Leda remained stone faced as one of her War Pups blew powder onto Immortan Joe's grotesque back, which was riddled with sores and boils and oozing. It was painful for him, and there was a time where that would have pained Leda. Not anymore, though – now the thought of Immortan Joe's pain just gave her satisfaction. But right now it just pissed her off. My War Pup, my War Boys, train them up to be his battle fodder. Waste. Waste. WASTE. They weren't her children, those kamakrazee fukishima War Boys. But some time after her first couple years training the half-life War Pups, they started to call her mother. Mother, I'll slit his throat for ya, Mother, one day I'll drive the War Rig, Mother, Mother, Mother. They never aged out of it; there were even some that were older than her that called her that. It was sick. But Leda didn't mind it if it made them feel more attached to her. The more attached to her, the more they would listen to her.
What she did mind was that when they thought of her as a mother, they thought of Immortan Joe as a God. And she couldn't say shit.
Fucking lies, his lies, my lies, our lies. She was their leader but she had to lead them straight into the cult dogma of Valhalla and chrome.
She had never voiced these thoughts, these aberrational dreams against the Immortan Joe. She wasn't kamakrazee. She knew she couldn't win. No, the War Bitch was smart, that's why she stayed behind when Furiosa asked her to go with her to the Green Place.
At least that's what she told herself.
Once her War Pup, Cato, finished with the powder, Rictus busied himself with preparing Joe with that stupid molded plastic plates, adorned with metals he hadn't earned. Leda stepped forward and handed her leader's horse-toothed cannula to him. The final touches lain, Immortan Joe rose with Rictus and Leda's help to speak to his subjects below.
As Rictus stood at Immortan's right, Leda took her place on his left. Rictus held the jawbone microphone to Joe's mouth – If you could call it that. Gaping breath hole. Reeking wound. Killimkillimkillim.
The Immortan took a great labored breath and began his oration. "Once again, we send off my War Rig to bring back guzzoline from Gas Town and bullets from the Bullet Farm! Once again, I salute to my Imperator Furiosa!" He gestured down to the Rig, where Furiosa had taken her place in the driver's seat.
Leda ached. This was the last time she would see Furiosa. I should have listened to her, I should have gone with her to that bloody Green Place. But nooooo.
But I'm a coward.
She shook the regrets from her head and stared at the horizon. Leda wasn't stupid enough to think that Furiosa was her friend. Who had friends anymore in this Wasteland World? Friends made you stupid, weak, and – like that damned shite AquaCola – you would resent them if they went absent from your life. And they always did. Reliance. A commodity that Leda the War Bitch couldn't afford.
Joe continued, ignorant of the snarl that cut into Leda's face when he talked, "And I salute my half-life War Boys who will ride with me eternal on the highways of Valhalla."
Fuck me. It roiled Leda's stomach to know the reason that they were so willing to die for nothing was because of her. It was a shit thing to do – and it made her beyond redemption. But it made her feel better about her choice to stay with the War Pups.
She resolved to not think about it. She let it be drowned out with thunderous rumblings, chantings of "V8! V8! V8!" and Immortan Joe's response:
"I AM YOUR REDEEMER! It is by my hand you will rise from the ashes out of this world!"
With that, Immortan Joe pressed two shiny chrome throttles forward, leading to three great waterfalls to burst forth with the cold, clear water that Joe had pumped from deep underground and used to control them all.
Can't wait for that well to run dry. Of course that would mean she would probably die but hell, maybe Valhalla existed and she could beat the shit out of Immortan Joe in the after life. No I wouldn't, a voice whispered in the recesses of her mind. Deep down, under the blood and the grease and the war she was afraid of the Immortan Joe. Even though she knew he was a sick old man, she was afraid.
The War Bitch was a coward.
The water stopped at Joe's hand, just like it always did. "Do not, my friends become addicted to water. It will take hold of you and you will resent it's absence," Joe declared, heartless bastard he was. No not heartless. Something beat inside that chest of his – something black, dry, shriveled but still too strong, pumping guzzoline and ego.
She could hardly wait for it to stop.
But for now she would wait. She was a patient woman. And as she followed she the Immortan Joe out of the chamber to the harvesting room, that was what she thought as she stared at his back.
You're going to die one day, old man. And I pray to whatever god that survived the Waste that I can Witness.
The War Bitch trolled the catacombs of the War Boys, occasionally being greeted with strangled, mad cries of "MOTHER!" and askings of when she would next ride out with them. She came to the part of the tunnels that housed the War Boys close to death. Well, closer than most.
There she came upon a mildly surprising sight: the feral universal donor, hanging in a cage, muzzled. She half-figured that he would have to have had been put down by now. But universal donors were rare.
She was AB+, like Furiosa. Furiosa, Furiosa, Furiosa. They called it selfish blood. Universal recipient.
And he was desirable. He was a quick healer and he was a full blood bag, good for bleeding. What had they gotten when they weighted him? She wracked her brain for what his marks had said. WEIGHT: 180LBS. She did the math in her head. The average blood volume for men was 75ml. She did the math in her head quickly.
6123.5ml.
She did a bit more mental math to come up with his maximum allowable blood loss. 2637.5ml – a good amount before he would die.
She had always been good at math. A useless skill. She remembered, vaguely, when she was a child, wanting to heal. Reading old medical texts from a better world. USELESS. STUPID.
Leda went from War Boy to War Boy, looking at their wasting bodies and feeling something like pity, she thought. Even though she had told them that Valhalla was real, its highways would welcome them, they would live and die and live again, it was shit. There was no true glory or real hope in their deaths.
Just bullshit. A thicket I planted.
She met Organic the Mechanic – a smart bloody butcher, a henchman, a little bitch but a useful one – like me – in the tunnels to get a progress report of her sick War Boys. "Who's the least fucked?" she muttered to him so the poor blighters wouldn't hear her.
"A few should be alright, granted they get a transfusion soon." Spit dribbled from Organic's shredded lips. But Leda was used to it.
It was fucked, but she was relieved that there weren't many who would make it to the battle to hunt Furiosa down. "Which ones?"
"Psych, Nemesis, Silic, and Nux." He pointed them out them her one by one. Leda surveyed each one. Nux looked near spent.
"You sure Nux is gonna make it? He looks pretty washed."
Organic nodded roughly in agreement and shouted to the couple healthier War Boys that served as his own flunkies, "I got a War Boy running on empty. Hook-up that full-life."
The War Boys approached the full-life's cage with a shock stick of Organic's own invention. The popped the false bottom open but the feral kept up there, pushed against either side of his cage.
Leda thought this feral a stupid one. Didn't he see the fucking shock stick?
The feral dropped into suspension like a bad of stones. A blood bag. Huh. Leda had a shite sense of humor. She walked towards it as they hooked him up to Nux. It was like she was daring him to bite at her again, now through that muzzle.
Even though it looked strong, she wanted to be sure. The look in this one's eyes, it would do anything to escape, to survive. She gave it a couple quick tugs before giving him a once over. He had a cut on his head, probably from the shears they had used when they brought him in.
"Organic," she barked. He scampered over to her without hesitation. "This one has a might gash on his head here," she pointed it out like the feral was cattle. "Tell your takers that if they're going to butcher such valuable meat, there's no keeping them off the block."
Organic snickered at the War Boys flinching.
Ignoring the blighter, Leda helped the War Boy, Nux, sit upright. She lay two fingers below his jawbone on the side, feeling for his weak pulse. Weak weak WEAK. Nux looked drained but hopeful. "You got some good blood pumping into ya, Nux. You'll fight." The way she said it was matter-of-fact, clinical. But she really just meant it to be comforting; it wasn't her forte.
She glanced at the two tumors that had metastasized, that were eating at him. There was a time in the old world where they used radiation to cure such things. The irony didn't escape Leda.
Nux gave a weak, wicked smile before letting his head droop down once more. She placed a gloved hand on the back of his head with something like reverence before moving on.
I know this chapter was relatively short – I wanted to make it way longer but I also really wanted to update before Sunday. I guess I got a bit restless. Thank you so much to everyone for their reviews!
BerryGhost: You are very close. BUT Leda is not like Furiosa (because Furiosa is too great to be replicated in this story.) Here's a clue: Leda is full-life and fertile but not a wife. What is she?
Wickedgrl123: GIRL PLS JUST PM ME ABOUT THE 100. OCTAVIA IS BAE. Ahem. I'm glad you liked how I wrote Max!
Squintz18: I hope this chapter clears the psychology surrounding the "mother" title up a bit!
Things to ponder: Leda's name is a hint. Guess in the reviews and – if you want – I can PM you the answer as well as my reasoning. Here's some review prompts: how do you like the difference between narrative styles (Max's POV vs. Leda's POV.)? From this chapter's content, would you say that Leda is chaotic neutral, neutral evil, or chaotic good? How do you think Max and Leda will interact later on: when Leda has a voice that she chooses not to use and Max has a voice that he can't use (metaphorically, of course.)
P.S. Max and Leda have only met briefly and under some pretty antagonistic circumstances, but I have already dubbed their ship name Mada. Geddit? Because… "Madder"? I'll just go away now.
BUT! Not before I leave you with this:
I am the ocean,
just because you claim me
does not mean
you own me…
- Michelle K.