Hey guys! What's up? So, sorry for taking so long to update again. I would have had this on last night but Hurricane Irene bitch slapped us and we lost power for a good 18 hours. And no power means no wifi and no wifi means no updates. But it's all good now so on with the story. Read my snippet at the bottom for an interesting concept I have for you guys. =D
Day or night, cloudy or clear, windy or calm, Jazira didn't know the difference. Everything was a blur. She was only aware of the painful strain on her wings and shoulders to keep herself in the sky, and the steady humming of Optimus's spark pulsing feebly against her spine.
She wasn't sure exactly how far she'd gone or how long she'd been flying. It felt like she'd been airborne for a whole day. In reality, her flight thus far had consisted of ten hours. She had flown almost the entire expanse of the Atlantic between the east coast of the United States and the west coast of Africa.
But she never would have been able to guess that.
She knew where she was going. She had an amazing sense of direction and knew where Diego Garcia was located in reference to the U.S. Her sense of time however, had been distorted.
She was snapped back to full awareness as Optimus moved for the first time since the trip had begun. He lightly patted her shoulder. She stiffly craned her neck back to look at him. Every muscle in her neck was cramped. She silently cursed herself for not thinking to stretch from time to time.
Optimus appeared to be losing strength. It was clear that he had been suffering in silence for hours. The look in his optics said it all for her.
It was time for a break.
She gave him a brief nod before turning back to the expanse of sky before her. The Atlantic still stretched on before her with no apparent end in sight.
Then, far in the distance, a hazy stretch of land made itself visible on the horizon. Smoke erupted from her nostrils as she sighed with relief. She pulled her wings in toward her body a fraction of an inch and began to descend slowly and smoothly.
A half an hour later, the coast was upon them.
Jazira leveled herself out to coast inches over the water. As the shore began to pass below her, she flapped her wings backward to slow herself enough to land. Her muscles screamed in protest as her wing beats became more rapid. Grains of sand were thrown through the air with every beat. Her claws sank into the sand as all four of her scaly feet made contact with the ground. Her legs nearly gave out as Optimus's weight pushed against her sore body.
Optimus, realizing Jazira's struggle, allowed himself to roll off her back and land with a sickening thud beside her. He grunted painfully as his open wound was jarred heavily from the impact.
Jazira shrieked in panic and rushed to his aid.
"Optimus!" she cried. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to land so hard." Optimus shook his head and groaned.
"It was my error….Jazira." he replied. "You must…preserve your…strength." Guilt still coursed through Jazira.
"Optimus don't worry about me," she said. "Let's just focus on getting you back alive."
Her words didn't ease Optimus's concern for her. She was still in her silver dragon form. Her limbs were trembling with the effort to remain standing, her wings remained unfurled and dragged on the ground rather than folded neatly against her body, and she was panting.
It was clear that her strength was dwindling quickly. Jazira however, would never admit it.
She had always been strong willed and now, more than ever, Optimus needed someone. She wouldn't let him down.
It only took a few minutes for Optimus to overcome the pain of the impact. Jazira stayed beside him until he relaxed. It was then that she realized that she wasn't in as good condition as she was leading on. Every fiber of her body cried out for relief from the exhaustion, pain, and hunger.
She turned to face the open ocean. Remaining in her dragon form was the only way she could conserve enough energy to finish the journey to Diego Garcia. But it would also help her get food.
She turned to Optimus and met his tired gaze.
"I need to eat Optimus," she said "I'll be back in a few minutes tops." Optimus nodded and she staggered into the ocean until her scaly body was completely submerged and only her neck remained above the surf. The cold water felt wonderful.
With a quick glance backward at the mech lying on the shore, she inhaled and sank into the water and began to dive. She dove deeper and deeper until, there before her, schools of fish began to appear.
She knew that if she was to catch something to satisfy her and give her enough strength to get her and Optimus to NEST, it would have to be a rather large fish and she would have to catch it rather quickly.
Under normal circumstances she would transform into a water dragon, a sea serpent of sorts, to help her move through the water and hunt.
But the circumstances were far from normal.
Each time she transformed it sapped a bit more of her strength. She'd already transformed into different types of dragons five different times since she'd rushed into the woods to Optimus's aid. The hand to hand combat with Megatron, scaling a cliff with Optimus draped on her back, and giving a generous amount of her energy to the Autobot leader did nothing to help her endurance for the trip either.
With all that weight on her mind, she knew she had to preserve her strength and remain in the same form for the remainder of the journey.
But speed was everything to her now. Her water dragon form would have given her gills, but her current form forced her to hold her breath. If she went up for air, it would frighten all the fish away and she would go hungry.
She swam close to the ocean floor until she came to a large boulder. She used her keen hearing to try and listen for any sign of a large fish to claim as her prey. She heard a sound on the other side of the boulder. It sounded very much like a fish.
She snaked her head around the rock to get a peak at her future meal. She was pleasantly surprised to see a massive Atlantic Tarpon. It was freakishly large and its scales glittered silver.
Before the fish had any time to react to her presence, she snapped her jaws around its body and crushed its spine.
Satisfied, and in need of air, Jazira pushed off the rock and rose to the surface.
Water ran in sheets off her body as she pulled her prize onto the beach. As she slapped the fish down on the wet sand, she noticed that Optimus has fallen into recharge again. She was relieved that she wouldn't have to make Optimus watch her devour the fish. She wasn't sure how Optimus felt about human table manners but a dragon, by nature, is a blood thirsty carnivore and it showed when she ate in dragon form.
With a savage growl she tore into the tarpon's body and ripped off chunk after chunk, each time swallowing it whole like a crocodile. She enjoyed a good fish in human form but everything was so much more satisfying to a dragon.
When she had picked the carcass clean, she stretched her cramped body and approached Optimus.
She felt stronger now that she had food in her belly. Granted, she was still exhausted, but her muscles no longer trembled from strain and she felt more alert.
She lay in the sand beside him and allowed herself to be pulled into the warm embrace of sleep.
She was awakened an hour later by Optimus who had been roused from recharge by a searing pain throughout his body. The tide had come in quickly and the salt water irritated his already damaged and exposed circuits.
The waves were still reasonably small so Jazira formed a barrier between Optimus and the water with her tail. But the reality was that it was time to move on. Optimus was growing weaker and the borrowed energy wouldn't last him much longer.
She crouched beside him and nuzzled him.
"Time to get a move on Optimus." She said
Optimus was silent as Jazira got him back onto her back. She was worried. Optimus had barely said more than a sentence since they'd left her home. Time was short.
She turned to the south to look down the stretch of beach. Taking off would be easier this time. There were no trees to struggle to clear. But she would have to climb quickly to get out of sight again.
She began to run along the beach, steadily gaining speed. Her razor sharp talons dug into the sand with every step.
"Hold on!" she shouted as she broke into a dead sprint and snapped her wings open. A gentle ocean breeze combined with her speed gave her the perfect conditions for takeoff.
She flapped once, twice, three times, before pumping her wings rapid fire. She clenched her teeth and snarled. She was trying to get airborne with every ounce of strength she had, but she had little left to work with.
Her body protested as she pumped harder and leapt into the sky. For a moment she became dangerously close to crashing back to earth, but her determination shone through and she began to climb back toward the clouds.
She made a hard bank left and continued the struggle to Diego Garcia.
Well that's chapter 8. That took long enough. I hope you guys liked it. A special thanks to panther1122 for helping me figure out what fish Jazira should catch. I was being picky. =P
Now for something slightly different. I can't decide if I want to have romance between Jazira and Optimus or if I should have them just be really close friends. Initially I was going to have just friendship, but now I'm not so sure. So, I'm letting you, my wonderful fans, decide. You guys are all so awesome for supporting me and giving feedback that it should be up to you. So the voting begins now and it will end when this story is over in a few more chapters.