Drift settled himself down on the scarred ground, resting the Great Sword across his thighs.  Cybertron stirred beneath him, almost heaving with new life.  To the south, the land had come alive, reaching out like thorned snares from some Earth fairy tale he’d heard, briars and brambles blocking any progress, as though the planet itself rejected their presence.  To the north, the new arrivals’ camps bustled, even at this hour, mechs restless, eager, unsettled.

It wasn’t a dangerous restlessness, however. He could tell the difference, feel it like a scent in the air around them.  They were restless, perhaps even frustrated.  But it was driven by eagerness: to fix, to repair, to build a living Cybertron, to spread life and energy and movement and color all over the grey, barren world. 

And he sat, to the east, as far as he could manage, watching the sun’s light begin to stretch its fingers through the darkness, combing away the night, soothing the restless planet.

And, Drift hoped, his own restless spark. 

He’d thought he belonged here.  He thought he’d been fighting, for millions of years, for this: to win the war, to have a chance to change, to reshape Cybertron, build it better than it was: no one ignored, no one left out, no one suffering.

Everyone was suffering, here: the new arrivals.  The new indigenous mechs, whom Drift refused to call NAILs. The name tasted tinny and vile to him, like ‘wasted spark’ or ‘gutter-rat’.  It was a name of difference, of degradation, and he would not, could not, do that. It went against everything he fought for.  And the Autobots and Decepticons themselves suffered: some lost without a war to fight, all the loss and pain and violence crashing on them once they stopped their forward momentum.  Some struggled with the long-ingrained habit of violence. And all struggled because they had left peace behind so long ago that they couldn’t remember what it felt like, how it worked. 

Everyone here was suffering.  Growing pains and death throes, and sometimes both combined. 

Everyone suffered, everyone was lost here: it was the one thing they all had in common, and the one thing they all turned away from. 

Drift didn’t turn away. He watched the sun rise, slowly, colors bleeding into the grey, tendrils of rose and violet, the soft light of a burning sun, stretching light and heat and energy over the land of pain. 

And he thought of Wing—how could he not?  He thought of the jet, a life spent underground, sneaking moments of flight and life and that last day, that last time, the last hour, Wing almost outshining the sun, blazing with purpose, his white armor blindingly bright, searing Drift’s memory with a beauty so sharp it hurt. 

What would Wing think of this world?  What would Wing think of Bumblebee, or Rodimus?  Or that Megatron had been the only one with the courage to face down the monstrosity, the immanence of the Expansion.  What would Wing think of this stirring world?

He would weep.  He would cry, a channel for the pain of a world that was heavy with violence and loss. He would keen, mourning for, and with, the planet and all the unknown and unnamed who had perished here, and all those who had died far afield.  He would fall to his knees, overcome with agony. Drift could almost see it: the red flashes of his knees sinking into the powdery ash of the ground, the body bent and wracked with emotion.  He could almost hear him, that  sweet, pure note that seemed to rattle the base of the helm, claw at the spark.

And then…Wing would rise, smeared with ashes, streaked with the signs of death and loss. And he would turn, his optics lambent and gold, rivaling the rising sun behind him, sad and wise and still magnificent, and he’d smile, and ask what was first to be done.

//Drift.//

Rodimus’s voice, quiet, hushed but hurried. 

//On.// The image of Wing vanished, dissolving into the phantasm that it was: a ghost Drift used to fortify himself in his shadowy hours. 

//Where are you? Things are…we need to start making plans.// 

Drift nodded his head, almost a bow before necessity: he had slipped out of Kimia, before dawn, walking the perimeter, trying to print this place on himself, himself on this place, trying to see it, feel it, as home.  It had failed, and he found himself waiting for sunrise, as though it were a sign. A miracle.  When all it was was a sign that life…went on.  Despite loss, despite death, despite a mountain of regret and sin, life persisted, bursting through the pavements, weak-white shoots of potential, reaching for the open air. 

//Be right there.//  He stood, feeling the sun strike his face, the gentle caress on his battered armor, warm and tender like hope.  This was not his home. Not yet.  There was more to be done, and he would do it. 

He cast a look over his shoulder, back at the golden flare of the sun just cresting the jagged horizon, and he could swear he felt the air thrumming, an echo of a mourning keen.  And he hoped he would return, and he hoped that next time, he would be worthy and it would feel like home.