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 Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2016 8:14 pm
The question surprised her but digging back in her memories, Delilah only gave a nod.
"Terrifying." The would almost held a laugh as she remembered the day a near little kitten had found her running for her life. "I was going shopping and a youma, though at the time I only thought of it as a lab experiment gone bad, started chasing me. A mouse if you could believe it! But everytime its tail hit something, it was like an Earthquake."
Shaking her head, Delilah smiled now. "It's funny. I think back to how I was then and to who I am now. Lord I was a b***h years ago..."
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Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2016 8:17 pm
"But...how did you feel about it back then....and now?" He asked, looking up at her.
"If it was so scary back then, why didn't you stop?"
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Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2016 8:24 pm
"I felt it was silly." Delilah admitted, running a hand through her bangs. "Not long before I became a senshi, I was saved by one. Though he nearly killed me with his magical attack dropping a lamp pole on me." Shaking her head, Delilah continued softly. "Now....not that I know more about it it doesn't feel so silly..."
Exhaling, she continued. "I kept transforming because I found a freedom in being Sailor Phact. After awakening me, I have never seen that little kitten again. Most of my knowledge came from older senshi that again, I have never laid eyes on again..."
Her head hung then with a weak smile. "Freedom of flying across roof tops kept me going. Then it became protecting my best friend...who has proved to me does not need it. Now..." she gazed up and forward. "Now it's for the people who don't know. For the people who will never know. And most of all, so that everyone has a chance at happiness. I can't stopped now Arthur. I would never forgive myself..."
"Sometimes I wonder if I should give up being Delilah White."
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Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2016 8:34 pm
Was that what she was bothered with? He had thought it had been the other way around, but he had misjudged completely. It wasn't that the war put her identity and motivations as Phact into question, but as her existence as Delilah instead.
He made his way down the block. The place was a lot of small shops. A bright cupcake bakery. Another was a run down florist shop. A butcher shop down the street from that. A pawn shop that had a 'for sale' sign in the window. A few other vacant stores, their dark, gutted insides hallow windows reflecting the street.
Checking the road, Arthur dashed over to a slender building pressed on either side by similar, closed, stores, and stood at the door. Here he rose up on his back legs and pawed the air in her direction. "Can you take my house key and open the door?" He asked, looking down as the copper-colored key that hung from his neck.
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Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2016 8:41 pm
Following, Delilah was strangely glad she had to pen with her...not for fear of youma but the farther they went into the hallow windows and closed stores, the more she worried about humans watching.
But as Arthur ran across the road, she knew the ball of fluff trusted this place. It was his home after all. So she too would trust it.
"Of course. But in return, tell me how you awoke as well." Delilah whispered, kneeling forward to unhook the key. She had always wondered where this key led to but never bothered to ask. It was his secret. Now, she was learning.
Slipping the key into the lock, she turned it for the click of a door and pushed it open.
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Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2016 8:58 pm
A small bell jingled as the door opened, casting a long stretch of light from the street lamps onto the store. Dusty shelves with closed boxes set onto a narrow room.
Arthur let out a loud, meow out into the room as if to say hello, and walked in, his paw pads leaving dust impressions as he walked in. "This is Eleanor's store. Little Extra, but everyone calls it Eleanor's." He said, walking over to the right to jump up on a dusty counter where a covered register sat. "I'd sit here and Eleanor would stand here, and we'd welcome customers. We'd sell newspapers, magazines, candy, cigarettes, and odds and ends. Oh, and coffee!"
He patted a stack of outdated papers next to him. "Everyone on the street came here. Oh, and the TV was up there." He said, turning to a small shelf where a small TV would have been but now empty space occupied. His eyes moved to look down at the empty seat a moment and then back to her.
"We'd read the paper every morning here. I'd read this side and she would read this side, and then I'd switch spots." He said, moving from where he'd sit on one end of the counter to another before looking around. The place was quiet now, dark, and hollowed out. All the inventory was gone. The newspaper and magazine racks had loose bits of paper and magazine inserts, and there were only a few items forgotten the shelves. A sign saying "Decent manners and attire only."
"I remember that after she found me from the rain, when I got better, she placed me on the steps and scooted me right out the door. Said I was free to go. And I just sat there all day. I didn't even know what to do with myself anymore. So she told me to stop blocking the door and gave me some creamer. I started working in the store after that."
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Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2016 5:22 pm
It took a long moment before Delilah followed Arthur into the old building. It felt as if she was an uninvited guest breaking into someplace full of care and warmth. Slowly she pushed the door open a bit more and took a careful step in.
"Did you both used to watch soap operas on it? Or did she prefer to have it on the news like everyone else?" Delilah asked softly, gazing up to the spot he had looked to before the empty seat. With the layer of dust and the emptiness of the store...she could only guess how long Eleanor had been gone.
Small things began to make sense now. Why even when she had offered him a place to stay he had turned her down. Why he always laid on her chest...
"Did you let the customer's pet you?"
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Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2016 5:32 pm
"No. Eleanor didn't like the news. She said she heard enough bad things that she didn't need to hear it raining down on her every day. Said she rather go deaf." He said with a chuckle, which helped him also escape from what was happening in Destiny City. 'We did read the newspaper, but that's because we got to pick what we wanted to read. I'd sit on the articles she didn't want to look at." He curled on the spot as he closed his eyes a moment, picture the mug they shared on the counter, the jingle of a familiar customer wanting smokes, the TV overhead playing reruns of old sitcoms, and the soft, rough fingertips of his entire world.
"I let people pet me eventually. It was good customer service, and some of our customers were nice and would tell us what was happening in the neighborhood. I usually liked being by her side to help her. I'd fetch things or even run errands." And he would watch her to make sure she was alright.
Standing, he shook off and jumped down off the counter to the ground, causing a cloud of dust to raise from around them. Sneezing, he shook himself free of a few cobwebs before he walked towards the back.
"I'll show you the upstairs." He called to her, his white form ghostly as he moved down the empty aisles and to a back door where he pushed to open and slipped behind. Behind the door lead up to a pair of steps that went upstairs.
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Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2016 5:39 pm
"No news is good news" Delilah added with a chuckle as she fanned her face to clear some of the dust he had stirred up out of the way. A few times she had to double check some spider webs just to be on the safe side. Mostly though, Delilah went slowly to avoid them. The last thing she wanted was a spider on her.
Especially one that jumped.
"Did I ever tell you about the time I road a spider youma like a mechanical bull?" Delilah tried to chuckle at the thought as a web broke on her skin.
Following his form and foot prints, she too pushed the door open and climbed the stairs.
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Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2016 7:13 pm
"What?" He called out distantly before poking out from the top of the steps. "What about a bull?" He asked, looking over at her until she reached the landing.
Turning, he walked into a small apartment. There was a small kitchen devoid of appliances with open cabinets. A few cans were left to collect dust along with a large pan, but everything else was gone. There was a door open to a dark bathroom, complete with handle bars to get in and out of the tub and alongside the toilet. What was still left was a bed, though the barest of ones. The mattress was bare save for a old quilt, and a TV sat on a rolling stand. A rug was rolled up and leaned against the wall in the corner.
"This is our home." He said before leaping up and curling on top of the quilt. "I managed to save this quilt before Daniel and Bernice could take it." He kneaded the fabric gently as he looked up at her. "After dinner, we'd get into bed and watch television until it was time to sleep. That or she'd read to me. I wanted to read to her too, but.....I wondered if that would be too much on her...." laying there, he eyed the patterns of tiger lilies on the quilt. "...but I sometimes would talk to her when she slept." His ears went back a little. "...and to make a phone call."
One emergency phone call.
His eyes flickered up at her. "She's the one that gave me my name. Said I'd look good in glasses and gave me a pair. I don't think she noticed when mine broke and I made a new pair. I never really bothered to use my powers for much else."
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Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2016 8:04 pm
To be honest, Delilah suddenly felt her heart drop to the floor. She didn't want to try and tell a story even then as she watched Arthur jump up onto the bed and curl into the blanket.
Her hand was still on the stair rail as she looked around, taking in what little was left and how much this place meant to him. How much Eleanor meant to Arthur. She was the reason he was alive, the reason he had to live for so long.
"Oh Arthur..." Delilah finally couldn't hold it any longer as she brushed away tears that formed in her eyes. Walking through the dust, she dropped to her knees in front of the bed, not carrying about the dust. Her arms went out to the feline, wrapped around him and gave him a warm hug.
"She was right. You do look good in glasses." The words were soft as she leaned her head to lightly press against his. "You wouldn't be Arthur without them." Tears lightly came down her cheeks as she released him, leaning back on her legs to gaze into his blue eyes.
"I'm so sorry..."
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Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2016 8:39 pm
Her own tears brought out his own, and he pressed his brow against hers as they were quiet, and he thought how long it had been since a person was even here.
"It wasn't just the glasses...that made me Arthur. She made me Arthur. When I became her cat.....her friend.....that's what my purpose was. I stayed with her here helping out. I stayed with her hear when things got worse. I stayed with her in the hospital despite the rules. I stayed with her at the nursing home. I stayed, and even thought I did go out and make senshi, it wasn't who I was. It wasn't my purpose. I was there to be there for her. Once she left...I was a stray again.....there was no one around to call me Arthur."
He looked out at his home. "Just like this place, as long as someone calls it home, its a home. Without it, it's nothing."
He looked back up at her. ".....I've been wondering too. What to do now. How to help. What I should do. Everything feels beyond me. But I felt that way before. When things got bad here. Times where I felt I've failed someone. You haven't been sleeping, and it hurts me when you say you don't want to be Delilah, because Delilah was the one that started calling me Arthur again."
His head quickly turned, eyes squeezing shut as they started to tear up again.
"....I wanted to show you my home......because you opened up yours....."
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Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2016 7:49 pm
"Thank you Arthur..." The words came out hoarse through the tears. "Thank you for showing me your home and coming into mine. You have made everything just...right."
Her hands came up to gently pet down his back as she leaned forward to lean softly against his white fur and star. For a long moment, she said nothing...
"You are right. I need to remember who Delilah is. Phact is a part of me...not the other way around."
Leaning her head back, she gazed down into his blue eyes. "And Arthur is your. You are my beloved friend Arthur. Even if you were not a Guardian Cat, I couldn't imagine not having you in my life now. I'm so sorry I have made you worry for so long...
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Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2016 4:09 pm
Quietly, he rested his brow against hers and let the tremors of old emotions churn slowly through him. Once the demand for composure won against the desire to surrender completely, he opened his eyes again and started to rub his cheek affectionately against her now wet face.
"You mean the world to me, Delilah. I hate to see any part of it go away. Now, how about we go home now, hmm?" He moved to climb upon her shoulders and curl along the nap of her neck. It was a long day. It was time to head home.
FIN
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