#//cut for length

[cursed-evie]

“D’accord!”

(Soir hesitates for a second, then picks one of the lighter-colored cookies. Sprite laughs in the background.)

Maya? Are you available right now?

(@cursed-evie)

Ah? Sure, I don't have any plans. What's up?

[prevailinghatred]

Chosen by Primus to protect their(?) people's life cycle...

Megatron turned that revelation over and over again in his processor as he listened to her speak. To him, it sounded eerily similar to being chosen for the Primacy — a designation of purpose that all but eradicated a person's individuality, stripping them of agency and making them nothing more than a pawn for the God's machinations, whatever they might be.

In that regard, with hindsight, Megatron was strangely thankful he hadn't been chosen back then — though, the title would surely have been helpful for political reasons. To be Prime was to be of a select few persons directly responsible for the large decisions that might affect their race; how their government was structured, how labor and wealth was distributed, who got what rights and to what, and who stayed in what positions of office. There were also the implications — no, the glaring truth! — that Optimus had upstaged him, using him as a springboard for his own blossoming ideology and leaving him discarded, which of course contributed muchly to his hatred of the Primacy as a vestment of power.

In many ways the title symbolized everything he loathed about the old way of doing things — there were the haves and the have-nots, and nowhere else was this more apparent than the juxtaposition of a lowly miner and a lofty Prime. Megatron was cast back down to the trenches, while Optimus enjoyed the limelight — all the while, touting some bastardized version of the ideology they'd both authored.

It stung. And oddly, the thought of Windblade being saddled with something so similarly loathsome as the Primacy has him feeling a small spark of genuine empathy.

"Indeed. I have no desire to kill you, and never have. Far be it for me to avenge the deaths of a random few mecha in my regime when there are more pressing matters that require my attention. Not to... diminish the importance of their Sparks, of course. But they were a just sacrifice, for a Cause equally as just."

A small pause before he continued.

"As for you being Primus sent, my... sincerest condolences. And I mean that. I can scarcely imagine what that must be like, to have your life orchestrated from beyond — seemingly from the very moment you came online? To have little say in what you must do, what you must feel... How you must act... that's no way to live. To a lesser extent, I know how that feels."

It sounded Hellish. And again, called to mind another unlikely thread of commonality between them. How he had been designated a particular purpose, but had rebelled against it and effectively reinvented himself to be what he was now. From miner to resistance leader to ruler, all against the very manner of his forging and against all odds.

( — What could she be, if she were given such a chance? )

He looked carefully at the hologram she was holding out to him. None of the mecha looked familiar, which meant they were likely just as low ranking as the ones she'd already killed.

He's thinking.

"Why don't you tell me what Primus said to you regarding these three. What is it about them that makes them such a threat? They look utterly unremarkable to me."

"Convince me. And if you give me adequate proof I might even allow you the prompt offlining of all three."

"If you were going to kill me, I would be dead already," Windblade points out. There is no cockiness in her tone, merely the neutrality of someone that is simply speaking a fact. The grass is green, the sky is blue– "You've already realized that I am not an autobot and probably have made the connection that, as a neutral, I possess no valuable information about the autobots. If my 'inconvenience' justified my execution, you'd be doing more than just tapping your cannon. You don't trust me not to be here to kill you, either, so I doubt you would believe anything I said regarding the sword's whereabouts. For all you know, I could lead you to a trap. You don't trust me, and I do not trust you."

And that is why she is here. He cannot betray her. There can be no betrayal without trust.

I know of the ASSASSINATIONS.

Everything within her told her to deny it, to claim that she has no idea what he was talking about. But there's another part, the part that longed to be acknowledged for her achievements and not put down for the expectations she didn't manage to meet, that realized this is the first time anyone has called this for what it was. The first time anyone noticed there is something beyond the killing.

"I was chosen by Primus to be the protector of our kind's life cycle," she said. There were things she couldn't, and wouldn't, reveal. But others that weren't so sensible. "As such, everything I do is to fulfill my duty."

Windblade steps closer to the barrier that separates them, servos behind her back as she meets his optics.

"I have done all I could to learn about you, Lord Megatron," she continues. "And with no intention of inflating your ego, I must admit your initial goal was admirable. To bring equality to Cybertron– that is yet another way in which one can protect the life cycle. I respect that, and support that. It is because of those reasons that I am here today. To speak not to the fearsome warlord, but to the rebelling mech who did not believe in castes and believed all mechs deserved equal chances at life."

She holds her arm out, a panel retracts on her forearm to reveal a projection of seven different mechs, all of them Decepticons. One of them marked as KIA before he arrival. Three of them marked as having been killed by her.

"I have been warned by Primus that, if these three Decepticons are not killed, the colony of Caminus will be eradicated," she tells him, features tense with the weight of this truth. "One of them dies today. All of them will die eventually. I am giving you the chance to help me save my people– to slow down the extinction of our people. Grant me today's kill. Do not interfere with my mission, and you have my word that I will interfere with yours only in self defense."

[m1tchgp]

some fem marc drawings, very hair centric