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Grocery shopping was a pain in cold weather, especially when a vehicle was lacking. He had his gloves and coat and boots, and his ipod to keep entertained with podcast lectures on anything and everything. He had his reusable bags - two of them mid sized and stuffed with rice, beans, organic salsas, grapes, apples, walnuts, and other goodies. There was a splurge on almond milk and on a heavy, rich New York cheesecake. Midterms were about over and he'd done well, so he felt like celebrating. The grades were dome 40% of his final mark, and he hadn't missed anything for any of them so they were actually a reflection of the instructor's opinion on his work and artistic statements instead of penalization for missing aspects of the assignments.

But he still had to get it all home to his closet-sized studio dorm. He almost wished he had a roommate so that there was someone to commiserate about the cold with, possibly get into a snow tussle and then laugh about messed up groceries. Unless they were sleeping in the same hammock on top of each other, though, he didn't think that he would soon get that wish. The dorm studios were already stupid expensive as it was, and who would want to stay in half the space even if it meant half the price? Three hundred a month for half of a closet was a scam, 600 for the whole closet was just the penance for getting the degree.

He didn't much note, in his musings, much of the actual surroundings, and its denizens, as he went by. He'd walked the path more than a dozen times since starting school, so it wasn't deemed as necessary information to store in memory.

It was lucky he was a little jumpy about just wandering around the streets with earbuds in and he always kept one ear clear- the left bud was tucked into the collar of his shirt. The distinct dinging drew his attention around and then down.

"Oh a cat!" He paused admiring the fluffy thing. "And a collar too. Someone is lucky around here. "

He looked surreptitiously around. People didn't usually take their cats for walks, so chances are this little one was just out for a stroll and would be going home again when dusk came and dinner was served. It was good policy to put collars on cats, and microchips, and he was glad to see someone was a responsible pet owner. "Maybe your name's on your tag, huh? No use not trying to introduce ourselves properly."

He crouched and let his bags down to try to get a look if there was a tag and information attached to the bell and collar that was so clear in the evening air.

OHGODITSPOKE.
Quenton, already crouched over to look at the collar, fell back into a startled and hurried crab walk of a few feet away from the source. His bags were abandoned that small reach away, and he blinked owlishly over his glasses. That didn’t just happen, did it? He still had his one headphone in, yes? Yes. *********. No, he didn’t have any sort of music or podcasts that used that word.
He’d seen the cat’s mouth move, hadn’t he? “Did.....did you just talk? You’re a cat. “

“My...Name? My name is Quenton...I.....it iiiiiiissss a pleasure to meet you.”

Was it? This was a cat. Could you meet cats? Alice met the Cheshire, but this was no tea party. It certainly felt like it wanted imagination.

He frowned, suspecting maybe the cat was being facetious about his being observant. He'd seen CatFriend vs. DogFriend. The general populous did consider most cats to be jerks. Though this one wasn't so bad yet, just funning at his expense, really. Well, who wouldn't be surprised at a talking cat? It wasn't like it was something scientifically documented outside of the 'science' of fiction books and children's fairy tales. Or YouTube.

"I..guess. As long as you don't claw, I mean...I won't jostle you. I've heard of cats circuses from Russia, so I mean.. That's fine if you can keep your balance. " He only had so many clothes, so he didn't really want this shirt to have rents in it from shoulder to hip that needed stitching. Well, or to have to use that many band aids himself. He guessed that if the shirt got cut, so did he.

Quenton shifted back to a crouch and leaned his head over a little to offer a clear shoulder as he pulled out his second ear bud. "********* Juventas-*********? I mean, I guess I wouldn't put it past someone to give an animal a racial slur for a name, but I'd rather think it were the cup bearer."

"Do you...live near here? Just catting about? Oh, I mean..sorry." He didn't mean it as a pun.

"Those senshi? What is a senshi? No, wait, I know this one. I studied some sengoku era art and buddhist sculpture...that means 'soldier', right? In Japanese. Are you a Japanese cat? Your English is really rather good. I thought Manx were from the Isle of Man, to be quite honest."

"Soldiers...." He certainly didn't let much grass grow under his proverbial mental feet, mind going quickly from book to book, study to study, class to class. It wasn't straight ways on his mind recently though, so instead he got some nonsense about the First World War, All's Quiet on the Western Front and other art and literature of the period.

No good that way. What soldiers woudl someone be referring to in Destiny City? There was the ROTC at the University, the National Guard and the Metropolitan Police. What about those terrorists murmured about in the University express cafe's? "Do you mean the terrorists? Those soldiers?"

" I don't think you can just divest a word of its meaning that way..."
Senshi was soldier, he was sure of it. Calling someone a senshi meant they were a soldier, so 'not talking about soldiers' was either ridiculous, sublime, or subterfuge. Once already talking to a cat, though, anything was possible. Fairy tales always had three companion animals, and cats weren't uncommon in the count of them.

"To be honest not a whole lot. I don't have the time to be super involved in it. I'm just into college, already declared my major. Between classwork, research and making spare change...it just hasn't been a priority to follow the news about gang wars. Terrorist seemed a strong word, honestly. Part of the panickocrasy along with flu shots and airline security. "

"The university alert system sends out SMS whenever there's an emergency on campus. Sometimes it comes out later that it was a student or visitor who'd been attacked. Sometimes its just normal stuff like muggings and fire alerts. I've heard some classmates mention expose by Tag Swagger on the subject- the terrorist supposedly trying to 'take over' whatever that means. "

"Taking over a federal presidential constitutional republic seems like it would take a lot more than attacking random people in a city that isn't even the capital of said country."

When she fanned her whiskers, he grit his teeth. It was adorable.
He wanted to scratch under her little chin to see if she would extend it out as regular cats did, but it seemed like just petting might be uncouth. "Oh, no formal job. I make jewelry of all kinds, sell it on Etsy. You know, you'd look nice with a royal purple crystal studded collar. It would accent your fur."

"Is it...rude to pet talking cats? Do you like pets?"
"Have you eaten? I have some cheesecake in the bag. " Could cats eat cheesecake? He had no idea. He'd seen a cat eat spaghetti in a restaurant once.