Seen in a Dream

[Chromia]

Characters: Chromia , @windblade
Location: Wilderness surrounding Crown City
Content Warnings: N/A
Plot Summary: Windblade's past catches up with her.

[Chromia]

All this driving around was starting to get maddening, even with how beautiful the forests looked. Chromia had ventured all the way to Earth with a spark of hope in her chest, but had so far found nothing. There were Autobots on Earth however, which kept the spark alive to a certain extent. That also could have implied that the Decepticons she'd encountered had no idea which Autobot they'd heard of on the planet, either. She could've been chasing the trail of some other sword-wielding seeker femme for all she knew.

Chromia had focused her search efforts around the epicenter of recent Decepticon incursions on Earth, hoping to at least find some evidence she could build her investigation on. There had been less than she was hoping for. A piece of her dreaded the possibility that the Decepticons had been responsible for Windblade's disappearance nearly a millennia ago, and that it had been an error on her own part that had stolen her Amica Endura away from her. The thought that everything was her fault tore at her spark viciously; regardless of whatever she found on Earth, she would be one step closer to the truth, for better or worse.

The blue Koenigsegg Agera stopped in the middle of a nearby clearing, transforming. Chromia was mentally exhausted from her search, trying to keep the hope alive. It taxed her more than any battle would, which was the hardest part. She removed the Primeon Blade from her back, extending it to a healthy length, then cleaved through a small cluster of trees at the edge of the clearing. They each fell with a boom as they hit the earth, leaving the Autobot a decent enough perch to sit and think upon. Chromia shut off her blade, tossing it behind her back, sitting down on her recently created log-chair.

She cast her eyes down to the dirt below, arms folded, "I can still feel you... can you feel me?" she asked of the wind around her. Chromia brought a hand to clutch her chest, remembering how empty her spark had felt over the past thousand years.

[Deleted]

She was so close now, almost back to home base. Windblade had been gone for a little while now from Crown City, and it had been quite the flight for once around the globe. But she knew better than to expect she would find a Decepticon right off the bat during her travels, especially since they popped up at random whether they were from the Nemesis or the crashed Alchemor. Finding them were something of a priority but sometimes the Decepticons were frustratingly illusive.

With so little of her targets to be concerned with, Windblade’s thoughts were once more traveling back to Caminus. It had been years since she had been home or seen anyone from her home, not since her closest Amica Endura, Chromia. She had lost contact with the femme as her body guard, and deep down she felt a deep guilt for never having properly said good bye. She had disappearing into thin air, drawn to Cybertron’s core and sent way into this solar system of a great evil to plague it. So far, she had not found what that evil was, but she had assumed it was the Decepticons. ‘Sometimes I wonder.” She thought with a sigh, soaring over the forests outside of Crown City.

But, as she was getting closer to the scrapyard, a booming sound suddenly flooded her audios, causing the Camien flier to come to a sudden halt. What in the name of Solus Prime? Windblade transformed where she hovered, turning in a circle to figure out where the sound had come from. Hearing booming in the forest seemed to be a recurring thing for her as of late. It had sounded a little way away, but no less still had caught her attention. There was only one way to find out.

Flying towards where the sound had been loudest, Windblade began scanning the land below, trying to figure what had caused it. But the closer she flew the more she felt a faint tugging, a feeling in her spark she had not felt in a while. It was familiar, making Windblade’s wings flare up with surprise. Was it...? No it couldn’t be. She had to fly faster, to know what she was feeling was real and not just her mind playing tricks on her out homesickness for Caminus.

it was there she spotted the blue ang gray femme, a frame she had come to know quite well. But the nagging feeling that this may just be her imagination lingered just as much as her hope it was truly Chromia. Hesitantly, Windblade lowered to the ground, landing with a soft thud into the clearing as she looked upon the femme’s features. No this certainly couldn’t be a mistake. “Chromia?”

[Chromia]

Chromia had been so lost in thought that she seemed to ignore the sound of a jet passing overhead entirely. The creeping sensation of pointlessness surrounding this whole trip was beginning to set in around her, the fact that she may never be reunited with Windblade. She'd been so consumed by her own melancholy that she failed to notice the same jet touching down before her.

As she stood up to depart the forest for good, she froze. Time itself slowed for a moment as her perceptions wrapped around the figure standing in the center of the clearing. Chromia lurched back mostly from being caught off guard, as her optics had yet to completely process just who was in front of her. Chromia took a moment to double check that Primus wasn't pulling a cruel trick on her, but found no errors in her visual scanning. Was the universe so fickle as to just give Windblade back to her on a random coincidence?

A torrent of other questions burst into Chromia's mind, flooding out nearly everything else.

...where had she gone?

...why was she here?

......why hadn't she taken me with her...?

"Windblade...?" she softly asked in return.

It was her, wasn't it.

"WINDBLADE," she asked again, this time her voice a frantic mixture of panic and joy.

[Deleted]

Windblade just stood there, in equal disbelief to see Chromia in front of her. She had not seen her in years, but it felt like an eternity to the Camien seeker and she wasn't sure how to respond to this. Had Primus been hearing her thoughts and guided her to the very spot she would meet one of the most important Cybertronians in her life? Because seeing the blue femme before her, in person rather than just memories felt like the most unexpected but most welcoming blessing. Getting an upgrade from Primus himself could never compare to the joy she felt in her spark.

Her wings finally flared up to their fullest when the truth just struck her harder than a blacksmith's hammer hitting heated metal. "IT IS YOU!" Windblade exclaimed, throwing herself forward and embracing her friend and body guard with all her strength. In fact, she might as well almost have thrown Chromia off her feet from the force she had moved.

She didn't know what to say at first, simply holding her fellow Camien for the longest moment, afraid that if she let go she would be waking from the most cruel dream she had had yet."Primus finally heard me after all." Windblade finally spoke, never feeling this emotional from what she could ever recall. Even when leaving Caminus she had never felt such a mixture of joy and anticipation. She was thrilled to have Chromia back, but that didn't stop the feeling of guilty hitting her either like a bunch of steel bricks. She had left Chromia behind, and never telling her where she had gone despite the hails over their com-link channel more than clear before she had dwelled into the deepest depths of Cybertron.

When the joy and shock passed, Windblade was apprehensive to what would follow.

[Chromia]

And there she was, back in her arms again. Just like that. Like the past one thousand years had been completely pointless, but Chromia couldn't have felt better about wasted time in a moment like this. She wanted from the very depths of her core to demand where Windblade had been, why she'd done it, and why she hadn't taken her best friend along with her. She wanted to be angry with her, but nothing came out. All the anger that had been building up simply washed away, like leaves in a forest stream. Chromia just wanted to have Windblade back, now.

Chromia regained autonomy a moment into the hug, instinctively wrapping her arms around her Amica Endura as she felt their sparks burn in unison. She buried her head into Windblade's shoulder, not wanting to expose just how much their reunion had compromised her emotionally. The planet itself could've been exploding around them, and yet it still wouldn't have been enough to move Chromia from their embrace; she doubted there was any force in the universe that could.

She slowly pushed her head up to meet Windblade's gaze soon after, the visage of a tough as nails enforcer gone completely; Chromia's face was colored by genuine compassion and concern for her friend, and also a hint of sadness. She might've let her softer side slip once or twice around Windblade, but an event of this magnitude was utterly unheard of.

"I searched for centuries to find you... and you've been here... the whole time..?"

[Deleted]

Looking upon Chromia once more has never brought so many mixed emotions for Windblade. She was absolutely thrilled to have her closest friend back with her, embracing her as if they’ve never been separated. Yet, the moment their optics met, the hint of sadness made Windblade grimace and look away. How could she not feel ashamed and guilty for abandoning Chromia in a way? Because it felt like she had. And just the thought of concern, rage, and worry the blue and gray femme had gone through searching for her only made the ache in her spark worse than before.

Would her old friend trust her words she was about to speak? “Yes, and no.” Windblade finally answered, still unable to bring her gaze back to her fellow Camien. This was worse than anticipating a Decepticon in an unknown location, waiting for an enemy to suddenly appear in the darkest of places. At least there was some predictability in such a situation, but here? There was no telling what Chromia would do.

“This might be a long conversation Chromia, let’s sit down and get comfortable. Especially with what I’m about to tell you.” The seeker reluctantly broke the embrace, her wings dropped slightly in apprehension as she took a seat where Chromia has cleared some of the trees and finally meeting her gaze once more. “Back on Cybertron, while we were helping with the war, a presence was calling out to me, from my very core. I didn’t know who or what it was, but I couldn’t ignore it. This voice seemed to reach to every part of me, urging me to come to them...and I did.” Windblade began, anxiously resting her hands on her knees, slightly clenched since the more she spoke the more she probably sounded insane. “I heard you calling me, wondering where I was. But I coildn’t turn back by then and eventually I couldn’t hear anything but static in my coms because I went further into Cybertron’s depths than any of our people would have imagined. And there, there I met Primus himself.”

As she told her tale to Chromia, Windblade found herself averting her gaze once more, afraid to see possibly judgement and disbelief in her Amica’s gaze. Chronic trusted her as much as she trusted the enforcer, but that didn’t mean there would be that one time that would be an exception.

[Chromia]

Now that she was back, Chromia had a hard time taking her eyes off of Windblade at all, not that it was made any better by her Amica's insistence of averting her gaze. Could she truly not even look her in the eye after all this time? It pained her almost as much as the distance between them over the past millennia. Chromia's burning desire to know the truth was rewarded when Windblade gave a half-answer, then led her back over to the trees she'd cut down. If the drooping wings were any indication, her Amica was about to lay something serious on her.

She sat down beside Windblade, eager to hear her tale. Long conversation or not, she had plenty of time to listen now. As Chromia listened she wasn't finding much to reassure her, at least at first. Regardless of what she thought about it, the Camien stayed her tongue from interrupting her. Her expression sank after Windblade regaled the details of their last meeting on Cybertron. Having to relive calling out for one's best friend and hearing nothing back was spark-crushing, and only the reminder that her best friend was back soothed her.

She'd met Primus? Windblade had always been an important bot, especially on Caminus, but Chromia had never considered anyone so important on a cosmic scale. All this time, she'd thought the war or the Decepticons had claimed her, when in fact their separation had come from the highest power. What was this task that held such high importance that it was necessary to break such a sacred bond between two bots? Before she had the chance to ask however, another thought popped into Chromia's mind. Her guilt; she'd guilted herself into believing that it was her own fault that Windblade had gone missing, because it was too much to bear to think that she'd simply left of her own accord.

It was dizzying to now know that none of it was her fault, that she hadn't acted too slow to save her friend. Chromia had done her duty in protecting Windblade by getting her to that point in time, so that she might serve the highest authority. It didn't explain where she'd been over the past millenia, however.

Seeing Windblade unable to find the strength to even look at her bodyguard was heartbreaking to say the least. She was hurting too, about leaving her best friend behind to partake in some divine mission; it was enough that Chromia could practically feel it rolling off of her. She outstretched her hand to place it upon Windblade's shoulder. "Hey, look at me. Tell me what happened next..."

Chromia's face and manner of speaking betrayed no hint of harsh judgement or scorn. Her voice was commanding as always yet there was no harshness to it, much like feeling the heat of the sun at sunset. She wanted desperately to understand, and for Windblade to know it too.

[Deleted]

Hearing the command, lacking any harshness at all, Windblade finally did meet her gaze. All she could read from Chromia was a burning desire to know what happened, why she had left her behind but never said anything, to know the full truth. It began to occur to Windblade that she may be letting her guilt get to her more than she wanted, expecting something far different than the caring concern Chromia showed her when the situation was dire. She could be rough around the edges and tough as nails, but there was always that side Windblade saw that tended to put her at ease.

And this time, it finally was.

Taking a deep breath to calm her apprehensive thoughts, Windblade's wings finally relaxed, folding down against her back and she finally sat up a little straighter, giving her full attention to Chromia. She could trust Chromia to not judge her so harshly as others might, or find her tale to be nothing but a way to make herself look important and impressive. "Primus told me of a great evil to come, one that could not only put this solar system and Cybertron at risk, but the rest of the universe. He has been choosing others like myself, reaching out to Cybertronians to prepare for this coming evil." Windblade's voice was stronger now, less hesitant. "He tasked me in protecting this part of the universe, upgraded me to what you see now before sending me to Earth in stasis for the past thousand years." There it was, the real reason she was on Earth, why she had left her friend behind.

But, this still made it no less of an easy task to fully explain her disappearance. "I only just awoke from stasis a few months ago, when I sensed the increased activity of the Autobots and Decepticons on this world." She added, but a frown showed on her expression. "The only problem is the divine task entrusted to me...I am uncertain if Primus meant the Decepticons were the great evil he spoke of, or if there is something coming, something we have yet to see."

[Chromia]

And there was the answer that had been so long overdue. She'd been waiting, but for what, neither of them knew. It was baffling to say the least, but she couldn't fault Primus for being a little vague about it, not with her authority. Chromia nodded her head along slowly as Windblade explained Primus's grand plan, taking it in piece by piece. Warriors to fight some unknowable evil? One that could threaten the universe? Suffice to say, Chromia was intrigued.

"Decepticons are a threat to us, but we're not the universe." Now where her tone carried cautious compassion, it carried resolve and understanding. "I'm not Primus, but I'd say they're the first step to this great evil."

She felt it again: duty, honor and purpose. She wasn't Primus's chosen warrior like Windblade was, but that didn't mean Chromia wasn't already revving up to help. The past didn't matter anymore; she had a mission. "Well cityspeaker, on the authority vested in me by the Mistress of Flame as your bodyguard, I forbid you to face this threat alone," she ordered, a smile forming on the edge of her lips. No way in hell was she letting her Amica go up against anything alone, not ever again.

[Deleted]

"That was my suspicion as well." Windblade agreed, referring to the Decepticons. From anything she had ever found out, the Decepticons' influence had spread farther than Cybertron, to planets that had once lived peacefully without any harmful or evil intent towards their kind. And many had been ravaged, simply for the thrill of destruction or stripped of their essential resources, especially deposits of energon. Perhaps the Decepticons were the evil Primus meant, but until she could get a clear answer it was only a guessing game.

But feeling the burning conviction within Chromia and seeing her so eager to jump on this mission alongside her as she had many times before, Windblade couldn't help feeling her convictions to continue with this mission assigned to her was indeed worth it after all. Now, it was even more so with her Amica at her side. "I wouldn't have it any other way Chromia." Windblade assured her, a grin forming on her face plates as she stood up, holding out a hand to Chromia with renewed determination and confidence burning in her optics. "This is our mission now."

[Chromia]

Chromia was thankful there wasn't any noble fanaticism that prompted Windblade to reply with some trash along the lines of 'it was her mission, alone'. Nice to see she hadn't lost her good sense in 1,000 years. An eager smile found its way across the Autobot's face as she stood up along side her friend. She gripped her Amica's forearm in a firm embrace. For the first time in quite a long while, a spark burned brightly behind Chromia's optics.

"No other way I'd have it."