the air inside of the Lost Light
• Rodimus smells of ozone and hot metal – an electrical storm without the petrichor. It’s a little nerve-wracking to be so near to a mech that smells of burning and electricity, but those that know him best no longer feel the uneasiness that such a scent often brings. When explaining it to others, Drift says that Rodimus smells like lightning.
• Ambus smells like an old bookshelf, like dust and oxidation and tradition and late nights reading. It’s a rigid sort of smell, one that makes mechs solemn and polite if they are unused to it. It stopped working on Rodimus and Drift long ago. • Get too close, though, and a mech can catch the barest whiff of the scent of old, purpled energon that clings to the Magnus Armour. Not all joints and seams can be cleaned, try as Ambus might.
• Drift smells like the soil of distant planets, comet ice, and moondust – the scent of leaving and getting lost. Rodimus buries his face in Drift’s shoulder, smells the cold darkness between the stars and the radiating warmth of distant suns, and knows the scent of the void.
• Ratchet smells of a particular type of soldering wire; it’s a bitter and caustic scent. Sometimes, on the rare occasions when he is ‘off-duty’, the bitterness is mixed with the sweetness of high-grade. At those times, Drift sits next to him and wisely says nothing. • Ambulon smells of old paint. It’s a dusty, homey smell, the scent of gently creaking joints and a soft voice. First Aid will never admit that it’s a slightly comforting smell to taste in the clinical air of the Infirmary. • First Aid smells of cleaning solvent. It’s bright and fresh and sterile and masks most other smells most of the time – even the smell of uncertainty. • The medical team in general all smell of energon and coolant and antiseptic and regret.
• Red Alert smells overly warm, as if he is always running too hot – because he is. Manage to get close enough, and a mech can feel the heat radiating off of him. It overwhelms any other scents that might cling to his frame and burns off any lingering particles of matter. Red Alert smells of overheated circuitry and quiet distress at all times, though he may come out of Rung’s office a few degrees cooler than when he went in.
• Cyclonus is layers and layers of ancient and varied scents. He smells of fierce battles and late nights in shady clubs and early mornings in sacred temples and nights spent in the ditches of distant planets. The trace of an EM field belonging to an unnamed Cybertronian is burned into his plating. All he lacks is the bitter scent of regret. • Tailgate smells ancient and brand-new all at once. He smells like a time at the edge of other mechs’ memories: a smell generally buried under centuries of living, but on Tailgate still immaculate except for the scent of the Mitteous Plateau that has seeped into the very metal of his frame. • Someone sitting between Cyclonus’s messy vibrancy and Tailgate’s pristine disuse is in for a confusing experience.
• Whirl smells of death – hot, angry death that’s still fresh on his servos and lingering in the back of his processor. It’s a reliable sort of scent, familiar and friendly as four million years of War, and one that meshes with his words and movements. It is a promise of violence for the sake of violence and of the willingness to throw himself into any fight, often in service to the crew – if it suits his mood, which it generally does – and is no surprise to anyone; nevertheless, it still makes it difficult for most to be near him for very long. Rung and Cyclonus are among the few who seem not to mind it at all.
• Fortress Maximus smells of metal shavings and friction and warm paint. It is the smell of joints that no longer align with each other, of metal that catches and refuses to glide smoothly in its tracks, of plating that broke and was soldered together just a few millimetres off. Fort Max smells of sharp corners and broken things and pain, and mechs look away when he passes them in the halls.
• Rung smells like rust sticks and a certain silicone compound that is no longer in production but was very common before the War. It lingers in the back of other mechs’ processors, old and familiar and often associated with comforting memories of household items. Skids feels the gentle prickle of remembering when he’s around Rung; it can even assuage Red Alert’s fear and calm Whirl’s impulsive nature, if only sometimes, and only for a little while.
• Skids smells like the dust in the vents of the Lost Light; like prayer books and hymnals; like old explosions and burning wires. He smells like forgotten things, and he smells like forgetting. Rung catches the tang of melted alloys on Skids’s hands and chest plating and wonders; Chromedome notices it too, and says nothing.
• Swerve smells of high-grade and desperation. Sometimes, though, the scent of the dust in the vents lingers on him; those days, he smells less like desperation and his smile is a little more genuine.
• Trailbreaker smells of ionized atmosphere – and the atmosphere of Swerve’s bar. The biting scent of burnt-out sparks and Red Alert’s overheated distress and excessive amounts of high-grade all combine into a hazy reek of inadequacy.
• Blaster bears the undetectable scent of radiowaves and the particular soft smell of memory tape, the same as Soundwave. He smells of the wear to plating brought about by constant exposure to steady bass beats, the same as Jazz. He smells like Soundwave and Jazz – no, he smells of Soundwave and Jazz, of their EM fields and of their company – and it ought to be a terrifying thing, but instead it’s a warm and friendly smell of music and caretaking and responsibility.
• Pipes smells almost exclusively of Cybertron and Cybertronians, of coolant and plating and lubricant and vented air and the closeness of living on transport shuttles and space stations. He smells of everyone and nothing, inconspicuous and forgettable and easily overlooked. Only recently has he picked up the sharp scent of rust and the cold; it’s foreign even to him and something he is both proud and afraid of. He tries to bury it in the company of the other minibots and steers clear of Drift’s white, space-burned armour.
• Chromedome smells of the sharp bite of processor fluid and the grime of back alleys and the grim starkness of a morgue. He smells of the stale air inside an Enforcer’s office and the cold streets of dead cities. • Rewind smells like the peculiar plastic warmth of an old camcorder and the ink of film reels and the dust of time. He smells of the aftermath of battles and of red Autobot paint. • The two of them both smell of regret and of each other.
• Perceptor smells of acid and copper oxide and gun oil. The scent of cooled supercomputers lingers on his armour and the places that he frequents; it’s not unlike the burningly cold scent of space, and it is often difficult to distinguish between the two. • Brainstorm smells like the recycled air of the laboratory and soot and clean instruments, but recently he carries on him the tang of ionisation and bad decisions and dogged determination. Rodimus accidentally stands too closely to Brainstorm and Chromedome; he looks between them, optics confused, and wrinkles his nasal ridge when he suddenly and inexplicably can’t tell one from the other. • Both members of the science team smell of sulphur and carbon and the heated air that comes from cranial vents.
...and:
• Megatron smells of spoiled energon, dirt, and ore. The scent of fear and death and despair encompasses his entire being, taints his words and his movements – it was weeks before the crewmembers stopped flinching every time he shifted slightly. Now Ambus can stand beside him without stiffening, and Megatron can clap Rodimus on the shoulder without the younger mech rearing back in sudden response to prolonged panic; still, the Lost Light comes upon sites of ancient Cybertronian battles, where the very air is filled with the scent of Megatron, and mechs look at each other and remember.