MERCURIAL ( paul atreides.. )

007. Ancient Appetites..

In the likeliness of all tragedies ever witnessed by time, this moment had an apparent simplicity attached to its pseudo-silence. 

Night spread over the capital city of Ehya in a blanketed fort of starry myriads by the hundreds, paired in chaotic bundles of unspeakable light, distant, deadly beauty, transcending all spectrums of color until it reached a seemingly sleeping population with faint, flickering whites. Only Ehrylene was not the sort of city to sleep while heavens sung of the past. Between man-made rock formations, constructing massive temples to mountain-heights, domes and columns decorated in praise to all the prayers ever uttered to the divine Yich Kuxtal, laid the cradle of life, streets lit in pillars of candles, filled with contemplative silence, hums of sagacity draped between bushes of plants overgrown in large leaves, shedding their tears on warm grounds.

To the tragedy of momentum, the city was an unimportant background, mostly unaware to the roars of turbines, of engines who, in another life, could have powered canons and wars of metal strong enough to lead the whole Imperium into a stained age of the machine. The true stage of vicissitude was the night sky, shimmering in constant presence, unanimously save for the dot which got larger: that was Mercury Yaranes' ship, falling through the atmosphere in the second she lost consciousness of herself and her numb hand corrupted the other healthy one into also letting go. 

"This is commander Leon, reporting." The stark voice of a man who's been channeling the winds for at least two full decades, having seen the dawn of the pioneering age through his father's father story, forever replying at the back of his mind, under his hat and caught up brown hair, even inside the alloy of the symbols shining on a now messy uniform, fitted for someone who did not have time to sober up before jumping inside one of the six identical Javelins whistling their flight's ascension. "Squadron One engaged and answering  atmosphere breach distress call. Noah?"

"I got eyes on her," Noah replied, keeping his tone monotonous over the official fragments of their recorded rescue mission. He was not any older than Leon, however, his experience inside the godly bodies of the Ehyan Fleet's finest ran short to just a couple scouting missions. To his narrow eyes and spiked beard clung the aromatic strengths of imported Caladan wine, which was why, once in a while, his nervous tick of sneezing accelerated its one every five minutes tempo. His eyes shone in an Ehyan hazel though and that gave him the determination needed to want to wake up, to want to focus on the seventh Javelin, made for Mercury Yaranes and her stubbornly chosen interests. 

Word was one story from Leto Atreides as the right time had turned a perfectly civil young girl into a pioneering contester of cloud brazing and limit breaking. 

"No engine failures detected," Yonna announced, her own Ehyan shade of eyes piercing a trembling gold. "Her ship is fully functional, I don't understand" There was much the eldest of Squadron One did not understand and most of it gravitated around pieces of the mercurial puzzle which did not fit. How could the best pilot she ever met, in all her years of seeing so many generations come and go on Ehyan soil, lose control of her ship? And how was she there to begin with? Unless they've forgotten themselves, drinking for six months out of an endless bottle of Caladan wine, Mercury was supposed to be snuggly settled into her new home, bathing in the warmth of another planet, which Yonna knew their kind hearted heir was bound to find infinite love for in the six months ahead of her. 

She, like most of Squadron One, spent enough time around House Yaranes officials to know that by the time their small Mercury would return, she'd have certainly been wed to Paul Atreides, so she'd pave the path for greater futures, as she was always meant to do. Sanctity has never once failed to shine through her presence, yet now... now she requested landing assistance and a calamity was about to happen.

"If she doesn't rectify her trajectory...," Cerys, the youngest pilot on the elite of the Ehyan fleet, grunted into the official static of their conversation. Propulsion made radio waves get distorted and corrupted with the noise through which they sprung into the sky. Within the second, they'd fall into place beside the ship and notice, with a squint that their friend had fainted.