A Strange Afterlife

[ginger_firebird]

 It had to be impossible. He could feel his skin. A pulse beat under his neck. He stood in front of a store window and regarded his reflection in the glass. Same black leather outfit. Same brown trench-coat. The fabric weight down on him and he rubbed his arms as he tried to figure out what was going on. A wandering spirit had doors to enter and exit when it came to the world of the living, but he'd never achieved something like this. It was alien and wrong and he had no idea where anyone was.

Mantis sighed, marveling quietly at the way his chest rose and fell with his breathing. It didn't matter. He'd keep moving and hope for the best. If this was some punishment for a misstep, he knew exactly who to take it up with.

"Sorrow!" Even his voice carried an echo. Mantis pointed himself into a new direction and began to walk. "What did I do this time, old man?"

Comments

[eumenis]

The men are painted grayish-white, a mix of chalk and oil, with darker accents around their eyes and noses and rubbed into the lines of their scarification. A few do have chrome paint here and there, although it's not the same chrome they used when Joe was their leader. Back then, the point was to get intoxicated on the aerosol fumes as they prepared for violent self-sacrifice. Now, the chrome is painted with brushes, is sometimes tinted in more than one color, and is a reminder that they're free to live or to die, as they see fit. Really, none of them have to wear paint at all, but old habits die hard, and anyway it protects their skin from the scorching sun.

The War Boys (not all are men, though there's a certain uniformity of dress and adornment so it's easy to assume so), are attentive to their work, but not oblivious to the stranger that's captured their boss' attention. One of the taller ones straightens, watching him thoughtfully. Generally speaking, Furiosa doesn't need physical protection and will fight her own battles, but it's part of her crew's job to watch her six.

Her bearing is a blend of military precision and street-brawler confidence, but there's nothing hostile in her posture yet. Sometimes the Nexus has an ugly side, but people here are friendly, or civil, more often than not. She has no way of knowing he's reaching out to her mind, and no defense other than raw force of will. Others who have read her before have sensed that she comes from a place of violence and pain--everything out here hurts--but experience has tempered her intentions. She's a survivor, willing to be ruthless in defense of her people and their home, but also committed to the principle of doing nothing more brutal than is absolutely necessary.

And right now, the bulk of her surface thoughts are taken up with calculating how much fertilizer they need for the sorghum crops.

"New and lost are sometimes the same thing around here," she tells him with wry humor, and tucks her pen in a loop in one of the many belts around her rib cage. "But you have plenty of space to decide if you want to go back to the place you came from. Some do, some don't."

And some can't, but she has no way to know whether that's the case for this one.

[ginger_firebird]

There's a kind of feral edge to their appearances that reminds Mantis of childhood. He was once a wild boy running around with the one person he had to look up to, and years later he died following that same wildness to much larger ends. The War Boys get a nod from him. Maybe in another life, he would have looked so maddened and ashen.

So she was the leader of a gang, of sorts. Her mind was tempered to a harsh place and that was all he really needed to know in order to decide that she was someone worth getting to know. The fact she was thinking of crops taught him something important as well: food was not a guarantee in this place. He slipped out of her head and half turned to watch the men getting the fertilizer together.

"I'll figure that out when I have time for it." Maybe in a few days. Maybe a few weeks. "You're farming, aren't you. Does food go scarce around here when the weather gets cold?"

It's hard work to grow anything, but it's an option he can't afford to close off out of fear of manual labor.

[eumenis]

In the Wasteland, feral is a continuum. Everyone does what they must to survive, but in a settlement as powerful as the Citadel, less compromise and less violence are necessary than they would be for a lone person in the wilderness. Let him meet Max sometime; that's feral (or kami-crazy, as the War Boys themselves might say) on a whole new level. But they are analyzing him in turn, and concluding that here is a person who might be able to hold his own in their ranks. In the Nexus, where so many of the adjoining worlds are wealthy or soft, that's different.

Furiosa, oblivious to what he's learned form her mind but highly attentive to his body language, gives a low sound of acknowledgement. "Depends. Not trying to bullshit you, but this place is hard to predict."

She flips her ledger closed and gestures at the stacks of supplies the men are loading. "All of that is coming back to our world with us. We don't live here, we only come to trade, because there are things sold here that don't exist on our world. We do a lot of farming at home."

And they're considering expansion, but those plans aren't finalized yet, and that's not really what he's asking. "Most of the time, this place has more of everything than it knows what to do with. You can get food and water for free, shelter and clothing for a song. But there was a harsh winter the year before last, and those of us stuck here almost starved. It doesn't do to assume things about the Nexus. It'll throw you a curve when you're not looking."

[ginger_firebird]

A farmer, a trader, someone who is clearly looking out for a community. Her world sounds dangerous and a bit primitive, but it's not something that he's going to be deterred by. From her calculating demeanor and the way she was so set on how she had the men going about collecting materials, he could imagine that her farm was growing more and more with each visit.

"Then I hope you're able to keep your crops going for as long as you need them." In her case, likely forever. There was something vaguely dusty and dry about her appearance. "May the rain always find you."

Mantis turned a bit more towards her men, watching them stack everything as they went. There had to be more. This was only the group she saw fit to bring with her. Three, perhaps even five times as many, at least.

"I know how to preserve things like fruits and meats. That isn't the hard part so much as finding the foods in the first place. A lot of foods can keep for a while when it's done right. Enough that you don't have to come here too often for replenishing your supplies, a t least."

[eumenis]

They have over five thousand mouths to feed. That wouldn't have bothered Joe. He didn't care who got fed or how much, as long as the mass of them were under his control. Furiosa understands how his mind worked better than even his sons did. But she's determined to be as unlike him as she can, and she makes damn sure there are enough rations to go around.

"Rain is often poison in my world," she says mildly, "but in time it may run clean again. Thank you for the good will."

She makes a neutral hum of acknowledgement, then, noting how he watches her men in their activities. Definitely sizing them up, but that may or may not mean he intends to be trouble. Hell, even he may not have decided that yet. "We have our methods," she agrees. "Cold storage under the water reservoirs, dry storage in silos high up on the plateaus. Anything that doesn't get eaten gets turned into compost. We don't eat as much meat as most of the people that visit here. It's inefficient. We have some animals for eggs and dairy and when they stop producing we'll eat them, but most of our protein comes from beans or bugs."

"I'm Imperator Furiosa, of the Green Towers." She rarely uses the title here, but she wants to subtly reinforce the idea that she's a force to be reckoned with. "What should I call you, stranger?"

[ginger_firebird]

Acidic rain. Her description goes along with the arid slant to her appearance. A desert, most likely, one with very little in the way of water if they need to focus on reservoirs. He feels a bit of sympathy for having to endure that kind of hardship.

"You have an efficient system. Some of the hardest things to do is find out what crops grow best, but once you're able to figure out how to make them thrive, most of the work is done." His gaze returns to her. "I've given thought to growing some food in whatever housing I can find in this place. Nothing compared to your empire, but enough for one person to get by."

And what a name! He makes a surprised noise hearing it. "Psycho Mantis, but those who hear it tend to settle on just 'Mantis'. It's a pleasure to meet you, but I feel compelled to ask something. 'Imperator' is a title, isn't it? Something in the same vein as 'commander' or 'general'. Were you part of an army?"