Secret Gardens [Evening 1]

[Cuyler Gray]

"With all I've been through? I've discovered strength I didn't know I had. I've learned to trust myself more."

[Kannon]

"I see." Cordana said. "It seems you don't need guidance that much after all. At least not yet."

She took a slow, controlled breath. She looked more tired than before, though not displeased. Maybe even relieved.

[Cuyler Gray]

"I would like to learn more." She admited. "About you and your order."

[Kannon]

"That's the trick, Cuyler. We're more a life to be lived than a subject to be studied. If we cared about humanity holding an enlightened view of us we would have likely done a better job at preventing the widespread notion of calling us witches rather that being amused by or apprecitive of that eerie mystique. Making intimation into our secrets dependent on commitment has generally been a wise choice to keep us up and running across millennia."

Cordana chuckled.

"We do train women to command themselves better, claim greater control over their bodies and minds. Well, we sometimes extend the courtesy to capable men as well. It's easier if they all start young, but improvement is rarely foreclosed by age. This, I guess, is the uncomfortable truth that has earned us notoriety. Humanity has its very tribal habit of seeking competence in numbers to provide each individual with their own comfort zone of security, belonging, worth and dignity without much continuous effort. And if they suddenly exceed societal expectations, they sadly all too often become vainglorious and self-entitled, drunk on belief in their own great destiny. Bene Gesserit creed runs counter to all those notions: you can learn more, you can do more, you can become more, and yet also forsake personal rewards, embrace humility, obscurity, selflessness. A paradox, hmm? And villainy in the eyes of many who don't like hearing that the universe does not owe them nice things, that no privilege comes just by being born. And yet it sits quite well with a cripple like me even as I see how it can be abhorrent to others and try to soften that blow."

Reverend Mother rubbed the bridge of her nose.

"What's in it for anyone in particular? Nothing. For no-one in particular, including those born some more millennia from now? Potentially a lot. Not much of a sales pitch, mind you. Hence we're not advertising."