A/N: So this story is based off of a CG animation called Krystal and the Firefly (go figure) done by Greyfirefox and which can be found on Youtube or the Krystal Archive. It's a very well done and very cute animation with our favorite blue vixen, so I decided to make a short little one shot based off of it. Hopefully it will prove enjoyable, now off you go to read it...

-general whitefur

Krystal and the Firefly

By General Whitefur

Dinosaur Planet was a truly beautiful world, that much Krystal was discovering. A few days ago as she had been traveling through the Lylat System she had received a distress signal from the planet, though it hadn't said exactly what had happened it did say that an evil general had taken over and that the dinosaurs on the planet needed help urgently. Krystal's first instinct had been to simply relay the message to the nearest planet and let the authorities there deal with it, but then there had been something within her that had encouraged her to at least go and take a look. She wasn't sure if it had been her sixth sense trying to tell her something or if it had just been an abnormally strong fit of fancy, whatever it was it had made Krystal immediately set a course for the world determined to find some way to help the people there.

Since landing she had managed to make contact with a small flying creature called a Cloudrunner, though he had turned out to be only a child the flying dinosaur had promised to come back with someone who could help her. He had given her a meeting place, a small pond with palm trees nestled between some low grassy hills and told her to wait there until he returned in the morning. Krystal had taken a few things from her ship and made camp there, soon after the sun had set and the area was illuminated by a bright full moon.

Before she decided to settle in and sleep for the night Krystal had made the decision to go through a few practice forms with her staff, paying extra attention to the more practical rather than the more showy ones that she knew. Now however she was sitting on the ground and looking up at the sky. That same feeling had come back to her in the past few minutes, that feeling that had told her she needed to go to this world, though now she was fairly certain it was her sixth sense telling her something.

Whatever her senses were trying to tell her though they were being uncharacteristically vague about, there was one thing she knew however, the world they had led her to was full of life. In fact it reminded her a great deal of her homeworld Cerinia, lush and green, full of interesting smells and peaceful sights. Krystal had been living aboard her small vessel for longer than she cared to think about, and the few times she had left it had simply been to resupply in spaceports and the towns surrounding them. None of them had been as pretty as this place, and certainly none of them had been as peaceful. There were always drunks and disreputable characters living and passing through spaceports, and Krystal had felt especially vulnerable. She was only nineteen and she was without an escort, and from what she had gathered from her telepathy and the looks she consistently got, her attire and her feminine form were...more appealing than was probably good for her in such places. Although Krystal was perfectly capable and perfectly confident in her ability to defend herself against any would be attackers she still felt a certain longing to be protected, to have someone else there to keep unfriendly and unwanted people away. That was something she hadn't had in quite awhile.

Her reverie was broken when she felt herself give in to an irresistible urge to yawn. As she closed her eyes and gave into the urge she realized just how tired she was. She had been doing a great deal of traveling, and the nights here on this world were deliciously warm.

Just as she finished her yawn her keen vulpine ears picked up on something, a very faint buzzing nearby. "Huh?" She said as she looked to her right. A single dot of yellow rose out of the tall grass near the pond and flew somewhat lazily toward her, a firefly. It went up to her right eye and seemed to almost gaze into it for a moment before flying a bit further to settle briefly on her nose. Krystal sat completely still and simply gazed at it. She hadn't had a firefly land on her nose since she was a little girl. Then after barely a moment the little yellow dot lifted off her nose and began to fly away. "Hmmm."

Looking up into the sky to follow the firefly's ascent she breathed in the air around her. Alive, verdant, filled with all the things she had been missing since losing her world. She wasn't certain what the days ahead held for her but there was one thing she knew now, things were going to get better.