35 Frost, Year 122
[Closed]
Part I
The verbal cues and her heels were all she could use to guide him, and all that she would use. She had seen others use riding crops, but no true nomad would, as one of her uncles had told her back when she had first been introduced to camel racing like this as a teenager. And while she could say no end of negative things about her father, the man was good to animals. If she had even considered taking a crop to Sakima when she had raced her six years ago, her father likely would have skinned her, if he hadn't drawn and quartered her first. But that same care and respect, not to mention her love for the ornery beast, was part of what built up her relationship with him. And that relationship, that she had worked on since he had been born, was not going to be jeopardized by this. She could feel in him the desire to move, and there was no better way than to charge through the endless, open sands of the Atraxian Expanse.
He responded to her, as Hilana felt the excitement between them. His and hers, the way her own Wildness sang to a crescendo. The song of the sands was loud, the lightning and thunder and chaos in her heart and bones and soul guiding her on. It wasn't as fast as a wyvern, but this was a much-needed shot of adrenaline as Hayima'el left a cloud of dust in his wake. Her nerves sang, knowing if something came up on them suddenly... she might well fall. And falling at this speed, at this height... she could very well break her neck. And she would be a goner. His padded feet pounded on the sand as he galloped on at full speed, the houses and buildings in the distance a blur if she had looked at them. It was almost time to make the turn, and the girl sank down loud, crouched as flat as she could get herself without sitting. Sitting like this might very well get her thrown at this speed. "Left," she told him, not needing to apply the extra pressure of the reins and her feet for the camel to know which way she wanted him.
They took the turn on as sharp an angle as Hilana remembered the derby track's to be, and sharper still in the event that he was crowded going into it. The speed of which they carried on with was what made the turns challenging, and she had gotten down as low as she had to minimize the air resistance. This was a process - his learning to move at this speed with this saddle and her weight there compared to the normal speeds and saddle. But that was why she was working with him: she didn’t believe in half-assing anything, and all she could do was constantly practice with him like this whenever she could get the time after letting him rest. His size and conditioning was great for what she normally did, but in a race...
Well, she would get him as ready as she could. That was all she could do.
The distance was another factor. For his age group, for the main event, the track would be a full six miles of desert, and with his long legs and his top speed, that was going to be a solid 12 minutes of a hard gallop. Horses ran faster, normally, but their endurance at high speeds wasn’t there. Camels, on the other hand, were meant to go the distance. Their endurance and stamina, particularly in the sandy environment that they lived in, were second to none. A normal horse race was far shorter: most were at or under a mile and a half, fewer still were over two miles... not counting the exceedingly rare marathons. And considering their top speed was almost twice that of a galloping camel... Not necessarily on sand, but on turf. On sand, horses stood no chance. The physiology of their hooves versus the camel’s wide footpads were apples and oranges when one compared them, and it was clear which was actually native to the sands. Keeping the differences in mind, a horse racing on turf might only take a minute and a half to run their race. The big race of the derby’s design was meant to showcase a camel’s stamina... and the rider’s. There was a lot that could happen in those twelve minutes.
And Hilana wasn’t thinking about it as they made the turn. She was able to rise back up to her previous height in the stirrups as they straightened out, her tongue clicking at him. The one advantage his great size and height would give her was in how much distance Hayima’el could chew up with his legs, but that meant she had to get him free of the opponents in order to let him open up. She was training him for greater distances than this; but so too was just about every opponent that she would have to face. The girl’s knowledge of navigation helped her keep track of the distance as the minutes ticked on, working on keeping her centre low and close to Hayima’el. She was just above that saddle, and the broader stirrups were comfortable with the well-broken boots. If she needed to, she could grab her handholds, but Hilana was confident in that. For now, she just had to stay above the hump, her gaze focused beyond Hayima’el’s head before she adjusted his course slightly with rein and heel. It didn’t matter that there was nothing in front of him, he responded to her, simply because he trusted her to guide him. Inasmuch as it was easy to just let him have his head and let him go straight on, Hilana needed him to be responsive, in case she had to guide him around another camel.
In the distance, Hilana saw a shadowy monster, then another, and then another. She kept an eye on them, even as Hayima’el kept on running, kept on racing, and she maintained her balance in the stirrups. She needed to focus. At least at the Derby, the racetrack would be warded... But she didn’t have time to think about that. “On,” she urged him. She couldn’t allow him to slow, not that he was, but the bull still needed guidance. He wasn’t an experienced racer, not by any stretch of the word, but his stamina was where it needed to be. When they went to Tertium, there would at least be guideposts and more of them racing together, unless she managed to break him early and keep him running ahead of the rest of the pack. His padded feet were drumming on the ground as Hilana stayed close to his hump, her fingers and feet guiding him around the next turn. It was a bit wider, as she was turning them back towards the way that they had come, rather than keep careening towards where the military areas were and possibly raising some sort of fuss there if they managed to detect her behind the Mask.
The wide loop might have been the best choice, because one of the wyvern riders was heading straight towards the shadow creatures that she had seen in the distance, and Hayima’el didn’t like the giant flying so very, very closely overhead, as he snorted, turning his head away and pulling on the reins. “No,” she told him, correcting him and getting his head back to where she needed it. “It’s okay, it’s okay. On, Hayima’el, on!” she soothed him, rubbing his hump with the flat of her palm. She didn’t blame him for not liking that; that was entirely natural. And as strong as he was, as confident as he was, that was perfectly natural for him not to like seeing a giant flying reptile so close. Chances were, neither wyvern nor rider had any way of knowing how close to them they actually were, or maybe had seen the trails and cloud of dust that they were leaving behind, but whatever it was... that was far too close for comfort as Hilana coaxed him back into focus. “Focus,” she urged him, crooning and pressing with her palm. Regardless of what she wanted of him, which was to keep on galloping at this top speed, she knew that she needed to slow it down and walk it out. Wyverns in the wild were not a good thing, but she couldn’t have him feeling encouraged to lose it if one went over and around him.
“Easy, my love. Easy, easy,” she pulled up on the reins to his halter, letting him slow from a gallop, to a canter, to a trot, and then down to a walk. She rose up in the stirrups again, moving over the harness that kept the racing saddle behind the hump, and worked her boots into the little foot holds so that she could sit closer to his head as he padded along. “Good boy,” she rubbed his neck even as he slowed to a stop, turning to look off in the direction that the wyvern had been. Hilana could only barely see it in the sky, as it had continued on with its patrol to keep the citizens safe from the beastly creatures that kept on coming. “It’s alright. Everything is good.” She stayed where she was with him, just rubbing that strong, curved neck of his. But after a few minutes, he snorted again and the Vastiana knew that they were good again. She moved back over the harness to get herself situated on the saddle again, the reins threaded between her fingers once again. He looked at her over his shoulder, and then felt her move up into the stirrups. His head turned back around, as if waiting in preparation. It was just the two of them, the sands, and the adrenaline.
“On!”
[Closed]
Part I
The verbal cues and her heels were all she could use to guide him, and all that she would use. She had seen others use riding crops, but no true nomad would, as one of her uncles had told her back when she had first been introduced to camel racing like this as a teenager. And while she could say no end of negative things about her father, the man was good to animals. If she had even considered taking a crop to Sakima when she had raced her six years ago, her father likely would have skinned her, if he hadn't drawn and quartered her first. But that same care and respect, not to mention her love for the ornery beast, was part of what built up her relationship with him. And that relationship, that she had worked on since he had been born, was not going to be jeopardized by this. She could feel in him the desire to move, and there was no better way than to charge through the endless, open sands of the Atraxian Expanse.
He responded to her, as Hilana felt the excitement between them. His and hers, the way her own Wildness sang to a crescendo. The song of the sands was loud, the lightning and thunder and chaos in her heart and bones and soul guiding her on. It wasn't as fast as a wyvern, but this was a much-needed shot of adrenaline as Hayima'el left a cloud of dust in his wake. Her nerves sang, knowing if something came up on them suddenly... she might well fall. And falling at this speed, at this height... she could very well break her neck. And she would be a goner. His padded feet pounded on the sand as he galloped on at full speed, the houses and buildings in the distance a blur if she had looked at them. It was almost time to make the turn, and the girl sank down loud, crouched as flat as she could get herself without sitting. Sitting like this might very well get her thrown at this speed. "Left," she told him, not needing to apply the extra pressure of the reins and her feet for the camel to know which way she wanted him.
They took the turn on as sharp an angle as Hilana remembered the derby track's to be, and sharper still in the event that he was crowded going into it. The speed of which they carried on with was what made the turns challenging, and she had gotten down as low as she had to minimize the air resistance. This was a process - his learning to move at this speed with this saddle and her weight there compared to the normal speeds and saddle. But that was why she was working with him: she didn’t believe in half-assing anything, and all she could do was constantly practice with him like this whenever she could get the time after letting him rest. His size and conditioning was great for what she normally did, but in a race...
Well, she would get him as ready as she could. That was all she could do.
The distance was another factor. For his age group, for the main event, the track would be a full six miles of desert, and with his long legs and his top speed, that was going to be a solid 12 minutes of a hard gallop. Horses ran faster, normally, but their endurance at high speeds wasn’t there. Camels, on the other hand, were meant to go the distance. Their endurance and stamina, particularly in the sandy environment that they lived in, were second to none. A normal horse race was far shorter: most were at or under a mile and a half, fewer still were over two miles... not counting the exceedingly rare marathons. And considering their top speed was almost twice that of a galloping camel... Not necessarily on sand, but on turf. On sand, horses stood no chance. The physiology of their hooves versus the camel’s wide footpads were apples and oranges when one compared them, and it was clear which was actually native to the sands. Keeping the differences in mind, a horse racing on turf might only take a minute and a half to run their race. The big race of the derby’s design was meant to showcase a camel’s stamina... and the rider’s. There was a lot that could happen in those twelve minutes.
And Hilana wasn’t thinking about it as they made the turn. She was able to rise back up to her previous height in the stirrups as they straightened out, her tongue clicking at him. The one advantage his great size and height would give her was in how much distance Hayima’el could chew up with his legs, but that meant she had to get him free of the opponents in order to let him open up. She was training him for greater distances than this; but so too was just about every opponent that she would have to face. The girl’s knowledge of navigation helped her keep track of the distance as the minutes ticked on, working on keeping her centre low and close to Hayima’el. She was just above that saddle, and the broader stirrups were comfortable with the well-broken boots. If she needed to, she could grab her handholds, but Hilana was confident in that. For now, she just had to stay above the hump, her gaze focused beyond Hayima’el’s head before she adjusted his course slightly with rein and heel. It didn’t matter that there was nothing in front of him, he responded to her, simply because he trusted her to guide him. Inasmuch as it was easy to just let him have his head and let him go straight on, Hilana needed him to be responsive, in case she had to guide him around another camel.
In the distance, Hilana saw a shadowy monster, then another, and then another. She kept an eye on them, even as Hayima’el kept on running, kept on racing, and she maintained her balance in the stirrups. She needed to focus. At least at the Derby, the racetrack would be warded... But she didn’t have time to think about that. “On,” she urged him. She couldn’t allow him to slow, not that he was, but the bull still needed guidance. He wasn’t an experienced racer, not by any stretch of the word, but his stamina was where it needed to be. When they went to Tertium, there would at least be guideposts and more of them racing together, unless she managed to break him early and keep him running ahead of the rest of the pack. His padded feet were drumming on the ground as Hilana stayed close to his hump, her fingers and feet guiding him around the next turn. It was a bit wider, as she was turning them back towards the way that they had come, rather than keep careening towards where the military areas were and possibly raising some sort of fuss there if they managed to detect her behind the Mask.
The wide loop might have been the best choice, because one of the wyvern riders was heading straight towards the shadow creatures that she had seen in the distance, and Hayima’el didn’t like the giant flying so very, very closely overhead, as he snorted, turning his head away and pulling on the reins. “No,” she told him, correcting him and getting his head back to where she needed it. “It’s okay, it’s okay. On, Hayima’el, on!” she soothed him, rubbing his hump with the flat of her palm. She didn’t blame him for not liking that; that was entirely natural. And as strong as he was, as confident as he was, that was perfectly natural for him not to like seeing a giant flying reptile so close. Chances were, neither wyvern nor rider had any way of knowing how close to them they actually were, or maybe had seen the trails and cloud of dust that they were leaving behind, but whatever it was... that was far too close for comfort as Hilana coaxed him back into focus. “Focus,” she urged him, crooning and pressing with her palm. Regardless of what she wanted of him, which was to keep on galloping at this top speed, she knew that she needed to slow it down and walk it out. Wyverns in the wild were not a good thing, but she couldn’t have him feeling encouraged to lose it if one went over and around him.
“Easy, my love. Easy, easy,” she pulled up on the reins to his halter, letting him slow from a gallop, to a canter, to a trot, and then down to a walk. She rose up in the stirrups again, moving over the harness that kept the racing saddle behind the hump, and worked her boots into the little foot holds so that she could sit closer to his head as he padded along. “Good boy,” she rubbed his neck even as he slowed to a stop, turning to look off in the direction that the wyvern had been. Hilana could only barely see it in the sky, as it had continued on with its patrol to keep the citizens safe from the beastly creatures that kept on coming. “It’s alright. Everything is good.” She stayed where she was with him, just rubbing that strong, curved neck of his. But after a few minutes, he snorted again and the Vastiana knew that they were good again. She moved back over the harness to get herself situated on the saddle again, the reins threaded between her fingers once again. He looked at her over his shoulder, and then felt her move up into the stirrups. His head turned back around, as if waiting in preparation. It was just the two of them, the sands, and the adrenaline.
“On!”