Satеllite of Cybertron/Chapter 6
The morning had started incredibly early for the county's famous cronid. And I don't need to tell her that as the New Year approached, the light was getting later and the evening was getting earlier. If she said early, it was early! Even the light that came through the vines was enough to keep her awake again. Though maybe it was because she had gotten a good night's sleep, but that was much less likely. Besides, her left side was already numb to the touch. Couldn't even turn her back to the wall.
It was lazy to get up. I mean, she'd been warming the place all night. But despite the minimal efforts to save her eyes from the inexorably increasing glow, her sleep could not be saved. With a disgruntled groan, the cronid lifted herself slightly off the bed and opened her wings, arching her back. His right wing grazed the scratched section of wall that turned into the ceiling, causing the limb to jerk habitually. The flames on her wings went from translucent to a deep purple color, flaring up.
Slowly but surely, she rose from her plastered bed and lazily wove her way deeper into the cave. The passage was not straight: after a couple of minutes of leisurely walking it looped to the right and sort of went back. Gradually it got warmer. Eventually the girl, yawning, entered a very spacious “hall,” if the cave could be called that. The muted turquoise glow allowed one to see a small irregularly shaped lake with a slight haze in the air.
The electric smell tickled her nostrils, her ears were caressed by the gurgling of a mini waterfall against the opposite wall, and the soft light of the unknown crystals that were literally everywhere dispelled the gloom and was definitely more forgiving to her eyes than the one outside. Slowly, step by step she immersed herself in the very warm water, then upon reaching the waterfall she stopped, letting the streams flow off her head.
A perfect start to the day.
Lounging in the pool, she casually leaned her back against the wall and immersed herself in the water up to her eyes. After waiting a bit, she tilted her head back and exhaled contentedly. Her thoughts began to wander.
How lucky she was to have found this place. Compared to what she had been able to make in the first few days from crystals and vines in the forest with her crooked hands, this was a room from a five-star hotel. One couldn't help but take credit for the species she now belonged to. Being a giant, fire-breathing, flying creature (which according to the religion of the locals was definitely a demon) that could eat almost anything had its advantages. The disadvantages… came from the same advantages. It's hard to make contact when you're normally many times the size of your potential interlocutor and look like you're about to drag him to the underworld. Not knowing the language only compounded the problem.
For a while, she'd been able to sneak around and remain undetected near the wall, but recently that had been… stopped. She'd enjoyed those sneaks. It gave her the illusion that she wasn't alone.
Oh, well. It was the nature here that had originally brightened her loneliness anyway. And no, by “local nature” she meant anyone in these mountains, except for one really annoying motobot. That stalker seemed to follow her wherever she went.
Yeah, yeah, it's weird to complain first about being alone, and then about literally the only intelligent bot that doesn't try to shoot/stab/spear her and so on… But hey, before that, she chose who to socialize with on her own, despite the smallness of her social circle. Fun fact: kids are either the most open-minded or the most terrifying creatures in the world. Luckily, she's been lucky with that. She can't speak for everyone in the settlement, but the five she met were active, boisterous (a little too boisterous and active at times), and generally nice kids.
What ended up happening to her was her own fault. She let her guard down and….
No. Never mind. Thankfully no one else was hurt.
Cronid immersed himself entirely in the water again, as if trying to wash away unpleasant thoughts.
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Liber vented deeply. The fresh, cool air cooled his excitement-heated systems. He hadn't climbed too high, but given that even before the mountains rushed sharply upward, the terrain itself rising toward the mountain range, he had a spectacular view. From here he could see both the settlement, which was round-walled and drowned in a favorable blue vegetation, and the stream, whose ultramarine color at the foot set it apart from all the mishmash of green in the Cyan Jungle.
And, as it was day, everything shone.
From the heights one could see the semi-circular boundary between the two colors: the mech had crossed this river-boundary more than once. From the present point of view, its far bank was drowned in the energon life typical of the region, but from the near bank to the mountains, it was as if the Creator had scattered a container of copper-chrome dust.
A very large container.
The purple two-wheeler once again looked around at the landscape created by Primus, time, and nature. It was no wonder that every apprentice had to leave the archives and hit the road at one point or another in their activism. It was hard to find a book that could tell such beauty as if you were in the place being described….
"BAAAAAA!"
He almost tumbled off the cliff. When he regained his balance, Liber looked around, mentally berating himself for letting his guard down. sheepitrons weren't generally dangerous mech-animals, but given their habitat, their habit of kicking or screaming at the most inopportune moments could be costly. Few wanted to be deactivated in such a foolish way as falling from a height due to the sudden appearance of a Shipitron.
The mech easily counted at least two dozen sheepitrons, which, as one, stopped chewing on the dark green vines lying on the ground and began to slowly gather into a denser group off to the side. Listening closely, the motorcyclist realized he had missed the moment when the whistling of the wind and the crunch of the chewed plants were joined by a cautious, grumbling hum. From one of the crevices in the shadow-filled cliffs, a black cougaraider slowly strode in. Liber's armor jingled quietly, relaxing. Fortunately, of all the things that could have alerted the herd, it turned out to be Strag. It belonged to a local huntress who had joined him halfway across the trail.
The mech-animal growled softly, cautiously circling the herd and approaching the mech. The one vented grudgingly, realizing that he had been delayed and that he needed to continue his search further.
After all, what could be better than finding a cronid?
Finding its nest!
Knowing how and where the creature dwells in a place it deems safe would definitely provide unique, possibly never before recorded data. Simply observing the cronid in the jungle shed light on certain behaviors, traits of which could be seen in different situations (such as its habit of chasing an object of interest and its love of bright, shiny things, which was seen in the beast's interactions with techno-stallions and lillet, respectively).
"Well, did you find anything?" here it is. For the most part, the turquoise armor, which should normally be an asset in crystal forests, stood out painfully in this green riot… "As if your armor was camouflaging you anywhere."
Fem rolled her optics in response to his perplexed look. You're not good at hiding your thoughts at all." she got down on one knee next to the cougaraider and began scratching the one behind his audiosensor, making him squint through the same yellow eyepieces as his mistress. Stag had calmed down a bit, but was still peering tensely in the direction of the sheepitrons, twitching his tail and audials.
Liber didn't know exactly how his faceplate expression changed, but apparently Somnic thought it was funny. "Don't be so afraid, I'm not my teacher,” and grinning, she added, ”You're not as good at controlling your hull and EMP as you think you are. I don't see how you didn't get eaten."
The mech snorted irritably and placed the manipulator on his sword, attached to his side by a magnetic connector. Normally he carried it in subspace because that one wasn't suited for his transformation and would only get in the way. However, under the current circumstances, when he was with his “partners” and in unfamiliar, rough terrain, his alt wouldn't be of much use. Some skills he had.
"Nothing that I could detect."
Somnic frowned unhappily. Given the size of the creature and its ability to fly, they had already set out to explore the nearest peaks. As a spawn of the Destroyer, daylight coming from the very core of the planet should be abhorrent to it (the fierce purple flames were perfectly visible in the night sky as the creature made its way out of its lair). So they'd need a crevice wide enough, leading into a dark burrow large enough to accommodate the brat.
The only consolation was that this doesn't come out of the Cyan Jungle, unless you count the first appearance in the Darkest Hour, almost a vorn ago.
The next Darkest Hour was inexorably approaching. The days had become noticeably shorter than the nights, approaching the point where not even a spark of normal daylight could be seen beyond the cord.
A growl interrupted her musings. She looked closely at Strag - it wasn't like him. At first she had thought it was his way of letting the other, weaker mech-animals know that a predator had arrived, so that they would get out and not make a mess. Right now it seemed as if he was trying to scare someone. Scare, not in the sense of showing his strength, but trying to instill the idea that fighting him would be costly.
It was as if the cougaraider was facing a vastly superior predator. And after all, from a certain point on, he hadn't stopped watching….
Fem turned sharply toward where the herd was standing. Which had already been approached by that inconsiderate motorcycle!
"It seems to have found something after all." the said mech was smiling contentedly. "No one here is into haircuts, are they?"
Somnic took a closer look - he was right: the alloy coat of the sheepitrons was roughly the same length all over the body, which was especially noticeable on the larger, older individuals. She stood up and carefully approached (Strag's behavior was no worse). A closer look revealed another peculiarity - some had irregularly shaped superficial patches of fused fur about the size of two of her palms.
No one in the settlement had a weapon or the ability to use something with sufficient temperature to have such an effect; the sheepitrons wouldn't go into a place like a smelter or forge on their own, and no one would drag them there; the predacons, if they decided to stay in these parts, would burn everything down along with the sheepitrons - they wouldn't be running around right now.
There was only one option left.
The corners of her mouth lifted a little. It looked like they'd found a clue.