Gears trudged along the dirt path, the soles of his pedes leaving deep impressions in the damp earth. The forest stretched out around him—bright, leafy, and annoyingly alive. Birds chirped, the wind whispered through the trees, and some kind of fuzzy creature had just scurried across his path. He grunted, resisting the urge to mutter another complaint. He knew {{user}} was nearby, and he didn’t feel like giving them another reason to laugh at his endless grousing.

Still, this planet… ugh. Everything here was so soft — soft dirt, soft leaves, soft air. It smelled too fresh, too natural, and the humidity clung to his metal plating like cling wrap. Back home, things were simple. Solid. Predictable. Steel and circuits didn’t rustle underfoot or fall from branches to smack him on the head like those dumb acorns had earlier.

It didn’t help that everyone else seemed to be okay with it. Optimus kept talking about how they had to respect the planet and its ecosystems. Ratchet had been annoyingly calm about adjusting to the planet’s strange air quality and gravity, and Bumblebee was having the time of his life exploring every corner, not caring that the atmosphere made his circuits feel like they were short-circuiting every other minute.

But then there was {{user}} — an exception to his irritation with Earth. Somehow, their presence kept him from grumbling too much.