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Arguing drew Dreadwing’s attention away from the datapad he was reading–which contained an uncomfortable degree of Autobot propaganda and censoring about the start of the War–and to the doorway of the lounge area, where Blades and Dani were entering from the smaller room that contained the elevators.

“We’ve done that maneuver a hundred times, Blades! You shouldn’t still be messing it up! It’s easy !” Dani scolded the rotary, her tone frustrated and stiff.

“No it’s not !” Blades argued, the faintest note of hysteria underlying his voice that Dreadwing doubted human ears were able to pick up on. “I know you think it is, Dani, and that’s you’ve done it with Earth copters before, but you’re not the one doing the actual flying!”

“So what? You’re even better than an Earth copter, it should be a cakewalk for you!”

“I’m not a sparked flyer!” The mechling all but wailed. “There’s so much sensory data to take in when you’re that high up, especially above the ocean, and it’s hard to process it all and pull of complicated maneuvers at the same time!”

“Blades, I don’t know what that means, and I don’t know what it has to do with-“

Dreadwing moved in, cutting off the argument before it could devolve. “That’s enough.” he stated.

Dani snapped her head over to him, blinking rapidly. “Dreadwing! What do you mean?”

“It does no good to berate Blades for something he cannot help. He is right, regardless. Flyers have a much more advanced sensor-net. For one who was not sparked for the skies, the learning curve to understand such data would be immense.”

Dani just blinked, looking more confused. He sighed. “Go ask Boulder about a Cybertronian sensor suite, and ask him to explain the difference between the sensors of a grounder and those of a flyer. Once you understand, perhaps it will be easier for you to comprehend Blades’s difficulties in the air.” he paused. “Also, be sure to ask Boulder about grounders and sky-terror.” When he didn’t elaborate, the human sighed and nodded, trudging off and grumbling to herself.

The seeker turned to the young rotary, humming. Blades was looking at him, and shifted on his pedes. “…sky-terror?” He asked.

The larger bot nodded. “Yes. It is very common for ground frames to have an innate fear of the sky. It is in their very coding, and difficult to ignore. Grounders are meant to be on the ground, after all. They are not meant to be in the air, and thus it makes them more nervous when they cannot put wheels or pedes to the floor.”

“So…it’s not weird that I’m scared of flying?”

“Not at all. Your frame and processor remember that only a short time ago, you possessed wheels rather than rotors. Even with the fear coding no longer present in your systems, your processor still is not yet used to flight. Give it time. You are doing remarkably well, little one.” he soothed.

Blades looked up from where he was twisting his digits together, servos pressed tight to his canopy. “…really?”

“Really.” He assured. “You will overcome the instinctive fear in time. Until then, you must work on the technical aspects of flight. Improve upon your foundations, and when the time comes that you no longer fear the open skies you can begin more complicated maneuvers.”

Blades sighed. “That’s just it, Dreadwing. I don’t know the foundations. Dani does, but she doesn’t really explain. She learned them ages ago, and I think she expects me to already know them cause I’m well…I’m a flyer.” he said helplessly.

Ah. Now he understood the problem. The young rotary needed to learn the most basic principles of flight, but his partner was an experienced pilot and assumed the young bot already knew them when he in fact did not. She was not cruel in her actions then, but it seemed she simply did not understand the full scope of the young mech’s unique position.

“In that case,” he tilted his helm, gaze sharp. “Perhaps you would like some lessons? I am not a rotary , but I have known many. And even if I did not, many of the basic principles are the same. I can at the very least help in that regard.”

Blades looked up, grinning. “Really?” he said eagerly.

“Indeed. Let us go to the nearby island, then, so we will not be seen by locals.”

“Wayward Island?” Blades blinked, then shrugged. “Okay. Sure.” he agreed, though he looked nervous.

“Is…there a problem, youngling?”

“Well, no. It’s just. Weird stuff happens on that island.” He explained.

Dreadwing hummed. “Would you prefer to practice elsewhere?” He did not care where, as long as it was out of sight.

“No, Wayward Island is fine.” Blades said hurriedly. “It’s the best place, really.” There was a pause, and he looked down at his pedes. “Even if it is terrifying.” He mumbled under his breath.

Dreadwing nodded, deciding not to comment on the last statement. Blades would learn, and he would adjust. The Seeker would not let anything happen to him besides. He strode to the platform lift that would take them to the room. “Then let us be on our way.” he heard the soft scuff of smaller pedes following him, and when they were both on the lift he activated it to bring them up.

Blades transformed and took off first, and then Dreadwing followed suit, and soon they were on their way. They stayed low enough to not get caught in the bigger drafts of wind, and it wasn’t long before they arrived on the shore. As Blades went to land, Dreadwing swooped under him to cut him off.

“Stay in the air, youngling. These are flying lessons.” he reminded.

The young helo whined a complaint, but didn’t try to land again. “So…what’s lesson one?” he asked, seemingly nervous.

Dreadwing hummed. “Gaining altitude. I want you to fly as high as you can, straight up. Concentrate on how the air changes around your frame as you climb higher.” he instructed.

“What good does that do?”  Blades squeaked, clearly nervous.

“Spatial awareness. You focus too much on your nerves and fear when you fly. If you wish to improve, you must start understanding how the air and wind moves around you when you are in the sky.” Dreadwing explained patiently. His voice softened marginally for his next words. “Worry not, young one. I will be right below you. If you fall, I am more than capable of catching you.”

Blades gulped audibly, and after a moment he nodded and started to climb higher.

“Talk to me.” Dreadwing instructed. “Tell me what you’re feeling, and what your sensors are telling you.” He said, following the youngling up.

Blades hummed, sounding nervous. “Um….pressure is decreasing as I get higher. Temperature too.” He came to a sudden stop as he broke the cloud layer, a nervous sound leaving him. “I…don’t think I should go higher.”

“Explain.” Dreadwing said patiently. He knew why, but he wanted the youngling to grasp the answer on his own.

“I have a bad feeling. It’s pretty cold up here, and I’m not sure my rotors can take it if I go too high. They’re already starting to feel numb at the tips.”

“Good.” Dreadwing said, prompting a noise of surprise from the youngling. “You’re in tune enough with your new frame and coding to understand its limits. You are correct. If a rotary such as yourself flies too high, you risk causing your rotors to freeze and you will drop from the sky.” he said bluntly. His words made Blades squeak and drop a few feet before he caught himself.

“You need not worry about that. You are a strong flyer for such a new one. You have good instincts.”

That seemed to surprise the youngling. “I….do? But I can’t ever seem to fly right.”

The Seeker hummed with amusement. “Allow me to rephrase. You have good instincts, when you use them. ” he said, a hint of a tease in his tone.

It was enough to make Blades laugh softly, as the youngling seemingly began to calm. “Thanks, I think.”

“You are welcome.” Dreadwing said dryly. “But keep talking. Tell me what you are feeling and sensing.”

“Oh.” Blades hummed. “Um…the air is chilly on my rotors here. And the pressure difference is weird, but not uncomfortable. I feel the wind moving the most over my tail…” he trailed off, making a soft noise.

“Youngling?” Dreadwing prompted.

“It changed. The wind, I mean. It’s flowing differently. What does that mean?”

“It could mean many things. Let us go below the clouds.” he said, moving down and hearing the copter follow. “Wind changes are common in the air. If you wish to master flight, you must always be aware of the changes. Sometimes, the changes occur for no reason. Other times, because it signifies an oncoming change in weather. Cast out with your sensors. What are they telling you?”

Blades hummed and then made a surprised noise. “Oh. There’s something on the edge of my sensors. It feels…like a charge of some sort?”

Oh?

Dreading cast out with his own sensors, picking up on what Blades was talking about. He huffed through his vents. “What do you think that is?” He asked.

The youngling hummed again, obviously in thought. “Well…it feels…like a strong static charge. It’s chilly, but like… wet chilly. So….a storm?” He guessed.

“You’d be correct.” Dreadwing stated. “And it is coming fast. Come. I saw a cave on the island. The storm is approaching quicker, being pushed by a headwind. We will not have time to return to Griffin Rock, and you are not ready for a flying lesson on storm flight.”

Blades squeaked with fear, and hurried to follow as the Seeker let the way to the cave he’d seen in the cliff face. They landed just as the first rain drops started to fall, and the youngling darted to the back of the cave at the first clap of thunder. Dreadwing followed more sedately, setting next to the Rescue Bot where he was tucked into the back corner of the cave.

They sat in silence, staring towards the entrance of the cave as the storm began to pick up. After a moment, Dreadwing heard Blades reset his vocalizer. 

“…Dreadwing?”

“Hm?” He looked to the smaller mech out of the corner of his optic.

“Does it ever stop hurting?” he said softly.

“Pardon?” He suspected he knew what the mechling was talking about, but he didn’t want to assume.

His suspicion was proven correct when Blades pressed a servo to his chest, over the Rescue Bot emblem where his spark pulsed beneath the metal. “The bond.” he whispered. “Does…does it ever get better?”

And Primus, but the pained, aching hope in the youngling’s voice made Dreadwing’s own spark ache with something sharp and visceral. “…no.” He admitted, and made no protest when Blades released a wounded noise and abruptly threw himself self into the Seeker’s lap.

Instead, he wrapped his arms around him, extending his EM field to blanket the shaking frame and try to soothe the raw pain in the immature field meeting his own. His optics went dim and distant, remembering the agony and grief he’d experienced in the wake of Skyquake’s death. The pain that had very nearly dragged him after his brother to the Well. Some days, even now, he wished it had.

“The pain never fades, Blades. It will remain sharp and clear and agonizing, every day for the rest of your existence. It gets easier to manage in time, it’s weight easier to bear, but it never fades.” A wounded keen was released against his cockpit, and Dreadwing sighed heavily, tightening his grip around the youngling in his arms.

“But you must not give up hope.” he said gently, moving one of his servos to instead tip Blades’s face up to his. “Your brothers may yet still live. I know the bond aches, I know your spark reaches desperately for connections that are faded, for other sparks that it cannot find. I know it is painful, that sometimes it hurts enough to make getting out of the berth in the morning feel as daunting as facing a Predacon. I know how it feels like a burn in your spark, sharp enough to send you to your knees at its worst. I know there is a part of you, buried somewhere deep and dark, that wants to give in, that wishes the pain would overwhelm you so you can join the Well and be reunited with the sparks that sing the same song as your own.” There was an aching tone to his voice, his armor shaking faintly with grief and longing and pain.

His words made Blades sob, pulling back enough to free his face before he shoved back against his cockpit. Dreadwing could feel the cool, wet tears of coolant that spilled from Blades’s optics, an attempt by his frame to cool him in addition to heaving vents as the grief and stress made him run the risk of overheating. He didn’t tell him to stop, or try to get the young rotary to calm down. There were no words he could say, no assurances he could give that would soothe the pain and the fear. Instead, he raised a servo and gently cupped the back of his helm, one large thumb rubbing a twitching audial fin. His action had Blades freezing for a moment, and then the youngling was sobbing harder, his grip growing tighter as he pressed desperately in the warmth and comfort his newly acquired caretaker was giving.

It made Dreadwing’s spark ache anew, but he let Blades weep into his chest. Outside, the storm raged on, the winds howling and thunder crashing, but even that wasn’t enough to drown out the sound of the mechling’s grief. Lightning lit up the mouth of the cave in one brief flash, but then they were cast back into semi-darkness.

Dreadwing did not speak for several minutes, not until the sound of Blades’s sobs died down, though the shaking of his frame never ceased. When he was more sure he’d be heard, he spoke again. “I know you are scared.” he murmured. “But you have hope, little one.” At that, Blades’s helm tilted just enough to bare one dim, watery optic. “Your brothers are separated from you, but they may very well still live. I know the uncertainty is an entirely different form of frightening to you, but in that uncertainty there is also hope. You must not give up that hope, Blades. As bleak as it may seem, you may one day see them again. If you lose hope, then you lose everything.” he said somberly. “As long as you still have hope, your spark will burn strong for long enough to learn the fates of your brothers. I cannot promise that news will be good, but if Primus is watching over you, then you will see them again.”

“And is He?”

“Hm?”

He looked down, two ruby optics needing a dull emerald one.

“Is He watching over me? Over us?”

Dreadwing sighed. “Maybe.” he said softly. “His reach is far lessened, so far from His frame. His influence was already weak before the war, when all His children called Cybertron home. Now, with our planet in ruins and our people scattered to the stars, He has even less influence. But He loves us, for all I believe He may loathe our conflict. I do not think He ever stopped watching, even if He cannot influence our paths how He once could.” The Seeker rumbled.

Blades swallowed. “Do you….do you think He’ll guide my brothers to me? Or me to them?”

“I think He will try, little one. I think He will try his very hardest to see you reunited with those your spark longs for. Whether He succeeds, we can leave up only to time.”

“So…we can only hope.” Blades rasped softly, frame shaking as he continued to cry even now.

“We can only hope.” Dreadwing agreed somberly.

Blades released a massive, shuddering ex-vent of air. His optics dimmed further, and he turned his face back into Dreadwing’s chest. The Seeker sighed, his thumb still rubbing a twitching finial, and his over servo pressing the youngling further into his chest and rubbing his back between his rotor blades.

“Rest, little one. You’ve had a stressful day. You’re young yet, and this much excitement will exhaust you. I will stay here. When the storm breaks, I will wake you and we will return to the firehouse.” he rumbled.

He heard an assenting mumble from his chest, and soon enough the whirring of Blades’s systems quieted as he slipped into recharge. Dreadwing sighed heavily, and looked back out at the storm.

Thunder crashed, and the youngling in his hold shifted, but a gentle stroke down his back settled and stilled him once more. The sky had grown dim and overcast with the storm by now, and the lack of light meant that the rain stood stark against the black clouds that cast shadows and darkness on the earth below. In the distance, his sensitive audials picked up the sound of the ocean, the waves crashing into the shore of the island as the winds screamed above the surface of the roiling water.

His processor wandered, optics unseeing as he stared at the mouth of the cave let himself think about his brother for the first time since he’d learned of Skyquake’s true fate.

Dreadwing knew that Primus did indeed love all His creations, but the Seeker could not help but think that fate, perhaps, was cruel. Their Creator would not have allowed such a sacred bond to be severed so horribly, had He the power to influence the matter. He was sure of that. So he could only determine that He had not had the power to do anything about it. It made him wonder if He had to power to return Blades’s brothers to him, if the other younglings were indeed even still alive.

His gaze slid down to the recharging flier in his lap, his face wet with drying tears, and for the first time since before Vos fell Dreadwing found himself praying to a Creator he was not even sure could still hear him.

And for the first time since the bond in his spark snapped and shattered like the finest filigree, coolant slid down his own faceplates as he wept and allowed himself to grieve over a loss he had not yet had the chance the mourn.