Months later, I'd managed to free myself of the oddity of the visions I'd had, and wanted nothing to do with, but couldn't seem to escape. I wanted to relax, and so I decided maybe it was a good time to pay Miko a visit.
I sat down and focused on Miko. After two unsuccessful minutes of trying to contact her, I gave up and settled on getting some rest of my own.
~~~
My dream took me to the hall of some Cybertronian building, while it was still intact. It was beautiful and gracious, adorned with decorations of every sort. I stood there with JumpStart, in a private meeting no one else knew about. “You know I love you, don’t you?” As much as they should've, his words didn't shock me in the least.
“Of course I do, Jay,” I replied gently.
“And you love me again?”
I smiled. His rare insecurities were endearing to the large, powerful mech. “I never stopped.”
He pulled me close to him, wrapping his arms protectively around me. “I thought I’d lost you.”
It hurt me that he had thought that, but I didn't know why. “I know, but you know why it had to be me and not you,” I murmured against his chassis.
“Well now I do. But thinking I’d lost you in the meantime . . .” He shuddered. It was actually comical and made me smile; that and the warmth of his body. “I’d rather have been ShockWave’s guinea pig.”
My smile grew a bit at his words. “And have him mess up your pretty faceplate? I don’t think so.”
Jay laughed. These moments were so rare when he was vulnerable. “I missed you, Star.”
~~~
I opened my optics warily. I was on Cybertron, yes, but JumpStart was most definitely not here with me. I was so confused and just a tad frustrated at what I couldn't comprehend. “What I would give to have normal dreams,” I muttered groggily.
A voice replied to me; and I hadn't expected it at all. “And what would you give?”
I sat up in rush, my spark pounding out of my it’s chamber as I looked at an unfamiliar face tending a very controlled campfire and barely giving me a second thought. She didn't even look my way. “Who on fiery Cybertron are you?” I demanded loudly. It was a little rude, yes, but this Cybertronian had snuck up on me while I was asleep and started a campfire of all things. Those flames were still beyond unnerving. Manners weren’t exactly in my repertoire at the moment.
“Name’s Aura,” she offered. “Cybertron’s princess. Well, former princess, really. Not much left to rule here, after all.” Amazingly, she was completely unfazed by my outburst and had yet to even look at me. Since I was awake, anyway. I had no idea if she’d been watching me during my recharge.
“Affiliation?” I asked sharply, keeping my optics firmly on her. I had to know what she was. If she was a ‘Con . . . Well that was problem.
“Huh?” That got her attention, at least. She looked at me, slightly puzzled, and then it clicked. “Oh. Autobot, of course. It’s been a while since I’ve been asked that.”
I was relieved enough to relax a bit and readjust myself so that I sat more comfortably. “So why are you here?” I thought I was the only one crazy enough to come here.
“This is home,” she said like it was perfectly obvious. “Deserted? Yes. Riddled with death? Obviously. Broken? Of course. But I was born and raised here and it will always be home. My creator taught me that this was to be my kingdom and I was supposed to care for it. I’m still trying to figure out how to."
She was . . . Odd, to say the least. She seemed to behave so normally for a princess.
"What about you?” She asked. “I’ve never seen you before.”
Why had I come here? I wanted to escape, I wanted a sanctuary, and, well- “I came looking for answers,” I admitted.
“And?”
“I’m starting to think I’m going to get more than I wanted,” I muttered, scrunching my expression at the thoughts that had been plaguing me for some time now.
She laughed. It was a sweet, resonant sound. I could only imagine that she’d been conditioned in every way, even in her laughter. “It always seems to work that way. Anything specific?”
“I’m seeing things . . .” I admitted slowly. “Memories that aren’t mine.” That was the only way I could describe them.
Aura looked at me oddly, then changed the subject. “Well that’s odd. Seeing as you speak English, I’m guessing you’ve been to Earth?”
“More than you know,” I murmured. My longstanding relationship with my home planet wasn't something I was about to delve into at the moment. She seemed nice enough, but so had I when I’d deceived the Decepticons.
Her next question wasn’t something I’d been expecting. “Are you familiar with the idea of reincarnation?”
I guessed they had something like that on Cybertron, but it was just more complicated than the Earth version. “Where the soul of a person is reborn after they die.” It came out in question form, but I knew exactly what she was talking about.
“I believe that’s it,” Aura replied with a nod.
“But . . . That doesn’t make sense . . .” I argued gently, her words puzzling.
“What doesn’t make sense about it, Star?”
I froze. I had no idea where she had gotten that. She hadn't asked my name and I hadn't said it. “What did you just call me?”
“Star. That’s . . .” She looked at me for a second, and seemed genuinely perplexed. “No. It’s not your name. It was your name. That’s where I know you. You remind me of the Autobot warrior StarBreak.”
“So the flashes, the dreams-.” ‘What I’m feeling for JumpStart . . .’ I nearly winced at my own thoughts. Jay . . .
“You never noticed anything before?” She asked, her helm tilting in confusion.
I guessed I had. My overly complicated feelings for JumpStart . . . Well they now made sense. “I did a little, but I figured it was just me being foolish, as usual.”
“So . . . What is your name?” Aura questioned, watching me.
“JewelBlade,” I told her simply.
“Huh,” she answered, seeming even more confused than before. “What unit were you with?”
Unit? “Excuse me?”
“You know,” Aura clarified. “During the war.”
Oh. Well . . . This was a complicated situation now. “I-. I wasn’t here,” I replied, glancing down. For whatever reason, I actually felt ashamed about that.
“You weren’t here? But you were obviously meant for battle,” Aura pointed out. “I’m guessing an assassin of sorts? That or a warrior.”
“Kind of,” I admitted. “But I wasn’t exactly . . . Alive, during the war on Cybertron.”
“Do tell.” She was actually interested in my life story, and for whatever reason now I just didn't care if she knew my origins anymore. I’d lived over a year, around a year and a half now, as a Cybertronian.
“I was born human,” I confessed. “Ratchet turned me.”
She raised her optic ridges at that; either from shock or curiosity. “Really? That’s impressive. What made you want to change?”
Another good question, but I still had an answer; it was one of the few things that hadn't changed in my time with the Autobots. Now it was nearly a year and eight months. I'd actually spent a good amount of time on Cybertron. “I wanted to help the Autobots. They’re outnumbered - and it just felt right, you know? Like it was supposed to happen.”
“It’s no cakewalk, though, is it?”
I shook my helm. “Not at all. I’ve been feeling kind of . . . Lost lately, you know? Like I’m missing something.” Something critical that I couldn't live without. I had my optics locked on the ground. I’d never been quite able to pinpoint what was missing.
“And that’s why you came to Cybertron?” I nodded. She didn’t miss a thing I said. “Did you ever think that what you’re missing is the rest of yourself?”
“What?” I looked back up at her, perplexed at her words.
“Look,” she began. “On the inside, at the core of who you are, Star’s still there. She’s part of you and that’s never going to change. Thing is, every time you’re reincarnated, PARTS of you change, no matter how small. You need to embrace your core and who you’ve become since Star’s death.”
“And if it breaks someone’s spark?” I was talking about JumpStart. I didn't want to hurt him, no matter what had changed.
“You need to love yourself before you love someone else,” Aura said. That was something I already knew and understood. “But would you care to enlighten me on the situation?”
I vented. It hurt to think about what I would be faced with upon my return. “Maybe another day when my spark doesn’t hurt so much.”
“That’s fair enough,” she relented. “In the meantime, how about I show you our beautiful planet?” She stood and walked over to where I sat on the ground. She offered her hand to me.
“I would love that,” I told her with a nod. I smiled and took her extended hand as she helped me to my peds. It would be nice to learn things as I saw them instead of just seeing their basic, first-level value.
~~~
Two months later, I knew exactly why she loved this planet. It was beautiful. And I'd only seen a portion of it. “Soothes the spark, huh?”
I couldn’t help the smile that came to my face. “It all feels so familiar.”
“It should,” Aura said with a shrug. “How many more visions have you had?”
“Twenty,” I told her.
“And the dreams?” She asked.
“Twenty-three,” I admitted, venting. “They've only been occasional, but I woke up after a couple and wound up right where I started when I went back into recharge.”
“You wanna talk about it?”
I knew she was talking about the mechs and who I'd spent my nights with, the ones that invaded my dreams. “It’s . . . Been fifty-fifty between JumpStart and Optimus. But they’re so different . . .”
“What kind of different?”
“Optimus is usually hurt,” I admitted, nearly wincing at the memories. “Mostly physically, and he’s telling me to come back for him and the Autobots. And then JumpStart . . . He just tells me that he loves me and he missed me.”
“And that’s not a good thing?” She asked, shrugging.
I assumed she was talking about Jay's 'loving me' thing. But I was conflicted on whether it was good or bad, honestly. “Maybe it would be . . . If he hadn’t been Star’s bondmate before she died.” That was the big thing I couldn't get past with this. What if he didn't really care for me, but just for Star?
“Ouch.”
“No kidding,” I muttered.
It was the strangest thing. Off in the distance, I could’ve sworn I heard the howling of wolves. “What on Cybertron?”
“They’ve woken,” Aura said simply. “We should get moving.” She got up with clear purpose and I followed suit.
“Why?” I asked, my spark beating a bit faster. “What are they?”
“Right now?” She asked. “They’re hunting. And guess where they’re going to find fresh energon.”
Well, I hadn't expected being hunted by wolves to be on my bucket list for my Cybertron tour. “Marvelous. How have they survived so long, anyway?”
“They remain in stasis for much of the year, but when they go hunting, they usually just ravage the bodies of the dead. Now that most of our dead have been tainted with dark energon . . . Well they’re going to get desperate.”
This planet just got more and more interesting.