Airglow Drabble: Eclipse
Title: Fireworks
Word Count: 1,621
@mr-munchies Come get your Eclipse enrichment, and @zemonkeartistog because I want to see if you’ll combust
Eclipse was acting weird. Or, weirder than usual- considering how the fiery Mation always seemed a little, albeit charmingly, odd. Any time he was around he seemed either distracted, or stiff. Coming from the lethal lithe predator that he was, it seemed unnatural.
You asked him if he was alright one day, having grown concerned when he made an odd sound you hadn't heard before when grabbing the cup you offered him out of your hands. He’d shaken his head, voice echoing through your mind that he was fine, just a tickle in his throat. Moon had side-eyed him with a smirk, causing Eclipse to growl and elbow him in the side.
You shrugged it off then, believing that if Eclipse wanted to say what was going on, he would tell you eventually. You learned to be patient with him, as he had been with you for all that time. Surprisingly.
Today, you were returning home from helping Sun as usual, the bright yellow Mation opted to stay later today and shooed you off despite your protests.
"Can't have you exhausted no no no! Shoo, off with you little light. I will follow after." He had said cheerily.
Walking through the entrance, you made sure you weren’t tracking anything into the carved out home from the bottoms of your feet, then made your way into the kitchen. You were about to grab a snack from the absurdly tall countertop for absurdly tall sentient Mations when someone cleared their throat behind you.
Turning, you were met with Eclipse’s tall form shadowed in the stone hallway, looking at you with his bright orange candle light eyes with strange ferocity that you'd come to know as, the plotting gaze.
“Are you busy at all, Pipsqueak?”
You shook your head, “No, just got home and have no more plans for the day- per Suns orders. Why do you ask?”
A split second passed before Eclipse grinned widely, his sharp pointed teeth glinting in the low light shining from the carved details in the walls, mimicking his own ember-like glow.
“Perfect,” he rumbled, “care for a little stroll then?”
You blinked, “What’s the occasion?” He’d been weird for the past few days and now wanted a stroll, who was he, Moon? Eclipse was usually so prideful and forward about when he wanted something, meaning you heard about it beforehand. This was, less grandure than what he normally conjured though you didn't truly mind in the slightest.
Eclipse chuffed, shifting his weight and stepping over to you, long legs eating up the distance in mere seconds despite his slower cat-like gait, “No occasion, just, well wondering if you’d like to join me?”
Again, odd.
Thinking for a moment, you agreed, opting to follow on your own two feet behind him instead of letting him carry you. Something that gave the Mation the flicker of a pout across his face. But he didn't complain. Instead he simply led you into the jungle, not too far from home, but not particularly close either.
“Not planning anything nefarious are you?” you asked once out of eyeshot of the cliffs and any other eavesdroppers, “you know Sun would kill you.”
Eclipse laughed, head tilting back slightly as his voice spread through your nervous system like a current of electricity, lighting up signals like little fireworks.
“No, not this time Pipsqueak, I have something else in mind.”
“I thought this was a stroll?”
“It is.”
“Then what else is it?”
Eclipse paused near a moss covered rock, looking back and down at you.
“This.”
He moved his hand across the rock, and you watched in awe as the moss- well actually it wasn't moss it was a plant you had studied that resembled similarities to the local moss species, but this plant receded when touched almost like a living curtain. And behind it, was a dark tunnel leading somewhere.
Eclipse held out a long clawed hand out to you, gaze somewhat mischievous, though when was he not.
“Trust me.” He said with a wink.
You rolled your eyes and took his hand, much larger than yours. Made of bones much stronger than yours, capable of fully encompassing- and potentially crushing your hand with a mere squeeze. But Eclipse wouldn't do that. So, you let him pull you into the darkness alongside him. His pace an easier one for you to manage with your 'Short adorable little legs.' The curtain fell back in place behind you, hiding the light from the stars above and you watched with reverie as Eclipse started to glow brighter, allowing you to see where you were going despite his night vision.
It was something he always did for you.
You walked through the smooth stone tunnel for a couple of minutes, careful not to trip on any hidden outcroppings that lined and scarred the floor like old soothed wounds before entering a large cavern. Stopping in your tracks, you felt your jaw fall open at the sight.
Crystals. Of every shape, size and color, from ginormous shafts and pillars of whites and silvers and blues, to tiny spikes of purple and reds, oranges bubbling around grey stone and yellow starbursts dotting the ceiling. Swirls of colors you didn't even know existed naturally surrounding you on all sides. As if you stepped into a kaleidoscope of blown glass. It was… magical, and you couldn’t look away.
A voice, a low toned, very close to your ear sounding voice echoed through through the air around you.
“I’ve been wanting to show you this for a while now,” Eclipse murmured, breath brushing your ear and making your hair drift ever so slightly, “Just…couldn’t figure out how.”
You slowly turn to look up at his bent form, finding him squatted down to put his face close to your head level. Meeting his eyes, only inches apart, you whispered, “It’s beautiful…I…I can't even…"
You blink, gaze flitting back over the crystals, "It's…Honestly I have no words." And few words came, just a moment or two of relishing the colorful wonders before you, before you turned your head to face him once more. Finding all his eyes, still trained on you. Pupils having grown in size than their usual vertical slits. "…is this why you’ve been acting weird lately?”
He paused as if thinking over his words then chuckled, eyes crinkling around the edges in amusement, “I suppose I have been acting a little odd lately yes. But, Pipsqueak” His voice dropped an octave, low rich earth untouched and unprovoked with the heat of the core of a gentle star, eyes piercing into your own with vibrant and yet ever familiar intensity, “you don’t make it exactly easy.”
“Make what easy.”
Eclipse leaned forward a hair, pupils sharpening slightly more into slits before they grow again, larger this time. More black, than orange. As if his eyes on their own accord wanted to suck in as much of you as they possibly could.
“You make it really hard, to not kiss you.”
Your breath caught in your throat, staring at him. Of all the things to say.
“…You want to kiss me?”
“Is that what I said~?” He tilted his head, breath fanning your face once more while his eyes dropped down to your lips, voice coming out in a lower sultry tone, “or is that what you want me to say?”
“I think you want to kiss me,” you said, a small air of flirtatious confidence rising within you that often came out around the fiery being, “I think you want to kiss me badly.”
“Well then,” one of his many hands trailed up your arm, making it way behind your neck to cradle the base of your head with the gentle tap of his claws along your skin and top. Claws that would never pierce you.
“What would you do, if that was true?”
You shivered. Him and his voice, every time. Your own eyes trained on him, his orange ringed pools of darkness that swallowed you whole, the feeling of his other hands coming to be placed on your lower back, hips, shoulders, “well I wouldn’t stop you.”
That was all he needed before his pupils grew till there was barely any orange left in his eyes, before his mouth was on yours, pulling you into him and wrapping you up into a tangle of arms while pressed into the warmth of his chest.
He kissed you with fervor, quick and fierce but with no lack of sincerity. Electricity crackling between you as you could have sworn you felt fireworks explode in your brain, reaching up to cup his face and bring it down to yours, closer, more- he had to be closer, with a kiss this full of meaning. He kissed you like you were the very thing he needed to live, like if he didn’t have you, he had nothing. So he held you tight, chasing your lips and nipping them with low echoing chuckles that bounced of cave walls and crystals, tilting your head back mid-kiss with rumbles vibrating from his chest that you could feel more than hear. He kissed you as long as he could, before you both had to break away, lungs burning for air as he rested his forehead against yours. Inhaling a slow controlled breath.
The crystal cave was your space from then on, a little shared haven of color between the both of you. But without fail, Eclipse always said his favorite color was the one that bloomed from your skin like a newly born star whenever he kissed you, illuminated by his glow and framed by his shadow.
You were his. As much as he was yours.