"I wish these times didn't have to ever end." Diana said as she walked along the sidewalk. The moon marked, light-gray, time traveling, TALKING lunar kitten didn't get as many odd looks as she should have from other people walking down the street.
"Hey Diana be quite," The pink haired girl walking behind her said.
"It's okay Rini," the teller dark haired girl in unrevealing black clothes next to Rini said, "I don't think anyone cares."
Rini looked around, and indeed, no one was pointing or yelling or freaking out or calling animal control or anything else you'd logically expect from beholding a talking animal. "Weird, I was told humans in this centuries refused to accept magic existed, Hotaru."
"Rini, this is Azabu-Juuban," Hotaru said, "We've gotten used to talking cat and girls in school girl uniforms facing off against Youma: just as Nerima has gotten used to martial artists with ludicrous fighting styles causing mountains worth of property damage, and just like Shinjuku's gotten used to middle school and grade school kids commanding bizarre looking creatures to fight nihilistic red blobs."
Rini looked at her friend not understand half of what she said but nodded, "Okay I get it."
Hotaru knew Rini was lying but chose not to press the issue. "Rini, have you ever read the Little Prince?"
"I think I saw the movie...or was that the Little Princess?"
"In the book, the fox said, 'words are the source of misunderstandings.' Sometimes I wonder if he was right."
"That's silly," Rini, said, "How'd we get what we feel across?"
"Well," Hotaru put a few fingers to her face, "They saw over half of what we express is non-verbal, so maybe we'd just need a more intense way of expressing it."
Diana didn't even think how the overwhelming majority of cats in the century she was currently in were just dumb animals, so she didn't even remotely think her own ability to speak as anything strange or odd and thus something to be defended. Diana had no desire to be stranded in this century away from the Artemis and Luna, who had given birth to her, 'But it sure is nice here...' Of course Diana thought the only problems these humans faced on a normal basis was youma attacks, crime and war among humanity against itself wasn't something she had been raised among and thus had little concept of, and that mean she was seeing everything through rose colored glasses.
One thing was for sure; Diana had never imagined she'd be having a birthday a thousand years ago in the past! Before the advent of Nyx that forced Sailor Moon to put the entire planet into suspended animation to avoid the touch of she who ended entire worlds just by being within their gravitation field! Not that it was Nyx's fault; she just went where the majority of living souls upon a world compelled her. Neo Queen Serenity giving humanity the comfort, peace, and equality they had always desired had made their world invisible to Nyx. For Diana it was more recounted as, 'Lady who gives death anywhere where everyone is sad, so Neo Queen Serenity saved the world by making everyone happy instead.'
Arriving at the pet store, the trio walked inside, Rini looking around for what she wanted to buy for her cat as a 'no so much surprise.' Diana however spotted something and pointed with her paw, which led the eyes of Hotaru and Rini right to a collar with a pearl stud. What was more, Rini saw it was incredibly cheap. Hotaru figured it must have been just costume jewelry, but Rini didn't even think that never having SEEN costume jewelry as she quickly bought the collar for her cat.
"It's so lovely," Hotaru praised, "Where did you get it?" She asked the man behind the counter.
"It's was actually a one-time item, I hear the boss found it when he was working as a janitor for some finishing school, but the place shut down without a trace when the owner turned herself in for six months of therapy after being turned into a youma."
Hotaru and Rini while surprised at the last bit merely nodded. If any of the inner scouts or elder moon cats had been there they would have gasped in alarm. Instead they simply smiled and chatting among themselves wondering if the pearl was a lost heirloom to a princess or maybe a hidden key to another world, or some other plot device that would start up a new adventure for them.
The girl bought the collar without trouble and headed for the park, "Happy birthday Diana." Rini said putting the collar on her cat.
Diana twirls around a few times and exclaimed, "I gonna see how I look!" The moon kitten declared running over to a nearby water fountain. As the moon cat scampered off Hotaru began to ask Rini several casual questions about the Crystal Millennium. Having as much respect for the rules of time travel as she did homework, Rini answered them without hesitation or exclusion.
Diana looked at herself in the pool, and saw in her opinion, yes; she did look rather pretty with the collar. After looking at herself in the water for a bit, she thought, 'Would it be nice of everyone was pretty?'
Diana was hit by a wave of dizziness; the feline almost fell in the fountain. She groaned, feeling odd as she drunkenly made her way back to the girls, making almost a zigzag pattern as the world swirled around her, finally she fell on her side. Then much as her own mother's one time transformation into a human woman, Diana started to glow white. The pearl was absorbed into her, and the collar dissolved into nothing. Her entire expanded and elongated, the entire shape of her form utterly changing.
When the glowing stopped, the result stood up on her two legs and looked innocently at the still chatting Hotaru and Rini. 'She' was a subjective term, for the entity was technically genderless but shaped like a human child all the same, or perhaps her proportions were more fitting of a child-sized fae than any human. She still had her cat ears and tail, which were the same color as before. She had what at first glance could have been human skin, but then the noticed the reflection it gave off. And her eyes were completely different in composition. She also had a mop of light gray hair on top of her head.
She smiled an opened mouthed smile at the two girls chatting. She walked over to them, her tail swaying behind her. The living doll came up behind Hotaru who was closer and tapped her on the shoulder. Hotaru looked behind her with Rini and gasped at what they saw.
"Who-who’re you? You really should be going around outside like that you'll catch a cold." Hotaru blurted out.
The living kemonomimi doll twirling once, then mimed a curtsy.
Suddenly it clicked in Rini's head, "Diana? Is that you? What happened to you? Where did you collar go?"
The kemonomimi doll placed a hand over her heart, still smiling, like her mind was forever on cloud nine, then cocked her head and reached out her hand to give something.
The forever trusting Hotaru reached out her hand, and felt a pearl materialize in it for a split second before it was absorbed into her. In quick succession her clothes dissolved to match Diana's state of undress, then she glowed weight and slightly shrunk. Her silhouette grew a pair of cat ears and tail while her human ears vanished and her figure reshaped itself as well. The glow vanished. Her hair hadn't grown an inch, or for that matter shrunk an inch, resulting it actually appearing larger on her smaller frame. With black cat ears and tail, the new kemonomimi doll hugged the ones that was originally Diana. While still technically naked and genderless, the kemonomimi doll who was just moments ago Hotaru was wearing a purple ribbon on her backside tied around her stomach, looking much like the one that had been on her senshi uniform.
"WHAO! WHAT THE BERYL!" Rini yelled out, as fate would have it they were the only ones in sight, and those who heard her had no idea what the girl was calling about.
The two living plastic dolls looked at each other, the one that had been Diana tilted her head, the one who had been Hotaru shrugged. Rini began to inch away from the two kemonomimi who had been her friends, who slowly turned their head towards her. Then with cat like reflexes the two pounced on her, and began to tickle her like crazy.
"Hey-ehe-eh-eh, see-see-stop-pep! Plea-eas-eas-se!" Rini responded between laughs as she squirmed under the tickling her back on the grass. She never noticed the pearl that touched her and she absorbed, or that the two kemonomimi doll stepped back as she did so. She continued to squirm and giggle on her own as her clothes vanished then a light enveloped her as her body changed shape and grew a tail new ears. She finally stopped laughing with light still enveloping, cutting off almost like a shut down sound system. The light died down, and the new kemonomimi doll who was just Rini sat up and looked at the two others and mimed a laugh. The two others kemonomimi dolls also mimed a laugh in return. Like Hotaru, Rini's hair hadn't shrunk down with her, giving the illusion of her hair being longer. And like Diana and Hotaru her eyes were configured. The new kemonomimi doll who had been Rini went from sitting up to standing up. Just like Hotaru, she had a ribbon on her backside that resembled the one on her senshi uniform, pink instead of purple. The three looked at each other and smiled, and nodded at each other in perfect understanding. Mental images in her heads flashed by without words of the other senshi, and everyone else the people the kemonomimi dolls used to be knew.
The kemonomimi doll that was once Diana leaped up and did a fist pump then hugged the two others who returned the hug. She mimed blowing out candles and gave double thumbs up. The other two mimed clapping. The three then in sync walked through the park to where they knew they had to go next.
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(Posted Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:53)
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