TF: Paid the Price

[wildernesstales]

Rating: PG
Series: G1
Summary: Skywarp muses after the war has ended.
Warnings: Implied previous character death
Disclaimer: As per usual, the good things in life are not mine to have, but belong to someone else... in this case Hasbro, Takara and IDW and anyone else I’ve forgotten…
Authors Notes: For the tf_speedwriting  Wednesday prompt 1 – Peace comes with a price.  Completely different to what everyone else has done.  But I like it.
Feedback makes friends.  Flames dealt with by the masters of paranoia and fire, Red Alert and Inferno.  

 

Skywarp looked at the lights in the distance, flickering against the blackness of the night.  He should be rejoicing that they were back on Cybertron, and at peace with the Autobots.  But how could he even think about celebrating now he was on his own?

The price of peace. 

The price of war.

It had taken his trine from him.  Left him to face the rest of his existence on his own.  All alone.  And it wasn’t as if he had the luxury of offlining because of the broken bond because of the differences between trine bonds and spark bonds.

He slumped to the floor, heedless of his wings scraping the wall behind him and hugged his legs, optics focussed on the lights in the distance.  Iacon.  The home of the victorious Autobots.  At least Optimus Prime’s creed of ‘freedom is the right of all sentient beings’ extended to the defeated Decepticons.  They were allowed to live (as best they could, Skywarp thought scornfully) in a city to the south of Iacon.  Where the Autobots could keep an optic on them.

Not that Skywarp could even think of causing trouble now.  Not with his trine gone.  What was the point of causing trouble if he couldn’t hear Starscream reprimanding him?  Or see Thundercracker shaking his head in that special way that meant ‘oh Skywarp, why do you do it?’.

He felt empty without them.  He took energon in when he was forced to, but it was purely mechanical.  If he could simply just not refuel and starve himself to deactivation, he would have.  But he wasn’t allowed to.  He had someone looking out for him.  Someone making sure that he didn’t damage himself further.

And that someone should have been Starscream and Thundercracker.  But it wasn’t.  Because they were dead.  Deactivated and greying in a mausoleum set up for the dead of the war.  Gone.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Skywarp.” The musically monotone voice caused him to raise his head briefly.
“Go ‘way.” He muttered.
“You must come inside.” Soundwave knelt in front of Skywarp and rested a hand on the Seeker’s arm.
“No.”
“There is acid rain due.”
“So?  Let me rust out here!”
“No!” Shaking his head, Soundwave pulled Skywarp to his feet, leading the broken Seeker back inside.  Someone had to take care of him now that his trine was no more.  And Soundwave felt it was his duty to help the young Seeker.  He’d lost half of his own symbiotes, so he knew how hard it was to carry on when you didn’t want to.  But they’d paid the price for their freedom.  So they had to live it.