It's dark and blue and the engine rattles like something's always about to come loose, and Nux says he's cold.
Max has been watching crows, and the things that walk among the crows. Birds aren't easy to bring down, but there's good meat on them. Furiosa drives, her forehead scrubbed clean of the oil by the back of her hand. Toast is rubbing at a splinter of metal on the roof of the rig. Max has been hearing that too.
"I'm cold."
Capable has her arm across Nux's back, like she has since he crowded in with them. Max glances back at the five of them in the back seats, not so crammed now that Angharad and her belly are gone but still shoulder-to-shoulder and leaning. Toast hunches forward, with Cheedo sitting straight up and severe next to her. The vacant Dag looks straight ahead between the seats, her hair and her right hand on Capable's shoulder as she curls against her. Nux is lanky and cramped with his knees drawn up, his white face looking small next to Capable's shoulder.
"That happens in the desert," Toast says at the back of Max's head.
"Didn't you sleep in the cold before?" Capable says. Her voice is muffled; she must be looking down at Nux. Another crow flaps by, the flight feathers curling under.
"There were a lot of us."
War boys reaching for him in crowded halls, hundreds of white spider-arms that might as well be one diseased body, and Max - Max does not feel sorry for the war boys huddled in the desert night. He looks away from the crow and back into the rig.
"There are a lot of us," Capable says matter-of-factly. She meets eyes with the Dag, who gives a formal, determined nod.
Furiosa doesn't take her eyes off the rough track in front of them when she says, "And there will be more."
Max's elbow has gained the imprint of the door next to him so he shifts, knocking one knee and one brace against the decorated dash. When he stretches his left leg out and wedges his foot against the side of Furiosa's seat she doesn't complain, but it isn't comfortable either so he puts both feet back on the ground, while Furiosa looks from her own right hand to the bone-spike gear shift as if making sure that it's in reach. He'd be able to catch a crow with a spear and a rope from the side of the rig if he timed it right. Maybe tomorrow.
Nux gives a whining sigh and Capable shushes him. Toast stops scratching the roof and leans over so that Cheedo can prop an arm against her leg, and they're quiet until they drive out of the swamp.