Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Children of the Night ❯ A Cat's Life ( Chapter 2 )

Children of the Night
Chapter 2--A Cat's Life

By: Hime

hime@alloymail.com

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"A cat is more intelligent than people believe, and can be taught any crime."
-Mark Twain

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If you had just met the three roommates, your first impression of them would be that Faye was the exotic beauty; Serena was pure and child-like; and Sahara was the nicest one of them all. Sahara was the type of person to let someone else cut in front of her in line and she never argued about where they should go whenever they went out. She was just too nice a person to fight with anyone.

Now that's a lie. Oh, not that Sahara wasn't a nice person, she was definitely a nice girl, but that wasn't the reason she was so agreeable with everyone around her. The fact of the matter was that Sahara is, well, lazy. It's so much easier to let someone cut in front of her in line then it was to argue with that person. And the same goes with deciding on what she and her friends would do. Let Serena and Faye hash it out together, Sahara usually enjoyed whatever they did together no matter who won. She just enjoyed spending time together with her best friends. In fact there were only three things in Sahara's life that she did feel passionately about-- drumming, sleeping, and her friends, not in that order, necessarily.

And so it may come to a surprise, but then again maybe not, that though Sahara was the most lazy of the three, she managed to grab Serena away from the door and kick it shut before Faye could finish registering that Serena was screaming.

"Are you okay?" Sahra asked Serena while she judged the thickness of the door. Not much could freak Serena out enough that she would scream unless it was something majorly bad and Sahra hoped their door would hold up.

Serena looked at Sahra, speechless. This had been one of the few times she had ever seen or maybe not seen Sahra do something that energetic. Serena shook her head slowly and said in a calm voice, "I'm alright. Open the door, Miss Tiller is standing out there."

It was Faye's turn to look scared. "Do we have to let her in?" she all but whined.

Serena smiled and said, "Now Faye, she's not going to hurt you."

"She doesn't like me." Faye said flatly. Miss Tiller was a neighbor of theirs, a retired model, she lived with only her French poodle to keep her company. The reason she disliked Faye was because Faye reminded her of what she used to be--young, beautiful, and someone in front of the public's eyes. Faye was an indoor model at Saks. When Serena and Sahra learned that Faye's employee discount could probably be used to get them stuff, Sahra went around with a gloating smile that said `wasn't it a great idea of mine to have Faye come live with the two of them.' Like Sahra cared about clothes or makeup anyway

Giving Faye a sideways glance, Sahra opened the door, framing Miss Tiller in a pink bathrobe holding what looked to be a piece of meat up to them all.

Blinking, Sahra said, "Oh, I'm sorry Miss Tiller, but I'm a vegetarian and I don't think that Serena or Faye eat raw meat." Miss Tiller blinked herself and then shook her head as if to clear it.

"This isn't raw meet, this is Snowy!" She all but shouted at Sahra.

"Oh," Sahra said, then cocked her head to the right and asked, "Why did you shave him? He looked better with fur."

"I didn't shave him! It was her dog!" This time Miss Tiller did shout. Pointing to Serena, she stalked into the apartment looking around as if to find Serena's offending pooch.

"Um, Miss Tiller, I don't have a dog. I own a cat." Serena said, walking toward the woman.

Miss Tiller swung to face a large green houseplant. "Don't lie to me, missy. I can hear your dog barking at the latest hours and you calling him Rex."

Faye didn't even bother hiding her smile. Miss Tiller was virtually blind but was too vain to wear glasses. Every time she came over, she always ended up talking to the plants or lamps.

"Um, my cat's weird." Serena said, reaching a hand to Miss Tiller's shoulder and leading her to the sofa to sit down. "Why don't you let me have Snowy, I'll get him clean and bandaged." Serena took the dog into the kitchen, set him on the table then sighed. Now the table would have to be washed. Thoroughly. Three times. After cleaning the wounds, she found that Snowy had a lot of surface cuts and some bruising, nothing too serious. Snowy was just a wimp of a poodle. Rummaging through the drawers and finding the jar of healing salve, Serena rubbed the mixture onto the dog. Cayenne for fast recovery and to stop internal and external bleeding; Ivy for protection against infection; Birch for cleansing, and Carnation for healing. Mix well with unscented hand lotion and you've got balm that will heal minor cuts and bruises in a day.

As soon as Serena had rinsed off the lotion's residue from her hand, the cat in question jumped onto the windowsill. Serena glared at the black cat and Snowy started to whimper. "Shoo, or Miss Tiller will catch you and she is so not happy." The cat gave a small bark, sounding exactly like a dog and leapt out the window onto the fire escape. A couple more leaps and she was running down the street. A second later, Miss Tiller came into the kitchen.

"I thought I heard a bark in here. Did your dog come back?"

"That was Snowy, Miss Tiller. I told you, I don't have a dog."

"Humph." She swept the poodle into her arms and almost walked into the wall when Serena reached for her shoulder again to guide her way out. She was soon standing before the door. Faye had opened it as soon as she heard both of them came out of the kitchen. Sahra had her hand covering her wide grin, like Miss Tiller could see.

Standing in the doorframe, Miss Tiller turned and said, "If that ruffian of a dog even goes near my Snowy, I will have that dog put down, you hear me? I know very important people in high places." As Miss Tiller walked to her apartment, cooing sweet nothings to her dog, Faye closed the door and said, "High places is right. They're probably all dead by now." Sahra dropped her hand and gave into her laughter.

"Speaking about being dead," Serena began, "you better go to sleep Sahra. I need you to come to work tomorrow." Serena was in charge of Silvermoon's, a store that catered to the neo-pagan/new age crowd at a designer price. One would be surprised on how many rich people dabbled in the craft because it was the latest fad. The store also supplied items to the serious witches and such, but at a much lower price. Silvermoon's was a family business; Serena's grandmother started it saying, "Where does it say you can't be a rich witch?" There were now two stores- one in Los Angeles and the other here in New York.

Now it was Sahra's turn to whine. "Why can't Comet work? She's your day manager."

"Her name is Cosmos-"

"What kind of name is Cosmos?"

"Like you should talk Sa-ha-ra." Faye said.

"Hey, my mom gave me the name. Cosmos choose her own name when she was "reborn". How do you get reborn anyway."

Ignoring Sahra, Serena went on, "Cosmos is taking a personal day off. I need you to come in to relieve me, okay?"

Rolling her eyes, Sahra agreed. She needed the money anyway.

Serena smiled at her friends and said, "Well now that we had our fun and ice cream, I know a kitchen table that needs to be cleaned."

* * *
The Next day

As Serena walked her cat down the New York Street, no one seemed surprised at this sight. They had all seen this before.

"Luna, I can't believe you did that. Luna?" When her cat didn't respond, Serena rolled her eyes and said, "Rex." At that the black cat looked up at her mistress. "You know," she told her cat, "I understand that my brother wanted a dog and all, but did he have to train you to respond to the name Rex? I mean you're a female cat. He could have given you a female dog's name." Serena's brother, Sam had wanted a dog and when their mother had given them a cat instead, Sam had trained it to act just like a dog. Serena had not been pleased when it began barking and chasing cars. The cat started to walk toward a straggly tree and began to squat. Serena turned her head away until she heard a small bark. About to walk off, she stopped when someone put their hand on her arm.

"Excuse me miss, but it's illegal to leave a pet's waste on the sidewalk." Serena went still and gulped. She slowly turned her head to the officer beside her. She looked him in the face noticing his black hair, blue eyes, his straight even teeth shown by the smile on his face. Then she looked down and saw he wasn't wearing a police uniform. She looked back up. "You're not a cop are you?"

He laughed. "Not even close. You do know your not suppose to do that, don't you."

"Why not, it's fertilizer and that tree needs all the help it can get." He laughed again.

"Hi, I'm Mamoru."

"I'm Serena. You're Japanese?"

"Half on my mother's side."

"Oh." She didn't know what else to say. Impatient to continue her walk, Luna gave a sharp bark.

He blinked. "Did you know your cat just barked?" he leaned in close and whispered to her.

"Um, yeah, she does that. She, uh, thinks she's a dog." Serena whispered back, blushing.

"She thinks she's a dog? That's great. You have to meet my dog. He thinks he's a cat named Whiskers."

"Really?" Serena asked, eyes wide open.

Mamoru put his face close to hers and smiled. "Nope, I was lying."

Serena felt her face heat up in embarrassment.

"You know you're cute when you blush." He said and leaned in closer until she felt his breath on her lips. Then Luna chose that moment to use the bathroom again--on Mamoru's leg. At his small yelp, Serena looked down and began to laugh.

"So you thought that was funny. Well now you owe me since your cat ruined my pants. You can make it up to me by taking me out to dinner. I'll pick you up at seven. And just so you know, I don't put out on the first date."

Serena stopped laughing. "Dinner? Date?"

Mamoru smiled again, his good humor restored. "Yes, dinner is a meal usually eaten after the sun sets. Date is what we are going to do tonight." Smiling, he leaned in close to Serena again, looked down to see where her cat was and gave her a quick kiss before she knew what was happening. He ran off before Serena came back into orbit.

"A date?" She pressed her fingertips against her lips and felt them curve into a smile. "A date." She said to herself. "Wait a minute! He doesn't know where I live!" So Serena went running down the block after him, dragging her cat behind. She caught him two blocks over.