A Komodo-Rhino's Tale
Prompt: #4 Two Fugitives by vynessia361
Title: A Komodo-Rhino's Tale
Author: teamabodo
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~1600
Warnings/Pairings: Implied Rape, Fear Tactics, Azula/Song, past Azula/Ty Lee/Mai
Summary: Azula is looking for Zuko, dedicated to her search. It doesn't mean she can't have fun on the side.
Notes: I know the picture has a mongoose-lizard, but when I started writing this, he wanted to be a komodo-rhino.
*****
The komodo-rhino snorts, his thick legs propelling him forward along the pathway. The smell of sap, trees and earth fill his senses, and at once he is homesick for the sulfur and ash of his homeland. Too many days he and his herd have stomped through this dusty land, driven forward by the riders that smelled like embers. Astride his back is the leader of the riders, a female that invokes fear in her followers. The komodo-rhino respects that, but he prefers his followers to come because they know they should, that he is the strongest and will protect them. But that’s probably why he’s not a rider.
Around the bull komodo-rhino is his herd, each with one of the ember riders atop them in their metal hide. He can feel their heat, how each of his fellow komodo-rhinos grows hot under the grueling hours under the sun and moving forward in this foreign land.
A breeze rolls by and he breathes it in, only to pause a moment. There is more to this scent than just sap and dirt. The komodo-rhino flares his nostrils again and drags in the scents of riders and ostrich-horses and the distinct scent of settlement. The female leader astride him calls out, and at a single sound from her, the whole herd is pulled into stillness. Then she’s calling again and digging her heels into the bull komodo-rhino’s hide, the sign to move forward, faster, faster.
Her sense of smell must be good. He still couldn’t see the wooden caves that the riders liked to live in.
The herd charged forward, feet digging into the ground and drawing up dust from the road. A pull at the rope that’s tied to his horns pulls him to the right, and the komodo-rhino follows, confusion gracing his mind only briefly. The female leader knows what she’s doing.
A few moments pass and to the settlement he smelled draws into sight, and the komodo-rhino is rather impressed. The wooden shelters hid behind a line of trees and he could not see them. But now the scent of cooking meat on fires and the sweat of rider shelters are almost overwhelming, as well as the sight of wood and riders that smell like dirt.
The herd slows upon the approach, and walk into the smells of foreigners. Only when the scent is fully around them does the female leader pull him to a stop, his herd following his example. He can smell unease in all the dirt riders, as well as excitement from his own rider. The female leader calls out to the dirt riders that had gathered at the edge of his peripheral, but they make no response to her words. The earthy smell tickles his nose and he snorts as the female leader communicates something to the dirt riders, and he hears the sounds of ember riders dismounting.
White leafs are passed around to the dirt riders, but they all remain silent.
The female leader astride his back is not at all pleased with this, and once more says something. At her command, the ember riders seem to explode into life, the embers burning hot into fire. The dirt riders scream, children beginning to sob, and the smell of fear is overwhelming.
He snorts again. The smell of fear always smells foul, sour like spoiled food.
At once the dirt riders begin to talk, babbling over each other in a rush to quench the fire that is mounted on his fellow komodo-rhinos. Something satisfies the female leader and she shifts on his back. The fires fall back to embers and the female leader makes brisk words to her ember riders in the metal hide. Then her heels dig back into his own hide, barely a tickle to his thick skin, and he’s in motion again, the sounds of only a few of his herd following him quickly at his heels.
The small gathering of komodo-rhinos make their way around to the other end of the settlement, and the wooden structures are not so close together. The smells of smaller animals become stronger at their approach, as well as the sounds of their little lives pecking and pawing at the dusty ground.
The female leader pulls the bull komodo-rhino towards each wooden shelter, and at each the family of dust riders inside is called upon, and dragged out. The ember riders with the metal hide show the dirt riders the white leaf, and are asked brisk questions. They all respond in a negative, their smells of fear growing thicker as the smell of anger strengthens from his rider.
From the other side of the road, the komodo-rhino sees the small figure of a female dust rider leave her home, the first to approach willingly. She does not come to them, staying close to her wooden shelter, but the female leader notices her almost as fast as he does. A tug at the rope to his horn, and he begins to turn towards the girl, walking up the stone pathway not unlike the other stone pathways to wooden shelters.
The scent of ostrich-horse floods his senses for a moment, but the scent is stale. Old. There was an ostrich-horse here, but now it’s gone. Good riddance. The irritating birds were always too loud, no loyalty between them, not like the loyalty in his own herd.
Underneath, there’s the smell of sickness, not unlike the smells that come from after a fight, or in the dying. He snorts and jerks a bit when the briefest of scents fills his nose. So fast he thinks he must have imagined it.
The smell of an ember rider. But not one he recognizes.
The female leader dismounts, her form slight and quick. She takes back the white leaf one of her companions gave the girl and grabs the girl’s upper arm.
The anger and frustration from the female leader is replaced with excitement, not unlike when an eel-hound hunts and finds the scent of pray. Yes, that’s exactly the scent. The sweet scent of excitement all but covers up the sour smell of fear and the bull komodo-rhino watches his rider closely. Something is different here.
The girl shouts and cries out as the female leader draws in closer to the girl. Anger is seasoning the excitement now and the komodo-rhino watches as the female leader waves a hand to the riders that were still straddling their komodo-rhinos. A bark of command and they dismount, the few ember riders with them swarming into the wooden cave, drawing more screams from within.
The girl sobs and writhes in the female leader’s grasp, trying to escape the tight grip the leader has on her captive. The komodo-rhino watches as the girl cries and screams as the dirt riders from within the structure are dragged out, each being snarled at by the ember riders. He grows bored from watching, all there is to see are riders communicating in a way he cannot and dirt riders screaming.
Nothing new.
He sniffs along the ground, noticing his herd doing the same and he reached out for some grass, pulling it between his lips. He chews on the grass - does everything taste like dirt here?-as he looks up to see the female leader pull her captive towards the structure. He swallows as the cries and smells grow muffled behind closed wood.
He flares his nostrils, checking to see if the rider he had the honor of carrying is in any distress. The smells are difficult to determined, so he pulls up another clump of grass. The komodo-rhino chews in thought, his beady eyes never leaving that wooden structure that so many people had hidden inside. Riders are strange to want to be inside a cramped shelter. Even ember riders do things like that. None want the open range that allows for space to rest and roam.
At the next clump of dirt tasting grass the scents change, to one he recognizes more readily. He smelled it frequently when that annoying female and that boring female visited the female leader after her ember riders had ridden on his herd.
He stomps the ground a bit, envious that the female leader gets to mate and he does not, but there’s little he can do but stir up dust. The next grass bite tastes like dust and he can smell the fear and distress in the air, leaking from that house in a delicate perfume.
Another clump of dirty grass. Why does he keep eating this grass? The komodo-rhino chews thoughtfully on the grass in his mouth and swallows, turning away from the grimy grass. He stares at the ember riders in metal hide with their dirt rider captives, the way the dirt riders are shoved together so the ember riders can tag team fear inducing words.
The weak collapse into tears, and they sob on the ground while the female leader had her way with the girl dirt rider. Everyone has to wait for a long while.
As the female leader briskly walks out of the wooden structure -not a hair out of place- the komodo-rhino briefly wonders why riders always spend so long procreating with a single rider. It’s much more efficient to be quick with many than to take so long with one. But riders can sometimes be stupid like that.
A dismissive wave of her hand, the female leader speaks with a very heavy accent of satisfaction on her tongue. Dirt riders are released and the female leader deftly mounts his large form. She shouts something to the ember riders and they’re charging back to the rest of the herd. There is a finality in her tone that sends a shiver down his spine.
She knows where she’s going.