Wings of Love Chapter 4
Title: Wings of Love
Fandom: Transformers AU
Author: ledishae anddeathmustangg
Pairing/Characters: Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Ratchet, First Aid, Tracks
Rating: NC-17
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 rape.
Word Count: 3778
Disclaimer: All Transformer characters belong to their respective owners, I'm just having a little fun.
Hot Spot paced worriedly, continually glancing from the nest they shared with First Aid and the lone pile of pillows Ratchet used on occasion. Normally when Ratchet left nothing changed in the harem. Tracks continued his quest for more femmes, the harem sisters kept the communal nest and patrolled their territory. They, Hot Spot and his brothers, the only mechlings of Tracks' brood of nearly sixty, continued their training to become harem keepers when they grew.
This time, though something was wrong. Hot Spot had almost insisted that he go with, demanded that young First Aid needed a second guiding wing so Ratchet would know he was safe when he worked. Instead Spot had kept quiet. Now all his brothers were twitchy. Blades had been instigating fights with their sisters, Groove kept vanishing into the skies forcing their carriers to drag him back each night, and Streetwise holed up in the harem's library seeking information beyond Hot Spot's understanding.
His brothers were at odds in their own silent way, each straining to get away from the harem and their creator. Hot Spot paused; their creator was always at the center of their fights. Tracks belittled First Aid for being the creation of a carrier mech, mocked Streetwise for preferring the library to the hunt and tormented Hot Spot for being abnormally tall for his thirteen summers of age. Their creator had made their lives difficult for his own pleasure all their lives and Hot Spot had never done anything to stop him.
Hot Spot looked to the entrance of his shared room with his brothers determinedly, young optics hardening with resolve. His silence ended now. "Tracks!" Hot Spot stormed from the nest as a lifetime of torment filled his spark and made the repressed bitterness rise.
The mech he sought was just strutting from the harem wing, his brilliant blue plumage tainted with the stains of his pleasures with the femmes nearing heat. Hot Spot's bared his fangs in a silent hiss of revulsion. "Stand up, creator."
Tracks looked to his oldest mechling, regal optic crest quirking bemused at the youthful sneer. The youngling would be punished later. "What is it Hots?"
Hot Spot snarled bitterly at the hated nickname, "According to the Sisters' Writ a mechling is free to take three of his nest mates and seek his own territory when he stands taller than his creator."
Tracks nodded, the ancient writs written by the first sister-wives of their ancient king was the only creed of their race. "That is so," He looked to Hots and realized with a slowly sinking spark that he no longer could look down upon his creation. Tracks gaped as he looked straight ahead, focusing on Hot Spot's chest. He forced his boggled optics to look up, past the outward swell of the too sharp keel above the long, powerful column of the throat and finally met Hot Spot's chin. Tracks' neck cables protested looking so far up as his processors stuck on the fact that he had never noticed how tall the youngling was getting.
"When did you get so tall?" Tracks asked voice thick with smug pride. His optics glowed with a glee of having one more thing to crow about to any he could taunt with his glorious achievements.
"While you were too busy topping every aft you didn't have to fight for." Hot Spot snarled down at his creator, bitter over how Ratchet had been treated since the stormy night he had staggered into their nest half dead from starvation, terrified of returning to his home nest and his carrier's wrath. Ratchet desperate with a tiny bundle that was Aid as a young spark squalling in hunger, and nothing left to give.
Hot Spot had never forgotten Track's gloating sneer as he looked over the skeletal Ratchet too weak to fly, too hungry to eat. He remembered Tracks pulling Aid from Ratchet's exhausted frame, leaving Ratchet to perish in a unused nest as he drank in the glory of having a fifth son.
Tracks flinched from the spat words as if struck, optics wide as he recoiled. "Wha -"
"I am taking my three chosen nest mates to find my own territory and we will never come back." Hot Spot turned sharply, whistling shrilly as he headed towards the door. Behind him Blades, Groove and Streetwise boiled from their nest room arms laden with satchels of supplies. They passed Tracks, never looking to him nor the femmes staring out the doors, feathers ruffled from their recent mating, before vanishing out the door into the brilliant sky.
The Sisters' Writ was to be upheld at all costs, the many femmes of the harem knew this and waited breathlessly as the only mechs of their brood headed from their lives for the last time into the brilliant morning light.
"Wahoo!" Blades spiraled through the brisk morning air, cavorting on the breeze about his largest brother's frame. "We're free!" Streetwise and Groove stooped and dove, playing in the breeze about their largest brother's frame. Their play lasted only shortly as all felt a growing, distant panic fill their sparks as they left Tracks' territory. Here, at the border where the communal hunting territory of many clans overlapped they felt the stirrings of nease.
Silence filled the forest where screams and cries of the lesser creatures should have rung out in the daylight. No tree climbers swung through the lower branches, no dark-pelted felines stalked smaller prey. It was as if all life had vanished from this part of the forest, this wide swath of riches that had kept many harems in plenty seemed to have dried up overnight.
"I don't like it." Streetwise murmured, flying within Hot Spot's shadow, "Something's down there."
They knew, Hot Spot and his brothers felt the stirrings of evil in their home territory. As one they all hoped the annoying manticore, basilisk, cockatrice and chimera pests that prowled the smaller territories along the forest floor could handle the evil that stilled the forest life before it reached the harpy nests higher in the trees.
First Aid staggered through the underbrush lost in delirium. He had been so hungry, creator had vanished days ago and the sweet, fetid stench of the terminated roc slowly rusting in the sunlight had been too tantalizing to resist. Somehow between that first savory morsel taken from the carcass and now in this strange place he had lost himself as he raced in his dreams.
"Carrier!" Aid cried with all his might, tiny voice muted from tears and wracking illness that made his tanks heave until his frame ached and his throat wailed in agony. He had been right behind his carrier, but now Uncle Ratchet was gone. The regal frame of the harpy seemed to hover overhead calling to him and the kind two-legger stood just beyond the next hill, waving for him to follow.
Dark trees reached for him, fingers clutching at him as strange murmurs whispered on the breeze. The glowing sun in the blue sky split in two becoming optics that stared down on him as clouds became ethereal fingers that pulled him towards the heavens.
"He's burning up." A bright star in the heavens twinkled.
"Follow me, he'll be safe there." A shooting star vibrated in reply. The stars twinkled and vibrated as they spoke their celestial words slowly losing meaning as the bright suns faded into oblivion.
"Uncle Blurr, is Aid going to be die?" Streetwise asked softly, voice trembling as he stood by the taller blue carrier mech outside the sick nest where Wheeljack tended First Aid.
"I don't know, I don't know, he could die! Ratchet's not here and we don't know where he is and hunters are coming deeper into the forest! Ratchet is late - oh! He's late this time and I don't know what to do!" Blurr cried as he paced before the door, large optics growing wider with his worry as his voice screeched in despair.
"Hush, love," Wheeljack spoke as he left the sick nest, enveloping Blurr into a possessive embrace. "Ratch must have left Aid three or four days ago to draw away the hunters. In that area there's no water and travelers hunted it dry decades ago. Aid's in rough shape, Hot Spot, I won't lie to you. He ate something poisoned. Ratch taught me enough to keep my harem safe and basic treatments for poisons, but," He shrugged stiffly, "This needs a real healer and in this condition Aid is too weak to shift forms for me to take to a two-legger."
"What can we do to help?" Hot Spot stood from where he had curled up on the floor to hold Groove and Blades in a comforting hug.
"You four, Blurr, Blue, Cyclis and Kickflip will patrol in pairs. Keep high, watch for hunters and Ratchet. We'll give him two days, after that, he'll be in the talons of the First Sisters, and no mortal's concern." Wheeljack sighed, holding Blurr tighter as he prayed for his brother's safe return.
The towering ebony forest giants the harpy harems made their homes in towered leagues over the tallest trees of the canopy below. The black giants formed hollow nodules amongst their upper branches perfect for building nests in. Their branches spread wide with thick crotches like webbing between each where blown earth from the distant arid gryphon lands collected. Here, in the packed earth amongst the high branches Wheeljack's harem made their garden. Rare plants for medicines and easily digested energon precursors were tended to entice Ratchet's visits and offer him a place to call home.
Wheeljack stood on the packed earth of his harem's garden looking over the surrounding treetops in the early morning light Ratchet still had yet to show and this was his final day to arrive. By order of the Writ, come sundown Ratchet would be mourned and First Aid would be Wheeljack's charge. Storm clouds had rolled in during the night bringing the promise of heavy rain and more earth deposited on the canopy garden.
"We're heading out," Blurr called as he and his brood sister, Kickflip, headed from the harem. Dark blue and crimson red, the pair was a handsome set. Watching them fly off side by side made Jack sigh. He loved his mates, all six of them. He loved his fourteen younglings and was proud of how strong they were growing despite all being younger than Aid. Yet, despite his personal contentment he could only fret about the five mechlings in his nest and Ratchet lost in the wilds.
"You don't think Uncle Ratch is coming back, do you?" Groove asked sleepily standing just within the nest, sheltered from the gusting winds.
"I don't know," Jack sighed, thinking back before Aid was born when Ratch had left his and their creator's lives for two years. That absence still infuriated Jack, still made him seethe with hatred for the cause. Despite the darkness in his spark Jack could only shake his head. "When your creator caught my brother Ratchet vanished for two years. We didn't know what happened, or where he went.
"Our creator thought Ratchet had run off to the common lands to learn medicine." Jack sighed, turning to head back into the nest, "I just had a bad feeling for months. Then, one day Ratchet showed up with a bearing scar on his chest. He wouldn't tell me anything.
"I was so worried, I had only just won Bluestreak, our territory was so new that we had to fight for hunting rights daily. I wasn't able to find out what Ratchet was hiding so I went to our carrier." Jack looked to Groove, blinking in surprise when he realized the youngling now stood with three of his brothers.
"Younglings, you may not like hearing this." Jack sighed once more, "Tracks - raped - Ratchet. They did not fly, there was no courting. Ratchet had chased ten mechs off earlier, he was exhausted and Tracks waited until Ratch was asleep to strike. Ratchet told our carrier that he had been too ashamed to go home. He carried Aid alone, bore him alone, and nearly died providing for him when starvation drove him to Tracks."
"We know." Hot Spot spoke softly, "Tracks has recounted his 'victory' a lot over the years. He has always sneered at Ratch being a carrier. That was why I told Aid to go with Uncle Ratch this time. It's my fault he was left alone."
"Now stop that." Jack ordered gently, placing a hand on the taller youngster's shoulder, "You were protecting Aid from your creator, and don't think I didn't hear that bastard threatening to throw Aid to the mainticores when he shows signs of being a carrier." He glared up at Hot Spot, taking in the youngling's brothers with a stern glance. "If it had been my creator threatening anything of the like towards Ratchet I'd have done the same thing."
Ratchet pumped his wings harder in the gathering storm, strong winds buffeting him and threatening to send him crashing to the ground far, far below. The massive trees and sleeping gryphons were far behind him now. Before him, encroaching faster with each hard fought stroke of his wings the harpy forest approached.
"Only I'm not going to make it today." Ratchet sighed to himself as his day long flight caught up with him too swiftly. He watched as the still distant tan serpent that was the main road grew larger with agonizing slowness. The clouds overhead glowed with lightning as Ratchet banked sharply towards the nearest corner of the harpy forest. He would shelter in the trees to wait out the storm then he would find First Aid.
A multi-tonal shriek forced Ratchet to hover as it rent the air. He hovered, trembling in the buffeting winds while he sought the origin of the cry. He spotted a distant dot of crimson and a pale streak of dark blue against the clouds. The streak grew darting faster across the sky towards him until suddenly Blurr was hovering jerkily before him.
"You're alive! We were so worried I thought you were dead and Aid is sick!" Blurr babbled taloned pede grasping Ratchet's in urgency.
Ratchet felt his spark constrict then he was speeding towards First Aid, his wings propelling him against the storm. The journey was over in an instant and then he was at his youngling's side already shifted to common form pulling vials and powders from sub-space as he assessed his sparkling's condition.
"Aid, I'm here." Ratchet murmured as he mixed an antidote to the poison, hands flowing in their tasks as he studied Aid's shivering frame.
"Ratch," Jack spoke from the doorway, "We need to talk."
"About what?" Ratchet kept his back to his brother, dosing Aid as he spoke. Red fingers traced over the pale frame and crimson chest ruff making sure that First Aid was really there and counting each tiny, rasping, precious intake.
"Fine, you want to do this here then," Jack stepped fully into the sick nest, drawing a thick blanket across the entry. "This," he gestured expansively, "You vanishing without notice, never happens again. I waited two years to find your remains when Aid was sparked. I waited days for you and found my only nephew nearly dead, alone on the border of the Common lands and you nowhere in sight. You're not putting me through this ever again."
"There were hunters Jack!" Ratchet finally stood, snarling lowly at his brother as he stalked to the other white frame, "They caught me, they drug me away -"
"You're not in heat." Furious blue optics studied Ratchet's frame, "Did the hunters-?" He trailed off, unable to ask if common mechs had forced themselves on his brother.
"No!" Aghast Ratch waved his hands desperately, "Thank Primus no." He sighed, biting his lip before looking to his pedes, "They had gryphons."
Jack gasped in horror, "And the male caught you?" he asked, assuming the gryphons had been a mech and femme pair. Few harpies survived their encounters with gryphons. Far too often the gryphons took advantage of a harpy in heat, using its desperate need to mate to snatch a meal on the wing.
"Uh, yes." Ratchet hedged, not wanting to admit that two gryphon mechs had caught him in flight.
Jack grabbed Ratchet's slight shoulders looking him over minutely for damage. "If he hurt you I'll kill him."
Ratchet sighed under his brother's ministrations and fought the sudden urge to smile at the memory of the pair. "He - he was - he flew - with me."
"He actually courted you?" Jack asked gaping, "Why the slag did a gryphon court you?" He narrowed his optics at Ratchet's nervous shrug. "Are you sparked?" He demanded, warily eyeing Ratchet's sparking scar for any change in color that would come with carrying.
"Jack!" Ratchet's face flushed, "We just flew yesterday morning."
"Which means your heat is gone and you won't know for - what - three weeks?" jack asked thinking over Bluestreak's first sparkling and the nervous weeks of waiting before the smaller blue harpy showed signs of being with spark.
"Basically," Ratchet huffed, slipping from Jack's hands. He forced himself not to tremble, forced the memory of warm, large hands wandering his frame from memory. "Jack, the - the gryphon was good to me, unlike Tracks."
Jack watched Ratchet pensively, seeing a glimmer of affection for the gryphon in Ratchet's optics. "Get out there, the others need to know Aid will be alright." Jack ordered tiredly, pulling the blanket open to allow Ratchet to finally see Aid's brothers waiting anxiously with Jack's harem mates and small younglings all curled together in a ball of feathered misery.
Ratchet stilled at seeing Tracks' mechlings waiting for him, frame stilling as visions of harems going to battle over much prized young mechs filled his processors. "What the slag are you doing here?" His roar resounded through the small nest warren as he marched to Hot Spot, dragging the taller youngling from the feathery mass to his optic level, "You better have a damned good reason for not being in your creator's nest."
"He's no longer our creator." Hot Spot replied flatly, voice cracking as he tried to sound strong. His words froze Ratchet, the white mech carrier pausing to take in Spot's kneeling form still crouched on the floor yet easily reaching his height.
"Sisters' Writ," Ratchet nodded to himself and sighed as he released Hot Spot's shoulder. He gestured to Groove, Blades and Streetwise, "How will you take care of the others?"
"I'm not, we are." Hot Spot gestured between himself and Ratchet. "We go with you, we watch Aid when you're with patients and if we get separated Aid never gets left alone."
"No, I will be traveling through common lands! It's bad enough that I put Aid in danger. I can't risk all of you."
"No Ratchet," Wheeljack stepped between them, dragging Ratchet to him until they were face to face, "You will take them with you. Hot Spot may be young, but he is strong. He'll be another set of eyes and wings out there, and he'll look after his brothers, you just get everyone home safe."
Hot Spot looked at Ratchet intently, "I nearly lost a brother Uncle Ratch, don't ask me to go back to Tracks and meekly wait for Tracks to barter me off to sisters of his choosing."
"I'll make you a deal," Ratchet sighed understanding too well the fear of becoming a bartering chit to one's creator, "You all come with me, you shift to common mech form when I tell you. You fly only when I say and if anything happens you grab Aid and you run. Do you hear me?"
"Yes Uncle Ratchet," Hot Spot and his brothers chorused together, each smiling to one another before they bolted into First Aid's room, curling about their baby brother now resting quietly on the cool berth.
Ratchet looked to Wheeljack pensively, "If anything happens to them I will never forgive you."
"Then you'd better take care of them." Ratchet watched with cold dread and fury as Jack turned back towards his mates, turning the mech carriers and femmes towards the sleeping quarters where they could cuddle up safely away from the storm.
"Uncle Ratchet?" Startled, Ratchet looked down to the second youngest of Hot Spot's brothers.
"Yes Streetwise?"
"Come sleep with us?" Bright optics looked up at him pleadingly, gently tugging him towards the large nest, three others sets of glowing optics begging from the darkness of the blanketed room.
Ratchet sighed shaking his head slightly as he smiled and joined the younglings on the large pillow bed and for the first time since he was a youngling Ratchet slept soundly curled with warm sleeping forms.
A stinging cold slap brought Sunstreaker out of his deep recharge waking with a start only to get another wet splat in his optics as rain pelted through the trees. He blinked at the lateness of the day, dark clouds tainted the shade of twilight sinking in the cool evening air. He looked to the flat rock he and Sideswipe had placed morsels to tempt the harpy that now were gone, the stone washed clean by the cascading rain.
He looked to his side, placing a hand on the cold dirt still bearing the impression where their harpy had slept as his spark sank. Despite his brother still dozing beside him, somehow managing to find a more sheltered spot that kept him dry, Sunstreaker felt alone. He swallowed bitterly before smaking his twin's helm, "Wake up."
Sideswipe jerked to full consciousness, "What the slag?" He looked from Sunstreaker's stiff stance looking towards the cloud masked sunset to the faint impression in the dirt from Ratchet's sleeping form, a large handprint in the middle giving mute testimony to their continued exiled fate.
"He's gone." Sunstreaker looked away grimly seeming unfazed by the desertion by their mate.
Sideswipe sighed, smiling at his twin. Their clan had thought Sunny didn't have a spark. They only saw his surface plating and the hard exterior he put up, but Sideswipe knew better. Sunstreaker had a spark that cared too much, felt too easily and seemed fragile for the ease with which it was broken.
"He had a bearing scar, bro. He's got a youngling, somewhere," Sideswipe looked his brother over, optics brightening as he noticed the bandaged shoulder from Ratchet's claws the night of their escape from the hunters. "But, he wouldn't have bandaged you if he didn't want us."
Sunstreaker looked to his shoulder, unconsciously smiling at the leaf wrapped over his cuts. "Or left us food," He looked to Sideswipe, gesturing to a scribble in the loamy soil pointing to the river and the top of a live fish trap jiggling from the thrashing struggles of its bounty.
"Then we'd better keep up our strength." Sideswipe leered, leading the way to the river and the trap filled to bursting with water creatures perfect for two young, very hungry gryphons. They grinned at the bounty, consuming all their tanks would hold before lying in a dry spot under the thickest tree, waiting for the rain to cease and the coming dawn.
"I wonder what he's like outside of the heat?" Sideswipe mused as the sky darkened towards black, the thick clouds blocking out the moon and stars as they slowly crawled high above the forest canopy.
"He has to be smart and clever," Sunstreaker replied immediately.
"But he has to be fun.
"He loves younglings and always wants more."
"But he knows how to take care of them. He's got to be protective and a great fighter, too."
"And he has to be soft, so we can take care of him."
"And randy, he's definitely got to be randy." Sideswipe declared finally, licking his lips in anxious anticipation; both nodding eagerly at his final statement.
"What if he doesn't want us?" Sunstreaker asked as the night slowly dragged on, the rain pouring about them forming a roaring waterfall they had to yell at each other over.
"How can he possibly resist us?" Sideswipe asked aghast as he lay back along the ground, his interface panel heating from memories of being with the harpy. The smaller mech's cries echoing in his processors. Neither could fathom the harpy actually denying them, but they had never been turned down by their trysting partners in the past either. They waited in anxious silence for the coming dawn taking turns dozing in the darkness as the heavy clouds overhead slowly rolled across the night black skies.
Chapter: 1 : 2 : 3
Fandom: Transformers AU
Author: ledishae anddeathmustangg
Pairing/Characters: Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Ratchet, First Aid, Tracks
Rating: NC-17
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 rape.
Word Count: 3778
Disclaimer: All Transformer characters belong to their respective owners, I'm just having a little fun.
Hot Spot paced worriedly, continually glancing from the nest they shared with First Aid and the lone pile of pillows Ratchet used on occasion. Normally when Ratchet left nothing changed in the harem. Tracks continued his quest for more femmes, the harem sisters kept the communal nest and patrolled their territory. They, Hot Spot and his brothers, the only mechlings of Tracks' brood of nearly sixty, continued their training to become harem keepers when they grew.
This time, though something was wrong. Hot Spot had almost insisted that he go with, demanded that young First Aid needed a second guiding wing so Ratchet would know he was safe when he worked. Instead Spot had kept quiet. Now all his brothers were twitchy. Blades had been instigating fights with their sisters, Groove kept vanishing into the skies forcing their carriers to drag him back each night, and Streetwise holed up in the harem's library seeking information beyond Hot Spot's understanding.
His brothers were at odds in their own silent way, each straining to get away from the harem and their creator. Hot Spot paused; their creator was always at the center of their fights. Tracks belittled First Aid for being the creation of a carrier mech, mocked Streetwise for preferring the library to the hunt and tormented Hot Spot for being abnormally tall for his thirteen summers of age. Their creator had made their lives difficult for his own pleasure all their lives and Hot Spot had never done anything to stop him.
Hot Spot looked to the entrance of his shared room with his brothers determinedly, young optics hardening with resolve. His silence ended now. "Tracks!" Hot Spot stormed from the nest as a lifetime of torment filled his spark and made the repressed bitterness rise.
The mech he sought was just strutting from the harem wing, his brilliant blue plumage tainted with the stains of his pleasures with the femmes nearing heat. Hot Spot's bared his fangs in a silent hiss of revulsion. "Stand up, creator."
Tracks looked to his oldest mechling, regal optic crest quirking bemused at the youthful sneer. The youngling would be punished later. "What is it Hots?"
Hot Spot snarled bitterly at the hated nickname, "According to the Sisters' Writ a mechling is free to take three of his nest mates and seek his own territory when he stands taller than his creator."
Tracks nodded, the ancient writs written by the first sister-wives of their ancient king was the only creed of their race. "That is so," He looked to Hots and realized with a slowly sinking spark that he no longer could look down upon his creation. Tracks gaped as he looked straight ahead, focusing on Hot Spot's chest. He forced his boggled optics to look up, past the outward swell of the too sharp keel above the long, powerful column of the throat and finally met Hot Spot's chin. Tracks' neck cables protested looking so far up as his processors stuck on the fact that he had never noticed how tall the youngling was getting.
"When did you get so tall?" Tracks asked voice thick with smug pride. His optics glowed with a glee of having one more thing to crow about to any he could taunt with his glorious achievements.
"While you were too busy topping every aft you didn't have to fight for." Hot Spot snarled down at his creator, bitter over how Ratchet had been treated since the stormy night he had staggered into their nest half dead from starvation, terrified of returning to his home nest and his carrier's wrath. Ratchet desperate with a tiny bundle that was Aid as a young spark squalling in hunger, and nothing left to give.
Hot Spot had never forgotten Track's gloating sneer as he looked over the skeletal Ratchet too weak to fly, too hungry to eat. He remembered Tracks pulling Aid from Ratchet's exhausted frame, leaving Ratchet to perish in a unused nest as he drank in the glory of having a fifth son.
Tracks flinched from the spat words as if struck, optics wide as he recoiled. "Wha -"
"I am taking my three chosen nest mates to find my own territory and we will never come back." Hot Spot turned sharply, whistling shrilly as he headed towards the door. Behind him Blades, Groove and Streetwise boiled from their nest room arms laden with satchels of supplies. They passed Tracks, never looking to him nor the femmes staring out the doors, feathers ruffled from their recent mating, before vanishing out the door into the brilliant sky.
The Sisters' Writ was to be upheld at all costs, the many femmes of the harem knew this and waited breathlessly as the only mechs of their brood headed from their lives for the last time into the brilliant morning light.
"Wahoo!" Blades spiraled through the brisk morning air, cavorting on the breeze about his largest brother's frame. "We're free!" Streetwise and Groove stooped and dove, playing in the breeze about their largest brother's frame. Their play lasted only shortly as all felt a growing, distant panic fill their sparks as they left Tracks' territory. Here, at the border where the communal hunting territory of many clans overlapped they felt the stirrings of nease.
Silence filled the forest where screams and cries of the lesser creatures should have rung out in the daylight. No tree climbers swung through the lower branches, no dark-pelted felines stalked smaller prey. It was as if all life had vanished from this part of the forest, this wide swath of riches that had kept many harems in plenty seemed to have dried up overnight.
"I don't like it." Streetwise murmured, flying within Hot Spot's shadow, "Something's down there."
They knew, Hot Spot and his brothers felt the stirrings of evil in their home territory. As one they all hoped the annoying manticore, basilisk, cockatrice and chimera pests that prowled the smaller territories along the forest floor could handle the evil that stilled the forest life before it reached the harpy nests higher in the trees.
First Aid staggered through the underbrush lost in delirium. He had been so hungry, creator had vanished days ago and the sweet, fetid stench of the terminated roc slowly rusting in the sunlight had been too tantalizing to resist. Somehow between that first savory morsel taken from the carcass and now in this strange place he had lost himself as he raced in his dreams.
"Carrier!" Aid cried with all his might, tiny voice muted from tears and wracking illness that made his tanks heave until his frame ached and his throat wailed in agony. He had been right behind his carrier, but now Uncle Ratchet was gone. The regal frame of the harpy seemed to hover overhead calling to him and the kind two-legger stood just beyond the next hill, waving for him to follow.
Dark trees reached for him, fingers clutching at him as strange murmurs whispered on the breeze. The glowing sun in the blue sky split in two becoming optics that stared down on him as clouds became ethereal fingers that pulled him towards the heavens.
"He's burning up." A bright star in the heavens twinkled.
"Follow me, he'll be safe there." A shooting star vibrated in reply. The stars twinkled and vibrated as they spoke their celestial words slowly losing meaning as the bright suns faded into oblivion.
"Uncle Blurr, is Aid going to be die?" Streetwise asked softly, voice trembling as he stood by the taller blue carrier mech outside the sick nest where Wheeljack tended First Aid.
"I don't know, I don't know, he could die! Ratchet's not here and we don't know where he is and hunters are coming deeper into the forest! Ratchet is late - oh! He's late this time and I don't know what to do!" Blurr cried as he paced before the door, large optics growing wider with his worry as his voice screeched in despair.
"Hush, love," Wheeljack spoke as he left the sick nest, enveloping Blurr into a possessive embrace. "Ratch must have left Aid three or four days ago to draw away the hunters. In that area there's no water and travelers hunted it dry decades ago. Aid's in rough shape, Hot Spot, I won't lie to you. He ate something poisoned. Ratch taught me enough to keep my harem safe and basic treatments for poisons, but," He shrugged stiffly, "This needs a real healer and in this condition Aid is too weak to shift forms for me to take to a two-legger."
"What can we do to help?" Hot Spot stood from where he had curled up on the floor to hold Groove and Blades in a comforting hug.
"You four, Blurr, Blue, Cyclis and Kickflip will patrol in pairs. Keep high, watch for hunters and Ratchet. We'll give him two days, after that, he'll be in the talons of the First Sisters, and no mortal's concern." Wheeljack sighed, holding Blurr tighter as he prayed for his brother's safe return.
The towering ebony forest giants the harpy harems made their homes in towered leagues over the tallest trees of the canopy below. The black giants formed hollow nodules amongst their upper branches perfect for building nests in. Their branches spread wide with thick crotches like webbing between each where blown earth from the distant arid gryphon lands collected. Here, in the packed earth amongst the high branches Wheeljack's harem made their garden. Rare plants for medicines and easily digested energon precursors were tended to entice Ratchet's visits and offer him a place to call home.
Wheeljack stood on the packed earth of his harem's garden looking over the surrounding treetops in the early morning light Ratchet still had yet to show and this was his final day to arrive. By order of the Writ, come sundown Ratchet would be mourned and First Aid would be Wheeljack's charge. Storm clouds had rolled in during the night bringing the promise of heavy rain and more earth deposited on the canopy garden.
"We're heading out," Blurr called as he and his brood sister, Kickflip, headed from the harem. Dark blue and crimson red, the pair was a handsome set. Watching them fly off side by side made Jack sigh. He loved his mates, all six of them. He loved his fourteen younglings and was proud of how strong they were growing despite all being younger than Aid. Yet, despite his personal contentment he could only fret about the five mechlings in his nest and Ratchet lost in the wilds.
"You don't think Uncle Ratch is coming back, do you?" Groove asked sleepily standing just within the nest, sheltered from the gusting winds.
"I don't know," Jack sighed, thinking back before Aid was born when Ratch had left his and their creator's lives for two years. That absence still infuriated Jack, still made him seethe with hatred for the cause. Despite the darkness in his spark Jack could only shake his head. "When your creator caught my brother Ratchet vanished for two years. We didn't know what happened, or where he went.
"Our creator thought Ratchet had run off to the common lands to learn medicine." Jack sighed, turning to head back into the nest, "I just had a bad feeling for months. Then, one day Ratchet showed up with a bearing scar on his chest. He wouldn't tell me anything.
"I was so worried, I had only just won Bluestreak, our territory was so new that we had to fight for hunting rights daily. I wasn't able to find out what Ratchet was hiding so I went to our carrier." Jack looked to Groove, blinking in surprise when he realized the youngling now stood with three of his brothers.
"Younglings, you may not like hearing this." Jack sighed once more, "Tracks - raped - Ratchet. They did not fly, there was no courting. Ratchet had chased ten mechs off earlier, he was exhausted and Tracks waited until Ratch was asleep to strike. Ratchet told our carrier that he had been too ashamed to go home. He carried Aid alone, bore him alone, and nearly died providing for him when starvation drove him to Tracks."
"We know." Hot Spot spoke softly, "Tracks has recounted his 'victory' a lot over the years. He has always sneered at Ratch being a carrier. That was why I told Aid to go with Uncle Ratch this time. It's my fault he was left alone."
"Now stop that." Jack ordered gently, placing a hand on the taller youngster's shoulder, "You were protecting Aid from your creator, and don't think I didn't hear that bastard threatening to throw Aid to the mainticores when he shows signs of being a carrier." He glared up at Hot Spot, taking in the youngling's brothers with a stern glance. "If it had been my creator threatening anything of the like towards Ratchet I'd have done the same thing."
Ratchet pumped his wings harder in the gathering storm, strong winds buffeting him and threatening to send him crashing to the ground far, far below. The massive trees and sleeping gryphons were far behind him now. Before him, encroaching faster with each hard fought stroke of his wings the harpy forest approached.
"Only I'm not going to make it today." Ratchet sighed to himself as his day long flight caught up with him too swiftly. He watched as the still distant tan serpent that was the main road grew larger with agonizing slowness. The clouds overhead glowed with lightning as Ratchet banked sharply towards the nearest corner of the harpy forest. He would shelter in the trees to wait out the storm then he would find First Aid.
A multi-tonal shriek forced Ratchet to hover as it rent the air. He hovered, trembling in the buffeting winds while he sought the origin of the cry. He spotted a distant dot of crimson and a pale streak of dark blue against the clouds. The streak grew darting faster across the sky towards him until suddenly Blurr was hovering jerkily before him.
"You're alive! We were so worried I thought you were dead and Aid is sick!" Blurr babbled taloned pede grasping Ratchet's in urgency.
Ratchet felt his spark constrict then he was speeding towards First Aid, his wings propelling him against the storm. The journey was over in an instant and then he was at his youngling's side already shifted to common form pulling vials and powders from sub-space as he assessed his sparkling's condition.
"Aid, I'm here." Ratchet murmured as he mixed an antidote to the poison, hands flowing in their tasks as he studied Aid's shivering frame.
"Ratch," Jack spoke from the doorway, "We need to talk."
"About what?" Ratchet kept his back to his brother, dosing Aid as he spoke. Red fingers traced over the pale frame and crimson chest ruff making sure that First Aid was really there and counting each tiny, rasping, precious intake.
"Fine, you want to do this here then," Jack stepped fully into the sick nest, drawing a thick blanket across the entry. "This," he gestured expansively, "You vanishing without notice, never happens again. I waited two years to find your remains when Aid was sparked. I waited days for you and found my only nephew nearly dead, alone on the border of the Common lands and you nowhere in sight. You're not putting me through this ever again."
"There were hunters Jack!" Ratchet finally stood, snarling lowly at his brother as he stalked to the other white frame, "They caught me, they drug me away -"
"You're not in heat." Furious blue optics studied Ratchet's frame, "Did the hunters-?" He trailed off, unable to ask if common mechs had forced themselves on his brother.
"No!" Aghast Ratch waved his hands desperately, "Thank Primus no." He sighed, biting his lip before looking to his pedes, "They had gryphons."
Jack gasped in horror, "And the male caught you?" he asked, assuming the gryphons had been a mech and femme pair. Few harpies survived their encounters with gryphons. Far too often the gryphons took advantage of a harpy in heat, using its desperate need to mate to snatch a meal on the wing.
"Uh, yes." Ratchet hedged, not wanting to admit that two gryphon mechs had caught him in flight.
Jack grabbed Ratchet's slight shoulders looking him over minutely for damage. "If he hurt you I'll kill him."
Ratchet sighed under his brother's ministrations and fought the sudden urge to smile at the memory of the pair. "He - he was - he flew - with me."
"He actually courted you?" Jack asked gaping, "Why the slag did a gryphon court you?" He narrowed his optics at Ratchet's nervous shrug. "Are you sparked?" He demanded, warily eyeing Ratchet's sparking scar for any change in color that would come with carrying.
"Jack!" Ratchet's face flushed, "We just flew yesterday morning."
"Which means your heat is gone and you won't know for - what - three weeks?" jack asked thinking over Bluestreak's first sparkling and the nervous weeks of waiting before the smaller blue harpy showed signs of being with spark.
"Basically," Ratchet huffed, slipping from Jack's hands. He forced himself not to tremble, forced the memory of warm, large hands wandering his frame from memory. "Jack, the - the gryphon was good to me, unlike Tracks."
Jack watched Ratchet pensively, seeing a glimmer of affection for the gryphon in Ratchet's optics. "Get out there, the others need to know Aid will be alright." Jack ordered tiredly, pulling the blanket open to allow Ratchet to finally see Aid's brothers waiting anxiously with Jack's harem mates and small younglings all curled together in a ball of feathered misery.
Ratchet stilled at seeing Tracks' mechlings waiting for him, frame stilling as visions of harems going to battle over much prized young mechs filled his processors. "What the slag are you doing here?" His roar resounded through the small nest warren as he marched to Hot Spot, dragging the taller youngling from the feathery mass to his optic level, "You better have a damned good reason for not being in your creator's nest."
"He's no longer our creator." Hot Spot replied flatly, voice cracking as he tried to sound strong. His words froze Ratchet, the white mech carrier pausing to take in Spot's kneeling form still crouched on the floor yet easily reaching his height.
"Sisters' Writ," Ratchet nodded to himself and sighed as he released Hot Spot's shoulder. He gestured to Groove, Blades and Streetwise, "How will you take care of the others?"
"I'm not, we are." Hot Spot gestured between himself and Ratchet. "We go with you, we watch Aid when you're with patients and if we get separated Aid never gets left alone."
"No, I will be traveling through common lands! It's bad enough that I put Aid in danger. I can't risk all of you."
"No Ratchet," Wheeljack stepped between them, dragging Ratchet to him until they were face to face, "You will take them with you. Hot Spot may be young, but he is strong. He'll be another set of eyes and wings out there, and he'll look after his brothers, you just get everyone home safe."
Hot Spot looked at Ratchet intently, "I nearly lost a brother Uncle Ratch, don't ask me to go back to Tracks and meekly wait for Tracks to barter me off to sisters of his choosing."
"I'll make you a deal," Ratchet sighed understanding too well the fear of becoming a bartering chit to one's creator, "You all come with me, you shift to common mech form when I tell you. You fly only when I say and if anything happens you grab Aid and you run. Do you hear me?"
"Yes Uncle Ratchet," Hot Spot and his brothers chorused together, each smiling to one another before they bolted into First Aid's room, curling about their baby brother now resting quietly on the cool berth.
Ratchet looked to Wheeljack pensively, "If anything happens to them I will never forgive you."
"Then you'd better take care of them." Ratchet watched with cold dread and fury as Jack turned back towards his mates, turning the mech carriers and femmes towards the sleeping quarters where they could cuddle up safely away from the storm.
"Uncle Ratchet?" Startled, Ratchet looked down to the second youngest of Hot Spot's brothers.
"Yes Streetwise?"
"Come sleep with us?" Bright optics looked up at him pleadingly, gently tugging him towards the large nest, three others sets of glowing optics begging from the darkness of the blanketed room.
Ratchet sighed shaking his head slightly as he smiled and joined the younglings on the large pillow bed and for the first time since he was a youngling Ratchet slept soundly curled with warm sleeping forms.
A stinging cold slap brought Sunstreaker out of his deep recharge waking with a start only to get another wet splat in his optics as rain pelted through the trees. He blinked at the lateness of the day, dark clouds tainted the shade of twilight sinking in the cool evening air. He looked to the flat rock he and Sideswipe had placed morsels to tempt the harpy that now were gone, the stone washed clean by the cascading rain.
He looked to his side, placing a hand on the cold dirt still bearing the impression where their harpy had slept as his spark sank. Despite his brother still dozing beside him, somehow managing to find a more sheltered spot that kept him dry, Sunstreaker felt alone. He swallowed bitterly before smaking his twin's helm, "Wake up."
Sideswipe jerked to full consciousness, "What the slag?" He looked from Sunstreaker's stiff stance looking towards the cloud masked sunset to the faint impression in the dirt from Ratchet's sleeping form, a large handprint in the middle giving mute testimony to their continued exiled fate.
"He's gone." Sunstreaker looked away grimly seeming unfazed by the desertion by their mate.
Sideswipe sighed, smiling at his twin. Their clan had thought Sunny didn't have a spark. They only saw his surface plating and the hard exterior he put up, but Sideswipe knew better. Sunstreaker had a spark that cared too much, felt too easily and seemed fragile for the ease with which it was broken.
"He had a bearing scar, bro. He's got a youngling, somewhere," Sideswipe looked his brother over, optics brightening as he noticed the bandaged shoulder from Ratchet's claws the night of their escape from the hunters. "But, he wouldn't have bandaged you if he didn't want us."
Sunstreaker looked to his shoulder, unconsciously smiling at the leaf wrapped over his cuts. "Or left us food," He looked to Sideswipe, gesturing to a scribble in the loamy soil pointing to the river and the top of a live fish trap jiggling from the thrashing struggles of its bounty.
"Then we'd better keep up our strength." Sideswipe leered, leading the way to the river and the trap filled to bursting with water creatures perfect for two young, very hungry gryphons. They grinned at the bounty, consuming all their tanks would hold before lying in a dry spot under the thickest tree, waiting for the rain to cease and the coming dawn.
"I wonder what he's like outside of the heat?" Sideswipe mused as the sky darkened towards black, the thick clouds blocking out the moon and stars as they slowly crawled high above the forest canopy.
"He has to be smart and clever," Sunstreaker replied immediately.
"But he has to be fun.
"He loves younglings and always wants more."
"But he knows how to take care of them. He's got to be protective and a great fighter, too."
"And he has to be soft, so we can take care of him."
"And randy, he's definitely got to be randy." Sideswipe declared finally, licking his lips in anxious anticipation; both nodding eagerly at his final statement.
"What if he doesn't want us?" Sunstreaker asked as the night slowly dragged on, the rain pouring about them forming a roaring waterfall they had to yell at each other over.
"How can he possibly resist us?" Sideswipe asked aghast as he lay back along the ground, his interface panel heating from memories of being with the harpy. The smaller mech's cries echoing in his processors. Neither could fathom the harpy actually denying them, but they had never been turned down by their trysting partners in the past either. They waited in anxious silence for the coming dawn taking turns dozing in the darkness as the heavy clouds overhead slowly rolled across the night black skies.
Chapter: 1 : 2 : 3