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In the warm summer nights, little glowing lights begin to bob and dart through the city. Fireflies are mating, so this isn't uncommon in itself; in the past few days you've probably seen hundreds of fireflies. What makes these lights so unique is that they seem to change color; you might see an orange one, a green one, a red one. They flicker randomly, and something just seems off with them. If you come into contact with one, you will find yourself with a strange electric jolt. They cannot be caught, and will flicker away if you pursue too aggressively. What are they, and what are they doing? --And where are they going? No matter how quickly you chase them, they always seem to disappear before you can find any answers.
The star festival had come like a blessing to the city, at least he thought so, it was the cause of so many decorations covering the city and people helping people. A lot was going on in and around the city and it all seemed good, aside from the reports about some fireworks blinding people. That seemed sort of normal...a bit not - he wasn’t sure. Xi-Wang was hoping that this event wouldn’t include anything bad happening, it happened too often in this city.
Tonight he was out walking, headed home from Gabriel’s dorm room, with his hands shoved into the pockets of a hoodie. It wasn’t too warm out tonight, a bit chilly event, but he was ok with that. The walk home was worth it because of the time spent with the other.
While walking he did, once or twice, consider powering up as it would cut down on his travel time to get home. Not to mention he could do some energy gathering on the way, it was a nice cool night out, it would be a worthwhile way to spend a bit of time before going home to crash - he was tired. It was just as he was moving to find a place to power up that he spotted the first bit of light. It looked like a firefly… only it wasn’t. The color was wrong. Fireflies weren’t blue...that was impossible. He was sure he’d once even seen a youtube video talking about how blue was a difficult and thus rare color to find in nature. It was something he’d found on youtube late one night, while wandering around and clicking on various videos, and from there he’d fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole. It was an interesting topic - very interesting. Blue, in nature, wasn’t a created pigment but rather it was due to structures and light being reflected.
So how was this thing shining blue? It was clearly light bouncing….but light from what when it was night? Light from itself, maybe, and then bouncing off some sort of structures? So it made its own light and had the structures needed to bounce the light back just right to show blue?
Watching for several moments, as the insect winked in and out of place, Xi-Wang finally got to moving towards it. He wasn’t looking to catch it but he did want to get a close look at it.
As he got close it seemed to...vanish? Or maybe it flew off faster than it could wink again and so he missed where it went? Pouting he pulled out his phone and sent a text to Gabriel to tell him what he’d seen - it was amazing after all. With the text sent Xi-Wang turned around and headed back the way he’d come, since he’d walked a good distance all in the pursuit of the insect. Getting back to where he’d been when he’d first noticed it he went back to heading home, he really was tired. Tonight would be one of those nights where he fell into the embrace of sleep with all the willingness of a lover falling into their partners arms. He wanted sleep so bad...and he wanted to dream.
That blue light though was still in his mind, even as he got home and toed off his shoes. Hopefully he’d see another one, soon, and could maybe get a close look at it. He was curious - very curious...even if he was weary of things in this city.
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