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

[knightlite]

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.

Comments

[knightlite]

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."

[wreckers]

"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."

[knightlite]

"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."

[wreckers]

"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.

[knightlite]

"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."

[wreckers]

"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.

[knightlite]

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."

[wreckers]

"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."

[knightlite]

"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."

[wreckers]

"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."

[knightlite]

"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."

[wreckers]

"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.

[knightlite]

"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?"