"I'm sorry I couldn't be of any more help to you," Reginald said as the two of them walked down London's busy streets.
"It wasn't your fault, old friend," Talia answered, "and it really isn't even the fault of those who initially built Big Ben. They couldn't have known about what they had put into the roof of the building."
The two walked quietly for a few moments before a new question seized Reginald.
"This won't hurt all these reports I've heard about you leaving Earth..." Reginald said slowly, "Will it?"
Talia shook hir head, "No. We may need to look elsewhere with regard to possible energy sources, but with the help we've been getting from Earth's space agencies and with the original Ark's pilot helping them on the project... we'll manage quite well."
Reginald gave a soft and rather fatherly looking smile to Talia as they walked along. On the surface it was rather odd, given that Talia was thousands of years older than him and given what Maurice and Snowy were only just learning about the aging gene in Kats, it'd be likely that it would be many more years before Talia would begin to grow old physically. However, that was solely a surface reaction that one might have. Given the friendship the two had had, going back to when Reginald was employed in one of the UK's embassies in Egypt years ago and the fact that Reginald had aged greatly since then, it wasn't all that odd. A part of him wished Talia could stay, as shi was a good friend, but he wouldn't force hir to do anything shi didn't to do.
"Well that's good," Reginald spoke, "Will you be staying in London, long?"
"My original mission was to check on the tiles," Talia sighed, "but some friends of mine are on their way here from Paris and three sets of mates are among them. They're sort of on a sort of pre-wedding tour..."
"Honeymoon before the wedding?" Reginald gave a soft laugh, coughing briefly at the end, "a little odd..."
"Well... it's mostly to let Janace's wedding planners to get things set up and ready for them," Talia said with a small laugh, "make the wedding perfect, if by surprise. Anyway, I'll stay in London as long as they do to be a sort of coordinator between the wedding parties and the wedding planners so they know when to go home..."
Reginald only laughed. His old friend seemed to keep a fair amount of excitement in hir life. Hopefully they didn't stress hir out too much.
"So... what's been up with you?" Talia asked after a few moments as they began to approach the main train station in London, "I know you'd served in Parliament for a time..."
"I did," Reginald chuckled and then looked down, "plenty of arguments on how to do things for years... but I'd like to think I did good."
"And you really didn't find anyone to share your life with?" Talia asked as she opened the door for Reginald.
"No," he said with a shrug, and then laughed, "You Kats seem to live for these sorts of things, don't you?"
"We enjoy being in love... being loved... mating with the ones we love... having children," Talia answered with a polite smile, "So... I suppose, yes, we do live for those sorts of things."
Reginald only shook his head has they made their way onto a platform to wait for when the train from Paris arrived. Talia walked up beside him and sat back on hir rear legs and kept hir wings folded on the top of hir taur back. Shi then turned to him and looked over to him and waited patiently for him to answer hir earlier question. After a few moments he looked over and noticed hir own inquisitive look, raised an eyebrow and then sighed.
"I guess work got the better of me that I never had time to go looking for someone else," Reginald sighed when he realized that Talia wasn't going to let him get away with not answering the question, "but as I said, I think I ended up doing good... so it's not like I regret what's happened in my life. And neither do you, I'd suspect. Lots of adventures, and if the news on the teley was correct a wife... er..."
"We use the term mate, since it's not a term that indicates a single gender," Talia explained to him, "and yes. I do have a mate. Hir name is Midnight. Shi's a beautiful Wolfkat. Shi even had hir DNA altered a bit so that shi grew a pair of large dove wings..."
"To fly with you, I'd suppose?" Reginald said to hir.
"Yes," Talia smiled, "I love hir very much."
"That's wonderful for you, and I am happy for you Talia," Reginald smiled and put a hand on hir shoulder as they quietly waited for the train to arrive.