Was it really a coincidence that Sara happened to be standing in a pawn shop when she saw it? And what was she supposed to call it really because after her past and all of the things that she knew about it the only word that she could think of to describe it was…. ‘it.’

Sara had entered the pawn show in hopes of unloading some of the merchandise that one of her…. Former…. Clients had failed to pay for their safe keeping. ‘It’ happened to be a statue of the late Egyptian goddess Bast. ‘It’ looked authentic and Sara should know because she’d seen them when people knew the goddess in person. ‘It’ also looked extremely out of place sitting between a playstation 360, an Elvis memorial plate set, and dear goddess of the cats was that a Billy Bass sitting directly behind the statue as if mocking her? Sara stooped lower to get a better look in the display case and the Billy Bass came to life “Taaaaaake me to the Riiivver. Puuuuuute, me in the waaaaaaater.”

Sara felt her head bounce off of the edge of the display case. The nerve. Mean while Billy the Bass tapped out the beat of the song with his fluke and Sara wouldn’t of seen it if Billy Bass hadn’t of made her drop her head. There sitting before Bast, behind fine white china depicting Elvis singing away about the hound dogs, sat large rings of gold. They were simple. Nothing too elaborate just bangles meant to be warn around someone’s wrist. Three were only gold and Sara would have over looked them if it wasn’t for the fourth one. This one was studded with gem stones of different types and a cat animal motif that looked like the face of the Bast statue and recognition hit Sara like a punch to the gut. Sara had warn those bracelets in the past. Thuoghsands of years in the past. In Egypt.

The real cat Goddess Bast had taken the gifts away from Sara once, but now look at where they had ended up. Relics of the Goddess of lower Egypt being hidden by ‘the king.’

This was just wrong on so many levels.

Sara was just wondering how hard the locks on the display case would be to pick when the shop owner appeared behind the counter. “Hey there. Find something that you like kitty?” He reconised Sara from former transations and Sara wasn’t that fond of him. He should have given her better prices than he did and she wouldn’t frequent his little mismatched shop on this side of town, if she didn’t know that she could unload different merchandise quickly on him. He also had an eye that never stared in the right direction, and it bothered Sara. Not that she was one who could really complain about the way people looked.

“No. I just brought you a few more items.” Sara said digging through her pockets. She pulled out a pouch that she’d had her hand resting on her entire trip. When opened it was filled with nothing but large pearls.
“No diamonds this time.” The shop owner wheezed behind the counter then clicked his tongue at Sara. “I’ve began expecting great thing from you.”

“Just pearls this time.” Sara assured him, urging him to get on with counting out the pearls so that she could figure out how to relieve him of the statue of Bast.

Miles stretched a well earned stretch, from the tips of his round ears right on down to the tip of his thick black tail. His knuckles gave a satisfying crack crack crack in front of him, their stubby lengths laced together, his claw tips just barely sliding from their sheaths as he streeeeetched.

Did he mention what a mighty fine stretch it was? Mmmm, and well earned. He'd mentioned that too, hadn't he?

The black puma man had nearly finished his monthly rounds, as a proud representative of the Order's Mutant Insurance division. It was great weather for blackmail. For most of the summer, he'd been avoiding this form: now that fall was here, and taking a brisker turn towards winter with every passing day, it was a regular pleasure to walk the neighborhood, snug in his black fur coat, with only a purple vest and a matching pair of pants as an offering to society's modesty. He wore no shoes; his feet came with their own padded soles, thank you. His only stray accessories were a leather messenger bag, and a pair of purple-framed glasses, custom-ordered to fit over his broad feline nose and stay there without any silly ear pieces to interfere with the graceful swivels of his ears.

He had only one last stop, and then it was back to the Sanctuary to drop off his bag of insurance premiums on Lisa's desk. Then back to the Mansion—he had a paper due in a few days, on Egyptian mythology. Why they were studying the Egyptians in world history, he had no idea: it wasn't exactly the most relevant curriculum for today's young mutants. But a paper his teacher wanted, and a paper his teacher would get, because he was a Senior now and Seniors were responsible.

Calley would get right to researching, after Miles was done racketeering.

The bell over the door gave a cheery little jingle as the feline entered. The man behind the counter glanced up; Miles' whiskers fanned forward, though not towards the shop's lop-eyed owner. Towards his esteemed clientele.

The whiskers slicked back smoothly against his black furred cheeks, and he padded over to the counter.

"Don't mind me, Jeeves."

"It's Jerry."

"Right. Don't mind me, Jenner. I'll just wait my turn." The puma man made himself at home at the counter next to the golden cougaress, though he gave no further acknowledgement to her than his whisker flick back at the door. Instead, like any proper cat, he found something even more interesting to look at: a statue, in the display case. A nice faux-Egyptian piece of work. He knew this one.

"Oh, Sekhmet. Your establishment has gotten nine times classier than the last time I was here, Julian."

"It's Jerry."

"Right. I beg your pardon, James."

Jerry had started laying Sara's pearls out on a cloth when the door opened again and Sara looked over her shoulder, tail tip flicking left and right. It seemed that there was another large cat mutant in town and Sara couldn't help but let her right eye brow raise slightly. First a lion headed shifter, Then a green tigress. Now a black fellow puma. Wow. What was next? A leopard? Was there going to be a collection of all types of anthropomorphic cats in New York City? After all. Gotta catch them all! Sara was half way tempted to throw a poke ball that was sitting on the counter at him. Especially by the way he treated the shop keeper. Jerry might be scum but Sara hated people, and mutants, showing disrespect. Especially disrespect that wasn't sarcastically coming from her mouth.

"Oh, Sekhmet. Your establishment has gotten nine times classier than the last time I was here, Julian."

Sara's right ear twitched and her hand that was resting on the glass display case clenched into a fist without her realizing it. "Actually that is Bast." Sara said tapping the glass of the display case just above the house cat sized statue. "Sakhmet was.... different..."

Sakhmet was a *****

A golden paw reached out, and tap-tapped on the glass. My now, hadn't anyone told Ms. Nobes that touching the glass was bad manners? Poor Julius would have to break out the Windex and a rag, as soon as they had gone.

"Bast, is she?" The panther man said, with a lazy flick of one ear in the opposite direction to her voice, as if there were something far more interesting on the other side of the shop. "You sound very well informed. One would almost take you for an expert in matters of bipedal felines."

This was said in the most polite of deadpans. The black panther lifted a stubby finger and pushed his purple glasses a hair higher on his nose, not shying to meet the cougaress' amber eyes. Speaking ironically? Little ol' him? Why, he would never. That coy little slant of his whiskers was simply a coincidence.

They had met before, once—he remembered, though he doubted she would. At the least, it was unlikely she would connect the scrawny Italian boy she'd met at the Sanctuary years ago with the panther man now before her. It had been just before the Mutant Registration Act had gone into effect. She hadn't particularly liked him, as he recalled. Something about him being too enthusiastic; he'd liked her too much, so she hadn't liked him at all.

The panther man's quiet carriage was the opposite of enthusiasm as he turned to the shop's esteemed proprietor.

"How much for the cat statue, Jeffrey?" He asked simply.

"It's already been sold. Those bracelets, too. The owner will be picking them up tomorrow; I'm just holding them."

"I see," the panther man said, with his usual dignity. Only the slow curl of his tail, and a certain set to his ears, hinted that he wasn't the type of cat who took 'no' for an answer, and who might hear "tomorrow they're someone else's" and think "so tonight, they're still fair game." They were subtle gestures; the sort that would only be recognized by someone of similar mind frame. Sometimes, it took one to know one.

The black panther said that Sara could be seen as some sort of an expert and she just gave a one shoulder shrug. Her trip to Egypt wasn't the best time of her life by any means but she did sort of fall into that information. When one was mistaken for a goddess or spirit (in Sara's case she had been mistaken for a few different ones now) one sort of wanted to learn a little about them.

Weather Sara had meet this individual in the past, she had no recollection of him. The only thing she had on her mind was how fast feline mutants were popping up in New York City again. For the longest time it had seemed like it was just her. Now there was Raven and... This one. She'd have to ask his name. Disturbing. What was even more disturbing was that she realized she'd started to stare at him for just a few seconds as she thought about the mutant feline population.

The male asked about the price for Bast's statue and Sara found herself shook back to her task at hand. "Right." Sara murmured just loud enough for the panther to hear. She wasn't one to tell bad cat jokes but oh what the heck right now. "Two cats vs. One robot fish" She let her tail flick in front of the glass and Billy broke into song again tapping with his fluke a new song.

Here's a little song I wrote
Might want to play it note for note
Dno't worry.... Be Happy

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the shop owner Jeffery... er... Jeeves.... Oh god now she was doing that in her head. Jerry poked his head around the corner from where he was counting out Sara's pearls and putting prices to them. "Sounds like a cake walk."

((ooc: Let me know if I should le edit!)

Was she--?

Oh, he rather thought she was.

She was challenging him. Throwing down the singing fish gauntlet, as it were. Did she really--?

She did. She thought her cattery was a match for his cattery.

"A cake walk," the panther man said, adjusting his frameless glasses just so on the broad bridge of his nose, as he endeavored in good faith to meet his fellow feline's gaze. "Yes, I quite think so. And a cake walk does need its theme music."

Billy Bass had nearly come to the end of his chorus; another bob of his head, and he'd have settled back to his eternal vigilance. A casual flick of Miles' own tail, and the famous fish was inspired to encore.

His whiskers twitched once; a smug flush back to his cheeks, before they straightened out again. That was all the more warning he gave.

A hand on the counter allowed him a graceful vault behind the display. A display quite accessible from this side, with just a slide of the glass door. Pluck, pluck: had this been a comic, he was quite certain those sound effects would have been prominently written above his hands as he pulled statue and bracelets out, as if he had every right in the world to. Or as if no one could stop him. The statue he took because he liked it and the cougaress had had her eyes on it; the bracelets he took because the mysterious buyer clearly had good taste.

He was ready to stroll out the door, bangles on wrists and statue under arm, long before Billy finished his second refrain. In fact, his entire maneuver had taken only a scant few seconds. Almost like he had done this before.

"Consider your bill paid for the month, Jellicle," the panther graciously stated, to the storeowner absent in the other room. Jerry groaned, almost like this had happened to him before.

(It's fine. I can work with it and I hope that this is ok.)

There were few things going on right now that Sara would normally let slide. For one thing, the fact that the panther like mutant hopped behind the display case. No stealth? What fun was that? There wasn't even any smashing. (Though Sara wouldn't have approved of that either.) Just grabbing.

Sara crossed her arms, leaned back against the display case, nearly sitting on it, and watched the other feline mutant's movements over her shoulder. She'd hate to waist too much movement when the Black Panther seemed like he'd had such a good time. She'd hate to get in his way too soon. However too soon seemed to pass as he informed Jerry that he no longer owed a monthly bill.

He passed Sara with the statue under his arm and the bangles around his wrist. There wasn't that much that Sara could do about the jewelry. The statue on the other hands... She stepped behind the feline mutant with the awesome purple glasses as he passed her and with her tail arched to the side, she reached out to the statue tucked under his arm, just behind his elbow intending to slip the statue away from him. She may not get that far, but at least she wasn't going to let him get away with it.... intentionally.

A true gentleman burglar did not smash, grab, or sneak: a true gentleman burglar simply walked away from the premises, his target acquired. He could sense the lady’s disapproval of his methods: her crossed arms, her slumping, decidedly unladylike posture, the flicks of ears and eye as she oh so subtly did not watch him at work.

Whether Jerry knew what the black cat had done, he did not pause to assess. The shop’s owner was quite familiar with the cat’s other methods of bill settlement, of course, that much went without stating: whether he knew what had been used in the settlement was the only question remaining. In any case, Jeeves was a bright chap: he’d figure it out soon enough. Too bad about the man’s other customer. For a tail-swishing moment, the feline wondered who that other customer was.

Ah, well. No one special, he was sure.

The bell over the door jangled as he stepped outside. With nary a glance behind him, he turned, and began strolling down the sidewalk, whistling a jaunty tune between teeth not made for whistling, seemingly unaware of the lightness in the crook of his arm.

Just as unaware, perhaps, as the cougaress was to the new bangle slipped around her thieving wrist.

With the air of a casual afterthought, the patherman turned and raised a polite hand in a parting wave. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms. Nobes. I do hope to see you soon.”

He dropped her name as casually as someone who was supposed to know it. The bangle on his own wrist gleamed merrily in the sun, one-half of a matching set. It would be such a shame to keep the set split up, wouldn’t it? Why, if it were him, the very idea would be nearly as irksome as believing another thief was letting him get away with something.

A true gentleman burglar should not flaunt his skills, but it was so tempting to show off for the little ladies.

They sure were equally aware of what each other had. So equally aware that Sara should have been satisfied with liberating the statue from the other feline's arm... But she wasn't. She couldn't tell what urked her most. The fact that he had made it too easy for her, or the fact that those bangles actually belonged to Bast and... and... ahhh.. Why should she care?

She paused just outside the door. Her payment for her merchandise forgotten. She halted her thoughts as she was distracted by that thought. It wasn't like she cared about what really belonged to who before. It wasn't like Bast was still around these days anyways Sara reminded herself. Though she had met the fabled feline shifter, Bast lived thousands of years ago. She was dead long ago. So Sara mentally shook herself back into the present.

Sara was just about to purposefully turn and walk in the opposite direction, when the black panther mutant did his little mysterious farewell.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms. Nobes. I do hope to see you soon.”

Sara's eye brows raised. Most of the people who knew her for her reputation knew her as Were. Friends, and I mean really close friends, would know her last name... or those whom had seen her files from the camps and the Kabal knew her last name. In fact she wasn't even sure that Cold Steal knew her last name until she started staying at the mansion. "Wait. What?"

Sara turned around. Her brows still raised in question and curiosity got the better of her more dignified side. She jogged a few steps to follow him, reaching out with her hand to grasp the other cat mutant's shoulder if he wouldn't stop right away. "How do you know my last name?"

“Whatever do you mean?” The gentleman feline asked, his ears swiveled towards her with the utmost of innocence, after first flicking towards the hand on his shoulder. He made no motion to remove it, but there was a certain dignified patience to his stance that fairly flea-dipped the unnecessary contact.

“It’s not as if this town is so large, and, ahem--” His tail tip curled as he sought the delicate way of putting it, “--and distinguished personages of our particular appearance and aptitudes so very common. It’s only natural I should know your name, Ms. Nobes. In fact, I would wager good money that you should know mine, as well.”

Should know his. The panther did not put any particular emphasis on that word; it was all the more emphasized for that lack.

“It’s not as if I know anything other than what a fellow cat would know of you,” he continued, with a merry twitch of his whiskers.

What a cat knows can be a curious thing.

Ok. So the panther man didn't have to point out the fact that Sara's name really could be as strongly of kept secret as Micheal Jackson's nose jobs. He really didn't have to point out that Sara might know him either, and the fact that he seemed to be enjoying this, bothered her.

So maybe 7 years ago, she might have run into a young mutant who flailed his arms in excitement when he first met Sara right before he mentioned his name was Calley, Isabel's boyfriend and a friend of Abyss... Heck. Maybe 5 years ago, Slate, Calley's 'brother' had mentioned something about Calley and apologizing for his actions. Oh oh oh. But This tangent isn't done for, also, purrrrhaps this Calley had once run into Sara and another mutant on the mansion grounds with himself as a white and black spotted cat... Perhaps perhaps perhaps... The truth was that Sara had no clue who this bipedal panther was, and the more she stood there stumped for whom he was, the more she just wanted to punch him in the nose.

She stood there only for a moment, staring at Calley. Her amber eyes first focusing on his then rolled up with a sigh. Then just as quickly as her temper had gotten the better of herself, another thought stalked it's way into her mind. Making a smirk form across her face. Her hand on his shoulder giving him a small squeeze.

"I have no clue who you are, but have you ever heard of the children of the blood?"

The cougaress’ hand gave an oh-so-friendly squeeze, between collarbone and shoulder. Her eyes rolled; a sigh departed her lips, before a smirk curved them. It was quite the toothy smirk. For once, Calley the panther man glimpsed what others saw when he smiled quite so close to their faces.

He raised one stubby finger, and pushed his purple glasses just a hair higher up his innocent bystander of a nose. His eyes stayed level with her own, and no sigh was needed; a smirk, though--on that count, he could oblige.

“My dear Ms. Nobes,” he stated, the bangles on his wrist clinking metallically together as he lowered it, “is that really a name one should bandy about in public?”

Of course he had heard of them. Approximately five seconds ago, from her lips.

His hand… The one with the bangles on it moved oh so close to Sara’s hand when the panther pushed his glasses higher on his nose. It might have been a foot away but what was a foot to a cat with astounding reflexes. She thought about grasping one side of the bangles but then that would… Do what exactly! Then they would still be two thieves competing for a set of bangles and a statue and her fingers, though she was sure she could grasp the rings easy enough, she was also sure that hooking her fingers around the rings, would also trap his hand inside. Making them both stuck…. No wonder a thief’s hands were cut off in the old days.

“Yes.” Sara said and her smirk slipped into a grin. The answer was simple enough. Children of the Blood wasn’t really a name, but a term that was used for mutants hundreds of years ago. Few still remembered it, and Sara was only lucky enough to learn of it when she went to Egypt. History should not be forgotten, but mutants had been hidden in the past, wolven in to legend. So why not leak a little bit of the truth of the old legends here and there and maybe keep them alive. Even if it was with a lowly cat thief like herself. “Children of the Blood is the translation of an old term meant for us.” And as Sara spoke, leaking just a little bit of history for this other feline mutant, she let the tips of her claws press ever so gently, through the fabric and fur on his shoulder just enough to irritate the skin of the other feline… for now.

She explained it. She actually explained it. Now see, that just took all the mystery out of the thing. An old term for mutants? Or simply an old term for cat-faced mutants? Next she was going to say it was an old term from Egypt, a la their mutual heist; she had seemed awfully informed on the subject of their gods, back in the shop.

As her claws oh-so-deliberately pricked at his skin, he aimed a purrfectly prickful smile at her. If she would not provide a proper mystery to this affair, perhaps he could construct one. Life was so much more engaging when one lived from one shadow to another.

“Now now, Ms. Nobes, you make the term sound positively out of circulation.” His tail tip curled into a loop. “One would expect that you, of all people, would know that old things have a way of... returning.” He reached out his hand, and gave the statue under her arm a claw flick directly to its forehead. The stone gave a single solid thack, and fell silent. His tail tip uncurled, and swish-swished sedately behind him as he turned again to leave. He ignored her hand on his shoulder, as he had from the beginning, and as he most certainly had since she’d brought claws into the matter.

“Well then, as I said, it was quite a pleasure seeing you again.”

He paused after a single step, ear tips briefly flicking back towards her, as if troubled. Or... concerned.

“Oh, and--I would be careful, you know. Comparing yourself so boldy with them. Not everything old is fond of the new.”

There were a lot of things that Sara could give away. Many more than what she did and despite part of her wanted to gush all of this stuff out, she wasn’t one of those annoying know it alls who wished to spill the hole pot of beans on everything. Even if she sort of wanted to. Just enough, and if those who heard her were smart enough, they’d heed her words and what ever warnings went with them and her actions. This other cat mutant wasn’t that smart in her mind. He flicked the statue in Sara’s arm with his claw leaving a thin white line.

Sara’s eyes dilated and she started loosing her temper faster than the swish swish of the other feline’s tail. She wasn’t paying attention to much else or she might have noticed that small white mark vanish and smooth into the rest of the black cat’s forehead. Sara’s claws tightened into the meat of the other cat’s shoulder as he went to leave. Her lips tightened against her teeth so that they wrinkled but didn’t quite show any teeth… yet. Her hand jerked back to pull the Panther man’s shoulder around so he’d face her properly now. “You’ll understand this all the more then.”

And Sara’s clawed hand that had dug it’s elegant claws into panther boy’s shoulder (And quite possibly shredded through the shoulder of that awesome purple vest) whipped down to grab for the golden bangles around his wrist. She’d either aim to sink her claws into his arm, if he moved, or grab for the bangles.