Symbols and Signs

[sword_redemption]

who: Drift and anyone who wants to?
what: Drift doesn't really do grief
when: After departing for the badlands again
where: the Arena
warnings: none



Megatron had always been one for symbols. He'd always understood that language was one weapon, but that symbols, physical and tangible, were another, one that spoke at a deeper register than mere words.

Mere words. What had Megatron done with 'mere words'.

Drift shakes his head, standing in the churned up ground of the Arena. He didn't know what he'd thought he'd find here. He didn't know what he'd thought he'd find out in the Badlands, either. Closure, peace, something.

All he'd found was bits of metal, stains of energon, and char.

The site where he'd been killed had been easy enough to find: he remembered their basic departure vector, and driven on, his tires finding the path with a haunting ease, until he'd come to the end: the ground torn up, bits of it blackened and blasted. This is where he'd died. This is where...it ended.

He didn't know--he couldn't remember--who had done it. Rodimus? Ultra Magnus? Each of them unbelievable, for different reasons. Rodimus was his friend--he'd thought. Ultra Magnus didn't kill. All he knew is he'd died here. Rodimus had died here.

Everything had died here.

He'd found what he'd thought he was looking for: a tiny scrap of metal, chromium gold. But it said nothing to him, felt only like metal and nothing more.

So he'd come here, next, where Megatron had died. It made sense: he'd died where it had all, in a sense, started--in an Arena, fighting for his life, his honor.

He found another scrap of metal, the matte titanium he remembered from all those ages ago, when Megatron had singled him out, picked him out of a crowd and given him a focus and a name and a destiny.

Two scraps of metal, one in each hand, leaders he'd followed, perhaps blindly.

It wasn't just a myth, that Decepticons, at least in the beginning, when they were recruited, not created, had their insignia formed from part of their spark casing. He remembered that, all too well. You forgot pain, but you never forgot that you felt it: he remembered that he'd sworn he wouldn't cry out, he wouldn't show pain.

He had. He'd screamed, fighting against the restraints, his body convulsed with white-hot agony as the small panel had been excised from his spark chamber's casing. And then he'd told himself that it was the end, the bleeding off of final weakness. That Drift had screamed, writhed, but that Drift had died there, and Deadlock had been born.

He'd thought at least Ambulon would have understood what he'd meant to do: an honor, a symbol, keeping part of Rodimus's armor, making it part of himself. Symbolism, probably childish. 'Till all are one' a little too literally. But no one understood and he had to wonder why he was the one out of phase.

This hurt, but in a different way, a pain that seemed to tear and gnaw, worse than the random flashes of fire and pain he had when he tried to recharge. And he had no idea who he was becoming, this time.

Comments

[notyourblueangel]

((ooc: Also, IIRC this went up /before/ TFP Megs' post, so I'm going from "there's no positive polarity Megs present at the moment". And Yes, TC's having a /hell/ of a time of it now, after this, now that there /is/ one. And he's a /Marked/. XD;;;))



Pit, that had been harder than he thought. Meeting Megatron again. Not his Megatron, not strictly. But close. Close enough. He still remembered how his spark had guttered a little, stalling and constricting, when he'd rounded that corner only to walk into the powerful overlord. Literally. He was probably lucky the cruel mech hadn't grabbed and twisted a wing for making drop the things he'd been carrying.

Lord Megatron. Here. Not the one he'd chosen to swear himself to recently, but the one he'd sworn himself to eons ago. And regretted far too many times since.

The mech was dead now. Like all the Glyphless. He should be upset. He should be. Supposedly. But all he could feel was . . . relief.

Megatron had died in combat - as was right - at the Arena. As was also right. Thundercracker wanted to see for himself the place the mech had fallen.

He hadn't expected to find anyone else there. Let alone the one who was. Thundercracker has never really met Drift yet, though he knows of the mech, from the network and from Wing. He's glad to see the mech on his feet, his last view (not counting that recent vid) being of the twisted corpse in Wing's arms.

"Drift."

He's not loud, unwilling to break the mech from contemplations if he's too deep in them.

[sword_redemption]

Drift straightens, frowning.

"Thundercracker," he says, stiffly. He'd tried to reach out to Thundercracker in his world and been rebuffed. He tilts his head to the entrance. "Just leaving." He doesn't belong here.

[notyourblueangel]

There was a time – not that long ago at all, even – that this Thundercracker might have . . . probably would have . . . done the same. Now? He's not the same mech. Now, he'd listen, at the least. As it is, the thought of going Neutral has begun to creep into his processor.

He sees the effect of his presence on the other, though. He's not wanted. For whatever reason. Not that there needs to be one. The mech's an Autobot, he's a Decepticon (Thundercracker doesn't know Drift's history) – there doesn't need to be more reason than that. He holds up a hand, his tone neutral. "I'm the one intruding." He turns to leave, then pauses to look over one wing.

"It's good to see you back on your feet, Drift." It's good to see him alive again.

[sword_redemption]

Drift shrugs. "No, you're not. I don't belong here. I don't know what I was looking for."

[notyourblueangel]

Thundercracker turns, a small, wry grin twitching the corner of his mouth at the belonging comment. "Neither do I." He shrugs. "Closure?" It's what he'd come looking for. "Did you know Megatron? This Megatron?" He gestures at the ground where the great mech died.

[sword_redemption]

"Closure." It's said almost like it's something he's trying to find funny. "Hard to get closure when the past keeps coming back to life." Wing. Megatron. Who next?

"Yes. I knew him. As much as anyone did."

[megatronicpolarity]

The arena had probably seen more fighting over the last few days than it had seen over the previous several years. Prior to the arrival of the most recent wave of Refugees, the only people who'd made regular use of it were Megatronus Prime, Prima, and occasionally another unlucky brother who'd somehow stumbled into owing Megatronus a favour.

In light of that, it was perhaps only fitting that the one to make the most use of it recently was one of his namesakes.

He wasn't sure who the current occupant was. As he approached the shorter mech, heavy footfalls kicking up metal scrap and dust, he recognized the Glyph he bore as Vector's. The mech himself was still unfamiliar, however.

"If you came for a fight, I'd say you're somewhat late," he said.

[sword_redemption]

Symbolism probably always looks stupid when seen from the outside. Drift's hands close around the bits of metal, rising from where he'd knelt as the footsteps approached.

Larger mechs didn't faze him: Turmoil used to dwarf him. Still there was something he felt compelled to respect in the mech.

"I'm too late for...a lot of things."

[a_father_to_his_men]

'A moth to the flame' was a curious human expression, one he had learned over the transmissions they had seen back on his cybertron, and seeing in action over them. Maybe that was what had brought the leader out to this place. He had avoided it when it was being used, but now his wish to understand another Megatron go the better of him.

He hadn't expected to find someone else there, and so was a bit surprised and almost nervous when he did. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb anything..." He stood near the edge of the arena itself, looking quite hesitant.

[sword_redemption]

Drift palms the silver piece of metal, looking up, his other hand resting on the Great Sword's jeweled hilt where he's kneeling.

"Didn't disturb anything," he says, quietly. "Probably shouldn't even be here, myself."

[a_father_to_his_men]

Megatron offers a smile, not seeming to take any notice of the piece of metal or the hand on the sword.

"Did you know him?" He wishes he could ask about the mech, but he doesn't want to open any wounds if there was a close relationship between them. Still it seemed like maybe a subtle offer to listen would do some good.

[sword_redemption]

"Megatron?" A wry smile. "Yeah. I knew him. He knew me, too." He frowned. "I think he knew me better than I knew myself."

[a_father_to_his_men]

He looks about the arena, just taking in all the bits and pieces he can. "Would it be too much to ask you what he was like?" He tilted his head and gave the swordmech an interested expression, though he did not move closer or act as if it was a need.

[sword_redemption]

"'Was' is the issue. You met him, while he was here? He was like that. But later." Drift shrugs. "I don't know if he changed, or we did, or we just all let ourselves be swept away by the ability to have power. But things--something--changed."

[a_father_to_his_men]

"I did get the opportunity to meet him, but I did not get the chance to understand much about him. I believe he kept himself well controlled around me out of worry that I would rescind my assistance if there was something I would openly disagree with him about."

He lets out a heavy ventilation.

"The world that shaped me, and the world that shaped you and him, they are similar, yet so vary different. Not just in polarity but in fractions of possibilities and paths. Those differences small as they my seem at first, inexorably produce vast changes in us. I do not want to judge anything, but I wish to understand what factors shaped him the way they did, so that I might understand my own self better."

[sword_redemption]

"I'm not sure anyone understood him, even himself." Drift unconsciously flipped the piece of silver metal between his fingers. "He's not afraid to be disagreed with, though." More like the opposite.

"More than that," Drift says. "I go back, and think about it, and I wonder what went wrong, or if it was all wrong from the start, what we wanted. Where we went astray."

[a_father_to_his_men]

"Perhaps it was more that I was afraid to voice my opinions for them to be disagreed with, instead."

He looks down at Drift, contemplating the words. "In my world the war became because one mech wanted change in a stagnant society. He was not wrong, it was change that we needed. But my disagreement rose from the methods he used, fear and violence, to encourage support. Those who didn't join him were punished, often killed, including the university I worked at."

"I can not judge him though, perhaps to him the only method to create that change was through violence. I disagree, but that doesn't make either of us wrong. A war that is fought because both sides want thing done or dealt with differently, especially when they see that the outcome should be the same in the long run, is a very difficult one to judge right from wrong. At least, in my opinion."

[sword_redemption]

"The few who did speak up in my world got erased." It was hard to make change when the instigators disappeared and then returned denouncing their former opinions.

"Your world sounds like mine, in a way. Our society was corrupt: mechs like me starved and suffered and no one cared. Megatron was the one to finally get them to listen. And they tried to stop him, too, but they failed." He shakes his head. "It's still hard to see where we went wrong. Because I still believe in our cause." Things he doesn't often admit: it's a sign how rattled he is that he's saying anything.

[a_father_to_his_men]

That society, it didn't sound all to different from is own in some ways. "Can the cause be right but the actions taken to make it a reality be wrong? And more importantly what makes an effort wrong versus right? Where do we draw the line?"

"For me I hold to my morals as a way to tell if something is right or wrong, but I am also just one person, who am I to say that my morals must apply to everyone?"

[sword_redemption]

"We couldn't find any other way to make them listen." He shakes his head. He's not sure, now. It was the only thing that had seemed to work, but he'd been so low in the gutters could he say they'd tried anything else? "That's the trouble. We were trying to fix a broken system. But we made it worse. Somewhere we crossed that line and," he shakes his head. "I don't know where."

"I wish I had faith in my own morals. I've...chosen wrong."

[a_father_to_his_men]

"Who wouldn't listen without it?" He didn't know if it was his place but he wanted badly to help Drift find his answers, after all that was the part he preferred to have even back home. "Would anything have changed if you hadn't done anything?"

"Have you learned from those choices? Often times we make mistakes, but so long as we are willing to learn from them we can succeed where we failed before."

[sword_redemption]

"Anyone. The Senate. The Security Forces. We were all just 'wasted sparks' no one would miss." And they got treated that way, frequently. "Even those with jobs, like miners. They lost their jobs when the Senate found a cheaper way." Everyone knew that as Megatron's story.

"I've learned that I was wrong, but, well, I want to know that I've learned the right things."

[a_father_to_his_men]

"Were they the only ones you fought against?" He wanted to be sure he understood how the war came into being in Drift's world.

"What makes you doubt the things you have learned?"

[sword_redemption]

"Me?" A sort of awkward shrug. "I fought against everyone. Even myself. I was angry back then, and when you're angry, well, everything is your enemy."

He frowns. "I doubt because I've made mistakes before, and not realized it until too late."

[a_father_to_his_men]

He nods, not really knowing what to say about it, since it was the truth.

"Do you have anyone you can go to and ask for their opinion about things you do?"

[sword_redemption]

"I do. Or. I thought I did. But, well, I trusted Megatron, before. And who's to say that the one I've chosen this time isn't also a poor choice?"

He worries about this, especially because it's Wing, who died for him.

[a_father_to_his_men]

"Do you find yourself unsure or disagreeing with the person you have now, or even feeling that there is something wrong about it somewhere?"

Everyone has intuition and Megatron is certain that if they listen to it, it will guide them right.