Welcome to Gaia! ::

The preceding days had been dark. The clouds had filled the sky like something ominous. Destiny City had given in to the darkness of the season. Yet Tama felt a different kind of dark, a different kind of wind in the air. Tama just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was… something was…

Had that fight really taken such a toll on him?

It was the first time the two — the cat and the knight — had gone out patrolling Destiny City together. Each had done so alone before. Each had been alone before.

And yet, their paths had crossed and then converged.

Three times they had found fate bringing them together: as a cat before he awakened, a new page had saved a lavender-eyed cat from a youma; a Mauvian awoke on a solar eclipse and waited for a senshi to find a squire just upgraded before him; and, finally, the day the boy would move out and leave the cat behind, the knight achieved his final form, yet chose to keep the cat by his side.

Then they had spent two years in Japan in peace as if their powered identities need not be everything to them.

So, when they returned, and went out to patrol together, it was the first time.

But Tama had gotten injured. He had always looked over the boy but now the boy — no, the knight — was looking over him. The Mauvian could not hold his own in battle. He knew all his powers as a guardian cat, all his knowledge, all his birthright… and yet…

None of that had been enough. He had tried to protect Erytheia only to be protected by him in the end.

Tama looked to the sky. It was beginning to clear and he could see the moon from his perch atop a tall building in the center of Destiny City. He could see the stars too.

The moon and the stars. Like the two of them.

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With everything he knew was out there — senshi, dark mirror senshi, corrupt senshi, knights, agents, youma and now senshi from deep space, even aliens — how did he ever think that he, a Mauvian, could do anything at all? He couldn’t even transform into a bipedal form.

What good was he for? Could he even hold his own with Erytheia now? The boy he once felt that it was his duty to protect…

Could he even do it as he was now?

Tama was not sure. He looked up to the sky again. The weather was finally clearing. But his mind was still clouded despite the sky.

He looked down at his small paw and then up again at the sky. So small, so insignificant… compared to all that was out there, out in the night sky.

Once, looking up at the stars had reminded him of his duty. It reminded him who he was. It was where he had come from after all. From a statis pod floating in space for who knows how long. Until he came here. To now.

But what did now even need him for.

“…”

At first, Tama didn’t reply to the other cat, still lost in thought.

“Sorry. I was just… nevermind.” For a moment, he wanted to tell the cat to leave. He did not want to be disturbed.

But he also didn’t want to be alone. Not tonight.

“I could use the company.”

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“I think some interrupting is just what I needed.”

Tama smiled at Bernard. He thought quite enough for tonight. Sometimes you needed a break from it.

“My name is Tama. How are you tonight?” He looked back up to the sky. Was it clearing?

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“I’ve had a funny feeling lately, too. Like something’s about to happen, but I don’t know what. Cat’s intuition, I suppose.”

Tama watched the sky as it started to clear.

“Sometimes I wonder if there is not more out there for us Mauvians. It seems all our allies are becoming more powerful — the Vanguard, senshi from deep space and even the Moon taking her own knights now! — and yet, we stay the same.”

☆