ROTB Optimus Prime's Inbox

[incandescent_matrix]

"Let us not waste time better spent elsewhere. Leave your message and we will return to it."

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[incandescent_matrix]

[Optimus' overly bright optics briefly offline when Primal repeats the gesture, and he has to hold himself back from more visibly responding to simple, casual physical affection when he's so unused to it, let alone after the mission. He onlines them again quickly, however, and gives Primal's hands a cautious squeeze]

Something has happened.

[maximalize]

[he draws back, nodding.]

Yes. Airazor was... [his own finials, which unlike optimus's, rarely move, twitch a bit.] I believe she might have felt the dark energon encroaching on her, so she volunteered for something that would see her offlined.

[which, if optimus checks the network, will be clear what.]

She has not returned.

[incandescent_matrix]

Optimus stared.

For just a moment, the whirl of fractals and colors dancing across his vision went still, and nothing in the universe existed except for Primal and the loss he had suffered yet again. A loss neither one could have conceivably stopped, but that Optimus had chosen not to present for. Primal had had to deal with this alone.

Optimus' mouth parted as he sought for something to say, and he started to reach out again for Primal's hands again. Then the moment ended, and the patterns and colors burst back into kaleidoscopic movement, impossible to track or understand.

He flinched just slightly, and let his own hand drop. He slammed his mask into place.

"I... am sorry," he said slowly. There was a pang deep in his spark at losing someone he himself had considered a friend, but that wasn't important right now, so he thrust it away. "I had hoped you would both have more time, if the bridge took either of you at all."

[maximalize]

Huffing slightly, Primal crosses the bridge and takes one of his hands, EM field radiating out calm and acceptance to try and help Optimus.

"We had time. More than we had back home, and we were both aware it could be ceased at any moment."

He gives a squeeze, then lets his hand drop.

"If you like, when there is time, I can show you how Maximals are honoured. How those of an avian nature are remembered." His optics spin a few times as they focus back in on Optimus. "Perhaps it would help you process. Or we could play Guess Who again. Whatever might ease this pain."

Primal is accustomed to loss. He can manage, no matter how much it hurts. Its what Airazor would want, and respecting that even if she returns after another week is all that matters to him.

[incandescent_matrix]

Optimus looked down at their hands and watched the patterns burst and spread and shift with every slight movement, and then again when Primal let them fall. His optics whirled. "...I would," he said slowly. "It would be good to learn more of your culture even if she had not-"

The faint whispering he kept hearing after returning through the space bridge started up as the thought crossed his mind, and he grimaced behind his mask. He gave a shake of his head.

"She ought to keep flying."

[maximalize]

Primal says something in Maximal, though slowly so Optimus can understand each individual word.

"Your wings beat freely," He says after, the translation. "I am sorry to have to give you this news so soon after your own harrowing experience. I did not believe it should have been left."