audio;

[hellofist]

Who: Cass and you!
Broadcast: audio
Action: three twins if you want!!
When: now buddy

I know there's, uh... doctors here, and scientists. People with those augments, who can... do those jobs.

Are there teachers? Anyone who... can teach reading? Lots of people... make just text messages, here. Figure, I'm probably missing things. I want to learn, if anyone... can teach me.

[Batman would want her to be doing more than she has been when it comes to the more scholastic requirements of being a superhero, after all. The idea of him somehow showing up here and being disappointed in how much she's slacked off in those terms doesn't sit well at all.]

Oh, doesn't have to... be a teacher. Anyone who knows, would like to help... would be helpful.

Comments

[iamawaited]

No, just-- I was a driver back home, and I learned about reading on vehicle schematics.

[And he kind of sucks at it, but at least he can a little.]

Comes in handy 'cause one of my rig's crew doesn't talk at all.

[hellofist]

I couldn't talk, either. This is a... recent development.

Was it hard, learning that way?

[She can't imagine schematics having a whole lot of words to be learned on them.]

[iamawaited]

Learned what I needed to know for the engines. Plus I put my name on my brake pedal.

[He grins a little wistfully, though she can't see it; if she could, he might show her his scars, and she might know just how much he knows about schematics now. Actually-- he switches to video, like Jim taught him, and holds up a hand.]

Do you--?

[He makes a sign to indicate, well, sign, the way Coil does.]

[hellofist]

[His scars are extreme, but if anyone knows that they don't make a person it's Cass. She doesn't look surprised to see his scars, her eyes don't widen with pity, she just smiles at him like a greeting and focuses on his question.]

Some. I picked it up... because of him, and Zhas too. He showed me some. Can mostly just... tell what they say. Can you talk that way?

[iamawaited]

Just a little.

[He wouldn't understand it if she had given him pity; whatever he thinks of the Immortan and his fanatics now -- and that's not to say he even knows what he thinks -- he's still proud of his scars. He doesn't know how else to be.]

He makes me read some, too. How'd you talk before that?

[hellofist]

Through movement. [Through hitting and being hit, really, but movement is a cleaner way to put it. It makes it easier when she doesn't have to immediately explain that part.] When someone moves, I can... see their intention. If they're going to... throw a punch, or shake hands. Their body talks, and I read that.

[iamawaited]

Oh.

[And for a moment, he accepts this. Until it occurs to him, in a way it might not have before:]

What if you've got something to say?

[hellofist]

[Huh. No one's ever asked that before but now that it has been, the answer is painfully clear.]

I didn't.

[She didn't have anything at all to say. Training was her life and new opportunities to push herself were provided more than they should have been. At the time, she had everything she wanted. She didn't need to say anything, even if she could have.

That's sad. It doesn't sit right, realizing she had something so simple taken away.]

I can now. That's what matters.

[iamawaited]

[There are probably a lot of people who would find that strange, or at least ask more, but Nux just kind of nods. He's chatty for a War Boy, but his life before the Wives was still so physical, and so narrowly defined, that he probably could have easily got by without saying a word. All he ever needed to do was show people what he could do.

He's still not completely sure how that's changed, but he knows that it has.]

I'm Nux.

[hellofist]

Cassandra. [A pause, because that doesn't feel quite right.] Cass. I'm Cass.

You're a pilot, on your ship?

[iamawaited]

I'm the pilot.

[hellofist]

[The pilot. She doesn't even have to read his body language to get the point of that very particular emphasis.]

Yes. [And he said vehicles, and brake pedals, and engines. A car.] Is driving it... like your car, at all? From home?

[iamawaited]

Sort of.

[He misses his coupe, but that was long gone well before he got here, anyway. Still--]

Doesn't feel as... real, yet.

[hellofist]

That makes sense. Things feel weird, here.

[At least guns and swords are pretty much the same no matter where you are. There was never much struggle adjusting to her security augment. Driving in space has to be a very odd sensation.]

Had a motorcycle, at home. Figure, that probably feels similar. Since it's... only two wheels, and ships have none.

[It makes sense in her head sort of.]

[iamawaited]

[He nods, considering.]

Bikes are okay. I can drive just about anything.

[That's sort of bragging, but sort of not -- he certainly hasn't come across anything he doesn't know how to drive.]

But it's the friction, too, right? Driving bikes and rigs, you've got wheels on the sand. Coming out of atmo here was like that, it was terrifically shiny, but it hasn't been like that since.

[hellofist]

[Rigs. That's the kind of word Cass would latch onto and use whenever it seemed fitting. She's gonna have to remember that one.

And she sees that, that pride in Nux when he tells her he can drive anything. She likes to see it, the way people seem brighter when they're talking about the things they know they're good at, and as he goes on with his description his body language fills in the holes, contentment and safety that come with being a pilot, the ability to control where and when he goes somewhere.]

Probably will be, again. We get attacked sometimes.

[Being shot at causes a lot of friction that totally counts.]

[iamawaited]

Really?

[It can't hurt, that's for sure. Incongruously, he brightens, then grins, showing his real teeth beneath the ones scarred onto his mouth.]

Furiosa said we might.

[She'd promised, really. It had been an important part of their deal.]