Across the Sands

~Hajra

~*~

The desert weeps for the profound grief of the prevented voices.

-Inama Nushif

~*~

               Irulan stood on her balcony, her hands resting gently on the white stone. She looked out across the sands of Dune, across the desert she had come to love so dearly. Although she felt that Arrakis might be the only place that she could slightly feel like she belonged, even the raging winds of the coriolis storms could not fill the giant void that her entire life's events had left in her heart.

               The biggest void belonged to Paul Muad'dib. He had ripped a searing gap into her heart that would never heal. It ached night and day, and although the falling of the suns and moons slightly lessened the pain, Irulan felt that no matter how many sleepless nights she passed she could never be better. She could never be whole.

               But then, when had she ever been whole?

~*~

               Pages of parchment behind the princess rippled in the breeze. The sounds reminded her of her work, the only life she had. A couple volumes of her work were already finished- Muad'dib, Family Commentaries and The Humanity of Muad'dib lay printed and bound in pieces of thick cloth, tied with heavy string. Irulan felt that the words of the books were still too sacred, too personal to be shared yet with Arrakis, with the world. It was too soon after the Preacher departed from this world, too soon after Alia died. It was still too soon after the world, as Irulan and the rest of the Empire knew it, crumbled around their feet and dissolved into tiny pieces.

               Soft footsteps followed the sound of an opening door as Irulan remained with her back turned to the door. Let it be death, she thought calmly. Let it come now.

               "Irulan?"

               It was not yet her time to go. "Ghanima," Irulan said, a small smile crossing her face as her daughter- of sorts- came and stood beside her. Ghani rested her hands next to Irulan's on the railing of the balcony as she too stared out across the desert.

               "I'm worried about you, Irulan," said Ghani, meeting Irulan's eyes. Her compassionate eyes held a prism of emotions, emotions no one would ever know. "You're so quiet lately," she continued. "It's like you've already left this life and departed into the next, and yet your body is still here. Are you sure you're all right?"

               "I'm fine," said Irulan.

               "No," Ghani said softly, leaving no room for argument. "You're not all right. I see right through you, Irulan," she said, forcing Irulan to meet here eyes. She leaned slightly closer. "You know I know you too well for you to lie to me." Irulan bit the inside of her lip and turned away. Ghanima sighed and turned back to her desert. "The desert is leaving," she said, the undercurrent of feeling so strong in her voice that it almost made Irulan weep for Dune and the disappearing desert. "I can see it almost as much as I can feel it. It has been going on."

               "Liet brought many miracles to Arrakis," said Irulan.

               "My mother said such things," said Ghanima sharply. "Maybe you could say that the Golden Path was Dune's miracle- but I'm not so sure."

               "Your brother"-

               "My brother is in the desert," said Ghani bitterly. "He runs…" her voice trailed off, and her eyes closed halfway. "The Golden Path is a miracle for tomorrow's Dune," she said after a few minutes of silence. "But for my brother, it is the path to Shai-Hulud, and a certain death. He is the only one that can save us, but he will die in the process."

            The two women fell silent, stunned slightly by this outpouring. Irulan could smell a storm on the wind blowing off the desert. The breeze carried the sand pellets off the dunes towards the two on the balcony.

               "You loved my father, didn't you?" said Ghanima.

               Irulan took a shuddered breath. "More than anything in this world," she said. Ghani sighed.

               "I'm sure, Irulan," she said seriously, leaning forward slightly, "I'm sure that you will have one last stab at happiness before you die. You will have your hajra," said Ghani, "and you will find what you are looking for."

Irulan held Ghani's gaze. The blue-on-blue of her eyes was startling, imprinting its image onto her retina and staying with her long after the last scent of Ghanima's perfume was carried away on the desert wind.

"I've already began my hajra," said Irulan, all the remorse and resentment and love that she had felt for her entire life poured into that statement. Ghani nodded, and then left the balcony, leaving Irulan alone with her feelings- and with the desert.

Disclaimer- pretty much everything belongs to Frank Herbert.

A/N- set after CoD.