It's thunderstorming.
I like Earth thunderstorms. I know they cause problems, but they're also beautiful to behold. And they're also necessary for life on this planet, or so I've read. I like that image - death and life all intertwined.
Storms are rare on Cybertron. Like, maybe once every hundred years or so when we still orbited a sun; now it's more like five thousand years between storms, depending on how far away we are from stars and planets and black holes and such. And as far as I know they don't do much more than destroy. There's not much in the way of rain - acid rain is mostly a tool of war - but we get wind and lightning that's severe enough that a lot of people just shut themselves and their equipment down for the duration.
One of the stories that survived the Second Great War, when Cybertron was divided between Decepticons in the skies and Autobots underground, was of an activate who fell in love with a storm. He was supposed to go offline with the rest of his troop, but for some reason he stayed awake and watched as the storm raged overhead. He'd never seen anything so destructive or beautiful, and he was completely enchanted. He woke up the troop boss and begged to be let out so he could experience the storm with all his senses, but the boss wouldn't do it.
For a hundred years he waited on the rooftops, optics to the sky, for the next storm, and nothing anyone could say could draw his attentions back to the world. After that hundred years' time, the skywatchers were predicting the most fearsome storm in memory. Cybertron shut itself down in preparation, but no one could find the activate who loved storms. They left the encampment door open for as long as they could, but eventually they were forced to close it and hope the activate had found shelter somewhere else.
The storm raged for days, and when it finally abated, the people emerged to begin repairing their broken structures and found the activate sprawled on a rooftop, smiling, his functions expired. When he was interred, they said that rather than return to Primus he had chosen to ride with the storm. They say that even now you can hear voices in the storm winds, the child of Cybertron dancing with his lover.
I think of that story when it storms, and I wonder about that activate. I wonder if it was worth it, to give up everything else and lose himself in that destructive force...
...even though I know what he'd say.
Storms are rare on Cybertron. Like, maybe once every hundred years or so when we still orbited a sun; now it's more like five thousand years between storms, depending on how far away we are from stars and planets and black holes and such. And as far as I know they don't do much more than destroy. There's not much in the way of rain - acid rain is mostly a tool of war - but we get wind and lightning that's severe enough that a lot of people just shut themselves and their equipment down for the duration.
One of the stories that survived the Second Great War, when Cybertron was divided between Decepticons in the skies and Autobots underground, was of an activate who fell in love with a storm. He was supposed to go offline with the rest of his troop, but for some reason he stayed awake and watched as the storm raged overhead. He'd never seen anything so destructive or beautiful, and he was completely enchanted. He woke up the troop boss and begged to be let out so he could experience the storm with all his senses, but the boss wouldn't do it.
For a hundred years he waited on the rooftops, optics to the sky, for the next storm, and nothing anyone could say could draw his attentions back to the world. After that hundred years' time, the skywatchers were predicting the most fearsome storm in memory. Cybertron shut itself down in preparation, but no one could find the activate who loved storms. They left the encampment door open for as long as they could, but eventually they were forced to close it and hope the activate had found shelter somewhere else.
The storm raged for days, and when it finally abated, the people emerged to begin repairing their broken structures and found the activate sprawled on a rooftop, smiling, his functions expired. When he was interred, they said that rather than return to Primus he had chosen to ride with the storm. They say that even now you can hear voices in the storm winds, the child of Cybertron dancing with his lover.
I think of that story when it storms, and I wonder about that activate. I wonder if it was worth it, to give up everything else and lose himself in that destructive force...
...even though I know what he'd say.