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@subterran-seeker
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Muse / Rules
@subterran-seeker || starter call
To say she was surprised would be an understatement. Dia felt like her core nearly popped out of her chestplate when after squeezing through the hole in the wire fence that kept trespassers from the clifftop she spotted not just someone already there—it was someone rather large.
She approached cautiosly, hoping it was just a second attempt by Luciada at making a mech-golem only for it to end up here...somehow.
(✧) - ❝ G-good evening? ❞
Cliffs were nice places. They were secluded and gave Derecho a good view of the surrounding area. Wings lifted and one optic opened up as he registered the rattling of the fence, but he didn't uncurl from his loafing position. The sun was warm and he wasn't going to move if it could be helped. Even if approached by a robot too small to be any Cybertronian frame he was familiar with.
And then the tiny bot spoke. "EVENING IS GOOD, YES! GOOD EVENING FOR TINY BOTS? WATCHING THE SUN?"
The two trines looks up at Derecho curiously when he chirps at them. But they don't reply, seeming to nit be as brave as the trine who's been playing with him.
Starscream turns around a couple of times, search the wide open sands for any signs of the missing three. He gives a loud whistle and a couple of clicks. And all the sparklings that was scattered across the sand playing hurries towards there carrier, gathering infront of Starscream as they have learned to do. He counts them again, nope. Still missing three.
He curses again.
"I need you too- no. You should-" he can't think straight. Does he ask Derecho to go looking or stay and keep an eye on the sparklings. Maybe he should ask him to come with him. Two pairs of optics are better then one.
Derecho counts the gathered sparklings, coming to the same conclusion Starscream did. Some of them were still missing. As Starscream waffled, Derecho's wings flattened and he too contemplated what to do about this. On one hand, it would be ideal if one stayed and the other looked, but on the other hand, that would involve Starscream trusting Derecho alone with one group of hatchlings or the other.
"ONE GOING, ONE STAYING. UNLESS CARRYING ALL HATCHLINGS WITH MAGNET TRICK? THEN BOTH LOOKING. FINDING HATCHLINGS, CAN'T BE GOING FAR." It was optimistic. This place was secluded enough that the missing hatchlings should be fine. Still, their disappearance was stressful, even to him.
He had known this family for less than a day and he was already learning a lot about the dangers of unregulated spawning...
/ This is just a general PSA but I never use the anon feature when sending people asks, and I never submit asks to people I am not mutuals with.
If you or anyone else receive any anonymous messages claiming to be me, screenshot that shit and let me know, because it is not me.
/ Contents: Plane egg.
Egg of a seeker hatching, c. 1970.
"You know the taste of frozen water on metal? I reckon that you'd taste as if I liked a pole during winter." - Oron
"LICKING POLE ONCE, WHEN COLD. BAD MISTAKE! NEVER DOING THAT. PLEASE NO LICKING COLD DERECHO SEEKER. NOT WANTING HUMAN TONGUES STICKING!"
CARBON ROOT VEGETABLE.
"LIKE THE CARROT?! INSULTING!"
His rage is a lie. He likes carrots. They're pointy like he is and almost the same color, usually.
Dirt and Copper of course, but also like a chocolate orange. Sweet and tangy.
"DERECHO SEEKER IS KNOWING THE JOJ OF TETRIES CHOCOLAY ORANAGE! AGREEING!"
"Rust, dirt, and high iron blood." blunt as always.
"RUST?! WHY IS EVERYONE SAYING DERECHO SEEKER IS TASTING OF RUST? NOT INFECTED, OR NASTY! JUST DIRT."
"... WHAT IS THIS BLOOD?"
///I bet he tastes like clay and rust
"CLAY IS A GOOD FLAVOR TO BE HAVING. MANY GOOD THINGS COMING FROM CLAY. BUT RUST...? DERECHO SEEKER IS CLEAN!"
"My money's on that evergreen-y taste you get on your hands after touching shrubs and the water that sits in bird baths outside for a little too long."
He's licking himself, just to make sure, but ends up pulling his face back and grimacing a bit.
"THINKING JUDAS HUMAN MIGHT BE WRONG ABOUT PLANT TASTE AND RIGHT ABOUT OLD BIRD WATER."
What do you think my muse tastes like?
@subterran-seeker replied...
"PIE? WHAT IS THIS PIE? SHARING?"
"It's Ambrosia cream pie. It's a touch boozy, I suppose."
He cuts a small (ish) slice and sets it on a plate, holding that out. "If you're sharing with your little ones, give them no more than two bites each for an hour. It might be a bit much for them, energy-wise, but it'll help their plating plenty."
Like insects swarming a more mundane piece of food, the hatchlings were already being drawn to the scent of Ambrosia. Derecho tried to hold the plate up to keep it out of their reach, but they just started climbing up his legs, utterly determined.
He ended up giving each one a hatchling-sized mouthful each to placate them, before taking his own share.
One bite had him frozen in place, optics huge and bright, staring vacantly. Wings rose up and fluttered, conveying the joy he could not express with a mouth full of Ambrosia pie.
"Mhm, they'll exterminate just about anything to keep it out of someone else's servos." That insignia would be quite hard to find, hiding on his chest underneath the bandana that stayed tied around Thrail's neck. Was he ashamed? No. But it just wasn't him anymore.
"Haw? Oh, it's just a lil som'n som'n to make it taste better." Not as if it didn't taste great alone, and even uncooked, but that's what cowboys do- cook for their guests.
"Weren't nobody else around fer a few good hours, far enough it took me bout half a million years just to bump into somebody. Just fish, gators, other mechanimals, n'me." But for the longest time Thrail just assumed he was one of those mechanimals himself. He didn't need civilization and he certainly didn't know what companionship was until he had found his late trusty stead. "Acid in that bayou's purdy strong, seent it eat up a mech in seconds." But Thrail remained unaffected by it. "I's ignited out there alone." And he wishes it would have stayed that way.
Finally their dinner was suficently crisped, the juice from the cactus fruit formed a crisp glaze on the outisde and cooking the little mechanimal caused the energon inside to thicken and the inner workings to soften. It was all topped off with some little cyber-plantation that thrived through the cracks of the hot desert floor that the cattle has yet to sniff out. "Name's Thrailkill. But my friends call me Max." Surprisingly his name has nothing to do with the thrill of killing. The mech shoots Derecho a charming grin, pulling one of the lizards off the spear and handing it over to the mech. "I'm assumin' by the what you's been sayin', yer names Derecho huh?" He chuckles.
After a while, he gave up looking. Wherever and whatever the faction insignia was, it wasn't being displayed proudly. Derecho decided to regard Thrail as neutral, for all intents and purposes. "SOUNDING LIKE THINGS DERECHO SEEKER IS SEEING. SINKING THAT LOW? CATTLES DOING NOTHING."
Once the lizards had finally cooked, he accepted the creature, sniffed at it for a while to remember what Thrail had done to it, before tearing into it. He emitted a high-pitched squeal in spite of himself. It was so good! He had to figure out how to replicate it, and would probably never consume raw prey again after this. "THRAILKILL HUNTER? DERECHO SEEKER IS NAME, YES. FRIENDLY, NOT HUNTING CATTLES ANYMORE. THANKING FOR NO SHOOTING. WILD LIKE SELF, THINKING? WELL-FORGED, BUT NOBODY AROUND FOR DERECHO SEEKER. FLYING AWAY, LIVING AROUND RUST SEA, UNTIL ADVENTURES SENDING FAR AWAY." The grin he returned was far less charming, wide-eyed and showing off far too many sharp fangs. But there was an attempt. While Derecho didn't perceive himself as a mechanimal, he didn't see much difference between one thing or the other. And still acted the part. Some part of him wondered if, in his flights around the sea and swamps, Thrail might have seen him from below the canopy. "MUST BE FULL OF WISDOM, SURVIVING ALONE IN SLUDGE SWAMPS, NOT EVEN FLYING."
The two seekerlings that had been hiding behind Starscreams foot approaches Derecho and there sibling. Considering they have not been eaten jet means this other adult must be safe. So they join in on the hunt, chirping in victory whenever they are able to jump onto a claw.
Starscream returns after a while, he carries one hissing and wiggling sparkling on his back and another hanging in defeat on his front. Prise Primus for magnetic plates.
"yes, fighting is good practice as long as they do not try to actually, kill each other. I would prefer to keep them all alive for as long as possible. So they may grow up strong and healthy." He gives a small pause before he shakes himself. Making 6 more sparklings drop from his body into the sand. They squawk in surprise at being evicted from there carries body, then chirps in annoyance as they bundle up in two groups of three.
"This trine is Hurricanenova, Thyohoonrocket and Solarcyclone. and this is Colorhawk, Falconwing and Screameagle." He offers as he points to the 6 seekerling that are now sitting huddled in the sand. He then lifts his head up towards the grounders not to far away.
"The grounders over there are Fireblade, with her younger siblings Aprili, Viper, Pinigale and Rally. The one on my back it Megtronus and the one on the front if Orion" Starscream is happy to share the sparklings names, he never has had the change to show them off by giving there names.
"And then there is-" He can't spot the last 3. How did he not notice them disappear? Where did they go? If it was Fireblade he wouldn't be as worried. but these 3 don't normally walk off.
"Frag"
Once the hatchlings start peeking out, he slowly drags his servo along the ground, mimicking the crawling of wiggly prey. Whenever they jumped, he'd turn his servo over and curl in the fingers, signifying that they had "killed" it.
"HATCHLINGS KILLING EACH OTHER IS WRONG. NEVER SEEING IT BEFORE, BUT ALWAYS TIME FOR FIRST. SCARY THOUGHT--" the thumping of sparklings raining from Starscream's body into the sand cuts him off there. As they were shaken loose, he noticed that they had indeed been magnetized to his plating. A nifty trick. And of course, they were all trining. Once they were settled in the sand, Derecho chirped warmly to them. There was a nagging feeling that something wasn't right, but he ignored it for the time being.
"GROUNDERS TOO. MANY NAMES, WILL TRY REMEMBERING ALL OF THEM." A surprisingly difficult task, as his memory wasn't ideal and the sparklings were all moving around, making it difficult to assign names to frames.
And then the dread came back. "...MISSING HATCHLINGS?" He chirped again, calling out to the gathered sparklings and hoping to hear a response from elsewhere.
With a shake of his helm Thrailkill switches the spear into his other servo and continues steadily rolling it over the fire. "Ah, Ain't nothin' to it." Or in other words, no worries. "If'n you's like any them others I ran into, you wouldn'a had even gave me the chance to ask." Typically when one comes between someone and their prey, it doesn't turn out pretty. Not that he blames these mecha- but his job was to keep this herd safe after all. His helm shakes once more "Yeah, figurin' between these crawler 'n the 'cons they didn't have much a fightin' chance." Says the retired con. Finally after it had gotten dark enough, that red visor of his slid away- reveling the black optics underneath that were happy to finally gain the vail of darkness away from the blinding sun. "OHHO-" Opticridges raise. "So you're well traveled huh?" That cygar bounces on his bottom lip as he speaks, one would think it would fall off but it was almost like it was glued. The scars in his lip probably helped. A step to the side and Thrailkill yanks the fruits off of the cybercacti near the fire, moving back to squeeze the fruits in his servo- thorns and all over the lizards causing the juices to hiss in contact of the heat- but it smelled wonderful "Ah me?" A big shrug from bulky shoulders "I'm from the red swamps roun' the other side. I didn't socialize much for a long time." Now he's forever cursed to sound funny. "Cons taught me the rest I didn't know.." Their food was almost done.
Derecho knew better than to try and hunt prey that belonged to someone. If canyon crawlers could barely pull it off, he likely could not either. "OTHERS? SEEING OTHER SEEKERS OUT HERE? AND DECEPTICONS? FIGHTING ALL FOR CATTLES... DO DECEPTICONS EVEN WANT CATTLES?"
It was probably a stupid question, but desperation in war had led to stupider conclusions. Less stupid was the cactus juice. Putting juice on meat was not something that he had ever considered before, so he was taking mental notes, alongside the novel idea of cooking prey to begin with. "TRAVELING MUCH. BEEN OVER LOTS OF CYBERTRON, SEEING TOXIC SLUDGE SWAMPS. BEEN TO JUNKION. BEEN TO EARTH, TOO. SEEING MUCH, HUNTING MUCH. BUT WHAT IS THIS... CACT?"
At the repeated mention of Decepticons, optics scanned Thrail for a faction emblem. Whether he found one or not, it wasn't going to change his opinion. For a Decepticon, Thrailkill was very reasonable and a better host than Derecho had been a guest. "SEEKERS LIKE DERECHO SEEKER ARE HUNTING IN TOXIC SLUDGE SWAMPS A LOT, BUT NEVER SEEING... WHAT IS MECH NAME?"
Atleast it wasn't a insult, there wasn't much meanness in Thrailkill and lucky for both of them it was near impossible to bring out of him. Though, this is the same mech that didn't exactly consider killing mecha meanness either. Thrail might just kill someone, but bullying wasn't in his systems.
Derecho will be happy to know the smoke from the cygar was a brilliant rainbow. If one catches the drift.
The cattle of course were a bit wary of Derecho still, all of them slowly making their way further to the side to graze directly behind Thrailkill. "I nabbed a few on my way through," The mech walks over to a bag hanging up off the ground pulling out three rather large lectro lizards, presenting them by holding them up by the tails as the huge lizards that were about as long as the top half of Thrailkill's frame dangled lifelessly- energon dripping from them.
"I ain' gon' lie, a good steak is better than a lizard any day." Walking back over to the fire he grabbed one of the lizards by the torso and held it up to bite its head off with sharp dentals, another was lifted and he used his claws to tear another head off its shoulders and chunk it to Derecho. "But ya see, these the last livin' longhorns roun' these parts. Arlis took em in a long time ago, they end up wanderin' out here and ate up by them crawlers." Yes, he was chewing with his mouth full. "Ahm sure you can see, I'm the last line of de-fense to get em back home."
He picks up a spear, impaling the three lifeless creatures onto it length ways so that he could start rotisserie-ing them over the fire. The whole time Thrailkill spoke it was soft and low. "Yer lucky I asked questions first." Thrail's absent friend wouldn't have been so kind. "Ya speak a good amount of neocybex," That was a first to hear from these folks. "Where'd ya learn it?"
"IF NO QUESTIONS, IF SHOOTING, THEN DERECHO SEEKER IS FLYING AWAY, EVEN IF HURTING. BUT MECH IS ASKING. SO DERECHO SEEKER IS STAYING." The smoke of the cygar, the smoke from the burning logs and the hues of the fire definitely helped to make Derecho feel fuzzier and friendlier toward the mech that just pointed a gun at him not too long ago. If anything, his complex system of air intakes only make the effect stronger and he was leaning ever so closer to Thrailkill.
Already wide optics widened further. Those were much larger lizards than he was used to and servos were already twitching with the urge to snatch them. Without any hesitation, the lizard head was snatched out of the air and had disappeared down Derecho's intake in a single smooth, practiced motion. Thrail understood. The heads were the best part, as far as Derecho was concerned. His own head (or rather, his body) tipped to one side, as if expecting Thrail to toss more lizard heads his way.
He took some heed of Thrail's unique mannerisms and put a mental pin in them. "MAKING SENSE. DERECHO SEEKER WASN'T SEEING MANY, NOT SINCE THE WAR. LEAVING ALL LONGHORNS ALONE, HUNTING THE LAST IS WRONG." There was a slight, but noticeable shiver working its way through his plating at the mere mention of crawlers. The innate reflex to flee from the slightest trouble was honed by the eternal threat of a canyon crawler. Of course they were still around. Thrail looked like he could manage himself though.
There would be no more lizard heads it seemed, as Thrail was doing that thing where he burnt the prey. It did smell good, to his credit. "NEOCYBEX? LEARNING FROM OLD TRINEMATES, FROM AIR ACADEMY, TEACHING. PRACTICING, OR ELSE FORGETTING. MECH ACCENT NEW. NOT FROM CITIES? NOT SMELLING LIKE CITY-LIVING. KNOWING WILDERNESS TOO MUCH FOR THAT."