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Starscream never spent much time in cold waters.
For the most part, he hated them. The currents were too harsh, the storms too icy, and the water so chilly that he always wanted to dip back to warmer water and stay far, far away from the ice.
But recently, he found himself sneaking further and further north as of late, following and watching a pod of whalefolk. Well, particularly watching one whale from a pod of whalefolk.
They were massive creatures, and their pod did not swim particularly close together, but the way they sang and called out to each other—that song was, to Starscream, more gorgeous than the tune of any siren he’d ever known. Their song was so deep, an echo that resonated in the icy water itself, and it drew Starscream back time and time again, to watch.
They were all such simple colors; greys, blues and whites, a streak of red or two there, but they didn’t glitter, and they didn’t have beautiful scales they displayed to each other and potential mates. They just swam, following each other at wide distances, sometimes even out of sight of one another, and sang.
It must have been an easygoing life, Starscream imagined. For all of their swimming and singing, he was nothing like them. He was named for the tempest in which he was born; a creature that emerged from the depths itself by magic—as deadly as the call of any siren, the stars screamed as the prince of the south sea emerged amidst choppy waves, grand crown already atop his fins.
At least, that was the narrative he liked to tell people. Whether they believed it was up to them. He was the prince of the south sea, the living embodiment of a hurricane…
Then why did these merfolk who lived in such icy, harsh waters seem so calm and easygoing? Did they not have storms of ice and blizzards that swirled about above the frigid deep?
Starscream slipped between two tall rocks, keeping his body low against them as he peered past them at the massive white beluga who slipped into the towering seaweed forest. The leaves of the seaweeds here were wide, tall structures that branched outwards, and the whale seemed to dart from one plant to another, carefully inspecting the base and tapering leaves of each. This seaweed looked entirely different from the sort Starscream was used to, but he dared not get any closer. He didn’t want to startle the white whale and scare him away.
The water here was slower, and Starscream could feel a slightly warmer current above. If he swam a little higher, he could feel the warmth of it brushing against his dorsal fins and back…
He dipped back down, not wanting to be seen.
“You don’t have to hide back there, little one, I noticed you several miles ago.”
Starscream sputtered in surprise, a few bubbles escaping his mouth and huffing out of his gills. Still, he swam forward, revealing himself to the whale. He still made a show of it, making sure that he curled his tail and flourished as he uprighted himself specifically in a spot where the sun filtered through the seaweed and caught his scales in just the right way to display his reds and blues alongside his blacks and grays in all of their splendor. “Little One?! How dare you. You must not know who I am, if you’re going to speak to me that way,” he said.
Yes, it was a perfectly acceptable way to introduce himself, Starscream was certain.
But the whale merely tilted his head, letting the leaf he’d been inspecting slip through his fingers as she released it. “Well, no, I do not know who you are. But you certainly are little to me. And with colors like that, clearly you’re not from around here. Are you lost? Separated from your school? I can call for Ultra Magnus, he knows this ocean better than anyone, he could guide you back—”
Starscream only stared at him in vague shock. He hadn’t really considered what he expected upon introducing himself to him, but it definitely wasn’t this.
“What? No! No! I’m not lost, and I’m not that little! I am Starscream, the prince of the South Sea, the tempest incarnate, a living hurricane!”
“Well, that is… quite an introduction. Well, my name is Skyfire, named for a meteor, if you must know. So, what are you doing all the way out here, your… majesty?” the white whale answered, sounding fairly unimpressed.
“Ah, well I was—” Starscream stopped himself. What was he supposed to say? That he was really out here whale-watching? That he found the whalefolk mysterious, and this one in particular was both beautiful and confusing, the way he swam was beautiful, and those massive, powerful back muscles that blended into his fins revealed that his size was not just the blubber that kept him warm in these frigid waters, though that was also very pleasing to Starscream’s eyes.
“I am scouring the seas, searching for one and only one who might be worthy of my mating! I seek power and glory, beyond recognition and your imagination!” Starscream gestured grandly, displaying his fins in another show of his brilliant colors.
Skyfire shrugged. “I see. Well, good luck with that. The er, the strongest of the north here is Megatron of the Icy Isles. I could call for him, if you need.”
Starscream blistered slightly. “What? No, no, that’s—that’s fine. You don’t have to do that.”
“Very well,” Skyfire answered, returning his attention to the seaweed he was inspecting. “Have a good afternoon, Starscream, prince of the South Sea, tempest incarnate, living hurricane.”
Starscream didn’t know how to answer. He just floated there for a few moments, watching the beluga in shock. How was he not impressed? Not wowed? Not taken in by Starscream’s beauty or the sheer volume of his magical power?
No matter. Now that he’d somewhat revealed himself to the whale he’d been following, he’d just have to return tomorrow and find a way to be even more impressive.
~☆~
The following day, Skyfire spent the morning dipping to the surface and watching polar bears on the ice from afar. It was nearing the end of winter, but the ice stretched out fairly far into the water, and Skyfire enjoyed watching the creatures.
In the afternoon, he dipped back down to follow his pod, settling into some gentler currents that brought warm water flowing from some nearby undersea vents. His blubber kept him plenty warm in the chilly waters, but that didn’t mean he didn’t find basking in the warm relaxing.
He lay on his back with his arms behind his head, watching the shifting lines and waves of the surface above, content to relax as the water flowed around him, carrying him along at a leisurely pace.
It was then that the strange princeling from the south reappeared.
“Ah, hello again Starscream, prince of the South Sea, the tempest incarnate, a living hurricane,” he greeted him.
Starscream made a face that looked as though he was clearly attempting to seal a more extreme frown than the one currently across his features. “Must you say it like that?” he asked, his fins stiffening in… was that irritation? Or pride? Something else entirely?
“Like what?”
Starscream paused, hesitating. His eyes were conflicted, the brilliant red glancing Skyfire over, then over his shoulder. “Nothing! But just calling me Starscream is fine. Really.”
“Well then, Starscream, what can I do for you? Are you lost today? Or is there something else?” Skyfire offered.
“No, no! I just! Well, I’ve brought you something. Consider it a gift from me, an offering, really. To strengthen the bonds between the pod of the north and myself,” Starscream answered, flaring his fins in a grand display.
“Oh?”
Starscream shuffled in the small pouch at his waist, then produced a large pearl-like orb. It was beautiful, translucent, and within it there appeared to be a vision of a giant whirlpool, simultaneously glowing with an eerie purple glow, and black as pitch. So black, that it devoured all light, and made it feel as though the water around them was even colder than before.
“This,” he explained, “Is an egg of a Kraken. The greatest, most powerful creature in the sea. It is said that anyone skilled enough to hatch it, will have the force of nature at their beck and call, and can summon the mightiest storms with their willpower alone.”
“Oh,” Skyfire answered softly. “Well then. I think you should put that thing away. It seems dangerous.”
Starscream stared at him incredulously, then at the egg in his hands, then back at Skyfire. He did this several times, blinking in confusion. “Are you… are you serious?”
But Skyfire’s expression remained unchanged. “Of course! No one should have that kind of power! You ought to put it away before someone sees it!” Skyfire scolded.
The prince just nodded numbly, and returned the egg to his bag. “Right. Well then.”
“Well then,” Skyfire echoed.
They floated there in a prolonged silence, neither quite knowing what to say to the other. Clearly their interaction hadn’t gone at all how Starscream had planned, and Skyfire wasn’t used to strangers from other seas just swimming up to him and offering him an extravagant and terrifying gift from across the ocean.
“Would you like to… join me?” Skyfire asked, gesturing to the flow of the warm water he was laying on.
The prince swam up beside him, twisting onto his back, letting the warm water flow over him. To his surprise, it was just as warm as the vent flows he was used to in the south seas, but here it felt refreshing against the chill water, like slipping back into the water after coming to the surface in the storm.
They drifted there together, the water shifting around them, relaxing into what became an oddly comfortable silence. Perhaps Skyfire’s stonewalling of Starscream’s bravado allowed the prince to unwind slightly. There was no telling why, but he did let out a small chirr before he rolled back onto his front, and stretched.
“Fine, then. But don’t think I won’t be back,” Starscream declared, and Skyfire bid him a polite good-bye, watching the brightly-colored fins sparkle in the fading light as Starscream swam away.
~☆~
Skyfire caught up with his pod that evening, and spent the night with them, drifting together for warmth. They didn’t have a leader, and for the most part they simply looked out for one another, which meant that they could slip into and out of place together casually enough.
Most of them usually kept to themselves, but tonight they huddled up in a circle, sharing a walrus for dinner, a fatty meal that warmed them, and, Ultra Magnus commented, quite more filling than the schools of krill they had been snacking on as of late.
Megatron agreed, though they often had to be considerate of the climate and eat the most plentiful food. Astrotrain muttered about how at least they didn’t have to worry about luring humans into the water for their meals the way the sirens of the south seas did, which prompted Skyfire to bring up the fact that he’d met a mer from the south seas recently.
He opted not to say his name, but he described Starscream as an odd creature, not a shark, but perhaps more like a siren or an elemental, and the colorful array of his fins and angular silhouette showed how clearly out of place he was in the frigid seas here. He admitted that Starscream had brought him a rather extravagant gift, which he had turned down.
This tidbit gave Megatron pause, turning the tooth from their catch he’d been filing for one of his necklaces over between his claws. “This southern mer… brought you a grand gift? And you said he’s traversing the oceans in search of a companion…?”
The massive, scarred orca frowned, placing the tooth into his pouch. “Skyfire… if he returns with another gift, he may be attempting to court you. I’ve been to the south seas, and typically when they are trying to mate, they offer each other personal gifts. They’re not like us, they’re deeply romantic creatures. I assume they do have some measure of important platonic bonds in their lives, but they don’t have anything quite like a pod.”
“If they don’t have a pod, how do they hunt larger prey…?” Ultra Magnus mused.
From there, the conversation derailed into the pod’s further plans and what time to reunite once again.
Skyfire lay amongst them that night, considering Megatron’s explanation. If Starscream returned, perhaps he ought to ask him outright, or perhaps wait and see if there was something else he was after.
Starscream returned a few days later, this time while Skyfire was gathering some netting from a sunken human fishing boat.
“Did you do that yourself?” Starscream asked, gesturing to the remains of the vessel.
Skyfire blinked at him, taking a moment to register exactly what the prince meant. “This? Oh! Absolutely not. Why would I do such a thing?”
Why?
Starscream paused to mull over the why, taken aback by the question. “What do you mean, why? Because you’re a deadly creature of the deep. Is it not what you do?”
“Certainly not! Of course, we scare away the nasty ones, or bring ice storms to threaten the dreadful ones, but for the most part, the humans who have been here the longest leave us be, and we leave them be,” Skyfire remarked, bewildered as to why Starscream would even say such a thing.
It was Starscream’s turn to stare at Skyfire a bit blankly, before he finally answered with an awkward “Oh.”
“Well, I’m sure you didn’t swim all the way out here just to talk to me about boats I haven’t sunk,” Skyfire commented.
“No, no, I didn’t,” Starscream admitted. He reached into his pouch, producing a grand crown wrapped in coral ornamented with a living starfish that held a beautiful, swirling pearl at the center. He displayed it before Skyfire, holding it up so a ray of the receding evening sunlight from the surface above could capture the shining of the living creatures upon it.
“This,” Starscream began, “Is the crown of Poseidon. Once worn by a mighty god of the ocean, it is adorned with living creatures who will grant you the ability to communicate with any animal or spirit of the sea. Even if you wish to communicate with great, sleeping creatures of the deep, the elementals that dwell within the volcanoes, or the most ancient of whales whose language is long since lost to time, this crown will grant you that power!”
Skyfire looked over the circlet. “Are those… tropical corals…?”
Starscream glanced down at it. “Well. Yes, these red and pink ones are, you have an excellent eye,” he explained proudly.
“Oh goodness!” the beluga replied with some dismay. “You ought to take that back with you to the warmer waters! They must hate this place! It is far too frigid here for that sort of coral to survive! The poor things must be freezing.”
Starscream stared at him numbly. “Right. Yes. I’ll do that.”
Skyfire paused, watching the way the otherwise brilliantly-scaled mer seemed to deflate a little. He recalled Megatron’s words about how such creatures were more romantic than whalefolk, and that this was somehow some sort of attempted courtship ritual. Starscream didn’t seem ready to admit such a thing, but in returning multiple times like this, there must have been something that brought him back time and time again despite the rejections.
“However… if you do return, and you don’t mind an icy dip, there is somewhere I could show you…” Skyfire offered, a tentative caution lacing his words. “If that is something you would be interested in.”
Starscream seemed to perk up slightly, his earfins twitching a bit as he dipped forward, his curiosity piqued. “Somewhere you could show me?”
“Yes, our pod will be closer to it in a few days. It might be a bit cold for a creature like you, but if you stay close to me, I can keep you warm…” Skyfire answered sheepishly.
“Fine. Yes, when I return, I’ll… go to this place with you.”
Skyfire smiled. So it was a plan, then. A date, even.
~☆~
The next few nights were particularly cold, and the pod swam closer together than usual, snuggling together for warmth. Skyfire traded out a few shifts on the outer side of their little huddled mass, his thick skin and heavy blubber warm enough to weather the water, and the snowstorm above.
Despite the fact that winter was nearly over, and the near-constant darkness now offered a brief few rays of sun each day, it seemed the atmosphere above still had several blizzards left in it.
Starscream did not return until another dark morning several days later, where the sky over the sea was still dark and obscured by clouds, but it was marginally warmer than the previous few days. This, however, was not saying much, as it had been particularly cold as of late. He arrived to find Skyfire waiting for him, a large, silver spear strapped across his back, pressed against his grand gray, red, and white spinal dorsal fins.
It looked every bit as extravagant as the creature who carried it, shining brilliantly despite the lack of light, reflecting off of Starscream's red bioluminescence.
"Good morning, Starscream," Skyfire greeted him.
"You were waiting for me?" Starscream asked, poorly concealing the hope in his voice.
"Why, yes," Skyfire admitted. "I had a feeling you would come today. The currents felt favorable, and the water slightly warmer."
"I see," Starscream replied, watching Skyfire with an intensity of someone trying to discern a language he'd never heard before, as if trying to make out a mystery of the whale's expression.
Skyfire returned the exchange by glancing Starscream over in equal measure. "Are you ready for a swim?"
"Before that!" Starscream unclasped the spear from his back, offering it to Skyfire with both arms outstretched. "Skyfire, may I present to you the Lunar Trilobiter, a fearsome weapon and grand artifact. Forged from a moonstone that fell into the depths and heated in the forge of an ocean floor volcano, It can command the very currents themselves, or split the sea to create a monstrous wall of water. It can cut the waves to break far from the shore, or build a tsunami itself. I offer this power to you, gentle creature of the north."
"That sounds quite terrible!” Skyfire shook his head in vague horror. “I have no use for something like that. You shouldn’t say such things aloud out in open water. What if someone were to attack you and steal it?”
“Steal it? They’d have to get past me first, past my fangs and claws, and of course, I could use the spear itself to fend them off!” Starscream retorted defensively, baring his fangs.
Skyfire had to admit that Starscream, despite being much smaller than he was (comparatively, Skyfire assumed that most mers of Starscream’s size were about the same, perhaps a bit larger or smaller), was quite fearsome. His eyes were bright and alert, his claws were sharp and powerful, likely fast enough to tear a barracuda out of a raging current easily. His fangs marked him as a predator capable of tearing into creatures far larger than he was, with brilliant red and blue fins that… did they mean he was poisonous? Skyfire knew next to nothing about more tropical species. He’d only been that far south a few times, but he hadn’t spoken to many of the locals, and certainly no one of Starscream’s… how was their society structured? Caste? His school? He had no clue.
“And what if I had it? If someone stole it, they could do considerable damage to the ecosystem…” Skyfire sounded scandalized.
“What? But you’re powerful, you could stop someone from stealing it from you—” Starscream interjected. Overpowering a creature like Skyfire seemed incredibly difficult.
“I have no use for such a thing. But er, thank you for offering me something so opulent. I’m hardly worthy of such…” Skyfire trailed off, clearly trying not to offend Starscream now that he was turning down a grand gift for the third time.
Starscream sucked in sharply through his gills, puffing his cheeks out in irritation for a moment, and Skyfire braced himself for the mer to have some sort of outburst, but instead he huffed out through his mouth slowly, watching the bubbles slip away. Deflated, now, he looked entirely despondent.
“Right. Yes. I’ll… take it back with me.”
Skyfire swam a little closer, reaching out to him with one arm. “You could… still come with me, see what I have to show you?” Skyfire offered, the words hanging in the water between them.
With a nod and a flick of his fins, Starscream seemed to shake the cloud of angst that hung around him entirely, returning to a snappy attitude that Skyfire presumed to be his default state. “Right. Fine, then,” he began, swimming in front of Skyfire. “Are you going to show the way, or must I just guess?”
Skyfire just smiled and slipped in front of him, ducking around Starscream as he led him away from where they met, dipping away from the main currents, and into chillier waters. The water here felt darker— like they’d swam far deeper, yet they both knew it wasn’t the case. Skyfire swam up to the surface, blowing out a stream of water and air, frowning at the sky.
Despite being midday, the sky, previously a pale overcast white, was darkening. It wasn’t yet time for the sun to go down, but another storm was creeping in nonetheless. The water around them was growing more and more choppy by the moment, and there was a distant rumbling in the sky above as the distant white clouds gave way to lower, blacker clouds, growing darker and darker, obscuring the sky in a darkness that felt the same as night itself. Skyfire huffed another spray of water in a frown. “Ah, another ice storm… I should have known.”
Beside him, Starscream peered above the surface, keeping himself mostly submerged beneath his nose, his appearance from above more akin to a lurking predator in shallows than a multicolored fish. “Is your view ruined?”
But Skyfire turned, glancing about the landscape, and then dipped back beneath the water. “There is… something else I can show you. This way. Stay close. It will get quite cold.”
Instead of returning to the open ocean, Skyfire swam further into the ice, keeping Starscream within a short distance, their bodies close together. Around them were plenty of massive floating pieces of ice, and walls of glaciers not far off. Skyfire was careful to stay at the widest places for the flowing water, leading the prince between chunks of ice that floated on the surface and sank beneath it.
They approached a massive iceberg, a floating monolith of ice. When Skyfire dipped beneath it, it felt as though it extended downwards, reaching into the depths of the ocean, as if it were climbing downwards, rather than into the sky, plunging itself into the dark depths. Skyfire found a large opening along the side, near the bottom, beckoning Starscream to follow him.
The prince almost refused at first. Was Skyfire insane? Swimming into the side of an iceberg? What if the thing came down upon them? That volume of ice and snow could freeze even the warmest of whales. Starscream stuck close to Skyfire. He couldn’t swim directly beneath him without threatening to stab him with his fins and spines, but Starscream still stayed close, within arm’s reach. (Well, within Skyfire’s arms’ reach, the whale had a much longer reach than himself.)
They swam upwards through a long crack in the ice, and Starscream noted that Skyfire was staying away from the walls.
Luckily, it was a straight swim up to their destination, and the crack even widened at the top, opening into an expansive, open cave made entirely of ice.
It was terrifying, in its own way. Being inside of a hollow iceberg. Starscream felt as though the entire thing could come down at any moment. Near the very top, there was an air pocket that made it appear as though the entire iceberg was hollow beneath, opening up before them like a hidden room of ice. There were no stalactites or stalagmites, rather, the ice above them had broken, shifted, and re-frozen in layers, creating an irregular geometric pattern of layers of ice that felt like disjointed stripes.
Starscream felt entitled to most things in the seas; he was fairly spoiled in his youth, and was still learning his place in the ocean, but here he felt like he didn’t belong. As he broke the surface he glanced about the ice in awe and reverence, a strange displacement building in the pit of his stomach. Like he was intruding on some sacred place that no creature should be allowed to see.
“Is this what you wanted to show me?” He whispered, worried his voice would be enough to disturb the ice.
Skyfire pulled Starscream close, rubbing his arms over Starscream’s chilly scales, imbuing him with warmth from his body, heating up the frigid mer, who was clearly trying to ignore that he was shivering. “Well, yes, and no. Listen.”
They floated there for some time in silence, feeling the slow motion and bob of the iceberg in the water around them, before it began. A small, distant tapping. Slow, at first, growing into a crescendo upon the ice above them. Soon it grew into a loud drumming, followed by a flash that lit up the whole chamber, followed by rumbles of thunder.
The clash was loud enough to startle Starscream into a panicked dip beneath the surface, only to re-emerge slowly, his head tucked beneath Skyfire’s arm.
Skyfire swam around him, curling his lower body and tail around him protectively. “I’m right here. Besides. You’ve that spear to protect you, if you’re worried about the ice crashing down on us,” Skyfire whispered.
“Yes, it’s quite fearsome,” Starscream answered, anxiety leaking into his voice, though it was again, clear that he was attempting to conceal it. “I didn’t think there were thunderstorms this far north…”
“Well, it’s more of an ice storm than a proper thunderstorm, but yes. I just like to come here and listen to the sound of the frozen rain above, and it feels much calmer here than it does just beneath the surface of the water…”
Starscream paused, glancing around the room once more, and he stopped to listen to the echoes of the icy rain above. The water around them really was quite still, despite the violence of the storm outside, and the echoes of the water became a steady pattern, a constant rhythm that were almost… soothing? The occasional flashes of lightning above illuminated the lines of the ice above them, frozen into geometric shapes that not even the most skilled artisans could accurately recreate; a specific interlocking of crystals of ice, some centuries old, while others far newer, their growth and broken away pieces telling a tale that Starscream could not ever hope to read or fully understand.
It made him feel small.
This tiny, hidden away place that concealed untold danger, in a treacherous ocean, was a place that made him realize the vastness of the oceans, the differences in their worlds. He leaned into the embrace of Skyfire’s slippery skin, providing warmth to his otherwise chilled extremities. He was a magical creature, he wasn’t going to freeze or die, but the cold still chilled the tips of his fins and made them tingle in the worst ways that just made him want to stay closer to Skyfire.
“It’s…” Starscream trailed off, whatever thought was forming dissipating around him. He fell into a muted silence, wiggling his tail slowly for warmth.
“Yes, it certainly is,” Skyfire remarked, as though Starscream had offered up some sort of complete thought. “You know, I was thinking. You do not need to offer me gifts, Starscream, prince of the South Sea, the tempest incarnate, living hurricane.”
“It feels like you’re teasing me when you use my whole title like that,” Starscream deadpanned.
“Oh. I. I meant no offense,” Skyfire admitted, not pulling away from him.
“Ah. Well. Yeah. I could tell you are being sincere, it’s just. Nevermind! Again, just calling me Starscream is fine. Really…” he couldn’t help but squirm a little, trying to make it not-so-obvious the way he was looking over those muscular arms, taking in the definition of his shoulders…
But Skyfire floated there for another moment, listening to the sounds of the ice, the storm battering the outside of the iceberg overhead. “Well, what I mean is that perhaps instead of attempting to court me with such grand gifts, I could come visit where you live? That is, if your gifts are indeed an attempt at courtship…”
Starscream’s face warmed, and he sank down into the water, blowing bubbles to the surface. “Yes, yes, well, they are attempts at courtship if they want them to be. Otherwise they can be gifts to our northern neighbors.”
“If they were gifts of diplomacy, I’m sure you would have offered them to Megatron, rather than someone like myself,” Skyfire answered with a small laugh.
“Yes, right. Of course,” Starscream responded tersely.
They sat there for awhile longer, before Skyfire led Starscream back out of the chamber, down the crack that served as a tunnel, back into the ocean, and towards the main currents once more, reaching for warmer waters.
Above them, the storm raged on, and Starscream stayed close to Skyfire, but he still felt a sense of serenity somehow, beside his guide.
“So… will you be coming with me now, or should I return to pick you up…? It’s quite a migration, you know,” Starscream explained, his fins tilting awkwardly.
Skyfire just laughed. “I’ll come with you next time, granted you do not bring me any more outrageous gifts.”
“Outrageous?!” Starscream sputtered, then paused, straightening up and smoothing out his scales with both hands. “Fine, fine. I will return in a few days. Be ready.”
His voice had a lot less bite to it than he probably intended, but Skyfire smiled, taking his claws in his own. He leaned down and kissed the backs of his knuckles. “I will be waiting then. And please, no more gifts. Your presence is enough of a gift for me.”
Starscream’s fins flared, his claws tightening around Skyfire’s for a brief moment, before he released them and grabbed Skyfire’s face, cupping it between his hands and drew him in for a long, slow kiss, savoring the softness and warmth of the massive whale against him, drinking in his salty caresses.
“Fine. Farewell. I’ll see you soon.”
Skyfire held onto him for a moment longer, letting Starscream dictate the length of the kiss, but disguising an additional embrace as a final attempt to warm him before he began his journey south.
It was a long swim, but at least the next time Starscream traversed it, he would not be making it alone.