The Perk, Saturday morning

[future_sandworm]

Leto had felt restless this morning, and had contemplated several things to distract himself, ranging from weapon practise in the salle to trying to endure standing on the beach and letting the water wash over his feet. Perhaps a coffee at the Perk was a quieter option in one sense, but it also meant the voices inside received more space.

With the training he had to keep his mind focused, Leto leaned back in his chair by the window and turned his attention to the people walking past him in the street, keeping the memories inside him at bay.

[Open!]

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[glacial_queen]

Karla was wandering by, saw Leto, and practically flew into the coffee shop. "Leto!" she said, her words tripping over themselves in a rush to get out. "I can't believe I missed our session! I hadn't even thought about it till I saw you today. Did you and Claire wait long? Mother Night, I didn't mean to flake!"

[future_sandworm]

He looked up. "No, don't worry about it because my mun had a bad day and stayed away from the computer." Smiling a little, Leto added: "And the week before the island had decided that I should spend a few days as a mouse, so I apologise for not showing up then." He gestured for her to take a seat. "How have you been?"

[glacial_queen]

"I just don't want you to think that I'm not taking your lessons seriously," she said, still a bit anxious. She took the chair he offered, though. "I've been fine. Enjoyed the last days of classes. I won't be visiting Arrakis, unfortunately. I'll be going home instead." At that, Karla's face lit up. "My best friend, Jaenelle, is throwing a party!"

[future_sandworm]

"I didn't think you were." Leto reached out to place his hand on hers for a moment, reassuringly. "And I'm sorry to hear you won't come with us to Arrakis" - he really would have liked to show her the desert - "But it sounds like you have good reasons. Will you tell me about Jaenelle?"

[glacial_queen]

Karla smiled a little more, relieved. "I'm glad," she said. "Because these lessons are incredibly important to me." A real life-saver, she could say, had Karla been one to make puns. But she wasn't, thank the Darkness.

"I would have liked to have gone," Karla continued. "I would have loved to see your world. I met your sister, did I tell you that? Only briefly, though. I was teaching Merlin herbs in her office."

"Jaenelle..." Karla trailed off for a second, trying to think how to explain Jaenelle. "She's my best friend, the sister of my soul. She's also my Queen, even though Territory Queens don't serve in anyone else's Court. She's Witch, dreams made flesh, we dance to her glory at Windsol." Karla paused, groping for terms she didn't know, like messiah. "Witch is part of the Blood mythology. She's the Queen of us all; she's Darkness and power and glory. But Jaenelle is so much more than Witch. She's sunshine and unicorn rides and pickleberries. She's my Queen, but she's my best friend first." Karla blushed and looked away. "That made no sense, did it?"

[future_sandworm]

"She both fulfils an important spiritual and political role in your world, but to you she is first and foremost a friend?" Leto smiled at her. "The details I didn't quite understand though."

[glacial_queen]

"That's a good summation anyway," Karla said, smiling. "The details are unimportant. But even as Jaenelle is my friend, there's always a part of her that is...Other. She says she is 'kindred, but not kind.' She's dreams made flesh, and not all the dreamers were human. She's Queen of all the Blood, and that includes the unicorns and kindred wolves as much as it does humans and Eyeriens."

[future_sandworm]

"She isn't quite human?" Leto asked.

[glacial_queen]

Karla shook her head. "I don't think so," Karla said, sounding unfazed by the idea. She'd never seen Jaenelle in the 'misty place,' so she couldn't say for certain. Still, she was a Black Widow. "She's connected to all the Blood, not just the human. She doesn't see much difference between kindred and humans. She's kindred, at least in part, though she wears a human shape."

[future_sandworm]

"And her parents?" Leto asked, curious.

[glacial_queen]

"...She doesn't talk about them much," Karla said. "But I get the feeling they're purely human. They--don't understand her."

And so they sent her to Briarwood, a hospital for the mentally unstable, to be 'cured.'

[future_sandworm]

"So she is different spiritually, not genetically?" Leto asked, not quite sure how the logic of Karla's world worked.

[glacial_queen]

"She's dreams made flesh," Karla said with an apologetic grin. "I'm not actually speaking metaphorically."

[future_sandworm]

"How does that happen?" was all Leto could think of asking, trying to grasp this concept.

[glacial_queen]

"Well, normally it doesn't," Karla said, ignorant of the secrets on the Arachnian isle. "Umm...this might require a bit of an explaination about Kaeleeran culture. Would you mind hearing it?"

[future_sandworm]

"Of course not." Different cultures did interest him after all, so it was a very honest answer.

[glacial_queen]

"Okay. In the past, every few thousand years or so--sometimes longer--a Black-Jeweled Queen would become Witch, ruler over all of the human Blood," Karla explained, sipping her handwavily acquired coffee. "She'd go to Ebon Askavi, the Black Mountain, set up the Dark Court, and rule the two living Realms, Kaeleer and Terreille. We'd call her 'the living myth,' and 'dreams made flesh' because Witch is a mantle, a title. One that we revere, even when there is no Queen of Ebon Askavi. We dance for her honor and glory every year at Windsol, the longest night of the year. But, in the end, she is always just a female. Incredibly powerful, yes, but just a human Blood female strong enough to wear the Black. The last Witch was Cassandra, who ruled fifty-thousand years ago."

"Jaenelle is different. She will not become Witch. She is Witch. For her, it is not a mantle, it's a part of her very soul. She is truly dreams made flesh; somehow, generations of people dreaming and hoping for a Queen they could serve with honor and dignity created Jaenelle. She will be Queen of all the Blood, not just the humans. Because more than just humans took part in the dreaming and the hoping. She's connected to all the races, a part of all of us. She's magic, the living myth. I don't know how it happened, but it did."

[future_sandworm]

That was still complicated. It should have been metaphor or myth, but it seemed to be neither. Leto shifted his attention to something else. "Are your years of the same length as here?" Because fifty-thousand years was a long time for any culture to record history.

[glacial_queen]

"I'm not sure," Karla said smiling. "I haven't been here a year yet. But...probably. We follow the same lunar cycle as Fandom does, somehow."

"The Blood have existed for millennia upon millennia. Whole civilizations have risen, fallen, and turned to dust, but we still continue on. And there are still some people who remember Cassandra's reign. And years before it. The High Lord is Cassandra's contemporary, I believe. But Geoffery and Draca, who both serve Ebon Askavi, were ancient long before the High Lord first drew breath. Both of them are from races so long gone, no trace or mention of them exist."

[future_sandworm]

"You live for millennia?" Leto didn't bother to hide his surprise.

[glacial_queen]

Karla laughed. "Well, I probably won't," she said. "The short-lived races only see about a century and a half, or thereabouts. The Eyeriens, Dhemlans, and Hayllians, however, live for about three or four thousand years. Though that's not taking into account becoming a Guardian, like the High Lord, Draca, and Geoffery are, or being demon-dead. Of course, that's not really 'living,' either."

[future_sandworm]

"So, they are not human?" Leto asked, wanting to understand this properly.

[glacial_queen]

"That's kind of a hard question to answer," Karla said, mulling his question over in her mind. "Geoffery and Draca certainly aren't. They're so old that no one knows what race they are. Geoffery looks human, but Draca is clearly descended from reptilian stock, for all that she is humanoid-shaped. She's a little disconcerting when you first meet her, because she looks so alien. After a while, you get used yo her appearance, and then she's just disconcerting because she gives off an aura of 'if you misbehave, I can and will spank you.'"

"The High Lord is human, however. Being a Guardian is to be among the living dead. Not demon-dead, those whose bodies have died and are waiting to fade into the Darkness, but something else entirely. Their bodies live, but it's a half-life. I think some of the stories of vampires come close to what Guardians are. They've extended their lifetimes for millennia beyond imagining, but they sacrificed their normal mortal lives for it."

[future_sandworm]

"Your world is so different from any other I've heard about," Leto replied. "Although when I talk about Arrakis, people often seem unable to understand."

[glacial_queen]

"What don't they understand?" Karla asked.

[future_sandworm]

"The demands of a desert climate and the specifics of the culture it creates. The fact that people of my age are adults and not children. That we are freer and more practical in matters of sexuality. That every one of my people are addicted to a drug." He smiled at Karla.

[glacial_queen]

"Well, I understand some of that," Karla smiled. "But I'm from a cold, rainy, mountainous region, so your desert is a curiosity to me. And I don't understand being addicted to a drug, but from what you've said, it doesn't sound too terrible."

[future_sandworm]

"It's the withdrawal that would be worse," Leto replied. "How do people here understand what you tell them about your world?"

[glacial_queen]

"It depends on what I tell them," Karla said honestly. "There are so many things that seem to be alike, but aren't. Many people don't understand what it means for the males to protect and serve while the females rule. They think we keep the males in some kind of servitude or something." She wrinkled her nose. "They don't seem to understand the difference between service and servitude and subservience."

"Even our ranks and titles mean different things there than here."

[future_sandworm]

"That doesn't surprise me," Leto replied.

[glacial_queen]

"Yeah. It's lead to a few misunderstandings," she said dryly, the corner of her mouth quirking up in a wry grin. "Arthur and I don't see eye to eye on the concept of rank. Which is compounded by the fact that, for me, being Queen is a caste, not a rank. Technically, I'm an aristo, since my mother was the Territory Queen, but that's not important. There are peasants, slaves, and bastard witches who are still Queens, you know? And it was never confusing till I came here."

[future_sandworm]

"I believe Arthur might not try very hard to understand," Leto replied. "But don't let that upset you. So, how do you know that you are a Queen?"

[glacial_queen]

"It frustrates me, but I'd have to like Arthur more for it to upset me," Karla said bluntly. "All the different castes have differing psychic scents. You can pretty much tell a Queen from the day she is born. Once we're older, we start manifesting the abilities to do things like heal the land and things. Same thing with every caste; a Warlord and a Warlord Prince have very different psychic scents, so you can pick the Warlord Prince out of a roomful of Warlords, even as children."

As if the extra aggressions wouldn't give it away, anyway.

"The only caste that you can't really tell from childhood is a Black Widow. The caste has a psychic scent, but it doesn't really manifest until after puberty and the snake tooth develops."

[future_sandworm]

"So, what was your reaction when you found out about that?" Leto asked.

[glacial_queen]

"To being a Black Widow?" Karla asked. "It wasn't very surprising. There are a few tendencies that most witches display that canon never clarifies that suggest they'll probably be one after puberty. Plus my aunt was the strongest Black Widow in Glacia, so the possibility was there for me, even though my mother was a Queen."

[future_sandworm]

"And it's not contradictory to be both a Queen and a Black Widow?" Leto asked.

[glacial_queen]

"Not at all," Karla said. "The caste defines specific abilities one has. I'm a Healer as well as a Black Widow and a Queen. It just means that I'm more versatile with what I can so with Craft than someone who is only one of the three. And the powers are complimentary, so it's okay." She finished her coffee in one long sip. "It's very rare to be all three," she admitted when she was done. "I think Janelle said she has another friend who is also a Healer-Black Widow-Queen, but, if so, we're the only three I've ever heard of. Of course, my history isn't all that great anyway. Being a Black Widow-Queen is a little more common, since really strong Black Widows can rule a Territory in the absence of a proper Queen."

[future_sandworm]

"Ah. Useful." He smiled at her.

[glacial_queen]

"Pretty much. Though they don't have the ability to heal the land and the hearts of the people, like Queens do. The Blood were created to be caretakers, you know? So Healers heal bodies, Black Widows heal minds, and Queens heal hearts." She glanced down and fiddled with her napkin. "It's what we were made for, which is why it feels so wrong to have our very nature perverted the way it is," she said quietly.

[future_sandworm]

"Perverted?" He raised an eyebrow, curious.

[glacial_queen]

Karla smile was as bitter as the dregs of her coffee. "Once, males served and protected, while females acted as caretakers for the land and the people. And we both honored the Darkness. Now fear, greed, and the lust for power have changed all that."

[future_sandworm]

"What made it change?" Leto asked.

[glacial_queen]

"I don't know in other places, but, in Glacia, my uncle."

[future_sandworm]

"How did he accomplish this?" Leto asked.

[glacial_queen]

"Well, killing my parents was a good start." Karla said with a kind of bitter wryness. "He seized power quickly, set up a Ruling Council of males, and found some dippy little girl to act as his puppet Queen. She parrots what he says. Add that to the whispered rumors and lies he spreads and the cloaked violence and it's not hard to understand why Glacia is fracturing beneath his rule."

[future_sandworm]

Ah, politics. "I am sorry," Leto said, touching her arm gently for comfort.

[glacial_queen]

"Thanks," Karla said, covering his hand with hers. She interlaced their fingers, accepting the warmth and comfort Leto was offering for just a moment. Then, unfortunately, she had to let go. "I've got to run," she said with real regret. "Errands await. But I'll see you soon, yes?"