Secret Gardens [Evening 1]

[Cuyler Gray]

"No." She shook her head. "I've never met him, but if I had to guess, it might have been Dr. Kynes."

[Kannon]

For a moment, Cordana was studying Cuyler's face, as if something in the minutiae of her facial features held an answer. Perhaps it did.

"Following your intuition may get this somewhere, so let's do that. I suppose you mean the Emperor's planetologist on Arrakis. I haven't met him, though I've heard about him from another of my Order. He's a strange man, living close to the natives, and by their customs, not easily scrutable. If memory serves, he inherited the post from his father, another Dr. Kynes." Cordana shifted her fingers slightly. "Whether it were the living or the dead one who spoke in your vision might change how it should be understood."

Cordana grimaced faintly, more from concern than from pain.

"Either way, such visions are rare, very rare in fact, but never random. The reason is more in who you are than in the circumstance you have experienced, though it is the circumstance that can reveal more. There are a few paths you can follow. Some involve my Order, some are more your own, a personal hajj if you will, if the Zensunni part of your ancestry has this pull on you."

There was a quiet confirmation of the veracity of the last statement in Cordana's gaze.

[Cuyler Gray]

Her brow furrowed.

"I believe the to be what I need. What I have experienced seems to be tied to my blood. For better or worse, I should follow those ties."

[Kannon]

"Then you ought to descend into the Sea of Marshes, and see if anything from your visions can be retraced." Cordana tapped a wrinkle on her aba. "What is to be sought is like the swampsea itself, ever-changing, and yet recurrent."

A pause.
'
"There is a path from above, and there is one from below."

[Cuyler Gray]

"What is the nature of these paths?" she asked.

[Kannon]

Cordana chuckled dryly.

"A bird is a tourist in ways a burrowing animal is not, it sees only what it's shown. Is it not the lesson you carried out of Arrakis, from your time as a CHOAM auditor?"

It was perhaps the moment to pin Cuyler with the wise woman's gaze, but Cordana didn't claim it, opting for leaving the wanderer a moment to consider her own path, past, present, future. Instead, the Reverend Mother's gaze briefly moved to where Salomea and Shinah were.

"Some of the Sisters receive Mentat training. I am not one of them, nor am I too fond of reducing human thought to procedural templating, even if it's hard not to see the utility, at least as long as we remain Butlerians. But I have some respect for their creed, that undertanding emerges only after you've joined the process. The distinction between the observer and the participant is mostly wishful thinking anyway. It comes to how much skin you dare to have in the game."

[Cuyler Gray]

She nodded.

"I was out of my element there. And, I have still not fully embraced some of what I've learned. I understand the need for immersion. If ingredients are not mixed properly, you will not get proper results. But, over mixing can be just as bad."

[Kannon]

Cordana smiled at that.

"It's hard to argue with a chef over finer points of their own trade."

After a nod, she looked into the empty space where Nirilli had gone out of view.

"The girl could be of interest to you. She serves the Archon directly as a personal attendant, and is observant, if untrained. But she's also a Zensunni whose body was displaced when she was enslaved, but her soul stayed in the marshes. If you choose to burrow down rather than to soar, you might need a guide."

[Cuyler Gray]

"Thank you. I will speak with her." she offered a grateful smile.

[Kannon]

The Reverend Mother sighed, and glanced at Cuyler softly, with a tinge of worry.

"I may have not earned your gratitude yet. You have approached us seeking answers, after all, not merely directions. It behooves me to say one more thing to you. Yes, my Order deals with individuals who happen to have visions akin to yours, dreams that reach out to past lives, to experiences they didn't live themselves. As long as they are women, my Order deals with them by inclusion and cultivation, as such gifts are dangerous to blossom without self-control that usually takes years to learn. Melange acts in reverse, it removes controls, can cast someone into a river of souls. It is intoxicating and overwhelming, tempts with an idea that no control is necessary, that shallow waters or gentler current are still within reach... It is for you to know how close you already came to drowning."

Cordana's lips thinned.

"A Reverend Mother, when she meets inviduals like you, wants to subject them to a test. Let's call it a swimming test, though the details must remain secret until it's administered. I won't test you today, Cuyler, I see that you're not ready, but I may be singular among my Order to show the restraint. But remember this: 'When God hath ordained a creature to die in a particular place, He causeth that creature's wants to direct them to that place.' If you seek a plunge into the river, you will find it. But are you able to choose what you seek?"

[Cuyler Gray]

"I have already been swept away by the river. I am uncertain where tge currents will take ne, but I am certain that I will drown if I resist them. So, I need to learn to swim quickly."

[Kannon]

"Then you've learnt the most basic lesson, that you can learn. Many people never reach that point."

Something Cuyler had said cast worry into Cordana's gaze. She still thinned her lips in resolve.

"Long ago there was a wise man by the name Arthur who answered 'no' to the question I asked you. That our species cannot choose what we will. He thought that we cannot divest the primal desires we inherited from our wilder ancestors. We, the Bene Gesserit, are slightly more optimistic. We have proven to ourselves that this is possible, at least for some. It is a demanding and dangerous path, however, and there is no guarantee."

She sighed.

"Yes, you are in danger, Cuyler. You have been exposed to the terrors a sensitive mind faces when the universe speaks to it directly. I don't think you are too far gone, however."

There was insistence in the last sentence.

"You might still be able to escape back into ordinary life, never touch spice again, never return to Arrakis. But the life that has brought you to Harmonthep may be very difficult to sustain. I say this because I don't want you to remember this moment as one of desperation. If you entrust yourself to the guidance of the Sisterhood, it must be a choice you can own."

[Cuyler Gray]

"I am hear because of Arrakis. If I return there, it will be because of what happens here. If I abandon the path I've been following, perhaps my life will regain some normalcy. But, I'll always wonder what I'm missing."

There was a pause for thought. "I appreciate your guidance, but I will continue following my ancestors voice, for now."