Hiya, FanFiction readers! I'm In The Loop (or LOinOP) and I'm looking to provide you all with some kind of entertainment while I brush up my writing skills! So I figured I would let you guys decide what story you wanted to subscribe to and read for the next little while. I'm finishing school in a couple weeks and I don't have a job yet so I have promising hopes for the summer break :)
When I was a child it was custom for the elders to tell us of our ancestors and the history of our world. In these stories we learned of our duties and our promise to our allies and friends outside the family's borders.
I remember the story well, for it is my own, and everyday it reminds me that the world is nothing but endless struggle. This is the story of our world:
In the Beast days my kind lived within the Forest of Klou, Klou being the name of our king. We lived in solitude in the North East of the land, feeding off of the plants we grew and the animals that lived in our domain. We weren't inherently good or evil, but we lived in peace.
Here in the forest we studied the nature of the world and the energy of the cosmos relentlessly. It wasn't until a couple decades before the war that we were rewarded for our dedication with the knowledge of living alongside the Keeper of Earth and learned to manipulate our world as we knew it.
The power we mastered eventually embedded our soul; the more we practiced the easier it became for our lives to bow to the thrill of living as demigods. We were losing touch with our mortal felinity. But soon the Ademficio, a group of nomads gathered for the sake of war, begged my kind for help: Klou's father Flengein who lived exiled in the North had been creating an army of cats enslaved from all over the land.
Knowing Flengein had mastered the arts of the cosmos we saw no other choice but to act, fearing the death of our neighbours and the eventual invasion on Klou's kingdom. So we joined the Ademficio and their allies the Terraneese and the Jellicles in war.
Legend has it that the war had lasted only two hours before the enslaved army was completely flattened. The Ademficio had won, killing Flengein with Klou's blessing and restoring freedom to all cats.
But it wasn't over for the Ademficio. Once the war had ended many of our kind took leave of Klou's forest to further study the world and strengthen their abilities. _^ who had led the Ademficio could never forgive us for allowing Flengein to become so brutal. So, fearing a reprise, began methodically killing our journeying people.
When Klou found out of the murders he launched a rebellion in the heat of madness which sent us into a bloody battle against our once allies. We halved the Ademificio before the Terraneese joined the battle. The Jellicles, who remained in close contact with us since the great war, vowed to remain neutral in the matter.
Only when we had completely eliminated the Terraneese did the Jellicles intervene. They saved the Ademficio from their doom and imposed on us Peacemaking laws to keep our strength at bay. In retrospect we should have slaughtered the Jellicles when we had been strong enough, but Klou's close friendship with the Jellicle leader spared them.
This is where I come into the the story.
Klou's tribe thrived like never before with the new knowledge our few returning journeyers shared; we thirsted for the knowledge but had to make sacrifices to reach these new oases. To keep ourselves hidden and to keep our strength thin we set out in small clans to explore the sacred elements of the earth and to acquire the Keeper of the Earth's secrets. Centuries later I was born into what was then known as the Bormorean clan, the small subsection of Klou's great tribe that had long ago branched off to study the mystic and occulted.
My father, a respected member of the counsel, ensured my greatest knowledge by appointing to me the wisest of the Elder cats. I learned things beyond my wildest imaginations (and trust me, I had a very colourful imagination from the start) and saw the greatness of my future paved out ahead of me in my father's footsteps.
But it was short lived as I turned five and the talk of war began. The eve of the Summer Solstice, my father and I were tending to our small herb garden when my teacher Tortara offered to take me with him and some of the other kittens to safety in the city. My father laughed and reminded him that our kind had not been involved in any violence since the Peacemaking, what enemies would want to bring us harm?
The Summer Solstice marks the anniversary of the Ademficio breaking my home gates and slaughtering my tribe in the midst of our thanksgiving and meditation. I watched in horror as the blood spurted from my father's throat and stained the fruits of our garden, my mother raped on the tapestry following my family lineage to the Beast days and cored in the family nest. I heard and saw it all from the small hideaway beneath my home. Their screams for mercy haunt me still.
I spent the next two days eating the preserves my mother had made and sleeping curled into my father's lifeless body. The few who survived passed my dead family and I on their way out of the gates.
Tortara came back and brought the few who made it through the attack but couldn't survive outside the Bormorean way of life. He took us to our neighbouring clans, the city, and even to the main tribe— the descendants of Klou— to find us homes.
I ended up being traded to the Jellicle tribe to settle a Bormorean debt to the leader Deuteronomy. It took some convincing to persuade him into taking in a magical cat he would have to train himself, but Tortara assured him of my ability to learn and the benefits of raising one's own help.
I kept my original name of Quaxo and quickly found my place in the Jellicle tribe, with new parents, friends, teachers, and a whole new life to boot, I wasn't so sure about my future anymore.
Now I stand, tiny and sick with anxiety, in front of Deuteronomy's den like I had so many years before awaiting judgement to pass. My paws burn and shake with power, threatening to crack under the tight fists I hold at my sides.
"Why are you nervous?" whispers Munkustrap, Old Deuteronomy's middle son and potential replacement. He's still young despite his world-weary tendencies and is still sometimes just as meek as I am in the presence of his father, though I haven't the slightest reason why. When I look to him he's sickly and struggles to keep his paws still.
I swallow back a shuddery breath and clear my throat quietly. "N…no."
Munkustrap gives me a look. "Okay, maybe a little."
In front of us the den stirs and a thick canvas sways back to reveal Coricopat and Tantomile calmly padding out to meet him. Tantomile looks worried while Coricopat's face is as tight and apathetic as always.
Tantomile comes to me and holds out her arms for me to run into her embrace, letting me cling to her and shove the whole of my face into the crook of her neck. I try to ignore Munkustrap's fidgeting behind me. "Mum," I begin but am interrupted by Coricopat's hands on my shoulders, pulling me away.
"It's time to go now, Quaxo, Deuteronomy's waiting."
Reluctantly I let Tantomile, my loving and very unconventional adoptive mother, go and followed the worn foot trail up to Deuteronomy's door. I toss back a glance and find Munkustrap gone and the twins settling for meditation. At least I know they'll be right outside should I need them.
"Quaxo." I flinch and skitter inside without so much as knocking, effectively entangling myself in the canvas. The hand that pulls me out of my confines is regrettably the very last cat I want touching me right now; probably the very last cat I want to see today. He inhales my scent and takes the sight of me in deeply, committing me to memory like Skimbleshanks does when one of his nieces or nephews claim to have grown. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"
No one mentioned anything about an open dialogue. "I— Well, yes, you could say it has."
He leans in close and places both of his hugemongous paws on my shoulders. "Are you ready to take on your responsibilities, my son?"
No. But then again I don't have a choice: I wasn't exactly brought here out of charity and it has always been understood that I would have to repay the hospitality of the Jellicles. So I shrug, trying to look like I'm not about to burst into a kittenish meltdown. "There's no sense in running from madness."
Thankfully he laughs. "Then have a seat and we'll get started."
This story doesn't have a pairing (...yet!) and I've no real idea as to the rating. Maybe something T-M for violence/scary stuff?
Basically Quaxo is the child of another tribe and has been brought to the Jellicles to settle a debt. He is raised by Coricopat and Tantomile and is thus trained to suit the... magical? needs of the Jellicles. But there is a lot Quaxo doesn't know about his kind that gets him into some serious problems as he becomes initiated into the magical community. It turns out that there is a secret blood-battle between all of the magic cats in the city where they try to "harvest" each other in order to become strong enough... but strong enough for what exactly? Well, I can't tell you everything.
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