Cricket Pate (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alittlehinky) wrote2021-03-22 04:16 pm
alittlehinky) wrote2021-03-22 04:16 pm
Spring chickens.
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.
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.
no subject
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."