[rd][fic][TFA] Teatime Ninjas I

[sakon76]

Teatime 1
by K. Stonham
first released 25th October 2011


The human girl had horrible manners. Not, Prowl acknowledged, that he was any bastion of social grace himself. But still... she ate with her mouth open. She cleaned out her olofactory sensors in public. And while he supposed her personal maintenance standards were in keeping with the rest of her species, why, for the love of Primus, did she feel no shame about her displays of eruction or flatulence whilst among other sentient beings?

Still, he was not her creator, her personality was more tolerable than certain of his erstwhile crewmates, and Sari was determined to be useful.

It was not Prowl's place to correct her failings.

That, of course, changed when Sari lost her father and her home in one fell swoop and had no one to turn to but them.

He mentally sneered at her father's business associate. Was the man so blinded by greed and venality as to punish and potentially kill the child, abandoning all pretences of social obligation? Prowl's opinion of the man and his species dropped several notches.

The Autobots took her in, of course; they all held some affection for the girl, regardless of her possession of the Allspark-imbued key, and being civilizied beings it was unthinkable to act in the same callous way her own kind had.

That said, once she was over the shock and accustomed to her new circumstances, he quietly made plans of his own.

* * *

"School?!" Sari shrieked.

"A young sentient of your comparative age," Ratchet said, bending down and poking a finger at her, "has no business neglecting their education."

"But... but what if you guys need me?" she flailed, grasping at straws. "I can't be stuck there all day!"

"It is not 'all day'," Prowl said from where he leaned against the wall. "It is a mere seven hours, including multiple recesses and a break for sustenance." His own training hadn't been so lenient, but the way of the ninjabot was widely acknowledged to be a strenuous one.

"If we need you, Sari, we can come get you," Optimus reminded her.

"But I want to stay with you guys!" she pleaded, eyes wide and teary.

"Aw, come on, Sari, it won't be that bad," Bulkhead soothed. "I mean, you'll be with lots of other kids your age, you'll get to make some new friends...."

"What's wrong with the friends I've got?" she demanded hotly, glaring at all of them.

"Yeah!" Bumblebee stuck up for the tiny human. "Why can't she stay here and learn from us?"

"Learn what, precisely?" Ratchet snorted. "How to play video games?"

"It's a valuable life skill!" Bumblebee defended his pastime.

"Regardless," Optimus cut in, "this is not up for discussion. Sari," he said, kneeling down to be closer to the girl, "your father programmed a tutorbot for you to make sure you received all the education a human your age requires. But since Powell C. Porter has taken him from you, it is now up to us to make sure you keep receiving human-appropriate education, and none of us are experts in that field. So do you understand why you have to go to school?"

She looked up at him, then looked away. "Yes," she mumbled, crossing her arms. "I still don't have to like it, though."

* * *

The school Sari was enrolled in was a mere dozen kliks from their base. Bumblebee had been denied the opportunity to drop her off, as Prowl and Ratchet both believed the temptation to play "hooky" would be too great for both of them. Instead, Bulkhead took her to school every morning. Ratchet's role was to make sure she had all her schoolwork every day and the necessary coverings for her frail form to cope with the changeable Earth climate. Optimus supervised her homework time, making sure her assignments were all completed. Prowl made sure her nutritional requirements were met, making and packing a lunch each day in the brightly-colored steel box she had chosen. And, after much pleading on both of their parts, Bumblebee was allowed to pick her up after school and play games with Sari for a couple hours.

Prowl wasn't sure if she was aware of the fact that each of them checked in on her throughout the course of her day. She was far more aware of them in their vehicle modes than most humans were, but their sensors could easily detect her in her second-story classroom while they were parked a discreet block away. Perhaps a bit out of her own sensory range.

It was his turn to do so this day, and Prowl parked at a curb just outside the Computron Elementary School's fenced play area, materializing his policeman hologram as camouflage while he observed the children at their lunchtime.

Sari sat at a table, picking at the remnants of her fuel as the other children laughed and ran and played with each other, ignoring her.

She was all alone, and as Prowl watched a set of children started making faces at her behind her back.

Something in him... Prowl cycled the planet's atmosphere, automatically trying to locate, isolate, and disperse the pain before realizing it wasn't physical.

"Hey." His holoform caught the attention of one of the children lined up inside the fence, waiting for a chance at the swings. He nodded toward Sari. "Why is no one playing with that girl?"

The boy, who had auburn curls and looked somewhat familiar, though Prowl couldn't place quite why, followed his gesture to Sari, then looked back at the hologram. "She's rude," he said quietly.

"Is she," Prowl said. He'd hoped that it wouldn't be an issue among her peers, that she would learn better from them... Primus, that it was even his own cultural bias speaking! But apparently not.

"Yeah." The boy nodded. "She's loud and talks over people and crams her food in her mouth and picks her nose...."

Sari's list of failings went on, but Prowl only half-paid attention as he thought and made plans with the rest of his CPU. "I see," he said when the boy wound down. "Thank you." The hologram disappeared and his engine roared to life as he drove down the road, consulting Detroit's local internet listings to research suitable academies.

"Whoa," the boy said, unnoticed, his face pressed against the chain-link fence as he watched the Autobot drive away.

* * *

It took visits to three different schools before Prowl found one that he thought would work.

Since Sari was not learning manners from her peers, he reasoned, she would have to learn it from a teacher.

Madame Ito was a tiny elderly human. Her silver hair was drawn back into a tight bun, and she was graceful as she accepted the token gift of an energon flower that Prowl had brought to initiate their acquaintance. They both sat in Japanese seiza style, which was comfortably akin to one of the traditional seating stances a cyberninja learned. She sipped at a bowl of hot, thick, frothy green tea; Prowl sipped at a much larger bowl of thick malachite-infused oil.

It was, in its silence, very like a quiet afternoon with his late sensei.

"You wish her to study with me?" asked the human woman eventually. She had seemed impressed with Prowl's mastery of the tea ceremony. He, in turn, had explained that it was similar to the customs of his own people.

"Yes. She is suffering the ostracism of her peers for her lack of the manners her father never thought to teach her."

"Hmm." Madame Ito sipped at her drink again, then set the bowl down, raising her eyes to Prowl. "Bring her to me next Tuesday, after she is done with her classes for the day. You will stay for the session, and we shall see."

* * *

"What?!" Sari and Bumblebee screeched in symphony.

"You can't do that!" Bumblebee added.

"I can, and have the authorization of both Ratchet and Optimus Prime to do so," Prowl told them implacably.

"I'm already going to school," Sari protested. "Isn't that enough?"

"You are not making friends there, and according to what I have learned, it is because your lack of manners repels them," Prowl replied. "It is all well and good that you are our friend, Sari, but companionship among your own species is a requisite balance."

"But I don't want to," she half-cried, half-whined.

"It's only a trial period, right?" Bulkhead offered, looking at Prowl, who nodded. "See, it's not that bad. And if you really hate it, I'm sure Prowl'll let you stop, right?" he added.

Prowl gave no such indication, and Bulkhead's expression fell.

"This sucks," Sari muttered.

"Yeah," Bumblebee agreed. Then he looked up defiantly at Prowl. "Fine, but if you get her Tuesday evenings, I get her all Saturday!"

"You'll have to make that deal with Optimus and Ratchet," Prowl said, turning to leave.

Regardless, he was the one to pick up Sari from school the following Tuesday. Sitting on the back of his altmode, clutching tight to his holoform, her helmet shielding her eyes from the wind, she was reluctant but resigned.

It was a first step.

*~*~*

Author's Note: I described this series in my head to people at BotCon and was made to promise that I'd get around to writing the Teatime Ninjas series, so here's the beginning of it....

Comments

[mmouse15.livejournal.com]

Whoo-hoo, teatime! I love tea ceremonies, and I love this start, and hurray for a fic from you!

[femme4jack.livejournal.com]

Oh, despite that fact that Sari and the animation style utterly repelled me from watching TFA (I need to give it another chance, I really do - Ninjabots are so amazing), I LOVE this premise, and can't wait to see you continue.

As always, there is a subtle humor that weaves its way through this, as well as so many signs of your delightful and deviously creative mind at work. Looking forward to more.

I love Tea Ceremonies. *yearns to visit Japan again*

[morgie.livejournal.com]

I now have Teatime Ninja Mutant Turtles stuck in my head now.

Cowabunga, dude.