Third Floor Common Room - Thursday Late Morning

[joan-notjane.livejournal.com]

It had been a week. What with prom, her fight with Turtle, her potential children, telling Jess her secret.

All Joan wanted to know was spend a few hours not thinking.

Which was why she was in the common room, scrubbing every available surface. Cleaning was cathartic.

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[future_sandworm]

Leto entered the common room, hoping for company to distract him from thoughts and bothersome ancestral memories. He saw Joan and smiled at her. "Good morning."

Perhaps this place needed cleaning? He made himself a cup of coffee.

[joan-notjane.livejournal.com]

"Morning," Joan said. "I hope the smell of the cleaning stuff won't bother you. My, uh, kids, made kind of a mess in here this weekend."

[future_sandworm]

"It doesn't bother me." He watched her, looking amused. "And I am sure you could have given someone elses children the blame and no one would have noticed. Coffee?" It was rude not to offer. His would contain spice; should Joan want a cup it would not.

[joan-notjane.livejournal.com]

"Sure, thanks," Joan said. "And, yeah, I could have, but I didn't have anything to do today, so I figured why not."

She really was turning into her mother.

[future_sandworm]

Leto poured two cups of coffee. "I don't believe we have met," he said. "I am Leto Atreides. And I hope your potential offspring enjoyed causing a mess." There was a tiny smirk.

[joan-notjane.livejournal.com]

"Joan Girardi," she replied, taking the cup with a grateful smile. "And they most certainly did."

Even though she was really pretty sure at least oen of them was highly improbable. "Were you blessed this weekend as well?"

[future_sandworm]

"With children? Yes, I had four, some of them less likely then others, but all of them worthy of House Atreides." Leto sipped the coffee, his version smelling strongly of a cinnamon-like scent, while studying Joan.

[joan-notjane.livejournal.com]

"What is House Atreides?" Joan asked.

[future_sandworm]

"What? Interesting question," Leto said. "Atreides is one of the Great Houses of the Imperium. We are descendants of king Atreus of Mycenae, and since a generation ago rulers of the Lion Throne." He paused. "I can offer you a longer description, but perhaps you're not that interested.

[joan-notjane.livejournal.com]

Joan smiled. "I've never heard of any of that, so I'm hazarding a guess you're not from modern times."

[future_sandworm]

"Or rather, you are not from modern times," he laughed. "I'm from the future, and Earth was long ago abandoned. I take it your time is close to the one we are in now?"

[joan-notjane.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I'm from now," Joan said. "So, in the future, Earth gets abandoned? Wow."

[future_sandworm]

"In the particular one where I come from, yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean the same happens in yours or this one." He should have thought that observation was obvious by now.

[joan-notjane.livejournal.com]

Joan nodded. "Oh, I know. It's just hard to imagine. Do you know what happened?"

[future_sandworm]

"The Butlerian Jihad," he said. "Humans created Thinking Machines and they revolted. Earth was laid in ruins, and the machines were forbidden." He stirred the coffee, thoughtful for a moment, then smiled at Joan. "And clearly people of this time have not learnt to be wary of artificial intelligence, so that might very well happen.

[joan-notjane.livejournal.com]

"That's kind of creepy," Joan said, a little shiver going down her spine.

She wondered why God would let something like that happen.

"So your family is royalty?"

[future_sandworm]

"Yes," he said simply. "But my mother was Fremen, from the deserts of Arrakis. And your family? Where are they from?"

[joan-notjane.livejournal.com]

"Arcadia," Joan said. "Maryland."

As in the same state as the school. She was so boring.

"My father is a deputy and my mother teaches high school."

[future_sandworm]

"And is it a rural idyll?" Leto asked. Maryland was fairly exotic to him.

[joan-notjane.livejournal.com]

"It's not totally rural," Joan said. "But it's not a huge city like Baltimore."

[future_sandworm]

Leto had no knowledge of Baltimore.

"Plenty of water?" he asked, as that seemed relevant.

[I have to disappear for a while soon]

[robinthefrog.livejournal.com]

"I just think I should tell you, it will be very tempting for me to slide across the counter if you clean it so it's all slidey."