Common

In truth, Atreides had not thought he’d see the mare again. But here she was, bearing down upon him with an energy he’d seen before, and he turned to meet her with anger flashing in his eyes that a woman he’d bested in battle would come for him in such a manner. Did she not know who he was? This gave him pause, and for the briefest of moments the fire in him guttered in the gale. (No one knew who he was. He was the only one left.)

But then came a voice, one he knew, and he remembered that he did not need to be alone.

“Azalaïs?” Atreides is glad to see her, but the deepening discernment of this place, and it’s rules (or lack there-of) turn the jubilation to dread. Young as she is, the spotted mare who’d followed him would be easy pickings, if left here alone in the dark.

So Atreides would not leave her.

He knows what he should say and what he should do. ‘You have to go home, you shouldn’t have followed me.’ Bow his head and submit to the whims of the woman who’d claimed him. But Atreides could not bring himself to say such things to the Princess of the Hillsl, for whom he had no right to feel responsible for, because she was not his to protect.

He could not deny the blooming affection he felt for her, and neither could he pretend to be something he was not - compliant and eager to please.

(And the way his heart throbbed in his throat, raw and real and perhaps not beyond healing as he’d feared, at the bold, beautiful words that tumbled from the spotted blue girl’s lips - ‘He already belongs to someone.’ It was all he wanted, to belong, to a place, or a people, after he’d lost everything and everyone who’d cared for him. And though he knew it wasn’t true - that Marceline had placed no claim on him, and had not invited him to join her herd, he allowed himself to believe it, for one, perfect moment. He belonged to someone. And in the deep darkness of his heart, there came a whisper; not just someone. Azalaïs.)

“I don’t want to go with you.” The words slipped out before he could stop them, blunt and cold. Atreides tossed his head, ears turning back in anxious disapproval, and despite knowing it was a mistake, that he was giving himself away, he couldn’t help but shift closer to Azalaïs. If there was true power behind the painted mare’s claim upon him, Atreides discerned that his obvious favour of another female, let alone one clearly younger, one who didn’t hold title or land or lead a herd, would not go over well. So, without hesitation, he drives himself between them, curling protectively around the roan girl, and though a flush of anger came over him, he did not bare his teeth or strike out to harm the one who’d so brazenly taken from him the last thing he’d had left; his freedom.

Perhaps it was foolish of him, to act like he had a choice. But it was in his blood - his father had raised him to be king one day, and that sort of egotism didn’t die as easily as mortal creatures. His pride hadn’t been broken alongside his heart (no matter Iphigenia’s attempts to snuff it out) - it was stronger than bone, stronger than stone, and it flared there, in his burning blue eyes as he stared the Inlet Queen down, waiting for her to back away, before he forced her to.