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It was midnight; a haze had fallen upon the city of Vos during dusk, blurring and filtering all light through an opaque, silvery mist that obscured the dark shapes of the many skyscrapers and complexes within the city. Neon blues and purples and greens of bars and shops, streetlight yellows and whites, and tail-light reds melded into a dulled, pastel-like mosaic of colours left by a painter upon a palette, the canvas being the dark, star-studded skyline.
Below, the latest music played, clashing with the older music filtering out from classy bars and restaurants and producing a dissonant rumble; conversations were loudly carried out, friends dragged each other home and laughed about the night spent drinking, business calls were hurried along; brakes squealed and tires smoked and exhausts shrieked as street racing matches began, followed shortly by police sirens; and the distant buzzing and chopping of jets and helicopters in aerial races soon came to life. The sounds of the city clung heavily to the ground as if weighted down by the mist itself, a distant drone that, from a high altitude, was soothing and entrancing.
Father yonder to the west, glossy Prussian blue waves bit into the dark sanded shore, shearing away bit by bit with a silken touch, carrying up artifacts from the sea just as quickly as it stole others away, all the while flushing in and out to a rhythm. To the east, navy blue mountains illuminated with moonlight rolled lazily and gently sloped, eroded over millennia to smoothness and softness. From up high, everything seemed so quiet, so distant, so insignificant as to never be a bother.
Hovering here in her roost, the highest skyscraper within Vos, gave Starscream a sense of importance unparalleled by anything else. Being above all else, she could observe what transpired below with a high sense of omniscience and pride. This was her stomping ground, and to prove it, she frequently flew around the city perimeters, curving and looping and flying high into the sky then letting herself fall back town. At times like these, Starscream appreciated her vantage point from up high, and the fact that she wasn't so chained to the ground like many others were. To be so constrained to the earth seemed so nightmarish to her that it bordered on outright denial that such people would willingly relinquish their freedom for such a thing.
As the city lights flickered off one by one and the inhabitants flocked to their quarters for the night to recharge, Starscream stayed awake. Despite all the city did to make her sleep, she never could until her optics burned and her frame fell heavy with fatigue, only mere hours before the sun coloured the sky red and orange and pink. No, for now, she busied herself with tracing sleepy circles into the chest plating of her conjunx, Skyfire. The soft light filtering in from the windows illuminated her figure in a hazy glow, rendering the stark white of her paint job into a fluorescent hue. Skyfire had her hands folded over her abdomen and was sleeping soundly, a light smile flitting on her features. Every so often, her vents would click and whir to life slowly, a droning buzz filling the room as they did, then shutter back off.
To some, Skyfire wasn't beautiful or enchanting in any way whatsoever (an idea Starscream found simply unthinkable). A carrier-class meant for space exploration, she was oft criticised for that, and for the fact that her frame was rather large and bulky. Even now, she was chided for retaining her carrier mode instead of changing to a more "acceptable" one. She towered over even the tallest Seekers, and easily took up the space of two or three. She stood out from many with her stark white paint job, accentuated only with red and blue strips scattered whichever way. Some stated her paint job made her look boring, withdrawn, introverted. Starscream found none of that to be true.
Certainly, Skyfire was somewhat introverted and slightly withdrawn, but that was more due to her overall shyness around others and her dedication to science. When one got to know her, she was a kind, compassionate soul that, for her size, spoke rather softly. She spoke with mindfulness and caution, moving slowly from word to word as if unsure of how to express herself, or browsing an internal dictionary to find the exact word she needed. She moved with gentleness and extreme caution, being too conscious of her size; often times, she refused to hug Starscream out of an innate fear of accidentally hurting her. This all stood in opposition to Starscream.
Skyfire's humility and quietness stood in stark contrast to Starscream's arrogant and vehement personality. Where Skyfire spoke softly and kept watch of her words, Starscream would speak loudly, unafraid to voice her opinions (which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as Starscream was quite persuasive; but it did result in fights every so often). And where Skyfire felt shy about herself, Starscream didn't, and couldn't quite understand how Skyfire could feel so self conscious about herself; after all, Starscream thought Skyfire was indeed one of the most beautiful bots she had met. Their personalities contradicted so much that many asked exactly how they could tolerate each other when hardly any aspect of them was in agreement.
Starscream pondered it too, occasionally, when she had nothing to do and when she let her mind wander. She'd often shrug it off, wondering exactly how one could not love her. She'd ask Skyfire what she liked about her, how she could tolerate her when they were polar opposites. To this, Skyfire would only smile and say, "I love you because you are you," and kiss her lightly on the forehead before resuming whatever she had been doing prior. Occasionally, she'd take Starscream's hand into hers and rub circles into the back of it with her thumb; even more rarely would she pick up Starscream and let her head rest in the crook of her neck.
Early on, before conjunx ritus had been completed, Skyfire would take the effort to actually list off every reason why she loved Starscream; her personality, how charming she could be, her affection and gift-giving and complimenting, so on and so forth. But as the reasons multiplied exponentially and it took more and more effort to list all of them without getting into minute details (such as "the way you always wake me up with a kiss and a grin"), she'd simply say there were as many reasons as there were stars in the universe. "Or the multiverse," she'd sometimes add with a slight chuckle.
Skyfire shifted abruptly, and Starscream's attention was snapped back to her as she jerked her hand away. Skyfire's hands fell to her side as her arms shifted, one arm moving to hang lazily off the berth, and the other coming to rest on Starscream's waist. Her wings twitched and fluttered before coming to rest once more, and her vents gave a deep, airy drumming.
After some time, Starscream shifted to lay down next to Skyfire, her head coming to rest on Skyfire's chest plating, one arm folding up next to her and the other staying at Starscream's side, and hooking her legs around Skyfire's. Her wings folded back, and she let her free hand wander to rest on Skyfire's one at her waist, fingers lacing together. Starscream went back to reminiscing about her and Skyfire.
Some of their dates were the more "formal" ones, the ones spent in expensive restaurants with triple-filtered high-grade out of a gold-leafed bottle, the kind of restaurants where one would wince upon looking at the receipt. Most of them, though, were spent on rooftops and observatories and (rarely) mountain passes, where Skyfire would cart along energon snacks and treats and a blanket for both to sit on. Skyfire would point out the different stars and constellations as Starscream sat back and watched; she'd point out the different planets and moons if they came into view. The times she could use the observatory, she'd let Starscream look through the telescope and point out the different nebulae or galaxies, reciting their names and everything she knew about them. Starscream could never understand what Skyfire was talking about, but she sounded excited and she had a lovely voice, so Starscream would let her ramble for however long she wanted.
Space always meant a lot to Skyfire, the stars more so. She was built to explore them, learn about them, be among them. They'd kissed and became conjuges endurae under the same stars. Skyfire would trace constellations into Starscream's palm at night, talking about their mythical importance. Skyfire even had a Cybertronian night sky projector, for when the nights were cloudy or otherwise inclement, so she could continue to talk about them to Starscream until one of them fell asleep.
The lack of sleep began to catch up to Starscream, weighing heavy on her frame and making it increasingly hard to keep her eyes open, scalding her eyes every time she blinked. She decided to save the recollecting for another day, drawing herself closer to Skyfire. She nuzzled her head further into Skyfire's chest as she slowly let herself fall asleep.
Skyfire would often say their love was like a star. Starscream never bothered to correct her and say it wasn't when she did. For Skyfire had said stars do eventually die, whether in a few million years or ten billion or more. It wasn't the idea that their love would last that long that Starscream took offence to. It was the idea that their love, a now permanent thing to both of them, could ever truly die. To Starscream, even an eternity felt too short.