video and spam

[witness_this]

Spam

[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.]

Comments

spam;

[ukan]

Who would you tell, today?

spam;

[witness_this]

No one. We're not even close to giving me a reason.

spam;

[ukan]

Tell me what a reason looks like.

[Because he would never tell her or anyone else in advance if he planned to attack someone, and he's pretty sure she suspects that. So it's not like "you threatening someone" can be a reason.]

spam;

[witness_this]

How do you explain what a fight about to break tastes like? The air is different, your eyes get narrow, your nostrils flare. Feet shift on the ground. A hardness in and a narrowing of the eyes. Animosity, at the point of breaking.

spam;

[ukan]

[He shakes his head] People--animals, too--they naturally don't trust me, Furiosa. Even if you'd met me fully clothed, this is what it would have been like.

There is always animosity around me. And in a place like this, with as many violent tempers as we're surrounded by...?

spam;

[witness_this]

Well, Lark, I know. And I know it matters to you that no one else does. I'll keep it for as long as my conscience can live with it.

[And that means more than any amount of finicking and negotiating.]

spam;

[ukan]

Okay. [Almost a whisper, that. It's like taking a leap off the deck again, but without the excitement. Sometimes, though, you have to just trust people in order to make them trustworthy.]

Where do we start, then?

spam;

[witness_this]

With clothes.

[She rises up out of the water, and turns her back on him. The barge supplied bathing suit is handy, but much less her than the leather, the rags.]

Re: spam;

[ukan]

I'll meet you back here.

[He's fully clothed but sopping wet and he hadn't brought a change, because he hadn't planned on jumping in. Besides, he figures she'll want time to get changed; and he doesn't really want to show where his den cabin is to anyone he can't beat down.

He's out the door and squishing down the halls, and back again with damp hair and dry clothes and bare feet.]

spam;

[witness_this]

[Furiosa has commandeered a locker, and is back in dry things, the suit stowed there. She gives him a once over and a nod, and decides;]

Gym?

spam;

[ukan]

Gym.

[He agrees, hoping they'll have the place to themselves.It doesn't matter too much if they don't, though. Lark knows how to fight well enough he's survived knife fights, fist fights, bar fights without much damage, but he's not worried about revealing too much in a human-human fight.]

spam;

[witness_this]

[She sets off, fully expecting him to follow.]

How does changing back and forth work for you, here?

Re: spam;

[ukan]

I'm not sure yet. I can't control when I turn back human, but I don't know if there's a time limit or an energy limit involved.

[Which dodges certain questions, but he's not sure what she has heard about werewolves yet. So:]

What do you know about what I am?

spam;

[witness_this]

Nothing. What I see in you.

[Amending, because that's a little more than 'nothing.']

spam;

[ukan]

What you see in me? I'm not sure I want to know what that is.

[Always a dodgy prospect.]

What do you want to know?

spam;

[witness_this]

Predator.

[She assesses, quietly.]

Which is fine. I want to know- what it's like. If it feels like vengeance.

spam;

[ukan]

[He studies her, his attention focusing narrowly on just her, his voice soft so as to fully exclude anyone who wanders through the gym around them.]

It's like revisiting every time in your life that you were weak, that you were helpless and beaten, and being given the power to change it. Forever. It's like getting control of the wheel after your car has slid too close to a cliff. It's knowing that you can find your enemies no matter how far they run, and it's knowing that you can terrify them on such a fundamental level they will never sleep again.

It's like knowing you have a purpose and that purpose will fulfill you no matter how alone you are. But it's also knowing that if you're strong enough, you will never be alone again. You feel things in the world you never knew were there. You can feel the earth beating, or dying, under your paws. You can smell the way a flower changes under starlight.

[He falls quiet, and a corner of his mouth twitches] Does that answer your question?

spam;

[witness_this]

[Her heart is a little in her throat by the time he's done.

She nods.]

spam;

[ukan]

[He ducks his head a little, removing some of the intensity of the moment.]

They won't tell you that. Not the other wolves I know. Certainly not the people who make up lore about us.

Most of the lore is wrong.

spam;

[witness_this]

I don't know the stories.

[Not really.]

spam;

[ukan]

There are hundreds. Thousands, maybe. And they've been more or less the same from every person I've met here.

Werewolves change with the full moon. We're compelled to eat. We don't remember the things we do when we've changed. A bite will turn someone into one of us. [He shrugs] In my case, all lies. Obviously.

Do you have campfire stories where you're from?

spam;

[witness_this]

Just about cannibals in the Wastes, but-

[Those are all real.]

Or stories of old, when the satellites come out in the sky. Back when everyone had shows.

spam;

[ukan]

We have those. And it's true where I'm from. Even I had a show, once.

[He sounds easy about it but that's from practice. It's a bit chilling to hear her talk about things he knows as if they're gone, with that arm and those scars as proof that it's all different.]

spam;

[witness_this]

[Her brow furls. She hates to keep derailing, but;]

What is a show?

spam;

[ukan]

[There is no way to explain it all without acknowledging how ridiculous modern entertainment is. So. Okay.

Brace yourself, Furiosa.]

Groups of people would get together to tell stories and record them--sort of like how we broadcast things on our network devices. The stories were mostly fake. All the actors dressed up for them, took on fake names or voices, and we used to put music to it all to make it more emotionally compelling. We'd give out awards for the ones that made us laugh or cry the hardest.

We also had reality tv, though. And that was just the same as if I followed you around recording you on my device for everyone to see how you live every second of your day.

Ideally you'd be doing something few people could do: make a fantastic cake. Rebuild a car in two days. [Actually, looking at her arm, maybe she can do that.] But you'd have to have a rival. Someone to give the audience drama.