Chapter Text
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“The Prince and Princess seem to be getting along.”
The Ultra Magnus armor wasn’t used to smiling, and all Jazz managed was a slight quirk of his lips in response to the Prime’s observation.
“They are,” he responded formally, though he could tell that Prowl was hesitant to engage with the other hatchling. Given his previous situation, difficulty socializing was… really only to be expected. Not that Jazz was an expert in mortal socializing, but even he could tell Prowl was… withdrawn. But if the Prime thought the two hatchlings were getting along…
That boded well. Jazz could use that. After a thousand vorn, Jazz couldn’t exactly turn off the part of him that was always scheming to get free of his curse, but now he genuinely did want to see Prowl safe and happy. He still didn’t know what the bug wanted, but now that he’d done it, he knew that away from Swindle, warm and comfortable and ensconced in the Prime’s palace was a good start. He’d almost lost Prowl.
They were free now, and beholden to no one except each other. Prowl owned him and he owned Prowl… not that the Prime knew any of that. The Prime only knew him as Ultra Magnus, the hunter who had brought the coveted guinea pigatrons in exchange for the reward. A reward Jazz had used to buy Prowl from Swindle, only to find he’d been too late to get his hatchling-master away unscathed. He’d mentioned a “prince” he served when he’d delivered the guinea pigatrons, and when he’d come looking for help with Prowl’s injuries it had been simple to spin a story about bandits accosting them as they traveled.
Now the Prime was treating him as the Prince’s — Prowl’s — regent, even if all Jazz had claimed was that he was a hunter in the employ of the Prince’s court which… well, that could be useful too. A regent…
Who didn’t want to live in a castle and rule a kingdom? Jazz had certainly heard that desire expressed often enough. He’d even granted it a few times, though without magic he was rather limited on how many kingdoms he could acquire and redistribute. It had never worked, but by now Jazz was willing to try anything to get free. And if it didn’t work (again), at least Jazz could live out the rest of his lil’bit’s life in a swanky palace, pampered at least a… quarter as well as he had been in Queen Windblade’s court. Ruler’s favorite mouser sounded like a good gig and a nice break from the constant tug of selfish wants and desires his other masters had foisted off on him.
Somehow, Jazz managed to escape the dinner without specifying exactly which country his Prowl was the prince of.
He let the Prime’s servants take Prowl back to the room he’d been given while he snuck as well as this big hulking armor could sneak to the castle library. He needed to look at some maps.
It had, admittedly, been quite a while since he’d concerned himself with such trivial things as the borders between nations. Before his punishment, he’d never bothered at all. Some fey liked ruling human kingdoms, but Jazz had been obsessed with music and his magic. Only once he’d been trying to grant wishes and desires and failing to find what his masters truly wanted had mortal politics — well, mortals in general, but especially their politics — been important. He had no army to call on, so redistributing mortal kingdoms was always a matter of trickery. Some tricks worked on everyone (like that ill-conceived song he’d been so proud of at the time) but most tricks required some knowledge of the terrain and target.
Even the bucket over the door trick required knowing which door suited best and who was likely to walk through it.
A cat couldn’t pull that one off, of course, but in his new Ultra Magnus armor, a bucket over the door would be hatchling-play for one such as Jazz…
Pulling out a map of the Prime’s kingdom and his surrounding neighbors to peruse, Jazz idly wondered if Prowl might be interested in playing some pranks. Maybe not on the Prime and his court, since Jazz needed their goodwill if his budding plan was going to work (he had learned restraint sometime in the last thousand vorn!) but they could go back and prank Swindle. Barricade. Could even fill the bucket with some really strong acid…
There had been a time when Jazz might have used that acid not because he’d been wronged by the mortal in question, but just because he thought the mortals running around, trying to get it off as it dissolved their plating, was funny as frag. Now, well, Jazz had definitely been wronged by those two, and the thought was still funny as frag.
Prowl, though, was his first priority. He needed a kingdom for his little prince. Prowl needed to grow up safe and warm and pampered. He needed money and power and status, every blanket, candy or toy he could possibly conceive of… and maybe somewhere in there Jazz would manage to hit on whatever it is his lil’bit really wanted and he’d be free…
As he’d sort of expected, all of the Prime’s neighbors were well known and well-established kingdoms. It was unlikely that Jazz could dislodge the prevailing rulers. Oh, he could dispose of them easily enough. Mortals were so… trickable… but installing Prowl as the prince (and himself as regent) was more difficult. The palace guards, the army, the people would all have something to say about it.
He did spot something on the edge of the map that looked promising. An Enchanted Forest? One of the fey realms, maybe. Jazz wracked his very long memory for any details he could dredge up on a fey realm in this area. Fashions and favors in Queen Windblade’s court could change as quickly as a butterfly flapping its wings, but the names and faces almost never changed. If only he could remember who ruled a nearby “enchanted forest”.
Maybe he just didn’t know enough about how the fey realms connected geographically to the mortal ones.
Still, it was a promising start.
Mindful of the hovering librarian, Jazz was careful as he rolled up the maps and put them away.
He returned to the guest room Prowl had been given.
The medic — Ratchet — was not there. Prowl was still injured, of course, but he was patched and soldered and would heal. He had been given the same medical attention as any foreign prince seeking aid. The scars might persist until his next molt, but in a few cycles, he would be able to scuttle around and fly clumsily through the air as well as any hatchling his age could. Meanwhile, all Prowl had to do was rest and keep fueled.
Hiding under the huge berth probably didn’t count as either of those, but Jazz couldn’t blame his lil’bit for his caution.
He closed the door behind him and sat down, bracing the Ultra Magnus armor against the door. Heavy as that thing was, no one would be opening that door until Jazz got back in it to move it. He pulled the key Whirl had thrown at him out of its slot and the armor shut down around him. His cat body didn’t have a lot of strength in it, but he had enough to pop the window out of the armor’s chest so he could escape.
He dashed across the room and peeked under the berth. “Mew?”
How many times had he wished he could talk in this form?
“Cat!” Prowl scuttled out from his pillow fortress, waving his antennae around to taste the air and hugged him with his pedipalps. “Missed you.”
Jazz appreciated a good pillow fortress with the best of them, but injured hatchlings needed to be in the bed, not under it. He grabbed Prowl by one wing-casing, careful not to bite down too hard. It wasn’t a good grip. Why didn’t hatchlings have scruffs like kittens? “Mraow!”
Fortunately, Prowl was a perceptive little bug. Between the tugging and the insistent meows, Jazz was able to convey Come with me! and Prowl climbed up on his back.
“Are we going on an adventure?” Prowl beeped, clinging to the tabby patterned armor.
Yes, Jazz wished he could say. Next cycle. Next cycle they would go on all sorts of adventures, but for now… Jazz jumped up onto the berth and wiggled the two of them underneath the blankets. Soft and warm and everything a mortal could possibly want in a berth.
Time to sleep.
As Cat, Jazz curled up around the sleepy hatchling, and then as Prowl transitioned to dreaming he found himself holding him in his arms. For Jazz, there was no transition from waking to sleeping or sleeping to waking, but no mistaking one for the other. Part of the Queen’s “lesson”.
“Hello, lil’bit,” he crooned to the achy hatchling. In the dream, he was whole and uninjured, ready to play.
The room had changed a bit. They were still in a poorly defined outdoorsish space, a feverish copy of the clearing in the woods, but the original rickety berth had been replaced by the one they were right now sleeping on in the Prime’s castle, which assured Jazz he was on the right track this time. A warm, soft berth all to himself was something Prowl surely wanted! The presence of the clean, soft sheets, however, didn’t stop Prowl from imagining that berth topped with a box overflowing with oily chamois, crumpled flimsies, and other fragrant trash, which was not as encouraging.
“Safe’n warm’n away from nasty Swindle,” Jazz sang softly. “Whatever shall we do next?” The question was still more than half serious, even though he claimed he’d given up on getting free. He had!... sort of. It wasn’t the sort of thing one could just stop wanting, he just—
Prowl beeped out a simple melody, his request that Jazz sing for him. This time, Jazz did not let his burgeoning hope turn to despair or desperation. He swallowed his resignation. He’d already realized the hopelessness of his task. He was taking a break from overt wish granting!
If only it were as simple as singing to Prowl! He would have been free cycles ago if that were the case.
“Well then…” Jazz sat on the floor cross-legged and let Prowl crawl out of his arms. “How about we sing while we work on this,” he picked up the hollow shell of brass that would eventually become a violino. “How about some wire?” If experience held true…
Sure enough, Prowl conjured a big heaping pile of different kinds of wire, every bit of trash-wire he’d encountered in his short life. With a sigh, Jazz started to sort through it. Maybe he’d get lucky and Prowl will have encountered some music strings in his trash-collecting.
Prowl beeped the melody again.
“Impatient lil’bug,” Jazz teased. “I love little kitty, her armor’s so warm~♪” Satisfied, Prowl settled down to draw with black crayons on sheets of conjured flimsy. “And if I don’t hurt her, she’ll do me no harm~♪ So I'll not pull her tail, nor drive her away~♪”
An old rhyme, but one Jazz felt was especially salient to his current situation.
“And kitty and I, very gently will play~♪”
“Should Cat have a tail?” Prowl beeped, interrupting.
”She shal— Huh?” Jazz paused his sorting (so far he’d found a lot of corroded electrical wires and not much else) to look at his lil’bit. A clumsy, lanky drawing of his cat-form, tabby stripes and all, sprawled out across several pages of flimsy. Right now Prowl was drawing indecisive curly-cues near the cat’s aft, as though unsure if he should add the tail or not. “Why would Cat have a tail?”
“Cybercats have tails,” Prowl trilled back, waving his antennae over the drawing. “Cat doesn’t, but if it should I was going to put it on anyway.”
Jazz couldn’t help but shudder. Queen Windblade had transformed him into an animal’s shape to deny him the power that would have come with a mech’s form even after he had been stripped of his magic, but she hadn’t given him a tail. Fey could come in all shapes and sizes. Many appeared to be animals in their native forms, and it could be hard to tell the difference except for one, single rule that was enforced by the magic that made them what they were. The rule was thus: animals (even person-shaped ones) had tails, while people (even animal-shaped ones) did not. If she’d forced a tail on him — and she could have — then… He shuddered again.
He’d have been a cat in truth. Stripped of both immortality and thought, he’d have lived out the short life of a cybercat without ever remembering what he’d lost.
As it was, he was still fey, if a powerless, cat-shaped one. “No, sweetling,” he answered, scooping the hatchling up to cuddle. “Cat never had a tail.”
“Good.” It was a firm, decisive beep and Jazz almost wondered if Prowl knew about fey and tails… “That means a mean adult didn’t cut it off.”
Jazz outright laughed at the idea of Prowl calling Queen Windblade a “mean adult”. She definitely was that! At the same time, though, he was glad she couldn’t hear them in this dream. She’d probably gleefully scried on him and his floundering for the first few centuries of his punishment, but she’d have lost interest by now.
“Did you find a good wire?” Prowl cheeped around the golden chain, which had once again migrated into his mouth for chewing.
“Not yet, lil’bit.”
“Tell me. I’ll make one, like the… brass thing!” Prowl looked so proud of himself for naming the resonating box of the violino they had made.
“Alright.” Jazz loosened his arms so that Prowl could climb up onto his head, where he could balance and look down at everything that was going on. Once the bugbit was secure, he sat back down next to the pile of wires. He picked the one that was the closest to being a musical wire and held it up for Prowl to peruse. “Let’s start here…”
And once Prowl got bored with this, they’d see about making some colored crayons for his next dream.
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As Prowl transitioned from sleep to waking, Jazz slipped out from under the covers and dashed back to the Ultra Magnus armor. There was a little difficulty pulling the window-door in the armor’s chest closed, but once he was in he connected to the armor and powered it up.
“Cat,” Prowl greeted. “Cat! Cat!”
“Good morning, lil’prince.” It was weird hearing the Ultra Magnus voice as his own. He’d never been a shape-shifting fey before. “We’ll be leaving here this cycle. Have you thought of a place you might want to go?” Because Jazz had plans, yes, but if Prowl had found something he wanted...
“Outside?” Prowl beeped uncertainty.
Jazz fought the armor’s dour expressions and forced it to chuckle. “We can certainly manage that, lil’prince. I think breakfast is in order first.”
“Food!” Prowl’s wings even buzzed at the thought. Jazz forced the armor to smile again as he gathered his lil’bit into his hands so he wouldn’t put stress on his recently repaired leg scuttling around. “With Ar-Seee?” he warbled.
With Arcee? The Princess? That sent Jazz’s mind into overdrive. Last night, Prowl hadn’t seemed like he was warming up to the other hatchling, but… Did Prowl want a playmate? “We can see if Princess Arcee is at breakfast, yes.”
Prowl buzzed his wings happily. Then he climbed up the armor to settle on the massive pauldrons.
Instead of calling for breakfast to be delivered to them, as he’d originally planned, Jazz carried his lil’bit down to the primary dining room where they’d eaten dinner last night.
The herald was policing the entry. As honored guests, they were announced and admitted to the Prime’s private meal with his bondmate and hatchling. Jazz went through the rituals to greet them all (hastily learned last night before dinner) and nudged Prowl off his shoulder next to Arcee.
Prowl blinked at the other hatchling shyly, as if he hadn’t been the one to ask to come and find her!
“Prime, First Lady Elita,” Jazz bowed and greeted them again. He was gestured to take the seat to the Prime’s left, across from his bonded. “My prince was asking after the princess this morning.”
Optimus Prime’s optics glowed brightly in a smile. “Very good! We were just finishing up our meal, but the princess can stay here, under your sharp optics,” and those of the guards and herald, he did not mention, though Jazz had no intention of harming the little pink hatchling, “until it’s time for her lessons.”
“I would be honored.”
Down at the other end of the table, the two hatchlings were beeping at each other excitedly. He usually had no problems at all understanding Prowl, hatchling binary or no, but the sounds the two of them were making sounded more like a pair of birds trilling at each other than intelligible speech.
Jazz wasn’t jealous.
He was scheming.
“Ratchet tells me you want to leave this cycle,” the Prime prompted.
“Yes,” Jazz confirmed as the servants brought a platter of scrambled fuel curds, foamed loaves of edible insulation and warm, spiced highgrade to sop up. He watched them bring a similar meal to Prowl. Good. Lil’bit needed the fuel. “We really have been gone from the kingdom long enough.”
“I will have a carriage ready for you within a joor. Do you need a driver?”
“Oh no.” Inwardly Jazz was elated. A carriage was just what he and Prowl needed to travel while he was recovering. “I’m a capable driver,” he lied, “but we couldn’t possibly repay you or return it.”
“Consider it a gift, a gesture of good will from Iacon to…” the Prime trailed off expectantly.
“Sorte,” Jazz filled in, making something up. If his memory regarding a fey kingdom nearby was accurate and he could trick the fey into giving it up, they could call it whatever they wanted. “I doubt you would have heard about it. I looked at some of your maps last night,” he admitted, “and it’s beyond what you call the Enchanted Forest.”
“Interesting. I had no idea there were any kingdoms of mechs there.” The Prime folded his hands under his chin and looked at Ultra Magnus critically.
“It is isolated,” Jazz hedged, then began to spin a tale of half-truths, “as the forest is a hazard, but if you stay on the road and do not take even a step off of it, you are protected from fey tricks.” That only sort of a lie; most malicious fey did prefer to lure their victims from the road before revealing themselves. “Once you’re clear of the forest, it is a lovely country of golden fields and thick crystal orchards. The scent of growing things permeates the air. The forest creeps into the borders, you see, and we pave the paths with crystal to mark the safe ways.” Jazz felt safe in describing his “country’s” charms since the beauty and grandeur of a fey realm could not be exaggerated. “Of course, staying on the road is what led us into the bandits’ trap.”
“Surrounded by fey forests in your own country, you wouldn’t have known to watch for bandits in Iacon,” Elita said comfortingly. She reached across the table and Jazz reached back to briefly clasp hands.
“Alas, we did not.” Jazz dipped the foam into the highgrade to nibble. Now to get Prowl that playmate! “We — Sorte — cannot thank you enough for your help. If we had lost the very last prince of the realm…” he trailed off to let them imagine the chaos that would befall a kingdom without even a child ruler. “You must come to our castle and let us throw you a proper feast of gratitude!” If this worked, the Prime’s visit would provide instant legitimacy to Prowl’s rule over the area, and they could discuss other sorts of treaties.
And if this didn’t work and he couldn’t win a kingdom, Jazz and Prowl would just keep going past the forest and out into the world. Iacon’s Prime would figure out he’d been tricked and lied to, but “Ultra Magnus” and his lil’bit would be long gone.
“Oh, we couldn’t,” Elita protested, but Jazz could see how much the idea of a trip thrilled her. “Through the Enchanted Forest!”
“It would definitely take some time to arrange a trip of that length,” Prime said slowly.
“Perfect,” Jazz did his best to grin. “It’ll take some time to get back ourselves, and then a couple decacycles to make the arrangements for a feast deserving of your attendance.”
The Prime looked from Ultra Magnus’ earnest entreaty to Elita’s eagerly sparkling optics and sighed. “In the name of fostering good will…”
Yes!
At the end of the table, Prowl and Arcee had started building a tower out of trongs, tines, pâté knives, soup and marrow spoons, and the other utensils on offer. From here, Jazz couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be a cooperative or competitive venture. He watched as a gold soup spoon went into his lil’bit’s mouth and he chewed determinedly on it with his palps.
The Prime and his bonded continued to make small talk, making plans to visit the kingdom of Sorte and attend their feast. Jazz participated absently, more concerned with watching the two hatchlings. He talked about Sorte’s beauty and suggested they bring Arcee. That was immediately agreed to. Prime even said that if they continued to get along, and the match was advantageous for both countries, he’d consider a betrothal. Jazz hemmed and hawed at that, talking around the idea that he was Prowl’s regent while giving the impression that, with the passing of the previous rulers, he would be the one trusted to arrange such a match. Both the Prime and Elita left the breakfast table feeling very clever with themselves. Keen cat ears could hear them continuing to whisper to themselves as to what the terms of that betrothal should be.
Now all Jazz needed was a kingdom.
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Jazz didn’t actually know the first thing about directing a team of zap ponies. It wasn’t fair! If it weren’t for this wretched curse, all it would have taken was a few notes of song and these beasts would have done whatever he wanted!
Loathe to look like a total idiot in front of the Prime’s court for farewells, Jazz led the horses out of the palace courtyard by the reigns. Chosen for their beauty and trusting natures, they followed without complaint. Jazz hoped it didn’t look as silly as he felt. It would have been more dignified to accept Prime’s offer of a driver, but he didn’t want the Prime’s driver to come with them and witness their “return” to their “home” country either. Whether Jazz ended up conning a fey king out of his country or simply running away, having a spy along at this time to report back to his liege would be disastrous.
Once out of sight of the walls, Jazz went to check on his lil’bit.
Prowl was hiding under the carriage seat. They’d been gifted traveling clothes. Jazz was still wearing his travel robe, but Prowl had wiggled out of the swaddle he’d been wrapped in before being placed in the carriage. Now it was part of a burgeoning nest.
“Cute lil’bug,” Jazz cooed. “That a good nest or ya wanna ride on m’shoulder fer a bit?”
“Cat!” Prowl scuttled out excitedly, waving his pedipalps to be picked up. Forcing the armor to smile, Jazz picked him up in one hand and helped him climb up into place.
“Oooh!” Out of the corner of his vision, Jazz saw the hatchling waving his antennae at the zap ponies. “Big!”
“Sure are.” Jazz grasped the reins and started leading them along, with the carriage clattering along behind.
“Fun?”
Careful not to jostle his passenger, Jazz shrugged. “Maybe. Was thinking the carriage’d be more warm than fun, lil’bit. We gotta long trek through the forest ahead of us.”
“Warm good,” Prowl agreed. “Adventure?”
“Definitely that.” Jazz was still a fey, however, cursed, and that would protect them from some fey tricks… but potentially invite others. A threshold would help immensely, as well as keep the injured hatchling warm, in a soft nest, and away from the more mundane dangers of the forest, like wolves.
The carriage had been added to Prowl’s dreamscape when next he slept. With the impeccable logic of dreams, the berth from the guest room in Prime’s palace was inside the carriage, canopy, box of greasy scraps, and all.
One of the zap ponies wandered aimlessly through the fever-dream forest.
Explaining what the neck of a violino should look like proved impossible, so Prowl had conjured a block of (only slightly burned) foam and a knife so Jazz could carve one, which Prowl could transform into brass.
Meanwhile, he walked the hatchling through the process of making colored crayons.
He could get Prowl to conjure some different colored plastic powder readily enough, but none of it colored the wax as reliably as the charcoal had. They needed the pure pigments, but Prowl hadn’t encountered very many of those at all.
They managed a white — well, closer to light grey — crayon made of chalk, and a reddish-brown one made from powdered rust. Prowl tried making one from brass to draw violinos all over his flimsies, but it wasn’t as sparkly as he wanted it to be.
Prowl conjured a pile of eating utensils and added it to the pile of other trash. He started building a tower. Jazz watched keenly, singing softly to them both.
Building towers… why hadn’t he thought of that when he was trying other toys? “How about some blocks lil’one?”
“What block?” Prowl chirped, carefully leaning three two-tined forks together to create a pyramid with a crown of sharp points that he filled with gears.
“They’re toys, made of brass or crystal, that are used for building things.” Jazz didn’t have any power to conjure anything in the dream, or else he would have summoned a set for the hatchling to peruse.
“Tasty!”
Jazz supposed if they were made of gold or something, blocks could be tasty. “Maybe. Ya, do like chewing on that chain.”
Prowl spit out the chain like it tasted bad, though Jazz knew from watching him that it had to taste at least okay. “Don’t like the chain. At all.”
“Ya liked the spoon at breakfast.”
Prowl just looked at him, then a spoon appeared near one pedipalp and he shoved that in his mouth like a pacifier. “Brrocks?”
Jazz had to laugh. “Why don’t ya conjure some cubes made from different things, and I’ll draw out the other shapes?”
They weren’t difficult shapes. Within nanokliks they had a collection of brass, steel, and crystal cubes, cuboids, pyramids, prisms, cylinders, and bridges. The brass was tarnished and the steel rusty and the crystal the plain, dull crystal that made up the forest substrate, but it was a usable set of blocks.
Prowl immediately started building a tower, gleefully stacking the smooth shapes much higher than he could broken gears, silverware, and strings.
“Not tasty,” was his judgment, though.
Jazz laughed and dropped down to sit next to his lil’bit and his castle. “Well if tasty’s a requisite, just make them outta gold, like the chain.”
Prowl spat out the chain, which had migrated into his mouth again, back out. “Chain bad.”
“No disagreement from me, lil’bit.” Jazz hummed a short melody, petting the bug along his wing casings. “How about silver then? Like this,” he plucked one of the Prime’s silverware pieces out of the pile of other detritus that littered the dreamscape to serve as an example.
Solemnly, Prowl took it and chewed on it. “It’s fine,” he announced, and all the blocks turned to silver. He started to build a wall coming out from the sides of his tower.
Jazz watched it take shape for a few kliks. It was irregular, but he could distinctly see that Prowl was adding parapets. Unsure if he was allowed, Jazz replaced the cuboid crenellation blocks with prism-shaped ones, turning them into embrasures.
He snapped his hand back when Prowl buzzed his wings in question. He fought the urge to cower, to brace for the yank against his neck. His masters didn’t like it when he took the initiative…
“Why tringles?” Prowl insisted with another buzz.
“S’better for defense,” Jazz explained. He offered an easy smile to cover his sudden nervousness. Prowl had been an extraordinarily kind master so far, but Jazz had never tried to actively change or adjust any of his imaginings before — only guide them with suggestions. “Your soldiers, on this side,” he touched the point of the prism, “can fire down at the ground, but they can’t be targeted in return from this side.” He wiggled his fingers along the flat edges of the crenellations.
Prowl blinked and thought about that. “‘Kay,” he said, then started replacing all the cuboid crenellations with prisms himself.
Was that it?
Testing, Jazz started building off the end of the wall, extending it a little further. His stacking was much neater and more stable than Prowl’s was, but it wasn’t a criticism... Prowl didn’t even look at him. No question, no scolding, (no pulling him to the ground and…) no reaction at all.
Wait, no. There. Prowl buzzed his wings happily as he finished with the crenellations and started adding a second tower against Jazz’s section of the wall, incorporating it as though it belonged there.
Like Prowl thought he was supposed to be helping with the castle.
But… Prowl hadn’t asked him to help! Jazz had done it just to have something to do with his hands.
Prowl seemed content, though, for them to work together. They built a second tower (taller than the first, since Jazz wasn’t hatchling-sized) then continued the wall. Prowl buzzed happily while they worked, and Jazz eventually forgot all about carving the neck of his dream-violino. A castle made of gleaming silver.
Neither of them noticed the chain starting to tarnish.
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Traveling basically on foot, guiding the zap ponies instead of riding inside the carriage, Jazz was already worried that they wouldn’t get through the “enchanted forest” before the Prime finished making his arrangements and caught up with them. They were slowed even further, though, by Prowl’s insistence that they stop and look at (and taste/touch) everything!
A fey forest was a wondrous sight as a rule, but Jazz had forgotten that the hatchling hadn’t been outside the city before, except for that brief time when feverish. Jazz had… hatched wasn’t the right word… come into existence in a forest like this. This patch where mortal travelers occasionally trod wasn’t particularly beautiful to him, and it certainly wasn’t otherworldly, but to Prowl it must have all looked like they were on another planet.
“What this?”
“Just a pretty rock, sweetling,” Jazz answered patiently, guiding the ponies along at a quarter of the pace they all would have been able to walk at if Prowl hadn’t been running around their hooves. “Granite or quartz. Oh no.” He released the reins to catch Prowl before he could scramble into a gemberry bush. “We need to stay on the path or we’ll be noticed.”
“Too late,” a voice cackled from the branches of a nearby crystal.
Jazz cuddled the hatchling to the armor’s chest protectively and looked up. He found the fey who’d called out lounging just below the canopy. A creature of dark plating and flame decals with a yellow visor covering where his optics would be… “Pacer,” the lie rolled off of Jazz’s borrowed tongue easily.
Ricochet had swapped his mech-legs and imitation vehicle kibble for a pair of digitigrade limbs and cloven hooves, transforming himself into a satyr. Stubby sensor horns had turned into curled caprine horns. He’d obviously moved from the court and into this nearly-mortal forest, trading his position in Queen Windblade’s royal guard for a life of luring mortals into the forest to frag.
Jazz was a little jealous. Satyr was a good life for a fey! Music, wild berry wine, fighting, fragging… Well, Jazz shuddered a bit at the thought of fragging again. Especially a mortal. Maybe in another thousand vorn, he’d try it out again.
“Marshal,” Ricochet replied, sing-songing the false name. Contained violence practically dripped from him. “Still granting wishes or did you finally decide to come crawling back?”
“I would have crawled back a long time ago if it weren’t for this curse!” Jazz snapped back.
Ricochet scoffed, then dropped from the tree to land lightly on his hooves. The ponies shied, but their harnesses held them to the carriage. He stalked through the brush to look at the hatchling in Jazz’s arms. “This your current master? Want me to get rid of him for you?”
Prowl just blinked placidly, watching the goings-on curiously. He waved his antennae in Ricochet’s direction, tasting the air, shimmering with anger and violence, around him. Jazz hid the hatchling in his arms. “No. This one’s th’best one yet. If ya wanted to play guardian angel, ya should’ve done it a thousand vorn ago!”
A look of pity and anger crossed Ricochet’s face. “One doesn’t defy the Queen.”
Yeah. Jazz got that. So Ricochet had run away, run from the court and transformed himself into something that could only barely care. Jazz probably would have done the same. “I would’ve stayed if I could.”
Ricochet shrugged, then played a discordant note on his pipes that made Prowl squeal and Jazz growled. “Suppose so. Well if you ever do manage to break the geas, you know where to find me now.”
“I will.”
Jazz wanted to ask him about the road ahead, about the kingdom he just barely remembered beyond the forest, but Ricochet dashed off into the crystals, his hooves chiming against the crystal before he could summon the words. It would have been useless anyway. Unless it had to do with seducing travelers and farmmechs, satyrs didn’t know anything about mortals, politics, and kingdoms. Maybe if Ricochet had still been part of the Queen’s guard he’d have known something useful…
“Was dream-fey?” Prowl chirped in binary. “Wasn’t right.”
“No. That wasn’t your dream-fey,” Jazz soothed. “That was another. His name is Pacer.”
“Lie.”
“Clever bit,” Jazz praised, tucking him back into the carriage. As much as he enjoyed having such a little, kind-sparked master now, Prowl would grow up. Hopefully, he would still be kind-sparked, but a fey’s name, once given, could never be taken away. “He,” and other, more malicious beings, “is why we need to stay on the road. He’ll snatch you away if you give him a chance.”
Actually, the thought of some of the Prime’s entourage falling for Ricochet’s charms as they stomped through the forest a few decacycles from now was… kind of hilarious. He’d do them no harm, really, just take their virtue and leave them to trek back to the others covered in scratches and dirt.
“Cat rescue. Like from Master Swindle.”
“I would certainly do my best.” Jazz couldn’t just leave Prowl in his kin’s clutches. He left Prowl long enough to pick a gemberry branch and set it in the carriage with Prowl. “Here. Stay for a while.”
“Kay.” Prowl grasped the branch in his pedipalps and immediately started chewing on the brightly colored berries.
Jazz closed the door and started leading the zap ponies again, this time at a very brisk walk.
He certainly didn’t want to discourage Prowl’s adventurous spirit, but he didn’t want him hurt again either. It turned out to be a very fine balancing act during their trek through the forest. More and more so when Prowl’s dreams started taking on the shape and scent of the forest. The block castle turned into a silver gleaming edifice that towered over the forest, full of roads and alleys and trash, like the city, while outside the gate clear brooks bubbled between tangled crystal trees and brush filled with berries and soft moss. A silver castle full of toys ruling over a beautiful fey forest.
Jazz helped him conjure and build and it felt so very right to be working together, on the violino or on the many, many things Prowl wanted to build or add or alter.
Prowl’s dreams were starting to feel more and more like home.
If he’d been his old self, Jazz would have snatched him away into the deep woods and… there Jazz’s own imagination failed him. As a court musician, he’d never even seen a mortal unless he was arranging a vicious prank. And as a satyr, like Ricochet, well, Prowl was too young to seduce (something Jazz still was extremely grateful for), but he couldn’t imagine what else a satyr might do with a mortal hatchling. Eat it, maybe. The thought was sickening now.
Or maybe he’d coax Prowl into satyr form too…
It was ridiculous, but Jazz was starting to think he was falling to the fey forest’s dream-fever, luring mortals to sleep and to fantasies eternal. He wanted…
There! A glimpse through the brewing storm of something mortal made. Fire flickering through a glass window. Jazz did not let his hope lure him off the road and into a trap, but was very glad when the road widened into a clearing with a single-room house in a clearing near the edge.
Following the ritual of the last few cycles, Jazz unhooked the ponies from the carriage and tied them up where they could graze. He secured the carriage (the inside of which had definitely devolved into a nest; the Prime would be appalled) and took Prowl in his hands to beg for shelter for a night. He knocked.
Urk! A cold iron-tipped arrow peeked out from the crack where the door opened. It was aimed steadily between the armor’s optics and Jazz was glad he wasn’t there! He wrapped his hands around Prowl to protect him. Behind the arrow and the crossbow, it was loaded into, a green mech with a boxy frame and muddy vehicle kibble glared out at them.
“Would you,” Jazz said, before the other mech could speak, “give shelter to the Prince of Sorte for the night?”
The mech scoffed and moved away from the door, but didn’t invite them in. Jazz hesitated. Crossing a threshold uninvited stripped a fey of his power, but Jazz had no power to strip and as a cat had gotten used to wandering where he willed. The Ultra Magnus armor gave him the illusion of a mech’s form and a mech’s power though, so would crossing the threshold make it all fall apart?
The mech didn’t seem eager to issue an invitation that would render the debate moot. Of course not. He lived in an enchanted forest. He’d be wise to fey tricks and illusions.
Bracing himself, Jazz stepped into the cabin. Behind him, the clouds finally opened up and sheets of rain fell.
“Close the door behind you,” the mech said, poking the hearth so that the fire grew higher. Keen cat ears heard a scattering of raindrops that dared fall down the chimney sizzle away.
“The Prince of Sorte, His Highness Prowl thanks you for your hospitality.” A woodsmech meant there was a mortal settlement nearby, suggesting his hazy memories of a fey realm ruling over a mortal kingdom here were correct. Just like with other, established kingdoms, though, Jazz had to convince the people to call Prowl their prince as well as get rid of the sitting monarch. In Jazz’s experience, the peasant and working mechs should be easier to convince than soldiers and royal guardsmen.
Apparently not. The mech snorted. “If that’s a prince, I’m a petrorabbit.”
Jazz puffed up the armor’s… armor in offense. “We are returning from the court of Optimus Prime of Iacon to our castle in Sorte.”
“I don’t know what you told the Prime of Iacon, but I’ve fallen for enough fey tricks to recognize one now,” the mech scoffed, bringing over a trio of carved crystal bowls filled with stew. Prowl dug into the offered food messily and with no manners; hidden in the armor, Jazz winced with his whiskers. The woodsmech just stared at him.
Well, frag.
“This is Prowl, anyway,” Jazz muttered in defeat. He sat down next to Prowl and had to resist the urge to lap at the thick stew with “his” tongue. Cyber-sparrows… Mmmm… Much better than mice, but harder to catch. “And I’m Ultra Magnus.”
The mech nodded in satisfaction. “Call me Hound.”
It didn’t ring in Jazz’s audios like a true name, but he could hardly fault the mech his caution.
“We’re grateful for your hospitality.” Prowl started to leap off the table and to the chair so he could crawl down and Jazz caught him in midair, wiping him off with a cloth before letting him go. The cabin should be safe enough.
He scuttled around the floor, investigating the rug and cooing over the sparks released when the fire popped.
A cybercat slunk over to investigate, and Prowl excitedly tackled it, chirping to it. Jazz tried not to feel jealous.
“So what brings a pair like you,” Hound ran his gaze over Jazz and then to Prowl, who was petting the cat, humming the old rhyme about being gentle with cats to it, “out here, claiming to be a prince?”
“I’m going to make Prowl a prince,” Jazz insisted because he was. He was going to give his little bug everything he could.
“And you think you can just ride into an area, claim he is a prince, and it’ll happen.” Hound scoffed again.
“Well, no.” Jazz did know enough about mortal hierarchies to know it’d be more complicated than that. “I figured I’d need to get rid of the current king first. He’s a…” What kind of fey ruled these lands? Jazz wracked his memory. “An ogre? Right? Wouldn’t ya like to get rid of an ogre and be ruled by a sweet, little mortal instead?” He gave Hound his most charming smile… in the clunky, un-smiling Ultra Magnus armor.
“You’re talking sense,” Hound said flatly. “I don’t like it when fey tricksters talk sense.” He got up from the table, collected up all three empty bowls and dumped them in a basin to be washed later. He stepped around Prowl and his cat, who had progressed to playing bat-the-thing-around-the-room, to place a teapot in the coals of the hearth.
Jazz’s borrowed plating slumped. What would he do if he couldn’t even convince one forester to go along with his plan?
“The ogre-mage Mirage,” Hound went on as he watched his energon tea start to heat, “rules over all these lands and swathes of the forest as well. The lands are fertile as only fey lands can be, but the small fey run amok, scaring animals and spoiling harvests. For all the land’s fertility, we starve. The king Mirage himself is as fickle, cold and uncaring as any fey lord. His magic tells him when we gather in groups of three or more to conspire, and because he is a shapeshifter we dare not whisper to each other, one to one.”
Oooh, information! Jazz didn’t remember a “Mirage”, but he hadn’t exactly been paying attention back then had he? He wasn’t sure how he, a cat in a fancy suit of armor, could get rid of a shapeshifting ogre-mage, but he’d figure it out! And it sounded like Hound might like… “I am neither mortal nor one alone,” he prompted. “Surely the magic will not alert him and I cannot be a shapeshifted ogre-mage.”
Shapeshifted, sure, but not by his own will, and Jazz had never been an ogre.
“This is true.” Hound scowled at the tea as he poured it out into two cups. “I don’t like it when trickster-fey tell the truth any more than I like it when they talk sense!”
“But I am telling the truth,” for now, “and talking sense anyway.” Jazz grinned. “You’re obviously a wise and clever mech to have—”
“Stop that. I’ll hear no flattery from you.”
Well, frag.
“Look.” Jazz sighed exasperatedly. “All I want is if we get rid of this ‘Mirage’ for you, then when the Prime’s entourage comes through the forest, say you and all these lands are ruled by Prowl of Sorte? That’s fair, right? It’ll be true by then, and if it’s not just… tell him whatever you want.”
“Because if you haven’t gotten rid of the lord Mirage, you’ll be dead,” Hound said, finally sipping at his tea.
“Or,” Jazz hedged, sipping his own because it was… well, it wasn’t only fair, but it was also true, “long gone and escaped. One of those two. Either way, there’s no way to trace us back to you. No risk.”
Hound snorted.
They watched Prowl flop over exhausted from his game. He panted through his chelicerae. Jazz remembered playing with the ribbon and wondered if they could do that again tonight.
“I should turn you in,” Hound mused and Jazz’s hackles went up.
“Would that get ya a reward?” he asked, trying for a mild, unconcerned tone. He didn’t know Mirage, but he remembered the general attitude of the court towards mortal subjects on their land and rewards generally weren’t a thing.
“No.” Hound sighed. He got up and stepped around Prowl again to fetch something from the chest at the end of the bed. Prowl flipped himself back over on his legs and scurried after him, then climbed up onto Jazz’s knee.
“Hello, lil’bit.”
“Cat!” Prowl greeted and then curled up to watch the goings-on sleepily. Jazz was grateful he didn’t fall asleep, as they were touching and that would pull him immediately into the dream world. He didn’t want to pass out in front of Hound.
“Here.” Hound passed a sheathed knife across the table. The sheath was made of the reforged plating of a mechanimal, and it was with some trepidation that Jazz reached over and unsheathed it.
He hissed reflexively when he saw what he was holding, though the Ultra Magnus armor shielded him from it. A black knife. Cold Iron. Feybane.
Like Hound’s arrows.
“I can’t take that.” Jazz hated how his voice wobbled, but it was true.
“You’re going to slay a shapeshifting ogre with…” Hound trailed off. It was obvious Jazz had no weapons. His cat claws didn’t count, not against a creature like Mirage. “My family has held that knife since before my hatching, for so many vorn we have almost forgotten why it was forged.”
“It was made for a hero,” Jazz whispered, feeling the power of the words. Truth, but not quite…
“My ancestor made it so he could be a hero,” Hound corrected. “Instead, he fell to the shapeshifter’s power. Even a cold iron knife cannot pierce dragon scales. One of the spectators rescued the knife from the dragon’s coldfire and returned it to our family. We fled but could not escape Mirage’s lands entirely and so we settled here, where he competes with lesser but more numerous fey like that satyr for the absolute rule of the land. But this knife never forgot its purpose.”
“I’m not a hero. Prowl definitely isn’t a hero.” He might play at one, though he hadn’t yet, but he was far, far too young to be one for real.
“And yet you are the first to speak of ending the lord Mirage’s rule of these lands since this knife was forged. Take it.”
Swallowing his revulsion of the artifact, Jazz did so.
Hound nodded in satisfaction. “Stay here tonight and be on your way in the morning.”
“Thanks.”
The two teacups were added to the tub to be cleaned and Jazz took Prowl to settle down next to the fire. He could still hear the storm and the occasional sizzle of rain that found its way down the chimney.
“Didn’t like the story,” Prowl announced, and Jazz chuckled.
“I don’t suppose it was a very good one,” he agreed quietly while Hound patrolled the clearing one last time, dried off, then climbed into his own bed. Even among the fey courts, stories about failed heroes were not very well received and Hound hadn’t been tale-weaving. “What kind of story do ya want to hear?”
“Dream-fey.”
Jazz blinked. “Okay…” He wracked his memory for something that wasn’t too violent or risque for such young, mortal audios. It was a very short list and mostly involved his own mishaps. “How about this one: once upon a time…”
He told a story about one of the few tricks he admitted to falling for. He’d been gifted a beautiful dancing ribbon, one he’d been coveting for a very long time. He’d been so excited he had forgotten to check the ribbon over for curses and pranks before dancing with it, and as a result, he’d ended up so entangled by the magic ribbon that he’d needed Ricochet’s — Pacer’s — help to get free. Of course, his twin had thought it completely hilarious.
Afterward, Jazz had been furious and had tracked down the other noble to get revenge. The whole thing had ended up escalating until...
The story followed them into the dream-room. Prowl didn’t seem to notice, paying rapt attention.
Feeling nostalgic, Jazz started working on the parts of the violino. Despite the way the room had transformed into a castle and forest, there was still a huge pile of wire to sort through and foam to carve parts from.
“Fun?” Prowl asked as Jazz finished up his story, cutting it off before he and the other fey noble involved retired to a pile of wireferns to frag.
“It was,” Jazz said wistfully.
“Want,” the hatchling announced decisively.
“To do something fun?” Jazz considered, tapping his clawed fingers against the side of the body of his future-violino. “How about hide and seek?”
Prowl chittered excitedly and Jazz put down the instrument to play the game. The chain (another reason to hate it) proved to make hide and seek impossible — they were always connected to each other and to find each other they only had to follow the chain — but tag… that turned out to be very possible.
They played until morning.
.
.
.