A/N: Written for the January round of lj_fictunes. Nameless soldier's perspective, sometime during season one. Something about this still doesn't fit right, but I can't figure out what it is a month later and have thus given up and am posting it here.
Disclaimer: Don't own it. Never have, never will, just borrowing the characters.
Red Sun Rising
There was a red sun rising in the east that turned the desert sand red to match. It was meant to be some sign that the day ahead would not bode well, some cock-and-bull old wives tale. It would only bode ill for those on the other side, and that was all their own fault, not the fault of any foolish superstition. They'd just picked the wrong side to back; their luck had run out.
That's what he'd told us all on the dawn of battle, stood with the sun at his back, red hair a halo of fire around his worn face. There was something in the image that was real, real in a way the rest of the world was not. There was no threat of disillusionment because there was no illusion to be had. Here was a man who had seen it all and done it all and was still standing. And therefore so could we, if we just followed him wherever he would lead.
Stick with Saachez, they said, and your luck would never run out. By proxy, neither would your money, and that, really, was all that should have mattered. Most guys though would forget that after a week or so, listening to the yarns he would spin of the life he'd led, no details of where he'd come from or where he was going, just tales of the moments and what it was to live it and be human.
War, he said, was human nature. It was natural selection; the strong live to grow stronger and the weak die off. Without battle and bloodshed the world would stagnate and grow dull, end up like Krugis, a wasteland.
It wasn't as if he took on every battle though, he was a smart one, and he knew when retreat. Fighting a battle when it was impossible to win – like against those new machines – was just suicide, and that was just another form of weakness. That was why Ali al-Saachez had lasted so long in this world; because he was a survivor.
That was what he taught us: how to survive and how to make the most of it, because one day you too will die. Until that day, however, I'll face every red rising sun and know what it is to live that dream as we march once more into war.
Live today, he said with a laugh, because you might not see tomorrow.