Chapter Text
Crisp air drags a salty spray in its wake. The sun, long since vanished, leaves behind a cool gray sky, colorful reflections bending off what’s swallowed it — the only reminder of its presence. Over deep blue seas, the serene rocking of the boat comes to be just as foreboding as the unrest surrounding them.
It is not often that Orion gets to take metaphors literally, but as he rests against the ship’s railing, watching thick, darkened clouds, deceptively peaceful in the distance, he thinks of the calm before the storm.
The water is so gentle with them here. It carries with it a temperamental rein, but for now, it strokes the hull like a friendly cybercat, each little splash sending droplets scattering along the ship. Were the state of the other passengers not so troubled and were their trip not so promptly turning south, he likely would have been lulled into recharge.
With another churn, the water patters against his plating.
Orion hums in response and gazes upon the ocean, optics half shuttered with quiet admiration.
A taloned servo, firm and digging into his shoulder, is what breaks him out of the spell. The owner of said servo has no need to turn him so forcefully, especially considering that Orion resists none of it, but they do anyway, and in quite the irritated fashion at that.
Orion comes face to face with Starscream’s frigid expression, faceplates pinched in a disapproving frown.
Frustration has hiked his wings high and stiff, making him look far taller than he actually is. Orion has to fight the urge to automatically look at them instead of the seeker’s face. Starscream’s singular servo hurts enough as it is — it would do Orion well to avoid having another digging into his cheekplates and forcing his optics down.
And besides, Starscream’s stature is not meant to be the measure of his skill and competence. Far from it. His status as a member of the Air Command is part of the reason he’s here now. While it is true that Starscream is shorter compared to most seekers, he is not a small mech, the top of his helm still managing to reach the bottom of Orion’s intake. And Orion’s frame is already rather tall. Their height difference certainly isn’t enough to avoid the peeved glare in his optics.
Starscream does not look happy to be here, if not the one most upset about their predicament.
This certainly is not the first time they’ve experienced complications. It is simply the nature of traveling, a given when part of an archivist’s role includes outsourced collection and study.
Starscream has been one of the very few constants throughout all of Orion’s work trips. What began as an awkward and tetchy first meeting on a novice Orion’s very first allocated assignment quickly became a common request, always accepted despite Starscream’s vocal and staunch complaints about playing his escort again.
This job was no different. He made it very clear as soon as the request was sent how much he did not want to take the duty of Orion’s protector again, that the sea would do terrible things to his wings, that he didn’t want to chaperone Orion and his annoying wandering habits, and that if he was going to leave the comfort of his own home, he’d rather it be on a vacation instead of some “stupid business trip” — the only thing to earn an affronted retort from Orion.
And yet, here they were. Together. On a ship. Heading to Kaon. Straight toward a black squall.
The look in Starscream’s optics is nothing short of livid, silently yelling that this whole situation is Orion’s fault, completely undeterred by the fact he agreed to it of his own volition.
“You know, we should be going inside by now,” Starscream grumbles with no small amount of displeasure, pointing a thumb back to where some few were ducking into safety.
At the very least, that would warrant some sympathy from Orion. He knew that as much as seekers — or perhaps Starscream specifically — hated boats, they hated enclosed spaces much more.
“Unless you’d like to stay up here and be thrown overboard,” Starscream adds with a nonchalant shrug. “If that’s what it takes for you to leave me alone, then I don’t really care.”
Orion, not for the first time, huffs a startled laugh before offering him a small, apologetic smile in return. “My sincerest apologies Starscream. But please, if you would like, please go ahead and wait for me downstairs. I would like to help the crew as much as I can before I join you.”
Starscream crosses his arms, scoffing as he rolls his optics, muttering something that Orion’s processor fills as “Typical.”
“Once a dockworker, always a dockworker,” he remarks, far louder.
Orion’s smile brightens as his friend, decidedly, does not wait for him below and makes it a point that he’s only on deck out of the goodness of his spark, and nothing else. It does not pan out very well when something is promptly shoved into his servos anyway.
“I don’t understand why they couldn’t have just sent some flight frame. At least that way I could’ve flown over the storm,” Starscream says with a roll of his optics and a shift of his wings in lieu of his preoccupied servos. “Or better yet, become a flight frame yourself, Orion Pax. You’d do wonders with a pair of wings.”
“A frame change would require extensive surgery, Starscream,” Orion says matter-of-factly as he kneels to secure their items.
“Knock Out’s done it! Slag, he could do it for you. Maybe even for cheap,” he retorts. “Although why in Primus’s name he would choose wheels over wings is beyond me,” he mutters under his vents.
Testing the stability and giving it an appreciative pat, Orion chuckles in spite of himself. “Thank you for the suggestion, Starscream, but I find myself happiest with how I am.”
Starscream shrugs as he dumps his parcel into Orion’s arms. “Your loss,” he says before offering a servo. “Terrible taste.”
Orion gives him a grateful smile before taking it. Starscream pulls him up with a strength that, quite frankly, does not seem like it should be possible but Orion can’t find the will to mull over it when a flash of silver catches his optic, bright as it streaks through the darkening background of stormy seas. His gaze narrows.
‘How odd. Nothing should be reflective in this kind of weather?’
He squints, shutters his optics as he scans the empty surface, staring long enough that Starscream turns in confusion as well.
“What?” he demands as Orion brushes past him. “What, did you see lighting or something?” his tone increasing from annoyance directly into anguish.
Orion doesn’t answer, choosing to lean over the railing as he peers into the deep, murky waters—
A small gasp slips. His optics spiral wide.
He barely registers Starscream joining him when he himself is far too taken by the mass of large shadows moving beside the ship, his dermas parting in soundless awe.
‘Are those… dolphinoids? I have never…’
Unfortunately, it’s much too dark to truly confirm what they could possibly be. Even when the white ends of curling waves avoid eclipsing them, neither color nor pattern reveals itself through the surface, and the rippling water mottles their shapes beyond recognition. The one thing clear is that there are many — a breathtaking pod swimming opposite to the boat, escaping the sudden storm waters. Several of them are surprisingly large too — too big to be dolphinoids but too small to be whaloids. His original suspicion falls null at the realization.
One, Orion notices, possibly the largest of all he’d seen, carefully weaves through the rest of the pod. A quizzical look crosses his faceplates.
‘What? Why is that one swimming the other way?’
His gaze follows the shadow until he has to narrow his optics to keep it in his vision before it disappears. Previous knowledge and theories are quick to take hold of his mind, but he has no need to think on them for very long. Orion finds his spark constricting upon itself, choked up until it feels like liquid glass when he realizes the shadow has returned with two much smaller shadows swimming beside it. His servo rests over his chassis, his spark pulsing heavily beneath it.
“Oh,” Orion vents softly. “Oh, Primus, that’s precious…”
“Are we done looking yet?” Starscream interrupts, more a statement than an actual question.
Orion pauses, intake snapping shut before lifting his helm and turning to Starscream with a flat look. To his credit, the seeker looks equally as unimpressed. Orion retaliates by raising an optic ridge, to which Starscream rolls his optics at, again.
“I thought you were going to help the crew,” Starscream drawls, waving a sarcastic servo.
Orion frowns, already turning back to the waves. “Yes, of course, I’ll return right after-”
He cuts himself off when a flash of bright red catches his optic, jarringly clear and still in the tenebrous water, almost like… almost like it’s watching him. Orion stares at it, frozen before he rapidly offlines and onlines his optics, only to find it vanished — along with the rest of the pod it seems. A glance proves the final few shadows passing the end of the ship, leaving it behind.
Starscream crosses his arms, tapping his digits. “… What now?” he eventually asks.
“Did you see that?” Orion replies, terse and sounding rather unsure himself.
“The blobs? Yes Pax, I saw them,” Starscream says with another roll of his optics. Honestly, Orion is not sure how he avoids dizziness with the sheer amount of optic rolling he does, but he decides to shelve the thought for later.
“No, the-” he glances back at the water, hesitant. It remains empty and waiting. “I am sorry, I… I thought I saw something.”
“Yes, that was the blobs.”
“No, something else-!” Orion cuts himself off with a groan. “Nevermind. Perhaps I am just imagining things. Let’s see if we can help with anything else.”
“This is in absolutely no way a “we” thing,” Starscream snaps, wings flaring indignantly before relaxing. “But fine, the sooner you’re done, the sooner we can get out of this scrappy weather.”
Following his scathing glare, he was not wrong. The sky above them had turned a gray deep enough to rival the sea, dark clouds roiling with the courser wind. Orion found himself easily acquiescing — for perhaps once in all his functioning — with a nod as he followed Starscream back to the deck.
🌊
“Scrap!” Starscream shrieks, voicing Orion’s thoughts just short of perfectly. Personally, he would have preferred a stronger word, but “scrap” would do just fine.
The storm caught them far sooner than expected.
Perhaps the wind was stronger than it seemed or maybe they unknowingly veered along the path of a current, but whatever the reason, Orion finds himself violently losing his balance as the ship breaks through another wave, crashing as it dips forward. Starscream’s clawed digits dig painfully into his elbow, trying to keep both of their pedes from escaping the ship in a flurry of water, foaming like the jaws of a starving beast. The rebound throws them against the bridge.
“Get inside! We can take i’ from here, jus’ get yerselves to safety!” one of the crew members yells.
Starscream’s helm whips towards him, optics cycled in a glare, dentae grit, and wings drawn up tight, furious. “I fragging told you, Pax!” he screeches.
Orion doesn’t respond — or rather, he can’t. No matter how he tries to shield himself, the wind and rain pelts his frame hard enough to hammer vibrations through his plating, hard enough to make him dizzy. Thunder deafens Starscream’s fury. His optics can hardly keep up through the downpour.
Starscream wrenches at Orion’s arm, snarling every vulgarity that comes to his processor as he tries to shove him down into the cabins.
But, as strong as Starscream may be, even he was no match for a hauler frame.
For a moment, the world around Orion was strangely clear, as though it had frozen solely for him to watch, framing a young bot — much younger than he — gripping onto a rope as she fought a futile struggle against the storm. The wave came as if a call to ruin, a frothing, rising wall, an unwanted embrace. It smashed against the side of the ship, flooding the deck, and took into its arms the young bot over the edge. It was the flash of terror in her bright optics that returned the world to its unpredictable, angry nature.
Orion rips out of Starscream’s hold. His pedes slam over the soaked floor, skidding to a bang as he seizes the railing. Orion shouts as loud as his voice can carry:
“Overboard!”
Energon is warm as it streams down to his digits. His optics dart over the black, churning sea, wide and frantic. He pulls a deep vent.
“Overboard, port side!”
His spark thuds in tandem with the storm, tightening with every pulse. He sends prayer after prayer in the empty kliks, begging for Primus through his terrified glossa to let them spot the bot, to at least let her break the surface.
“Please,” he gasps, refusing to cycle the rain out of his optics. Intake clamming up, he digs his digits into the slippery railing kliks before Starscream and another mech slam against the edge, rope in servo.
‘Please!’
The splash she makes is nothing in comparison to the fortresses rising from the sea, but the twisting in Orion’s spark still releases all at once, his pulse hammering against his chassis in a brief, but shattering relief. The bot bobs over the water, the neon of her arm shooting up like a beacon, swinging in a desperate wave. The mech beside Orion flings the buoy just as a few more mecha join them, firm and ready with a rope ladder.
“Pax!” Starscream screams into his audial, attempting to tug him away when that isn’t enough to get his attention. “Pax, we need to go! The crew will get her, but we need to get out of here!”
Orion shakes his helm, unwilling to look away. “No! Starscream, I can’t! I have to make sure she’s alright!”
“That’s not your job-!”
A wave sprouts from underneath her, and in a horrifying movement, drags her further away from the ship, leaving the life preserver behind and too far to swim to. The mech next to Orion curses fiercely, muttering a rapid prayer to himself. He heaves the rope back in a single maneuver and prepares to throw it again.
Orion grabs his wrist.
“She won’t be able to get to it!”
“Then what the slag else are we supposed to do?!” the mech snaps, venom deep in his curled dermas.
Orion goes silent. He glances between the bot and buoy, his jaw tight and servos closing into fists. He glances behind before his gaze finally rests upon the railing, the energon cooled and crystallized on it. Starscream’s optics widen, frame jolting forward.
“Pax no-!”
He isn’t fast enough.
Orion plucks the ring right out of the startled mech’s servos, takes a few quick steps back, and with all the strength he can muster, Orion’s pede lands on the rail, launching himself off the ship.
Perhaps it’s how his frame and everything inside it thuds, but his leap into utter foolishness is oddly peaceful. His audials ring. Even Starscream’s shriek sounds distant before he plummets into a flurry of bubbles.
Buoy in hand, Orion breaks the surface immediately and doesn’t stop to consider the sheer stupidity of his decision before he kicks forward, reaching an arm to the terrified bot. She scrambles, trying the best she can to reach him. Orion’s arm trembles with the strain, his struts stretching tight enough that his limbs feel like they could snap. Water tumbles against both of their frames. Its flavor is sharp against his grit dentae.
The bot swipes her servo. It passes like a breeze, missing his digits by mere microns. Her optics flicker, turn dilated and glassy as she stares at his palm — the water pulls her away again.
‘No!’ He lunges forward, clenches on water that mockingly slips through his digits. His spark drops. ‘No!’
Maybe it’s a blessing, or perhaps it’s mercy, or maybe it’s simply sheer dumb luck, but the bot’s faceplates go from hopeless to alarmed in an instant, kliks before she surges forward. Unwilling to waste the chance — blessing, mercy, dumb luck, whatever it was — Orion’s frame moves before he can think, arm snapping around her like a trap triggered.
She gasps. “I- S-Something- There was something-!”
Orion can barely hear her. Her quiet, wobbling vocals are easily drowned out by a shrill, familiar shout, and for a moment, Orion feels his spark ease.
“Hold on!” he yells over the roar of the storm. Optics wide, she frantically obeys, wrapping her arms around the ring float, hugging it close as words abandon her and a shuddering sob escapes instead. Orion waves back at the ship’s crew before covering her tired frame with his own. “You’re safe now,” he tells her softly. “You’ll be alright.”
There is not much left to do but wait.
The course back to the ship is rough. They float over waves taller than both of them combined that drop them without a care, battering against Orion’s frame, vying to hold onto their capture. The rain and sea combined try their best to blind them, but the tug of the buoy is a steady lifeline, dragging them over the surface. The ships high sides are a wonderful thing to see up close, and Orion can’t help but allow himself a moment to relax, a hint of tension releasing from his frame in a small, grateful smile.
The ever benevolent sea is quick to punish him for it.
A shadow crawls over his frame like a ghost. He does not need to look at the faces of the mecha above them to realize the grave danger following them. The flash of panic in the several sets of glowing optics, the bot hugging the buoy even tighter leaves nothing but deference, a resigned sense of defeat within him.
Heaving a deep sigh, he looks between the towering wave, the rope ladder waiting for them, the trembling bot beneath him, before finally stopping at Starscream’s faceplate. His optics are shining bright, shouting something unheard to his thundering audials, and for the first time since Orion had come to know him, looking genuinely afraid. He offers his friend a small, apologetic smile.
::You were right:: he comms instead, ruefully watching as Starscream stiffens. ::I’m sure you would have preferred to hear me say it directly though::
Starscream’s lip plates move in another silent shout as he comms back. ::No!::
::Pax, no, whatever you’re thinking in your stupid, noble processor, stop that!::
::Pax!::
“We don’t have any more time,” he says urgently against the young bot’s audial. She looks up to him with big, worried optics, dermas pressed tight. “Once you get to the ladder, hold onto it as tight as you can, and find your footing, okay? You cannot afford to hesitate. Do you understand?”
She responds with a quick, terrified nod. “Y-Yes- Yes sir!” she chokes out. “B-But-?”
‘If you survive this, Starscream is going to kill you,’ he finds himself thinking with a small laugh.
With whatever strength he has left, Orion shoves her forward. The tug of the rope, the sudden loss of his prominent weight, combined with his added force, she is thrust into the side of the boat, instinctively scrambling for the rope ladder before her helm swivels toward him, optics wide in horror at the realization of what he’d just done.
Orion finds himself thankful that the crew immediately hauls her up to safety and not let her attempt to reach for him despite her piercingly clear objection. He gives her a gentle smile.
Orion turns, watching the way the bow cleaves the wave in two. With a bated vent, he shields his face before the sea crashes over him.
The water is somehow claustrophobic and stretching him thin all the same. The weight of the ocean is powerful against his frame, like a hydraulic compress leaving him for scrap. The waves above aim to carry him back up and toss him around like a youngling with a toy. His HUD pings him nonstop with notifications; comms from Starscream, warnings for pressure, injury, water underneath his plating, in his vents, and overwhelming his processor to no recovery. His optics cycle back and forth, trying uselessly to keep their vision from blurring to near blindness. His audials have yet to stop ringing. His shoulders sting, pinpricks from the water sinking into his lines. Something crawls on his ankle, and disorientation has him wildly kicking it away.
Orion’s servos grab at his helm. He tries to rationalize with his alarmed and thrumming CPU, begging for him to panic, to frantically search for the ship, to scramble out of the water and find something to hold on to, to force himself afloat in a sea with the intent to rust and drown him.
He grits his dentae, briefly screws his optics shut, and pushes out as much water as he can before he manually forces his vents closed. Orion tries to swim up, attempting to kick his pedes when he nearly vents in horror, frame tensing hard enough to be painful when he realizes the sheer depth the black, endless ocean has taken him. The glinting surface seems metres above him, too far to reach and too far for his ill-suited make to make a difference. His optics continue their paltry attempts to clear his vision and only succeed in adding more seawater into his sockets. His intake rolls with nausea. Orion’s heavy servos come to cover his mouth.
He’s sinking.
Something seizes his forearms. It’s tight— sharp — strong like reinforced iron bars. What feels like digits nearly presses dents into his plating as they yank his servos away. A massive shadow manifests itself in front of him. Bracketed by the dark sea and lit by red, it looms over him, takes the full span of his bleak vision. Flinching like a wounded mechanimal, Orion releases a near soundless, bubble filled shriek, ripping his arms back. His knees fold, pedes hitting something solid before consequently using it to propel him upward.
It is only when light flickers above the marbled surface does Orion realize that, in his heedless desperation to escape, he recognized that bright red— reds upon him, glowing like a pair of optics and facing forward like those of a predator. His chassis collapses on itself.
A new flash of warnings bombard his processor, commanding his frame to commit itself into stillness so that it will not be sensed, to keep an optic on what cannot be seen, to swim away so he will not be caught, to bare his dentae in a threat of his own, to fight, freeze, float, cycle, breathe, drive—
‘Find the ship,’ it demands. ‘Get out of here!’
Time and distance offer him a mercy. They don’t allow him dwell on his choices when he bursts out of the water, wiping as much from his optics as he can, all while his twinging helm whips around to search the storm.
Thunder claps in the cloudy sky, briefly illuminating the ship, floating in the distance like a blessed savior or some vassal of horror. He recognizes shouting. Someone with large wings is being held back. A mech lifts up the float ring. Orion reaches out. And a grip is on his ankle that he can’t wrench out of before it silences a cry and drags him down again.
A wave curls over him in an audible boom, and the proceeding flurry of bubbles shoves his rattling frame right down into something firm and warm, large limbs wrapping around him as he scrambles against what he can feel as… shoulders? In a section of his processor, somewhere behind his adrenaline protocols and the ever increasing stab of pain, he files that whatever it is that is intent on keeping him underwater — aside from the ocean — is decidedly some form of mechanism, and promptly hears an imaginary Starscream snapping at him to shut up and focus.
Unwittingly, Orion obeys. He tries to wrestle his way out of the creature’s grasp, pedes banging against solid metal with every furious, visceral kick, all too aware of the gaze trained on him, of the waves trying to pull them up and send them down over and over again.
It takes far too long for his logical processes to come to life and realize that the creature is not attempting to drown him, let alone harm him— by the Primes, it’s been staring up at him with large, blurry optics, emitting a calming EM field for Primus knows how long.
When Orion’s own optics go wide and he finally stops struggling, the mech loosens its grip, albeit only slightly. It is not enough for him to wriggle out and break free, but enough to avoid crushing his torso before it slowly steers them deeper, far enough to avoid the most extensive of the water’s jostling.
Orion stiffens in alarm, shakes his helm despite how it sends his cranial unit spinning in a storm of its own. His servos curl into loose fists before he points upward. His optics glitch.
‘No!’ he tries. ‘I need to go back!’ His servo aligns with the dark curve of the ship’s hull but when he turns back, the red is narrowed, staring at him like he’s a fool. Orion’s spark drops. His intake swells, begging for a vent. All it’s given is a forced swallow. The ocean above rumbles as another wave falls.
The creature shakes its helm in a universal symbol— if not a devastating one.
His servo falls, tense and leaden. His gaze flickering back to the boat is the only warning the creature gets before Orion’s field erupts, a turbulent wave of all his urgency; his fear, worry, and guilt pouring from him in something boundless—
‘Please! Let me go!’
—he shoves the mech as hard as he can.
Surprise jolting through its field, the creature falters. Its hold loosens against his waterlogged strength, just barely, but it is a lapse all the same. It is enough for Orion to take the jump.
He slips free, pushes himself away, and learns how truly helpless he is against the water’s weight. His frame feels too heavy to carry. The sole movement casts a violent spasm in his helm that nearly splits him in half.
The creature recovers faster than Orion ever could. In the span of a shutter, servos bind his wrists, unyielding until his struts creak.
Orion’s reaction his pure instinct. His metal twists when he does, trying to loosen the grip confining him. His pedes scrape against the creature’s frame, blindly searching for anything that could leverage him away and back to the boat.
It’s all to no avail.
He tries, but his effort is much weaker than anything that could save him. The distance between him and the ship only grows. Primus, the pain is making it hard to even think.
Orion wants to gasp. He wants to vent, to release the pressure built beneath his plating, to abate something.
His systems have stretched themselves thin, torn in the face of survival.
The density around his helm is oppressive, like he’s caught between the dentae of a pipe wrench, jaw winding through rust and slowly crushing him. His audials feel like they might pop their ringing hasn’t stopped. Every collapsing wave turns into its own thunder and leaves the ocean quaking, bubbles ricocheting off his shoulders. Starscream has not left a klik without a comm in his well-meaning panic, alerts and warnings blare behind his sockets like he hasn’t tried to heed them, and now, the creature, still keeping him underwater, has started to emit a low noise, vibrating the damn molecules around them.
It’s piercing.
His servos can’t seem to decide whether they should struggle against the mech’s grip, cling onto his helm, or swim up to the surface. His dentae are clenched. They must have been for a while with the way his jaw aches. He can’t stand to open his optics any longer when their own light stings. His helm, his processor hurts so much, his glitch agonizing to the point that all he in his right mind wants to do is rip his cranial unit out just to make it stop.
‘Ratchet would not be very happy with you though,’ the back of his thoughts chime in.
Then, much to his processor’s minor relief, the mech goes quiet. Perhaps Orion would have known why if his vision did not fail him the moment he saw that red glow. He gives a feeble tug instead. Unsurprisingly, he remains exactly where he is. If anything, the creature pulls him closer, its presence hanging over him for a cold, spark racing moment.
A pulse of water brushes against Orion’s half-shuttered optics and he forces himself to not flinch.
Apparently satisfied, the creature moves away with a small hum, finally releasing Orion’s aching wrists. His confusion is easily bypassed as the mech’s field reaches for him once more, something decisive seeping into the comfort. Orion tries to glance up for answers and is met by action instead.
An arm is wrapping around Orion’s waist and a massive servo is cupping the back of his helm, pulling him against a thrumming frame and pressing him into a shoulder.
Orion finds an undignified, muted yelp escaping his intake when the mech is off like a shot, rushing by the water far faster than the waves ever were. Dread coils in his tanks, strikes him like the storm above as Orion’s optics widen, vision tunneling until the only sight left is the ship’s shrinking hull.
‘No no no, where are you taking me!?’
His frantic glances go unnoticed.
‘Let me go!’
He tries to yell, pounds his weak, useless fist against the creature, opens his field in a plea and only earns a squeeze in response.
The next wave to plummet crashes within the depths, and the sheer force of it nearly sends them careening into a jagged stone that hadn’t been there a moment ago. The powerful reverberations flood his frame, sinking, shuddering all the way to his core. It’s nauseating. His vision grows staticky, loses the ship before it can disappear over the distance. He tries to clutch at the plating beneath his servos and realizes his digits are too numb to move. His spark pounds against its casing. The hammer in his helm is relentless. He’s powerless to fix this.
‘Alright…’ He swallows. ‘Alright.’
Trembling and resigned, Orion wraps a slow, unsteady arm around the mech, exhaustion weighing on him like the sea itself. He buries his face into its shoulder, allowing his strained optics to rest and finally opens all of Starscream’s comms.
::I’m sorry Starscream::
::Pax!?::
::Pax where are you!?::
::I’ll be fine::
::At least, I think I’ll be fine::
::WHAT’S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN!?::
::YOU IDIOT, ANSWER ME!!::
::I promise I’ll be okay. I’ll find you again.::
Orion pauses, managing a small, shaky sigh before he sends his final comm.
::Sorry to leave you with this mess.::
::Pax!::
::Oh for frag’s sake, Pax!::
::Orion Pax, respond!::
::Orion!::