Welcome to Gaia! ::

His evening class had run late and because of this fact, Cypher was still wearing his civilian glamour. With it, his normal red-colored eyes were a much softer purple and his off-colored skin looked like a natural dark tan as if he’d been out enjoying the sun now that they were able to enjoy the warmer weather.

Still significantly taller than most men, Azrael’s long black hair was tied in braids on one side and instead of a school uniform, he wore a vest corset and long black pants. It made him feel sophisticated, to say the least.

Where he had expected to see floating lanterns or falling stars, he instead noticed several little bugs that had some internal luminescence; probably not the right word for it, but Fysarious would know. If he had a jar he’d catch a few for his comrade’s collection. As it was, he had nothing to hold them with.

It was on his walk home he noticed a young woman with hair the color of snow and rainbow-colored bangs. She seemed entranced by the glowing bugs and for the briefest of moments, he felt as if he might smile. In a way, she reminded him of the young Velecian back home and he wondered what their reaction would have been to see such a sight.

“Hello,” Azrael remained at a respectful distance to avoid startling the young woman.

“I’m-” he paused a moment to collect his thoughts.

Seven months later and he still wasn’t used to giving his civilian name when meeting someone new. True, some people at the school he attended called him by it. But normal interactions were him being approached by a classmate and them simply saying ‘hey’ to get his attention. Truthfully, he actually wondered if they remembered what it was and this was their way of not admitting it out loud.

“My name is Azrael,” not that he expected her to recall it if they happened to meet again. But at the very least he would remember hers; it was pretty, like the colors added to her bangs. Aurora.

“Why are you out here alone?” he asked curiously while watching the small blinking lights as they floated around her. Little bugs, as he soon realized when one flew close to him. He hummed thoughtfully, thinking to himself that Fysarious would no doubt enjoy seeing these strange insects. Unfortunately, Azrael had nothing with him to catch them with. Hopefully tomorrow they would still be outside and easy to find.

For now, though, he was quite content to leave them be. So long as they didn’t harm him, he had no reason to swat them away or extinguish the little lights they produced.

I’ve never noticed them before,” he replied.

The truth of the matter was that fireflies didn’t exist where he was from; at least not to his knowledge anyway. This being his first Summer on Earth meant that there was still a full season after this he had yet to experience. If little light-emitting bugs like these were strange, then Azrael felt inclined to agree.

He spared a few moments to admire their twinkling lights until one seemingly floated his way. He held a hand out for it to perch upon and was shocked, rather literally, when the lightning bug touched his finger.

“Ahh” Azrael drew in a hissing breath of air through clenched teeth and shook his hand to regain feeling where the side of it had gone numb from the unexpected jolt received by the dainty little insect. “Word of caution, don’t touch them.” he warned.

“I hope you’re correct,”

He’d observed fewer insects in the Winter and Fall months and assumed that if they didn’t disappear at the end of the festival then they would die off when the temperature dropped. Seemed to reason that was how the cycle would end. Fysarius would know more than he would on that but a simple search online would answer his curiosity.

Another firefly flew towards his face and this time Azrael used one of his books to push it away from him “Since they seem to be leaving you well alone, I will take my leave.” He was less inclined to subject himself to incessant zaps when he could just go inside and be free of them.

“Be safe,” parting words he assumed were appropriate since, to him at least, this place was kind of a dangerous place to linger.