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“Storyteller, can you tell us the one about The Noble Prime?”
“What? Again? Shouldn’t you all be tired of it already? I know I’m sick of it.”
“Please!” one says and a cacophony echo.
“Fine, fine, enough! Settle down, I’ll tell you the legend of The Noble Prime. Again.”
The Storyteller sighs but gestures for the group of younglings to be seated anyway.
“The same as many legends go, this one is about a great evil. And the brave hero who stopped it. Our evil was a great tyrant — one who had begun with good intentions but grew corrupt as power consumed them. And our hero… was a simple young mech. Some say they worked as an enforcer. Others say a dockworker or a miner. And some, a librarian. But all say they were a kind mech. A mech who believed in caring for others no matter who or what they were. A mech who believed in the power of change and justice and peace. How ironic it was, that a mech who only desired peace, who had been known to be a pacifist, became the sword to Primus, and by extension, Cybertron.”
“But why would Primus choose someone who didn’t want to fight?” a small voice asks. She’s unfamiliar — a new youngling to the area it seems.
The Storyteller smiles knowingly. “Because this mech was strong enough to be gentle.”
She frowns. “But that doesn’t make any sense. How can you be strong to be gentle?”
“Let me ask you this, young one. Say one day, you come across a cybercat kit. It is alone and has no creators, but it needs help. It does not want the help because it’s afraid. What do you think you should do?”
“Uh…” she ponders for a moment. “Catch it?”
“Yes, but it will fear you. And if you try to catch it like that, it will always fear you. It needs kindness and patience. You are something so large and strange, something untrustworthy that could easily hurt it. You can fight, you can yell — after all, the Prime did too. There is a lot of power in you. A lot more than you realize, so it is up to you to be kind. That is why the story of the Noble Prime is here — to show the most powerful mech on the planet and uses that power to be gentle with all living beings.”
The mechling stares up with wide innocent optics, but slowly nods, as do a few others.
“Shall I continue?”
“Yes!”
“Alright. Very well then,” the Storyteller laughs. “The tyrant had done many cruel things to meet their goal: to take control of the AllSpark and create a perfect, just world as they had wanted it to be, for the tyrant had suffered much cruelty too. But the Noble Prime had stopped them time and time again, across centuries and planets from all over the galaxy.
And then, one day, the Noble Prime finally defeated the evil tyrant. Everything the tyrant had built up and all their great evil was no more, and now, there was much to be done for all the damage and destruction they had caused across the cosmos. But despite all that the wicked tyrant had done, do you know what the Noble Prime did?”
Many nodded with bright smiles. Few didn’t.
“The Noble Prime offered them their servo. No matter how many others thought them optimistic, naïve, or a fool, the Prime had offered his servo to all before the tyrant and would believe in their ideals. They gave the tyrant a second chance to fix everything they’d broken. To atone. And-”
“That old story again?” a low, soft voice says, a smile audible in her tone.
Many of the younglings gasp, eagerly standing up to greet the owner of said voice.
“It was requested of me, my fellow storyteller,” the Storyteller shrugs. “How could I disappoint?”
The mech greets each of the younglings, handing them offerings of candy before she is finally allowed passage.
“Good evening my beloved Megatron,” she murmurs, pressing a sweet kiss that tastes just like the candies she handed out.
Unsurprisingly, it chases all the younglings away, like some kind of infection as they scatter around the park, shrieking in disgust.
“Well, now look at what you’ve done, Optimus.”
Optimus chuckles behind a fist. “I thought you said there were annoying?”
“They are,” Megatron readily agrees. She pats the space beside her, underneath the massive amethyst tree — one of many planted centuries ago, when the war had first ended.
Seating herself, Optimus pulls Megatron’s helm to her pauldron, stroking it gently.
“Thank you,” Megatron murmurs with a barely muffled yawn.
“… You weren’t that evil,” is what Optimus replies with instead.
Megatron snorts. “Oh really, my dear? Are you speaking from a place of personal biases or-”
“Um…”
They both turn to see the curious youngling from earlier.
“Storyteller? S-Storytellers? H-How does the story end?” she asks, playing with her digits nervously .
Optimus gives her a kind smile, offering a candy she tentatively presses into her mouth.
“The Prime and the tyrant traveled together all over the universe, to atone for and fix their mistakes. They helped others that they had hurt and had come to care for each other very deeply along the way,” Optimus says. Megatron laces their digits together fondly.
The youngling's wide optics cycle even wider. “The hero made mistakes?”
“Of course!" she hums. "Everyone makes mistakes, little one. Even the hero. They were no less of a mech than you and I.”
It seems to take her a moment to process. “Do you know where the Prime and tyrant are now?”
“Some say they still travel,” Megatron mutters sleepily in the face of a lie. “Others believe they’ve seen every corner of the world and now wander aimlessly. Some they they've vanished, left behind to history. No one knows where they had gone after Cybertron was rebuilt.”
“Oh…” she says, looking a little sad. “I wanted to thank them for fixing Cybertron after the tyrant broke it.”
Optimus has to fight back a startled snort — covers it with a polite fist.
“I’m sure they’ll hear your thanks wherever they are, young one. Word travels very fast this day and age.”
The youngling then smiles too. She gives them a lingering look, and with a nod, she bounds away.
“You say that about every day and age,” Megatron mumbles into her shoulder once they're alone.
“I do not-” Optimus pauses. “Or… well… maybe I do. Sometimes.”
“Uh-huh. Sometimes.”
“Oh hush, we’re both old now. Time will continue moving, with or without us.”
“Then best enjoy it while is lasts, dearest,” Megatron says, glancing at the array of rainbows and filtered sunlight dotting the ground. “And speaking of... would you mind indulging me for a moment? It is a wonderful day, and I want to hear your voice, my storyteller.”
Optimus smiles warmly, pressing one more kiss as her datapad flickers open. “Of course, my love.”