The votes are in!
OTSH FanArt contest poll is officially closed, and the winners are *drum roll*...
Third place: Jokerism with their poem 'Guardian'
Second place: BigBewbs with their fanmade background
And First place...
ForShizzleMySizzle with their OTSH Cover!
Thank you guys for your entries and thank all who voted :)
I sincerely love each and every one of you and I can't wait to finish this long journey with you guys.
Eventually.
Enjoy!
Of The Spark And Heart
Part 2
Chapter 53
Boundless white.
Stretching, goading brightness of limitless energy. Swirling mass of charged brilliance stocked high into the vision without foreseeable limit. Magnificent expansion of the mind and its grasp, flooding past possibility until certain demise remained. Yet it went on. It all went on. It seemed forever that it went on.
Learning.
Yearning to understand.
Searching for reason of its existence.
What could not, would not be, comprehended. Still it drove onward in a form of desperation. A madness enveloped it when it strove to know what it was did not know, and was inevitably shielded from that wisdom. Some moments,when in a clear density safely thinning to the wills of the motionless air, it sailed. Others it fell to the crushing spirals of whitewashed tendrils, heavy in failure from what could not be accomplished. A mind in its small capacity was nothing more than the willingness to survive and continue on. Such moral instinct shouldn't have stay in this place of true potential as what this eternity provided. Whiteness and nothingness signaled an end to most but itself. Here the calm raged louder than any storm in its sensitive, fragile ears. The din of stark silence deafened. Insanity proved evident if not accustomed to the treatment beforehand.
Further, deeper within the curling fumes of distortion and pain-laced cocoon sat a figure. They themselves was but the mist of which arose from nowhere in the nothing. They were nowhere and no one. Simple to the mind and yet similarly so complex the sheer primitivity of humanity refused recognition of its true stature. Immense volumes of pain - of suffering and ailment trudged on as molasses through these veins flashing in and out of focus. Warm colors trickled from existence to back, drifting in the winds of the entity as it sat in conflicting shades of light and dark. No solidity took shape. No breath came without the fiery orange glow blushing across what most assumed as the chest. Here, they were wings of flame set in the place of alienated lungs, unneeded, and yet they were there. A makeshift trestle supported them beneath, offering but superfluous rest against the crushing, unseen weight brought upon their shoulders.
Whispers traveled on dead breezes, promising something that could not be - believing in things that appeared utterly outrageous to the stable. But here...everything was different. There was no sense of sanity. Life in itself, with all discoveries made to explain such phenomena ceased to exist. Anything and everything could be reached if the mind willed it so. It was pliable as clay in this universe, and so this figure retained so much, and yet so little, power that it was frightened to try anything out of the ordinary.
Flares of electric blues burst to life within the orbs posing as optical organs. They too were needless, as everything and anything was known to this being already without the need of sight. This place was their own. It was them. Collective entities glided upon the wiring of the consciousness, ever present and ever stubborn to leave. Try as they might, the holder exhibited no abilities of removing these meddlesome beings. They posed no immediate importance, and so they too were seen as needless. But they existed for an unfathomable reason. They were here, and as to why, there wasn't the slightest clue.
Again they attacked, willing and wishing these creatures be gone. They dare not move from their perch, buzzing features locked forever in stoic impassion. Limbs came into status, though they were for but only reassurance of the holder. Why they offered such comfort was lost to the holder.
"Tell me why you are here."
Its voice. The same the Holder had known for unimaginable times spent within this prison of itself. Here, it was safe and soundless to distraction or pain. Here, the Holder felt nothing and everything. They controlled what before could not of been. Thus, they stayed, if but for the fear of the outside worlds.
"I...don't know," Holder admitted with a voice neither having sound nor volume. It was more outward thought than speech. They disliked the feelings building inside of them, the ill emotion sending sickly green mists through the fog of their silhouette. The Holder attempted suppressing this feeling known as 'uncertainty', however the phantom was persistent in its intrusion. It stayed, growing and morphing to strangeness unfamiliar and frightening to the Holder. Inescapable in its might, one could not fathom the gripping intensity such an unwelcome sensation brought upon the consciousness of one used to sole purity and nothing else.
The Voice shifted, turning and moving without letting loose the choking significance it held upon the Holder. "Tell me why you are here," it commanded again, its presence suffocating the previously peaceful space surrounding the Holder. Its arrival in the Beginning was initially confounding and instilled with terror of the unknown for the Holder. All before it had been nothingness - an overwhelming inadequacy and faze of no belonging. As its calm built into the folds of the Holder's essence, it allowed this new entity lounge inside its then chaotic dwelling. It wrought not ill-will, but a clearing indication of intelligence. And it brought with it a sense of organized chaos. The unknown from before dwindled for sake of wisdom. From then until this moment of inscrutable time, it offered but relief from darkness of the black and intolerable agonies of the flesh.
"I do not know," the Holder repeated, as unsure of their answer as they'd ever been.
This question, followed by its response, had not satisfied the Voice. Powerful and majestic, it cared for the Holder as its progeny. It discriminated against harm of its charge, nor raising of aggravations. Frustrations were lost as the Holder's parched thirst remained for understanding. Instead of unmentionable fears its strengths permitted for use, the Voice charged the Holder with but the mercy of visions and symbols all coated in secret message. Nothing was clear, as these walls were - as the purity was. Time itself even became lost within the Voice. It warped, folded, moved, and collapsed, all in the same instance. Nothing before held that power, as Holder had experienced as of yet, or would probably ever know. The appreciation and awe they reserved for their protector was boundless.
However, this answer and its response still remained the only dialogue between the Voice and Holder, and yet, words were unnecessary in a place of everything and anything. Breathing was unnecessary. Movement was no longer a need, as everything and anything already displayed itself before Holder. Sustenance was a pointless endeavor. It was all here, all there. Whatever was left over afterward was not needed. Words failed this sense of completeness.
"I do not know," the Holder, lost as the worlds circling and slipping as silvery liquid around their existence, would reply. Again and again. Once more, then one last time. Everything and anything served no purpose in a certain answer. The Holder was helpless. Though they dreaded the inky obsidian rivers developing in the core of their being, they became forced into acceptance for it. It had been there in the Beginning, and had remained throughout. It frightened Holder. It still did. Nonetheless they knew it was a part of them. Apparently a vital, meaningful part of their celestial essence. To be without it would be to suffer in utter incompleteness. Something, that Holder dreaded passionately.
The Voice began its retreat. Into the creases of the mind it would remain, until it arose to face the Holder with its resounding question later on. The Holder, renewed in its terror of the ceaseless cycle, reached itself into new lengths of being. Deathly cold shot through themselves, into their darkening blood, the veins running light with blue, and their lungs raging in a rosy crimson hue. They reeled back into the confines of their perch, settling for the numbness instead of intense suffering those reckless acts brought them. That was why thought and reason were not valued in this place. They wrought too much feeling.
The Voice knew of the Holder's pain and returned to them, if only to give the Holder its artificial assurance and serenity for the Holder to take into itself as it usually always did. But the Holder hadn't want of the Voice's soothing whispers breaking their innards or touching the tenderness in their withering heart. Nor the gentle touch that so effortlessly breached their cell, of which kept them so trapped. Why? Why could Voice roam in the freedom, while Holder resided in the constrictive hold of a prison?
"Wait...I wish to know...why this..." they could not explain the unexplainable. In an odd gesture, they motioned towards themselves in efforts of exposing what lie inside. Their outer shell of pliable mist split apart as thin, opaque curtains to reveal a pumping knot of whirling, twirling threads of shining onyx. In constant motion it shifted and relocated, staying ever quiet and ever chilled as ice. Pumping darkness into the Holder, it aimed as the balancing element in their stormy existence. It was there, so Holder may be. The worlds had none of it, as neither did Voice. Holder was special. Voice had told them such, many questions ago.
The Voice pressured the Holder in its approach upon it. Their connection, though brief, sent a wave of compelling shock throughout the Holder that spurred the metaphorical dust of its shelves to sweep clear for but a split beat of their sick heart. They reared, startled, crawling in ambient hesitance while Voice came nearer. They seemed ignorant to their progeny's fevered retreat to the corner.
"To understand such defaulting growths," the Voice pronounced, drawing in and around the Holder in a slow, leisured fashion, "is better met with the knowledge of present happenstance."
Here, everything and anything condensed. It became what was not and limited itself to compound matter. Colors stretched into replacement of the whiteness of the Holder and Voice, tossing the remnants of shattered discerning forward then back, thresholds of existence turning the worlds of vastness into a boundary of perimeter. Vision to a certain extent collided and turned to clutch at the Holder with avid attraction. Invisible anchors dug harpoons of arrows into the flesh of their mind, searching desperately for what seemed not there. It was intense affliction for the Holder, and they fought to rid themselves of this new enemy. Pain.
The animal thrust itself further inside, projecting and stealing the stashed pieces of the Holder's conscious to replace with its own. Walls of old crumbled and sharply cut like knives into the Holder. The purity was faltering. Before their very sight, the worlds of which Holder only knew collapsed in on itself to create thin veils of dust. Mortality permeated their supposed immortal light. Titans fell to mangled corpses of ash. A power that had once hovered so far from Holder's reach now deviated into a plummeting decline. Holder was now the god among them, to its total, consuming fright.
But then, before them, showed images flashing in hazy, blurred clips. They took place of the worlds and focused best of their abilities, taking the measure to entrap what they could into their reach for as long as they could. The Voice stayed here, ever loyally by the Holder's side, watching and observing its progeny with stalwart calmness, as they drank what memory clung to them. And there was many to do so. They seemed to go on for eternity, as the worlds once did. Would these too, tumble to a nothingness right in front of Holder?
What the Holder collected from its experience was joyous, sad, and so very overwhelming. The most of these particular circle of looping sights came back to a single figure throughout its series. They were unlike anything the Holder could at the present moment recall. And it was understandable, considering the Beginning and after had been all they currently recollected. However their features sent a coursing, fulfilling sense of wholeness inside of them that strangely mimicked that of when the Voice had come into play. It replaced whatever pain had been here before. It took the darkness away and placed instead a sense of protection and promise. The Holder wanted to know more of this being...to be near them.
"Listen...remember, my Wanderer..." the Voice cooed. It was near and far, here and there, everywhere and in every frame of space-time.
"I don't know," the Holder said in return. It was all they knew. It was all they could think of to respond with. Up until now, they'd needn't perceive anything else.
These images climbed into crispness the longer they raced by. It hurt to be unable to stare at one for more than the blinking of the eye, the Holder strived to see the reason behind this show in the first place. They wished to understand; they felt compelled towards this creature of existence. In a single act of instinct buried far inside of them, the Holder stretched a single line of itself outward, as if to catch the memories. They paused and landed as heavy, sparkling cubes inside the Holder's intangible palms. Solid. They were solid to the touch. Everything and anything had always been untouchable. This new and exciting feeling made Holder stare down and marvel at what they held between their now suddenly solid palms.
It was simpler to see this specific group of recollection than something from their frayed conscious. The Holder brought them near, pressing them against their glowing heart, as they escaped back into the seclusion of their perch. Away from the influence of the Voice, it stayed on the edges of the Holder's conscious, waiting - watching. It would be there when needed, however, never anytime other. Holder must be allowed to evolve on their own - remember on their own. And when they crouched in the cage they not too long ago believed a prison, that was now considered home, they crawled on the cusp of discovery. Everything and anything had been leading them to this.
The Holder drew into itself, encasing these memories inside as it filed through one after the other. These memories...these pieces of the Holder...they now meant so much more than anything else. These were the Holder itself. Not even the Voice could quench this lust for knowing as these cubes could. They melted and soaked into the Holder, instilling a new life inside of it that hadn't been there beforehand. The darkness receded some, allowing the balance of light and serenity to take effect. No longer was there agony. No longer did pain filter from the wisps of their mist. It was merely a...longing of some sort.
Faces...voices...emotions filling the contours of each cube as they took their rightful place in the throne of the Holder's mind. None were the same, which intrigued the Holder. They were missing major parts, leaving sizable holes in the Holder's memory. But at least they now had a memory at all. Before it had been knowing. They knew the Voice, the Beginning, everything and anything, and nothing else. There was something here now that detoured from that, almost rebelliously. Absently, it caressed a single cube that shined brightest, finding it releasing waves of surging warmth and goodness. They wanted more. The longing became a strong need. Their curiosity was soaring to heights never before reached. The cube would bend to their will, granting Holder another talent they'd yet to possess. Control. It gave them control. Inside the Holder dived, pushing itself into the moment when the anticipation had become too much.
The air was cold and nipping at the skin, sharp as glass against the lungs. Breath thick with white fog escaped frosted lips, which were tinged a faint blue from the chill. A cherry nose wrinkled and round, attempting to rid itself of the frigid weather. Trembles traveled over their frame, down the length of their pale limbs, and sent shivers of gradient light over the fabric covering their thin body. Gold ringlets of hair tumbled over the length of their spine, stopping midway to the ground. A wool cap covered their head, hiding their fragile ears and crown from the elements.
Beside them remain a largely figure in contrast, clad in thick metallic armor that shone in an array of entrancing blacks and scarlet. Their skin, which wasn't at all skin, was silver, and it gleamed in the low wash of the moon's glow. The cold hadn't seemed to bother them as it did the female, and so, they merely remained still with their head tilted back and their eyes aimed for the heavens. The bow of their features shadowed the untouched whiteness of the snow. The white was sparkling gloriously under the starlight. Even then it appeared as though the sole point of the massive being's attention were the celestial bodies twinkling above. Inside their enormous hand sit the figure of original attention, her arms wrapped tightly around herself and her legs drawn up to her chest.
The pair sat in total quiet, neither speaking a word until the faintest of pinks began to smoke from the female. It was barely visible, making it difficult to see, however it was there, burning in greedy licks at the darkened night skies above. It was her aura, shining faintly around her frame.
Millions of stars played the role of the spirits of the slate of a sleeping Earth, sparkling in pure white against the wall of midnight. She joined her company in gazing upward at the sky's expanse of wondrous diamonds. One could have scrapped the lands bare, laid upon their back, and stared forever into the galaxies, they were so beautiful. A slight grin touched her lips as her striking blue eyes reflected imagined worlds far past her sight.
"Tell me something Sol," she twisted around, the layers of cloth entrapping her upper body crinkling in her movement.
"That depends on what it is you wish to know," this being, Sol as the Holder guessed, answered in a tone the entity had often heard the Voice use. Compassion.
"What did you think when you first saw me? When I met you and the others for the first time?"
The Holder found Sol to be considering this, using whatever means of the quiet to think over this inquiry and create the best response. This scene seemed all too familiar. But why? What had this in connection with the Holder?
"Annoyance. Frustration, mostly," Sol told his company. The girl, still so memorable to the Holder though her name constantly eluded its memory, huffed and sat back against his hand.
"Well I apologize," she retorted in a sharp tone. The Holder became confused with the female. The way she spoke wasn't at all pleasant. Was she upset with Sol?
"You did not let me finish," Sol continued, catching the girl's attention again. "However feelings I may have had then, they began to change as I came to know you. You grew on me, you could say."
"Oh," she, flustered from before, changed so quickly into abashment. Her emotions shifted in such a small interval that she seemed overall unstable to the Holder. It was silly to the Holder to consider this female in such importance.
Upon the Holder's loss of interest, it began to move on in new searches. The Voice intervened immediately, trapping it within its own memory. The Holder grew uneasy, finding such blockade deterring and unusual. The Voice remained vigilant in keeping its progeny present and listening to the moment. Any memory, no matter how seemingly useless, was always valuable it conveyed. The Holder stayed were they had became shackled, tuning in with their figures as they once more dipped into soft conversation.
"Hadn't you said your father worked with us before?" Sol, of which whom's name began unlocking many different lines knitted along the structure of the Holder. In this instance, its conscious grew and expanded in astonishing width, allowing whatever clog of the flooding of memories to surface. With an in audible gasp, the Holder swooped in close to the metallic creature and bore searching eyes into his face. Sol...Solas...Solas Kaon. The Holder knew this being.
"Yeah, he did," Solas' counterpart released a small, sad smile, and in turn the aura surrounding her grew into a warm halo of color. "I was too young to remember the first times, like Mission City and Egypt, but I kind of remember Chicago. I was six years old then I think."
"Do you remember us?"
"No, I...I'd never met any of you until five months ago... Although, I do remember a huge black truck my dad always used to hang around," she'd admitted, wringing her hands between her knees. "For hours he would just sit in the cab or on the ground with the door wide open, talking to the radio like it could talk back. I'd ask my mother about it, but she'd just shake her head and tell me not to worry about it." she sounded unsure of herself. "It was only when I saw Ironhide in that underground place with the others that I found out it was him that entire time."
The Holder focused on the female, taking in the odd nature of her optic organs and their intense coloring - the paleness in her skin with those silvery scars decorating the overall unspoiled surface. The expression morphing her delicate, yet fierce features intrigued Holder. It moved on, trying to become closer, and attempted to gain a minute sense of recollection. Nothing came. The block from before had returned with a vengeance.
Solas lifted the female higher, closer to him, as she shivered and bundled herself into the fluff of her limbs and fabrics. Despite their initial expectation, the Holder found the female quite comfortable in her metallic peer's nearness. She seemed to relish the offered warmth and wiggled as closely as possible into the contours of his own covering. The Holder was fascinated by this all, finding this moment to send a pleasant glow through their ailing, black core. It lifted, if but slightly, and buzzed in a life that had been missing for some time now.
Holder could not bring themselves to look away. This moment was too important and too significant to simply brush aside as they had other before it. "I feel it..." they pressed their essence close to their core, drinking in the emotion there. "This...what is this?" the Voice said nothing and remained in its secret vigil. No help could be found, while the feeling inside grew and simmered inside the Holder. Cautiously they explored it, finding the temperate climb oddly comforting. It was similar to what Holder held for Voice. There was no name for it, nor description, yet it was memorable.
"No one knew why he died, or why he did what he did sometimes," the female. Her voice. Why did it strike the Holder so? "His actions were often unexplained to me, mostly because my mom wouldn't tell me. No matter what, it was always: 'he's doing his duty' or 'making this world that much safer'." her head shook and she wound herself around to lean against Solas Kaon with her arms locked close and her face ducked low. Those frosty lashes batted away the cold, protecting her sensitive eyes from the biting, frigid temperatures. Her slim hands grabbed hold of the edge of the plates of Solas' chest.
Solas himself kept her close, his heat coursing into the smaller form in his hold. The Holder felt this heat and experienced the buzz along their spine. Spine? When the Holder have such a corporeal limb?
"Your mother merely wished to protect you."
"I want to think that...I really do... It's just...just..." she was fading off, falling into the influence of her dominating instinct of sleep. The Holder also became victim to this female's fatigue. They were connected in some way. But...how? Pain laced through the Holder when they tried to comprehend this mystery. It hurt to attempt knowing. They did not appreciate the discomfort and struggled to suppress the affliction into their previous numbness.
Solas had not shown sign of amusement toward this creature so captured by his heart. She was continuously murmuring in defiance of her tiredness. They were inaudible mumbles, meant for much meaning, but sufficing for nothing. The iron guardian watching over her far more fragile body shifted to give her better comfort, using his own recline to gaze back up at the stars above.
"The lamb I do see, the lamb, the lamb," such a strange string of words. Solas' tone was low and entrancing, lulling even the Holder in a hypnotic state as he continued with this all-too-familiar song. What had it come from? Where?
"The lamb I did see, the lamb, the lamb;
Where has the lamb gone? Over the moon, over the moon;
Can I join you? Little lamb, little lamb;
'Yes you can, yes you can';
And we played and we played;
Until the sun came and ruined our fun;"
The Holder found themselves humming along, though they bore no understanding of why. It was so easy to speak these words, as somehow they came forth on their own. They felt the soothing flow of his words over their being, and experienced the heat of Sol's every breath blanketing their chilled body. They relaxed into Solas' aura, finding it wonderfully whole compared to the Voice and its everything and anything. Perhaps it was pure hallucination that they had come to want to stay here. Perhaps it was foolish whimsy. Whatever it was, it continued to complex their conscious. They willed to remember...to know what it was that clicked in their memories.
"The lamb, the lamb, it jumped and so did I;
until we meet again, meet again;
the lamb, the lamb and I;
it laughed and so did I;
and we played, and we played;
until the moon returned and our fun began again."
In this moment, lost to the whims of those not their own, the Holder grew restless and confused. They shied away from Solas' form and into the recesses of their confounded conscious. Here and there and everything and anything became something that was alien to Holder, and farther from truth than they had ever been before. Was this all a lie? Some falsity constructed in the name of conserving the fragile nature of the Holder's already tattered essence? But where did this leave them now? Where would they go?
Afraid and lost, Holder let their glowing heart focus on Solas. They drew into the assurance of his presence, depending on him for a grip on their memory. This was a precious moment, that they knew was definitely significant. How it was so failed to come to reason. So they held on.
Nothing was what it seemed, and they knew this. The Holder was not like the Voice, whom now seemed lost in dimensions beyond the reaches of the Holder's being. Why had this event befallen them? Why were they considered worthy of gaining this torture of not understanding? Why?
"You are the Wanderer," the Voice proclaimed as they had appeared, unannounced, beside the Holder. Previously it had been simple for the Holder to recognize the Voice's presence. Now that they doubted the Voice, they sit in stark silence, suspicious of the very being who they'd clung to as though it were their last breath not so long before. Solas had taken their place, for he was the Holder's one truth to a life they knew not was connected to him. The Voice was something, everything, anything that the Holder did not know.
This imposter was invading the Holder's musings now? As if they could read and intercept them. It became disturbing to feel their embrace, as apposed to before when it had solely become comforting, as Solas' was at this instance. Holder felt themselves moving away from the powerful individual in a moment of caution.
"Who are you?" Holder murmured, more to themselves than what they previously called the Voice. They did not immediately answer, allowing another's tone through the muffling fog.
"May you inform me why you both are outside?"
Holder snapped away, suddenly alert and widely attentive. They knew this voice as well. They knew the basso nature and the fluid and awe-inspiring movement of the flames against the virgin snows. But still their name deluded the Holder.
Solas was one to come to attention as well, tearing his gaze around while tightening his hold against the cargo against his chest. Holder's own pearl-colored, translucent chest glowed in a rosy hue, its heart blooming a faint red across the expanse of their torso. Their mists swirled into a more solid shape, allowing them to look down curiously at the new buzzing sensation in their core.
"Optimus."
"I'm certain you are aware it is Earth's later year cycle of winter. Our systems do not bode well in these conditions."
Holder willed themselves closer. Until they felt the warmth of Solas' frame, Holder did not cease motion. Optimus, now properly designated, stopped beside Solas.
"Fera wished to see the stars."
"Ah. And had you?"
"Not particularly, however, it was not such my decision."
Optimus chuckled with an emotion that abruptly struck Holder momentarily. It sent a tingling jubilation throughout them and brought a far greater flow of tempered relaxation. His deep laugh untied the knots threading inside Holder. Intrigued, the Holder drifted back to see both beings in better view.
"Would it be offensive if I were to suggest you no longer see Fera as bothersome?" Optimus peered down over his companion, whom refused to return the contact.
"I would not go that far," Solas answered back. His weight shifted slightly, cradling the human better, whom Holder figured was this said Fera, until she was curled into the crevices of his armor more comfortably. Frost decorated his body everywhere but where she lay, and the plates seemed to part ever so slightly to allow her further console and space. Though his words spoke against the human, Holder knew in fact that they were lie.
Optimus and Solas grew quiet, both stargazing once more. Solas nudged his peer's leg after so long, patting the ground.
"Sit. You standing makes me nervous."
The larger being nodded and slowly came to rest on the ground, his long legs drawn up with his arms draped over. His face aimed at Fera, taking in her situation and the Guardian who watched over her. Their quiet was brittle as the clouds of white rushing from each creature's chests. Somewhere there lay a breathing system, where soft humming whirred to fill the lack of sound.
"Has her health...?" Optimus began in hesitant tentativeness.
"It has been worse," Solas finished as Optimus faded off. The atmosphere had become tense, and Holder's feeling of security went with the lasting ring of Optimus' tone. Fera shivered in Solas' hold and he shook with her. They then recovered as one, which astounded Holder. They were connected.
"Ratchet is searching for a way to help her. We will not let her suffer needlessly like this Solas," Optimus vowed, leaning forward as his company regained himself. Solas nodded before readjusting himself to block out a buffering wind against him and his charge.
The orbs of his sight bobbed and dipped out of light as Optimus' had. Holder felt the waning strength of the memory and the dangerous tilt of their conscious dipping out of focus. Here was when it was ending, and Holder knew. However they held on, desperate to finish this experience.
"I trust him. He will help her," Solas assured. Though for himself, or his peer, it was unclear.
"What of your condition? You are not completely whole yourself."
"I will heal."
"Solas-"
"I am fine Optimus."
But uncertainty blanketed Optimus' sights. It was clear there was distrust here. Inability to place belief in his peer placed confusion in Holder's own conscious. Why did he insist on remaining reined away from a fellow being? Was there not an inner peace placed in ones primitive racial values?
Solas remained obstinate no matter the length Optimus watched him. Maybe he did not allow himself to show what lie beneath his coarse exterior. However Holder knew better, for they...how would they understand? It was painful to know. To understand sent agony through their dark, ruined core. It writhed and squirmed, dedicated to escape.
"Distancing yourself from us will not solve anything Solas," Optimus murmured. Its volume remain barely louder than the whistle of the wind. "Fera wishes better than that for you. Respect both I and your peers when we simply wish to understand better your internal tribulations. Trials expire only with strength. Our own remains as our connections with one another."
"For those such as I, there is none that may help me more than I can help myself," Solas retorted back, defeated. "Her nightmares are growing worse, and I fear they may be reaching myself. Cybertronians do not dream Optimus."
"No, but we do relay memory files with our bonded."
"What memory of mine accounts having a blade dipped into my chassis?"
Here, the memory ended. Whether it be by the power of Holder or Voice, it ceased. With it, closure captured Holder's essence. Their entire existence was called into question mere moments before, and still remained uncertain with this freeze of memory. How had they come to be? Why? And yet the answer was here. What other reason was there to be but for answers?
Holder, Wanderer, or whichever they currently were called, stayed put for an incomprehensible amount of eternal time. Wrapped in all that was them, they failed to notice their own body melting to a single, opaque form. Truth be told, apart of them desired not to know and understand. It was difficult to master when such confusion met them with every corner. Frustration built to replace the pain, which only led to further confliction.
In the event they tried to organize the chaos that was their system of memories they came with more disorder. Hard core switched further to black, deeper even, until it could consume light no longer.
"So many questions, young one," the Voice appeared to the left, close, with their tone wispy and surreal. "They are meant for you to realize yourself."
"I know not where to look," Holder called back to the dim anxiously. It struck them incredibly quick that they could not perceive the Voice. They could not predict if the structure would show, when, or how near. They were simply there.
"The answer is so simple, for it was before you now."
"I know not where to look!" Holder screamed to the darkness, throwing their misty arms upward to grip both sides their cranium. Pulsing pounds drummed on the lining, causing floods to roar in their hearing and their form to flash in and out of sight. Heat receded from the pink glow in their heart as the onyx core grew. Its power increased as the heart's own decreased. And this transpired solely with the attempts to remember; to know; to understand.
Cracks danced as grizzly spires up the walls and bled a sickly green. The heart pattered pitifully, willing to fight on. Holder screeched, folding into themselves in pure terror. Tendrils of silver arose, encircling them in a searing bout of molten chrome fire. They tried breathing in, but failed, gaining but suffocating stench made from the burning of their own flesh.
"I do not know!" they wailed, pressing their hands harder against their head. "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know!"
"Look! Look for the answers!" Voice urged, snapping some sort of reality into this new world of affliction. "Focus Wanderer!"
"It hurts! It hurts so much!"
"Focus!"
And a snap.
So simple as to one, minute sound. Everything clicked. Pieces fell into place. Pain and frustration and fear all seemed to drain away, all to pass a one image forward. As if strings of the mind had connected, been strummed, and dust removed, the memory, this single one, surfaced. They knew. They understood.
No pain was here. But in its place, was utter, immeasurable sadness.
"I lost..." they could not find their ability to speak. It deluded them, running and hiding in shakes as they fought for control. Trembles shook their weakened body. "I lost so much...so much..."
"Who are you?" the Voice surrounded them, overwhelmed them. It swelled and enveloped them, taking up every inch and crevice. Not even their mind was left alone. The power behind it all only as of this time had been shown to the Holder as of yet. Before, there was merely a presence willing to take in a nurture Holder. As of now, it was only a throne of lies.
"I...don't-"
"Who are you?"
Interrupted, the Holder shifted back. It helped not, for the Voice followed. Every whisper asked the same, over and over again. After a point it grew into enough to throw Holder into insanity.
"Tell me who I am," Holder begged, receiving but the silence and repeating question. Agony was the latter of their wants to experience. For so long they had survived through it and tolerated the blazing melody. But at some point it had become too much. And as the Voices pressed them on, smothering them with their overpowering conscious against Holder's, they faltered in thought. Difficult as it may have been to deal with the vortex sucking the life from within them, this, in this moment, was the worst of them all.
Holder struggled to keep together, literally holding themselves from falling apart bit by bit. The Voice droned on. Every sound blasted louder and louder, causing a further state of disorder. Howling screams filled any ounce of sound eerily, might they be Holder's own, or another set concocted by Voice. Torture. Betrayal. All of it.
"Who are you?!" Voice called above the screams. "Focus Wanderer."
"I can't!"
"Yes, you can."
"No, I-"
"Tell me, who. You. Are."
"I am..." questions. More than answers. However they knew to look. The vision, the single specific memory Voice chose to display, was for just cause. They simply had to look. And as the darkness closed over them, their core crying and sobbing in the cold emptiness and loss, the answer became clear. In fact, it became simple enough for Holder to ridicule themselves for. Holder's hands on their head fell, limp, and they stared into the distance with awed eyes. Voice urged, gentler than before, for the words to leave Holder's lips. They parted and shifted, gaining the one name that truly belonged to their essence.
"I am Fera."
High into the heavens dot a cruel violet and onyx structure marring the innocent blues. Floating the height of clouds they parted from the tip of the blade at its bow. Powerful whirs vibrated the hull and sent waves of heat from the devices, thus allowing this flight so the air distorted as in a mirage. The sun's rays bounced from the darkness, unable to penetrate such black. As such, only those locked within knew of the true shade flowing through its veins.
Malice poured from the very plates, filling the heavens with a sense of violent rage and uneasiness wherever it may roam. Sharp, angled material made up the outer shell of the ship, with two wings a quarter of a mile wide and another pair of dorsal spikes stabbing further above as if the ship had an unquenchable thirst to reach immeasurable height. Wind rumbled along the seams of hidden weapons, idle, but waiting for the chance to release Pit upon their next victim. Slim streams of deep, violet light lined the sides, pulsing to a beat similar to a spark.
Inside there remain a series of beams bowed gracefully upward, each set followed by a single, round light embedded in the walls. Shadows lurked along the metallic floors, which still rang with the echos of past steps, or perhaps, those unfortunate enough to of been anchored here after death. Grey, sludgy black blanketed each room. From each a wave of menacing evil wafted and moved to join with the river of poison of the main corridors. A simple set of barracks bore into the walls of the rear of the ship, followed by a small space used as the holding place for energy and refueling.
Below, in the belly of the beast, stood the complex and intricate system working as the aircraft flowed along the drifts of the high altitude breeze. Following the length of the halls, one would see the curved, darkly graceful architecture of the communications hub and later a single room to their right, where most went to relieve themselves. Finally, reaching the bow, they would come upon the main controls cockpit.
A wraparound window exposed the grander of Earth's skies, which none, good or other, could refuse to admit were visually stunning. Various maps and diagnostics decorated its surface, with flashing statistics blinking around the rim of the view. Under the soaring expanse of the ceiling sat a row of shifting chairs, high on the back and connected to the floor on a series of rails that allowed such motion.
Other armor-clad creatures walked about, seemingly wandering for pointless reason other than to stroll in their shadowy dwelling. A couple of them carried compads in their servos, studying with long silence whatever the devices carried inside them. They appeared bored our of their processors, their dark coloring mimicking their utter monotony attitudes. One mech, strikingly gold and violet compared to his earthly and night-dim colored comrades, groaned and threw his own compad to the floor, his body flung across a chair in the back of the room.
"We were meant to intercept Autobot warriors, not sit along idly and rust away of complete boredom!"
Another mech stood with his faceplates aimed at a compad, his snort loud and amused. "Cease your complaining Swindle, you're shorting out my audios," he rumbled. The orange and blue warrior walked to the center of the floor, the wings on his spinal support tipping back as he gazed upward. "Vortex, Blast Off's aerial duct is clogged again."
"No wonder it smells like Brawl's exhaust in here," a very cheeky Swindle quipped. The bulky mech supposedly designated Brawl whipped around in his chair at his station and growled.
"What the frag Swindle?" he barked in aggravation. His deep, emerald green paint rippled as he stood and crossed his arms at his peer, and the smug mech burst into laughter. Dirge held back his smirk, as did Vortex and the mech and fembot sitting on either side of him.
Another fembot joined the scene as she strode with an almost gliding matter into the room. She was slim and nimble, but with an expression that threatened quick punishment if cornered. Half of her faceplates were covered by a series of baggy, layered plates, but her fiery orange-red optics shone great and vivid against the stormy grey and purple of her paint, almost like a fire in a rainstorm. Two serrated energon daggers rested at her hip bolts.
She stopped as Swindle also got to his peds, crossing his arms and puffing out his chassis as if to mock Brawl. "Try holding it in a little Brawl, it would do us a great favor," his voice was grated and poorly made to mimic the mech's.
"You little-" Brawl made a move to hit his peer, his fist raised as he stalked forward. Nightbird stepped up however, blocking Brawl as she moved between them. When he stopped she looked up indifferently. Brawl huffed and ripped away, glaring at his peer before he left. Swindle again laughed and waved at his agitated Combaticon comrade.
"Lookie lookie, Brawl you wouldn't hit a fembot would you?" he teased, placing his servos on his hipbolts and tipping his helm to the side. Brawl snarled. "It's obvious Nightbird likes me too much to allow a brute such as yourself to harm me."
"That is a false statement Swindle," Nightbird said, speaking for the first time since their trip began. "My intentions are to keep my group in impeccable shape for interception of the Autobot forces." she turned to the side to face them both, her servos swinging dangerously close to the daggers on her sides. True, the fembot was in charge, and if Arachnid assumed they had any intelligence -which they clearly didn't- they wouldn't challenge her. Arachnid had been fragged off herself when she was put out of charge of this mission, but at least it hadn't been Flamewar taking her place. There definitely would have been energon shed by the end of this trip. And she wasn't too sure it would be an Autobot's.
Brawl snorted and threw himself forward, thrusting his faceplates into Swindle's, tall enough that he loomed over Nightbird. The gold and purple mech frowned, his mandible tight. "I won't kill 'im, I'll just shut him up for awhile."
"I don't object to that intention," Dirge called from his spot adjusting the overhelm ventilation system. The thrusters on his peds allowed him to keep his balance mid-air, however he paused his work to look down on his fellow Decepticons. "Let him go, 'Night, it'll do us all a Primus-slagging favor."
A shape in the corner shifted, causing the shadows around her to swirl and wave with her movement. She dare not speak, however the shape of her sharp optics flashed a lethal ruby in place of her words. Long legs shivered from her spinal support, curling over her to better her wicked appearance. Arachnid caught Dirge's sights with the most minor of passing glances and he looked down at her a moment before smiling and winking at her. Arachnid snarled and averted her gaze. The gull of that fexa.
Vortex swiveled in his chair, bending over his kneebolts with his arms supporting his weight. The ship's speed lowered so much so that those standing stumbled a moment, excluding Nightbird and those already sitting. "Let me set these rules now, so as not to cause any confusion henceforth," he announced steadily. Brawl and Swindle looked to Vortex, as did Dirge, Nightbird, Arachnid, and Onslaught.
"No screaming, fighting, touching, pressing buttons, arguing, or talking to me unless I speak to you first. And if you break anything, I break you," his tone dipped lowly, his optic ridges burrowing into his optics for a scowl. Brawl and Swindle rolled their optics, far used to the dramatic member of their team. The largest of them jabbed a digit at the floor.
"Command of this team is under my power, Vortex-"
"Yes, but command of this vessel is in my terms Onslaught. Remember as such."
Vortex gave his leader a pointed glare, which shut off any chance for further conversation. Arachnid smirked, her arms crossed and her body leaning against the wall. Again she refused input, however she did show contempt whenever Nightbird glanced her way. The two would not, nor ever, share words. Arachnid figured it was for the best, seeing as one smart aft comment from the spy would opt Arachnid to cut her apart, piece by piece, and put her together backwards.
Bekos, sitting at control for the thrusters and energies station, continued his work without looking up once. "You are wound quite tightly Vortex," he noted. The black mech beside him abruptly sat straighter and turned his scalding optics on his next target.
"And you two," he switched between Bekos and the fembot sitting on his other side, her attention turning from the events before her to her fellow peer. Her legs were crossed and she reclined against her chair with her arms over her chassis. When Vortex addressed her, she turned her electric optics on him. "No fragging on this ship. You already got her sparked up Bekos, I don't want any joining destroying one of my barracks." her optic ridges rose at this. Arachnid's did as well. That was the first time she'd heard the flier curse.
Bekos, flustered, now abandoned his work and threw his servos in the air. Thunderblast giggled, hiding her lip plates behind a servo to cover her amusement. Although, whether that be at her mate's shocked expression or Vortex's comment, one couldn't be sure. Arachnid shifted herself to become more comfortable, rather enjoying the discomfort in Bekos' otherwise handsome features.
Brawl and Swindle chuckle as well as Bekos searched between the faceplates of his comrades for help. When none stepped up, Bekos rumbled darkly and swiveled back around in his seat.
"You are one sick, sick slagger Vortex."
"No, no, it's ok," Thunderblast smiled and sat up straight and elegant in her perch. Her legs uncrossed and all attention turned to the beautiful fembot speaking to the captain of the vessel. "Vortex, I would be careful if I were you. You never know when your door could mysteriously lock and strange noises could arise from the next room over..." her voice trailed and became almost whimsical.
Bekos lost any ounce of composure and flushed a bright azure blue in the faceplates. His body went slack and he drew into the cover of his chair. Arachnid's optic ridges rose and she found herself completely entertained by the brute words from Thunderblast. The fembot was known for her blatant nature, often including that of a perverted teaser. But the raw truthfulness in the fembot was what Arachnid respected.
Now seemed no different as the fembot laughed at her mate's discomfort. They had only bonded in a mere few groons and Bekos had already managed to give Thunderblast a growing sparkling for her holding capsule. Though, only a select few knew of it in case Galvatron decided to kill it off before it could become a bother. Arachnid was one of those few.
"Thunderblast, please!" Arachnid watched as Bekos threw his helm into his servos, his elbowjoints resting on the console in front of him.
"My apologies Bey, love," Thunderblast cooed, which only worsened Bekos' mood. Arachnid withheld a chortle herself.
"Do not call me that."
"Nicknames now? How sweet," Dirge jibed, and Swindle held his midsection as he fell into a laughing fit on the floor. Brawl was smiling broadly, all past qualms with Swindle forgotten as he watched a fellow 'Con become embarrassed by his own sparkmate.
Thunderblast stood and walked over to Bekos, bending over to wrap her arms around his neck. Arachnid knew the mech was no match for the influence of his mate, so she was less than surprised when he lifted a servo and placed it on Thunderblast's arm.
"Too late, our sparkling already refers to you as such," she answered back almost too lowly to hear. Arachnid was certain Swindle was to burst a vent from the way he laid on his spinal support with his legs high above him, his arms around his tanks, and his chassis heaving for air. Dirge smiled as well, turning his sights to his former leader with a lecherous expression to his features.
That could be us, he mouthed. Arachnid hissed at the mech and he gave a powerful laugh.
But Bekos failed to be as ashamed, for he looked up at Thunderblast with a hopeful gaze. Arachnid sunk lower into her corner in seeing this, now disgusted rather than amused.
"It...knows me?"
"By voice."
Swindle suddenly rolled to his elbowjoints, his optics streaming lubricant. "Oh come on! Fragging Pit, Vortex get this thing off the ground before I bash my helm in!"
Brawl shook his helm with Nightbird and they walked away, leaving Swindle to lay on the floor alone. "I can't take this lovey-dovey slag anymore." and he came to a sit, watching for his temporary leader as the onyx Blackhawk helicopter flapped a servo and went back to his controls. Thunderblast did the same and returned to her station, sneaking in a kiss with Bekos before moving.
"Maybe when you acquire a mate of your own, you will understand Swindle," Thunderblast offered, turning her chair away after sitting back down. Swindle snorted and dropped his body back into the seat he had sat in moments before. Reclining back, he draped his left arm over his abdominal slips and his other to cover his optics.
"Yeah, well, tell me when she gets here. I'm taking a nap."
"Please do," Brawl put in while he went over his compad work.
Arachnid shook her helm and appeared from her curtain of black, startling those who hadn't yet been aware of her presence there. She walked across the floor toward the barracks, intent on refueling before their fight. One swift sweep of her crimson orbs ceased any conversation and replaced it with a tense malevolence she was much better suited to.
"Idiots," she snapped. "All of you."
I know this chapter was a little boring...
But it's just to bridge the next chapters in until we can get to the big, emotional stuff!
Well let me just tell all of you,
I'm really liking this snow storm.
A whole week off school?
Heck yeah :D
Beside that, I wanna thank all you guys for reading another week, it means so much :)
*Chapter Inspiration: Second Chance= Shinedown*