15. Lonely
Arrows, autumn, antler.
Suggested by: Illucian

A fine blanket of leaves covered the ground of the abandoned cemetery; most crunched underfoot, though a few were late enough in falling to react to her passing without a sound. Solarflare carefully stepped around crumbling granite and marble headstones, danced sideways when her gold toe-tip grazed over a military plaque long-overgrown with weeds. Sadness was heavy in her Energon pump for the bones that resided here, once carefully-tended, once lovingly visited. Whispered memories and fond recollections danced among the stripped trees, no more substantial than the wind. Beneath her feet, the ground had long since given to the sky the last tears – spilled more than a hundred years ago. Perhaps in a hundred more years, this place of final resting would become desolate, but now, it was merely forlorn.

Those who had come to pay their respects were no better off – fading flesh and crumbling bones themselves, lying unloved and unmourned in their own faraway graves. Land such as this was a commodity, even with the colonization of other worlds with the Autobots' aid. They were still considered sacred, but Flare had heard tales of how older cemeteries had been exhumed in order to make way for advancing developments.

Bending down, Flare scraped the accumulation off of another military plaque, this one embossed with the combined sigils for the Marines and the Autobots: a hero from one battle in a long war. The simple eagle, globe and anchor spoke of how old this cemetery actually was – for at the turn of the twenty-first century, much of America's military might had been combined to form the Earth Defense Command, or EDC.

You could spend days here, just tending the graves, she thought sadly. But you don't have the time.

Indeed, there was final packing to be done, before she, Mirage, Spectrum and Illusion departed Earth for their new Tower in Iacon, on Cybertron. The Autobot presence on Earth was in the last stages of their fifty-year phase-out. That was about how long it took to get Cybertron back in order after the decisive Autobot victory in 2200.

And you promised Raj you wouldn't be too long … though he said I could take as much time as I needed. A rueful smile, intermixed with faded memories of another time, graced her charcoal lips. He really wants to be "home".

Two hundred years ago, she had refused to set foot in this cemetery, to even come within a hundred yards of its gracefully-arched black gates. But, she had to – for this would possibly be the last time she'd ever be in this area again.

Distant honking, growing louder by the moment, pulled Flare from her ruminations. Tipping her head skyward, she watched as two arrows of Canadian geese winged stalwartly onward to their winter grounds. Folding her arms over her chestplate, the grey femme considered the similarities: They have two homes – just as I will. But, for me, I will probably never return to my natal lands.

Lowering her chin, Solarflare cast her golden-optic'd gaze over the cemetery, scanning the neat rows of stones, shrubs and forgotten trees. She caught sight of the small, dead shrub that Mirage said marked the Michaels' family plot. As always, a sense of vertigo assailed her cortex when she acknowledged that two of her existed at the same time – the human body that had birthed her soul, and the living metal that now housed it. That body is gone, she affirmed, tucking her chin into her neckguard and covering the distance between the points with relative ease. You were Alina Michaels … now you are Solarflare Ligier.

Still, such positive thinking did not dim the rising emotion as she took in the stark lettering on the basalt headstone. There were her human parents' birth and death dates, her brother's … and her own, so horribly short in comparison to the 80- and 90-years that the others had lived.

There was a sparse patch in the grass, to the right of the large stone. Folding her legs carefully around the surrounding tombstones, Flare bent down and gently scraped away the years, revealing a faded and elementally-damaged picture of her human self.

" 'Beloved Daughter … Taken too Soon. Forever in our Hearts'," Flare whispered. Laying her hand over the plaque, she gazed at the headstone, a sudden and powerful bolt of loneliness hitting her between the optics, boring through her cortex and down into her spark chamber. Faintly, she reeled, reaching out with her left hand to grip the crumbling onyx stone, to center herself in reality. At her spine, her wings flickered in and out, fluttering with the emotion that wracked her insides. A blue-tinged tear slowly slid from the corner of her right optic, snaking down one sharp-planed cheek. At the tip of her pointed chin, it rolled free, splashing onto her knee-spike before hitting the ground, taken up as quickly as a dying man drinks water.

You are not alone! she tried to tell herself, but it was for naught. She could lose herself in the new world circumstance and choice had crafted for her, but the truth was here, in the dates and the graves. She, alone of all her family, lived – far beyond normal human comprehension. And she would continue to live, for as long as her parts hummed in sync, as strongly as her spark powered her body.

Another tear followed the same track as the first, catching the crack between spike and thigh joint. Shoulder struts heaving, wings rustling, Solarflare bent over the patch of earth that housed the remains of the family that had given her life, only to see it snatched away – never to know the truth.

A while later, exhausted, she rose, dusting off her lower legs with a mechanical gesture that she hoped would ground her emotions. With one final grip of stone, Solarflare turned her head towards the setting sun and began to walk out of the cemetery. As she moved towards the entrance, her right toe kicked something hidden by the tall grasses; it rose from the ground and clattered against a tumbled marker. Bending, she picked it up, turning the object over between two fingers.

Once, this horn graced a magnificent stag … probably long gone to the woods, or to death. Flare hazarded the former, for the reason it did not show signs of being nibbled at by insects or mice. Glancing towards the encroaching forest, she supposed that the original owner could still be around, perhaps sporting a bigger, better rack.

She took one step, then another, intending to take this antler with her – perhaps as a reminder. Then she paused. Looking at the shed bone, she shook her head. No, you can't take this. For one, it's not practical … two, it belong here. And you, unlike this antler, doesn't belong here anymore.

With a sigh of longing, Flare resigned herself to logic. Turning, she walked back to the plot that housed her human family's remains and gently set the antler atop the tombstone. With a parting glance, she lifted her head to the sky and transformed, a grey shadow of life, rather than death, winging over the cemetery.

But a sad shadow nevertheless.