Bomilcar sat up from where he had been sleeping. It was always like that. He surprised himself awake. He never really felt comfortable with sleep and it came lightly. He went looking for Korba to talk with the man but kept an eye out for Ahmina as well. She often disappeared without notice.

Korba had waited for his awakening and walked up when Bomilcar showed signs of movement. He wasn't wearing a stillsuit, but a loose robe that couldn't hide the wiry thinness of his body, even by Fremen standards. And yet this man was very far from frail, more like a whip. Fighter to a fighter, if Bom had to face him, he couldn't be sure of the outcome. Or rather - he almost could.

"Eat this. The leaf is edible too. It's dried chukka, some kulon cheese, seeds in spice honey." The waft of melange was clear. It seemed like a very modest meal if not for the spice in it. What the Imperium desired was here in abundance, its consumption casual. What the Fremen desired was in abundance elsewhere. And yet, if both scarcities and abundances were levelled, would it be for the better? Would water-fatness produce men like Korba? "Sit down. We'll talk. How should I be calling you, offworlder?"

The room they were in - they called it yali - was a small nave carved in stone, branching into smaller ones like in a hive, separated by colourful curtains. The amenities were truly basic, and yet there was a strange sense of comfort and safety emanating from the spartan circumstances.

"Bomilcar Thorvald," he says then pauses, "...Bom."

The bodyguard had stayed in his stillsuit, though it was loose and wide open. Where Korba was thin, chorded muscle, Bomilcar was heavier and less defined. A man that didn't miss a meal or a training session.

The meal was accepted and only small bites taken for now while they spoke. He knew how potent their spice could be and blue eyes were common enough among them that they likely had a great tolerance. Bom, on the other hand, was used to processed spice in moderation. This simple meal would count as indulgence for him.

Korba nodded. "You recognise that your water is separate from that of the sietch." He pointed to the stillsuit. "Good. What is that you want to use it for? The gift you can afford is not a true gift. I see you have come from a water-rich world. We are not the panhandlers of the Graben and the Pan. We take, not beg, if it is for the good of the tribe."

He actually hadn't been thinking about that. And suddenly came to the realization that the sietch probably acted as a stillsuit does if this man was walking around without one.

"Remove Harkonnen. Stop their cruelty," he admits. "My heart...." no, he reminded himself, "My water to protect those they harm."

That was a powerful realisation. Sietches had water reclamation systems, they must have! And there was this question he'd asked and Ahmina had sidestepped, about the numbers. It came to the baseline: how many? How much power across this planet these people were concealing from the rest of the universe? A dozen such places? Hundreds? Thousands? More? There was no way of telling. But Korba was a living example that human habitation, reduced to its base minimum, could continue even in this near-insurmountable adversity. Perhaps thrive?

[Giving Bom 1 Scene Momentum for the thought.]

Korba considered his words before mouthing them, though Bom could tell that he liked his answer. "Someone else will come to ravage our land. This is what your Emperor wants, doesn't he? And the Guild. Ever more spice."

The spice from the food was easing the pain. "He will send others, but he wants the spice to flow. He wants control. All he could choose would be imperious like Harkonnen, but not necessarily cruel like them." He knew that it made little difference.

"But yes... an overlord is an overlord, all are unwelcome."

"So you understand why we don't trust those who hate the Harkonnen for the wrong reasons. The Imperium is the enemy. And you are of it, are you not?"

The spice was indeed soothing. It didn't reveal any of its allegedly precognitive properties to Bom, but it certainly was delivering aplenty on the geriatric qualities it was better known for.

Ahmina appeared not far. She already had been out when Brom woke up, apparent by her full stillsuit discipline.

She did not say a word as she sat in a corner, observing the exchange

Another bite, and his mouth was feeling a bit dry. He wondered how the man before him felt with his much smaller amount of water.

"Many in the Imperium feel the same towards the Emperor as you do about the Harkonnen," he replied with a nod. "People on different planets rebel against the House that rules them. It is the way of our society, ruling and ruled, oppressors and revolutionaries. Dune simply happens to have the most important resource to the Imperium and so all problems are amplified. And as long as there is a star traveling society, Dune will be at the center of it's concerns."

"Thorvald is a name like Harkonnen?" Korba asked, but assumed the answer. "If the Emperor puts Thorvald here, how will they rule?" There was an edge to the question. Bomilcar sensed that nothing short of brutal honesty would do.

Taking another bite, he lets the spice relax his pain further until it's no longer noticeable.

"The same way we do elsewhere. The people of our house are competitive, often violently so. I could not say right now whether they would see the Fremen as opponents or allies. But Thorvalds also have a resilient spirit, not unlike the Fremen. What your people are to the desert my people are to the tundra. We have long traditions of surviving in harsh cold and snow, where heat is life rather than water."

He can taste the blood as he coughs and clears his throat.

"I think that there is as easily a chance that the Fremen would be seen by Thorvald as desert kin, but nearly as likely they would be seen as dangerous rivals. But even if it came to fighting there would be no disrespect, no wasting of water, no unnecessary cruelty. Just honest violence with a purpose and respect for a strong enemy. And in time they are much more likely to understand and learn the truth of Dune. Even I, in just a few days, am trying to open my eyes."

Korba grimaced slightly at the answer. "Do you think a man can serve two masters without betraying neither?" His voice was more reserved.

"I think a man can serve the cause of peace between two masters to the detriment of himself. And he can accept that risk and likely eventual death that will come from it. But just because everyone believes a thing impossible does not make it impossible, only if it never happens is a thing impossible."

Korba looked at Ahmina, his eyes widening for a moment, as if Bomilcar touched on something of the sacrum. "Is it your way, to die trying the impossible?"

Ahmina's head turned to Korba

''He seems to be a Seeker despite his origin...I think he came here...or was lead here...to have something to have faith in.'' she said in Chakobsa

"God created Dune to train the faithful. One cannot go against the word of God." Korba replied in Chakobsa with fiery reverence, foretelling what he could become one day: a fanatic.

He takes a sip of water from one of his catch pockets, swishing it around a bit. "I can taste the blood. I should not talk this much. But I am willing to die for the right reasons, even in the face of impossible odds. I simply have not faced impossible odds yet. So I have only gotten scars instead of death," he says.

"...Your water decision is not today." Korba said finally. "But there may be a naib one day that will take your gift of water, Bomilcar Thorvald. If you pledge it then, your water won't be your own any more, but the tribe's, not just a cupful, but all, and you will be the guardian of that tribe's treasures before anyone who may lay claim to them, including your masters in the Imperium. You seem to be a man that understands loyalty, sacrifice, and death, but your dreams are not that of a Fremen, at least not yet. Few not born here can share those dreams. How a man may dream can be revealed to him only by God and prophets. God created Dune to train the faithful. One cannot go against the word of God." He repeated the phrase, this time in accentuated Galach, with a priestly intonation, and the blue of his eyes lit up.

"You have the idea why we distrust the likes of you. If you arrive at a water decision, you may be challenged, for no tribe should let a scorpion in their midst. If you die, the other warrior is compensated with your water. If that warrior dies, you have an oath to the tribe for killing their warrior, and you take his or her burdens. This is the Amtal rule. You now understand how foolish it was what you did in the cave, do you?"

He nods at that. "Most offworlders like myself don't know what Fremen mean when you say 'your water'. We simply view water as a resource to be traded and controlled. Not all are unwilling to listen. Some of us prefer it to speaking, but it seems I am bad at choosing when with whom I should listen," he says looking to Ahmina. "Or I might have started learning quicker."

"Some can preserve their flesh on Dune without accepting the truth of water." Korba said with a touch of mockery. "But their soul decays. Fremen are the people who once left the safety of basins behind the Shield Wall so that the desert could save their souls. If the desert has called to you, Bomilcar Thorvald, it means your soul is not lost."

"I don't know if it has called to me or if I am reaching for it," he says, his voice gaining a bit of a roughness to it. A physical change in his throat from the damage talking so much was doing.

He closed his eyes and took another sip, swishing the water around a bit to cleanse the blood.

"I am drawn to those that suffer. Willingly or not. To help, or to understand. To uplift or commiserate. Whatever I can do for them."

"That will lead you where it will lead you." Korba said without malice, though with some reservation. What he didn't say was perhaps more telling: he didn't relate to any complentarity. Despite the utmost barbarism of Harkonnen rule, those people did not truly consider themselves downtrodden. At least not any more. Survival, so perfected by them, was not a goal in itself. It was a means to something, some purpose of spiritual nature. Korba was certainly religious, though the details of his creed were murky.

And what Korba misses in Bomilcar's words is that even those at the top choose to suffer for those beneath them. Bomilcar is just as drawn to those that suffer to lead a difficult cause or movement. They may not be the meek, but their lives are given for their beliefs. A sentiment he understands.

"I am not talking to you to be led, I am trying to learn. I want to find understanding enough to know how to see for myself. Understanding even the slightest amount about what water is here still does not tell me what faith is to the Fremen. Water is your tradition, way of life, survival, past, present and future. But it is not your faith. Your faith is in Dune, in the lack of water, in the tests you face, in the strength earned by your ancestors and yourself accumulated to today."

''To learn one must be not only willing to but able to'' Ahmina spoke up to challenge Brom's intentions ''Are you really willing to learn or are you searching for the confirmation of something you already made your mind about?''

She paused but did not wait for an answer

''Sometimes to learn something you need to unlearn others. To see the Truth you need to let go of the lies that have been built up in your soul.''