Title: Sidus Ad Quirito Diabolo

By: Ceris Malfoy

Drabble #1: Beauty in the Beholder's Eye

Summary: Unicron watches, and Unicron sees. And maybe, just maybe, he thinks there can be more.

Pairings: Unicron/Starscream (slight)

Warnings: bad mojo

Continuity: Shattered Glass, major AU

A/N: This series is going to be a bunch of one-shots and drabbles related to my story, Diabolicae Foedus. Each is capable of standing alone, but it is highly recommended that you read that one-shot first. Some of these will simply be longer, more embellished bits of story that didn't make it into the main fic, others will be events before and after and during that the main fic couldn't get into. And still more may be brought about by clever people giving me prompts (hint, hint). What I can promise: a lot of angst, horror, and character death. What I can't promise: regular updating schedules, that your prompts WILL be used, or fluff.

That being said, I hope you enjoy!

"And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, till the Devil whispered behind the leaves 'It's pretty, but is it Art?'"

-Rudyard Kippling

Unicron looks at his beautiful seeker sitting so still and quiet on his make-shift throne of corpses, and knows that this will not end here. The seeker once known as the pacifist-scientist Starscream sits straight and proud, odd gold-red optics calculating and cold and imperious. That seeker had suffered and suffered, never saying a word, never offering anything other than silence and cold, frigid acceptance to his tormentors, and now he wears that hollow pride like an invisible mantle that defines him in some way even Unicron can't quite explain. Starscream has been made to suffer beyond all limits, has been made to learn the true value of pain and agony and ember-splitting rage, and now it is his turn to show his enemies just how well he has learned. This seeker had always been a fast learner, and time spent locked away in his own mind has only sharpened and honed his manic intelligence. There is certain madness there, but there always is with genius of that nature.

Some just hide it better than others.

Unicron looks at his beautiful, beautiful seeker, and sees what others with their mortal optics never will, and never can: Starscream has transcended. His rage is boundless, his wrath unmeasured, and his mind so focused that nothing else matters. It does not matter that most of those standing alive and horrified on the other side of a battlefield already strewn with corpses are innocent of any wrong done to his or his long-dead kin; it does not matter that these mechs bear blue optics instead of red or a red sigil instead of purple; it does not matter that most of Cybertron itself could not be implicated in what had happened so long ago.

It doesn't matter, not to Starscream, and consequently, not to Unicron. What matters is the rage, the need for vengeance, and the complete and utter disregard for whom, exactly, had committed those crimes. His seeker cares not about what is right and what is wrong – that distinction has been torn from him the very moment he first saw a sparkling forced upon a full-grown mech's horrendously-modified spike. No. All Starscream cares about is that they live while his people do not, and such is an abomination no longer capable of being accepted.

Starscream has the power now, in the form of a contract, to do something about his all-consuming rage. And do something, does he ever.

So, Unicron watches as his contractor, his beautifully mesmerizing seeker, settles back upon his throne of corpses, imperious and proud and unforgiving, a god amongst mortals. Such amazing potential.

And as Starscream gives his orders in his ghost-like whisper, a voice born from mangled vocalizer and years of suppressed screams, he ponders his options. "Kill them," Starscream says, and Unicron obeys without question, for he is ever-hungry and ever-eager, and though these embers are not what he hungers for, they will do for now.

But still, his mind is on the seeker watching a real god do his bidding. And he dares thinks to himself, 'Perhaps.'

So, yeah. I wanted to play in this verse a bit more, especially because I can't get it out of my mind. XD I've already got several little one-shots ready to be posted, and figured I should just stick them under one banner and call it done. Title for this fic comes courtesy of Google Translator, so Latin purists can either a) shut up and deal, or b) give me a proper translation. Title is supposed to translate into: 'Scream upon the devil's star.'