Spring chickens.

[alittlehinky]

The dandelions are the first things to bloom in the early spring, followed by chickweed and henbit. Sometimes they'll start springing up through the last of the snow, but the thaw came a little early this year, so Cricket's yard is mostly soft ground and green. There are tiny vegetable plants in the windows of the room of his house that opens toward the sunrise. Too early yet to put them in the garden, but they're waiting, strengthening, getting ready.

Outside, little flowering quince shrubs flank the porch and parts of the walk, and they're in full bloom, dotted with coral-colored blossoms and the occasional early bee. This year, he wants to get some hives, only he'll have to keep them a safe distance from the chickens.

The delivery he was waiting for arrives at last, the truck moving carefully up the graveled drive. He's on forearm crutches today, but he has words of welcome for the driver, and a nice tip. Cricket doesn't slaughter his chickens, despite their food-related names. They're egg-laying pets, and fancy breeders, and he has ambitions to sell some as pets and show animals one of these days, but mostly he just likes them.

The coop, which was already pretty extravagant, has been expanded over the winter, and there's a sheltered chicken run all the way to the barn where the three cows he and Loki own live. So, there's more space now, and more space means more babies. The delivery driver places three crates carefully in the fenced yard around the coop, and Cricket thanks him, then sits on a stool in the sunlight and begins prying the nails out with a hammer. It's warm out, and the chicks look healthy, and it's time to welcome them to their new home.

Comments

[dontpetmeibite]

Glit wants Lotor to see chickens and cows.

Ravage isn't sure this is a great idea, because she thinks she would be rather traumatised if she were suddenly to find out that energon walked around under its own power and had feelings, which, fortunately, it doesn't. But Lotor is all for the idea, so she is rounding the bend up toward Cricket's house with her brother and her nephew in tow. Howlback has also come along.

(Soundwave was all for it, too. He had kissed her on top of her head and told her to go outside and just be Lotor's auntie for the afternoon, and take a much-needed break from military planning, political concerns, interpersonal drama, and heartfelt confessions, and had stopped just sort of admitting he was worried about her, and not just because of the things she'd finally admitted to him after thirty-odd years, but also because she had got so wound up about that, as if anything he already suspected she'd done could ever be worse than having moved in with Megatron for the better part of a year. Which he had already forgiven.)

And Glit has challenged them both to a run, even though Howlback and Ravage are both much bigger than he is now. But Lotor is on her back, which is slowing her down as they race up the road on all fours.

[alittlehinky]

The first one to notice their approach is Willie, the pint-sized doglike Pokemon, who heralds their approach by barking and racing to meet them. Her enthusiasm might slow them down a little, because she seems unafraid to dart around them rather close to their legs, tail wagging. From the middle of the fenced-in pasture, a couple heavy, furry heads look up. Loki and Cricket have three yearling Scottish Highland cows, one fawn-colored, one ginger, one grey. The grey is the smallest and shyest, and the ginger must be the bold one, because she makes a lazy beeline for the fence to watch the strangers approach.

Cricket doesn't take long to notice them, himself, especially with the animals' attention turning their way, and he's quick to whistle for his Pokemon. "Willie! Come away, girl, you're gonna make them afraid of steppin' on you. C'mere, now!"

Whether it's his admonition or the act of attempting to lever himself into standing that follows, he succeeds in getting Willie to come back to him and leap the coop fence to stand at his side. Once he's on his feet, though, he seems to feel that's enough effort for the moment, and just waits for them to come closer.

"Fine day!" he calls in greeting, nodding to them. He's met Ravage, and he's seen Glit and Lotor in passing, but Howlback is entirely unfamiliar. "Need somethin', or did you just come for a visit?"

[dontpetmeibite]

"Off, Lotor."

The child obeys and Ravage stands up on her back legs. The other two cat-mechs follow suit. "Hi, Cricket. This is my brother Glit and my sister Howlback, and Glit's kid, Lotor. Glit wondered if Lotor could come see the animals. My sister decided to tag along. I don't want to be rude. You can say no, and we can come some other time if you're busy, and at least we'll have had a run, it'll be fine."

She addresses the others. "This is my friend Cricket. All the animals belong to him and Loki. But not Megatron's Loki. It's apparently kind of a common name around here."

[alittlehinky]

His expression is friendly and polite to start with, but it blossoms into something warm and bright when Ravage refers to him as a friend. He tends not to make assumptions, but he's more than happy to have friendships with anyone who'll have him. "Pleasure to meet you all! I ain't too busy. Just getting the new chickens settled in, so it's a good time to see the animals."

He makes his way up to the fence of the coop and holds out his hand, offering handshakes or gentle fist-bumps, whichever seems more appropriate to the mechs and Lotor. "You three are a little too big to step into th' coop, but if Lotor wants a closer-up look at the chicks, he can come in."

"You just gotta be gentle with 'em, a'ight?" He doesn't know this child, but he looks old enough to understand that living things are delicate.

His lips quirk. "It's not just th' name. They're alternates. From parallel worlds. Mine's the one that runs the Viper's Pit and spends most of her time as a girl lately. They look a little different even when they're both men, though."

[dontpetmeibite]

Ravage grins back at him. It's a new friendship to be sure, but how can she not be impressed with the masterful way Cricket handled himself when he inadvertently ended up being present for Ravage and Megatron's first in-person reunion since Ravage left the Lost Light?

Howlback does the fistbump; Glit actually does know how to shake hands. Ravage is a fistbumper to be sure, and Lotor offers an actual high five following the fistbump, which amuses Glit. Must've learned that from one of the other kids.

"I'll be gentle," says Lotor. "They're little." He smiles. "I know how it feels to be little," he says. "Even sparklings're bigger'n me!"

Ravage smiles. "Sparklings are new Cybertronians. A few of the families on Sanctuary have sent their younger members here because the AVF can protect them while Soundwave and I explain to Galvatron's folks that if they're not going to follow us and behave like proper Decepticons, they can stand the Pit down or start their own fr-- well, start their own faction."

"I know what 'frag' means," Lotor says as he enters the coop and sits down, very quietly, on a chick-and-poop free portion of ground. He then sits there quietly, his hands extended, and makes soft noises similar to the ones that the chicks themselves are making.

Ravage shakes her head. "Ah, alternates. Like Soundwave and...Soundwave." Her voice drops a little. "Don't worry," she tells Howlback. "You'd never mistake them for one another."

"I had wondered," she tells Cricket. "They look a lot alike. I had thought perhaps they were brother and sister, though I know intellectually that they're both and neither. I wonder if it's something about this place. I've been spending more time as a femme here, too. I'm a femme today, but I've been spending so much time as a femme of late that the guards have taken to calling me 'Lady'."

"You like it," Glit points out.

Ravage shrugs. "Even when I'm not a femme, 'Lady' seems to suit who I am and the things I do better than 'Lord' does."

Howlback frowns. "Another Soundwave. Who doesn't look like our 'Wave. What, was he empurata'd or something?"

"I think so," Ravage says, looking downcast. "But I don't want to think about it. If you're curious... Cricket knows him better than we do."

[alittlehinky]

If he's honest, Cricket is quietly fascinated with the Cybertronians as a species. He was a mechanical prodigy where he comes from, which in the Nexus translated to being able to learn and understand more advanced machinery quite quickly, and he still loves to work on a vehicle's engine. These are people, not mere vehicles, and he wouldn't presume to lay hands on them without being asked, but something about the fact that they're mechanoid life forms makes him feel comfortable with them in a way he sometimes isn't around his own kind.

He likes kids, too, though, and Lotor gets a smile as he sits and speaks. "Yeah, I was the smallest when I was a kid, too, most of th' time. Had trouble keeping up with the others on account of my legs, too, but I had some real good friends, anyway."

It takes the chicks a moment to notice the child and the signals he's making, but when they do, two of the silkies make a beeline for him. He looks warm. Oh, hey, he is warm!

"Might be this place," Cricket says to Ravage. "Because no one cares too much whether you're a him or a her or both. Although Loki sometimes does things 'cause they're an uphill battle and she feels contrary."

He worries his lip a little as Soundwave is discussed, not wanting to bring up topics that upset Ravage. After a moment he says slowly, "Well, there's your Soundwave, and the other one's the pointy Soundwave. He's built kinda different. Sharper angles. And usually when he wants to say somethin' to me, he echoes back my voice at me instead of using his own."

"I ain't sayin' I know much about him, though. Mostly I talked to him about practical stuff. He wants to know what's goin' on in the Nexus when he shows up. He ain't here to talk about his plans for the weekend or his favorite books or nothin'. But she's right, you ain't never gonna get them mixed up to look at 'em."

[dontpetmeibite]

Lotor grins, and pets the birds that come to him, enjoying it thoroughly. Baby animals and friendly animals make everything better, even when the day you're having is already pretty good. "I didn't know you were always like that. I thought maybe you were also in a war like everyone else I know. I'm trying to make friends with the sparklings. Some of them are really nice. I like Blaze."

Ravage thinks about what Cricket's saying. "I don't know that anyone cares so much about who's a he and who's a her where I come from, either. A lot of them wish I'd make up my mind. But I've spent enough time being both things that even when I'm female for a long time, like I have been lately, I don't want to say that this is who I am, because it might change. Sometimes it changes after years. Sometimes it changes on the drop of a pin. When I first came to the Nexus, I was in one of those phases where I'd change in the middle of a sentence. Being stable for a little while is pleasant but I'm changeable, and I always will be, I think."

"The people who matter don't care," Howlback says, and bumps her cheek to her sister's cheek.

Then they talk about Soundwave. Not Ravage's conjunx. The other one.

Ravage frowns. "Okay, Cricket, that does concern me. Do you think he's reporting to someone? Because Soundwave--my mech--talked to him too, and he thinks his Megatron is emotionless, too. The Megatron I know is like, 99.5 percent emotion, running on top of that incredible intellect, and yes, that's partially why he went wrong, but it's also a lot of why he went right in the first place. He more or less said--in recorded clips, the way he does, my husband can do that too, and he does, sometimes--that he never loved anyone except his cassettes, and clearly not in the way my Soundwave loves me, or the way that he loves my siblings. And he idolises his Megatron, but he doesn't love him. I don't think we want that Megatron here, if his perception of his Megatron is correct."

Howlback sighs. "Well, if he was an empurata victim, he was likely also shadowplayed." Howlback turns to Cricket. "There are a few people who have just one optic because that's their frametype, like Clobber and Lugnut. but most of the time, a person with a single optic and clawlike hands, has been maimed, and this was a political punishment that was favoured by the regime the Decepticons rebelled against, for dissent. It normally was accompanied by an unhealthy dose of mind control, and memory editing."

She shrugs. "But unless Cricket knows he's reporting to someone for sure I'd rather talk about anything else," she says, with a smile. "Tell me about those birds that Lotor is playing with."