Welcome to Gaia! ::

He needed to get home before the snow got worse.

It wouldn't have been bad if he'd been simply headed back to his apartment, but Ryan Darcy had promised his ailing mother that he would spend his birthday with her as opposed to sacrificing the day away to school or one of his many extracurricular activities. Truly, it made more sense for him to be studying on a Tuesday but... well, his mother's health had been failing and the older woman had been especially a**l about spending holidays with her oldest son, especially after his father had passed away.

So he'd collected enough groceries to make a decent birthday breakfast and dinner, paper bags in hand as he awaited the bus to arrive. It was overdue - wasn't it always? - but still, public transportation cut back on fumes from owning a car and Ryan once again found himself at the mercy of another person's time schedule.

He was about to start lifting his legs to increase blood circulation when he felt a sudden pressure brush against the inside of his legs. Eyes widened as he all but jerked down - oh!

It was a cat!!!!

"Hello there, princess!"

Shifting the paper bag into one arm, his newly freed hand leaned down to gently stroke the large beast behind her ears. "Are you trying to warm up too?"

"W-Woah now, someone's a little nosy, aren't they?"

He couldn't help but laugh at the new furry friend's curiosity, the pussycat nosing around at the bottom of the paper bag. Her weight wasn't horrible on his knees - then again, Ryan would let a furry friend walk all over him if it meant getting to spend time with a critter, something his mother had never allowed him to own as a child. "Let's see if there's anything in here that might interest you, hm?"

Shifting gently to the side, he beckoned the cat to follow him over to the dilapidated looking bench. While he preferred not to risk the splinters, the bench did have a covered awning, providing them with shelter from the snow and a place to sit without soaking fur nor pants.

Settling into his seat, hands set the bag alongside his leg, allowing the cat ample opportunity to start browsing the grocery store finds with him. "I bet we can find something that Mom won't know went missing, yeah?"

As one hand moved to scratch her head, the young man froze as the distinctly female voice made a request of him. It took him a moment for his brain to comprehend what he was looking at because if he hadn't seen the cat's jaw move when the voice uttered the salmon choice, he would have assumed someone else had joined the two.

For good measure he glanced around anyways, but there was not another soul in sight. Turning back around, he watched as just in time, the cat offered its name. Rather, her name.

What did he… how did he… what was he supposed to do?

Not one to upset the strange talking cat, his hand dug into the sack and pulled out the plastic-wrapped fish he'd purchased for his and his mother’s dinner. After all, one didn't have a conversation with a talking cat just any old day of the week.

Dropping the fish in its wrapper in front of the large cat, he offered meekly, “R-Ryan. I'm Ryan.”

His brows furrowed as she pulled back from the offering he'd set out in front of her. Didn't cats like... why wasn't she.. - oh!

Cheeks flushed a dark red, adding to the already flustered colored they'd grown thanks to the bitter February cold. It didn't make sense, talking cats... but then again, it didn't make sense that talking cats were offering to show him their thumbs like it was an everyday occurrence.

"Oh! I'm sorry about that, I didn't..."

Hands fumbled with the packaging, blunt fingernails struggling to rip the plastic off the top of the package without actually having to touch the raw fish. It would have been better cooked, surely, but he'd never known a cat to be picky (though then again, he'd never known one to talk either).

Ryan glanced up in time to see the cat do an impressive acrobatic trip but even more impressive was the odd object that appeared thanks to her flip. The small object was dropped onto his pants, quickly collected in his hand as he traded the opened fish over to Julienne.

"Sailor senshi?"

The words seemed familiar but he couldn't pinpoint where he'd heard the term before. Was this a dream? Had he been mugged and left out in the snow to freeze?

What in the world was going on?

He offered the cat an incredulous look as he listened to what she told him. Ryan rolled the pen around in his palm, thumb brushing across the odd looking symbol on the top of the blue looking... writing device?

She'd given him a writing pen in exchange for fish?

It sounded ridiculous, like it belonged straight out of a fairy tale. Granted, talking cats also sounded like they belonged in a children's storybook so maybe this was just par for the course, that afternoon.

Eyes glanced around to ensure that no one else was going to stare at him for looking ridiculous. The bus was still late, no car in was in sight. All of the pedestrians seemed to be playing it safe and staying inside and out of the cold, leaving him alone with the talking cat (who seemed rather disappointed that he hadn't purchased cooked fish, silly thing - when did cats get so picky?).

Taking a deep breath, Ryan raised the pen up to his chest and murmured the words she'd told him, mostly out of fear of messing up the strange name she'd given him.

"Servius Power, Make-up!"

A flash of light and a very strange feeling began to come over him. When the figurative dust settled, dark shoes landed on the sidewalk with a snowy crunch, soft eyes staring down at his attire in bewilderment.



He wasn't Ryan anymore and while it was strange, he couldn't help but feel a rush of excitement coursing through him. No - he was still Ryan, but now he was more. He was Sailor Servius.

With all the feelings coming over him, it was hard to sort through his thoughts and come up with an intelligent response. His gaze returned to Julienne as if to say what now? as hands moved out, examining the strange sleeves of his new get-up.

"S-So... super hero, huh?"

It was definitely the most bewildering day for the young man about to celebrate his twenty-first birthday. He knew adulthood was going to be filled with responsibilities but no one - not even his dear mother - could have prepared him for this sort of responsibility.

He listened obediently as she explained his magic and the words he needed to say to summon it. Eyes continued to roam across his attire, bizarre as it was, ignoring the cat currently enamored with the extra strings dangling from his pant's hem.

Magic? He had magic? Okay - well, he supposed that made sense, he was supposed to be a super hero, right?

Glancing both ways (and at the lack of bus still not nearing the stop), Servius leaned down to gingerly pick up the large cat. The groceries and fish would have to be abandoned, temporarily at least, because this... this sudden flood of knowledge needed some more addressing first.

"I think you and I are gonna have to find some place to talk about this a little bit more, Miss Julienne."