Chapter Text
They called it the City without Roads.
The Flight Splendor. The City of Princes. Cybertron’s Throat. And the Place Where The Stars Hang Low.
But it was simply called by its maiden name founded on the cycle where the great Thirteen Kin of Primus touched down on their father planet—Vos.
Skyfire supposed Vos has always been a long-time fascination of his. His long readings in private have illustrated a golden-arched city-state filled with fast jet-framed mechs whistling across silver skies with their smoke trails cutting the horizon line in a neat, foggy symmetry.
Vos was one of the few city-states of the Cybertronian Alliance whose primary population were flight capable mechs—their pride, centered on this ancient exclusivity since the Golden Age, now created an almost divine sort of a reputation in which could not be tainted or penetrated by millions and millions of ‘grounders’ that litter Cybertron’s metal soil (a term long outdated since Nova Prime’s reign but still popularized by the natives in a much more fonder tone than the stellar cycles past).
Thus, since her founding, Vos has never built any sort of roads for ground-based mechs. Instead, the city’s entire structure was that of ‘nests’: golden pillars sprung from the deep oceans of liquid energon with plane runways stretching out towards the stars, and hulking aerial perches with their bays open for storage and recharge. Even the businesses, stores, and organizations were built on these towering nests and faced the sun.
The Vos Senate always claimed that they lacked the means to build proper roads for land-based mechs upon complaints from out-of-state tourists and travelers, but Skyfire knew better. Only a particular mech could transverse the ivory skies of Vos, and the City without Roads had their successful gatekeep without out-right speaking on their inherited prejudices.
Thus, by both the privilege of elimination and skill, Skyfire was the chosen candidate for the Cybertron Academy of Science and Arts’ study abroad exchange.
Skyfire tried not to show the excitement too much on his face plate as he hurried down the crystal-white halls of the Aerospace Engineering Department, only passing along quickened ‘hellos’ to his fellow peers who slowed down upon the sight of hulking space shuttle striding down with a bit of a jump in his pedes.
He rounded the corner and spilled into the first office on the right, just nearly colliding into the automatic metal doors that just barely pulled open in time for Skyfire to step into the lab. His optics flickered around quickly around the fluorescent-lit walls, the steel-cuffed floor, and the giant master terminals that were hooked on the adjacent walls—until he caught the quickened blur of red and blue at the back corner, right by the holographic schematics of Iacon’s upcoming space bridge.
Skyfire hurried over with his pedes thumping loud, the echo forcing the hidden mech in the back to poke his head out past the display—the handsome face plate of Orion Pax a lit before he stepped out, oil-drenched rag in servos.
“Orion, Orion—did you—” Skyfire started with his vent whirling hot and rapid.
“Yes, I heard my friend,” Orion said with a half smile as the shuttle-mech stopped just right in front of the scientist; his height practically loomed over Orion so Skyfire could see every flicker upon his friend’s face.
Orion then rapped his knuckles playfully on Skyfire’s chest plate with a thump, thump, and laughed. “But to be fair, I cannot imagine anyone else perfect for the study exchange,” he said grinning.
“I mean, perhaps it’s because of my alt-mode but they could have chosen any other flight mech here in the Academy. But no, they chose me.”
“Now, now, let’s not downplay your accomplishments now, Sky,” Orion warned as he bent over the hologram terminal and started to input another module with a smirk on his face plate. His blue optics riveted up at Skyfire, warm in his regards. “They chose you because you are the most capable. For a competitive program like the Vos exchange, I knew you were a top contender. This space bridge project, for example, was really only one of your many expanded capstones—all this while you are managing your own degree. Come now—let’s not be silly with the details.”
“You do me too much justice, Orion,” Skyfire gushed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck cable.
“Am I? Well let me ask you this: how do you feel then?”
“I feel like I’m on Luna 1 right now, my friend. I mean, you knew as a sparkling, I always wanted to see Vos. But to actually hear that Iacon was going to send me there as their exchange ambassador over the hundreds of applicants here at our Academy—by Solus Prime, I pray this is not some processor dream.”
Orion stared at him for a while. He then took his oil soaked rag and whipped it up with the tail end slapping Skyfire across the face in a clean motion. The space shuttled visibly recoiled as he took a step back and touched his cheek gingerly, optics wide with shock. His digits touched something wet and he pulled back to see remnants of oil coating his servo. Down below, Orion gave a whistle and a nod before returning to the space bridge hologram.
“Well, does that answer your question?” He remarked with a half smirk before tossing the giant mech his rag.
Skyfire scoffed and started to wipe the oil off his face. “Ratchet’s right: you can be an aft at times.”
“Yeah but I’m never wrong, Sky.”
“No, you must certainly are not.”
Orion Pax was a strange story that unwinded itself to Skyfire over time. He was neither in the medical track like Ratchet or Hoist but neither was he part of the science track with Skyfire and Perceptor. Everyone thought for a moment that he might have joined engineering with Wheeljack but that was neither the case either.
Truth be it that Orion was majoring in library sciences—a completely fourth path in the Academy that was often unnoticed and forgotten by the rest of the students (though their most famed alumni was one of the Thirteen Primes somehow). Skyfire did not know what to think when he met the archival student—the truck mech was friendly, charming, and easily-approachable, but that set him apart from the rest of the students who preferred their closed labs, sterile silence, and perfectly calculated orderly conduct.
Skyfire immediately liked him the moment they locked optics because the mech actually smiled at him. They were quite the pair together on all of their projects since then—mostly chatting away the cycle until the twin moons were high over their helms.
Who would have thought a future librarian would be this chatty?
“When do you leave for Vos, Sky?” Orion asked as he leaned against the terminal; his optics leered up over at the hulking shuttle mech curiously yet there was another emotion present—soft in that morose way that Skyfire seen far too many times.
The shuttle mech awkwardly smiled as he wiped the rest of the oil off of his face, wrangling the rag in his servos tight. “Ah, they said next megacycle. I have to get all my affairs in order before then: my planetary pass needs to be updated so I can enter Vos proper. Uh, and I need to visit Ratchet to get my medical records updated and sent over to the Vos Air Force Academy. And finally...I think I just need to confirm my housing,” he listed off in an awkward tangent.
“Housing. Isn’t housing for Vosians just airplane hangers?” The archival student asked, half laughing with a shake of his helm.
Skyfire went around the other side of the terminal, running his oil-coated digits down the command prompts. “Oh yeah, but I read they had other forms of housing. Some recharge right on the runways, some in big communal warehouses located in the lower nests, and the nobility of Vos—well, they have their own private hanger on the canopy fitted with heating and their around-the-cycle own pit crews. It’s actually so interesting to think about that the city built a completely flight-dependent infrastructure that even the housing is based on that ideology! Did you know that most Vosians have the most intense and elusive courtship cultures? I mean, they really consider genealogy in mating hence why they never tend to take a conjunx that can’t transform into a jet of some kind—their sparklings need to fly as well, but there are other factors at play at their selection of a mate. See I’m still trying to read it all but I can’t find seem to understand all of their customs…”
When Skyfire was done speaking, he lowered his helm and noticed Orion watching him the entire time; he was resting his chin against the palm of his servo with that smile of his—helm tilted to the right with his optics bright and leveled.
Skyfire could feel his armor burn up. “By Primus, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to ramble, old friend. It’s just, well, you see—”
“Skyfire, I’m so happy that you were chosen to go to Vos. I’m really going to miss you.” Orion stopped; his optics moved down towards their nearly completed space bridge project and—for just a moment in time—there was a glaze of lens fluid gleaming out, just barely distracted by a thinly controlled smile. “We are going to miss you. Go and show Vos what we Iaconians can do.”
“Ah, I’m sure I’ll be fine. They’ll definitely treat me far better than any other mech from Iacon. I can fly just fine even if I’m not exactly a fast jet or swift helicopter.”
“Your frame is extremely rare one, my friend. I’m sure the Vosians will be more curious than anything else.”
Skyfire smiled, bemused. “Promise me you’ll watch after the lab and the others for me?” He asked solemnly.
And Orion reached over, past the hologram field where the space bridge display danced and twitched upon the intrusion of his arm cutting through the hot blue light. He then placed his servo on top of Skyfire’s, which was resting on the edge idly. Skyfire’s size was as large as his height and the truck mech barely engulfed his servo but the warmth was there none the less.
“Can’t promise that Wheeljack won’t blow up our lab but I will defend it with my life if I have to,” Orion promised, chuckling all too softly.
And Skyfire could feel the threat of his own lens fluid against his optics but he did not turn away.
“Thanks Pax. I should be back after a stellar cycle or two.” A pause; he turned his helm and gave a click of his glossa in a playful noise. “Hey. Want anything from Vos while I’m there?”
Orion thought for a moment before answering: “Send me a data card.”
XXX
A Guide of Cybertron’s City-States for the Interplanetary Traveler was the only thing Skyfire brought with him on the two-cycle long flight to Vos, to which, the mech made several stops on the intense trip to recharge, refuel, and read up on Vos in the current age.
“A Vosian’s alt-mode determines their role in the social system in place of a proper chaste; the most common mechs bear a more practical alt-mode such as rescue helicopters, survey and agriculture planes, and commercial air buses. More specialized frames have seen a growing popularity and respect over the stellar cycles such as triple-changers and military-affiliated modes such as warframe helicopters and transport jets. Finally, those of the highest social order were those who have alt-modes with speed; fast jets designed for war and aerial combat, and by extension of rarity, any other flight alt modes usually unseen in their world. Despite this observed social order, all Vosians have the possibility to become Seekers—the most prized rank among Vosian society as Elite Guard members for the Senate. Seekers can be any flight alt-mode and this rank is only awarded to the best of their society...”
Of course, it made passing the Vosian air traffic control far more easier with his singular data pad intact at his side. They caught onto the space shuttle immediately once he passed the entry point where two border patrol towers caught his readings. An air control officer buzzed into his C0MMlink over a wave of static:
[Unknown object in ring two; scanning ID now—confirm identity and reason for visit, over]
Skyfire hummed his response back, his voice piercing through the buzzing curtain in his usual chipper.
[Designation: Skyfire of Iacon; Planetary Pass has been approved with a study stamp; Iacon Study Exchange program, over]
[Roger, roger] Another troubled hum of static before the air control officer on the other end responded back, his voice notably more friendly and amicable—armored with pride. [Welcome to the great Republic of Vos, Skyfire of Iacon, over]
The first thing Skyfire saw the towers and the birds.
Once he crossed through the first layer of air space and breached the wall of clouds that veiled the outer ring of the city from the entry point, he saw it—a grand city in the sky.
The meadow of traffic towers and nests that jutted out from a low mist above the energon ocean with their branches—runways—jutting out towards the sun; a miasma of black, whipping ‘birds’ were flying across the floating meadow in an active traffic, leaving steam rings and smoke trails from their flights.
Skyfire could hardly take it in person himself—reading about a place was one thing but the processor imagination could only do so much before to fill in the blanks of thought. He could hardly hear his engines roar gleefully as he entered the second air space—and in his C0MMlink, he caught the signal of local radios from the towers in the distance.
The popular song of the cycle was that of electronic drums, beating wildly as the tail end of a rain whipped against his windshields, the cold droplets of energon cooling his jets as the song’s crescendo rose to thumping heights.
As A Guide of Cybertron’s City-States for the Interplanetary Traveler remarked in the first sentence on the chapter about Vos: “To evoke the organics down on Earth: ‘Voila! Spiccato il volo, deciderai, Sguardo verso il ciel saprai: Lì a casa il cuore sentirai’.”
[Taken flight, you'll decide, Gaze towards the sky, you'll know that; That is where your heart will feel at home]
XXX
The on-boarding coordinator for the Vosian Air Force Academy, this lanky, blue-tinted helicopter-framed mech with a singular node of an optic, leered up at Skyfire with an expression he could only describe was shock and awe.
The mech gawked at him at the front runway entrance to the Academy, on the second level of the northern air traffic tower, before peering down at the data pad in his clawed servos—and then looked back up with their optics positively dilated.
“Y-You’re Skyfire of Iacon?” The coordinator asked in a slightly shrilled voice of disbelief.
Skyfire looked around the runway space idly, at all the neighboring hangers which faced the southern most traffic towers and nests in the distance, before turning back down at the blue mech with a funny smile on his face plate.
“Uh, yes, it seems like I’m the only Skyfire here. At least from Iacon that is,” he remarked with a half laugh.
But the smaller mech did not share his humor. “No, I’m just…surprised is all.”
“Surprised about what?”
“Well, most of our transfer students from the big city-state are usually not this...tall.” A pause; the coordinator looked up from his data pad, almost whining. “And goodness, what is even your alt-mode? A space shuttle?”
“Yes sir,” Skyfire said, finding himself suddenly self-conscious with how the mech was eyeing him in close, heated intensity as though this was the first time he had ever seen someone like Skyfire. Perhaps it was—the other mechs in the air space certainly kept slowing down to take a good, long gander at the visiting scientist.
“We don’t have anything you here in Vos…,” the coordinator said with a shake of his helm, returning down to his data pad and began to input some commands with a rapid quickness. “So, it seems like we have put you up with Hanger 31 down by the Science and Technology sector—that’s just located down at the third air traffic control nest from here. Now, you were supposed to be in Hanger 24 but your kin back in Iacon warned that you needed more space—now we know why, but luckily for you, that hanger is exclusive to our big transport warframes so you have no roommates. Now you already received your orientation items, semester course schedules, and the research teams you will be assisting and leading for Vos. Any questions, Skyfire?”
“Uh, is that it?” The shuttle mech asked pensively.
“Oh yes—just one more thing.” The blue mech turned his helm up to properly look Skyfire straight in the optics. A solemnness immediately settled, hard, and he leaned in with that strained, squeaking voice box of his screeching into the space. “You will also a member of the Vosian Senate’s annual aerospace innovation capstone. It is the highest honor only given to the best of our scientists every stellar cycle...and considering your impressive work back in Iacon and Crystal City, they decided to save you a spot. Thus, you will be assigned a Seeker.”
This made the shuttle mech pause, his processor already whirling at a million miles an hour. It was no secret that the Seekers of Vos was one of the most respected and feared orders across the Cybertronian Alliance—just second to Iacon’s Wreckers. Besides being the Senate’s Elite Guards, they served as the first and most deadliest line in the city’s military defense.
Skyfire remembered keenly in the stellar cycles long before his birth, the Seekers of Vos managed to ward off the famed Tarnish black ship-mechs coming in during the Second Invasion of Tarn. Smoke rose from the energon ocean for nearly five megacycles and it clouded the twin moons at night from the wreckage down below.
The scientist’s smile turned wayward and he cocked his helm. “O-Oh a Seeker? Goodness, I don’t think that’s necessary…”
“Oh no, it’s absolutely necessary,” quipped the coordinator, tapping his data pad against Skyfire’s lower chest plate in warning. “This project means everything to the Senate. How else would we be able to build so many nests and air traffic towers? Or spread out this far on the ocean? This project means the advancement of our technological and infrastructure processes—it’s the reason why Vos is considered one of the most modern city-states in the Cybertronian Alliance alongside Polyhex and Crystal City. But take mind Skyfire—there’s a reason why this project is considered a level five in danger. We lose scientists every year. To the vicious ocean life just beyond our city limits. To assassins and hitmen from Kaon and Tarn hoping to dismantle our efforts. And to the unfortunate lab accidents. Having a Seeker around is a necessity, Skyfire.”
The shuttle mech gave a nervous sort of laugh and shook his helm. “I-I see...well, I am excited to be working with your grand city then, sir. I’ll make sure to do you all proud.”
But the coordinator had already turned around, heading towards the front of the academy as though Skyfire never existed in the first place.
XXX
It was quickly apparent how different things were in Vos compared to the laboratories of Iacon. For one, Skyfire quickly realized that the scientists here at the Air Force Academy tended to be away from the labs for cycles on end compared to his shut-in peers back in the central city-state.
His new lab partners, who eyed him intensely the very moment he stepped into the glass-encased labs on the very balconies of their academic buildings with something of an awed look and a funny smile, immediately asked him to prepare himself for the long flight out to the ice fields past the city limits.
The shuttle mech could only give a laugh as he followed a squadron of survey jets out towards the sprawling fields of hulking pink-ice energon that shot out from the watery ground and jutted up towards a cloudy, distant sun. They stopped at a part of stable ground with Skyfire’s research head handing the hulking mech some scanning equipment to detect viable energon samples in the ice.
The others spread out thin with their own scanning equipment; one of the jet-framed mechs asked if he could turn on a radio for music to everyone’s wearied agreements (save for Skyfire who nodded earnestly)—which then they worked methodically under the electronic song humming in from the nearest Vosian radio tower.
Field work.
Skyfire wished Orion was here to see this. He’d be the right mech to appreciate a good team that did not mind getting their servos dirty.
“Skyfire,” his team leader said to him as he approached the shuttle mech from behind. He had a friendly, forthcoming personality—a breath of fresh air compared to some of the other Vosians Skyfire had met so far including his own peers, who despite their initial fascination with the towering shuttle mech, still put on the airs of untouchable superiority.
“I must say: it really is an honor for you to be our exchange partner. I do not know if anyone has told you this but most of us have been following your work in Iacon. The space bridge program, the energon mine extraction, the aerospace fuel efficiency program with Caminus and Velocitron—while the others may not be so open to say so, but it is a privilege to have you here.”
“Captain, I must say the same. To work among you—to work in Vos, it’s been a very long dream come true,” Skyfire replied back in kind as his scanner picked up on a signal down below the ground; he then took out a small extractor—not large enough to disrupt the natural ecosystem, but precise enough to collect a sample.
His team leader still hung around close with his arms around his back. “And you never been to Vos before?” He asked carefully.
“Nope! Born and raised in Iacon. My sire and carrier never been here as well.”
“Are you sure? I mean—forgive me, this is merely an assumption, but I would not be surprised if you were to tell us that you had some ancestry here.”
Skyfire laughed, watching as the extractor carefully scooped up some viable traces of energon hiding beneath the ice. “Goodness, I wish. But my grandsire and grandcarrier also were Iacon-born.”
“What were their alt-modes? Flight based?”
“As far as I know! Though my alt-mode is apparently the first in the family line.”
“I’d say…” Skyfire turned around to see that his leader was watching him closely; his optics took in every since inch of the towering scientist—starting from the bottom of his pedes all the way up the shuttle’s face plate in a slow drawl. “I didn’t know they build mechs like you in Iacon. Even our exchange partners in the past were just...height-appropriate triple changers. The helicopter here and there and mostly planes. Not a, uh, space-capable air shuttle.”
“Jealous?” The Iacon scientist teased, clicking his extractor off and turning around proper.
His leader smiled—an emotion that was both friendly and something far too distinct for Skyfire to properly discern.
“No. Just admiring.”
“Captain!” One of the mech called out from the outer fields, waving his arms about wildly. “Seeker incoming!”
Skyfire watched as his peers craned their helms up and he followed their gazes pensively. There was a singular dot soaring across the sky. Too fast to be a helicopter or a plane but too audibly powerful to be a survey jet or bomber. Skyfire allowed his optics to settle until he could see a high-class military combat jet come into view—a streak of black and blood against the pale blue of Vos’ skies. Their optics followed the jet as it cut across the horizon in a quickened fury before whipping down towards the research team in a thunderous bellow.
They watched as the jet cleanly transformed before landing on the ground, kicking up bits of frost and ice in a shallow veil. When all the debris finally calmed; standing before the team was a strikingly sharp-looking jet-framed mech. His wings perturbed out from his sides, long and proud with the very tips dipping upwards like the thorns of a crown. His silver frame was lithe and slender, painted blood red and royal blue with blotches of black at his helm and pedes. There were long, near-intimidating high-octane laser cannons attached to his arms and shoulders—not for decoration either. But the one thing Skyfire could not look away from was the mech’s optics.
Leering. Perpetually distrusting. Guarded. And veiled by a keen sense of unbreakable, unshakable pride.
Skyfire thought it was the most beautiful pair of optics he’d ever seen.
“Starscream,” the team leader regarded with a respectful bow. “We were not expecting your esteemed presence.”
“And you do not need a notice of my ‘presence’,” Starscream sneered as he stalked forward, one pedes as at a time with his servos hooked on his hip in a dangerous casualness. The end of his dermas lifted, showing just the sharp of his dentas, and he stopped short of the mech. “Seekers are permitted to go freely—wherever and whenever, for the safety of Vos.”
“Of course, sir. I mean no offense.”
“Now. Who among you lot is this ‘Skyfire’?”
Skyfire raised his servo up awkwardly and the Seeker known as Starscream immediately saw him from across the crowd. Something shifted considerably on his face plate when their optics met; whatever hardened, unreachable pride that echoed sharp in the Seeker’s bright red optics gradually softened to what Skyfire recognized was both a keen intrigue and something else entirely.
Starscream said nothing as he walked through the parting crowd and over to Skyfire—his helm only reached the lower half of the shuttle’s chest plate so he had to crane his helm all the way up so the two could actually stare directly at one another. Seeing the Seeker this close up, Skyfire could not help but look past all the sharp-edged armor and fancy high-tech weaponry to a mech that was just, by nature, probably curious.
The height difference probably helped calm Skyfire down considerably.
“You’re Skyfire?” Starscream asked incredulous, looking up and down the mech in quick succession.
Skyfire smiled knowingly. “From Iacon? Yes. Unless you’re looking for another one of my designation here.”
“Funny. You’re funny.” Starscream stiffened up straight with his pede heels clicking in place. “Designation: Starscream. I am a starting Seeker with the Vosian Second Regiment. I will also be your assigned Seeker during your study exchange here in Vos.”
“So you will be my shadow. I am quite honored to have you by my side.”
“Yes, ‘honored’,” one of his peers sneered from the onlooking, followed by a cascading of snickering.
Starscream’s optics flickered to the side for the brief moment before he rested his gaze firm on Skyfire, his expression just barely disguising the very thin undercoat of resentment beneath the harsh red of his optics. Still, Skyfire could not find himself particularly disliking the mech—he seemed like the sort of mech whose ‘honesty’ is twisted in a deep-seated pride like an energon knife hidden in an overly ornate sheath.
“So will you be with me at every project, I suppose?” The shuttle mech asked with a funny cock of his helm.
“Pretty much—up until the end of your study exchange program. But don’t expect me to some kind of servant-class mech. I am a Seeker, newly doctrine, and this assignment is only meant to give me the necessary experience for a promotion.” Starscream beat his chest plate with his fist and lifted his chin up with a sneer. “I aim to have my own trine one cycle so as long you keep your helm down and do your work quietly, we should be fine.”
“Oh great Starscream, I would try all I can to stay out of trouble but I am a particularly easy target,” Skyfire quipped playfully, gesturing to their notable height difference. “So if you commit to your duty well and protect a fragile mech like myself, we should be fine.”
“Are you being factitious?”
“Hardly. You?”
Starscream’s optical ridge arched curiously, as though slightly taken by Skyfire’s smiling response. The pair stared at each other in growing silence as the rest of the team watched on in equal fervor. The Seeker’s expression gradually softened as his gaze leveled with just a hint of a smile peeking at the end of the mech’s dermas.
And for a split nanoklik, Skyfire was sure that the Seeker’s EM field quivered pleasantly, as though secretly pleased.
XXX
Starscream was a viciously unpopular mech—this Skyfire quickly surmised from the first few chords of their partnership together.
For one, it seemed like no such civilian in Vos particularly enjoyed having the Seeker around. Skyfire watched as many of his own peers visibly bristled at the sight of Starscream following after the giant shuttle mech, turning around with their backs turned towards the Seeker with their helms close together in hushed, spiteful whispers.
The laborers of the city at least showed some amount of respect, but Skyfire quickly recognized that it was more towards his position than character. They bow their helms and say ‘thank you,’ but no one cannot ignore the trembling of the optics and quivering of the dermas.
Fear was both powerful and isolating.
Starscream felt the two in waves and thus, steeled himself against the loneliness keenly. After each and every cycle’s end, the Seeker bid Skyfire a cool, cordial farewell and took off without so much as a look back. Even after a megacycle, this continued with a well preserved professionalism—until Skyfire decided to try and become friendly with his bodyguard.
Starscream kept a private hanger—as was his privilege—on the ‘canopy’ level of Vos, at the second-highest nest where all the Seekers of Vos are awarded to live in for their service. The highest, of course, was the Senate tower.
Unlike the lower nests at the ‘forest floor’, occupied by the laboring and unemployed class, and the middle nests at the ‘trees’ where the high-strung academics and scientists conduct their long studies at the Air Force Academy, the upper nests at the ‘canopy’ had a forbidden zone, which separated all the military, politicians, and wealthy from the rest of the city—the only way for any mech in the lower districts to enter into freely was to have a preapproval by Vosian Air Traffic Control.
To Skyfire’s surprise, his Planetary Pass already was given this prized preapproval and thus, the shuttle mech soared up towards a bright, golden sun, to the highest nests of Vos.
A towering electronic gate, which constantly hummed a protective shield around the Seekers’ nest, opened up to a near-endless runway occupied on both sides by privatized, hulking hangers that faced each other and marked by large numbers at the front.
To Skyfire’s awe, it was no ordinary nest: there was a perfectly square courtyard right in the middle of the nest—with synthetic steel grass and crystal energon gardens planted at all four corners with a large fountain in the middle, pouring high-grade freely in a gentle flow. There were Seekers walking along the different plazas planted around the hangers, chatting among themselves with their wings fluttering. The sun was high, the air here was fresh, and the symphony of winds whistled high above the shield.
Skyfire looked around the nest, still in a possessed air of complete awe, before a faint, heated sensation touched his processor in warning. The shuttle mech suddenly looked down and realized: every Seeker in the space was staring at him. Their optics wide and intakes dropped slightly.
Skyfire stopped right in the middle of the courtyard and held a servo up in greeting.
“Hello!” He chirped pleasantly as some of the Seekers slowly approached him. Still, none of their expressions changed, still twisted in a revered bit of awe, and Skyfire continued. “I, uh, am looking for Starscream’s hanger.” A pause. “He is my assigned escort.”
Silence.
They were still staring at him, surrounding the large mech in the courtyard by sheer numbers alone. Up in the higher balconies in some of the nearby hangers, other Seekers emerged out of their homes and peered down at him. None of them matched Skyfire in height but the sight of a dozen winged mechs gawking at him across the field in sheer, suffocating silence. The joint presence of all the Seekers’ protruding wings only made Skyfire a bit more nervous.
“You’re Skyfire of Iacon?” quipped one of the Seekers with a deeply vivid purple paint at his frame. He was leaning against a nearby light post, cocked his helm to the side while the dark of his optics slowly ate up every inch of the shuttle mech in an intense drawl. Then he smirked. “The study exchange researcher?”
“My, that seems to be a rather popular question of the stellar cycle,” Skyfire laughed. No one laughed back—strange; he always told Seekers has a unique sense of humor. Perhaps he just was not so funny (though Orion and Wheeljack always remarked that Skyfire was the funniest on the Iacon Aerospace team)
Another seeker, framed bright blue and silver with notably gentle optics, came right to the mech’s right side with a lightly curious expression on his handsome face plate—almost impressed.
“Ah-hah, Starscream wasn’t wrong about you! You’re really, really tall,” he remarked with a low exhaust of his vents audibly deep within his core.
“What’s your alt-mode?” asked another Seeker from the courtyard—a poison green bright against his sharp frame paired by a taciturn, mocking grin. “Never seen it before.”
“Well, it’s uh, a space-capable shuttle,” Skyfire answered quietly to a chorus of nods and audible hums, with all the Seekers exchanging quickened looks at one another—smiling oddly enough. But it was not smiles he was used to—not like how his friends back at Iacon would smile at each other after a long and intense experiment nor
The purple Seeker stepped forward with his arms loose at his side and gestured for Skyfire to follow.
“Alright Skyfire of Iacon—We’ll take you to old screamer’s stomping grounds,” he instructed with a pleasant laziness, shooting a quickened look at the blue Seeker at Skyfire’s side.
The shuttle mech obeyed, giving passing nods to all the Seekers surrounding him in the courtyard. But no one nodded back. They were all certainly smiling (would he call this unison of grins a smile?) but Skyfire had to quickly look away and hurry after his escort—trying to ignore the pained feeling ebbing deep in his pit. But his visual HUB revealed no such internal threat.
Behind him, the blue Seeker from earlier began to follow as well. His smile, unlike the others, was more soft and sincere—and Skyfire is faintly reminded of Orion.
“We heard so much about you, Skyfire,” the mech started with a nod. “We were all shared your file, of course. Senate is very sincere in ensuring the safety and care of our exchange partners from the big city-state, yeah? But Starscream mentioned some things.”
“Oh? I hope good things.”
“With Screamer? It’s either a harsh muttering of flaws and failings about the mechs around him, or the oh-so untouchable greatness of his royal figure.” The purple Seeker slowed down, just to shoot Skyfire a passing look over his shoulder artillery. “But surprisingly, yes. Good things for once.”
“I’m Thundercracker, by the way,” chirped the blue Seeker eagerly before nodding over to the purple mech up ahead. “That’s Skywarp.”
Skyfire smiled. “Are you both starting Seekers?” He asked causally.
“Yes—passed our flight tests and graduated from the Academy alongside Screamer,” Skywarp remarked with a dry laugh. He turned his helm again, as though positively absorbed by Skyfire’s looming presence behind him. “Hopefully, we will be assigned into a trine next stellar cycle. Then comes the real work.”
“Real work? Like what?”
“Special missions. Starting Seekers have to do all their field work here in Vos, like what Starscream is doing for you in being a personalized escort. But once we’re in our trine, we get to be sent out past borders. Surveillance, direct combat, espionage, you name it,” Thundercracker explained.
Skywarp snorted without malice. “Yeah, that certainly beats spark-sitting an outsider. No offense, Skyfire.”
“None taken.”
Starscream’s hanger was at the very end of the line, right next to the nest’s shield generators. To Skyfire’s surprise, the interior was cut into two levels with the ground floor acting as a sort of lobby—the walls were covered in framed awards and various degrees, some of which were from the Air Force Academy in the stellar cycles prior. The trio rounded the corner and took a set of steel stairs up to the second floor, where a suspended walkway connected their end of the hanger to the other, where a box office sat at the very far corner.
Skywarp strode all the way up to Starscream’s door and rapped it loud enough to cause the chained suspensions of the walkway to tremble a bit. An irate voice called for them to come in.
Starscream stood hunched over the metal desk, rapidly typing something down on a postal data pad. Not once did he look up or speak, and continued to type as the three stood in front of his desk; Skywarp rolled his optics and rested his back against the far wall while Thundercracker looked around all the wall-to-wall windows that surrounded the office, which lead out to the edge of the nest where the clouds met them from so far up—the other lower nests just barely visible.
Finally, Starscream looked up. His gaze marred harsh to Skywarp and Thundercracker with just the thinnest underlying of disdain, as one might peer upon a sibling they find flaws with. Then he met Skyfire’s wayward stare and the sharpened edge of the knife dulled considerably.
“We brought you a present, Screamer,” Skywarp quipped sardonically, flashing a smirk. “He was all lost down in the courtyard. All the other birds were positively curious over your ‘little’ scientist here.”
“You two may leave,” Starscream uttered, standing straight up with his arms curled behind his back in a defensive stance.
When neither Seekers moved—merely exchanging an unreadable look to one another before both regarding Starscream coolly, the mech suddenly bounded his fist against his metal desk, the force causing and jabbed a single digit towards his open door as though he were pointing a live weapon at them.
“Out!” He bellowed with the powered shrill of his voice practically shaking the office walls.
Skyfire could not help but flinch; he looked to his two Seeker escorts and found they appeared more annoyed than intimidated. Finally, with Thundercracker giving what he could surmise was a controlled nod, he went out the door first and gestured for Skywarp to follow.
The purple Seeker wavered for a bit, more so to flash another sharp-dentas smile at Starscream before he playfully rapped his knuckles against Skyfire’s chest plate and sauntered out. The door slammed shut and their footsteps against the grated metal finally faded to just an echoing thud in the far distance.
Starscream sighed out and sat down, resting his helm against his servo, long digits rubbing small circles in the face plate methodically.
“I take it that you have a problem, Skyfire?” He started out, notably exhausted.
Skyfire reset his optics twice. “Goodness, no. I just wanted to take you out for lunch somewhere, but I didn’t realize you were occupied. Please excuse me—”
“What, lunch?” The Seeker’s optics flickered up, suddenly bright. He was watching Skyfire closely this time but his usual intensity was replaced with a sharp tinge of mistrust; Starscream’s dermas dipped into a deep frown and he leaned forward on his desk. “Why?”
“As a thank you for helping me, of course.”
“That’s my job. You realize that, right? I was assigned to guard you. I didn’t do it out of the goodness of my spark.”
“And you’re doing a fantastic job.”
“It’s an easy job. I am barely using my fuel reserves—not deserving of any sort of attention you seem to be implying here.”
Skyfire tilted his helm, smiling. “Are you so adverse to accepting praise?” He asked without malice.
“We don’t ‘praise’ here, Skyfire,” Starscream muttered, matter of fact. “You either do a good job and hear nothing or you show even just a hint of incompetence and get dive bombed by every Seeker from the Canopy to the Forest Floor.”
“You deserve praise. Can I take you out to lunch?” Skyfire continued, a bit more pleading.
“Are you being factitious?”
“Hardly.”
“I see…”
The Seeker’s voice had become soft and intense, drifting off in a sort of wistful dream. He cocked his helm to the side and regarded the Iacon scientist with a rare sort of benevolence that, to the close optic, could even be affection.
He slowly stood up, wings fluttering pleasantly, and said with just a hint of a smile:
“I know a place—let’s fly.”
XXX
Skyfire was told—once—by one of Starscream’s critics down by the Air Force Academy that while the Seeker was wholly unpleasant, anti-social, and quick to anger and violence, he was the greatest of their fliers.
If energon was the source of life, the very core of Cybertron, then the endless skies of their metal rock of a planet was Starscream’s. Skyfire flew alongside him, just below the Seeker’s left wing for his alt-mode’s size and power meant that he was far slower than any of the military jets that drifted across Vos’ golden skies—Starscream matched his speed in a quiet sort of kindness, and the Iaconian could not resist watching how gentle and seamless he flew.
A leaf upon the wind, dancing upon invisible currents with just a flash of green against the great blue and lilac.
When Starscream dipped down against currents of turbulence, he somehow always cut across the sudden surge and drifted around it completely in a sort of hypnotic dance, something that sort of possessed Skyfire’s gaze in its elusive entirety.
They flew up to one of the higher nests where it appeared to be some kind of shopping district for all the Canopy residents. The energon dispensaries that Skyfire had gone to with many of his coworkers could seldom rival any of the dispensaries on this level—grand halls of white-washed stone with streaks of gold, with glass tanks of sparkling high-grade shimmering at every corner of the building. The vaulted ceiling was painted with stars and planets and suns with small blurred dots representing Vosians flying around the grand planet in the central: Cybertron.
Starscream and Skyfire touched down with the Seeker quietly beckoning him inside, and they entered into the Canopy’s mess hall.
Every important mech from the Senators to the Seeker must be here. The halls were utterly filled, the space occupied by the sort of mech that, by presence alone, even made the atmosphere hinged by an exclusivity that would weed out the poor and working class.
No one really paid them any mind—at least not to Starscream who was given more tense, despairing looks by his fellow Seekers—but Skyfire did not ignore how many mechs glanced in his direction momentarily.
Their ghost of gazes heated and practically absorbed by the shuttle mech’s presence in the halls. Was he really that interesting?
“I usually like to refuel alone.” Starscream looked back up at Skyfire, his expression muddled with complications. “But, well, having you around would make the lack of company bearable.”
Skyfire arched his optical ridge. “Come now: it seems all your fellow Seekers are present this cycle. Surely, they would join you if they saw.”
“You don’t know them.” A pause; his voice dipped down to a mere whisper as they stopped by a glass dispensary and filled up their cubes with high-grade. Starscream’s expression fluttered dark; his optics staring down at his own reflection. “You don’t know me.”
Skyfire did not respond, only following the Seeker to an empty table by the far right corner of the hall. The other Seekers at the adjacent table lifted their helms up and followed the shuttle mech’s figure past them before riveting over to Starscream, their demeanor visibly hardened. And Skyfire wondered if his escort really was this detested in the City without Roads.
“Some might say that you were given a bad draw,” Starscream started as he sat down across from Skyfire, swirling his energon in his cube idly. He then tilted his chin back and down half the shot in one clean motion, gulping audibly before shaking his helm rapidly. His optics regarded Skyfire, heavy and dark. “To end up with me.”
“Is that what you think?” Skyfire asked quietly, rapping his long digits against the glass of his own cube.
The Seeker’s expression hardened. “They’re just jealous. I’m the best of the starting Seekers—graduated from the Air Force Academy at the top of my class with a dual degree in research. And they know I will be the best in my generation. They’re all just jealous…”
“Sounds like you’re lonely.”
“Are all you Iaconians this blunt? No pretense or subtlety whatsoever?”
“A dual degree in research,” Skyfire changed the subject and smiled, intrigued. “What was the research exactly?”
“Aerospace and biology. My final capstone and thesis was the precision tracking of energon traces—or at least, adequate energy readings in non-organic matter. That could be anything from picking up on tracings in metal and ice, or even objects. After the trace has been established, a sample would be extracted for lab testing. That took nearly five stellar cycles to complete but I managed it somehow.”
“Wait—that scanner I was given back in the ice fields. Was that your invention?”
Starscream actually smiled at him; he then leaned forward and relaxed his chin on his clasped servos.
“Yes,” he started in a hushed voice of quiet pride. “A mark of my genius, naturally. They tried to create a better iteration but none could compare. There are a few other successful projects I created for Vos—you might see them around from time to time, mostly in the labs. One of my prides is a controlled air-space chamber that can simulate the conditions of space and other planets for training. You’ll actually find one in every major city lab across the states.”
“But you’re a Seeker,” Skyfire said matter-of-fact with an edge of confusion.
Starscream reset his optics. “Yes?”
“I mean—why didn’t you become a scientist? You clearly have the talent and skill for it,” The Iacon shuttle said, leaning forward pensively. “You could have joined the Academy faculty, Starscream.”
“Ah, yes. I could have. But I crave…” He rolled his half-empty drink in his glass methodically, attempting to locate the words to best describe the foreign feeling that Skyfire would probably never understand. “Excitement. I don’t get the same rush or power slaving away in a brightly lit white lab, Skyfire,” he finally concluded and downed the rest of his energon.
“Is it the flying?”
“It’s everything, Skyfire. The direct-line of defense, the flurry of aerial combat, the smell of overused lasers burning through metal. I feel...alive in the sky. Nothing could touch me. No one can hurt me. It is there that everyone can see my value.” He looked to Skyfire, entranced. “It is, my dear Skyfire, the great game gifted to us and all sentient beings of this universe.”
Skyfire cocked his helm. “Game?”
“War,” Starscream breathed out, so eerily exalted that one could easily mistake him speaking about Primus himself. “Listen: we’re a real ugly, nasty race. How many planets have we conquered during the time of the Thirteen? How many civilizations have we forced to bend the knee? Even now, Cybertron is not united. Every city-state is in a constant rotation of alliances and hatreds. One cycle, we despise Tarn and the next, they are our best friend. But one thing unites us all: war. If ‘love’ and ‘brotherhood’ cannot unite us—then let it be war. And Skyfire, I am extremely good at what I do.”
Something in Skyfire’s core turned; his visual HUB popped up and started to blink red, as though danger began to lurk nearby. And yet, the Iacon shuttle could not help but ignore every since signal singing deep in his body, spreading throughout his nerve circuits in an irritable surge that felt so close to electricity that Skyfire could not help but stutter physically a bit.
Starscream was looking at him now. So closely than ever. But his optics were wide and bright, and his dermas were quivering. The whole Seeker’s very appearance could be akin to a pieces of a frame rolled back to reveal the soft protoform underneath—pulsing and raw and exposed to all the elements in the air.
He was afraid. Anything Skyfire could say next could easily dismantle this proud, powerful warrior.
“Then we are opposites in that case,” Skyfire said with a smile. “I am not a proud warrior like you. By Solus Prime, I never even fired a gun before! If you throw me in the heats of war, I’d surely fall and not just for being a walking target. But science is my craft, Starscream. My passion. If you were to ask me about my greatest pleasures, I don’t mind being bent over a table for cycles at a time.”
Starscream suddenly choked on his drink and the sound jolted the shuttle mech on his pedes. The Seeker held a servo out to stop him from coming around the table, and he coughed dryly into a closed fist while other mechs in the neighboring tables threw heated gazes his way. Starscream’s optics rolled up, slightly watery, and met Skyfire’s halfway.
A smile was shared between them, almost shy and teasing. And suddenly, Skyfire felt stellar cycles younger again.
“You’re funny. A real funny mech,” Starscream muttered, rubbing his face plate in a poor attempt to hide his expression. Still, just the soft curtains of an energon rush touched upon the Seeker’s cheeks faintly, and he turned away.
“Let me warn you of this: it is not wise to become friendly with me. You’re from Iacon—who knows, perhaps in a stellar cycle or two, our city-states would become enemies again and all of this would be for nothing. Besides, once you know more about me, you’d take off just like the others,” he said, voice low and guttural.
Skyfire could not help but chuckle at this comment, non-pussed. “You speak about me as though I am made of glass. Give me some credit, Starscream—I already like you.”
“Why?”
The question was more rhetorical than inquisitive but the Iaconian shuttle answered anyway.
“Well, I supposed I liked you since the beginning. You seem to be the type of mech that both disregards how others treat him but holds their opinions heavily. Now, this isn’t to say that you’re sensitive, but it always seemed like to me that you always felt this even before you became a Seeker. This...distance between you and your fellow Vosians. Besides that, I do admire and respect your strength—your honesty, even if it does sting at times. All in all, I think you’re a mech that is deserving of love and friendship, but no one has ever offered it to you before and you protect your loneliness with self-comments of pride.”
Starscream stared at him for a very long time. His expression was neither twisted in rage nor soft in relief. Around them, glasses clinked followed by the rise of chirping laughter from the adjacent mechs. Then, slowly, Starscream reset his optics; he slowly reached over from across the table—digits tracing along the metal surface in a slow yet methodical drawl. Skyfire watched in rapt attention as the mech gingerly placed his servo on top of his—their size difference more apparent.
“Why don’t we…,” Starscream trailed off; he seemed so nervous, a look rather perplexingly fitting for the Seeker, before he bit his dermas and looked away. “Nevermind. Let’s just sit here and enjoy our lunch, okay?”
Skyfire arched an optical ridge. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” A pause, and he nodded hesitantly. “I am sure.”
XXX
They once told him that Seekers were the fastest flight mechs in all of Cybertron.
They also said that they were the most dangerous.
With the darkness, one soul rose wondrously from the slain dead that littered the siren-blared corridors of Sector Four of the Aerospace ward and stood idle in that pale darkness beneath Luna 1 and 2. The steel ground beneath him was stained in spilled energon from slit throat cables and smoldering holes in the broken chest plates of assassin mechs that laid limp in a mountain. A painting of energon, cast off in bright tongues all over the walls and floors, ebbed in that faint darkness.
Skyfire seen him first when the scientists finally unlocked the emergency lock to their lab and the heavy-set metal doors spread out with a whirl. He stood there, among the deactivated and dismembered, with his sharp figure bleeding under the singular silver ray of light from the only glass section of the ceiling while the rest of the corridor continued to be bathed in the whipping lights from the nearby lock down sirens.
The night above him wore a thousand paint brush bristles of white stars with the starlight and low, waning twin moons gave the figure a lone shadow that just barely stretched out past the silver moon crest around his pedes and into the ocean of red.
Only one wing crowned the Seeker’s lithe figure—the other was in his right servo with the sharp length dripping with raw energon. He slowly looked up with his reddened gaze piercing across the dark of the space, and met with Skyfire’s.
And he smiled white.
The Pride of Vos.
“S-Starscream!” A professor of innovation squeaked from behind the grand terminal of their lab; he poked his helm out cautiously and peered all around the slaughter field before them, and caught the Seeker’s intense, near-animalistic stare head on. “Is...is all the assassins taken care of?”
Starscream tilted his helm, slow and mechanical; he then rolled his optics down to one body by his pedes before taking his wing sword in servo and slice it downward—causing most of the science team (save for Skyfire who watched on, exalted) to yelp out wildly. A helm rolled out and landed perfectly on the clean neck stump, staring right down the corridor at the team. Dark, lifeless optics with a dermas gaping open with dribbling of energon at the right corner.
“Now they are taken care of,” Starscream said with a hollow laugh, throwing his helm back. “Come on out, sparklings—all the bad mechs are dead now. No one is going to scuff your pretty paint jobs.”
“W-Where did they come from?” asked another mech standing right behind Skyfire. The femme’s optics leered out past his arm and towards the cut off helm before retreating back quickly. “I bet they’re Kaonian! They tried to come after us last megacycle too!”
“Tarnish,” Starscream corrected coldly; he whipped his wing-sword before cleanly attaching it into the other side of his back—energon dripped from the side in a slow rainfall. “Figures. Some of our own were sent into their city to take out a local lord. Suppose they caught on…”
“Why did you do that?! Now they’ll all come after us!” Screeched another mech from the corner of the room followed by a chorus of frantic agreements in the room.
The Seeker’s face plate twisted as though he tasted expired energon. “I didn’t do anything. The Senate did. And it was our response to them taking out four research airships in neutral airspace. They broke the peace treaty—not us,” he explained harshly.
“You executed them like cyber deer. By Primus, the brutality…”
“THEY WERE GOING TO DO THE SAME TO YOU—WHY CAN’T ANY OF YOU SEE THAT?! I SAVED YOUR LIVES! ME!”
No one responded. No one moved. And they all gawked at Starscream who started to buckle emotionally to the entire team’s paranoid-fueled rejection of his presence. Reeling in the smoke and heat of his carnage; the assassins closest to the door could be seen with laser-thin holes decorating all along the under jaw and chest plate with colored smoke still pouring out in a thin, dancing ribbon.
And no one moved. The flock has rejected the hunter as they have been since the beginning.
Except Skyfire.
He paid not even a second glance at all the bodies as he crossed the safety of his lab and into the energon-soaked corridor. He stepped over the carnage, keeping his gaze straight and firm at Starscream who gawked at him with feared, trembling optics. Even his figure began to careen nervously upon the shuttle mech’s approach, almost hard-wired in the expectation that Skyfire were to harshly retort or even strike him.
No such violence came. Instead, Skyfire stood in front of Starscream; he reached into the storage port at his left arm and took out a clean rag, which he often put away to clean up emergency messes. Then, slowly, he reached over, gently—benevolently—and wiped off the excess energon streaks on Starscream’s cheek in slow dabs.
The Seeker peered up at him. As though he were Primus himself; this tragic atheist, abandoned by the Great Sire, finally seeing a sign after so many stellar cycles of neglect.
“There, there,” Skyfire cooed gently and placed a comforting servo on Starscream’s shoulder, ignoring how all the energon coated his digits. He smiled down at his Seeker and added: “You did a fantastic job, Starscream. Amazing, really.”
Starscream hung his helm, expression veiled. His shoulders shook. And slowly, he leaned forward and rest his helm against Skyfire’s lower chest plate. And Skyfire let him stand there in the silenced murmur of their carnage.
For a moment, Skyfire could swear he could hear the beating of a spark somewhere.
XXX
Skyfire failed to remember of how quickly time could catch up with him. It marched on without notice and for those too caught up in the present seldom catch the creeping of the future right behind them. But he could hardly blame anyone but himself for losing track of time this past stellar cycle.
Besides completing nearly eleven capstone requirements for his study exchange requirements for Vos (and then some for the Academy started to put Skyfire’s name and supervision on every major project since then—not that the Iaconian shuttle could complain), Skyfire had found that he was spending most of his cycles outside of the lab with Starscream, who had become a close friend from the initial professional arrangement of their protection contract.
The Seeker had revealed a sweetly pleasant side to Skyfire in their friendship, unseen by most in Vos—a privilege that Skyfire did not take lightly. Towards the lunar cycle, Starscream would knock on Skyfire’s hanger door and quietly invite the weary scientist out for a long flight around the ice fields of Vos or for a long drink, where the pair chatted until their visual HUBs started to blink with reminders of recharge.
Skyfire liked Starscream. Despite what the rest of his colleagues kept saying—of the Seeker’s prone to violence, madness, and deception of all things, Starscream never showed him any of these aspects. In fact, since their first lunch together, the Seeker was—by the absolute—unflinchingly sweet if not a bit shy in his interactions.
Perhaps, the scientist was swayed towards favoritism since Starscream had protected him several times from attacks while on the field, but he always believed himself to be a good reader of character (one just needed to ask Orion Pax). And he was also sure that, in turn, Starscream must have appreciated his company outside of his assigned duties because the usually proud and prickly Seeker found solace sleeping in Skyfire’s hanger cycles on end after a heavy drinking session.
His arm thrown idle over his face plate with his body resting loose on a metal slab in Skyfire’s berth room. The comforting sight of his friend recharging had greeted Skyfire’s optics far too often in the mornings of, and, over time, became a permanent staple in his hanger.
Then a stellar cycle and a half passed. And Skyfire’s study exchange program came to a formal end; Iacon was calling him back home.
“Don’t suppose your Academy could consider extending your stay another stellar cycle longer?” Starscream suggested in feigned idleness. They were standing on the overarching runway from Skyfire’s hanger, which pointed out towards the Vosian Air Traffic towers in the near distance, just above the fog. The Seeker kicked his heel-struts against the tarmac, holding onto his arm to his side.
The flame was dull now; Starscream’s usual intense and dominating affection was shimmering to something so unlike him, and it was the absence of strength that made Skyfire linger a bit longer than he was supposed to. He should have left this early solar cycle but now, the skies of Vos had become hinged with that crisp golden from a setting sun.
“I tried but they want me back as soon as possible. And I believe Vos has already agreed to the conditions of their exchange student’s return from Iacon as well. It’s already too late,” Skyfire surmised, unable to hide the apparent sorrow in his voice.
Starscream stared at him. He stared at him for a very long time, and then, let his arms loose at his side with his shoulders sagging.
“We had fun, didn’t we?” The Seeker murmured without smiling.
Skyfire nodded, unable to find the strength to smile for the both of them. “We did. It was a worth while stellar cycle, Starscream. And it would not have been this special if I had not met you.”
“You were a pain in my aft, Skyfire. Do you realize how many saboteurs and assassins they sent after your projects? How many spies I had to dispatch?”
“And there could be no one better to protect this useless shuttle than my Seeker.”
“Your Seeker…”
They stared at each other. The wind whipped around them, almost impatient for Skyfire’s departure from the City Without Roads. Then, slowly, Starscream stepped forward and touched his spark chamber, servo clenched into a tight fist. For a moment, that fire returned in just a nanoklik of a blaze.
“Listen to me, Skyfire. I wish to say…”
A pause.
“Yes? Say what?” Skyfire asked, cocking his helm to the right.
“Say…” And just like that, the flame died and the small dark shell that belonged to his Seeker engulfed him in its entirety. He shifted back, as though stung by whatever thought he had originally, and shook his helm with a smile.
“Never mind. Just that I hope we will stay in touch,” the Seeker said quietly.
“By Primus, Starscream—of course, we will! We’re friends! And as long as Luna 1 and 2 rises past the sun every evening, so will our reunion yet again. This is an oath,” Skyfire declared, placing an affirming servo on Starscream’s shoulder.
The Seeker lifted his helm and smiled at him, but it did not reach his optics. Still, the pair managed to give each other one last hug before Skyfire took off into Vos’ skies and towards the twin towers at the border.
When he finally looked back, Starscream’s figure could no longer be seen past the clouds and fog. And the nests faded away, color-washed against the sky.
It would not be another ten stellar cycles—five of which was spent with Iacon and Vos in heavy treaty negotiations with closed borders—that Skyfire would receive an invitation back to the City Without Roads again.
For a permanent position.