you can bury my body, but I'll never die

[eumenis]

Furiosa enters the Nexus on the second day of Autumn, flanked by three War Boys. One remains by the gate with a motorbike, but the other two follow her on a trade negotiation with a third party. They're being offered technology that will increase the fuel efficiency of their vehicles, but they need to make sure the cost isn't too high. In the end, the negotiations go well, and Furiosa has a written proposal to take back to the council. She and her men will make a brief stop for medical supplies and a meal for themselves before returning home.

Nexus trips are largely business these days. That's just how things are, but she's also not above buying herself an enormous peach and strawberry boba tea and letting her War Boys get smoothies. And that takes them through the Plaza, past the central area where new arrivals often find themselves dropped, dazed and puzzled from the last thing they experienced before arriving here.

Comments

[eumenis]

Furiosa has been known to fall in a kind of maternal love with children, on occasion. In the Nexus, she doesn't always get to see the little ones she tries to take under her wing again. She feels she's been lucky with Kippa, getting to see her now and again. There have been others she's tried to embrace who vanished back to their own worlds--and that's a good thing, at least she can hope it is, but it's a little bittersweet, too.

This girl, though. No matter how competent and strong she is, she will do better with company, backup and care than she would alone. Furiosa sees something of herself in the fierce child, and something of Valkyrie, and more than that, she sees someone who comes from a harsh enough world that coming to the Wasteland might not be a downgrade. At least they don't have fucking undead giants and dragons.

"Surprise, no, but battle-fatigue happens even to the bravest and most ruthless," she says with a smile.

"I'm not quite sure what your age is, at a glance, but I think I was about there when I started riding with the War Boys, learning how to throw a lance, new ways to fight. I could shoot before that, and fix engines, and tussle like an angry cat, but I remember being tested against boys my own age, and learning quick that the biggest ones had the most trouble facing off against me."

"I heard you laid Rictus out twice," Crux says with a smirk.

"...well. That was later on." Furiosa looks sheepishly pleased. "And he was unarmed. Ask me later. Anyway, I'm on the tall side now, but small people need to learn they can take out enemies twice their size if they're smart, and big people need to learn not to underestimate small ones."

"And all of us could use some instruction with swords, if I'm being honest. Me included. Most of our fighting has been done from vehicles up until now, but that doesn't mean it always will be." She can fake it with a sword, swing and guard with it like any large object, like she did with the boltcutters way back when. That doesn't mean it's elegant, or that she couldn't improve.

[missursaminor]

"True enough I suppose." She'd seen it happen often enough, in men and women alike, no matter how old or skilled they were. She knew that for as tough as she was, she wasn't immune to this but accepting it would be a different story entirely.

"I'm thirteen," Lyanna informed them, well aware that she likely still looked younger than that. Annoying, but being underestimated was a useful tactic at times. "I've trained with a sword since I could hold one though, other weapons too. If it's martial training you need, I don't see why I couldn't provide it."

A tart twist of her mouth, arms crossed. "The first one to complain about my age in the process gets a club between the eyes, though."

[eumenis]

Furiosa suspects if battle fatigue doesn't ruffle her, homesickness eventually will. Even a girl of chrome has a heart somewhere. But trying to convince her of it prematurely would be offputting, stifling. Best they get to know one another first.

She nods at the age. She does look young, but Wasteland children tend to look young and be malnourished, so really she's as fine a figure of a thirteen-year-old as Furiosa would expect from a harsh world. "I was Initiated at about that age."

Crux and Spanner break into smiles of varying degrees of amusement at the threat. "I'm gonna ask the Ace if you ever said that," Spanner tells Furiosa.

"I don't remember," she muses. "But I think I mostly went for the crotch when I was angry, back then. Either way, fair enough."

They're coming up on a cafe with picnic tables, umbrellas open over each to cast a pleasant shade. Furiosa selects a table and sits, catching the eye of the waiter. She and the men still have their drinks, but she says, "Don't worry, we're here for food, and plenty of it."