Dune of Blood - Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen Fanfiction [ENG]

Chapter 1

Narration: Ava Shirah.

"Violence is a dagger used by ignorant people!"

Ava Shirah.

That's my name.

Twenty-five years I lived unworthily, under the regency of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, on a tiny moon called Frikia, and under the tutelage of the beneditas, a small sect offshoot of the Sisterhood, to fulfil its disgusting purposes.

Frikia was grey, but there was light, even if it was scarce and fractional, as if a beam of light folded through the atmosphere, going out and turning on constantly along its length. The light was not intimidated by the rain.

It was raining in the morning.

It was raining after lunch.

It was raining at dusk.

I looked at myself in the small rusty mirror. Thin face, almost non-existent cheeks, which made the bony cheekbones stand out. Deep and dark circles under my eyes, lying below my swollen eyelids, because I had cried two whole nights and howled without uttering a sound.

It was forbidden to express one's feelings.

Feelings were forbidden.

My brown eyes lost the sparkle before I remembered what it was like to be happy. I can't remember a single day that I tried to smile. There were no reasons. Black, wavy, long and oily hair, due to the absence of bathing, ran down my short and thin shoulders. In the last month, I have lost more than eleven pounds, because after I knew what I needed to do, my appetite, which was already scarce, became non-existent. The desire to walk was limited to going to and from prayer's sanctuary. The jug of water was changed every four days, something unimaginable, before accepting to be the guinea pig of the beneditas.

I didn't feel thirsty.

I didn't feel hungry.

I felt nothing but despair.

The warning came from the mother superior of the Bene Gesserit and spread to the mothers below in the beneditas hierarchy. There was an urgency to find the ideal servant for the nefarious mission. The chosen ones who were able to do the job failed a few tests. In the whispers, I learnt that Margot Fenring, the smartest of them all, who was already aiming for high positions in the Sisterhood, had her lifeline cut off. I was left with the tedious situation.

I looked in the mirror again, a tear came down incinerating the skin, as if tearing the little bit of aliveness that existed in me.

Submissive, I always have been. I never disobeyed orders and was ready for any emergency. But there, in the face of my imminent death, of the sad end that awaited me, the blood throbbed, the weak heart pulsed for help, and the lost soul begged for a safe place to shelter itself.

The dark blue tunic hid my few curves, more of bones than flesh. I poked my nails. I breathed as if I had run across a thousand swampy plains. Oh! The swamps. It would be nice to smell dead seaweed, to see dry branches, without a drop of life, sinking into the mud. Just like me. I would dive into the dirtiest swamp in the world. I would drown for my own folly.

I closed my eyes, my eyelids burned as they touched. I interlaced my fingers, gathered my legs, and took them under the dark wooden chair — much older than all the beneditas put together — without any refinement and ornament, something unlikely if it were the Mother Regent's furniture. I felt the tendons in my feet stretch. I sighed. I swallowed, pursed my lips and moistened them with scant saliva.

With my head down, I opened my eyelids and gazed out at the window and the formless horizon. The beige curtain, leaning against the wall, did not move. The gentle breeze came in through the iron railing, because the glass was too luxurious for the beneditas. This was the responsibility of the Sisterhood headquarters. On the little table below the mirror, my notebook, old, heirloom from my mother. No used by me, I admit it. The events that took place before my eyes were few, not worth the effort of note.