exsilium | [Video]

( At first, anyone could have heard a pin drop, so complete is Collette's silence. She has to remind herself to breathe, once it registers she's holding her breath.

She's not as naive as she makes herself appear. Fighting in war, doing the actions that condemn innocent as well as guilty (for what worth guilt carried in the concept of war) was part of what happened. The gross, disgusting, horrifying part which made everybody dirty, no matter how important or right they felt their side or their goal was.

Genocide is what she fought at home. An invading alien species that trounced worlds, feeling it was their right. Not four million years of fighting, more like forty, but not more pleasant for having been less vociferous so far.

She can't pretend that doesn't change something in how she understands Drift. It's horrifying. It's horrible.

Collette closes her eyes and rests her forehead on Drift, wishing for a brief moment he was warmer. But this makes sense.

She swallows. )

I don't think you escape that. I think you do everything you can to help everyone you can, for the good things, but you did bad things in the past, and... and you have to make that okay in your head however you can. It's part of you. Accept it, and don't let it make you give up or... or anything dumb like that!

( She slaps the palm of one hand down on his arm, more for emphasis than anything else. )

I'm your friend. Don't needs and don't wants aren't part of this! But you can't sulk forever when you mess up. Sulk a little, get it out of your system, then figure out what things you can do!

( Her voice drops lower. )

You're still alive, Drift. Even when you mess up, or you get people hurt, you've still got time to make up for it. Time and the will, you know? Right?

[ Drift's engine gives a soft rumble as he thinks, considering her words carefully. ]

I thought I'd changed but. I did it again. I got people killed. Friends. And I lied to someone I really respected. I don't think he'll ever forgive me.

[ The slap makes him jerk a little, optics widening. ]

I-

Ahhh....

[ He could argue with her, but he's not terribly keen on driving off the only few people who care about him anymore. The one left at home would be Ratchet, and Drift is starting to miss the sassy medic.

As it is he pulls her carefully up towards himself with his arm, tucking her into the space between his chin and chest-plating. ]

I do not deserve a friend like you. But I will do everything in my power to do well by you.

This place. Is the only home I have now.

So ask for him to anyway, and if he can't, just... just learn to live with it.

( Which isn't easy, but she's distracted from thinking too hard on it with holding on to Drift and resituating herself as he tucks her in where he does. She thinks wryly how she's probably a bit more comfortable because she can't feel parts of herself go numb or have uncomfortable encounters with unforgiving metal, but doesn't say anything about that. She rests both her hands on Drift, smiling as much as she can, )

It's the only home for a few people around. You're not alone here, not in that, and not in the rest I bet.

( She pats him again, wondering what it means... really. )

Yeah. I know I can deal with it. I have before. I guess I just thought I found a place where I belonged.

[ From here she can probably hear the steady pulse of his spark, thrumming away under his plating. ]

Thank you, Collette. I'm sorry to. Uh. Be like this in front of you.

Edited 2013-05-20 03:09 (UTC)

Be like what?

( Don't be sorry, is what she tries to say without saying it. )

Hey, is that your heartbeat I'm feeling? I mean, whatever is like your heartbeat. You don't have a literal heart, do you?

Well I mean. You know. All. _Emotional.

[ He says it like it's come kind of weird affliction. ]

Oh. Yes... sort of. Not really. My species has something called a "spark". It is... very much like a heart, but bright, hot and made of energy. If our spark goes out, we die.

From what I understand it is much the same for your species.

Edited (grammar) 2013-05-20 04:01 (UTC)

Hey, it''s fine! Emotions are good. You feel them, I feel them, we both let them out sometimes 'cause that's what friends do, and it's good! We listen to each other, say when one or the other is being dumb, groand and sigh and nod when we're supposed to, and that's that! It's a pretty important part of friendship. That's what I think!

( How peple individually apply that is all over the board, something else she happens to know from her own experience. It's more interesting that way.

She actually presses her head against what of him she can to better listen. No way... that's a literal sort of spark? It thrums! Hums! She's not even sure how to describe it. )

Yeah, though we have something we call a spark of life, only it's not literal. Sometimes it's in your eyes, or your energy, or your personality, and then sometimes it just goes out. "The spark's gone out of her," sayings like that. Our hearts, though, if those stop, then we die too! If they stay stopped. Um... okay, so it can get slightly complicated, but you can die but get revived if they get your heart beating again.

I uh. Haha. Okay. Yeah, it's just weird for me. I mean not bad weird just unusual weird.

[ Drift is kind of new to this whole sharing emotions thing.

When she presses close he turns slightly to allow her to hear better. ]

Oh, really? Our spark is in our eyes too. Though I guess with us it's more literal. The glow is the glow of our spark.

[ He manages a smile. ]

It sounds like we're not so different.

Edited 2013-05-20 15:44 (UTC)

( She grins right back. )

We're all a lot more similar than we are different. That's the really scary part!

( She falls silent for a beat. )

I won't say it'll all be okay... but you've got time to change. There's no rule to how you have to be when you're here. You're just Drift, this guy from another place. You know? Not Drift the guy who messes up and gets people hurt, or Drift the former destructobot. Just Drift.

Yeah. I never really would have thought about it, but yeah. You guys are very cybertronian-like in a lot of ways.

[ Oh. Okay. Well that's something that makes his spark swell a little. He gives her a little squeeze and picks her up, rolling over to sit her on his flat chest-plate more comfortably. ]

Decepticon.

And can I be Drift the guy who makes sure you're safe, maybe?

Decepticon? What were the other guys called, Truthbots? The Justonians?

( She pitches her tone light and warm, not wanting to make fun of the name so much as make light of the situation. )

Mmm... I think that sounds like a pretty cool Drift to know! Though I get into trouble a lot. It's a skill I have.

( She smiles, for all this is an earnest warning. )

So be careful not to sometimes be Drift, the guy who beats himself up when he can't keep you safe all of the time. You know?

Autobots. Heh- I know. There's a story behind the whole "Decepticon" thing, actually.

[ He gives her a dubious smile. ]

I'll try to keep that in mind. But I'm still going to try my best.

I'll try my best, too. To not be someone you have to worry about so much.

( Though with him bringing it up... )

So... why exactly are they called the Decepticons? Or Autobots!

S'all I could ask for.

Oh uh. Heh.

[ He rubs a finger up one of his finials. ]

Mmmm. Well, the Autobots were kind of already a thing. But the Decepticons came out because a long time ago, our government was very corrupt. The Decepticons were originally revolutionaries.

They chose that name in reference to the phrase "You are being deceived". It was a political commentary.

[ He winces, yeah could he make that sound any more lame? ]

How'd they go from revolutionaries to... genocidal soldiers?

Ah. At first, the situation required some measure of. Brutality. That's why they picked me up in the first place.

When you fight a war for millions of years, sometimes you forget what you're fighting about and "acceptable loss" is a phrase that gets used more and more. Eventually people stop asking.

People get messed up. Ideas get messed up.

Caesar's said that before. That there's no such thing as an acceptable loss.

( She'd needed to hear that back then; it'd made some things more okay in her head. She feels it's important to remember now. )

Straightening yourself out, and ideas out again, that's important, too. Remembering what it was you really found important in the first place. Like the freedom to ski! Or bungee jump, or toss frisbees in a park.

Yeah... my friend Wing. He helped me do it once. I think I probably need fixing again, though. I mean. Reminding, you know?

[ He chuckles, pausing after. ]

I don't know what any of those things are.

Drift... have I got some things to tell you! ( She grins. ) Wanna hear about all those things you don't know?

... Yes. Yes I do.

( She proceeds to tell him, in great enthusiastic detail, about bungee jumping. At some point, it turns into a discussion on the merits of spelunking, similar to, but still different from, BASE jumping. Which only starts to get into human flight!

Collette can talk forever, until her throat is dry and she coughs because she's talked herself to that point of dryness. )

Oh boy, do I ever need some water...!

[ He listens with rapt attention. Quiet, wide glowing eyes set on Collette the whole time. He thinks to himself, these are all things that seem like something Rodimus would enjoy doing. When she finally slows, he just smiles and picks her up. ]

Don't have any human-sized cups but I did get the water working.

[ Carefully he moves her over near the water basin where he turns on the spigot, holding her near it. ]

Thank you for telling me all that.

[ It's really nice to have his mind on something else. ]

( She finds this almost novel, cupping her hands together and reaching out to get well and properly splashed before she collects anything like some water in her hands. She brings her cupped hands to her face, taking a sip -- wrinkling her nose, because it doesn't taste fantastic. )

You're welcome! I love talking about this stuff. How old are these pipes?

I like listening. It's all just so far from what I know. And I'm really not sure. We cleaned them out though, at least as well as we could.

[ He pulls her away when he's sure she's done, moving to sit back down and place her nearly in his lap. ]

You know, I never thought I'd become such good friends with an organic. It's nice that people aren't afraid of me here, anyways.

I bet people are, but it doesn't stop them from wanting to know more about you. There're lots of scary, amazing things in the universe! Something we don't know or don't recognize shouldn't hold us back from wanting to learn more.

( And should not have the gut instinct to kill, because it was different. LE NO!!! )

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