TFP - Freezing Absence

14. Passing

The voices surrounded her in the darkness that had taken over. Flare was certain she'd been lost this time, forgotten and gone. The voices had come to retrieve her this time.

But the more she listened, the more she realized they weren't the voices she'd become familiar with.

"What's wrong with her? Why does she look like that?"

"I'm not sure yet. I'm trying to run tests, but the data is coming up inconclusive."

"How is that possible?"

"I don't know."

"She's moving. Is she okay?"

"She might be coming to, but I can't get a proper read on her."

~~~

"Mom, where am I? What's going on?"

Flare stood in the darkness, looking around, but the only bit of light that illuminated the shadows, were herself, and her carrier.

"I can't tell you that, Flare," Ebony answered gently. "I can't see things without my tether to you."

"What are you talking about?"

"You need to wake up, Flare," she whispered, placing her hands on Flare's shoulder servos. "You need to get up. Your sire needs you."

"He needs us." Flare insisted.

"You know I can't," her carrier said softly.

"But why not?" Flare asked. "I mean, if I can . . ."

"That's not how it works, Flare. You need to wake up and find him."

"But I'm not sleeping," the younger femme answered. "I can't."

"You are not with the world," Ebony clarified. "You need to return to it."

Flare vented softly, glancing down at her carrier's hands on her shoulders. It was that moment that she realized the way her size had grown.

"How long have I been in the darkness?" Flare asked slowly, looking back up to her carrier's blue optics. "How long have I been away from the world?"

A sadness crept into Ebony's gaze. "I'm not sure," she whispered. "But I can still feel the pain and rage in your sire's spark. You need to quell it before he burns this world to the ground and dooms our race in his grief."

"I thought you hated the humans as much as he did," Flare pointed out, her helm tilting slightly. "I thought you hated any inferior races."

"I did . . ." Ebony answered gently, squeezing her sparkling, who had entered adolescence, and was becoming a warrior in her own right, all in a darkness she couldn't see through. "But I learned a long time ago that we are similar. It was from them that I learned how to properly care for my sparkling. They showed me something that I had forgotten in the Pits. If not for them . . ." The white femme vented softly. "I'm afraid to think of where we'd be today if not for that tribe."

"What tribe?" Flare asked, her thoughts racing, but she couldn't recall a single instance in which her carrier had mentioned a tribe of humans. "What happened?"

"We don't have time for a story right now, my lovely sparkling." Ebony leaned forward, kissing the smooth metal of Flare's forehelm. "You need to find him before this world pays the price of a warlord's broken spark."

"I don't understand-!" Flare objected, but her mother pulled her into a tight embrace.

"I love you, Flare. Don't forget that. And don't you ever forget how to love him."