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Ten minutes into Mirage’s patrol, the snow was flying so thick that he could barely make out the road ten feet ahead of him. By the time he reached the first pullover on the Mount Saint Hillary Highway, he was chilled through and losing traction on the road. Coated in snow and already weary, Mirage transformed and stepped to the side to give his systems time to catch up with the strain.
Patrols were Mirage’s least favorite duty of all the possible choices on the Ark. They were also one he was extremely unsuited for undertaking, with the nature of his alt-mode, but on occasion he found himself assigned to one anyway. Usually, he would complain and suffer his way through, but this patrol was the worst he had ever found himself driving. Never mind that it was a close circuit of the roads around the Ark; with the weather the way it was, it would probably take him longer to complete if he tried to drive it. In the time it had taken him to get to the pullover, his tires had skidded on the road four times, and rather than take that risk on the steep switchbacks of the mountain, he would walk if he had to.
What should have been a five minute drive had taken nearly ten minutes. He couldn’t say he was surprised, but he certainly was irritated by it.
“This is ridiculous,” he muttered to himself, shaking the slush off of his plating. “What could they have been thinking, sending me out in this?” Focused as he was on his own irritation, it was only a glimpse of green illuminated by his headlights that drew Mirage’s attention to the familiar green vehicle sitting off to the side of the road.
“Hound?” Mirage called out, surprised. The scout was sitting, engine quiet and headlights off, at the side of the road. From the snow that dusted his chassis, he had been there a while. He appeared nearly offline to Mirage’s sensors, and the worry led him closer.
“Hey, Mirage,” Hound said finally, as Mirage knelt next to him. “Didn’t know they put you on patrol.”
Mirage’s worry eased at the sound of his lover’s voice, only to be replaced by confusion when Hound didn’t stir. “Is something the matter?” he asked, ghosting a hand over Hound’s hood, brushing aside some of the snow that had accumulated there. “I thought you were busy tonight.”
“I’m not stuck, don’t worry,” Hound said, but it wasn’t an answer, and he still hadn’t moved as much as an inch. “I wanted to come out here.”
“What for?” Mirage asked, baffled. He knew Hound was fond of many aspects of Earth, but sitting on a mountain in the midst of a blizzard was unusual even for him. “If you’re not careful, your engine won’t start in the morning, not to mention what will happen if you get buried in the snow. You should head back to the Ark. I have to finish this patrol, but once it has been completed I will join you.”
Still, Hound did not move. “Not tonight,” he said, kind but firm. “The officers know I’m out here, and I have my comm lines open, but I’m staying out here.” There was a moment of silence, but in the end Hound shifted ever so slightly on his tires. “It’s… I’m holding vigil.”
Mirage cycled his optics in surprise, but stepped back. Vigil, on Cybertron, had been reserved for the most devout followers of Primus. Holding vigil was supposed to mean no movement, no talking, merely silent meditation. He’d known many mechs who claimed to hold Vigil, in his life in the Towers, but the gossip had always claimed they were up to something much less sanctified. Hound, with his love of organics and his ragged edges, had never seemed particularly ascetic to Mirage, but here he was, braving the elements. “Shall we talk in the morning?” Mirage asked, feeling inexplicably uncomfortable for interrupting.
“In the morning,” Hound agreed, unusually solemn but apparently untroubled by Mirage’s presence. “Have a good patrol.”
Mirage nodded and stepped back toward the road as silently as he knew how to be. It was only once he was a good ten metres away that he called back to the Ark. “Mirage to Ratchet.”
Ratchet answered promptly enough that Mirage was certain he’d still been awake and working despite the late hour, though he grumbled as though he had been deep in recharge. “Ratchet here. What do you want?”
“Were you aware that Hound is out in the middle of a snowstorm, and plans to remain there for the rest of the night?”
“Considering he had to get my approval to do it in the first place, yes I was,” Ratchet huffed. “Why is this a problem now?” A pause. “He didn’t tell you, did he.”
Mirage let his silence speak for him.
“…Ah. We assumed the two of you had discussed things, which is why you were assigned that patrol route in the first place. Should I pull you from it?”
“No, that won’t be necessary,” Mirage said quickly, because it was true. No matter how irritated he was at not being informed, the thought of someone else taking the patrol route while Hound sat there made Mirage’s spark thrill with anxiety. “Did he say why?”
“Not to me. Prime, perhaps, but this seems like something you should hear in his own words,” Ratchet said. There was a heavy solemnity to his tone, one that Mirage only remembered hearing only after serious injuries.
“I see. Thank you, doctor,” Mirage said quietly, and closed the line.
In the end, the blizzard slowed then stopped entirely sometime in the early hours of the morning, just as Mirage finished his route. He was covered in snow and ice, and tired beyond belief, but once he had rubbed away the snow and ice, he did not make his way back to his own berth. Instead, he borrowed several towels from the washracks and let himself into Hound’s quarters. The room was empty – obviously Hound hadn’t made his way back yet- so Mirage settled in to wait.
He must have settled into recharge at some point, because the next thing Mirage knew he was being startled awake by the sound of the door hissing open. He pushed himself upright, struggling with his tired systems, at the soft sound of surprise from the doorway. He lifted his optics to find Hound standing in the doorway.
He must have come to his quarters immediately after entering the Ark, Mirage guessed, taking in the frost and snow still covering his chassis, and the glazed look to his optics. Mirage was immediately on his pedes, thoughts of recharge ignored in favor of reaching out for Hound’s hand and pulling him toward the berth.
“I thought you’d be recharging in your room,” Hound said, allowing himself to be led.
“After you were out in the cold all night?” Mirage huffed. “Here, sit.” Once he’d gotten Hound onto the berth, he took up the towels and started briskly rubbing the snow and ice off of Hound’s chassis.
Hound winced. “Sorry,” he said, allowing the rubdown without complaint. “I didn’t mean to hide anything from you.”
“I’m not angry,” Mirage said, “But an explanation would be welcome, now that we have the time for it.” He hesitated, scraping a line of slush from Hound’s grill, before settling on honesty. “I admit to some concern. It seemed rather uncharacteristic for you.”
Hound nodded, before sheepishly turning his gaze away from Mirage’s. “There’s a story about Ancient Cybertron that I was told when I was young. When Cybertronians first began to travel away from Primus and the core, many of them found hardship, and danger. Often, their sparks extinguished before they ever made it back to the wellspring where they had been created. The Prime in those daysworried for those who were lost in the lonely wastes, but Primus spoke and told them not to fear for their kin.”
Quietly, Mirage set aside the last of the towels and joined Hound in sitting on the berth. Hound’s voice had slowed, and Mirage had no doubt he was reciting words that he had heard many times over. It was a soothing sound, he decided as he settled against his lover’s frame.
“As time went on, the Well of All Sparks began to grow dim and fade, as more and more sparks were lost far away from home, and the Prime prayed to Primus in despair, and asked if this was to be the end of them all. But again Primus spoke, and said not to worry.”
“Primus said, ‘there will come a time when the light is darker than any time that has come before. On that day, you will not hear my voice, nor will you call upon me. When that time of darkness comes upon you, there is one thing I must ask of you.’”
“’Anything!’ the Prime said. ‘I will do anything that you ask.’”
“Primus said, ‘In the darkness, I ask that you find the highest peak you can. Once you have found it, you must travel to the very top, and pray with all of your spark. From that height, your call will echo far enough even for the dead to hear, and they can follow it home to me.’”
“And so as the Well slowly darkened, the Prime travelled to the Manganese Mountains, and found the very highest of them. And when the Well went dim, and Primus’s voice became silent, the Prime sent out a prayer, and called all the lost sparks home.”
Hound shifted finally, leaning close to Mirage. There was a lingering chill to his armor, but Mirage simply revved his own engine to generate more warmth, and wrapped his arm about Hound’s waist. “It was a tradition where I was from,” Hound said quietly, “to pray for the return of lost sparks, when the Well dimmed, or a great tragedy happened,” he said. “It stopped happening because of the war, but with the mountain here, and the lull in the fighting, I asked Prime if I couldn’t take a night for it.”
“But why tonight?” Mirage asked. “Scout or not, you could have gone into stasis, sitting still in the middle of that blizzard.”
“Last night was the solstice, and the longest night of the year. It’s not exactly the same as the dimming of the Well, but it felt appropriate. Besides,” Hound said sheepishly, “I didn’t know there was going to be a blizzard when I planned it.”
Mirage shook his helm. “Next time, tell me so that I can check on you. Or wait with you,” he added, after a moment’s thought.
Hound turned to him, surprise evident on his faceplates. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to,” he admitted. “You’ve… sorry, but you never seemed very taken with Primus.”
“I may not believe, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be there to take care of you,” Mirage said, indignant. His irritation didn’t last long, not when the admission made Hound smile as brightly as a rising sun. Maybe even brightly as the glow of the Allspark, Mirage thought, and smiled back.