Beg. notes:

Day 3: Starlight/Under Cover of Night

Hound wants to show Mirage something. If only it didn't include driving through a forest.

Seriously, he's gonna end up picking out needles from his seams for ages after this!

Title from: Constellations

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The night sky glittered with thousands of stars alight. The moon's reflected light is the only real source of light besides the artificial lightning of the car in front of him.

Mirage, lacking any lights himself, drove quietly behind his companion. Due to his alt. Being a strictly race formula vehicle, he lacked the necessary equipment for night travel, so he had to trail before his (much) slower partner to avoid unnecessary accidents. He grumbled in a very un-noble fashion, frustrated with his own inability to travel during night-time.

"Well," he thought, trailing slowly behind Hound, "at least this time it's not a mission."

Small victories, as the humans say.

Hound's left light flashed, signaling his turn off the road. Mirage, albeit a little confused, followed Hound off-road into the forest. That quickly proved to be a mistake, as his low undercarriage scraped across the forest floor, causing small spikes of pain to bloom whenever a rock or some organic thing scratched the sensitive thing.

"Ow, ow-" Mirage hissed and transformed into root-mode. He scowled as he saw some small, organic things he now realized normally grew on the tree-branches fall from his person. What were they called again- leaves? No, that belonged to the other type of trees. Needles? Yeah, that's right. He watched as old needles fell from his armor back onto the forest floor.

Hound, noticing his companion stopped and transformed himself, turning around and walking towards the scowling noble, looking at the forest floor as if it had personally offended him.

"Hey 'Raj, everything is alright back there?" Hound asked, just a little worried by his partner's theatrics.

"My undercarriage is too low, I can't drive across the forest." Mirage deadpanned and shook his frame a bit, causing more needles to fall from the various seams in his body.

"...Oh." Hound said, now awkwardly standing and looking helplessly at an unimpressed Mirage.

Mirage rolled his optics (and oh Primus, he didn't even want to think about what reactions would that have gotten if his creators were able to see him right now) and shook his frame one more time, hopefully getting the last of the needles out. He'll be taking a long, long shower after this.

He'll make Hound help him with the cleaning, seeing as it's his fault that he's out here in the first place.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Lead the way, my dearest Hound" Mirage said playfully, brushing against his companion as he started walking into the direction they were previously diving.

Hound stood stunned for a couple nanoclicks before audibly laughing and catching up to Mirage, walking a bit overhead so he was the one leading. Mirage only huffed fondly and followed his partner.

The forest was uncharacteristically silent during the night. At least to Mirage, who only ever came to them during the day, almost always on a mission so he never really had the chance to think about such things.

He notices that he doesn't think of it as a bad thing.

They walked in a comfortable silence, basking in the calmness of the forest.

Finally they reached the end of the forest. There was a small rock wall leading up to a small cliff with a flat top.

"Come on!" Hound said excited and jumped up, quickly climbing the wall.

"Wha- Hey! Wait!" Mirage yelled after him as he carefully started to climb his way to the top. While he was in no way as good a climber as Hound was, he had the advantage of his smaller and by default lighter frame which let him climb fast.

Finally, Mirage climbed up onto the rock. He pushed himself upwards, looked around and froze. Air caught in his vents as he looked at the mesmerizing sight in front of him.

Thousands upon thousands of stars in the sky, glittering beautifully back as he gazed at the sight. His spark ached, because as he looked, the sight was so familiar it hurt.

Tower Illusia stood tall and proud, glowing brightly from its lower levels.

Young Mirage gazed mesmerized at the stars from his tower's balcony, the sight making the youngling giggle. There, more than he could count, every single one so bright, so beautiful, almost as if screaming 'Come, look at me!'

He finally had a moment of peace, with the banquet his creators were attending giving him some free space for once. He laughed, spinning and jumping around the balcony, looking at the stars in the sky, and when he finally tired himself out, he laid sprawled out on his back, the stars seemed as if they were looking back. He giggled at the silly thought, a wide smile on his lip-plates, as he powered down for recharge under the Cybertronian sky.

"Do you see that star, Mirage?" Hound threw Mirage out of his memories, pointing to a specific star, noticeably brighter than the rest.

"Yeah" Mirage breathed out, still halfway stuck in his own memories and mesmerized by the sight.

"It's called Sirius, often said to be the brightest star in the sky," Hound said.

Mirage snapped out of his wonder, lightly scoffing at his partner's words.

":Oh please, I've seen much brighter ones back on-" Cybertron. The sky, the stars, him spinning, the sound of his young vocaliser laughing. Mirage cut himself off, optics glazing with sadness at the thought of his home.

Hound, noticing his lover's shift in mood, walked over, now standing behind his partner. Slowly, he placed his servo on Mirage's and carefully moved it upwards. Mirage, although confused, followed his lover's lead and let his servo be guided by his lover's. First he guided it upwards, then slowly, a little west, and finally upwards.

Mirage looked at the sky, before turning his helm to look at his lover in bewilderment. There was nothing his optics could see, beyond the obvious.

Hound chuckled at his partner's confusion, and he himself gazed at where their servo's pointed.

"There," Hound whispered, his lipplates right next to Mirage's audials. "Somewhere where you're pointing... That's where Cybertron is."

Mirage's optics widened a fraction before turning back, this time carefully looking at where his servo now pointed to. There were thousands of stars that he could see, but even so... The knowledge that maybe, just maybe, one of them was his home, it left a warm feeling in his spark.

"Well, I would hope so." Mirage said, his voice now free of his previous worries.

Hound smiled, giving himself a mental pat on the back for helping Mirage.

"See those stars up there?" Hound suddenly asked, pointing a bit off to the side. "This is the Orion constellation. It's also known as The Hunter of the Stars, it's easy to identify due to how visible it is at this time of year." Hound said, proud to finally use his knowledge of the human star system and the constellations visible.

"Oh, and that one over there? That's Gemini. It's often depicted as twins! How cool is that? Hah, I bet Sideswipe and Sunstreaker would freak out if they ever found out the humans have a 'twins' constellation." Hound chuckled, thinking of the notoriously problematic, yet beloved autobot twins.

"And that over there?" Hound pointed out another astral body. "That's the planet Venus. It looks like just another star from here, but if you'd look through a telescope you'd see what it actually looks like."

"Venus? Wasn't that the name of that one ancient human goddess?"

"Yes, it was! The planet Venus was named after the Roman goddess of the same name. Venus represents the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility. There also used to be a belief that it had an effect on human behavior! The ancient humans called it the "Venus Effect".

""Venus effect?"

"Oh yes! The credence some of the ancient humans have had! The Venus Effect is the belief that when Venus is up and bright on the sky it has various effects, such as romantic feelings, attractiveness, fertility, and the like."

"Romantic feeling you say, eh?" Mirage said as he walked closer, his chest touching Hound's.

"O-Oh!" Hound let out a noise of surprise as he felt energon rush to his face. Mirage only laughed, a sweet, melodic noise that flowed through the night. He smiled at Hound and took his hand, guiding them to the edge where he finally sat down, bringing Hound with him.

Mirage exhaled, looking up at the sky.

"Thank you." He said as he relaxed, putting his head on Hound's shoulder. Hound only smiled and put an arm around Mirage, bringing him a bit closer.

"No problem, love." He said as he too looked up at the night sky.

The stars were truly beautiful that night.

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End notes:

Did I really just talk with an AI bot about which constellations are visible from Oregon in late spring, which soon turned into me falling down a rabbit hole of ancient human beliefs, connections with roman gods and constellation's meanings? Maybe.
It was fun tho, would definitely recommend.