Chapter Text
there is no love without loyalty.
to pledge yourself to someone or something meaningful, something worth promises filled to the brim with sincerity. to keep that pledge under the threat of harm, under the vow of protection and sometimes even love. and yet loyalty is as flexible as it is dreamy; sometimes it is brittle like straw, strong like stone, or as beautiful and fragile as frost-tinted glass. as hard as it is to give, it’s just as easy to shatter.
that stifling july night, the fireflies bring the stars to the earth. they float among the flourishing ancient logs and mossy trees, summoning slivers of glimmering light to an otherwise dark world. clouds of them form like whispers of fog slinking along distant mountaintops. then without warning, they’re slipping into solitary independence like falling rain; and while the fireflies are sliding between collectivism and individuality, crickets set the air abuzz with their chirping music while the wind breathes deeply and slowly. the forest is alive, blossoming in the hidden, unseen cloak of night.
a firefly breaks free from its blinking and glowing group in favor of alone time—maybe, like humans, it has a strange need for loneliness. an ache for solitude, for time to reminisce and contemplate the broad spectrum of things to think about, or a silent and yearning sense to breathe again. but if anyone were to ever attempt to unravel such a trivial mystery, it certainly wouldn’t be an insect. the mind of a firefly pales in comparison to the grandeur of the possibilities of death and undeath, the clockwork behind loyalty and lack thereof, and other obscure yet unknown things; things that only infuriating and heartbreakingly complex beings like humans can ponder.
the sole firefly lands on a blade of grass in the middle of a clearing in the forest. trees with a skin of dark and sturdy bark surround the area in a roughly oblong shape while faint trails lead into the clearing from the dense cluster.
the firefly sits there and a veil of silence blankets the area. it’s lucky. it doesn’t know of loyalty, of the warped minds and twisted blackened hands that are burnt enough to break it. it just knows how to persist in life, how to live. and when it’ll die, it’ll die quiet— no tears, no pleading, no screaming, no pain. it’ll just die like all things do, and it’ll stay dead, too.
then it sharply throws itself back into the air. there’s something coming from deep under the earth, something cold that’s smothered in dirt and blood. as the lone firefly conquers isolation and rejoins its brethren, the hand that had broken through the ground stretches its fingers into the open air as if grasping for something unseen; as if whatever it's looking for is still there.