Somewhere in the constant struggle, the endless push and pull of tangled admiration and hatred that has always been theirs, something snaps and he can feel it, grating like a broken strut, until nothing calms his nerves and he wants out out OUT-
He takes to the air and the wind whispers to him, a gentle but ultimately transient ally. Transient - because it's on the ground that everything falls apart until it's just them, him and Megatron and their broken respect that twists into disgust until he can't even tell where one ends and the other begins. On the ground he feels his own futility but can't put a stop to it because those pointless, foolish acts of rebellion have become his essence, are somehow him in a way he can't even begin to describe. He can't back down because that would break the circle, and without the circle he is somehow frenetically certain he would cease to exist.
The sky's different, but he can't stay there. Because he'd lose himself to the wind just as surely as he'd lose himself to his enemy/leader/nemesis/kin and the thought scares him in an entirely different way. He doesn't think flying is like that for the others, and in an occasional moment of clear thought he wonders why - if, perhaps, he's simply incapable of loving something without fear, without fury, without that insatiable need for mastery that some well-hidden part of him hopes will never succeed. Because that's why he pushes himself so hard in the sky, why he's always forced himself into greater speed, greater agility... his post of Air Commander testifies to his talent, that he is the best flier in the entire army, but it isn't enough. It's never enough. In the sky, he doesn't want dominance over his Seekers; he wants to rule over the air itself.
He has never set his sights on anything small.
High in the stratosphere he turns, wheels, accelerating faster and faster and pushing the limits of his peak velocity. It's so far removed from the eternal, pointless struggle that he can never escape on the ground, but even here he cannot rest. Better, greater, faster, stronger. At one time in the far-distant past his hunger for mastery had some end, some purpose, but at this point it is an end in itself. It's as if he'll be overtaken if he doesn't keep speeding ahead, as if anything greater than himself will blot him out entirely - and even if he knows in his spark that he'll never turn that tide, he has to keep fighting or he'll lose himself.
And if he stops he's afraid of having to look at himself clearly for the first time in millenia - desperately afraid of what he might see.
Because there's nothing left of what he used to be, and nothing to replace it but this relentless cycle of striving. Skyfire had seen that, had seen straight through him. Was that what had made him turn on Skyfire? Things shifted so fast they were nearly meaningless - one moment working to save an old friend's life with the sort of intensity that rarely visits him anymore, the next moment shooting savagely to kill until the ice had closed over broad white wings once more. And then the realization, his spark drowned by the numb acceptance that he no longer cared. Now there are only echoes of something that once was - of something he once was, before this, before everything. Now is different, because attachment comes only with disgust and he feels nothing but disgust for Skyfire now.
And hatred. Pure, clear hatred suddenly fills him - it comes so easily now - and suddenly he pulls up, rocketing higher and higher as the earth drops below him. He wants to cut through the atmosphere, to achieve something up here and prove himself to the sky. Faster, faster - sparks fly off his fuselage as the friction increases, but he feels no pain, driving upward with a single-minded fury. He will prevail. He is master of the skies and the atmosphere cannot deny him this.
At last he breaks free, shouting in a silent, exultant triumph. He's left earth and sky behind, he's transcended. Orbit has him now and at first it's glorious - weightless, drifting, nothing to tie him down anymore. The hate is gone, forgotten, frustrating echoes of Skyfire once again shoved to the back of his memory core. All that's left is--
panic.
Directionless, drifting. He seizes up suddenly, terrified, paralyzed with something he can't explain. He's drifting away. Orbit has him. Fire once again streams from his thrusters and he forces himself down, back into the atmosphere he'd just struck down and abandoned with a yawning chasm of fear almost splitting his spark - don't leave me behind, don't leave me weightless - but suddenly he's flying faster than he intended, gravity pulling him into its embrace, his nosecone pointed directly at the ground.
And it's effortless. His thrusters cut out, he's in freefall, and it's bliss. He spirals down from the sky, the miles streaking by in a blurry haze, and the ground is rushing at him. And he's not sure why he recognizes this with such a savage triumph. He's going to die if he doesn't pull up and yet that fact seems to barely register against the desperate excitement of falling.
Doubt flickers on the surface of his spark for barely an instant, not long enough to change his course. Mere astroseconds to impact. He's passed the point of no return.
Starscream strikes the ground with terrible force, flames erupting almost immediately on impact as his body crumples. Crash and burn. His consciousness only lasts a moment more. And in that instant of pain... there is clarity.