[ti]Ep 3.5[/ti]None Left are Alright [Open]

[Sundance]

Week 1, Day 5, About 11 PM


“There is a saying, That which doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. I say this vast oversimplification is misleading. That which doesn't kill you, leaves you hurt and broken. It is the healing that follows which makes you stronger. And if you’re not stronger, you haven't finished healing. Sometimes that healing needs help, and it is with sadness that we simply can't heal from everything.”

It was very late at night. Anyone with any sense of a diurnal rhythm was likely recharging, or otherwise keeping to themselves as the hours got quieter. The night sky was cloudless, the stars competed with the crescent moon for luminescence, promising a sunny day tomorrow. The breeze, ever so slight, was cool, and as the hours passed, would chill just a little bit more until the sun rose again.

On top of the plateau that capped and hid the Autobot base, Sundance lay beneath those very same stars. She couldn’t see them though. The only stars she ever saw were the illusory ones at the periphery of her non-functional vision. Her hands were clasped behind her head. To her left was a relatively small human built radio playing some late night dance music. To her right was her wheelchair.

The cold air was helping her to feel just a little bit better as she endlessly struggled with the pain and discomfort throughout her systems. She was a sorry sight, more of her than not was covered in cyber-bandages and medical plating. Her face was half covered, revealing little more than a twisted mouth. There were no optics behind the bandages, one removed after being ruined beyond repair, and the other equally empty optical socket was severely damaged. Her softer facial plating had been the most vulnerable to damage, but the worst injury was below her knees - where there was very little left other than severed shin struts.

Sundance was healing, but she needed help, or she’d never get stronger.

The only indication that anyone was upstairs was the simple matter of the elevator. Down below inside the base, it was absent, ergo it was up, ergo someone had taken it up and not yet come down.

[Crescent]

Befitting of his namesake, Crescent was nocturnal in nature. While most were getting ready to recharge, he instead paced the halls. And yet, fortunately for his fellows, his steps were near-silent, the shock absorbers on the undersides of his pedes swallowing up whatever noise what have otherwise been made as his heels hit the ground.

Who knew a mod he'd gotten to make it easier to observe wild animals without disturbing them would come in handy for sparing his fellow Autobots from sleep deprivation.

As he stepped outside, he paused briefly to gently scratch the top of his avian companion's helm.

If he felt any sort of pain or discomfort from her talons being buried in his shoulder plating? He didn't outwardly express it. In truth, while he still favored using a brace on his arm due to having thinner armor there, he had become desensitized to his animal companions sticking their claws and teeth elsewhere on his body over the centuries.

As Crescent's optics fell upon Sundance, he jumped ever so slightly, not expecting that anyone else would be out at this hour. However, he offered a greeting despite the fact. "Hello there. I apologize if I startled you. I move rather quietly." Crescent would dip his wings in a polite welcoming gesture, unaware that the femme was unable to see the visual cue. He spoke softly. Seekers were perhaps known for being egotistical and taking up space (if not with their size, surely with their personalities) yet, everything about this one seemed melancholic and subdued. 

As he moved closer to the other flier, the extent of her injuries became more apparent. He frowned slightly but made no comment.

[Petrichor]

Petrichor rolled onto her side for what must have been the fifth time since she had retired to her berth. She stared at the concrete wall next to her face, tracing the minute fractures and fissures revealed beneath the soft glow of her cyan optics. There were twenty-seven - not that she was counting. She shuttered her optics, attempting to once again find recharge, but her shoulder joint just wouldn’t find its usual spot, so she turned to try her other side. There. That was more comfortable. But then she began to notice just how loud the nearly-silent hum of electricity that powered the base seemed to be in darkness of her room. Petra tried to ignore it, but that only seemed to make it louder. She flopped onto her back and stared at the ceiling.

Minutes ticked by excruciatingly slow, waiting for the switch to the relaxing subroutines that brought rest and the clearing of the day’s clutter that came with recharge. Primus knew she needed it after the whirlwind of the past day and a half, what with planning for her green-lit expedition. She hadn’t rested at all the night before and had been a nervous wreck the night before that. The last thing she needed was to be sluggish and useless in her duties and make a stupid and avoidable mistake, but her processor just would not stop. She was of half a mind to visit the med bay and ask for a code to induce recharge, but she wasn’t that desperate. Yet.

With an irritated huff, Petrichor rolled off her berth and quietly exited her room. Being outside under an open sky had helped Petra relax and settle her thoughts in the past, so she made her way down the hall towards the freight elevator that led to the “roof” of Omega’s base. In her sleep-deprived state, she failed to notice the slightly longer time it took the elevator to return to the ground floor and trudged inside. Stars, she really was tired.

Stupid processor, not letting me recharge.

The elevator quietly rumbled to the top and the door slid open. Petra cracked a huge yawn, trying to circulate some fuel to the area and nearly ran into the mech standing before the door.

“Oh! I’m so sorry! Please excuse me!”

She backed up a step, only to have the elevator’s automatic door slide into her in its attempt to close, startling her back forward and into the mech - bumping into him for real this time.

“S-sorry!!” Petra quickly corrected herself and shuffled to the side to give him space, mortified.

The elevator door, having been triggered by her abrupt blockage and kept open, closed with a soft woosh of finality. If she wasn’t wide-awake before…

“Sorry,” she repeated lamely.

[Bluestreak]

He'd taken to pacing worse than ever.

Bluestreak knew it was an annoying habit. There was something grating about the click-a-click of someone's feet against the floor, back and forth, back and forth. Some folks did it on the comm-link, and that seemed to be one of those moments where it seemed to be acceptable with most; lost in thought in a conversation back and forth with another.

It didn't quite have the same understanding to the others when your conversations were with yourself. Which was what so many of his conversations had become.

Which is funny, I know I'm a chatterbox, but now I've started chattering constantly to myself into my head. Okay, right I did that before, I've done it for years, haha, no I've done it for thousands of them, but somehow it feels worse. Like here I am walking back and forth and not going anywhere because I know it's annoying, okay, I think it's annoying, but it's got to be annoying to everyone else around me. I'll err on the side of caution and say it's annoying as heck, which is also the way I feel lately when I'm talking to myself.

Is it possible to have your inner voice be annoyed at yourself for chattering on too much to it? I think it is, half of me is annoyed at myself right now, so let me fix that...

"Hello plant, hope I'm not bothering you too much," he said aloud. "Sorry about the pacing and all that."

The tiny plant on his desk under the light did not respond. It sat there, green and happy with the tiny watering can next to it. Carly had given it to him when he'd mentioned he needed a small can that his avatar could use for it and that he wasn't sure what size the plant actually needed, having never really thought about the joys of plant ownership until it was foisted on him.

Bluestreak breathed a small sigh of relief and the doors behind his shoulders twitched and sagged slightly. At least the plant wasn't bothered by his nervous pent up energy. Hey, at least if I'm talking to my plant, I have an excuse for my chatter today, but okay, okay, I need to go take a break. Take a walk. Do something.

Call Carly? No, it was desperate o'clock in the morning, which was not a good hour to call anyone you cared about.

Okay, take a walk. That's a good idea, you can take a walk, go out of your room, go outside - oh hey, outside. Outside would be good, but I'm not into taking a drive by myself right at the moment. Not after the whole MECH mess. Maybe that's why he couldn't stop pacing. He'd thought about it for months now, and it still was one of those terrifying things he could play in slow motion in his head. Snap, crackle- and pop should only be in cereral commercials on HGTV and not something you lived through. His brain still carried that blank, flat moment, like static on a tv, and it crept back off and on, off and on- like my brain lately. Oof.

Bluestreak straightened and took another deep vent of air before he slowed his constant circle and focused on the door. Okay, outside but safe outside for a bit - oh, the mesa. I could go there just go up there, give myself a direction to go.

A direction to go. He needed that desperately, with all the thoughts that had been running rampant in his brain. He opened his door, started to step forward, and then hesitated. With a sudden jerk, he grabbed his rifle where it sat next to his bunk, fit it smoothly into his shoulder holster and as it clicked into place, he nodded to nothing (or the quiet plant, who knew) and headed with deliberate, purposeful strides towards the lift that would take him to the mesa.

[Sundance]

On any other night, Sundance’s music would have been loud enough to muffle the sounds of the elevator arising, but tonight, not so much. One hand stretched out and lazily fiddled with the volume control on the radio and turned it down a smidgen further, however. She was expecting heavy foot falls but instead heard…she wasn't sure. If there were foot falls, they were quieter than any she had recently known. She thought she heard a scuff or two, but absolutely wasn't certain. Her hidden brow furrowed with the slightest concern before a voice, a gentle one she did not recognise, broke through the near silence.

“Indeed you do.” Suni replied in kind. “I definitely didn't see you there.” But then there was a squirrelly voice she did recognise. That brought a smile. “But I do see that you’ve brought a friend, hi Petra.” Sundance waved with one hand, just a half sparked casual motion.

Sundance’s little midnight excursion was fast becoming non-exclusive. Feeling it, but not thinking it, she was happy to have company to snatch her mind away from her troubles. She didn't like to be impolite, and so she seriously considered sitting up to face her friends, though she really didn't feel like the arduous task.