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Characters: Moonwing, Starscream Location: The Nemesis - Lower Storage Bay Content Warnings: N/A Plot Summary: A young seeker searches for a place to sing to herself, and discovers the heritage of Vos
There was not much a youngling could do aboard a warship, no matter how many concessions were made and how many little jobs were made up on the spot for her. Oh, most assuredly, Moonwing performed the duties assigned to her with eager dedication and hopefully exceeded all expectations, but the fact of the matter was that the Nemesis was not quite a place for a young bot just coming into her final upgrades, and this left her in a rather unique situation. Usually, she filled her time not spent running messages and performing menial duties with her studies. Just as she performed what tasks were assigned to her with dutiful diligence, so too did she approach the many readings assigned to her with determined gusto, eager to prove her worth and her dedication.
During such a bout of studying, she had encountered a formal history recounting the rise and eventual fall of Vos, the city that many seekers hailed from. Now, Moonwing knew little of Vos, or of Cybertron, or… well, much of anything of the war, and with rapt fascination, she kept reading. One thing lead to another. Her attentions went from the tragic fall of Vos during the war to the rich and detailed ethnographic accounts of the culture, and it was only a short time after that that Moonwing discovered the numerous recordings of what had once been the Vosnian Opera performing at their very peak. As soon as the beautiful words (Vosnian, though she did not know just what those words meant) filtered through to her audial sensors, her mouth fell agape in amazement at such beauty.
It did not take her long to begin humming those songs. She would chitter and trill along to the beat in the privacy of her bunk, and if she thought no superior officers were around, she would trill at her post, too. Whether or not anyone heard was another story, but as far as Moonwing thought, this was a special little secret. These songs were important, she felt it in her spark, and so she set about memorizing as many as she could.
(Her creators were from Vos, not that Moonwing knew this nor would she ever learn this. Perhaps in her spark there existed an instinctual pull to the fallen city, to its beautiful language and its beautiful culture.)
And yet… the singers of the opera always sung in great open spaces, their high voices projected to such great volumes and pitches and amplified by their surroundings. That set Moonwing to thinking - she could not exactly sing to herself in an opera house, but surely there was some large space upon the Nemesis within which she too could sing, and project her (not so high and certainly not so skilled) voice without anyone hearing her. It did not take her long to peruse the ship’s specs and find a suitably large and mostly empty storage bay on the lower levels. It took shorter still for her to sneak away once her latest shift was over, treading as light as she possibly could, wending her way down.
But when she got there… Well.
It was darker than Moonwing had imagined. The unused storage bay was indeed large enough and provided a pleasant echo enough, but the youngling found that maybe she did not want to pretend to be a famous Vosnian opera singer after all, when the shadows cast intimidating shapes, and she felt as though she were being watched. Perhaps she was indeed being watched.
Just as she crept to the center of the room, her courage fast fading, there came the softest of sounds from behind her. It was only the sound of quiet footsteps upon the metal deck, but Moonwing, who had slowly managed to work herself up into a near-tizzy just by imagining just what could be lurking in those shadows, let out a startled screech of terror and dove for the nearest storage container.
NOTES [ replies fifteen years late with a mike's hard ]
To say “Starscream was in a foul mood” would be redundant – Starscream was always in a foul mood. With Megatron existing, every plan they made going awry with the slightest of slip ups (and he always got blamed for it, without exception), and the Vehicons surrounding them on the whole dumber than a pile of scrap metal, the Seeker was wondering how in the Pit it was that he hadn't completely lost his mind yet. Again and again, he found himself homesick, but he pushed it down, swallowed it back and went on with his day-to-day.
In the Decepticons, one couldn't afford any sort of weakness. And rest assured feelings in and of themselves were weakness.
Perhaps in his off time, then, he could be alone. He didn't often go down to the storage levels – he had no real reason to – but he knew right now that the moment he flopped onto his own berth he was going to be accosted by someone needing forms signed or something similar. So the storage levels it was, with a datapad and thermal in hand. He'd find some empty or near to it room and watch old holovids, or listen to music, or something, so long as it was Vosnian, and he'd turn the volume on his commline down so he wouldn't have to hear it unless something truly important was happening.
Of course, he should have known it wasn't going to be that simple.
Starscream heard the sound of scuffling coming from one of the larger storage rooms, and he grumbled to himself, turning his pedes that way to see just who or what was snooping around in there. It was when he was beginning to get close that he heard an audial-splitting SHRIEK, and Starscream's wings flared in surprise and confusion. He immediately dropped into a defensive stance, then sprinted for the bay, flinging the door open and whipping around to find who had screamed, or what had caused the danger. It took him a full minute or so to calm down, and by that point, he'd realized who it was who had made the commotion.
The Seeker let out a huff, wings falling back into their usual midward cant. “Moonwing? Are you in here?”
Moonwing’s poor spark nearly stopped in fright at the sight she saw when she dared peek out from behind her impromptu hiding spot - in the doorway stood a shadowy figure whose features she could not distinguish for the darkness in the room, menacingly framed by the dull backlighting of the hallway. She ducked back down in terror, her spark beating fast. Was this some sort of phantom or wraith that lurked in the lower levels? Perhaps even a spark-eater, here to rip her very essence from her chest? Was this why she had been warned not to come down here alone? The more she thought, the more afraid she became.
Except-
Except the wraithish spark-eater was talking, and it did not sound like a wraithish spark-eater would sound like (not that she actually knew what one did, in fact, sound like). It puzzled poor Moonwing, and so she, with trembling wings, she poked her head out from her hiding spot. To her surprise, she found that the mysterious figure was not a spark-eater or a wraith at all, but a semi-familiar face.
“Commander Starscream?” she squeaked. Her wings perked up slightly in surprise, before promptly drooping. Of all the things she’d thought would happen, being discovered by the second in command of the entirety of the Decepticon Cause. Fear of being murdered by a spark-eater was replaced by a much more realistic fear of being thoroughly scolded, for not only was she not allowed to go wandering the hallways after her curfew, she certainly did not have permission to poke around in abandoned storage bays. As any youth who had been discovered doing something they shouldn’t have been doing, she was understandably dismayed.
She did not know Commander Starscream personally (for she was mostly under the care of Dreadwing, when she was not running errands throughout the ship), but immediately assumed the worst: she was going to be in trouble. “Please d-don’t tell Lord Megatron!” Moonwing babbled. Lord Megatron was obviously someone she feared greatly, beyond the normal healthy amount that would be recommended for a Decepticon soldier… never mind the fact that Lord Megatron likely did not concern himself with the misbehaviour of younglings. “I wasn’t doing anything, I p-promise! I just - I wanted to-” So worked up was she that she tripped over her words.
Starscream had to fight from going soft when the youngling opened her mouth and began to speak. A part of him had always wanted a sparkling – he supposed that was “natural Vosnian tendency”, as mechs from his city were said to be more parental as a rule. Maternal, even, if one wanted to be more specific. Once upon a time, he'd even counted that as one of the only upsides to bonding and courtship. But any hope of that had been smashed when the war proper had become, and he had to remember that. He had to remember that, despite her youth, and despite her relation to the home he missed dearly, this wasn't a bitlet under his care. This was a fellow soldier, first and foremost. A fellow Decepticon.
Moonwing was afraid, he discovered as she spoke, of being told on; and come to think of it, it was much past her curfew, and the mechs aboard this ship were very rigid about schedules unless you were fairly high-ranking yourself. It seemed unlike most younglings in this environment to go against orders – but then, Starscream himself could remember the sort of slag he got up to at her age. Unlike her, however, he never recalled stuttering out apologies to any nannies that caught him skulking where he wasn't wanted. He'd been much more outwardly rebellious than befitted a princeling.
With a huffed, tired sigh, Starscream looked Moonwing in the optics, his wings lowering into a more relaxed, downwards position in an attempt to show her he meant no ill-will. Even a mech with his temper couldn't bring himself to scream at a youngling blabbering like she was.
“Calm down,” he said, voice decidedly softer and quieter than most mechs aboard the Nemesis had heard from him in eons. “Lord Megatron doesn't have to hear about anything, and wouldn't really care if he was told, besides.
“What were you doing down here by yourself?” That was the million-shanix question. Starscream didn't see any cleaning supplies in her hands, and she seemed close to tears just from being discovered, so he doubted it was any duty she'd been assigned. In a moment of self consciousness, the Commander pulled his own thermal and datapad closer to his chassis. “There's nothing important in any of these old rooms, just outdated tech and spare parts. Nothing fun for a youngling to play with. You realize this, yes?”
To a young bot who was normally quite obedient and who feared and respected (but mostly feared) authority, being discovered in a place where she was not meant to be after her curfew was possibly one of the worst things to happen. It was just her luck that the one time she did break the rules and strayed from the guidelines laid out for her, she was almost immediately discovered! Poor Moonwing was well on her way to working herself up into a tizzy thinking about all the ways she would surely be reprimanded for this, up to and including having Lord Megatron’s ire directed towards her.
Before she could wind herself up too much, however, her natural seeker instinct helpfully redirected her focus to Commander Starscream’s overall demeanour. He was not scowling, or standing with his hands on his hips in a disapproving pose, but instead looking more puzzled than anything else. The posture of his wings caught her attention next, and that was the most important bit. Though they were physically oriented at an angle opposite to Moonwing’s own, the intentions they presented as they canted downwards were clear: he meant no harm, and lacked all the prickly tension that she had expected. That, combined with the gentle, soothing tone of his voice and a distinct lack of discussion of punishments, helped to shake the young seeker from her anxious excitement. Her own wings slowly began to relax.
He thought she had come in search of things to play with? What an odd thought! A warborn youngling through and through, she’d not had many opportunities for playing nor had she had any sort of toys. “I know that, sir, it’s just-” How could she explain to a commanding officer that she had come down here in order to warble to herself without anyone else hearing her? Moonwing fidgeted, weighing the pros and cons of telling the truth versus making up a reason for her presence here, before deciding that she’d better not risk it. “... I wasn’t playing. I was trying to find a place to sing. Someplace big, like the opera singers had. They sound so pretty, and- well.”
The young seeker fidgeted even more, one arm nervously clutching at the other, optics cast downward in dejection, as if waiting for him to brush it off as a childish fancy.
MUSIC [ battle against a true hero - undertale soundtrack ]
TAG [ @moonwing ]
NOTES [ gomen,,, ]
A place to sing.
That seemed to hit Starscream like a ton of bricks. His crimson optics regarded her for another long moment, his wings lowering further until they hung from their hinges -- not pinned down, but not held up, either. Slowly, the Seeker turned, taking in the look of the storage bay under a new light. Yes, he concluded; yes, this would, to a youngling, seem the perfect place to reenact the opera, wouldn’t it? The acoustics wouldn’t be perfect, but someone unversed in that sort of thing wouldn’t know that. It was big, and it was open, and it echoed nicely enough. A child’s imagination would fill in the rest.
Primus, it brought back memories. His eldest sibling and her vocal talent, his cyberviolin, his brother’s harp… It did well for royals to seem cultured, especially for potential suitors, so it was music or the visual arts, and they’d all chosen some form of music. Oh, Borealis had loved to sing -- but she was meant to take the throne, and after a while, could no longer fit such hobbies into her schedule. Solarflare had been paired with a senator from Iacon and left the nest, as it were. Starscream had gone to the Academy.
He still kept that violin. Still played it, occasionally, when he had the time, which was not often. But he no longer deluded himself by pretending he was part of an orchestra.
Starscream let out a short, soft sigh, trying his best to give Moonwing a smile as he turned back towards her. This was a youngling, he realized, that had lost her home just as he had -- but unlike him, she had never had the pleasure of knowing it in the first place. Did she even speak her own language? Know her own culture? When she listened to the opera, did she know what they were saying? Had her creators ever instilled in her a sense of heritage, a knowledge of where she was from and what that meant? He wondered if she felt lost, or lonely, or if she took comfort in her own lack of knowing.
He wondered if he could teach her what being Vosnian meant.
“The opera, then?” he murmured, voice gentle as he could make it. Starscream was not one for being warm, not normally, but he couldn’t make himself be prickly right now. “What do you know of the opera, Moonwing?”
Though she had been raised since her sparking to be another loyal soldier for Megatron’s army, there was no denying the child-like innocence of Moonwing seeking out a quiet, out-of-the-way place in order to play pretend. Even with the extensive training she’d undergone to hone her into a warrior befitting of the Decepticon Cause, she was still a youngling, and some things simply could not be purged away with the extensive use of propaganda and combat drills. Such was the life of a child soldier, though unknowingly she had managed to resist the more insidious lessons meant to mold her into obedient cannon fodder, however little that resistance was.
Indeed, Moonwing had never known Vos, having been sparked after Cybertron had gone dark. Her creators had hailed from the renowned city, but they had not been much for teaching her of her own heritage much less the tongue that was her birthright… not that she even knew this, for it never occurred to her that she, as a seeker, might have some claim to citizenship. Truthfully, she did not even remember the one, for he had perished in her infancy, and the only memories she had of the other would forever be tarnished by the violent way he had met his end in the shuttle crash that had brought them both to this little world. Suffice to say, her first-hand experience was lacking.
She watched nervously as he surveyed the storage bay, still worrying about getting in trouble. Moonwing fidgeted as the older seeker finally turned his speculative gaze on her, and was taken completely by surprise at his gentle tone and his gentle question. The young seeker was left wondering if this was a trick question. Her wings gave an anxious twitch. She had not had much interaction with Commander Starscream before, and as such she had little knowledge of what she ought to expect -- or to watch out for.
Poor Moonwing ended up reverting to what she knew best: regurgitating facts about all that she did know, in hopes that it would please him. “There were many opera houses in Vos, but the main theatre was simply known as The House, and it was the most prestigious of all of them. It had thirteen theatres, with the main thirteenth being able to seat over a million patrons. The masters of The House were incredibly wealthy and influential, and held great political sway in the city. Most of the players were citizens of Vos by birth, but some were naturalized.” Certainly it was a mechanical answer, one repeated almost verbatim from the text she’d read and re-read on Vosnian Opera in the past few weeks, and likely not at all what Starscream was looking for.
It really wasn't what he had expected her to say. Starscream was taken aback, in fact, floored by how stiff the description sounded – as if she'd quoted it, verbatim, from an encyclopedia. His wings pinned back; his expression fell. No, then. She didn't know much of her heritage at all. Starscream hesitated, then found a good place to sit, setting down his things on one side of him and patting the spot on his other side, inviting her to sit.
“I could tell you far more than that,” he said, snorting softly. “The important things. How the House's master in my time was named Skyborn, and how his daughter tried and failed, miserably, to court me – she was nice enough, but every date we went on ended in disaster, even when she managed to convince her sire to have the troupe perform one of my favorite operas.
“My family – the Crown – had a private box in every theatre in the city. It was always the best collection of seats in the house; you could see and hear everything as if you were right on stage with them.” Another snort; his optics had brightened considerably, reminiscing like this. He seemed almost younger. “My siblings and I used to squabble over who would get the best ones at the edge of the balcony, though, the ones on either side of our carrier and sire. We'd always be doing things in order to earn one or the other's favor for the next family trip. My carrier knew what we were doing, but my sire, sweet thing she was... I don't think she ever caught on.”
The Seeker licked his lip plates. “The shows were, almost without fail, romances. Vos was obsessed with the idea of the romantic, the idea of sparkbonding, the idea of love. And, oh Primus, the favored type was that of forbidden or doomed love. Senators with their servants, the story of Megatronus and Solus Prime – I remember one show in particular, where a noblemech was meant to be bound to a senator to help his family's political ties, but he was really in love with a miner he had met, who in turn was enamored with the senator's maidbot.” Starscream rolled his optics. “Now, the idea of it seems absurd, but it was wildly popular back then. And, admittedly... It was one of my favorites. The songs still hold up.”
Something clicked in Starscream, and for a moment, he felt something that was almost akin to hope. He glanced up at Moonwing, wings lifting just-so. “Do you know Vosnian? I... Did your creators ever teach you your language?”
As soon as his wings flicked backward and his expression fell, she knew that she had made some error. The young seeker shrunk a bit (which in itself was a rather funny-looking action, considering she was larger than him) horrified to realize that she had not pleased him with her eidetic recollection of facts. Had she been incorrect? Was this not what he had wanted for her? She silently fretted over it, wondering if she’d committed some mistake.
Just as Moonwing was preparing for some sort of reprimand or scolding, however, Starscream took her completely by surprise: he took a seat on one of the nearby storage containers. He continued to bewilder her by then inviting her to take a seat, too, and, with a confused little twitch of her own wings, she obediently sat. So unused to such behaviour, she certainly did not expect him to then tell her a story.
And what a story it was! Confusion turned to delight. Moonwing sat in awe at his words, completely enraptured by the important little details that no text or documentary might ever be able to share with her of Vos, and of the opera. Gradually, the tension in her plating faded away, and the anxiety hovering within her EM field was replaced with unbridled curiosity. She had had little clue that the Commander was a member of the Crown of Vos, and tried to imagine what it must have been like to attend an opera in person. The concepts of romance and doomed love and sparkbonds were something novel and exciting to her, and the only hints that the operas she’d been lucky enough to find copies of had contained such themes had been from the exaggerated body language of the characters.
She was so engrossed in what he was saying that she almost missed her question completely. “I- No, sir. I never really knew my carrier, because he got killed after I’d been kindled, and my sire taught me… other things.” Like how to hold a blaster, how to pilot their dingy little shuttle, and how to do very basic first aid. Her destiny had been to become a soldier, after all, and thus it hadn’t much mattered when she learned such lessons. “And… well, I wasn’t born in Vos, so I guess it isn’t really my language. I never thought I had any claim to… anything, really.”
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