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Oh, she was just a cat. She was just a cat. She was just a cat. Ichta walked with a sort of stilt-legged anxiousness through the streets, looking about with wide eyes at every person who paused and offered her a hand to sniff. She'd mewl at them pathetically and then zip right past them in a true feral-cat fashion. It was perhaps the downside to being a fuzzy creature.

But with it getting slightly colder, there were less and less people roaming the park and the curly devon rex made her escape there - and practically into the wall. Or rather, the aura. She froze, shrinking down as it came over her and beginning to creep slowly....carefully. Oh so very, very carefully. Maybe if she just moved so slowly, they wouldn't notice. Oh, nobody was here please, please please -

Hello? Is someone there?

Ichta froze. Somehow, in her attempts to creep farther away, she'd only come closer and now was practically at the elbow of the young man. She'd just...umm...umm..

"Mew?"

Nailed it.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. He was talking and Ichta continued to stare up at him with wide eyes - attentive, yet terrified. As he extended a hand, she cautiously craned her neck out to sniff at it, before resting back into her previously neutral position. She blinked once, though if there was understanding she gave no indication of it.

Then he offered up cuddles, and she slowly moved, resting one paw on Gelria's leg, then pausing - hesitating. She leaned all of her weight - all meager 5 pounds of it - on that paw, then leaned back. Then back on her leg. Then back into a seated position....... Then she hopped up into his lap and with great caution, rested her front paws against his chest to bonk the top of her head against his chin with a small 'prrrt'.

"i-Is the nose okay? Just right....right um..." she lifted a paw to rub it along the bridge of her nose, almost where a forehead would have been if her face was a little bigger. "Right...here?"

Ichta eagerly leaned her little head into his hand as he pet her forehead, a soft purr rumbling out of the tiny cat. Oh yes, that was the good spot - and all she'd had to do was ask so very, very nicely.

"I....I have places I go," like the Humane Society. She wouldn't mention she was a little bit of an escape artist, however. There was just very little safety in staying in such a building for too long. Not when there were those who could sense her aura - and some who could have had nefarious purposes in finding her. But this boy seemed good, and for now she'd be able to stay close. Unless something made too large of a noise. Then she'd be gone. "I'm Ichtaca," she finally introduced.

She bumped her face back into his hand as the petting continued, resuming her purring and being utterly content in this moment. Only at his question did she pull her head away from the pets, looking at Gelria with some consideration. It wasn't an awakening, so.....

"I can do something for you," she finally offered up. "If you loan me your pen for a moment." Oh, she didn't like sending anybody off to fight, but he was already in it - and all she could do was make sure he'd stay in it.

She waited patiently, not pushing her luck as he hesitated to hand her the pen. "Your starseed is overflowing with power," Ichta explained as she took the pen, "mmgnnfffkit...." maybe she shouldn't have tried to talk with it in her mouth, but maybe he would understand what she meant as she hopped off his lap.

Oh, she hadn't done this in a long time. Did she even remember how to? Ichta would have felt very much like a fool if she just fumbled over everything and did it wrong. With a casual stretch of her body, she used that absolute fear of failure to remind herself the motions. In a pouncing pose, both the star on her forehead began to glow. Then, she jumped - perhaps higher than any cat her size should have been able to, curling as she did so. The light from her head-star seemed to beam into the pen in hand.

Then, in a moment, it was over and she landed properly on all four of her paws. She looked up at the boy and nodded her hand. "Hhhk hssss plsss..." she requested, waiting until she had a hand to deposit it in. "Do you want to try it out?"

"I uh..." Oh, the technical questions always required a somewhat better grasp of words than Ichta had, and she grappled with her vocabulary for a minute to find good ones for an answer. "Well, I've made it so you have access to the power you have," she managed to fumble out of her mouth. It immediately sounded exceedingly dumb, however. Darnit. "You use it the way you have always used it - but it will now be Super Gelria Power, Make Up!" she perked a little as she explained that, though it seemed more for emphasis than her own enthusiasm.

Not that Ichta couldn't be enthusiastic, she just usually...wasn't.

When he reached out to pet her, she eagerly bumped her head into his palm, a meek purr emitting from her, though it seemed to be more of a nose-y purr than a body purr.

She sat, and she watched, tail flicking idly from side to side with interest as Gelria tried out his new pen for the first time. It was quite the change while not being dramatically different. And he had pants. It would be a welcome change with the colder weather and he seemed to agree with it.

Being picked up was slightly disagreeable, and Ichta fussed for a moment with a tiny mewl of protest. It lasted only a moment before she settled against his shoulder, resting her little head on it. Then she began to purr, a deeper noise that seemed to rumble her tiny little 7 pounds of kitty body. There was also a fairly good chance she began to drool from sheer contentment (She'd apologize if asked about it, however). After a moment she shifted her weight to lean up and bump her head against the side of his cheek.

"Stay alive, stay safe. That's all I could ask for from you." It would be repayment enough to see nobody fall in the war who didn't have to.

"But you can always say hello if you catch me during a patrol."