Born in the saddle
By Eskalat
"I was born in the saddle.
Mother, one hand clutching the accelerator, pushed me screaming from her womb. Her other hand cradled me - a wet, bloody, screaming bundle. Her grip didn't falter from either. A rider's grip cannot.
Babe clutched to her, tears of agony and joy and terror streaming from her hard and suncracked face, they trailed and dissapeared behind her into the storm of sand and smoke and noise that followed.
She would outrun them. A close thing, though Temhek - her lover, and saddle-sister - would not. As the roaring Iron Sun engine closed on those two, Temhek choked her throttle, veering her motorsteed into a catastrophic slide to clip the wheels of their pursuers. She was torn to shreds. The pursuers where slowed. It was enough, and mother would escape. And I would live.
I ride with Chromeclaw now. They are my family, and comrades - my predator pack. Mother is gone. Sickness took her, but luck was with her again - the pack was near to a Dying Place when that moment came that she could no longer ride. The pack's motarch knew her well, and respected her years and skill. She allowed the half-day's journey to the Dying Place, where we would leave her in the limestone shade, sheltered amongst that ancestral rock.
Today I ride at the head of the pack. I am the tip of the lance. Those we ride against - the hated 'expeditionary force', of Iron Sun tribe (I spit at their name) - they are the same who had pursued my mother and her lover and I on the day of my birth, those many years ago.
Today, I am vengeance. I am a spear of petroleum-lit fire. These eyes fixed forward are warriors eyes. Today I will kill my enemy, who killed my mother's closest, and who gave her the limp that would pain her for the rest of her days (save those spent in the saddle, where the pain was reprieved by riding, and by glorious speed).
I will kill them, and we will strip their parts, and we will take their foreign metals - the over-wrought arms and armours and engines that they slave over. We will bring these trophies back to the tribe. Victorious, bloodied, and laden down with treasure, and with stories of glory. And she will be avenged.
For this is the way of Rust Banner. This is the way of my tribe."
"I was born in the saddle.
Mother, one hand clutching the accelerator, pushed me screaming from her womb. Her other hand cradled me - a wet, bloody, screaming bundle. Her grip didn't falter from either. A rider's grip cannot.
Babe clutched to her, tears of agony and joy and terror streaming from her hard and suncracked face, they trailed and dissapeared behind her into the storm of sand and smoke and noise that followed.
She would outrun them. A close thing, though Temhek - her lover, and saddle-sister - would not. As the roaring Iron Sun engine closed on those two, Temhek choked her throttle, veering her motorsteed into a catastrophic slide to clip the wheels of their pursuers. She was torn to shreds. The pursuers where slowed. It was enough, and mother would escape. And I would live.
I ride with Chromeclaw now. They are my family, and comrades - my predator pack. Mother is gone. Sickness took her, but luck was with her again - the pack was near to a Dying Place when that moment came that she could no longer ride. The pack's motarch knew her well, and respected her years and skill. She allowed the half-day's journey to the Dying Place, where we would leave her in the limestone shade, sheltered amongst that ancestral rock.
Today I ride at the head of the pack. I am the tip of the lance. Those we ride against - the hated 'expeditionary force', of Iron Sun tribe (I spit at their name) - they are the same who had pursued my mother and her lover and I on the day of my birth, those many years ago.
Today, I am vengeance. I am a spear of petroleum-lit fire. These eyes fixed forward are warriors eyes. Today I will kill my enemy, who killed my mother's closest, and who gave her the limp that would pain her for the rest of her days (save those spent in the saddle, where the pain was reprieved by riding, and by glorious speed).
I will kill them, and we will strip their parts, and we will take their foreign metals - the over-wrought arms and armours and engines that they slave over. We will bring these trophies back to the tribe. Victorious, bloodied, and laden down with treasure, and with stories of glory. And she will be avenged.
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