FIREFLIES
From the rounded cliff looking out over the nameless metropolis, two shadows watched the cars struggling to get by, like bioluminescent ants slowly crawling along black trails scented with their carbon fumes. The vehicles, painted obnoxious colors such as banana yellow, with shells of doomed-to-rust metal, were like fireflies in a way…if they fled the two creatures, they seemed to ooze bloody light. If approaching, they glared at the artificial beings with angry, golden eyes. However, none of the drivers, the parasites who controlled the multitude of transportation machines, noticed the beings sitting on the side of the road just a dozen feet above eye level. Humans rarely looked up unless it was to pray – they were stupid and blind in that way.
The younger of the two, a teenage woman in appearance, gazed out from the dark at the field of glass and stone before her – the jagged urban forest seemed to be littered with drops of luminescent dew, the colors of bronze and pale-silver sparkling in her plum-toned eyes. The warm wind ruffled her short, layered hair against her scalp, the strands of lavender tinted orange from the glow of civilization. The breeze carried the scents of food from street vendors, sweet coffee, trash and grim, fish, and smoke. Close by was a shimmering pile of glass, which added the sharp stench of sour alcohol. She was used to these scents, and so only smelled them when she wished to…she preferred the scent of her companion better.
He smelled like mint…except for his breath, which held the distinct odor termed "cat-breath."
She didn't glance at him as she stretched out her lithe, alabaster form, the Japanese kanji tattoo into her shoulder twisting, or as she turned on her back from her belly to look up at the gibbous moon peeking through the branches to spy her laying out there, completely unconcerned with how close she was to the edge. Her baggy shirt road up her flat stomach; her jeans were tight where it mattered, torn in her own shredded style. She wore no shoes or socks…she wasn't cold, and if she was to become chilled, she trusted her companion to warm her.
He sat back, leaning his body against the trunk of the tree that towered over them, pretending not to watch her, hoping that something would change so he might be free from his own shame when he did so.
The female merely smiled…night was deepening, the sky turning from deep blue to black, maroon, and dark olive. The round moon became creamy as the taste of him when he dared cradle his mouth to hers….
Fireflies came out, hovering above the tickling grass and within the whispering leaves…she loved watching the insects, hearing their mating calls…and, on occasion, seeing them glow as she squished them. Yet what she loved most of all was catching them.
It was time.
"Get up, my love. Help me catch the fireflies!"
There would be no telekinesis…only hands and paws swiping through the air, bodies darting into the glowing swarm, fingers brushing the insects of the stars. The jar they had brought soon glowed with a good dozen of the blinking critters, most of them caught by the girl's own cunning work. The male was having far more trouble…his paws weren't inept at cupping something within them gently. He squashed more than one bug in his paws, and looking at his hands in dismay at the phosphorescent guts of the beetles. Why was it that he harmed everything he touched…?
His companion saw his frustration and came to him, grasping his hands lightly…like the strange creature that she was, she wetly licked the remnants from his paws and drew him amongst the insects again. She guided his hands to close slowly around one drifting bug…it glimmered in his hands, a shard a mica lit aflame.
"You see…? Be patient and you can catch stars, my dear Mewtwo."
His tail swung once in the moist, warm air…his amethyst eyes aglow with the light of the tiny creature in his hands.
"…Do attempt to take your own advice, D'."
D' - Diana to some, Delta to others, but just D' to her friend - laughed, the sound husky in the dim….
"Life's too short, even for beings like us, to wait for everything. Sometimes, you have to grasp what you want for yourself, like you did when it came to me."
Her hands were still upon his paws…still cradling a living star….
"After all…we're all like fireflies: we glow only a few times in life before falling back into the dark from whence we came. So as I see it…we'd best make the most of those moments of light, right?"
And they released all the insects they had captured, watching them fly into the dark sky; and savored the short moment of light together in the dark….