Author's note:
I was thinking about how Prime can never die now, after the brouhaha in the aftermath of the '86 movie.
And I proceeded to follow that train of thought gleefully off the Emo-Cliff.
(I have some ideas for funny drabbles; but emo is easier to write! Ha.)
As always, this is set in my personal happy universe...
Death Wish
I visit their tombs today.
Again.
The catacombs are vast; as I walk through them, the hollow clatter of my footsteps echoes down the long halls, returning to reverberate in my empty spark.
I follow the groove that my ever-returning feet have worn into the floor, to pay my respects to the friends who have gone ahead without me.
I stop first at the most recently added memorial, and though I know he is no longer here, I whisper, "Hello, Ratchet." The able mech wound down in his medbay, as he was teaching a newling apprentice how to hot-wire a transformation sequence. I will miss his gruff amiability.
Next I visit a much more ancient monument. Ironhide: To my sorrow, my old friend went offline not long after the Ceasefire, one day as he and I were reminiscing together.
I continue along my accustomed route, the walls on either side covered in plaques commemorating the lives of others I knew well. Wheeljack: the explosive engineer faded quietly away during a routine recharge, an irony which never fails to make me smile. I wonder if he'd be pleased that his departure was so serene, or disappointed. I tend to believe the latter.
Jazz: he drove off one day in his usual high spirits, and was found nearly a stellar cycle later, hooked up to the broadcast system in an abandoned amphitheater that had been a favorite hangout of his before the War. I've always assumed that he planned it that way.
And so it goes. Lately it seems I have more friends here in these dusty halls than I do out in the daylight.
It has been more than 30,000 vorns since the Ceasefire. More and more newlings come online who know nothing of the Great War. I am glad of their innocence, yet I feel more and more out of place among them; an anachronistic vestige of a long-forgotten era. So few of the old guard are left, so few who were there, who know...
I am not alone, they all assure me. But I am alone, just the same.
I come to the end of a quiet hall, and stop, my feet fitting neatly inside of the hollows that they have sunk into the floor here. I reach out a hand, and touch her cold and empty shell. Somehow I always expected Elita to outlast me. But the femmes are not as sturdily built as the mechs, and we have found to our sorrow that they tend to wind down far sooner than we do.
Her shell has grown increasingly brittle of late, despite our best attempts at preservation. In a way, I suppose it is selfish of me not to let her materials be recycled, used to build the housing of a new spark. But somehow, I have never been able to manage that final letting go.
I whisper my secrets to her for a while, there in the dusty stillness. And I suppose it helps, a little. I like to think that she can hear me, feel me, wherever she is. I am certain that I sometimes feel her memory stir within me. But it is not the same.
At last I move on, back down the main corridor to a large, much-visited memorial at the end. The plain, polished pillar is covered with offerings and mementos from those who know that none of the peace in which we have thrived for so long now would have been possible without Megatron.
I have left no token. I gave him my all an age ago; to add some other trifle now would seem ridiculous.
I put a hand on the smooth, cold monument. I smile at all the tokens of appreciation left there. I am glad to see my bond-brother so well-loved. How he would have laughed! But I can not laugh today. Today I am tired. Tired of being moored to a world which no longer needs me. Tired of trying to fit in to a way of life I have never fully adapted to, no matter how hard I tried. I am tired of being alone. I want to move on.
I unlatch my chestplates, and lift the heavy inner guard underneath. The Matrix does not come willingly, but after careful, persistent effort, it yields to my prying fingers with a click and a hiss.
Deliberately, I set it on the floor.
"Primus," I call softly, and the echoes run away down the hall.
"Primus!" I shout, and the very dust skitters away from me as if in fear.
"PRIMUS!!!" The dead air around me shakes as the sound of my cry fills the catacombs. "LET. ME. GO!"
The dust is the only thing that moves.
"I have done all that you could have asked of me, and more. Cybertron has been peaceful for an age, and your creations find new joy in building and improving their lives and their world, instead of in warfare and destruction. You do not need me any more. They do not need me. Find someone else to fill this role, Primus! I am finished. Let me go."
Silence falls around me. Dust shimmers in the shafts of dim light slanting to the floor.
"Primus! Stop leaning on me! Find another you can depend on. There are so many you could choose from, many wise and worthy mechs who could ably serve and lead. Pass this responsibility on to a newer, younger spark. You have held mine too long. They are waiting for me, Primus. Set me free. Let me go to them at last."
I lean my back against Megatron's obelisk.
And I wait. I am determined not to yield.
I do not know if it is a few kliks or half an orn later that I notice dust swirling around the Matrix as if caught in a tiny gravitational field. A soft glow deep in the crystal center grows brighter and brighter, until at last I can no longer focus my optics on it. All on its own, the Matrix floats slowly up from the floor, hovers in front of me, and opens. I open my spark, and download everything I have ever seen, done, experienced, thought, and learned in my long lifetime into its ancient repository. It is a relief to let it all go. I hope that it may be of some small use to those who come after me.
The light within the Matrix dims, and I catch it as it falls. Weakened, I slide down to sit at the foot of the monument.
More than just a memorial to Megatron, the pillar against which I rest my weary frame has become a symbolic reminder of all those who perished in the Great War, and of all the sacrifices, small and great, made by those who live for the preservation of our peace. I think it appropriate now to leave my empty chassis here. I open my hands and rest the Matrix on my open palms. Whoever takes it up after me, I wish him well.
I shut down for what I hope is the last time.