Deflect.

Deflect deflect deflect.

Before things can get even weirder and my heart ends up exploding from embarrassment.

"A- anyways-" I blurt out. "Your name!"

"...my name?"

hahaha nice going brigitte you gibbering incompetent

"Like, uh..." I rack my brain for something, ANYTHING to say. "...what's its derivation?"

"I do not follow?"

While the confusion in her eyes does sting, it's thankfully dulled by the gradual turning of my mind-gears...

"Since your title is 'Flower of the Heavens,' it's obvious that the 'hana' in your name is actually 花..." I start, "...and while the first thing that popped in my head regarding the inital 'Ya' was 八 as in 'eight flowers,' when I take your complexion into consideration then 夜 might be more appropriate..."

"Er-"

"...but that still leaves the 'seara' part and I honestly have no idea what combination you might be using for that..."

"Brigitte?"

"Hm?"

The mention of my own name shakes me from my thoughts.

"I believe that you are getting the wrong idea about my name," Yahanaseara says.

"Shi-" I just barely curb my pottymouth tendencies. "I am?"

"Yes," she nods. "My name has no derivation, it only refers to myself," she says, placing a hand to her chest.

...

......

".........wait, seriously!?"

So it was just a coincidence that-

"Yes," she nods again. "While I understand that there are many of my kind who were named by others, my own name was self-bestowed."

"Oh."

And now I feel stupid.

Stupider.

So stupid that a proper word can't even describe how stupid I am.

"Leave it to me to jump to conclusions..."

Letting out a pathetic little groan of frustration, I slump down and lower my head.

And almost immediately feel a tiny little hand patting my back.

Dammit I miss Ciel.

"You are far too hard on yourself," Yanahaseara's soft voice murmurs. "I was not offended."

"Maybe not, but still-"

My father always gets at me not to jump to conclusions just because something happens to resemble a familiar pattern, but I keep on-

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"You wished to know more about me, yes?"

I nod my head.

As much as it's possible to nod one's head while still hunched over, I mean.

"Then tell you about myself is what I shall do."

After giving my shoulder another little pat of reassurance, Yahanaseara heaves a long sigh.

"While I cannot remember my birth any more than you can, my earliest memories are of racing through the heavens," she says. "Dancing in stormclouds, feeling the..."

She pauses for a couple of seconds.

"...precursor to lightning? The not-quite-sparks in the air? To this day, I still do not know the proper words to describe it."

Hm, I can't say I know them either.

"It was not long before I realized that the lightning was mine to control, and so I toyed with it as I saw fit. The sky was my gallery, and I filled it with my works."

Another pause in her story... wait, don't tell me that she's-

I dart my gaze in her direction, and am relieved to find that she's just wistfully gazing off into the distance.

"And when I became bored of painting the skies, she continues, "I moved past them to the great darkness beyond."

"...darkness?" I ask.

Yahanaseara points her finger upwards.

"The higher up you go, the more the air thins," she explains. "And eventually, the blue that you can see from down here gives way to an infinite black void."

"...oh."

Yeah, I've read about that in the past.

"The view up there is by far the most beautiful I have ever seen..." she sighs longingly. "But as there is not much else to do up there aside from admiring said view, I found myself coming back down here before long."

......hold up.

I'm sitting next to someone who just up and left the planet outright just for a bit of sightseeing.

And then came back because she got bored.

Of the infinite cosmos.

I can't even.

But before I can dwell too much on the sheer difference in scale of our experiences, the ancient Elemental Spirit of Lightning resumes her story.

"After returning to the surface, I focused my attentions downwards rather than upwards for the first time ever..." Yahanaseara says, "...and was shocked to find that lightning did not only exist within the skies."

"Oh," my eyebrows perk up. "The thing you mentioned before about biological life."

Yes," she nods. "Not just animals, but plants as well... I mean, there are even fruits which are just filled with-"

She lets out a long sigh.

"It is a shame that you are unable to see the world as I do."

"Eheh..." I just shrug.

"I did not mean that as an insult, I-"

"Don't worry, I get it," I say, unable to keep from smiling at the fact that she's the one being awkward for a change.

"I just have difficulty describing it in words, and words to properly describe it do not even exist since the only ones capable of even perceiv-" She cuts herself off. "...never mind."

She goes quiet for a little while, presumably to regather her thoughts.

"I spent... centuries, I believe, traversing the world and observing the various things that were to be observed," she continues. "Always from afar, never actually interacting with anyone or anything."

"Was there any particular reason for that?" I ask.

She couldn't possibly have been afraid of us puny mortals, so...

"I simply saw no reason to do so," she replies. "While all of these new discoveries were certainly fascinating to behold, their fundamental nature was still wholly different from my own."

"Huh."

"So, well..." she shrugs. "...I was content to simply observe. Like a child watching fish swimming in a pond."

The kids I've known would rather throw rocks in there than quietly observe, but that's neither here nor there.

"One shared concept amongst all the flesh-and-blood creatures I had come across did influence me, however..."

"Hm?" I raise an eyebrow. "And what was that?"

"Rest," she replies.

"Eh?"

I blink a couple of times.

"Rest? Seriously?"

Yahanaseara simply nods.

"As far back as I could remember, I was constantly moving from place to place. But all of you... from the smallest ant to the largest elephant... you would all stop from time to time. It intrigued me."

You'd seriously never even stopped moving before?

"Why would the thought have even crossed my mind before seeing others do it first?" she asks. "I am lightning. And lightning is motion itself."

Wow.

Right now she just looks like an adorable little floofy-haired girl so it's really easy to forget, but like... she really isn't human at all.

Or even a biological lifeform at that.

So of course her fundamental way of thinking would be completely alien from that of a puny human such as myself.

"And as I had come across an area with a particularly comfortable lightning affinity," she continues, "I opted to claim that as my 'territory' of sorts and give this 'rest' thing a try."

"Heh. So how'd that turn out for you?"

"I fell asleep."

For whatever reason, the mental image of Yahanaseara clumsily sitting down for the first time ever and immediately getting all confused by her first encounter with the allure of sleep pops into my head.

"And when I finally regained consciousness, there was a human child prostrating himself before me."