Acting as the official transport for all of Cybetronians official spokespeople had always been a bit of a boring function, but in these stellar cycles, Lodestar was discovering a new love for the task she had been built to perform. It sure did help when her sole passenger—or companion, more accurately—was a bot like Lightbright. It also helped that most of their time was more spent on their own private excursions rather than the many, many official meetings the cityspeaker had been responsible for in the past.
With the other official mechs aboard her official transport, Lodestar was worth little more than the weight of her living cargo. It was an important job, and she was an even more important bot because of her passengers’ statuses, but it wasn’t quite… fulfilling. Enter Lightbright, and she had a whole different take on the task. Heck, she even enjoyed it now.
Official duties took place here and there, and official meetings had to happen in between, but outside of that, she and Lightbright were on their own. It helped a good bit that she was tasked with transport and her appointed cityspeaker had a thing for seeing the world outside of their planet, she supposed. It filled up the empty space, and it made things interesting. She liked the long trips through the galaxies, and she liked their shared companionship even more. It was nothing past good chemistry and a respectable bond between a space cruiser and her sole passenger on the outside, but she liked to think that there was something more happening between them.
Maybe it was just the long trips coursing through space together with nothing left to occupy them other than music, Lightbright’s pleasant humming alongside her cruiser’s engines, or the constant sounds of snacking that the cityspeaker was guilty of indulging in. Lodestar liked to think it was all of the above, especially once they both begun to connect outside the realm of professionalism, but really… it was definitely the snacking.
The snacking wasn’t the culprit of her strangely sourced and rapidly growing infatuation, much to Lodestar’s embarrassment. Rather, the snacking was more of a cause, something that was so Lightbright innocently fond of that it pained the femme to bring any attention to whatever results it had begun to produce. The cityspeaker’s snacking wasn’t the problem, and it definitely wasn’t what had Lodestar blushing every time her processor dared to bring up the thought.
It wasn’t snacking—it was the weight gain, and with Lightbright sitting stationary for so many days and nights between formal events, her habit of mindlessly munching had left plenty of room for growth.
From a distance, Lightbright looked no different than a larger-than-average bot who wore just a little extra weight on her frame. She wasn’t nearly as slim as she had been in the days before their frequent trips around the universe, but she still fit the public’s expectations for the average cityspeaker. Sat inside Lodestar’s cockpit, however… it was a different story.
The precautionary seatbelt that sat loose and looped around Lightbright’s waist was tight and snug nowadays, even after many attempts at gaining a bit more length from its buckle. Despite being squished into the seat and snugly squeezed with the soft rolls of her growing frame all but spilling over the armrests, the cityspeaker seemed unfazed.
“Well, that was a bust,” Lightbright huffed as she squeezed herself into her chair while Lodestar prepared for ascent. “Sorry, Lodestar. Shall we head back for that meteorite shower we saw some stellar cycles back?”
“On it,” Lodestar replied, keeping her voice steady and her words casual as she struggled not to focus on the strain of the strap around Lightbright’s waist or the way her passenger predictably reached into the storage compartments for the road snacks kept inside.
It was hard. Not impossible, but hard, especially when the topic of discussion seemed to veer in that direction almost instantly.
“Say,” Lightbright mumbled between bites, the silent air filled with the sound of her crunching and the rustle of the bag. “Lodestar, can I… can I ask you something?”
The cityspeaker’s tone was calm, but her words carried an underlying uncertainty that the flier immediately tuned into. Slag, she had known this would come up.
“Anything,” she replied, her engines humming and her internal lights dimming as she spoke. Excess power was to be preserved for the long distance, and she couldn’t be ruining their schedule with burning up fuel due to nervousness.
Lodestar felt the tension of the strap around Lightbright’s waist loosen, and as the seat groaned under the cityspeaker’s weight, the tight restraints disappeared altogether. The floor of her cockpit registered the pressure of her companion’s pedes, and she followed along with Lightbright’s movements through her sensors as the other bot inched towards the control panel.
“You know me rather well,” she said, leaning her weight against the panel as she stared out the glass windshield. “So I’m sure you’d know if… I mean, I’m starting to worry that through our solo trips between affairs, I…”
There was a sigh, and Lodestar’s face would have been burning bright pink if she weren’t in her alt-mode.
“I’m afraid my snacking has helped me put on a bit too much weight.”
In a moment like this, Lodestar knew that silence was one of the worst responses. With her processor buzzing around the thoughts of Lightbright and the soft, pudgy frame she was starting to boast, however, there weren’t many other options. It was better to stumble her way through an awkward response than sit and leave her co-explorer in silence though, and through her embarrassment, she tried to respond gently.
“It’s… not bad. It’s not bad at all, really. I—actually, I… I think it’s nice.”
Now that was a bad move. She almost wished she would have just stayed silent.
“Nice?” Lightbright echoed. She didn’t seem angry, and she didn’t seem upset, which was good. Instead, she sounded… curious. Intrigued. “You mean—“
“I—I mean it’s not bad,” Lodestar stammered, the lights of her control panel flashing and dimming with every heightened word and stuttered syllable. “It’s—it’s good! Well, not good, but… it’s not bad. It’s nice. It… it suits you. I like it.”
Oh, Primus have mercy on her spark. To her mercy, Lightbright didn’t immediately respond with scathing words or great offense.
“You do?” she asked. “I… I suppose I can see the appeal…”
Lodestar’s attention was on her passenger, but her sight was altered into the form of sensors. She couldn’t see the cityspeaker pinching at the soft mesh of her belly or twisting to see the curves of her frame, but she could imagine it through the sensation of delicate pedes shifting back and forth against her floor.
“It is nice, I’ll admit,” she continued, “and I don’t plan on stopping my snacking habits anytime soon. Unless…”
“No,” Lodestar quickly cut in. “Please, don’t stop on my account.”
Silence settled between the two as Lightbright continued to study the features about herself that Lodestar seemed so adamant about believing were good. After a while, she settled back in her seat, though the tight belt restricting her frame remained unbuckled. The air was awkward then, but a shared understanding lingered, and for once, Lodestar was starting to believe her unanticipated interest in the softening frame of her appointed passenger wasn’t just something she alone grew to appreciate.
(you can also read these on Ao3. Notes at the end)
Blasts cut onwards
Lasting peace must be brought forwards
Wheels and blades tire
Language dancing
My thoughts and yours communing
Cityspeaking love
My poetry sung
Pride of the Decepticons
Yours truly Sky-Byte
Forging many wonders
Mother to all and yet when will
I get time with them?
One of the discord servers we're on has kicked off doing haikus as a writing exercise, here's some of ours, we'll release them in batches (and yes, we are still working on Chapter 18 of Addendum, it should be done soon life has just been getting in the way but it is almost done as it is, very excited to soon release it). We got a little meta with the last one. As you can tell we're really craving a story where Solus is alive and around to advise the Autobots or show up later in a story. She should get to her character concept and particularly her defensive pacifist sword wielding IDW1 backstory was an interesting take we'd love to see revisited without being a monarch, but instead a champion of democracy and autonomy. Alpha Trion can take a break or also be around.
Also for people wondering why G1 Arcee is tagged in something specifically about using blades that's because that was part of her original bio from 1986, and a bio done much more recently combining her overlapping G1 and IDW aspects (which would not be the first time that happened either), you can read more about that here in section 3 of an essay we wrote looking back on IDW1 Arcee's writing after immersing ourselves in it over the years, finding much more than just kinship to her, we felt this urge to dig further, to understand, feeling threads that were there regarding trans history, but not having much knowledge regarding historical transmedicalism, so we dug. We dug because we wanted to show that Arcee's writing from 2012-2018 not only is a beautiful trans story unique in science fiction, but that her personality there and in part in her Spotlight (which absolutely did not intend trans stuff and walked into a minefield in that regard that inadvertently opened up the opportunity for the writing and consulting team in Phase 2 and Phase 3 to figure out beautiful character arcs for her) are direct successors of the original personality frameworks for G1 Arcees, and to show the impact and legacy of both Sunbow/Marvel and IDW Arcees along with more Arcees combined on many versions of her thereafter. In regards to relevance to the haiku, Victorion noticed during Optimus Prime #21 what Arcee had already stated previously, that she did not want to be a warrior. This picks up on a refrain older versions of her character have also shown.
