Max stared out across the moonlit waste. Before him the Plains of Silence stretched without interruption to the horizon. They were weirdly beautiful, the crystals of salt glittering in the moonlight.
He knew it was a vicious beauty. The salt would cut and sting, burning eyes and noses. One hundred sixty days of that and where would Furiosa and the Wives be? There wasn't a shadow out there. If somebody or some beast had tried to make the crossing, not even the bones remained.
A breeze gusted up the rise on which he stood, carrying the smell of salt. It was a bitter smell. It smelled of mocking laughter and death. Max narrowed his eyes as infinitesimal crystals of salt pricked his cheeks. Salt shouldn't smell like that.
Suddenly – memory. The smell of salt, but different, totally different. A booming noise, but not drums or gunning engines or explosions. Rhythmic but long. And the smell of dead things. /Where are you, Max?/ But also life. /Come on, Max!/ The type of death that feeds the living.
'The ocean.'
Faces. Smiling. Laughing. "Come on in, Max!"
His hand twitched and lifted to his forehead before he realized it had happened. He pushed the memories away before they swamped him again and refocused on the salt flats ahead.
They glittered like a broken mirror. He heard a high giggle.
Max turned away.
He stomped back towards the small encampment in the lee of the War Rig. The motorcycles leaned into their kickstands, heavily loaded for the long journey that would begin tomorrow. Sleeping bodies wrapped in rugs made low humps in the sand. Nux and Capable curled towards each other, knees touching. Small puffs of vapor rose above their heads. As Max passed them Nux's eyes opened, scanning wildly until they landed on the passing man. Their eyes met. Both blinked. Max walked on.
Near the end of the tanker a figure sat at alert, a blanket wrapped against the chill of the desert night. The fabric peaked over her head giving her a conical appearance. Her shadow stretched into the distance.
Max paused. He had planned to sleep here. The bike the Vuvalini had given him rested here, a little apart from the others. Somebody – if he'd had to guess he would have said Nux – had laid out a rug and blanket over the seat of the motorcycle, ready for him to use. He looked between them and the lone figure at guard.
A minute or two later her head turned. Max started. He hadn't realized he had been looking at her so long. It had felt like no more than a moment.
The blanket shifted and fell to her shoulders. The moonlight glazed her features, revealing her expression.
It was a bad one. Max knew what that expression meant. He knew what she must be thinking to make a face like that.
He looked down at the sand, then back at her. Either way it was going to be an uncomfortable night.
Furiosa stared out across the moonlit waste. She kept her eyes trained for pursuit from the west, but her mind was elsewhere. The Plains of Silence lay to her right, a perfect shining canvas on which she could write her redemption, ripe with opportunities.
The Fool had said hope was a mistake, that she would go insane. She was trying to not hope, but it was a wild feeling that wouldn't be tamed. It was galloping in her chest, despite her attempts to rein it in with plans and realities and dangers. She felt it rattling her head, shaking those rational, sane thoughts out.
She started to remember, but not what was. She wouldn't be dragged back into those memories. She would write new ones.
Furiosa remembered the Green Place. Green under her feet, green in her eyes, green above her head. Plants in shades of green from so pale they were almost white to so dark they were almost black. Tall plants, dipping and nodding in the breeze. A breeze that was cooled by shady trees.
/A roar of engines. A place to hide./
Trees she could climb. A mother to scold her for doing so.
/Furiosa… Furiosa…!/
The passage of years. Dirt between her fingers. Dark dirt, sweet dirt…
/The smell of guzzoline. The crushing pressure of a boot grinding her head into the bitter earth. A cut cheek. Blood mingling with the taste of dust./
Life giving. Sustaining. Women working together. Children, running between rows of green.
/Run! Don't look back!/
Furiosa turned away. She didn't want to remember that.
"I know what you're thinking."
Furiosa started at the sound. She looked up though she recognized the voice.
The Fool stood beside her, towering over her position on the ground. A blanket was piled on his shoulders making them look even broader than they already were. The moonlight was behind him and his features were dark. He wasn't looking at her but out across the Plains of Silence.
"I doubt it," she replied.
He eyeballed her. She glowered back.
"You're remembering," he said.
She looked away, then regretted that she had. He would know he had been right. Before she could look back he had sunk onto the sand beside her. The blanket slid off his shoulders and made a cape down his back.
"It's dangerous, remembering like that. Makes you think about – mm – about what you'd have done differently. You start to remember the things that didn't happen." He fell silent again, his face moving spasmodically. Furiosa looked away. From the corner of her eye she saw him quickly raise the back of his hand to his forehead. She had seen that gesture before. She wondered what he was remembering, and if it had happened.
"Those things – the ones you remember – they're what will get you. They. Mm. They make you think you can change it. Now, instead of then.
"You can't. That's hope. But you. You. Keep moving forward. There's your redemption."
Furiosa looked back at The Fool. His mouth was working as though he was chewing unsaid words. Did he have more to say? That must have been almost a whole paragraph. Certainly there were more words in that short speech than she had heard him say in the past two days combined.
"I don't know what my redemption looks like," she heard herself say. Next to her, The Fool grunted agreement.
"I thought they were my redemption," she went on, swiveling to look at the sleeping women behind her. The Fool followed her eyes.
"No," he said.
"But I thought they were," Furiosa insisted. "I thought if I could give them what I never had…"
"Mm."
She could hear the warning disapproval in just that grunt. She felt her anger, never far from the surface, bubbling back up.
"It's what I thought! It was my plan, my idea, for my redemption. Mine! It worked! I got them here. I got myself here. I got you here!" she couldn't help but add. She jabbed him in the shoulder with a finger. He rocked but didn't look up.
"And did you find it." It was not a question.
Furiosa didn't answer. There was no need.
She felt hollowed out. She hadn't felt that way in forever. Not since before. The memories welled up again but she forced them down. She swallowed with difficulty. The hollow place was a knot of pain, expanding outwards, consuming her strength as it grew.
She shuddered and realized the blanket that had been draped around her shoulders had slipped to the ground. She fumbled for it with fingers that had gone numb. They wouldn't close around the fabric. She couldn't lift it. Furiosa watched her fingers scramble like spiders in the dust.
"No no no, shhh," The Fool said. He shifted and she felt the weight of his blanket drape across her shoulders. He settled it around her, tucking it in against the chilled metal of her left arm and pulling her closer. The sudden press of firm muscle and heat along her right side stilled her nervous fingers.
Her pulse lurched then settled. She didn't feel smothered or panicked; just warmed.
"There you go," he murmured. His hand rose and palmed her head. There was a pleasurable tickle as he rubbed his hand across her stubbled scalp. Furiosa felt his breath gust on her neck, and the expansion of his rib cage. He didn't breathe quietly, did he. Each breath was drawn like a runner gulping air, heavy and unsteady. Furiosa felt her own chest rising and falling quickly, too quickly. The straps on her arm and around her waist felt crushing. Her nervous fingers started again, plucking at the blanket this time.
He pulled her head towards him, murmuring vaguely soothing noises. Their skulls met with a thunk. His hand, rubbing and stroking, pressed her head against his. The stubble of his hair pricked sharply against hers. She found her eyes able to refocus on the scene in front of her and the sharp edges of the rolling dunes popped back into focus.
Their mingled breaths were visible as faint puffs of vapor before the hungry desert air sucked them away.
"Furiosa." His voice rumbled through her when he spoke. It shook them both. "Forget hope. Your road ahead… that's redemption."
They sat like that for a long time. His hand dropped to her neck after a while but they kept their heads pressed together until they began to ache at the point of contact. The moon swung across the sky until it shone in their faces.
Furiosa shifted and The Fool released her. She retrieved her blanket from where it had fallen behind them and arranged it across them both. The Fool silently spread his blanket on the ground and lay back.
When Furiosa reached for the straps on her arm and he sat up again. She looked at him warily and he returned the look. She could see his expression now, sharpened by the unforgiving moonlight. He was waiting. Just waiting, without expectation.
She reached out and took his hand, guiding it to the straps. Elbow first, then shoulder. His warmth was behind her, his leg pressing her leg. She waited as he undid the unfamiliar buckles, then took his hand and lowered it to her waist. He shifted and she felt his chest against her shoulder blades. His arms came around her to undo the buckles one by one. Her heart was leaping with a wild feeling again, but it was different this time.
The straps loosened and she felt the cold air on her sweat-damp skin. She pulled off her arm and set it aside. The Fool had already lain back down. She hesitated. If she turned back and looked, what would she see? What would show on his face?
She tried to imagine him smiling and failed. Utterly. A memory flickered through her mind, one that hadn't happened. One with a smile…
"Ah," he said behind her.
How did he do that? How could he tell?
She lay down next to him, pulling the blanket up to her chin. He wormed his arm under her neck, making a groove in the sand below them to accommodate it. Again, he palmed her head and pulled it close.
She felt something soft press against her temple for long moment, then again, shorter this time.
"Come with us," she said.
She felt his lips move against her skin in a silent reply before he said it aloud, but she had already known the answer.
"No."
She closed her eyes. They lay together in silence. He fell asleep first, but she lay, still and awake, holding on to this memory that had happened.
AUTHOR NOTES: First fic in ages, first Mad Max fic. Any comments are appreciated!
Standard disclaimers apply.