Summary: No-War, No-Factions AU. Festival of the Five: They were two stars circling a single gravitational point. One driven by faith, the other by desire. They came together only with the blessing of the Guiding Hand, and when they did all of Cybertron was caught in their orbit. They weren't destined for each other, but as Primus said: There is destiny, and then there is destiny.
Warnings: Sexual Content, including one (mild but detailed) tactile interfacing scene. Cannon-typical violence. Alien Religion and various issues thereof.
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Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory
Part Two: Festival of Solomus
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Mirage was mildly surprised when the seeker disappeared afterwards with a chaste kiss to his hand. Well, not disappeared. He went back to his unit and the rest of his trine and continued with his life after the festival. But he'd expected the seeker to stick around and try…something, he didn't know what. For his part, Mirage couldn't quite stop thinking of it. Other nobles gossiped, but it wasn't really scandalous to sacrifice your virginity to the gods (just uncommon, with most contestants entering to win access to a desired bondmate), so when Mirage continued life as though his seals were intact rather than allowing himself to be seduced by others, they went onto other things.
His peers briefly remembered during the Festival of Mortilus fifty-three vorn later when Mirage made a special trip to Kaon to attend. But Sunstorm was defeated in the third round by a heavy and heaviily-armored miner-turned-gladiator by the name of Megatron and never made any attempt to approach his noble admirer. Without the fuel of another win and another public baring of sparks, the nobles of Iacon simply forgot, as they were wont to do.
All except his creator, of course, less because of the seeker himself and Mirage's trip to maybe repeat the encounter, and more because that had been the first time Mirage had defied his will. The first, but not the last, and understandably, they fought over it.
And Primus did they fight. The yelling couldn't be heard from outside, of course, but within the borders of the manor… walls shook and scheduled activities such as lessons and meals were hastily rescheduled by servants who didn't dare interrupt. And after, they retreated to their own corners of the manor, fortifying their territory — Phantasm to his office and Mirage to the private Praxan styled crystal garden-maze he called his — and the rest of the manor became a no-man's land that literally crackled with hostility and drove away most visitors.
Right now they were fighting over Phantasm's choice of potential bondmate for Mirage.
It wasn't that Mirage objected to his creator beginning the process of arranging a bondmate for him. He was almost ten centuries old which was a proper time for a noble to begin entertaining suitors, even if the lower castes considered that age to be scandalously young to be tied to a single lover. Neither was it that he objected to Virtue from Stanix specifically. It was that Phantasm had arranged for his suitor to visit during the Festival of Solomus. It was an auspicious time for future-bondmates to meet, true, but Mirage had plans. His creator called his obsession with the seeker an inappropriate crush, but Sunstorm had been his first taste of freedom. The gods had favored them once; Mirage knew that as certain as Sunstorm did, the sparkmerge leaving the seeker's own conviction of that specific point behind when it had ended. Their reasons might be different for maintaining that conclusion for a hundred and six vorn, but the seeker's faith was unshakable. And now so too was Mirage's.
And if the gods had favored them once, they could do so again.
But not if Mirage wasn't there so when Phantasm had announced his plans for Virtue to visit they'd fought. His creator's blatant attempt to keep him from going to Altihex to attend the Festival of Solomus was not going to happen.
Of course Phantasm was just as determined that the only creation he had or would be granted by Vector Sigma would not go and allow himself be defiled by that seeker again. It wasn't proper. Once, as a spontaneous thing, maybe, and he could hardly have objected under the gaze of the Prime, but for his creation to looking to have this affair. No.
The manor seethed with them and everyone within walked as though the lavish decorations hid landmines.
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"Hey Sunny!"
The response was so automatic that Sunstorm had no need to even pause in his reading. "Don't call me that. My name is Sunstorm."
He allowed a flicker of the dangerous radiation for which he was named play over his plating and Hotlink backed off hastily. "Sure. No need to get your wires in a twist. Just came to deliver the good news."
The gold seeker simply turned the page of his book — an actual plastic-and-metal book rather than the datapads most preferred to use because datachips were easier and downloading the information directly was both faster and allowed a mech to skip learning to actually read and write more than was required for his caste and profession — and did not look up at his commanding officer. Hotlink was the leader of his trine, but they weren't in public or on duty and Sunstorm was busy. "Starscream approved my request for leave."
"Primus you're creepy," Hotlink sighed theatrically. "How'd you know?"
This time Sunstorm made an amused cough of exhaust from his engine-vents, but still didn't take his eyes off the page of the Book. "Nothing mystical about that. Our dear creator," sarcasm dripped from the words since creator in this case was only a polite euphemism for spark-seed donor, "is legally obligated to approve leave for the purpose of attending the Festival, unless Cybertron is in a state of war or I am in the midst of a disciplinary punishment."
We are not currently at war and I've been on my best behavior for the vorn before the Festival, as usual were both self evident.
Besides, it would be hypocritical for Starscream to deny them the chance to enter the Festival Race, given what all the clones knew about their spark-donor's reasons for entering the Race of Epistemus every two-hundred and sixty-five vorn. Pining was too gentle a word for even the echoes they all had for the shuttle-scientist; Sunstorm could not even imagine how strong the desire of the spark they originated from was. He might fool the rest of the army into believing he only entered to prove himself the "best flyer on all of Cybertron", but his own spark-clones knew better. Of course Starscream wasn't above a bit of hypocrisy, but General Dai Atlas kept the seeker-commander well under control, and the truth was that since this vorn wasn't Epistemus', Starscream just didn't care enough to draw the Dai Atlas' attention. Next convergence…well Sunstorm already had his appeal to the General drafted out.
Sunstorm entered the contests every Festival and recently he could feel things gearing up for something. He didn't know what was happening, but each time the moons and the sun and Cybertron all converged and the Guiding Hand became One as they had at the Beginning of Time it felt like the next click of gears in a timer counting down to something catastrophic. For millions of vorn the gods had only watched but now they were once again guiding their children. There was no other way a seeker could have won a foot race, and he'd seen Him looking out of the blue noble's optics when he'd made his Choice. He'd felt it again when the miner had screamed but endured the stellar radiation that was Sunstorm's namesake during Mortilus'. But the favor of the gods was fickle and the miner gotten cocky and arrogant and had been defeated in turn in the last round by a warframe named Strika whose commander had been interfering in her relationship with a squadron-mate. Mortilus favored Megatron, but it was not yet time. And just so, he could feel the gods' attention drawn to Starscream every time he took off to "consult" with Skyfire.
He said none of this to Hotlink. Instead he stayed silent, continuing to read.
"Shouldn't you be studying?" Hotlink, broke that silence like he always did. "I mean if you're going to try competing with the all those scientist-caste geeks, you should probably be preparing for that."
He turned the thin plastic flimsi, revealing the next set of tiny glyphs, each etched about a millimeter into the page and each smaller than scraplet's micro-circuit resulting in thousands of neat columns. "I am."
"Nuh-uh. I've seen the riddles from your previous attempts at this and they're all like, geography and mathematics and stellar positioning not myths and legends. No way are the answers in that rusty thing."
Both Hotlink and Bitstream may have been geniuses within their caste, but their breath of knowledge couldn't compete with the likes of Shockwave or Skyfire. Not that either of them had ever felt the need to enter a Festival Contest. Both of them had taken after their spark-donor in matters of religion and were lucky enough to serve in the same trine as their desired bondmate. Sunstorm was the anomaly, not really smart enough to qualify for out-caste training like the rest of his trine, his alpha ability so blindingly different from the other clones' (even the Rainmakers' weren't such a danger to themselves as Sunstorm's could be), and a true believer and prophet which was rare outside the priesthood and thought truly impossible for a clone. People, even the other clones, looked at him oddly and he knew if they weren't trine, Hotlink and Bitstream wouldn't have anything to do with him; he was just too weird.
Sunstorm shrugged. "Because of Epistemus' favoritism of airframes, Solomus' Race has become the favorite of scientists, given that their knowledge does often give them an edge in solving the puzzles. But knowledge is not wisdom."
He could practically feel his trinemate's disbelieving look. Whatever Sunstorm hoped to find in that Book hadn't helped him the last three times he'd entered this particular race. "Okay. Whatever. You wanna—?"
"No," he interrupted.
Hotlink laughed. "How'd you know what I was going to say?"
"You always end a conversation with me with an invitation to join you and Bitstream in the berth. My answer is always No. You know I am not interested in such things."
"Yeah, but then you put on that smokin' hot show a century ago and me and Bitty thought it worth it to keep trying."
Sunstorm just flicked his wings dismissively and continued reading. Despite his trinemates' opinions that had not been a show and certainly hadn't been for their benefit. Eventually Hotlink wandered off to find his bondmate and spend their down time like most military mechs did.
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tbc