So he poured out on them his burning anger, the violence of war. It enveloped them in flames, yet they did not understand; it consumed them, but they did not take it to heart.

Isaiah 42:25

The Ace had always been a War Boy. This was an undisputed fact. There were some War Boys who were raised from the Wretched, others who were born to the Wives and considered imperfect, or to the few concubines reserved for the Imperators. He, unlike all the others, was not raised high by the Immortan to become a War boy. The Ace had been one from the beginning, long before he even met the Colonel called Joe. He was a boy made of war, and he had been the first.

He was five years old when the bombs fell. Five, like the fingers on a perfect hand, an outdated way of counting in their wretched world, where one did not expect to live a whole they counted the days they drew breath. It was the Immortan's system, a new way, not the old.

The boy was five when the bombs fell. Five years, five fingers. He was alone in the place with the buildings. He was alone with the corpses that turned black and pink by the blast that collapsed his house. He was alone in the hole in the ground below it, where he and his parents hid. They did not make it, but he did.

He crawled from the hole that became his parent's grave, and left that place with the shattered windows, knocked out doors, and turned up trees, and the people who did not move.

He went into the scrub and the heat, and followed the black topped roads. He ate food out of the cars that littered the roads, filled with burned bodies and black flies. Some of them had those cans with the pulley tabs like the food grandma fed her cat, and he pulled the tabs and sucked the syrup or salty water and ate the treasured insides.

The boy may have grown larger, but how much did he know without Mama to mark the line above his head. The muscle of his arms and legs grew hard like the bottoms of his feet, which blackened against the hot ground and cracked, but did not bleed. His nails grew long like a monster, but broke with enough pressure so he knew he was not one. His hair grew long past his eyes, and his skin turned red, then brown, brown, brown, until he matched the rest of the burned out world.

And he was alone. All alone. But that was okay. He would be okay. He had what he needed, and all he needed was himself. Nights and days came and went, and he lost track of how many. He just followed the path of the sun in the sky and the moon in the night, until the black top turned to gravel, then dirt, and finally grass. And it was him, and the sun, and the moon, and he was alone. It was okay because he had himself, himself, himself, until quite suddenly he had Her.

She who was crouched down by a fading pool of water, one side burned skin that was blackened in parts, but healing in others, and the rest deep gold. She stared at him with dark eyes and threatening tooth, but did not lunge. She just watched as he slipped down to the water's edge and sipped the brackish pool until he too crouched down and watched her with dark eyes and less threatening tooth. The sun passed overhead, and the shadows lengthened and fell to night, leaving both of them simply together.

She had no name, nor did she need one. It became quite simply he and Her. She who looked like a dog, but was not one. She who did not care for him, but did not seem to want to give up the company of a living thing, when those that were dead were still fresh enough to feed her, and by the time that they weren't, he was Pack by proxy and could not be harmed.

In the beginning they circled one another but never drew close, always within eyesight, but never near enough to touch. She would come and go, often with bloody mouth, and he would eat from his cans, or pluck drying berries from the brush, or eat insects, or ground laid eggs, or eat leaves of things he thought he remembered. Until one of those things made him shake and heave and weak for days, and it was during this time that she came closer.

She nudged at his side and sour lips, took his fingers in her mouth and nibbled but did not bite, and then laid near him in the shade of the grass. She waited until he was strong again. Then she walked with him, and he with her, and they chased the sun together.

The boy with the five perfect fingers, and who was once five perfect years, was useful to her. He rubbed cool mud and the goop from the green spiny plants that soothed the heat on her skin, and the fur grew back in short and patchy, until she looked much less like a naked thing and more like the Dingo she was. In return, she brought him fresh meat, and together they took comfort in another living thing. Curling up tight when the nights grew cold and panting together in the heat of the sun. Her fur was sleek under his palm and her tongue warm when she licked that day from his skin.

She spoke to him with wide yawns, howls and yowls, and very rarely barks that whooshed up from her rib cage. She spoke to him before she left him to hunt, upon waking in the morning, and when they bedded down at night until her own sounds were more familiar than the words of his parents and he put aside his few remembered words and responded in kind.

They traveled through the scrub grass, and she hunted the little rodents and lizards, and he ate what she brought. He watched and he learned, and eventually she let him help. He was bad at the killing, but he was fast, and he could herd the prey toward her waiting jaws. Eventually he figured out a snap snap twist with his hands which did what her jaws did with less blood and for a while they feasted like Before Times, until their travels led them back to the black topped roads that had gone light grey in the sun.

They walked along the pavement, following the fissures in the road and the potholes, until on the horizon he saw the looming shapes of the tall square things that he once knew the name for but lost among the grass. He led Her near those tall shapes, remembering the cans with the sugar sweet taste that he wanted on his tongue, never realizing that the world was not just Him and Her and the prey that fed them. But there were other living things too. When they drew near the tall things, he saw for the first time since the bomb others that were like him. They who used the cars, and made the can food, and were big and tall like his parents had been.

He and She disappeared into the tall grass the edged the roads, and hunkered down as the Others drove past, leaving air that reeked of gasoline.

She woofed and he yodeled and they split, she into the tall grass, and he into those grid laid streets. He ducked through open doors, picking up whatever seemed useful. He found a bag with straps that fit over his arms, a sharp knife that folded into the handle, and an empty bottle with a red sipping top. He found cans without the pull tabs which he left and boxes of things that he took, including one half full of dog treats that She may like. He found a pair of blue pants that fit him loose around the waist and long around the feet, but were better than the ones he had which cut tight into his sides when he managed to fit the button. He found a new shirt that didn't have sleeves, but was the color of the sky, and came to rest low on his thighs. He found some shoes, but he left them.

When he returned to the brown grass, She yipped and licked at his hand. They drifted off the road, but not far from it, and followed the Others back into the scrub land which was their home, leaving the tall, looming place behind.

The sun and the moon past and past and past overhead and He forgot about the Others and their cars, and they left the road and returned to the grass and wandered until they hit the wastes of sand. He stopped when his toes sunk into the hot grains but She ventured forth, stopping atop a low dune and looking back at him. Ear flicking once, before she crested and disappeared and he had no choice but to scamper after her. Feet registering the heat as pain but nothing he couldn't handle.

She caught desert lizards, and found them shallow water pools, and he learned how to survive in the wastes. It was all going so well yet everything must come to a close.

He found a car out in the wastes one night. Brown with rust and empty when he peered inside. There was nothing of value he could see within the cab, but he pulled his knife to jimmy the trunk open anyway. He had managed to wedge the blade into the keyhole when a crushing force came down upon his ankle and pulled. He yowled as his body tipped back, head colliding with the cold sand, and his limbs flailed, trying to pull his leg free. A large form burst from under the carriage, snarling syllables, brandishing a dark rectangular form. In the dark the Other looked monstrous, and She snarled and barked a warning before darting forward, teeth clamping down around the Other's leg. The hand came loose and the boy scurried away, yelping in fear, and She let the leg drop from her mouth to chase after him.

But he did not get far, the Other grabbing him around the torso and flinging him into the gaping body of the car, and the door slammed shut on them both. The man crawling over the center console to the driver's seat, as the boy shrieked and She scratched at the window but the glass was firm between them and No. No. No.

The car rumbled to life and the Other roared. "Jesus Christ kid! Shut the hell up!"

The boy whimpered and beat his fists against the window, watching Her run after them until the car picked up too much speed and she was left behind. He trembled and keened, and hunched down into the footwell, head pulled between his knees and fingers fisting in his tangled hair. And they drove and drove and drove.

They came to a stop amidst a grouping of other cars. There were more than the fingers on one hand, more than the fingers on two, possibly more than the teeth in Her mouth. The Other left the car and called out with his words, and the boy shook and shuddered and cried out when the man pulled open the door nearest him dragging the boy out onto the sand.

The child was surrounded by Others, and the one who took him said, "I found him out in the wastes, him and some fucking dingo. He hasn't said anything, just keeps fucking whining."

The group shifted, eyes flicking to a single man. He was tall, blond, and had eyes cold like a snake's but blue as the sky in the daytime.

"You did good, Major Kalashnikov." The man finally said as he stepped towards the boy and knelt down.

"Well boy, you gonna talk for me? Tell me your name?"

The boy snarled and wanted move away, but doing so would only bring him closer to the other men lurking around.

"You brought me a feral child, Kalashnikov. Is this some kind of joke?"

"He could have known about the aquifer." Kalashnikov stated petulantly.

The blue eyed man stood and waved a lazy hand at the group. "Take him to the Sheila's; see if they can pull some words out of him."

Hands grabbed at the child once again and hauled him away to a large tent filled with women, one for each of his fingers. Many held babies or young children, and they all turned to look. The few nearest the boy made noises with their mouths. He crouched low and snarled, back curling, lips pulled back from his teeth.

"Ah, we got an anklebiter." One of the women said, and the others laughed and turned back to their children or whatever had occupied them before. The one who spoke moved toward him slowly before stopping a few feet away and sitting down.

He had nowhere to go with the opening shut tight behind him, and the woman right before him. He made a keening noise low in his throat and wished She was with him.

"Ah now. None of that, you're alright." Her voice was quiet and she watched the space over his shoulder, hands open in front of her, fingers loose and unthreatening. "My name is Hannah, what's yours?"

Lips pressed tight, he hunched down on the covered floor. The surface felt slick under his feet, nothing like the sand in the desert, or Her fur, and it was the color the sky became just after sunset.

"Do you know how old you are?" Hannah asked.

He raised one hand and spread his fingers, twitching the tips of each one in turn. One. two. Three. Four. Five.

The woman smiled, "Five huh? You're too big to be five, Billy Lid."

"How long's it been since the world went?" One of the ladies said, "He probably was five."

"Well then, isn't that something!" She said, smiling again. "You, my love, are seven. Do you know how many that is?"

She held up both of her hands and raised all the fingers on one hand and two more on the other.

"This is how old you are now."

He frowned and turned away from her.

Hannah tried for the boy's attention again, but he ignored her, ignored the food she set down beside him a little while later, and ignored the whole tent as they settled down to sleep. He just laid against the ground-not-ground, and watched the shadows move against the side of the tent, and listened to the babies cry and suckle, and the children kick in their sleep. Then slowly, so slowly, his own eyes shut, and he drifted.

In the morning the Others gathered. Most drove off in their cars or on their bikes to search the far horizons. Those that remained hunched over paper covered tables, and talked and talked and talked. The blond man who led them strutted about, surveying all that he had with hungry eyes, but always looked out over the dunes for the things that he did not.

The women walked past that man with shuttered eyes and clenched teeth, and their children scuttled around at his feet, and the Boy sat hunkered in the shade of the tent watching them with eyes that cut.

They brought him food, and this time he ate. Some desert lizard that was not hot from blood but from fire, and a handful of grain. They did not give him water, and the boy saw that they had little themselves and figured they never learned how to look.

The leader, whose name was Joe, talked at Hannah and motioned at the boy, and the woman just shook her head and shrugged.

They left the child alone those first few days. Hannah would come and talk and sit by him until he stopped flinching from each new word and let her touch his hand with a few fingers.

After the second day he ignored their food and watched them struggle with their thirst. He slept in the shade during the day, crept through the woman's tent at night, and called out to Her in the evenings. One lonely howl, that echoed through the air, and made the Others curse and kick dirt at him and the women hold their children close.

Four suns after they took him, he got an answering howl in return. He ran out into the desert yipping all the way. She came from the sand, tail waving fast, her tongue on his face and mouth, cleaning the days of loneliness away. And it was good good good.

A gunshot split the air. Joe standing pistol drawn to the sky his blue eyes hard and mouth a sneer.

The boy and the dingo froze at the sound, so new to their ears and stared.

"Boy, come here." The man demanded.

The boy did not. He burst to his feet and ran for the dunes beyond but did not get far. Another crack and the sand split just in front of him, and he stumbled to a halt. Then another, and he tumbled away, and she was barking, even though She never barked. And then Hannah was there, arms pulling tight across his rib cage, yanking him back back back. Her lips moving fast and soft in his ear, but he did not understand, just wailed his displeasure.

"You have to stay." She held him tight. "You have to stay."

Then he was dumped at Joe's feet, and the boy not move. He just stared at the ground, and She whined somewhere behind him, but did not leave, and was not shot at again.

"You're mine, boy." Joe said before slapping him hard across the face. "You are mine. You don't get to leave."

The big man turned away and the boy calls out to Her. She comes. His fingers are in her fur, and it is almost okay because she was back with him. He was not alone amongst these Others, with their strange sounds and fire hot food, and their cars and their booming guns.

Slowly he lets her fur slip from his fingers and he moves into the shade of the tent and settles. She curls around his back, and helps him eat the food that Hannah brings though is it not enough for the two of them, let alone one.

Joe snarls and places his gun away. Then he goes back to his maps and his plans, and the men eye the boy and his dingo, fingering their guns. She will do nothing for now. Just lays her head on the sand and he sinks against her side and he sleeps. Her eyes follow the men and gleam with fire in the night.

For many days She exists near the Others with bristling fur, snarling mouth, and eyes that dart. Until they seem to forget that she is a wild feral thing, and ignore her just like they ignore the boy. The two sleep in the shade during the heat of the day, and watch the other children scurry around them, as fearful as their mothers. They do not mind the fear, just watch and grumble. They think about how the children are easy prey, but dare not move against them for the guns that bark would no doubt hurt like everything else in this world.

There comes a time when the Others pack up camp. Dumping everything into the back of the vehicles, they move farther into the desert, the boy and the dingo riding in the back of a truck. They zip through the air, and Her tongue lolls in the wind, and her tail sweeps, sweeps, sweeps. Then they stop, and they are met by other men, and Joe's group grows larger. It Grows so large that a second women's tent is made.

The boy watches and waits.

He waits, and the group of Others grows until it has more members than he ever learned to count. The food becomes more scarce, and the water scarcer. If he and She did not sneak away in the dark to hunt and drink the water only they seemed to know how to find, he figured he'd be just like the skin and bone children that started dying. Not in the same way as his parents, with blackened skin and pink burns but slowly, yet suddenly, during the hot nights. Their breath just stopped in their chests, and their mothers would wail and beat their hands to their skulls in grief.

Until he was the last one, and the mothers watched him with eyes full of hate, and only Hannah would dare come near him. Sitting in the shade of the tent in the long afternoons, she would talk, talk, talk. Telling stories, and histories, and whatever made up thing. He began to recognize more words, but never bothered to use them himself.

Joe and his men ventured far and wide, never seeming to find what they were looking for. They came back with news of something called they called a refinery, and lead mines, and they would turn and stare at the huge rocks that rose in the distance with something akin to awe and jealousy.

The group got thinner and weaker, all except for the boy and the dingo. They were watched with jealous eyes, and the men began to talk and point with claw handed fingers. For a time Joe would wave them off, until he too turned to them with slavering maw and pulled a pistol from his side.

The bullet found Her skull before the action had even registered to the boy. There was blood, and it was red red red and it was streaming all across the sand, and sounds emerged strangled from his throat until he was screaming.

"No!" His hands on her, shaking the golden fur on golden sand. "No!"

Suddenly Joe was there, pushing the boy off to crash into the ground. Joe had a knife, and the boy lunged, arms latching tight around the man's throat, long nails stabbing at eyes and face. The Child's mouth going for neck, like he had seen Her do for every kill.

And he bit, and there was blood on his teeth, but it did not clench the fire behind his eyes. Joe ripped him off and smashed the butt of the knife against his mouth again and again, until it wasn't just Joe's blood on his tongue, but his own. The boy fell against the dirt and spat red and white, as one of the teeth that had fallen and grown back in came loose.

Hannah pulled him to her, and dragged him away, kicking and clawing. She tried to soothe him with words, but all he knew was the blood in his mouth, the tears on his face, and the gaping sickness in his chest where She should be.

They took Her skin first, then butchered Her for the meat, which they tossed onto the cook fire until it was charred near black. The boy watched all of it from his place within Hannah's arms.

When the body was nothing but bloodied skeleton, Joe stood, wiped his hands on a cloth and stared down at the boy. "It's for the best." He said and walked away.

The boy broke from Hannah's hold and collapsed in the sand by the remains. His fingers splay over red tinged skull, and he whines and whimpers and howls his grief. The hole in his mouth bled and gaped emptily. With great difficulty he pried one of Her incisors from Her skull and jammed it firmly into the waiting hole in his mouth. It hurt hurt hurt, but he clacked his teeth until the tooth sat in the socket in a way that let him close his mouth with ease, and he held the tooth with his tongue until the bleeding stopped and his body accepted it as his own.

It was that night, when he watched them eat her flesh that his indifference for the Others turned to hate.