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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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We don't have prisons, but I spent a long time in captivity.

[She usually chooses her words more carefully than this, but is a little stuck mulling over what he's said. Would she, she wonders, be like them if she didn't have such a rich incentive?

She thinks not, but decides it isn't his job to assuage her anxiety or guilt, so doesn't try to protest.]

My home is different from most worlds, so it's- a complicated frame of reference. I don't know how much I can really understand, but I've been held.

[This perks Cold's interest - and sympathy, he's annoyed to discover - but he doesn't yet pry. Past issues are best left up to when people feel up to revealing them]

Doesn't sound similar to here. For being imprisoned without a trial, it's surprisingly bearable. Kind of like a mini vacation.

Aside from all the dying.

How do you mean, your home is different?

There was a war. Over water, and oil and gasoline- bombs fell, and the things that were are mostly gone now. It's mostly anarchy, with a few despotic little pockets. There's where I-

[Well, the cleanest thing to do is gesture at the brand, turn her head for him to see.]

I mostly have to get used to the amount of water that there is. No one kills each other over any of it.

[It makes it hard to be kind sometimes, particularly about the shower situation, but she recognizes that she needs to work on that.]

[His eyes flicker briefly up to it, but it doesn't come as a surprise; he had felt it when his fingertips had brushed her neck in their earlier scuffle. Cold gives a grim smile back]

Coming from a place like that, here must seem pretty nice in comparison.

Your deal is to fix anarchy?

No. I, uh- I've already dealt with it. Not the anarchy, but this product of it.

[A small smile in return, just as grim, but with a real note of satisfaction.]

We've got a small settlement now where his used to be, and he's in pieces.

[Oh. Well, that comes as a surprise. Cold looks pretty impressed, despite all best efforts not to appear so]

Sounds like you lead a very busy life.

Literal pieces?

Yes.

[A much broader smile, a deeper sink of satisfaction to her shoulders. Maybe a little sorrow past that, for everything that he did, but no part of her regrets Joe's fate.]

Would you like to get something to eat? I could tell you the abridged version.

[He grins back, catching that look of satisfaction. Looks like someone got what was coming to them.

He nods, straightening up and grabbing his parka to tuck under one arm]

I could go for a bite.

[She nods, and sis back down on the mat- just to get her socks and boots on.

She'd be interested to run this past an inmate, honestly, and seems to her to have his head screwed on straight.]

When I was taken, I fought hard for the first few years. No one likes their freedom taken away, I do know that.

[He listens, standing over Furiosa with that same fixed expression he's honed over many years. Cold is careful not to let too much emotion through, and this story sounds interesting.]

How old were you?

Fourteen.

[She says, when her boots are laced. She gets to her feet, and nods at the door. Ready?]

It wasn't punitive, like this place, or at all about rehabilitation- this is just how things are, in the real world. People are worth the sum of their parts, and if you're strong enough, you can take them as resources. Mostly it's for blood. We cut strangers down for their blood.

[He nods back, heading for the door and falling into step beside her]

Cutting it down to the barest human instincts possible. Sounds rough.

Is the blood for some kind of ritual? Why use it?

After the bombs fell, most of the children born had some sort of illness. We call the half-lives, the medical staff here talk about radiation poisoning and tumors. They were the warriors, and you could get a little longer out of them with a transfusion.

[She reminds herself to check on Nux, be sure that Lark has taken him in to see the damn doctor.]

I fought, until it was obvious that it wasn't getting me anywhere. Then I went obedient.

[Mouth twisting in a sneer, as she heads off towards the mess.]

[He follows, curious and subtly checking Furiosa for tumors himself as he goes.]

Sometimes you do what you have to in order to survive.

[None. She's healthy, healthier than she ever was thanks to the infirmary here.]

I believe that, to an extent, but I'm also glad I got a chance to find redemption. I did a lot to prove that I was best suited as a fighter, and a lot more to climb to the rank I needed, to get the autonomy I had to have to get out of there. Access to the right equipment.

I regret a lot of it.

[And she's learning to admit that, cleanly and simply.]

[Cold holds the door open to her as they enter the mess hall, pausing the look over his shoulder at her]

And to think, if you had died then and there in the middle of it, you might have ended up as one of us.

I know. Then I would really have been in trouble. I don't have another twenty years under someone's thumb left in me.

[She thinks about this possibility grimly and often.]

You really think it would take twenty years, here?

Joe spent twenty years on me, and he couldn't remake me entirely. It seems reasonable it might take a further twenty years to pull me in a new direction.

[She says, but this is maybe a little uncharitable. She softens it right away.]

But he was a sadist. Maybe I'd have bent a little quicker to something good, in conditions like these, if I could get past the resentment. I don't really know.

Makes sense.

Personally, I don't think it'd take nearly that long. People respond better to the carrot than the stick.

And this place is more of an expensive kidnapping than the hell you went through. We're less naturally inclined to fight the good.

I know. But it's also the principle of the thing- and the fact that I'm ornery.

[A real smile now, self-deprecating and quick.]

You're a more intelligent inmate than I am, and I'm supposed to be a warden.

Sounds like we've got something in common.

[He picks up a tray, moving along the line]

Experience can mask itself as intelligence sometimes.

..And don't say supposed to be. It makes you sound weak. You're a warden, so own it. Nothing to be ashamed of.

[She huffs a short laugh.]

Nothing weak about being an inmate, either.

[But she'll take his point. And she takes, very gingerly, a plate of pasta, using the opportunity of his company to ask;]

What is this? I keep accidentally taking desserts, is this real, edible food?

No. But if they see you self-doubting, some of them will try ripping you apart.

[He leans in to look over the food, and there's only a beat of hesitation before he answers, attempting to treat the idea of someone not knowing what pasta is as no big deal]

It's pasta. It's a hard grain when you harvest it, and you soften it in boiling water.

Yes, it's real, and yes, it's edible. I'd give it a try.

[She doesn't doubt herself. She does, however, doubt her place here sometimes- but whether he understands that nuance doesn't matter. He's right; they won't, and there's no sense opening herself up to them.

So she takes her pasta without comment, and heads over to the coffee, which is about the only thing she'll drink other than water.]

The food here is better.

[She's sure that won't come as a surprise.]

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