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It was late afternoon when Arian finally left the library, although the dark-haired teen hadn’t particularly wanted to just head on home. Saffy was out visiting one of her girlfriends and Arian hadn’t felt like pottering around the empty apartment.

It had made sense to power up to his senshi alter-ego; get a spot of patrolling in and after one secluded alley with a large dumpster later Super Sailor Athene hit the patrol beat, a bag with a few cookies that he’d brought as an impulse buy to hand (hey their fresh-baked this afternoon smell had been too tempting to resist okay).

His feet had taken him in the direction of the park, and Athene had let himself jog for a bit – just for the heck of it. Eventually however he’d ended up on one of the park benches, munching on one of the cookies and making the most of what was left of the autumn sun – it had been a pretty quiet afternoon so far with not a chaotic aura in sensing distance so Athene figured it okay to take a little time out.

Caught up as his thoughts were in quiet contemplation, the excitable-sounding voice speaking from about the level of his feet was enough to take Athene by surprise. Startled the dark-haired senshi looked down, finding the source of the sudden torrent of words being directed his way to be a guardian cat with calico markings. At least the dark-haired senshi was assuming the cat was a guardian cat – after all he had a golden star on his forehead and was talking to him.

“Um afternoon Pippin, it’s nice to meet you.” he gave Pippin a friendly smile, the polite words almost automatic. “I'm Athene – Sailor Athene. And sure you can have a cookie.” Athene had managed to get from the word torrent directed his way that Pippin was hungry and he reached into the bag of cookies as he spoke, pulling out a cookie and breaking into four pieces to make it easier for him to manage. “I don’t think I can give you all the beads on this outfit though.” For a start it would mean unwinding the beads entwined in his hair, which Athene suspected was what was keeping it in its braid given that his costume didn’t appear to come with a magical hair band. “I can let you have some of them though.”

“It’s okay, it’s no trouble really” Athene told Pippin quietly as the guardian cat thanked him for the cookie. “There’s plenty enough for us to share. And I’m not really that young” the last six words were a response to the ‘kid’ comment. The dark-haired senshi was older than he looked – his eighteenth birthday under six months away – and he couldn’t help being short. The fact that his face looked young wasn’t something that Athene had contemplated.

He gave Pippin a bemused smile at the calico cat’s request for beads “How about the ones in my sash?” he offered at last. To be honest apart from the ones holding his hair up and the bronzed-wrapped beaded earring in his ear, Athene didn’t mind giving some of the beads from his outfit to the guardian cat and there were quite a few bronze beads decorating the end of his topmost sash.

The change from joking to annoyed (at least Athene took the ‘hating kids’ comment to mean that the guardian cat was annoyed) took the dark-haired senshi by surprise, he hadn’t thought he come across that abrupt. “Actually I like kids” he thought about it and added “Well at least not rude ones. And I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause any offence earlier” he said referring back to his comment about his age. “It’s just quite a few people seem to think I’m younger than I am – even though I’m in my last year of High School” he gave a rueful smile “I have to bring ID if I want to watch anything higher than a PG-13 at the cinema.”

Pippin’s switch back to cheerful made the dark-haired senshi blink slightly, but after untying his sashes he worked some of the strings of beads that trailed from the end of the top-most sash off. It was a little tough, but after twisting the strings of beads round and round he was finally able to snap off five of the strings of beads “Here you go Pippin.”

Athene returned Pippin’s smile with a small one of his own, no hard feelings on his part about the guardian cat’s brief snappishness. The smile turned to a slight look of bemusement as the calico cat explained how the kitty thing was going well for him.

There was a couple of biscuits left and noticing that Pippin appeared to finished the first one, the dark-haired took one of the biscuits and split it into four pieces before offering them to the calico cat with a quiet “Would you like another biscuit?”

The dark-haired senshi had only met two guardian cats to date, three if you included Pippin. They all seemed pretty different. Tomlin had come across as more serious than Pippin, albeit with a crazy streak of recklessness (aka lets go charge a youma), ********* seemed to be more easygoing with less changeable moods although the silvery-furred cat was friendly too and appeared to share Pippin’s sweet tooth.

Handing over the pieces of the biscuit, Athene bit into the last cookie and chewed before answering Pippin “Actually, you’re the third Guardian cat that I’ve met. The very first guardian cat that I met is called *********.”

He ate a bit more of the biscuit before continuing “She’s the one that gave me my henshin pen and showed me how to power up.” Not that the dark-haired senshi had taken having a powered alter-ego very well. “The second guardian cat told me that his name is Tomlin – he helped me out with a sludgy youma.” Actually help was probably relative and had involved the ginger-furred guardian cat putting himself at risk of being turned into kitty-pieces.

Athene wasn’t sure that Pippin was right that guardian cats were attracted to him – at least no more so than any senshi – the dark-haired senshi didn’t particularly consider himself a particular brilliant example of senshidom. He didn’t interrupt as Pippin spoke instead taking another bite of his cookie.

“To be honest I’m not sure how many guardian cats are out there” he admitted at last once the calico cat had finished speaking and after he finished swallowing his bite of cookie. “I’ve heard that some guardian cats help the Negaverse though.” He’d only heard mention of it, although it had come as a surprise to him – Athene had automatically assumed that all guardian cats helped out the White Moon.

Athene had only meant to take a little time out, but it seemed that somehow more time had ended up passing than the dark-haired senshi had intended.

He gave Pippin a rueful smile “I guess it may be time for our ways to part” he admitted. “Although it’s been quiet so far I still have some patrolling to do before I turn in for the night” and quiet didn’t always stay quiet as the dark-haired senshi had found. “It’s been lovely speaking to you though. Mayhaps we can chat again sometime.”

For now though, there was an interrupted patrol for him to resume and mayhaps at the end of it all and he was back home for the night, then there would hot drink and maybe another cookie before he turned in for the day.