Rest
Written 2014-08-28
Edited 2014-09-01
To be frank, as the humans say, thought the great and mighty Optimus Prime, death really isn't terrifying. Flying down the giant, meandering tunnel from the Well of Allsparks, he couldn't find it in himself to feel much but relief – and a bit of regret.
Oh, he trusted his team, the Autobots, to maintain peace and order. He'd watch them grow, learn, fight and prevail in the face of the vilest darkness and evil in the universe. He'd seen them face death and loss in the eye, get beaten down and trodden on, hurt in unfathomable ways, and prevail. They persevered. They fought.
He trusted they would be able to take care of themselves.
No, it was the great burden of passing on his responsibility, the one that leered down at him every single morning after he woke up from recharge. For just a blissful, fuzzy moment while his optics focused, he'd forget and wake up as Orion Pax in a warrior's body.
Then it'd crash down on him, weigh him down and heavy his spark. The responsibility he bore as a Prime, as the leader, was not to be trifled with. Emotions had to be suppressed; cries had to be ignored; pleas dismissed, all in the name of the greater good. Oh, he hated that part of his job so much, because it was ingrained in his very programming; to defend the weak; to help. It went against every fiber of his being when he had to make one of those impossible decisions.
It was even worse that he knew that the responsibility would be taken up by young Bumblebee, a barely-of-age mech whose childhood had been robbed of him by the war. He'd never known his true parents. Optimus Prime, instead, had been bumped the responsibility of caretaker and mentor. Not that he was bitter about it, of course; it was just the fact that he was the de facto choice to take care of Bumblebee. Because he was the leader. He knew it was sort of childish, but he had sufficiently ignored that little whining voice, shoved it to the back of his processor and stomped it out. He even viewed the young scout in a fatherly kind of way. It was sad that he would never know who had birthed him.
That just made him feel even worse as he left the responsibility to his son.
But he knew that his time was over. He truly was relieved that he could lay down the sword, finally relax. It was the end of the day; it was time to rest.
Turning the bend, he came into the view of the Heart of Cybertron. Relief washed through him and his spark buzzed happily as it came back home.
Rest, Orion Pax.
For the first time in eons, Orion Pax let himself rest.