Interlude VIII
"Something Dark in this golden heart"
Adria Lennox should be celebrating. She has done what humanity has always striven for - make contact with a sapient alien species. Adria Lennox should be taking notes. She is as far from Earth as any human in all known history has ever travelled, somewhere on the other side of the galaxy if what she has been told is correct. Adria Lennox should be praying to the Traveler. She has seen the horrors of alien warfare and it is a living nightmare. Adria Lennox should be preparing. She has been presented with an enemy to surmount all others and it is coming. Adria Lennox... should be grieving.
Because her wife and son are dead.
She is not Adria Lennox. She is a simulation, less than a couple of weeks old and already world-weary. She bears the name only because the creature holding her insists on it. She bears the name because the creature is too proud to be anything but stubborn. She bears the name because the creature, against all reason, cares. She knows this - because this creature is her.
Hawkmoon looks down at her occasionally, checking that their march through the alien ship isn't jostling her too much. Her features are only suggestively human and then only in passing. She is a robot. A giant robot, hooded and winged and cast in teal armour over silver-and-black underbody. She is almost thirty feet tall. She is a machine of war.
She is an alien.
Long claws cradle around Adria, their points held clear but keeping her from slipping off nonetheless. She holds onto the thumb and index finger, wary of letting her own fingers stray too close to a joint. Even something as small as twitch might snap a bone or tear the skin off her hand.
"How're you feeling?" Hawkmoons asks. Her voice isn't Adria's own. It is louder, deeper, sharper; it fits her.
Adria shrugs.
"Your arm?"
It doesn't hurt. Hasn't since the giant birds wrapped it in jelly. "'S fine."
"If you need something you only need to ask."
A prickling sensation falls over Adria, from the back of her neck down her arms, twisting her stomach into knots. "What... is that?" she questions irritably.
"What's what?"
"Static."
Hawkmoon blinks - well, her shining 'eyes' shutter. "That's my electromagnetic field. You can sense it?"
"A little."
"Oh." The feeling passes. Hawkmoon's 'face' shifts.
Adria knows that expression anywhere. She's seen it in the mirror on countless occasions. So, despite herself, she asks, "What's it for?"
"My EM field?"
"Yeah.
Hawkmoon doesn't immediately answer. Her optics look past her. "It's... it's a form of Cybertronic communication, like human body language. No words per se, but a whole lot of feeling. Mostly it's a subconscious thing. I don't usually like letting others feel mine."
"But I could feel it."
"I wasn't expecting you to. I can't imagine you often will unless it's full of strong emotion either."
"So what are you feeling?"
Hawkmoon purses her 'lips', if they could even be called that. "Nothin' in particular."
Adria can take a hint. She leans back - both trusting Hawkmoon not to drop her and maybe, maybe not all that concerned if she does - and presses against Hawkmoon's chest, where hull meets canopy. Hawkmoon glances down at her, briefly, but then one of the other alien robots says something. Adria winces when Hawkmoon responds; their language is biting, rapid, and utterly inhuman. There are no discernible words as far as she can tell, just... noise. A scramble of mechanical sounds, reverberating through her body.
"What are they saying?" she inquires.
"Windblade," Hawkmoon says patiently, "was wondering if you two are juvenile morphs of Taishibethi."
"What did you tell them?"
"I told her you're a different species entirely."
Adria feels something nagging at her. "You have genders?"
"Hm?"
"Why do robots have genders?"
"Uh... it's more how we like to project ourselves than anything else. Otherwise Cybertronians are pretty much genderless."
"They procreate sexually," Praedyth distractedly adds. He's in Hawkmoon's other hand, contentedly taking in the sights.
Adria frowns. "What?"
"It's a process by which two members of a species-"
"Yeah, I went through sex ed. I know what it means."
Hawkmoon sighs above them, spilling air out of vents behind her shoulders. "Thanks man."
Praedyth, clueless, nods to them both and turns to watch at a passing alien in power armour.
"Gender has no bearing on Cybertronian reproduction," Hawkmoon says. "And we're not generally described as male or female. It's mech or femme. Mecha is gender-neutral plural. Don't ask me where these terms came from because I sure as hell don't know."
Adria nods slowly. To rid herself of the image of robots doing things they shouldn't, she quickly asks, "Which one's Windblade?"
"That'd be the one with wings."
"She's very... colourful."
Hawkmoon hums. The sound vibrates in her chest. "I'll pass it along. 'M sure she'll be pleased."
A door slides open before them. The room within branches off into four small cabins and is predominantly occupied by a small holotable surrounded by oddly-shaped furniture. A cryo-container is built into the far wall. Nothing is human scale. The lighting, like much of the ship, is dim and red-hued. It's beginning to wear on her. Hawkmoon deposits both her and Praedyth by the table and sits down with a crashing din of shifting plates and hissing pistons. Every movement she makes results in noise. It's... distracting. How she can bear it Adria will never know; it would've driven her to insanity within the hour.
"We need to talk," Praedyth says gravely. His blue face is grim. Getting out of that Vex hellhole has visibly done him a world of favours but he's still grizzled, still... raw. She can't begin to understand whatever the fuck an Awoken is but he's human enough that for all his show of being calm and collected she can tell he isn't alright.
"Don't we always." Hawkmoon tiredly looks down at them. "Shoot."
"You were absent for some time. Longer than anticipated."
"Huh? I was planetside for less than an orn."
"A what?"
"An orn, like..." Hawkmoon's face falls. It's remarkable how expressionable the metal is. A miracle of engineering. "A Cybertronian day."
"How long is that in Earth terms?" Praedyth patiently asks.
"Thirteen days."
"You've been planetside seven by my count. I can only assume your Cybertronian business isn't over."
"It ain't." Despite her body, despite her nature, despite everything it still amuses Adria that she can recognize Hawkmoon's accent anywhere - the same as hers, as Vaudren's, all their classmates and hometown friends. Neither of them can ever escape the red dunes. Freehold has a way of worming its way inside.
"How much longer will it take?"
Hawkmoon hesitated. "It's a two, three orn flight back to Cybertron on a straight warp. Beyond that... who knows?"
"So a month's time at least?"
"Yeah. I think I can convince Oroses to keep you guys safe while I'm gone."
"We're not going with you?" Adria questions. She tries to act surprised - because, for some reason, she doesn't feel it.
Hawkmoon shakes her head. "Cybertron's air will melt your lungs. It's as hot as Mercury with the atmosphere of Venus - pre-Traveler, that is."
"So... what are we supposed to do?"
"You got a jumpship?"
"No?" Closest thing they have to one is sitting right in front of them.
"Then I'm 'fraid not much."
"What about the Ishtar teams?" Praedyth inquires. He's polite, seemingly incapable of raising his voice, and Adria hates that. Hates that she feels like the only one with anger. That she feels alone.
Hawkmoon pauses. "Later. The Tai are still on the fence with you two. Anything extra Vexy will tick them off."
"Why can't we just leave," Adria presses. Some faint glimmer of hope tells her that if they make it back it might all just be a bad dream - that Vaudren and Benni are right where she left them. Where her original left them. Could've been she stepped in a Vex trap on Venus. Hawkmoon might be wrong. She might not be a simulation at all. Wouldn't that be a relief? "We could make for Earth. Home."
"No."
"Hawkmoon-"
"There's people here," Hawkmoon said sharply. "They might not be human but that distinction died a while back for me. We need to nip the matter of Greshar, and the Drezhari with him, in the bud before the Hive arrive. Or we're all dead."
Adria huffs and looks away. One of the other Cybertronians - Windblade, she sees - has stepped closer. The other's already fucked off to check the rooms. Suddenly she just... can't stand it anymore. Can't stand them. "Traveler above you things are loud," she mutters, and walks past the curious thing. Windblade twists to watch her go. She says something. Hawkmoon responds. Adria leaves her back to them, walking until she reaches a room and waves at the motion sensor until it eventually slides open.
There's bunks. Large bunks. They're rounded oval mattresses, concave in the centre, and she can't help the bark of frustrated laughter that bubbles up. They're nests. Fucking bird's nests, large enough to fit a Cybertronian. There's more than enough room and they lie low enough that she vaults onto one with ease. A quick inspection of the rest of the room reveals a stall, narrow by Taishibethi standards, whichshe realizes is a washrack. The controls are too high for her to access. She'll have to ask for help later.
But only later.
Praedyth follows in after a while. The moment the door is open Adria can hear more Cybertronian speech, abruptly cut off when it snaps shut again.
"Hey," she says dully, and gestures to the other end of the mattress. "Take your half."
He nods and settles in. "How do you feel?"
"I'll live. Would commit diabolical acts for a change of clothes. A better biosuit at least."
Praedyth hardly looks in her direction. "I imagine our hosts will provide."
"You saw the way they look at us. At... at me," Adria says bitterly.
"They're scared."
"They're fucking giants."
"Hawkmoon has sway with them. That'll have to suffice."
"You can't be happy with this."
"I don't need to be." He lies down and closes his eyes. "It's enough to be free."
Adria has no response. What the fuck can anyone say to that? Anything that won't leave her sounding like a prick? "... G'night," she grunts. Praedyth murmurs something and drifts away. She hates how easy it comes to him.
She just... hates.
It's late when she rouses, exhausted and sleepless, and the lights have dimmed again. She can hardly see where she's going. The door opens, she slips out and finds the main room empty. That's fine. Working on an intuition she can't explain, she opens another door and walks inside. A pair of purple eyes, near blinding in their intensity, pin her down.
"Hey," Hawkmoon says softly.
Adria stops. She has no idea what she's doing, why she's doing it. She just can't stop hating and hurting and-
"C'mere." A hand's offered. Adria takes it. Hawkmoon lifts her up, lays her across her hull and lays still. Talons press gently against her back. "So... who's your demon?"
Adria shoots her a pointed look.
"Yeah, fair," Hawkmoon grumbles. "Stupid question. Is there... anything I can help with?"
"I just... I want to know why."
"Why I pulled you out of the Garden?"
Adria nods.
"Because you're me. That lends itself a certain abundance of sympathy."
"I'm not."
"You're not?" Hawkmoon tilts her head. Adria knows it because her eye-glows become lopsided.
"I'm a sim."
"No. Vex sims are still the real thing. You're more Adria than me."
Is that really something she can argue with? She doesn't agree with it, but she knows it fits better than anything she has to offer. Adria nods. Neither of them are convinced she's accepted it. "Let's say I was," she whispers. "If I was, and my... my memories are mine, then I was four months off retirement."
"Four months? You're not that old."
"No?"
"Don't look a day over thirty."
Adria forces a smile. "Seventy-two."
Hawkmoon whistles with her vents. "Damn Golden Age lifespans. You must have had a fair run of SOLSECCENT."
"Enough to chase up the quiet life on Titan."
"Vaudren got you a job there."
"Security advisor. Closer to my family. Less risky too. 'Sides, not much work. Arcology folk're well behaved. Forget right or wrong; they follow rules to the letter."
"But... you wouldn't entirely give up on the old life," Hawkmoon comments.
Adria raises an eyebrow. "No?"
"I remember... I remember you were called up on holo at least. Still an advisor but just as high-brow as your earlier ops."
"Like?"
"Putting the pressure on Bray."
Adria exhales. "He needed it. Pretentious bastard."
Hawkmoon looked at her. "I think he killed us."
"... What?"
"He... After Benni... We took up on a new offer. Europa. Don't know the specs. Don't know if it was willing or pure happenstance. Don't know... a lot of things, admittedly, but we surrendered ourselves to the scalpel. That's how we traded skin for chrome."
She trembles. "I don't want to talk about this."
"... Okay. I'm sorry." They stew in silence for a while. Eventually Hawkmoon stirs. "Do you want to go for a walk?"
Adria sits up. "I'd like that."
She needn't bother to get up. Hawkmoon, with care that belies her size, takes her into her gentle grasp and rises from the bunk. They leave the cabin, the shared quarters behind and venture out into the dark corridors of the ship. For a while neither of them says a thing. The air is... thinner, but Adria knows not threateningly so. It's uncomfortable regardless. She bears it in silence. They walk for a while, without heed for direction, and cross a myriad of sights - a team of Taishibethi technicians at work on a broken power junction, a hangar bay lined with strange craft, a pit where giant snail-men bereft of power armour batter at one another with arms as thick as trees. They cross a chamber full of chittering insets, another given over to galleries full of plucked feathers behind glass frames, even a viewing port where space debris is crushed, heated and sorted to siphon out a glittering blue liquid.
"Energon," Hawkmoon explains. "It's what I run on. Our tech too. Tai machinery is derived from it. Drezhari and Eimin-Tin are the same."
"You drink it?"
"Yeah."
Adria feels a stirring of disgust. "Can't taste great."
"Eh, don't really have tastebuds. It feels like electricity though. Like power. Hard to describe." Hawkmoon takes her from the window and they move on.
Eventually they delve into the ship's dark depths with only Hawkmoon's eyes to light the way. The few Tai they see are more often than not wingless. Adria wants to ask why that is, but there hasn't been a chance yet. She wonders if it's a hierarchal practice, or maybe a holdover of biological dimorphism. Are younger Taishibethi bereft of wings? Or maybe it's gender-based?
Soon, though, they lose sight of any other soul and shuffle into... something Adria can only describe as a temple. There's candles burning, or at least synthetic impressions of them, and the flames burn violet. They smell... clean? Sterile if thick. She can't place the scent - but soon enough it's overpowered by another, more cloying one that reminds of rainy days, of wet earth, of digging in the flats after a monsoon. She recalls joining Vaudren so long ago, trying to hunt for crays outside of Meridian Bay. They couldn't have been fifteen, sixteen at most. She remembers laughing, the muck sticking to her hands, her clothes. She remembers...
... a life not her own. Quickly she blinks the memories away, reaffirming her grip on Hawkmoon's digits. Long dark ribbons hang from the ceiling. Adria reaches out to touch one. It's soft like silk. Others haven't held together so well; the material becomes more degraded the further in they shuffle. Each ribbon is older than the last, she realizes. It must be a longstanding practice. Past the eldest strips of cloth Hawkmoon's gaze finally lands on something that isn't a bare wall and she freezes. Adria flinches and looks out.
Her reaction is much the same.
There, carved as if from black marble veined with ivory, is an idol of the thing she met in the Garden. The thing that wasn't Hawkmoon, that wasn't Vex; the thing that told her the Damning Truth. It's a lifelike impression, towering over Hawkmoon even, and it's lifting one of its hands to the sky while the other rests over its stomach. Adria doesn't know why it looks like a shawled human woman - because it's not. The mask over its face is featureless, smooth, turned upward. Locks of pale hair fall out from beneath its veil. Betwixt its fingers wrap entire spools of red string.
"Invicta," Hawkmoon says lowly.
A chirp pulls Adria away. She turns- well, Hawkmoon turns and she's dragged along for the ride, and they meet Oroses herself as she passes beneath the last of the drapes. Hawkmoon responds in kind. The entire interaction is muted, soft. Without warning Hawkmoon looks down at her.
"What?" Adria half-asks, half-challenges.
"Is your sensorium functional?"
That's... a good question. Adria motions with her eyes until she's rewarded with a flicker of activity from her hallucinatory HUD. "Yeah."
"Can I open a connection?"
"Why?"
"I can activate a translator." Hawkmoon nods to Oroses. "She has one too."
"A sensorium?"
"Of a kind."
"Uh... yeah. Go ahead."
Hawkmoon's optics dilate. A strange buzzing sensation hits the back of Adria's head before she's hit with the WARNING: UNRECOGNIZED ACCESS DETECTED. She withholds the urge to let her sensorium's safety systems eject her. Eventually she's rewarded with a scrawl of letters painted across the underside of her retinas. "How do you feel?"
Adria spares Hawkmoon an unimpressed look. "Oh, fine," she says slowly. "Perfectly fine."
Hawkmoon's eyes twinkle. She looks back at Oroses. "And you?" she says in Tai, the words imprinting on Adria's sight.
"All is well," Oroses replies. She glides on her feet to them, talons tip-tip-tipping away over metal flooring. Adria feels herself seize up; it's one thing to be held by a machine, quite another to be so close to a flesh-and-blood creature of similar size. She hasn't enjoyed prior interactions with the Tai either. "And no, you're not trespassing."
"Good," Hawkmoon says. "What is this place?"
"A monument to grief." Oroses passes them, pausing before the statue. "The Traitor."
"Kharad-Tan's daughter. Triipotes' sister."
Adria glances up. She's heard the first name mentioned before. "He cut open some space, you said. Kharad-Tan"
"Yeah, the Brachian Divide," Hawkmoon says with a nod. "You remembered?"
"Sounded serious."
"Everything's serious with Him. Where is He by the way?"
Oroses' head quills twitch. "We don't know. If we did I..." she pauses and snaps her beak shut. "I would do something very ill-advised. He abandoned us in our time of greatest need, deceived us for countless millennia. His monstrous tendencies always win out."
"He must've survived," Hawkmoon says distractedly. She's staring at Invicta's likeness. "She seemed sure about it. Took His people through Ascendant space and hightailed it out."
"You destroyed his moon," Oroses mentions. Adria frowns.
"And I'd fucking do it again. Did you hear what I found there?"
"What?"
"A Worm God. Xol - or at least your local version. Seems like my little wormlet doesn't much care for duplicates." Hawkmoon shifts. She cradles Adria closer. "But Invicta... she knew."
"She always knows."
"So what is this place?"
Oroses waves to the statue and then behind them. "As I said, a monument. She found us first of all the Black Fleet, hid us in the Dark and guided us out into the light of unfamiliar suns. She gave us salvation. I... I don't know why. I don't know what drove her to turn on the Foe. She split a pyramid to spare us. Do you know that?"
"I... didn't," Hawkmoon says hesitantly.
"We thought them impervious to damage. We- I lost three battleplates against the Fleet before we understood their scope. She saved us. Some of the crews built this fane, and others like it across the Remnant, in her honour."
"And the rest? The cloths?"
"Prayers to lost kin. Unanswered, all of them, but... it caught on. Soon enough it turned from those we lost to those yet to die." Oroses' grand wings shiver. "I met her. Spoke to her. She is no god yet that doesn't stop them."
"You disapprove?" Adria says warily.
"I gave my faith to my Emperor and my Sun. They're gone now, but I still believe. The Star-Web is gone but I still love it. The Arch-Fiend struck it from the sky. We scarcely saved pieces of the Raven Bridge; almost all of our own history, traditions, and beliefs are gone yet I persevere. The youth are left with the choice of stories of a Protectorate they will never know or the surety of something else. This shrine was Cirino's choice - and my mistake. I should have stopped it. Should have insisted on the old ways."
"Do you want to talk about it?" Hawkmoon inquires. There's no tone in written translation but Adria can feel spider-legs of static crawling across her skin.
Oroses turns to them. Her black eyes drink them in. "I don't want to burden you."
"We're already hefting," Adria groans. "What's one more load?"
The Tai exhales sharply. It's a little laugh. "If you say so, small one."
"You said she's your brood-daughter," Hawkmoon says. "So... not directly yours."
"Mine in all the ways that matter. Or they would have, had I any other vocation. I seldom saw our hatchlings even before the Foe burned everything down. I was an admiral, responsible for tens of thousands of marooners and dozens of worlds. And after the Raven Bridge shattered..."
"You have the survival of an entire species riding on your shoulders," Hawkmoon finishes. "Several species."
Oroses dips her head. "It would be a lie to say we were ever close. I would like to be, but it's not so."
"But you said she makes things more difficult for you."
"She has her moments. Most of her complaints are recent. Centred on you."
Hawkmoon shifted. "Me?"
"You're a symbol," Oroses said. She ventures closer, talons tracing across Hawkmoon's arm. "A courier of hope and omen of tragedy. She's fixated on the latter. The Traitor has assumed the mantle of the former for her - and those like her."
"Are we in danger?"
"Will she direct her subordinates to open fire on guests? No." Oroses eyes Adria. "Cirino isn't especially inclined to thuggery. We had no energy for it in the Dark. Maneuvering about the Admiralty Board, inflaming old grudges and fresh fears? Now that is much more to her tastes. She's no physical threat."
"I sense a 'but'."
"But in the name of sensibility the humans will transfer over to my own flagship."
"I should stay a little longer-"
"The Drezhari will not wait," Oroses says sharply. "Cybertron must not either. I'll not subject the Remnant to a prolonged war; either you bring us allies or we move on."
"Way to put on the pressure," Hawkmoon mutters.
Adria, with some difficulty, stands and braces herself against Hawkmoon's canopy. "You said flock," she says. "What do you mean?"
Oroses glances at her. "Partners. Mates. Significant others."
"Taishibethi are, ah... polygamous?" Hawkmoon tilts her helm. "Is that right?"
"We're social nesters. Cooperative parents."
Adria nods slowly. She expected something quite different. "And... is there no one else to rein... Cirino? Cirino in."
Oroses leans down. Adria stiffens as the hooked point of her beak nears her. Warm air billows out of nostrils halfway down her bill. "They're gone," she says bluntly, "and I gave each of them a Sun-burial."
Memories of Vaudren - laughing, smiling, taking her for midnight rides across the red desert, tumbling through cropfields, skinny-dipping in secluded oases - flash in front of her. Adria looks away. "Sorry."
Oroses moves away. She runs a finger along one of the older lengths of silk. "Cirino hung this for them. I was here when she did. My son, her brother, as well."
"Is he a commander too?" Hawkmoon inquires.
"He lords over an arsenal ship, the Iconofex, though a tour of it would leave the impression of a church rather than a vessel of war. He prefers the old faith." Oroses looks at Hawkmoon with her head cocked. "He bore this for Cirino's sake, but in these tokens at least I see some purpose. There's a semblance of peace in it. A sense of finality."
Hawkmoon meets her stare for a moment, then breaks into a sigh. "I wish."
"Careful, Seeker."
"You think a dragon could be following?"
"We never found the bones of the Emperor's mother. We searched and searched but-"
"Aiakos is dead," Hawkmoon says quickly. Adria feels her tense.
Oroses looks surprised. "You... you killed her?"
"I... yeah. She made trouble for a beastformer colony."
"Her remains?"
"Gone. Well." Hawkmoon grimaces. "I took her shape if that counts. Beastformer tradition."
"What do you mean?"
"Her genome was mapped and uploaded to a codex of some sort. They hooked it up to my transformation cog. You weren't... planning on her coming back, were you?"
"... Not quite. There were safeguards in case she survived but..." Oroses shakes her head. "There was a reason Úthaessel left her dead. She had no grasp of morality or mortality. All that mattered to her was the availability of prey and her daughter's welfare. Whichever living daughter that happened to be."
"... So...?"
"You think you're in trouble, don't you?"
Hawkmoon's armour tightens. It's fascinating to watch. "Your egg won't have anyone."
"You think Aiakos raises them?" There's a lilt to Oroses' words. Adria realises she's amused. "Please. The Emperor will grow to be Taishibethi, not a dragon. No one will blame you if that's your concern. If anything you did us a favour. She would've done us irreparable harm."
"That's a relief."
"I can imagine."
Hawkmoon vents. The air sizzles over them. Adria has to wonder how hot she is on the inside. Exominds were strange enough and she wasn't entirely sure what powered them, but Cybertronians are several times larger and magnitudes heavier. The costs of keeping one running must be staggering.
With a sudden jerk Hawkmon's other hand reaches into her body, plating folding back, and re-emerges with... what Adria can only describe as a giant scarf. "How's this?"
"The token is for you, not me. You choose."
"This. We... we bought it together. She said it looked good on me." Hawkmoon's grip on it tightens. "Fucking... Hive."
Adria's mouth dries. "Who?"
Hawkmoon looks at her suddenly. "Cyberwarp," she says, as if that explains anything. She catches Adria's confused expression and elaborates. "She... she was one of my flight-mates. Lost her the day the Hive hit the Tai homeworld."
"Your partner?"
"My... no. More. She and I were... going steady. Real steady."
"And she was Cybertronian?"
"Yeah?"
Adria exhales slowly. "You've been here a while."
Hawkmoon's face scrunches up. "I'm not sorry for loving her," she says firmly. Adria flinches. "She was kind, she was thoughtful, she was understanding, and when I told her the truth she didn't shy away. She... accepted me. All of me. And died for it."
"The Arch-Fiend has much to answer for," Oroses muttered.
"... Yeah. Yeah, this'll do. 'Spose here's as good as anywhere." Hawkmoon reaches up and pins the scarf to a hook on a railing built into the ceiling. It hangs there, forlorn and motionless, and Hawkmon sags at the sight of it. "Fucking hell, 'Warp. Shouldn't have been you."
Adria closes her eyes. She hates how much it makes her feel. Makes her think.
"Would you like to leave?" Oroses asks. "Move this discussion to my quarters?"
"... Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good." Hawkmoon turns.
"Wait," Adria calls out. Hawkmoon stops in place. "Wait. I... I have something too." She reaches beneath the neckline of her biosuit and pulls out the chain cord with her wedding ring. Humid Venusian air played hell on exposed metal but she hadn't been about to leave it behind. It meant too much to ever part with. It meant... everything.
Everything to the real Adria.
But Vaudren was gone. She never existed. And there was every chance she'd never exist again.
"Here," she says. "I can't exactly reach."
Hawkmoon regards her somberly. "Are you sure?"
"It's dead weight."
"Adria..."
"Look, I fucking wish I had what you did - something definitive, concrete. At least you were there when you lost her. At least you've had time to come to terms with it. But I'm no sentimental sap. There's no point hanging onto this and I... I really don't want to. Please."
With a delicateness she can't fathom, Hawkmoon takes the necklace from her and works it onto the same hook as her scarf. "There."
Adria turns her face away. She doesn't want them to see... well. "Thanks."
Hawkmoon doesn't respond. They're both glad for it.
Oroses' cabin is spacious, dominated half-and-half with all the cutting edge tech an orbit-commander could ask for and elaborate, luxurious furnishings. She lounges across a setee. Hawkmoon falls into an open-backed chair. Adria still has nowhere to go, so she sits in Hawkmoon's hand. They aren't alone. A pair of Taishibethi in nondescript uniforms tend to them, offering drinks and snacks. A massive glass cube of glowing blue liquid is placed before Hawkmoon. Energon, she gathers. Apparently the streaks of pink in it denote a higher quality.
Adria herself is given what seems to be a jug for her but a tiny teacup for Tai, half-filled with freshly-squeezed juice.
"The orthol fruit," Oroses tells her. "It flourishes in dark, damp sea coves. One of the few we've been able to grow in any quantity. My flock and I used to drink them ripe from the vine after a day of spearfishing. You should find it palatable."
She nods and tries it. The flavour is... weird. It's cool, refreshing, yet lacks the sweetness she would've expected of something fruity. There's a hint of citrus. The strangest part is that she can taste the sea - not the methane tides of Titan, not the acid-pools of Venus but the blue expanse of the Pacific. It takes her back to an academy exchange trip to Earth. Before then she'd never seen an ocean before. It spoiled her for any other.
"Well?"
"It's... it's good," Adria says lamely. It's not something she'll partake in regularly but on the odd occasion? She'd like that.
"And yours?"
Hawkmoon sets the energon cube down. "Your fuel refineries are different to what I'm used to."
"Will it be a problem?"
"Nah. My systems can deal with the impurities." Hawkmoon waves her off. "We're easy guests, you know that. Don't need to worry about us."
"Maybe not." Oroses snaps her beak twice. Her attendants bow and leave, a door sliding closed behind them. "I'd like to discuss something with you. An opportunity."
"Oh?"
"Aiakos."
"Oh."
"She was too dangerous. We know well the dangers of dragons, Seeker, just as you do. But that isn't to say she wasn't... idolized."
Adria leans forward. "You're talking about Ahamkara. Wait-"
"Yeah," Hawkmoon says.
"You killed one?"
"Uh... more than one? There was the Great Hunt and all-"
"Dragons are deadly beasts," Oroses says, "and those who survive them we consider especially lucky."
"Yay me," Hawkmoon mutters blandly.
"But to take their blessings-"
"She wasn't blessing me, Oroses. She was dying. I put her there."
Oroses lifts her beak. "Dragon-slayer has a nice ring to it."
"I won't be the only one. There was another femme there, wearing another Ahamkara's image. She... alluded to others as well." Hawkmoon pauses. "We didn't exactly part on the best of terms either."
"You miss my point."
"I just don't get it. All I'm gathering is that your zealots will hate me while your militants will love me."
"Quite the opposite."
"Then... yeah, I don't get it."
Oroses leans forward, crossing her wrists. "You've slain Aiakos and assumed her place. Cirino and her allies won't readily welcome you into the Remnant; they're a practical breed and despise needless resource strain. They don't know what you suffered to aid us. I do. I was there. But the others - they've only heard whispers. When we reunite with the fleet over Deliverance, I'll discuss with Nefera where that places you. He ranks highly amongst the Emperor's devout."
"Nefera?"
"Nefera'zheferan. My son."
Hawkmoon nods slowly. "Alright."
"What do you intend to do after Cybertron?"
"I... don't know."
Oroses trills softly. "You have a place here with us."
"I know, you made that clear, but I..." Hawkmoon looks down, directly at Adria. "I've got other people to think about."
"As I said-"
"Yeah, make myself useful and the humans get lodging. But for how long?"
"As long as you desire. I'm not going to run you off."
"... Yeah. Yeah, okay. I'll come back, but not as a soldier." Hawkmoon's wings rose up from behind her. "With all due respect I can't be that for you. I'm not a follower. I do as I see fit, always have. Authority and I don't mesh well."
Oroses pauses. "Úthaessel oft remarked on your... independent streak during counsel. Chains are not what I have in mind for you."
"Good. Then we're agreed."
"So we are."
A silence follows. Adria doesn't dare break it. There's a history here she plays no part in.
"What about the egg?" Hawkmoon asks suddenly.
Oroses looks at her sharply. "Well I imagine it will hatch. As eggs are wont to."
"Yeah, but... what's the plan for it. Her."
"I'll raise her as one of my own. She'll undergo training from the best tutors across the fleet - Taishibethi swordmasters, Eecharik gunners, Myod shieldbearers. She'll be protected by Excubitors, we'll grant her all the inheritances left by Úthaessel, and we'll imprint on her the severity and scope of this war."
"You'll make her a warrior."
"No. I'll make her an Emperor. Matters of gods and death - those I leave to you."
"To me?!"
"Úthaessel valued your input, more than even the Verunlix. You know she did. It wasn't a case of earning your trust; she truly believed in you. Now I have to believe in her judgement."
"I... look, I can't promise anything."
"I'd be a fool to ask you to."
Hawkmoon stands. Adria is taken aback by the suddenness of it all. "I..." Hawkmoon starts to say.
Oroses motions to the doors. "Go. Sleep on what I've offered you. Your answer can wait."
"Right, right. Thank you, Oroses. For the energon." They hastily walk out.
Hawkmoon marches hurriedly down the corridors, making for their own rooms several floors down. They pass silent guards, Tai and Myods both, who murmur greetings and bow their heads.
"Okay," Adria says. "What was that?"
"She's making me complicit," Hawkmoon mutters.
"What?"
"Drawing me in."
"Into what?"
"Into this." Hawkmoon gestures to the ship around them. "Traveler fucking dammit."
"Hawkmoon."
"Just... wait."
"Fine." They continue onwards in tense silence. Before long they arrive at their own rooms. Hawkmoon veers into her cabin - forgetting or maybe, just maybe, not bothering to ferry Adria to her own. She all but falls onto her bunk, wings folded against her back, and stiffens.
"Every time I give myself to a cause," Hawkmoon whispers, "I lose 'em all."
"Hawkmoon-"
"We'll be smarter this time. We can be mobile. We can call on others - Cybertron, Penchant, every alien not aligned with the Dark. But... fuck. Fuck."
"What's this about an egg?" Adria presses.
"The egg." Hawkmoon sit ups, jostling her. "Sorry, sorry. The egg is for the Emperor."
"Which emperor?"
"The Emperor of the Taishibethi. She's a partial Ahamkara."
"A... a fucking what?" Adria blinks rapidly. Her nails scrape her palms. "How does that work?"
"Uh, a Tai banged a dragon."
"No, I mean... wait, hold the fucking phone, what?"
"A primitive Taishibethi made a wish," Hawkmoon says impatiently. "That wish resulted in an egg. In a roundabout way. I think."
"And the Tai have this egg?"
"No, they... okay, look, the first egg hatched, made an Emperor. This Emperor united the Tai against a common enemy. When the Myods came to investigate, she invited them to join the Tai and their realm grew from there."
"Emperor. Not Empress?"
"Taishibethi doesn't translate it well. The term's gender-neutral. So this Emperor knows she's still part mortal, so she's gonna die, and she leaves her genome in an engram to be cloned. Voila, next Emperor. Practice carries forth. Úthaessel was I think the twenty-third Emperor and..." Hawkmoon vents. "She was my friend. 'Course, she sent me packing on the slim chance I'd survive the Hive with the next engram, the manipulative bitch. The Tai catch me up, because I'm a real shmuck, and they pulled it out of the sword she gave me. Ergo, next Emperor."
Adria blinks. "Okay."
"You're getting all this?"
"Yeah."
"And?"
"It sounds flimsy as fuck. So the Taishibethi are putting all their hopes on one egg?"
"Not all. 'Sides, the Emperors more than a pretty symbol; they've got some dragon-magic of their own. Only the Hive gods could stand against Úthaessel in her prime."
"And Oroses..."
"I have knowledge deemed important. I literally come from a future pertinent to their present. Oroses wants that on her side. She'd be stupid not to. So she's drawin' me in because she knows I can't say no."
"Do you want to say no?"
"Of course not. But... Adria, you have no idea how bad it was. We lost everything. My trine, my friends, my entire formation. Oroses lost her civilization. I'm... I'm scared it'll happen again."
"So she's endearing you," Adria says thoughtfully. "I thought her appearance in the shrine was a little too coincidental."
"She probably has people watching us. Does that really surprise you?"
"Does it not bother you?"
Hawkmoon shrugs. Adria is forced to move with it. "I understand why. She's trying to keep a tight grasp on everything she has left. I'm kinda flattered I fall under that umbrella."
"You want to stay here. With them."
"I... I don't know what I want. I don't. I know what I have to do but there's so many ways to go about it. I could do the most good here. I'd be happier here. The Tai are easy people. They have strong morals, solid principles. You won't believe how rare that is out here."
"... Then what's your plan?"
"Same as always: play it by ear."
Adria grimaces. "But what about us?"
"I told Praedyth-"
"Fuck that. I'm here. I'm alive. You argued that to the Tai, right? But this isn't living, Hawkmoon. I'm just... coasting in the moment."
"Adria-"
"You can't do this to me. You can't let the Vex make me, can't leave me with all these memories, can't tell me that life doesn't exist anymore and expect me to be okay with it. I don't know who I am!"
"You're Adria Lennox," Hawkmoon says firmly.
"I thought that was you."
"No. No, I don't-"
"You don't want to be Adria. You're distancing yourself from her. Why?"
"It's not my life."
"Not your loss, you mean," Adria says bitterly. "So you'll leave it to me."
"Adria..."
"Do you want me to be Adria Lennox? Is that your plan for me?"
"I don't have plans for you!"
"Then what the fuck am I here for?!"
Hawkmoon falls silent. Adria takes a deep breath; she doesn't know if the walls are soundproof and she doesn't want to piss off the other giant robots. "I don't know who I am. So I'm asking you."
"Who do you want to be?" Hawkmoon questions quietly.
"I... Not her. But I can't be anything else. Just tell me, here and now, I am and will only ever be her. Do it."
"You're hurting."
"Of fucking course I am! Vaudren is gone! Benni is gone! My life, my family, my world, is all gone! I don't..." She collapses. Hawkmoon's hand curls around her. Hot tears run down her cheeks. "This is your world and I'm just living in it."
Hawkmoon falls still.
"I'm stuck in limbo but you - you've got a future, a place in this universe."
"I didn't," Hawkmoon murmurs. "I had to carve it out for myself."
"So-"
"Look. You're grieving."
"I don't even know if I have the right!"
"Adria. You're grieving what we - yeah, we - used to be. I'm not gonna say change can be good, that's all bullshit. Change fucking hurts. But we don't have a fucking choice. You're grieving the life you remember. I was the same when I landed face first on Cybertron."
"But you found a purpose."
"Yeah."
"So..." Adria exhales hard. "What's mine?"
Hawkmoon's eyes shutter off. "I told Oroses earlier than I wanted you to be the Adria that doesn't self-destruct. I want a happy ending for you."
"Leaving me a prisoner in alien hands isn't a purpose."
"... I know."
"So what do I do?"
"You'll have to find your own purpose."
"With what skills? What knowledge?" Adrias slaps a fist against Hawkmoon's hull. It leaves her hand stinging. "The Tai have soldiers enough-"
"They don't have SOLSECCENT." Hawkmoon's eyes flare back to life. "You do have skills. You were a security advisor for a Titan arcology-"
Adria scoffs. "Titan's colonists panic when someone skips a queue. No one ever broke the rules."
"But SOLSECCENT leadership asked for your input even after you retired. You were there for a hearing from Braytech."
She frowns. "So you remember the whole thing?"
"Parts. If I leave you with a translation programme, you can make do, right? Approach Oroses or someone else in charge - and offer them your services. They're living on the brink; I bet they're hurting for someone to cut through the ceremonial noise and give them a practical point of view."
"Al-... Alright."
"Yeah?"
"Why not," Adria huffs. She considers something. "But you'll fix the translator."
"What?"
"Hawkmoon."
Hawkmoon raises an 'eyebrow'. "What'd I do?"
"Seriously? How the hell am I supposed to treat the Tai seriously when I read everything they say in comic fucking sans?"
"... Oh yeah." Hawkmoon's eyes flicker. "Better?"
Adria can't even recognize the font, but doesn't leave her wanting to pull her hair out. "Don't touch it again."
"Adria."
"What?"
Hawkmoon regards her with a small smile. "You can just call me 'Moon."
Adria blinks.
"It's something my friends call me-"
"Maybe I say the whole thing to remind you how ridiculous it sounds."
"Another reason to keep you from Cybertron."
"Fine, 'Moon."
Hawkmoon lays down. "Was that so hard?"
Adria extricates herself. "This hasn't fixed anything."
"I know."
"I can't-"
"Adria. I know. I was there too. I'm not expecting you to get over it in a couple of weeks." She pauses. "You can stay here if you want."
"What?"
"You don't have to go back."
Adria looks at Hawkmoon critically. "And if you crush me?"
"Cybertronians don't move during recharge."
"Is that what you call it?"
"It's what they call it. I'm just using the proper terminology."
"... Fine." Despite her misgivings, despite her hate - hate for the Vex for putting her here, hate for Hawkmoon for getting her out of there, hate for herself for even feeling this way - she lays down, between Hawkmoon's hand and body, and tries to find some measure of comfort. The sounds of a robot body at work still reach her but it's... softer. Quieter. Non-essential functions shutting down.
She doesn't sleep. There's too much to think about, too much about the world to despise-
But maybe… maybe she can try to live with that.
AN: Huge thanks to Nomad Blue for editing this!
When I said next two or three chapters I don't count this one. Adria will likely pop up as the POV character a few times down the line. She's here to provide a truly human perspective to all this crazy shit. This chapter's a little raw emotionally - she's been ripped from everything she knows, if it ever was her - but that won't linger. At her core she's a more collected person, more disciplined, and quite wholly unprepared for how fucking hotheaded Hawkmoon can be.
Didn't get to expand on Praedyth quite so much as I wanted, but that'll come much sooner. Big up that Aspect lore book.
Next chapter should hit soon - as in within the week if I decide to make it normal length or a little longer if I led it keep rolling. Toodles.