Previously


(Backdated to October 2020)


Maybe it’s foolish, chasing a memory. Some half-magic daydream, a wish, brought on by hunger and ill-advised potion-taking. But the image of the young senshi is fixed in his mind, now. And it wasn’t just that one memory – he’d dreamed of her. Nothing as clear as that first vivid recollection, but small, unimportant things. Real things. The sound of her giggling at her own joke. Having breakfast together on one of the big windowsills. The feel of her breath as she slept, fingers still gently curled against his fur as he watched over her from the pillow.

And he has the name. He didn’t make that up.

She’s one of Jupiter’s moons. That takes the barest glance at the space charts to find, not that he really needed to check. He remembers.

More information than that is a little harder to come by. There are plenty of resources in the HQ for playing detective. Databases, phone tracking, energy signatures. Tomlin has never made much use of them before, and the sheer number of senshi is a little daunting. On any given night, so many of them are out patrolling, keeping the city safe. Maybe he doesn’t know the right search functions. Maybe he’s checking the wrong reports. Maybe she isn’t there, isn’t real…

In the end, it’s fate.

He needs a break from all the screens, and his stomach is making demands again. The streets outside the HQ are silvered under infrequent streetlights, shadows between as dark as the sky above him. The cool air ruffles his fur, blowing out the frustrations of his investigation. It’s a lovely night. As he stalks through the alleyways looking for abandoned edibles, that same light wind tugs at the clouds above, letting through glimpses of stars, and in another gust blowing the sky clear, revealing the Moon, huge and near-full, framed between skyscraper walls.

In that sudden shaft of moonlight, a little girl turns into the alley right in front of him. She looks left, right, turns a slow circle, fails to see him. He isn’t surprised when she raises a pen above her head – who but a senshi would be out so late? The enemy doesn’t recruit so young.

The energy signature blossoms as her magic takes her over. And he knows.

It’s not the uniform – though the colours are right, as much as he can tell in the washed-out silver moonlight. It’s not the girl herself, though the eyes are huge and wide and red. It’s not the pen or the brooch or the tiara. The energy signature says chibi, though she looks a little older than that. Older than he remembers.

He steps into the senshi’s line of sight, and the delighted sound she makes can only be described as a chirp.

“Here kitty- oh! I beg your pardon, you’re a Star Cat! Hello!”

And she crouches down, holding out her empty palm to him.

He pads cautiously towards her, whiskers pitched forward as he sniffs the proffered fingers. She smells of sweet soap and warm milk, sneaking out after bedtime.

“Euporie,” he says, half-expecting confusion, maybe denial. He’d been wrong-

But she grins, a wide, impish expression, tinged with pride. “Yuh-huh! Chibi Senshi of Mimicry, at your service!”

Mimicry. He’d forgotten that. Or hadn’t remembered it, which wasn’t quite the same thing. It was unsettling, like déjà vu. Like opening a door and realising he was home. She’s looking at him, hopeful, little hand hovering by his face. Waiting for permission. He tilts his head, rubbing his cheek gently against her fingertips. Her smile stretches wider and she begins to scratch his ears.

“Were you looking for me?” she asks after a minute. “’Cos I haven’t met you before and you know me and. What’s your name?”

“Tomlin,” he replies. He ignores the rest of the question. It would take too long to explain, and he’s not sure how much she’d believe.

Her face lights up again, despite the omission. “Oh! You’re friends with my friend Oort! That’s so cool!”

His tail flicks in surprise. “You know Oort?”

“Yuh-huh! He’s my Superhero Partner! He’s been training me!”

He nods, and a weight of guilt rolls off his stomach, leaving him light. She hasn’t been alone all this time. She hasn’t been alone – and neither has he. Gratefulness fills up the spaces, thinking of Oort, and all the senshi and cats he knows, and before he’s really aware, he’s purring.

Euporie giggles. Embarrassed, he tilts his head away from the scritching fingers.

“Sorry,” she says, “but you’re just so soft! Hey, um. I was gonna go on patrol. Do you want to maybe come with me?”

“Sure,” he agrees. He knows he would go with her anywhere.

He falls in step beside her, the tip of his tail brushing her flared skirts. The silvery night stays quiet for them, no youma shedding their oily auras over their stroll. Euporie is chattery and serious by turns, and he gets the feeling she’s trying to impress him, showing off everything she’s learnt from Oort.

After a while, her bouncy steps slow, and her fingers twirl and twist the feathers on her front bow.

“Tomlin?” she says, stopping in the dark street to face him. “I don’t think there’s any mons- youma out tonight at all. But would you like to come to my house for snacks? I’ve got cookies and toast and milk and my mum made a tuna casserole, there’s leftovers…”

Tomlin weaves his way around her legs reassuringly, rubbing his cheek against her knees. He’d forgotten he was hungry.

“Tuna’s good,” he says, looking up into those familiar red eyes. Her grin returns, immediate and wide. He grins back.

Later, warm and cosy and full up with cheesy tuna pasta, Tomlin wonders how he can explain everything to her. Past lives and old worlds seem a lot to dump on such a young girl. But she’s still stroking his back, scratching his ears till he forgets he’s too tough to purr. And her foot is the perfect height for a pillow. It wasn’t like this in his vision, and yet somehow it’s exactly right. Maybe she already knows.



(1028 words)