Of Wings and Love

May 16, 2012 15:53


Title: Wings of Love
Fandom: Transformers AU
Author: LediShae and deathmustang
Pairing/Characters: Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Ratchet, First Aid, Tracks
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Harpies, creatures with angelic faces and the bodies and talons of the fiercest hunting avians, had long been rivals of the gryphons, the eagle/lion beasts of legendary might. Yet, being inthe wrong place at just the right time brings three would be enemies together against a common foe.
Warnings: Mature situations, mentions of quasi non-con.
Word Count: 3155
Disclaimer: All Transformer characters belong to their respective owners, I'm just having a little fun.



Frigid air tore through his intakes, chilling systems that burned red hot as he pushed himself to fly higher and faster, pumping wings that burned in thrilling agony with each stroke. Beside him, a matching red dot rowed through the sky, wings beating in time with his as they prepared to face in combat. Higher still, streaking above them like a massive purple arrow arcing across the blue steel sky, a younger gryphon signaled their fight to begin.

Sunstreaker pulled his wings in tightly against his sides, barrel rolling into his opponent’s flight line and across it forcing the other to lose altitude or face a lethal mid air collision. With his red opponent now a mere speck below him Sunstreaker snapped his wings open with a thunderous clap as the wind collided with his golden metallic feathers. He pumped his wings determinedly to gain more altitude above the fierce opponent streaking towards him like a brilliant-hued portend of doom. Finally high enough he once more folded his wings tightly to his sides as he stretched his lithe body out, arrow like, to reduce his air resistance. He plummeted from the light of the sun above him, the slitted optics of his opponent telling him he had chosen his trajectory correctly as wicked talons raked down the other’s back, snagging one of three white streamers as a ‘damaging blow’ to his opponent.

He danced away feeling a thrill of triumph just as a scream of victory tore through the air above him. Looking up he hissed through his beak in impotent rage as his brother screamed his victory once more, all three of Sunstreaker’s streamers fluttering from wickedly sharp beak and talons. “Slagger,” Sunstreaker cursed as he plunged to the ground, matching his brother stroke for stoke as they plunged towards the earth. Sideswipe may have pulled a sly maneuver, letting Sunstreaker take one of his streamer’s in a bid to snag all three of his twin’s in one blow. Sunstreaker, however, could out dance his brother any day and he would prove it.

They formed spiraling corkscrews about one another, Sideswipe hindered by his victory tokens that occasionally tangled with his remaining streamers. They danced as if courting, gold and crimson specks growing dangerously fast as they plummeted seemingly without control to the unforgiving rocks below. At the last second, the many gryphons below them scattered and tensed to avoid the falling forms, the pair broke off, snapping their wings open with thunderous snaps that allowed them to land poised perfectly on one back paw for all to see before finally lowering to all fours with, in Sunstreaker’s case, exquisitely controlled grace.

Sideswipe on the other talon, landed roughly, huffing at the impact and wincing as his talons tangled in loose stones. With a sharp glance behind him Sunstreaker smirked at his brother, knowing his twin had been too busy gloating to pick a suitable landing spot and was now suffering for it.

Satisfied that he had rubbed Sideswipe’s beak in the dust Sunstreaker strode with precisely controlled, fluid grace to their clan leader, the aged and worn down Arcee. The gryphon femme glared up at them, her age faded feathers more white than pink somehow only made her seem smaller and more delicate to their young optics.

“Proud of yourselves?” She asked sternly from her rock perch that barely put her on their optic level. “Sunstreaker, you lost the battle and you still are too haughty to admit defeat.” She hissed savagely, “Gryphons have honor, which you still lack greatly.” She looked over the overly vain golden gryphon mech with disdain once more before turning her aged gaze on the other miscreant.

“Sideswipe, the goal of these practice battles is to use your miniscule processors to outwit your opponent, not put your internals right in his talon range! We have big heads full of processing capacity for a reason.” She shook her head despairingly, “Apparently you still lack the intelligence to see this.” She sat up straighter, aged back trembling with fatigue at keeping her once vaunted perfect poise.

“Did we pass?” Sunstreaker asked flatly, unimpressed with his leader, or her many scowling wing leaders gathered around her.

“Technically,” Arcee snapped, “Sideswipe did. He stole your streamers, except he used the one maneuver that gets every moronic young bachelor terminated in his first sortie. Therefore, no neither of you passed. And, that means, neither one of you have earned your mating rights within this clan, again.” Arcee finally grinned victoriously; her wizened nares flaring over her delicate beak gaped in the gryphonic grin of their race.

Finally, realization dawning on them Sunstreaker and Sideswipe looked at each other in stunned horror. They had been of mating age for six vorns now, and six vorns was the maximum time allotted for young bachelors to prove their status as worthy males for the clan less they be banished - forever.

Sideswipe stared thunderstruck at his clan leader, their great-great-grand carrier, before finally looking over the assembled clan around them. Carrier and creator, siblings, families great and small and for the first time in his life he realized he didn’t know these gryphons at all. They were strangers related by propagation programming alone. He knew their names, how to get under their feathers without effort, what they would give anything to have, be it a trysting partner or a favorite dish that was nigh impossible to find. He knew all this about them but he did not know them.

“Finally,” Sunstreaker relaxed, sitting comfortably on his lion-like haunches, “We can get out of here without being hunted down for deserting.” With that he rose and turned with enviable fluidity, leaving with calm nonchalance towards the cave he and Sideswipe shared as their bachelor quarters, cramped bachelor quarters, with several other male hopefuls seeking their place in the clan’s hierarchy.

Sideswipe sat still a moment longer, long lion tail tufted with metal feathers flopping like a landed fish behind him as he pondered his new discovery. Looking from brother to clan he finally decided the few trinkets his clan mates owed him for lost bets were not worth his time he finally tore off his streamers and followed the golden figure that had always been the most important thing in his life.

“But, you two promised, we’d be together!” A bright green femme cried from the crowd. “You promised!” She looked to the red plumed mech she thought she had loved and gaped at his bland shrug as he brushed past her. “What about the sparklet?”

“You wanted it.” Sideswipe replied over his shoulder with a shrug, realizing only as the chorused shouts of outrage that maybe sparking up the femme without a true mating flight might not have been a good idea. He sent a mental shove towards his brother who tore out of their cave, meager belongings bundled against his chest as both took to the skies flying for their very lives from the outraged clan they no longer belonged to.

“You sparked her?” Sunstreaker demanded as they tore through the skies, eagle forearms and talons burdened with the only possessions they could claim.

“We, dear brother, we sparked her. You were no less enthusiastic.” Sideswipe reminded with a jaunty grin, out of place in their desperate bid for escape that was taking them ever closer to the lands of their greatest enemies - the so called civilized mechs that dared call their people mere beasts. The two leggers were so haughty in their cities and towns. They lived fat off of cultivated energon that took nothing to synthesize instead of honorably generating it from the fluids of their kills as the gryphons and other clan mechs of the Free Lands did.

Far below them the rugged terrain of the gryphon lands passed swiftly below them changing to the southernmost forested edge of the harpy forest. They kited east, skirting the dangerous boundary between the lands of gryphons and harpies as they winged ever away from their home. Finally, the faster gryphons of the messenger wings began catching up, flying in tight formations the brothers would hold no defense against.

Knowing their fate was sealed, should they remain aloft the pair turned west and south heading to the stagnant fog that never dissipated from the Maw of Primus. The deep, endless crevasse no flier ever neared. The fogs held strange entities that stole the very wind from under ones wings, the breath from the intakes and sight from optics, leaving them to fall in eternal darkness. Despite the fate they knew awaited them, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe dove headlong into the mists vanishing from their pursuers’ optics to their doom.

“When it is born, the gryphlet must be terminated, such madness cannot be allowed to spread through the bloodlines.” Arcee murmured sadly looking toward the young femme’s sire sadly. “Come, we must mourn our parted sons.”

*****************************************************************************************************************

Dawn slowly crested the slumbering forest. Trees shimmering in dark metallic rainbow hues welcomed the crimson sun's early light. Enormous leaves shaped as fans rained condensation down on the lower branches, stirring the nesting slumbers who called their highest canopy home. Small creatures, hued of the brightest rainbow colors slipped from the high canopy for their daily hunts. While others, lower down in the branching heights returned from their nightly toils to slumber through the newborn day.

“In the largest trees, high above the clouds, unholy shrieks and baleful cries herald the awakening of the forest's fiercest denizens, the harpies. Faces sculpted as the most beautiful of femmes and mechs belie the clawed wings and lethal talons all harpies possess. Their bright optics, often soft and desiring mask the lethal and bloodthirsty natures that boil within the harpy’s lightless sparks, and are used to lure wayward travelers to their destruction.

“Despite their beautiful visage harpies slaughter their kill by ripping out the still pulsing spark as a trophy that is ingested followed by breaking open the cranial plating to get at the more desirable processors. They gorge on internal components, the still warm energon dripping from their mechanoid-like lips as they rip components in shattered fragments raining gore -”

“Will you quit reading those ghastly stories aloud before breakfast?” Ratchet groused as he pulled himself from the thick, warm spare nest of cushions and pillows his youngling’s family kept for his irregular visits.

“But Uncle Ratchet, creator says its mandatory reading for all young harpies.” Bright, young, blue optics looked up at Ratchet from a pile of younglings on the floor. Ever curious, Streetwise held the worn leather tome in his blue feathered lap, a matching claw tipped blue wing used to turn to the thick hide pages that had held up to generations of rambunctious harpy younglings.

“And Uncle Ratchet says either quit it or those wings will be welded to your tail feathers.” Ratchet half heartedly snarled at the clustered younglings, and sighed exasperatedly as his own creation’s soft blue optics landed on him pleadingly.

“Please carrier? Just a few more pages?” Aid asked softly, kind optics sincere as he smiled winningly. Red and white, the opposite of Ratchet’s primary colors, First Aid looked little like his half brothers he snuggled with. Silently, Ratchet was grateful, pleased that the unwanted mating those years ago had not gifted him with a youngling that looked just like his vain and obstinate creator.

“Fine, just let me get out of audio range before I lose my appetite.” With a final huff Ratchet left the crowded sleeping quarters and headed out to find the creator of the many younglings nestled together in a optic assaulting raucous of colored feathers.

“Morning Ratchet” the said creator smiled winningly from his seat at the long table in his home, surrounded by the beautiful femmes of his harem and many of the younglings he had sired surrounding them.

“Tracks,” Ratchet nodded distantly. “I see new faces.” He gestured to a pair of full femmes and a harpy that looked somewhat lost between being mech and femme.

“Yes, I won three new wives from Jetfire’s brood, his two eldest daughters and his fourth son. The lad was neuter sparked, so he will serve as a guard, but we can still have our pleasures.” The last was spoken with a lusting purr towards the young neuter who could only smile at his new master.

Ratchet silently swallowed the bitter energon that boiled in his craw at the thought of mating for life with the brilliantly plumed mech before him and shuddered. Red and blue, Tracks was a striking harpy. And, a sly back stabbing, no account, wheedling free loader who never fought if he could avoid it misbegotten unholy union of a walking aft and a gryphon.

Ratchet silenced his inner diatribe of curses as the still unpleasant memory of being caught in his first heat by the mech that had sired Aid nearly made Ratchet’s tanks heave, and also signaled that he would be best leaving sooner rather than later. The white and red harpy sat with ill grace as he glowered at his creation’s sire.

“Congratulations,” Finally calmed and capable of speaking without yelling at Tracks, Ratchet plucked a succulent fruit from a waiting basket filled only during his visits. “Aid has requested to join me this trip. It will be short, to my brother’s harem then off to - to see my carrier.” He stammered over the last of his planned journey, dreading coming home with his half grown youngling and still no proper mate. Of course, facing his carrier was always daunting regardless of the circumstance, he mused as he bit savagely into the pre-energon rich fruit. The caustic acid singing the delicate tissues around his beak, yet only added to the satisfaction of eating the delectable rarity.

After all, Ratchet mused as his mind wandered, his creator had only one mate, and that one mate had chased every potential rival and harem sister away single handedly. Oh yes, Ratchet silently groaned at the prospect of going home, this was going to be fun. Not.

Tracks laughed out loud, “Your carrier is the scariest harpy alive. I thought I was going to leave your home nest a eunuch when they found out we were not going to be mated.”

“Trust me, the fact that I have stake in Aid’s life is the only thing that saved your spike. Otherwise carrier would have eaten it for breakfast and proceed to give me yet another sibling made from your incorporated circuits. Nasty as that thought is I might have enjoyed it once.” Ratchet filled in with a glare, still not able to forgive Tracks after these many vorns.

“Still sore, huh? Calm down,” Tracks sighed, “I never wanted a mech carrier in my harem, you were just a pleasant tryst.”

“Trysts include both sides willing, or at least honorably fought for, not heat crazed and exhausted after chasing off ten other suitors.” Ratchet snarled, turning to leave, “Aid! Now!”

“Good idea,” Tracks grinned, “I don’t think Aid really wants a full sibling just yet.” Optics twinkling as he read Ratchet’s uncomfortable body language. “You might want to deal with that little issue soon.”

Ratchet snarled and stormed from Track’s bole, frame shifting from harpy to mech mid stride, and stood in the crisp, early morning breeze on the upper branches of the tallest forest giant for miles. With a sigh Ratchet reached for a small vial constantly kept in his sub space, taking swig of bitter, heavily dosed energon to suppress the symptoms of his encroaching heat cycle. He grimaced and choked down the vile mixture that would keep him sane, and his body from emitting the pheromones that were responsible for Tracks nabbing him the first time that thankfully resulted in his beautiful First Aid.

“Why do you always yell at creator?” Aid asked softly as he stepped beside his carrier, small wing claws reaching for Ratchet’s crimson wrist with his own opalescent claws.

Ratchet pulled the smaller white mechling close, shifting from his mech form to his harpy form as encircling arms elongated and sprouted feathers. His red hands and white arms became long white wings with striking red primaries. “I will always love you. Always, do you understand?” Ratchet asked instead as he looked down into confused young optics.

Aid nodded silently, uncertain where this was going, afraid as always that this was the orn his carrier said goodbye.

“I am grateful that I had you, and I wouldn’t change anything. However, it doesn’t mean I forgive Tracks for making me a carrier when I was far too young with no safe nest, no prospects of a harem and especially for - topping - me when I was exhausted. He never fought me for that right.” Ratchet sighed as the old bitterness rose again in his spark. “So I yell at him. I just hope you don’t grow into a carrier mech like me.”

“What happens if I do?” Aid asked nervously.

“As soon as you show signs you’re moving in with Uncle ‘Jack.”

“Why? What about my brothers?”

“Because he’s still as pissed at your creator as I am. As for your nest-brothers, we'll deal with that issue when and if it arises. Now come on, we’ve got patients in the Common Lands.” Together they leapt off from the tall branch, powerful wings carrying them high above the lower canopy to the distant plains where the different races mingled all guised as normal Mechanoids.

*********************************************************************************************

Sideswipe whistled shrilly in triumph, his voice barely reaching his own audios in this strange too thin layer of air trapped within the Maw of Primus. They had done this before, space diving, they called it. Here the air was too thin to support their masses and was too thin to breathe, so they held their  breaths and sank like stones, waiting for the very second the thickened - right there!

In unison they unfuled their wings, catching the sudden rushing wind that deafened them with the return of sound as they screamed their victory to the thick fog above. Here, in the bottom of Primus’ Maw they foundl themselves soaring over a wide trade route heavy with carters and traders. Two legged mechs of all descriptions traveled up and down the winding track, well pounded and rutted into a sandy, tapering worm that extended in either direction in the eternal stormy gloom until it faded from sight.

They don’t see us! Sideswipe crowed over their twin bond, gloating to be flying unnoticed. Only to shudder, squalling in surprise as water geysered up to engulf them, drenching their feathered wings until the fine metal barbs matted together too soaked to keep them air borne.

Moron, Sunstreaker mentally buffeted his sibling, jostling the other’s mental presence brutally before they both braced for the strut shattering fall that would be the end of them. Only to be slung viciously as netting captured them mid fall, ensnaring them in its massive folds. They swung wildly within the heavy woven chording, heads snapping this way and that as the parcel they had become flung them into painful unconsciousness.

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character: tracks, character: sideswipe, character: sunstreaker, fandom: transformers, fanfiction, character: first aid, fic: wings of love, rating: pg-13, character: ratchet

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