When Tama had first awoken, it had been after he had been protected by a human boy from a youma. When thinking about it later, he would conclude that it was this precise alignment of events that allowed the star, laying dormant for Cosmos knows how long, to appear once more on the grey cat's forehead. Yet even the Mauvian with the light of his lavender star now unobstructed, unlike the light of the distant star that allowed life to be on this planet, could not appreciate the true complexity of the situation. For the guardian cat could not know that he had last seen Earth's moon like this a thousand years ago during the Silver Millennium — the last light his twilight eyes had seen back then before being placed in stasis to drift across the universe.

Tama held his cloak in front of his eyes, the constellations upon it twinkling in the light of the sun as the moon passed before it in the sky. The memories came quickly, not unlike the sky which changed from darkness to light, and the cat pulled at his fur collar with a pink-padded paw. For some reason, he thought his form would be different, but he did not know why he thought so. He remembered who he was, being from Mau and his sacred mission, but nothing else. Nothing else but a burning desire to find her — the senshi. Someone, he knew above all else, was waiting for him.

“If you are looking for a senshi here, I am afraid you are too late.”

Tama's ears twitched as he looked up at a page sitting on the roof above him. The Mauvian's short tail twitched in annoyance.

“Who are you to know what I am seeking, child of Cosmos?”

The bright-eyed man looked down at the Mauvian. His eyes and hair were like the sun and his clothes like the stars. Who was he?

“I recognize the look is all. But it is silly of me to think you are looking for the same things I am, aren't I?”

The page smiled as he jumped down and knelt to be level with the Mauvian like two lost souls meeting as night becomes day.

Tama reached out a paw to the man's forehead. He did not know why he did this. Perhaps he had been trying to touch one last bit of starlight as it passed before the sun began its endless shine again.

The man's outfit began to glow as the moon last touched the sun. It glittered like starlight and a strange warmth could be felt on his paw. There was power here — bright and good but not that of a senshi — and Tama felt, at once, connected to it.

The page stood before him — now a squire. He turned around in the light, inspecting the change in his attire, blushing. He could barely get the words out as he almost dropped the white staff that now appeared in his clasped hands, a newly reborn weapon.

“A new form?! But how?”

Tama smiled. It was the first time he had done so in a very long time. Perhaps this was more than chance.

“A Mauvian cannot awaken your kind no more than you could have awoken one like me.”

The squire Erytheia's heart was troubled by this. “But I could not have done this on my own. Could I have?”

“Perhaps that is true. Perhaps it is not. Yet I do not believe in circumstance, Erytheia, and you should not either.”

He watched as the stars disappeared and the moon faded as the light of the sun reigned once more.

“There is nothing in this world that is left to chance alone. Perhaps it was not the senshi that I seek. Perhaps it is you.”

✪ / ☆