Slipstream was built to be cannon fodder for a megalomaniac. Yet, when blackarachnia teachs her to dance, she feels something raw open up inside of her soul. When blackarachnia teaches her to sing, she feels real. Her voice warbles over the words. Her feet stumble to the beat. She's so clumsy, so unlike her artifical identity that starscream gave her. But, when blackarachnia smiles at her with far too many teeth, slipstream feels soft. When the techno-organic lets out a sardonic laugh, something soft washes slipstream's spark.
blackarachnia has forged herself to be bitter and poisonous. Her life was shattered once, twice, so many times. But when slipstream gives her a mischievious grin - a grin that is so similar, yet so different, from the awful, biting smiles starscream gave her - joy springs up and wraps gently around her spark. When slipstream brings her books, jewels, and trinkets of all kinds, she feels genuine affection in her. Her numerous eyes scrunch up, and she smiles a toothy grin as she plucks whatever it is that her lover has presented to her in her much smaller, clawed hand.
Is it possible for two mechs who have been built, dismantled, and reconstructed to find love in each other? Blackarachnia ponders this one day while she spoons slipstream. Slipstream sleeps peacefully in the older mech's arms, her optic ridge smooth and drawn in a calm line. Blackarachnia has her smaller frame wrapped around slipstream's torso, her many legs wrapped around the fighter jet's cockpit protectively. Would slipstream love blackarachnia if she was still elita-one - if she was a young and spirited autobot prodigy who wouldn't be caught dead with a mech like blackarachnia? Would blackarachnia love slipstream if she was merely a nameless drone - one of many of starscream's agents?
Yet, as slipstream softly stirrs and ensnares herself further into blackarachnia's mechanical limbs, blackarachnia finds that she doesn't entirely care for what could have been much. She may not be fully at peace - finding peace is a long winding road for a mech like her - but at least she's found someone who loves her for who she is in the present - not who she was in the past, or who she could have been in the future.
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Dark Forest Resident: Morningsky
Aliases / Nicknames: Witch Doctor, Doctor of Death
Gender: she-cat
Sexuality: asexual, homoromantic
Family: Lakefur (mother), unnamed father, Cloudykit, Adderkit, Emberkit (brothers)
Other Relations: Shimmerthroat (mentor), Plumshadow (apprentice)
Clan: Prairieclan
Rank: medicine cat
Characteristics: judgemental, had a neglectful upbringing, believes she's doing the right thing
Number of Victims: 7+
Number of Murders: 2+
Murder Method: feeding tainted herbs to expectant parents
Known Victims: Dustyrose, Slatefreckle, Beeflower, Grassburr, Batfall, Leopardtail, Blackstream, several unborn kits
Victim Profile: pregnant queens she believed would not make good parents
Cause of Death: poisoned, killed by Plumshadow
Cautionary Tale: a lesson to medicine cats to not misuse their talents
Story:
Morningkit had never been wanted.
The Clan had no clue who her father could possibly be. And her mother, Lakefur, would have preferred not to be a mother at all, but if she did have to have kits, she much preferred toms over she-cats. Sadly, all three of Lakefur's sons, Morningkit's brothers, were born sickly, and all of them died before their fifth day of life.
Lakefur took out her rage and fury on little Morningkit, barely even giving her the time of day. Needless to say, Morningkit's first six moons of life were miserable. Things began looking up for Morningkit when she became Morningpaw and was apprenticed to Shimmerthroat, the Clan's medicine cat.
Shimmerthroat was everything Lakefur should have been to Morningpaw and more. She taught her so many valuable life lessons, but the one that was most influential to Morningpaw was that, as a medicine cat, she had the power to make things right for her Clanmates.
It stuck with Morningpaw, and she made a vow--she would use her abilities to make sure no other kit would have to go through what she went through.
Morningsky's crusade started with good intentions. Poor, sweet, playful Dustyrose, who had only been made a warrior just a week before, had become pregnant with kits. And Morningsky was pretty sure she knew who the father was too: Dustyrose's mentor had always been a little too creepy for her tastes. She couldn't let kits grow up in that environment.
So she snuck rotten herbs into Dustyrose's herb bundle. It worked like a charm. She had lost the kits before the week had ended, and she was back to warrior duties, as happy as a clam. Seeing how happy Dustyrose was to not be pregnant anymore made Morningsky feel great. And those good feelings went to her head.
Her next targets were a trio of sisters, Slatefreckle, Beeflower, and Grassburr, who had moved into the nursery at the same time. Granted, this one was a little more petty, as the sisters had bullied Morningsky when they were all kits. But in Morningsky's defense, she also thought that Slatefreckle, Beeflower, and Grassburr's bond was too strong, and would reflect unhealthily on their litters.
Morningsky made her only mistake here, and added a little too many tainted herbs into Slatefreckle and Beeflower's herb bundles. It caused the bleeding from the spontaneous kit-loss to be too strong, and Slatefreckle and Beeflower both passed away. Seeing Grassburr wail with grief over her sisters' bodies, her own body still weak from her kit-loss, did twist Morningsky's stomach a little, but she reasoned that Grassburr would become a better cat now that her sisters weren't holding her back.
Morningsky was much more careful from then on, partly because she didn't want to have more blood on her paws, but also because she had an apprentice of her own now, Plumpaw, whom she doted on like a son. She wanted him to make his own path, just like Shimmerthroat had allowed Morningsky to do.
That didn't mean she was done with her crusades, though. There was Batfall, a blind and partially deaf she-cat, Leopardtail, a tom who used to be a she-cat, and was now pregnant with kits, and Blackstream, who reminded Morningsky a little too much of her own mother, power-hungry and completely disinterested in being a mother.
None of them would be good parents, and one after the other, they lost their kits, though thankfully, they didn't meet Slatefreckle and Beeflower's fate. Soon after Blackstream had lost her kits, it was time for Morningsky to give Plumpaw his medicine cat name. She smiled with delight as she named him Plumshadow, knowing fully well that she had taught him to be the best medicine cat that he could possibly be.
After they had returned from the Moontree, Plumshadow came to Morningsky with a gift, a fat, juicy, nutria, her favorite prey. He said it was thanks for being such a good mentor to him. Morningsky thanked Plumshadow profusely and dug into the nutria. However, as she ate, she could sense a strong bitter undercurrent under the fatty and delicious flavours of the meat.
She looked down to see the telltale dark greenish-brown bits of tainted herbs delicately woven into the fibers of the nutria's meat. Morningsky had simply looked up at Plumshadow with pride. She really had taught him well, hadn't she? Plumshadow simply nodded grimly and directed Morningsky to her nest, staying by her side as the herbs ravaged her body, and her breathing slowly came to a silent end.
Additional Information:
--Submission by @starfalcon555
--Morningsky's surviving victims figured out what she was doing and went to Plumshadow to ask him to kill her. He did genuinely like her, but he also had a strong sense of justice, so he went through with it reluctantly.
--Plumshadow probably told the Clan that the nutria must have been rotten, so he got away with it.
--Blackstream actually really wanted to be a mom, and would have been a great mom too. She just wasn't a very emotional cat, and that, combined with Morningsky projecting Lakefur onto her, made Morningsky think otherwise.
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Blackarachnia has a unique spark - a spark that Slipstream can't help but to adore.
The damaged casing has cracks along it's shell, with welding scars clearly surrounding the edge. The chamber itself is surrounded by a mix of organic flesh, and circuitry. Raw energy - bright, brilliant, and blue, yet angry, and burning - spills out of the cracks. For Slipstream, the energy feels dangerous to touch. It feels like Greek fire, or lightning on her fingers, crackling and dancing on the tips of her claws. The spark energy is almost blindingly white - with only wicks of a bright blue visible from far away.
Slipstream is mystified the first time that she sees her lover's spark. She is torn between fascination - fascination over how it must feel to merge sparks with a techno-organic mech, and fascination with the raw amount of energy it must take to maintain a body like Blackarachnia's, and fear - fear of what lies ahead for her and Blackarachnia, and a fear of the unknown. Blackarachnia is a complex mech. Slipstream thinks of her not as cold, not as ruthless, or cruel - but as a passionate mech. She has the capacity to be kind, just as she has the capacity to be cruel. She can be smooth and soft, and she can be coarse and solid.
When Slipstream's spark reaches out for Blackarachnia's, she feels overwhelming emotion. Slipstream can't tell if she's crying tears of happiness or pain. Her spark - only consisting of the powerful, yet sparse remnants of the life Starscream gave her - is overtaken entirely by Blackarachnia's essence. It completely rocks Slipstream's world. There are entire universes - entire timelines and worlds - of depth found in Blackarachnia's life force. Emotions - bitter, strong, tart, and sugary all at once - pulse through their bond. It burns like liquor, leaving sweet and strong notes down Slipstream's body.
Blackarachnia's spark resonates both love and sorrow - anger and trust. It feels like a live wire. Slipstream can tell that Blackarachnia wants to trust her - wants to love her, and care for her, and keep her safe and untouched by the same world both Slipstream and herself were forged from - but can't bring herself to commit fully. The pain of the inability is woven into the tapestry of Blackarachnia's love. Slipstream can feel the loose threads blowing against the metal of her frame.
Slipstream attempts to reciprocate these feelings. Her spark - or really, her crude imitation of it that her creator bestowed upon her - weakly collides with Blackarachnia's - red wisps that interweave with the blue tendrils of energy. Her feelings of love - a feeling that Slipstream might not ever truly understand as it was never really one piece of knowledge that Starscream entertained giving her - crackle and try to dance with Blackarachnia's own. Slipstream knows that she loves Blackarachnia - she knows that Blackarachnia is the only mech she'd ever think about conceding to. She knows that Blackarachnia is the only mech she would allow to treat her delicately, the only mech she'd allow to protect her, to rest her wings upon in a time of need.
It's vulnerability - complete and total vulnerability - that Slipstream tries to convey. She wants to give Blackarachnia everything all at once - love, trust, weakness, strength, everything.
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