Saturday Night Snippet - on Sunday!
Bonus snippet! I've been helping out with niecelet once a week to give brother time to work on his photography stuff - she's walking now, as of last week, cute as the dickens and into everything. I spent last time following her up and down the stairs about 40 times and holding out my hands so she could carefully stash tiny pieces of shredded Kleenex. Such experiences may have influenced the following snippet :P
They were all insane, Thundercracker decided. They were weird and unpredictable, and it didn't help that they were also highly breakable and often lacking in common sense. And these were second instar hatchlings. By all accounts first instar hatchlings were the same only even more breakable. He tried and failed to imagine Starscream and Skywarp in hatchling form. Fragile, helpless, and completely irrational beings. It would be another three years local time before he had to face that particular eventuality, maybe by then it would become more comprehensible. In the meantime...he had more than enough to try to comprehend.
"Cake!" said Ducky brightly, digging out a lump of the squishy, organic goo he, Starshine and Pingback had been industriously scooping together, consolidating it from several smaller plastic containers. 'Play Doh', the labels proclaimed. It had started out multicolored, but after several minutes of slicing and squashing between hatchling talons, it was now more of a purple-grey.
Starshine, concentrating, used one talon to remove a section of the substance and then, holding it next to his small chestplates, used his other three limbs to scale Thundercracker's legs and torso. Thundercracker tried not to wince too obviously. At least this 'Play Doh' was not as sticky as some of the other substances he'd been smeared with since becoming a hatchling caretaker. Thank goodness the Retribution had jet-sized washracks.
"Here," Starshine said, reaching Thundercracker's shoulder and leaning across to hold the purple-grey lump next to Thundercracker's faceplates. "Oil cake."
"You are mistaken," Thundercracker corrected the hatchling patiently. "Oil cake is made from oil and energon. You are holding a mixture of ground wheat product, salt, and water."
Starshine's optic ridges drew together with a worried expression and he dabbed the lump against Thundercracker's mouthplates a few times. "Baked it! Hungry?"
Insane. That's all there was to it. Clearly there had been no baking going on; the ambient temperature increase from the local star was neglible at best, but the hatchling seemed determined to insist that this was indeed oil cake and it had been baked according to specifications.
Pro tip? When a hatchling offers you oil cake? Eat the oil cake.
Thundercracker looked up to find Barricade watching him in amusement as he helped Squiggles with his energon cube. His expression must have said it all, because Barricade smirked and then mimed chewing on his own hand. Thundercracker narrowed his optics and then refocused them back to the small expectant hatchling on his shoulder and sighed air through his vents. There was no refusing that face.
"Oil cake, yes, I see now. It looks...delicious." He cautiously opened and closed his dental components as closely as he dared to the unappealing lump. Surely this wouldn't work...but, to his surprise, Starshine squeaked happily and clambered down to assist Ducky and Pingback in adding a few more canisters of Play Doh to their concoction. And adding his "eaten" piece of "oil cake" back into the mixture as well, Thundercracker noted.
Hatchlings are...bizarre, he informed Barricade. They make no sense.
Just roll with it, TC,Barricade sent, grinning. If they made sense, they wouldn't be hatchlings. The former science-officer-turned-warrior-turned-hatchling-wrangler was laughing at him, Thundercracker was pretty sure. The fragger. Barricade had had two years to decipher the peculiarities of hatchlings, whereas he'd only had a few days. Thundercracker guessed he could cope, though. Not that he'd admit it in a thousand vorns, but he'd been worried about the devious grounder. It was heartening to see him well and safe; it was no great sacrifice to allow Barricade this small moment of superiority.
Only a moment, however. If wrangling hatchlings meant entering a delusional state, Thundercracker would master the art. If Barricade could do it, so could he. Thundercracker crouched next to Ducky and Starshine and picked up one of the empty Play Doh containers. With a set of fine manipulator digits, he rapidly pulverized the cup into small pieces of colorful plastic. The two hatchlings buzzed at him curiously.
"May I assist in the baking?" he asked them, transmitting a glyph of courteous request at the same time. "I believe your oil cake could use some magnesium sprinkles."
This entry was originally posted at http://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/149042.html. Please comment wherever you wish.
They were all insane, Thundercracker decided. They were weird and unpredictable, and it didn't help that they were also highly breakable and often lacking in common sense. And these were second instar hatchlings. By all accounts first instar hatchlings were the same only even more breakable. He tried and failed to imagine Starscream and Skywarp in hatchling form. Fragile, helpless, and completely irrational beings. It would be another three years local time before he had to face that particular eventuality, maybe by then it would become more comprehensible. In the meantime...he had more than enough to try to comprehend.
"Cake!" said Ducky brightly, digging out a lump of the squishy, organic goo he, Starshine and Pingback had been industriously scooping together, consolidating it from several smaller plastic containers. 'Play Doh', the labels proclaimed. It had started out multicolored, but after several minutes of slicing and squashing between hatchling talons, it was now more of a purple-grey.
Starshine, concentrating, used one talon to remove a section of the substance and then, holding it next to his small chestplates, used his other three limbs to scale Thundercracker's legs and torso. Thundercracker tried not to wince too obviously. At least this 'Play Doh' was not as sticky as some of the other substances he'd been smeared with since becoming a hatchling caretaker. Thank goodness the Retribution had jet-sized washracks.
"Here," Starshine said, reaching Thundercracker's shoulder and leaning across to hold the purple-grey lump next to Thundercracker's faceplates. "Oil cake."
"You are mistaken," Thundercracker corrected the hatchling patiently. "Oil cake is made from oil and energon. You are holding a mixture of ground wheat product, salt, and water."
Starshine's optic ridges drew together with a worried expression and he dabbed the lump against Thundercracker's mouthplates a few times. "Baked it! Hungry?"
Insane. That's all there was to it. Clearly there had been no baking going on; the ambient temperature increase from the local star was neglible at best, but the hatchling seemed determined to insist that this was indeed oil cake and it had been baked according to specifications.
Pro tip? When a hatchling offers you oil cake? Eat the oil cake.
Thundercracker looked up to find Barricade watching him in amusement as he helped Squiggles with his energon cube. His expression must have said it all, because Barricade smirked and then mimed chewing on his own hand. Thundercracker narrowed his optics and then refocused them back to the small expectant hatchling on his shoulder and sighed air through his vents. There was no refusing that face.
"Oil cake, yes, I see now. It looks...delicious." He cautiously opened and closed his dental components as closely as he dared to the unappealing lump. Surely this wouldn't work...but, to his surprise, Starshine squeaked happily and clambered down to assist Ducky and Pingback in adding a few more canisters of Play Doh to their concoction. And adding his "eaten" piece of "oil cake" back into the mixture as well, Thundercracker noted.
Hatchlings are...bizarre, he informed Barricade. They make no sense.
Just roll with it, TC,Barricade sent, grinning. If they made sense, they wouldn't be hatchlings. The former science-officer-turned-warrior-turned-hatchling-wrangler was laughing at him, Thundercracker was pretty sure. The fragger. Barricade had had two years to decipher the peculiarities of hatchlings, whereas he'd only had a few days. Thundercracker guessed he could cope, though. Not that he'd admit it in a thousand vorns, but he'd been worried about the devious grounder. It was heartening to see him well and safe; it was no great sacrifice to allow Barricade this small moment of superiority.
Only a moment, however. If wrangling hatchlings meant entering a delusional state, Thundercracker would master the art. If Barricade could do it, so could he. Thundercracker crouched next to Ducky and Starshine and picked up one of the empty Play Doh containers. With a set of fine manipulator digits, he rapidly pulverized the cup into small pieces of colorful plastic. The two hatchlings buzzed at him curiously.
"May I assist in the baking?" he asked them, transmitting a glyph of courteous request at the same time. "I believe your oil cake could use some magnesium sprinkles."
This entry was originally posted at http://playswithworms.dreamwidth.org/149042.html. Please comment wherever you wish.