> @irulean — sender stitches up receiver's wound.
if irulan had never tended to someone like this before, an onlooker would not guess; her fingers moved with a strict precision and knowing dexterity that acted in accordance with how she lived, how she spoke, how she breathed [measured by the atom, conditioned to know it by mere feeling]. it was something that didn't go unnoticed by feyd-rautha, that pompous[?] propriety of outer worlds felt something like a slight on the draconian harkonnen way— a way to darken their image across the galaxy and gesture to their savagery, in a manner that platforms their civility and all-round betterment. among other worlds, feyd-rautha was nothing more than a weapon; a blunt tool without mind nor acumen, who only acted in blood. he feels their underestimation like a dull blade that continues cutting, breaking skin in that slow, malicious manner that demands to be felt. but if anything, feyd-rautha was a performer; concealing his intuition from even the princess until his voice could be heard across the cosmos, their knees would touch the ground in professions of mercy. for now, he was fine to play the savage; giving them everything they expected and more, purging his peripheries of those who dared defy him.
as she sutures the wound with paste, his attention flickers from her dignified hand [its slight golden hue in contrast to his pallor, as though her skin had been dipped in spice and desert sands] up, up towards the ornate detail of her dress sleeves; the florid stitching and beading that created an elaborate web to conceal much of her skin, but progressive enough to allow rays of gold to peek through still. the baron traces these intricacies like a path towards her collarbones, lingering on the hollow of her throat before finally finding the rigid locks that frame her jaw; never a millimetre out of place. feyd doesn't dare venture to touch the harsh lines of her face, unsure of the deception it might bring; she was bene gesserit, he'd had fragments of time stolen from beneath him by one that bore the same beginnings, awoken as that person, whom he did not wholly recognise, stepped out from his bed, an act committed but not remembered. he pushes the piecing of vacant space from his mind, stalls instead by the resplendent ends of fair locks, wondering for a short moment how they would feel between his fingers. [but when she notices him noticing, gaze returns to the self; discerning the paste lodged into his side that promises a blemish-free healing, unlike those that litter his back and sides. this insignificant blunder in battle was not something worth keeping, a mere slice between abdominals that seem to contract with every small touch they exchange. as though indecent, forbidden.] it is the most intimate they had ever been, emotionally and physically; the togetherness in mending, her deft fingers ghosting across his blood-soaked skin is somehow worth something more than had ever been previously shared, as though this moment is as honest as things could be between them. it felt vulnerable, and yet the venomous barbs that drowse beneath his flesh do not stir at this painstaking unfamiliarity, but still as though comforted; the knife at their side glimmered for attention beneath the harsh light of his chambers, but remained untouched.
