nexus_sages | Enter the (Ex-)Imperator.

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Enter the (Ex-)Imperator.

There's a woman at the edge of the Parklands, knee-deep in grass. She looks like a soldier, one arm a metal prosthetic, a skull-shaped brand marking the nape of her neck, a machete in a sheath at her hip, and possibly other weapons hidden on her person. She's dirty, stained with dust and oil, and tension sings along the lines of her back and shoulders. Like she's waiting to be attacked.

At the same time, though, there's a distinctly misty look in her eyes as she stares out over the field before her. Flowers. Insects. Streams and lakes. Maybe she's hallucinating. Maybe she's dead.

She has one question, though, because beauty is so often a trap: "Is this water safe?"

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She takes a sip of the water and gives him a long, skeptical look over the lip of the canteen. That ought to tell him all he needs to know.

Magic? She barely knows what he means by the word.

"...Mmm." It's a communicative sound, and his expression is slightly wary in return, but he nods mildly and there's sure to be more words to follow.

"Never mind, then. It's just that one never knows what one may run into here. Some worlds... run parallel, and some of those closer than others."

Unlike with the Fool, who hums thoughtfully and then acts like he's used his allotment of letters for the day. Hmmm? Mmmh.

Furiosa's lips twitch at that thought.

"You're saying magic is...common, in your world?"

"I don't believe I ever did say such a thing, no..." He's resuming the stroll at his easy, rocking pace, granting her plenty of time to look around as they go. There are berry brambles ahead, full of scratchy thorns but also glistening dark blackberries ready for picking.

"It's not common and it's not even widely regarded as... real, anymore, but it does exist. And one of its practitioners was planning the downfall of mankind and the world at large. I've yet to encounter a world in which she's succeeded, but in the Nexus it's hardly out of the question that I might yet." He gives a weary kind of sigh, gaze going slightly distant, and that's a somewhat familiar look but on him it's more melancholy than crazed.

She hesitates, looking at the berries as if she thinks she may be dreaming them. Pausing, she touches the brambles first, with a fingertip, then plucks one of the blackberries. A drop of juice stains her palm, and she tries to catch it with her tongue, too lost in the mix of familiarity and novelty to respond to him for the moment.

And then she tastes the fruit and looks for a moment like she just swallowed a live wire. Her eyes fall shut, and she makes a vague 'wait, wait' gesture with her prosthetic arm.

Horvath lifts his eyebrows in an expression of mixed amusement and surprise, but rocks on his feet to settle into a more stable pose, leaning on the cane. He waits, and watches, and when he's fairly sure the berry is basically gone from her mouth he murmurs a single word softly. "Blackberries."

Whether she's had them before her world went pear-shaped and this is a jolt of memory, or whether she's never had anything like it at all, he's willing to let her savor the experience.

She shakes her head, overwhelmed. "They taste like the Green Place. We must have had these once. Or something like them."

She licks her lips a few times, like a cat that's tasted some delicacy it enjoyed, but then she takes a drink of water to wash the flavor away. "Where I grew up, there was green. Trees and shrubs and plants. Some insects and small animals. Last I saw it, everything had died."

And she didn't remember the taste of these until now. She may need a moment to recover. "I want...I need to take some to Max and the girls."

"...Max?" One eyebrow arches, because he's just a little amused to find she's got somebody else at home that shares his own name. "There's enough for you to have more yourself, too. Would you like me to fetch you something to carry some home in, though?" Now that he's watched her reaction, Horvath can't help but take a few limping steps over to pick one for himself, savoring it with a thoughtful smile.

Most of his food these days comes from the grocery store, although Mara has gotten him back to the land a little, more recently. He can see the nostalgic effect they might have, and briefly his mind goes back to picking them when he was just a boy, very long ago.

"I'm sorry. It's... a terrible thing, to live to see the home of one's early life fall to ruin. Perhaps it could be brought back to life, but I know it wouldn't be the same." That's the voice of experience, there, and genuine empathy.

She glances at him; somehow it didn't register how similar 'Max' is to 'Maxim'. Maybe because she instinctively still thinks of her Max as 'Fool'. She watches him taste a berry thoughtfully and plucks another herself, this time turning it between her fingers slowly, touch delicate enough not to break the skin. After a moment she answers slowly, "My...friend. Yes, his name is Max."

"...if you're willing, I'd like that. At least one for each of them. You're very kind."

"Good name." He smirks just a little, eyes twinkling, and gives a mild nod. "If you don't mind waiting here a few minutes, I'm sure I can find something for you to take some home in. Such things are probably better, shared." He limps back a step or two, careful with the cane.

"...And thank you, I suppose. My Master taught us that it benefits the world best when we lift each other up, use our gifts to aid others." Obviously he took the lesson to heart.

She watches him start to move off, quizzical still. His attitude is unfamiliar, particularly for a man so clearly well-off. He must come from a kinder world in general, she thinks, but even at that rate she's impressed.

When he comes back, she'll be sure to ask him questions. For now, she only nods soberly and pops the blackberry into her mouth. It tastes like a little mouthful of Heaven, just like the last. The Sisters will love these.

He retreats a short distance, not wanting to alarm her too much with his unconventional means of transport, but when he does return he has a small stack of square baskets with lids. They're smallish, only the size of soup bowls, and probably manufactured in some sweatshop in China, but they're woven from some kind of flat straw or wicker, natural materials that he hopes wouldn't raise too many eyebrows in her world. He's not even sure if that's an issue for her or not, but better safe than sorry.

The rocking limp is distinctive, more an issue of balance than a leg that won't hold weight, and his left ankle doesn't bend. It's a kinder world, that he's from, but not one without its share of injurious circumstances. He offers out the baskets with a gentle smile, though. "I'll help pick. You... won't have any trouble, I hope, bringing home unexpected gifts? For some people this place is too awkward to explain, back home..."

Poor Horvath. Straw and wicker will actually raise more eyebrows where she's from than a tupperware container would. There's plastic all over the damn place; it's just considered relatively useless by now. Metal is what's valuable.

She takes the baskets he offers and looks them over with interest, then nods to him. "Thanks. I have no idea how I'll explain, but the people I intend to tell trust me more than anyone should. The worst they'll do is make sure I haven't been hallucinating from heatstroke."

It may raise eyebrows, but it may also give them ideas. In a world where every scrap and resource is valuable, something woven from plant fibers would be useful to study and copy. After all, not all parts of the plants they have are edible, and it's another way to make use of those. He just thought something natural and basic would be less out of place, and he doesn't know enough of her world to know how wrong he is.

"I'd imagine they'll be convinced you're not quickly enough, with this." He keeps a couple of the baskets in hand, limping closer and finding a grip on the edge of one with his cane hand so he can pick berries to fill it with.

Sometimes they use chaff to soften stone floors for the pups, or to stuff into mattresses for higher ranking War Boys. Weaving it makes some sense, too, though. Furiosa thinks maybe the Vuvalini used to do this. She'll ask Hela and Maat later on.

"I guess they will be." She smiles a little and follows his example, carefully plucking berries and dropping them into the basket. It's not until hers is fairly well-stocked that she pauses, having come upon a praying mantis.

She bends to look eye-to-eye with it, visibly intrigued. It's pretty, and she feels slightly guilty for wondering whether it's edible.

It's a peaceful thing, to just pick berries with someone, and as loquacious as Horvath seems he's not bothered by a stretch of companionable silence, either. He picks the best berries he finds, and only eats a couple, because he's not worried about being able to get them again the way she might be. His fingers stain a little with berry juice, and the thorns snag at him once in a while, but there's something pleasantly nostalgic about the activity.

When she pauses and peers, Horvath leans over a little to look, too. "Praying mantis. They eat other insects, keep the pests that might eat the berries under control."

The bug tilts its head, seemingly looking Furiosa in the eye. "...I should leave it be, then?"

She's fascinated. It's a strangely elegant little thing, pointed and leggy and alert. "I don't think I ever saw anything quite like it. Maybe there aren't any left where I'm from. We raise darkling beetles for the grubs, and there are plenty of spiders, scorpions, a few other beetles and flies. Nothing like this."

"Probably for the best, yes. I'm not sure they're capable of giving a human more than a pinch, but they're beneficial insects, I believe." He's not a bug expert, but her description of what they have in their world makes him think.

"Do you have bees? Pollinators? That could help with plants. I don't know much about them, but I'm sure you could find someone who does. I'm afraid I'm more of a scholar and an old soldier than I am a botanist..."

Furiosa moves around the bug gently, picking a few more berries carefully so as not to disturb it. How much animal life has died out on her world, she wonders? Would it be worth it to reintroduce something like this little creature, or would the radiation just kill it?

These are questions she can't find out alone. She's going to need help from home, for certain.

"We used to have bees. I haven't seen them in a long time. There are still flower flies here and there, but we do our pollination by hand, mostly."

If anything would survive the radiation, it's bugs. They must have some nightmarish roaches, somewhere. Or possibly Weta bugs. Just one of those could practically be a whole meal.

"That's a shame. If it's a problem, though, I'm sure you could find somebody more expert on the matter. I'm afraid I've gotten lazy, myself, and the world I live in allows it." He gives her a wry little smile, almost apologetic. There was a time people in his own world lived much closer to the sources of their food, and had to work for it, and the change was gradual but the contrast is astonishing when he bothers to think about it.

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Enter the (Ex-)Imperator.

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