Western border of Turtleshroom
(OOC: Interested in the idea of this thread? Check out the OOC here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=430361)
In a certain land, near the border of a certain nation, was a lone dirt road cutting through dense jungle.
The land was relatively flat with a few hills, but the small changes in altitude (coupled with the natural elevation of the land above sea level) did little to dispel the sweltering heat and humidity of the region. Birds, insects, and other animals provided a cacophony of noise that could be heard over nearly anything.
The road weaved around all but the gentlest of hills, clearly made for beasts of burden not built to handle regular treks at an incline. Even so, the reddish line made a somewhat straight path through the jungle. It was wide enough for two large trucks to pass by each other in either direction with room to spare, but not much. Rainfall and animal activity had robbed it of all but a semblance of smoothness.
There was the rumble of an engine and the birds around the road made a sharp increase of noise before taking off in a panic at the encroaching noise. A lone black motorrad (Note: A two-wheeled vehicle, only to note that it cannot fly) with a large, heavily-laden sidecar, emerged from behind a corner. The sidecar was laden with cargo, as was the motorrad itself which had its rear seat removed to store extra luggage. Its engine rumbled openly, heard through (but not over) the sound of the jungle, as if the motorrad itself was complaining over the road. Its rider was a short woman with red hair that flew freely from behind her grey helmet, which did not cover her face - that task fell to her square goggles. The face was attractive, and of a woman in the prime of her youth, no older than twenty-five at the most. She wore a red unzipped jacket over a white shirt (stained with sweat already at this hour), with grey jeans and black boots and gloves. Around her waist was a belt featuring two holsters for two handguns - one a pistol, one a revolver.
The rider drove along the road as fast as she dared, which wasn't terribly fast with all the holes. Even so, she was occasionally shaken or even forced to stop by potholes and mud patches, indicated by the mud on her boots and the tires of the motorrad. In this situation, the all-weather tires simply were not up to the task, and even the extra grip provided by a weighted-down third wheel was not enough.
A radio was strapped to one side of the motorcycle and was playing music to the helmet through a wireless connection. Due to the helmet's somewhat-ineffective sound insulation, the song could be heard outside of it if one listened carefully.
<<Shoefly, dragonfly, get back t'your mother.
Pick up a flat rock, skip it across Green River.>>
Pick up a flat rock, skip it across Green River.>>
[The nerve of this nation, thinking itself first world with major roads like this.]
Indeed, the motorrad was grumbling, and in Bavarian no less.
[We are not technically in Turtleshroom yet, Tannhäuser. And they are in a civil war, they have more important concerns than infrastructure.]
[No excuse, Your Royal Highness! If nothing else they should at least level it out!]
[That I can agree on,] she grumbled as once again they hit a pothole, nearly throwing the rider off. [And I thought I told you to call me 'Hanna'.]
[Well you also said you were my rider, not my master, and that I should do as I please. Ergo, I shall, Your Royal Highness.]
They rode in unsilence for several minutes. The radio played another Creedence Clearwater Revival song, before changing to Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues. The road slowly crested a hill, which the rider known as Hanna (who was apparently royalty of some nation, in this case the princess of the Holy Romagnan Empire of Karlsland) stopped the motorrad known as Tannhäuser at its peak. The road continued for several kilometers, descending down the hill in an arc before a straight shot towards a distant river that could just be seen through the trees. This river whose name Hanna was unaware of marked the border of Turtleshroom, and was a simple wooden thing. Hanna seemed somehow less comfortable than her motorrad with crossing it.
[Are you sure this is the only road into Turtleshroom?]
[At this point? From the airport we left? Yes, Your Royal Highness. The last road that would have taken us to another entryway was fifteen kilometers behind us and also uses a wooden bridge. The nearest stone bridge on the border is fifty-three kilometers away, and the nearest steel bridge is one hundred ninety-seven kilometers in the other direction.]
Hanna sighed, and she started Tannhäuser down the road again.
[A shame that motorrads cannot ride over water.]
[You could always use your broom and carry me over, Your Royal Highness.]
[The broom cannot support your weight, and I see no reason to expose my use of magic to an openly anti-magic nation for such a mundane reason.]
[Yet you took a motorrad and not an unintelligent motorcycle, Your Royal Highness.]
[That's different. Every nation without sealed borders knows that travelers often visit knows that motorrads talk. It's a normal thing.]
They continued as slowly as ever, up to the bridge. Miraculously they only got stuck once. More miraculous still, the bridge was stabler than expected, and they soon reached the simple guardpost that marked this entrypoint to the nation of Turtleshroom. Hanna quickly fished her passport, driver's license, and Royal-class WA International Visa and readied them for whoever (or whatever, this being a nation of humans, turtles, and mushrooms) was stationed at the post.
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