Day 0 | Drinking Night: What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor?

[Kannon]

"So you give me permission to put your endurance to test, Razar? Because I've been thinking about exactly that." She twirled in place, hopped onto his back with a monkey's agility, wrapped her arms and thighs firmly around him, and leaned over to nibble on his ear.

[Efren Lanville]

Meanwhile, at the bonfires, a woman of some visible Muadh ancestry decided to sing a song that seemed so odd and ancient tracing it to any particular pasts or events was impossible. It could resonate regardless.

"And the people went into their hide, ay-oh
From the start they didn't know exactly why, why
Winter came and made it so all look alike, look alike
Underneath the grass would grow, aiming at the sky

It was swift, it was just another wave of a miracle
But no one, nothing at all would go for the kill
If they called on every soul in the land, on the moon
Only then would they know a blessing in disguise

The curse ruled from the underground, down by the shore
And their hope grew with a hunger to live unlike before
The curse ruled from the underground, down by the shore
And their hope grew with a hunger to live unlike before

Tell me now of the very soul that look alike, look alike
Do you know the stranglehold covering their eyes?
If I call on every soul in the land, on the moon
Tell me if I'll ever know a blessing in disguise

The curse ruled from the underground, down by the shore
And their hope grew with a hunger to live unlike before
And the curse ruled from the underground, down by the shore
And their hope grew with a hunger to live unlike before"

[The oiginal]

Efren heard the tune and took a step away from his friends subtly. He leaned on a crate not far from the singer and watched the woman with a thoughtful look on his face.

Perhaps it was the progression of the wine... or perhaps the signal from his father earlier... Something caused him into a more contemplative mood, and so he stood and took in the song of a woman who shared half of his ancestry.

[Kannon]

The Muadh... they were ever-present on Caladan. They had settled it aeons ago, before the League of Nobles, before the Corrino Imperium, probably during initial migrations from Old Terra. They might have been the early custodians of the planet's adjustment to human habitation. Not much of their distinctness survived those thousands of years. Many just worked the pundi fields for the Atreides, having adopted Orange Catholicism, content of being under the protection of the Dukes and living lives similar to the other peasant folk across the Imperium. Some northern communities led a hybrid life, giving their liege their due but maintaining their religion and customs, holding onto old scripts of Muadh Quran and - as the rest of Caladan had recently learned - smoking barra ferns for ritual purposes, what had initially duped them into facing Leto's ire before it became clear one Chaen Marek was responsible for ailar and its illegal plantings. And there were those jungle communities, secluded from everyone, reverted to primitive ways for who knows how long. It wasn't only Efren who kept grasping at figments of this identity for it wasn't clear any more what it truly entailed. It kept surviving in small customs and songs, but written over by millennia, like a palimpsest. Their past was largely lost, it had to be re-imagined to be kept alive.

[Razar Lanville]

"So you give me permission to put your endurance to test, Razar? Because I've been thinking about exactly that." She twirled in place, hopped onto his back with a monkey's agility, wrapped her arms and thighs firmly around him, and leaned over to nibble on his ear.

"Absolutely. I live for a good challenge. Gives me something to strive for. Have to always be improving. Anything you want me to challenge for you?" Razar asks, taking he hand in his and kissing the back of it before putting it back where she can keep it wrapped around his neck.

[Kannon]

"Carry me to the pond and then we'll see." She said not-so-cryptically, her fingers starting working on the buttons of his shirt.

[Razar Lanville]

"To the pond it is then," Razar says, continuing his way there with his passenger, holding on so she doesn't fall.

[Kannon]

By the time they got there, Suri had already become advanced in getting him ready for a swim. When she hopped off at their destination and caught up quickly, just tossing of the dress off her shoulders, letting it drip off her slender body as she moved to pierce the water in a fluid arch that drew a line of physical grace before it disappear in the pond with a soft plunge and splash, leaving only the flower crown floating on the ripples.

"Catch me before the crocodile does!" She had flirtatiously exclaimed, but the oral message took Razar a moment to process given there had been much to take in visually.