robothell | so if you're out there in the cold, i'll cover you in moonlight

Entry tags:

wing | knightlite

so if you're out there in the cold, i'll cover you in moonlight

A:
Well, this was unexpected.

The last thing Wing remembers is the fight outside New Crystal City, trying to keep an optic on Drift, the slaver, a sword-thrust--he'd felt it, hadn't he? He looks down at the front of his chassis, touching the barest hint of a scratch and still feeling the sick weight of inevitability pressing heavily on his tanks. But.

Not dead. And hale and whole, apparently, just... elsewhere.

He settles down by the crater and cycles his vents steadily, dimming his optics and trying to settle his mind, to let the awful certainty drain from him to make room for whatever this new future might bring.

---

B:
Meditation, such as it was, didn't take him very long, and once he's sufficiently centered he gets up, brushes the dust from his greaves, and settles off in the direction of the first populated area he sees. He wanders around the broken, empty city, watching intently--it tugs at him, because this place is most definitely an old, destroyed Cybertron, almost a sad parody of what once had been his home. But there's signs of new growth here, too--habitation and rebuilding. The thought makes him smile a little as he pokes around, waiting to bump into one of the new inhabitants and hoping whoever it is can answer at least some of his questions.

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"I'm told whichever way you look at it - it's still just a really big hole."

Look, Verity understood nuanced perspective that went deeper than what could be gleaned from a superficial first glance. Back with the Wreckers, even on Earth between hitching rides and fencing picked pickets, she was a poet at heart. The arguments between her and 'ol Magnus about the nature of the written word in relation to mans' attempts to understand themselves burned the midnight oil on several occasions.

What she did not get was why this particular crater was where everyone and their dog meandered around waiting for an epiphany. Gaze all you want but it's not the navel.

The future came, and the future was a smartass.

Wing's optics flicker back to full brightness and he shifts, his hands sliding out of their calm, lax position in his lap so he can rest his elbows on his knees and lean in a little, one corner of his mouth tugging up.

"I didn't expect it to change," he says mildly. "I was only reorienting myself. I just arrived." He smiles down at her, looking curious. "My name is Wing."

"Hi, Wing."

Verity crossed her arms and pointedly did not pay him in kind with her own name. One good thing about this bullshit War is boths sides were perfectly happy to advertise which side they were on with garish brands. Suffice it to stay her guard went up whenever she failed to see one.

Wing politely declines to mention this omission, watching the stubborn set of Verity's shoulders.

"Would you happen to know where we are?" he hazards instead. "I can tell this is Cybertron, but I don't recognize any of the geographical landmarks I see."

"A crater." Verity offered unhelpfully, kicking a rock over the lip of the crag and let the clacking sound of stone against stone echoing downward into silence puncture the space between comments.

"No one else can parse out how this is both Cybertron and not from what I've gathered." A more informed answered but her shoulders were still squared up so tight they were positively acute angles.

"Sorry."

"Not at all," Wing says cheerfully. "I'm fairly sure I'm dead back at home, so this is definitely an improvement regardless, even if no one is entirely sure where it is."

"What?" Verity intoned and takes a hard step back. Alien worlds she can handle; winding up on them through some bizarre science fiction type mishap she can handle. Dead Cybertronians not so much.

Those guys went down hard when they finally decide to go down. She balked at the idea of them getting back up because it raised a world of unfriendly possibilities.

"Ah--well," Wing says, a little startled by her reaction before his face shifts, soft and introspective. "It's the last thing I remember. We were trying to keep a slave ship and some Decepticons from finding out about--well, it's a long story. But there was a fight, and the captain of the slavers managed to land a stunning blow, and he had a lance..."

Wing reaches up, slow and almost dreamlike, to run slow fingertips over the barely-there scratch on his chestplate.

"I expected it to hurt more, but instead I woke up here. Personally, I'll take confusion over being stabbed in the chest almost any day."

"Shut up."

Verity snapped back hard with her feet digging into the ground at a wide stance with a side arm that slide out of a compartment in the thigh of her armor. It looked slightly more bulky than human-sized weapons but the hiss of static and dim glow rendered to a pinpoint at the back of the barrell made it readily apparent it was an ion blaster. Small, but if she shot Wing between the eyes he wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

"Autobot - yes or no."

Simple question. Wing sure as hell didn't elaborate why they wanted a slave ship out of Decepticon hands and, honestly, she flat didn't trust anyone without a brand and who - oh yeah - casually said they had been dead.

Wing goes from being relaxed and easy to a palpable deathly stillness without even really moving, his expression calcifying and his optics brightening very slightly.

Please don't," he says carefully, but his gaze is locked on Verity's face rather than the weapon in her hand. "And, its not that simple. I'm a member of the Circle of Light. We're a group who refused to take part in the fighting, who left to forge a new home in an attempt to preserve Cybertronian culture as it was obliterated by the war. No one in the Circle took up a brand or chose a side."

"Oh, the cult." She said in a jarringly conversational tone.

There were murmurings a few data slugs cracked into, but she got the general idea. And just like that Verity is easing off; weapon slowly - very slowly being lowered back into his holster.

"Sorry." An apology that didn't sound like one at all. "Wreckers must rub off like a bad habit even after all this time."

"That's an extremely uncharitable way to put it," Wing says, sounding entirely unoffended. "But yes, if you like." He relaxes when she does, his hands loose in his lap again as he cocks his head.

"I don't suppose you'd indulge my curiosity as to how exactly you ended up spending time with the Wreckers if you won't even tell me your name."

"Alright, alright." Verity huffed, "Keep your head spikes on."

Neither in the mood to argue that the Circle of Light was totally a cult nor that she had exhausted whatever air of mystery she was going for, Verity decided to do the proper comic book thing and reveal her not-so secret identity. A quick flick of a switch at the nape of the helmet and another below the chin released a hiss of air from the hermetically sealed suit.

Dark brown hair in a messy ponytail spilled over the lip of the suit as she balanced the helmet on her hip. She smiled and took in a lungful of good ol' fresh air. Good thing the was right about the atmosphere supporting organic life.

"My name is Verity Carlo."

"Ah," Wing says, his optics brightening a little as he watches her head emerge from the helmet, sounding enlightened before he smiles slightly.

"Its a pleasure to meet you, Verity Carlo."

"Just Verity." She corrected, flatly. Tired of this whole alien say-the-humans-full-name schtick every time.

"So what do you turn into?"

Because she had little tact and the head frills were throwing her off between sports car and jet.

Edited 2015-05-16 02:54 (UTC)

"Verity, then," he says, his optics narrowing slightly before he cycles his vents in a sigh.

"I'm a flier. Any other questions, impolite or otherwise?"

If Nautica was awake, she was probably out and about, doing the hands-on engineering tasks the more science-oriented members of the Cybertronian brain trust rarely got around to. Since the elder Shockwave's arrival, she'd had his extremely efficient and often worrisome help, but that just meant she could get more accomplished. The more exhausted she was when she finally surrendered to the need to recharge, the less time she had to think about...well, anything, really.

While Wing was seeking out new friends, Nautica was in a trench dug by Shockwave's drones, working on getting their new, better energon distribution system up and running. Good thing a Camien engineer was used to doing more with less--even if a few months on the well-equipped Lost Light had started to spoil her--because the salvaged flow regulator she was repairing was proving recalcitrant at best.

"Oh, come on!" The exasperated shout was followed by the clang of metal on metal as Nautica kicked the device's housing. That was totally a valid engineering procedure. Don't question her.

Wing leans over the edge of the trench curiously, eyeing the scuff on Nautica's boot and the slight dent in the housing, his optics lighting slightly.

"Can I help you at all?" he asks, struggling not to sound entertained.

Startled, Nautica tensed, and her head shot up in alarm to find the source of the voice. She hadn't had particularly good experiences with strangers coming up on her when she was working. Still, Wing radiated good nature, and after her optics flicked over him once and failed to note a Decepticon badge--or indeed any badge at all--she relaxed. Unaligned was fine by her.

"How are you with writing embedded code for valve control chips?" she replied, dropping down to sit cross-legged in the ditch as she looked up at Wing.

"Probably terrible," Wing admits, sliding down into the trench anyway. "But I could certainly try."

"Heh. I can get Brainstorm or one of the Shockwaves to do it. I was just hoping to have this section wrapped up sooner rather than later." She kicked the regulator again, lightly, with no real upset behind it this time. "I'm Nautica."

"Wing," he says, smiling a little. "It's nice to meet you. Like I said, I could try, but I firmly believe that you'll be happier with someone else's results, yes."

"Oh well, I'll try not to hold it against you." Nautica pointed her wrench at the regulator and pressed a button, and there was the clunk of solenoids retracting as she shut the machine down for the moment. "Did you just get here? I don't remember seeing you around before."

"Kind of you," Wing laughs, then nods a little. "Yes, I arrived a little while ago. It took me some time to collect myself, as it were--this place is strange. How many of us are here?"

"It fluctuates, but somewhere between fifty and a hundred." Nautica shrugged, knowing how wide a range that was. "Not everyone makes themselves known, so I can't be more precise...even if it'd really help with the planning," she said with an exasperated sigh.

Arcee always watches. It's a hard habit to break and here, on this strange Cybertron where nothing really fits like it should, she falls back into it easily. It's not like it was with Prowl before, where it was required by plots and her own needs. Here it's because it's something she's good at. Knowing things. It helps put things in perspective.

Wing is a mech she doesn't recognize. He's like the other white one - Drift - who she talked to briefly. But more pointy. Someone she doesn't know is rare - and she watches him move around cautiously. Following him just a few steps behind and above. He smiles, however, and that gives her pause. People don't smile here. Not about the city. Something about an emotional connection to Cybertron, or the pressing need of having been torn away from more important things.

So she watches closer - feet braced against a wall as her fingers carve smooth grooves into the wall. Hmm.

Wing isn't actually psychic, but he senses when he's being followed. He paused briefly, his head cocked, and his expression is thoughtful when he turns around and catches sight of Arcee. He smiles again, right at her.

"Hello," he says, his voice mild and pleasant. "You can come over and actually talk to me if you want, but you don't have to if you'd rather just keep following me." He waits for a moment, his optics on her face and his mouth still tugged up slightly at one corner. "I don't mind either way."

For a moment words fail Arcee. No one addresses her so casually - a flash of pink is normally enough to get them to shut up or start talking, whichever she finds is most convenient. Even Optimus is cautious in her approach, not because he thinks she's breakable but because he's trying to be respectful and is unsure of how to hold a conversation with her. That's okay. She wouldn't know how to have a conversation with herself either.

"You were smiling," she points out, not moving from her perch. "Why?"

"This place was destroyed," Wing says, tilting his head at her and watching calmly. "But it seems like people are rebuilding now. I like that." He lifts his chin at her, nodding a little.

"And I like seeing someone else here, even if you don't feel comfortable coming down and having conversation at slightly closer range."

Arcee tries to feel an emotion about the symbolism of growth from ruins, fails, and shrugs. "I guess." His other comment only makes her eye him warily. No one holds a casual conversation with her. It doesn't happen. She's silent for a long moment, trying to pick out the proper words.

"i don't do small talk," she decides on. "I don't want to learn either."

"I see," Wing says, shifting comfortably. "I would like to get to know more about you, but I don't know exactly what you mean by 'small talk,' so I'm not sure how to do that." He watches that wariness in her face, how genuinely confused he seems, and settles in, intrigued.

"Is there anything in particular you'd like to talk about?"

Edited 2015-06-19 11:34 (UTC)

Know more about her. That puzzles Arcee even more. "You don't know who I am." It's not a question - she'd have thought she'd been infamous among the remaining Cybertronians as there weren't very many left. Well, before they found out about the colonies. They wouldn't know, but they weren't Cybertronian. Not like her. "Arcee," she finally offers - pressing one hand to the badge on her chest. "I'm.." Here she founders, before settling on the simplest thing. "An Autobot."

She's silent for another second more before speaking again. "You don't look like a NAIL," Arcee admits, leaving no indication of the confusion that gives her. She needs to know so she can readjust herself and act accordingly.

"It's nice to meet you, Arcee," he says. "I'm Wing, and I'm a member of the Circle of Light. Or... I was, at least." He looks thoughtful, then curious. "What do NAILs look like?"

His pleasantries get her to scoff, a smirk pulling at her lips. No one thinks it's 'nice' to meet her. He definitely doesn't know who she is.

"Depends on where they spent most of the war." Circle of Light. Arcee has to think on this for a long moment before she can place him - a group that abandoned Cybertron, led by a former senator. There'd been something about the Lost Light running into them recently? Arcee doesn't know, Prowl was the one who'd obsessed over Rodimus' reports like he could make them tell him something new.

"Hmmm," Wing says, watching her face shift and rocking back on his heels a little, still trying to feel her out just as much as she is him, unsure quite what to make of her--though this exchange was getting more familiar by the word.

"And where did you spend most of the war, Arcee?"

"Around. Garrus-9."

She also spent six years killing Jhixaus. But that's not most of what she was doing for the four million year war. Which was simple, she misses that. She knew who she was and what she was doing then in a way she's still trying to feel out now.

That seems to almost startle him, his optics widening slightly.

"Garrus-9?" he asks, his mouth crimping at the corners. "Were you trapped there, when it fell?"

So he has heard of it. There's a flicker of a smirk across her face before settling into the detached neutrality she finds she's cultivating the longer she's here. "I was out on parole." They needed her to fight off an incursion and she left, taking her freedom when it was offered.

The fact it fell doesn't bother her. She was occupied then, anyway.

"Oh," Wing says, visibly relieved. "Good, then. I'm glad." His expression lightens again, and he looks curiously at her.

"Do you mind telling me why you were there in the first place?" he asks, his optics on her face. "I understand it's a very personal question--please don't feel any obligation to answer if you'd rather not."

Arcee doesn't answer his question right away, instead focused on his face for a flicker of expression that isn't pathetically earnest. It's so unlike any other bot she's run into that it takes her completely by surprise. Huh.

"I was looking for someone. Anyone who got in my way I killed. Didn't matter who." Autobot or Decepticon - they all fell on her sword when they came between her and her goal. "I found him eventually," and that's when her expression turns deadly and sharp, corners of her mouth turning up into a cruel smile.

"I see," Wing says carefully, finally feeling like he's beginning to. But there's still no judgment in his face, only clear, calm inquiry.

"And what happened when you found him?"

She's quiet for a long moment, optics narrowed in focus on his face. No one's approached her for this story in a long while. Most of them know, and if they don't know then they do know better than to bring it up with her. No one's asked about it, though. That's new.

"I killed him. And then I killed him again and again and again until I got bored." Her grip changes on the wall. "And then I just found a new way to kill him after."

Delivered as matter of factly as one pleased.

Wing's optics widen almost imperceptibly, but he doesn't question the logic of her murdering a mech more than once--it hardly seems to be the point. He shifts a little as she does but he doesn't seem unnerved, or worried, or frightened, or even particularly wary.

"Well," he says finally, sounding thoughtful. "Did it help?"

"You're the first person to ask that," she admits, taken aback by the frankness of it. Most people don't inquire after her personal health or well being. Not that Arcee wants them to, but it's surprising all the same. Finally letting her grip losen, Arcee slides down the wall until she lands - crouched, but straightening up instantly.

"Yeah. It did."

"Really?" Wing sounds surprised, and he doesn't move away in the slightest when she drops closer. "It seems like a logical question. I doubt you'd bother going to all that effort for no reason." He shrugs a little.

"Personally, I can't imagine doing something like that to someone else, but I think that's because it wouldn't help me. I'm glad that it helped you." His expression is unbelievably mild, barely calculating at all, but his optics watch her closely as he speaks, probing, gauging her reaction. "I'm relieved that all that suffering wasn't for nothing, for one thing, but also because I think you must have needed whatever it was you got out of it very badly, to do what you did."

She laughs, then realizes he's being honest, and her laughter dies in her throat while she stares at him. What the hell was she supposed to do with someone like this? Her fingers flex, itching to be wrapped around the hilt of her sword - things made sense when she focused on violence. It was simple, straightforward.

Like Wing, she thinks, but in an entirely different way.

He, at least, has not called her crazy once. Which is better than some of the people she'd grown to tolerate and watch for clues on how to interact normally. "It helped me think," Arcee hazards, before her voice regains the strength she's used to speaking with. "I'm not-- whatever they say. If you ask. I know exactly what I'm doing and why I'm doing it."

Arcee shrugs, and feels the conversation has drawn to an end. Or if it hasn't, an end she's going to make. He doesn't need to know more about her than what she's offered. And she doesn't feel any inclination to know more about him. She doesn't feel that towards anyone, so Wing shouldn't take it personally.

Wing shifts as she does now, his optics flickering to the flex of Arcee's hands, the twitch towards her weapons, and his own body coiling subtly taut as honed, immediate fighter's instincts kick in. He hesitates and wrests control of himself again, the tension flowing out of him like water and his posture opening up.

"I wasn't under the impression you didn't know," he says. "On the contrary, you seem extremely self-aware to me. Granted, if killing someone repeatedly helped you think, I'd say that means I probably don't do things for the same reasons you do, but that doesn't mean your reasons are any better or worse than mine."

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so if you're out there in the cold, i'll cover you in moonlight

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YELLS IN DELIGHT

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