Prologue: Need

I cannot help but feel compelled to write down this account. Someone needs to know, to remember. The days until I too become like my brothers is fast approaching and I feel terrified of what will happen when the pact is complete. The Humans soon will know of us, and perhaps it will be one of them who reads this, after tearing it from the paws of a Jellicle foolishly protecting it with their life. I can only hope whoever finds it will understand.

Chapter 1: Difference

It was always obvious that we were different. From the moment we were born, we were set apart. Our scent or our size, our looks or our laughter, it all gave us away.

Munkustrap, the leader. Tugger the playboy. Macavity, the madman, and I, the magician. No one told us we were different, we all just figured it out in time. We were the sons of Old Deuteronomy, but to us, that meant little. Our father had scads of kittens, all running around us, raised with us, but knowing we were different all the same.

We were the only kits born singly to the old leader. Until us, every pairing had lead to at least two kittens, but we had been utterly alone. We all took after our mothers' far more than any other of our half siblings, and all of us, in some form or another, had magic.

Macavity was always the most powerful, or at least I have been lead to understand. He was old enough to be my grandfather by the time I came along. He had a handle on his magic by the time he was three. He could levitate at four, and by the time he had reached ten, he could make lighting and fire dance for him. It seemed as if Old Deuteronomy had finally produced a suitable heir. Of course, that was before.

It had always been apparent that Macavity was crazy. Of course, back then, he wasn't a danger. He had done terrible things, when in the throes of his mind, but always made up for it ten times over. The tribe was willing to accept him, despite this fault.

Then came the war. Pollicles; a breed of dog who, like us, could take on a humanoid form, had been biding their time for years, when suddenly, they struck. According to the histories, the scattered tribes had little defense against them. They attacked in Pollicle form, catching us off guard and killing many. Macavity lead the resistance, beating them back and staging hundreds of successful counter-attacks. During this time, according to Grizabella, one of the few survivors of that age, Macavity's ginger coat grew more red with every completed kill. His face grew fiercer, his heart harder. He began to do more terrible things, but he was keeping the tribes alive, and no one cat could say anything.

Then, everything changed. During the final battle, the Jellicles were winning. Macavity slunk from the heat of battle, finding where the Pollicles had hidden away their pups. He burned them all alive.

He had not known the Pollicles too had magic. For months, kits had been disappearing, one or two at a time. They were thought long dead. We had thought wrong. Among the charred remains of the pups, lay the missing kits. The magical disguises had shielded them only enough that they could look into the eyes of their killer before they too fell dead.

Grizabella was fighting. She said that in Macavity's screams of realization, you could hear his mind snapping.

War had taken the first of the brothers.