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Jazz had seen the Well of All Sparks a few times, before the Exodus. It had seemed immense, on the scale of its task.
Now it was just a boundless void.
Colors had come back to Cybertron. The planet was flourishing again, its newfound liveliness visible even from orbit. From the ground, one could see the energon flowing, the ground pulsing with life. Even the air itself seemed to vibrate in contentment.
Bots were beginning to come back home, too, slowly. Cybertron didn't seem as empty when one could hope to see someone else among the debris and reconstruction of Iacon.
Jazz had been one of the first to find their way back, and he still had been too late.
Zoom
Zyoom
Zzooom
The colorful little sparks were flowing freely out of the Well, flying freely all around. An entire new generation of Cybertronians, who would know nothing of the war, who were wholly unaware of what it had taken for them to exist at all.
"Optimus Prime has fallen," Ultra Magnus had said. "He is now one with the All Spark."
The bot had looked downright contrite. As if sadness and regret could bring Optimus back.
Jazz was well aware that his bitterness brought nothing. What had happened wasn't Magnus's fault. He had simply been there to see it.
And Jazz hadn't.
What did it matter, what he had been doing while Optimus had been fighting Megatron and his army with only the smallest team beside him? Regardless of space bridges or explosions or distant fights or navigation issues, Jazz should have been there with him.
Now Optimus was gone, forever, and Jazz hadn't even talked to him one last time.
Zzyoom
The new sparks were a nice distraction. Little balls of lights looking around without a care in the world, just waiting for a frame to explore the world fully. At least here, he could tell himself that Optimus's sacrifice hadn't been for nothing.
The thought didn't lessen the pain of the absence.
Zooom zoom
Sometimes some of them liked to orbit around visiting bots. Curious little things. Jazz always tried not to wonder too long about where that endless curiosity was coming from.
The closest spark was blue. A popular color, but classics were classic for a reason. The shade was almost exactly the same as his own visor.
Jazz tried to approach his hand. Some sparks liked to play, others liked to leave then observe from further. This one circled around his arm, went around his helm, then came back an almost pure silver.
"Haven't decided what you want to be yet, kiddo?" he teased.
Sparks were always shifting between colors. When Ratchet had brought Jazz to the revived Well, to Optimus's tomb, for the first time, he had talked a lot about his working theory. So far the idea seemed to be that the sparks' colors reflected who they were, or would be, or maybe the main color of their future frame, or maybe just their mood. Jazz simply thought that that was a lot of unknowns, and that it didn't matter much.
A bigger group of sparks was circling around the edge of the Well. Maybe potential future speedsters. Or maybe they just liked being together.
He played some music from his speakers, a track that had been one of Orion's favorites back in the day, and the group came right to him. Curious little things, he thought again. The ever-shifting mass of flying colors all around him was a spectacle to behold. It was so easy to lose oneself in the shining display of oblivious innocence and freedom.
How he wished that Optimus could have seen it too.
Far away, on the other side of the Well, two other bots were approaching too. He could zoom in and see who it was. During the war he would have already onlined defense protocols and prepared weapons.
But the war was over now. He simply let the group of sparks fly away, already drawn by something new to explore.
One of the little sparks stayed behind. It kept circling around him, hiding behind his arms or playing around his sensory horns, changing colors according to whims that Jazz wasn't privy to.
Nothing looked more like a new spark than another new spark, but Jazz couldn't stop himself from hoping that this one was the same. Soon enough, it would fly away too, joining the others again or even going back into the Well.
Once again, the memory of where Optimus had gone submerged his mind and spark.
The spark zipped around his face and came to a rest in front of his visor for a second or two.
"Hello there," Jazz forced himself to smile. He was pretty sure it was a very sad smile.
The spark didn't seem to care, and simply flew a few more circles around him. This one seemed restless. Or maybe just very curious, and Jazz was dearly missing a curious bot.
"Can you stay? For a bit?"
A spark couldn't hear words, much less understand them. His demand was useless and kind of ridiculous, but he couldn't find it in himself to care.
The spark, shifting between blue and red and white, stayed.