"Hey, Kaibara!" Kaito cried excitedly, struggling to peek over the tall, library windowsill. "What causes eclipses?!"
"Ooooh, good question!" Michiru nodded approvingly at her young charge. The boy had taken to calling her by her last name just because it started with the same three letters as his name. Before answering his question, Michiru turned to address all the other young ones gathered at the local library for the story-time hour. "How many of you know what an eclipse is? How many types are there?"
"Two!" Kaito piped up before anyone else could even raise a hand. "Solar and lunar, sun and moon! The first is when the moon gets in between of the sun and the Earth, so that's why it gets dark and we see the moon in front of the sun like a giant disc! Then a lunar eclipse is when the Earth is directly in front of the sun, so the moon looks reddish, cuz of the light in Earth's atmos- atmus- ats..."
"Atmosphere?" Saki asked politely, also smiling down at the enthusiastic, young, astronaut-to-be. Kaito's head bobbed frantically.
"But I wanna know... how? Why?" What caused the moon to sometimes "step in front of" the sun?" Kaito asked.
"Well, gather 'round, dear children! And let Mentor Michiru tell you the tale!" said Michiru proudly, chest puffed out.
ooo
The Sun hung dazzling bright, suspended in the pitch-black abyss of outer space. The Moon called out to her one fine day.
"Let us see who between us is superior!" She tossed back her head with a confident laugh, puffing out her chest. "Let's race! Let's battle!"
At first, the Sun ignored her. Bemused, she said nothing. Ah, youth!
The Moon was not as old as the Sun, so she was a more spontaneous, fierier. The irony was not lost upon the dazzling white star that illuminated her.
But the Moon was insistent. The way she saw herself, she represented power, action. It was true that she was not the Sun, that the light she "emitted" was not her own, rather, it was just the Sun's reflected, but that didn't mean she did nothing. The Moon controlled the tides, was visited and utilized by humans, was a technological miracle! And maybe she had just enough gumption to challenge the stoic Sun.
"An eclipse! Let us determine an eclipse!" the Moon continued. Despite herself, the Sun paused, and turned to listen to the other celestial body.
A competition...? Her inner red fire began to burn and glow, enticed by the allure of the silvery white Moon.
"I will try to bring about a Solar Eclipse, to stand in front of you, before all of humanity!" The Moon threw open her arms, bragging, confident. One of her eyes flashed yellow-white in a crescent shape while the other remained as black as the dark side of the Moon.
"And if I win..." the Sun whispered, "there will be a Lunar Eclipse, and I will chase you around to the other side of the Earth!" Sensing that the Sun was close to caving, the Moon cackled triumphantly as she prepared to race her silver-white chariot through the star-studded black sky.
The two, celestial bodies danced and dueled, each one dying to determine which of the duo was dominant. The Sun sang sweetly, high and clear. Her color fire danced across the sky—red, orange, and yellow, but green and blue too—electronic and alien music buzzing through space.
Hello! She seemed to sing. What are you? I reach out to you! Long to connect and make contact with you...! A ghostly white arm, a solar flare, stretched out across the cosmos, a gloved, white hand reaching for the Earth and Moon.
I am the One Star! The Moon was not technically a star, but she was the brightest, whitest object in the sky at night, when the Sun seceded the heavenly dominion to her. The Moon, though, was confident to the point of arrogance, and wished to make an appearance during the day as well.
Let me overshadow her just once! I understand that she was here first, but I am a cosmonaut too! Look how I shine, illuminated! White hair streaked out behind her, filling the dark cosmos, intertwining and entangling with the long, flowing, silver-white locks of the Sun, the tips of her fire. Time to call upon a friend to darken things down a little, and bring some balance and harmony!
The Moon was trying to bring about an eclipse, after all. She had to obscure the Sun, become the biggest and brightest object in the sky, to awe humanity with her splendor! Her companion embodied the human half the Moon, her hair long and dark. Further inside the ship were two other companions of the Moon's collective, one of whom had hair resembling a half-Moon, dyed half black and half white. And the fourth girl had the Moon in her hair, a braided crescent around the back of her head.
Aboard the Sun's blazing, silvery ship was another quartet. The white-haired Sun stood at the helm with a similarly-colored flame by her side as the leader of the quartet. Blue energy and golden light supported the heat as they sought to retain their throne and chase out the newcomers.
"Let's fight, Satellite!" One of them taunted, referring to the Moon's status as secondary both to the Sun and Earth. But the cocky Moon took it as a compliment, her divine crown a metal halo that rotated slowly around her head, another orbiting satellite.
We are connected as one! The Moon thought, thinking fondly of her three crewmates, especially the dark, night-haired girl that stood beside her. United, synchronous, the solar quartet pushed forward against the lunar, the power of their electronic, futuristic, cyber songs fueling their ship.
Those on Earth could only marvel, some lucky enough to see the Moon pass in front of the Sun while others merely noticed the world darken around them, several streetlights turning on even though it was the afternoon. One young woman would lament to her three flat-mates that they were missing out on the eclipse, stranded in Japan even though their quartet hailed from America, where the eclipse was occurring.
And that was the story of how and why eclipses happened, whenever the Moon and Sun raced and competed. If the Moon won, she got to stand in front of the Sun and bask in her glory, stealing the attention of the people of Earth. If the Sun won, as playful punishment, she and her vessel would chase the Moon so far away that it seemed to tint red (hence why Moons during Lunar Eclipses were sometimes called Blood Moons).
ooo
"That doesn't sound right!" Kaito squinted, looking up at Michiru suspiciously.
"Yeah! It definitely isn't!" Towa narrowed her eyes as she stalked over from the library stacks and shelves to scowl at Michiru. Noa was with her. "Photon would never lose to Unichord!" Towa continued to insist, and Noa shot her a withering look.
"That's... not what made it inaccurate..." Oh, but Michiru and little baby boy Kaito are so CUTE! I can't even stay mad!
"I dunno, that's how I remember it!" Michiru teased, hands on her hips, eyes drifting shut as she looked up smugly at the two older girls.
"Well, I was hopin' for the science answer, not a story," Kaito mumbled, tilting his head as he looked down, disappointed and embarrassed.
"I can answer that," said Saki gently, finally intervening. She was actually the one who brought Kaito to the library, an older relative, as his family was visiting town and asked Saki to babysit him for the afternoon. "The moon's orbit around Earth is tilted relative to Earth's orbit around the sun, so the alignment for an eclipse to occur is rare."
"Ohhhh!" Kaito's purple eyes were wide as his head bobbed slowly. Like a sponge, he soaked up everything Saki said about space.
"We're going on a trip, in our favorite rocketsh—!"
"Oops, sorry!" Michiru whisper-yelled as her phone went off in her pocket. "Coulda sworn I muted this thing..." She answered the call. "Hello?" A second later, she held the phone out to Towa, who looked surprised.
"Ok, Unichord totally would've beat you guys," Lumina teased on the other end of the line.
"Hey!" Towa ripped the phone away from her ear, indignant.
"Oh, honestly, you two!" Kokoa sighed, rolled her eyes, and crossed her arms, wading through the sea of children until she reached Towa. Then she reached out and plucked Michiru's phone from the blue-haired girl's hand. "Enough, Lumina!" she said into the receiver before ending the call and handing the phone back to Michiru. Lumina immediately began facetiming them four seconds later.
At the same time, Towa protested. "Oh, come on! It's Unichord bias! Of course, Michiru made Photon lose in her story!"
"Duh! You would've done the same if the roles were reversed!" Kokoa almost sneered, arms crossed as her nose crinkled.
"Plus, us as the Moon is... not inaccurate," said Hayate serenely, smiling up at Michiru, Towa, and Kokoa from the rainbow carpet floor. One little kid sat on her lap while two more raced circles around her.
Hayate's eyes twinkled knowingly, and Kokoa looked away, heart fluttering. Kogetsu...
"All right, Towa, that's enough now," Ibuki's voice finally cut through the conversation.
"Wha-?!" Towa gestured helplessly at Hayakoko while Ibuki waggled her finger. They were supposed to be helping run the children's story hour. "What about her?!" Towa gestured helplessly at Noa. Moments before, Noa was helping Saki explain eclipses to Kaito.
But the cuteness overload of watching cute little Saki teach cute little Kaito (Noa could DEFINITELY see the family resemblance, even though they otherwise looked nothing alike) cute little things about cute little space (wait what?) nearly gave Noa a cute little heart attack. That, and Kaito was just one of many cute little kids present at the library's story hour. At present, Noa was buried under a pile of children, giggling madly.
That left Saki and Michiru as the only ones paying full attention to the kids.
"The whole angular orbit thing doesn't throw off my epic mythos one bit!" Michiru insisted, pouting, arms crossed.
"Do tell?" Saki quirked an eyebrow, playful and teasing. The old Saki of just a year ago would've never been so expressive, but this Saki had Photon Maiden to show her the way, and Unichord to act as the "youngsters" she wanted to mentor.
"The racetrack!" Michiru was grasping at straws. "The Moon races on an angular track, but sometimes it aligns itself such that the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun! Or maybe the Moon gets excited and shakes up the track intentionally because she thinks it'll help her finally match pace with the Sun! Or she's racing so fast that the track just automatically aligns to the correct angle, or whatever!"
"All good ideas," Saki had to acknowledge, and Kaito gave Michiru almost the exact same nod. Really, the resemblances were striking.
"I wouldn't mind hearing more stories about The Myth of the Eclipse," Kaito offered shyly. Even though he found the science of space more interesting, because he wanted to be an astronaut too someday, just like Saki, the stories were cool too. It gave him an excuse to talk about outer space more, and there was nothing he loved more than that! And with eyes that glowed like twin suns, Michiru was more than happy to oblige.