walls was a world he knew well enough that he already had plans for what he wanted her to see. There would be no Marta or Chek accompanying them, no family gathered around a table and no larger purpose demanding her attention. Just Muad and Rin. The thought settled into her with a warmth she didn't bother resisting.

For the first time since they'd found one another again at the festival, they would have a world to wander with no one else beside them. He could show her the places he knew, tell her why they mattered or simply take her somewhere because he thought she'd enjoy it. She had spent so much time sharing roads with strangers, families and caravans that the prospect of exploring one with only him felt strangely intimate.

Not physically intimate. They still hadn't even crossed the distance of a kiss. This was something quieter. She wanted to see his world through his eyes.

Then Muad told her what he intended to do with their day.

I aim to get you wet today.

Rin's fork stopped halfway to her mouth, and her golden eyes rose very slowly to meet his.

The clarification about swimwear came quickly enough, but not before warmth swept violently through her ears and cheeks. The kiss against her temple only made it worse, though the indignation she attempted to summon dissolved beneath the affection of the gesture and the sheer excitement she could feel pouring from him.

A laugh escaped before she could stop it.

"You really need to work on the order you put words in."

There wasn't much reprimand behind it. Rin finished the last bite and chased it with what remained of her caf, but she stayed seated for another moment, her gaze wandering beyond the glass. They had arrived through a storm so violent that darkness and rain had swallowed everything outside. She had gone directly to bed without knowing what surrounded the house and awakened on a world that remained entirely unknown to her.

Normally, that alone would have been enough to send her exploring. Today, the unknown world wasn't what stirred the little thrill of anticipation beneath her breast. It was knowing Muad would be beside her.

She understood a little better now why showing him Veradune had mattered. A home wasn't merely a place. Sometimes it was a collection of memories, favorite paths and small things nobody would ever notice unless someone who loved them pointed them out. She didn't know whether Olanet was home to Muad in the same way Veradune was to her, but it was part of his life, and he was offering to share it. Rin wanted that.

She wanted a day without battles or dying, without ancient crystals, warnings about the dyad or conversations about what might happen centuries from now. She wanted to walk beside Muad somewhere he knew and she didn't. She wanted to listen to whatever stories came with the places he showed her. She wanted to discover what caught his attention when there wasn't a crisis demanding it.

And, perhaps most of all, she wanted to know what the two of them were like when there was nobody else around. Just Rin and Muad, another unfamiliar road, and however many miles they could fit into a single day.

The realization left a soft smile on her face as she pushed her chair back and rose. War could come tomorrow. Their questions about the dyad could wait until tonight. Derek could disappear into his offices, and her entirely hypothetical plans involving her sisters could remain hypothetical for at least a few hours.

Today belonged to them.

Rin turned toward Muad, the twinkle returning to her golden eyes with an eagerness she made no attempt to hide.

"Ready."

Muad Dib

Muad Dib · Saturday at 4:27 PM

He wasn't aware that Derek meeting Rin would make him feel emotional. And despite their back-and-forth talk, unheard conversation, and barbs sent one another, he realized how much he wanted this. For Rin to accept the disparate parts that made up who he was. There was a moment when he clasped his brother's hand that he felt some bleed from his connection with his brother drift to the dyad. And he felt Rin's emotions. Along with the fact she had mentioned turning her sisters loose on his brother, he got the distinct feeling she liked the grumpier Dib. And he fell even deeper under her spell because of it.

The fact that Derek extended the olive branch said a lot about Rin. He was never one to speak without thought, unless Muad was goading him, and when he welcomed her into the family, it affected him. Two of the most important people in his life had found common ground. Trying to embarrass Muad, but common ground was common ground. One was a thousand years with him. The other maybe a thousand hours. And yet he found they both weighed in his heart. It made him happy. Happier than he had any right to be.

When Rin admonished him with the way he worded things, he only smirked. "You should know by now I speak what's on my mind." As he led the way back to the bedroom, he tossed a wink over his shoulder. "And who said I didn't mean it exactly how I said it?" He opened the door without needing to look back at the flush of her ear tips. He could feel the heat through their bond. Which only made him smile wider.

Back in the room they had slept in the night before, he walked across the plush carpet and opened the doors to reveal a space that stretched several meters deep. Clothes of various types, styles, and sizes stretched along the length. Muad grimaced and rummaged on one side before finding a pair of white and blue board shorts that would extend just past his knees. A moment later, he came across a white, short-sleeve button-up made of thin, breathable material. Now crouched, he searched until he found a pair of leather sandals and stood, his findings in his hands.

"I've got mine. And there are plenty of options. Derek keeps even the clothing well stocked. He likes to dress to impress, as I'm sure you noticed." He tossed the items on the bed, then pulled off his tunic, dropped it at the foot of the bed, and unbuckled his pants to pull the belt through the loops. His eyes turned to wink at Rin. "Don't worry, darlin', I've got boxer briefs on this time." He chuckled as he pulled the pants off, the black fabric of his undergarments hugging his form with well-made elasticity. He turned his back, slipped the shorts on, pulled his arms through the sleeves of the shirt, left it open, and snagged the sandals to slide on. He turned in her direction and arched an eyebrow as if to say he was ready for his turn to watch. Instead, he winked.

"I'll leave you to some privacy. I'll be outside waiting for you, ner dala." With a smirk, he backed out of the room and regretfully closed the door. With a sigh, he moved across the room and ducked down behind the desk to pull a beige backpack from the bottom drawer. His eyes lit on an expensive bottle of whiskey and a white wine. "Don't mind if I do …" he stowed them in the bag and pressed another section on the wall, which opened to several water bottles, which he liberated. With the pack sealed and thrown over his shoulder, he realized he had left his belt and kal lying on the bed. Without thinking, he crossed the large, expansive war room and placed his hand on the knob, turning the handle intent on merely going in to retrieve them. But he paused, just before pushing the door open.

He wasn't sure what state of dress, or undress, Rin was currently in. And he didn't want to take that privacy away. Well, he did, but not like this. His hand raised from the handle and tapped on the door twice. "Could you grab my belt with the knife from the bed and bring it out when you're ready?" His hand leaned on the dark wood of the door, and he closed his eyes. Derek's words whispered in his mind. War was coming, and soon. He didn't want to waste any time he had with the woman on the other side of the door. The somber thought was shaken away as he eased away and pushed through the glass doors. Outside was warm, but the strong breeze from the ocean blew his shirt open and brought cool fresh air.

The green grass was brilliant, the rain having brought new vitality the night before. The skies were clear and blue, matched only by the darker hue of the ocean below. He moved to the waist-high stone wall near the perimeter of the cliff and hopped up to take a seat as he brought two fingers up to his lips. A loud, sharp whistle echoed across the landscape before drifting down the cliff, which amplified the sound to an even greater peal.

Now he waited for whatever vision of beauty that would come from the house. Rin could wear a brown bag and would still make it appealing. He smirked, as he thought of just what he wanted to show her first.

Rin Taal

Rin Taal · Saturday at 5:34 PM

Rin watched Muad disappear toward the bedroom with a mixture of amusement and lingering warmth from breakfast following her. Meeting Derek had been considerably more meaningful than she had expected when she first wandered into the kitchen and discovered Muad had an older brother waiting at the table. Beneath the insults, threats, and seemingly endless collection of embarrassing stories, she had seen something between the brothers that felt remarkably familiar. They loved each other. They simply seemed determined to disguise the fact beneath as much antagonism as two men could reasonably manage before breakfast, and unexpectedly, Rin had found herself liking Derek. His reserve made more sense to her than Muad's tendency to announce whatever wandered through his head, while the loneliness she had accidentally felt through the overlapping bonds remained with her even though she had no intention of mentioning it.

She had meant what she said about her sisters mostly as teasing, but the thought had stubbornly refused to disappear entirely. Perhaps nothing would ever come of it. Perhaps there wasn't enough future ahead of any of them for Rin to indulge in such ridiculous matchmaking schemes. War was coming, after all, and the reminder had cast a shadow over what otherwise should have been an uncomplicated morning. Yet Derek had welcomed her into their family, and those words still rested somewhere unexpectedly tender inside her. Rin and Muad had not defined whatever existed between them beyond admitting that neither wanted to walk away from it. They hadn't even kissed, despite Muad apparently being determined to remind her of that possibility at every available opportunity. There were hundreds of questions between where they stood and whatever might come later, and she didn't need answers to all of them today. Still, being accepted by someone who had known Muad for nearly a thousand years had eased something she hadn't realized she was carrying. It made the possibility of a future feel a little less like something she was foolish for imagining.

His response to her complaint about his wording promptly ruined any chance of maintaining that reflective mood. "Yes, I'm beginning to understand that's the problem." Rin followed him into the bedroom, catching the wink thrown over his shoulder and feeling warmth immediately creep into the tips of her ears when he suggested he'd meant precisely what he'd said. "And somehow that doesn't make it better."

The wardrobe proved large enough to distract her from Muad for at least a few seconds. Rin stared into it with open curiosity, running her fingers along fabrics and styles from places she couldn't immediately identify. She owned clothing appropriate for travel, cold weather, heat, rain, formal occasions when she couldn't escape them, and enough variations of the same practical necessities to survive months away from home. An entire room devoted to clothing choices seemed excessive enough that she briefly wondered whether Derek had ever encountered the concept of packing lightly.

Then Muad started undressing beside her, and Rin discovered the wardrobe wasn't nearly interesting enough to hold her attention.

She made a determined effort to study a row of clothing directly in front of her while his tunic landed somewhere behind her. She managed remarkably well until his belt came free and he helpfully informed her that he was wearing boxer briefs this time. Her eyes closed for a heartbeat as the memory of Batuu arrived without invitation, accompanied by several considerably more recent moments that did nothing whatsoever to help. "I wasn't worried." It would have been considerably more convincing if she hadn't already been looking.

Her gaze slipped sideways again as he changed, lingering openly enough this time that she couldn't entirely pretend it had been accidental. She found him attractive. There was no revelation left in admitting that to herself, and after everything they had spoken about with Marta and Chek, Rin was beginning to wonder why she continued behaving as though acknowledging the desire somehow made it dangerous. Her attention traveled across the familiar scars and lines of his body, following the movement of muscle beneath skin before settling upon his back as he pulled on the board shorts. Warmth stirred low in her stomach, accompanied by the increasingly persistent desire to cross the little distance separating them.

That was the part she was less accustomed to.

Rin wanted to touch him. Not because the dyad encouraged it, not because the Force whispered some inevitable future into her thoughts, and not because Muad had spent an impressive portion of their time together testing the limits of her composure. She simply wanted to. She wanted to step behind him and let her fingers settle against his back, wanted to discover whether the warmth she remembered from sleeping beside him felt different beneath her palms when both of them were awake and fully aware of the choice. When he turned, the desire shifted with him, and for one suspended moment she imagined closing what remained between them and finding out whether all those thoughts about his mouth were remotely fair to either of them.

Instead, Rin remained where she was.

They had agreed to give this time. More importantly, she wanted to give it time. Restraint wasn't denial, and wanting him did not mean every desire needed to be answered the moment she felt it. There was something unexpectedly intimate about choosing not to reach for him yet, knowing that the possibility remained between them and neither had to hurry toward it simply because it was there.

Unfortunately, Muad caught her looking before she remembered she should probably pretend otherwise.

The heat already beneath her skin rushed straight into her ears, but this time Rin didn't immediately turn away. Her golden eyes remained on him for another heartbeat, allowing the appreciation there to be seen before she finally returned her attention to the wardrobe. "You saw nothing." The little smile pulling at her mouth completely betrayed her.

His unfamiliar term caught her attention before she could find anything suitable. Ner dala. Rin turned toward him, but Muad was already backing through the doorway with that infuriatingly pleased smirk on his face. She stared after him for a moment, repeating the words silently and finding nothing in her memory that gave them meaning. It sounded Mandalorian, or close enough that she suspected the answer might eventually earn him another red-eared glare. "I'm going to find out what that means eventually."

The door closed before she received an answer, leaving Rin alone with the wardrobe and the attraction she had spent the last several minutes trying not to indulge. A quiet breath escaped her as she looked toward the closed door, and her smile softened. Maybe someday. The words had become something of a refrain between them, except suddenly someday didn't feel quite as distant as it once had.

Rin finally turned her full attention toward the wardrobe. She wanted something practical enough for whatever Muad had planned while conceding that the entire purpose apparently involved water. After several minutes of searching, she settled on a simple two-piece swimsuit in a warm, muted amber-brown that complemented her skin and eyes without being particularly elaborate. The bottoms sat comfortably at her hips while the top provided enough support that she could actually move rather than spend the day worrying about it. Practical, she decided, even if the amount of skin left uncovered made her suddenly much more conscious that Muad would see her wearing it.

Standing before the mirror, Rin studied herself with an uncertainty she found faintly ridiculous. She had spent more than a century wearing whatever circumstances required without caring much about anyone's opinion, yet somehow one maddening human had managed to make her wonder whether a swimsuit looked good. The realization brought another little smile before her gaze wandered over her reflection and settled on the scar across her left shoulder. Her amusement faded, though not entirely, as her fingers rose to trace the mark.

For an instant, the bedroom disappeared beneath the memory of Kurgan, pain, blood, and something enormous, terrible and yet entirely glorious tearing the spike from her flesh before forcing healing into the wound. Something of that creature remained inside her now. She still didn't know what, and Marta's inability to give her an easy answer had made the uncertainty more real rather than less. Yet the memory no longer belonged entirely to fear. Muad had been there. He had saved her, and whatever unknown consequence remained inside Rin was a question for another day. She lowered her hand from the scar with a quiet exhale, refusing to spend this one frightened of a possibility.

She found a light wrap among the clothing and had just begun pulling it around her hips when two knocks sounded against the door. Muad's voice followed, asking for his belt and knife, and Rin looked toward the bed with immediate amusement. "You would forget the knife." Affection softened the complaint even though he couldn't see it. "I'll bring it."

She finished tying the wrap loosely around her hips before retrieving his belt from the bed. The weight of the kal hanging from it was familiar enough for a woman who carried knives herself, and for a moment Rin simply stood there holding something that belonged to him while the quiet room settled around her. Outside that door waited a world she had never seen in daylight and a man who knew it well enough to show it to her. The thought stirred something entirely different from the uncertainty of war, something warm and eager that had little to do with the dyad and everything to do with the simple pleasure of knowing the next few hours belonged to them.

When Muad had come to Veradune, Rin had shown him pieces of herself through the places that had shaped her. Her family's home, Corren's forge, the mountains, Marta and Chek, and the people who had known her long before Muad Dib crashed spectacularly into her life had all given him glimpses of who Rin was when she wasn't wandering some distant road. Now the situation was reversed. She was standing in a house connected to his family, on a world he knew, with no caravan waiting for her and no immediate crisis demanding they leave. For the next few hours, there didn't have to be anyone else. Just Muad and Rin, exploring somewhere he knew, and she didn't, with nothing expected of either of them except whatever they chose to make of the day.

The realization brought a slow smile to her face. This was precisely the sort of thing she loved: an unfamiliar world waiting outside, someone beside her who knew its hidden places, and enough time to discover them without knowing exactly what waited around the next bend. Only this time she wasn't the guide. Muad was going to show her something of his world in much the same way she had shown him hers, and there was an intimacy to that which had nothing to do with beds, swimsuits, or the kiss they still hadn't shared. She was going to see places through his memories instead of her own, learn what drew his attention and which corners he considered worth showing someone he cared about.

More than that, she was going to have him alone. Rin liked that thought considerably more than she expected.

She opened the bedroom door and found the war room empty. The glass doors beyond stood open, allowing sunlight and fresh air into a room she had seen only beneath the darkness of the previous night's storm. She crossed toward them with Muad's belt held loosely in one hand and stepped outside, only to slow almost immediately as daylight revealed everything the storm had hidden from her arrival.

Brilliant green stretched away from the house beneath a clear sky, wet enough from the previous night's rain that sunlight still caught in tiny droplets among the grass. Farther beyond, the land simply seemed to end. Rin crossed a little farther before understanding why, her golden eyes widening as an enormous sweep of deep blue appeared below the cliff. Sunlight scattered across the restless ocean while wind climbed the stone face and caught at her hair, carrying salt, wet earth, and the scent of vegetation awakened by the storm. She stood there for several seconds simply breathing it in, her tail shifting behind her with enough animation to betray the quiet delight spreading across her face.

Then she saw Muad sitting atop the stone wall, and that delight softened into something warmer and considerably more personal.

Rin didn't call out immediately. She simply watched him against the ocean while Derek's words returned to her. Enjoy the time you have, while you have it. War would come when it came. There would be obligations, choices, danger, and perhaps another goodbye waiting somewhere farther down the road. None of that had reached them yet, and for once Rin didn't feel the urge to look beyond the horizon and wonder how long something good could last. She had spent too much of her life measuring moments by when they might end.

Right now, she had this, and she wanted to be inside the moment rather than already mourning it.

Rin crossed the remaining distance, bare feet quiet against the damp grass. She could have stopped beside the wall and simply handed Muad his belt. Instead she came closer, stepping between his knees where he sat atop the stone until there was barely any distance left between them. The choice sent a little nervous flutter through her stomach, but she didn't retreat from it. Her free hand settled lightly against his knee for balance as she offered the forgotten belt and kal with the other, golden eyes meeting his from considerably closer than necessary.

"Forget something?"

Her smile deepened, touched by an awareness of exactly how close she had chosen to stand. The wind caught several loose strands of her hair and sent them across her face, but Rin made no effort to tame them. She could feel his warmth even with the ocean breeze curling around them, and for a heartbeat the temptation from the bedroom returned. It would take almost nothing to lean closer. The distance between wanting and doing had become very small indeed.

Rin let herself feel that too.

Then, rather than closing the final inches, she turned enough to look toward the ocean while remaining between his knees, her hand still resting comfortably against him. There was no need to run from the attraction simply because she had chosen not to act on all of it yet. This closeness was something she wanted, and unlike the first uncertain days on Batuu, she was beginning to allow herself to have the things she wanted without immediately questioning what they meant.

"You had my home to yourself for a while." Her gaze traveled across the unfamiliar landscape before returning to him, curiosity and anticipation brightening her golden eyes. "I think it's only fair I get yours for a while too."

The words carried more feeling than the teasing phrasing suggested. Veradune had allowed Muad to see her surrounded by family, history, memories and places where Rin Taal existed beyond the road. Now she wanted the reverse. She wanted to see the places he knew well enough to stop noticing, hear whatever stories belonged to them, and discover which parts of Olanet made him smile before he remembered he was doing it. Most of all, she wanted the rare luxury Derek had unknowingly given them when he disappeared into his work.

A day with no one else.

Rin's fingers gave his knee the faintest squeeze before she finally stepped back enough to let him down from the wall. Her smile had taken on the bright, almost youthful quality that appeared whenever an unexplored road opened in front of her, except this time there was another anticipation threaded through it. She wasn't setting out alone. She wasn't responsible for guiding anyone safely to the other side. For once, she could simply follow someone she trusted and see where he chose to take her.

"So, where are you taking me first?"

Muad Dib

Muad Dib · Saturday at 7:29 PM

"Wow."

One simple, three-letter word was what escaped. A helluva lot was not. When movement drew his eyes back to the glass doors, his breath caught. He had seen Rin in various outfits and states of undress. But he had never seen her like this. Brown and blonde-toned hair drifted in the breeze, the wind caressing the length out into a flowing mane. Pointed tips peeked from the wavy tresses. The casual bathing suit hugged her curves, the wrap resting along the jut of her hips, teasing a brief glimpse of her navel. Her skin caught the sunlight, bringing her bronzed flesh to life as lithe muscles slid smoothly beneath it. Her lips were wide, a smile as she turned her head, enjoying the view. Her golden eyes were alight with life.

He swallowed hard, nervous energy filling him. How did he get so fortunate? It didn't matter; he wasn't going to question his luck. Even her feet received attention as she casually crossed the carpet of grass, dew covering her toes and ankles. Before he could snap himself out of the spell, she pressed between his legs until there was nearly nothing but scant inches between them. Her scent filled his nose while his heart accelerated its tempo.

"Forget something?"

His mouth opened, and for the first time in a very long time, he had no retort. Any clever remark was banished at that moment. All thoughts of the impending war, the potentially long future they had, disappeared into the present. He didn't care what tomorrow, or the next week, or the year after that held. The only thing that mattered was what they had today. A day of possibilities. The chance to show her things she had never seen. To let her explore a new planet. And he got to see it through her eyes, just as she got to do on Veradune.

"Um, what?" Then he noticed the belt with the sheath she held against his leg, and he grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, that." She turned her head to look across the horizon, and he was mesmerized again. The salt air carried the mist from waves crashing into the cliffs. Her skin caught the minuscule drops, and he watched one run down the side of her neck, eyes drawn to the slight pulse in her neck. She was considerably calmer than he. Which he assumed was her plan.

When she stepped back to give him room to hop down, he missed her closeness. Not because of the bond. Not because of a shadowy future hinted at by the Force, but simply because he wanted her next to him. Resigned, he moved from the wall and threaded the belt through the loops before cinching the buckle. She was facing away, eyes looking at the clear blue of the sky, and he walked up behind her, arms wrapping around her hips before his hands clasped somewhere just north of where the wrap left her navel bare. His head turned into her hair, and he breathed her in, nose set against the tip of her ear.

"I could stay like this. Forever. Just you and me." A smile twitched his lips; the motion felt against her ear. "I have watched people fall in and out of love. Seen flings and courtships. Dating and married. One-night stands and relationships that lasted for decades. What we already have surpasses it all. And, yeah, I know your lips have yet to touch mine. But your heart has touched mine. And that's enough, until you're ready for more." It would have been easy to tease and torment her considering their position. But for once, he just enjoyed her presence as he held her in his arms. If he could pause time, he would have.

Then a whistle echoed in the distance, and he smiled against her neck. He whistled again, a long, high-pitched sound that reverberated against the side of the house. His lips pressed gently against the tip of her ear. "Sorry about that." Another whistle sounded from near the bottom of the cliff, and great reverberations filled the air, almost like the sound of a great heartbeat. And then massive wings appeared as they flapped again. The force from the stroke of the wings whipped their hair and clothes and pressed the blades of grass downward as though bowing in supplication to the enormous beast that rose before them.

The best description of the creature was a dragon. Six powerful legs swept overhead before they landed on the grass, which sent a tremor through the ground. The massive wings folded down along its back as the animal turned its head on a long, serpentine neck, bringing a golden eye the size of their heads close. The elongated pupil stared at them before two eyelids blinked, one vertically, the other horizontally. A great breath escaped from between fangs the length of their arms. Its long tail swept across the grass, sending droplets of water from the gathered dew into the air.

But the most extraordinary thing about the creature was its scales. Every color of the rainbow was represented across its hide. The sun caught the scales and turned the colorful hues into iridescent gems of every color. Muad grinned as he loosened his arms from around Rin and stepped forward to lean his upper torso against the side of the massive head. "Puff, meet Rin. Rin, meet Puff the magik K'kayeh Dragon." He grinned as the beast made a clacking sound from deep in its chest. If it had been a cat, you would say it purred. Instead, the sound was more reminiscent of an avalanche.

"Puff is almost as old as you. And she's about ten meters tall and around thirty meters long. Almost full grown. And she's going to be our ride today, right, Puff?" The dragon responded with another loud purr. "Leg?" Puff lowered even closer to the ground and extended her middle leg outwards, the thick corded muscles as wide as their torsos. Rin retreated from Puff's head and motioned for Rin to step forward. "Unlike me, she doesn't bite. Go ahead. Say hi and give her a hug. And then you will have to wait and see where we are going."

Rin Taal

Rin Taal · Saturday at 10:25 PM

The single word that escaped Muad almost made Rin laugh, though the expression on his face stole most of the amusement before it could escape. She had wondered what he would think when she stepped outside in the bathing suit, and now she had her answer in a way that was considerably more satisfying than any teasing remark he might have offered. Muad, who seemed capable of finding something suggestive or clever to say about nearly anything, had simply stared at her and said wow. Warmth spread beneath Rin's skin until she could feel it reaching the pointed tips of her ears, but she didn't look away from him or attempt to hide behind embarrassment. She liked the way he was looking at her. More than that, she liked knowing she could affect him that strongly, because the attraction running in the opposite direction was becoming increasingly difficult to contain.

She had already felt it when she'd stood between his legs, close enough that only a few inches separated them while she returned the belt he'd forgotten. It would have been easy to pretend she'd needed to come that close, but Rin knew better. She had wanted the nearness and the little spark of tension it created between them, just as she'd wanted to see what happened when Muad finally looked at her. Now, watching him struggle briefly to remember what she'd even brought outside for him, she felt a small, private thrill that was quickly becoming something warmer and far more dangerous. His eyes lingered upon her, and Rin found her own attention wandering just as readily over the open shirt, the bare chest beneath it and the man she had already shared a bed with three times without ever crossing that final distance between them.

Perhaps that was why she didn't move when he came up behind her. His arms slipped around her hips and drew her gently back against him, and Rin's breath caught as the contact settled into something considerably more intimate than the teasing that had preceded it. Three nights sleeping beside Muad had made his warmth familiar, but hardly ordinary. There had not been enough time for holding him to become something she took for granted, and with so little clothing between them now, she was suddenly aware of every place their bodies met. Her hands came down over his almost instinctively, fingers curling around his while she allowed herself to lean into him, and when his face disappeared into her hair and his nose brushed the sensitive tip of her ear, Rin closed her eyes and simply let herself feel him there.

Then he told her he could stay like this forever, just the two of them, and the attraction burning beneath her skin softened into something far more difficult to resist. There was no teasing beneath what followed, no attempt to coax her across the line they had so carefully avoided. He spoke of everything he had seen during his long life, relationships that had burned brightly and disappeared and others that had endured for decades, only to tell her that what they had already found meant more to him. When he spoke of her heart touching his, Rin's fingers tightened over his hands and emotion rose unexpectedly into her throat. After everything Marta and Chek had told them, after an entire day spent confronting the enormity of what their bond might someday become, Muad wasn't asking her for anything. He was telling her that what she had already given him was enough.

It made her want to give him more.

The desire came with enough force that Rin almost turned in his arms. For a heartbeat she could imagine it with startling clarity, turning until they faced one another, sliding her hands up the chest she had been trying very hard not to stare at and finally discovering what happened when all those almost moments stopped being almost. She wanted his mouth against hers. There was no bond to blame for that, no mysterious will of the Force pushing her toward him and no uncertainty left over whether the attraction belonged to her. It did, completely, and perhaps that was why she could let herself feel the full strength of it without surrendering to it.

Instead of turning, Rin settled more fully against him, allowing her head to tip toward his while her thumbs moved slowly over his hands. She didn't need to pull away simply because she wasn't ready to take the next step. There was something almost sweeter about letting the wanting exist between them without immediately satisfying it, even if her patience was beginning to feel considerably less impressive than it had a few days ago. "You're making the waiting considerably harder, you know." The warmth in her voice carried enough humor to soften the confession, but she didn't pretend it was merely another tease. If Muad wanted honesty from her, he could have this piece of it too.

His whistle nearly made her regret having her ear quite so close to his mouth.

Rin startled against him with a sharp wince, one pointed ear flattening instinctively while her hand immediately rose to cover it. She turned her head enough to look back at Muad, surprise briefly overtaking everything else before she caught the apology and remembered that there was absolutely no reason he should have known. The rueful smile that appeared took any accusation out of her expression. "Ow. All right, that's probably something I should have told you before now." She rubbed lightly at her ear while giving him a look that was considerably more amused than offended. "We hear better than humans do. Quite a bit better, actually. So if you're going to whistle with your mouth practically against my ear, a little warning would be appreciated." Her smile widened as she lowered her hand. "You didn't know. Now you do."

The answering whistle from below the cliff drew her attention away before she could say anything else. This one was distant enough that Rin could appreciate the strange depth of it, and she felt the reverberation almost as much as she heard it. Curiosity immediately replaced the lingering discomfort as she looked toward the cliff, only for a vast pair of wings to rise into view. The force of their movement sent her long hair streaming behind her and whipped the wrap around her legs, and Rin instinctively leaned back toward Muad as the grass flattened beneath the rush of air. Then the rest of the creature climbed above the cliff, six powerful legs passing overhead before an enormous body descended onto the rain-brightened grass with enough weight to send a tremor beneath Rin's bare feet.

For several seconds she could only stare, her golden eyes widening as sunlight moved across scales carrying seemingly every color imaginable. The hues shifted with every subtle motion until the creature appeared covered in thousands of iridescent gems, brilliant against the blue sky and green grass. Rin had spent more than a century wandering through places where extraordinary creatures were simply another part of the landscape, and the Wilder traditions Marta had taught her had encouraged that fascination rather than diminished it. She had encountered animals beautiful enough to inspire songs, creatures strange enough that she'd spent days simply watching them and others dangerous enough to remind her that admiration was best conducted from a considerable distance. None of them looked anything like the being standing before her now.

When that immense serpentine head turned toward them and lowered until a golden eye nearly the size of her head regarded her, Rin's wonder became something almost childlike in its openness. She watched the two eyelids blink in different directions and felt the warm rush of the creature's breath stir through her hair. Instinct tugged gently at the Wilder in her, tempting her awareness outward toward the enormous life before her, but Rin restrained it almost as quickly as it arose. She could have reached through the Force, could have sought some impression of mood or intent through the traditions she knew, but doing so when Puff had given her no invitation felt intrusive. Muad trusted the dragon. For now, that was enough.

Then he leaned his upper body against the massive head with an affection so easy and familiar that Rin's attention briefly left the dragon for the man beside her. There was something about the sight that caught at her unexpectedly. She had seen Muad fight, nearly die, tease her mercilessly, sit at a kitchen table with people she loved and somehow find his place among them. She knew him as a senator, a Mandalorian, a warrior and an increasingly impossible collection of stories spanning a thousand years. Seeing him pressed affectionately against an enormous rainbow-scaled dragon revealed another piece entirely, and the sheer delight on his face when he introduced them made Rin adore the moment before she had even properly met the creature.

"Puff?" Rin repeated once Muad gave her the dragon's name, laughter already beginning to warm her voice as she looked from him to the magnificent creature towering over them. Of all the names she might have imagined for something thirty meters long with fangs the length of her arms, Puff would never have made the list. Somehow that made it perfect. "Of course her name is Puff."

The great clacking sound that rolled from the dragon made Rin's smile brighten further, particularly when Muad described it as an answer and explained that Puff was nearly as old as she was. That earned another look of fascinated appreciation from Rin. She had known beings who measured their lives in centuries and others who counted millennia, so the age itself wasn't astonishing. What delighted her was the realization that there was an entire history between Muad and this creature she knew nothing about yet, another story waiting somewhere behind the obvious familiarity between them.

When Muad encouraged her forward, Rin needed little persuasion. She approached slowly, not because she was frightened, but because something this magnificent deserved more respect than rushing forward simply because its friend had said it was safe. Her hand lifted as she neared Puff's lowered head, palm open and fingers relaxed, but she stopped before making contact. Rin allowed the dragon to see her and waited, golden eyes studying that enormous eye with a mixture of wonder and affection that was already threatening to overwhelm any caution she possessed. Only when Puff showed no objection to her presence did Rin bridge the remaining distance and lay her palm gently against those iridescent scales.

"Hello, Puff." Her voice softened instinctively, as it often did around creatures she was meeting for the first time, and her fingers slowly followed the texture beneath them. "You are absolutely beautiful." The clacking purr rolled through Puff again, powerful enough that Rin could feel the vibration beneath her hand and up her arm. A laugh escaped before she could contain it, bright and delighted, and whatever remaining reserve she possessed disappeared with it.

Muad had told her to give Puff a hug, and Rin was entirely willing to accept the invitation. She moved closer, wrapping her arms around as much of the enormous head as she could manage and pressing her cheek briefly against the rainbow scales. The sheer absurdity of trying to embrace something so enormous only made her laugh again, but there was genuine affection behind it now. "I think you and I are going to get along just fine." She lingered there rather than immediately drawing away, one hand moving slowly over the scales while she took in the warmth and life of the creature beneath them. Rin had always loved discovering something new, but there was an added sweetness in knowing Puff wasn't merely another wonder encountered on the road. She mattered to Muad, and that made meeting her matter differently.

When Rin finally eased back, her hand remained resting against Puff while her gaze found Muad. The tenderness she felt at seeing the two of them together surprised her with its strength. On Veradune, Muad had stepped into her world. He had met her family and people who had known her since childhood, seen the places that had shaped her and heard stories belonging to a life that existed long before his ship crashed into the forest. Rin had enjoyed showing him those pieces of herself more than she'd realized at the time. Now, standing beside a creature Muad obviously knew and adored, she understood how much she wanted the reverse.

She wanted to see his world through him.

Not the political alliances or military commands that seemed to follow him across the galaxy, nor another battlefield demanding something from both of them. She wanted this. A planet he knew and she didn't, places that had become so familiar to him that perhaps he had stopped seeing what made them extraordinary. She wanted to follow him somewhere simply because he wanted her to see it, to ask questions and watch him remember stories she hadn't heard yet. There was an intimacy to that which had nothing to do with the kiss she still hadn't given him. He had wandered through her home beside her, and now she had the chance to wander through one of his familiar worlds beside him.

For a few hours, there didn't need to be anyone else.

Well, except Puff.

The thought brought another smile to Rin's face as she looked toward the massive leg the dragon had lowered for them and followed it upward with her eyes. They were actually going to ride her. That realization sent a familiar spark of adventure through Rin, bright enough that the questions about where they were going abruptly lost their importance. She had spent much of her life being the one who knew the road, the one who guided others through unfamiliar country and watched their faces when a new horizon opened before them. Today she could surrender that role to Muad and let him be the one who knew what waited beyond the next rise.

Rin gave Puff another affectionate stroke before moving back toward Muad. This time she didn't leave those careful few inches between them. Her shoulder came gently against his arm as she settled beside him, close enough to feel his warmth again, and she found that she liked the simple contact almost as much as she'd liked standing within his embrace. Her golden eyes lifted toward his, carrying the attraction she had restrained earlier alongside something softer that had grown while watching him with Puff.

"I showed you a little of my world." Her gaze drifted briefly toward the dragon beside them and then out toward the unfamiliar horizon before returning to Muad. The smile that touched her lips held anticipation, affection and the familiar hunger for a road she hadn't traveled yet. "I think it's only fair you get your turn."

She didn't ask where they were going. For once, Rin didn't particularly want to know before she arrived. Whatever Muad had planned, he had been excited enough about it to arrange a thirty-meter dragon as their transportation, and that was more than enough to earn her trust for the day. She leaned just slightly into the contact between them, eyes bright as she looked up at him.

"Show me your world."

Muad Dib

Muad Dib · 2026-08-16T15:24:51-0400

Something oddly endearing unfolded as he watched Rin interact with Puff. He felt her excitement, and it drew forth a warm smile. Somehow he knew the two would get along great. And here was the proof. As Rin moved to his side, her shoulder easing against his, the great dragon raised its head and let out a roar of anticipation. He chuckled as Rin professed she was ready to see his world. He leaned slightly and brushed his lips across the bare skin of her shoulder. "Then come on, cyar'ika." The words were mando'a, but the sentiment within them was universal no matter what language was uttered.

The dragon's great leg lowered even more and he lightly leapt up before walking up the length and moving to a spot just behind the first set of her shoulder blades. He eased down to settle on the rainbow scales and gripped one of the spikes that ran from the back of her head to the end of her neck, where her wide shoulders distributed her weight on the ground. Muad looked to Rin with an expression of simple enjoyment. "Well, what are you waiting for?" She joined him a moment later, and he glanced over his shoulder to indicate she should sit behind him. "You might want to hold on."

The great head curved on the serpentine neck until her muzzle gently nudged the two of them, a great breath sending a hot breeze across them. A weighted presence pushed against his mind and the dyad. Father's mate smells nice. Can mate hear me? Muad reached out and rubbed his palm against the small, delicate scales of her snout, avoiding the large flaring nostrils. He suppressed a grin at how Puff differentiated Rin. Mate. It was a pleasant sentiment, even though they hadn't reached that stage in their relationship.

"Yes, Puff. She can hear you." The great head turned as she brought her large eye up to Rin, the intelligence obvious as it drew near the Zorren woman. Father is zdornazt. You smell of father. Puff is zdornazt. Mate zdornazt? He grinned as he lent his mind outwards. Happy. Basic word is happy. Puff blinked slowly as she merged the word into her vocabulary. "You know where we should go … the ruins." The lips quivered against her massive fangs like a snarl. But the feeling from the great dragon was far from what the expression would appear. Zdornazt. Happy. The dragon swung her head away with another roar as she rose on all six legs.

"You might want to hold on a bit tighter …" Maybe she didn't need to hold too tight, but he wanted her pressed against his back and to feel her arms around him. Their sleeping embrace was nice, but nothing compared to the choice while awake. And then Puff began moving straight for the low stone wall that looked ridiculously small from their height upon Puff's back. Every step of her legs sent a tremor through their bodies as she neared the edge of the cliff. And then she leapt over the wall and began falling in a dive along the face of the cliff wall. The wind pressed against them as they fell, mist from where the waves crashed against the wall moistening their skin and clothes.

As they neared the waves below, Puff extended her wings like giant canopies that caught the wind as she pulled out of the dive at the last moment. All six of her massive feet splashed through the water before she began climbing with each beat of her wings. Quickly they climbed upwards, and she circled the mansion from above. From their height, the building was nothing more than a toy, something they could fit into the palm of their hands. He grinned as the dragon turned toward the sun and they began traveling across open skies with the endless ocean beneath them. Within a minute, the land mass behind them all but disappeared. Because of their speed and the sound of the beating wings, they couldn't have a conversation. So Muad leaned into their bond as one hand moved to hers.

I'm not like you, Rin. I don't have a Veradune. I have no real home. I don't even know what planet I was born to. During my travels, I never felt a sense of belonging. Not to a place. I am a nomad. But when I became the head of my clan, I knew I wanted them to have a place to put down roots, while still having the freedom to stretch out wherever they wanted. But they always had a place they could come back to. A home. That is what the Siskeen system is—their home.

The words of Marta and Chek echoed in his mind and he smiled. The ancient pair had the truth of it. A parent's job was to make their children feel like they had a home without forcing that choice on them. And should they leave to cross the galaxy, their home would always be waiting. That was what he wanted for his Clan and his House. A place of belonging no matter how far they traveled.

Ahead of Puff, a flock of birds flew in formation, and the dragon ceased the beating of her wings, allowing the wind to keep her elevated. And then she dove, jaws opening with a roar that scattered the flock in every direction, feathers ruffled as the birds panicked. The avalanche of her purr vibrated from beneath their legs as a strange sound escaped her jaws. Like a loud squawk from a dragon sized chicken. Muad patted the scales beneath his leg as he joined in with the dragon's amusement. They traveled across the sky, and though it seemed empty, all you had to do was look and you would find life. Birds of various types glided on the wind currents. Below, the waters parted as several kinds of marine life swam through the ocean breaching for air or merely for fun.

I realized my home isn't a place. Thanks to you. You changed my perspective. Home is the people we carry with us. He took one of her hands and formed a fist to place over his heart. The gesture was one she showed him that first day in her speeder. And while he didn't have a home, he carried the idea of home in his heart by the people he cared about. Especially the woman who sat behind him. A grin crossed his face as he felt Puff as a question. Dive? Without a pause he agreed. Hell yeah. The massive wings folded and Puff turned her head downwards as they plunged through the skies toward the ocean below.

Hold on tight. Tuck your body against mine and lean down to let Puff make the impact. Oh, yeah, hold your breath at the last moment. His laughter was ripped away by the wind as the ocean hurtled toward them. At the last minute the wings flashed out to act as a parachute, stalling their dive just enough so they wouldn't die from the impact. Then the wings folded completely away and Muad leaned forward against Puff's neck while one hand held to the spike and the other went behind him, holding Rin tight. At the last second he took a deep breath.

They knifed through the waves and were submerged in the ocean. Puff's great tail moved left to right, propelling them through the waters. One either side seam school of fish, scales catching the light from above. A trio of whales on their right released siren sounds that travelled through the water while a great shark followed the clusters of fish. He grinned, bubbles trailing from his open lips as they cruised along for half a minute before the dragon's tail accelerated them straight for the surface. With a shower of water, Puff pierced the ocean and her wings opened, flapping to carry them up towards the heavens once more. Spray from excess water shook from her wings and added another layer of moisture onto the couple sitting across the K'kayeh dragon's back. In the distance, a small grey haze grew on the horizon.

Rin Taal

Rin Taal · 2026-08-16T16:25:56-0400

The kiss against her bare shoulder was brief, little more than the brush of his lips against sun-warmed skin, but Rin felt it long after Muad had moved away. Her golden eyes followed him as he climbed Puff's leg with an ease suggesting he'd done this more times than she could begin to guess, while her fingertips drifted unconsciously across the place his lips had touched. It was becoming almost unfair how easily he could awaken the attraction she was trying so carefully to acknowledge without surrendering to. Only moments ago she had stood within his arms wanting to turn around and finally close the distance between them, and now he had left another little ember burning against her skin before casually walking away as though he hadn't done anything at all.

Cyar'ika.

She didn't know the word, but she'd heard enough Mando'a from Muad, Chek and Marta to recognize the shape of the language, and the emotion beneath it required considerably less translation. Something affectionate. Something meant specifically for her. Rin tucked the sound away along with the growing collection of words she intended to make Chek teach her eventually, then looked up when Muad called impatiently for her to join him. "I'm coming." She stepped onto Puff's lowered leg and followed the path Muad had taken, fascinated by the shifting colors beneath her feet as she climbed onto the dragon's back and settled behind him.

His suggestion that she hold on was hardly a hardship, and Rin was beginning to suspect he knew it. She slid her arms around his middle and drew herself close enough that her chest settled firmly against his back, feeling his warmth immediately through the thin layers between them. There was nothing particularly necessary about how tightly she held him while Puff was still standing motionless on the grass, and Rin made no attempt to convince herself otherwise. The embrace beside the cliff still lingered in her thoughts, along with everything she'd wanted to do while standing within his arms. Now Muad had effectively invited her to wrap herself around him, and whatever restraint she'd found earlier suddenly seemed considerably less important. Her hands settled against his stomach while she shifted closer still, fitting herself against him until there was no space left between them. It felt wonderful and good, dangerously so.

The simple contact stirred a warmth low in her stomach that had nothing to do with the sun overhead, and Rin allowed herself to enjoy it rather than immediately retreat from it. She could feel the movement of his breathing beneath her arms and the solid warmth of his body against hers. Every small shift brought another reminder of just how little separated them, and for a woman who had spent the morning thinking about kissing him, it was almost maddening. Her cheek hovered near his shoulder before she lowered her face toward the back of his neck, breathing him in beneath the salt carried from the ocean. She wanted to put her lips there. The desire was immediate enough that she almost laughed at herself, because apparently resisting one kiss only meant finding somewhere else she wanted to give him one.

Before she could decide whether to indulge herself, something immense touched her mind.

Rin straightened slightly as the unfamiliar presence pressed through the dyad, carrying a weight distinctly unlike the minds of the people around her yet accompanied by thoughts unmistakably clear in their intent.

Father's mate smells nice. Can mate hear me?

Her ears rose sharply as she looked at Puff, then Muad and finally back toward the enormous golden eye drawing close to her. "Was that...?" Muad's answer confirmed it before she finished, and delight spread across her face. Puff could speak to them. More remarkably, whatever connection existed between Muad and the dragon seemed capable of reaching Rin through the dyad as well.

Can you hear me too, Puff?

She sent the thought tentatively toward that immense presence, uncertain whether the path worked both ways. The word mate certainly hadn't escaped her attention either, and the warmth already beneath her skin climbed into her cheeks. She should probably have been more embarrassed by the assumption. Instead, sitting with her body pressed against Muad's and her arms wrapped willingly around him, Rin had to admit Puff's conclusion wasn't entirely unreasonable. Premature, certainly. But not unreasonable.

The dragon's next declaration drew a soft laugh from Rin, particularly when Muad supplied the Basic translation for zdornazt. Happy. Once she understood the word, Puff's excitement seemed even easier to recognize, simple and enormous and infectious enough that Rin felt her own happiness answering it.

Rin is zdornazt too, she offered toward Puff, letting the thought carry a warm pulse of affection for the dragon and the man sitting between them. "Very happy."

When Puff rose, Rin's arms tightened instinctively. Their height changed quickly enough that the stone wall and cliff suddenly seemed considerably less substantial, while the anticipation pouring from the dragon sent Rin's heart beating faster. Muad suggested she hold tighter, and that was an invitation Rin had absolutely no intention of wasting. Her arms cinched around his middle as she pressed herself fully along his back, laughter already gathering in her chest when she realized Puff wasn't turning away from the cliff.

This time, Rin stopped pretending she hadn't been thinking about his neck. She leaned forward until her mouth hovered against the skin just below his hairline. The first touch of her lips was light, almost exploratory, but she didn't immediately withdraw. She let them remain there, feeling his warmth beneath them while her arms stayed firmly around him. It wasn't the kiss she'd been imagining all morning, but it was closer than anything she'd allowed herself yet, and the little rush it sent through her made the corners of her mouth lift against his skin.

"Cyar'ika," she murmured there, testing the unfamiliar word while her breath warmed the place she'd just touched. She still didn't know precisely what she'd called him, but whatever affection he'd wrapped around it when he gave it to her, she returned without reservation.

Then Puff jumped, and Rin's stomach seemed to remain somewhere atop the cliff while the rest of her plunged downward. Her startled cry became laughter almost immediately as wind tore through her hair and the cliff raced past beside them. Her arms locked around Muad, her body pressed tightly against his back as the ocean surged toward them with terrifying speed. Spray struck her face just before Puff's wings exploded outward, and the sudden transition from falling to soaring stole Rin's breath nearly as effectively as the dive itself.

The mansion dwindled behind them as they climbed, the great building becoming impossibly small before Puff turned toward open water. Rin had traveled between worlds for much of her life, crossed mountains, forests and roads that barely deserved the name, but this was different. There was no transparisteel canopy between her and the sky, no engines vibrating beneath her feet and no hull separating her from the ocean far below. There was only Puff beneath them, Muad within her arms, the wind rushing against her and an expanse of blue stretching until she could no longer distinguish where the sea ended and the horizon began.

Rin loved every heartbeat of it. She loved the speed and the wind tearing through her hair, the living strength moving beneath her and the happiness she could feel spilling from Puff. She loved having her arms around Muad without needing to invent an excuse for keeping them there, and perhaps most dangerously, she loved how quickly holding him this way was beginning to feel natural. The exhilaration stripped away enough of her self-consciousness that she stopped measuring every touch. Her body moved with his as Puff flew, cheek resting against the back of his shoulder while one hand shifted beneath his when he reached for her, fingers weaving through his and holding on.

There was desire beneath the happiness too, impossible to ignore when every movement of the dragon kept her pressed close against him. Rin could still feel the memory of his lips against her shoulder, just as she could remember the warmth of his skin beneath her own mouth moments ago. She found herself wondering how he would react if she kissed him again, somewhere slower, somewhere she didn't immediately leave behind. The thought sent another pulse of heat through her that she knew perfectly well the dyad might betray, and instead of becoming embarrassed by that possibility, Rin felt an almost mischievous satisfaction. He had spent days teasing reactions out of her. Perhaps he could endure feeling one she no longer intended to hide.

His thoughts reached her through the dyad more clearly than any spoken conversation could have managed in the roar of the wind, and the attraction warming her slowly softened into something deeper as Rin listened. Muad spoke of never having a Veradune of his own, and although she knew pieces of that already, hearing him frame it against what he had tried to create for his clan made her understand something she hadn't before. He had given others the thing he had never possessed himself. Roots without chains. Somewhere they could leave, and somewhere they could return to. Marta and Chek had spoken about family in much the same way, and suddenly Rin understood why their words had reached him so deeply.

Her arms tightened around him, but this time the gesture had nothing to do with staying on Puff's back. *Then you have one now. *The thought left her before she could reconsider it, yet once it existed between them Rin discovered she didn't want it back. Veradune.

Warmth gathered behind the word, carrying memories rather than explanations. Her family's home. The festival. Marta and Chek's mountain kitchen and the forge inside it. The roads she had traveled so many times that her feet remembered turns her mind no longer needed to consider. Forests and rivers, familiar skies and the people who would notice when she returned after too long away. Home wasn't merely the planet beneath those memories. It was the certainty that there would always be somewhere she belonged.

You don't have to be born there to belong there. You don't have to stay there for it to be home. If you want it, Muad, Veradune is yours too. Come back in a year, or a hundred years, or after you've wandered halfway across the galaxy again. Call it home. You have one now.

The certainty behind the offer surprised even her, but Rin meant every part of it. She wasn't lending him Veradune because of whatever they were becoming, nor offering something that disappeared if their road someday changed direction. Rin couldn't speak for every person on the planet, but she could give him what was hers to offer: somewhere he would be expected to return, a door that would open when he did and people who had already begun making room for him around their tables. Muad had spent centuries giving other people somewhere to put down roots. If he wanted roots of his own, however lightly planted, she wanted him to know there was soil waiting for them.

When Muad took her hand and curled it into a fist before placing it over his heart, Rin's breath caught for reasons that had nothing to do with the wind. The battered speeder on Batuu felt impossibly far away, but she remembered pressing her fist against her own chest and then his, trying to explain something she had understood almost instinctively. He remembered too. The return of that small gesture carried more weight than any grand declaration could have, and emotion ached sweetly behind her ribs as she left her fist against his heart.

Maybe home can be both, she thought softly. The people you carry with you...and somewhere those people will always welcome you back.

Her fist slowly opened against his chest, fingers spreading until her palm rested over his heart. She kept it there while Puff glided among the birds, holding him as much as she held the meaning of what they had exchanged. The dragon's sudden dive toward the flock startled another laugh out of Rin, and Puff's enormous, ridiculous squawk afterward broke through the tenderness without diminishing it. Rin laughed hard enough that her forehead dropped against Muad's shoulder, joy spilling freely through the dyad while she wondered whether Puff could feel that too.

"Did she just laugh at them?"

There was no possibility Muad could hear her over the wind, but the amusement carried easily enough through their connection. Rin looked outward again, taking in the life scattered everywhere once she knew where to look. Birds rode the currents around them while far below the ocean broke around creatures rising from its depths. The world felt enormous from Puff's back, but somehow not empty, and Rin found herself sharing in the dragon's happiness until it was difficult to tell where Puff's excitement ended and her own began.

Then came the question.

Dive?

Rin barely had time to understand what Puff meant before Muad enthusiastically agreed, and her eyes widened. "Wait, what?" The words had barely escaped before Puff folded her wings and the ocean began rushing toward them, this time without a cliff beside them to offer any illusion of scale. Rin's delighted scream was torn away by the wind as she obeyed Muad's instructions, tightening her arms until there was no space left between them and folding herself against his back. Her face tucked against the side of his neck, wet hair beginning to whip around them while Muad's arm reached behind to secure her against him, and she felt another wild burst of happiness at the absurdity of trusting both of them enough to do this.

At the last possible moment Rin dragged in a deep breath, and then cold swallowed them whole. Sound transformed from the deafening roar of wind into the muffled thunder of the ocean as Puff's enormous body carried them forward beneath shifting blue and fractured sunlight. Rin kept herself wrapped tightly around Muad while schools of fish scattered around them in flashes of silver, moving together as though guided by a single thought. The calls of the whales traveled through the water with a depth she felt inside her chest, and even as her lungs gradually began to burn, Rin found herself wishing she could somehow remain beneath the surface long enough to see everything.

Puff angled upward before breath became a genuine problem. Rin held tighter as they accelerated toward the growing light until the dragon exploded through the surface and carried them back into open air. Rin gasped deeply, dragging the first breath into aching lungs as water streamed from her hair and skin in shining rivulets. It poured from the ends of her hair and raced along her shoulders, down her arms, sides,s and across every place the wind could find while Puff's wings beat around them. She felt incandescent.

Saltwater cooled her skin while exhilaration burned beneath it; her heart still hammering from the dive, her body alive with the sensation of speed and flight, and Muad pressed against her. The wrap clung wetly against her. Her hair was an impossible mess, and water continued streaming from both of them, but none of it mattered. If anything, the sheer physicality of the moment stripped away another layer of the caution she'd been carrying. Rin looked at the back of Muad's neck, watched water trace a path down his skin, and remembered exactly how it had felt beneath her lips before the first dive.

This time she didn't merely touch him. Her arms tightened slowly around his middle, drawing herself firmly against his back as she lowered her mouth to the same place beneath his hairline. Rin kissed him there with deliberate warmth, lips lingering against his wet skin instead of immediately pulling away. The first kiss became another, slower and slightly lower, following one of the droplets that had escaped into the curve where his neck met his shoulder. She let herself savor the contact this time, eyes closing as the thrill of doing something she'd wanted to do settled through her. It wasn't his mouth. She still wasn't ready to cross that final distance simply because adrenaline had made restraint difficult, but this wasn't an accidental brush or a playful almost-kiss either. She wanted him to know she was touching him because she wanted to.

Her lips lingered once more against his neck before she finally rested her cheek there, breath still uneven from the ocean and from reasons that had nothing whatsoever to do with holding it underwater. Rin could feel the heat in herself despite the cold water streaming down her skin, the attraction no longer tucked safely beneath teasing glances and almost-moments. She wanted him. She wanted the closeness, wanted to discover what would happen when she finally turned him around and stopped finding safer places to put her mouth. The knowledge no longer frightened her. If anything, it made the anticipation almost painfully sweet.

Zdornazt, she thought toward Puff, pouring laughter, exhilaration, and affection into the unfamiliar word and wondering whether the dragon could hear her answer as clearly as Rin had heard the question.

Then her attention settled entirely upon Muad. Her lips brushed his neck once more, softer now, while her arms remained wrapped around him and the affection carried through the dyad intertwined with something warmer and far less innocent.

Cyar'ika.

She still didn't know the literal translation, but after hearing how he'd offered the word to her, Rin was beginning to understand what lived inside it. Whatever Muad had meant when he'd called her that, she returned it with the warmth of her body against his, the lingering memory of her mouth upon his skin and the certainty of the home she'd just offered him.

For now, that was as far as she would go. It was becoming increasingly obvious that for now wasn't going to last forever.

Muad Dib

Muad Dib · 2026-08-16T22:21:26-0400

When Rin closed the distance between their bodies when they initially took to the air, his brain rationalized it away. She was merely taking him up on his suggestion. All he could think of, for several moments, was how little their clothing separated them. Somehow, he managed to calm himself and focus on showing her the sights. When her lips caressed his neck, he completely forgot everything. Heat immediately flushed his body, and a hunger that had nothing to do with the dyad surged through him. He didn't know how, but he managed to retain a sense of decorum. Then she laid her cheek on his back, and he closed his eyes.

He had thought the kiss was electrifying. But the intimate gesture of just lying against him increased the fire beneath his skin. Muad wanted Rin. Not just her lips and her embrace. He wanted the closeness he felt echoing from her. Being in her presence. Not apologizing for holding her, feeling her heartbeat against his chest, seeing her golden eyes look up lazily as he gently stroked her arm.

Thankfully, the brief dive helped to cool his emotions.

Then she started again. His body shuddered at the first tease on his neck. Then the next brushed lower and his teeth snapped shut to keep a groan from escaping. The hellcat. He felt the flush of heat as the hairs on his arms stood upon goosebumps. Her lips trailed down his neck until she laid her cheek upon his back. Muad closed his eyes and fought to control his breathing, his heartbeat, his instincts. Just when he felt himself gaining a semblance of control, a word drifted through their bond. Cyar'ika. He leaned low across Puff's neck and spoke, surf. Then he straightened.

Ahead of them, a landmass began growing into the shape of a large island. Green foliage, white sands, and gray rocks. They were still too distant to see anything more specific, which was fine with Muad. He had other plans. In hindsight, his plan may have been foolhardy, but in typical Muad fashion, he ignored the danger.

His hands moved to Rin's and disentangled them to slide them behind his back. With one hand holding the spike and the other planted behind him, he pushed up until he was crouched on Puff's back. With a quick spin, he sat once more. This time, facing the opposite direction and looked into Rin's eyes. His hands hooked behind her knees and pulled her closer, allowing her thighs to rest upon his. One arm circled her waist and pulled her closer until no space remained. His hand gripped her wet skin as it glided across velvety skin. Glowing blue eyes stared into her golden ones as he smiled a very dangerous smile.

Cyar'ika. Means darlin'. Or beloved. Mesh'la means beautiful. Mesh'la cyar'ika. His forehead leaned forward until their moist skin connected. His free hand crept up her arm playfully. Fingers striding up her forearm, across the gentle curve of her shoulder where he had pressed his lips earlier. And then to her neck. Gently, his thumb moved to her chin while their torsos pressed together. His open shirt revealed scars that pressed onto her exposed skin. He tilted her chin up and to the side as he gazed at the small scar beneath her jaw.

I never asked where this came from. I never thought it was a blemish. It's a part of you. His forehead moved from hers and he leaned in and pressed his lips against the faint scar. She tasted of vanilla and salt. The hand around her back rose to sink into her hair as he lightly trailed kisses from under her jaw to her neck. When he pulled back he stared at her with an open expression that left him vulnerable. Mesh'la. His eyes drifted from her eyes and paused at her lips for a moment until his fingers trailed down her neck and to her chest near her shoulder.

This one I know. It represents what you nearly sacrificed. For me. A little reminder. Slowly his head nuzzled from her neck and he leaned down to softly kiss the scar. Then his eyes flashed up while he straightened. In front of Puff the island grew until she turned and glided along the shore. Muad raised his hand and brushed the pad of his thumb across her lips.

Every instinct told him to kiss her. And he wanted to. But the oath drifted into mind and he pulled her snug against his body as his lips found her ear. I said I wouldn't kiss you until you either kissed me, or asked me to kiss you ... Do you want me to kiss you?

He pulled back to look into the face of the woman who had bewitched him in every way possible. Their hearts pounded together. Their breath mingled as he leaned in, lips parting.

Too late cyar'ika.

With her legs on his and his arm around her, it required only a slight shift for him to pull her off the dragon with him into the clear water below. As the water opened beneath his back when he took the brunt of the force which pushed the air from his lungs, his feet kicked against the sand beneath and launched their heads and shoulders above the surf. He found his footing and let his arm slip from her back as he smirked, water running from his hair and over his face.

"Welcome to the island darlin'. Maybe what you need is a vigorously physical swim to collect yourself." He kissed the tip of her nose before diving away from her and toward shore. Strong arms cut through the water as legs propelled him even farther. And then a small wave pushed him the rest of the way to shore where he sprawled on his back on the compacted white sand.

Rin Taal

Rin Taal · 2026-08-16T23:11:53-0400

The moment Muad began moving her hands behind his back, Rin knew he was doing something. She didn't know precisely what until he pushed himself upright on Puff's back, and her golden eyes widened as he turned himself around while the dragon continued carrying them through the sky. There was something absurdly reckless about the maneuver, but before she could decide whether to tell him so, his hands hooked behind her knees and pulled her toward him. Whatever admonishment she might have offered disappeared before it ever reached her lips.

Rin's thighs settled over his, his arm circled her waist and suddenly there was no longer even the illusion of distance between them. Wet skin met wet skin, his open shirt doing almost nothing to separate her from the warmth of his chest. Her hands found his shoulders instinctively, partly because he was sitting backward on a flying dragon and partly because she needed somewhere to put them that didn't immediately surrender to the urge to explore him. Her breath caught when his hand glided across her waist, and this time Rin made no attempt to hide what the contact did to her. A soft sigh escaped her lips, warm and unmistakable, while the attraction that had been simmering since they had met surged hot enough to make the cool wind rushing around them almost irrelevant.

Then he told her what cyar'ika meant. Darlin'. Beloved. Rin's expression changed as the second meaning settled into her. She had returned the word to him without understanding exactly what she'd been saying, guided only by the affection she'd felt beneath it. Now she knew, and somehow that made every time she'd whispered it against his skin feel more intimate in retrospect. Her eyes remained fixed upon his as their foreheads touched, and the playful creep of his fingers along her arm sent another shiver through her that had nothing to do with being wet.

Mesh'la cyar'ika. Beautiful beloved. The words struck somewhere considerably deeper than the teasing compliments he'd given her before, and Rin felt her ears warming despite the water still clinging to them. Yet there was no room to retreat from the feeling when his fingers reached her neck and his thumb lifted her chin. She followed his gaze toward the small scar beneath her jaw, surprise flickering across her face when he admitted he'd noticed it before. She might have answered if his mouth hadn't reached it first.

Rin's eyes closed as the kiss beneath her jaw drew a quiet sound from her, somewhere between a sigh and a soft moan that she made absolutely no effort to swallow. Her fingers tightened against his shoulders as his lips began traveling along the sensitive skin beneath her jaw and down her neck. Each kiss seemed to leave warmth behind, and Rin tipped her head almost instinctively to give him more room rather than drawing away. She had been testing him with kisses against his neck only moments before. Apparently Muad had decided to demonstrate exactly how effective that particular weapon could be when turned back upon her.

Her breathing had changed by the time he pulled away, deeper now and not entirely steady. Rin opened her eyes to find his waiting for her, and the openness there stole something from the playful heat of the moment without diminishing the desire beneath it. She saw his gaze fall to her lips and hers did the same before his fingers traveled lower, finding the scar across her left shoulder. The memory of Kurgan came with the touch, and for a moment she was back in the forest with pain burning through her shoulder and Muad transformed into something she had barely understood. She remembered the spike being torn free, his hands healing what it had done and the strange essence that had passed into her afterward. More than any of it, she remembered thinking she might lose him before whatever had begun between them was ever given the chance to become this.

Then his lips touched the scar, and Rin inhaled sharply as emotion and attraction tangled together until she couldn't have separated them if she'd tried. Her fingers left his shoulders and slid around him, drawing him closer as his mouth rested against the mark. The scar had never bothered her. She had accumulated enough over the years that another hardly changed the person she saw in a mirror, but there was something achingly intimate about the care with which Muad kissed the evidence of what she'd endured beside him.

I'd do it again.

The answer passed quietly through the dyad before she could think better of it. Rin knew he probably wouldn't like hearing it, but it was true. She would rather carry the scar than live with the alternative, and no promise they had made about fighting for their own lives could make her lie about what she would have chosen in that moment.

When he straightened and brushed his thumb across her lips, the last of her composure became considerably more difficult to maintain. Rin's lips parted beneath the touch before she could stop herself. Every instinct urged her to turn her head just enough to kiss his thumb, to lean forward and finally discover whether kissing him would feel anything like she'd imagined. Her heart was beating so hard that there was no possibility anything could conceal it, and she no longer cared. She wanted him. She had wanted him for longer than she had been willing to admit, wanted his mouth where his thumb had been and his arms around her when there was no danger or injury providing an excuse. Yet somewhere along the way, the wanting had begun changing. It had deepened into an ache that wasn't satisfied by another almost, another teasing touch or another moment spent hovering scant inches apart.

Then he reminded her of his promise.

Do you want me to kiss you?

Rin looked into his eyes, and for perhaps the first time since Batuu, there was no instinctive retreat from the question. Her fingers tightened against him as their breathing mingled between barely parted lips. She knew her answer. More importantly, she finally understood why she'd waited. She had never wanted their first kiss to happen simply because attraction made it tempting, or because circumstances pushed them close enough that giving in became easy. She had told herself she would wait until it became a need, until there was no uncertainty left inside her about whether she was ready to cross that distance.

She was ready now.

Before Rin could give him the answer gathering behind her lips, Muad moved first, just not in the direction she expected. She had enough time to register Too late, cyar'ika before the world tipped violently sideways and the two of them fell from Puff's back. Her startled cry followed them down until the water swallowed it, Muad's arm still around her as they struck the surf. Rin surfaced a moment after he did, sputtering and dragging wet hair from her face while realization caught up with what he'd just done. He had asked her if she wanted him to kiss her and then thrown her into the ocean.

Her expression became one of exquisite disbelief. "Muad Dib."

The kiss to the tip of her nose did absolutely nothing to improve his situation. Rin stared after him as he dove away, her golden eyes narrowing while a thoroughly false irritation settled over features that were already betraying her with the beginnings of a smile. "A vigorously physical swim?" she repeated under her breath, watching his arms cut through the water toward shore. "Oh, you're very pleased with yourself."

She gave him several seconds of a head start before following. Rin wasn't in any particular hurry now that she could see him sprawled across the white sand ahead, and the swim should have given her time to cool the fire he'd spent the last several minutes deliberately feeding. In reality, the sight of him waiting on shore did very little to help. Her arms pulled smoothly through the clear water while her tail trailed heavily behind her, thoroughly soaked and considerably less graceful than usual, and with every stroke she became more aware that the answer Muad had stolen from her hadn't changed simply because he'd thrown them into the ocean.

Somewhere between Puff and the beach, Rin felt the wrap loosen from around her hips. She twisted in the water and caught a glimpse of the fabric drifting away beneath the surface, briefly considered going after it and then looked toward Muad again. "Oh well." The wrap could be recovered later, and at that particular moment she discovered she cared considerably more about reaching the man waiting on the sand.

Her feet eventually found the sandy bottom and Rin rose from the water, pushing soaked hair back from her face again as she walked the remaining distance onto shore. Water streamed from her body while her tail dragged wetly behind her, shedding enough of the ocean that she imagined she was leaving a small river in her wake. She stopped beside Muad and looked down at him for a moment, the false irritation still clinging stubbornly to her expression until she could no longer maintain it and a smile slowly took its place.

Rin lowered herself onto the sand beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched before she rolled toward him. Her soggy tail curled awkwardly behind her while one leg slid over him, settling comfortably across him. The position brought back all the heat the ocean had supposedly washed away, but this time there was no flying dragon, no impending dive and no excuse of needing to hold on. She was choosing the closeness simply because she needed it now. That realization settled through her with a certainty that was almost startling in its simplicity. She had wanted Muad for days, wanted to touch him, hold him and discover what waited on the other side of the distance they'd both respected. Somewhere between his mouth against her scars, his question and the plunge into the ocean, that wanting had finally become the thing she had promised herself she would wait for. She needed him.

Her hand rose to his face, fingertips tracing lightly along his cheek before settling against his jaw and gently turning him toward her. The humor in Rin's expression remained, but something softer and more certain had entered it as she shifted closer until her forehead rested against his. Wet strands of brown and sun-gold hair fell around them while her golden eyes searched his, and for several heartbeats she simply looked at him, allowing herself to feel everything she'd spent days carefully sorting through.

She could still feel the ghost of his kisses beneath her jaw and against the scar on her shoulder. She remembered his thumb crossing her lips and the question he'd asked before stealing away her opportunity to answer it. Beneath all of that was the desire that had been building between them since Batuu, checked by fear, uncertainty, healing, promises and the understanding that neither of them needed to rush merely because they wanted each other. The realization facing Rin now came without fear. There was anticipation enough to make her heart pound and her breath catch as her thumb brushed slowly along his cheek, and desire warm enough that she could feel it in every place their bodies touched, but beneath both was the certainty she'd been waiting for. Muad had promised he would wait until she crossed the distance herself, and Rin finally needed to cross it.

Her eyes slipped closed as she tilted her head and pressed her lips to his. The first contact was softer than the hunger building inside her had threatened it would be, and Rin lingered there, feeling the warmth of his mouth against hers while allowing herself one suspended heartbeat to understand that she'd finally done it. There was no uncertainty waiting on the other side, no sudden urge to retreat. Instead, something inside her loosened, and her hand slid from his jaw into his wet hair as she kissed him again without truly breaking the first, deeper this time and no longer tentative now that the barrier between imagining and knowing had disappeared.

A quiet moan escaped against his lips, and Rin made no attempt to swallow that either. Her leg remained draped across his as she drew herself closer, the hand in his hair keeping him near while the other found his chest. She could feel his heartbeat beneath her palm, just as she knew he could probably feel hers racing through her without touching her at all. The kiss carried all the desire she'd spent days restraining, but it wasn't frantic. She didn't need to devour the moment merely because she'd finally allowed herself to have it. Rin explored it slowly instead, savoring the warmth of his lips and the closeness she'd denied herself every time she'd stopped scant inches away, letting herself learn what kissing Muad felt like without already reaching for whatever might come afterward.

Eventually she eased back only far enough for their lips to part, though her forehead remained against his and her fingers stayed tangled in his wet hair. Her breathing was uneven, her golden eyes opening slowly to find his from barely inches away, and the smile that appeared was warm, satisfied and just mischievous enough to warn him that throwing her into the ocean hadn't been forgotten.

"There." Her thumb traced his cheek as she caught another breath, the warmth in her eyes deepening as she held his gaze. "Now you don't have to ask anymore, cyar'ika."

This time she knew exactly what the word meant, and exactly why she was giving it back to him.

Muad Dib

Muad Dib · 2026-08-17T00:28:46-0400

He lay on the compact beach sand and tried to breathe. The swim didn't exhaust him. Unfortunately, the ghost of her skin against his was living rent-free in his head. His chest heaved as he tried an old breathing technique to slow his pulse and the errant thoughts his mind brought to the forefront. Her body against his, the warmth of her skin, her eyes that were filled with the same desire that he knew his reflected. A mantra was whispered to himself on every exhale. "An oath. An oath. An oath."

After almost a minute, he felt calm slowly returning and self-control reestablishing. Then he raised his head to look where Rin was coming ashore. And, for the second time, he was reduced to a single word. "Fierfek." The water had claimed the sheer wrap that was once secured around her hips. Now that it was gone, he had an unobstructed view of her hips, thighs, and long legs. "You're karked, Muad." The mumbled words were for his ears only as he dropped his head back to the sand and closed his eyes. It didn't help. He could see the image of her rising from the water, water falling from her body as she flipped her hair back to reveal her face.

He was, well and truly, screwed.

If only he didn't open his eyes, he could keep the last shred of restraint. He felt her lay down beside him, their shoulders touching. Even that much only fueled the fervor burning through his body. All he wanted was to roll over and take her lips. But for the damned oath. That was the only thing he could focus on. Not the woman lying in a bathing suit next to him. Not the feelings that had grown over three planets in three different systems. Not the fact that he had met her family, and she had met his brother. Not that every time they were together, he felt complete. No, all he focused on was the word that he gave her. A promise he now called himself a fool for uttering.

And then she rolled over atop him. One shapely thigh crossed over his body, his eyes snapped open and he became lost in the golden pools. His left hand came up around her waist, well, perhaps a handspan or two below the waist. His right clamped firmly on the firm flesh of her thigh. Her hair hung like a curtain around their faces, droplets falling to his chest as his breath caught. He had thought her beautiful before. Now she was a goddess. Her tail flicked over his legs, the soft fur still carrying excess water that swirled across his flesh.

When her hand brushed his face before turning his head toward hers, his lips parted and his teeth clenched, prepared for another wave of her teasing him to madness. Then her forehead lowered to his and a sigh escaped. Briefly, he wondered if he had drowned beneath the water and this was a fevered dream in the afterlife. But when her eyes locked with his, he knew this wasn't a dream.

In her gaze was the hunger, desire, and need that had grown between them. But there was something more. He identified it because it beat within him. Where once fear of the future, the uncertainty of what they were becoming, and the hesitancy that it was too soon had been replaced with a warm acceptance. This was what they wanted. This is what they chose. Each other. The heat in the moment had turned from raging desire to a want that softened the glow of need into something even more intimate.

They were ready.

Then her eyes closed as she leaned down, her hand firmly in his hair. And he surrendered to the moment. Their lips pressed together, softly, without urgency. He memorized the shape of her lips, the taste of her mouth. Then their kiss deepened and their lips parted as they delved deeper. It was everything he thought it would be, and more. He felt her moan against his lips and his lips twitched in a smile as his head rose to meet the passion that found life without desire crushing them beneath its weight. Both hands tightened, pulling her even tighter against him as he growled in his chest. Her hand pressed against his chest would have felt the hunger given voice as he matched the need in their kiss.

Days and days of desire and need culminated in the kiss that didn't ravage one another. Instead it was the union of what they wanted. What they had wanted across planets. Now given it's freedom on a island on Olanet.

When she withdrew her lips his eyes finally opened and gazed into her face. Warmth, satisfaction, and mischievousness was firmly etched in her expression. He figured he was wearing a similar expression. Her thumb stroked his cheek and his face turned instinctively into her hand. While he grinned at her breathlessness, he discovered his own lungs still worked remarkably well.

"Now you don't have to ask anymore, cyar'ika."

He grinned as he released a single word, since Rin had devolved his vocabulary to one word sentences. "Good."

He rolled, taking her with him until their position was reversed. Now she lay in the sand beneath him as he stretched out atop her. Rin's hand was still at his neck and he leaned down, his lips nearing hers. Then they changed direction, his kiss landing on her nose while he grinned. Eyes flicked from hers and to her lips where he lowered his head. A playful kiss at the edge of her lips, then a quick withdrawal. Lowering he kissed her chin, then turned his head to drag his stubble across her inflamed lips before pulling back again. Glowing blue eyes looked into hers with an openness that shocked him. She was only the second woman he had ever kissed. And he wanted her to be the last. The thoughts travelled through their bond as he finally lowered his lips to capture hers.

Instead of the desire driving him mad, it drove him forward with care. He tasted her lips, felt the pressure returned, his silent gasp as his teeth raked her lower lip. Their breath intermingled and he didn't know where he started and Rin ended. There was a gentleness as he explored the texture of her lips, his own curling into a smile. She was everything he wanted. And more.

And then he raised up on a knee and his arms, breaking the soft kiss as he panted slightly. Her hair lay around her on the ground, a golden halo. Her eyes glowed up at him and he smiled sheepishly. "We should probably stop cyar'ika. Otherwise, I don't think I will. And that is a completely different choice I will let you make. Because, right now, I just want you." A very satisfied smile stretched his face as he leaned off of her and onto his hip.

Rin Taal

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