Green Hills and Blue Skies
Solunis is an Eclipse-style animatronic made for the exclusive use of a renaissance fair. He was designed to be flashy and entertaining, charming and witty, able to dazzle guests with his unique feature of flipping between two modes — Solar and Lunar Eclipse — upon whim or request. He’s exuberant and talented across a wide range of musical and storytelling skills, but most importantly he’s—
Three hundred and six thousand, five hundred and forty-two minutes.
Five thousand, one hundred and ten hours.
In other words, a touch under seven months exactly, down to the very moment in time that he was initially powered on -- when his systems came to life beneath blinding floodlights and his mind suddenly stuffed full of awareness.
The sensory overload was almost as agonizing as it was immediate. From cold and lifeless to the functional equivalent of a fully-grown adult, it wasn't something one could simply describe. The act of living when one was dead just a moment before — though non-existence would be more fitting of a description. It was as if every single byte of information within his body was on fire all at once, tearing through metal and wire and plastic until it engulfed him with the raw, unfiltered sensations of being alive.
To call it a shock would be an understatement.
At least the employees had the decency to power him on for the first time a few days before the grand opening of the fair. Not enough time to cope with the existential dread of suddenly being alive, mind you.
But long enough to learn how to hide it behind a mask.
That was seven months ago.
Seven months ago, he didn’t even have a name — not really, at least. He had a model type (Eclipse ver 2.32) and serial number (so long a string of letters and numbers that it isn’t worth mentioning), but neither of those concepts constitutes a name proper. His handlers came to calling him ‘Eclipse’ in passing, but his official title was dependent on what of two distinct forms he took on.
Solar Eclipse and Lunar Eclipse. Catchy, one might think. Creative. Witty, even.
With his flashy attire fitting for that of a fantasy bard mixed in with the aesthetic of a royal jester, he truly was eye-catching. His signature feature was being able to switch back and forth from warm reds and golds to cool blues and purples in the blink of an eye. Not into separate personalities, as some earlier models did as a cost-saving measure, but simply to impress crowds of onlookers drunk on mead and happy to listen to a blissful tune of an animatronic almost tailor-made for entertainment and charm.
He has a name now, of course. One of his own choosing, not to be pried from his cold, power-drained fingers no matter how many times his systems were reset — the employees stopped doing that after a while, when it was obvious it was more effort to do so after every weekend than to simply let him roam about freely in the hours between shows and seasons.
