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Metal caught on rock with a clank and a creak. Four blue digits curled over the topmost edge of the rockface, servos creaking with the effort to hold up their owner. Pebbles crumbled from the edge and scattered down like hail, but Beachcomber didn’t flinch.
He waited until the movement stopped, until no more crumbling or crunching was audible from his grip. These cliff faces were weathered like boot leather, overgrown with grasses and not well-equipped to support half a ton of metal. Still, he was determined to push on.
Once he was certain he was stable, he carefully maneuvered his servo further, gripping hard on a ridge and hoisting himself up abruptly, dirt scraping down the front of his chassis as he rolled onto flat ground with a huff.
He lifted his helm as his equilibrium sensors stabilised, casting a wary glance toward the ledge through his visor. After evening his vents, he sat up, turning towards the fruit of his labour: A beautiful, rich, sprawling rainforest unlike any other on Earth. He let out a sigh, the corners of his derma curling into a smile. His spark leapt at the rich shades of green that flickered in the cold afternoon wind, aching in his chassis and straining against his chestplate to join them in their dance.
He pushed himself to his pedes, shaking out his joints, bouncing on his heels and rolling his shoulder struts a couple of times before bounding into the brush, bracken crunching underfoot.
Thick, dark trunks covered in damp mosses flew past as he sprang over fallen logs and rocks with an agility defying his size. Untamed, organic bush; acres and acres of it as far as the optic could see. It was the most beautiful thing.
He slowed to a halt in a small clear, panting softly with childlike excitement. He looked up to see the high leaves and ferns that stretched overhelm like a great blanket, interlacing to form a shield of foliage that concealed every inhabitant from anyone or anything above. Warmth and the rich scent of composting leaf litter rose from the soft ground, and for that moment, Beachcomber felt safe, wrapped and enclosed on all sides by the soft-spoken behemoth that was nature. Where he always felt at home.
He turned slowly, taking in every inch of the secret sanctuary with wide-lensed appreciation. His gaze traveled up short, dark trunks that led into umbrellas of wide, flat ferns, each folding outward into a beautiful pattern.
He reached out a large metal hand, took one such fern into it gently so as not to harm the stem. He lifted one little leaf, optical lens adjusting to better focus on the tiny flat piece of plant matter. The pattern that looked so complex and astonishing from afar bled into smaller, simpler versions of itself, then smaller ones, then even smaller ones until it was smooth. He smiled, finding something just lovely about how everything became so simple up close in a being so incredible and enigmatic from further away. It was just how he felt about organic life.
He perked as he finally registered the chorus of calls from above and around him, looking up again to catch a little creature hopping through branches curiously. He had been so enamored by the environment he had almost forgotten its inhabitants.
Of course, he thought. How could he forget the best part?
“Well hey there.” he called softly, tilting his helm at the dark shape. He shut his optics and fine-tuned his audials, drowning out the constant sound of trees rustling in the wind. He zoned in on the one call, the fast, repeated chittery squeak, like an un-oiled wheel. His processor rushed the recording through several speech patterns, comparing them to those of other avians he had encountered, contrasting them with the creature’s movements and behaviours.
After a moment his derma parted, vocalizer reshaping itself just slightly. He emitted a litany of squeaks, to which his company responded by flitting down like a piece of paper caught in the wind. Beachcomber held out his servo, but the bird didn’t wait to land, instead darting around him like a fish through water, cheeping and chittering. He laughed, helm whirling to keep sight of it.
“Hey now, Hey now! Slow down!” he grinned as the first was joined by another. They stopped for mere milliseconds to land on his chassis, only to take flight again, wings and tails spreading like oriental fans. Beachcomber had to take a snapshot of one to even get a semblance of what they looked like, viewing the image in his memory processor. Tiny, tiny round birds, with tails bigger than their bodies were and yellow bellies that flashed as they flew.
“Why, you’re like a couple a’- a couple a’ leaves in the wind,” Beachcomber remarked, posing his digits for them to skip over. He squeaked to them again, and they replied. “A-cheet-chee-cheet, cheet-chee–!”
He couldn’t help but chuckle warmly.
He paced forward through the bush again, fantails looping in his wake to snap up the smallest of the bugs his trail stirred up from the forest floor. His touch traced the soft bark of trees as he moved past, feeling the damp condensation forming on his fingertips. His spark pulsed warmly as he viewed the specks of grey-blue through the leaves above, and again he was taken aback by the sheer beauty of this place.
He felt like laughing again as he thought of it; that after all these millions of vorns, all the things he’d seen, all the places he’d been- Earth was by far the most breathtaking, and he had never felt a greater sense of belonging, not even among the great metal jungle of Cybertron’s surface… Perhaps even especially not then.
He couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt at the thought, dampening his wonder if only a little. To think of his true planet in such a way. To feel so at home in a place he was so… out of place in.
His thoughts were interrupted once again as a crunch sounded to his left. He froze, helm turning quickly and quietly. He listened for it again, scanning the brush in silence.
Had he not caught the twitch of a pelt he might not have seen it; poised atop a knoll, partially obscured by a tree.
A deer. A doe, to be exact; her pointed brown ears aimed forward, black eyes fixed warily on the great metal behemoth.
Beachcomber relaxed again, recognising this animal. He had seen it before, in many a forest, but no forest quite like this one.
He searched his database for what he already knew of deer-language. Although he was many miles overseas from where he first learnt it, he hoped it was at least semi-universal.
After a moment his voicebox shifted again, and he mimicked a long, high-pitched grunt. The doe’s ears perked, head turning a few degrees as she shifted a leg uncertainly.
Beachcomber slowly lowered to one knee, weight crunching in the bracken, and tried again.
He let out another call as he carefully extended a servo low to the ground, palm up.
This time, the deer responded. She hesitantly took a step forward before cantering nimbly over to sniff the offered hand, ears folding back as she leaned her neck forward.
“...Now, you ain’t supposed to be here, are ya…?” Beachcomber muttered quietly, carefully moving a digit to scratch at the side of her face. Deer were not native to this land mass; their presence wasn’t good for the fragile ecosystem. Yet here they were, weaved tightly into this place’s roots as if they belonged there. The doe gave a snort, turning her head.
“Ah, got me there, missus... I ain’t exactly supposed to be here neither.” Beachcomber sighed, petting her head gently with a single digit. The deer shook down her pelt, tail flicking.
Although this animal did more harm than good to the life around it, Beachcomber could never find it in himself to call such intrusions pests. Every living thing was born into the world against its own will, and as far as he knew every living thing wanted to do just that– live. It was an unfortunate circumstance, that she lived here, but who was anyone else to kick her from her birthplace?
However, that was only one side of the story.
Beachcomber sighed, drawing similarities to his own situation. To how he slotted perfectly into this place, this planet, despite not belonging there. Despite the damage he and all his kind had caused. It was nobody’s fault, really.
He hated it, feeling happier than ever before, and yet so remorseful.
---
Beachcomber brushed flora to the side as he pushed on, determined to reach his ultimate destination.
Descriptions of this place had caught his interest, and he was anything but the kind of bot to sit in front of the Teletraan and admire such things from afar. A cold rainforest; a tropical island that felt alpine in nature, a contradiction in itself. Wherever there weren’t beaches that stretched around the horizon, there were thickly-overgrown mountains that reached for the skies and ran in trails up and down the isle. It sounded exactly like his kind of hangout.
He had chosen this specific location because of two reasons: One, his desire to see the setting of Earth’s sun from atop one of these mountains, and Two, to see if he could catch sight of the elusive and rare kia bird.
Kia wasn’t originally a word he associated with birds. In fact, his only prior knowledge was of a particular brand of car a couple of his comrades had considered during the hunt for fitting alt-modes whilst they were first being repaired.
When he’d heard of an animal with the same name, he was immediately intrigued.
Although he always did his research before embarking on one of his journeys, he liked to leave most of his interpretation up to the experience itself, and so had learnt nothing more than its appearance and habitat. To him, It was part of the thrill of exploring a new area; learning the ins and outs of it yourself.
He scaled another steep rockface that led him to a thick shelf of earth, held together barely by the roots of a great many small trees that lined its edge. He paused on top of the edge for a moment, sitting to catch his breath. He observed the way the clay-rich dirt displayed evidence of weathering from tides, even so far up.
He craned his neck swivel, straining his optics against the sun to see if he could catch sight of any other animals. His audials tuned through the calls like radio stations, identifying each bird he could name. Although the birdsong was abundant, none of them sounded quite like the audio file he had observed from the Teletraan.
In his exhaustion and absentmindedness, he made a rookie mistake: he extended a servo to catch one of the trees growing out of the cliff face to aid him in standing up.
The soft dirt instantly crumbled as its roots ripped from the earth, and Beachcomber yelped as he toppled forward, the ground below him suddenly disintegrating. He winced as a previously concealed rock struck the small of his spinal strut, letting out a pained groan before finally catching himself on the rockface he had ascended from.
It wasn’t a dizzying height by any means, but it certainly wasn’t one he’d want to fall.
He hung there for a moment, vents cycling as he hung from a servo tiredly, waiting for the shock to pass through his processor so he could start his climb again.
“Yeowch,” he hissed to himself through gritted dentae as his backstrut throbbed, knowing well the area would need a buff once he got back. He mustered the strength to swing his other arm up, catching a handhold and heaving himself up again.
As he slung an arm over a decidedly much more solid ledge, though, he found himself face-to-face with a local. A dark green bird with a hooked beak cocked its head at him curiously, a high-pitched caw sounding from its throat.
Beachcomber paused, then grinned.
“There you are!” he announced, hoisting himself over the ledge. The parrot hopped backwards in alarm, squawking and opening its wings flusteredly as the mech before it rose to his full height.
Beachcomber’s processor replayed the sound a couple of times as he began the usual process of identifying its communication methods, stepping away from the edge.
“Almost thought I wouldn’t find any of ya…” he murmured, observing the kia as it circled back around to look from a further distance.
He felt the familiar tightening of components as he reshaped his vocalizer again, opening his intake to emit an experimental caw, only for it to be cut off in a half-bot half-bird squawk of surprise as he felt a pinch in one of his shoulder joints. His head snapped starboard to see another parrot, claws dug into the rubber tire of his shoulder and beak clamped firmly around one of the bolts that held it in.
“Hey!” He exclaimed, reaching for the loosened bolt, the rascally kia flapping its wings as it released its grip and clambered over his back kibble with four-toed feet and a strong beak. Beachcomber whirled around and reached back to dislodge it but the kia stayed just out of his range, bellowing a squeaky cackle from the bars that made up the frame of his cabin.
“Why you-” Beachcomber yelped as it scratched and picked at the leather of his seats. “Easy on those!”
He finally gained his bearings, emitting a shrill caw that caused both birds to stop in their tracks. The first kia bobbed its head up, chattering and leaning from foot to foot.
“Now that was just rude, don’tcha think?” Beachcomber chided gently, holding a servo around to his back. He felt a beak grab his digit as his attacker maneuvered itself onto his arm. It was weightier than most parrots he had encountered, and climbed up using the ridges on his forearm as footholds.
Beachcomber couldn’t help the amused smile that tugged at his derma. “You’re real curious little dudes, aren’tcha?” he remarked, watching how it cocked its head at him and blinked its beady little eye. He cawed to it again, and it returned the noise.
He lifted his other servo to scratch it carefully around the neck and head with the flat, sharp edge of the tip of his digit.
“Pretty ones too…” he added as it stretched its wing, unfurling the bright orangy-red plumage beneath.
“I’m goin’ up. You fellas wanna join me?” he asked, ending his sentence with a bird-chatter from the back of his intake. The first kia let out a high grating sound and fluttered back into the bush, leaves rustling behind it.
Beachcomber tilted his helm, exchanging a glance with the bird on his shoulder.
“...Guess not,” he murmured.
Beachcomber had just started turning to start surveying a new possible route to the peak when the Kea erupted from the bush again with a squawk.
“-Oh! …Follow ya? Sorry, dude, didn’t catch that…” he chuckled startledly, approaching again and ducking through the foliage after the parrot as it scurried ahead.
---
Beachcomber found himself lost in every leaf that swept low near his helm, every unique scent his olfactory registered. The rich scent of moist earth, the wisps of warm spice that bled from the sandal and lemonwood trees…
Often his peers wouldn’t understand his infatuation with such things, the patterns on a plant or the smell of mud. To many of his kind, they were just minor details in a much bigger picture.
But Beachcomber loved to unpick the small things, to hold them to the light and cherish and appreciate every last one.
Sometimes he got lost in them, trying to uncover their secrets. This was one of those times.
He stumbled to a halt as loud kia screeches registered in his audials, inhaling sharply as he narrowly avoided stepping right into a ditch of mulch, roots and clay.
“...Oof. Thanks for the save, dudes…” he muttered airily as he came back to himself. He had been admiring a particularly elegant growth of ferns.
He stole one last glance at it, at the many coiled koru that swept out of the crop, before clearing the ditch cautiously.
The two kia now rode on his back, having taken a liking to the bars of his cabin and using them as a jungle gym. Occasionally number two would perk up thoughtfully and chatter directions into his audial, to which he would abide.
His first encounter with these animals had made him skeptical, but he was more than willing to give them a second chance. Sure, they were mischievous, but they were also unusual- and a little exciting, in their own way. Like they knew things he didn’t.
“How long ‘till we get there, guys?” he asked. Not for lack of patience, but rather for want of time. He was concerned he might miss the sunset.
“K-a-a-a!” Kia one croaked, ruffling its feathers as the air grew colder.
He found himself clambering another shallow mound, gently feeling past trees with cold digits.
He looked up from the uneven ground, optics flickering behind his visor. Before him was a wall of bunchy shrubberies, too thick for anything but a few narrow beams of light to pass through. They were overshadowed by sprawling manuka, the shape of which reminded him of the plumes of smoke that would cluster into thick clouds over a battlefield. He felt an odd twinge of poetic irony in his chest.
How ironic, that the only thing he could compare such a lovely thing to was war imagery. Perhaps a little sad.
That was why he was sightseeing, after all; to absorb as much as he could. So that he had something to think of, perhaps, should the moment come that the battlefield ever take him.
He shook it off. Now was not the time for such melancholy thoughts.
“Here?” he asked softly, pointing toward the barely-there seam where the bush and bracken met and bled into one another.
The parrots trilled in tandem.
He carefully proceeded, pushing the branches apart tenderly so as not to break them as he stepped over the bushes.
Slivers of gold peeked through the branches at him, shimmering through the glass of his visor.
He brushed the foliage to the side, and instantly his vents hitched.
The parrots had led him to an overhang of rock, one that stuck out from the bush and stretched up, reaching for the horizon. Before it, the sea. Glittering like a horde of treasure.
His optics followed the reflected streak of white sunlight that led into the distance, and was met with one of the most gorgeous sunsets he had ever seen in his great, long existence.
Reds blended into oranges, into yellows and lavenders that met with the steel blue sky, highlighting pink clouds that drifted low and lazy, coiling around the mountains like a great, soft, slumbering animal.
Beachcomber felt his joints slacken, optics flickering as he took in the sight.
He sat down slowly, hesitantly, as if moving too fast or too suddenly would cause the sight to disappear like a startled creature or a gust of wind.
He felt a part of his spark, his soul, untense. Spread out to the cool air around him like watercolour bleeding into tissue.
He felt the gentle energy at the very edges of his aura, the overwhelming calm filled with the rustling of trees and the distant calls of birds.
Somewhere, a bellbird sang its sweet tune.
Beachcomber smiled softly, his visor retracting, letting the sun directly paint the scarred bridge of his olfactory. This unity, this oneness with the world, the nature around him- it was what he lived for.
“Thank you.” he murmured to his perched companions, nestled into the exposed cord braiding that made up his neck components. Their feathers felt soft, soft as the sky, as his melting spark, softer than anything one could find on Cybertron.
His optics, quartz white, flickered shut as he took a deep vent in, a shiver of joy traveling through every circuit in his chassis.
If he couldn’t fit into this world, at least he could bring a part back with him.