Summary: No-War, No-Factions AU. Festival of the Five: They were two stars circling a single gravitational point. One driven by faith, the other by desire. They came together only with the blessing of the Guiding Hand, and when they did all of Cybertron was caught in their orbit. They weren't destined for each other, but as Primus said: There is destiny, and then there is destiny.
Warnings: Sexual Content, including one (mild but detailed) tactile interfacing scene. Cannon-typical violence. Alien Religion and various issues thereof.
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Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory
Part Three: Interlude cont…
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Mirage took the opportunity to escape Iacon when the Festival of Mortilus next came. Optimus was required to go too, and once again he was in the viewer's box next to the Prime, though the circumstances otherwise were entirely different. Optimus gently teased him about how he hoped that Sunstorm would win again — it was no secret, not after three Festival trysts — and Mirage teased him back about the crush he'd developed on that gladiator, Megatron.
Neither's hopes played out. Sunstorm nearly crippled himself using his alpha ability to burn through Megatron's armor, the gladiator so impervious to damage it nearly counted as an alpha ability itself, during the third round. Optimus had given him an odd look when he'd choked on his own fans as Sunstorm had saluted the gladiator and said, "You are the hurricane, Megatron, and it is not yet time. Too soon and the coming dawn will be only a triumph over ash." Then he'd blazed as bright as the star he was named for; it had been painful to watch and not just because of the radiation. The seeker's frame was so much lighter than the gladiator's and Mirage knew that just one good hit and Mirage would have lost Sunstorm's faith forever. As it was, he'd used so much energy that even with his ability which couldn't ever be turned off, only suppressed, he'd been able to summon only a flicker during the fourth round and conceded to a lightweight ground car that looked like he'd fall over in a stiff breeze.
All in all it was less an escape than Mirage had hoped it would be, and when it was over it was back to being an Advisor to the Prime, back to being Phantasm's estranged-but-acknowledged heir…
…Back to Hound.
It was hard making sure he and Hound found the time to explore, to dance, to play and talk and eventually interface. It was perfect in every way when they were together, and eventually absolute agony when they weren't. Which was more often than not. Their duties were so different and they rarely had the time. And Mirage was always the one who had to make plans; no matter how many times he assured his lover it was not the case, Hound was keenly aware that he was reaching above his station. They explored and hunted — Mirage had hunted turbofoxes before, but not like this, tracking them so quietly and for no other purpose than to watch — and everything he could think of but only on Mirage's terms terms.
Optimus approved, but none of Mirage's other peers did. Especially not Phantasm. (Phantasm could kiss his skid plate.) The nicest opinion most of them held of the relationship was that if he was going to have a toy then he could have at least picked an attractive one. Mirage told them to get bent whenever it came up, and they shunned him…at least until they next needed him to ask a favor of Prime.
Hound's friends were no more enthused, and he was more reluctant to tell them where they could shove their negativity. Their disapproval came from care of their friend. Mirage's caste did not have the greatest reputation when it came to personal relationships with those they considered lower than them. Mirage hadn't even heard about some of the stories Trailbreaker and Conduit told Hound about how nasty nobles could be to laborers.
Mirage had been appalled and horrified when Hound finally had told him why Trailbreaker seemed to hate his circuits. "I try Mirage, but he doesn't see what you're like, just that you're noble."
He swallowed his fury — not at Hound, not at Trailbreaker but at those unknown members of his own caste that had made this even an issue. One of many. "He can come to our next outing," he offered, while anger churned in his tank, as gracious as he'd ever been with one of his creator's guests, and with infinitely more reason in his opinion.
Trailbreaker was suspicious of the offer though. And he grew more suspicious as time went on and the promised outing never actually manifested. He and Hound, laborers, had a pretty regular schedule. They got one orn and two half-orns off work every decaorn, and it was extremely rare that something upset that schedule. Holidays mostly. There weren't very many emergencies for a crystal tender and a surveyor. Hound had only cancelled a handful of times, ever, and all those times for personal or private emergencies.
Nobles on the other hand, especially Primal confidants, were never really off-duty.
It looked like they had a lot of free time, with the parties and the socializing, but in truth those events were not-optional. Mirage couldn't just skip one of them to go clubbing with Hound no matter what Trailbreaker thought he should do. And an emergency… an emergency meeting, an emergency training session, an emergency inspection, an emergency business trip, an emergency natural disaster, an emergency council meeting, an emergency negotiation with an alien government, an emergency emotional breakdown, or even an emergency gossip session to bolster Optimus' flagging morale… always hovered around the Prime, and consequently around Mirage.
When it came up again, in Stanix this time, he offered to take both Hound and Trailbreaker to the Festival of Solomus along with all the rest of the Primal entourage.
Unfortunately Mirage and his relationship — if you could even call it that — with Sunstorm was hardly a secret. More like a public spectacle, and Trailbreaker had snarled that if he wanted to carry on with another while he and Hound were courting there was nothing he could do to stop him, but the least he could do is not force Hound to be present. Hound had just politely declined, saying he didn't want to be "in the way."
For the first time Mirage seriously thought he might reject Sunstorm if he won. Then he felt horrible for the thought; what would that rejection do to a mech who thought of him as a vessel for the gods? And he wasn't even certain that rejecting him was what Mirage wanted.
It wasn't even the interfacing, it was the way Sunstorm treated him while he did so. He wasn't a noble, he wasn't even Mirage to the seeker, and he had no issues reaching across the divide of caste. To the seeker, spark sharing with Mirage was an expression of faith — faith Mirage sorely needed. But the fact was that interfacing, even spark sharing which he and Hound had yet to do, was part of that worship and that potentially was hurting his courtmate. He was so conflicted about it that he didn't know what to feel when Sunstorm came in second — proving his win last cycle wasn't a fluke, but still a hair too slow at solving whatever gave him the answers to beat Wheeljack a second time. Relief and disappointment seemed to have equal weight.
Optimus was no help. "I think you and Sunstorm are one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen," he said in that tone of voice that Mirage recognized meant he wasn't referring to anything he'd seen with his optics, "and I haven't even really seen what's between you, but you and Hound… What do you feel?"
Eventually he'd found himself in the primary Temple of Solomus in Stanix looking at the altar and remembering another moment that had changed his life. Stupidly he'd done it without even a single thought towards the potential consequences. At the time he'd had no idea just how much rejecting Virtue would cost him, eventually change him, but he wouldn't ever believe it wasn't worth it. This time… he didn't even know what to do, much less what any potential consequences might be.
"If you're looking for someplace quiet to think," Mirage looked up into the optics of the priest, a dark glossy green mech with the frame of a heavy cargo ground-alt reminiscent of Prime's, "we have a few rooms that aren't strictly public for those in true need of the Temple, away from the revelers."
"It's alright," Mirage answered, "right now the noise actually helps." The priest cast a disbelieving glance towards the nearest group, a trine of helicopter-alts who'd been inspired by Wheeljack's plea to his Chosen and confessed their love to each other and were busy loudly flaunting the usual rules of commonly decent behavior while they celebrated, and he clarified with a wry smile, "It puts me in the mindset of the last Festival of Solomus I attended and I feel the need to remember why the decision I made then was worth it."
"Of course it's none of my business if you don't want to talk about it, but sometimes talking does help. Else the temples would stand empty, priests being here primarily to talk, after all. Issues with your bondmate?"
It was amazing that there was someone who didn't know about Mirage and Sunstorm, but maybe the priest was being oblique in order put the noble at ease. Or maybe he honestly didn't recognize him. "No. I've been Chosen three times by the Champion, but not for a bonding. But in a way… issues with the mech that I want to bond with."
The priest beckoned and Mirage found himself led to a private corner he didn't even suspect was there, and bid to sit on the bench there. "Say whatever it is you feel the need to say. Solomus listens."
And so the whole story came tumbling out in an awkward heap of words that another Mirage would have been ashamed of.
"It's not my place to say," the priest finally said after a moment of silence, "which of your two lovers is the right choice for you. But I do know, as do you for that matter," he gestured to the revelers who wandered by, "there is a tradition for situations like this. Historically it's been the lower-caste lover who's raced to prove his devotion to god and lover, but they do not need to prove themselves to you, it sounds like, but you feel the need to prove yourself to them and their peers."
A thrill went through his spark. Could he —? "I couldn't do that to Sunstorm." Mirage said instead.
"Then your choices are to race for your gardener's affections, or to be always waiting for Sunstorm to win yours," the priest said. "Which is more important? Faith or love."
"Why do they have to be mutually exclusive," Mirage grumbled.
"They're not," the priest chuckled, "but lovers sometimes are."
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tbc
