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[Furiosa spends most mornings in the gym. Honestly, she'd prefer the Enclosure, but she needs to be moving long and often enough that she can't justify using more than her share of the precious time in the false environment. She works out quickly how to run on the treadmill, but most of the other machines remain a mystery to her. If the right person is using them, they may see her watching, or so may decide to approach.

Some mornings her prosthesis is on, and others it is off, tucked protectively and nearly underfoot, out of habit, though this doesn't seem like the kind of place where anyone is likely to get any ideas.

When she is done, she usually ends by slipping upstairs, showering quickly, and permitting herself what feels like the decadent luxury of putting her feet into the pool. It takes her until about the fifth time to get up the nerve to walk in to the water, to lower herself down in it until she feels it lap up around her neck, then to hold her breath and gingerly, cover her mouth and nose, and cautiously, gingerly slip under the surface and just let herself float, suspended.

She can be found in any of those places.

Still, a workout isn't the same thing as practice, really, and the conversation that has been going on here has weighed heavily on her, though she hasn't participated. So, finally, she takes a break one morning in the gym and turns on the feed.]

Video

[She has to clear her throat to start, and wipe the sweat off her face. She's sitting in the frame, bare feet apart, elbows rested on her knees, metal arm down at her side. Furiosa isn't comfortable, exactly, talking to a little plastic box that will take her words all over the ship, but this is important to her.]

My name is Imperator Furiosa. I'm human. No powers. I'm in the gym.

If you need, I've been teaching people a little about how to fight. If you don't need, but you're--

I could use the practice.

[Short, unceremonious, she disconnects.]

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No one intelligent will hold that against you.

[She promises, going to sit on the steps out of the pool, to rest.]

[He lifts his head, and lifts an eyebrow]

Even someone who was only giving me help and ended up with me naked on their floor?

I don't trust you because I don't make a habit of trusting anyone. I don't trust you any less than I trust the rest of them.

Fair?

[He smiles. It's warm this time, no trace of wild in it.]

Fair.

I think I'd be afraid to be in the water with you, actually, if you did hand out your trust that easily.

Why?

[Tilting her head at him. She doesn't tend to expect treachery from the very trusting.]

I wouldn't want to navigate a minefield with someone who doesn't even believe the mines are there.

And with people, I'll make my own judgments in time, but when everything is as overwhelming as this, it's generally safer to take cues from someone who's used to people being unpredictable.

Ah.

[Agreeing, because that she sees.]

You know what my recon as a warden has taught me. What's yours as an inmate?

[He float over t rest his head on the edge of the pool, the rest of him still mostly in a back float]

There's mutiny brewing. Possibly all the time, a lot of us are pretty scared and angry. But there's real potential for it in a handful of people with the skills to make it a real mess.

I understand why.

[But she doesn't rightly know what to do about it, either. She frowns in consternation, and looks over at him.]

We're on opposite sides of this fight.

[There's no sense in pretending otherwise.]

[He looks up at her uneasily]

I haven't picked a side yet. I didn't choose to be here, but I am here, and I might as well deal with that. If getting home was as easy as making things inconvenient for the Admiral, there wouldn't be a Barge at all.

[He sighs, and looks up at the ceiling]

Anyway, someone told me earlier that maybe this place isn't about punishment. Maybe it's about learning something to make life better than it was. I want to think that's true.

Good. A mutiny is-

I mean. You could certain kill me. But I don't know what it would do. I don't want to believe this is a world where the pain will be the same as the last.

[Anya's torture has rattled her, a little, because it's all so familiar.]

I recognize that's easy for me to say, in my position.

I do- believe- in some parts of this.

I don't mind letting the other inmates think I support mutiny.

[Furiosa ought to know that, though Lark is nervous about exposing that part of what is so far a very loose plan. It makes him a double agent of sorts, which means he's not safe on either side, but it's better than not knowing where the next bout of violence is coming from.

He rolls over, so he can face her.]

I'd like to think that all of this, for wardens at least, isn't just about using us to get a wish filled. Like the inmates are just currency. So- what do you believe in here?

I want my world whole.

[She admits, right away.]

I want it so badly, I would kill all of you in a bloody, hypocritical heartbeat.

[No sense pretending that isn't the truth.]

The things my world does to women. But if that were all this were about, I wouldn't- I would feel more uneasy. I don't hate myself for being here, because I do believe in redemption. I've known it, and I might offer to help a man find it, even without the reward.

[It's a truth that sits easily with him.]

How do you know when you've found redemption?

It's the same feeling as water hitting the back of a parched throat.

And vengeance?

[It can't feel the same but it must feel just as good.]

[Like fucking someone you've been dying to get on.]

It works.

[Her smile says it all.]

[He would rather have vengeance, he doesn't say. He just returns the smile, in equal measures, with equally devious meaning.

He looks away, toward the deep end.]

I'll have to teach you to dive, sometime.

What's that?

[She's interested, at least.]

[He'd show her, but decides to hold off. Better to explain why you'd want to do such a thing.] You go from standing to leaping head-first into the water. Say you've got a knife and it's been dropped to the bottom of the pool; diving is the only way to get to it. The faster and deeper you go, the better off you are.

[It's the right approach to take. She makes a pragmatic, curious sound. Yeah, she can see it.]

[He nods encouragingly, and then smiles a bit]

Want to make a deal? I'll teach you to swim like a fish; you teach me to fight as a human?

Sweeten the pot. Teach me how to take on a dog.

[It startles a grin out of him and he pushes himself up to sit beside her]

You drive a hard bargain. Being able to change is a trump card, for me.

I'll do it, on two conditions. You teach me a bit about mechanics [that arm intrigues the hell out of him] and you keep what I am a secret.

If I promise you that, it'll be a lie. I've got people here I like.

[She tries to think of a fair limit to put on it.]

I won't tell anyone unless I have to, and if I do, I'll tell you who within seconds.

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