[D9 LE] Wants

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

Bomilcar had been piecing as much together as he could with his mind. He was trained to look at things as threats. But now he needed to see something else. The Fremen were potential allies in this, but the responses he'd gotten in regards to freedom from overseers varied from confidence in self, willingness to be patient, and shifts in attitude that suggest there was more to it. They wanted their freedom from oppressors, like any reasonable person, but it's not something they want from the off-worlders.

He continued trying to form ideas and thoughts outside of his normal way of understanding. What would these people that worship water and the worm. The sources of life and death. The spice... they use it regularly and consider it just an every day material if the food he'd eaten was any indication. It wasn't nothing to them, but they had no desire for what they already had. What they didn't have was water. What they coveted was water. They reclaimed it from everything. From everything?

The prisoners, they were worth more as water to the Fremen than any ransom that could be paid. They keep them around for some reason, perhaps leverage or political value with their group or leader. Not that Bom could do anything about that, since he didn't know their leader. His mind raced as he went looking for the man that had seemed most like the leader.

[Kannon]

Instead, a familiar man would find him instead, right when he'd get into trouble by walking where the Fremen weren't allowing them to enter.



"Careful." The man who, upon dropping the face flap revealed himself to be Korba, said. "Not every sietch can you just walk into." There was a tinge of amusement in the wiry man's voice.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

"So run instead?" Bomilcar replies, with a smirk. He was careful not to break the territorial line, finding a spot with a wall he can put his back to for the conversation.

[Kannon]

"That would be even more foolish. If you aren't afraid of our warriors, you should be of our women and children." Korba chuckled. "You have a way of going around though. We're far away from Harg Pass. This is the moment for the naibs to decide whether to let you outworlders run around more, or stop you." Korba seemed to be selecting his words rather carefully.

[Understand 2]

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

"Decision for us too then," he replies.

He looks at Korba, his smirk fading. "Expectations. Unspoken."

He didn't know how to explain it in words because he was bad at them. But he suspected that the Fremen did not truly comprehend the politics and what could happen here. How they might move forward with whatever they did if the Harkonnen were displaced by imperial power. He was still trying to figure out what drove them beyond faith and survival. He wondered if they simply lack the perspective to understand what imperial power is. Hell, he didn't really understand.

"Fremen seeking... something. Naibs decision... based on if we can help. Our goal means nothing. Yours means everything. You chose it."

D9 LE, Understand + Truth, TN 10, +1 threat for die, Difficulty 2: 3#1d20 1 2 9
4 successes, 2 momentum to figure out what can be offered in return for assistance, suspecting it is someone's water

[Kannon]

What Bom realised was that he was among a collective of Fremen here who belonged to different tribes, had different naibs, and those naibs represented non-identical outlooks, perhaps even belonged to rivalling factions. Korba wasn't Stilgar's, so he must be here at the behest of another naib, as could be many of the people here, now watching them. He couldn't extrapolate too far from his experiences with the Fremen up to date. What was present here was perhaps a set of starkly opposite opinions. By endearing one naib or tribe he could antagonise the other, and force them into rash actions. Perhaps this notion of careful balance was what kept the Fremen from more coordinated activities.

Not unlike the Houses in the broader Imperium, ironically.

But Bom somehow found it hard to surrender the idea that people of such consensual adherence to common ways didn't have a common platform. And he was right that neither simple survival nor faith cut it, at least alone. There had to be more. Perhaps there was some leadership over the naibs, a soft spiritual one? There was also the phenomenon of several tribes gathering exactly here far away from their sietches. Was it another custom, or has someone actually called them?

And then he recalled Mapes' word: Liet. Was it a human or a concept?

"What we want is far away." Korba said, somewhat cryptically, but a level of patience and resolve rather than longing to the voice told him it was a plan rather than a form of nostalgia.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

"Liet guides to that goal," he says, giving a nod. He may not know what Liet is, but from the context it was a guide of some sort. Whether a leader or a belief.

"If I... offered water to Liet?" he said, placing a hand on his chest, indicating he meant his own water and not water in general.

[Kannon]

There was a murmur and shuffling of feet around them. Korba was half-abashed by this turned, but he composed himself quickly, though Bom could see him religiously awakened.

"Then you'd be asked: where is your crysknife."

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

He didn't know anything about crysknives. None had ever mentioned them, despite the fact that more than a few probably considered using theirs on him. But the point is that he doesn't know what one is, so context. It was a knife presumably. And it would be expected of someone swearing themselves to a leader of the Fremen. So it was earned. As survivalist people it likely was something that came from the desert. The specific function and makeup of a crysknife seemed less important than the symbolism it likely represented. So...

"Haven't gotten yet," he says, curious how that would be taken.

But then a second thought strikes him. The crysknife is likely to them what his own seax was to Thorvald. It's likely not just a blade, but a tradition. He slowly moves to draw his blade out non-threateningly.

"Have symbol of Thorvald warrior. Not Fremen warrior... yet."

[Quality 1 blade with Traditional]

[Kannon]

There was tension, but none jumped to their feet. It looked like they didn't misread the intention. Or it was some other reason.

Korba looked at it. "It's a good knife." He said politely. "But it isn't a crysknife. And Liet is not here. Sheathe it."

There was insistence in his voice. "Fremen wouldn't draw a blade unless they meant to use it. For once it's good they see you as an offworlder who doesn't know our ways."

The wiry Fremen sighed. "But I see you are on a path that must yield either to the left or to the right. Is it my naib that you seek?"

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

The blade was tucked away.

"Differences. Thorvald more open," he says with a shrug. They are competitive and militant, so flashing steel and showing off was common among his fellow warriors. Just another difference in cultures.

"Naib," he agrees with a nod.

[Kannon]

"My naib is Merkur." Kroba said, waiting for the tension to abate. "He's not like Stilgar." Whatever that meant.

Korba made way and gestured into the entryway into the caverns below the landing plateau of the ridge while looking around to the shadows among the rocks that most certainly hid sentries. The temperature was dropping, and the retreating sun was casting long shadows. The dunes beyond in the great open desert were an irregularly checkered space of orange and black.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

Bom followed along, quiet and respectful of the space. His eyes watched those spots where a surprise attack would be most effective from.