Ten Million Fireflies

Theron didn't know where he was, though that wasn't new. He was a wanderer now, with no direction and no destination, just seeing where his paws would take him. It would almost seem suffocating to be stuck in one place, dangerous even. Who knows who could be following him, waiting for a moment for him to slow so that they could catch up and do... something. Whatever that something was didn't matter, he wasn't going to wait and see if it was harmful or beneficial.

So he just kept on walking, finding himself within the dense vegetation of a wet forest. The sun had finished its descent past the horizon, only the bright full moon to light his path... That thought caused him to pause, looking up past the leaves of the canopy to the moon above. It was still full? How long had it been? Surely it should be starting to wane by now. Theron frowned, his brows knitting together in thought. He couldn't have lost track of time that bad, he had nothing to keep track of but time! Yet, no matter how hard he stared, the moon didn't shrink to his whims. Full, bright, and strange.

Actually, now that he was studying the sky, the stars were acting strange too. Normally, they would take their rotation willingly, keeping their small, circular shape. However, now it seemed they were fighting against the night sky itself, holding on to their original resting place and stretching themselves thin, streaking white in the black sky. He would have found it beautiful if it was common, but no, the stars were variating from the behavior they had kept for thousands of years.

Something was off. His gaze lowered back to the ground level, looking for more oddities. He sniffed among the roots, checked the wet mosses growing on the tree trunks, and watched the leaves jostling in the chill wind before finding something else of note. Fireflies. It was winter, the biting cold of the night and recent snowfall told him that. The cold should have killed them now, shouldn't it have? Most insects didn't last long after fall, if they made it that far at all. Theron tilted his head, approaching a firefly only for it to dart out of reach and drift in teasing circles over his head. A low growl of annoyance rose from his throat, leaping upward to try and snatch it in his jaws. He just wanted to see what it was, to examine it. He assumed it was just a bug, but assuming didn't satiate any curiosities.

He wrinkled his nose, watching the insect join another glowing bug above him. Examining his surroundings, he found more and more seemingly appearing from nowhere, summoned by the night. His attention had been completely collected by the bugs, springing into the air like a stubborn fox to try and catch one of the fireflies, only to miss each time. It was like they were playing with him, laughing at him with nonexistent voices. He knew in reality that it was just self-preservation keeping them from his jaws, but that didn't heal his scorn. Theron cursed under his breath, starting to pace below the lights as he thought of a better plan to catch one. He had to be faster, jump higher.

His gaze then rested on a fallen log he had climbed over earlier. Ah, there we are. He hopped onto the bark, crouching down in preparation to leap, but not yet. Theron locked on to one of the fireflies, lower than the rest but still too high. He had scared them up high with his initial attempts at capture, but they were slowly starting to drift back to the ground. If he was patient, they would soon be in reach.

Heartbeat after heartbeat, Theron laid in ambush as the insects floated down like fallen leaves in the wind until finally one was close enough for him. His tense legs launched him forward, his jaws wide before snapping shut over his target. He landed lightly on his paws in the snow, but his quarry caused him to pause in confusion.

It tasted of what he could only describe as heat, like licking a rock that had been sitting in the summer sun or as if he had eaten a star. Then, the taste faded near-instantly, melting in his mouth before it was as though he had not caught it at all. He didn't even swallow, the firefly just simply vanished. So they weren't insects at all, as they seemingly lacked a body. They were wisps or something of the sort. Were these native to this forest or had he come across some supernatural occurrence? He sat down, watching the remaining wisps as they danced above him and, as he sat still, around him.

As beautiful as they were, he couldn't help but be unnerved by their arrival. They could be omens, for good or for bad. Or maybe they meant nothing at all, simply the world going sideways in a way that wouldn't affect him at all. Well, not physically anyway. He glanced back up to the stars, his ears flattening in worry. He had no destinations or plans to return to wherever he explored, but the stars acting strangely would hinder that if he ever did. Stars were important to navigation, the nomadic pack of his youth using them religiously along with physical landmarks. How could he find his way without the constellations?

He could only hope the world wasn't ending. He had only just got to live in it with newfound freedom, having that taken away from him so soon made him feel sick to his stomach. He was starving all the time and alone, but he was free. He had so many places he wanted to go just to flaunt his lack of chains. Climbing high mountains, swimming in rivers, hell, he wanted to explore the whole continent! He couldn't do that if the world crumbled in on itself. He supposed he couldn't do that if he sat and fretted either. Whining in his mind wasn't going to turn the sky back to normal or get rid of the wisps. Reluctantly, he stood up, abandoning the group of 'fireflies' to continue his journey. He had a temporary destination in mind this time: a place to sleep so that he could explore more thoroughly in the morning.