"Tugger? Would you come down here for a moment please? My old body isn't quite as nimble as it used to be and I'm quite likely to break something if I try and get up into that pipe." Old Deuteronmy called up to Tugger after the crowd of cats had left the tire. Tugger lazily lifted his head and looked down at the Jellicle Leader. Then, taking his time dusting himself off, he jumped down from his pipe lounge to the tire.
"You call?" he said with a typically broad grin.
Old Deuteronomy nodded. "Indeed, Tugger. How are you today? We don't talk much these days. What have you been up to?"
The small hairs on the back of Tugger's neck stood up. Old Deuteronomy usually only wanted these sorts of talks when he was trying to get something out of Tugger. "Not much. Had to go find Quaxo when he got lost in the Junkyard, that's about it." he said. Hoping that would satisfy Deuteronomy.
"Nothing else?" Deuteronomy asked. Tugger shook his head. "Then why am I getting the feeling that you're not telling me everything?"
Tugger half-growled/half-groaned and leaned up against the base of the pipe lounge, not looking at the Jellicle Leader. Lying was the last thing he wanted to do, but he wasn't about to betray his word to Quaxo. "Probably 'cause I'm not." the Curious Cat muttered.
"Well, I suppose that is an answer." Deuteronomy said thoughtfully. "Is there any particular reason you are not going to share anything else with me?"
"Because I promised not to. Not to you, not to anyone." Tugger said quietly. "Don't make me break my word. It's one of the few things about me that cats can take seriously."
Deuteronomy didn't say anything for a moment. "Tugger..."
"Sir, please don't..." Tugger begged, giving the Jellicle Leader a pained look. "I mean, I'd like to tell you, really I would, but I promised. It's nothing that's going to hurt the tribe, I promise."
"And that's all you're going to tell me?"
Tugger nodded, resolute.
"Then I'll respect that." Deuteronomy replied.
"Thank you." Tugger said quietly, as he watched Deuteronomy turn and walk back towards the vicarage.
Damn... Quaxo was going to have a time of it when he saw Old Deuteronomy next.
Tugger tracked Quaxo from the smaller tom's den to the clearing where he had run off to earlier. When Tugger reached the clearing, he stopped looked around for Quaxo. He quickly found him sitting on an overturned oil drum, staring out into space. Frowning, and worried that the small tom was having another fit, he waved a hand in front of Quaxo's face. Imediately Quaxo snapped out of his reverie and, after taking a moment to focus his eyes, looked over at Tugger with a smile on his face.
"I take it from that look that you've had a productive morning?" Tugger asked.
Quaxo's grin spread until it was nearly ear-to-ear. "Productive doesn't even begin to describe it!" he laughed. "It all makes so much sense now!"
"Mind filling me in, then?" Tugger asked with a smile, planting a hand on either side of the oil drum. "Considering I've been covering your tail all morning. Let me tell you, Old Deuteronomy is one tough tom to keep things from."
Quaxo's smile faded. "Old Deuteronomy..? Heaviside... No, no! Not yet..."
"Not yet? What not yet?" Tugger asked.
Quaxo looked up into Tugger's eyes. "It's the Voice... It's only one, I've figured that much out. But that's off-subject... What it said, no one can know yet. The Voice was very explicit about that."
Tugger sighed. "How much longer? Something like this isn't easy to keep secret in a Junkyard with two Mystical Cats and Old Deuteronomy."
Quaxo bit his lip. "Until the Jellicle Ball."
"The Jellicle Ball!?" Tugger exclaimed. "That's two months, Quaxo! I don't know if that's possible."
Quaxo's ears drooped. "I know, I know. But that's what the Voice said, and I have to at least try to listen to it. It knows what it's saying and... well, I just know that it's something I have to listen to."
Tugger sighed. "Two months... You are troublesome sometimes, you know that don't you?" He smiled at the smaller tom.
Quaxo's face broke into a smile as well as he slipped off the drum and slowly moved to the center of the clearing. Tugger watched Quaxo's graceful movements with an approving eye. "Well," Quaxo said, looking back over his shoulder, "Mistoffelees is a play on one human word for a devil, you know." Then, as he finished the sentence, Tugger was amazed to see Quaxo's coat shimer for a brief moment before becoming the sleek black of Mistoffelees. Mistoffelees' laughed a bit at Tugger's expression. "That was my first lesson today." he explained. "I know how to control it now."
"Does this mean no more fits?" Tugger asked, leaning back against the drum and crossing his arms.
Mistoffelees nodded. "Those were just to get my attention." he explained. "If I don't try to ignore the Voice then there's no fit."
"Good." Tugger grinned. "I was getting tired of having to drag your tail places. But," he paused, "what does this voice want with you, anyway?"
Mistoffelees shrugged. "I'm still not really clear on that myself. It said I'm something called a 'Conjuring Cat.'"
"That's like a magician, isn't it?" Tugger asked.
Mistoffelees nodded. "Something like that. I said the same thing and the Voice said that I could think of it that way if it helped me." Then the small tom's eyes were unfocused. Tugger took a step forword, worried that Mistoffelees had been wrong about the fits. He paused when Mistoffelees' eyes suddenly snapped into focus and, with a smile, the magician was suddenly holding a red scarf in his hands. The smile faded when he saw the concerned look on Tugger's face. "What's wrong?" he asked the older tom.
"You blanked out there for a sec." Tugger sighed. "I thought you might be, well, you know..."
A soft smile crept over Mistofflees' face. He stepped up to Tugger and wrapped his arms around Tugger's waist, nuzzling his cheek into the thick mane of fur. "I'm fine, I promise." Mistoffelees whispered. "No more fits. 'Blanking out' isn't like the fits at all."
Tugger couldn't help but smile a bit. A few days ago, heck, yesterday, this tom had been practically falling apart at the seams. Now he seemed so sure of himself. "Amazing what a few days can do, eh?" Tugger said softly. Mostoffelees nodded.
"Yeah."
Old Deuteronomy had kept his word to not pry into Tugger's business, but the Jellicle Leader couldn't help but think that what Tugger was involved with was somehow tied into that disturbance that he had felt. He would trust the Curious Cat, but Deuteronomy liked to be kept informed about what was going on in the tribe, and the uncertainty was gnawing at him.
Munkustrap found the Jellicle Leader on the Vicarage wall in one of his more contemplative moods. While Munkustrap didn't leave the Junkyard often, he would visit his sire at his favorite haunt on occasion. Even Munkustrap needed to escape the pressures that could be found in the Junkyard on occasion. "Catnip mouse for your thoughts." he said quietly, observing Old Deuteronomy's thoughtful expression. A mixture of puzzlement and irritation, a combination not seen often on the face of the older tom.
Deuteronomy sighed and sat up. "There's something that's going to happen, but I have no idea what it is." he finally replied.
It was Munkustrap's turn to look confused. "I'm not quite sure I understand, sir."
"A few weeks ago, there was a tremendous disturbance. Not a physical one, but one on a more psycic plane."
Munkustrap nodded. "I seem to recall a day when both Coricopat and Tantomile excused themselves rather suddenly. They said that they had gotten a headache. I didn't think too much of it."
"It was probably the same thing." Deuteronomy nodded. "I don't believe it to be a hostile occurance. I've even gotten assurances from the Everlasting Cat that it is in fact quite friendly. But that's all I can discover."
Munkustrap was quiet for a moment. "What do you plan on doing?"
Old Deuteronomy sighed. "I'm not sure, Munkustrap. I trust the Everlasting Cat, but at the same time I want to make sure that there's nothing happening that could possibly hurt any of the tribe. The only thing I can do right now is wait."
"Wait for what, sir?" Munkustrap asked.
"The Jellicle Ball."
Of course, if he wanted to he could simply teleport himself there. Quaxo pondered on that for a moment before rejecting the idea. To do that, he'd have to completely change. If one of the others found him as Mistoffelees... Well, the Voice had said to not let anyone see him that way, and he didn't want to do anything that might make the Voice mad.
But at any rate, it was going to be a dash around the yard.
Quaxo quickly made his way over to the other side of the yard. It wasn't hard avoiding the others. Bill Bailey and Carby weren't exactly the most attentive of cats.
When he reached the water hole, Quaxo looked into it and sighed. The cat looking back at him, dirty, fur sticking every which way, whiskers uncombed... He looked at bad as Macavity. "Why does it have to be this way?" Quaxo sighed, his front paws sinking a little into the mud.
"Well, you could just take a bath!" came a voice from behind. Seconds later, Quaxo was surprised to find himself face-first in the water, sputtering and shaking his head to keep the water and mud from running into his eyes. Behind him he could hear the laughter of Bill Bailey and Carbucketty. Apparently they were a little more watchful than he had given them credit for. Quaxo glowered at them over his shoulder, hands forming fists in the mud.
"Oh, you horrid little kittens!" The familiar voice of Jennyanydots suddenly was heard over the laughter, which was abruptly cut short. "Off with the two of you! Scat! I'll deal with you later!" Bill Bailey and Carby quickly ran off, still snickering, dispite the inevitable scolding to come from the Gumbie Cat. "Those two..." she huffed, hands on her hips. "I've got to find something for them to do before they get into worse trouble." Turning, she saw Quaxo starting to climb out of the water hole. "Quaxo, you poor thing! You're filthy!" She lay a hand on his shoulder, which the small tom quickly scooted out from under.
"I'm fine, really." he muttered, trying to keep his voice steady. As kind and motherly as Jenny was, she had a way of being intimidating at the same time.
Jenny got a firm grip on his shoulder and directed him over to an old bucket to sit on. "Nonsense. You're all muddy and wet."
"I'm always muddy." Quaxo protested.
Jenny started to gently groom him like she had when he was a small kitten. "But you're soaking wet. You'll catch your death if you walk around like this..."
"But I don't need you to give me a bath!" he tried to squirm out of the Gumbie Cat's grasp. "Come on, Jenny! I'm not a kitten!"
Jenny paid him no mind whatsoever. She had helped raise Quaxo from a kitten, and inevitably that's what he was always going to be to him. "Honestly, Quaxo. It really does amaze me sometimes how little you actually groom yourself. I know the kitten I raised was a little black thing." She flicked off some of the mud that had congealed around Quaxo's ears. "You wouldn't know it at all by looking at you! You're grayer than Old Deuteronomy!
And so Quaxo was held captive for the longest cleaning he thought he'd ever had. He felt his face go red as he noticed the occasional kitten pass by and snicker. This is so demeaning... But when Jenny was finished, she smiled and seemed truely pleased.
Quaxo's coat was the cleanest it had been without the use of magic in a long time. The experianced cleaning techniques of the Gumbie Cat had done and excellent job of revealing what Tugger and Quaxo had been trying so hard to hide; extreme white patches and silky black as well as fine lines of black running along his face. The small tom's ears lay flat, unsure as to what reaction he should expect from Jenny.
To his surprise, there wasn't one.
"Now doesn't it feel better to be clean?" Jenny smiled. "I don't think I've seen you this clean in quite a while."
Quaxo was rather dumbstruck. He had neglected intensive grooming for so long, and been so in the background, that Jennyanydots, one of the queens who had raised him, didn't notice anything different about him! He walked back to his den, rather amused. He and Tugger had been certain that at least the new markings on his face would be noticed, but if Jenny didn't...
"When I got an ambush bath by Jennyanydots." Quaxo huffed. "I swear, she's never gonna treat me like a grown cat!" He looked up at Tugger. "She didn't even flinch. Didn't notice a thing!"
"So you've been hiding all this time for no reason?" Tugger grinned. Quaxo nodded. "Gonna drop it now?"
Quaxo nodded. "Might as well. Jenny knows about it, but didn't think anything of it. No reason to be dirty now."
"Except I'm gonna have to start worrying about some little queen running off with you." Tugger smiled, leaning up against the pipe. "I've got a catnip mouse that says Victoria or Sillabub stakes a claim when they see you like this."
Quaxo smiled back. "Even if they do..." he flicked his wrist around, suddenly producing a large red blanket, "I still have my vague and aloof manner to fall back on. Now, did you have any plans for the evening?" he asked, whipping the blanket around the two of them.
"Well," Tugger looked down at his claws, pretending to stifle a yawn, "there was this really cute little black cat that I've had my eye on all day..."
Mistoffelees rolled his eyes, but smiled. "You terrible bore." he purred softly before the two cats suddenly dissapeared from view in a small burst of light.
