Just Another Word
Jan. 3rd, 2011 08:06 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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G1
Starscream
no warnings
My last gen in January piece. So I swear I'll stop spamming y'all with them now.
Starscream refused to let it show, refused to give his Autobot captors the satisfaction. They know, they must know, how abhorrent captivity was to one of his kind.
Not that he expected them to care or let him go, because of it. Of course not. He would not stretch their principles, nor his hope, so far.
Still, it was a slow, cold torture, to be held in this cell, deep inside the mountain. He could feel, he’d swear to it, the weight of the stone around him, like a fist waiting to close completely. The stone and dirt were so thick and dense that his sensors could not penetrate them, could not even tell him how far removed he was from the sky. The air reeked, recycled too many times, flat and dead and always the same, joor after joor, so unlike even the air of this filthy planet.
He found himself missing that air, missing the rich atmosphere that moved and shifted and danced around him, heating with the sun, cooling in the darkness, swirling with weather, breezes, shears, updrafts. He loved the feel of it under his wings, lift pushing him upward, like riding along some rich transparent silk. He loved the clouds, soft puffs of vapor that caressed him, or louring faces of storms, prickling with moody electricity. Always different, always new. Always the sheer joy of propulsion, the chemicals burning a rainbow from his thrusters.
But here. There was no atmosphere. No clouds. No joy. No…freedom.
Someone had once said—had it been Skyfire back in the Science Academy? Maybe Thundercracker, in one of those rare, fleeting moments where he let the mask of his cynicism slip—that we always obsess over what we can’t have.
And what Starscream couldn’t have, right now, was freedom. Not the freedom of flight, not the freedom to speak, not even the freedom to show his emotions. No; he had to put on an act, keep up the defiant face, when his entire lasercore seemed given over to an endless yearning for all that he could not have.
And he could swear he could hear Thundercracker laughing, and the harsh echo of his voice, “As usual, Screamy.”
A bitter smile twisted his lips. Another freedom he missed: that tense camaraderie he shared with his Trine. More than that…always a plan against the Autobots to be contemplated (or mocked), always some internal plot or prank to be derailed or encouraged or responded to in kind, in the tense mayhem of the underwater base. Always Skywarp’s bad jokes and mean tricks, always some squabbling complaint from Rumble, who held himself out as the spokesmech for Soundwave and the other cassettes. Plots and plans and complaints and quirks—always something afoot, always something to keep his processor occupied.
And he’d hated it, then, complained—loudly, adding to the general noise and ruckus—that the chaos kept him from coming up with a really good plan, the winning plan, a brilliant plan, the one that would make up for all their losses. The one that would make him a hero, make them all recognize the genius they had scoffed and doubted for so long. Reassure himself of it, as well.
Well, there was no chaos here to distract him. But no plans either, brilliant or otherwise. Only an ineffable discomfort, some niggling constant dissatisfaction like a low-grade fuel sputtering his thrusters, or sand caught in his cogs. Which had always been there, he realized, only muted. Which had been, it seemed, waiting under all that noise and bother, patiently, for its chance, like a rising tide of water when a dam of noise and busy-ness broke.
The unmistakable sound of the brig’s main door levering open.
No force-barriers here, nothing that could fail with a well-placed strike, but instead the heavy scraping clang of cold, hard metal. Not impenetrable. Nothing was impenetrable…in time. In time, even the pile of stone and dirt and dead animals that pocketed the mountain’s mass above him could be drilled through, blown up, undermined.
But Starscream did not want to think about how much time that would take, and how much he might have here. Not that he feared the Autobots would offline him. Quite the opposite—they’d keep him online, captive, in this stale, weighted darkness, and consider it decent and humane.
Time to drink that bitter cynicism later, he thought. Too much time. Now, though….
He swung himself upright, crossing one lean white thigh over the other, painting a smile over his face so well practiced it felt like home. “Ironhide,” he drawled, letting his optics trail obscenely over the red frame, sly insinuation in his voice. “How good to see you.”
He hoped the Autobot didn’t hear the fearful sincerity.
G1
Starscream
no warnings
My last gen in January piece. So I swear I'll stop spamming y'all with them now.
Starscream refused to let it show, refused to give his Autobot captors the satisfaction. They know, they must know, how abhorrent captivity was to one of his kind.
Not that he expected them to care or let him go, because of it. Of course not. He would not stretch their principles, nor his hope, so far.
Still, it was a slow, cold torture, to be held in this cell, deep inside the mountain. He could feel, he’d swear to it, the weight of the stone around him, like a fist waiting to close completely. The stone and dirt were so thick and dense that his sensors could not penetrate them, could not even tell him how far removed he was from the sky. The air reeked, recycled too many times, flat and dead and always the same, joor after joor, so unlike even the air of this filthy planet.
He found himself missing that air, missing the rich atmosphere that moved and shifted and danced around him, heating with the sun, cooling in the darkness, swirling with weather, breezes, shears, updrafts. He loved the feel of it under his wings, lift pushing him upward, like riding along some rich transparent silk. He loved the clouds, soft puffs of vapor that caressed him, or louring faces of storms, prickling with moody electricity. Always different, always new. Always the sheer joy of propulsion, the chemicals burning a rainbow from his thrusters.
But here. There was no atmosphere. No clouds. No joy. No…freedom.
Someone had once said—had it been Skyfire back in the Science Academy? Maybe Thundercracker, in one of those rare, fleeting moments where he let the mask of his cynicism slip—that we always obsess over what we can’t have.
And what Starscream couldn’t have, right now, was freedom. Not the freedom of flight, not the freedom to speak, not even the freedom to show his emotions. No; he had to put on an act, keep up the defiant face, when his entire lasercore seemed given over to an endless yearning for all that he could not have.
And he could swear he could hear Thundercracker laughing, and the harsh echo of his voice, “As usual, Screamy.”
A bitter smile twisted his lips. Another freedom he missed: that tense camaraderie he shared with his Trine. More than that…always a plan against the Autobots to be contemplated (or mocked), always some internal plot or prank to be derailed or encouraged or responded to in kind, in the tense mayhem of the underwater base. Always Skywarp’s bad jokes and mean tricks, always some squabbling complaint from Rumble, who held himself out as the spokesmech for Soundwave and the other cassettes. Plots and plans and complaints and quirks—always something afoot, always something to keep his processor occupied.
And he’d hated it, then, complained—loudly, adding to the general noise and ruckus—that the chaos kept him from coming up with a really good plan, the winning plan, a brilliant plan, the one that would make up for all their losses. The one that would make him a hero, make them all recognize the genius they had scoffed and doubted for so long. Reassure himself of it, as well.
Well, there was no chaos here to distract him. But no plans either, brilliant or otherwise. Only an ineffable discomfort, some niggling constant dissatisfaction like a low-grade fuel sputtering his thrusters, or sand caught in his cogs. Which had always been there, he realized, only muted. Which had been, it seemed, waiting under all that noise and bother, patiently, for its chance, like a rising tide of water when a dam of noise and busy-ness broke.
The unmistakable sound of the brig’s main door levering open.
No force-barriers here, nothing that could fail with a well-placed strike, but instead the heavy scraping clang of cold, hard metal. Not impenetrable. Nothing was impenetrable…in time. In time, even the pile of stone and dirt and dead animals that pocketed the mountain’s mass above him could be drilled through, blown up, undermined.
But Starscream did not want to think about how much time that would take, and how much he might have here. Not that he feared the Autobots would offline him. Quite the opposite—they’d keep him online, captive, in this stale, weighted darkness, and consider it decent and humane.
Time to drink that bitter cynicism later, he thought. Too much time. Now, though….
He swung himself upright, crossing one lean white thigh over the other, painting a smile over his face so well practiced it felt like home. “Ironhide,” he drawled, letting his optics trail obscenely over the red frame, sly insinuation in his voice. “How good to see you.”
He hoped the Autobot didn’t hear the fearful sincerity.
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Date: 2011-01-06 12:35 am (UTC)