Journeys Pt 2

Thankyou LicoriceMitskiandOperaGhost for the review. I originally used a lot more of the OC's in the first chapter but it got too confusing. She'll be along shortly though.

My apologies for the time it's taken for me to continue this story. I've got some major writers block going so threw this together in the hope it'd give me a kickstart to get over it.

…

"Exactly that" came the soft tones of Nahimana. "I knew you both, before you were both reborn as Jellicles, and you were members of my tribe. I knew you both then as Tadita a promising guide in my clan and Namid my only daughter."

…

"Daughter?" queiried Domenica

"Guide?" asked Toby. " What the hell are you talking about?"

Namahira sighed and arched her back, audible clicks were heard as he vertebra aligned, "take a seat young ones. This may come as a bit of a shock."

Dom and Toby sat on the offered cushions, glancing at each other, both of them figuring to humour the old pollicle.

"18 years and 2 months ago a great battle was fought here at the junkyard between a large pack of primitive dogs and your fathers and grandfathers. Your forebears were in grave peril when a pack of my brethren appeared upon the scene. They were led by my daughter, Namid, and had with them her prospective mate, Tadita. These two great pollicles were you Domenica and you Toby. Don't interrupt me, your explanation will come. Their presence delayed the fight and it was hoped that it would have prevented it completely, this unfortunately wasn't to be. A brute of a dog shook off the aura that the pack was projecting and attempted to attack your mother Jemima, Toby, and it was at this point that Tadita came to the direct defence of the person who saved his life years before and to whom he had formed a soul bond with. He attacked the pack of dogs by himself and it was this act of, well, stupidity is one way of putting it, that convinced Namid and the others to join the fight. The battle was fierce and even with the addition of the Jellicles to the battle it was not one without loss. The dogs were driven off, however Tadita was mortally wounded and did not survive the conclusion by long."

Toby interrupted. "We've heard this all before. It's one of the most revered tales of the tribe."

"Yes young one but you do not know the aftermath." Nahimana continued. "After the death of Tadita, Namid sent the remainder of her pack out to search for the one behind the attack. She hid her greif, not knowing how it would affect her at later times. The pack eventually cornered the one named Macavity, in an old warehouse and slaughtered him like the rabid beast he had become, and then returned to the junkyard and reported the success of their mission to Namid. I have been told that a great celebration was convened, both to mourn and remember Tadita and to rejoice in the lifting of the curse that had been hovering over the Jellicles for so many years. It was at the conclusion of this, that my compatriots departed and began their journey back to our range. During the sea voyage Namid fell into a deep depression over the loss of her love. With none of the others of the pack able to console her, Namid took her own life. We were told that she was on board the ship when the pack went to sleep but was missing when they awoke. No sign was ever found of her remains and it is believed that she gave herself to the ocean in her grief. When the pack returned with the news of the loss of Namid and Tadita, I undertook a ritual which allows me to converse with the great pack leader, I believe that Old Dueteronomy can perform a similar task. It was during this, that I found both of our heroes had been granted membership in the great hunt and were running on the sky range. Imagine my surprise when I undertook this communion a year later and found that they were no longer there. I was granted the information that they had both been returned for another round on the wheel of life, one five months before and one just days prior to my undertaking this ritual. Armed with this knowledge I pursued any and all information from within the packs, to ascertain whether any pups had been born within the time period allotted. It came back that none of the parents within our pack had given birth during either window and that we must look outside of the packs, it is not unheard of for one of our primitive brothers to give birth to a pup of a more evolved situation and we try to gather these poor unfortunates in as soon as we are able. We determined that no pollicle pups, to our knowledge, were born during that time period and so we began to look to the other great tribes."

Namahira asked for a glass of water to dampen her throat and Toby rose to carry out the task before his grandmother Demeter could stir.

Thanking the young cat Namahira continued her tale. "We first went to the Eagles, who are based in Australia, and were given an audience with their leader" she indicated Diamuldi, "who graciously allowed us to conduct the same search within her people. We discovered several candidates but none of them had the same feeling to their souls that we associate with Tadita and Namid so we knew that our searching was not yet successful. It was from there that we journeyed to an island in the South Pacific Ocean whereby we were introduced to Kwaksel and his people, the dolphins, and repeated the process with no more success than before. Dejected by our failure we returned to Australia and then took an airline to France, where we met with several of my brethren who were training in Europe. By this point my search had taken me nearly 17 years and I was impatient to complete it, not to mention weary of being away from home for so many years, so I tasked Jericho with leading myself and my companions to the Junkyard, he's been here before and I did not wish to have to deal with the junkyard masking spell. (A/N read my story My Life for a description of how this spell works.)It was only on night during your birthday celebrations that we arrived and not wishing to break up the party, we waited until this morning to make our presence known. The Jellicles were our last chance to find you. If you were not here then the only conclusion left is that you'd been reborn as human and there was no possibility then of ever finding you, there are just too damn many of them. It was on the recommendation of Jericho due to a conversation he had last night with your father and grandfather, that we invited you here today, for which I am eternally grateful, because my long search is finally over."

"But what does all that mean?" asked Dominica, "and what does it have to do with us?"

"Well the crux of the matter is that you have turned everything that the great tribes believed upon its head. It was never really considered that a soul could be reborn into the body of one of the other great tribes. Every other time that we have known of a rebirth, it has been within the species and the tribal leaders have been able to recognise the feel of the soul quite readily. For some reason the great pack leader, has this time given you two over to another tribe and we want to know why." Namahira revealed. "To this end we wish to do some regression and try to ascertain what direction the gods want us to go."

Toby had been sitting on the cushions listening intently to the explanations given by the old pollicle at the table. "We need to discuss this. Can you wait or do you need an answer now?"

"We do not see any reason to rush into this" said Kwaksel in a high pitched voice, strangely incongruous coming from such a large individual. "This search has taken 17 years and it would be foolish to give us an answer without thinking it through first."

Toby stood up and pulled a stunned Dominica to her feet beside him. He looked over at his grandfather, "may we be excused Munkunstrap?"

The silver and black tabby gave his assent and the two younger cats exited the den.

Outside they were immediately approached by their circle of friends and bombarded with questions about the interview within the den.

Toby held up his paws and the group quietened down quickly. "We were told a lot of things, some surprising, some astounding and some that I really don't know if I can believe. We need a little time to process it all and I'll let you know afterwards, ok?"

"Nix." The silver and grey kit perked her ears up. "Can you please go and get your parents for me and send them to my new den? Dom and I are in need of some mystic advice. Gem can you go find mum and dad and do the same? Thanks."

The two cats headed off to find their respective parents while the other cats asked if there was anything that they could contribute.

"Not right now. Sorry guys but we really just need to discuss what we were told in there with some magicians. After that I'll let you know what I can." The little group broke up, all the kits moving away to pursue other activities. Jacaranda dashed off paw in paw with Twitch to find some trouble, Jet and Westerly headed off to continue their protector training with Alonzo and Admentus. Kamira, Lizbet and Christo went off to hunt, an extremely easy task with Christo's enhanced hearing. Finally alone, Toby and Dominica proceeded to their new den to await the magical cats.

First to arrive was Nix with her adopted parents Tantomile and Coricopat, followed shortly after by Tobies sister Gem with their parents Misto and Jemima. Both kittens were invited to stay for the discussion. Nix due to the studies she was undertaking in trying to understand her shadow powers and improve her control and Gem for the intelligence she hid behind her shyness and quiet demeanour.

Toby began to explain the situation, starting with the meeting they had in his grandfathers den.

…

"So that's the situation. Do you think we should go through with this regression thing?" asked the young tom.

Misto glanced at his mate, who coincidently still had the smug little grin on here face from when they were told about Toby being Tadita reborn. "It's a question that has two sides my boy. The first is that this may be the only way that we can find out why you were reborn as a Jellicle and the second is the question of 'Do you really want to know?'"

Dom piped up. "Well that's the 67 dollar question isn't it? Do we want to know? I like my life at the moment and I don't want to mess it up with something carried over from a time I wasn't aware of, but what if it's an important message that needs to get through?" The red queen was getting visibly upset and Toby pulled her into his chest where she could nuzzle into his ruff.

Nix was a little perplexed at it all. "I've never heard of anything like this before and none of my books have ever covered it either. I don't know what I can add, except that for the EC and Namahira to have travelled all this way then it must be important."

"I agree with Nix," Gemma quietly explained. "She has no reason to lie to us and what we could learn outweighs the risk."

"Cori, Tanto? What do you think we should do?"

"We cannot sense anything definitive; however there is a sense of distance and danger associated with the situation you are currently in. One choice will lead to obliteration and the other to revelation though one is not exclusive of the other. More than that we cannot determine" the twins said together in their strange way.

"Well that's not much help" muttered Dom into Tobies neck. She turned back to the group, "Jemima. You're the only one that we haven't heard from yet. What do you think?"

Jem sat thinking for a minute. "I think it all comes down to trust. Do you trust the people asking you to do this? They know that it's dangerous however they believe that they can manage that risk. I trust my father and I also trust Namahira. I say to try it."

It dawned on Toby that his mother had hit the nail on the head. Did he trust his grandfather, the answer to which was unequivocally 'Yes.'

"Thankyou everyone. I'll ask you all" Toby looked pointedly at the kittens, "not to discuss this with anyone else until Granddad announces it. Right now however I think we'll sleep on it and make a decision tomorrow."

The pair ushered the four adult and two teenage cats out of the lair and returned to sit on the edge of the bed.

"What. A. Day!" they exclaimed together and began to laugh.

"EC I hope every day we're together isn't going to be this complicated" said Domenica.

"Aint that the truth. So what do you think? Should we do it?" asked Toby.

"I think we should. I wasn't going to but Cori and Tanto have freaked me a little with that prediction. I'd prefer to be doing something rather than waiting for fate to come up and bite me on the tail if we decide not to do this memory thing. You never know we might just enjoy it."

"Yeah I agree. And just think. How many of our friends can say that they've loved each other through 'two' lifetimes?" Toby scooted a little closer to his queenfriend and gave her a smoky look.

"Down boy! You know we can't do that until after the mating ceremony" Dom protested pushing away Tobies roving paws. "Toby. Stop. Stop it before we get in trouble."

"Aww, you're no fun Dom."

"Ha. You know I am. We're just lucky that our parents didn't kick up a fuss when we decided to move in together. Now give me a kiss and let's go to bed." Dominica saw the grin spread across her tomfriends face. "To sleep. You pervert."

"Fine" huffed the tom.

Toby switched off the light and curled up behind Dominica.

Silence spread across the darkened Junkyard…

"TOBY! Stop that!"

Munkunstrap just buried his face into Demeters ruff and laughed.

…

I know this hasn't really gone anywhere but I needed to get it out of the way and try to get past this damn writers block.

Review if you can please.