Glada Vappen!

[suomi_thunder]

Aarne hadn't celebrated holidays properly in over a year which left him feeling disconnected. Giant bonfires in the streets and rampant reindeer were frowned upon in most civilized cities, unless of course the punks were involved, then that was arson not celebrations.. ok, well for the punks it was a celebration but not for a Saami.

In the Nexus though, oh here he could do whatever he wanted, or that was what he had learned in his few visits. He had been planning and cooking and collecting. The gods probably don't even know where he stirred up reindeer from in the Nexus but he has and Mouka was happy to have a job keeping them corralled. His usual rock gear is augmented with his family necklace and oddly doesn't look too out of place with rest of his wildness.

He didn't have a lot but parties always started this way. The host had some things and then people came and brought more booze and food, ordering all kinds of things. Aarne did bring Mead, alcoholic and non-alcoholic, and a a bunch of lemon tippaleipä batter. He had cooked some but this was something he could show visitors how to make on their own. The honey mead based sugar in a large bowl. Strips of dried reindeer meat and juustoleipä, a Finnish reindeer milk cheese, are out on the table too. There are fruits; strawberries, apples, and nuts which were common as well as a cream from reindeer milk traditional to the culture and nearly like unfermented yogurt.

That all done he looked to the huge pile of logs that he had gotten from various people around the Nexus. The Sami added leaves to it to create smoke at first to attract others. Before lighting it he put up a banner of hide dedicated to the Akka, the female fertility spirits, decorated with the same imagery as his traditional drum. It was sentimental, the first drum he ever learned to play.

Drum in hand he poured kerosene on the log pile and lit it. The reindeer spooked at the sudden fire but soon calmed, especially when the tall Fin went among them.

Comments

[rockin_thehousedown]

Hunter wasn't expecting to meet such a large variety of people within this Nexus place and now he was staring a little nervous at the arrival of these large, metal creatures. Some of them looked cat-like which pleased the singer, since he loved cats and had quite a few pet ones back at home. Yet, these were sentient beings and could talk by the looks of it. Goodness! The Swede wanted to meet them though so he decided to walk up to them all to introduce himself.

"Hello? You speak English? My name is Hunter and I couldn't help but notice you. What---what type of creatures are you? I do not mean to be rude, it's just I have never seen such people as you before."

The singer's words are spoken with a strong Swedish accent as he was now wide-eyed, especially at the larger of them all.

[dontpetmeibite]

"I'm Ravage. We're Cybertronians; we're mechanoid sapient beings." Her voice is low and sweet, contralto or countertenor.

She glances up at the big humanoid robot with deep affection. "My husband, Soundwave, he's the leader of our military forces, but he's also a musician; I'm the spiritual leader of the Decepticon people, but I like to dance and write poetry, and sometimes I put lyrics to his songs. My sister, Howlback, she's captain of our Embassy guard; my brother, Glit, a doctor and also a singer; my daughter, Viridian--she doesn't talk, she communicates by PINpoint. I am guessing you are all Ziggy's friends? Soundwave jams with Ziggy and his band sometimes."

[rockin_thehousedown]

"Nice to meet you, Ravage. You are robots? Cybertronians? How wonderful. I've never met anyone like you before. You and your kind are so beautiful to look at and shiny."

The one called Soundwave, now he was huge! A large metal machine that could talk and the cat-like ones too. They were smaller but Hunter was feeling privileged to meet such an esteemed family of mechanoids. There was nothing like that back on his world, or indeed anywhere.

"I know Ziggy and the Spiders. My band, The Hammers, are currently touring with him and the Hell's Angels. I'm the band leader and vocalist for The Hammer's. Aarne is around here somewhere. He's my drummer. I am from a land on Earth called Sweden which is a land in the North."

He was smiling so much now meeting Ravage and her family and friends. They really were quite impressive creatures. A singer and a musician among them too!

"I love to sing and write lyrics and poetry myself and I'm also a fashion designer in my spare time."

[dontpetmeibite]

Ravage flushes a little. "Thank you. Although ...cougaraiders were designed to be pretty. We can't really take credit for that--it was actually in the specifications to which our frames were constructed," she says with a shy smile. "Soundwave, now--he just happens to be beautiful."

"You flatter me, my wife," Soundwave says, a little sheepishly. Then he shrugs and looks at Hunter. "Marissa--a friend's significant other--told me once that we're the bohemians of the Decepticon revolution, in this family right here."

[rockin_thehousedown]

"Designed to be pretty? Well, then I am honoured to meet such beauties as you. I love to wear pretty clothes since I design my own. I've also been a model for fashion magazines."

Hunter wasn't sure how much Ravage knew of the human world but he wanted to share none the less since it was good to share. A cultural exchange of sorts. It seemed she was married to this large Soundwave fellow. A large but beautiful shiny machine man. How interesting!

"Bohemians? Ah yes---I can see what you mean. My family is my band, The Hammers. You may have met Aarne? There is also Rik and Vars too. They are all like my children in a way and I protect them as much as I can."

He is such a vodka mum.

[dontpetmeibite]

Ravage smiles a little painfully. "It's an honour for us all to meet," she says. "But not because we're pretty. What I meant by saying we were designed like that is that it's got nothing to do with who we really are. We can't take credit for it. We were designed to be weapons for the aristocracy..."

Soundwave tipped her chin up. "You are wholly responsible for the beauty inside you," he said, very firmly. "And like the rest of us, you've chosen to be much, much more than the form you were put in and the functions you were assigned."

With a shy nod to Hunter, he kisses her, quickly but shamelessly, and then sets her down. "My wife, her siblings, and her daughter, are my family, and have been since I met them."

Soundwave is not at all a vodka mum, but he and Hunter have that fierce protectiveness in common.

[rockin_thehousedown]

"Weapons? Oh, I see. Well, at least you can be free to be who you want here, flower. You are all too beautiful to be damaged by war."

Hunter apparently loved the way all the mecha robots looked. Cybertronians? Yes, that was it. Such handsome metallic creatures they were indeed. It seemed Ravage and Soundwave were firmly in love which pleased the singer. Love could exist in any shape or form it seemed within this Nexus land.

"They are all beautiful. I don't have any children of my own for reasons but if Gilly and I adopt one day we would have such a delightful brood of little ones."

Was the singer even thinking down those lines? For the future of course and if Gilly wanted to marry the Swede. He wouldn't push anything onto the drummer.

[dontpetmeibite]

"You can't have children together?" Soundwave asks.

Ravage shakes her head and leans against him. "They're both biologically males, my love. Humans have two common biological sexes, plus variants, instead of the one plus variants that we have. They have more genders too. I had an entertaining conversation with a human once about whether I was genderfluid, bigender, transfeminine, a demigirl, or whatever? I just know I was female most of the time when I was younger, although we didn't have the words for that then, male most of the time throughout most of the war, and I've been female most of the time since I became Megatron's inheritor. I don't even think it's other people's responsibility to keep up with that, though I appreciate it that everyone tries to."

She turns to Hunter. "Anyhow, thank you for all of the compliments. I think everyone is too beautiful to be damaged by war. Which is why my husband and I would like to put an end to war."

[rockin_thehousedown]

"No, we can't because we are two males. Our biology makes us incompatible with one another because humans need a male and a female to create a new life."

Hunter wasn't sure he was the best person to discuss such a subject but he was going to try and offer Soundwave a good enough answer to his question. But then Ravage was already answering, which helped alleviate some of the awkwardness from the question. Not that Hunter was shy talking about sex.

"Putting an end to war? Then, I wish you good luck, blomma."

[dontpetmeibite]

Soundwave's expression is dazed, and then he has a moment of clarity.

"Oh." He winces. "Ravage and I went to a party. He was male that night. We got turned into humans somehow. It was traumatising, honestly. We tried to make out. Our interface equipment... it was exactly alike. He couldn't transform his spike into a valve, so I couldn't penetrate him, which is his favourite thing. And it was all covered in hair."

Soundwave clearly did not find this attractive. Ravage laughs gently and brushes her cheek against his arm. The two of them also might be starting to get a little drunk on the general atmosphere because Soundwave would not normally EVER tell a stranger how much Ravage loves to be fucked and Ravage would not be smiling about it if he did.

"We couldn't do the frag," she says. "Later I found out that if I'd been a woman that night, we would have fit together better. But fragging isn't how we make babies." She sighs. "Might be nice if it was. Making more Cybertronians is hard these days. Although when I heard about being 'pregnant', I really would not ever want that to happen to me."

Now she's the one who looks disgusted and grossed out.

"I wouldn't mind carrying a child," Soundwave says, with a soft, fond expression. "Especially not if it was Ravi's child. I think it would be amazing to feel a new life taking shape inside of one's own body. But...I am never female. Most of us don't change like Ravage can. As she says, lately she's been femme more often than not but it was different during the war. And either way she always changes some; she's my lady right now most of the time, but every few days or so he's a male for awhile."

Ravage tilts her head. "Blomma? What's that mean?" The way he said it sounded affectionate, she gathered that much, but she's not getting a good translation. Which happens sometimes in the Nexus with people who don't speak languages she knows.

[rockin_thehousedown]

Hunter listened carefully as Ravage and Soundwave explained certain things about their biology. It was all rather interesting as the singer sipped on his mead and nodded. They really were a very interesting couple. Also, large. The bots were big.

"Blomma? It means flower in Swedish, my mother tongue. I often forget others cannot understand my language."

He blushed a little but was pleased to know that Ravaged asked to know what it meant. Mixing of cultures was what this party was all about and Hunter would be happy to answer any questions the bots had.

[dontpetmeibite]

"I'm a flower?" Ravage was charmed. "I love flowers; they smell nice. My sense of smell is extremely sensitive. If I've met you before I'll always know who you are even with my optics closed. Maybe even especially then. Even if you put other smells on top of your own smell I can teaae them apart." She grins.

"Flowers smell lovely. I don't care for fruits, especially citrus. Oil and diesel smell nice. I can also usually tell if people have had sex recently, but I don't pay attention to that. Whether human or Cybertronian, people leave their smells all over each other. Soundwave is covered in my scent although that is partly on purpose. It's to make very clear to others like me that he's mine."

[rockin_thehousedown]

"Yes, blomma means flower. It's what I call people I like, friends and band mates alike. My English is sometimes punctuated by a few Swedish words now and again."

Hunter was pleased that Ravage liked flowers. A robot liking flowers? It brought a pleased smile to the singer's lips. He was loving this Nexus place already and wondered what other surprises he'd bump into along the way.

"You like the smell of oil and diesel? Most humans don't like those since they are poisonous to us. But then to you I can understand why you'd like those over citrus fruits. I myself love the smell of strawberry shampoo and some perfumes."

He giggled a little at Ravage discussing that she could smell if someone had just had sex. Well, what about now? Hunter had laid with his partner, Gilly, last night so the scent of sex should be quite strong on the Swede right now.

"Can you smell it on me now? The scent of sex."

[dontpetmeibite]

"Of course, but it would have been impolite to mention it. I can smell quite a lot of sex around here, and expect to smell more before the night is over," Ravage says delicately, although she's grinning in a way that's very friendly but not particularly polite.

"Fortunately, it is a smell that I enjoy. There are some organic scents that hurt almost as much as bright lights in my optics hurt, but those are all smells of sickness and rot. Sex is a healthy scent, and a good one, unless there is something dreadfully wrong. Humans smell different from us, because your secretions are different from ours, but we have pheromonal scents as well as you. Most of us don't notice them, but I can't not."

Ravage would probably not like strawberry shampoo, but she's never smelled it. She holds out her wrist to Hunter. "I made this perfume."

It is very odd, probably, because there are notes of ozone and gasoline that are unavoidable; they come from Ravage herself, not the perfume--her current alt-mode is a car, and she produces a strong electromagnetic field. But the scent itself is layers and layers of night blooming white tropical flowers over some kind of incense, and then at the bottom, leather, and some kind of heavy indolic scent.

It's very feminine and not at all demure.

[rockin_thehousedown]

Hunter sniffed her wrist and smiled politely enjoying the scent. It was strange but the singer wasn't about to offend his new mechanical friend because of the gasoline smells. To be honest it didn't smell that bad it was just different.

"It smells interesting. I like the floral tones and the incense. Does Soundwave enjoy it? Gilly likes to smell sandalwood and sometimes floral scents on me. Coconut and strawberry too."

The Swede had a whole drawer of different scents to chose from because he could never make his mind up as to what he wanted to wear each day.

[dontpetmeibite]

"Soundwave enjoys my scents," Ravage said, smiling, "although he enjoys scent and taste and body-feelings more when we are mindlinked. Just as I enjoy sight and hearing and the flow of information through my system more when we are mindlinked. We are both sensory outliers, but our abilities are complementary."

Ravage blinked softly. She was feeling effusively friendly. "I don't like most fruit scents, but strawberries might be nice. Something about citrus is a little offensive to me. I am actually as sensitive to smells as Soundwave is to other people's thoughts. Which has been a great boon to me as a tracker, but when I've had to deal with corpses, or sewage, or swamps...not so much."