Shockwave sat up on his bed, looking toward the small window that let the late afternoon sunlight into his cell, thoroughly distracted from his perusal of the ceiling tiles. Another faint shimmer of green in the sunlight. That was the third time he’d seen it flickering across the bare wall; too small and too clear to be the reflection from some far-off bot flying in front of the sun.
The question was, then, what was it?
The young bot swung his legs off of the bed, careful to set his feet on the floor without making any noise. Primus only knew if someone was outside the door or not, and as it was locked -- from the outside, as always -- he had no way of checking. Better to just be quiet. He didn’t want the shield suddenly coming down on his window and preventing him from looking out, after all.
So it was on silent feet that Shockwave stole across his bare floor, wings slowly unfolding from the thick, ungainly lumps he kept them in, emerging as the six ethereally-delicate, shimmer-lace wings they should have been. He beat them quietly, slowly working himself up to a wobbly hover that let him see out said window, scanning for the little flash of green.
A glint of coloured light in the air, not too far from his window, in fact. Shockwave cursed being unable to see clearly more than a few inches in front of his face, leaning forward, wings pumping a little harder in an attempt to get him up higher, as though that would help. His hands came out to press against the windowsill, steadying his untutored attempt at hovering, and squinted, trying desperately to focus on the tiny shift in light and colour that flitted around outside his window.
He was rewarded, but not in the way he would have thought. Instead of his eyes gaining focus, the object he was trying to see moved closer, giving the curious young bot a clear glimpse.
Crystalline-green, with doubled-wings even more transparent than Shockwave’s own triad of pairs, the palm-sized insect fluttered close to the glass the lavender and blue youngster was viewing it from, as though it too were curious about the flash of colour. Shockwave watched in fascination -- and no small amount of quiet jealousy -- as it flitted this way and that, each movement effortless without needing to be taught how to fly. Jhiaxus had not yet let Shockwave learn, still angry over his son taking an altform without having gotten permission, much less his taking on something he, as a flier, should have been unable to download.
The butterfly lost interest and moved out of Shockwave’s limited range of clear vision once more, leaving him to squint at the now-indistinct flash of colour as it slowly spiraled down toward the ground far below, no doubt seeking what bit of nourishment it could from the slowly-growing wasteland that was Cybertron.
Shockwave longed to follow it, to see where it wound up going, what it found, whether others of its own kind -- so rare -- or if dinner from some unknown bloom was its only thought. He wanted to find Pax and let him see it, before it disappeared, as bugs in Iacon were so wont to do. He leaned harder against the window, trying to watch it as long as he could, to record it so he could maybe show his newly-confessed Endura something...when the window...clicked.
He felt the glass move, then slide back as his weight pressed against it. Shockwave was left blinking -- a bit stupidly, he would think later -- as the hidden latch on his window lifted away and slid the glass back into the side of the frame, leaving the window wide open. He hadn’t even known the cells had openable windows, and he’d lived in this room his entire life.
The butterfly was still down there. So very far down. Eight stories down, actually.
But Shockwave had wings of his own, even if he didn’t really know how to use them...and he was already in trouble with his father. Jhiaxus would probably just extend his punishment time if he was caught outside of his room during non-work hours, and really, Shockwave was so used to being locked in for minor infractions that it didn’t bother him much, beyond the vague sense that he did nothing right in his father’s eyes.
The tiny glint of green below him beckoned. He could call Pax, tell him coordinates as he followed. He was definitely small enough to fit through the window...
The thought of getting to show Orion Pax the rarity that was a living butterfly made up Shockwave’s mind for him. His wings folded against his back, and Shockwave slipped through the window. Within an instant he was falling, fear choking him as his wings spread out and pumped furiously, slowing his descent into something controlled just well enough to keep him from smacking the pavement head-first.
Still hurt like the devil, though.
He’d be feeling those bruises in a few hours, he knew, and putting his hands out as insurance against face-planting had resulted in smarting, skinned palms, but all of that was forgotten. He was used to pain, too, and there were more important things. The butterfly was moving out of the lab grounds, and Shockwave was following, pinging Pax excitedly the moment he was through the gate, chasing down the little glint of green hope that had lured him outside.
