[D6 EE] Learning About Water

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

"I've never made my mind up about the Fremen. Your people have always been an unknown to me. Even as we speak I don't truly know if I understand. This is a life you have led, being taught lessons by Dune. It is less than a week for me in unknown ignorance. I may not seem it at times, but I am always thinking and listening. I would not be here if I was unwilling to challenge my own beliefs. I would be on the frigate, sipping spiced wine, and trying to figure out Harkonnen financial expenditures. But I am here because a seer told me that being like a bat and facing a test would help me understand what is happening on this world."

As he speaks his voice cracks more and more, although he doesn't seem to feel any pain thanks to the spice. It was, however, too much. When he clears his throat a spray of blood covers his hand. He sighs and stays quiet for a bit. Nodding and gestures were going to have to suffice for a while.

[Kannon]

Korba let himself be silent during the exchange. He waited for Bom to recover from the strain a bit, ate some himself.

"You words about us are like lone travellers in the desert while they could travel as a troop. They need one thought that could be their naib and lead them. But a naib can only rise by challenging the previous one. New leading thought must battle the old one first, before you can understand more. I have told you enough for one day. You must eat and your must rest. You can't keep spilling your water."

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

He nods at that and finishes his meal. Looking to Ahmina to see if she had anything further to add.

[Kannon]

Korba noticed the gaze and chuckled. "Know that you can only observe women in the sietch in those ways if they don't carry water rings in their hair."

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

He looks confused for a moment. He had not thought he'd looked at her any differently, and if so only with more familiarity. He doesn't actually know how to respond. Not to mention he had no idea what water rings are, what they represent, and if she even had any. He just draws a ring in the air.

[Kannon]

Korba smirked at Bom's puzzlement, apparently enjoying making him and Ahmina uncomfortable.

"A wife can be told apart from an unwed woman if she carries water rings in her hair when in sietch. Water rings measure a man's water reserves. Husband entrusts them to wife on wedding. Women are the guardians of the tribe's water."

Another extremely practical cultural adaptation. To regulate water access, women were likely fitter than men because of child-related duties and longer times within the sietch. Less risk of random accounting losses, and ambiguity that could breed envy and conflict over the rare resource. Perhaps water rings were also a way to resolve inheritance. And yet water belonged to the tribe, so in the end it was probably some form of communal shareholdership, drawing rights, or a status symbol. Or all of it to some extent. A patriarchal solution, but also one that gave women some power and agency.

"Out of sietch, water rings are carried strung on a nejhoni scarf. There are ways to string them so that they don't rattle." Korba added. The ring of the water rings was thus reserved for the sietch. It was another practicality, but Bom could imagine that their chiming was probably a sensual, even sexual signal for a Fremen ear.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

Since Ahmina almost always had a hood up, he had no clue if she had anything like water rings. He did look, more out of curiosity over something he was just learning about. He didn't honestly know too much about what she thought of him, because whenever she talked about him it was in another language to other people as far as he knew.

She had always presented herself in the role of a servant, so he'd never even considered anything like that about the Fremen woman. He learned long ago that he didn't like the idea of relationships with servants. It created an unpleasant and uncomfortable power dynamic. But the more time he was spending near her the less she seemed like the role she was in. She was a beautiful woman...

He pushed the thought from his mind. If she had been interested she would have showed some sign by now. And that was not his reason for being here.

He looks to Korba with curiosity, then indicates the food.

[Kannon]

"My wife made it." Korba said proudly.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

He nods at that and gives a slight smile, taking another bite and lifting it in a toast of appreciation.

[Ahmina]

Ahmina politely refrained from whacking the second fremen behind the head for his talks of water rings.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

He braved a word, because there was no way to say it through body language. "Stories?"

He could listen, and the stories of a people often held the lessons of they taught to their children.

[Kannon]

Korba thought of it, then nodded to himself.

"Once a waif was found on the desert's edge, and brought into the sietch. At first, he refused to reply to his saviours, then when he spoke no-one could understand his words. As the days passed, he remained unresponsive, refused to dress himself, or cooperate in any way. Every time he was left alone he made odd motions with his hands. All the wise of the sietch were called to study him but found no answer. Then, a very old woman, who was passing by the doorway to the yali where the waif was, stopped to watch for a moment, and then laughed. 'He only imitates his father who rolls the spice-fibers into a rope. It's the way they still do it at Shuloch. He's just trying to feel less lonely!'"

And he looked at Bom for reaction, letting him draw his own moral.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

It felt like he was being called lonely a bit. Which... wasn't far from the truth. Particularly in this place where even those he had chosen were worlds away. But even back home among his family it could felt that way most of the time to a certain extent. A father that treats him like a friend rather than a son, siblings that see him as a loyal guard rather than family. He'd long ago proven his loyalty, but there was very little love there, if any, and some still saw him as a threat even if they knew he would not act on it. Because he might be forced or used by others. All the people that he considered close enough to be family were people that he expected to die for people that didn't care. He'd even lost a few like that, so he couldn't afford to be too close with them. Lonely even when surrounded by those he cares for.

He thought about the story and his eyes kind of drifted off as he found himself in something of an emotional feedback loop, where his training and self-conditioning started eating that loneliness like it was his own tail even as it regrew.

The boy's unwillingness or incapability to change because he held onto the past... the lack of understanding and failure to communicate... he didn't know what to think of it. For all he knew the Fremen told this story to children to teach them that even if you get lost in the desert you can trust the people of Dune to care for their children. He doesn't know if that was even true, but he imagined it might be. They seemed so familial.

[Kannon]

Ahmina would recognise the name: Shuloch, along with the story. It was one sometimes told in the sietch evenings. It wasn't even a real place, as far as she could tell. Just a figure of speech: Shuloch caravansarai, a figurative place where old ways never changed, chided for lack of adaptability and vulnerability but also envied at least a bit for the purity of customs, an anachronism to be appreciated for the cultural roots it reminded of.