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The Meteor Shower (3) : It wouldn't be a star festival without a meteor shower! Right on time, a beautiful array of shooting stars graces the night sky. This time of year is unnaturally clear and it's incredibly easy to see the stars. Most meteor fragments appear to be little white or yellow lights streaming across the sky, but if you watch closely enough you may find that some of them seem to be a whole rainbow of colors. The scientists have reported that it's just different components burning up as they enter the atmosphere, but there's something undeniably magical about it.

Night had fallen and the sky was alright with beautiful streaks of color. It was finally Star Fest, Halia's favorite time of year. While there were still some unsavory creatures that could appear, like the other holiday times at the end of the year, this particular season always seemed extra magical. One year ago, she had become Aruna. One year ago, her entire life had changed. And now? Now she was an Eternal senshi in her own right.

She had texted Mason, asking if he was free for magical things, sending a little sparkly emoji along with where to meet, and headed out to her usual spot to go transform. Grinning to herself, she took a moment to admire her fuku before going to wait for her friend. She stayed hidden for now, remembering how lovely it was when she had introduced Murikabushi to Tempesti and he had appeared with all of the dramatic flair possible, planning to do a take on that. After all, this was a big reveal, and something as big as a newly minted Eternal senshi deserved a bit of dramatics.

Mason had nothing but time for magical things - which was good, because all that kept happening was magical things. He didn’t understand how he had lived in this town his entire life, and been–functionally asleep the entire time. He’d always enjoyed the Destiny City StarFest, but now it was like…

It was like he’d been seeing the whole thing through a cloudy mask, unaware that it was supposed to look any different. Now, the mask was gone, his eyes were clear, and magic - real magic - was absolutely everywhere.

Madeline was starting to worry about him, starting to mention phrases like ‘work-life balance’ and ‘putting yourself in harms way’ when magic stuff came up; he’d been able to shrug her off, for now, but he was sure that when college rolled around, she would become much more annoying about the whole thing.

But that was a future-Mason problem. Tonight was a night for zero problems, hopefully; it was Halia’s turn for a little surprise, though admittedly he had no idea what kind of surprise it might be. Still, he’d given his sister a hug and told her not to wait up for him and hurried his way along to their spot, ducking into a clump of trees to power himself up - even with the warm summer air, the fresh, clean scent that accompanied the little blowing leaves around him never failed to make him smile.

“Aruna?” Blarney called, stepping out from the cover of the trees. “Hellloooo? Did I beat you here?”

Aruna's eyes lit up when she heard Blarney call out for her. Show time. Grinning to herself, she leapt off a roof and landed elegantly before him, skirt billowing out behind her dramatically and swooshing as she stood.

Confidence radiated from her as she stood with her arms outstretched. “Ta-da~!” Her fuku had changed, and there were small wings at her hips, indicating her Eternal status. She practically radiated excitement as she turned for him to see all of her new look, then turned back to grin at him.

Blarney felt her before he saw her, and he turned to look, just in time to catch the full performance. A grin broke out on his face - her outfit was different, which from his understanding meant she was different. She had - grown, in some way, and the joy was radiating off her.

“Holy cats!” Blarney said with a laugh. “Look at you! Look–are those wings?” Blarney laughed again, eyebrows raised, delight clear on his face. “You look amazing! Congrats! Congrats, right? This isn’t just, like, aesthetic?” Blarney paused, focusing more on the internal radar he came equipped with nowadays - in fact, the closest point of reference he had was…

Miss Garde. And she was a Knight.

“Congrats,” Blarney repeated, moving to catch her up in a hug. “I’m–is it weird to say that I’m proud of you? I know we just met like ten minutes ago basically but…” Blarney shrugged and gave her another broad smile. “But this suits you. I’m happy for you, ‘Runa. Oh, hey! This is so not a good enough congratulations present, but I picked this up for you,” Blarney said, digging into his pocket until he pulled out two matching violet StarCharms and held one out to her. “We match,” he added with a shy little smile.

Aruna beamed at him, tossing the length of her skirt behind her dramatically. “Thank you!” She laughed and nodded at him. “I'm an Eternal senshi now, so I sort of …I guess you could call it levelling up?”

She squeaked and laughed as she was scooped up into a hug, arms going around him to return it, even if her heart was beating just a little faster. “Thank you… I've worked really hard for this.” She smiled warmly up at him, getting lost in the moment briefly before speaking again. “I awakened as Aruna last year during Starfest last year, so it's…. Poetic that I reached this now, during Starfest again.” The nickname he gave her made her feel almost giddy, warmth blooming in her chest.

“Just last year?” Blarney said, surprised in spite of himself. He would’ve thought it would’ve been much longer than that, just based on the sheer amount of knowledge Aruna was constantly dropping on his head. “Wow. That’s–I mean, way to rock it out, superstar,” he said, giving her a high five. “Can you do any new magic with your new get-up?” Blarney paused, his grin wide. “Can you fly with those things?”

Praise always made Aruna feel tingly in a good way, but this felt even better. “Just a year, yeah. But….it really does feel much longer than that.” When she looked back on it, one year was truly such a short time to have experienced everything she had.

“Yes, I've got access to stronger magic!” She laughed and shook her head though at his other question. “The wings are purely cosmetic.” She reached back to nudge one, then gestured at it. “You can….touch it if you want? It's just part of my fuku.”

Blarney did want. He reached out and gently brushed his fingers against the wings. They were curiously soft - he didn’t think they were actually feathered, but they were delicate like real wings. “That’s so cool,” Blarney said, dropping his fingers away. “I wonder if I’ll get wings someday,” he said, glancing down at his own outfit, which remained exactly the same it had been since the moment it had manifested from whatever closet housed magical outfits until they were needed.

“What kinda magic?” Blarney asked. “More earthshakin’ stuff?”

“I think knights get capes…” Her voice was soft as she became all too aware of just how close he was to her. So what if her heart was beating faster or her face felt hot? It was just excitement. Or something.

“Stronger landslides, more or less, yeah. I can….. finally stand on my own and protect the people I care about instead of feeling useless. I can fight just as hard as them now, and they don't have to worry about me or protect me.” There was sadness and pain in her voice as she thought back once again to that battle. If she had been stronger then, would it have made any difference?

Blarney frowned, somewhere between sympathetic and confused. “You’ve never been useless,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You’ve been standing on your own as long as I’ve known you, ‘Runa, what are you even talking about?” He tilted his head in genuine consternation, simply not understanding.

“And anyway, I’m pretty sure your friends will always worry about and protect you. That’s what friends are supposed to do.”

“I….told you before. About the Calamitous Hollow….” Her eyes couldn't meet his as she spoke, face illuminated only by the streaks of color and light in the sky. “I felt like I couldn't do anything. Like I was too weak to make a difference. And it's not the first time I felt that way as a senshi either. Time after time, I find myself in situations where if only I had been a bit stronger, maybe I could have done more, made somehow more of a difference. If I was this strong a few months ago, maybe I wouldn't still……” She shook her head, not finishing the sentence. She hadn't told anyone about the nightmares, not a single soul. “My point is that I can…. I can make a difference now. More than I could before. And it feels freeing in a way I hadn't thought about.”

Blarney frowned slightly; he hated when she talked like this, but so far he hadn’t been successful at changing her thought process about it. Normally, he would’ve pushed her about it - still what? - but tonight was supposed to be a happy occasion, so he shook his head to clear it and gave her a bright smile instead.

“Well, now you’re a billion times stronger than me, instead of just a million. You gonna show me what you can do now or do I have to go round up a youma for you to dust?”

Aruna laughed softly, feeling warm and light. “You're sweet, you know that?” His smile somehow seemed even brighter than the shooting stars above them, though she pushed that thought aside.

“I could show you, but I vote we go patrol and see if we can find anything worth fighting first. Deal?”

“Deal,” Blarney agreed. “It can’t be that hard to find a bad guy ‘round here somewhere, so let’s go show ‘em what Eternal Sailor Aruna can do.”