Quote:
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.
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The blinking lights weren’t new for Mel. Firefly’s weren’t new. They were age old bugs that were highly entertaining to catch and chase after as the nights got darker. Moths were hard too but the little butt glowers were harder to track in the dark, moths stuck to the lights too much to make it much of a challenge for the guardian cat. So why exactly was he so excited right now? Was it because there thousands of them out and it was so much fun to race into tall grass sending the bugs flying in a mass of light? Because it was a challenge and overall fun?

It was for all of that but even more! His golden eyes have started to see multiple colors when it came to chasing the bugs. There were red ones. Green ones. Orange ones and blue ones. Even purple ones but those were harder to spot. It never occured to the cat to wonder where the colors came from, he only enjoyed the new experience. Had he been asked he might have said something like ‘they were painted’ or ‘its magic’ or some other nonsensical answer. And while the new colors were indeed ‘magic’ the large cat didn’t actually care about the whys or the hows only that it was. He didn’t care about what it could mean or what it represented. Only that it was fun. Besides, even if it had crossed his little kitty brain that something was wrong, he wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it. Magic was magic and he was just a large cat who apparently could store fish snacks away in a space subpocket and shoot a laser from his forehead occasionally. A perfectly ordinary space cat!

So what did the perfectly ordinary space cat do? He chased the lightning bugs of course. The savannah guardian raced through the shaggy grass of one of the overgrown small parks that dotted the city, bouncing and giggling as he sent the bugs exploding into the sky. A rainbow of flickering lights blooming around him as he played. The only time he stopped to even think about the dangers of the situation was when he caught one of the brightly colored little sparks of light and got a little shock. It was like he just got zapped with static electricity. It didn’t hurt but it was a surprise. Normal lighting bugs definitely didn’t do that!

With a slight frown the cat watched the colored lights flicker on and off, trying to figure out what was going on but it didn’t take him long at all to give up. Thinking wasn’t his strong suit and ultimately it didn’t matter to him. So with a shake of his head, a wiggle of his butt, and a swish of his tail the guardian went back to playing. This time more prepared for the little zips and zaps from the colored bugs when he caught them. Magic smagic… what did he care about the mechanics behind it as long as it was entertaining and didn’t cause anyone any real harm.