A little tidbit from the same Primus AU as Dress Your Idol
The litter stops at the base of the forum, in the grand courtyard with its glittering ultramarine mosaic, and the curtained box sways as the posts are set down on the pavement. No one is allowed to carry Primus in their alt, and Primus himself has a stationary alt, so the Litter is the usual way of getting the body of God to and from a ceremony outside of the high temple. A pair of flumen grab the curtains and part them—a ray of Haydeen’s weak light pierces into the box, and diamond bright reflections spill out, dazzling the eyes of the attendants.
Rodimus, with his accoutrement mostly in order, leans forward and offers his hand through the curtains. A delicate copper hand takes his. Gently, the Prime pulls Primus up and out of the litter, onto the runner board, and then sweeps him up into his arms like a sparkling.
The crowd, several hundred feet back and down below the raised edge of the courtyard, cheer wildly. This is the only time most of them will ever see Primus in person. No one tries to climb the edge. Jazz lets out a little sigh of relief. Nothing worse than crowd control in an open space. It’s super bad mojo to fire a weapon in the presence of Primus, so if anybody comes over the edge there, it’s gonna be a nightmare getting them down and pinned and cuffed before the crowd turns into a total riot. If it was up to Jazz they’d close the whole forum down to get this done, but the Pontifex is real clear that spectacle is the whole point, so what does he know. He’s just the guy in charge of keeping God alive for another year.
“Ya got it there, Roddy?” he says, in an undertone, as Rodimus sweeps down the pavement and towards him. He falls into step just behind.
“No problem,” the Prime says, cheerfully. “I’ve got hydraulics for days. Rung might as well be a bag of leaf springs.”
“Normally there is a carpet,” Primus commented, in a voice not far from a whisper. Jazz raised an eyebrow at it—he rarely heard Primus speak. The last time he’d heard it, aside from the odd quiet Pardon me, officer, had probably been Nyon after they recaptured their wayward ward.
That had been a nightmare. Jazz loved a good party, especially a Nyon party, but that headache had put him off for a good long while. An hour of shaking down an entire drunken populace looking for one petite mech in a cloud of confetti, sparklers, and screaming sparklings. And when they finally tracked him down, all he’d said was, “Gentlemechs. I don’t suppose you could simply fail to report this to your supervisor a moment more?”
Can’t do it, Jazz had said, Sorry, your Worship. Pontifex’s about to blow a gasket.
“Carpet shmarpet,” Rodimus said, taking the steps up to the forum easily. “I wanna hold my conjunx, I’m gonna hold my conjunx. You look so pretty, I dunno if I’m gonna put you down ever.”
Primus let out a little laugh, flushed but pleased, and Jazz fell back another step behind them in sheer wonderment. He hadn’t even known Primus could laugh.
That day in Nyon, after Jazz’d told him no, all the little guy had said was, “Yes. I see.” And Jazz might be a professional, but he wasn’t sparkless. He’d taken a good long look at his god, clutching a string of cheap parade beads to his chest like a priceless rosary, and he’d said, Alright, look, let’s take the long way back around. You seen the big dance stage they got a block over? I was meaning to get a look at the show myself.
And then they’d stood, at the back of the crowd, in the alcove of a doorway, watching the dancers interlock and spin and transform into a phantasm of glittering shapes until the pinging of the Pontifex grew too persistent to ignore. Primus, wrapped in his sheer white scarf, clutching his beads still; Jazz, a protective arm around his shoulder, well aware that getting caught like this by any of the priests would end with having his t-cog stripped out of his frame and burned.
His own little blasphemy. Hell, if god cared, he woulda said something then. And if god didn’t care, then why should Jazz?
He watched the two of them ascend the stairs, just a step or two behind. Something was different lately, make no mistake, and it wasn’t just the young new Prime.
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