It was only much, much later when Arcee was cooling off in her quarters (after a fervent declaration of, "I'd sooner be Insecticon bait than having something like a sparkling sucking all my energon away!") and Miko managed to calm herself down and doodle enough 'baby robots' that Optimus was able to collapse in exhaustion- almost literally, from how he stumbled over to Ratchet for a conversation that he was partially dreading.
"I noticed you talking with Ms Darby," the medic pointed out. Obviously he did not approve of their topic of 'robot babies' from his glare.
"It has come to my attention that human children are not so diverse from our own species' offspring as appearances might suggest," Optimus explained. "Though I have no personal experience with sparklings, I feel that Ms Darby's own experience as a single mother may serve to benefit our goal." He stopped himself from mentioning 'Airachnid' where others could hear.
"Makes sense..." Ratchet reasoned, tapping a digit on his chin. "Though I doubt Ms Darby is in possession of servo blasters and poison secretion to help her on that front." Optimus' smile was faint at that quip.
"Also, Ratchet, if you wouldn't mind, I would recommend looking up as much as you are able towards sparkling care. I understand you were not in charge of any maternal or pediatric units on Cybertron-"
"Maybe not, but I do know how an average Cybertronian is supposed to work," Ratchet said defensively, his mind already glossing back over hours of medical lessons sat through in Protihex. "A sparkling is much the same, give or take size and some still growing organs. But wouldn't the sparkling require some form of special care, given her... heritage?" Whether he meant of organic or Decepticon nature, Optimus wasn't sure he'd be comfortable in deciding.
"I will leave that a call for you to make, old friend."
"Very well." His digit swiped over a datapad to his side. "I'll join you with her in the next few days- best to space out check ups for more accurate observation. On another topic, Optimus..." His servos hovered and he bit into his lipplates. "The human children have been digging around in online evidence considering the Decepticon's defection. And Miko seems to suspect her being involved. We have to be careful around them. While she may hold back from harming other Autobots, there's no telling what she could do to humans..."
"Your concerns are well noted," Optimus said grimly. Mother or not, he wasn't about to let Airachnid start her collection all over again. "If that will be all, I intend towards a long recharge ahead of me-"
"Before you go, Optimus," the medic called him back just as he turned around. "I trust you are in sound health? No more... relapses recently?"
"Not since a few days ago," Optimus said truthfully, dimly wondering if he'd have been able to pull off lying at this stage. He was grateful for the reprieve on his conscience, but he couldn't help but miss seeing Elita so clearly again...
With a final nod, the Prime departed, not knowing how he spoke too soon until too late.
xx
"Think they'll be able to find us in here?"
"If they do, Megatronus has been teaching me some gladiator tricks." Their laughter hit off the crystals surrounding them, filling the mineral air with sweet soundwaves. Elita let herself lean into Orion's chest, balling her digits into a fist and playfully hitting it against a plate before stepping back.
"Careful, even with four digits Jazz could probably still ding your helm."
"We'll see when he ever gets that thing fixed." He always was nervous around medics, and there was no way he could afford a custom replacement (and if he did he'd have it painted gold with platinum plates. Orion wasn't sure if he wanted to be around the attention a thing like that could attract).
"Thanks, anyway, for taking me out here," Elita sighed once she gained her composure, angling her giddy optics all around. "I've never been to Helix Gardens before."
"I was planning to bring you when the sun was rising the next solar cycle." Before Jazz decided to drown himself in high-grade and lead the whole security force of a nightclub (and Prowl) on a chase down the street and into the next city state. They only managed to slip away from the chaos because Lancer and Ratchet were just as bad. "But it's just as stunning in the night as in the morning."
Elita smiled in agreement, the glow of the crystals matching her optics and taking over when they shuttered closed for a moment. She flicked them upwards when they opened, and gasped in surprise.
"I thought you weren't able to see the stars in Praxus." Orion followed her gaze, and saw an impossible cluster of pin points huddling together in the dark. Praxus was known, among other things, for being so cut off from reality that even the sky was blocked from view, beaten by the canopies and buildings and neon that dominated the city.
"There must not be as much light pollution out here," he muttered, his smile joining Elita's. As they leant together on the railing of the small bridge underneath them, something crossed Orion's processor and found its way to his vocaliser.
"I heard Sentinel once say that all the stars had a place. They knew that place, where they were born and where they would eventually die. And they accepted it. That's why you never see them moving."
"Not exactly a subtle analogy to what he's trying to push around here," Elita scoffed, her lips compressing to a pout at the mere mention of 'Sentinel'.
"You mean the caste system?" Orion was surprised at the scorn in her tone, giving how dismissive she was of Cybertron's politics just a few days ago.
"Yes, the caste system! He's comparing something as beautiful as the cosmos to his 'utopia' that glorifies the oppression of bots who can't do anything about it!" She threw her servos up in emphasis, her gaze hardening. "That's just fragged up, Orion. Real fragged up."
He was unsure what to say over her sigh, helm slumping over the railing and servos limp.
"Can I tell you something, Orion?" she asked, propping her helm back up. "Back in Iacon, when you told me about this council meeting... I know I said a lot about how it shouldn't bother us, that the castes and everything weren't our problem, but... I forgot I once was one of them, having to scrape for energon every day just to survive."
"'Barely making enough credits to keep yourself powered,'" Orion recited, now realising how close his words hit home from her solemn nod.
" And I've been trying to forget about it," she continued. "Hearing you talk about the lower bots like that, it brought some painful memories back. I don't want to think about what my life was when... when I was Ariel."
Orion had never asked Elita exactly what had led to her working in a place like The Circle, but he'd heard enough horror stories of what happened in the Art caste to know that it wouldn't be a pretty story. He respected her too much to have her recounting what she had to go through to get where she was.
"I know something else that Alpha Trion once told me, something that might make you feel better," he offered, doubting that she could see a fault in his words. "There was a data cylinder, I remember. And it had a list of all the shapes the stars could make, each one an anchor for a line. And if your optics were in line with your processor, you could see art in the stars. You could see beauty in infinity." She found strength in her servos again to lift herself up, staring up at Orion curiously.
"Art... in the stars?" She reserved the right to be skeptical of anything named 'art', even outside of the castes.
"It takes some effort to see them, but they're there," he assured her. "You just have to know where to look. I was named for one of them. 'Orion the Hunter'. Supposedly it shows a mech wielding a bow and sword. It's impossible to see from Cybertron, but it's out there somewhere. And knowing that... that either above or beyond us, there will always be a piece of ourselves existing, it brings me some peace."
"My favourite one though-" He reached into his subspace for a datapad ("Trust you to bring a 'pad on vacation, Orion") and brought up a star map image. "-is this one."
Elita took the datapad in her own digits, zooming in her optics on the scribble of stars.
"'Scorpio', containing open clusters Messier 6 and 7, located in Milky Way galactic quadrant SQ3," she read off the title, screwing up her glossa in pronouncing some of the words."I can see why you like it."
"It's more than just a jumble of words," Orion insisted, pointing onto the pad. "See how it branches off at the top, and forms a curve at the bottom?"
"If you moved your hand out of the way, I could see."
"Sorry." She studied it for a few nanoklicks, turning it sideways and upside down.
"What's it supposed to look like?"
"That's the thing, Elita." Orion couldn't help grinning. "No-one really knows, not even Alpha Trion himself! Some other stars show at least mech shapes, or something akin to a Rust Sea creature, but this... it's mystified him. The name and location was all that was written about it in the Convenant. Beyond that, it's anyone's guess."
"Wow... and what do you think it looks like?"
"That depends," he said with a small shrug. "Sometimes it's a strange starship, others it's a road or-"
"A pretty damn weird road," Elita muttered with a smirk.
"Well alright then, Ms. Astronomy. What do you see?" More than nanoklicks this time, Elita held the pad close, tracing the imaginary lines over and over.
"I see... something dangerous," she declared slowly. "Beastly. Like an Insecticon, but... deadlier. Small and easy to not notice. The curves are all jagged, and the branch is like something sharp." She twitched a smile up at Orion's impressed expression. "All pretty basic geometry. In fact... I think I saw a techno-organic like that once. Big tail with a stinger and everything."
"Where do you even see all these techno-organics anyway?" Orion had lost count of how many Elita had claimed to have seen, on top of free walking Deployers and Insecticon hybrids.
"This one place I worked in early on, it had a whole business in hiding outlaws and such. Techno-organics were always somewhere in the shadows. They'd get a refugee discount if they didn't spit everywhere or claw up the berths." She tried not to make Orion drop the datapad from how his chuckle sent his servos shaking as she handed it back over.
"Small and deadly though... I like it." He only noticed Elita's hand still brushing along his when he dropped the pad back into subspace, lettng her digits find the plate creases. The metal of her palm was warm as he closed his hand around it, both of them joined as they watched infinity's canvas twinkling above them.
xx
'So much for that small blessing...' Optimus was still blinking helm pain away long after he jolted awake, wondering what good his 'Orion the Hunter' would be on Earth. Primus, he never even realised... when he pointed Scorpio out that night, it was the only one he recognised and it just leapt to his vocaliser. And now Scorpia was an eternal painful reminder of that long lost evening. As if it wasn't hard enough being with the daughter of his arch enemy.
The sun was quickly warming his armour to scorching point, the trees and ferns offering little protection and wrinkling when he brushed past them. Airachnid wasn't near the marked Ground Bridge point, but Optimus hadn't expected her to stay close to somewhere so open. He guessed she would choose somewhere high up, where she could watch anyone or anything approaching.
With her erratic EM field he couldn't rely on his spark signal detectors, but every hill he searched came up empty. The mountains were too large to quickly scale, and he doubted he'd be able to reach the same places Airachnid could. Attempting to reach or track her via comm line was also difficult, with the island far from any electrical relays and the overgrowth only offering interference. The energon in his subspace, and his spark, was getting colder with every passing klick.
He was beginning to consider asking in Wheeljack to help when his comm unit burst to life in a frenzy of static, making him wince before he could make out the panic-leaden breaths in his audios.
"crzzz-krsh-uzz-O-ptimus!"
"Airachnid?" His optics were rolling everywhere, his processor still disoriented. "Where are you, is something wrong?"
"Yes, there is som- kzzz-fragging wrong!" Even when choked with static her annoyance was clear as the sky above. "When you chose- is island, were you aware that- kzzz- is another- cnshhh- beast wandering loose?!"
"What?!" He was almost certain he heard her wrong. "That's impossible- there are no other cybernetic lifeforms on Earth, apart from ourselves and-" 'And Insecticons.' Fear clawed more ice into his spark.
"Airachnid, what is the nature of this beast? Is it insectoid, can it fly?"
"No, nothing of the sort, thank Primus for once." There was a sound of heavy impact, and the wrenching sound of Scorpia wailing. "It's some-zshhh - overgrown lizard!"
"Lizard?" Apart from Predacons Optimus wasn't sure if he remembered any sort of lizard beings on Cybertron, even before the war. Was this some kind of new Decepticon creation?
"He found us when I was- charging," Airachnid continued, her words in a rush and full of wind that whipped past her as she ran. "I managed- chsh- ght him off for a few hours, but the grenades are gone and my power levels are almost completely go- KSSHHHHH- HURRY!"
Optimus only realised his shotguns were already out when the transmission ended.