When Sirin spoke to her guardian, Nelson, about her afternoon tea and how much she enjoyed it, he realised he had been keeping her alone too much. She needed to learned to purr with other kitties and meet other young cats. So he happily agreed to invite little Nero to join him and Sirin to watch some of Vera Clawsen’s films. Nero might be a crew cadet, but he was a bright young fellow and seemed both adventurous and highly intelligent, qualities Nelson admired much more than rank and wealth.
Nelson was also keen to meet Saphira, whom he had admired from afar. He had sent her bouquets of flowers after her entrancing performances. This would be an easy way to organise a meeting, almost as if it happened by coincidence. It was one thing to observe a beautiful femcat from afar, but quite another to find out if she had an agreeable personality.
But Saphira wasn’t Nero’s mother. Nero’s mother was the governess looking after the troupe of kittens Saphira had reluctantly brought on board the cruise ship.
What if he invited all of them? He would organise a matinee screening of Vera Clawsen films in one of the ship’s private theatres, and they could have an informal afternoon tea. But when he tried to arrange this, it never seemed to work out. He had constant business to deal with on most days, and the others were also busy with their duties with the ship’s crew. So he agreed to let Sirin spend one evening with her new friends and Nero to watch a video with them.
When Nelson saw Sirin on her return, he asked what film they had seen. He expected a mild adventure story for kittens, but it seems the two of them had other tastes. They had persuaded Saphira, Mitzi and Sasha to watch one of Vera Clawsen’s fantasy films. Not one of the Princess series, but featuring Vera confronting a mythic monster.
‘It’s not mythic, Nelson,’ said Sirin, looking overexcited. ‘The Loch Ness monster is real. I may tame it one day, with Nero’s help, of course.’
Nelson sent her off to bed with a warm milky drink to calm down.
The images and videos were generated by AI from the author’s text prompts.
