The Hellioness

A Tall Tale for the Moto Corp...

He was a whole lotta hog for one woman, but She was a whole lot of hellion for one hog.

The rider was of the earth. A brown-furred dagger set in suede, head to toe, fringes billowing in the wind. All it took was one look from her blood-red shades and the roads would part.

He was of the skies. The slender bike shimmered as he flew; a silver chariot moderne, two strong wheels ripping the desert floor, rubber pulverizing dust into faint wisps.

They hurtled across the expanse of time itself at top speed. Day and night were the roadside markers on the path to what they sought most, the sun’s rise and set only a resplendent color to dress them on their quest. The towns, the people...they were not harmed by their pursuit. If anything, the sight of the two in passage brought good luck. Only those who crossed them would feel the twin turbo’s wrath.

The language they spoke was one known only to themselves. He in growling revs and hushed rumbles, and herself in a set of words reserved for the beast. To the common folk she’d speak English plain as day, a Latin twist in her tongue, but when astride her monstrous machine, not more than two words would pass through her lips:

“Citishabire, Chakana.”

It was a loving plea from the altar at which they both worshiped.

Speed.

Speed she craved, speed he lived for; a carefree spirit neither could live without.

She rode Chakana with all the devotion of a crusading knight to his steed, the daredevil hound unwavering in the face of all they came across, and it was many who sought challenge. Yet neither hailstorm of laser fire nor armada of steel could dissuade them from their relentless pursuit of that sweet, screaming nectar.

Speed. Citishabire.

I’m told those words sit etched on every canyon wall across the land. And hell, I betcha if they were here on Earth today, not even the digital bitch herself could take ‘em down. That’s how tough they were. That’s what speed did ‘em Man. They lived off that high for millennia.

It was their last ride that sent them heavenward, and I’ll never forget the way the old-timers would tell it, so here goes:

It was a gang that came up on ‘em. Dark grays armed with every peashooter and shotgun on the planet. Lord knows what they wanted. A taste of the nectar, a taste of her. Couldn’t say. It seemed the world had finally come to collect on their eternity in motion.

She sat on Chakana, brim pulled down low, both legs up and ready to ride as the bike balanced himself. She revved him up raw as the gang encroached. With a single stomp of her boot and a twist of her hand, they came up screaming on all.

They kept firing, she kept bleeding, and he kept rolling.

Her lone utterance rushed out with a venomous zeal above the hurricanic roar:

“Burn.”

The smoke blinded them as Chakana tore the ground asunder, crushing tires and crossfire knocking each and every man to the ground, blow after blow after blow.

At the center of it all, there She sat. Blood filled her stallion’s tank, her suede soaked. The beast went roaring, bullets rattling him relentlessly as she spun him out of the fireball and into the desert air. For a brief moment, her grip loosened, the blood having let so, but she clung tight to his metallic reins to the end.

“Citishabire” was the word carried across the land as Chakana and his mistress vanished, leaving only a dust devil in his wake, and a lake of blood to mark the final massacre of their aggressors.

See those two red stars, Soldier? See how one sits atop the other?

There sits the Hellioness upon her dearest Chakana. If there’s anyone to be praying to when you’re out there on the battlefield, it’s to them.

To Citishabire.

Pray before the night’s over Men.