TFP: Melodies

    Knockout hummed a tune as he worked.

It was an old tune, and he didn't quite remember where it came from. The words, long forgotten, rang in his audios just out of reach.

The melody seemed too gentle and too familiar to be anything he normally listened to. The harsh vocals of human pop music didn't fit the image. He racked his data storage, trying to find a name for this unknown song.

Then, out of nowhere, it came back to him in a memory:

    "Come down and refuel, Knockout." A pleasant female voice sang in Cybertronian tongue.
"Coming, Mom!" A spunky red Cybertronian answered, slowly getting up from the datapad he was reading. He ran down the stairs leading to the dinner table.
A healthy serving of low-grade Energon was sitting on his plate. His mother and father were sitting on either side of the table. Smiling. Happy.
"Well, what took you so long?" His father asked.
"I was reading a book on anatomy. It's so fascinating! But sorry." He replied, digging in to his meal.
"Anatomy? What an interesting topic, dear." His mother said.
It took a while for him to reply, for his mouth was full. He swallowed and said, "Yeah! I want to be a doctor when I grow up!"
    The meal was soon over, and it was time for the little Mech to recharge. His mother was standing beside his berth.
"Sing me a lullaby." He fussed. "I won't go to sleep without one."
"Aren't you a little old for a lullaby?" His mother chuckled.
"You're right. But I want to remember one last song." He locked optics with her and asked again. "Please?"
His mother took a deep breath and began singing. It started out soft, with beautiful undertones. Crescendoing slowly, she went into the melody. The Cybertronian words sang about olden times, full of magic and glory. Legends unfolded on her singsong voice.
He was getting tired, and struggled to keep his optics open as she finished, and began backing out of the room. She whispered goodnight, shutting the door gently as she left.

    As the memory faded out, Knockout realized he was singing the words of the lullaby, barely making sense of their meaning until he remembered.

Such a beautiful memory of his childhood. There weren't many of them left in his war-torn processor, but those he could find he savored. Memories of their home world not ravaged by war were rare in the Decepticon ranks, and those who remembered told their memories fondly to those who's were battered and beaten out of them long ago.

But the most important part of this memory were the words. Words of a dead culture, forgotten in the midst of civil war. No one knew, or even remembered they knew the spoken tongue of the Cybertronian race. Whatever old tomes detailing and recording the language were scattered and most likely destroyed during the pillaging of the Iacon halls.

Maybe the Prime knew. Knockout entertained the idea as he opened a private log to record the words he remembered. Maybe the Autobots still had a database of Cybertronian. He knew the private log would never be really private, for Soundwave nosed into everything, but he would be happy to share this knowledge.
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    The next day, Knockout couldn't remember the words of the song, and went to his computer to read over the log.

But when he got on, the log was gone. An empty file was in it's place. Someone must of deleted it.

A single lubricant tear sprung in his optics, but he quickly wiped it away, for he knew that Soundwave was watching and maybe mocking him at this very moment.

Then, a message appeared. It was from a Vehicon with a registration number of 8T-3VE, or Steve, as he preferred to be called:
    I can't believe it! Someone must of remembered. Our language. . little bits an pieces of our language on a page published on the public forum by an anonymous. Here's the link! 

Knockout was shocked. He logged out of his private account and went to the forum. Sure enough, his log was there, and over a thousand comments with it as well.

Did Soundwave really publish his log? That sounded pretty unbelievable. Did the TIC, the coldest and most loyal of all Decepticons, really miss home just as much as everyone else?

A comm. link call interrupted his thoughts. He was needed up on the bridge. 

He went off to his duty, humming a familiar melody. 

Feeling better for the first time since Breakdown's passing.