Freefall

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
Bayverse
Starscream
for tf_speedwritingprompt: Freefall
It’s mentioned in RoS that Starscream is really enamored of his new, human-designed alt. 

They thought that he liked the speed of his new form, the way it sliced the air, bronze edges like silky blades through the sky. They thought he liked pushing his engines to their highest throttle, till the ground seemed a pastiche blur of green and brown and murky blue beneath him.  That fast, he couldn’t even sense the speed, the ground giving no landmarks, the sky a changeless white-puffed blue, he couldn’t feel the acceleration as anything other than the cold slick of air over his ailerons, an almost icy line along his vertical stabilizers. 

Or the maneuverability: the way he could flip into an Immelmann turn, or roll a tight helix, burst or shed speed, or jerk his nose into a Kulbit loop. 

And he did like those. They were combat advantages. They gave him an edge in battle; they gave him capabilities beyond his kind. He was a fusion of Cybertronian and human thinking. In a sense, their perfect war machine: sentient, knowing his capabilities to within a micron, able to maneuver, shifting between his forms, with an agility that was staggering and lethal.

But his secret passion was in freefall, in hammerheads and stalls, in pushing his engines until they lost the battle with atmosphere and gravity, and suddenly he had weight and mass again, and was helpless under gravity’s  pull, sun flashing on his belly as he tumbled, seemingly wildly, seemingly out of control, the sudden shock of the plummet, the ground rushing at him like a promise of pain, like a destiny. 

The spin of his gyros, struggling for balance, whirling and helpless, was intoxicating, a sort of vertigo bliss, as his altimeter raced down, his axis controls lurching.  And to feel one’s presence, suddenly with gravity and weight and mass, suddenly with a sun-flickering skin, surfaces kissed by light, curves carving the air.  It was luxurious, sensual in a way that grounders never understood, that less-capable airframes could never achieve.

It was close to terror, but far enough away that it was exhilarating, sending thrills of fear-edged pleasure through Starscream’s net, and he dared himself, each time, to tumble longer, to wait to kick on his thrusters, pull out of the precipitous plunge, later and later, testing his own mettle, his own resolve and daring.

This, he thought, his thrusters burning blue hot, his nose screaming an arc through the air, this is true power, true control, to pull yourself back from the brink of disaster, to trust yourself, your capabilities, to the furthest, with the utmost. 

And he knew, of course, that one day he would go too far, trust himself too much, wait too long to pull out of the dive, either here, in the play of free flight, or in combat, trusting the corollary belief of a warrior too confident of his own ability to survive, reckless for having survived so much and so long. 

He knew it was there. Inevitable, like fate stalking him, or an unshakeable phantom on his six, threatening to catch him between the sky and the earth.  He knew, and he dared that knowledge with every flight, living in the pure, fierce, fear-edged joy of life asserting itself against the inevitable, slicing through the dark odds of the future with a blaze of reckless abandon.

Comments

[silaphet.livejournal.com]

<3

[mieka-writes.livejournal.com]

talk about pegging a flier hard on the nose...

all my pilot friends talk about the flying and the freefall and the rush...

[ravynfyre.livejournal.com]

wow! Your Starscream makes me happy on so many levels!

[playswithworms.livejournal.com]

Wheeee! \o/

[sp4z01d.livejournal.com]

He is so vain... love him. Good job.

[zatnik.livejournal.com]

I love Starscream for being a conceited jerk, and in guilier moments for being the dashing antihero of fanfiction. I also love him for his devil-may-care aerial antics.

My flight instructor taught me how to get out of a (puny, little) nose dive (instead of screaming and passing him control like the girly-girl I pretent I'm not). It was scarey as HELL, but such a rush that I just had to have another go.

[zatnik.livejournal.com]

>_> *guiltier, pretend, other typos.