Morning Song

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

PG
Bayverse mid-Planetfall
Starscream
no warnings
for tf_speedwriting  prompt 'staying in tune'.  Yeah, if you're as doped up on cold medicine as I am, this makes sense to that prompt.  Or...not.  Blergh.

 

It was easy enough to slip away from the others: Starscream was the only one with aerial capabilities, since Blackout had already gone on a reconnaissance mission. Besides, the others knew better than to challenge him as he’d walked away from the loose perimeter they’d set up around the narrow ravine.  They would be fine while he was gone, and he?  He had to know.

Starscream’s feet padded over the soft sand, working between his toes as he pushed away from the sandstone pilings into the darkness of solar night. The sand had lost any of its daytime heat, cool and yielding and powdery underfoot.  Starscream waited until he was far enough away that any terrestrial tracking would not give away their impromptu base’s position, before firing his thrusters, leaping into the sky toward the lightening crescent of the eastern horizon. His engines warmed under his own power, propelling him forward, reaching toward the rising light. He shifted to his jet mode, testing the new aerodynamic contours as they cut through the night-cool air.

For a cycle he flew, the sky fading from indigo, spattered with stars, to a warmer, paler blue, which faded almost imperceptibly to nearly golden white.  The desert spread beneath him grew more distinct, the flat mass of heat-reflective grey giving way to sharp edged shadows, the slipfaces of the dunes undulating below him in black curved shapes. 

And the sky lightened, brightened, moment by moment, until, finally, a ray of sunlight lanced through the air, striking against Starscream’s nosecone.

And Starscream sang, his vocalizer dropping into its harmonic modulation. Notes poured from him, resonating through the silicates below, the air taking the sounds and skirling them around him, throwing them to the heavens, the ground, the sun itself.  He rolled in a lazy barrel roll, his wings helixing over one another.  And the notes he sang began to take shape, forming into a melody.   Some of the tones echoed up from the ground, as if the planet itself were singing a counter harmony. 

The song was an ancient one, but strong, calling the air and the ground together, planet and heavens.  The melody floated around him, uplifting him, sustaining him with its echoing strength.Scientifically, sunrise was no miracle, merely an effect of rotation and ray geometry, but even so, there was something always, always mystical about it. And it had been ages since he'd seen one, Cybertron's sun burnt out long before to a dark hollow husk. 

This place, this planet…was special.  It sang back to him, taking his tones and giving them depth, timbre, singing a deep counterpoint of life and stability and strength underneath his swirling, shifting melody. Sky called to ground, alien to alien, and found connection.  There was something here, something familiar, welcoming.  Something that almost, almost rang in the same frequency of Cybertron.  Something that almost might be home. 

Starscream’s spark ached as the sunlight burst over the horizon, like a pitcher of amber light spilling over his frame, gilding him as he danced through the air, as he sang.  He wheeled, letting this alien sun caress his armor, almost like the long-dead sun of the home he hadn’t seen in…half a lifetime.  He shuddered, wracked with something like a sob. After so long, a place that knew this song, responded to the ancient harmony. 

He turned back, his spark sore with unfamiliar hope, the sun stretching rosy dawn fingers to light his way, pulling back the curtain of night.

 

Comments

[shanfiction73.livejournal.com]

I also enjoyed it, although I'm not lucky enough to enjoy a sunrise through the ice storm we had this morning.

I think there may be a typo in the first paragraph... It was easy enough to slip away from the others: Starscream was the only other with aerial capabilities, ... I think you mean another mech, since this is all about Starscream.

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

Not really a 'typo', huh?

I'll have to rethink that awkward phrasing later when I'm not high on Nyquil.

[shanfiction73.livejournal.com]

Oh. Nyquil. I'm sorry you've had to resort to that level of drugging to deal with your cold. It is always my weapon of last resort, because it gives me really wacky / scary lucid dreams. I'm a fan of Theraflu myself. I rest better. But maybe I'll use Nyquil as ammo in my next cold war and it will inspire me to write something new.