Prompt 2 response
Title: To Be Alone
Characters: Arcee
Prompt: A picture - Alone in a crowd
Continuity: IDW
Rating: PG
Summary: Arcee comes to realize just how much Jhiaxus has taken from her...
Genre: Angst/drama
Time: 120 minutes
Notes: More IDW Arcee! I do so love that pink and white psycho. <3
- - - -
Arcee had once thought that she could never feel more alone than in the vorns she'd spent locked away in the dark, haunting bowels of Jhiaxus' laboratory. The isolation had been a torment all of its own. There, she had been cut off from all forms of communication and social contact. The only bots she would ever see: Jhiaxus, Thunderwing, Shockwave, and those few simpering fools he’d brought to display the fruits of his labour to.
She hadn’t known what to expect when she took her first steps back into the world beyond stainless steel laboratory walls. Arcee used to dream about it. In the beginning - before she’d been changed. Back then there had been voices, buildings, smells, sounds, touches, smiles... Once so clear and real; initially, her only source of comfort. But over time, they grew so distant she had begun to doubt they ever even existed.
At some point she’d just stopped. Stopped dreaming, stopped hoping, stopped caring. At some point those memories, that home, had ceased to matter. And in it’s place sat nothing but the simmering bile of helpless loathing and fury. She no longer looked to the future and saw a home. Instead she saw Jhiaxus - dead, dying, screaming, bleeding. That was all that mattered.
Arcee’s optics rolled over the milling crowd from her vantage spot at the edge of a street square. There were mechs smiling, laughing, yelling, running, hugging... She watched them and felt something. It was too foreign an emotion for her to initially recognise. As though something small and weak were tugging at the inside of her chassis - her spark.
Cautiously she stepped forward. To do what, she couldn’t be certain. Hardly to interact with them. She just wanted to see. To understand what it was about them and their interaction that left her feeling so very bereft and... empty.
Arcee had always thought she knew what true loneliness was. To be locked away. To be isolated from all outside life. To be left without hope.
Their optics followed her as she passed through. That same abject scrutiny. It went with her wherever she went. A weary quiet descended on the mechs she walked by. The sentiments were palpable - apprehension, curiosity, distaste, bemusement. They knew. They sensed it. Her difference.
She ducked her helm and scowled, hands clenching to fists. ’Don’t fragging look at me like that!’ she wanted to scream. ’What makes me so damn different than you?! Less worthy of this than you?
Arcee grit her denta and haunched her shoulders. No. She hadn’t known what it was to be truly alone before. Because this... this was without a doubt the most alone she could possibly be.
She stopped in the middle of the crowd and glared at the ground. The mechs seemed to spread out a little further. Away from her.
Never had it been more apparent of what Jhiaxus had taken from her than in that very moment. There was a barricade the size of eternity between her and the rest of Cybertron now. She would never be like these mechs again... Never be able to freely laugh and joke and live without that barricade keeping her at arms length from the rest of them.
Arcee shook in place.
Long ago, she’d thought she’d cried herself dry. Not a single bead of optical fluid had escaped her optics in vorns. Now, she realised it had been because she had nothing new to cry about. She had thought everything that could possibly be taken from her had been taken. Again, she was wrong.
Arcee suddenly kicked off at a violent sprint, tearing through the crowd and down the street. She needed to run - needed to get away from them. Needed to ignore the annoying liquid freely running from her optics and staining her faceplates.
Characters: Arcee
Prompt: A picture - Alone in a crowd
Continuity: IDW
Rating: PG
Summary: Arcee comes to realize just how much Jhiaxus has taken from her...
Genre: Angst/drama
Time: 120 minutes
Notes: More IDW Arcee! I do so love that pink and white psycho. <3
- - - -
Arcee had once thought that she could never feel more alone than in the vorns she'd spent locked away in the dark, haunting bowels of Jhiaxus' laboratory. The isolation had been a torment all of its own. There, she had been cut off from all forms of communication and social contact. The only bots she would ever see: Jhiaxus, Thunderwing, Shockwave, and those few simpering fools he’d brought to display the fruits of his labour to.
She hadn’t known what to expect when she took her first steps back into the world beyond stainless steel laboratory walls. Arcee used to dream about it. In the beginning - before she’d been changed. Back then there had been voices, buildings, smells, sounds, touches, smiles... Once so clear and real; initially, her only source of comfort. But over time, they grew so distant she had begun to doubt they ever even existed.
At some point she’d just stopped. Stopped dreaming, stopped hoping, stopped caring. At some point those memories, that home, had ceased to matter. And in it’s place sat nothing but the simmering bile of helpless loathing and fury. She no longer looked to the future and saw a home. Instead she saw Jhiaxus - dead, dying, screaming, bleeding. That was all that mattered.
Arcee’s optics rolled over the milling crowd from her vantage spot at the edge of a street square. There were mechs smiling, laughing, yelling, running, hugging... She watched them and felt something. It was too foreign an emotion for her to initially recognise. As though something small and weak were tugging at the inside of her chassis - her spark.
Cautiously she stepped forward. To do what, she couldn’t be certain. Hardly to interact with them. She just wanted to see. To understand what it was about them and their interaction that left her feeling so very bereft and... empty.
Arcee had always thought she knew what true loneliness was. To be locked away. To be isolated from all outside life. To be left without hope.
Their optics followed her as she passed through. That same abject scrutiny. It went with her wherever she went. A weary quiet descended on the mechs she walked by. The sentiments were palpable - apprehension, curiosity, distaste, bemusement. They knew. They sensed it. Her difference.
She ducked her helm and scowled, hands clenching to fists. ’Don’t fragging look at me like that!’ she wanted to scream. ’What makes me so damn different than you?! Less worthy of this than you?
Arcee grit her denta and haunched her shoulders. No. She hadn’t known what it was to be truly alone before. Because this... this was without a doubt the most alone she could possibly be.
She stopped in the middle of the crowd and glared at the ground. The mechs seemed to spread out a little further. Away from her.
Never had it been more apparent of what Jhiaxus had taken from her than in that very moment. There was a barricade the size of eternity between her and the rest of Cybertron now. She would never be like these mechs again... Never be able to freely laugh and joke and live without that barricade keeping her at arms length from the rest of them.
Arcee shook in place.
Long ago, she’d thought she’d cried herself dry. Not a single bead of optical fluid had escaped her optics in vorns. Now, she realised it had been because she had nothing new to cry about. She had thought everything that could possibly be taken from her had been taken. Again, she was wrong.
Arcee suddenly kicked off at a violent sprint, tearing through the crowd and down the street. She needed to run - needed to get away from them. Needed to ignore the annoying liquid freely running from her optics and staining her faceplates.