Altaica's Story-Part 11-Empress
Author's note :right-o....Alta, Ocenir, Sarge, Trista, and Engle are all mine, Ruffles and Truffles belong to L and Mell, and the rest of the characters belong to UG....right...guess that's about it. Enjoy!
Alta crept up behind the smaller, brighter tabby queen, biting her lip to keep from grinning. Quick as a flash, she unfastened the strand of pearls and sank back into the shadows, one paw over her mouth to keep from cracking up.
She stepped into her pipe, pausing before the mirror to fasten Rumpleteazer's pearls onto herself. She looked at herself in the mirror and began to laugh. Tears started flowing down her face as she heard Rumple's confused shout from the Yard... "'Ey! Where's moi pearls?"
It took her a little while to calm down enough to look in the mirror again. She frowned when she did-why did she look so different? She sat down, fingering the pearls gently. What was it about the necklace itself that made her look so.....so....what was the word? Evil. Cunning. And just the slightest bit scared. Call it whatever you wanted to call it, but she looked like she did....back home.
She shuddered and unclasped the necklace, taking it off to stare at it. Turning it over in her paws, she tried to remember...something about pearls....
It hit her like lightning and she shuddered, flinging the pearls out of the pipe. Whenever Engle had had...eh...."charity functions" and had wanted an ornament on his arm, she had to wear as many pearls and diamonds as she possibly could.
She heard a yelp from outside. "Unidentified flying pearls!" a voice cried, and then there came the distinct sound of two cats hitting the ground. She poked her head out and smiled as she saw Ocenir and Misto standing cautiously.
"Eh...sorry 'bout dat, yous two..." she called, backing into the pipe once more. Misto shrugged and continued upward, heading toward the box that he slept in, but Ocenir stopped at the pipe, rapping his knuckles gently on the side.
Alta was brushing her fur out, and he saw her glance up at him in the mirror. "Oh. Hey, 'Cenir," she said, placing the brush back on its shelf. "What can I do for ya?"
He shrugged, and there was an awkward moment when they just stared at each other. A grin began to slowly spread across his face. "What was with the flying pearls?"
She looked at him, her eyes dark. "You must remember the thing Engle had with pearls...."
Ocenir grimaced. "Owch. Sorry."
There was another awkward moment before Ocenir left, calling a "good-night" over his shoulder.
"'Night," Alta replied listlessly. She stared at her paws, thinking, for a long time after Ocenir had left. She sighed and blew out her stub of a candle. Everything would be clear in the morning....
Alta awoke at the crack of dawn to the sounds of someone banging on the side of her pipe with a stick. "Ruffles, Truffles, if it's you I'll wring your little kitten necks," she mumbled, burying her head under the blanket.
Munkustrap poked his head in, obviously amused. "You'll wring my little kitten neck? Since when do I have a little kitten neck?" he teased, entering.
She pulled the blanket off of her head once more and offered Munkustrap a sheepish smile. "Since you're magically not Ruffles or Truffles?" she said meekly.
He laughed heartily and she blushed slightly, heaving herself out of bed. "So, to what do I owe this...slightly annoying honor of the early-morning visit?" she asked, turning toward the mirror.
He grinned. "Did you take Teazer's pearls last night?"
She turned from the mirror, a faux shocked expression on her face. "Moi? Do a thing like that?" she asked, laughter edging her voice.
He raised an eyebrow. "I had no idea you were so light-fingered."
She grinned naughtily. "One of my many assorted talents," she said, winking.
He cleared his throat. "Any reason why you threw them out of the pipe and nearly decapitated Ocenir and Misto?"
She flushed and looked to the floor of the pipe. "I remembered something," she mumbled.
He leaned towards her. "Remembered what?
She shook her head. "I'm not going into that, and you know it!" she said, her voice husky. He frowned, worried, but turned to leave nonetheless.
Pausing at the door, he half-turned back toward her. "By the way...Alonzo brought something in today...from the docks. A package arrived for you." With that, he was gone.
She frowned and headed out of the pipe also, down toward the main Yard. What ever could have arrived for her?
Alonzo handed her the small box. "Here it is, just like I found it," he said. Alta smiled her thanks at him and seated herself on a box a little ways away. She untied the string gingerly, unwrapped the paper. Lifting the lid on the tattered box inside, her face split into a wide grin.
"'Cenir! Get your lazy butt over here!!!"
The tall, patchworked tom loped over. "What's wrong, Alta?" he asked, spying the box. She beckoned for him to come closer.
"Stuff from home!" she said, obvious excitement tingeing her voice. Ocenir, however, frowned.
"Didn't you leave it with Trista?" he asked, obviously thinking.
"Yeah," Alta replied absentmindedly, pawing through the contents with the excitement of a kit on Christmas morning.
"Well...she wouldn't have sent it unless..." his voice trailed off.
"No," Alta whispered, looking up at Ocenir quickly. She closed her eyes and felt for the connection with Sarge....but it was gone. "NO!" she cried, burying her face in her paws.
Ocenir could guess what had happened by her actions, and he moved to her side, hugging her gently. "Alta, it's okay....."
"Is not."
Ocenir glanced up at Misto, who shrugged. She had a point. "But we're safe here, Alta," Ocenir said gently.
"Do you really know that?" she whispered harshly, looking up at him, her eyes brilliant blue in her soaked face. "Nothing is certain, nothing!"
Ocenir bowed his head. She was shockingly correct at times, and now was one of those times. Sarge and Trista were gone, it appeared. All around, cats bowed their heads, even though none of them had known the two.
"But who?" Alta's soft voice shattered the silence. Misto glanced up t her quickly.
"Who is still in Boston?" she said, clarifying the statement. "Who would kill them?"
"Unless," Ocenir said slowly. "Unless....."
"Unless what?" Munkustrap asked from where he was standing behind the two.
"Well...two things. One, Engle got away somehow..." the Junkyard erupted in hisses, and Ocenir held up his paw to continue. "And returned to Boston, which is highly unlikely because of his...business interests here." Alta glared at him when he said that and turned away slightly. He rolled his eyes and continued once more, "Or, as Alta thought, there was another cat back home, but is holding the two captive and blocking the connection, like Engle did to Sarge when he left for here."
"Or Engle's alive and blocking MY connection," Alta said, staring fixedly at a point above everyone's head. "But if that's the case...why would Trista send my things?"
That stumped everyone for awhile, and eventually Alta stood, holding the box in her paws. She didn't say a word, but turned on her heel to head back toward her pipe. Ocenir watched her go, his chin in his paws. He looked down at the ground again, blinking to keep back tears. Sarge and Trista had been his friends too, after all.
Munkustrap backed away into he shadows. Ocenir had the entire Tribe to comfort him, but Alta....well, when she went off to the pipe, few dared to follow. Most of the Tribe was wary of the striped queen without even realizing it, and she accepted it and moved on. However, Munkus thought that the deaths of two of her closest friends may just be the thing to push her over the edge.
He approached the pipe cautiously, just in time to see her retreating to the dark inside. He crept up to the mouth of the pipe and peered in.
Alta sat down with a sigh and eased the lid off of the box again. She sorted through it half-heartedly, none of the excitement remaining. He saw her set aside old letters, some pressed daisies, a couple of photographs and a sachet of grasses whose scent she inhaled deeply. She then froze as she carefully lifted something out of the box.
She set the box aside and stood, moving over to the mirror. Whatever she was carrying had been wrapped gently in a handkerchief, long ago judging by the yellowing of the fabric at the folds. She unwrapped the bit of cloth carefully, lifting something delicate and silvery out. She faced the mirror, lifting the circlet to rest it on her head.
She turned toward the door and Munkustrap froze. He knew that he was in plain view, but he felt that even if he had been hidden he would have been in plain view. Alta looked different somehow...older, more regal. Like a Queen in her domain.
She broke the spell by smiling and tilting her head. She beckoned for Munkustrap to enter, and he, remembering the glory of her merely moments before, hastened to do so.
She stood there, looking at him with an odd expression on her face, until Munkustrap realized in the half-light that her shoulders were shaking with her sobs. He frowned slightly and pulled her into a hug, rubbing her back until her breathing slowed. Then, he pulled away, and looked down at her with a quizzical expression.
"What's with the crown?"
She gestured to the box. "It's one of the jewels from home...."
"Jewels?" he asked, raising an eyebrow practically to the roof. She grinned.
"Yep. Jewels..."
"Do I get an explanation?" he asked, plopping down on the blanket.
"You aren't going to leave until you get one, am I correct?"
"Damn straight," he said, his mouth curving upward slightly.
She sighed. "I suppose I'll have to give you one, eh?"
"That'd be nice," he said, pulling her down to sit next to him.
"Well...I suppose I'll have to fill in a few gaps in the story of my life at Engle's lair. Every once in awhile he'd hold these parties...for his associates and for other criminals. Anyway, he always wanted an ornament for his arm, if not one, then two, and I was usually one of them. We'd have to get all decked out with the Crown Jewels...necklaces, rings, and either a circlet or a tiara. And even when we weren't at one of those functions, we'd have to at least wear a circlet when we were...entertaining him in a....scheduled appointment, shall we say."
Munkustrap shuddered at her matter-of-fact way of speaking. "The...Crown Jewels or whatever they were...were they real?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Was Engle alive? Only the best...we had to sparkle. And he always gave me pearls....the better to choke me with afterward."
Munkustrap's expression was clear: disgust. "So...why did you keep that circlet?"
She took it off and examined it in her paws for a second. "It's special to me....because it's from before Engle turned evil, I suppose...."
"He wasn't evil before?"
She rolled her eyes. "No, he was evil and I went to him of my own free will. Of COURSE he was normal, smart one! I mean, nobody goes out into life thinking that they'll be a criminal mastermind..."
Munkustrap shrugged. "I suppose not. So, why did you go to him in the first place?"
She sighed and looked at the circlet. "We were kittenhood friends. Of course, Engle was almost a year older than me, but we never cared. He said that he was starting a..." she began to laugh. "A business. And I could be his Vice-President, the Empress of his domain....." she shook her head ruefully. "And for one year, the Golden Year as I like to call it, I WAS the Empress. That's even what he called me....Empress. And I was royalty....."
She sighed and looked off into the distance, out of the pipe. "And then...something happened, I don't know what exactly. He stopped working with...legal things...and moved into catnip...human alcohol...human drugs and cigarettes. I told him that I didn't want to have anything to do with him anymore, I didn't want to be Empress of THAT domain....." she looked back at Munkustrap. "You can understand, right? It's one thing when it's something you enjoy, something you can respect....but when it gets illegal, here isn't much a decent person would want to do with it."
He nodded, and Alta took that as a signal to continue.
She shook her head, crying once more. "What made it worse is...I seriously think I loved him, Munkus! He was the perfect Tom before he started dealing with the illegal stuff. I mean, he'd send me a dozen roses every week. He was a hopeless romantic, sweet and caring, and I don't think he'd ever hit anyone in his life. But then...I think he got a dependency upon the alcohol, and I just thought in the beginning that it was overwork. He agreed with me...we'd go on trips around town...to the aquarium, to the Commons, to Fenway park to watch the Red Sox games. It was the life. And then....it all changed....and when I told him that I didn't want to be Empress anymore....I think I was becoming afraid of him. And that's when he turned ugly."
"So...where does Ocenir fit into all of this?" She needed to get it out, Munkustrap could tell. So....he did what he could do...asked questions.
"Ocenir was a little runt when he first came to the warehouse.....that's where Engle's Lair was...an enormous warehouse. He came near the beginning, and Engle let him in gladly....Ocenir was my young charge, basically. He and Trista were, at any rate. I'm at least six months older than both of them, we don't know exactly. They were mine to train, to teach....Trista went into the Healers and Ocenir into the Guards, of course. But Ocenir....well, Ocenir had been there for most of the time, and he'd even gone on outings with Engle and myself, and we were close. So when Engle started to get ugly...well, the first time he raised a paw to me, I seriously think he would have knocked my head off. Ocenir was my Guard that day....and he stepped between us.....and he took every blow. I was begging for Engle to stop, but he didn't stop...wouldn't stop until Ocenir was a bloody pulp. It was a very good thing that Trista had gotten so far along with the Healers that day...."
Munkustrap shuddered, unwillingly picturing the scene. "What happened after that?" he whispered.
"Engle got worse...and worse....and worse. I was there for two more years...he started having his spies track my movements so I couldn't escape. But I kept the circlet...to remind me of the boy that my younger heart had loved...to remind me that there was a cat under that fur," she said, standing to put the circlet on once more.
Munkustrap stood also. "Could I see that?" he asked, extending a paw.
Alta nodded slowly. "I suppose so..." she said, lifting it off of her head and placing it in Munkustrap's paw.
He held it up and began to examine it. The circlet itself was a thin chain of silver, and every few inches was a hanging teardrop sapphire exactly the color of Alta's eyes. Munkustrap frowned at one of the gems. There was a letter faintly scratched into the setting for the hanging chair...and "I". Each hanging chain had one....and it spelled out "I Will Always Love You". Munkus smiled, the smile of a person keeping back tears as he lifted it up and set it on Alta's thick headfur again.
"Where did he get the circlet?" Munkus asked softly as Alta started to place items back in the box.
"I believe he had a Siamese that worked in a jewelry store make it. I've never seen anything else like it," she said, frowning as she looked for a place to put the box.
Munkustrap nodded. It made sense. He turned to leave, but stopped at the door, looking back over his shoulder. "Alta?"
"mmmm?" she said, half-turning in his direction.
"Do you still love him?"
She stopped and stared at Munkus, one of her teardrops hanging exactly in the center of her forehead. "I---I don't know," she said, looking at her feet. "After everything that he did....you'd think it would be impossible, but..."
He nodded, cutting her off. "He does, too....and he regrets it."
She squinted at him. "And how do you know that?"
He shrugged, holding up his paws in mock-defeat. "I just...know." He watched as she shrugged and turned away again. "And Alta?"
"What...now?" she asked, turning again.
"He was right to call you Empress." He was gone.
Alta sighed and flopped down on the blanket, idly pawing at a teardrop, thinking over his last remark. She was up like a shot again in a moment, hurrying to the mouth of the pipe.
Munkustrap was making his way down the junkpile, silhouetted by the moonlight. "Munkustrap!" she called.
He turned. Alta smiled. "Thank you," she said, before disappearing into the pipe.
Munkustrap smiled and headed for the main Junkyard.
Author's note :right-o....Alta, Ocenir, Sarge, Trista, and Engle are all mine, Ruffles and Truffles belong to L and Mell, and the rest of the characters belong to UG....right...guess that's about it. Enjoy!
Alta crept up behind the smaller, brighter tabby queen, biting her lip to keep from grinning. Quick as a flash, she unfastened the strand of pearls and sank back into the shadows, one paw over her mouth to keep from cracking up.
She stepped into her pipe, pausing before the mirror to fasten Rumpleteazer's pearls onto herself. She looked at herself in the mirror and began to laugh. Tears started flowing down her face as she heard Rumple's confused shout from the Yard... "'Ey! Where's moi pearls?"
It took her a little while to calm down enough to look in the mirror again. She frowned when she did-why did she look so different? She sat down, fingering the pearls gently. What was it about the necklace itself that made her look so.....so....what was the word? Evil. Cunning. And just the slightest bit scared. Call it whatever you wanted to call it, but she looked like she did....back home.
She shuddered and unclasped the necklace, taking it off to stare at it. Turning it over in her paws, she tried to remember...something about pearls....
It hit her like lightning and she shuddered, flinging the pearls out of the pipe. Whenever Engle had had...eh...."charity functions" and had wanted an ornament on his arm, she had to wear as many pearls and diamonds as she possibly could.
She heard a yelp from outside. "Unidentified flying pearls!" a voice cried, and then there came the distinct sound of two cats hitting the ground. She poked her head out and smiled as she saw Ocenir and Misto standing cautiously.
"Eh...sorry 'bout dat, yous two..." she called, backing into the pipe once more. Misto shrugged and continued upward, heading toward the box that he slept in, but Ocenir stopped at the pipe, rapping his knuckles gently on the side.
Alta was brushing her fur out, and he saw her glance up at him in the mirror. "Oh. Hey, 'Cenir," she said, placing the brush back on its shelf. "What can I do for ya?"
He shrugged, and there was an awkward moment when they just stared at each other. A grin began to slowly spread across his face. "What was with the flying pearls?"
She looked at him, her eyes dark. "You must remember the thing Engle had with pearls...."
Ocenir grimaced. "Owch. Sorry."
There was another awkward moment before Ocenir left, calling a "good-night" over his shoulder.
"'Night," Alta replied listlessly. She stared at her paws, thinking, for a long time after Ocenir had left. She sighed and blew out her stub of a candle. Everything would be clear in the morning....
Alta awoke at the crack of dawn to the sounds of someone banging on the side of her pipe with a stick. "Ruffles, Truffles, if it's you I'll wring your little kitten necks," she mumbled, burying her head under the blanket.
Munkustrap poked his head in, obviously amused. "You'll wring my little kitten neck? Since when do I have a little kitten neck?" he teased, entering.
She pulled the blanket off of her head once more and offered Munkustrap a sheepish smile. "Since you're magically not Ruffles or Truffles?" she said meekly.
He laughed heartily and she blushed slightly, heaving herself out of bed. "So, to what do I owe this...slightly annoying honor of the early-morning visit?" she asked, turning toward the mirror.
He grinned. "Did you take Teazer's pearls last night?"
She turned from the mirror, a faux shocked expression on her face. "Moi? Do a thing like that?" she asked, laughter edging her voice.
He raised an eyebrow. "I had no idea you were so light-fingered."
She grinned naughtily. "One of my many assorted talents," she said, winking.
He cleared his throat. "Any reason why you threw them out of the pipe and nearly decapitated Ocenir and Misto?"
She flushed and looked to the floor of the pipe. "I remembered something," she mumbled.
He leaned towards her. "Remembered what?
She shook her head. "I'm not going into that, and you know it!" she said, her voice husky. He frowned, worried, but turned to leave nonetheless.
Pausing at the door, he half-turned back toward her. "By the way...Alonzo brought something in today...from the docks. A package arrived for you." With that, he was gone.
She frowned and headed out of the pipe also, down toward the main Yard. What ever could have arrived for her?
Alonzo handed her the small box. "Here it is, just like I found it," he said. Alta smiled her thanks at him and seated herself on a box a little ways away. She untied the string gingerly, unwrapped the paper. Lifting the lid on the tattered box inside, her face split into a wide grin.
"'Cenir! Get your lazy butt over here!!!"
The tall, patchworked tom loped over. "What's wrong, Alta?" he asked, spying the box. She beckoned for him to come closer.
"Stuff from home!" she said, obvious excitement tingeing her voice. Ocenir, however, frowned.
"Didn't you leave it with Trista?" he asked, obviously thinking.
"Yeah," Alta replied absentmindedly, pawing through the contents with the excitement of a kit on Christmas morning.
"Well...she wouldn't have sent it unless..." his voice trailed off.
"No," Alta whispered, looking up at Ocenir quickly. She closed her eyes and felt for the connection with Sarge....but it was gone. "NO!" she cried, burying her face in her paws.
Ocenir could guess what had happened by her actions, and he moved to her side, hugging her gently. "Alta, it's okay....."
"Is not."
Ocenir glanced up at Misto, who shrugged. She had a point. "But we're safe here, Alta," Ocenir said gently.
"Do you really know that?" she whispered harshly, looking up at him, her eyes brilliant blue in her soaked face. "Nothing is certain, nothing!"
Ocenir bowed his head. She was shockingly correct at times, and now was one of those times. Sarge and Trista were gone, it appeared. All around, cats bowed their heads, even though none of them had known the two.
"But who?" Alta's soft voice shattered the silence. Misto glanced up t her quickly.
"Who is still in Boston?" she said, clarifying the statement. "Who would kill them?"
"Unless," Ocenir said slowly. "Unless....."
"Unless what?" Munkustrap asked from where he was standing behind the two.
"Well...two things. One, Engle got away somehow..." the Junkyard erupted in hisses, and Ocenir held up his paw to continue. "And returned to Boston, which is highly unlikely because of his...business interests here." Alta glared at him when he said that and turned away slightly. He rolled his eyes and continued once more, "Or, as Alta thought, there was another cat back home, but is holding the two captive and blocking the connection, like Engle did to Sarge when he left for here."
"Or Engle's alive and blocking MY connection," Alta said, staring fixedly at a point above everyone's head. "But if that's the case...why would Trista send my things?"
That stumped everyone for awhile, and eventually Alta stood, holding the box in her paws. She didn't say a word, but turned on her heel to head back toward her pipe. Ocenir watched her go, his chin in his paws. He looked down at the ground again, blinking to keep back tears. Sarge and Trista had been his friends too, after all.
Munkustrap backed away into he shadows. Ocenir had the entire Tribe to comfort him, but Alta....well, when she went off to the pipe, few dared to follow. Most of the Tribe was wary of the striped queen without even realizing it, and she accepted it and moved on. However, Munkus thought that the deaths of two of her closest friends may just be the thing to push her over the edge.
He approached the pipe cautiously, just in time to see her retreating to the dark inside. He crept up to the mouth of the pipe and peered in.
Alta sat down with a sigh and eased the lid off of the box again. She sorted through it half-heartedly, none of the excitement remaining. He saw her set aside old letters, some pressed daisies, a couple of photographs and a sachet of grasses whose scent she inhaled deeply. She then froze as she carefully lifted something out of the box.
She set the box aside and stood, moving over to the mirror. Whatever she was carrying had been wrapped gently in a handkerchief, long ago judging by the yellowing of the fabric at the folds. She unwrapped the bit of cloth carefully, lifting something delicate and silvery out. She faced the mirror, lifting the circlet to rest it on her head.
She turned toward the door and Munkustrap froze. He knew that he was in plain view, but he felt that even if he had been hidden he would have been in plain view. Alta looked different somehow...older, more regal. Like a Queen in her domain.
She broke the spell by smiling and tilting her head. She beckoned for Munkustrap to enter, and he, remembering the glory of her merely moments before, hastened to do so.
She stood there, looking at him with an odd expression on her face, until Munkustrap realized in the half-light that her shoulders were shaking with her sobs. He frowned slightly and pulled her into a hug, rubbing her back until her breathing slowed. Then, he pulled away, and looked down at her with a quizzical expression.
"What's with the crown?"
She gestured to the box. "It's one of the jewels from home...."
"Jewels?" he asked, raising an eyebrow practically to the roof. She grinned.
"Yep. Jewels..."
"Do I get an explanation?" he asked, plopping down on the blanket.
"You aren't going to leave until you get one, am I correct?"
"Damn straight," he said, his mouth curving upward slightly.
She sighed. "I suppose I'll have to give you one, eh?"
"That'd be nice," he said, pulling her down to sit next to him.
"Well...I suppose I'll have to fill in a few gaps in the story of my life at Engle's lair. Every once in awhile he'd hold these parties...for his associates and for other criminals. Anyway, he always wanted an ornament for his arm, if not one, then two, and I was usually one of them. We'd have to get all decked out with the Crown Jewels...necklaces, rings, and either a circlet or a tiara. And even when we weren't at one of those functions, we'd have to at least wear a circlet when we were...entertaining him in a....scheduled appointment, shall we say."
Munkustrap shuddered at her matter-of-fact way of speaking. "The...Crown Jewels or whatever they were...were they real?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Was Engle alive? Only the best...we had to sparkle. And he always gave me pearls....the better to choke me with afterward."
Munkustrap's expression was clear: disgust. "So...why did you keep that circlet?"
She took it off and examined it in her paws for a second. "It's special to me....because it's from before Engle turned evil, I suppose...."
"He wasn't evil before?"
She rolled her eyes. "No, he was evil and I went to him of my own free will. Of COURSE he was normal, smart one! I mean, nobody goes out into life thinking that they'll be a criminal mastermind..."
Munkustrap shrugged. "I suppose not. So, why did you go to him in the first place?"
She sighed and looked at the circlet. "We were kittenhood friends. Of course, Engle was almost a year older than me, but we never cared. He said that he was starting a..." she began to laugh. "A business. And I could be his Vice-President, the Empress of his domain....." she shook her head ruefully. "And for one year, the Golden Year as I like to call it, I WAS the Empress. That's even what he called me....Empress. And I was royalty....."
She sighed and looked off into the distance, out of the pipe. "And then...something happened, I don't know what exactly. He stopped working with...legal things...and moved into catnip...human alcohol...human drugs and cigarettes. I told him that I didn't want to have anything to do with him anymore, I didn't want to be Empress of THAT domain....." she looked back at Munkustrap. "You can understand, right? It's one thing when it's something you enjoy, something you can respect....but when it gets illegal, here isn't much a decent person would want to do with it."
He nodded, and Alta took that as a signal to continue.
She shook her head, crying once more. "What made it worse is...I seriously think I loved him, Munkus! He was the perfect Tom before he started dealing with the illegal stuff. I mean, he'd send me a dozen roses every week. He was a hopeless romantic, sweet and caring, and I don't think he'd ever hit anyone in his life. But then...I think he got a dependency upon the alcohol, and I just thought in the beginning that it was overwork. He agreed with me...we'd go on trips around town...to the aquarium, to the Commons, to Fenway park to watch the Red Sox games. It was the life. And then....it all changed....and when I told him that I didn't want to be Empress anymore....I think I was becoming afraid of him. And that's when he turned ugly."
"So...where does Ocenir fit into all of this?" She needed to get it out, Munkustrap could tell. So....he did what he could do...asked questions.
"Ocenir was a little runt when he first came to the warehouse.....that's where Engle's Lair was...an enormous warehouse. He came near the beginning, and Engle let him in gladly....Ocenir was my young charge, basically. He and Trista were, at any rate. I'm at least six months older than both of them, we don't know exactly. They were mine to train, to teach....Trista went into the Healers and Ocenir into the Guards, of course. But Ocenir....well, Ocenir had been there for most of the time, and he'd even gone on outings with Engle and myself, and we were close. So when Engle started to get ugly...well, the first time he raised a paw to me, I seriously think he would have knocked my head off. Ocenir was my Guard that day....and he stepped between us.....and he took every blow. I was begging for Engle to stop, but he didn't stop...wouldn't stop until Ocenir was a bloody pulp. It was a very good thing that Trista had gotten so far along with the Healers that day...."
Munkustrap shuddered, unwillingly picturing the scene. "What happened after that?" he whispered.
"Engle got worse...and worse....and worse. I was there for two more years...he started having his spies track my movements so I couldn't escape. But I kept the circlet...to remind me of the boy that my younger heart had loved...to remind me that there was a cat under that fur," she said, standing to put the circlet on once more.
Munkustrap stood also. "Could I see that?" he asked, extending a paw.
Alta nodded slowly. "I suppose so..." she said, lifting it off of her head and placing it in Munkustrap's paw.
He held it up and began to examine it. The circlet itself was a thin chain of silver, and every few inches was a hanging teardrop sapphire exactly the color of Alta's eyes. Munkustrap frowned at one of the gems. There was a letter faintly scratched into the setting for the hanging chair...and "I". Each hanging chain had one....and it spelled out "I Will Always Love You". Munkus smiled, the smile of a person keeping back tears as he lifted it up and set it on Alta's thick headfur again.
"Where did he get the circlet?" Munkus asked softly as Alta started to place items back in the box.
"I believe he had a Siamese that worked in a jewelry store make it. I've never seen anything else like it," she said, frowning as she looked for a place to put the box.
Munkustrap nodded. It made sense. He turned to leave, but stopped at the door, looking back over his shoulder. "Alta?"
"mmmm?" she said, half-turning in his direction.
"Do you still love him?"
She stopped and stared at Munkus, one of her teardrops hanging exactly in the center of her forehead. "I---I don't know," she said, looking at her feet. "After everything that he did....you'd think it would be impossible, but..."
He nodded, cutting her off. "He does, too....and he regrets it."
She squinted at him. "And how do you know that?"
He shrugged, holding up his paws in mock-defeat. "I just...know." He watched as she shrugged and turned away again. "And Alta?"
"What...now?" she asked, turning again.
"He was right to call you Empress." He was gone.
Alta sighed and flopped down on the blanket, idly pawing at a teardrop, thinking over his last remark. She was up like a shot again in a moment, hurrying to the mouth of the pipe.
Munkustrap was making his way down the junkpile, silhouetted by the moonlight. "Munkustrap!" she called.
He turned. Alta smiled. "Thank you," she said, before disappearing into the pipe.
Munkustrap smiled and headed for the main Junkyard.