What happens on Tumblr stays on Tumblr.
Or possibly should.
AU Stargate Universe Tumblrprompt. This really really honestly truly genuinely was intended to be a quick drabble. Now it just looks like an intro for an AU piece of weirdness which will expose every inch of my lack of knowledge of the American Old West. Please stop me before I hurt myself.
Author: EasyThereGenius
Rating: PG-13 (so far)
Summary: AU - Stargate Universe characters in the American Old West.
Prompt: request from autumninthenorth on Tumblr
Warnings: Unedited. Idiotic. Unfinished.
Horses.
Horses were the problem.
Lieutenant-Colonel Young rested his weight briefly on his good leg and gave the sweating, blown quarter-horse in front of him another slow, assessing look through narrowed eyes.
The ground around them was the ubiquitous yellow-dun of the endless mesa, the grass fading to straw in another relentless summer that never seemed to end. Ugly clouds of dust were still curling to rest after the battle, and Young could taste the grit in his mouth. His horse blew out a sad, slobbering breath. The flies were gathering about it, black around the white flecks of froth that wreathed its soft mouth. Blood in the froth, too, as it dripped to the dust.
Young resisted the urge to sigh, because the clogged air would just have been far too unpalatable, and moved forward to place his fingers inside the beast’s mouth, running the tips over the teeth and lips. The creature lipped and jawed, hoping for water. He couldn’t find a cut or bite in the mouth, and the bit hadn‘t chafed it raw. If that blood was coming from the horse’s lungs, it was good only for dogmeat.
The problems with damn horses were legion: worse than sheep for diseases and injuries and just collapsing for no obviously available reason, in Young’s experience. This one had comported itself better than most: standing firm while others died around them, not losing its footing when the bodies underfoot had become impossible not to trample. Deep down, riding horses hated trampling on people more than poison. Young’s horse - nameless, as it had been a replacement at the last town for a horse little more than spare ribs under a skin - had blood splashed up its legs to the hock.
It was, however, the last horse left standing amongst the corpses riddled with arrows and buckshot. The rest were fled, dead, or dying.
Apart from one. The fleabitten appaloosa thirty feet away, standing head hanging with its back to Young, lead reins loose, and saddle empty. No, not quite empty. The sole of a boot, pointing to the skies and spur winking in the harsh light, was just visible behind the horn of the saddle.
Young brushed a smear of grime from his forehead and shaded his eyes. The boot twitched, began to twist and thrash as the unseated rider tried to right himself.
Okay, so maybe horses weren’t the only problem after all. It was traditionally about this time that Young raised a curse squarely in the direction of Custer. Without that damn preening fool’s discovery of gold in 1874, the Great Plains would have been far less full of these soft men with their hard eyes and bellies full of nothing but desire for wealth. Sometimes, usually at these times when the air stank of blood and the flies seemed to be breeding independently out of the dirt, Young could almost see why the Sioux were angry with them.
Leading his exhausted horse, leaning on its heaving flank, he moved. It was a long thirty feet, punctuated with the detritus of the raid. The appaloosa whickered at him, rolling eyes back in pained warning. It was dying.
The man revealed hanging upside-down from the saddle, boot wedged firmly through the stirrup, looked up at him in a swaying halo of dirty hair, pupils pin-pricked in the sun. Coughed, once, painfully, before speaking.
“Where - the fuck - is my hat?”
The accent was unfamiliar, the tone decidedly more angry than any miner who’d just had his behind pulled out of a scalping had any right to be. Young considered this opening sally for a long moment, allowing the dust to clear a little and the sound of men slowly dying around them to filter into the gap.
“Hell if I know,” he said. “But if it helps, you’ve got your pick of replacements.”
AU Stargate Universe Tumblrprompt. This really really honestly truly genuinely was intended to be a quick drabble. Now it just looks like an intro for an AU piece of weirdness which will expose every inch of my lack of knowledge of the American Old West. Please stop me before I hurt myself.
Author: EasyThereGenius
Rating: PG-13 (so far)
Summary: AU - Stargate Universe characters in the American Old West.
Prompt: request from autumninthenorth on Tumblr
Warnings: Unedited. Idiotic. Unfinished.
Horses.
Horses were the problem.
Lieutenant-Colonel Young rested his weight briefly on his good leg and gave the sweating, blown quarter-horse in front of him another slow, assessing look through narrowed eyes.
The ground around them was the ubiquitous yellow-dun of the endless mesa, the grass fading to straw in another relentless summer that never seemed to end. Ugly clouds of dust were still curling to rest after the battle, and Young could taste the grit in his mouth. His horse blew out a sad, slobbering breath. The flies were gathering about it, black around the white flecks of froth that wreathed its soft mouth. Blood in the froth, too, as it dripped to the dust.
Young resisted the urge to sigh, because the clogged air would just have been far too unpalatable, and moved forward to place his fingers inside the beast’s mouth, running the tips over the teeth and lips. The creature lipped and jawed, hoping for water. He couldn’t find a cut or bite in the mouth, and the bit hadn‘t chafed it raw. If that blood was coming from the horse’s lungs, it was good only for dogmeat.
The problems with damn horses were legion: worse than sheep for diseases and injuries and just collapsing for no obviously available reason, in Young’s experience. This one had comported itself better than most: standing firm while others died around them, not losing its footing when the bodies underfoot had become impossible not to trample. Deep down, riding horses hated trampling on people more than poison. Young’s horse - nameless, as it had been a replacement at the last town for a horse little more than spare ribs under a skin - had blood splashed up its legs to the hock.
It was, however, the last horse left standing amongst the corpses riddled with arrows and buckshot. The rest were fled, dead, or dying.
Apart from one. The fleabitten appaloosa thirty feet away, standing head hanging with its back to Young, lead reins loose, and saddle empty. No, not quite empty. The sole of a boot, pointing to the skies and spur winking in the harsh light, was just visible behind the horn of the saddle.
Young brushed a smear of grime from his forehead and shaded his eyes. The boot twitched, began to twist and thrash as the unseated rider tried to right himself.
Okay, so maybe horses weren’t the only problem after all. It was traditionally about this time that Young raised a curse squarely in the direction of Custer. Without that damn preening fool’s discovery of gold in 1874, the Great Plains would have been far less full of these soft men with their hard eyes and bellies full of nothing but desire for wealth. Sometimes, usually at these times when the air stank of blood and the flies seemed to be breeding independently out of the dirt, Young could almost see why the Sioux were angry with them.
Leading his exhausted horse, leaning on its heaving flank, he moved. It was a long thirty feet, punctuated with the detritus of the raid. The appaloosa whickered at him, rolling eyes back in pained warning. It was dying.
The man revealed hanging upside-down from the saddle, boot wedged firmly through the stirrup, looked up at him in a swaying halo of dirty hair, pupils pin-pricked in the sun. Coughed, once, painfully, before speaking.
“Where - the fuck - is my hat?”
The accent was unfamiliar, the tone decidedly more angry than any miner who’d just had his behind pulled out of a scalping had any right to be. Young considered this opening sally for a long moment, allowing the dust to clear a little and the sound of men slowly dying around them to filter into the gap.
“Hell if I know,” he said. “But if it helps, you’ve got your pick of replacements.”