The Day We Hailed The Heavens

Chapter 19 [NSFW RATED:M]

Chapter Nineteen

Pax Deorum

Warning: The chapter ahead involves a sexual situation, and is rated M for safety. Pairing: Starscream/Alexis.

The song.

He remembered it so clearly from his younger days. Younger days that had been full of aspirations and hopes - the days of the Golden Age, when all had been at peace and there had been nothing to his life but science and discovery. It was true that he had never had too many friends, but Skyfire had been his close companion and that had been the only important thing. As long as there had been someone there - anyone - he had been content with his world, if nothing else.

At that time, the All Spark - in its full, cube-shaped form - had been mounted at the capital city of Iacon in a building erected in its honour. Every once in a while, a Cybertronian would be offered a chance to view it; rumour had it that occasionally, it would speak to those who were destined for great things in the future.

He had been called up during the time just before he and Skyfire made that fatal mistake and he lost his comrade to the ice planet. At this time, he had still been young and relatively naïve, and it had instilled such wonder in him when he had beheld that glorious cube. It was covered in hieroglyphic writings - an ancient form of Cybertronian that he had come across once when he and Skyfire had explored an unknown world, but had never learnt to read. Only the older mechs knew the secret of the language.

He had not been expecting it to speak to him. He was a mere explorer; he was neither soldier nor leader, and had assumed that these were the only ones whom their beloved creator would sanctify with its words. But he remembered stepping up with the other three who had been called... and he had heard the song.

His song.

The words had been so painfully harmonious that he had felt as if his spark would break in the face of it. It had spoken of his future... told him that he, Starscream, was fated to become a great warrior. That he, Starscream, would be the object of great jealousy and the possessor of immense power, such would be his success in years to come.

Yet, woven into the words of the chant, there had been a warning. A warning that glory and splendour could sometimes lead a person down a dark path... and that with all joy, there would be suffering.

And he, Starscream, was intended to suffer. Far more than most, it had warned.

Now, as he sung it into the darkness created by Unicron, he understood what it had meant. For he had achieved authority as Decepticon Air Commander and second-in-command; been the object of jealousy from his subordinates, and the soldiers hungry for power; he had fought as a powerful combatant against the Autobots; he had, in a sense, achieved success.

But as a monster. As a murderer.

And he had suffered for it more than he cared to think about.

Yet through his darkness had broken a dazzling, radiant light. A sunbeam so unfamiliar and beautiful that he had scorned it at first, doing everything in his power to try and put it out. A light encompassed in a brittle organic body and given to him to protect and guard... a light that went by the innocent name of Alexis Paxton.

But was that name so very innocent - so insignificant? He had wondered that to himself a thousand times, and a year or so beforehand is curiosity had driven him to research it using the World Wide Web. He had found - deftly avoiding several web-borne computer viruses along the way - that there was meaning to her name, as there apparently was to the name of every human. But the significance of what he had discovered had actually chilled him - him, the supposedly fearless Starscream.