To be or not to be... [Narrative / Open]

[notyourblueangel]

WHO: Thundercracker and whoever encounters him
WHERE: Lakeside by Alpha Trion's temple (hey, brooding by the lake worked for Ventus *shot*)
WHEN: Um....before Prism's post, actually, otherwise TC'd be occupied with that - so...yesterday?  Or early this morning...
WHAT: Worrying his aft off Contemplations
WARNINGS: TC brooding? Otherwise, none really, unless someone else brings something.  Also TOTES NOT STEALING AN IDEA.  OTL  S-sorry?  I got the idea for the narrative itself, the thoughts, without knowing where to put it.  I was going to have him just idly flying, but then the idea of stones dropping into the water just...wouldn't leave me alone...



Thundercracker stared over the perfectly still water, trying to will his spark to be just as calm.

He was failing miserably.

Pit, that had been harder than he thought. Meeting Megatron again. The first one (well, second, but he had a hard time counting the negative-polarity mech, all things considered). 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 him drop the things he'd been carrying.

That mech was gone now, having been a Glyphless. But now another had appeared . . .

Lord Megatron. Here. Not the one he'd chosen to swear himself to recently (and how well was that going to go over!?), but a mech more like the one he'd sworn himself to eons ago. And regretted far too many times since.

Thundercracker was a Decepticon. In terms of the values and goals of his faction - at least the ones they used to have - he still carried the brands on his wings willingly. But in terms of the turns they'd taken somewhere along the way, in terms of the character and cruelty of the mech they followed, he-

One day, maybe. One day he might find the courage the audacity finally decide to go ahead and clean the marks from his wings and declare himself a Neutral.

The war didn't exist here. The reasons for the war didn't exist here. There were Decepticons, but there was no single, unified force, the mechs merely left to their own devices. There were Autobots, but they seemed just as widespread and only nominally "associated" - as friends, as comrades, but not as a cohesive "faction". There was an Optimus Prime here. Somewhere. Thundercracker had yet to lay optics on him, or really to hear much of him at all.

There was no reason for Thundercracker to remain a Decepticon. Not really, not if he didn't want to. He'd only remained as long as he had before to stay with his trine.  And because it gave him purpose, for better or worse.  And because . . . because he was afraid of Megatron, afraid that he'd not live to leave the faction if he tried. Or worse, that he would live . . .

His trine wasn't here. An alternate of his trine leader was, but . . . it wasn't the same, as desperately as he wanted it to be. And Megatron wasn't - hadn't been - here. Thundercracker had started to let himself believe that maybe, finally, he could be free again. He'd started letting himself be his own mech for the first time in millennia. He'd done what he wanted, when he wanted. He'd made a few friends, including organics and even an Autobot or two. He played at being a bouncer at a bar - how long had it been since there'd even been a bar anywhere to bounce at?  He'd just joined the police force as an enforcer. He was living a life that was his own again.

And then Megatron had showed up. A Glyphless Megatron, granted - one who was gone now - but it had been a jarring wake-up call. That another Megatron could show up, one who was a Marked . . . and then what would he do?

And now one has. Still not "his" . . . but . . .

Thundercracker growled at himself - for his doubts, his indecision, his weakness, his fear.  He stooped, picking up a stone from the ground.  He turned it over in his fingers - it's the size of a small boulder to a human - then tossed it out far over the water.  It didn't bounce at all like he saw Ventus's stones do.  Instead, it just broke the surface with a soft plop and sank into the murky depths, quickly and with little hope of recovery.

The Seeker couldn't help thinking it was a metaphor. 

Or an omen.

Comments

Oh TC honey. /is pinged by brooding Decepticons

[winged_knight]

Wing still maintained the habit of his early morning 'jog' around Haven, and though the introduction of intimacy with Drift had left mornings more occupied than before, (sometimes lazily and sometimes not), this was one day that his circuit around Haven hadn't been delayed. Regret at his parting words to Drift in their last communication still hung over him, and he was caught in his own cycle of brooding thoughts as he passed near the lake.

The jet is too pensive to play at the surface of the water the way he usually does, and in truth he almost misses the seeker standing on the shore. But his sensor array is more diligent than his casual perception, and the presence of a friend is identified on his HUD. He debates a moment, thinking it better to keep to himself in his moment of meloncholy, but in truth this kind of brooding can do no good, not until Drift returns and he can clear the air.

So he tips a wing and moves in a spiral that gets ever tighter, terminating on the small rise behind blue seeker. He nods then in greeting, stirring up a genuine smile. "Thundercracker. I'm not...intruding am I?"

[a_father_to_his_men]

Megatron had been contemplating Megatrons himself, thinking of the Glyphless one he had met and conversed with. True to his counterparts words he wasn't overly fond of the mech in his memories, but it had been a learning process, to meet that mech and to speak with him.

Out of pure habit, from flying back home, he quickly noticed the flyer standing beside the lake and recognized who he was. He saw the weighing of the rock before it was tossed, the action bringing him to think that perhaps the blue flyer had a lot on his mind.

He considered continuing on his own flight and leaving him to think in peace but he had people to rock him out of his thoughts when he got too deep, even here he had Soundwave, and he wasn't sure Thundercracker had that. His decision made he angled to pass across the lake, in front of the flyer's field of vision so he would know that it was a friend touching down, and he chose to land a short way down the edge of the lake from him.

He transformed smoothly and took a step to cushion the momentum of transforming while landing. "Thundercracker, how are you today?"