Work Text:
Valkyrie knows she won't be coming back here.
Knows it by the way Katie’s voice rises like a sandstorm, somewhere in the camp behind her. Saw it in the closed and mourning faces she passed to stand here, at the edges of the last dregs of moisture. The way the recently revealed sand glitters in the moonlight, the last leaves already decomposing at the feet of the fractured, bare trees that they used to drape over.
“It was fertilizer. The men at Bartertown, they told me it was fertilizer!”
“It was poison.”
Katie has never shouted like this before. Valkyrie’s never even heard her raise her voice, apart from in battle cry. She is surprised that Jarrah is still fighting, knows she herself would be quaking in the face of Katie’s wrath, but the man has always been stubborn and even now does not know how to back down.
When the water had visibly begun to recede, he hadn’t been the only one to panic. Everyone was afraid, and rightly so - with the bushes already turning brown and the trees beginning to molt. But Jarrah had gone something close to rabid - pacing and snapping, inconsolable, until one day he had driven off in their last truck and disappeared over the dunes.
They thought he’d abandoned them. Katie was disappointed, but no one could really blame him. Swaddle Dog had stayed, but some of the other clans had begun to make their own ways out into the desert: for the last time, they said. The Green Place was the central home of the Vuvalini for a reason - without that reason, what was the point in returning? There is no space for nostalgia in the Wasteland, no room for foolish dreams. They would meet each other again, they said. But Valkyrie knows that the Wasteland is large, and unforgiving.
When Jarrah had returned, his eyes wild with joy and hope, the bed of the truck was filled with round metal cylinders that sloshed and gurgled. He had tumbled from the driver’s seat and called the others to help him, and soon the camp was littered with the barrels, the air heavy with a tangy and unfamiliar scent. Katie was unsure, as were many of the women, and had urged caution. But he was absolute, and had rallied the other men, who had then defied the Mothers by pouring the thick liquid into the ground.
For a short, short time, it worked. The flowers bloomed and the green was rekindled, seemingly brighter than it ever had been before, and the men glowed with arrogance. But Valkyrie knew something was wrong the minute she bit into one of the fruit, and had come away with a mouth of rotten and bitter flesh. Overnight, everything that they were decayed. The grass shrivelled. The trees died. The remaining water turned sour and tepid.
They have nothing now. They cannot stay.
She’s senses Maddie come up behind her, and when the woman places a hand on her shoulder, Valkyrie doesn’t stir - taking in the image of the bog, and the horizon beyond. Can feel the grief in the heavy fingers, and basks in what she knows will be the last moment of stillness she has tonight.
“We’re leaving. You need to pack your things.”
Valkyrie turns to her, this woman who has been like a mother, and sees that although her eyes are resigned and sad, her cheeks are bone dry.
“Jarrah?”
“He’s not coming with us. None of them are.”
The men, she means. Valkyrie expected this, but still, it burns into her chest. She is close to some of them. They have been kind, have been loyal, unlike what she hears about most men in this wasteland. Unlike the White Ones.
The memory of pale flesh and howling cries and the wrenching stench of guzzoline reminds her, then, of what she is most afraid of.
“What about Furiosa. And Mary.”
Maddie stares, surprised, then desolate, and her mouth twists.
“What if they come back, and we’re not here to meet them?”
It has been years since they were taken. Not long enough for Valkyrie to forget the colour of Furiosa’s eyes, or the sound of Mary’s laugh, but long enough for the anger and the pain to dull, if only a little. Now, the suffering feels fresh as the day it happened, because out of everything in this place that she will leave behind, the memory of Furiosa is the most agonising.
Maddie’s voice is soft, but her answer is not.
“Valkyrie. I don’t think they’re ever coming back.”
Valkyrie allows her eyes to fill with tears, finally, and lets Maddie pull her into an embrace and stroke her hair like she is a child again, but does not let the droplets fall. She will not waste precious water on this place, which she suddenly despises with all her heart, but will keep it for as long as she can - for Furiosa, for her mother, for all those they have lost.
Over Maddie’s shoulder, she can see the women loading their bikes, while the men stand in a huddle and watch. The youngest are her age, and although she would never have imagined thinking it, she’s suddenly thankful that none of the babies lived long enough to grow. She cannot imagine having to leave little boys behind, but just cannot imagine bringing them with the women either. These ones are just on the cusp of manhood, and are rancorous enough to choose to stay with their few fathers and brothers, as she is choosing to go.
Maddie pulls back, wipes the moisture from Valkyrie’s eyes, and brings their foreheads together. A brief moment of comfort, before they turn together and walk back to the camp.
Valkyrie doesn’t have much. A pack of threadbare clothes. Her sleeping mat. A dried flower, from Keeper. A peach stone. Old-world jewellery. Her guns. Furiosa’s knife. They all go onto Maddie’s bike.
The men watch, some cold, some vacant. She watches a single crow fly down to perch on the corpse of a tree. It’s eyes glitter.
She will visit, in the years to come: passing through once in a while, she will watch the crows infest the place. Will look on as the men and the birds become the same creatures, a somber adaptation, and will pick ebony feathers as decoration for her bike and her hair. Will feel her boots sink into the bog and wonder if the Green Place ever truly existed.
The engines roar, and she climbs in behind Maddie, and doesn’t look back as they let the dunes take them.