We're going to the Green Place (for octavius_lives)

[eumenis]

Furiosa could have just taken the victory they won over Immortan Joe, and been satisfied. At first, all she thought she wanted was escape, and then all she thought she wanted was vengeance, and then all she thought she wanted was safety for the young women who trusted themselves to her protection. Apparently, she'd been out of the habit of wanting for so long, she forgot that one want leads to another, and that's how ambition begins.

It's been three years since the Road War, since the Citadel became the Green Towers, and the Wives became the Sisters, and they all became the Clan of the Boltcutters. Some still call her Imperator, many view her as the de facto queen of the place, but in truth she's only one voice on the council. She's just the one that's most used to war, and despite the bright idealism of the young women and their followers, there will always be dangers to survive in the Wasteland, and attacks to defend against. Furiosa is proud to be their shield and their weapon.

She has wants, too, though, and one of those is out there in the boggy part of the desert where the Crows still dwell. They're her kin, too, descended from the Vuvalini, and the Green Place is part of her. They've all been poring over books, whatever they could find. They've been trading seeds and training plants to be hardy, collecting livestock where they could, and building up their stores. Now, it's time to venture back to the place where Furiosa thought her soul died, and see if anything new can be raised from the devastation there.

This time, they only have hemp seeds, some cattails, water testing kits and geiger counters. If these plants take root, they'll try more. The Rig is accompanied by three bikes and two cars, a veritable phalanx of vehicles taking off across the desert, because the Fury Road will ever and always be the Fury Road, and eternally dangerous. This time there aren't nearly as many war parties in pursuit, thank V8, and when they camp for the first night, spirits are high.

And then there's the light, exploding into being just beyond the next rise of the dunes, a surge of searing gold, crackling air, the smell of water and steam, utterly eldritch and unexpected. It's there for a moment, enough to make seasoned War Boys cry out in fear, and then it's gone.

Comments

[octavius_lives]

He had been ready to die. But death and fate play games with the wants of mortals, something he was just beginning to understand. Tragedy or farce, he had fallen so far - and he had thought there was nothing left to surprise him.

For a moment, all was blackness. Blissful, free and without pain - like deep waters seldom disturbed. He had fallen into the river, his infernal machine pulled with him. It felt like he had fallen forever. But there had been peace to it, the knowledge that he had died a man and not a monster. He awaited what was to come without dread, without worry.

Then there was light in the dark, and he felt. The pressure of water, the blackness was suddenly gone, replaced with blinding flash and the sudden feeling of falling in the rain. His mind can scarcely comprehend any of it.

Outside of his head, it will hardly look better. For a moment the sky would seem to tear, a searing light casting shadows strange shadows - then it is gone, the last remnants of an artificial sun dissipated forever. With it gone, the gravity it had generated disappeared as well - and water rained down in a brief, unnatural downpour. And from the bubble a man fell, too, mechanical limbs trailing behind him as if imploring the fates for another outcome.

[eumenis]

The War Boys, shout in alarm at the rush of water. Rain in their world is almost always poison, and coupled with that unnatural glow, it's not surprising that they should think immediately of the bombs that ended the Old World, that horrible second sunrise they still tell stories about, and the fallout that burnt the living and the dead alike. There's a rush for the vehicles and the light lean-to shelters that have already been erected, but Furiosa doesn't move, and neither do the women closest to her, though they're tense and bracing for further disaster.

"Did you see that??" Toast is the first to speak, and clarifies within a split second, "there was a person!"

Rather than answer her, Furiosa bellows, "HOLD FAST!" A command to the panicking people behind them. It's really to their credit, the way the War Boys slow their dash, stop, look to their leaders despite their instincts screaming to flee. In the process, some of them realize the rain has stopped and the light is gone.

"We're not breaking camp," Furiosa says when the hubbub dies down. "Circle up, but don't waste fuel. I'm going to get a closer look."

Toast, bless her fierce little heart, insists on coming with her, and so it's two women on one motorbike that crest the shallow dune a few minutes later, slowing to a stop as the headlight casts a wary glow on the patch of dampened earth, and the man within it.

Furiosa dismounts, leaving Toast on the bike, and approaches on foot. She's well-armed, but draws no weapons. Not yet. Not without need. After all, whoever this person is, he's alone.

[octavius_lives]

He is aware of wind on his face, before anything else. Behind him he feels...metal? Metal, yes, who knows what. An old car, as it happens, but in his groggy state even when he turns his head he can barely tell. His head feels full of wool, eyes blinking to try and clear things away.

For a moment, though, there are no voices. No insistence, no binary-fueled logic.

Then the first arm comes back online. He groans deeply, fervently. For a moment, in the fog, he had felt free of them.

The other arms sputtered back into life, chittering slowly as their processors wound back up to speed. The familiar weight returned to him as two of them anchored to the ground, the others pushing him up to his feet. Then they crowded around him, solicitously.

He looked around, blinking, the world around him unfamiliar and ominous.

[eumenis]

Furiosa doesn't have a light on her, relying on the thin starlight and the lamp of Toast's bike. She sees the old car first (How the hell did a thing like that get out here unscavenged? Its wet, and the paint on it is bright yellow. Madness.) and then she sees a movement, a shimmer of something metallic, the shadow of a man surrounded by...

Metal serpents? Whips like scorpion-tails? Something out of a NOS-fueled War Boy dream-vision, honestly, something she scarcely knows how to wrap her brain around. She puts her hand to her hip where her sidearm rests, but something stops her, some second instinct. No unnecessary killing, like she promised Angharad. No unnecessary killing means no unnecessary fighting. Besides, would she stand a chance against whatever this person is?

She holds her arms up and out, hands open, no weapons in them. And then, when she steps a little closer, she can see his face. He looks lost. Human.

"Hey," she greets, quiet, wary, straight-backed and defiant. "Saw you fall."

There's a pause as she searches for something else, anything sensible, to append to that statement.

"Truce?" she offers at length. "Don't know what you are or how you got here, but you don't look equipped for the Wasteland."

[octavius_lives]

The machine had pulled in quite a bit, come the end. Part of him, the mind of a scientist still running in the background, thinks there must be plenty scattered around from his world. Bits and pieces of detritus, drawn in by the magnetic pull come the last.

He hears a voice, and his eyes focus a little. One of the arms dips down to prod him, as if this will somehow do something. They seem to have no idea what to make out of everything. Their sensors, inwardly, are going wild. Machines built to detect radiation, the ultraviolet, the slightest disturbances in an electromagnetic field - everything in the world is wrong, suddenly. And then there's the woman in front of them. Strange-looking, and with an appendage closer to them than a human's - this, too, is impossible.

They are complex machines, intelligent and thorough - but the absence of data has them all chattering, drawing inwards as if at bay. Inside his head, all is confusion as they push at him, communicating urgently. He is the controlling mind, this has been decided, and so instead of lashing out - they wait for orders.

"I-wha-what...truce?" he finally manages, blinking a few times, a ringing starting in his ears. Her words don't make sense. And he finally manages to pull her into focus, as much as he can see in the dark.

"Who are you?" he adds, on the understanding that, at least, this can make some sense out of something.

[eumenis]

Furiosa, too, is noting the flotsam and jetsam that's come in his wake, but hers is not the eye of a scientist, rather that of a scavenger. Scrap metal is highly valued here. If they can work something out, she'll have to set some of her team to salvage.

First thing's first, though. Life is rarer than scrap. She studies what she can see of him and finds the fleshy parts reassuring. He looks on the soft side for a Wastelander--few scars, no bones showing, all the requisite facial parts. Aside from the heavy clothing and the metal arms, in fact, he looks like a Bartertown merchant. Someone who's been set up somewhere stable for a long while.

She's taking in the motion of the arms, as well, and this, too, is almost reassuring. They nudge and wind around him as if they're protecting him--or seeking protection? She has a vague impression of a mother crow in a nest of crying babies, demanding food or attention. The thought that this man is the mother of his metal snakes is both bizarre and strangely fitting to her view of the world.

She finds herself relaxing a little, and when Toast calls out to her: "Okay, Boss?" she answers back, "Stand down. I think we're okay, but keep an eye for anyone else hiding in the salvage."

To the man, she answers: "Furiosa. That's my name. Imperator Furiosa, of the Green Towers. My crew and I are on the road, at camp. We saw a light and you fell out of it. We might be able to help you, if you let us. We don't want to hurt...any of you."

There's hesitation, because to address the machines against him as some sort of people in their own right is strange and counterintuitive, but something in their behavior tells her they're listening, and observing, if nothing else. Are they alive? Does it matter?

[octavius_lives]

He is a man who wears his scars inside, by and large. Granted, were she to see his back she would see a different story. There the truth of things is written in large letters. The rest of him will, one day, catch up - but the end of a stable life is there, and he can feel it every waking moment.

His head is finally clearing, and her words give him things to hang onto, like rocks in a fast-moving stream. Stable points in the raging current that is events. He can't be where he was, that much is obvious - so he doesn't question what she says. Something has shifted. He is somewhere, somewhen else? Who knows? That is a mystery for another moment, as is the question of whether or not he can go back.

"Otto. Otto Octavius," he finally manages, coughing a few times thereafter. He stands under his own power, one of the lower pair of arms bracing him just in case.

The manner of the arms becomes less concerned. The commanding mind has, to them, rebooted. Systems are clear. They begin to move around, more confidently. And talking to each other, periodically, in a barely audible chittering.

"Where am I?"

[eumenis]

She waits for him to analyze the situation, realizing from his hesitation that it makes no more sense to him how he got here than it does to her. Storms on the Fury Road often drop poisoned rain, burning cars, scrap that they've picked up from god only knows where, but never do they drop living people. She tilts her head back to eye the sky, but there are no answers there.

"Auto...?" she repeats, misinterpreting, but thanks to Miss Giddy she's well-read enough to recognize it as a name after a moment. "Otto. Okay."

The serpents are talking, making little noises like insects. It would be unnerving if it wasn't completely fascinating. She gives them all another moment, then takes a couple steps closer, arms still out to show her lack of weapons. She's within arm's reach in a few steps, and at that point she realizes how tall the man is. Easily Ace's height, or more. Interesting.

"You're on the Fury Road. The pass through the mountains is about thirty miles south of here, and the Green Towers is another twenty south of that. The closest settlement is Gastown and you don't want to go there, even if you could reach it alone on foot. I can show you a map, but you'd have to come to camp with me."

[octavius_lives]

For a moment, they rear back from her, her fearlessness unnerving. Their existence has been the inspiration of dread, their actions the cause of screams. Their short lives have been all conflict, chaos and the creation of fear - this is new. But within moments they return the curiosity, all four moving around her.

At this close range she can see the red sensors that function as their eyes, glowing and behind armored plexiglass. She can likely see, too, that they are of two different kinds. Though each split into three grasping appendages, two are flattened out, designed for heavy lifting. The others are pointed, made for different tasks. Up close, too, she may get a sense of their enormous strength. And as they move, smoothly, she'll see the play of each ribbed joint, like the carapace of some long-dead monster.

One of them focuses on her mechanical arm, and the chittering changes tone as it clearly becomes an object of focus. It, too, is unknown to them. The science, not so much, but the design - that is entirely alien. It follows no principles they have seen. They realize, in that moment, that they are very far from home.

As does he, from her words.

"This...this can't be my world," he says, nodding slowly. "I don't know if a map can help me. But you're the only one who knows the way, so..."

He looks up at the sky, squinting. Then he looks around at the world surrounding them. He does not wish to wander alone here. His life may take him far from the peace he has wanted, but roasting slowly to death in what must be a burning noon interests him not at all.

[eumenis]

Furiosa watches them, seeing now that they're not really serpents, or whips. They're tools; living, semi-independent from the man wearing them, technology beyond anything she could have conceived herself, but tools nonetheless. She's no engineer, but she's a capable mechanic, and she can see how some are for lifting and some are for finer detail. She can see how the joints move, almost fluid, alien and graceful.

"...hello." She says slowly as they move around her, staying still. They're looking her over; that's obvious, and equally obvious is how strange they find the appearance of her prosthetic. She's glad it isn't self-aware. It would probably feel inadequate in the face of these four.

"Glory me, but you're beautiful, though," she murmurs, talking to them as she would to a well-loved engine. "Never seen anything like them."

Dragging he thoughts back to the matter at hand, she nods. "I'm not going to force anything on you, but your chances aren't good unless you come with us. Unless you have a lot more gear than it looks like you do. At least we can feed you and keep you from dying of thirst."

[octavius_lives]

One of them seems to almost preen at that last, and he notes it, too, with a certain degree of curiosity. They were never meant to run this long. Oh, their power cores could last for a thousand years or more, but they've been operating for weeks, continuously, something they were not ever designed for. Changes are happening, patterns are being scratched into grooves - and distinctions are just beginning to emerge. The other three don't note her words. But one does, the most observant of the four.

In the harmony of their minds, a sub-harmonic is being born.

But in the moment that's neither here nor there. And he certainly isn't either.

"I'm not even sure this is Earth, he replied, brushing wet hair back from his face. You see me as I am, and that's it. I would...appreciate it, lame though it sounds under the circumstances."

[eumenis]

Furiosa's ideas of machine intelligence are more mystical than practical. The War Boys worship the god V8, and while she doesn't really believe in an engine-god of the Fury Road, she sees the totemic value of the V8 engine, understands that it give the boys something greater than themselves to look to. Better V8 than Immortan Joe. So, the idea of a robotic creature that's self-aware enough to appreciate a compliment doesn't shock her. She notes the difference between the one arm and the others, but what that means, if anything, will take time for her to suss out.

His comment surprises her a little, and she tilts her head at him with a frown. "It's Earth. Not sure where else it could be..."

But then something clicks: his clothing, his manner of arrival, the strange newness of the scraps that fell with him. He looks like a man not from the Wasteland, because that's what he is. "You came from the Old World." She says, a quiet exclamation.

Quantum theory and multiple dimensions are concepts she's never even heard of, far beyond her ken, but in the Vault, Miss Giddy gave them old books to read, and the idea of traveling through time is, while ridiculously fantastic, not unfamiliar. Like H.G. Wells. Like the Time Machine. But has this stranger stumbled into the Eloi or the Morlocks?

Either way, the treasure trove of knowledge he might be able to share, if her guess is correct, is breathtaking.

"...we should continue this discussion by the fires," she says. "You're going to get cold if you don't dry out. This stuff around you--" She gestures to the broken taxi and other assorted debris. "I'll have a crew salvage it, and we'll share."

[octavius_lives]

"Oh, that..."

He looks around, one arm snaking down to list up what had once been a stop sign, out of the dust, now bent nearly back on itself. A second arm moved, then, and gripped the edge of the metal, peeling it around as easily as one would open a folded piece of paper, before planting the quasi-restored sign back in the ground. For whatever reason, seeing it standing again was...of odd comfort.

"You can have it," he replied, firmly, nodding his head, "you'll know better what to do with it than I will. Food, maybe transport to...wherever you're going. That's all I'll ask for."

He cast his eyes upwards at the sky.

"This isn't the Earth I know. I'm not sure what I can do here, but...purpose. I'll have to find that."

What it says about him that he cares for that before even knowing precisely where he is, he cannot say. But it's what is beating at the back of his brain - if he's going to be alive, if he's going to carry on...there has to be a reason for it.

[eumenis]

Who is luckier for this chance encounter, she wonders briefly. Him, or them? Buzzards or scavs would have done their utmost to take advantage of him rather than trying to strike a fair deal. Whether they'd have succeeded or not is a question she can't answer, but his response seems immensely trusting nonetheless.

She can hear a little strangled sound from Toast as the arms scoop up the sign and set it upright, and it occurs to her that some diplomacy and finesse will be needed in introducing him to her folk. Good thing they've met on the road, then. There is a kind of allyship that breeds easy on the Fury Road. You rely on strangers because you have no choice.

She offers him an armclasp, with her right hand. "You have my word on that. We're on a trip away from home now, but it isn't far, and it's not for a fight. Come with us and we'll bring you back to settle when we're done."

She beckons him toward the bikes at her side. "I have no doubt that you have a lot you can teach us."

[octavius_lives]

In part, it was a symptom of his arrival. Suspicion seemed a far cry from what had happened. In part, too, it wasn't caring. He was lost, in more ways than one - friend or foe, he had bigger things on his mind. The other reason, of course, was that the arms were more than capable of disassembling flesh and bone. So there was an undercurrent of confidence to it all, really.

He takes the clasp, after a moment of hesitation. "Alright. This is all...Greek. Ancient Greek to me."

The arms just seemed to move around him, observing everything. One took a long moment to look over Toast.

"I feel like I'm the one who'll need teaching."

[eumenis]

"I used to speak some of that," she says with a wry little smirk. "Hey, Toast, did Giddy have you all read the Oresteia in the original Greek or did she let you off with a translation?"

"Both, but hell if I remember any of the Greek. Cheedo probably does." The smaller woman answers Furiosa in a casual tone, but her dark eyes are watching the arms closely, learning and gauging their body language. "Fury, I don't think he's going to be able to ride the bike with those. The balance will be all wrong."

"Yeah," she agrees. "We'll walk. You go on ahead and let the others know we have a guest. Better to prepare them, anyway."

Because a man with metal arms is weird enough, the War Boys will need a minute to adjust to the idea.

Toast grumbles a little but nods. "If you're not at camp in thirty minutes I'm coming back for you."

After she drives off, Furiosa looks up at Otto again. "We can do teaching. First thing you have to know: this is the Wasteland. The world used to be healthy, full of people and cities. Then there were wars over oil, and then wars over water, and finally the world exploded on itself. Nukes. There's still too much radiation in the dead cities for anyone to stay there long. This is a harsh place. We're trying to carve out something a little less cruel for everyone, but every step is going to be a fight."

Side note: I minored in classics, so you've pushed some happy buttons here, you awesome person.

[octavius_lives]

He hears all of it, and if he looks distant it is because so much swirls in his mind at once, crashing and reshaping like flotsam from a sinking galleon. So they'd gone ahead and done it. Perhaps it's another world for him, or maybe just another time.

"I tried to stop it," he said, finally. "To prevent this. I wanted...I made a sun, in..in my hand. Limitless free energy for the world. I failed. It failed."

He's quiet for a very long moment after that, and when he speaks, he may surprise her. His wife, his beloved and lost Rosie, had studied literature, and poetry. He had learned the latter to woo her. Unlike so many scientists, he appreciated the soul and not just the body of human existence. And, from what she had said, an old card presents itself from the distant reaches of memory.

"Me tromaktiká prágmata eímai ypochreoménos. To xéro aftó. Vlépo tin pagída na kleínei. Xéro ti eímai. Allá enó i zoí eínai mésa mou, den tha stamatíso aftí ti vía. Óchi. O fíloi mou pou eínai ekeí gia na me parigorísei? Poios katalavaínei? Afíste me na eímai, áse me na fýgo, min me iremíseis. Aftós eínai énas kómpos pou kaneís den boreí na xekollísei. Den tha ypárchei anápafsi, den ypárchei anáktisi. Den ypárchei arithmós gia thlípseis ópos aftés."

By dread things I am compelled. I know that. I see the trap closing. I know what I am. But while life is in me I will not stop this violence. No. Oh my friends who is there to comfort me? Who understands? Leave me be, let me go, do not soothe me. This is a knot no one can untie. There will be no rest, there is no retrieval. No number exists for griefs like these.

He remembered Orestes. That was the only part he remembered in the Greek. He had always wondered what had compelled him to remember that one bit, that one piece that Rosie had read to him, on that day by the river, his head in her lap and a breeze in the trees. Perhaps, now, he knew.

I am but a dabbler, but happy to have pleased you!

[eumenis]

She doesn't slow her walking pace--it's too important to get back to the fires before he catches a chill--but the way he talks, and what he says, send shiver down her spine. If the oil wars had never happened, would the water have gotten so scarce? If the water had been plentiful, would the nukes never have dropped? The idea that one person could have been a lynchpin to stop the dissolution of the Old World is equal parts insane and compelling. She's quiet, thinking, mind turning over between possibilities and practicalities like a stalling engine.

Ultimately, there's no way to know if his failure to create free energy was the cause of the Apocalypse, though. And she's keenly aware that carrying that kind of burden drives a man to madness. Max is only one example. She's about to speak, trying to dredge up some kind of comfort--not her forte--when he starts reciting.

Again, she's fascinated. Her thought that this man might be a treasure trove of lost knowledge is confirmed, evidently. The last time she heard Greek spoken was a couple years ago, in the Vault guarding the Sisters, but she remembers it well enough to get the gist of his words.

When his voice halts, the last sound carried away in a whistle of desert wind, she makes a soft hum of acknowledgement and clears her throat, almost awkward. "Well. I hope it doesn't bode too ill that I'm named to honor the Eumenides," she says wryly. "Mothers know I've had all the vengeance I truly wanted."

The rage is still there and she knows it always will be, but it fuels her spirit now, instead of breaking it down. She reaches over with her flesh and blood hand, slow and gentle so as not to startle his serpents, and rests it on his shoulder as they go. "People can keep going even when they've had a part of them cut out, or torn off. Here I am. Here you are. Survival, life, is worth it."

Dabbling, feh! :P Knowledge is knowledge.

[octavius_lives]

It's a gnawing thought, certainly. And even as he remembers the words, it works at the back of his mind. he logical part wants to say that others would have tried, too - that he couldn't be the only failed actor between two points in time. But other parts of the mind fixate on that. Guilt is a terrible thing, sometimes.

And they aren't the ones startled, at the touch. For their part, the arms seem to have accepted her presence, for now at least, as a tolerated element. Their ingrained curiosity and ability to learn overrides their protectiveness - for now, at least.

"Yes...yes, I suppose it has to be," he finally says, eyes focusing somewhere out in the far distance. "This is all just...so disorienting. Like a strange dream."

<3

[eumenis]

The look on his face reminds her of the expression the Sisters wore after Angharad was lost. They had suffered a hundred shocks before then; captive, sold, abused. But even to those who've seen the worst, the death of someone so close, so young--that's a different kind of blow. It goes deep.

On the Fury Road, you keep the people beside you going, because if they stop, they're as good as dust. No time for a soldier's thousand-yard stare, not out here. "You want me to pinch you?" she asks, voice low and a little wry. "I will if I have to, but you won't like it."

They're over the crest of the dune now, and ahead in the hollow below he can no doubt see the camp. There's a ring around the Rig, four small fires with lean-tos and blanket rolls around them. Outside that, the escort vehicles are parked in a larger circle, facing outward, and there are watchmen stalking the perimeter. All in all, there are about thirty people in the caravan. Most are young men, but there are women young and old--Vuvalini, former Milk Mothers, and new Tribunes like Toast. For the Wasteland, it's a huge cluster of life, and they're armed to protect themselves.

She whistles shrilly as they get close. The nearest guards are already watching them approach tensely, but relax when they hear her call. It's a matter of a few moments, which probably don't help with his disorientation, to hustle them through the ring of smaller vehicles and up to one of the fires. She calls for extra blankets and a broth ration and sits him down on one of the bedrolls, then promptly begins delineating a perimeter around him, warning her folk not to approach from a blind spot or startle him. She trusts his intentions. She's not sure yet whether she trusts his instinctual responses, and she can't afford casualties.

At the other end of camp, Toast leads a couple scouts back out to investigate the debris he's left behind, but no great effort will be made to salvage anything until the next day. The less they move around at night, the better.

[octavius_lives]

He could swear it was all something out of a film, or a dream. But he comes back to himself, at her words. If nothing else, he'll need his wits about him. Even if these people are trustworthy, so many things could possibly go wrong. Frankly, it would be par for the course.

But he takes everything in, every last detail. His first impression had been that all of their equipment was held together with spit and bailing wire, like the old cropdusters - but in truth, there is a surprising amount of precision to their engineering. Durable, too, by the looks of it. Some of them look so very young, others so very worn. There's no rhythm to it, really, is the thing - but perhaps, once in motion, that's where their poetry is.

Once he is seated, the arms move on their own, draping one of the blankets over his shoulders. Another takes the broth from whoever offers it, gripping in its three tines. He himself, however, handles the spoon. It's the fluidity of the relationship between the man and that arms that may surprise.

And, in the moment, it is very good broth. A dash of calmness in the madness surrounding him now.

[eumenis]

There's another few minutes where Furiosa is not beside him. She gathers a few of her people into conference; delegating, planning, giving limited details regarding what she knows of the stranger. He will be watched closely for hints of aggression, and the War Boys will be watched closely to make sure they don't get ideas regarding the equipment he's fused with, but everyone will be as kind as they can afford to be. And kindness is more easily afforded these days than it was in Joe's time.

Things quiet quickly from the original flurry of activity surrounding them. Most of the War Boys move to other fires out of respect, though one of the older ones stays put as if he's appointed himself watchman. He's a big man, with lumps in odd places on his throat and shoulder, and a slight droop to one side of his face, but he's a quiet, stolid presence.

At length, Furiosa sits with them, with a cup of broth of her own. "How are your clothes?" she asks. "I've got a couple people trying to whip together a shirt for you, but there's no such thing as spare pants out here. You'll have to wear blankets until you dry out."

Although, the air is so dry, it might not take so long for his clothes to air out. "I figured we'd get you changed and then you can sleep. We're going to move out early, but you'll be in the Rig with me."

[octavius_lives]

They'd be put to a lot of trouble if they tried to part them, even if he didn't resist. They were made of durable alloys.

"Oh, right," he nodded. That was all pretty much a write off. The pants would survive, but what little remained of his shirt had given up the ghost before he'd arrived.

He looked around, then.

"I suppose if this is anything like a normal desert, it'll get very cold come the night. But rest, rest I could definitely do."

The Rig, right. That'd be the big one, then. He was appreciating, moment by moment, just how in charge she actually was. She was an impressive woman. And by the firelight, with food in his belly, he got a proper look at her arm. He gestured, with his spoon.

"If you don't mind my asking - your work?"

[eumenis]

It would take a total idiot of a war boy to try and take them, but Furiosa wouldn't put it past the bolder ones to try to sneak up and touch, and she doubts the serpents would appreciate that.

"If you can't take the cold, you can sleep in the back of the Rig. Gets a little stuffy there, though. I'd recommend sticking to the open sky." She looks upward with unsmiling, quiet contentment. There are stars dotting the blue-blackness overhead now, the bright flicker of Venus, but the moon isn't visible. New, perhaps, or behind the dunes yet. "Sky's clear tonight. Sometimes it gets hazy from leftover fallout, but when it's like this it makes you feel like the world might still fix itself some day."

She follows the gesture with the spoon, and there might be a flicker of a smile there for a moment at the question. "Mm-hmm. Not as shine as what you've got, but I think I've done all right with the materials at hand."

It's very clearly recycled material. One of the struts is a spanner, the mesh on the fingers looks like it's some kind of engine filter, and the base of the hand is a leather glove that holds the metal together like tendons. "This is the fifteen version. I've had to replace and upgrade a few of 'em. Ever since I was a girl."

[octavius_lives]

One of the arms - the most curious of the four - arches forward to get a better look at its workings. He himself watches the arm, clearing his throat. The arm retreats in a flurry of chitters.

"You'll have to forgive them. They were built for...activity, and as a result, without things to keep them occupied, their curiosity gets the better of them."

He leaves unsaid what the arms are telling him, that they are certain that between his mind and their dexterity, that they can improve upon it. Make a sixteenth, and a last. That is also rather gauche.

"In any event, thank you for the advice. I think I'll manage, with the cold."

[eumenis]

Furiosa notes the arm right away, and she's watchful in the same way a person blind on one side might be when approached from that angle. The truth is, she's as vicious a fighter without the prosthesis as with it, but she wouldn't like her chances against his serpents.

"I don't mind them looking, just don't touch without clearing it with me first," she says after a moment's thought. "That one, though. Is she leading the others? She moves first, and she seems like she's thinking."

It's natural, perhaps, for her to assign femininity to any machine. War boys do it out of habits lingering from the Old World, and Furiosa was first raised in a clan of women anyway, who did the same for their vehicles and their guns.

"But if they like engines at all, I'm pretty sure we can find them plenty to do back at the Citadel."

There's a moment where she just stares into the fire, turning something over in her head, and then she adds slowly: "But n the place we're heading for, we're going to be doing a lot of planting, and testing the water and the soil. So much of the land is arid, and almost all is poisoned, but we know trees used to grow in the bog. If we can clean it up, it'll be another step in bringing the world back."

[octavius_lives]

He's about to say something about how they'd listen to him long before doing that, but the strange signals coming from that arm distract him.

"That one was actually the first one completed. The oldest, technically - and, um..." he paused, a strange sort of smile crossing across his face. "Well. Nobody ever addressed them with the notion of gender or identity before - so now she is very definitely a she. She's altering her registry data now to reflect that."

The arm's logic was straightforward. She was the oldest, thus she was the leader. Leadership in a majority of societies over time was matrilineal, and she was already being addressed as such, so...

Congratulations, Furiosa, you just created a den-mother for the arms. She reared back, the chittering taking on a different tone, and all three of the others looked directly at her.

"They were never meant to operate this long..." he said, in some wonder. "I suppose alteration was inevitable, but I didn't expect it to be so influenced by outside stimuli."