Welcome to Gaia! ::

Despite having no real fixed patrol route like some of his fellow senshi, Athene seemed to find his patrol beat taking him towards the park a lot lately.

Tonight had been no exception – after picking up a hot drink (tonight it was hot chocolate), the dark-haired senshi had absently walked halfway along the route to the park before giving up and going with the flow.

He had sensed a few auras around, but they had felt like order ones and so Athene hadn’t felt like he had to go investigate like he would have done had he picked up one from a youma. Instead he’d walked a little lost in thought and alternated between sipping some of the hot chocolate and using the cup as a portable hand warmer. He did not notice the Page until she almost fell into him.

He shook his head slightly at her apologies, “It’s okay, I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should either. Are you okay?”

“Pleased to meet you Hara Berezaiti” he stumbled a little over the pronunciation of ‘Berezaiti’ and hoped he hadn’t mangled up the word too badly. “I’m Sailor Athene, senshi of beads.” Hara was the second Chronos Page he’d met, although he’d heard their Princess speak both at the large senshi and knight meeting and then at the meeting on purification.

He shook his head at the query about the chocolate “No the chocolate’s all good.” A bit of the chocolate had spilled out onto the cap, but Athene wasn’t going to count what amounted to a few drops. “And the hot chocolate is really good, especially with cream. I like some of the flavoured coffees too” he smiled “Then again I have a really sweet tooth.” He gave the blue-haired page a curious look “If you don’t mind me asking, what were you doing out here?”

Athene glanced at the scarf in question as the blue-tinted white-haired Page held it up. It was a pretty thing, pink, glittering and edged in gold – very elegant – but not necessarily something that one would consider a weapon.

“Scarf-fighting sounds pretty interesting actually – not stupid at all.” Not wanting the parents to find out was something that the dark-haired senshi could understand. Despite the fact that Saffy was his cousin and not his mother – his senshi-related nocturnal activities wasn’t something that Athene wanted her to find out about. “And it kind of makes sense not to be good at something if you’re just starting out at it.”

He gave Hara a rueful smile. “I’ve been taking some self-defence classes, Aikido, I’m not that good at the moment, but I’m working at it.” Maybe if he’d been better at it then his encounter with Virtus would have ended up being much less painful – as it was the black eye that the blond Dark Mirror senshi had ‘gifted’ him with had only just faded.

He tilted his head slightly before asking, his quiet voice curious “So how does scarf-fighting work?”

“If scarf-fighting’s something that interests you, then maybe you stick with it” Athene said. The dark-haired senshi had listened quietly whilst Hara talked, only venturing his opinion once the other had finished talking.

“It sounds a pretty useful skill to have on your side.” Especially given the fact that some of those who opposed Order came equipped with weapons – hello Negaverse – and (at least in Athene’s experience) the lack of any compunction about using them. “Don’t you have a team?” Given Princess Chronos’ status, Athene kind of expected that there was some sort of team – and he knew of at least one other Chronos knight which suggested that there may be more out there “Mayhaps one of them could help you practice.”

Nodding at Hara’s mention of Aikido, he admitted quietly, a slight rueful note to his voice “I enjoy it, although I think my cousin would have preferred that I’d stuck with Karate or even Judo – Aikido’s more about using your opponent’s strength against them rather than outright attack” or in his case more like attempting to – given the whole ‘being a way off’ from being any good at it.

"I don't think it's stupid" Athene said quietly."At least you're trying to do something about it." So yes the scarf was a pretty sucky weapon against things with claws, sharp teeth or some of those weapons he'd seen some of those Nega-people wielding.

He hesitated before admitting "And you don't have the monopoly on not being able to fight." Fighting was not... his thing and that was putting it mildly. It was probably fair to say that he sucked in the fighting department. Hence the Aikido lessons.

Athene tugged the end of his braid awkwardly at Hara's words "I can't speak for any of the others, but I certainly didn't come into this thing suddenly having super awesome skills."

His voice turned rueful "In fact I was at summer camp, my first and then I met a talking cat who insisted that I was some sort superhero type person and gave me a henshin pen but it's not like any of this has come with an information manual." And Athene really, really wished that it had - still did for all that he'd managed to rank up to Super.

He smiled slightly at Hara's question about the Aikido, the rueful note still in his voice as he said quietly "It is a bit" he admitted. "I've not been at it long - just over a month to be honest, but I kind off like it for all that my fellow class mates are all so much better at it than me." Another slight smile "But I've been picking up how to break my falls properly even if I seem to misstep a lot of the other stuff."

Athene hadn't been involved in what had gone done at the Surrounding, but it would have been hard to miss the news reports about all the civilians that had mysteriously gone missing. There had even been a city council meeting about it, which the Negaverse had invaded.

He shook his head slightly - the city council meeting brought back bad memories and besides he'd heard a few bits and pieces of what had happened whilst he had been down on earth - none of which had been good.

He nodded at Hara's comment about the cats "Makes sense. They can have cookies too."

At her question about the aikido classes location, he looked thoughtful for a moment before he said quietly "There's a notice about the classes up at the library." It seemed to be just the two of them at least for the moment and so safe enough to take a chance. "Or at least least it was there earlier this week. They're run by a Mr Green." He added "The classes I mean."

It wasn't the location per se, but more a chance to find it if Hara wanted to. Athene didn't mind offering up the information - senshi and knights were allies after all.