Optimus landed at the cottage about ten days after Cordelia and Leo had arrived.
Cordelia was in the small vegetable garden, picking the leeks that were ready for harvesting. She wore an outfit of blue ripped jeans and a white vest top coupled with a red and black lumberjack style shirt that she wore unbuttoned.
In the last week or so, her bump had popped out to such an extent that she could no longer see her feet when she was standing up. It made bending over even more difficult than it had been before.
A sudden puff of wind ruffled her hair and she turned around to see that Optimus' human-sized holoform had materialised before her.
His blue optics widened as he drunk in her appearance. He opened his arms and she fell into them, dropping the wicker basket that she had been carrying.
She inhaled his clean, mechanical scent; a perfect fusion of metal and that 'new car' smell that clung to his very being.
His hands moved up her spine, splaying into the small of her back, holding her closer to him. "Hmm, this was easier to do the last time I saw you." He rumbled against her hair, pulling back to look down at the bump that had exploded in size over the last ten days.
"She's growing quick nowadays. How did your meetings with the TRF go?" Optimus' lips turned down to form a scowl.
"They went as expected. Would you like to take a walk with me? I am parked just behind the house. I…have a few things to tell you about."
Cordelia nodded and followed him out of the garden and around to the back of the cottage. The red and blue Western Star gleamed innocently in the early morning sunlight, a backdrop of rolling green hills framed by dark green hedges completing the scene.
As they drew near the truck, Optimus deactivated his holoform and the familiar clanks and whirs of a transforming Cybertronian sounded until the thirty-two-foot Autobot leader stood before her.
He knelt in one fluid motion, offering his palm to her. She went to step on, but her bump threw her off her centre of balance and she stumbled a little. Optimus used his other hand to catch her and manoeuvre her gently onto his palm.
"Easy does it little one, are you okay?"
"Yeah big guy, I'm okay." He waited until she was seated in his palm before rising to his full height.
"There's a gorge near here that I happened to spot as I was making my descent earlier, would you like to check it out?"
She nodded and settled herself back against his curled fingers, wrapping an arm around his thumb. His fingers shielded her small body from the slight draught that blew around her from the motion of his walk.
"So, how do you like the cottage?" He lifted the hand she was in and gently placed her on his right shoulder in the space between his metallic collar and his neck.
She settled herself into the crook of his neck, leaning against the base of his ear finial. Heat started to spread beneath her as Optimus warmed up the area she was sitting on, keeping her basal temperature constant.
"It's beautiful; how did you find it?"
"It was on a holiday website. I paid Mrs Jones for an eighteen-month rental period. I didn't know and I still don't know how much time we'll need here in the UK."
He emitted a small puff of steam from his nostrils as he picked his way carefully through the Welsh countryside, making sure to avoid exposed animal dens and roots with his immense feet.
The mountains here were a lot tamer than the mountains of West Yellowstone that Cordelia had grown so accustomed to.
Although still beautiful, the Welsh mountains were less ragged than those surrounding the ranch. They stood like silent, solemn sentinels, timeless witnesses to the ever-changing landscape.
A sudden flurry of activity in Cordelia's abdomen brought her attention back to the here and now. She moved a little on Optimus' shoulder, shifting her weight to get more comfortable.
A large blue optic swivelled around to look at her. "How has her movement been?"
"She's pretty calm to be fair. Most of her movement happens at night – probably practice for when she'll keep me up screaming all through the night."
He raised an optic ridge at her words. "Why would she keep you up screaming through the night?"
Cordelia shrugged. "Well, she probably won't scream all night, but she won't sleep through the night for the first few weeks at the very least. Babies need regular feeding through the night."
Optimus looked slightly perturbed at this new information. "Can't they just have the recommended three meals a day like most humans seem to have?"
She laughed gently at him, leaning back against the base of his ear finial. "No. Babies have really small stomachs and they need to eat little and often. They also need to be winded after a feed."
Optimus made a face. "Babies sound…complicated."
She rubbed the base of his ear finial affectionately with her knuckles. "You don't need to worry about a thing big guy, I'll handle all the ins and outs of babyhood."
"Well, I'll at least take the night shift feeding for you. It's the least I can do to ensure that you get a proper night's rest so that you can be prepared for the next day."
Cordelia stifled a laugh. "Aww bless you, but I'll have to do the feeding shifts twenty-four-seven. I'm gonna breast feed her."
Optimus stopped short, turning his head so that he was looking at her directly in the eye. "You mean to give her nourishment from your…mammaries?"
Cordelia gave an unladylike snort at his fearful tone. "Yup! When a woman has a baby, the tissues within her breasts make milk, to feed the baby. It's full of antibodies, nutrients and helps the baby put on weight in the first few weeks."
She swayed a little on his shoulder as he resumed walking. "Oh…is there not an alternate form of nourishment, so that you may rest uninterrupted through the nights?"
"Well, there is formula, but science has proved that it isn't as effective or as nourishing as breast milk."
"I just want to be of some assistance to you when she arrives…I don't want you to shoulder this burden alone Lia."
"Oh Optimus, I could always express I suppose and put it in a bottle if you really wanted to do the night shift with her. You never know, she might be an awesome baby and sleep right through."
"Pardon me for all the questions Lia, but what do you mean by 'express'?"
"Oh, sorry big guy, I'm not thinking." She felt the familiar rush of blood to her cheeks whenever she became slightly embarrassed about something. "Expressing milk is basically…umm…pumping the milk from your breast into a bottle or a jug and saving it for the baby to have later. You can take it out and about with you in case you can't feed the baby in public or if you won't have the privacy et cetera."
Optimus' faceplates scrunched downwards to form a frown.
"Okay, I understand the need for freezing and stockpiling, but why would you be unable to feed a baby in public?"
Cordelia sighed and leaned against the side of Optimus' head. It was warm from the springtime sunlight, and the feeling seemed to warm her very bones.
"Because most of humanity is a dickhead and people take offence to women feeding their babies in public. Or men take it as an excuse to give themselves an eyeful."
"But what could be more natural than a mother feeding her offspring in the way that they were meant to be fed?"
"Heh, there's actually a woman I'm following on Instagram who regularly posts about feeding her son in public. One time, someone commented on one of her photos how disgusting and unnatural it was that she was sexualising herself and feeding her son in that way. What made it so funny is that the guy spelled boobs as 'b-o-i-b-s'. She made a load of merchandise and money off the misspelling and now the joke is on him."
Optimus chuckled, a slow quiet rumble that made its way up his frame and settled at the base of his throat.
Cordelia pushed herself forward on his shoulder, noticing something on his throat that she had never noticed before. There was a facsimile of an Adam's Apple on his throat, just where it would be on a human man.
He noticed her looking and raised a brow at her. "What has caught your attention?"
"I've never noticed before, you have an Adam's Apple."
Almost immediately his left hand came up, his fingers brushing over it gently.
"Ahh, that is where my vocoder is located. In my old form, my vocoder was more concealed within my 'throat' armour as it were, so you wouldn't have seen it before."
"Cool!" She settled herself back into the crook of his neck, leaning her head against the side of his ear finial again.
The remainder of the walk was spent in a comfortable silence, the only sound being the birds singing in the trees and the light crunch of gravel that turned to powder beneath Optimus' feet as he walked.
After about twenty minutes, they emerged at the beginning of a sparse wood. The trees stood tall, but far apart. In the distance, Cordelia thought she could hear a low rumbling.
Optimus reached up and plucked her up carefully between two fingers, leaving her to settle in his palm.
"Everything okay big guy?"
"Affirmative, but these trees go quite low and I will need to bend down to avoid damaging them. I did not want to risk you falling from my shoulder."
She patted his thumb affectionately. "Fair enough big guy."
Sure enough, as they made their way deeper into the trees, they started to get smaller and closer together. Optimus bent low from his waist, tucking Cordelia carefully against his chest, curling his fingers over her to prevent the long branches from scratching her small body.
He pushed through a curtain of hanging ivy and emerged into a clear, open space.
The rumbling Cordelia had heard was coming from a small waterfall, pouring into a generously sized pond. Either side of the waterfall was a framing of emerald green trees, set atop a small cliff that stood at about the same height as Optimus.
Optimus lowered her to the ground and let her out of his grasp. She picked her way across the large pebbles and sat down on a large log that rested on the edge of the vast pond.
Optimus followed suit, sitting down next to her with one leg extended out in front of him and the other tucked up to his chest. He rested an elbow on his bent knee and grabbed a handful of pebbles in his other hand, shuffling them idly in his massive palm.
He ground his lip plates against each other, his head dropped to his chest.
"Spit it out big guy, what's eatin' ya?"
His head snapped up at the sound of Cordelia's voice. "Eating me? Oh…I understand. Cordelia…I have something rather difficult to tell you…and I don't know how to say it."
Concerned, Cordelia heaved herself up from the log and went to rest her hand on the greave armour on Optimus' 'shin'. "I'm a big girl Optimus…just say it how it is."
"My discussions with the TRF did not go…as I wanted them to. The Transformers Reaction Force want any and all Cybertronians removed from the Earth, with immediate effect. That in itself does not bother me as such…we can hide effectively from the humans' primitive technology and maintain radio silence on the humans' airwaves, but they made me aware of something that I am deeply concerned by."
Cordelia said nothing but encouraged him to go on through her gaze alone.
"Eons ago, there was a legend about a power that could rival Primus'. This being was known as Unicron, or the 'Chaos Bringer.' Unicron was the incarnation of destruction, intent on destroying everything in his path. He is an ancient enemy, and has not been heard from for millennia, at least not in my lifetime.
"A Staff of great power was created to restore life to Cybertron, should Unicron ever succeed in his quest to destroy our home planet. TRF mentioned a Cybertronian that had fallen to Earth. Their intel suggests that he was repeating one phrase, over and over. Seglass Ni Tonday. In Olde Cybertronian, it means 'protect the Staff'.
"Of greater concern, TRF showed me evidence that Cybertron is in a selenocentric orbit around Earth's moon."
He pinched the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger as his audial covers rotated first clockwise and then counter-clockwise.
"Lia, I have to…"
She walked closer to him and motioned to him with her arms. His hand came down to scoop her carefully up off the ground, holding her tenderly against his face.
She braced herself against his nose and despite the size difference, they leaned on each other, forehead to forehead.
"Optimus…I know. I know you have to go. You can't let Cybertron be this close and not investigate it…you have to go."
"As always Lia, you never fail to surprise me with your wisdom. I don't know how long I'll be gone for…obviously I will provide you with every protection. Hound and Crosshairs will guard you and Leo around the clock. Bumblebee is leaving to meet with Cade."
The mention of the inventor's name confused Cordelia. "Cade? Why Cade?"
"It would appear that Cade has been chosen for some kind of quest, the goal of which is not yet clear."
"Oh…I see." She didn't really have the mental energy at that precise moment to start discussing Cade and his involvement in ancient Cybertronian lore.
"Cordelia…I might not be here for the birth of the child…I can't risk projecting my holoform to you from Cybertron. If there are enemies there, or my 'Creators' as Lockdown called them, I cannot risk putting you or the baby in harm's way."
Cordelia took a deep breath and stood up in his palm, locking him in her green gaze. "Optimus Prime, I will eagerly await your return, and if Nova is born before you come back, I will tell her all about the Autobot leader that saved her mummy's life."
Moisture collected at the corners of his azure optics. "I love you little one. More than I have ever loved anyone or anything."
She patted him on his cheek, being as that was the only part of his body that she could easily reach. "Come on big guy, let's get back."
.o
An hour later, Cordelia, Leo and Optimus all stood at the rear of the small cottage. Optimus stood at his full height, both Cordelia and Leo standing before him.
The sun was hanging low in the sky, having not quite ascended as it would do later in the afternoon. The light from it glinted opalescent on Optimus' armour, casting a myriad of colours into Cordelia's field of vision.
Optimus had quickly filled Leo in on what had happened during his discussions with the TRF and the reason that he had to leave the planet.
He let air hiss from his joints, a simulation of a sigh.
He knelt to regard the two humans on their level, resting his forearm on a bent knee.
"Leo…during my absence, can I ask you to watch over Cordelia? Hound and Crosshairs will be here to protect you against any Decepticon or human threats…but can you – "
Leo held a hand up, stopping Optimus mid-sentence. "Optimus, you and I may have not always seen eye to eye, but the one thing that we do have in common is our love for Lia. She means more to me than anyone on this entire planet, and I would do absolutely anything for her. You don't need to worry about her emotional or physical welfare whilst you are gone."
Optimus smiled at Leo and extended a finger towards him. "Until we meet again my friend." Leo shook Optimus' proffered finger and stepped back, giving Optimus and Cordelia some privacy to say their own goodbyes.
Cordelia was enveloped in the safety of both of Optimus' mammoth hands. He lifted her slowly and held her against his chest. His Spark hummed low in its casing, mirroring the emotion that she was trying to hold in.
He raised her further so that she was level with his face and she braced herself against his nose, spreading her arms as far as she could across his faceplates.
His fingers curled around her, stroking across her back and shoulders.
"I will return Lia, I promise you."
She sighed before answering. "Optimus, all I want is for you to do what you need to do and then come back to me. Whether that takes ten days or ten years…I just want you back with me safe and in one piece."
He dipped his head and planted a gentle kiss on her bump, stroking it gently with his thumb. "Cordelia…I need to know that you'll be okay when I'm gone."
She placed both hands on his face and looked him directly in the optics. "I will be fine. I will have Leo, Hound and Crosshairs. I have plenty to keep me occupied. Please don't worry about me anymore than you need to big guy. What I need is for you to be firing on all cylinders. Don't be worrying about me when you need to be thinking about whatever is waiting for you on Cybertron."
She doubted the sincerity of her own words as she spoke and hoped that her voice didn't betray her emotions, which were balancing on a knife-edge, ready to plummet into the abyss at a moment's notice.
He smiled ruefully at her and brushed his lip plates along her hair line. "Stay safe, my little one." He lowered her back towards the ground and let her slip carefully out of his hands, one fingertip lingering on her freckled cheek.
Eternity hung in the air between them for a milli-second before he straightened into a standing position, his joints and hydraulics hissing smoothly as he did so.
Leo wrapped a comforting arm around Cordelia's shoulders as the armour on Optimus' calves shifted to reveal his rockets.
There was a low hum as they charged up to full velocity. He knelt as if he was going to squat on his haunches but didn't fully lower himself to the ground.
He braced his weight on a closed fist, casting one final glance down to Cordelia before he launched himself into the air.
The noise was thunderous as his rockets charged to full power, lifting Optimus effortlessly from the ground.
Her auburn hair was blown out of its bun and it whipped about her face, a torrent of red streaks. She shielded her face from the brush and debris that Optimus' take-off caused, hanging onto Leo all the more tighter to try and anchor herself to that one spot.
Her eyes followed Optimus' assent as he gathered enough speed and velocity to make it through the atmosphere. He circled a few times before sending one last final jolt of power to the rockets in his legs, which propelled him forward so fast that Cordelia found it difficult to keep tracking him with her gaze alone.
She turned her body to watch his passage, looking as he steadily shrunk until he was no longer visible. The morning sunlight made it difficult to see when he entered the atmosphere, but she smiled up at the blue sky all the same.
Leo tightened his grip around her shoulders for a fraction of a second before he pulled back.
"You okay Lia?"
She nodded and rubbed her eyes, getting rid of the little bit of moisture that had appeared there. "Yeah, he's got to go where he's needed. I'm not the only one that needs him, and with him being a Prime, he's needed in a lot of places by a lot of people."
Leo smiled and touched her face gently. "I am so, so proud of the woman you have become Lia. I forget that you are wise beyond your years. You do know…I'm always here for you Lia, whatever you need."
She smiled at him and pushed herself up onto her tiptoes to give him a little peck on his cheek. It was a little prickly from the stubble that had formed there, giving her lips a tingling sensation.
"You need a shave, you've gone all prickly again."
He laughed and rubbed a hand over his jaw. "Come on then, let's get going on with the day."
.o
Life attained a new normal pretty quickly after Optimus' departure. Hound and Crosshairs worked out a patrol rota between them and took turns patrolling the roads and lands within a ten-mile radius of the cottage.
By the first week of April, Cordelia's bump was so big she swore it needed its own axis. Even the most minor of tasks left her breathless and sweaty nowadays, longing for the luxury of her smaller waistline.
She could no longer see her feet and this made doing everyday tasks like housework and gardening more difficult than they needed to be.
Those first few days of April were filled with the warm kind of sunshine that only happens in springtime.
It was on one such morning that Cordelia's phone rang, piercing the silence with Chicago's If You Leave Me Now.
She didn't recognise the number on the caller display but answered it all the same. She didn't need to worry about the person on the other end being able to trace her phone's signal as Hound had programmed it so that it was undetectable on any radio wavelength.
"Hello?" For a second there was nothing on the other end of the line, and then a rustling sound, as if someone had dropped the phone and was picking it up in a hurry.
"Hey, Lia? Is that you?"
"Cade? Cade Yeager?"
"Sure is kid, how many other 'Cade Yeagers' do you know?"
She smiled at his as his familiar tone poured through the earpiece. She tucked the phone between her shoulder and chin as she freed her hands to hang out the last of the washing – a pesky fitted sheet that would end up scrunched up no matter what way she hung it on the line.
"True, true. So, how have you been doing Cade? Is Bee with you?"
"Yeah, he is. We've just had contact with the TRF and an unknown Transformer. Dude looked like a medieval knight! I'm just loadin' up Lady now." As if to illustrate this, Cordelia heard a lot of loud banging and clunking in the background that sounded like heavy objects being thrown into the flatbed of a truck.
Cordelia raised a brow. "Who is Lady when she's at home?"
Cade's husky chuckle curled itself around her eardrum. "She's my rig. I know, I know, her name is unoriginal as hell, but I kinda like it. She runs good and she gets me from A to B."
"Tell me about this unknown Transformer."
"Yeah, that's kinda what I was callin' for. I know the Chief has gone on his erh…expedition, but I was wondering if you could help me out with something."
This piqued Cordelia's interest. "Oh? I'll try, but I don't know if I'll be of much help to you."
"I got a hit on a Transformer that crash landed in Chicago, the amount of Cybertronian life signals there must have pulled his transport to land there. Anyway, when I was tryna patch him up, he gave me like this talisman thing. It was 'bout the size of the palm of my hand and was a flat disc shape. I couldn't understand much of what this dude was tryin' to tell me, but I caught something that sounded like – God, this is gonna sound so weird, but it sounded like he was saying 'Seeglass no tinday' or something like that. Anyway, the poor dude went offline after he got shot by the TRF."
"Seglass ni Tonday?" Cordelia's voice came out a bit sharper than she had intended it to, but Cade's response was too important for her to really worry about it.
"Yeah, that was it. Do you know what it means?"
"Optimus mentioned something about a Staff of power a few weeks ago before he left…in Old Cybertronian, it means 'protect the staff.'"
"Hmm, weird. He looked super old as well, more like a knight than the bots I've seen so far. He was – oh shit! I gotta go Lia, look after yourself."
The line clicked off abruptly and Cordelia took the phone away from her ear, staring at it blankly.
A tight ball of worry that was as heavy as one soul's regret settled itself in the pit of her stomach.
She made her way up the garden path and back into the cottage through the back door. On the kitchen table sat her laptop, still open from when she had ordered more maternity clothes earlier.
She tucked herself into one of the chairs and pulled herself as close to the table as she could, her progress halted by her cumbersome bump.
Her fingers hovered over the keyboard for a few seconds whilst she decided on her search term. She tapped twice on the touchpad, selecting the 'Google Chrome' icon from her desktop.
While the screen spluttered to life, she absent-mindedly checked her phone for the time, even though it was displayed on the laptop screen right in front of her.
The phone declared that it was 10:47; little white figures over the top of a picture of her and Optimus. They were both pulling silly faces at the camera; Optimus with crossed optics and waggling his fingers on top of his head whilst Cordelia, sitting on Optimus' shoulder, flipped her hair and gave herself bucked teeth. She had managed to accomplish the impressive angle with the help of a selfie stick.
She smiled at the memory and turned her attention back to the laptop screen. Google's homepage greeted her, the icon flashing innocently in the search box.
She typed legends of knights into the search bar and groaned when the search found over 55 million matching results.
Erasing the search term and racking her brain for a new one, Cordelia punched articles about knight legends into the search engine. She knew that it was a long stretch searching for anything related to Cybertron online, but she figured she had nothing to lose.
There were still over 13 million results, but Cordelia decided to persevere and began to scroll through the endless lines of text.
On the sixth page, an image caught her eye. She right clicked it and opened it in a new tab.
The image depicted a rocky beach, with a cloaked figure stood in the centre of the scene. The figure had long grey hair reaching down their back and in their right hand, they clasped a wooden staff. In the background was an enormous, three-headed dragon perched in the storming grey ocean. This in itself was not what had caught Cordelia's attention. From what Cordelia could see, the dragon looked to be made of metal.
She sucked in a nervous breath. Nova squirmed inside her, startled by the sudden movement of her mother's diaphragm.
Cordelia reached down and cradled her bump tenderly. "Sorry kiddo," she whispered, watching as her top was pushed with the movement of one of Nova's limbs.
She clicked on the image to arrive at a sleek black and white website.
The header stated, 'Debunking medieval myths since 1985'.
On the left-hand side there was a headshot image of a pretty young woman on a white background with wavy chocolate brown hair. It fell to her shoulders in soft waves, accentuating her peachy-cream skin tone. High cheekbones complimented deep set, pale blue eyes. Her face was slim and oval shaped.
She smiled at the camera confidently, her arms crossed and her body turned at a slight angle.
To the right of her image was an article titled 'Chivalry: The Inevitable Death of the Great British Falsehood.'
Cordelia clicked and began to read.
We've all heard of him, the magnificent King Arthur. The famed knight of the round table. The guy that everybody wants to be friends with. The one that every lady (and some men too!) want to bone.
Well folks, I'm here to pop that shiny fairy-tale bubble.
Gone are the days of chivalry, of chaperoned dates and afternoon teas. We live in an age of 'Netflix and chill', where Tinder dates with six different people a week are a thing of normality.
Chivalry died with the knights of the round table. No more fighting for my 'fair lady', no more wearing of lady's favours in noble jousting tournaments.
Let's begin by dissecting the word 'chivalry'.
According to the Oxford dictionary, the word 'chivalry' is defined as follows:
'Polite and kind behaviour that shows a sense of honour, particularly by men towards women.'
I think we can all agree that that particular definition is for the most part, inaccurate. The majority of today's males in our society are more concerned with who has the toughest abs or getting their 'leg over', so to speak.
There is however, one more definition, which I believe paints a more accurate image.
'(in the Middle Ages) the religious and moral system of behaviour that the perfect knight was expected to follow.'
There are two key words here; moral and perfect. Ladies, how many gents do you know who are perfect and moral? I'll wait.
That's what I thought.
Now it's all about having a cheeky Nando's before going back to the flat for a 'sesh.'
I fail to understand why Britain has this reputation as being a hoity-toity country where everyone has impeccable manners and mind their p's and q's. My students tell me they're lucky if a lad remembers to bring a condom on the date.
No ladies, chivalry was always going to die out with Romeo and Juliet, Bonnie and Clyde.
While things like 'man-buns' and Tinder dates exist, chivalry will die a slow and painful death.
I'm sorry ladies, chivalry was and always will be the greatest British falsehood that has ever been.
The end of the article stated that it had been written by one Viviane Wembley.
Cordelia cast her eyes over the woman again, chewing her lip thoughtfully.
A quick Google search revealed Wembley's work address and a string of impressive qualifications after her name.
It took a moment of hesitation before Cordelia booked overnight accommodation in London and went upstairs to go and pack a small bag.
Viviane Wembley knew something more than she was letting on, and Cordelia was going to find out exactly what it was.