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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.]

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[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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[He wonders, for a second, what it is about her that he finds so compelling. Her strength, her intelligence, the sheer dissonance between their worlds, the way her mind works: the way she speaks to him, the words she says, they keep drawing him in. She asks her questions, leans on the tables and she looks completely out of place but not so at the same time.

He'll give it more thought later, because Tommy needs to know why people are in his life, so that he doesn't run the risk of being overtaken again.

For now, he smiles like he's at a fair and his job is to charm people into buying his wares-- he takes the few steps onto the podium and picks up the chalk from its little box to the side. He starts writing, quickly and methodically: Epsom, Ascot, Cheltenham, Liverpool; underneath each location, names: Monaghan Boy, Cobweb, Ormonde, Hurry on. There's numbers to the side, and he finishes off with a flourish.

With a jerk of his head, he invites her up there with him.]

Usually have a lovely assistant by me side, of course. [He leans against the stepping stool, watches her as she inspects his writing. He'd heard her say 'a turn with a woman' and he itches with questions and concern, but tampers the instinct.]

It depends on how good the rumors have gotten. A week's worth of pay, sometimes more. More often less. The men 'round here don't have much to spend, and their wives run a tight household lest they spend it all on whiskey and horses.

[She stands up, and comes closer, slowly, taking in the effect of him like that, narrow and long and scribbling with a practice that she's never seen the like of.]

Your handwriting.

[Helplessly, stepping closer, like she's never seen anything so dainty. Honestly, she hasn't; everything by her day has shifted to a blocky allcaps, with nary a flourish in sight.

She lifts a faintly snide eyebrow at lovely assistant, but lets him off the hook for it when she sees more chalk. Furiosa picks up a piece, and touches it carefully to the board, before commenting.]

There's that whiskey again.

[She keeps her hand still, as she thinks of what to write. Lowers the chalk, and glances back at him, to check first;]

This will come off? It's a kind of chalk.

We'll have some. Later. [There's still a smile playing around the corners of his mouth, but he just crosses his arms and nods when she asks.]

Yes. It will. Just some water and a sponge to take it all back off, clean slate.

[In that case, strangely, the thing that comes out is Joe's rhetoric.

The man is a corpse, and a million miles and a universe away, but Furiosa has been thinking of him often since she was here, had his war-boy-whispers crawling under her skin. They're a kind of poetry, even if it's a sick kind, and they come back easily.

In neat, blocky little lines, under the race details, she inscribes;

I AM THE ONE WHO TOUCHES THE SUN
RIDING TO VALHALLA
WITNESS ME! AS I DIE HISTORIC
FEED MY BLOOD AND BODY TO THE FURY ROAD

There's a power in the verse, and in getting it out, even if the indoctrination is probably still on the list of things it will be difficult for her to more than hint at.

She sets down the chalk, steps back, and dusts off her hands, satisfied. It leaves white dust marks on her legs, but that kind of grit is so far below Furiosa's radar. She puts her thumb between her teeth, to clean it absently, while she moves a little further back from the board and compares their writing a second time. Hers has jackknifed sideways a little, is badly askew, descending.]

You're practiced.

[He looks at her while she writes, remembers walking to the recruitment office in Birmingham with Arthur and John, seeing the posters: it is better to stay at home and face the bullets than to be killed at home by a bomb. Rousing, inspiring young men to lay down their lives for king and country.

It's not even nearly as violent as Furiosa's verse. He doesn't know about Joe, but the kind of ruler who makes up things like these seems like the same kind of ruler who would take a girl off the road and brand her.

He appreciates the writing itself with a nod, shrugs with one shoulder.]

You could be, too. I've plenty of chalk to practice with.

In case I decide to quit being a warden. Steal off to the past and make books, figure out what whiskey is- never mind what horses look like- and give you a run for your money?

[She teases, turning to face him, leaning her back up against the board. She won't use it for anything else, in all likelihood, and she sure as hell isn't going to be the lovely assistant.

It's a little bit edgy, even playing at threatening to challenge him on this, his turf. She only tries to get away with it because she is so profoundly lost here. She softens the words with the smallest, slightest shrink into the solidity of the board. Furiosa does not show her throat easily or often, but doesn't mind him knowing that this is all wild to her. Especially since it comes couched with another smirk.]

Think they'd mind I'm a woman?

They might. [He smiles back at her, obviously far from threatened. It's not because he doesn't thinks he could threaten him: if they had been born in the same place and time, she could have been a formidable enemy, brutal as Billy Kimber but not half as dumb. But if anything can be said about Thomas Shelby, it is that he is confident that he is the best at this. She could threaten him, but no one can beat him at this. Not even if she learned about whiskey, and horses, and wrote like the King.]

But you would show them that's a mistake.

I'm good at that part.

[She allows, with a nod, soothed as he takes it just how she means it.

She has to get him into her rig one day. Probably soon. The thought makes her mouth twitch up, like she wants to give him another run for his money, right here and now.]

So how do you keep your thumb on the scales? No game like this is ever left up to this much chance.

[Tommy's work is inextricably linked to people, and they aren't here, and they won't be. Perhaps it's for the best; the Peaky Blinders aren't known for being fun to be around, and it's been good to be rid of that preconception for a little while.

Horses, though. She'd said she doesn't know what a horse looks like, and he thinks she would come to like the feeling of riding something wild, organic, keeping five hundred kilos of muscle and bone and a mind of its own in check.]

You take a horse, [he replies, not looking exactly at her, but still present,] and you ride it into the deepest part of the city. A fortune teller comes running out, because you told her to be there.

She blesses it. A spell, words, some powder. The horse doesn't even rear back, because you've got it under control. You tell the women: have a bet yourselves, but don't you tell anyone else.

[He unfolds his arms, leans his weight back against the stepladder.]

The 'orse wins once, and then it wins twice. The whole city knows: that horse, it's going to be legendary.

And then the third race comes 'round, and she loses.

[The horse is a lot like a motorcycle in Furiosa's head. Definitely shiny, definitely made of chrome. They race across a dusty field, and the mysticism fits in easily. She can imagine rumour, spilling from ear to ear, hushed and marvelling, the faithful and the superstitious lining up to hand over their money.]

You are good at this.

[She'd known it, but now she sees exactly how. He's sly. Furiosa comes forward, now to sit back down- this time stepping up onto a seat, and settling on top of one of the tables, elbow resting on her knee, chin on her hand.]

How many times does that work?

[There aren't enough people in her world for any ruse to last too long.]

[His answering smile isn't wide, but it's expressive: yes, he is; and he's glad she understands.

It works until someone bigger notices. [Because everyone is in on it- no bookies remain alive without fixing races. The losing gamblers are easy enough to take care of.]

And then you make sure you take their place.

How?

[This is the part where things get a little blurry, start to sound a little cut throat, a little immoral, maybe, but to Furiosa, who clawed her way up through ranks of rough men, despite a very disempowering start, a little blood is a part of everything.

She is nothing but curious.]

By being smarter. [Because you can have men with guns, and you can have money, you can have all the advantages and still lose because you weren't smart enough to use them the way they ought to be used.]

And by knowing who you can trust.

[For the first time, his gaze wavers-- flickers down at the ground, then at the door leading out. He misses Grace so much it feels like his chest has been hollowed out, even though he's been driving himself crazy going over every little detail, every indication of her betrayal that he should have seen. He may be good at all of it, but he failed, there.

But somehow, still, he can't regret it. He's going to make it right.]

[They crash into something real there so suddenly it's nearly tangible. Furiosa's breath catches, and she watches him closely for one moment longer, before glancing aside, giving him a kind of privacy.]

I should get back.

[Proposing, quietly. She could keep him here for hours, but if she stays any longer they'll go through more than either of them can possibly hope to absorb.]

Might go sit up on the deck and watch the stars go by.

[If he's still not through it, this, or the other wall of memory she crashed him into this morning. He is welcome up there with her if he needs.]

[For once, he agrees. He longs for the solitude of his bed and the oblivion of the opium, letting him forget for a few hours. It's not fair to Furiosa, but he has very little left to spare.

So he nods, steps off the podium.]

Might need to share a cigarette, then.

[She nods, and lets him show her out.

The rest will really all be silence.]

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