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The Lantern Festival (9) : Scientists have been hard at work trying to understand the strange, glowing qualities of the luminescent caterpillars found in the caves by the reservoir. The caterpillars still shrivel up if they are taken out of the caves but their glowing secretions have been processed into an organic paste that can withstand the outside world. The city is selling paper lanterns infused with various seeds. The glow paste is full of minerals to support healthy plant growth without risking damage to the environment; all lantern purchases come with a small packet of activating power that will heat the paste up enough to mimic the effects of a candle without the concerns of flammability. When the glow paste loses its heat, the lantern will return to the Earth and upon the first rain (or any contact with water) the paper will dissolve and the seeds may begin to grow. All proceeds from the lanterns are put right back into the community to support local conservation and environmental protection efforts.
Noctua had been equal parts dreading and excitedly anticipating this meeting. She'd pushed it off for conflicting reasons, one of them being that she wanted to make absolutely certain that the youmaglia in her brain was working the way she and Benitoite had planned. That it was helping her sleep effectively and only helping her sleep. That there were no unintended side effects or anything strange happening to her before she told... well... anyone outside of Benitoite. But then it had all been confirmed that the installation had been a success and well... Noctua had avoided it. Over and over. She'd opened her tablet and reached for Meridiana's contact information... only to close it again and tell herself tomorrow.
She didn't have to reach far into herself to understand why. She knew why. She just didn't like it. She didn't like that despite all of the healing and progress that she'd made over the short period of time that she'd been able to sleep, she still worried. She worried that she may slip back into old ways. Worried that the youmaglia would somehow die within her, wither away, and she'd relapse. She worried that the ill effects were still to come and they'd manifest in the worst possible ways. She worried when these worries kept her up at night that this was it. This was when things went back to the way they had been.
She worried that Meridiana wouldn't want her anymore.
That was the biggest reason, if she was totally honest with herself, for not seeking out the other senshi sooner. That maybe Meridiana had only kept Noctua around out of a sense of duty or pity. She worried that Meridiana would look at her now and find no value in her, now that she was better, and leave her. Worried that her only appeal was in that she had been fundamentally broken and beyond that... she was uninteresting. That she was a thing to be fixed and once she was, who cared? Or worse, that Meridiana would think of her as a monster or a puppet for the negaverse with the implant. She worried that Meridiana would look at her, call her a freak, and leave her forever. And if she was being honest with herself, she had worried the same thing with Benitoite, though he had quashed those worried easily and quickly with his constant check ins and fussing.
And of course Noctua knew, rationally even if distantly, that if she had given Meridiana the chance, she would have checked in as much as Benitoite had. She would have been there for the whole process but... but...
But what if she hadn't?
And god almighty, would that have killed Noctua...
Isn't that what you did, though?
That same, irritating, rational, usually correct voice whispered to her again as she huffed, arranging the small picnic of sandwiches and bags of chips. Because yeah. Yeah she had. She'd pushed Meridiana away and in so doing effectively abandoned her before she could abandon Noctua... God, she was starting to sound like Doctor Stevens. Because it seemed like now that the larger issue of her lack of sleep was solved, Noctua had no shortage of issues to sort through...
And those could wait.
Instead, Noctua took a deep breath through her nose, let it out through her mouth, and waited. She'd already called Meridiana, and one of two things would happen. Either Meridiana would show or she wouldn't. Noctua would go from there once that bridge was crossed. One breath, one step, one choice at a time, just like Doctor Steven's had taught her.
