Toast the Knowing has seen the most of the world outside the Vault, and it is she who first says the words.
"We could leave," she whispers, so quietly that Cheedo barely hears her.
"No we couldn't," says the girl that everyone knows will be the most easily broken. There are tear tracks on her face, salt markers of water quickly gone. Toast dreams of someday biting through Immortan Joe's tongue.
Cheedo is right. There is nowhere that they can go.
On the first day, Mary Jo looked into her daughter's eyes, and saw the future. It wasn't green. Green was the past, her past for certain, but maybe not altogether lost for Furiosa. There was a way, if the men of the Citadel believed that she could be made to forget: forget the mothers, forget the green, forget the freedom she had known. Furiosa was young, but, thanks to the motorcycle treads, she had a chance. Which was more than could be said for Mary Jo.
The first time Furiosa walks into the Vault, it is all she could do not to vomit on the floor. She has been summoned by the Splendid Angharad, and she does not fear these women, but she remembers the days she pretends she does not, and knows that if she had two arms, she would not drive a rig.
She has not seen their faces before, but she knows their names. There is Toast the Knowing, who came from the Bullet Farm, and The Dag, who speaks in riddles plain as sand. There is Cheedo the Fragile and there is Capable, which could be either strengths or weaknesses. And there is Angharad.
The best belovèd is not yet showing, but there is no keeping her secret, not when Immortan Joe has pride of a thing. There is white paint under Angharad's nails. Furiosa has never heard that the Splendid one was a painter.
On the second day, Mary Jo looked into her daughter's eyes, and saw a frightened girl. It might have been a reflection, except the caves in the Citadel were so dark that reflections were few. Mary Jo had told her the way, and when Furiosa would have protested, she tweaked the raw end of where her daughter's arm had been. That had taken care of the fear, though pain was a poor substitute. Mary Jo is not afraid. Her part in this is the easier one.
"Did you buy the rig with blood?" The Dag hovers just beyond her reach. Furiosa is not sure what would happen if she tried to touch her. She might break, or Furiosa might be punished, or maybe this is all a dream, and the Dag would only dissolve into nothing, like a mirage.
"Of course she did," says Toast the Knowing. "Everything is bought in blood."
"Not everything," says Angharad. "Some things are bought with worse."
Furiosa drives the road to Gas Town and the road to Bullet Farm, and she sees the mirrors speak of her coming in brilliant light. These are different, signals she has not had to read in years, yet as soon as she identifies them, the language returns to her.
"I bought the rig with blood," she says to them. "It has been my only freedom. I would sell it in a heartbeat, if the asking price was enough."
On the third day, Mary Jo looked into her daughter's eyes, and saw a promise. Furiosa picked herself up off the ground, spitting blood out of her mouth, but holding the anger behind her teeth. There was a knife stuck into the ground between them – they were a game for Immortan Joe to watch - but Mary Jo had already rigged the score. It would be ugly and it would be hard, and the price would be more than an arm and a mother, but it would be a future, too, and maybe, maybe, the future would be green.
They have very little time. Furiosa has agreed, but there is little she can do until they are hidden in the hold. Still, the Splendid Angharad lingers by her handiwork: WE ARE NOT THINGS, because that lesson is the hardest, and OUR BABIES WILL NOT BE WARLORDS, because The Dag is pregnant too, and WHO KILLED THE WORLD?, because the world is dead and that makes all of them very angry.
Cheedo the Fragile stands by the piano, her fingers ghosting over the keys. Capable burns like a silvered warboy, ready for freedom or death, or both together if she must. Toast the Knowing is already gone to make sure the way is clear. The Dag and the old one whisper as they load the shotgun, but the old one will not come. Angharad will go last, because that is the most dangerous, and she is the one who has the least to fear if they are caught.
"It will be ugly," she says to them. "And it will be hard, and there will be a price. But there will be a future, too."
And the future will be green.
fin
Gravity_Not_Included, May 19, 2015