Lobster Hut, Thursday evening

[future_sandworm]

Leto was quite certain that Triela would show up, despite her obvious nervousness about this dinner. She was too proud not to. He also suspected that she had suggested seafood to make him a little uneasy, but it didn't quite work. The Fremen did keep fish to protect their water reserves, after all, even if they tasted differently than those from the sea.

Lobsters, however. Leto wrinkled his nose a little as he looked through the menu, waiting for Triela.

[For one, obviously.]

Comments

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

She shrugged. "It's one of the things I do back at the Agency." Her smile was fond. "Most of the girls are... young. Immature. They need someone to talk to them and reassure them." And Triela was the oldest.

[future_sandworm]

"And here?" he asked. "Do you do the same for someone here?"

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"I... don't know," Triela sounded pensive. As if she'd forgotten who she was talking to. "There are... better people to talk to than me." People who weren't pumped full of drugs. Who were normal.

[future_sandworm]

"Better?" Leto asked, struggling with his lobster.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"You know... normal." She didn't really mind... exactly.

Or so she told herself.

[future_sandworm]

"I'm not sure normal is necessarily the best for that," he replied. "Wisdom, experience and the ability to listen is a lot more important."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

Triela shrugged. "Well, I guess most people just have more wisdom or whatever." People didn't tend to come to Triela with that kind of thing.

[future_sandworm]

"What makes you say that?" Leto asked. While Triela did seem to lack a little understanding of herself, that was true of many teenagers.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

She managed an ironic smile. "You don't see a line of people coming to me to talk out their problems, do you?"

[future_sandworm]

"No, on the other hand they might not know you have that talent," Leto retorted.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

Triela snorted. "What? Don't tell me you're going to start unburdening your soul to me now?"

[future_sandworm]

He laughed. "I wasn't planning on it, but now that you mention it..."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

She wanted to laugh at that, but some part of her actually wanted to know something about Leto. Something real rather than that he really messed with her head.

"Yeah?" That didn't come out as playfully as she'd intended.

[future_sandworm]

"I was born with the memories of all my ancestors," he told her, his face completely serious.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

Triela went still for a moment as she considered that. There was a certain amusing irony that she didn't even have her own memories, but he was opening up to her so she didn't feel the need to point that out.

"I imagine that's been... interesting. Life's complicated enough with only the one set."

[future_sandworm]

"I have never known anything else," he replied. "But where I'm from many would prefer to kill anyone who is like me in that respect."

[bedtime!]

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Does it bother you?" she asked. The not fitting in thing. It had never really bothered her, but there were reasons for that.

[Sleep well!]

[future_sandworm]

"People wanting to kill me?" he asked, laughing. "It's a little impractical."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Not that," Triela waved a hand dismissively as if people trying to kill you was no big deal. She knew Leto could take care of himself. "The being different. Dealing with stuff other people don't really get."

[future_sandworm]

"I have never known anything else," he repeated, then added with a smile: "And I'm never alone."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"I hadn't thought of that." Triela pursed her lips and thought about that, taking an opportunity to (very awkwardly, given the sling) twist off another lobster leg.

She was beginning to think that the lobster plan had been a poor one.

"Does that mean you never get lonely, either?" There was an important distinction between alone and lonely, after all.

[future_sandworm]

It was. "Never with Ghanima. Before I came here we had rarely been apart."

Leto tore the head off his lobster.

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

"Oh, right. When you've got a sister..." She grinned slightly. She missed hers back at the Agency sometimes. All the other girls...

"Does it every get confusing? Knowing which memories are the ones you lived and which ones aren't?"

[future_sandworm]

"No," he replied firmly. "Perhaps the memories in themselves, but I keep a barrier against the other minds."

[sorella-vecchia.livejournal.com]

Triela nodded. "You seem a bit too sane for anything other than that to be the case," she decided. "But I suspect that took a lot of effort to learn."

She was sort of impressed despite herself.