Summary: This fanfiction narrates the story of Mad Max: Fury road from the perspective of the Dag. It's specially focused on The Dag & Cheedo relationship.
This chapter is pre-movie, before the wives even plan their escape.
Apologizes if there are mistakes, English is not my first language and I'm pretty new at writing fanfics.
I hope you enjoy this story, please let me know your thoughts in the comments.
The Vault was silent except for the sounds of Toast flipping through the pages of a book she had read a dozen times before, the fingers of Capable gently tapping the glass of a window while she looked at the horizon, and the murmurs of Angharad and the Imperator Furiosa, who had come to check on them briefly.
The Dag looked at Cheedo, who was tugging at her new chastity belt with a sad expression, her eyes wet. The Dag felt tears on her eyes herself, but of rage. This was all her fault. Now all the wives wear chastity belts, even if they had done nothing to deserve it. And all because of Her. She felt horrible, she felt like she only deserved the hate of the other women, but as always, they had been kind with her. They didn't balme her, but that didn't made The Dag stop feeling guilty.
The Dag hadn't been able to stop herself. She had felt protective of Cheedo since the girl arrived to The Vault, when the other four women were already there. Gentle, sweet, beautiful Cheedo, too young to be there, too innocent to understand the horrors of The Vault. She had won The Dag's sympathy, and her heart.
While Angharad, Capable, Toast and The Dag had been taken from the wretched, Cheedo had been brought up in the citadel, a special child with no trace of illness, trained to please Immortan Joe. Once she had been old enough, she was incarcerated into The Vault as Immortan's wife. Thanks to her isolated childhood, she knew even less than the other women about the outside world. Neither did she seem to understand the horrors of their incarceration, and who could blame her? Immortan Joe hadn't touched her yet. For now, he only made her recite poetry for him, play piano, sometimes dance, and most of the days he made her sing for him. That was the kind of things in which Cheedo had been trained. Like a pretty, caged singing bird. The Dag had never seen one of them, except in a drawing of an old book, but she thought that it suited Cheedo pretty well.
All the wives, even The Dag herself, had lost their patience at some point with Cheedo, with her passivity towards their situation, believing that they were lucky because they lived in a luxury place without sickness, with food and water, and pretty things, being treated like treasures, instead of living like the wretched from outside the citadel. Toast was the one who got irritated with the young girl more often, and at some point she had yelled to her until Cheddo had tears in her eyes. The Dag had wanted to do something, say something, but the screams had paralized her, and she didn't want to fight with her friends. Luckily, Capable had quickly stepped between them, explaining to Toast that she couldn't blame sweet Cheedo, she didn't know better, she didn't know the true horrors of the citadel. The Dag had wanted to comfort Cheedo, to hold her, but once again she couldn't make herself move, and in the end it was Angharad who had cuddled the still weeping girl on her lap. The Dag felt useless.
Toast soon apologized to Cheedo and nobody held it against her. They knew that all her frustration and rage wasn't against Cheedo but against the warlord who kept them incarcerated as if they were things to collect, and who abused them, but who had brainwashed Cheedo to the point of made her believe they were lucky, just like he had done with all his crazy followers.
The night after the fight between Cheedo and Toast, The Dag had still felt useless, and she had wanted to do something for her friends, something to make them laugh, to make them forget, even for a moment, about the horrors of their life. She thought she could at least do that. Angharad had told her that she was fun, and Capable had confessed to admire her ability to keep making jokes and japes, considering their situation. The Dag hadn't realized it before, but Miss Giddy had fondly told her to be more careful, to watch her irony and sarcasm, because it could get her into trouble, so it must be truth. She wanted to make Cheedo and Toast laugh, and for that she began to collect everything in the Vault that could resemble Immortan Joe's outfit. Once she was ready, she stepped in front of the other wives, pretending to be a even more stupid version of the warlord, mocking him. It worked, they all laughed until they had tears on her faces, even Miss Giddy, though she instructed her to be careful, scared of what Immortan Joe might do to The Dag if he knew. But for a night, the wives hadn't had to worry about the warlord, they had laughed, they had vent, and Cheedo had stopped weeping.
Gentle, sweet, beautiful Cheedo, Cheedo the Fragile as Miss Giddy had called her...she wouldn't last five minutes with Immortan Joe. So, when the warlord had expressed her interest on breeding with Cheedo soon, the Dag hadn't been able to help herself. She didn't remember much of that day. She knew that she had gone madly blind with rage, hissing all the insults she could think of to the warlord, yelling to him, screaming him not to touch Cheedo, the only thing he hadn't posioned yet. The next thing she remembered was Immortan Joe's fists on her, beating her up, pain, the wives's screams, Miss Giddy and Angharad trying to stop and calm down the warlord, and then darkness.
The first time she woke up after the beating was to Miss Giddy taking care of her injuries. When the old lady looked at her, she had tears in her eyes and The Dag was sure she was going to scold her for her behavior. Immortan Joe had never hurt her like this, beat to the point she was sure she was dead, but it wasn't the first time the warlord had hit her. No matter what Miss Giddy told her, The Dag couldn't help it and she always hissed to Immortan Joe whenever he touched her. But this time, Miss Giddy didn't tell her off, didn't say anything at all, and only kissed the girl's forehead, and The Dag cried on her shoulder until she fell asleep again.
The next time The Dag woke up, Angharad was with her on the bed, cuddling her sweetly, and it was silly but The Dag felt like she was safe and at home. Cheedo was sat down on the floor, holding her hand and weeping into it, and The Dag wanted to fall asleep again so she didn't have to see her, because she couldn't bare the thought of having made Cheedo cry again. Capable was sat down next to Cheedo, stroking the girl's dark hair, but her gaze didn't leave The Dag.
"Welcome back. Don't do this to us never again." The redhead wife said quietly, giving her a soft smile, and The Dag had to smile back even if she had tears in her eyes.
When she looked at the the other side of the bed, Toast was there, a concerned look on her face. "You should know better, Dag." Toast said, carefully taking The Dag's arm to run gentle fingers over the bruises that Immortan Joe's hands had left. "You know I hate the old beast too, don't you think I would like to spit on his face? That I wouldn't like to kill him for good?" As she talked, Toast's eyes lighted up with hate, the same fire that could be seen on her eyes every time the warlord walked into The Vault. "But he's stronger that us, he has the power. We might be treasures, but if you behave like that, he will kill you." And the only thing that The Dag could do was nod, tears falling down her cheeks, because she knew Toast was right, as she always was, because Miss Giddy hadn't call her ´The Knowing´ for nothing. But she just couldn't stay silent when the warlord did to her as he wanted, when he hurted her friends, when he threatened the only pure thing of the citadel.
"Let her be." Capable said to Toast, shifting to the bed with them, Cheedo cuddled in her arms. Toast took The Dag's hand and kissed it, and The Dag knew her words hadn't meant to be a chastisement, but the expression of the woman's frustration and rage, and her concern for her. And even if she was in a prision, under the abuse of a horrible man, The Dag had felt cared and safe. They were together, they would always take care of each other and, at least in that, Cheedo was right they were lucky.
Immortan Joe hadn't only punished The Dag for her behaviou, but also the other wives. A couple of weeks after the beating, when The Dag had almost healed, the warlord had forced the chastity belts on all of them, heavy things which were not only terribly uncomfortable but also hurt their soft skin. The Dag didn't understand it, isolated as they were, prizes of the powerful warlord, nobody but him was going to lay a hand on them, what was the need of the chastity belts? Maybe it was another way of remind them that they were owned, that their bodies were not theirs but his to be used as he wanted. There weren't a worse punishment.
A shift on the couch where she was sit brought The Dag back to reality, away from her thoughts and memories. It was Angharad, resting her head on her shoulder.
"What have you two been talking about today?" The Dag asked, looking at Furiosa leave The Vault.
The wives and the Imperator hadn't had a good relationship at first. Toast still found hard to trust her and Cheedo was scared of her, but The Dag had soon decided that they could trust Furiosa, and that she would never hurt them. She couldn't really explain it, but she felt the Imperator wasn't cruel, neither Imperator's first disinterest on the wives, her cold behavior with them when Immortal Joe commanded her to look after the wives instead of Rictus, after one of his too usual violent outbursts against the women was, in opinion of The Dag,to protect herself. The Dag felt that the Imperator was as heartbroken as she and the other women. Maybe Furiosa didn't want her heart to break again. The Dag could feel a cloud of sadness following the Imperator. It might be babbling nonsense when she tried to talk about it to the other wives, but they had learnt to trust The Dag's instinct.
Eventually, Furiosa had begun to warm up to them, staying for a bit longer than usual whenever she went to check on them, telling them things about the citadels, tales about the outside world. Angharad could be usually found with her too, whenever she had the chance.
"The wasted, horrible world again." Angharad replied. "But Furiosa said it's not all like that. That there's a place not dried with sand and salt. A place green, with plants, with water. There are no men who abuse women, and the women have all the food and water they need, and they are free. Can you believe it, Dag?" The Dag tried to imagine such a thing. Maybe it looked like the pictures of that places called forests that she had seen on some books? A dreamland where they could be free, without fear. Maybe the world hadn't been totally killed then. She wasn't sure if she believed it, but she hoped it existed, even if she won't get to see it.
"If that place exist, then there's still being hope for the world." The Dag replied, smiling.