[G1 Fic] Holy Days
Title: Holy Days
Characters: Constructicons, cameo by Auspex
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1300+
Summary: The Constructicons celebrate the holy days as befits their faiths.
Author's Notes: I decided to take the 'holiday' prompt for 25fluffyfics and break it down to the original meaning of the word. Which means stealing inventing Transformer religions! :D
Many thanks to lunatron for her awesome help in figuring out what the Constructicons might believe and helping me with names.
Holy Days
***
A reminder chimed in Long Haul's head. It was the thirteenth day of the thirteenth month of the vorn. He had a delivery to run to keep Scrapper going completely bananas over this project. He'd told Scrapper they didn't have enough corundum dust to finish this neighborhood in the crystalline city. Did Scrapper listen? Noooooo.
Grumbling, he set his GPS to search out the nearest shrine to the Thirteen. He got three pings in rapid succession. The nearest was downtown in a maze of back-alleys that'd be a pain to navigate through and slow him down. The second was behind him. The third was about an hour ahead and off a short exit.
Pushing his speed limits got him there under an hour, and he ducked into the shrine. It was a pretty chintzy little place, and he made a hasty reverence gesture in Prima and Convoy's general direction. Some of the other people meditating on the benches gave him sour looks, but slaggit, he didn't have time to meditate and purify his mind. He had to get these supplies back to the others.
Slaggit, why did the holy days always fall in the middle of a job? Grumbling to himself, he stomped up to the blessing bowl and drew a handful of coins. He dumped seven back, which left him with two. The Maccadam's logo was on one - aw yeah, free drinks. The other was blank - he'd grabbed a Fallen coin. Supposedly that meant misfortune and betrayal, but he'd been grabbing the damn things ever since the Constructicons met Omega Supreme and nothing had ever come of it.
He dumped the Fallen coin back in the bowl, tucked the Maccadam one into subspace, and headed back out onto the highway.
***
Scavenger sat quietly while Auspex tended her shrine to Primus Paternus. The white and gold priestess tended to her sanctuary with a smile, and Scavenger sat in front of the altar as a robot and tried very hard to think about the myths of Primus. He tried not to think about the way the substance of the shrine made his shovel quiver, or the way Auspex was so pretty.
But the nice thing about Primus Paternus was He didn't care if a follower couldn't keep their mind on the ritual. He created and protected Transformers without asking anything from them. He liked it when they cared for Him in return, but it wasn't necessary, and He was forgiving of their faults.
It was so wonderful to have someone who would forgive without grumbling or looking at him like he was underclocked. So he always brought pretty things to the Primus Paternus shrines, and he did his best to stop in at one for every holy day.
Sometimes he missed them because of work, but that was all right. Primus Paternus forgave him.
***
"Hey, Bonecrusher, isn't today the Feast of the Turning Sun?" Mixmaster's voice rang out across the construction site, echoing weirdly off the crystal building they were putting up.
Bonecrusher frowned. What an ugly city. Stupid Sigmatist and her stupid wanting all the facets of Vector Sigma displayed in the city. Stupid them for taking the contract, because now he couldn't knock it down until someone else bought it.
"Bonecrusher~?" Mixmaster called again.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." It probably was. He'd have to check with the weather satellite to see where the sun was in relationship to them on Cybertron. Not like it mattered. Segmented Primus wasn't stupidly ritualistic like the Thirteen, or the Sigmatists, or the other Primus sects. Heck, the only reason he was Segmented Primus was because Hook insisted on putting a label on his beliefs and this one fit best.
There were a lot of ugly things in the world. They messed with the harmony of the world, and the world was their creator-god. So he tore it down. Nice and simple.
***
"You are a fragging Devourist!" Long Haul yelled, jabbing his finger at Mixmaster.
"Discordianism isn't Devourism!" Mixmaster snapped back. "Y-you just think that because you're all 'ooooh, the Thirteen! ooooooh! I wanna be ravished by Prima and the Liege Maximo and have everything in a two hundred mile radius faint from the awesome~'."
"Discordianism is a 'nicey-nice' version of Devourism," Hook said, slashing the scare-quotes into the crystal wall.
"Sh-shut up! You don't even follow a real god! You follow a stupid computer!" Mixmaster balled his fists, his drum whirring as he cycled through his acids for the one best for spitting.
"Can you really follow Discordianism? I mean, if it's all chaos-" Scavenger wilted under Mixmaster's glare. "Um, never mind."
"It's not all chaos," Bonecrusher growled and tried to shove Scrapper off his chest. Mixmaster made a mental note to never, ever bring up Discordianism around Bonecrusher when he was breaking things again.
Scrapper shrugged then thumped Bonecrusher in the head. "As long as you do your job, I don't care what you believe in. That goes for all of you."
Mixmaster sulked. Religious tolerance was no fun.
***
Hook informed Scrapper ahead of time about the upcoming Finding Day. On the day itself, he set down his tools and left the half-finished crystalline city. He went to the nearest shrine to make his reverences, he read the scriptures and searched for some clues in them to the whereabouts of Vector Sigma, he offered a bit of his fluids as thanks to Vector Sigma for creating Shockwave once Beta found it.
Then he went down to the nearest bar and proceeded to get smashed out of his mind.
He woke up the next day with his crane-mount wrenched off, his visor cracked, and his fingers still stinging. He remembered throwing punches around and preaching from his chair. It got a bit fuzzy after that.
There was a police mech standing over him. "You can sleep at home tonight, if you can get up and walk away," she informed him.
Hook cycled air in a sigh and hauled himself to his feet. She nodded as he staggered back in the direction of the build site.
Mixmaster took one look at him and threw his hands up in the air. "S-seriously! Just go on a Finding quest yourself, Hook!"
Scrapper just covered with his visor with one hand. "Will you stop this if we build someone else? Or should I stop giving you time off for holy days?"
Scavenger just hovered, and Hook batted at him irritably. He tried to formulate an answer for Scrapper but it turned out his vocoder was broken. Meh. He switched to radio. //I'm a Sigmatist priest, Scrapper. You're legally obliged to give me time off for holy days.//
"He needs to go on a Finding quest!" Mixmaster snapped. "You know how sulky he gets when someone else is better than him at the things he thinks are important."
Long Haul grumbled, "We built a mech ourselves. We don't need that stupid computer."
Hook gave him a withering look.
"Well, we don't."
//It's not about that-//
"I don't care," Scrapper said loudly. "Scavenger, help him get ready for work. We've got a job to finish, Constructicons!"
***
Scrapper lit the candle Hook made for him out of chemicals Mixmaster mixed from crystalline scraps Scavenger retrieved from the load of dross Long Haul brought back from where Bonecrusher was knocking down the theater Scrapper had decided they made wrong.
Designing a city was difficult. There was so many more creations to bring into a single unity, smaller things built up into buildings, buildings combined into neighborhoods, neighborhoods forming the city. It had seemed simple on his plans, but like many of his first attempts at a type of project, it proved more difficult than he'd conceived.
The candle burned a bright green from all the copper in it. That was a good sign, the random mixing together of his team producing the color they all wore.
"Till all are one," he murmured.
-End-
Characters: Constructicons, cameo by Auspex
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1300+
Summary: The Constructicons celebrate the holy days as befits their faiths.
Author's Notes: I decided to take the 'holiday' prompt for 25fluffyfics and break it down to the original meaning of the word. Which means stealing inventing Transformer religions! :D
Many thanks to lunatron for her awesome help in figuring out what the Constructicons might believe and helping me with names.
Holy Days
***
A reminder chimed in Long Haul's head. It was the thirteenth day of the thirteenth month of the vorn. He had a delivery to run to keep Scrapper going completely bananas over this project. He'd told Scrapper they didn't have enough corundum dust to finish this neighborhood in the crystalline city. Did Scrapper listen? Noooooo.
Grumbling, he set his GPS to search out the nearest shrine to the Thirteen. He got three pings in rapid succession. The nearest was downtown in a maze of back-alleys that'd be a pain to navigate through and slow him down. The second was behind him. The third was about an hour ahead and off a short exit.
Pushing his speed limits got him there under an hour, and he ducked into the shrine. It was a pretty chintzy little place, and he made a hasty reverence gesture in Prima and Convoy's general direction. Some of the other people meditating on the benches gave him sour looks, but slaggit, he didn't have time to meditate and purify his mind. He had to get these supplies back to the others.
Slaggit, why did the holy days always fall in the middle of a job? Grumbling to himself, he stomped up to the blessing bowl and drew a handful of coins. He dumped seven back, which left him with two. The Maccadam's logo was on one - aw yeah, free drinks. The other was blank - he'd grabbed a Fallen coin. Supposedly that meant misfortune and betrayal, but he'd been grabbing the damn things ever since the Constructicons met Omega Supreme and nothing had ever come of it.
He dumped the Fallen coin back in the bowl, tucked the Maccadam one into subspace, and headed back out onto the highway.
***
Scavenger sat quietly while Auspex tended her shrine to Primus Paternus. The white and gold priestess tended to her sanctuary with a smile, and Scavenger sat in front of the altar as a robot and tried very hard to think about the myths of Primus. He tried not to think about the way the substance of the shrine made his shovel quiver, or the way Auspex was so pretty.
But the nice thing about Primus Paternus was He didn't care if a follower couldn't keep their mind on the ritual. He created and protected Transformers without asking anything from them. He liked it when they cared for Him in return, but it wasn't necessary, and He was forgiving of their faults.
It was so wonderful to have someone who would forgive without grumbling or looking at him like he was underclocked. So he always brought pretty things to the Primus Paternus shrines, and he did his best to stop in at one for every holy day.
Sometimes he missed them because of work, but that was all right. Primus Paternus forgave him.
***
"Hey, Bonecrusher, isn't today the Feast of the Turning Sun?" Mixmaster's voice rang out across the construction site, echoing weirdly off the crystal building they were putting up.
Bonecrusher frowned. What an ugly city. Stupid Sigmatist and her stupid wanting all the facets of Vector Sigma displayed in the city. Stupid them for taking the contract, because now he couldn't knock it down until someone else bought it.
"Bonecrusher~?" Mixmaster called again.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." It probably was. He'd have to check with the weather satellite to see where the sun was in relationship to them on Cybertron. Not like it mattered. Segmented Primus wasn't stupidly ritualistic like the Thirteen, or the Sigmatists, or the other Primus sects. Heck, the only reason he was Segmented Primus was because Hook insisted on putting a label on his beliefs and this one fit best.
There were a lot of ugly things in the world. They messed with the harmony of the world, and the world was their creator-god. So he tore it down. Nice and simple.
***
"You are a fragging Devourist!" Long Haul yelled, jabbing his finger at Mixmaster.
"Discordianism isn't Devourism!" Mixmaster snapped back. "Y-you just think that because you're all 'ooooh, the Thirteen! ooooooh! I wanna be ravished by Prima and the Liege Maximo and have everything in a two hundred mile radius faint from the awesome~'."
"Discordianism is a 'nicey-nice' version of Devourism," Hook said, slashing the scare-quotes into the crystal wall.
"Sh-shut up! You don't even follow a real god! You follow a stupid computer!" Mixmaster balled his fists, his drum whirring as he cycled through his acids for the one best for spitting.
"Can you really follow Discordianism? I mean, if it's all chaos-" Scavenger wilted under Mixmaster's glare. "Um, never mind."
"It's not all chaos," Bonecrusher growled and tried to shove Scrapper off his chest. Mixmaster made a mental note to never, ever bring up Discordianism around Bonecrusher when he was breaking things again.
Scrapper shrugged then thumped Bonecrusher in the head. "As long as you do your job, I don't care what you believe in. That goes for all of you."
Mixmaster sulked. Religious tolerance was no fun.
***
Hook informed Scrapper ahead of time about the upcoming Finding Day. On the day itself, he set down his tools and left the half-finished crystalline city. He went to the nearest shrine to make his reverences, he read the scriptures and searched for some clues in them to the whereabouts of Vector Sigma, he offered a bit of his fluids as thanks to Vector Sigma for creating Shockwave once Beta found it.
Then he went down to the nearest bar and proceeded to get smashed out of his mind.
He woke up the next day with his crane-mount wrenched off, his visor cracked, and his fingers still stinging. He remembered throwing punches around and preaching from his chair. It got a bit fuzzy after that.
There was a police mech standing over him. "You can sleep at home tonight, if you can get up and walk away," she informed him.
Hook cycled air in a sigh and hauled himself to his feet. She nodded as he staggered back in the direction of the build site.
Mixmaster took one look at him and threw his hands up in the air. "S-seriously! Just go on a Finding quest yourself, Hook!"
Scrapper just covered with his visor with one hand. "Will you stop this if we build someone else? Or should I stop giving you time off for holy days?"
Scavenger just hovered, and Hook batted at him irritably. He tried to formulate an answer for Scrapper but it turned out his vocoder was broken. Meh. He switched to radio. //I'm a Sigmatist priest, Scrapper. You're legally obliged to give me time off for holy days.//
"He needs to go on a Finding quest!" Mixmaster snapped. "You know how sulky he gets when someone else is better than him at the things he thinks are important."
Long Haul grumbled, "We built a mech ourselves. We don't need that stupid computer."
Hook gave him a withering look.
"Well, we don't."
//It's not about that-//
"I don't care," Scrapper said loudly. "Scavenger, help him get ready for work. We've got a job to finish, Constructicons!"
***
Scrapper lit the candle Hook made for him out of chemicals Mixmaster mixed from crystalline scraps Scavenger retrieved from the load of dross Long Haul brought back from where Bonecrusher was knocking down the theater Scrapper had decided they made wrong.
Designing a city was difficult. There was so many more creations to bring into a single unity, smaller things built up into buildings, buildings combined into neighborhoods, neighborhoods forming the city. It had seemed simple on his plans, but like many of his first attempts at a type of project, it proved more difficult than he'd conceived.
The candle burned a bright green from all the copper in it. That was a good sign, the random mixing together of his team producing the color they all wore.
"Till all are one," he murmured.
-End-