meloo

Star Saber should draw his sword. He should swing it as he had swung it thousands of times before, cleansing the universe from filth. But for some reason, he didn’t. Somehow, he couldn’t. He watched Tarn sit down, watched him remove his cannons, completely vulnerable and yet — he did not yearn to spill Energon. It was an unspoken, unbearable fascination that kept him peaceful, that kept his zeal at bay. Had Primus forsaken him?

“Do you not believe in Primus?” Star Saber asked cautiously, a rare occasion of him not immediately jumping to judgement in the face of an atheist. Perhaps, he told himself, this Tarn was just misled. Star Saber could become his guide by taking a page from the Circle’s rules and approach him with an open hand instead of a blade.

“I am not sure about Primus,” Tarn replied. He calmly lifted his mask, his optics behind it not once paying attention to Star Saber across him. He took his glass, swayed the liquid around for a moment, and took a first sip. He hummed after he swallowed, pleased by the taste.

“If he exists, he is not the way everybody claims him to be," Tarn leaned forward, his elbows on the table as he rested his chin on his folded hands, “He can’t be kind and almighty. Which benevolent, almighty god would allow his own creation to slay each other? To bring millions of years of war upon themselves?”

Star Saber took a sharp vent and sat back in his chair. He covered his face with the hand that held his glass of Energon, even just the scent now making him feel sick. He wanted to put his faceguard back on, get up, execute Tarn like all the other infidels, and leave. But he didn’t. Merely a lost spark, he tried to convince himself.

“But you do believe He exists?” Star Saber inquired further, knowingly grasping at straws.

“Hell exists,” Tarn responded with the same calmness as before. His voice was lowered just so that Star Saber was forced to retune his audials to properly hear him. It was deep and rich, and it felt like it was wrapping around his very essence. An undeniable allure; Star Saber felt his resolve falter, just faintly. Tarn’s optics flickered for the fraction of a moment as he continued to speak, “I was in charge of it.”

Star Saber had heard of it. Grindcore. A place beyond gruesomeness, an inferno of agony and torture. A place, so rotten and impure and perverse that the disgust he was supposed to feel warped shamelessly into admiration. The idea of this might, this tool, did nothing short of making him fantasize about wielding it himself. How useful such a prison would have been for his mission, he thought wistfully.