Warning: This would be, like, a really boring fic, with the exception of one word. So, maybe a PG. How severe are we on language?

Turkish Moon

The open roads, the whipping winds, the howling grass and the roar of a single motorcycle engine. It felt good to be alone, but what felt good wasn't always a frequent thing when one was a member of the Turks.

~It had taken them a week to track him down after they discovered him. A whole week, and even then he had threatened to evade them. Lean, firy and bold, Reno Nesiaski had nearly outdone the Turks alone.~

The Turks. A new home, a new world, a new reputation. Sometimes, the latter was one to be regretted. With a new reputation came new responsibilities, and often those responsibilities required a willingness to change.

~The Turks weren't renown for their 'good' baby-sitting skills, unless that baby was to be returned in a little wooden box. Needless to say, they weren't employed by slums-folk often. True, they saw things that were a little... offensive... but it came with the reputation and the job. One had to learn to be insensitive.~

But sometimes, just sometimes, insensitivity was just... impossible. The wheels on the black beast screamed a dark serenade to the duties of a Turk. Namely the Turk that rode it through the thunderous night, gunning the motor like a single-action trigger.

~A single-action handgun is the first issued weapon upon induction into the Tarx. What followed was purely personal vanity. That was where Reno had introduced a stun-stick to his collection of devices of torture. It allowed one to get in on the hand-to-hand combat, but have the upper hand when necessary. It was good to have around. It just made things right.~

Sometimes one's own definition of what was right and what was wrong just happened to be overstepped. Needed to be overstepped? Reno couldn't recognise the difference any more.

~What was done and what had to be done? The Turks were supposed to be the sort of people who could take an order and carry it out. They weren't supposed to have emotions; weren't supposed to care. When the President said kill, they were supposed to kill. When the President said maul, they were supposed to maul. They were supposed to do what was told to them to do. Not what they thought was right.~

They had to take orders, and taking orders was one thing Reno couldn't do. So far he had fucked up once, and that once had nearly cost himself dearly, and nearly, very nearly, cost him the only friend he had ever found in life.

~No-one should have made the sort of mistakes he had...~

No-one should have made the sort of mistake Reno saw himself to be. A huge ball of mistakes and contradictions. He was the sort that could go out there and lay his life on the line, but no-one else should do that for him. No-one should have to. Reno heaved on the accelerator again.

A midnight sky, a Turkish moon and a brooding Turk. Reno grinned into the blackness.

Yes, a liar, a thief, a Turk.

Maybe.

But he was still here, and if here and now were all he had, then so be it.

~*~

Rachel 'Wolf' Convey -------- 12/3/03