beware the patient woman ((for outpostcook, nexus_crossings))

[eumenis]

Literally no one else in the Wasteland grows fish or other aquatic food of any kind. This, Furiosa is willing to stake her right arm on. She’s never heard of anyone seeing the ocean in her lifetime, except Max, and he’s a crazy smeg who rides the dusty roads like he belongs to them. Maybe they took him somewhere else, somewhere further away than anyone else could reach.

Well. In a way, she has, too, although the path to the Nexus came to her rather than her seeking it out.

In any case, if anyone can make aquatic animals viable in the desert, it’s the Citadel, with their aquifer, with their giant pumps and their vast body of people capable of learning and innovating. Bartertown is the undisputed trade center of their world, but the Green Towers are the seed from which a better world may yet grow. And so, Furiosa always has an eye to anything that might give them an edge over the more brutal societies around them, but as soon as something new they have can be shared and traded, she’ll do that, too. She’s already disseminated writings taken from the Nexus, seeds from plants bought there, and the plans for moisture condensing machines that could provide vital water for settlements in the desert.

Kinner is part of her plans now, but he can rely on her sense of justice. She’ll pay fairly for whatever he gives them, one way or another. When she arrives to pick him up at the fish stand, she has a double-layer jar containing about half a gallon of camel milk, and a palm-sized sliver of soft cheese made from the same. She whistles at the door to catch his attention, holding out the gifts she’s brought. “Ready? How are the sea-bugs today?” She nods at the lobster tank.

Comments

[outpostcook]

Kinner is a practical man himself, with skills he learned from the military and from Antarctica. All of them have served him well during his new life in the Nexus. He admires Furiosa's ingenuity and leadership abilities - he's outclassed utterly, and he respects her a great deal.

"Blackthumbs?" Kinner figures this is a word in Furiosa's world's local dialect, probably meaning engineer or mechanic, and he can't help but be curious about the local slang. He's a bit of a slang-user himself, but the words he knows would probably be alien to Furiosa's people. Maybe not, though. He considers tossing out slang words in the future to see if anyone recognizes them, as a kind of test. However, there are other things to do first. Kinner starts by stepping forward, listening to Furiosa's explanation. This must be some kind of engine room.

Kinner's never seen an engine room like this before, though, and he quickly realizes that Furiosa's description of her world's people was accurate. Kinner's scars, unsightly though they were, were nothing compared to some of the things he sees here, and he manages not to be rude or show any signs of disgust. He's seen some ugly wounds during his time in the Army. Whatever happened in Furiosa's world to ravage the people so badly must've been an atomic bomb. Kinner thinks it's a wonder there are people left at all.

"Hello there," he says, deciding it would be polite to introduce himself before the real business starts. He bows, stepping back behind Furiosa, He's here as a guest, and he'll defer to her on anything he's asked to do, but he's willing to tentatively start explaining things. "My name's Joseph Kinner. Furiosa hired me to help you set up some aquaculture tanks." He rummages in his knapsack for the instructions he copied down from the Great Library. If he's going to teach them how to take care of water animals, he'll have to start with the basics. There's a lot to learn, and he's prepared to come back for multiple lessons if he's asked to.

[eumenis]

"Mechanics," she explains, clarifying 'Blackthumbs' for him obligingly. "On account of the motor oil. Blackthumbs, or Blackfingers."

Furiosa's Citadel culture has some weird slang, indeed. Wait until someone starts telling Kinner about McFeasting in Valhalla.

A lot of the mechanics here have deliberate scarification, and one or two have amputations. Some have lumps in their skin, usually around the neck or armpit area. Furiosa has been told by their medical personnel that these are benign lumps, lipomas, and even if they're a little unsightly, the people who have them tolerate them well enough.

"What's this, now?" After Kinner introduces himself, a big man wanders over. This is one of the one's with lumps, and he's wearing goggles, and there are wrenches carved into his skin just below the collarbones. He's got a limp. "This your Nexus friend, Boss?"

Furiosa puts her hand on Kinner's shoulder. "We'll take those up to the Council. You don't have to get them out yet. I just wanted you to see."

She grins up at the strange man and goes up on her tiptoes to bump her forehead into his. "Yeah, Ace, this is Kinner. Be nice."

The tinted goggles get pushed up on the man's forehead. He looks like he might be around sixty, but he's all muscle, well over six feet tall. His eyes are pale grey, and he looks to be evaluating Kinner closely. Ace is protective of Furiosa, sometimes inordinately so, but he's not unfair. Just slow to trust.

[outpostcook]

"Gotcha." Kinner's from the thirties, so he knows some period slang himself. "That's right, I came from the Nexus. My world's pretty different from yours - we still have water and sea creatures. Furiosa hired me to help set up some aquaculture tanks here - it'd be a good source of protein."

Still, he wonders how he looks in the clothes. It's not what he's used to wearing, but Furiosa seemed to think he looked good in clothes from her world. Kinner takes a quick draft from his canteen, though he's preserving his water for later. He needs it to last, and it's hot even indoors.

Kinner looks up at Ace - at roughly 5'4, Kinner is significantly shorter than the other man. Kinner isn't a big man, either. There's a wiry strength to him, but he isn't muscular.

"Hello there, Ace. Good to meet you." He nods, a gesture of respect. Whoever Ace is, he's clearly an important member of Furiosa's community.

Kinner wonders how much he'll learn about Furiosa's world - it's an interesting place, and very different from home.

"I'm guessin' Ace is second-in-command here. Like McReady was for Garry." He explains a little for Ace's benefit. "They were people I knew back in mt world. We were on an expedition team together. Garry was the boss and McReady was kinda his deputy."

He touches his own scars lightly, though his scars aren't nearly as extensive as Ace's. "War wounds. I was in a big war back in my home world, and I cut myself on barbed wire. It was a long time ago." Kinner isn't sure if the Great War happened in this world, so he leaves the exact war he participated in vague. "I used to be a soldier, and I fought in battle as one, but it was a very long time ago."

[eumenis]

Furiosa seems content to let Kinner and Ace talk. Ace is, by and large, a decent judge of character, and she sort of feels like the two of them ought to get along. Ace is essentially an old soldier, himself, even if the army he fought in was not quite so organized as Kinner's.

"Never saw a fish in my life," Ace tells Kinner, and he still looks a little wary, but not hostile. Maybe a little bemused. "There were a billabong outside the village I grew up in, but nothin' much lived there but frogs and bugs."

"Ace is one of the few around here who was born outside the Citadel," Furiosa says. "Before the world finished falling, maybe."

Ace shrugs. "Don't know about that. And I'm the on the Council. Kinda the head Blackthumb, I guess. I was the Second, on the Boss' crew, but..."

"Still are," Furiosa says. "I just don't go on the road as often now."

That wins a little smile from the man.

[outpostcook]

"I was born in a farmhouse near the Missouri River," Kinner says, feeling nostalgic with the talk about their respective homes. He was a little intimidated by Ace at first, but he's warming to him. A friend of Furiosa's is a friend of his. "Used to go fishing there for supper sometimes. Caught the occasional frog, too."

Kinner figures that the Missouri in this world was long gone, which is a shame - but it sounds like there's a few small animals clinging to life here, which is a good surprise. Maybe there's some hope left for this desert future, the cook thinks with a faint smile.

"World hasn't fallen where I'm from, not yet, anyway. Assuming my team back home was able to defeat the Thing, and I hope they did."

Ace doesn't know what the Thing is, so Kinner quickly explains.

"There's a monster back where I came from. A creature from space - very dangerous. Powerful enough to destroy the world, by replacing all life on Earth with copies of itself. Animal life, at the very least."

Kinner isn't sure if the Thing can assimilate plant life. He doesn't really want to find out.

"I'm no one special where I came from - just the team's cook."