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 Posted: Sun Jul 09, 2023 1:34 pm
Quote: The Fireflies (6) : 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 a blue 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. This isn’t the first time they’ve appeared in Destiny City, but no one’s been able to tell where they came from or where they’re going. No matter how quickly you chase them, they always seem to disappear before you can find any answers.
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Posted: Sun Jul 09, 2023 1:53 pm
Even in his childhood years that long predated his awakening, Pasha had a fondness for fireflies. This wasnt an especially unique fondness - lots of people thought that they were pretty, and rightfully so! - but his bond and connection to them had changed so significantly over time that he almost felt like it was something a little more special. Not better than anyone else's love of them. Just special.
He had come to love the little magical glimmers of fireflies that he could summon at will, had come to rely on them for things that had once made him feel useless, but they still could not compare to the real ones that emerged in the summer months. They decorated the humid air and illuminated the tall grass bordering the parks in the city, carrying on with their important duties of staying alight, communicating back and forth in gentle flickers that differed greatly from that of his magic ones. Neither better than the other. Just special.
This fondness for them drew him outside almost nightly in the months when they were especially active, giving him time to admire them and say hello before they tucked themselves safely away for the night. It had been a routine for as long as he could remember, from childhood into his teens, teens to adulthood.
And the weird ones had become a part of that routine too. He almost felt a bit bad thinking of them as weird, but they were. Not in a bad way! They didn't behave like any of the others, and didn't match any of their colors. For a while he had a bit of a worry spiral that someone else had magical firefly powers and that he would have to fight them over it, but when that didn't come to pass and the fireflies arrived again the next year, and the next, he stopped worrying as much and tried to just admire them along with the others.
They were best viewed from a respectful distance, as neat and colorful as they were. It was tempting to chase them, to hold them in his palm to see their light against his skin, but touching these hurt and he wasn't sure why. He'd been bitten by lots of bugs before, and it didn't feel like that. It almost felt like they were actually lightning bugs - actually charged with a little bit of that electricity, as if they had been named after that feature instead. Anyone that he asked about them didn't seem to have any good answers, and the internet thought that he was just making stuff up, so he had settled long ago on not trying to figure out why they gave a little ouch when touched, and chose to hold a pretty charm or pebble to soothe the urge. Maybe they just didn't want to be, and that was fair enough.
Now decades beyond the child that once chased them through grass that once seemed much taller than it was, he was content to just sit nearby and watch. They looked more like tiny fireworks than stars, and as long as he was quiet and let them be, he could feel like it was a secret they shared just with him.
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