Nux (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gonnadiehistoric) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ya_assemble2015-06-01 07:30 pm
gonnadiehistoric) wrote in ya_assemble2015-06-01 07:30 pm
Entry tags:
Witness [tons of spoilers]
Nux wasn't sure he believed in Valhalla anymore. After all, Valhalla was supposed to be the place where Warboys walked eternal with Immortan Joe, where they lived with the heroes of old.
But Nux had learned the truth from the Wives - from Capable. He'd realized how wrong he'd been about Immortan Joe. He'd found better heroes in Furiosa - and even the road warrior, nameless and muttering and mad but willing to help them as best as he could - and even in The Vulvalini, who had been outnumbered but fearless, all of them willing to fight to make a better world out of the mire of despair Joe kept them all in. They had wanted to build and protect and stop wasting those that lived in the Wasteland that was their world.
And the man he thought was his god, his redeemer, had died just like that, died like he was any other man. Nux had already mostly believed the wives - and cared enough about them, about Capable, to silence what doubts he had left. He'd mostly understood everything Joe had done was wrong, but for him to die, hearing Cheedo yell it out, cemented it in his mind with a finality that could not be denied.
Immortan Joe was not immortal. Immortan Joe was not his savior, he was mad lunatic that treated people like things - Nux included. Just a thing to be used, just a thing to fight for him, die for him. It had made it so much easier to die for Capable, for the Wives, for the Vulvalini, for the road warrior and Furiosa. And also for the wretches of Citadel, for the milk mothers, and the War pups, and the Warboys sick and at the end of their half life that deserved a better end than dying for nothing at all.
They would make it better. He believed it. The Wives and Furiosa and the surviving Vulvalini - and the road warrior, if he stayed. They were better than Immortan Joe would ever be. They were hope.
He was hope. That was what he could give the last of his life for, a much better death, a much shinier death than any way he could've died for Immortan Joe.
So, when it was clear he wasn't escaping Rictus, when it was clear the only way to block the pass was to crash it all, he had whispered for Capable to witness him and he had seen her hand move, the gesture of mourning for the Vulvalini, like she was taking him forever into her heart - and what better witness could he ask for than Capable? Then he had wrenched the wheel to the side as hard as he could, felt the war rig veer and lurch and then...and then ...
Then he had wound up here, wherever here was. And he felt so...good. Barry and Larry were there but they weren't chewing at his windpipe and he felt like he'd never have another night fever again. He felt good, like a full life.
That was why Nux wondered if Valhalla had ever been real at all. Because he knew he had to be dead and clearly he was somewhere, somewhere where the sickness in his bones had lost its hold. But there were no gates waiting to open for him, like the grills of a pursuit car, shiny and chrome. There were no heroes of old. And he already knew Immortan Joe was a liar. Someone who cared more about the hurting and the owning, not protecting, growing, helping.
This place looked like a place from the before times. Streets all paved and unbroken, buildings intact, lectric lights shiny and bright. There was more green than he'd ever seen in one place, in patches nearby (parks, though he didn't know the word), and green stretching off into the distance (forests) outside the place, the - he had no word for the cluster of buildings and streets. City? Town? He knew there were many old words for places like this and knew a few of them but didn't know enough to tell them apart. The cars were plain and un-salvaged, and sometimes new. Maybe that was what really came after death, a place like the before times, an unbroken, unblemished paradise.
He saw a woman walking down the street, holding her child's hand - a child that was unblemished, without tumors or growths, no deformities, perfect in every way - and called out to her.
"Where am I? What is this place?" he asked plaintively. "Am I arrived in Valhalla?"
But she didn't see him, she didn't hear him, she and her perfect child walked right through him, with the feeling of cold mist, like the cool, moist air in the muddy place with the crows, a place that was pure deadness.
He fell to his knees, and he despaired, oh, he despaired. He was ruin, he was beyond redemption. That was the way of it, wasn't it - he had warred and killed and broken because of Joe's word and maybe he hadn't done enough to find that redemption the road warrior and Furiosa had spoken of. Maybe his death hadn't been enough.
"It was my fault. I know!" he cried out to whatever, whoever, had damned him, cast him to this place. "We should have been dying for the protecting. The Wives asked who was to blame and it was all of us, Joe and us listening to Joe. I know. But I did what I could. That was shine, what I did - isn't that enough?"
There was no answer.
Who broke the world? Men like Joe and the people who helped him did. Maybe the stain was too great for what he did at the pass to wash it away. Even if there was a Valhalla, this wasn't it. This place wasn't warm welcomes by dead brothers, and feasting with heroes, this was an empty place, a place where he was even smaller and less important than back home. It was a place of cold mist and loneliness.
And darkness. Shadows lengthening, turning into monsters, living nightmares, with claws and teeth. Shadows and enemies in the dark that had him breaking a car window, hotwiring a car, and revving away on a merry chase.
Those that came after him to bring him to the Pole at Manny's behest would find themselves in a high speed chase on the highways outside of Burgess that led into the mountains, a trail of police cars full of mystified police officers on his tail - followed by a mass of fearlings the police officers couldn't see.
You had to give the new guy credit: he sure knew how to make an entrance.
But Nux had learned the truth from the Wives - from Capable. He'd realized how wrong he'd been about Immortan Joe. He'd found better heroes in Furiosa - and even the road warrior, nameless and muttering and mad but willing to help them as best as he could - and even in The Vulvalini, who had been outnumbered but fearless, all of them willing to fight to make a better world out of the mire of despair Joe kept them all in. They had wanted to build and protect and stop wasting those that lived in the Wasteland that was their world.
And the man he thought was his god, his redeemer, had died just like that, died like he was any other man. Nux had already mostly believed the wives - and cared enough about them, about Capable, to silence what doubts he had left. He'd mostly understood everything Joe had done was wrong, but for him to die, hearing Cheedo yell it out, cemented it in his mind with a finality that could not be denied.
Immortan Joe was not immortal. Immortan Joe was not his savior, he was mad lunatic that treated people like things - Nux included. Just a thing to be used, just a thing to fight for him, die for him. It had made it so much easier to die for Capable, for the Wives, for the Vulvalini, for the road warrior and Furiosa. And also for the wretches of Citadel, for the milk mothers, and the War pups, and the Warboys sick and at the end of their half life that deserved a better end than dying for nothing at all.
They would make it better. He believed it. The Wives and Furiosa and the surviving Vulvalini - and the road warrior, if he stayed. They were better than Immortan Joe would ever be. They were hope.
He was hope. That was what he could give the last of his life for, a much better death, a much shinier death than any way he could've died for Immortan Joe.
So, when it was clear he wasn't escaping Rictus, when it was clear the only way to block the pass was to crash it all, he had whispered for Capable to witness him and he had seen her hand move, the gesture of mourning for the Vulvalini, like she was taking him forever into her heart - and what better witness could he ask for than Capable? Then he had wrenched the wheel to the side as hard as he could, felt the war rig veer and lurch and then...and then ...
Then he had wound up here, wherever here was. And he felt so...good. Barry and Larry were there but they weren't chewing at his windpipe and he felt like he'd never have another night fever again. He felt good, like a full life.
That was why Nux wondered if Valhalla had ever been real at all. Because he knew he had to be dead and clearly he was somewhere, somewhere where the sickness in his bones had lost its hold. But there were no gates waiting to open for him, like the grills of a pursuit car, shiny and chrome. There were no heroes of old. And he already knew Immortan Joe was a liar. Someone who cared more about the hurting and the owning, not protecting, growing, helping.
This place looked like a place from the before times. Streets all paved and unbroken, buildings intact, lectric lights shiny and bright. There was more green than he'd ever seen in one place, in patches nearby (parks, though he didn't know the word), and green stretching off into the distance (forests) outside the place, the - he had no word for the cluster of buildings and streets. City? Town? He knew there were many old words for places like this and knew a few of them but didn't know enough to tell them apart. The cars were plain and un-salvaged, and sometimes new. Maybe that was what really came after death, a place like the before times, an unbroken, unblemished paradise.
He saw a woman walking down the street, holding her child's hand - a child that was unblemished, without tumors or growths, no deformities, perfect in every way - and called out to her.
"Where am I? What is this place?" he asked plaintively. "Am I arrived in Valhalla?"
But she didn't see him, she didn't hear him, she and her perfect child walked right through him, with the feeling of cold mist, like the cool, moist air in the muddy place with the crows, a place that was pure deadness.
He fell to his knees, and he despaired, oh, he despaired. He was ruin, he was beyond redemption. That was the way of it, wasn't it - he had warred and killed and broken because of Joe's word and maybe he hadn't done enough to find that redemption the road warrior and Furiosa had spoken of. Maybe his death hadn't been enough.
"It was my fault. I know!" he cried out to whatever, whoever, had damned him, cast him to this place. "We should have been dying for the protecting. The Wives asked who was to blame and it was all of us, Joe and us listening to Joe. I know. But I did what I could. That was shine, what I did - isn't that enough?"
There was no answer.
Who broke the world? Men like Joe and the people who helped him did. Maybe the stain was too great for what he did at the pass to wash it away. Even if there was a Valhalla, this wasn't it. This place wasn't warm welcomes by dead brothers, and feasting with heroes, this was an empty place, a place where he was even smaller and less important than back home. It was a place of cold mist and loneliness.
And darkness. Shadows lengthening, turning into monsters, living nightmares, with claws and teeth. Shadows and enemies in the dark that had him breaking a car window, hotwiring a car, and revving away on a merry chase.
Those that came after him to bring him to the Pole at Manny's behest would find themselves in a high speed chase on the highways outside of Burgess that led into the mountains, a trail of police cars full of mystified police officers on his tail - followed by a mass of fearlings the police officers couldn't see.
You had to give the new guy credit: he sure knew how to make an entrance.
no subject
"Also, you're magic now, remember? You're tougher and stronger and you feel better than you did back home, and you heal really fast? And I bet you noticed you couldn't talk to people when you got here. It couldn't bring you here without making you magic. You'll be able to do something magic now -- I don't know what, it's different for everyone. But there's a guy here who has no more magic than you in his world, and he makes us heal faster now that he's here. And we get more powerful the more people that believe in us."
She took a deep breath. "But if you really don't want to fight, no one's going to make you. We can't send anyone back -- it's one way right now -- but we can set you up in a safe place with people who can see you until we've finished fighting. Then you can go home again -- or maybe even somewhere else instead, so you don't have to just go back and die."
no subject
It was all completely impossible but that was what she was trying to explain. Yes, it was impossible. Where they were was impossible, because something impossible was doing the impossible. Where she came from was impossible, what she was was impossible, and now he was impossible.
All of it was impossible.
"This thing. What does it want? The world-breaking thing. The monster thing. What happens when it breaks the world?"
no subject
no subject
He looked like he'd been punched in the gut. He knew how awful his world was, especially now that he better understood everything he'd been taught about Joe was wrong, but to imagine it snuffing out...
"Seems almost like mercy," he said, the words coming out of his mouth before he could stop them. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose and winced, knowing how terrible that was, his hand dropping, his lips pressing together. "But then there'd be no hope. No chance of the Wives and Furiosa making Citadel better. And any places that maybe are better, far off from us in the wasteland, will be gone. And your world - your impossible world, and this world, other worlds that are like the before times, not broken yet. They'd break."
This thing wanted to break his world even worse, wanted to break worlds that weren't broken, wanted to break all worlds. Worlds where people flew, worlds that were whole, worlds with little flying wonders and colors in the sky.
Killing everyone and everything. Capable, the Wives, Furiosa, the road warrior, the war pups, the milk mothers, the treadmill rats, the wretches...'
"We're not to blame," he'd told the Wives.
"Then who killed the world?" Men like Joe and the people who helped him.
But what did you call the ones who stepped aside and let the world get broken? That didn't try to stop it? He didn't know but he didn't want to be whatever that word was.
"I'll fight," he said. He'd been gazing off into the distance as he thought about it but now he looked up at Cassie and nodded a tremulous little nod. "I was already dead. Even with this, surviving the pass, this isn't to last, is it? Being fit and strong. This is just...I've stalled." He gestured up and around. "World's just got to replace a fuel filter when this is over and then I'm on the move again. I'm already dead. I've already been dead. Might as well make use of the extra miles I've got."
no subject
"You wouldn't have to go back to the exact point you died," she said. "Or even back to your universe, if you don't want to. And if you decide this fight's too much for you, no one's going to look down on you for taking a step back. But in the meantime..."
She picked her mug up again and raised it. "Here's to the world continuing to spin," she said, and tapped it against his mug before taking another swig of cocoa.
no subject
But it seemed to be something he was maybe supposed to match in gesture so having missed the tapping part he finally picked up his mug and took a sip of the strange brown liquid in it like she had.
Then his eyes popped open wide, and after he swallowed, his jaw dropped open like cocoa was the single thing he found hardest to believe in all this.
"Glory me! You said this is made of plants?"
no subject
no subject
Wait, talking meant he couldn't drink it, so he stopped talking for a moment so he could take another sip. Rather than gulping it down, he took a moment to savor it, closing his eyes and just focusing on the taste, before the faucet flipped back on and the questions started again.
"What kind of plant? How is it made?"
Wait, there was food. He hadn't even tried the food yet. Maybe it was just as good.
He grabbed one of the cookies from the plate, bit into it, chewed, and then looked like he was having some kind of religious awakening.
"What is this -" he sound around a full month. "Oh, Oh my - is all the food here like this?"
Please tell him it's all like this. Please tell him there's lots of it.
no subject
"I'm not sure how it's grown, actually," she answered as he dove for the plate of cookies. "I could look it up, but I bet Bunny's forgotten more about chocolate than I'd ever be able to find." Wow, how did she explain the six-foot talking kung-fu rabbit? Did he even know what a rabbit was to begin with?
On the other hand, he'd accepted that they were from different realities and that people could fly in hers. Maybe he'd take rabbit-people and turtle-people in stride.
"The food here is all pretty great," she said, half-expecting him to start shoveling cookies into his mouth like a chipmunk. "There are always cookies around. The elves like to bake."
no subject
That was the part that seemed the most unbelievable. That it even existed seemed impossible but that it wasn't some rare delicacy, that it was possible to eat it all the time, that seemed unreal.
"And you never run out?"
no subject
"Yeah," she said, smile still on her face, though she knew it was softening from it's earlier grin. "We're not gonna run out. You can eat as much as you like."
She wasn't going to tell him that they didn't need to eat, not at the moment at least. It was clear that he was going to need to eat -- not for nutrition, but for the opportunity to do so.
no subject
Apparently the promise of food that wasn't lizards and bugs and wilted vegetables had lit a fire under his butt because now he was digging around like some curious toddler, getting into things, opening and sometimes spilling them if he didn't realize what was inside was something spillable.
He was almost as much a puppy in human form as her teammate that could actually turn into one.
There were bags and boxes of food in there that he started to open and sniff. And stuff into some of his pockets if he liked what he smelled (or licked). Why stop with the plate she'd put out? He'd go back to eat that entire thing after loading up.
"You said I can eat as much as I like," he said somewhat defensively, glancing over at her, as if expecting judgement for him taking so much food. He hopped up on the counter to get at the higher shelves, kneeling there so he could reach.
Opening a canister, he pulled out strings of dried pasta and started chewing on them, his expression showing that he wasn't necessarily disgusted with them so much as confused about what they were made of. They tasted like nothing.
no subject
"You're supposed to boil those," she explained, gesturing at the noodles hanging out of his mouth. "I'll show you how if you clean up the stuff you've spilled."
Though maybe she should let the elves know to grab someone else if they ever saw Nux trying to cook anything...