something beautiful is going to happen.

MAYBE ONE DAY, YOU WILL FEEL THE SUNLIGHT ON YOUR FACE AND YOU WILL REALISE EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY.

[sentinelspecies]

Like the last rays of the evening sun gently kissing the day goodbye, before giving way to unfathomable darkness.

☼ Semi-active original character roleplay blog.

-> mutuals-only. drop a follow if interested. DMs and inbox always open. -> penned by dáithí. -> rules -> about -> I also write Tarantulas over on @trogoautoegocrat + Overlord over on @hylicabhorrence

[sentinelspecies]

"It's alright. I will be okay."

Nitelight does as he's told, dutifully following the two smaller drones off through the dense bustle of the crowd. There was much happening here - a hive of symbiotes; a swarm of movement-hungry metal. Initially, in his mind, he was following Hadal, but he was unsure if this notion was correct. Were the drones Hadal? Hadal controlled them, that much he was certain of, but did controlling something inherently make them you? If that was the case, the majority of Cybertronian history would have to employ a lot more faux-nuance. Regardless, ruminating over such things now felt somewhat arbitrary. Arbitrary, and potentially harmful. He erased the sentiment from his mind. Best not to dwell on it. Hadal (or, Hadal's drone) was speaking to him. "My quarters will be fine as they are. There's no need to worry about it-" Nitelight has to duck and swerve for a moment to avoid a much taller mech that had just carelessly stepped out in front of him.

A quiet apology, and he continues. "-and.. thank you, again, Hadal." ------☼------

[hekatonite]

Hadal isn't entirely sure what to make of his new passenger. The Cybertronian is quieter, more withdrawn, than he was expecting; and he cannot place whether or not that is a positive. It's clear that something is weighing on his mind, and the dreadnought knows he will not be able to relax until he identifies that unspoken burden. HKE-7 watches Nitelight closely as they weave through the crowd of midday commuters, cautious so to not be trampled underfoot by an oblivious heavyweight.

—the shuttle is blessedly quiet, after the overwhelming crush of the station. The drones activate their magnetic soles with the barely perceptible hum of their sub-systems cycling online, anchoring themselves to the floor as the shuttle lurches into action. It's an old, creaky thing, and Hadal feels some sympathy for the inanimate vessel as it claws free of Cybertron's wispy atmosphere and into the void of space.

The thank you comes as a surprise (not entirely unwelcome), and it's a few moments before Hadal responds with sombre gravity. "You're very welcome, Nitelight." One of the drones folds its hands in a show of contemplation, its mechanical eye refocusing with a series of audible clicks, while the other gazes through a viewport.

"If you are running from something dangerous, I would appreciate it if you informed me." It's a warning made gentle by the softening of his synthetic tones, but a warning nonetheless. "You would not be the first to use me as a method of escape. I cannot help you—or keep myself safe, should it come to that—if I'm left in the dark."

Both drones look at Nitelight, now. Beyond the rattling hull of the shuttle, the massive shadow of the Hekatonite dreadnought drapes across them like a funeral shroud, blotting out the stars and plunging the cabin into artificial night. "I cannot disobey my programming that dictates I must assist my passengers," Hadal says quietly. Programming doesn't feel like the right term; it feels like more of an instinct, something beyond the trappings of mere code. "It would sadden me if you took advantage of that."

[sentinelspecies]

The quiet of the shuttle is somewhat disconcerting; the bustling hive of strangers at the station had been a comforting backdrop, the deafening muddle of footsteps and conversations he couldn't even begin to parse reminding him of days long distant.

Nitelight's equilibrium is better suited to balancing on precarious edges rather than adjusting to unsteady ground, and he finds himself having to somewhat lean against one of the shuttle's walls as a precaution.

Quietly, he turns his gaze upon Hadal (Hadal's drones?). He tries his best not to look outside.

"I would not put you into danger, Hadal," He begins, the corners of his eyes creasing. It's a sympathetic expression, perhaps made a little less obvious by his faceplate.

A low hum permeates the back of his words; the gentle buzzing produced alongside anything that leaves his vocoder. Soft; an instinctive lulling.

"I am running, but not from danger."

Nitelight pauses.

"Perhaps running is not a good word for it. I'm... wandering. Drifting away, rather than running."

His mismatched gaze falls away to the floor. He understands the dreadnought's worry – he's felt it himself, buried deep within encoded instinct that he wouldn't even know how to begin removing. He's not sure he'd want to remove it, and he can't be sure that that itself isn't a precaution against tampering with anything. Paradoxical sympathy.

Nitelight lifts his gaze back up to the drones.

"I won't take advantage of anything. I promise. If it came down to it, I would help you just as much as you would me."

------☼------

[sentinelspecies]

I sure hope that orange canary guy has not run to space. That wouldn't be too great.

That would be really, really bad. He would've had to arrange for someone else to deal with your meltdowns in his absence.

[sentinelspecies]

The skies that hung overhead were long and wild and never-ending, stretched hollow over a blanket of warm stars that hung weightless; pulsing like something strange and eviscerate, looping notions of light in a vast black ocean that contained within it nothing but the most unseemly of deep-sea life. Vessels existed there, whale-falls embracing the endlessness, moving through time chock-full of unmarried experiences and disconnected realities; waves and waves of both nothing and everything. Nitelight had never particularly enjoyed being in space. He wasn't quite sure if it was a lingering fear of vast, pitch stretches of nothing - he'd known those since the beginning, and he actually found them to be quite reassuring once there was the stability of ground pressing into his back. Maybe he was frightened of the uncertainty of it all. Existentialism flourished in the pulsing bloodbeat of the stars, and no beast nor mech nor limbic kin to that reverential light could prove themselves an outlier to that strange phenomena - a dance orchestrated by no one being alone, a universal reduction to bone and muscle and steel, and further still to atoms, and to the electrons that too danced in arcing, pulsing spheres around the most miniscule fractions of hylics. Beauty unrestrained, flourishing and unyielding in its apathy. Nothing was the fault of no one. It terrified him. Still, life existed elsewhere. Stupidly, it spurred him onwards. Mismatched eyes flickered downwards at the mention of his designation, blinking softly as he focused on the... admittedly quite small drones. He did his best to force the fact from his mind; truth held to it or not, it felt astonishingly rude. "It's okay," Comes his initial response, vocalisations dampened with a constant soft, fuzzy static that seemed to stain every sound that left him. A gentle murmuration, somewhat blurring his already quiet syllables.

Nitelight slips down from his perch, landing with a clear clunk of metal. His next response is punctuated by the slight cant of his head. "I'm still interested. We are... leaving now, yes?"

------☼------

[hekatonite]

"Within the next solar phase, correct." The hopefully goes unsaid, echoed in the slight tilt of their heads as the drones glance sidelong at each other. As always, Hadal is bound to the whims of the system authorities; he cannot leave until he's successfully jumped through whatever hoops they deem necessary. "If you'll follow my drones, we can work on getting you situated."

"I've arranged your personal quarters to the specifications outlined in your contract." The greatest expense had been purchasing a halfway decent energon refinery; he couldn't have his passenger starve (or whatever it is Cybertronians do when they run out of fuel) during the voyage. He's never lost a passenger, and he doesn't intend wilful ignorance to be the cause of the first.

"As I mentioned before, this is my first time working with a Cybertronian. Doubtless there will be changes you wish to make to your quarters; you only have to say what, and I will make it happen." The drones move in perfect synchrony; only their heads move at odd angles from each other, swivelling back and forth as they analyze their surroundings. He'll have to return to Cybertron, someday, when he's amassed enough wealth for a comfortable retirement. What better place to situate himself semi-permanently than the homeworld of a mechanical race known for their vehicular changeforms?

"You may call me Hadal," he switches to speak through HKE-4 alone, the introduction tacked on as an afterthought. Nitelight already knows his name, but as this is the first instance they've spoken face-to-face, he feels a certain obligation. "There is no need to refer to me as captain, unless you'd prefer to observe such formalities. Aside from myself, I'm afraid it'll be just you aboard. Are you sure you'll be comfortable with the isolation? Your contract says you're planning on an indefinite journey."

[sentinelspecies]

"It's alright. I will be okay."

Nitelight does as he's told, dutifully following the two smaller drones off through the dense bustle of the crowd. There was much happening here - a hive of symbiotes; a swarm of movement-hungry metal. Initially, in his mind, he was following Hadal, but he was unsure if this notion was correct. Were the drones Hadal? Hadal controlled them, that much he was certain of, but did controlling something inherently make them you? If that was the case, the majority of Cybertronian history would have to employ a lot more faux-nuance. Regardless, ruminating over such things now felt somewhat arbitrary. Arbitrary, and potentially harmful. He erased the sentiment from his mind. Best not to dwell on it. Hadal (or, Hadal's drone) was speaking to him. "My quarters will be fine as they are. There's no need to worry about it-" Nitelight has to duck and swerve for a moment to avoid a much taller mech that had just carelessly stepped out in front of him.

A quiet apology, and he continues. "-and.. thank you, again, Hadal." ------☼------

[hekatonite]

He'd never really had much of an urge to leave before. Granted, this time around it was for a relatively innocent reason - an urge to know somewhere else, driven solely by pure scientific curiosity. He'd been elsewhere before, yes, but he hasn't exhausted his mind of anywhere other than Cybertron for millenia. Tired of not being tired, if that was something he was capable of. It probably was; his hands were meant for endless work, and during the war that was something far more easily achieved. Peace had its endless benefits, and he would not be so shortsighted as to deny them, but he was idle. Restless. The knowledge of it bored into his very being, settling heavy in the tail-ends of his psyche, dragging around alongside him until he was certain that he might go a little stir-crazy from the added weight of it. He'd go off somewhere else and burn himself out, and then he could come home and be normal about his workload for another little while. Running off to Primus-knows-where was a bit of a drastic move, but as much as he'd like to pretend otherwise, he'd never really been good at responsible decisions. A lot of his memories could be classed as gross mistakes. His choice of transport could prove to be another one, but he'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt. That doubt being why Nitelight was now waiting where he was told to be waiting, quietly swinging his legs off of the edge of a raised platform that wasn't really a seat, but he'd placed himself there regardless. It'd be fine - nobody had told him to get down yet.

Cybertron gleams like a jewel in the light of her distant star; a magnificent sight, even with the millennia of war that has left her surface scarred. It takes three days for the system authorities to approve Hadal's credentials and allow him access to the trade frequencies. Three days in which he stares at that vibrant ball of metal and wonders how many living there struggle to swallow the too-sweet taste of peace. Three days in which he muses on the fact that, across the boundless cosmos and the countless species that inhabit it, war is altogether the same.

On the fourth day, he opens his comms to the usual flurry of activity. Most contacts are simple enough; traders eager to discuss his inventory (warily accepted), unsavory types wishing to wield the firepower of a Hekatonite dreadnought for themselves (these he ignores), even a few requests from scientists to board and study his systems in detail (these he declines, as politely as he can). Only one stands out to him as unusual: an open contract from one of the natives who simply wants to be anywhere else.

Hadal accepts, even if it's ultimately against his better judgement. It's been several months since he last accepted passengers; and that contract had been one of the shortest he's entertained, less than a year's passage across the Perseus Arm. Hardly enough time to build a lasting rapport with the group of excitable tourists to which he had been both home and guide. There's trepidation, of sorts, as he notifies the wannabe runaway that he is willing to listen to their terms.

—he's never ferried a Cybertronian before. He's heard the rumors, of course; the horror stories of technoism and other assorted atrocities that trouble even him, desensitized as he is. He can only pray he's negotiating with one of the less questionable members of their race. A pacifistic Autobot or even a polite neutral would be acceptable; a Decepticon warmonger less so.

He mentally prepares for the worst, then shunts his attention towards the traders. His cargo of naquadah proves to be especially popular in this sector (a fact memorized for future opportunities), and the returns are surprisingly lucrative for a civilization so recently impoverished by war. Hadal lingers in Cybertron's orbit for the better part of a month, bartering a variety of new cargo, before the time inevitably comes to move on.

—an invitation to a pre-determined rendezvous is sent, belatedly. He lets his system diagnostics cycle in the background of his vast intelligence as he dispatches HKE-4 and HKE-7 to the planet's surface to meet with his prospective passenger. As small as they are in comparison to the native populace, his drones have little trouble navigating the bustling spaceport.

"Nitelight?" HKE-4 and HKE-7 stand shoulder-to-shoulder in mirrored stances, their hands folded politely. "I am ready to depart; I apologize for the delay. I trust you are still interested?"

[sentinelspecies]

The skies that hung overhead were long and wild and never-ending, stretched hollow over a blanket of warm stars that hung weightless; pulsing like something strange and eviscerate, looping notions of light in a vast black ocean that contained within it nothing but the most unseemly of deep-sea life. Vessels existed there, whale-falls embracing the endlessness, moving through time chock-full of unmarried experiences and disconnected realities; waves and waves of both nothing and everything. Nitelight had never particularly enjoyed being in space. He wasn't quite sure if it was a lingering fear of vast, pitch stretches of nothing - he'd known those since the beginning, and he actually found them to be quite reassuring once there was the stability of ground pressing into his back. Maybe he was frightened of the uncertainty of it all. Existentialism flourished in the pulsing bloodbeat of the stars, and no beast nor mech nor limbic kin to that reverential light could prove themselves an outlier to that strange phenomena - a dance orchestrated by no one being alone, a universal reduction to bone and muscle and steel, and further still to atoms, and to the electrons that too danced in arcing, pulsing spheres around the most miniscule fractions of hylics. Beauty unrestrained, flourishing and unyielding in its apathy. Nothing was the fault of no one. It terrified him. Still, life existed elsewhere. Stupidly, it spurred him onwards. Mismatched eyes flickered downwards at the mention of his designation, blinking softly as he focused on the... admittedly quite small drones. He did his best to force the fact from his mind; truth held to it or not, it felt astonishingly rude. "It's okay," Comes his initial response, vocalisations dampened with a constant soft, fuzzy static that seemed to stain every sound that left him. A gentle murmuration, somewhat blurring his already quiet syllables.

Nitelight slips down from his perch, landing with a clear clunk of metal. His next response is punctuated by the slight cant of his head. "I'm still interested. We are... leaving now, yes?"

------☼------

[sentinelspecies]

They shoulda let you go to the club

The club... I would like to be in a club I think. That sounds beautiful. I would love to go there. To The Club.

[lacedwithstatic]

There’s a club downtown! I could take you there. But er. I’ll have to stand outside… they banned me after I accidentally fell on the counter

[sentinelspecies]

That's okay! I'll stand outside with you. Just looking at things can be really nice, too - it'll be fun.

[sentinelspecies]

They shoulda let you go to the club

The club... I would like to be in a club I think. That sounds beautiful. I would love to go there. To The Club.

[sentinelspecies]

Been wanting to write this character more. if people are okay with Nitelight in their inbox, please like this post to let me know.

[sentinelspecies]

A cycle or two passes before another message makes it to Nitelight's voicemail. This time, there is more urgency in tone, a snap to his demands through the static. "Nitelight, this is incredibly immature. I did not appreciate your avoidant non-answer from last time, and if you send the very same message in response, I will have to come find you in person. Tell me what's happening."

"Prowl, I told you I don't want to talk to you anymore." "Prowl, I told you I don't want to talk to you anymore." "Prowl, I told you I don't want to talk to you anymore." The messages are droning. The lines overlap, static sinking into itself in a mass of glitching syllables; a bleating goat, untouched and unlikely to be remaining, leaking red into a sea of radio waves. He's not even listening to them at this point. Nitelight's voicemail remains utterly ignored - but it's not like he doesn't see the notification. You may need to come and find him after all.

------☼------

[sentinelspecies]

"Nitelight. Nitelight, respond. You have not answered your comm line in days. I expect you to get back to me with a status report within the next three cycles."

Nothing. The quiet buzz of offline static. And then- "Prowl, I told you I don't want to talk to you anymore." It's almost impossible to discern. Silent and droning and swallowed by the incessant buzzing of one hundred thousand digital wasps. There's an almost unnoticeable click that can vaguely be heard after the message. It's pre-recorded.

[sentinelspecies]

"After much begging and quite possibly embarrassing myself, I have been permitted a friend! Unfortunately, I am.. not so great with names. Requesting assistance; Designation: Urgent - Status: Meow."

[for-the-better-and-worse]

>> Good morning, Prowl! >> I hope you are doing well. ^-^ ☀️☀️☀️ >> I do have a small question, however. >> Hypothetically speaking, if our engine spontaneously generated an issue that the engineers say is very expensive to resolve, who are you more likely to be cross with first? >> Hypothetically, of course.

> Hello Nitelight. > I am assuming something very expensive and very spontaneous occurred to the engines. > But if this isn't the case, and we are speaking on hypotheticals; I would be very cross with the mech responsible for engine maintenance. > You wouldn't happen to know who that would be, would you?

[sentinelspecies]

>> Ah, I see!

>> I do know who is responsible for engine maintenance, but in this hypothetical situation, I would like to reiterate that the issue generated spontaneously and is in no way the engineer's fault.

>> I'd also like to emphasise it.

>> And double down on it.

>> Even the best technology can be sporadic. >_<

[the-write-ideas]

send ✎ for a handwritten letter from my character to yours

might be a love letter, might be an apology, might be an angry letter, might be a sticky note left on the fridge, maybe a goodbye, or something else entirely —- who knows!!