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Ironhide: Words

"I don't understand you."

The words come like, as the humans of this protectorate tend to say, a curve ball. For a moment he can only look at the man and wonder what is going on, what he didn't explain well enough to confuse this trained soldier.

"Huh?" is his oh so eloquent reply.

"I meant your opinions about the Decepticons, Ironhide."

"What of them?"

"You told the new recruits that there is no bigger honour than being a Decepticon. We're fighting against the Decepticons!"

"I know." There is a tired sigh in his voice, as if a thousand burdens had been allowed to accumulate on shoulders far too proud to complain. "More's the shame."

"I don't know how you Autobots handle this stuff, but for us that would have bordered on treason."

Another sigh. Really, some days he is disgusted by his people's habit to always assimilate new behaviour. No wonder that the dominant species is suspicious.

"We have a saying on Cybertron, Will Lennox. 'One pair of wings shows you what is possible. Two pairs of wings teaches you to dream. Three pairs of wings and the heavens weep in happiness.'"

The soldier looks at him as if something has gone terribly wrong. Somehow he feels the need to power up his weapons, just to be sure that it is not an outside influence manipulating the human. One can never be to sure in these things, after all.

"In our culture those who were born with the ability to fly..." He stops. Is there even a way to say this without making the organic fear him? Obviously not, but he would have preferred to do this in a painless way.

He makes a couple of sounds that for the humans sound as if he were breathing hard to steel himself for a future hardship, shakes his head and walk away from the training grounds towards a place where they can talk in peace. Not for one moment is there doubt in him that Lennox will not follow him.

He is right.

"Wings are a sign of a proper line," he begins. "Flyers are very ancestry oriented, you know? They always know when there was an 'impure' union in their family, because then their kids lose the wings."

Lennox looks at him as if to ask what flying transformers have to do with Decepticons.

"Take Bumblebee for example. He has the wings but will never fly on his own power. Never. All because he had two flyers and one ground-bound as parents."

"I thought you could only make new bots with the Allspark."

Ironhide snorts a laugh. Painful, that. Far too much for the old wound hiding in his spark.

"Who ever gave you that idea, Will? We procreate like every other intelligent species in the galaxy, with a lot of sex and maybe the help of a good genetist."

"I think we're going off topic."

"Prude." It is a strange sight when always threatening battle hungry Ironhide giggles like a little child. Makes one wonder what he is thinking of.

"Anyway, Decepticon is a word we sort of borrowed from one of the first organic species we encountered. They met our scientists and called them what they'd call their own royalty. It means something like 'those who fly', I think.

"No wonder then that the name was loved by our flyers. Within one or two generations the warrior clans took the name as well, and it stuck."

"So, every Decepticon is some kind of royalty, or what?"

"Nope. It just means there's two meanings for the word. One says that the guy was born in a family of tradition. That's me included, by the way. Old military blood runs through my veins. The other just means the followers of Megatron."