See Prologue for Disclaimer. Don't own Star Wars.

Chapter 20: The Daggers

She laughed as she lay in his lap on his throne and he chuckled at her beautiful sound. Eleanor was trying to dodge one of his fingers, which was gently tickling her, pushing at the metal weakly. "St-stop! That tickles!"

"I know," he grinned mischievously, managing to pin her writhing form on the metal of his thigh and intensifying the attack on her stomach. He found that it had the same effect as touching transformation seams had on a Cybertronian - it was a sensation that sent tingles through the systems. It appeared that he was having this effect on Eleanor, and he cherished the sight of her so trusting after all of this time.

"Stop!" she whined, chest heaving as she tried to breathe.

"Beg for mercy," he growled playfully, still poking at her. That just might make my vents start, he purred mentally.

"O gracious leader, please, spare me!" She just barely said the words, trying to keep from hyperventilating.

"Very well. Just this once, human." He pulled the servo tickling her away but kept the other over her - he liked seeing her all splayed out.

"Let me up!" she tried to get up, and as he went to push her back down one of his claws slipped. It slid right through the bones of her chest, piercing her deeply. She let out a sharp scream, and as he pulled his claw out in shock red blood poured out of the wound, like Energon from a busted fuel tank. His talon was painted crimson with her liquid, and she heaved a single breath before going still. Her gray, organic eyes dulled as the life left her body and vanished, her human spark ceasing its pounding.

"No," He leaned over her, scanning in vain, "Eleanor!" But it was too late. His scans showed that her body was going cold on his left thigh, and that her life had been extinguished.

He was left cursing his strength and her fragility, his enormity and her impotence. His cry of pain filled the air of the room as he lamented having lost her yet again.

Megatron onlined from the flux with a start, jolting awake the human on his chest. He vented heavily in stark relief, seeing Eleanor alive and rubbing her eyes, her form illuminated by the gray light of the moon. "Ugh. What -"

He ran a claw down her back and sighed, believing his optics when his sensors stroked her skin and confirmed that she was not a vision. "Nothing, Eleanor." Looking out the windows at the dark sky, he whispered, "Go back to sleep."

She had no protest as she relaxed again and drifted away, curled up comfortably on his chestplates. Megatron did not return to recharge, however, and instead lay on his berth and reflected on the meaning of his - as humans called it - nightmare.

I can't trust myself with her. Not for much longer. It will only be so long before she gets hurt or killed because of her human form. My poor Circuitsia, stuck in such a weak body.

He dared to pick up Eleanor's sleeping form to plant a tender kiss on her head, smiling as she murmured and shifted in her sleep. She was mesmerising to him, the soul of his precious Circuitsia.

Megatron had pushed her into her bathroom the next morning and she bathed away the beach with Susan and Grace attending her.

"Any reports?" she inquired, drying off her hands.

"Yes, ma'am," Grace answered, handing her slip of paper to Eleanor. After Susan had given her her half of the message, Eleanor looked it over grimly. In the month of receiving such papers, she had become fluent in deciphering pig latin and could do it with ease now.

Katniss,

Our scouts have informed us of the increasingly deadly conditions in the slave camps. Human beings are often forced to work on small rations and in inadequate clothing, and disease is rampant with them. Given your apparent favor with Snow - She raised an eyebrow at "apparent favor"- we urge you to petition him for some kind of improvement. We have faith in your diplomatic skills, which you have shown as President, and the rest of the human race does too.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

Biting her lower lip, she looked to Susan and Grace. "I don't think I can do this. I have no idea what his reaction to such a request would be." I don't want someone else to get killed.

Susan smiled at her fondly, preparing Eleanor's scanty bikini set, "Put it gently, dear. I don't think you can leave their plea for help unanswered."

Eleanor nodded slowly, standing from the bath and letting the water run down her legs. "I suppose I will just have to try."

Snapping the bra into place and pulling the bottoms up, Susan and Grace walked her out of the bathroom and back into her bedroom, where the cuts and bruises were painted on her face again. "Just our orders, Eleanor," Grace anticipated, brushing on some fake blood.

Why the sudden change? He didn't have me wear this for a month and he wants it now? Perhaps it is a comeback after those remarks Starscream made, a political move to satisfy his followers?

But why not hurt me in the first place? Why go through all this trouble, even give me luxury, if I am simply a pet?

She was honestly surprised that she had been kept alive for this long. She thought that he would have tired of her and squished her like a bug, but he actually seemed to be warming up to her - perhaps in more ways than one. She shuddered at the thought.

"Susan, how is James doing? Have you seen him lately?" She asked innocently, and Susan solemnized in her position at the back of Eleanor's head. With gentle hands she finished the high ponytail, spritzing some hair spray, "We haven't seen him lately, Eleanor." Tears pricked the assistant's blue eyes, glazing them.

Grace finished what Susan could not, "The new cleaning slave, Jasmine, says that she heard that he was taken out of the basement, where the palace slaves work, by a supervisor and a pair of palace guards. "

Eleanor raised turned to look at them, eyes wide, "Do you think he knows, and that's why James was taken away?"

"Possibly," Grace snapped a pair of golden, engraved anklets around her ankles, "But no one knows if he is alive..." Grace didn't dare finish her sentence, leaving Eleanor to do so herself.

Susan tried to cheer her up, smiling lightly as she slid a gilded band up her arm, "I think the master would have made a bigger deal out of it if he knew, Elle. It's possible that he was simply relocated to another part of the palace. They do that here." They didn't, but Susan was willing to protect her from any more pain. She had enough of that to contend with already.

The ladies finished their work in silence and Megatron collected her himself. He did not stop when he went through the living room and into his office, not asking if she was hungry. The Emperor did not even place her on his desk, going behind the throne-like chair to another, bulkier door. Typing in a code, the door hissed open and Eleanor let out a little gasp at the little room beyond.

Weapons of all sorts lined the walls, which were illuminated with a faint, blue glow from several hidden spotlights. Axes, maces, swords, alien guns, everything she could think of was there. He set her down at a waist-high (for him) continuous counter that ran around the room, and she walked past the weaponry with awe and a little fear on her face.

"Impressed?" he chuckled softly at her as she nodded, coming to a pair of daggers. She stopped in her tracks and studied the silver, elegant pieces. She noticed that they were encased in glass, unlike all of the other deadly tools, and were slightly smaller in scale. Their edges were jagged and razor-sharp, narrowing down to a lethal point. Alien runes ran down the blades vertically, glinting in the light.

Megatron looked up from his own selection and watched her, a smile crossing his faceplates. "Like those, pet?"

She nodded, not moving her eyes from them, "They're beautiful." After he changed his weaponry, he scooped her up and left the room, locking the door securely behind him.

Megatron opened the exterior doors to his suites, the guards bowing as his footsteps moved down the corridor. "I have several meetings with underlings today, Eleanor. These reports require slightly different behavior than you are used to..." She listened attentively, not liking where this was going.

President Sherman gave a little sigh from her place, hating the situation he had forced her into. She wondered if he was outdoing himself by displaying her like slave Leia.

Currently she was lying on a soft satin pillow placed between Megatron's enormous pedes, a leash clipped to the elegant diamond collar around her neck, shivering from the cold. She had endured patronizing comments, said in English for her own benefit, the entire day, in addition to Megatron accidentally tugging on her slim, sliver chain from his seat on his throne.

He had almost broken her neck once when he had lost his temper with one of the slave camp supervisors, and she had given a yelp of pain. As soon as that Cybertronian was escorted out, he had picked her up and carefully checked her neck for any injuries, stroking gently - as any giant robot could, anyway - over the bruised spot.

According to him, this was the last supervisor to give a report. She recognized him as the cop car that had tried to bully her into submission, Barricade she thought he was called. He gave her a little sneer after greeting the Emperor with a bow, and Eleanor could have sworn she heard a low growl from the beast sitting above her. It was so quiet she almost missed it, but it was definitely there.

"Beautiful pet, my liege. She seems to have well learned her new place: between your pedes."

Megatron gave a vociferous laugh and replied, "She has indeed, though she was a hard spirit to break." He grinned, baring fangs at her, and she pursed her lips, deciding that there was nothing she could do. He had promised another trip if she was good and a lashing if she disobeyed his orders, though she doubted the likelihood of the latter happening. Megatron had yet to harm her, but she was not dull; she had witnessed his capacity for murder firsthand, in this very room.

He hated that he had to speak so lowly of his sparkmate, one that did not deserve to be put down and disgraced in such a way, but appearances had to be maintained. The less that was suspected of her, the less attention she would receive from his mechs.

Barricade continued in Cybertronian, reporting for several minutes. Megatron wasn't giving him his audios, however, as he thought about where he would take Eleanor on their next little trip. Someplace a little warmer, where I can experiment with this water play that her former mate mentioned, he fingered the leash, passing it through his servo.

Barricade finally finished, and the leader of the Decepticons allowed him to leave. As soon as he was out of sight, Megatron scooped her up and placed her in his lap, unclipping the leash. He pet her, praising, "You did well, Eleanor. Not a single word out of you." His purr scared her, and she shivered more in the valley of his legs.

Seeing her shake, he asked, "Are you alright, fleshling?" Her only response was a sneeze, more shudders, and then a little cough. Marginally concerned now, he took her in a servo and carried her to the medbay, walking a little faster than his usual gait. He didn't know much about human physiology, but he did have the sense to know that any change in her body was not good.

"Scalpel!" he barked and set her down on a berth. The Doctor inspected her, looking into her nose and mouth, even her ears. One of his assistants brought him an object which she couldn't see but was promptly stuck into the crevice of her elbow, making her cry out. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a little flinch from Megatron, which intrigued her. Interesting.

She gave another, more dramatic screech when it was pulled out and saw the same reaction from him. Eleanor added it to the mental list of things that confused her, which was growing longer by the day, but also indulged in a satisfying moment of revenge. Anything she could do to make him uncomfortable was worth doing.

Scalpel took a reading off the device and handed it back to one of his assistants. "Zhe has a cold, Megatron. Nothing unusual for zhe humans," he looked at how she was dressed, "but zhe zhould be covered more. It iz ezential to keep her warm."

Megatron made no reply, and Scalpel examined her belly, adding "There iz no vizible zcarring on her zides, Megatron. Zhey have healed well." He patted her with one of his small hands, almost affectionately, before he stepped away and turned to the Emperor. "Let Eleanor rest, and give her zome zustenance. Zhe will recover on her own."

Evidently Megatron took Scalpel's recommendation to give her food to mean that he should feed her until she burst. Eleanor whined as yet another box was offered to her; she was already so full. She pushed it away from her weakly, groaning "I can't. Please. Scalpel said to feed me, not to stuff me like a Thanksgiving turkey."

She was sitting on his chest while he lay on his berth, the datapad in front of them. He gave her a quizzical look, evidently confused by her cultural idiom. How many slaves get to eat nothing while he feeds me like one might a hog for the slaughter?

Megatron accessed the Internet, whose servers had been kept up by request of Soundwave and Shockwave for research purposes, and searched for the meaning of her words. Finding his answer on a culinary website, he chuckled and relented. "Alright, Eleanor."

He set the box aside and picked up a blanket and pillow, which were now permanently kept on his nightstand so she wouldn't have to fetch them, and handed them to her. She accepted them gratefully, wrapping herself in the thick blanket and laying her head on the pillow, watching the show on the enormous iPad.

She had finally decided to let him watch her favorite TV series, and he had almost made her regret it with how much he complained about it being "utterly human." Megatron had settled at last after she told him it was all made up, and that the point was to enjoy the story. "Star Trek is about the story and wonder of discovering new worlds, not about being scientifically accurate," she had said, quietly and meekly so he wouldn't lose his temper.

The Emperor dropped the case, stroking her lightly as she watched the show, smiling fondly behind her. Teasing his little mate and tweaking her wires brought him instinctual pleasure to no end. He didn't care in the slightest what primitive entertainment she was showing him, but as far as he was concerned she was lying on his chassis, comfortable and content, belly full of her odd organic fuel. That was all he wanted - except, he would prefer some sparklings in that belly as well.

Review, guys! I KNOW you are there! :3