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If Paul (Usul, now) feels your contempt for him, he makes no mention of it as you tend to him, unperturbed by the ever-watchful gaze of his mother. He's an obedient little thing when he's sick; he sits up without a word when you ask him to, raises his arms so that you can help him out of his sweat-drenched shirt and opens his mouth to drink from your cup when you tilt it towards him.
Lady Jessica intervenes before the first drop dares to slip past the seam of his chapped lips, snatching the earthenware cup from your hands to take a sip for herself instead. Her lips tilt downwards ever so slightly (still unused to the taste of recycled water) as she swills it around her mouth in search of any unexpected bitterness.
Clearly, she still distrusts you. No doubt still believes that you would seek to harm her precious "Kwisatz Haderach".
In truth, she's right to be wary. After all, you're Jamis' daughter, made an orphan by a child - by her child.
You had been raw with grief when Stilgar had broken the news of your father's death, hounded by the fact he'd been bested by nothing more than a boy. That this — this good-for-nothing Outworlder would now walk where Jamis' footsteps had once tread, own what he had once owned, live in his yali amongst you.
But some small part of you had always known it would end like this.
None could deny that Jamis had been a great man - and a noble one at that - but, he had always been so quick to fight. Not quite out of some misplaced sense of pride, or a need to prove himself (after all, he almost always won) but, nevertheless, his unfortunate tendency to toe the line with Fate had been bound to catch up with him sooner or later.
You’d hated Paul for it, assuredly so. But it would do you no good to poison him so brazenly, as Lady Jessica's hypervigilance seems to suggest. After all, there's still much to be done around the Sietch, and you have a role to play that cannot be left to fall to the wayside; namely the care of your younger siblings (two rambunctious young boys you fear are in need of constant distraction, lest they fall into despair at the hands of grief) and - by extension - your father's widow, the closest thing you have to a mother.
By all accounts Paul had won the fight without the use of any underhanded trickery, he had even attempted to spare Jamis’ life as he’d held Chani's crysknife against your father’s throat.
'That would have angered him ' you think absently, to have been humiliated (unintentionally or otherwise) by even the slightest suggestion of losing to a spoiled aristocrat with no knowledge of the Fremen way. 'That would have made him lose his composure, if only for a second '.
That's how Paul had won.
He drinks his fill when Lady Jessica (satisfied by her taste test that nothing is awry after all) deems it necessary, but he reaches up and grasps your wrist loosely as you rise from his bedside to leave, willing you without words to stay a moment longer.
"I was a friend of Jamis,"
It takes him an effort to say it, and you have to lean in close to fully hear it. He's sick with a fever that has yet to break, brought on by his most recent exposure to spice, and you don’t envy his state of mind.
It's clear enough that he's sensitive to the melange. Still dizzy from its effects, he shies away drowsily from the dappled light of the lamps that adorn the cave's surface, disoriented and shivering despite his heightened temperature - and yet he still yearns for more.
You've heard tell of his supposed 'visions', of the paths that stretch and writhe before him like newborn soundtrout in the dunes.
You’d sought them out as a child, watching with a hint of morbid curiosity as the larvae struggled against the inevitable for a moment before you’d crushed them underfoot. Similarly, now you try your best to stamp out the whispers of Paul’s supposed fate to be the Sietch’s Madhi, or the even more egregious claims of Lisan Al Gaib - to no avail.
So far, all attempts have proven fruitless (after all, nothing spreads faster than a rumour) but you can’t just sit by and allow years of praying no, veneration in anticipation of the Promised Messiah to be rendered useless for the sake of a boy who killed your father.
No, you can't believe it. You won't believe it.
Every day, more and more of your kin line up outside your yali just to catch a glimpse of him, to brush past him as he walks through the Sietch, as if he is a god! As if he is something to be revered or awestruck by!
'Fools, every one ' you think, stomach twisting in anger. If he is a prophet then he must be a false one, more of a human embodiment of Shaitan than of Shai-Hulud.
"The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience. A process that cannot be understood by stopping it. We must move with the flow of the process. We must join it. We must flow with it." He continues when you don't respond, voice hoarse but still commanding.
Strangely, his eyes are no longer glazed over when he looks up at you.
In fact, they're clearer than you've ever seen them, cognisant despite appearing to be on the brink of sleep due to their downturned nature. Something about the sheer intensity of his gaze gives the impression that Paul has seen things the likes of which you'll never be able to comprehend, and it scares you. Scares Lady Jessica too, if the way she shifts backwards is any indication of her nerves.
This isn't the first time he's claimed to have known your father via his supposed prescience, but it is the first time that he's thrown Jamis' words — his exact words! how could he have known them? — back at you, verbatim.
Jamis had comforted you with those words the day that your mother had died, had held you in his arms without reproach as you'd cried with no regard to the sacred water discipline he'd instilled in you since infancy.
You feel your eyes welling up with tears now - both at the memory and the new ache at his recent loss - but you will them back, rending your hand from Paul's grip and letting the empty cup clatter to the stone floor as you rush out of his quarters. It would not do to be vulnerable in front of him, to fall prey to his witch-force and forget your father's sacrifice murder so easily.
This— this violation has settled things. You must hatch a plan to kill the Outworlder, or die trying.