𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐄
'𝗂𝗍'𝗌 𝖺𝗅𝗅 𝖽𝗈𝗐𝗇𝗁𝗂𝗅𝗅 𝖿𝗋𝗈𝗆 𝗁𝖾𝗋𝖾'
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"𝐖𝐄'𝐕𝐄 𝐆𝐎𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐒 through one last town before we reach Iacon. I've got a friend stationed there so we should have a place to stay while we're there. It's just a very long walk until then."
Eclipse nodded along as he explained their plans for the rest of the cycle. The walking part didn't sound the most appealing considering they had already been walking for breems.
It was so much different compared to what she was used to.
Don't get her wrong, she absolutely loved the adventure and the new experience, but it was very different from taking a spaceship or ground-bridging everywhere.
The duo stopped at the end of the path, pedes meeting the edge of a river where liquid mercury rushed downstream. The liquid wasn't as sticky or dense as it appeared, but swimming wasn't exactly an option considering how heavy Cybertronians were. They'd sink right to the bottom, not to mention this stuff stained and ruined polished finishes.
The black and yellow mech turned, "We can follow the river downstream."
Even as he started walking away, the femme didn't follow.
Her optic-ridges furrowed, staring at the metallic liquid then to the scout. "Why don't we just ride down the river? It would save so much time." She suggested seriously.
Bumblebee turned around, "On what? There is nothing to ride down on."
She hummed in agreement before scanning the area.
There had to be something...
Her optics landed on the nearest crystal tree which she had previously been skimming over.
Her servo brushed over the flaps of metal on the base of the tree as an idea sparked, "Let's building something to ride on."
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"𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐀 𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐑𝐈𝐁𝐋𝐄 idea."
Bumblebee was visibly stressed. The anxiety he didn't even bother to try and hide flew through the vibrations of his shaky vocal synth. And if that wasn't enough to make it apparent, the mech was desperately clinging onto the sides of the makeshift boat they constructed. Sure, it was poorly made and could probably fall apart at any nano-klik since neither were really experts at building things; However, that only spiked his stress levels higher.
Still, they sat inside of it and on top of the river, the scout a lot less willingly than herself. She sat in the front to at least ease some nerves that may come from seeing anything he might overthink, the scout close behind her.
"Oh, loosen your gears up. All that matters is that it will get us to our destination." Eclipse dismissed, muttering shortly after, "Hopefully."
"Hopefully?" He squeaked. The not-so-subtly added comment was not very appreciated.
"Come on, it'll be fun. Here." Eclipse handed him one of their makeshift oars while holding onto her own. The oars probably looked in worse shape than the boat, but they would at least... function.
She stuck the end of it into the mercury river and began rowing with the current, "Here we go."
Inwardly, she hoped the current and their rowing would get them quickly to their destination before they inevitably sank. In the short time they had thrown the slabs of metal together, they had learned very quickly they were possibly the worst engineers in eons. It was only a matter of time before they sank to the bottom of the river, at least they predicted.
It was outrageously quiet, the silence stretching on an annoying amount of time that made the femme antsy. The rushing liquid on either side of them and the slight splash of the oars every time they swept through it, not to mention the quiet squeaks of Bumblebee behind her whenever he thought they were going to tip over. It was driving her mad.
Eclipse subtly glanced over her shoulder-plate, the first thing she noticed being behind the very concentrated look on his faceplate. Immense worry, his optics intently glued to his oars as though if he looked away for a moment that they would drown. Bumblebee's limbs were also stiff as steel slabs, determined not to tilt the boat in any way.
She peeked over the side.
The liquid wasn't exactly transparent, so if you fell in and sank to the bottom, it would turn into a lot of scrambling to find your way out—or to swim in general.
It was a reasonable fear for him to have, and she might have the same concerns if she wasn't so uncaring of her safety all of the time, but she couldn't help but let the corner of her derma curl up into a smirk. L
Somehow, she always managed to find a way to make things entertaining. Eclipse just couldn't help herself.
Imperceptibly, the femme shifted her weight just enough to rock the boat.
As expected, she could feel the mech behind her freeze stiff.
"Did you feel that?" He asked anxiously, his helm darting up from his oars for the first time and to the femme.
She shook her helm, mockingly saluting him, "Negative, solider."
Bumblebee rolled his optics at her lame attempt at a joke, or rather, teasing.
Eclipse waited a few more nano-kliks, just long enough for the previous sounds to irritate a certain circuit within her before she rocked the boat again a little harder than the last.
"Okay, you've had to have felt that." Bumblebee deadpanned.
She dismissed it yet again, "You're just paranoid."
Further driving him insane, she practically threw all of her weight to her right so it created a bigger splash, droplets flying up and onto their metal-plating.
"You're doing it!" The scout accused in disbelief as the realization hit him like a lob ball to the helm.
She finally broke her façade and broke out into a fit of laughter, completely ignoring his glare piercing into the side of her helm.
"What? Me?" Eclipse subtly leaned toward the edge of the boat, sticking her servo into the metallic liquid, "Never. How could you ever think such a thing?"
Then she quickly splashed it in his direction.
Bumblebee sprang backward in the small boat with his servos in front of him as some sort of shield. Not that it helped his case very much.
His actions had caused the boat to rock like he had been protesting about before.
"Hey!" The scout complained, regaining his balance with a frown. Eclipse only snickered before turning back forward.
Her faceplate dropped the moment she did.
"I know you hate getting wet and all, Queen Bee—" She began, the scout not catching the slightly anxiousness in her tone.
He cut her off, offended by the new nickname more than anything, "Oh, ha ha. Real clever. I am not a queen bee. I just prefer that stuff not on me. It gets all in your wiring and it's a pain to clean. And falling in? Don't even get me started."
She paid no attention to him, patting him on the shoulder-plate as she continued staring dead ahead, "Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, Queen Bee. But uh—fulfilling those demands is about to get a little bit more difficult."
His optic-ridges furrowed in confusion as he peeked past her side, something in him screaming that she was just messing with him again.
Only she wasn't kidding and the sight of rapids they were quickly approaching were right in their direct path.
"I told you this was a bad idea." He stated matter-of-factly.
"Actually, you said it was a terrible idea."
He ignored her.
The two clutched their oars tightly, shrieking as the boat tipped forward at the start of what they would call absolute scrap and just their type of luck.
The current moving every which way rocked the boat back and forth roughly, putting her playful rocking from earlier to shame. It jerked their frames to one side, only to bounce into the other without a moment to spare.
Forward and backward.
Right and left.
Jolting forward again.
It was never-ending, and a sickening feeling began to grow inside of her.
Just ahead, a cluster of rocks managed to catch her attention. The boat was moving so spastically that she hardly had any sense of direction but somehow she managed to pick it out in the swirling blobs of colors rotating around her.
Eclipse finally managed to thrust her oar into the liquid in an attempt to steer them out of the way.
The current finally worked in their favor, spinning them just out of the way of the rocks, but she was too late to pull it back away.
A vibration ran up the oar from a muffled snap, the sudden loss of pressure fighting against her grip jolting her backward that made her realize what had happened.
Her optics widened as she turned her upper frame to the scout who was still hopelessly trying to steer their boat. She held up her oar, fully displaying the snapped object now missing half of itself, "We've got a slight problem."
She noticed his optics widen to reflect the size of her own, but his response was cut short when the boat roughly slammed into something. They both lurched, quickly grasping onto the sides of the boat for their lives as they began aimlessly spinning in circles. They had abandoned the remaining oars at that moment, both slabs of poorly put together metal going overboard.
"We're going to offline!" Eclipse shrieked in terror over the deafening sounds of the rushing rapids, "We will offline by the end of this!"
"No, we're not!"
"Yes we are! Primus! This isn't how I wanted to go."
"It's fine! We're fine!"
"This is such a lame way to offline. I could do better!"
"Calm down!"
"Don't ever tell a femme to calm down! Don't you ever!"
Their bickering ceased as their boat rapidly approached a dip in the river, their processors immediately connecting what was about to happen. Everyone knew what came after rapids.
Their arms wrapped around one another as they screamed. Inwardly they were preparing to meet their end right then and there.
How did she jump off an over fifty-story building, fight and run away from Decepticons, and probably accidentally escape fatal injuries her entire life until this moment?
This was it. This is really how she was going to offline.
She offlined her optics, waiting for the pit inside of her to grow as she fell to her offlining. She even managed to imagine coming back as a ghost and haunting the scrap out of Ironhide... but she never saw the white light nor did she feel gravity take hold.
Her optics slowly came back online, finding they were still floating... calmly as if they didn't just come knocking at the Well of All Spark's door.
Much to their surprise and relief, the drop wasn't as steep as they had imagined. It merely made a decent size splash as they reached the end of the little dip on the river where the liquid was now calm and the current no longer raging with itself.
The pair slowly pulled away from one another awkwardly as their boat floated effortlessly with the current as if they didn't just almost offline a few moments prior.
"Oh..." Eclipse pursed her dermas, "I though it was going to be a really long fall..."
Bumblebee nodded, "Me too..."
An uncomfortable silence took over after that, more embarrassment than anything.
Flashes of them screaming as they clung to each other appeared in their processors.
She cleared her vocalizer, "So, how long till we make it to that town?"
On the bright side, turns out their boat-building skills weren't that scrap after all.
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I KNOW. I KNOW. IT IS A SHORT CHAPTER. How dare I give you such a short chapter on Christmas eve as 12:43 in the morning.
Ya know I WAS going to speed write this rewrite this first "arc" so I could give you guys a fabulous Christmas gift... but I fell into an episode so your gift is now this short but serotonin-filled chapter that holds a spot as one of my favs and possibly the big gift on New Years...? Maybe? Possibly? Last New Years I finished Among the Stars completely so it would be the perfect time to...
EDITED ✔︎
{ 2054 words }