CAPABLE.

     he has no reason not to let her, and he has enough of his faculties that he gets why he can’t just do something like pick her up or offer her a boost to stand on his hands. he might have their trust – for now – but he’s still a stranger, the wild dog who tried to abandon them. 

     ( who contemplated shipping them back off to immortan to save his own skin, to garner his own freedom. it’s what he does from here out that redeems himself for that. )

     he slings his bag off his shoulder, lets it fwumph softly in the sand. he leaves his war-jacket on, resting over his leather coat; the nooks and folds should give her more footholds. he moves about so she can use him like a ladder –––  ❝ G’on ahead. ❞

        “...--” 

she considers him for a moment. perhaps even two. he’s a very accommodating kind of man, which almost feels odd, and she hadn’t actually expected him to let her just stand on him as she plans to. without so much as a grunt in protest either. 

it’s a moment or so before she actually makes a move, delicate hand upon his back to steady herself as she moves to stand on him. he gives her enough height to be able to drag herself up to the ledge, at which point she sets on scanning the horizon. she’s not looking for joe, of course. she knows all too well where he is. 

Oh, she looks forlorn. What a crying shame. Anyhow! Pris’ mind wanders, searching less for things she wants and more for what Capable could have to offer. She presumes there isn’t a huge overlap in their common interests. Not many things they could exchange.

   “Little birdy says you have books.”

   “With pictures.”

         “I could... definitely give you a book for doing my hair.” 

She’s read them all already anyway, right? Several times, as a matter of fact, and her hair does feel like quite the pressing issue right about now. If she just doesn’t choose a book that any of the others care for, so long as it has pictures -- isn’t she sorted? 

     a glance upwards, and then back at capable. max clears his throat and nods, finds his words where they’re lurking in the back of his brain, shifts his posture, pays attention. he wets his lips before speaking.  ❝ You need a boost? ❞

        “I wanted to stand on your back.” 

She isn’t really all that sure that she trusts him fully enough to put his hands on her in any sense. Just needs a little more time, to get used to him, to trust him. Understandably, Capable’s a little tired of rough men with rough hands -- and he didn’t make the best first impression. 

sentence meme | accepting

          “...--” 

Unable to decide what venom she wants to spit in his face, Capable settles for staring him down. She may have survived this long because of him, but the life she leads is one of misery and anguish. This is no way for anybody to live, locked up, being used for one sick man’s own personal desires. She is not a thing to be used and discarded whenever he no longer has need for her, whenever he no longer desires her and would rather turn his attentions to another of his so-called wives. 

She feels like an animal, trapped in too small a cage, choking and suffering and suffocating. 

She inhales. I’d rather be dead, she thinks. She’s as good as, trapped here, with him. 

Her words won’t dissuade him, but she speaks them anyway. 

sentence meme | accepting 

           “You want me to kill War Boys.” 

A statement, not a question. And it’s not something she’s entirely sure she’ll be able to do, either. She’s grown close to Nux while he’s been travelling with them and wasn’t he just another War Boy, trying to drag them back to the Citadel not so long ago? And hadn’t Angharad been so against killing him too? 

A shake of the head.

sentence meme | accepting 

          “You know I’m with you, Angharad.” 

           “…–” 

Unfair, she thinks. Cruel. A different kind of cruelty to that of Immortan Joe’s, of course, but words burn as badly as captivity had suffocated. She wishes she hadn’t been asked, wishes she hadn’t heard the question, but the way the colour drains from her face, the way her eyes go that little bit wider– it’s obvious that she has. 

She’s been thinking about all the things she wanted to say to that poor, lost boy, but all of her thoughts have been replaced by the sight of a crashing War Rig. Twisted metal and flame and rock and– witness me. And there had been some foolish fluttering of hope in her chest, until she reminded herself that Angharad had died from less. 

                                 “I would have thanked him,” she imagines. He must have considered it to be a good death, behind the wheel of a War Rig, going out in a blaze of glory. To her, there’s not really anything such as a good death. But he must have thought so. 

Capable can’t force those words out, can’t pretend she would have told Nux he was awaited. Joe was full of shit, and there would never be any changing that. There was no glory, no life after this one ( so short and so painful ) – nothing more than one man’s bullshit and some great, vast emptiness. Made up of all the lies he told. 

Nux knows the anger in her voice isn’t directed toward him. He knows it’s Joe that she’s angry about, but it still stings him, and his eyes flick away from her shamefully for a quick moment. But it’s true. Perhaps he does think too highly of the Immortan. Of that he is ashamed. Especially now that he’s learning, and as she explains to him he just keeps learning more.

Nux’s world, the world all the War Boys lived in, has been laid out for them and never changing from the moment they join the Cult of the V8. For so long the Immortan has gotten away with this separate existence which the War Boys believe, and that they will die for.           Now that the seed of realization has been planted in Nux, he is terrified, but he knows it has to be for the best.                     It hurts, but at the same time he’s glad for it.

          “You’re people,” he says after some silence. “I can see that, just lookin’ at you, talkin’ to you. Much more than breeding stock.” A firm nod is given, which comes with the bit of pride he feels in himself for understanding what Capable’s saying.

It’s not quite alright, though. It makes him think more deeply.           “I… If we—the War Boys—are just battle fodder… does that mean we’re things, then? …We’re things to the Immortan, too, aren’t we?”                     Of course Nux has never thought of it this way before. Never thought about how being just a thing could feel so unpleasant. He’s always had this feeling of wanting to be something more than he is, he thought it was his entrance to Valhalla, but perhaps it’s really because he’s always been just a thing.

It’s hardly a realization Capable would wish upon anybody. Certainly not Nux, the poor, sweet War Boy who is quickly coming to realize that nearly every aspect of his life prior to this moment has been wrong. 

She can’t pretend to know the mind of Immortan Joe, and she’s not going to. Doesn’t want to, in truth. Whatever is going on in his head, she wants nothing to do with it, nothing to do with him. She just wants to get free, get gone, stay gone. She wants the Green Place, and the peace of mind that comes with it. She wants safety, wants to belong to herself again. 

                                    ( She wants Angharad. ) 

A hand lifts, but she hesitates again. She takes his hand instead and offers a small, sad looking smile. 

He likes to see her smile, and he’s delighted to hear her laugh. It was a small laugh, of course, but it was lovely, Nux thinks. He deduces then he must be doing things right, and hopes to hear her laugh again, although he’s not sure what she was laughing about in the first place. The word shine is an everyday part of the War Boys’ vocabulary.

                    But it’s too bad, too late now. Again she’s frowning, and Nux feels that feeling he gets when he wants to start banging his head on things. He doesn’t though. He’s certain that would only make her frown more. His heart sinks, and as he listens to her he gazes at her apologetically instead.

“Yeah, I know he uses you for breeding,” Nux confirms quietly, “but…”            He trails off for a moment. Thinking.                     It’s suddenly become so difficult for him to come up with words when talking about the Immortan. He doesn’t know what’s right and what’s wrong anymore. It’s also clear to Nux that Capable isn’t fond of talking about the man, and he hates that this is their current conversation topic, but it feels necessary. Nux wants to understand. He wants to know and to learn. He wants this so he can make it better somehow.           “I thought that he cared for you, all of you. S’why he’s comin’ after you, isn’t it?”

She can’t believe that he cares about them. Not in the way one person’s meant to care about another, not in the good, loving sort of way that she cares about the others. We are not things, Angharad had said, and it’s true -- just not to him. To Immortan Joe, they are, they’re treasures, something to be locked away from the world. Rare and precious and able to provide him with the most wondrous of all gifts -- healthy children. 

And that’s what he cares about, isn’t it? At the end of the day. If they were anything other than fertile, healthy women, Immortan Joe wouldn’t care. They’d be blood bags, or they’d be dead, or they’d be far, far away and living a better life. She’d wished, time and time and time again, that she was that lucky. That she was anybody else in the entire world. But she isn’t. 

                              “You think too highly of him, Nux,” she says, brows furrowed and the corners of her lips tugged down as she looks at him. There’s a slight flutter of anger in her voice, though it isn’t directed at Nux. He doesn’t know any better -- and he’s still trying. “If he cared about us, he wouldn’t have--” No. “He cares about children. Healthy, perfect children that he can raise to be just like him. And he can’t do that, can’t have them, if he doesn’t have us.” 

She feels sick just thinking about it. But it’s important he knows, right? Important that he understands exactly who Immortan Joe is.