brytnoises

I saw shouty again!!!

Out of nowhere, just like last time, he just showed up and when we locked eyes he said YOU AGAIN?!

Whatever that is supposed to mean.

Anyway I had three really long and thick energon shards tucked under my arm, the size comparable to if I was actually carrying three spare arms, and another yet to be harvested clump right in front of me.

I turned around and gave him the three I had in my hands.

He looked like he was going to cry.

Then he straightened up and looked tough again and gave another "YOU!!!" to someone who was behind me.

So I looked. And there was someone sitting on the massive rock behind me who wasn't there before, but looked like she had been sitting there for hours.

She looked slimmer and smaller than shouty guy, but somehow sat stiff in a regal position like the rock was her throne and let me tell you. She's someone I would let step on me. Spindly extra limbs and her face!!!!!!!!

But then she said "hello beast" to me so she'll have to make up for that if she wants to be on my side one day.

She said "come to me" so I thought why not approach her if she wants to whisper secrets to me. With my guard up of course. Becuse as pretty as she is, she looks like she wanted to kill someone.

She said "worship me" and yes, while that was an incredibly hot thing to say, I just met this lady. I have standards. We would have to discuss and navigate some things, especially since I have to read her by body language and face, because I don't understand her smells at all.

I was stuck in eye contact with her for way too long before I looked away. Apparently she and shouty had been arguing the whole time, but I wasn't aware of it at all.

Shouty, who was trembling mere minutes ago, somehow pulled out some bravado and was being shouty again. Big voice. Big wings. The woman being snarky with him. Apparently they are bitter enemies and both of them want to defeat some big guy, and I was just dumbfounded watching them go back and forth. One wants to team up, the other doesn't, both of them want to overthrow big guy and lead the group instead. I don't know how big a group of bots they are referring to, but whether it's ten or ten thousand, no thank you.

My thought process is, like, is one big leader even a good way to organise things? Everyone would have to report to one bot. Do they make all the rules? What if the leader gets sick or killed, what then???

I was thinking about that, but then the two of them got louder again, so I came back to the present.

I was thinking about shouty's fake bravado and whether the woman knows that he's starving. Maybe she is, too. Her frame looks good enough but maybe she has no strength in it. Maybe they are both bluffing. Or maybe she's super strong and only after certain provocations would she decide to take a swing.

It's so hard to figure out what's going on when there's strangers around, and they're alone, so all the battling and strategy is going on in inside their heads.

They appeared to reach a stalemate in verbal fighting, at which point the woman turned to me and said "destroy him"

 

Anyway, even though I was full of feelings, I didn't do anything but turn to the woman and say "nah." RIGHT TO HER FACE. "I don't know either of you. Get him yourself."

Which is the truth, because even though I've MET Shouty, I don't know anything about him.

The woman retreated after that, just went straight up the cave wall and out of the opening.

Compared to the other guy who only walks around on two legs, seeing her skitter away on six spindly limbs really reminded me of you, my hive.

After that, because Shouty didn't have anything else to add, I went back to the clump of energon near the cave entrance and continued digging around it.

In case no one clicked that the two of them were enemies before, Shouty started snarling insults about that woman as he bent down to pick up the energon sticks I gave him.

I have no idea if he was talking TO me at all, but he was chattering to himself the whole time he was scratching at another cluster of energon a little further in. Out of respect for his basic intelligence as a life form, I kept looking round to check if he WAS talking to me, or at me, or at the room, or just to himself.

He bounced between all of those.

And we looked at each other a couple times, during which he shut up completely, but only for a minute or two.

At one point he yelled suddenly, cursing that big guy from the argument, and energon, and everyone who ever existed - and I noticed he was climbed up the rocky wall reaching for a stick of energon about three of his heights off the ground, and he was only halfway there. Shaking again.

I asked him why he didn't just fly up to that height. My hive, those aren't display wings he has. They are huge, suggesting that when he's not in biped mode, they spread out properly and are functional.

I think I upset him with this.

He just snapped "shut up" and continued struggling - then he slipped and fell back on the ground and after a pause, just started sobbing uncontrollably.

And you know as well as I do, that we protect the weak. So I went over to put one of the energon crystals into his shaking hands and said "You're clearly exhausted. Eat, get your strength back"

He said, "It's so far to my ship"

Never mind your ship, I said. Just have some now. So you can make it back to your ship.

Now? he said. Raw?

......

Apparently he's a prince who was raised in a castle, only ever having consumed PROCESSED energon. He was talking about his ship because that's where he processes the shards he finds around here.

That despite his constant gritting of teeth and snarling, he doesn't have the jaw strength to bite hard into its pure crystal form.

So I bit some into smaller shards for him.

Then afterwards I put his head in my lap and stoked his head until he stopped whimpering. But even when he went quiet he still had big tears rolling out of his optics.

Then I said I'd walk him back to his ship, because I was convinced he would faint in the middle of nowhere and NEVER make it back to his ship.



Such levels of hunger and such a rough and steep terrain, and they sent everyone out alone to find energon? They must be a desperate group.

He was so quiet during the trip. Almost two hours of walking and shouty didn't say a word.

It made me think a lot.

About how rough it must be for him and his people if they all had to get out and do things instead of being in stasis until there's enough for everyone.

At one point he said his ship was over the next hill, and to leave him, but I had come this far, and wanted to meet his people and maybe make allies, or at least a good impression for the future.

But!!!!

It looked like a ship, all right, but it was buried in a century of dirt and was essentially INSIDE the hill.

I asked him why he said it was a ship.

He said it is, functionally. The systems still work. It's just buried. A temporary base. That one must endure difficulties to make the successes worth it.

We were inside by then and there was no one else around.

My hive, there was a pile of energon, barely enough for one bot.

I asked him directly. How many call this ship home?

And he frowned and said he was alone.

That he used to serve under the big guy from the argument, and was left for scrap. He joined another team, but they didn't want him either. So now he holed up in thie old abandoned, buried ship with just enough resources to sustain himself and the backup systems, so that he wouldn't die of boredom or starvation.

But he was essentially in exile.

Totally alone.

And then it was my turn to cry.