Ironhide (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
heavyweaponsbot) wrote2012-03-17 02:21 am
heavyweaponsbot) wrote2012-03-17 02:21 am
19th - Audio
... Anyone else suddenly get a bad feeling?
As if something horrible has happened, and you have no power to set it right again?
[He has no idea where this feeling is coming from, or why it's there, but ignoring it isn't exactly helping anything.]
[It just makes him feel more and more restless.]
Need to go hit something. Badly.
As if something horrible has happened, and you have no power to set it right again?
[He has no idea where this feeling is coming from, or why it's there, but ignoring it isn't exactly helping anything.]
[It just makes him feel more and more restless.]
Need to go hit something. Badly.
[Audio] Sealed
[The words don't come easily. He hasn't spoken about this to anyone yet, and part of him wants to, but part of him wants to forget the whole day.
There is a period of silence, but then, Xanth continues.]
Only, I, I-I think... sh-she was from-- a-a lot... a-a lot farther ahead, th-than... than w-we are...
[Audio] Sealed
[His voice breaks a little on the last name. The boy had been another one Ironhide was very close to. Seeing him again...]
[After another pause, he speaks again.]
... Further ahead?
[Audio] Sealed
But how to explain this...?]
She-- sh-she was-- from th-the Golden Shore. B-But, not-- n-not... wh-when we were from. I-I think... I-I think she'd-- b-been there-- months.
[Audio] Sealed
[If it's still there, then so are the others. So is Ratchet. There's something urgent and painful in his voice, when next he speaks.]
[He almost doesn't want to ask.]
[But he has to know.]
How long? How many months?
[How long has he left his charges, his friends, his partner unguarded in that place?]
[Audio] Sealed
[Long enough for the energon to run out. But he can't say that; his throat closes when he tries.]
F-For the s-supplies to get... r-really really l-low. F-For, for us to -- t-to try to-- get away, f-from the Shore.
[Audio] Sealed
[He's seem the boy grow up a lot. But on the open ocean like that... with nothing in sight...]
[Audio] Sealed
I-I don't...
[This is hard. This is really hard. There's a significant pause here, and the feed almost cuts out due to the silence.
But then, he speaks.]
I-I don't think, th-that there was... a-any-- a-anything left o-on the Shore to... t-to leave behind.
[Audio] Sealed
What does that...
What does that mean?
[Audio] Sealed
Sh-- sh-she said... e-ev-- e-everyone was... d-dead.
G-Gideon, V--V-Vie...
...y...you.
[On the last word, his voice breaks.]
[Audio] Sealed
[Utter, complete, silence.]
[Not even the sound of shifting metal.]
[No. They didn't get that far, they didn't survive that long, for it to come to this. For him to lose what was most important, most dear to him... while he wasn't even there to save it.]
[Ratchet.]
[No.]
[It's his immediate thought. His immediate regret -- his own life was always going to be cut short. He was a soldier, a warrior. He was built for a life of brutality and violence. He can deal with that.]
[The rest... No. No, no no.]
... That... can't happen.
[It barely sounds like his voice -- it's too rough, too worn, and undercut with the clatter of heavy armor sagging against a wall.]
It was a lie. A lie.
[Audio] Sealed
Sh-she... she-- w-wouldn't... lie. N-Not-- not if-- i-if it was... r-really her.
[And Xanth is certain that it was.
The first tears fall and stain his journal's paper.]
[Audio] Sealed
... that cannot... that can't happen.
[Audio] Sealed
[Xanth's words are barely a whisper.]
I-I'm so-- s-so s--sorry--
[Audio] Sealed
[Maybe if he says it enough, it will make it true.]
It will not be this way.
[Audio] Sealed
[He doesn't have the heart to argue this, but he simply cannot agree.]