(DONE) Ep. 1 - A Proper Story [Open]

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Some stories begin with life — birth, rebirth, renewal. Some stories begin with death — murder, tragedy, those left behind. Two sides of the same coin, two governors of the universe and the world, they were necessary to the tale of existence, Earth an everything. Thus, it is only proper that a story begins with the near-occurrence of one —

...VrrrrRRRRM!

"HEY! Watch the speed limit, you goddamn road-racing freaks!!"

— In order to segue into another.

Soundtrack: Bastion OST - "A Proper Story"

Jasper. Who knew a road-racing mecca could exist in the middle of absolute nowhere — Sarita wouldn't have herself, not until she was run off the road almost three times that day. The second time, a line of police cars had come blaring after the racing junkies, causing Sarita to tense and nearly drop a full ten mph from the local speed limit. The sooner she got into town, the better; endlessly dry scrub, brown and without a gas station or motel, had been rolling past for hours. She was low on gas, and wasn't keen on breaking down in the middle of the desert, not when her own food and water needed resupplying as well. There was also a Craigslist gig in town she needed to look at — something about houses needing to be painted — and the pay was good, $9 an hour. It was just above Nevada's minimum wage, yes, but Sarita wasn't about to pass up a good opportunity.

Ye gods, there was so little work in the towns between Reno, Elko and Nevada. She'd been to the dusty state before, but not so far off the beaten path. It made Sarita a little nervous, being so adventurous; there wasn't much help out there in a pinch. Out in the back roads of the desert, drug addicts, vagabond camps and serial killers were said to skulk, as well as the beasts and ghouls of urban myth and legend. Her nerves were already rattled on a constant basis, the twenty-something on high alert for signs of seedy characters or dangers to her car. How much more could she take, on top of the growing anxiety that already gnawed at her insides?

No, no, she was being too dramatic now. The girl had to think, had to absolutely focus on the necessities and calling about that Craigslist job. Food, water, gas, motel room: the bare necessities first, everything else later. As "Sheila" — the beat-up Sedan that Sarita loved like a sister — pulled into town, the travelling woman couldn't help but be impressed. For somewhere so far out in the wilds, it was comfortably large, and she could already see a gas station coming up. Giving a little smile, Sarita turned down the country tunes twanging from her radio, wondering if the station had premade meals to buy.

[Deleted]

Ghost Wind was beginning to hate being planet-side.

It wasn't the planet itself. Solid ground was solid ground, and it beat being cooped up in the 'Nemesis'; while working the warship's conduits was as close as he got to his roots these days, there was only so long a mech could jam himself into that kind of space without going weird.

No, if anything it was the mess of it. You got used to a place for everything and everything in its place up on the ship; down here, good luck figuring out where the slag the coordinates were that some goofball on a secondary control screen had given you. Technically, Ghost had tacked his name on the ground patrol lists, scouting for Autobots or "enemies".

One, that "enemies" thing had been awfully vague in description. Two, what Autobot worth his dignity would be caught here in the middle of slagging nowhere?

Three, the patrol group he was supposed to attach to had not been at the designated coordinates. Because why not.

Still, not so bad. They were several kliks away and comm. communication had been established, misunderstandings cleared, and an irritated field-lead dressing down tersely delivered to Mister Go-Forth up there beyond the clouds. The end agreement was that Ghost should hold his (damn) position and then intercept when they got up to the next leg of their patrol.

Ghost was a-ok with this. He'd rumbled through some minor human settlement or another and found himself a decent perch at the running edges of it, where he could hit the road heading out onto the highway and merge there. It wouldn't take him but twenty minutes to meet up with the patrol once they were there to be caught.

Meanwhile he got to experience the local human flavor. He'd already decided there were four or fire cured fluids of different grades that he'd rather drink. The music was some sort of incredibly annoying, endless caterwauling, the place was coated in red dust, and there were more tumbleweeds than people. He'd be grateful to get back to his conduits; slag patrol duty.

The Tomahawk growled like a thing alive as it bumped onto the ramp leading to a gas station and idled into one of the parking spots, big enough to take up the whole thing. Its 'driver', rather needlessly, set his feet down. Black jacket and dark helmet made him impossible to see, but he removed neither as he ostentatiously took out a smartphone from a pocket and set to poking it; it was a learned behavior that Ghost had quickly found out to be a highly convenient 'neutral' setting.

Welp, as good a spot to wait as any. Idly he glanced up to the one bit of traffic coming by, but he sincerely doubted anyone, 'Bot, 'Con or otherwise, would want for that kind of grunge, and his attention went back to his own mental landscape. There had to be a decent radio station somewhere...

[Deleted]

Shit.

Shit, shit and more shit, she was going to have to skip eating again. Even getting a quarter of her tank filled was sucking her dry, and the young woman was close to grumbling as she left the store. Frustrated, she stalked darkly towards the car, paying little attention to the smartphone-wielding biker that was parked behind her. While Ghost Wind had been finishing pulling in, Sarita had already finished pumping gas, gone in to pay, and come back out with bad news in tow.

She wasn't sure of the busking laws in Jasper, but god damn it, she was getting hungry. A hungry and annoyed Sarita was a petty Sarita, and frankly, she didn't care who took offense to any of her playing. The girl moved her car out of its spot by the pump, parked it in front of the store, and searched around for her father's guitar. The zebra-striped, monochrome case was buried under her sweat-stinking blankets, and she made a mental note to wash those later.

After a few minutes of getting set up, the girl sat on the hood of her Sedan, the guitar case open on the ground. Strumming the strings as she searched for a tune, the girl looked to the bright blue sky, barely a cloud to be seen or noticed. She needed something sombre, something depressing but at the same time catchy.... Something to get people's attention. Something not too dramatic, as the town was simple, small and warm — grandiose tunes were better for the likes of New York City, or Portland. Something like, like, like....

Soundtrack: Bastion OST - "Build That Wall (Zia's Theme)"

A series of pitchy hums. A quiet, steady strumming of subdued chords. Sarita's fingers worked gently across the guitar, her voice aimed to project, but at the same time, not intrude upon another's space. It was meant to draw attention, but by no means would she belt out the tune like an overly-coked rock star. It wasn't the right place, nor was it the right tune, for bombastic performances.

"I dig my hole, you build a wall,

I dig my hole, you build a wall,

One day that wall is gonna fall...."

[Deleted]

Music - something not about a sexy tractor or a broken-down pickup as an analogy for a relationship, drew Ghost's 'head' up. The problem with a holoform, he thought, was that the better you made it, the more it betrayed you. You couldn't really do the blank-faced, yessir-ing, unimportant act when you were trying to emulate human behaviors - humans didn't do blank, or if they did, they did not do so in the same fashion Ghost did. It got confusing.

Whatever. He killed the horror he'd been listening to and cocked his head towards the more acceptable bit of noise. The human had a multi-string resonance box, primitive but pleasant enough. Wooden, by the look of it... really primitive then, but better than anyone the Tomahawk knew that ofttimes you worked with whatever-the-slag you had. The most cursory of searches made him glad there were no organic bits involved in the instrument, and convinced him to stop searching. Ew.

Well, it wasn't a radio station, but it would do while he waited. It didn't occur to him to pitch the blank, black span of the helmet's screen away so he wouldn't look like a staring pervert - he was looking, he was listening, was that no the point of her exercise? To catch attention?

[Deleted]

Ghost Wind's interest didn't go unnoticed. Granted, the intense stare was making Sarita a little nervous, but she wouldn't show it. Her posture straightened, she lifted her head with a regal tilt, and brought the volume of her voice just a notch higher. It was loud enough for the man with the bike to hear, but not enough to make people to complain — a skill in itself for any busker.

"Gonna build that city on a hill,

Gonna build that city on a hill,

Someday those tears are gonna spill....

So build that wall and build it strong,

'Cause we'll be there before too long — "

There was something faraway and melancholic about the song, and at the same time, a determined and even frightening element. Between the casual mentions of building some sort of metropolis, a vague, subtle threat in the song — they'd better watch where they built, where they stepped. A wariness in the song, an allegory not to raise their walls too high, just in case they couldn't see the foxes and wolves sneaking around the base. It wasn't something directed at Ghost Wind, but rather, a part of the song itself.

"Gonna build that wall up to the sky,

Gonna build that wall up to the sky,

Someday your bird is gonna fly....

Gonna build that wall until it's done,

Gonna build that wall until it's done,

But now you've got nowhere to run...."

Sadness, and almost mocking there. Disbelief that the wall-builders would cage themselves with ignorance, trap themselves in false beliefs of security and comfort. This was what the busker tried to convey, what her rich voice tried to lilt into the heavens as her guitar strummed along. At the same time, though, the song wasn't hers to interpret — what would the biker think of the lyrics, of the performance and the situation in general?

His enjoyment was all that mattered. The enjoyment of the crowd was all that ever mattered. Sarita was doing it for him as much as she was doing it for herself.

"So build that wall and build it strong

'Cause we'll be there before too long...."

[Deleted]

Artistry, Ghost found as he idled through a search of musical theory, was ingrained with surprising depth in the local species. A little too much depth, if you asked him, when he wandered into dead-animal and dry-body-parts territory. In the name of little blinking lights, why would you want to wear a dress made of dead bugs?

His holoform straightened up sharply, and shook his head. Some things were just better left to the weirdness that the natives as a whole seemed to be. They were little blips of chaos at the best of times, anyways, and at least there'd been something to listen that wasn't violent yowling about not stealing someone's mate.

The comm. line to the patrol crackled abruptly to life with a single non-verbal message, directives and coordinates. The Tomahawk thrummed to life with a smooth rumble.

Finally.

Ghost turned on the relatively narrow space. He was beginning to think surface-side the planet had nothing to offer but a disordered mess and absurdity in every corner. Well, at least he'd not been attacked by Autobrats, and the wooden string-box human had passed the time. He swung by her, the heavy bike slowing down but not stopping, his holoform's tone pitched to differentiate from the massive engine's thrum.

"Better than local radio."

And that was enough for him; he moved on, taking the bump of the gas station's ramp smoothly and accelerating away to the new coordinates. Somebody better be there this time...