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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.
Miteksi had thought he was lucky: how cool was it to get new outer space powers just in time for summer break? He could be flipping across all the buildings like a very shiny ninja, managing physical feats that had previously been impossible. He could explore the Moon, which was just blatantly wild and nonsensical. And a bunch of his family was even in on it! So he didn’t have to burden himself with keeping a secret from every single important person in his life. He’d thought it was great timing! Such luck!
But perhaps unsurprisingly, Miteksi had thought wrong, because most of his family (excluding Teyla, of course) treated this Knight thing like work, which made Miteksi just the tiniest bit… less enthusiastic about it-
Well, no, not ‘less enthusiastic.’ Just acutely aware of the people preventing his freedoms.
His parents didn’t know what he was (and nor would they!), but Uncle Eli had a stupid long list of rules about powering up, with ‘Not Alone’ being number one, top of the list, most important. Because he was ‘too young’ and ‘too reckless,’ and ‘it was dangerous,’ and he ‘couldn’t be trusted not to do something stupid.’ The dangers and horrors did admittedly feel very far off, but the Moon trusted him, and that was more pertinent than Uncle Eli’s opinion on the matter, thank you very much.
Still, Elias and Thaddeus and their cat were making a truly insurmountable effort to not let him Do What He Wanted unsupervised. One of the adults asked after him daily, and Miteksi had spotted their fat gray feline lounging about in the flower beds in front of his house. Thad and Eli could be ignored pretty easily, but Miros… Miros would know if Miteksi tried to sneak out. Miros would report to them if Miteksi tried any funny business, and he was, quite frankly, weirdly difficult to get rid of.
Miteksi’s mother had even started feeding him, making it even less likely for Miros to find a reason to go away.
Ultimately, it was whatever. It was three pairs of eyes he had to duck around, sure, but the allure of being a Magical Boy was far too great to ignore (and he didn’t feel inclined to have his uncle babysit him every time he wanted to power up). It just meant Miteksi had to get crafty. And sneaky. And make use of all the resources available to him.
His mother and her apparent newfound love of stray cats was his greatest asset. If he ignored Eli’s, Thad’s, Teyla’s texts, someone would message her. As long as he was physically in her line of sight, she’d say as much: “What’s he doing? Oh, he’s fine! Sleeping on the couch, it looks like. You wanted him to look after Teyla tonight? Wow, that’s the third time in as many days. You better be paying him well. But, either way, looks like he’s tuckered out. If he hasn’t answered your messages, he must just be tired. Maybe tomorrow!”
Sweet, clueless woman.
Elias was probably annoyed and expecting them to patrol together, but… Miteksi would rather have a go at it alone. And with Miros’ face peering up over the windowsill from outside to corroborate his mother’s story… He should be in the clear, so long as the Guardian didn’t see him leave the house- Which he wouldn’t, because his gem of a mother would offer him any freshly leftover food from their dinner, and Miteksi would silently slip out the backdoor, taking extra care to avoid routes that would get him spotted.
He couldn’t power up until he was far enough away. He couldn’t be gone for more than- geeze, thirty minutes? An hour, tops, if he was hoping for his evening soiree to go unnoticed. And he was hoping it would. Miteksi still had to be sparing with the deception. He didn’t know what Elias would do if Miteksi escaped and evaded him too often, but he could conjure a few thoughts on the matter that were… less than ideal.
So just a quick jaunt under a pretty sky glistening with the colorful trails of shooting stars. Not much longer than it would take Mirosnjha to savor his meal, but long enough for Miteksi to enjoy the adventure.
[WC: 716]
