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He passed his hand over his face, rubbing thumb and forefinger against his eyes to try to relieve the glare of early morning sunlight as he walked back to what he'd claimed as his own tree. The wait staff of the diner had changed to the morning crew, the before-work crowd just barely tickling in. No one troubled him, just sidled quickly out of his way as he had gone to the counter for a coffee and then washed his face and hands in the wash room.

The park had early runners in the first pieces of their heat gear, a policeman at the end of his own shift eyed him up as he passed. They'd chatted briefly not far past midnight, and thankfully the man had understood that leaving him alone was both safer and cost less effort and trouble on the taxpayers. He didn't want to send some cop to the ER just because the man wanted to throw him out of the park. He wasn't going to leave the park yet. He didn't want to leave the tree yet. It was calm there, quiet. There was no one there. It was cold with dying autumn. Most of all it felt real, compared to everything else. And here it was-

Titan settled again with his back to the tree, overlooking the little pond. He only brought one knee up, to rest elbow against while his palm supported and spread over his brow and eyes.

There was a small, very small aura nearing. He didn't move. It didn't matter.

There was a boof to his side- small, sudden and kinda soft. It was hard to tell from impact in hardened, chilled, thick muscle. Has a squirrel thrown an acorn at him? Titan didn't move for a few breaths, brow slowly pursing together in trying to decide what it was before finally turning to look at the ground next to him for a nut of some sort while shifting a hand to his flank just below the wide belt of leather.

He didn't see the peeking grey ears around the tree roots. Instead, no nut or rock found, he looked up to the branches to look to see if he could find a squirrel. Since he couldn't find the nut.

There didn't look to be any fluffy, fattening rodents in the slowly blushing trees.

Titanlåvenite's attention had been drawn to the sound of the war-warbles more than the light of the mauvian beam, turning back from the canopy to sight the fluffed and advancing silver mass. His arm tingling dead and sudden, as though it were cut off in a wave of from joints at wrist to elbow to shoulder was a surprised afterthought.

He blinked slowly. He rubbed the dead arm with the other hand. His heart jump-started to a more seasonally friendly rhythm for a handful of seconds, then gave it up to feeling dizzy. It is a star cat like Grendel. But it isn't Grendel. It isn't that black horror either.

Titan pulled the dead arm in to his lap in half-hearted protection. "I feel no scout near. You won't kill me that way, starkitty. Your beams seem more effective to the head. But that wasn't lethal either, last I felt."

"I already have a headache."

Titan kept rubbing his arm, vaguely disappointed that this didn't prove any cure to the dead feeling the way it might for a mundane 'falling asleep' of the limb. It would just have to be waited out. Like staring at the sky or headache black when the black mauvian HAD caught him in the head.

"I don't terrorize anyone. ". It wasn't argumentative or sullen, just toned like a fact.

"Here just felt solid and real. The tree and park welcome everyone. "


The tree doesn't care if I'm not worthy. It is probably older than any of the commanders right now. I wish I had its perspective. "What are you doing here?"

Her cleaning, the silence that accompanied it that drew out into minutes as more than a few licks were administered was enough that Titan had turned his attention away- back to the water not far off. Back to turning over Obsidian's words and the last hours spent in the man's company before leaving with that dawn. Whenever that was ago.

His arm was starting to tingle again with waking as whatever magic from that magic ray slowly left hold of the limb. Titan rubbed the dead hand with his still fine one a little harder, trying to urge the nerves along faster. He could close the fingers now, but the grip was not strong. There was still now feel of senshi of knight nearby, which was lucky for him.

When she spoke again, it was grating- needlessly haughty for so small a creature. It can think. How can you know it doesn't, just because you don't understand it. Because it doesn't use talking? People think cats can't think. And what is to say it can't be a wonder. What makes a wonder in the first place? It is land. A place. An object. Could any well full of stars be the Hvergelmir, as long as someone vowed to it and it had enough thought in it or care to accept the vow? Why not.

But the trail of thought petered off and away, unimportant indignance just a gut reaction to ...what? On the part of the knights he'd come to know, as though the cat's words were insulting to them somehow? Maybe they'd agree with it. He didn't really know much about knights or wonders or land. He wasn't sure what about it bothered him, then. Without anything clear, there was no point in holding onto it- so Titan turned to look at her again but without annoyance of anger.

Just looking at her.

"No. I don't fit." It came thickly, threatening more grief.
"That is very true."

"So go, starcat. You don't fit here, either. Be somewhere else, making your rounds." You are an unpleasant little thing.

"No, little starcat. There is no place waiting for me." Titan put his face into his hands again, the next words coming slightly muffled, "I've lost the only place I had. "

Talk of Pocky was odd. He'd heard of it and seen it in Colin's things, being a fairly packable and quick snack somehow a part of geek culture. Why would a starcat care about pocky? It didn't come in mouse flavour.

"I do not eat the little sticks much. They don't have enough calories. "

He wondered, suddenly, if he was hallucinating this whole thing. The star kitty had lasered him, hadn't she? There were tutoring sparkles of numbness just barely still in his arm that confirmed it must be real.

She had attacked him, puffed at him, and now was offering him strawberry stick snacks. He wasn't sure what to do with that. In absence of surety, he did what was asked- he opened the small pocket box, opened the foil baggy that sealed the freshness, and withdrew a stick to offer out to the starcat on his thigh.

Her fluffy backside was warm through the fabric of his uniform. The small weight was pleasant. From this angle if she lasered him in the face it would be a quick thing, but that didn't seem very concerning comparatively anymore. "Starcats eat cookie sticks?"

"Vegetables are what food eats." He assented her opinion, despite his answer to the next question. And really, it was true if talking about actual food or about Colin. "I actually have to eat a lot of them. I eat a lot of tofu and quinoa in order to get enough protein. And a lot of soy powder shakes. They mostly taste like Yoohoo, but I don't know what Yoohoo is made out of. "

"I used to have a more different diet living at home. On your own, it is not so much time for cooking. On my own. Not yours, I guess." Titan gave a slow sigh, focusing most on the pleasant purr, since he wasn't permitted to hold the stick as she nommed.

"I think I have only met Grendel. But I haven't seen him in a long time. I was a starcat once. I mostly had to eat leftover burgers from the laundromat trash." It was a preferable time and worry to distract his mind to.