Ep. 1.5 - Where Buffalo Roams [Open]

[Deleted]

//ooc// Set at the very beginning of Week 1, Day 2. Location is somewhere in the Rocky Mountains at the Canada/U.S. border.

The first thing that struck Buffalo Dump was the green.

One massive hand rose over his optics to keep the sun away; he squinted from the bright light, unused to its glow after eons of space travel. A gentle breeze swung over the landscape, the wet, loamy scent of the planet foreign to the batch-built worker. His shuttle lay quietly behind him, sinking into fields of undulating, hilly softness, the strange covering of the planet tickling against his massive pedes. The sky was brighter and bluer than any day on Cybertron, the sky smeared with clouds that were little more than jagged wisps. Knife-edge mountains, so rare on his planet that he thought they were structures at first, bit into the sky with the sharpness of turbofox teeth. The air was thin and clean-smelling, lack in pollution he had been born into.

The beautiful vista stunned him, and held his fiery-coloured gaze for several moments. B-Dump barely noticed he was sinking into the ground until he heard a slow, gradual squelching. He looked down to examine his footing, lifting one pede and flinching at the chilly sensation of mud.

The Sea of Rust had been an acid bath, and the rains of Cybertron were chemical-filled downpours that ate through plating. Moisture caused rust, and most cleaning was done with some sort of weak solvent, water as rare on Cybertron as decent energon in the Dead End. To have his pedes be...okay...after a few moments of contact was, in all frankness, damn unsettling. His fingers gingerly wiped away the strangeness, B-Dump pausing for a moment to make sure his servos were still intact. He sniffed his fingers just to be sure, and his awe was furthered when he smelt nothing dissolving.

"...Huh."

The waste-worker paused for just a moment longer, tilting his head at a flickering shadow. Something small and winged was darting through the air, whistling a song that reminded him of a lilleth's tune. Unlike a lilleth, this creature's pitch was less gradual and harmonic, instead sounding like a buzzing alarm a minibot might have.

"Chick-a-dee-dee-dee!"

The grounder tilted his head, watching as the small, not-lilleth-thing landed in a structure made out of green spikes. Its black-and-white, hopping form stood on the edge of a branch, rapidly tilting its head back and forth as it stared at B-Dump. He stared back, unsure of how to respond.

"...Hello."

"Chick-a-dee-dee-dee!"

It sounded mad...or maybe it always sounded like that. Buffalo Dump scratched his head, and the creature let out another one of its calls. With a buzz of its wings, it was off and away, and the waste-worker muttered, "Glad to meet you too," as he turned back to his ship. As far as he knew, the not-lilleth-thing would be his only visitor, as the distress beacon that was supposed to activate had not yet activated.

Which was perfectly fine with Buffalo Dump, if anyone had to ask. He was not in distress, and would be somewhat insulted if the ship insinuated that he was. If there were Decepticons on that tiny planet, and it wasn't just an Autobot trick, B-Dump would find them in his own time. With such a beautiful view in front of him, he'd rather not have it spoilt by the sudden chaos and destruction that followed his faction like a storm cloud! He wasn't going to desert, but by Primus did he enjoy what peace and quiet he could get.

He was starting to sink into the ground again. Buffalo Dump took several long, lumbering paces forward before he finally found solid rock for ground. Stomping a couple of times to get the muck off his feet, as well to make sure the stone wouldn't crumble beneath his weight, he sighed deeply through his vents. The sound wasn't unlike the rumbling snort of a cybuffalo, and the mech inhaled deeply the scents of the newfound planet. They were so...earthy, like the mines around Kaon without all the waste; they flowed down his processor like good high-grade, settling deep into his skull and taking unseen tension from his shoulders. His bad optic lost a bit of its squint, and all of his limbs hung contentedly from his frame.

After being lost for so long in the star-spattered blackness of space, the colours, textures and sensations of this new world were like coming online again. He would stand there and observe, maybe climb down the mountain and explore...he wasn't sure. He just wanted to take in that blissful, ordered moment, that serenity and cleanliness that was so natural and unhindered, and forget about the war for a second. When he was ready, he would find his cohort, and get back to the bloody business the past few millenia had thrown at him.