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Valkyrie leaves on the twenty-eighth day.
Furiosa looks through the watcher-glass on the Immortan’s overpoint as the war rig fades into the distance, then turns away. She has work to do.
The war mothers, they are called now, the war wives. The many mothers cackle at the change, but don’t seem to mind either way and go about their business unheeded. Furiosa catches Sharpshooter playing with a brood of war pups; some of them are still young enough to remember affection and are clambering over the Vulvalini’s arms. “Enough, now,” she says at length, and the pups tumble off, sent scampering down the hall with a few encouraging smacks to their bottoms. She pauses to salute Furiosa with her freshly lit pipe, and then settles back into her chair, the many bones of a rifle laid out in front of her.
The Dag likes the new name.
“War Wives,” she says, rolling the syllables on her tongue. She grins. “Tastes sharp.”
Toast just twists her mouth and bends over the gun she’s cleaning.
“We won’t be anyone’s wives,” Capable says quietly. She presses a hand to Toast’s shoulder. “Not anymore.”
The Dag jerks her head in agreement, humming under her breath.
Furiosa works in the gardens until even with her eyes closed, she can see nothing but green, feel nothing but the earth under her nails. The Dag is there as well, tethered to Keeper of the Seeds by an invisible cord of questions. Their low voices form a counterpoint to the thwack of Furiosa’s hoe, and she shuts everything out until those sounds are all that remain.
That night Furiosa dreams she is walking towards the citadel, nothing more. Just walking. As time passes and the distance remains the same, her feet begin to bleed into the ground. Plants spring up where she’s bled. She keeps walking.
In the morning she has the war boys run extra drills, and assigns an extra patrol group. She wishes Nux would wake up.
“You look like shit,” Toast says.
Furiosa grunts and snags a cucumber from the table, cool juices flowing down her chin as she bites down.
“Remember to slow down once in a while,” Toast calls after her, and Furiosa waves a hand as she walks back out the door.
The days are marked by patrols, water rations, expanding infrastructure and shifting hierarchies; resistance is marked by blood and broken bones and growth by the thwack of Furiosa’s hoe. It is no different from before and as different as she could have hoped.
On the thirty-second day, The Dag and Cheedo approach Furiosa after she’s come off patrol.
They fall into step alongside her as she heads over to her work table, and she waits patiently for them to speak, sorting through the various cogs and wires laid out in front of her.
“I want –”, Cheedo starts, then closes her mouth. The Dag slips an arm around her waist. Furiosa looks at her.
“I want to take the vault door down.”
Furiosa puts her wrench away. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
In the end, it takes several hours of cathartic hitting, slamming, and cussing before the door is blown off its hinges with a stick of dynamite.
They file in in silence. The Dag wanders to the piano against the far wall, and Toast sticks close to Cheedo, who remains near the pool. Capable stands in the center, face tilted towards the sun streaming through the window. The room has remained untouched in their absence, and Splendid’s words stare back at them, the white paint glowing faintly in the sunlight.
Next to Furiosa, Keeper says, “this was their cage, then.”
It’s not a question. Furiosa stalks over to the entrance to the sleeping chamber. The corridor is as narrow as the day she led the girls out, and the beds are still there, looking harmless in the afternoon light.
Furiosa snarls. She gathers linen shifts and bedding by the armful, and dumps them back into the main room. The sisters look up at the thump the cloth makes.
“Pick up anything you want from there, or tell me what to grab, and then get ready to block your ears.”
The Dag is the first to move. Eyes locked on Furiosa, she turns away only when she reaches the corridor, disappearing into the other room with a swish of linen. The sound of rustling cloth can be heard.
Cheedo makes a sound, then grabs Toast’s wrist and follows. Capable smiles faintly at Furiosa before doing the same.
Furiosa waits until the sisters have placed their small pile of chosen belongings in the hallway, then hands them the second stick of explosive.
Boom.
The sleeping room is rubble now: bed frames splintered and tossed everywhere like spent matches, twisted manacles embedded in the wood. There is a hole gaping in the cliff face where the room’s far wall once was, and the girls scramble over the wreckage to peer through.
Furiosa makes to call out, to caution them to be careful – it is a long, long drop to below – but then she takes in the girls’ arms, linked secure and strong around each other, fingers gripping the rough rock edges tight as they laugh and scream into the wind.
She turns and grabs a broom instead.
Nux wakes up on the thirty-ninth day.
Furiosa can only see glimpses of the bandages from where Capable has thrown herself on him; as of yet there is no spotting around the edges.
“Nux,” she says, voice rough. It had been a hot day out on patrol.
“Imperator,” Nux says, ducking his head. His eyes widen in realization. “Immortan –”
“We’re glad you’re awake,” she says, and touches his forehead with her fingertips. Nux’s eyelids flutter and close, and he trembles as he leans into her touch.
“Glory be,” he whispers, and makes the V8 sign with his fingers. “Glory be, Immortan Furiosa.”
Capable holds Furiosa’s hand. “Thank you,” she mouths, squeezing her hand.
Cheedo looks wonderingly at them over her shoulder as she goes. “He’s so soft, Toast. Look.”
Toast just nods and beckons from where she’s waiting at the doorway, taking Cheedo’s hand as she draws closer. The Dag is grinning from behind Toast’s shoulder, her hands spiraling in intricate prayers and exaltations for Nux’s health.
When Furiosa leaves, Capable and Nux are bent over each other, wrapped in silent benediction. His hands rest carefully at the edges of her hair, palms turned upwards in a wordless gesture of thanks.
Furiosa dreams again. She is still walking. There is nothing on the horizon but she knows she cannot stop. She must keep placing one foot in front of the other. When it keeps happening she tries wandering the halls at night: late solo patrols where no one but the distant sentries see her, but even the familiarity of the citadel is too much like the repetition of her dreams. She occasionally stays up at her workbench, the bits of machinery soothing under her fingertips, but more often than not she sits at the Immortan’s overpoint and watches the cool night air slipping by till dawn appears.
She returns to her room the next night to find it occupied – one of the war boys kneeling at the foot of her bed, head bowed and hands clasped loosely behind his waist. An old woman stands at his shoulder, bent almost double with age, a rarity in the citadel.
“What is this.”
Cheedo has become known for her patience and skill in dealing with the young war pups, and she is nearly always followed at a respectful distance by her own personal guard. Though “school” is technically only three hours a day, from morning till noon, Cheedo is often seen helping students in the cool shade of the Citadel’s rocky outcroppings, pups and older war boys crowded round her knees. She has become known as “Teacher”, the title “Cheedo the Fragile” discarded in the dust.
Furiosa is not nearly so patient, especially after a long day’s patrol and little sleep.
The old woman steps forward, gesturing to the war boy on the floor.
“A gift from the people for their Immortan.”
He stands, and Furiosa can see why he was chosen. He’s young, almost younger than Nux, and the poison has yet to appear on his body. Apart from minimal ritual scarring, his body is unmarked, and familiar tattoos on his hipbones and inner wrists denote him as one trained for breeding and bedwarming.
Furiosa recoils. “Get out.”
The woman’s brow furrows. “Is the breeder not attractive for Immortan? The people thought –”
“No breeders.” Furiosa cuts her off. “Ever. There will be no –” her mouth twists over the word like a sour fruit, “ – no new recruitments. I have no need, the war wives have no need, of breeders.”
The old woman bows, her face a carefully blank mask. “We are sorry for angering you, Immortan. Come.” The last remark is directed to the war boy, who stands, keeping his head bowed as they move towards the door.
Furiosa sighs. “You. What’s your name?”
The boy stops.
“Forn, Immortan.”
“Forn.” Furiosa looks him in the eyes. “Can you follow orders, no matter who gives them?”
Forn looks back at her calmly. From under his long lashes, Furiosa can see that his eyes are startlingly clear. “It is what I am trained to do, Immortan.”
Furiosa shows her teeth. “We’ll see.”
Forn bows his head. “What would the Immortan have me do?”
“Report to the war wife Dag tomorrow. Help her with whatever she needs.”
If possible Forn bows his head even lower, till his chin is almost touching his chest. He is trembling, and Furiosa thinks at first that he is scared, or angry, or resentful of his reassignment, until he lifts his head to answer her.
“It will be an honor to serve the Dag!” he says, looking at her in awe. “Glory be for this blessing!” He makes the V8 sign as he leaves, walking backwards until he reaches the woman waiting in the doorway, and they both depart.
Furiosa groans and falls face forward onto her bed and doesn’t move until morning.
The Dag finds her the next day, humming under her breath as she approaches Furiosa at her workbench.
“I have a second shadow now,” she says.
“I thought you wouldn’t mind,” Furiosa says, gesturing towards Dag’s swelling belly.
“I don’t,” Dag says, running her hands around the tools on the bench. “He’s sweet.”
“Oh?”
Dag hums in response and nods her head. “I don’t have to teach him to be soft.”
Furiosa smiles and brushes her fingers across Dag’s shoulder. “Good.”
Valkyrie returns on the forty-third day. She has a new wound across her midsection, a full tank of guzzoline, and three months supply of bullets, if they’re careful with rations.
“Immortan’s War Wife has returned!” is the shout that hails Valkyrie as her rig approaches the citadel.
“War Wife?” she asks with a quirked brow, and Furiosa smiles unreservedly for the first time that week.
“Explain later,” she says, laughing, and pulls Valkyrie down the hall after her.
She had touched unreservedly in the desert, she remembers. Their reunion had been arms extended without question, sure that the other would be there to grasp onto.
She is not so sure now.
Things are harder to rationalize after a battle.
Valkyrie observes the new irrigation pipes, the growth in the gardens, the laughter coming from a pack of war pups barreling past them in the halls. She regards Furiosa with a steady gaze.
“You’ve been busy.”
“Yes.”
They come to the Immortan’s overpoint and stop for a while, looking out over the red, dusty horizon. A war pup appears and brings them two cups of aqua-cola, cool and refreshing to the touch. Valkyrie runs her hand along the pup’s head, a quick gesture of thanks, and the pup grins bright before scampering off into the shadows.
Valkyrie sips from her cup, leaning against the banister. The fading sun wraps itself around her, casting soft hands across her face and shoulders. She looks up and smiles at Furiosa.
Furiosa smiles back and takes a final drink before setting the cup down and moving closer. Valkyrie throws an arm around her shoulders, knocking their heads together gently.
“I missed you.” Valkyrie says it quietly; their heads are still close together in a sidewise embrace.
Furiosa knows she’s not just talking about the past month spent scavenging.
She swallows. “I missed you.”
It hurts – the wound of losing Valkyrie, her home, her mother, herself – it never fully closed. Seeing Valkyrie, touching her, hearing her voice – it is almost too much. Pressing down on a fresh bruise.
Valkyrie’s breath shudders out of her, and she turns until they are both facing each other, her arms going around Furiosa’s shoulders. “Look at us—” Valkyrie chuckles, “—together again and still so sad.” Furiosa laughs, her shoulders shaking, and wipes some of the moisture from her eyes. “Mother would be knocking me across the head right now.”
Valkyrie rubs her hand across Furiosa’s scalp much like she did with the war pup. “Things were never the same after you left. Others disappeared. Kept disappearing, no matter how many patrols or curfews the Mothers set up. The crops failed with no one to tend them. The land grew sick.”
Furiosa tightens her hold around Valkyrie’s waist. “If I could have found my way back—”
Valkyrie shakes her head. “You would have been taken again. Or fallen sick. Or not. Best not to dwell on it, no? Stay in the present, gallah.”
Furiosa grins, “Stay in the present, hmm?”
She unwinds herself from Valkyrie’s embrace and takes her hand loosely in hers, heading back down the hallway. “Come this way, then.”
They pass Valkyrie’s room on their way, and Furiosa waits for her to say something, to stop and turn in for the night, but she merely squeezes Furiosa’s hand and continues walking alongside her. She doesn’t let go till they reach the inside of Furiosa’s rooms.
She lets out a low whistle and cranes her head back to stare up into the tall ceiling.
“Not bad.”
“It’s drafty as fuck.”
“Poor Immortan,” Valkyrie grins, “come here and I’ll warm you up.”
Furiosa snorts as she moves towards Valkyrie on the bed. “Awful. Just awful.”
Valkyrie’s sly grin should’ve tipped her off, so Furiosa has no one to blame but herself when she’s grabbed and pinned under Valkyrie. The other woman laughs at her disgruntled expression and leans down, bumping noses until she can drop a light kiss on Furiosa’s lips. Furiosa sighs into her mouth, a hand coming up to rest on the back of Valkyrie’s neck.
“Alright?” Valkyrie whispers, her face now buried against Furiosa’s shoulder.
“Yes,” Furiosa grits back, and feels Valkyrie laugh into her collarbone, the impression of her smile quick and bright and sharp on her skin.
Furiosa dreams of nothing that night.