Apparently, this is what results when you take a sketchbook to class and have Halloween hijinks on the brain. Spritelight is a Mini-Predacon that Minikoontzy and I have been working on for several months now for her fic Fire of Youth—we were discussing the Will'O'Wisp and other Celtic mythological creatures, and Sprite was the result of that conversation. Since then, the little trickster has made his debut in FoY—not to mention been the subject at least a dozen sketches, which can be found on DeviantArt, including the sketch that spawned this ficlet and with which it shares its title: Deadly Curiosity. Needless to say, the plot bunnies struck not long after the sketch went up...

To avoid spoilers, the disclaimer can be found at the bottom of the ficlet.

Happy Halloween!

It was staring him in the face.

Or at least—once he'd gotten over the shock of waking up to it right there in front of him and decided to take a second look—he thought it was.

Then again, knowing what "it" was in the first place might have helped.

He supposed it might have been a youngling's doll, although it stood taller than he would have thought it should have—and a doll had no business being in his den, let alone mere inches from his snout. It certainly looked like one, perhaps even handmade, considering that the face drawn on its well-worn head appeared to have been drawn on, and its ears were rather crooked, the tips limp as if the doll's creator hadn't been able to get the stuffing all the way to the tips. The doll had no limbs, which was odd but not particularly noteworthy, though it made the wooden tail seem like a strange addition, and its bottom edge was slightly tattered, revealing what seemed to be a sort of black fringe underneath. There even seemed to be a second set of eyes on the doll's torso-or perhaps they were just spots. But they did remind him of eyes, and they seemed to be watching him just as much as the drawn-on pair...

Strange. Perhaps Cat would know what it was and where it had come from—while he wasn't sure he liked the idea of her taking a beloved toy, "finding" something unusual and plunking it in front of him like this to spook him upon awakening was something she would do—not that he would ever tell her that he'd fallen for it. He would just act as if he hadn't and remind her to return the doll to its owner.

He made a mental note to seek out the Seelie later, once night had fallen and he didn't have to deal with any nosy natives that might come wandering into the area and see something they shouldn't. In the meantime, he'd return to his interrupted power-down, conserving his Energon reserve. Since he'd scrambled to his paws in his initial shock (again, he was never going to admit to being spooked by a doll), he turned a quick circle, then another, and dropped back to the floor of his den.

And, because the doll was still staring at him, he reached out with a claw and lightly poked it.

The doll made a soft, raspy chattering sound and swung its tail into his claw.

For the second time that afternoon, he leaped to his feet with a yelp, wings half-flaring, antennae flicking up in shock, a pale flicker running from the base of their lobed tips to their ends. His other lights briefly lit his den with a soft glow as he stared at the doll—

No. It wasn't a doll. It was...He wasn't sure what it was. But it wasn't a human youngling's toy, that much was certain.

Not only that, but as he looked around, he suddenly realized that there were six more of them—six more not-dolls of various shape and size in his den, although one was a different color than the others, and one...

...Why did that one look like him?

He blinked, unable to take his eyes off the not-doll as its fellows wandered around his den, chattering away in their strange little voices. Made out of blue scraps, its seams vaguely resembling his plating and its face similar but not identical to its fellows, it had dangling fabric streamers attached to its head to imitate his antennae and four white bits of cloth and wire stitched to its back; no doubt they were supposed to be his wings. Faint yellow scribbles looked to be the stand-in for his wing-lights, although it didn't have anything over its drawn-on eyes to imitate the lenses over his own optics...

He shook his head. Why was he studying the not-doll? As eerie as it was to see one parading around in his own likeness, he had to figure out how he was going to get it and its companions out of his den—not to mention how he was going to get payback on Cat for this one. Where had she even found something like these not-dolls, anyway?

Apparently tired of its exploration, the biggest of the not—dolls-the one that he had woken up with-returned to its spot, staring up at him silently. He regarded it just as curiously—what did it want? He reached out and poked it again, and when it didn't respond, poked it a third time, a little harder than the first two.

There was a soft snapping noise, and the not-doll's head lolled back, its neck obviously broken.

His spark seemed to freeze for an instant, and at the same time, the whispery conversation of the other not-dolls came to an abrupt halt. He'd killed it. He hadn't meant to hurt it, hadn't realized it was that fragile—

With a loud hiss, the broken-necked not-doll lunged, the eyes on its torso flashing with rage, and he had just enough time to realize with mingled terror and relief that whatever the not-doll was, the top part wasn't its actual head, before it lashed out with shadowy claws that extended out from under the fringe at its base. Screeching, the other not-dolls joined in the assault, their claws making a hideous screech as they tore at his plating, which luckily took little damage from their attacks. Hissing, he snapped at the leader of the not-dolls, his tail catching the attacks to the others as he blocked their attempts to get at his wings. He'd been lucky enough to keep them intact over the centuries when battling much greater foes than these—he was not going to let them get torn now!

If he wounded the leader of the group, perhaps they would leave. It wouldn't be a serious injury; he just wanted them out of his den. But since the not-dolls seemed to really be a small creature under a rag of some kind-like some human younglings did on All Hallow's Eve, he thought-he just needed to strip away the false body, to see what really lay underneath—

Lunging, he snatched away the ragged scraps from the nearest not-doll—he'd been aiming for the big one, but instead he had caught the wings of the one that looked like him. The fabric fell away, and he saw—

Terror. Unholy, Pit-spawned terror that froze more than just his body; it stole his breath, his thoughts, freezing his processor and immersing his spark in ice until he couldn't think or move or scream or remember and everything went black...

-He was weightless, formless, everywhere and nowhere and he felt nothing and everything was dark except for the pale light he could sense but not see that was him and not him-

-There was a sudden yank-

With a gasp, he jerked, limbs spasming as if they had forgotten how to function. His whole frame seemed as if it had been numbed, and it took longer than he would have liked to struggle to his paws—his paws? hadn't he been standing?—and look wildly around his den. There was nothing there. No not-dolls, no signs of a disturbance-even his flanks, which had been marred moments ago with scratches, were untouched. It was as if he had dreamed the whole thing...

But he hadn't. Had he? It was so clear in his head: the not-dolls, the snapping neck of the biggest one as he poked it too hard, their attack in retaliation. His snatching the rags from the one that mimicked him, and then—

He couldn't remember what had happened after. It was if something in his processor had shorted, leaving a gap in his memories. But he knew that something had happened, something terrible, and he shivered at the thought. For a moment, he thought he heard a rustling in the darkest corner of his den...

Without second thought, he bolted out of his den and into the rainy night—night? But it hadn't been that late—taking off with a buzz of his wings. Dream or not, he was going to find a new den for tonight, and quite likely for a long time after that. He wasn't going to stay here a moment longer than he had to, and he was going to make sure that no one ever found out about this incident.

Just outside the mouth of the abandoned den, a small, ragged figure watched the receding form, its head tilted at an unnatural angle...

Transformers and Pokémon belong to their respective owners, Hasbro and Nintendo/Game Freak.

Spritelight was co-created with Minikoontzy. As far as I know, that means that he is the intellectual property of us both.

This ficlet was originally published on DeviantArt. Seeing as I wrote it, I am aware of it being in both locations.