#rather than cram a bunch of stuff into a starter I figured I'd finish setting up verse info in drabble format

[fluxofthemouth]

Dune Messiah Verse drabble || Also a prologue for a thread! @succubus-lili

Content warning for canon-typical violence & death

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The Grand Arrakeen is one of the capital's better known hotels. It's close enough to the palace to be within reasonable walking distance of just about everything interesting. It's also far enough away to properly have the appearance of a large and impressive building, without the obligation to shrink under the shadow of comparison. The hotel does its part to be gaudy and kitschy, a friendly nod to the pilgrim fever that has perpetually swept up the local culture. You can buy spiritual knickknacks in the gift shop that were manufactured on Giedi Prime. Over an impressive span of 20,000 years, chai has stubbornly persisted as a word for tea, and there's a cafe on the ground level called Chai Hulud. But underneath the hotel's cheerful concessions to the tourist industry, there's a beating heart of sincere effort. A genuine investment in providing a service of value. Many of the hotel's customers come to understand and appreciate this, which is why many of them keep coming back.

Indeed, unlike many of the businesses that have come to thrive in Arrakeen, the Grand Arrakeen is no insincere tourist trap strung up to make money quickly for as little effort as possible. It's the crown jewel of Evangeline Sky, a rising star in the hospitality industry who came to Dune with nothing and now owns more than twenty properties across the planet.

Evangeline is also a seventy-nine year old woman. And according to a story that is consistent across several witnesses, a guest named Brody Angler yanked her cane out of her hands and threw it at her just a few days ago. She and a group of her friends had happened to pass him and one of his traveling companions in a hallway, and she had only asked him to speak more quietly during the late hours. She wasn't badly hurt, but Brody's sudden violence had scared her. And it galled her to see how Brody had laughed and laughed.

The other noteworthy thing about the Grand Arrakeen and other hotels in the family business, the other thing in addition to the undercurrent of sincerity behind their operation, is that sometimes people die there. Not often, but just often enough to get people wondering what the normal number for yearly deaths in hotels is.

Piter de Vries could find that number out pretty quickly. It would be the number of deaths total, minus everybody who died because he wanted them to. Evangeline Sky is an industry giant and a seventy-nine year old woman, and she is also Piter's mother. He isn't really thriving like she is, in this new shape the galaxy and its Empire have taken. Nor was he thriving in the Empire's previous form. But he does own one or two of the hotels, and he does keep himself occupied with an information brokerage. That doesn't actually bring in a lot of money directly, but his efforts are as sincere as Evangeline's, and his clients recognize that just as gratefully. People come to his operation regularly, and he comes to know of many things that happen on the planet. Changing out the man playing at Emperor did not impact a simple truth that Piter knew well in his previous role: information is a kind of currency all on its own. The practice also fuels a hell of a lot of drama, which he then gets to be in the thick of.

When it comes to those unlucky people Piter chooses to target (a complication to his claim of being a retired assassin), most are connected to scandals and secrets he uncovered through his hobby, with many of these deaths contracted explicitly by clients. Unsurprisingly, Evangeline doesn't like bloodshed near the hotels that have become both her life's work and the revenue stream they both depend on. Piter has to be careful and choosy about pursuing targets through family-owned hotels; sometimes showing restraint despite how easy it would be otherwise, sometimes hiding his tracks even from his mother.

The other, smaller category of people Piter wants killed is the category of people who think they get to make trouble for Evangeline.

Piter lives in Carthag these days. He doesn't come out to Arrakeen very often because he knows full well that the Emperor's people are likely to torture and kill him if they happen to recognize him as a former Harkonnen agent. The one who crafted the plan that killed the Emperor's father, even! And the one who personally ordered the Emperor and his mother to be left in the desert for the worms.

(Oh, how those were very different times! And how is one supposed to know that the scrawny teenage son of a disfavored Duke is going to be an emperor someday? Also, in most cases, sending someone out into the desert for the worms has this tendency of actively preventing them from becoming an emperor, or much of anything.)

Evangeline, meanwhile, doesn't end up making it out to Carthag all that often, because she is busy and because of her age. Their relationship can be strained, but it isn't fraught. Piter grins openly as he watches her react to opening the door and finding him there, even as he knows he's in for a kind of scolding: there's surprise, then a tender gladdening, then suspicion and disapproval, then worry. She beckons him in quickly, as if Atreides' people were actively scouring the streets for him. He hugs her and takes his time, soaking in affection.

"If you're here, I suppose Angler is already dead," Evangeline says matter-of-factly as she heads towards the kitchen to make tea. There is affection for him here, but he needs to know that he can get more of it by killing fewer people in her goddamn hotels.

There's been a measure of guilt in Piter's aspect from the start. Now, it flares up prominently, and alongside some cheeky non-repentance, in a different sort of grin. It's not the least unsettling expression a human face has ever made.

"Angler has been dead, Mother," Piter replies, almost as matter-of-factly, but with a keening hope of praise. "Since the moment he made the choice to scare and hurt you. Won't you let yourself be precious to someone?" He taps sand from his boots in the entryway and hangs up his cloak. An attempt to venture further into the house stops cold at a gesture from Evangeline, and he works on shaking the sand from his clothes more thoroughly there in the entryway.

"You know how I feel about bloodshed in my hotels," Evangeline says, disappearing into the kitchen. She notes, and has noted, a spineless proclivity towards obedience in Piter, and she thinks it's pathetic. That doesn't stop her from counting on that same quality to keep him from tracking sand in her living room even though she isn't watching.

These conversations always end at an impasse. If Evangeline presses the point too thoroughly that she disapproves of brutality, they will have to face the squirming truth that he ended up in a school built on a premise of psychological torture, and was taught to be a ruthless killer there, on her watch as a parent. Meanwhile, if Piter presses the point too thoroughly that he loves her and wants to keep her safe, they will have to face another delicate reality. That she struggled through years of poverty on Giedi Prime while he climbed his way to a cushy government career and spent the money getting high.

So they grumble and fuss over tea. They trade little comments that could mean anything and nothing, and they avoid statements that are truthlike enough to really draw blood. They would each like to win the argument, in theory, but they don't know how to, and they slowly come to the unspoken agreement that it isn't urgent anyway. Piter hasn't broken any line of Evangeline's that truly must not be crossed. Underneath the clash of perspectives and the drama of it all, they actually find each other's presence calming. Like recognizing like. They are both dangerous creatures in their own way. They are both generally unsuited to caretaking, too. That's a scab that they can pick at. It's also a shared trait they can find common ground in, however dark. Barbs give way to curiosity, then to jokes and easy smiles as they chat there in the living room, each wearing the deep scars of the other's neglect. Two tigers wearing stripes companionably.

"I hate to bring up Angler again," Evangeline says, finally. "But he didn't suffer, did he?"

"He suffered terribly," Piter says emotionlessly, into a mostly empty mug.

"Oh," Evangeline says. She raises her eyebrows, pours herself more tea, and offers more to her son. It isn't a disappointed oh.

Piter beams and can't look directly at her as he sets the mug on the coffee table and slides it forward. He's accepted by now that he isn't going to get the style of praise he was hoping for. But here, finally, is the style of praise he''s been waiting for.