TheWanderer
Perhaps the sense of restriction I feel when I wear a long sleeve isn't unique. I've known this. No one singular experience can ever be truly unique, with the vastness of humanity that have walked the earth before me. But that doesn't really mean much when you find yourself an anomaly amongst the common folk of your life. Made for tugging on by a young child, for warming the flesh, for decorating the human shape, for protecting the limbs--and yet all I feel is discomfort and unease at the scratch of fabric against the gooseflesh, at the tug of the seam beneath my armpit, two sizes too big the only tolerable state of it. Sensations, maybe, are given a little too much import in my life.
It's laughable, at times, the way I like to think I have them all. Ego is a powerful force, driving stakes into speech that could have been kind but instead becomes condescending. Problems caused, issues unresolved despite knowing the solution, choosing to walk away from what's right because it would mean acknowledging my own foolishness and flaws, the ones that I bank my identity on not having. It doesn't matter that I know I know how to improve. What's the point of facing something new when you could shut yourself to the path forward and stay in what you know, what you think you know, because at least you're familiar with it? People let down, opportunities missed, tasks delayed, work incomplete, finances strained, growth and progress ignored and yet still yearned for--all because I think I have all the answers.
I missed this.
It's all I can think as I stare up at the streaking brilliance of purples, oranges, yellows, pinks. The cold didn't matter. The last wisps of precipitation didn't matter. The wind, for once, felt exhilarating instead of biting. The glowing sunlit edges of the clouds overhead were almost blinding. The red sunrise was beautiful.
I missed this.
Sometimes, the days he faced were simple, easy. He'd rise, spend his time as he needed, speak easily with those around him, pass peacefully into slumber without tension or thought. Other days, his teeth were aching when he finally hit the mattress, body afloat and untethered in that detached sort of way that felt like dread but lacked the urgency. It was difficult, after those days, to find the will to rise the next morning. Fear of what might come again, had come again, would with certainty one day come again.
But then it wasn't always. Again, yes, but...never always. Never without a glimpse of those easy, common days. And as the sun peered through his shoddy blinds, casting a curious beam across his pillow, highlighting the creases in his fingertips and striping the wrist he raised to its touch, he found he could breathe in its faint, early warmth.
What awaited him didn't matter, at the end of it. There was always another day. He could trust that much.
"Shift your stance. You must balance your weight."
The sky is still grey. Colors, the faintest flickers, are beginning to surface near the horizon, racing along the clouded edge and blazoning the arrival of the sun.
"Lower your center of gravity, but don't let it dip. It's important to be stable when channeling the light, no matter where you are or what you're doing."
Ikora's hands are loosely folded behind her back as Fiona readjusts her hips. Her foot pivots about the axis of her heel and her boots squeak lightly across the enameled floor.
"Without balance you have no peace. Without peace you cannot understand the intricacies of the Light, and you will fail when you are needed most."
Her eyes are closed. All other sounds but for her mentor's voice have drained away, leaving a moving, breathing silence.
"Do you feel it?"
Beneath her feet the earth is humming. It beckons forth the light, the light that is vibrating in every pore of her being, the light that is spilling over the edges of her consciousness, the light that is dripping from her soaked soul and singing up from the wells of her being.
Her lips part, and she breathes in a thin breath.
"Yes," she whispers. "I feel it."
"I wouldn't go for it, Prime," he rumbled, eyeing the document. "This is too sudden. Surely this can't be for good ends."
"I know, Skyfire, I know," the leader sighed. He brought a hand to the crest of his helm, digits dipping into the light dent decorating the metal with an absent movement. "The humans can be trusted only so far. We have yet to determine how deeply Megatron's influence runs."
With a deep silence, they stared at the formal document, fear hanging heavy on their shoulders.
The book snapped shut.
With a quiet sigh the librarian lifted the board, slipping through the entryway and lowering it gently as she crossed to the other side. From across the main room the student was packing his things, papers previously dropped to the floor being reorganized and pens being slipped into their pockets. She reached his table just as he slung the backpack's straps over his shoulders, and with silent gratitude he passed her the worn textbook.
"I'll see you tomorrow evening," she called after him as she headed for her own packed bag.
A nod was her answer as the door swung shut behind him.
"A concert?"
She stopped.
"Yes, a concert, duh? You didn't know we were going to see a band play?"
"No, I didn't, I--I'm not in the loop very well."
She laughed, a confused, obligatory sort of sound. "I'm not...sure how you could have missed that, it was...it was all over every social group we have."
An anguished chill tingled up my spine. "I...I'm not...in any of those."
She fell silent.
/clang/
Solidity.
/clang/
Strength.
/clang/
Resistance.
/clang/
All these were symbolized by the iron hammer that was striking the iron blade. The black of its impurity was dark and true, and as he lifted the blade it glinted dully in the flickering light of the furnace.
The tongs gripped it firmly, and he dipped it into the bucket of water to his left. Steam rose in plumes as the familiar hissing echoed from its depths.
In a few days, the blade would be mounted onto the crest that adorned the back wall behind the throne, just as black and impure as it was now. Their faction would fall, but it would not be this time.
Having been on earth for some time--nearing two decades now--it was easy to see that despite his best efforts, he had grown on the planet. It was, oddly enough, significantly larger than his homeworld; yet its inhabitants were much, much smaller and most delicate than any of his kind. It was an interesting fact and he found himself more interested by it than offended.
The Ark was still embedded deep into the volcano, having never budged since its crash landing millennia ago. It still served as the faithful Autobot headquarters, and it still kept them safe from their enemies as it had all those years ago.
These humans, too, were a marvel. Their culture was bizarre, and their customs odd, but in a way not so unlike their own. The way this planet teemed with organic life was both a blessing and a curse.
The sunsets, at least, were beautiful.
Mirage noted this as he leaned easily against the golden exterior of the Ark, backstruts protesting from the day's earlier Decepticon encounter. For all its faults, this planet had become like a home to him and his fellow crew.
He decided he was okay with that.
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