"Hey, Kaibara!" said Kaito excitedly, struggling to see over the windowsill. "What causes eclipses?!"
"Ooooh, good question!" Michiru nodded approvingly at her young charge. The boy had taken to calling her by her last name just because it started with the same three letters his name did. Before answering his question, she turned to address all the other young ones gathered at the local library. "How many of you know what an eclipse is? How many types are there?"
"Two!" Kaito piped up before anyone else could even raise a hand. "Solar and lunar! Sun and Moon! The first is when the Moon gets in between of the Sun and the Earth, so that's why it gets dark and we see the Moon in front of the Sun like a giant, black circle! Then a lunar eclipse is when the Earth is directly in front of the Sun, so the Moon looks reddish, cuz of the light in Earth's atmos- atmus- ats…"
"Atmosphere?" Saki asked politely, also smiling down at the enthusiastic, young, astronaut-to-be. Kaito's head bobbed frantically.
"But I wanna know… how? Why?" What caused the Moon to sometimes "step in front of" the Sun?
"Well, gather 'round, dear children! And let Mentor Michiru tell you the tale!" said Michiru proudly, chest puffed out.
ooo
The Sun hung dazzling bright, suspended in the pitch-black abyss of outer space. The Moon called out to her one fine day.
"Let us see who between us is superior!" She tossed back her head with a confident laugh, puffing out her chest. "Let's race! Let's battle!"
At first, the Sun ignored her. Bemused, she said nothing. Ah, youth! The Moon was not as old as the Sun, she was a little more spontaneous and fierier. The irony was not lost upon the dazzling white Sun.
But the Moon was insistent. The way she saw herself, she represented power, action. It was true that she was not the Sun, that the light she "emitted" was not her own, rather, it was just the Sun's reflected, but that didn't mean she did nothing. The Moon controlled the tides, was visited and utilized by humans, she was a technological miracle! And maybe she had just enough gumption to challenge the stoic Sun.
"An eclipse! Let us determine an eclipse!" the Moon continued, insistent. Despite herself, the Sun paused, and turned to listen.
A competition…? Her inner red fire began to burn and glow, enticed by the allure of the silvery white Moon.
"I will try to bring about a Solar Eclipse, to stand in front of you, before all of humanity!" The Moon threw open her arms, bragging, confident. One of her eyes flashed yellow-white while the other remained as black as the dark side of the moon.
"And if I win…" the Sun whispered, "there will be a lunar eclipse, and I will chase you around to the other side of the Earth!" Sensing that the Sun was close to caving, the Moon cackled triumphantly as she prepared to race her silver-white chariot through the star-studded sky.
The two, celestial entities danced and dueled, each one dying to determine which of the duo was dominant. The Sun sang sweetly, high and clear. Her fire danced across the sky, an electronic and alien sound buzzing through the vacuum of space.
Hello! She seemed to sing. What are you? I reach out to you! Long to connect and make contact with you…! A ghostly white arm, a solar flare, stretched out across the cosmos, a gloved, white hand reaching for the Earth and Moon.
I am the One Star! The Moon was not technically a star, but she was the brightest, whitest object in the sky at night, when the Sun seceded the heavenly domain to her. The Moon, though, was confident to the point of arrogance, and wished to make an appearance during the day as well.
Let me overshadow her just once! I understand that she was here first, but I am a cosmonaut too! Look how I shine, illuminated! White hair streaked out behind her, filling the dark cosmos, intertwining and entangling with other, long, flowing, silver-white locks. The tips of the flames of the Sun. Time to call upon a friend to darken things down a little, and bring some balance and harmony!
The Moon was trying to bring about a solar eclipse, after all. She had to obscure the sun, become the biggest and brightest object in the sky again, dominate humanity's awe and attention. Her companion embodied the human half the Moon, her hair long and dark. Further inside the ship were two other companions of the Moon's collective, one of whom had hair resembling a half-moon, black and white. And the fourth girl had the moon in her hair, a braided crescent around the back of her head.
Aboard the Sun's blazing, silvery ship was another quartet. The white-haired Sun stood at the helm with a similarly-colored flame by her side as the leader. Blue energy and golden light supported the heat as they sought to retain their throne and chase out the newcoming Moon.
"Let's fight, Satellite!" One of them taunted, referring to the Moon's status as secondary both to the Sun and Earth. But the cocky Moon took it as a compliment, her crown a metal halo that rotated slowly around her head, another orbiting satellite.
We are connected as one! The Moon thought, thinking of her crewmates. United, synchronous, they pushed forward, the power of their electronic, futuristic, cyber songs fueling the rocket.
Those on Earth could only marvel, some lucky enough to see the Moon pass in front of the Sun while others merely noticed the world darken around them, several streetlights turning on even though it was the afternoon. One young woman would lament to her three flat-mates that they were missing out on the apocalypse, stranded in Japan even though their quartet hailed from America, where the solar eclipse was happening.
And that was the story of how and why solar eclipses happened, whenever the Moon won a competition with the Sun. And solar eclipses, by contrast, happened whenever the Moon lost those competition and was chased away by the moon, so far away that it became red-shifted (hence why those moons were sometimes known as Blood Moons).
ooo
"That doesn't sound right!" Kaito squinted, looking up at Michiru suspiciously.
"Yeah! It definitely isn't!" Towa narrowed her eyes as she stalked over from the stacks to scowl at Michiru. Noa was with her. "Photon would never lose to Unichord!" Noa shot Towa a withering look.
"That's… not what made it inaccurate…" Oh, but Michiru and little baby boy Kaito are so CUTE! I can't even stay mad!
"I dunno, that's how I remember it!" Michiru teased, hands on her hips, eyes drifting shut as she looked up smugly at the older two girls.
"Well, I was hopin' for the science answer, not a story," Kaito mumbled, tilting his head as he looked down, disappointed and embarrassed.
"I can answer that," said Saki gently, finally intervening. She was actually the one who brought Kaito to the library, an older relative, as his family was visiting town and asked Saki to babysit him for the afternoon. "The moon's orbit around Earth is tilted relative to Earth's orbit around the sun, so the alignment for an eclipse to occur is not common." If the angles were exact, eclipses would happen all the time. Because of the tilt, though, as Saki said, that made eclipses rare.
"Ohhhh!" Kaito's purple eyes were wide as his head bobbed slowly. Like a sponge, he soaked up everything Saki said about space.
"We're going on a trip, in our favorite rocket—!"
"Oops, sorry!" Michiru whisper-yelled as her phone went off in her pocket. "I could've sworn I muted this thing…" She answered the call. "Hello?" A second later, she held the phone out to Towa, who looked surprised.
"Ok, Unichord totally would've beat you guys," Lumina teased on the other end of the line.
"Hey!" Towa ripped the phone away from her ear, indignant.
"Oh, honestly, you two!" Kokoa sighed, rolled her eyes, and crossed her arms, wading through the sea of children until she reached Towa. Then she reached out and plucked Michiru's phone from the blue-haired girl's hand. "Enough, Lumina!" she said into the receiver before ending the call and handing the phone back to Michiru. Lumina immediately began facetiming them four seconds later.
At the same time, Towa protested. "Oh, come on! It's Unichord bias! Of course, Michiru made Photon lose in her story!"
"Duh! You would've done the same if the roles were reversed!" Kokoa almost sneered, arms crossed as her nose crinkled.
"Plus, us as the Moon is… not inaccurate," said Hayate serenely, smiling up at Michiru, Towa, and Kokoa from the rainbow carpet floor. One little kid sat on her lap while two more raced circles around her.
Hayate's eyes twinkled knowingly, and Kokoa looked away, heart fluttering. Kogetsu…
"All right, Towa, that's enough now," Ibuki's voice finally cut through the conversation.
"Wha-?!" Towa gestured helplessly at Hayakoko while Ibuki waggled her finger. They were supposed to be helping run the children's story hour. "What about her?!" Towa gestured helplessly at Noa. Moments before, Noa was helping Saki explain eclipses to Kaito.
But the cuteness overload of watching cute little Saki teach cute little Kaito (Noa could DEFINITELY see the family resemblance, even though they otherwise looked nothing alike) cute little things about cute little space (wait what?) nearly gave Noa a cute little heart attack. That, and Kaito was just one of many cute little kids present at the library's story hour. At present, Noa was buried under a pile of children, giggling madly.
That left Saki and Michiru as the only ones paying full attention to the kids.
"The whole angular orbit thing doesn't throw off my epic mythos one bit!" Michiru insisted, pouting, arms crossed.
"Do tell?" Saki quirked an eyebrow, playful and teasing. The old Saki of just a year ago would've never been so expressive, btu this Saki had Photon Maiden to show her the way, and Unichord to act as the "youngsters" she wanted to mentor.
"The racetrack!" Michiru was grasping at straws. "The Moon races on an angular track, but sometimes it aligns itself such that the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun!"
"Not a bad idea," Saki had to acknowledge, and Kaito gave Michiru almost the exact same nod. Really, the resemblances were striking.
"I wouldn't mind hearing more stories about The Myth of the Eclipse," Kaito offered shyly. Even though he found the science of space more interesting, because he wanted to be an astronaut too someday, just like Saki, the stories were cool too. It gave him an excuse to talk about the sun and moon more, and it was cool to imagine them as characters.
With eyes that glowed like suns, Michiru was more than happy to oblige.
AN: In honor of the solar eclipse today! In my area, it just got a little dark, and all the streetlights came on, but one of my friends was lucky enough to get a really good pic of the eclipse.
I also felt like Saki frantically googling and quadruple-checking the time to make sure I didn't miss the eclipse, LOL! I was texting all my IRL friends (all 2 of them LOL!).
Semi-related note, I saw something once that said Unichord are people of Earth longing to connect to space while Photon are people of space longing to connect to Earth, and I love that contrast.
(Fanfic . net readers, go to my AO3 or Wattpad version of this fic to see the pic)