lightening bugs

You could learn a lot about a person from their eyes. More than you maybe had wanted to know in the first place, even. More than they wanted you to know, certainly. Even if they thought they were reeeeaaaally good at disguising it. Because nobody's perfect.

Nobody's perfect. If they are, they're not a person. That's part of the whole deal. Right? Even for Blades.

Even for Blades. Even for Aegises.

So that's how Pandoria ended up staring pretty much directly into Pyra's eyes, watching them hover their hands around a particularly sluggish lightning bug - well, Electric Cricket, but when you say a thing like that people can practically hear you pronouncing the proper capitalization, and that's no fun if you're not Actually doing emphasis - that didn't really have a mind for being caught. It didn't seem to have a mind for much of anything, but hey, that was just how electric types were, sometimes. Came with the territory.

The bug drifted up. So did Pyra's hands. His eyes followed it with a sort of loose gauge that said they were having fun, mostly, but if absolutely anybody thought about it absolutely any harder, the whole thing was gonna get really super duper stressful for no reason. Which, if you think about it, is the whole point of stress, when it feels stressful. There's no point to it! It's just irritating, and anxiety-inducing, and very unattractive unless you're the kind of person who can wear it well.

And Pyra was, of course. Graceful, and strong, as opposed to goofy and sparked. And yeah, yeah, backwards compliments made out of comparisons are just insults, but how can you know something is beautiful if you don't know what Not Beautiful looks like?

...

Nah. That doesn't make any sense at all, does it? Anybody'd think Pyra's eyes were gorgeous, the way the ruby flecked with emerald and the lashes flicked with sparks and embers from amethyst to coral. Maybe that was a Blade trait, one of those less obvious than extra attachments or negative spaces, but it didn't take away from the sheer awe you had to feel looking at them. They promised something special, just being in their presence.

So that's how Pandoria ended up staring pretty much directly away from Pyra's eyes, at his hands and ears and hair and shoulders. At their very, very quiet, solid shoulders, that most definitely were not lightbulbs, and thus most definitely were not the reason that bug was floating around him.

(Pandy's shoulders, shrunken in with self-consciousness, had garnered him a veritable horde of admirers, drawn to not just light but crackling energy as emanated from within. Which was embarrassing, and stressful, and unattractive.)

"Ah! Got it."

Pandy started up. The crickets scattered. "Got who? I mean, got what? Was there someone- er, something, there?"

Crimson. "No, but I'm glad you are."

The superhumidity beneath the Cloud Sea made his glasses good and foggy, but it definitely didn't help cover up his rainbow-brite cheeks.