Elita POV
We all lay there for quite a while sunning ourselves. Mikaela had turned onto her back some time earlier. It was at her insistence that we did not keep track of time in any way.
"This is our time to ourselves, and no male of any kind is going to interfere with it! There isn't anything we have to do that has to be on a time schedule, so we can relax and have some fun. We'll go back some time tomorrow when we get good and ready." Mikaela had said sternly.
Mikaela had spent about one of the human's hours on her stomach, and another on her back before she suggested building sand castles.
"What are sand castles and how do we build one?" I asked interestedly. I had to wonder about that because the sand that I could see was not suited to any type of construction.
"Sand castles are pretty much any thing you build out of sand. Get it wet and it will stick together so you can make things out of it." Mikaela answered with a grin. "They even have contests where some of the sculptures you see are outright amazing!"
I looked the term up on the human internet and what I discovered was very surprising. I could see from the widening of their optics that Chromia and Arcee had also found what I had. It seemed very hard to believe that so many things, and some of them very impressive, could be somehow sculpted from this sand, but I doubted that such awards would be presented for any type of subterfuge.
"Aww crap!" Mikaela exclaimed disgustedly.
"What? What's wrong?" Autumn asked in concern.
"I didn't bring a pail, shovel or anything to build a sandcastle with!" Mikaela said sourly.
"I have a couple of empty energon cubes in my subspace. They can be used to carry both water and wet sand. Couldn't they be used instead?" Chromia asked hopefully.
"Yeah, I suppose so. I mean there's no law that says you have to use a pail or bucket. Let's try it." Mikaela said with a shrug.
Chromia quickly removed four empty cubes from one of her subspace compartments. Taking the tops off was easy. After that we were able to use the flat tops from the cubes for smoothing purposes, and the cubes themselves to move a lot of wet sand.
For the next three hours, the five of us were engrossed with moving and sculpting wet sand. Me, Chromia, and Arcee built a small scale map of Iacon. At twenty feet across and seven feet high, it was massive and very beautiful. Okay so Arcee would admit that we'd cheated a little. Using the heat from an unfired plasma cannon to fuse part of the surface of the sand into glass so that it would remain in place was not using water as had been stipulated. This wasn't a contest though, so we couldn't be disqualified, but the results? That was indeed beautiful!
Mikaela had started with a mound of sand five feet high and ten feet across. Filled with walls, soaring towers, huge buildings, and crenellations everywhere, it was a classic sand castle... of immense proportions! Complete with a moat and using the lid from one of the cubes there was even a drawbridge. Looking at it, one could readily imagine the Knights of the Round Table taking up residence in this version of Camelot.
All of us, Mikaela included looked over at what Autumn was finishing up on. It was a very huge human face with long wavy hair, soft gentle eyes, a thin aquiline nose, high prominent cheekbones, and gentle flowing lines around a kindly mouth that though it wasn't smiling, seemed that it would at the slightest excuse. I knew at once that if this were a real woman, she would be considered to be beautiful by the standards of any culture.
"Autumn… who is that?" Mikaela asked softly while she looked at the large sculpture in blatant admiration.
"My Moth… Carrier." Autumn said as she stammered out the correction. "At least… I think that's how she looked. It's hard to remember her face now."
"Autumn… there's a little too much detail in that to be just a guess at how she looked. If you think that's the way your mother's face looked, then I'd say you're right." Mikaela said quietly. "She was really beautiful." She finished in an awe filled whisper.
I had been watching Autumn closely, but then so had the others. We had each noticed the sort of trance like state that Autumn had gone into while sculpting the pile of sand into a creation of true beauty. Even though the face had human style hair instead of a solid helm like a bot, it still was incredibly pretty. I looked over all three creations and was forced to admit, that Autumn had done a truly incredible job.
"I'd have to say that you'd win if this were a contest Autumn." I told her gently.
The poor femme looked as if someone had just hit her in the faceplates with their fist… hard!
"What?" She asked in a stricken tone that matched her expression.
Arcee POV
Autumn looked as if someone had shot her with a plasma cannon. I thought that I had understood what was meant when I'd been told that she was timid, but the poor femme looked ready to bolt over a simple compliment. This was not what we wanted from her… not at all.
"Well we sort of cheated by using a plasma cannon to fuse the sand, and what you made? That is beautiful!" Elita said with a gentle smile.
"I… I wasn't trying to win anything." Autumn answered.
"You didn't! It wasn't a contest, but at least we know that you can win if we ever do get into a sand castle building contest." Mikaela said proudly. "I don't suppose we could be a team if there is a sand castle building contest, could we? I'd love a chance to win like that."
I watched as Autumn just nodded her helm. It was spark rending to realize that her mind and will had been broken so badly before she had been changed by what remained of the Allspark. I could see why the Allspark had changed her though. Autumn was a very pretty femme. She wasn't spectacularly beautiful, but she was certainly attractive. The only thing she really lacked was self-confidence, and that was something that could be dealt with.
My sister femmes and I had seen it though. There was a lively, bubbly, and very likeable personality buried beneath Autumn's timid fear and submissiveness. All that was needed was self-confidence to bring that personality out for everyone to see.
"Okay… I don't know about you gals, but I'm hungry. Let's go back up to the camping spot and get something in our middles!" Mikaela suggested.
"That… is an excellent idea! I could do with some fuel, and I know Autumn needs it as well." Chromia grinned.
I saw that the fire had burned down a lot. The flames were only a foot tall in most places, but a bit higher in others. Mikaela simply grinned when she saw that. She opened up her ice chest and pulled out a pack of hotdogs. From her backpack, she took a set of short poles that she clipped together to make a rack to roast her food over the fire. I had to applaud the ingenuity behind that little item. Even though humans were no longer primitive savages, they still knew how to make use of those skills.
"That's something else I never learned how to do." Autumn said morosely.
"What's that Autumn?" Mikaela asked while looking up at Autumn though she never stopped what she was doing.
"Roast something on a fire. I never really learned how to cook anything. I just ate what I could get by with. Most of the time, I could only get something hot and cooked at school, or at my aunt's house. I can't go back there now, and I couldn't eat anything even if I did." Autumn said almost in tears as she finished.
"Maybe you can't eat it, but I can show you how to roast a few things on a fire. At least you'd know how." Mikaela offered.
"Do you think it might be possible to heat some energon like that without setting it on fire?" Elita asked interestedly. "If hot food is preferred by humans, then Autumn might enjoy that. I must admit that it's possible that heating the energon might change the flavor of it so I'd like to try it as well."
"Could it be possible to warm up some of the mineral wafers as well? Do you think it might change the way they taste?" Chromia asked eagerly.
"Oh I can warm the stuff up. That's no problem… but what if it makes the stuff so you can't eat it?" Mikaela asked in a concerned tone.
"There's a simple solution for that. If heating it up renders it unusable to us, then I can just return to the base and retrieve more." Elita answered calmly.
"Good idea! It's not like it's an all day thing." Mikaela said with a chuckle.
Chromia began removing a dozen containers of energon from one of her subspace compartments. From another, she pulled out a large container of mineral wafers.
Mikaela smiled as she looked at the container of wafers. "I brought a couple sheet pans to keep some smores warm, but we can use one to warm those up too."
Autumn POV
A short while later, I was using a collapsible rod to roast kielbasas over the fire under Mikaela's direction. She told me that they were a type of Polish sausage, but that they were very greasy even though they were also very good. I never would have thought of putting chocolate and marshmallows on graham crackers, but that's what Mikaela had done. She said they were called 'smores' and they looked like they tasted pretty good because they smelled wonderful.
Mikaela had warmed up the mineral wafers before she started making the smores. It turned out that heating them up did change the way they tasted. Somehow the taste of milk chocolate was added to the mix of banana pudding and coconut. They were great! Arcee, Chromia, and Elita said they were even better than the treats that I don't like.
The energon that Chromia gave me had also been warmed up by the fire. The heat changed the flavor of that too; now it tasted like the chocolate covered strawberry I had tried once. They had been giving out small samples at a grocery store when I had gone in to get some fruit, otherwise I never would have gotten one to try.
It was starting to get dark by the time Mikaela's food was done cooking. So we all ate; mineral wafers for us while Mikaela ate real food. She had a bunch of Snapple drinks with her, so she had those while we drank energon. After we were done with dinner, Mikaela started telling a ghost story. Then Chromia told one, after that Arcee told a ghost story. Elita didn't tell a ghost story, but what she did tell us was still scary.
"Okay Autumn, your turn." Mikaela said as she looked at me.
"I… I only know one ghost story that my Carrier told me before she died. I still remember it though." I said nervously.
"Let's hear it then." Arcee said with a smile.
The others agreed that they wanted to hear it too, so I took a deep vent and started.
"Somewhere in the mountains is a dark, dark valley. And in that dark, dark valley; is a dark, dark forest. And in that dark, dark forest; is a dark, dark trail. And on that dark, dark trail; is a dark, dark house. And in that dark, dark house; is a dark, dark hall. And at the end of that dark, dark hall; is a dark, dark room. And in that dark, dark room; is a dark, dark closet. And in that dark, dark closet; is a dark, dark shelf. And on that dark, dark shelf; is a dark, dark box. And in that dark, dark box…" I spoke in a soft dull monotone voice just like my Carrier had when I was little.
"Is a GHOST!" I finished in a forceful shout.
Everyone jumped a little. Even Ravage jumped up from where she had been laying in my lap. She turned to glare at me and I knew she wasn't very happy with my story. I started rubbing around her audials and she lay back down after a few seconds.
"Autumn… that isn't near as creepy as Bloody Mary or some of the other ghost stories I've heard, but that's a good one!" Mikaela said with a nodding chuckle. "No blood or guts in it but it still makes you jump!"
"That was very well told Autumn. Is that the same way your Carrier told you that story?" Elita asked me.
"Yes. She told me that on Halloween night. I remember that and her singing to me once. There weren't any words but her humming was beautiful. Those are the two good things I remember about her. The only other thing I remember is something I wish I could forget." I told them.
Mikaela POV
There it was again. That reminder that Autumn saw her mother murdered. Knowing that it was one of the very few things she remembered about someone she obviously loved a lot, didn't even come close to giving me warm fuzzy feelings. Seeing someone get killed in a movie was sometimes bad enough, but seeing that happen right in front of you to someone you love? It's a wonder that Autumn wasn't a vegetable after what she'd gone through!
"Hey girl, listen to me for a second." I told Autumn seriously.
"They say that someone isn't really gone as long as you remember them. Maybe you don't remember very much about your mother, but you haven't forgotten her. As much as you still love her, I know you'll never forget her."
Autumn looked at me sadly, and I could tell that she didn't really believe me for some reason.
"But I don't remember very much." Autumn said almost in tears.
"Autumn, I want you to look at me." I said before waiting until she did. "You don't have to remember how she looked, what she smelled like, or even how she sounded when she sang. What's important is that you remember how much she loved you. You haven't told me that much about her, but I can hear the way you sound when you talk about her. You miss her and love her a lot… and I'm sure that she loves you just as much. She may not be here anymore, but you are Autumn. That means part of her is still here, because every child is always a part of their mother." I told her softly.
"You know Mikaela, I haven't thought about it like that before, but you're right. Even for a Cybertronian, a sparkling is derived from the carrier's spark, so that means they are literally a part of their carrier for as long as they live." Chromia mused softly.
"That is a very novel perspective Mikaela… and it is a piece of wisdom that I will never forget." Elita said earnestly.
"You do realize what that means, don't you Autumn?" Arcee asked gently.
"It means that Mommy is still dead." She replied sadly with energon tears now rolling down her metal cheeks.
"No, Autumn… it doesn't. What that means is that part of your mother, your Carrier is still alive, and will always be alive as long as you live. I am familiar with organic reproduction. As a human, fully half of your DNA, your cell structure, half of you… is actually your mother! Now that you have become a bot; your spark is what contains what was her. Half of that wonderful spark of yours comes from her! Your mother gave you life Autumn… and she continues to do that for you! Your mother might be dead, but she is not gone." Chromia told Autumn forcefully.
"You are part of your mother and she is also part of you. She will never be truly gone Autumn; not as long as you are with us." Chromia added gently.
I got up and walked over to Autumn before I eased into her lap next to Ravage. That large metal panther looked at me for a moment before ignoring me. It felt really weird because Autumn is almost two years younger than I am, but she's like fifteen feet tall now and I'm just over five. I sat down on her right leg and leaned against her stomach and chest. I was still in my white bikini and now that I wasn't right next to the fire, the night was just a tad chilly, but Autumn was very warm and that felt good.
"You know Autumn… my mother left right after I was born. She didn't love me and she didn't want me either. I've never seen her, never spoken to her, and I don't even know her name, or who she is." I told Autumn as I looked up at her over my left shoulder.
"You know something? I don't want to either. Unlike my dad, my mother never loved me, but yours did! You're lucky Autumn, your mother cared about you. She loved you, just like my dad loves me. Your dad and my mom are people this world would be better off without. The only reason I have to be glad that either of them ever lived is because we are both here. I'm glad you're here Autumn and I'm happy to be your friend." I told her truthfully.
Autumn didn't say anything in response to that, instead, she put her right hand around me. I'm guessing it's meant to be a sort of hug and I think it is. What I know right now is that Autumn has something to think about. Yeah, it's true that her dad is a part of her too, but her mom is the most important thing to her right now, and that is what she needs to focus on.