Riella, Skystorm (unnamed) and T'Pren belong to me. All other characters and locations, as well as the Vulcan custom of kahs-wan, are canon.
What Doesn't Kill You
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
Stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone
What doesn't kill you makes a fighter
Footsteps even lighter…
- From Stronger [What Doesn't Kill You] by Kelly Clarkson
I lived on Cybertron for thousands of years, so long that there are sparklings born and full grown whose creators were not sparkmated when I first came. But I can remember that I once called another planet home. A planet not covered in metal buildings and roads, but with golden sand and red stone cities, where the sun heats everything during the day, and the night cools it once again. Vulcan, the planet of my birth and childhood.
Earth is my home now, just as Cybertron was my home for so many years. But Vulcan, the desert planet, still holds a piece of my spark. I see tiny parts of my heritage living on in my sparklings, and it reminds me of the girl I once was.
My son's first solo training combat brought back memories of my own kahs-wan ordeal, the trial that pits a Vulcan child against the desert alone. No, it was not as savage as it sounds; we prepare for it for years. Still, as a twelve-year-old alone in the Forge, it was…intense. As much as a first combat, I suppose. What they say is true; no child survives kahs-wan and remains a child. I survived, and I am stronger for it; in fact, I wonder, would I have survived the war on Cybertron without that experience?
The only other time that I recall with as much intensity was the day I left Vulcan forever. I can still close my optics and see my mother T'Pren, disapproving dark eyes locked with my green ones.
"You realize I cannot approve of this," she warned, showing no more emotion than if she had been discussing the weather. "If you leave us for another galaxy, you leave us forever. There is no one who will follow you into the unknown regions."
I recall the frown she gave – ha! Emotion, Mother, emotion – when I rolled my eyes and told her I knew and didn't care. It was the absolute truth; they had denied me even the possibility of remaining in this galaxy, when they refused to accept the mech I love as sentient. Did that hurt? Of course. Did I let them see? I don't know, and I don't care.
And I left. Never to return.
I always say that it never hurt, that everything that ever mattered to me was on Cybertron, and now Earth. But in my spark I still wonder what it is like. Are the people who I once called my species still there, still carving out their place in that galaxy? Does Shi'Kahr still stand proudly above the volcanic plain we call Vulcan's Forge, throwing shadows across the desert sands? Just once, I would like to stand there again, in my organic form. To feel the heat of the sun on my back, and hear the sound of the sha'vokh calling above the city.
But I know it cannot happen, that a return to another galaxy is impossible. And so I remain here on Earth, and I watch this sun set, so different from 40 Eridani A. And as I hold my daughter close, and I sense my sparkmate's love, and I watch my sons with the humans that they care so much for, I know that the loss has made me far stronger than I ever would have been otherwise.
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