I'm baaaack!

*Ahem* please pardon the somewhat creepy opening there. I'm just so glad to see you all again! I missed you guys! Has it only been a month? Wow, it feels a lot longer. So much has happened, but here's the promised sequel story to I Lost A World! Just like I said! (^,,^ *Little does anyone know that she finished the eighth chapter yesterday...* thinks Mrs. Mittens)

But you probably already know that this is a sequel. If you didn't, well, you should go read the first one! It's my only finished story up there that isn't a one shot. n_n; And for the people that actually have a clue about what's going on (and to be honest I'm not sure if I'm one of them...) I posted like, two or three oneshots over the break. If you didn't read them you should. The're totally cute.

Alright, enough self promotion. Please remember to leave some reviews for me! Suggestions, comments, undying love...all are welcome! (^-.-^ *Oh boy...* thinks the cat) Now here goes my second attempt at a multi-chapter story. Let's hope I can make it to the finish line again...because it's going to be a long road home. Ha! Get it? Because the title's-

.^-.-^.

*Beware the glare of Mrs. Mittens* Okay, I'll shut up now...hope you like it!

...

The Long Road Home

Away from Home are some and I -
An Emigrant to be
In a Metropolis of Homes
Is easy, possibly -

The Habit of a Foreign Sky
We - difficult - acquire
As Children, who remain in Face
The more their Feet retire.

– Emily Dickenson

1 – Stranger Things Have Happened…But Not Really – 1

Aria Rhapsody Johnson did not lead what one would call a normal life, exactly. Sure, she had a home, friends, and family like any other young woman, however…

Her home sat on top of a cabinet in a room bigger then ten New York city blocks were wide, in a city that could have easily fit the entire populous of Earth ten times over.

Her friends were all five times her height, at least, and were made of metals and ores rather then carbon and proteins.

And her family? Well, they were aliens.

Although, technically since she was living on their planet, she was the alien, but no one had ever really bothered to point that out to her.

She had been with them for years too numerous to count (not that she could since her definition of time never really did match up to theirs) and aside from the war – this never ending civil war that had razed the surface of Cybertron and ended enough lives that Aria couldn't help but think that most of the Cybertronians were gone too now – life was surprisingly good. Not in the conventional sense of course, but still; good.

However, despite the overall goodness of her life in general, that didn't change the fact that today was fast becoming an unbelievably bad day.

"Where the Pit is it coming from?"

Aria's frustrated cry rang out through the early morning air, echoing down corridors and hallways filled with weary soldiers and recharging mechs, startling most out of what passed for sleep in hard times like these. There was a collective groan from the whole lot of them as they realized what was going on.

"Not again."

"Primus make her mute, at least for two more cycles."

"Sparkfinder…"

"Would you shut the frag up?"

The last shout came from an already irritated, gold painted mech as he shoved his head out the door, scowling like usual, just in time to see the small organic being widely known as Sparkfinder run past him.

The human woman skidded to a stop, something close to madness in her blue eyes. "Can you hear it Sunny? Where the Pit is it coming from?" She shouted again, nearly turning in circles as if she would suddenly spot the source of whatever it was that she heard.

"Hear what?" the gold mech snapped, "and stop calling me Sunny. It's Sunstreaker."

Sparkfinder nodded distractedly. "Sure it is. And that Primus forsaken noise, what else did you think I meant?"

Sunstreaker turned to share a look with his room mate, his twin brother Sideswipe, as the silver mech finished dragging himself to the door to see what the fuss was all about at this unholy hour.

They didn't hear anything.

"So she's finally gone and lost it…" Sideswipe muttered as he struggled to wake up. "I guess this means we know that a hundred and forty-two vorns is about how long an organic's sanity will last."

Sunstreaker was far too exhausted to feel sorry for Aria. "What noise you thickheaded little thing?"

"Shhh!" Sparkfinder hissed. She was silent another moment. The twins shared another look.

"How mad do you think that sister of hers will be if we return her broken?" Sunstreaker quietly asked his brother.

Sideswipe gave a short laugh. "Forget Sera, what about Prime? Or Ratchet?"

Both mechs' optics grew wide.

Before they could shudder at the mental image of an extremely furious Ratchet and his entire hospital wing being flung at them, Sparkfinder's hands shot to her ears and she gave an aggravated groan before stomping her foot several times like a mad-femme.

"Why won't it stop?" She whined pathetically. "It sounds like someone yodeling as they puree a turtle shell mixed with rusted bolts! Who the frag thinks up things like this?"

"What's yodeling?" Sideswipe leaned over and whispered at his brother.

"Beats me, maybe some kind of torture method?" Sunstreaker guessed. Whatever it was, it didn't sound very pleasant. Especially mixed with shells, although what kind a weapon a turtle was escaped them as well.

"So what do we do with her?" Sunstreaker asked in frustration. He should have known something like this would happen. He wasn't on duty for the next half orbit. So of course something had to disrupt his recharge.

"What is going on here?"

All three looked up at the sharp voice to see Hound coming purposefully down the hall. He didn't look happy exactly, although with all the confusion on his face the twins wouldn't call him completely angry either. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe weren't surprised since Hound was one of the eight bots that had given a piece of their spark to the young human all those vorns ago, closer to when she had first arrived. It had saved her life, filling in for the ragged remains of her organic pump after Megatron had blasted the other half into oblivion, but it also meant that those eight mechs and femmes could feel the human woman's emotions, just like she could read theirs. Sideswipe thought it sounded like a double edged sword. Sunstreaker thought it just sounded insane.

"We let him handle it." Sideswipe answered his brother, jerking a thumb at Hound.

Hound frowned as he approached the trio. "Aria, what are you doing shouting so loud? Do you have any idea how early it is?" He asked somewhere between irritation and good natured concern. Aria was supposed to be one of the good beings in Iacon.

"But then again she's never caused trouble for no reason either," Hound thought as he took in Aria's wild gaze as she looked around the deserted hallway, trying to find something. He could feel her at the other end of their connection, its force enhanced by their close proximity. She was confused and a little scared, but mainly she was just ticked.

"Aria what are you doing?" Hound demanded again, exasperated.

"She's lost it." Sideswipe told him.

"Cracked in the processor." Sunny added.

"Absolutely bonkers."

"Nuts."

"Would you two mute it already?" Hound snapped. "It's far too early to be dealing with you two anyway." But then he slanted a suspicious look at the twins. "You wouldn't have anything to do with this, would you?" He asked carefully, narrowing his optics at the two of them as he pointed down at Aria.

"Who?" Sideswipe asked, suddenly all innocence.

"Us?" Sunstreaker added.

"Don't be ridiculous," Sideswipe, the lead trickster, added, "even we're not that mean." He said with a significant look at Aria.

"She cracked all on her own." Sunstreaker said, sounding almost pleased at the thought.

"You guys know I can hear you, right?"

The three mechs looked down to see a very irritated Sparkfinder looking up at them.

"Of course you can," Sunstreaker said in an over soothing tone.

"Just keep telling yourself that organic femme." Sideswipe added.

Aria crossed her arms over her chest and glared at them.

"Would you two get out of here?" Hound waved them away angrily.

"No." Sunstreaker said, perfectly serious.

"This is our front door after all." Sideswipe added.

Hound glared at them before deciding to ignore them altogether as he knelt down to be closer to the human causing all the noise. "Now Aria, what's going on here?" He asked.

Aria ran a somewhat nervous hand through her hair. "It's that same noise from before." She told him, embarrassed. She knew she wasn't delusional, really she wasn't. The atrocious din was there. The problem was that no one else could hear it.

Hound saw Aria's fervent blue eyes and vented a sigh. "I believe you Aria."

"We don't." Sideswipe piped up.

Aria threw her shoe at the two mechs before Hound could lay his hands on something bigger. With a burst of sneaky laughter, the twins disappeared behind the door.

Aria frowned at the closed door before limping over to retrieve her shoe.

"Brats." She grumbled.

Hound chuckled at her. "Come on Aria, I'll walk you back to your house if," he stressed, pointing a stern finger at her, "you promise to go talk to Ratchet about this later. You've been hearing this thing for what? An orn now? You should have him check out your auditory systems."

"Because we're so sure it's her ears that are the problem!" Sunstreaker shouted through the door.

THWAK!

Aria's shoe bounced against the still closed door with a muffled, metallic sound. "Ooo," she muttered in frustration, "just wait until I get my hands on you two. You are both dead!" She yelled through the door.

Hound chuckled and shook his head at her. "Don't worry," he told her, "with what I've got in mind, they'll wish you had gotten to them first." He told her as they started walking down the hallway, Aria's projectile shoes in hand.

"I'll hold you to that." Aria said.

And so began just another day in Iacon.

...

It was late in the day before Aria dared to venture out of her house again a few orbits after her run in with Hound and the twins. The overhead lights hurt her eyes and her head was pounding from lack of sleep, but she was supposed to meet Optimus and some of the others in the reading room he used for meetings, so there wasn't anything she could do but grimace and bear it.

And complain. She could always complain, if only to herself.

"If I knew that this, this," the little human grumbled, trying to think of a good enough word, "alien rap was going to be part of the bargain I would have just gone back to Earth!"

She wouldn't have of course, but that didn't make this noise any easier to bear.

She didn't know where it had come from – and no one else did either which was either strange or an outright lie on someone's part – or why it had just suddenly appeared a few orbits ago, but it had and it was here and it was driving her absolutely crazy.

"How is it that no one, no one, else can hear this fraggin' turtle-screaming-in-a-blender racket?" She just about screamed in the empty hallway.

That's what she had called it when she had tried to talk to her friend Ratchet about it since he was the top medical officer of the Autobots, whom she lived with. Like she had promised Hound, she had gone to ask him to check her entire auditory systems to see if maybe she was only hearing things. He had only stared at her and asked what a blender was.

And now, a few orbits later, Aria was about ready to scream.

"I'm losing it," she said to herself as she stalked down the hallway towards the Hall of Records that served as the Autobot headquarters, "absolutely losing it!"

"Losing what?" A new voice, one that was thankfully not in her head, asked next to her.

Aria gave a small start as she looked up to see her di di walking next to her. He was her younger brother, so to speak, despite the fact that he was a completely different species, more the three times her size, and blindingly yellow.

Aria sighed and hung her head slightly as they continued down the hall. "Nothing Bumblebee. I'm just talking to myself."

"Again?" Bumblebee asked, slanting a grin at her.

Aria glowered at him lightly, not really in the mood to have her constant grumbling pointed out to her yet again. Although Bumblebee was much nicer about it than, say, Ratchet had been. Of course it had been Ratchet after all, and he was one of the bots physically connected to Aria, as well as all of her moods and emotional twists and turns, so…

"Aria?" Bumblebee asked in concern when Aria didn't rise to the bait, "you feeling alright?"

Aria blinked over at him, still frowning slightly but not at her di di. "Huh? Yeah, sure I guess…" she trailed off.

"Still hearing that strange music?" He asked, sounding sympathetic.

Aria heaved a sigh. "Yes, and it's not music," she correctly him somewhat snappishly, "Music at least has a rhythm, and tone, and a recognizable beat," she grumbled.

Bumblebee just nodded, listening. "Did you get a chance to talk with Ratchet about it yet?"

Aria sighed again, more explosively. "Yes," she grumped, looking more upset now than angry, "he said that everything's fine, or at least if something is wrong, it isn't with my ears." She said, her dark tone implying that it could still be something else.

Bumblebee waited.

Soon he was rewarded with Aria sighing one last time before spinning to face him.

"Am I going crazy?" She asked suddenly.

Bumblebee stopped next to her and considered carefully before answering, even though he already knew the answer. He looked down at her and saw with some surprise that his sister's face was drawn in worry. Inwardly, he couldn't help but think that she looked so much smaller then when he had been younger. He knew that it wasn't her fault exactly since she had been the same height ever since he had been born, but it was still odd to realize. By his kind's description, he was still relatively young, but since he had reached his final frame he was by all accounts an adult. But Aria, Aria was still the size of an immature sparkling; tiny, although not necessarily defenseless.

Bumblebee gave himself a little shake to get his mind back to the question at hand.

"Ha!" He laughed at her, genuinely amused, "No crazier then you were last stellar cycle. Although personally, I think you're sanity's been questionable for awhile now, so maybe I'm not the best mech to ask." He said with a dismissive shrug that fooled no one.

Aria didn't laugh, but he could see the relieved smile trying to hide in the corner of her mouth. It finally escaped as she gave a breath of laughter. "Shut up," she told him, but she was smiling as she said it.

They started walking again, making their way through the complex hall system to the former office that the Autobot leader, Optimus Prime, usually used for meetings.

"So what's this about anyway?" Aria spoke again after a handful of silent cycles.

Bumblebee shrugged as if it should be obvious. "Optimus called a meeting."

Aria rolled her eyes at him, showing that some of her irritation was still there, shallowly buried beneath the surface. "Well I know that," she said, "but why am I going? Generally I'm not invited to these sorts of things. It's not like I'm in charge of anything like the rest of you." She said, meaning Bumblebee and the other bots she usually spent time with, who pretty much made up the chain of command.

"I don't know," Bumblebee admitted. "Maybe Optimus has something he needs you to do." He ventured a guess.

Aria straightened up slightly at the thought. She had been feeling so useless lately. It wasn't like she was an obvious help to her friends. She was small, which could be useful when someone was stuck or buried somewhere and needed finding, but generally she was too small to help in the straight up fights. She was clever (or so she had been told) but she wasn't a scientist or engineer or even a mathematician, so their methods went way beyond her limited understanding of science and physics. There just wasn't much that she could do anymore.

For the longest time she had been looking after the younglings – Bumblebee, Arcee, Valiturum (although they all called him Val), Fastlane, Cloudraker, and the younger twins, Skids and Mudflap – but they weren't so little anymore. Somehow, when she hadn't been looking, they had all grown up, but that had only been after the seven of them had been split up to keep them safe from the near psychotic Megatron; leader of the Decepticons who were currently trying to take over the world so Megatron could rule through his personal mantra of 'Peace through Tyranny'.

"Because that's just sure to work." Aria thought scathingly. But still, if Bumblebee was right then it would be nice to have something productive to do.

Aria and Bumblebee arrived at the reading room that had become Optimus Prime's private meeting room. It was a small room compared to most of the others Aria had been in and a large table took up most of the central space. Right now the table was covered with maps and reports, although Aria noticed when Bumblebee carefully placed her on a shelf so she could see everything, that the map of Iacon – the Autobots' home city – was front and center on the table. She also noticed that everyone else was already here.

The door closed behind Bumblebee, catching Optimus' attention from where he stood down at the opposite end of the table with Jazz, Ironhide, and Prowl, fists propped against the table on either side of the Iacon map he and the other three were going over. They were looking over the perimeter of the city as it now stood after Megatron's latest attack.

"How's the attack front going Prowl?" Prime asked solemnly as he stared down at the map of Iacon.

"Well, there's good news and bed news." Prowl said in his usual stoic way. "The good news is that the Decepticons have ceased their attack on the city for the moment. They've drawn back to the outer reaches of the Badlands around Sonic Canyon, though I doubt it'll last long."

"The bad news," Ironhide picked up the report, "is that it's left us with some rough spots." Ironhide said in his low, rough voice as he pointed at several spots on the map where either all important ground-to-air armaments or protective shield generators had been heavily damaged or destroyed altogether.

"Wonderful. Can't Ratchet or Wheeljack just fix them up?" Jazz asked from where he stood, arms crossed over his chest like they usually were, one hip leaning against the table.

"Ratchet has his hands full in the med bay," Optimus answered, not looking up from the map, "but Wheeljack might be able to manage something. Wheeljack!" He called, looking over at the white and green mech where he stood at the side of the table a little farther down.

The inventor looked up from where he had been talking with Hound about potential modifications to the latter bot's trusty rocket launcher. "Yes?" He asked, temporarily distracted, much to Hound's relief.

Optimus motioned Wheeljack forward.

"You know what I don't get?" Ironhide said as the inventor walked over to them. "Why'd the Decepticons draw back? They finally had the shield down in that last barrage. Why back off when they were this close to swarming the city?" Ironhide asked, waving a hand at the map.

Prowl gave an ironic huff. "Their Energon supplies ran short."

Jazz gave a humorless laugh. "They can join the club. I mean, they control most of the planet and they still can't find enough Energon to keep themselves going? That can't be a good sign."

From her place on the shelf, Aria nodded slightly, her eyes unfocusing as she stared off into space. He was right. Supplies were tight. Energon, the thing that kept Cybertronians up and running, usually wasn't a depleting source, but with the planet wide extent of the war and the toll it was taking on Cybertron, the planet just couldn't keep up with the demand being put on it.

Before she could go any farther with this morbid train of thought, Wheeljack stepped up to the table to get a closer look at the map Optimus was pointing at. "Tell me what you can do with these to get them running again." Prime said.

Wheeljack inspected the recently modified map with its scratch outs of things that had been demolished and the rough, handwritten scrawl Hound had provided after witnessing most of the destruction first hand a few orns back. Then he found the specs for the devices in question buried beneath the paper landslide to see what he was dealing with exactly.

"Hmm," he mumbled thoughtfully as he made calculations in his head. "It won't give out the same kind of power as before, but we could always plug the power core from that cargo ship we salvaged for parts into the damaged shield generator. That should get it running again at least."

But Optimus shook his head. "We can't afford to have those generators weaker then they were before. The Decepticons have been pressing the city's edges and, much as I hate to admit it, Starscream and his Seekers are too smart not to press that kind of advantage.

"Well then I'll need a new power source of some kind." Wheeljack told him. "Everything else I can manage – that artilleries should be a piece of oil cake – but I can only get so far without a new power core for the generator."

Optimus nodded, his gaze far away as he tried to remember where a suitable battery could be found and soon. They needed those shields.

"What about Crystal City?" Bumblebee spoke up from where he was now standing next to Ironhide. "There're still lots of parts there from the science labs that can be salvaged. Maybe we could find something suitable there." He pointed out.

Ironhide snorted. "Yeah, but that's not the only thing you'll find. Shockwave dumps his failed experiments there too, remember? And most of them aren't what you'd call nice." He told the younger mech.

"Vicious is more like it." Jazz added.

"True." Optimus rumbled. "But if nothing else can be used we may not have much of a choice. Keep looking closer to home Wheeljack, but if you can't find anything in the next orbit then I want you, Ironhide, and Bumblebee to go search the edges of Crystal City. Avoid the inner ruins though; stick to the fringe. No sense asking for more trouble then we already have."

Wheeljack nodded once. "Right."

"Do I go with them Prime?" Hound spoke up now, eager for a chance to get out of the city at least for a joor or two. He was starting to feel trapped by his own defensive lines; not that you would catch him admitting to it.

"No. You and Sideswipe see to the starting repairs instead. No sense letting Wheeljack have all the fun of the challenge." He said with what might have been the ghost of a grin.

Hound buried his slight disappointment. At least a puzzle would be some kind of break from sentry rounds around the city or along the power conduit that fed Iacon its energy supply. Although he thought Sideswipe would get more enjoyment out of this then he would. It seemed the silver twin was almost as interested in putting things back together as he was in blasting them apart. Hound thought there might have been some irony in there somewhere, but his mind was too full of possible defensive and offensive strategies to try and ferret it out.

"Jazz, you and Mirage try and see if you can't learn what the Decepticons are planning next, or at least when they might move in again." Optimus turned to the other mech.

"Got it," Jazz said, for once sticking to the point and avoiding his usual bad jokes.

The Autobot leader took another look around the room at his followers. He nodded once. "Good, then let's get-"

"Wait, wait!" Aria shouted from the shelf where she had been quite forgotten since 'Bee had put her there. "What am I supposed to do? Why did you ask me to come here?" She asked, looking over at Optimus. Even Aria could hear the slight desperation in her voice. She almost rolled her eyes at herself; since when were things this bad that she felt so totally useless? And how had she not noticed it before?

She chalked it up to good, old-fashioned denial and quickly turned her attention back to Optimus.

He was slowly shaking his head, looking slightly confused. "I didn't ask for you." He told her, glancing around the room to see if anyone else had.

Wheeljack stepped up before Optimus had even gotten to his side of the room. "Oh, that was me. There must have been a misunderstanding somewhere. You see I told Prowl to send you a message and he said he'd tell Val since you were seeing him later, although now that I think about it he was called away a megacycle ago wasn't he? He must have told somebody else because obviously someone told you-"

"Wheeljack!" Aria interrupted, knowing this could go on for some time before Wheeljack got down to what he had actually wanted to ask her. "It's alright. Just what did you want?" She said, trying to remain hopeful that it was something good even as a sinking feeling began to grow in her stomach.

"Oh, right," Wheeljack said, leaning over to be closer to eye level with Aria, "I was just wondering if you had seen my laser drill. The last I remember seeing it was when you were telling me that one of your water pipes had busted, but I can't seem to find it anywhere."

Aria blinked over at Wheeljack in shock. That was all he wanted?

The inventor mistook her staring for confusion.

"You know that little round spinney thing-"

"I know what it is!" Aria suddenly shouted. And then in frustration she stamped one foot, much to the confusion of all the mechs present. They had never seen her do that before.

"All that hope that I was finally going to be useful again – poof!" Aria thought, angry and disappointed all at once. And then, just to make matters worse, that fraggin' noise started up again, scraping against her ears like a cheese grater.

Aria's hands flew to her head in a futile attempt to block out the sound, but it didn't work. So without any coherent kind of words, Aria turned sharply on the ball of her foot and stalked towards the door, Bumblebee practically jumping over the table to keep her from just walking over the edge of the shelf when she forgot how high up she was. His frantic rushing did nothing to make her feel better. Now she felt guilty on top of disappointed and frustrated. Wee.

"Where are you going?" Optimus asked after her.

"To take a bath!" She yelled, flinging one arm up in the air in frustration before grumbling under her breath, "because apparently I've got nothing better to do."

"Wheeljack actually fixed your pipes?" Jazz asked in surprise.

"Hey!" Wheeljack shouted indignantly at the disbelief in Jazz's voice.

Aria's answering growl told him that he hadn't. "Then I'm going to the reservoir," she said irritably, referring to the large lake of water leftover from cleansing process that had once happened all throughout the city.

Optimus frowned at her. "Alone?" He asked pointedly. The lake was still within Iacon's relative safety, but it wasn't right in the center of things where the shield and defenses were strongest either. And while a lull had appeared in the latest Decepticon attack, Optimus didn't think it was wise of his little friend to just go strolling along the outskirts of town either.

"Yes, alone," Aria shot back, "I'm sure not taking one of you with me."

"Well with Decepticons testing the edges of the city I dare say you can't go out by yourself either." He snapped slightly, propping a hand on his hip as he stared down at her.

"I'll go," Bumblebee spoke up, eager to cut off another argument. He wasn't sure what was up with his sort-of sister, but whether it was this music no one else could hear, or something else inherent to organics that he didn't know about, Aria had been more then on edge recently. It didn't take much to set her off, much to everyone else's annoyance. "It'll take Wheeljack a little while to see if there's a replacement around. I've got some time."

Aria glowered over at him, but didn't argue. Bumblebee didn't let her glare stop him from following when she walked out the door. It wasn't him she was mad at after all.

"Besides," he added solely to her as he followed Aria out of the Hall of Records, "who'd want to look at you anyway?" He asked, teasing her.

Aria gave an 'hmph' that made Bumblebee think she had been spending too much time with Ratchet. "Shut up," she grouched, not nearly as positive as she had been earlier.

Bumblebee just grinned at her. Finally, she was starting to cheer up.

...

The man had waited till day was well established before leaving the cave. There had been too many roving nighttime things not to. But now as he left his quickly found shelter he saw that the landscape before him was vast, broken, and empty. Large slabs of natural metallic rock stood at leaning angles that made him nervous enough not to walk beneath them. But the longer he looked at the wasteland, the more he saw that none of this was just randomly eroded stone, torn apart by natural elements, but instead were pieces of what had once been a city.

"What in the name of God could have caused all this?" He wondered quietly to himself.

His only companion gave a soft whicker behind him before nudging his shoulder with her soft nose.

Tearing his eyes away from the ruinous landscape, the man turned and stared at the horse-like creature behind him. Her pitch black coloring made her difficult to see in the dimness of the cave, but if he squinted the man could just barely tell her skeletal outline from the pitted cave walls behind her. The unearthly creature blinked her large, round eyes back at him, a ray of sun light catching gold and amber within their dark depths.

"I know Peg," the man said to her, patting a hand on her broad neck, feeling the down-like hair that covered roughly half of her leathery body, "it's hard to imagine this was a city. Do you think we've ended up at the Morgoana Ruins?" He asked as he picked up her saddle where he had put it the night before and lifted it onto her strong back.

The creature known as Peg shook her head, ruffling her short cut mane, and told her human that this looked nothing like the infamous ruins that lay north of his capital city. Those ancient, crumbling stones were smooth and worn from the passage of time and the grass grew thick there. These stones were freshly shattered, lying here no more then what he and his kind called a fortnight, or so she estimated. Peg had never really been bothered by naming the passing of time. She also told him that those ruins had sweet grass growing everywhere that was very tasty.

Her man just shook his head as he tested the straps that kept the saddle from sliding over. "Take this seriously. We've somehow gotten separated from the herd and I want to know why, and where. Would you quit thinking with your stomach for once Peg?" He told her as he adjusted the thick, leather straps that circled his mount's shoulder blades, allowing easy enough access for when she shifted into her aerial form.

She told him it was very hard not to, seeing as she had three stomachs.

The man rolled his eyes. "Two and a half. That last one shouldn't even count."

She told him it held food before digestion, so it counted.

"Well anyway," her rider said as he removed the cargo from his saddle bags before slinging their remaining supplies over her haunches, "let's see if we can't find something recognizable. That light that struck us was about a mile from here I'd say, so if the rest of the herd is still around then they've got to be close."

Peg whickered again, more sadly then before, and hung her head down near her knobby knees. Softly she told him that she highly doubted they were close at all; she hadn't been able to feel any of the herd since last night when they had been attacked.

The man frowned at this, but then patted Peg's neck, trying to reassure her. "Don't worry Peg. Between the commander and his stallion, the rest of them will be alright. No matter how many Karkadanns appear out of the Sea of Sand."

Peg nudged him, letting him know that his reassurance was appreciated, but that she was still unsure about all this. Something just felt off about the air, she told him, however she could not describe how.

Her rider frowned at that too, but quickly shook it off. "Let's just go see what's out there alright? Are you good to fly?" He asked in genuine concern.

Peg huffed and told him her wings felt like they had been pulled by two rhinoceroses running in different directions after last night's sudden storm.

"Alright, then we'll walk. You jump up onto one of those rocks out there and I'll check out the lower reaches. Shout if you see anything, but don't go far," he warned her, pointing a stern finger at her, "I'm going to leave the cargo here for safe keeping, just in case there are more Karkadanns out there waiting to jump us. If we get separated, we'll meet back here by nightfall."

Peg gave him a decisive nod to show she understood.

"That's my girl." He told her with a fond pat on her neck. Then they turned and left their shelter. Peg immediately gave a strong leap onto a rock before jumping up onto one of the large pieces of ruin, her hard hooves striking sparks off of the rock's metallic surface.

Her man didn't look up as she jumped from boulder to boulder to survey the area surrounding them, but kept his mind on his own work instead. But as he carefully walked through the blasted chunks of building, a part of him couldn't help but go over what he remembered one more time. It just didn't make any sense. First, they had been there with the herd. Rifkin and his mount Lady Grey had been on their right with another two pair on the other side of the cargo the herd of Equines and their riders had been in the process of delivering to the capitol – the same cargo that had somehow ended up with him during the fight before he and Peg had been whisked away to…wherever this was. They had been two hours out from their station when they had been attacked by the dust devils and their Karkadanns, come to steal the cargo. And then…

…then what?

A voice distracted him from his thoughts as they circled unproductively in his head. At first he thought it was Peg, but then he realized that the voice was unfamiliar to him and it was coming from up ahead, rather then above and behind him. He crept forward, following the voice, but all the while wary of another trap. The dust devils had always been nefarious and tricky.

The voice led him to a small cliff and the man ducked behind one of the rocks lining the edge. The voice was strongest here and he could clearly make out the words now. Whoever it was was singing, and with a lovely voice as well, but he still waited a moment before peeking out from behind the rock to make sure he hadn't been seen. His eyes went wide when he realized it wasn't a dust devil below him – the longest and bitterest enemy of his race – but a woman.

A bathing woman.

His face suddenly felt like it was on fire. She was standing in a small lake below him, singing. The cliff he was on formed a protective shelter around the water from the wind, but she was only waist deep in the water, her back to him. Obviously she thought she was alone from her lack of cover.

Peg must have felt his sudden surprise because her soft voice suddenly whispered in his mind, "What is it?"

"I think I've found a selkie maid…" he distantly murmured aloud.

He could practically hear Peg's impatient snort. "What?" She demanded.

Her human nodded, unable to reply.

Distantly, he knew he should look away, but that part of his mind that wasn't staring at what he thought must be a dream wasn't strong enough in the end to make him turn away, although it did have enough strength left to heavily berate him.

"Stupid! Vulgar! This is below you! What would Miriam or Mother say? Real or not turn around before she-"

Halfway through the high note of her lovely song, the woman turned her head over her shoulder, her figure still facing the other way. Instantly her eyes locked with his. He noticed they were colored a deep blue, like the sight of the sea on a deceptively calm day.

"-sees you."

For a brief moment he thought she would dissipate, dissolving back to rejoin her fellow seals beneath the sea because she was just too beautiful to be real.

And then the woman's eyes went wide as she realized what she was seeing. And what he was seeing.

She gave a startled scream as she threw her arms across her front and dove beneath the water with a splash that no selkie ever would have made.

The man tipped over onto his backside, caught off guard by her sudden shriek. Selkies didn't scream like that did they? It was fast occurring to him that that might have been a real woman down there-

And then he was too busy staring down the length of a powerful, blazing blue cannon to pay much attention to the Selkie girl.