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Prompt: A cold day without snow
//It's building up faster than I can clear it. Stay en route, I'll catch up.// Silverbolt's voice over the comm was steady, despite the fact that it was no flyer's favorite sensation to fly with iced-up wings.
//Don't be silly, it's not as if there's any sort of schedule for us to keep,// Skyfire commed back. //There, this should work-// The databurst he returned included a set of coordinates for a frozen lake a few klicks ahead. //It's long enough for both of us to take off again.// Despite Earth alt modes, neither he nor Silverbolt were limited to the strict requirements that their alts demanded for take off and landing conditions, but the reality was that any plane as large as a Concorde needed space to taxi up to speed.
//Preparing to land now.// Silverbolt replied tersely.
They made it down without issue, although Skyfire was not sure after if he was grateful to have already been on the ground for the spark-stopping moment when the ice on Silverbolt's wings cause the younger jet to sideslip dangerously just a few pix off the ground. Their exhaust trails were invisible to human vision against the low-hanging clouds, but visible to Cybertronian vision (which edged considerably into both the infrared and ultraviolet) quite clearly as a pair of warmer ribbons against the grey. Skyfire transformed while Silverbolt taxied carefully across the ice- their sensors could detect that the temperature was well below freezing but not whether it covered air pockets.
"Transform, and I'll help you get it off. If you'd like." Skyfire offered.
"It's okay, I can de-ice as long as it's not building up while I fly," Silverbolt transformed anyway, looking around. It would have been barren - a lake in northern Minnesota, almost to the Canadian border, on a cloudy winter day. There wasn't even any snow to soften the landscape, only crystalline frost and rime on the branches of the tree, where fog off the lake had frozen solid. The fuzz on the branches, though, was oddly beautiful, white ice against the black trees and grey grass and ice. Some ice had accumulated in the lee of the taller trees from storms earlier in the year. "It shouldn't take but a few minutes."
"Are you sure?" Skyfire offered again. Silverbolt shrugged.
"If you want to. I don't really mind. It's not very often that I have a chance to just stop and look around, you know? It seems like we're always looking for something, or in a hurry to get somewhere."
Skyfire nodded, moving to stand behind him, close enough that Silverbolt could feel the exhaust from the shuttle's vents hot on his plating. "I can understand that. It's one of the things-" He paused, clearly rephrasing what he had been about to say. "It was one of the reasons I choose to go to the science academy rather than into transport like the others commissioned at the same time as I was." He set his hands - surprisingly warm- on the flat flight surface of Silverbolt's wings, using the heat of his frame to melt the skin of ice. They were both silent for a long moment, before Skyfire continued. "It's beautiful here, isn't it? On Cybertron, we had acid rain, and even hail sometimes, but nothing like the weather here. The clouds, the frost- even the snow." He shook his head. "It's amazing."
"Is that why-" Silverbolt asked, and immediately regretted it. He was supposed to be the tactful one!
"Why I ended up crashing into the ice?" Skyfire said, gently and a little ruefully. "Part of it. I'd never flown in anything like it, not that close to a planetary surface, although some of the storms in the atmospheres of the gas giants are incredible in and of themselves. Partially... partially, well, I should have been more cautious. Some things, we have to learn by experience."
"Fireflight's going to be brilliant then, someday."
Skyfire actually laughed. "True. But you seem to learn from other people's mistakes."
Silverbolt's spark leapt at that, and he couldn't help smiling at Skyfire. "I try to."