Max's world was blue and brown. Blue sky, brown dirt, brown skin, blue eyes. There was comfort in monotony. The world was balanced, calm, consistent in blue and brown. But sometimes there was red. The red ripping winds of a storm on the horizon, red splatters of blood splashed into the sand. It threw him off balance, disrupted the routine, it sent his body into seizing motions he couldn't control and his brain into another time that didn't exist.
It came at night, mainly. His rocking and swaying world crumbling into the ground because three straight days of fighting with no sleep was hard enough on someone who wasn't cracked straight through. He never made a sound but his eyes spun in wild circles tracing lines where people could be but weren't and his body was rendered useless by tremors so violent he could barely breathe.
He was imploding, caving in on himself, getting trapped. Furiosa would try, "Hey, hey, look at me" to reach his eyes "breathe with me. Breathe." to reach into wherever he was, "Max, Max, it's Furiosa, Max, you're safe, you're safe with me now."
Usually his eyes would find her, his face would feel her hands stroking his cheek and he would settle and grow heavy and tired and rest his weary limbs against Furiosa's, tangibly grounding himself with her. But other times he left, completely. Only for a few hours, but his body, his eyes, his breathing, would focus and tense into complete, terrifying stillness that no word or touch or shake could disturb. The spell always ended abruptly: he would lift himself up and drop with a limp restraint into bed and stare at the ceiling, drawing patterns over Furiosa's skin until daylight came.
When the tremors stopped and the morning rose, Furiosa would coax Max out of the room and take him up to the top shelf of the cliffs, where everything was a vibrant shade of living growth. While he stood a shocked, still slightly shaking mess, Furiosa would whisper that she'd be back and vanish, leaving him alone in the great green endlessness of leaves, quivering in a soft breeze, water bubbling around in irrigation and bugs flying and sticking to his already sweating skin.
After a singularly silent evening that lasted from sun down to sun up, Furiosa stayed in the green with him until a voice called out from atop a rickety wooden watch tower, "Strange man, ho!"and a tall slender silhouette appeared waving and leaning precariously over the bannister, "Oh, it's my strange man, ho!"and then Furiosa vanished.
The silhouette dashed down the wooden ladder of the tower, an appeared as an angelic entity made entirely of gangly limbs and silver hair. She ran straight to Max without any temptation of hesitation and grabbed his hands tightly within her own spindly fingers.
"Once again, my lovely Fool has returned to me!"
"Dag." he grunted, eyes cast downwards to the dark fertile dirt.
She pressed her forehead to his hands softly and then pried at his tense fists, "Let's see, let's see, from what hell hath thou come, to what hell shalt thou go," Once his knuckles were wrenched open, she probed her fingertips over the lines carved into his shaking palms. She tsked twice and closed his fists with a swift pat, "A mystery as always, my stoic Fool, but I think tomorrow will be kind to you."
She bent over and stuck her head into his line of vision and whispered sweetly "Come on, I have some lovely presents."
The Dag led him along, hooking her pinky around his. She wound him through rows and rows of blossoming tendrils, freshly fragrant of a far off spring, up to a large wooden cabin that had huge open windows. He kept his eyes on his feet the entire walk.
The inside ceiling of the cabin was lined with flowers hanging upside down and perfumed with a scent that nearly always knocked Max off his feet. Dag left him at the doorstep and went inside, darting through isles and isles of petals and herbs. She cooed and clapped her hands together, plucking a large bundle of bright purple flowers tied together with twine.
"These are for Furiosa, give them a smell." she tossed the bundle at his head and he snatched it with clumsy, bumbling hands. "Tell her to crush them up and put them in her pillow, she'll sleep marvelously."
Max stared at her.
"Or I'll just tell her"
""ve got it."
She smiled wide and went back to digging furiously around in a different isle, yanking out a pan, some cups, and a handful of dried leafy greens. Then she zipped past him back outside, calling back. "This is for you, come on, keep up"
She dipped the pan in an irrigation pit and slipped into a different, smaller one room cabin next to the large drying room. The cabin was windowless and bare except for a fire pit, a mattress, and a wall filled completely with small pieces of paper covered in different drawings.
"Sit, sit." She said, fussing about trying to get a fire started. Max silently grabbed the flint and strike from her hands and knelt down, sparking the tinder instantly. "You know" she said "I do do this every day when you're not around. All on my own."
He glanced up at her then back down at the fire breathing to life, then back to her again.
She gave a huff, "Right, okay, fine." and hung the pan over the flame.
As Dag tended to the pot, throwing various leaves and stems and flowers in, crushing some between her fingers, Max absentmindedly curled shapes into the dirt floor with a small twig- flowers and leaves, a small angelic face.
"Alright, all done!" she poured the contents of the pan into two cups and handed the steaming cup to Max. "Careful, it's very hot, sip it slow."
It was dark and fragrant and Max took a slow, hesitant sip. He blinked in confusion and took another sip. Flavour. A bursting confusion of something that wasn't gritty, bloody, and raw. Another, larger sip. It was... nice. Soft. Fluttery and familiar in a way his mind flipped frantically to place. His stomach clenched in a not entirely unpleasant way.
"Doesn't it just melt your bones" She said when he finished the cup.
He nodded to her and they basked in simple, light silence for a few moments.
She stood up, pushed her hair back, and put her hands on her hips, "Alright now that's enough dilly dallying for the day, it's time to put you to work."
When Max snuck into Furiosa's room that night, she was still up, sitting against the wall, eyes closed, head lifted up towards the ceiling with a wet towel plastered to the right side of her face. Under the towel, Max could see her cheek glowing angry red and swollen. Max collapsed next to her with a slightly dramatized groan and lifted the towel gingerly. A large bruise was blooming along her cheek bone.
She glanced at him through a swollen eye, "I'll tell you what happened only if you promise not to laugh at me," she prefaced.
He raised his eyebrows.
She raised her's back, then sighed and mumbled fast, "I was fixing the rig and a bolt got caught. I tried prying it out and just..." she mimicked the motion of hitting herself in the face with a wrench with a loud pop of her mouth.
Max snorted and nearly smiled.
"Hey," she pointed a finger at him, "what did I say?"
He lifted a finger, one moment, still nearly smiling. Then lifted his hands in front of his face like a prayer, closed his eyes, and opened them, fixing her with a fiercely serious glare. They maintained a stare off for less than a second before Furiosa began laughing at herself and Max broke into a full smile. She turned to rest her forehead against his with a soft tap.
"Seriously though," She started. Max grabbed her jaw and turned her face so he could assess the damage better, "this is classified information. If anyone asks, I was respectfully pistol whipped."
He hummed in mocking agreement.
"Your hands are covered in dirt."
He hummed again.
"But you smell good."
His eyes brightened for a moment, let go of her face, and shifted around to pull the bundle of flowers out from his dirty bag. "Dag says put 'em" he gestured to the bed, "in there. To sleep."
Furiosa took the bundle and smelled them, "Oh," closed her eyes. "They're nice," and leaned her head back against the wall. Max spread the towel back across her face and she stilled, only moving her arm every so often to smell the flowers again.
Max flopped his legs one over the other and opened his bag up, rummaging around, grabbing out a crumpled scrap of paper, a large needle, and some berries he snagged along the way. He crushed one between his fingers, dipped the needle in the juice, and began to draw.
When he was nearly finished Furiosa opened her eyes and silently examined his work, watching his as he put the final touches on his design with a certain delicate quality he only seemed possessed when he drew. With a tired voice she told him,"You better get that up to her fast or the war boys will shoot you down without checking who it is." He nodded, stood up, and ran a hand over her head.
He pointed to the flowers,"Get some sleep"
"I will"
"I'll be back."
"I know. I'll be here."