The events which are transpiring in this chapter have not been reached in the other fanfiction that is linked to this one! So please don't be confused if you go read Extinction and it hasn't caught up to this point! Ierena belongs to me! Aurora belongs to my friend Moonlightdeer! Plot is a collaboration that we're both working on together! Please do not steal or use our characters, or try to copy our plot! Thank you! I DO NOT OWN TRANSFORMERS!
(Ierena's POV)
I came to with a groan, processor… or brain… still swimming with the dream that I'd just come out of, where apparently Primus wasn't Cybertronian, and instead he was a Titan, who happened to be my dad. Something told me… I stuck my finger… digit… into a light socket last night…
My eyes… optics… blinked open, taking in a dark cave…? I jolted up from the ground, helm shooting up much farther compared to the rest of my body… frame… which was strange. It felt like a giant… noodle…
When I looked down… large black lizard like limbs were resting beneath me, each tipped with a set of wicked looking dark purple claws. Black… scales, with a dusting of plum colored speckles made up my legs, all the way up to the plating on my shoulders. I craned my neck at an awkward angle, like a noodle bent in half, and looked at my icy blue underbelly.
I continued to look myself over, eyes snapping to the wings on my back… all four of them… the larger set sat on my shoulders, and the smaller pair sat further down and under my first two, the inner membrane was a myriad of blues, darker stripes running from top to bottom while the other side of them were black like the rest of my body, with more of those plum speckles. My eyes then trailed down to the two tails which twitched around on the ground, each one tipped with some weird ornate long sword or claymore like blade… holy frag.
"What the… that dream was real!" I exclaimed as I leapt up from where I'd been curled up and subsequently slammed my head into the ceiling of the cave I was in. "Son of a glitch!" I hissed, trying to reach up and rub the now, very sore, spot where my head had made contact with the unforgiving cave roof.
After a bit of fumbling, and nearly falling over, I was able to lower my neck enough to rub my poor aching head... wait... those weren't scales, I was able to grab some off the weird stuff sticking out of my head between some of my claws, which were not the most dexterous things in the world. Low and behold, I have a bunch of ice blue and plum purple feathers sticking out the back of my head! Oh and don't forget the slew of thin horns which came between the feathers and my head, they were slightly twisted, facing back behind me, and damn they were sharp!
Well, Daddy didn't have feathers... so I wonder where I got these from... maybe it was a female only thing? Gah, shows how much I know right now! Yesterday... or however long I've been out for, I thought I was a Cybertronian pretender! Nope! Clearly not! Instead, I'm a giant freakin' alien dragon Titan thing!
"Goddammit… Wait… am I cussing at my Daddy right now?" I mumbled to myself. Even if I was contemplating it, I couldn't help the swell of giddiness that built up in my chest when I could actually refer to my biological Father as Daddy. Sure I had Jazz and Prowl as my Opi and Dad, and I loved them dearly, but there was just something about knowing who my real dad was, and being able to call him Daddy, that made me feel… as if the hole I'd always had inside from thinking I was an abandoned, unwanted child, shrink a little bit.
Even after being adopted by Opi, that hole had still been there, festering behind the happy mask I always put on. I was so good at ignoring it, that sometimes I kind of forgot it was always there. But the remnants would sometimes prickly at the back of my mind when I was alone, and it would manage to fill me with sorrow again.
But now that I knew my real Daddy hadn't abandoned me, that he really did love me… it made me feel a lot better. I smiled… or was it more like a sneer? Could dragons really smile? When Daddy did it was kinda like… when a dog bared its' teeth at you… But to me it wasn't threatening really… so I guess it was safe to assume that we could smile…
"And here I am arguing with myself about whether or not I can actually smile…" I muttered to myself, as I licked my… maw, my long purple tongue feeling particularly dry. "I need something to drink…"
The floor of the cavern shook as I turned towards the opening of the cave and slowly ambled outside, into the slightly cool night air. I craned my neck up to take in the night sky, which was a dark purple, with bright stars shining through the veil. That was… a strange sky… It was pretty though!
Where was I anyways? This was definitely not Earth!
That much was apparent from the overgrown sci-fi film type fauna growing all over the place. Some of which looked like giant Venus flytraps, but they had long squid like tentacles, and instead of having bright red on it, the body of the plants themselves were a dark orange, with purple lining the inside of it. Other plants looked like they fit right in with the clusters of dark orange, carnivorous plants, I could see all around me. Some of them even had these strange…. Insectoid legs sticking out of their traps… Looks like they had a good meal… I did not want to know what the bugs were…
As I made my way through a field of tall grass that was swaying without a breeze to cause the movement, my eyes landed on these trees that looked like they were made up of these soft blue vines, individual ones being what made up the entire tree. On the vine branches these bright pink tear drop looking fruit were dangling enticingly…
I felt my belly rumble with hunger… and it was then that I realized how ravenous I was…
As I made to approach it and pluck some of the fruit up, a small mammal of some kind scurried up onto one of the branches, and I stopped to watch it edge towards one of the fruits dangling precariously close.
I jolted when the vines it was perched on suddenly shot apart like the tentacles of an octopus, and wrapped around the little guy, jagged spikes stabbing into it and ripping a terrified squeal from it as it was encompassed by them and pulled down to the base of the tree, which happened to be a mouth lined with razor sharp teeth. The vines pulled the little thing all the way down to the mouth, which snapped down and sliced it to ribbons with its' shark like teeth!
I blinked… "What the hell kind of ecosystem is this?!" If I wasn't so much bigger than everything around me I'd be scared to get eaten! As it was I wasn't taking any chances with the predatory trees, so I was officially going the other way!
I turned and ambled away from where I'd just seen that macabre display. Craning my neck upwards, I used my nostrils to tentatively scent the air for the first time, and the rush of different smells that went shooting up my nose nearly made me faint! There were so many different ones, and they were all so strong that I couldn't discern between them at the moment. It left me coughing and shaking my head to try dispelling the burning in my nostrils!
How the hell was I supposed to find water or food like this? I try using my new nose, and the scent overload almost makes me faint!
With a huff, I took a deep breath through my mouth, and then took another small sniff of the air to try and prevent myself from getting light headed again. The first attempt wasn't much better, and the second was much the same, with me ending up feeling dizzy because of all the different smells. It took me a few more tries to learn to balance and process the myriad of scents in a way that didn't give me a headache, and after a bit more probing I smelled something… moist…
My tongue suddenly felt far more parched than before, urging me to press forward in a clumsy jog towards the source of the scent. It took me a moment or two to get my bearings on running on all fours, not on two legs as I was used to, and a few times I almost got tripped up and fell over my own paws. Luckily I was able to keep upright, but this was definitely going to take some practice to get the hang of!
I pushed through the tall grass, tipped with glowing yellow flowers, while the stalks of these were a dark purple, unlike the grass outside of the cave I was in. The stalks parted as I pushed through, and I was left standing on a hill overlooking a lake, glowing white against the dark purple night sky. Even from this distance I could make out the hundreds of thousands of white flowers under the water, glowing bright enough to illuminate the whole massive lake, and cast a soft glow around the entire area.
It was… breath-taking…
I quickly trotted down the hill and came to a stop at the edge of the lake, where a cluster of the white flowers was clustered together near the edge. My tongue actually did lull out of my mouth as I lowered my head to the surface of the water… but before I could so much as take a gulp, the flowers started glowing a brighter white for some reason.
Energy seemed to culminate from them, and it seemed to spread outwards to the rest as a tendril of almost see through energy rose from the flowers closest and extended towards me. I was transfixed by it, not moving as it wrapped around my leg and slithered all the way up to my chest like a snake, turning grey and then black in the process before seeming to pass right through my scales and into my insides, a slight chill going through me as it progressed, but I was too transfixed to even think of moving. I only did so when it retracted and slid back into the glowing water after turning back to its original color.
That was… unexpected. Shrugging it off, I lowered my neck to try drinking some of the water, lower jaw grazing the water so that it would pool into it, my tongue instantly picking up on the…. Oh frag this was some good stuff! I could drown in this and be forever content!
I went to swallow when a low hissing sound radiated from the water, and my eyes locked on something shifting just below the surface, with rows of circular teeth starring right at me and being the size of, frag if I knew! I was not staying to find out!
I back pedaled instantly, letting out a terrified scream as this thing rose out of the water, it's translucent body reflecting the glow of the lake, and allowing me to the see the thousands of big and small creatures within it.
And the scariest part? The six legged snake monstrosity, was at least nine times bigger than me, its massive grabber like claws slammed into the shore line as one reached forwards to grab me, mouth wide and each individual fucking shark tooth moving on its own like a shredder!
I went to run, to sprint for my life, to get away from this thing, when something grabbed me from behind, yanking me away and into a stumbled run.
"RUN!" A feminine voice yelled at me, yanking again.
She didn't have to tell me twice!
My legs were pumping hard after only a second, slamming into the ground as hard as I could to propel myself, all whilst that thing chased after… us?
I glanced to my left, taking in the large, powerful legs thundering beside me, all four a bright blue with the area around their paws and claws being a darker blue, with four thick black claws tearing up the ground, the lighter areas of their legs covered in spots and strikes of the same dark blue color, and they seemed a bit longer than mine, my legs and frame being lower to the ground than the one cantering next to me.
Glancing up further I was able to see her head, which rose above the tree tops themselves. "Who the hell are you? And what the frag is that thing?!" I yelled up at her, hoping I would be heard over our not so quiet running for our lives.
Her eye glanced down at me, and she just gave me this odd mix between a smile and a grimace. "How about I answer those questions, after we get away from that fucker?" She responded, ooooh! British! She sounds like one of those British spies who kick ass in pretty much ever spy movie I've watched.
"…JUMP!"
Wait, did I miss something? Not a moment later, she'd launched into the air just ahead of me, soaring over a massive gorge and landing on the other side, this thing had to be at least the Eifel tower in width… wait! I gotta jump this thing too! SHIT!
My front paws had already passed over the gorge before I was able to react, the muscles in my hind legs coiling before I launched myself into the air, my wings spread out on instinct, the air catching them, why hadn't she done that?
I was able to see her full on now, she had reared up onto her hind legs arms outstretched and mid shout of something I hadn't noticed her yelling.
Time was moving surprisingly slow for me, at least until I realized that I hadn't gotten far enough across to make it.
I was just about to scream when her long lithe neck snapped out and coiled around my own and somehow locked in place around my shoulders, her claws clamping down on my forearms in a very nearly crushing grip, leaving me to slam belly first into the gorge side.
Ow.
I watched her chest rise and fall heavily, listening to her labored breathing against my shoulder, her neck had to be wrapped around me at least two times from what I could feel. Once she'd regained herself a bit, she began pulling at me, giving a single grunt as she continued to yank me up the side of the cliff.
"You know, you have legs, mind helping me here?" She panted out.
"Oh right! Sorry!" I responded, digging my hind claws into the cliffside and trying my best to push myself up.
After a bit of effort, she was able to pull me all the way up onto the top of the cliff, both of us crumbling to the ground, she uncoiled her neck from mine after a moment, and somehow rose back to her full height, which was a bit of a height boost over me, but not nearly as much as Daddy. She had maybe… I don't know how much… but she wasn't towering over me like he did!
Before I could think further on the matter, she'd whacked me in the side of the head with her front right paw. "Hey!" I snapped.
And that was when I saw the beyond irritated look on her face. "Are you suicidal?!" She yelled, somehow keeping her voice under the point of deafening. I just stared up at her as she looked back over the gorge, at the see-through snake monster that was now going back the way we had come. "Ancients damnit, that thing almost got you… for the love of the ancients! Next time you see a lake, do me a favor, and don't go and try and take a drink! If you wanted something to drink you could have asked me! Do you know how worried I was, when I got back to the cave and found you gone?! Didn't Praxi tell you to stay put and only leave the cave, when I'm there to keep you from harm's way! Valumna is not a kids play area! This place was a second from eating your sorry ass back there! Do you have any idea how dead I'd be if I had to tell Auntie Lia, you went and got yourself killed?! I'd be skinned alive!" She ranted, shaking her head from side to side in agitation as she paced in front of me.
I just stared up at her, not sure how to respond when she finally sighed and sat down on her rear, wings held tight to her back and head raised on her 's' shaped neck, one quite a bit thinner than Daddy's. "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"
I shook my head.
She let off a groan, lowering her head down so that she could run her paw over it. "Praxi didn't tell you to wait in the cave like I asked him to?" I shook my head. "He didn't tell you I was going to be somewhere in the vicinity when you woke up?" Another shake from me. "Did they even tell you what planet you were going to wake up on?" Again, another shake. "Ancients above… next time I see Praxi I'm going to give him a piece of my mind… and a rifle shot to the ass… Anyway, I believe introductions are in order then?" She asked, that accent of hers was accentuated by her lilting voice.
I shook my helm to clear the cob webs, having been looking over her face, head, it was quite odd looking, bone like dark blue ridges sat atop her head, one eye on each side of her head, and over all looking like an axe head, pointed at the snout with it spreading out further back to accommodate the large mass of thick twisting grey horns, each one with what looked like ribbons wrapped around them, a darker blue than the rest of her color, behind those was a large cluster of feathers, all of them different shades of blue again.
Seriously, what was with this femme and blue? I mean, I know it's probably genetic, but still.
"Ermm… introductions?" She spoke again.
"Ah! Right! I'm Clare! Or am I Ieren? Or Ierena? But my surrogate carrier called me Ascella…"
She let out another groan. "Let's just go with the one your most comfortable with… I really need to have a word with Praxi later… and Zyirun."
"Mmmm… how about you call me Ierena? When I get back home I might just have the bots call me by my Cybertronian name, because I at least want to honor my surrogate carrier in some way. Oh and I'll probably still go by Clare with my Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin too. It's easier that way, and Aunt Judy loves the name Clare! That's why she named me that!"
She blinked bright blue eyes at me the dark blue pupil focusing on me. "Are you certain that you want to go by so many different names at once?"
I shrugged. "I'll categorize them based on who's gonna call me what. I'm already used to Clare, and I'm pretty good with remembering names anyways."
"Alright… Well that might get a little complicated later, you know when we get to explanations about what they all mean you might confuse yourself."
"Nah I won't, Like I said I'm good with stuff like this… Sion right?"
She gave a lighthearted chuckle this time, shaking her head. "They really didn't tell you anything did they?"
I shook my head. "No. I don't even know where I am even!" I deadpanned.
"Well first off, I go by the name my adopted father gave me, Aurora, Aurora Sionvalusian Titan, but you can just call me Aurora." She declared, doing some weird bow and extending a paw to me I just look at her funny, not sure if my paw could even be used to shake, she seemed to notice and pull back. "Apologies, human habit. Also humans can't seem to pronounce my Titan name, so it's just easier to go by something they can oscillate. Second: You're standing on the ground of our home world Valunma. It's… quite a bit different than it was trillions of years ago when Titans reigned supreme."
"Oh…"
"Yes. The local wildlife has evolved without anything to keep them in check, and that's why you have to be careful when you're here. You never know what can actually kill you. That's why you need to be aware of your surroundings when wandering!"
I plopped down on my ass and… tried to raise an eyebrow at her, but I couldn't, because I didn't have one. "Yeah… I kind of got that when a giant leech thing jumped out of the water and tried to eat me!"
"The Lake Guardians are very territorial, and they're the largest threat to Titans that are small enough to fit in their mouth, or that are ignorant or stupid enough to try drinking the lake water! Do not drink out of any lake that you see the white flowers in!"
"Ok first off: Don't call me stupid! Second: I'm only ignorant because they literally didn't tell me anything about what I was going to be doing when I woke up! They didn't even tell me that you were going to be here! For all I knew I was on my own!" I turned away with a moody huff, feeling like an idiot, when logically I knew I wasn't… maybe…
A sigh sounded off from behind her before a pressure landed on my shoulder, feeling distinctly like her paw. "Look, I'm sorry, that came out horribly wrong, it's just... I'm currently under a lot of stress right now as it is, and suddenly you're pretty much flung at me without warning, then you almost get yourself killed whilst I was out trying to find food for the both of us and... I'm sorry if what I said offended you, I just... I get aggravated when things like this happen... which unfortunately seems to be quite a common occurrence for me... and now, I apparently have to teach you how to be a Titan, solely, not something I've ever had to do before..." She cut herself off with a sharp yelp which had my head swinging round to see this weird metal thing which sat at the base of her wings tighten.
"Aurora! I'm right here!" A voice snapped from out of nowhere, sounding distinctly aged, and currently, pissed.
Aurora winced, ducking her head before turning to the metal thing. "Sorry mum! I forget you're there sometimes!"
Wait, that metal thing is her mom? I thought she was the crazy bitch who wiped everyone out?
"Hey wait… I thought that crazy bitch mother of yours… Gia or whatever… was dead. I'm assuming… that's um, adoptive mom up there or something? I can't really tell what she is at the moment…" I rambled on… like an idiot… Well I was kind of bad at introductions… I almost got killed by Sunny when we first met… And just thinking about him kind of made me depressed… But then again Zyriun said that I'd be able to go back one day so… I just had to keep thinking of that to keep myself from being depressed.
The light blue armor like piece of plating shifted, breaking apart as bird like wings shifted up onto lightly armored shoulders, as the top part of her form took on the shape of a helm, and bird like metal feet extended out of her bottom once she was semi upright.
I blinked up at the human sized Cybertronian… chicken? Wait… I wasn't sure what it was, but it was a biped… "Hey… you have a… is that a chicken on your back?"
"CHICKEN?!" The little bird-like femme screeched at a deafening decibel, and then she lunged at me like a bullet.
I stood there gauging whether something so small could hurt me when she literally was the equivalent size to a speck of dust on me, but maybe it wasn't a good idea to see how her attempt went… Luckily Aurora quickly grabbed her by a collar like appendage that came around the back of her neck, by her maw, her front teeth the only things holding her there, showing off the mismatched teeth shapes within her jaw, some conical, others looking more like sharks teeth.
"Mum please! Don't try to kill her when we're meant to be looking after her! It kind of defeats the whole purpose!" She exclaimed, although it was slightly muffled by the fact she was currently having to hold the bird femme within her teeth.
"I don't care if she's the daughter of the fucking Pope! She called me a chicken!" Mum bird screeched as she wildly flailed her limbs in an attempt to attack me.
I blinked… "Um… so you're not a chicken then…"
She glared at me. "NO!"
"Could you please take it back so she doesn't break my teeth out?!" Aurora pleaded as she tightened her grip on the still thrashing bird femme.
"Ok… Sorry for calling you a chicken… that's just the first thing my mind came up with when you transformed. But I don't really know what you are so can I call you bird mom?"
"I'm a Harpagornis!" She growled. "But you can call me Harp!" She huffed, crossing her arms over her front.
"Ok Harp." I stepped closer and leaned down to examine her a bit more closely. "Why were you up on her back like that?" She looked significantly older than the both of us, looking more like she was eighty than the fifty-year-old I'd been imagining her, she certainly took good care of herself.
Harp didn't answer me, but Aurora certainly reacted, her neck pulling back towards her shoulders as the two forelimbs pushed back slightly themselves, as if to block something from sight as she averted her gaze.
Oh no, she's not getting away with that that easy. I ducked my head round her side, startling her slightly as I focused in on the place Harp had been covering before... Oh fuck...
"What... what happened?"
Ro stuttered for a moment before moving her hind legs so that she was facing me again, and hiding the gaping holes in her wings, and the noticeable divot in where her spine should be. "Medieval catapult, at the battle of Agrincourt, six centuries ago, I haven't been able to fly since... effectively making me a cripple…" The last part was at most a whisper as she took another step back, this time her head face me directly, and the ridged plates hid the rest of her head form view.
Oh no, I wasn't having any of this.
Pushing myself up on my hind legs, I grasped onto her side with my front limbs and peered at it more closely. It was definitely nasty looking, but then again Bee had lost both of his legs up to the thighs, and Opi had been ripped in half almost and I'd been able to heal them. Now that I knew that the Allspark was actually created from Titan energy… maybe I could use it to heal more than just Cybertronians?
Aurora whipped around and snapped at me with her jaws. "Get away from there!"
I ignored her defensiveness. "Oh calm down! Just let me see what I can do!"
She snapped at me when I sniffed at the divot in her back, why? I had no idea. "Don't touch that!"
I had to shuffle to keep hold of her when she twisted to try throwing me off, digging my claws in to keep myself from falling. "Can you just stop for a second?!"
She started bucking and kicking her back legs, her claws resulting tearing up the ground around us and sending a tree hurtling on a flight path that sent it crashing back to the ground a good mile or so away, screeching at me hysterically. "Get off my back!"
Well for fuck's sake! I couldn't help her if she kept throwing herself around like this! Dammit! She was acting like a pissed off bull! How did I get her to stop?!
I didn't actually have to think on how for long, because my eyes drifted and landed on her long neck, and my jaws instinctively locked around the upper half of her neck. As soon as my teeth sunk into her neck her body locked up, before quickly crumpling to the ground in an awkward heap with her legs spread out all around her. I could still hear her frantic panting, as her side quickly rose and fell in succession, heat practically pouring out of her large body in waves.
If I could've, I would've told her to relax, but somehow I knew that if I loosened my grip at all she'd take a snap at me and I really didn't feel like getting bitten today. So I held tight to her neck and maneuverer my right… paw… up over the divot in her spine, then I tapped into the well of power that I'd learned to recognize as a tangible force within me from the many times I'd used my healing abilities to tend to the twins when they got especially rough with their sparring.
This time the swell of energy that came to my beck and call was much stronger, like a damn breaking, filling me with more power than I ever thought I had! It literally filled me to the brim, causing the surface of my scales to start glowing a soft gold.
I marvelled at the sight of it for a moment, before I remembered my uh… cousin that I currently had pinned to the ground, for all intents and purposes, was having a bit of a panic attack. I quickly moved my paw over the divot in her spine and allowed the energy to flow into it unhindered. It culminated in a small bubble over both my paw and the afflicted area.
I could see the muscles tense there, before relaxing. I had to turn my head to the right slightly so that my left eye could take a better look at what I was doing, seeing as I only realized now, that my eyes were on the sides of my head, like hers, I hadn't even noticed. I focused back on what I was doing just as I pulled my paw back, somehow knowing I'd done what was necessary, and carefully took my jaws away from her neck.
She went to lunge, but her legs weren't able to get into the right position in time, and she went tumbling back to the ground, Harp rushing to her side and clambering up her neck to rush to her wing bases. They looked relatively the same as they had before, but I could tell the muscle structure was certainly better off, the holes were still there, as was the divot, but the overall increased strength I'd given the limbs and surrounding area I hoped would be enough for her to get back in the air.
I was actually really proud of myself!
Or at least I was until Aurora got her legs under her and snapped at my throat. I jerked back and my wings flared high as I instinctively released a warning hiss. "Hey! Is that how you say thanks to someone who heals your injury?!"
She flared her wings back and practically screeched at me point blank., her entire body shaking as the large mass of feathers on the back of her head, behind her own cluster of horns flared wide. "It's been healed for centuries! I'm still crippled!"
Ok so she didn't seem to notice that she was moving her wings on her own right now… "Seems like you're moving them just fine on your own now." I pointed out as calmly as I could when instincts I'd never had before were warring with each other within me.
Her neck snapped to the side, smacking into her ribcage with enough force to almost knock her off her feet. She scrambled to keep herself upright, but her legs got tangled up and she fell to the ground with an audio shaking bang.
Something told me not to get too close right now… Oh well, I'd let her figure it out for herself. I helped her once and she tried biting me! That didn't seem like very grateful behavior!
So I plopped down on my ass and watched her untangle her limbs from one another, then she rolled onto her belly and pushed herself to her… paws again. This time she was able to steady herself and twine her long neck back around her body so that she could examine the newly… internally healed wound?
"Wha…? Mum what did she do? What did she do to me?!" She exclaimed in a panic not sure what to make of what she was seeing as her right wing flared out and in again a few times in front of her.
Harp looked up from where she'd perched herself between the base of Aurora's wings, examining the muscles pulsating around, and beneath the divot where she'd been struck. "She… she… healed your wings." She mumbled in shock.
There was a brief moment where Aurora's wings shot up, and she seemed to freeze completely, stuck staring at her fluttering appendages with the bright blue eyes on the sides of her head.
Then all of a sudden her legs tensed, and in a move so fast it was practically a blur, she shot off and practically vaulted over the side of the gorge with a delighted squeal that for all intents and purposes I would never have expected to hear from someone who seemed to carry herself with so much dignity. But she did, she threw herself over the edge and then shot up into the air with an excited yell that echoed off the walls of the chasm she'd come shooting out of a second ago, the speed of her movement making her a blue blur as she rocketed straight up, letting off an elated howl as she then proceeded to corkscrew through the air, into a loop de loop and into a spiral dive before tearing directly over the tree line, the force of her passing over uprooting most of it, holy frag… would I be able to move like that?!
Harp flitted over and landed on the rigid plating that rested above my right eye, and I could see her aged blue eyes staring at Aurora fondly as she flew around in a circle high above, still periodically yelling joyfully every few seconds. "It's been six hundred years since I last saw her fly."
"Why so long?" I asked curiously.
She glanced down at me. "Well, you Titans heal very slowly compared to most life forms. They may be immortal but that is a grave flaw in the design of their bodies. Only those that are naturally gifted in healing, such as nature elements, can heal themselves and others more quickly. But I've seen Liara use abilities similar to what you just did for her, but it wasn't quite the same, weaker. Then again she is dead, so her abilities are a lot more limited than yours are." She answered, before turning back to watch Aurora in her near crazed flight.
"You've met Granny?"
She nodded, glancing back up at Aurora as she dipped towards the ground and then twisted once she was close to the ground, then spiralled back up into the air with an elated cry of pure happiness. "Liara visits us frequently. She was the one that gave Aurora most of her formal training in her abilities. But her time is heavily limited due to her, as I've already stated, being no longer among the living."
Huh… well maybe that meant that I'd get to meet Granny soon too. I wonder what she was like…? "Is Granny… nice?"
Harp's soft laughter vibrated between my horns, which apparently were similar to audio horns in how they took in and processed sound. I'd just realized it actually… "She's very kind, but she can be stern and serious when she needs to be. She does have a very intimidating presence though, but I suppose that comes with being the Shadow Queen. I'm sure that she'll come to see you soon enough."
I shuffled my claws across the ground nervously at the thought of it. Maybe it was irrational… but I was afraid that when I met her I wouldn't measure up to her expectations at all. How could I when I didn't really know the first thing about being a Titan?
What if she was disappointed with me?
I didn't even… know how to be a Titan…
My thoughts were suddenly cut off when something slammed into the ground in front of me, with enough force to split the dull red ground we were standing on, which turned out to be some kind of stone that was split and formed a crater around it. If I was smaller it was entirely possible that I could've been crushed between the crevices where the rocks broke apart and shifted back together. I was thankful that I wasn't tiny anymore.
It kicked up a veil of thick red dust that got into my eyes and forced me to slam them shut as they started watering from irritation. Maybe that was why I didn't see the blue blur shooting towards me until Aurora slammed into me and bowled me over onto my back.
I laid there like a puppy that had been pinned, with my legs curled up against my belly at an awkward angle, staring at the slightly larger form towering over me with a gigantic grin on her face. "Um…"
She suddenly glomped me, which was more consistent with her just belly flopping on me in some strange form of an embrace which should probably feel awkward for me… but I was used to Aunt Judy so it really wasn't that bad. That and… it didn't seem like our bodies allowed us to hug each other very easily… So wait… was this an actual hug? Or…?
Maybe after she was done crushing me I would ask her, when I could breathe…
"Can… you... get…off… me…?" I wheezed out when I started to go lightheaded from oxygen deprivation.
"Aurora you're crushing her." Harp called out from where she was perched on a tree nearby, having gotten away from Aurora in time.
The blue female's head popped up from where it was buried against my throat, bright blue eyes staring down at me widely. "Oh sorry! I kind of… got ahead of myself there for a moment!" She declared, pushing back up onto all fours and awkwardly stepping off from out of me, her left right paw brushing my snout because she couldn't get it high enough up in time.
I carefully rolled over onto my belly after she pulled herself off of me. "I noticed…"
She came around my left side as I pushed myself up from the ground with a shake of my head. "You ok?"
"I'm fine. Just a little winded, hungry, and thirsty…"
"Ah… I apologise for that I'm kind of used to just being tackled to the ground and hugged to the point that I can't breathe, my family is big on things like that." She explained sheepishly, tail flicking out, and the three pointed scythe like tip catching the bright light shining down from a cluster of what looked to be twelve or so moons up above us. Before I could ask she gestured towards Harp, who flitted down from her perch and landed on one of the long, twisting gray horns on top of her head, each decorated in a dark blue winding stripe. "Well I brought a bunch of food back to the cave… and then I dropped it all on the ground and took off like a bat out hell when I realized you were not there."
I smiled sheepishly at her stern look. "I didn't know anybody else was here with me! I didn't even know where I was!"
She shook her head and turned back towards the gorge where we'd jumped to escape the Lake Guardian or whatever it was… There was a path of pure destruction where trees had been broken in half, or uprooted in our haste to get away from it, but that thing was long gone now. "Well it was probably a good thing that you didn't actually get in the water… In that case you'd be dead… and I'd have to explain to your Father and Grandmother, why I failed so badly at this that you got eaten by a Lake Guardian…"
Call me crazy but I think I saw her shudder fearfully right there…
A loud rumble emanated from my stomach… or chest… wait was my chest rumbling with hunger? What?!
"Looks like we need to get some food into your furnace."
"A furnace?!"
"I'll explain while we eat." With that she turned and led me back towards the gorge.
Wait… I couldn't fly over that! "How am I supposed to get over that? I don't know how to fly!"
"Get a good amount of momentum going, then jump with all four legs, not just two this time!" She called without looking back.
I sighed… "Oh shit…"
A little while later found us sitting around an empty fire pit nestled deep within the cave we were taking refuge in. We were curled up on either side of it, eating some kind of giant lizard that was big enough to feed both of us. It must've been a third of our size roughly, and looked more like a combination of some kind of crocodile, mixed with a monitor of some kind maybe.
It actually tasted kinda like chicken… So pretty good! I was tearing into it and swallowing big mouthfuls of it easily, no longer being surprised when I felt something spinning around inside my throat, which were apparently multiple different sets of blades that were used to rotate and break everything I ate down into much more manageable bits. So I could take a massive bite out of my food, and the blades would shred it down to goop and I could swallow it easily. Aurora had explained that to me right away when we sat down to eat. And the furnace thing? Turns out I have a mini sun in me! Which fuels the Titan equivalent of a Spark, a weird, unique to me crystal, Aurora had one two, and apparently the mini sun had its own gravity! And that gravity acted as a waiting line or something for everything we ate, so it would just rotate around my 'essence' until it needed something, and would take it from the gravity rings, running out of stuff in them, meant you effectively starved.
So far she'd been silent while she ate her own food, and I was so busy stuffing my face that I didn't think to pay her any attention until I was good and full. When I looked up at her the light from the moons was casting an silvery glow across the light blue scales that made up her right side, making them look somewhat like the colors of the sky when the moon would set on earth, with the sun just rising on the horizon and bathing her in an ethereal glow. It made me miss home… or was it really even my home to begin with?
I shook the depressing thought off, which was easy enough to do when I noticed she was staring at me, or more specifically my chest. "What are you staring at?"
Her light blue eyes briefly slid up to my face, then they drifted back down. "You haven't noticed the scars have you?"
"Scars…?" I craned my neck to an angle that allowed me to see the area she was so transfixed on, and when my eyes landed on a large nasty looking scar that covered the expanse of my chest, I nearly jolted from the sight of it. I just barely managed not to.
It was deep… and it looked like it was a puncture wound of some sort… But I had no idea how it got there, or where it was from. Wait… she said scars… plural, as in not one…
"That was the first time I noticed that…" I murmured quietly. "I wonder how that got there… I have more than one?"
She nodded. "You have claw marks on your right side, and they dip down onto your underbelly. There are also some more gashes on your flanks and upper neck. But you can't possibly see the ones on your neck because you can't crane it enough to see them. Your neck is long enough that you can see the ones on your flanks and side though."
I shuffled a bit, rolling and craning my neck back over my side after a bit of fumbling to get past the sharp armor on my shoulders. And lone and behold… there was a multitude of deep gashes lining my right flank, then a large set of three claw marks that trailed up from there, over my side, then dipped down to rake across my underbelly like someone had literally tried to gut me alive or something…
What… had caused these? I… I couldn't remember… I couldn't remember anything about being in this body…!
"Wha-what…?! Where did these come from?" I stammered shakily, instinctively looking to the light blue female across from me.
She looked up from the gruesome scars littering my body a look of empathy in her visible eye as she turned to her own form, which in the cluster of moons glow, revealed the many, many scars which littered her own from, some jagged, others clean cut, her claws where especially chipped, yet still bore a sharpness I never wanted to find myself on the receiving end of. "Well… it looks like you were mauled by another Titan, or possibly a predacon. There's no way to say for certain since you can't remember, and I literally know nothing of your back story. That cousin of mine had Auntie just pick me up and toss me through a portal with little warning, all I really knew was your name and that you're my cousin… That's all I've ever known about you… I've hardly been alive as long as you have, that's for certain…"
So she didn't know anything more about me than I did really… That made me deflate a little bit… "Oh…"
She nodded, looking towards the cave's entrance. "Again… thank you."
I jolted slightly. "For what?"
She glanced back at me, her visible eye drifted to me. Her wings fluttered, and I caught on. "You gave me back my flight, early."
"Early? I thought you said you wouldn't get back in the air?"
She chuckled, the area which would be her cheeks lightening as her blood rushed there, holy frag, we could blush?! "Not exactly, that was more me not thinking, in a few months my therapy would have been complete, then I would hopefully have enough strength in my wings to at least get a little off the ground… from there it would have been the far from easy task of trying to get by wings back to how they'd been before I was… shot down… this could of taken hundreds of years again… and now, you've sliced that time to nothing, I can fly full speed ahead, break sound barriers, tear across the galaxy… you've made my life so much better, and you don't even realise it. Right mum?"
Harp nodded, rubbing Aurora's wing base, she was still perched in the divot, and I doubted she was going to move from there very often.
Before I could respond, she'd risen to her full height, food discarded, not that there was much left anyway. "I'm going to seal the cave, prevent anything getting whilst we rest." She declared, moving over to the entrance, but not passing the threshold, instead, her eye began to glow, and with an unspoken command, water began pouring down in front of it, at such a rate one would surely be pulverised if they tried to pass.
I just stared at the entrance, now covered by the thick wall of torrential water which had come from nowhere. "How did…?"
"I do that? I am a water element, thus the water, and all liquids of roughly the same features, are mine to control, has been since I obtained it all that time ago… when you were at the lake, the tendrils reached out for you? Did they make contact?" Why was she asking that all of a sudden?
"Yes, somehow got inside me too… it was weird." I answered; it was really dark in here now, the cluster of moons' glow only dimly illuminating us now.
She seemed to sense this, as not a moment later, a torrent of blue fire left her maw, striking the ground which she'd pushed a bunch of rocks to earlier, then began glowing, before breaking out into balls of fire which flickered so many different colours I couldn't keep track, rarely turning orange at anywhere but the tips.
"Then you've obtained you element, I'll show you how to use it tomorrow, right now, we must rest. It has been a long day for the both of us. And Ierena, I'm really glad I finally got to meet you. The rest of my family you'll meet some day… but right now, we have to get your ready to return back to your Earth, and your mates."
My head very nearly hit the ceiling. "You mean I really do get to go back?!"
She nodded, warm smile made even warmer by the fire light illuminating her. "I'm not going to hold you prisoner or something like that, you deserve to return to your home, and I will go back to mine once you are fully settled in."
Something about how she said that made me worry, I knew for a fact that I was already warming up to my biological cousin, heck, soon I might end up idolising her! I mean, she knew so much, had lived her whole life a Titan… wait… maybe she hadn't.
"Did you, always know you were a Titan?"
She stared at me for a moment, before nodding, eyes becoming downcast. "When I first hatched… I had no idea what I was, in the first almost Titan year of my life, I was told, I was the only one… the only egg ever found, my circumstances a one in a trillion chance, my egg was petrified, I was barely alive in there, in a coma like state, until, my sire picked me up… then I hatched… it's all a blur, but I'll never forget the pair of surprised blue optics which looked down at me… my daddy, he was so ecstatic, his mentor could barely believe it either… but I was kept a secret… hidden away under Crystal City, in a bunker, then… when the war grew too close, I was sent to the stars… all that time, I believed I was the only one… then I meet Zyirun, she found me, I'd already met Auntie Liara at that point, and had known her for some time. But for the longest of time, I'd believed I was the only one, I still was, Zyirun is in fragments, scattered across the multiverse, hardly a complete Titan… until only a few days ago when I was sent here, and found your body forming, I'd hardly believed you were even real… I'd been the only one for so long… my sister doesn't exactly count, as her becoming a Titan was an accident, and even then, she's still part human… so yes, I always knew I was a Titan, I've never seen myself as anything else species wise… but, to believe I was the only one, that, that was agony…"
I just stared at her, before rising up and walking over to her, then, flopped down onto her side, hoping I could get the message across.
"Yes, I feel you, I know your there, real… really real, and not some dumb hope… again thank you, this time, for making me know that I'm not the only one, now, rest, we have your element to explore tomorrow." She shifted so that her left front leg was draped over me, nudging me to lay down fully, which I did, she followed after, her longer tail and neck curling around me as her wing stretched out over me, making a canopy over me which then became an odd blanket.
I pushed myself further into her side. "Night Aurora… dream well."
She chuckled. "Night Ier."
I drifted off after one last sentence. "Night Aurora, I'm really glad I met you…"
I didn't hear her response.
(Aurora's POV)
I stared over at my slumbering cousin, then back to the fire rocks, the flames dancing in all of their feigned innocence. Such a dangerous yet intoxicating sight.
With a huff, I sprayed the rocks down with some water I had stored in one of my internal pouches, dousing the flames and letting the rocks hiss with steam before falling silent.
The water fall doorway still thundered, but it was a soothing sound to me, one which always brought me comfort.
I looked back at my cousin.
She had no idea what was in store for her, what she was to discover, all our kinds dirty secrets and forgotten history.
Anyone who simply knows we existed, sees us as benevolent god like beings… but none of them lived when we were laid, when our kind ripped itself apart… long before the virus…
It made me wonder if she'd still like me then, after all, I'm hardly innocent, my bloodstained and sword chipped claws are testimony to that, she lived as a human for so long, what would happen when she found out how many lives I'd taken from her closely held race?
I'm hardly better than a con really… what with how many innocent lives I've taken.
A whack to my eye had me jerking to look at Harp. "What?!" I hissed, keeping my voice low so as not to wake Ierena.
She huffed. "You were doubting yourself again, you know that's detrimental to your health." She warned.
I sighed, lowering my head back to the uneven ground. "I can't help it… I have too much blood on my claws to just ignore it…"
"Dearie, you and I both know you never attacked first, you have only ever killed out of self-defence, or when they deserve death, you may of killed, but that does not make you a monster…"
"Just drop it mum, we've been over this."
Harp sighed. "I know, but you can't blame me for trying, you just got your flight back, yet your still depressed."
My head rose back up. "Mum, I'm a murderer, simple as."
"Your also a saviour, look at the good you've done, you're as bad as Emily, you can't seem to remember the good things you've done, only you aren't missing a part of your brain!"
I hissed at her this time, and for a change she backed down.
I knew she wasn't scared of me, she was my imprint, I could not physically or mentally attack her, sure she whacked me, but that never did any damage. With a sigh I moved back down, wanting to just sleep and forget about my stresses for a few hours. "Night mum."
"Goodnight Ro, don't worry, I'll be with you every step of the way on this."
"Just like you always have..."
"Yes, just like how I always have, and always will."
Slumber claimed me not long after we fell silent.
I just hoped this would all get worked out eventually… somehow.
R&R! Thank you to everyone who reviewed on the last chapter!