So Many Groundhog Days, So Many Ways
primarybufferpanel and bonehandledknife are completely to blame for this!
Valkyrie can’t be sure that this hasn’t been happening for days, weeks, perhaps even months. After all, one day amongst the shifting sands of the dunes is much like the one that came before and the one that follows. At some point however, she realises that the sensation of those few seconds where she loses the power to move…act…decide…is familiar. And at some point when she wakes because the first light of dawn is creeping beneath the edge of her blanket she knows that sensation was only a few instants earlier.
She starts to notice things. A particularly fine, meaty lizard that she kills with a dart appears at around the same time each day. She starts to observe more closely. A distinctive cloud is in the sky each time she pushes back the blanket in the morning.
She never knows when the blackness will overtake her though. Most days it comes later and later, although nothing Valkyrie does or doesn’t do seems to affect it.
The first time she makes it to dusk seems significant. The night is falling. Surely if she gets through the night, when she wakes it will be a new and different morning. But the stars are scarcely visible against the night sky before the familiar pull exerts itself on her again and she resets once more.
She begins to reach the night most days. Sometimes she even finishes her watch before Smithy relieves her and sends her to take her turn sleeping. But still she wakes and it is the same morning.
For a while she tries to stay awake during the night, but all that changes is the fact that she is aware of the moment when she is pulled back.
At last there comes a morning when she wakes and the cloud is not there and the only lizard she sees is a runty thing that is scarcely worth the effort of chewing. And it is most definitely a different day. They haven’t seen a dust plume in the distance for weeks says Keeper, although Valkyrie is quite sure that for her (at least) it has been more days than that.
Her bike is hidden behind the dunes. Her clanswomen lie in wait. And Valkyrie climbs the pylon to bait their trap. The dust suggests something bigger than a motorbike and that would be a rich prize for the Vuvalini, especially if it’s not running on fumes.
She screams her lament and pleads for help, and cannot believe her ears when she hears the words recited by the figure who steps down from the truck.
Valkyrie calls her tribe. She slides, she shrugs into her wrap, and stumbles across the sand in disbelief towards her Furiosa.
Another night passes, and they turn back but it’s still a new day. There’s another night, another morning, and still no slice that disconnects Valkyrie from the progression of time. Things have changed.
Then Valkyrie finds out what anchors her to the loop. She watches the War Rig overrun by Warboys and Polecats faster than she can reload and when she sees the headshot that claims Furiosa her two thoughts as she is yanked backwards once more is that at least it was quick and now she knows what if not why.
At least that gives her a strategy she thinks. The days when she sees the cloud, kills the lizard, goes to sleep, and waits for a plume of dust that never comes only to wake again are agony. But some days are good and the truck rolls to a stop at the bottom of the dunes.
The look of fragile hope on Furiosa’s face is the same every time, and Valkyrie can feel that the hand threading through the thickness of her hair is doing it for the first time. She tries to run faster than the bikes, to get to Furiosa, to tell her that she knows her, to end the doubt even one second earlier.
Then she tries to work out what she needs to do to stop it repeating.
Sometimes they get close to the canyon before Joe stops them and Furiosa’s life ends along with Valkyrie’s temporality. Sometimes they’re not even within sight of it when the Gigahorse becomes their main obstacle and Furiosa dies when she tries to remove it from their path.
Valkyrie realises that the two are connected. Furiosa needs to live. Furiosa also needs to kill Joe.
Keeping Furiosa alive, keeping the nameless fool alive to keep Furiosa alive, is Valkyrie’s new focus. It still doesn’t work. She tries every position on the Rig. Takes out every person who hurt either of them on a previous iteration. And still the cycle repeats.
Finally she disagrees as they plan their run. She needs to be on a bike, be mobile, take out threats unexpectedly. Furiosa argues against it. She explains how motorbikes are good for a few hits but are the preserve of War Boys reaching their half-lives because they rarely make it back. Valkyrie insists.
It seems like Furiosa was right when Maadi takes a harpoon to the face and they topple to the ground. Valkyrie takes aim at the Gigahorse and watches four shots fair and true leave mere cracks in the glass. As the monstrous vehicle passes over her, she jumps to her feet and keeps firing.
Valkyrie isn’t stupid. She knows there is an entire War Party coming up behind her, but she keeps firing at Joe’s car. The last thing she remembers is one of the Imperators on the back falling to her rifle as she keeps firing. She hopes it’s enough.
The next morning is a new day, but Valkyrie doesn’t wake to see it.
(via fuckyeahisawthat)
