Chapter 8 – Truth and Consequences

The four Jellicles sat in their meeting space. Mistoffelees had created his usual fire, but this time, his concentration was solely on the flames rather than the queens with him. "No wonder he doesn't have a mate," Bombalurina whispered to Demeter. The gold queen just smiled, her paw on her small belly. She hated to admit that her appetite was really starting to expand, and she finally saw what Bustober Jones found so delicious in all the foods he'd boasted about eating in the past.

"What are you up to, Misto?" Bombalurina asked. He answered her with his paws slowly rising, eyes still on the fire. Demeter was scared he would damage his eyes staring at the flames. But she also didn't want to interrupt what the black and white was doing. The last time anyone had interrupted him with the fire, his face ended up black with soot, and Bombalurina had 'electrified' fur for about three days. She shocked everyone she came in contact with, and was spewing tiny electric sparks every two seconds, causing the fur at that point to puff out. Mistoffelees claimed it was an aftershock of the spell being interrupted, but seeing as the other two queens had no symptoms, Bombalurina assumed otherwise.

The gold queen's thoughts were interrupted when he moved his paws again, moving it in a circular formation. A barrier seemed to form around the fire, and it soon lost its flame-like composition and became a literal ball of fire. He smiled widely, and looked ready to toss back his head and laugh maniacally, but resisted. He then began distorting the shape of the fire to his delight.

"I didn't think you knew magic that well," Demeter commented, pulling her feet under her body, as not to be burned by any stray flame that might come her way.

"We all have out acts to play out," Mistoffelees said as he moved his paws to make the fire take the shape of a moth. "I really don't look old enough to be that powerful, now do I?"

"I wonder how powerful you really are, Mistoffelees," Cassandra admitted, with a soft smile. She watched intently as the moth turned into a sunflower.

"There's only so far you can get," Mistoffelees explained, as he sculpted the sunflower into a lily. "And then you reach a plateau. It's both good and bad. Keeps you humble, but you get very bored. If I wanted to increase my magical aptitude in another subject…" He clapped his hands together and the lily was crushed, the fire suddenly gone, with nothing left but embers. "I would have to give up something I've learned to have energy I set aside for that magic, and use it for new magic." He pulled his hands apart, and the fire reappeared as a mirror image of Cassandra.

The queen jerked in surprise, and the fire image did the same. The Abyssinian spoke, the lips of the fire twin mimicking her, "Please don't do that, it freaks me out." The fur rising on Cassandra and her fire counterpart's back were telling signs of her discomfort.

"Alright," he said, dispelling the enchantment, so the fire would return to what fire should normally look like. But he quickly worked it back to make the image of a queen they were all familiar with, dancing a solo dance they had all seen before. All the cats stared in amazement, including the conjurer himself.

"I guess we know what's on your mind," Bombalurina remarked. "Or who, I should say." Mistoffelees dispelled the enchantment, and left it that way. He laughed nervously.

"I…didn't mean to do that," he said, blushing under his fur. "I didn't know I could do that."

"How is the music box coming?" Demeter asked.

"Oh," he seemed grateful for the change of subject. "I managed to get it to stop falling apart," he announced proudly.

"A wonderful accomplishment," Cassandra agreed. Bombalurina smiled. Then everything went quiet. They all seemed lost in their own thoughts.

"Mistoffelees," Demeter asked softly. "I was wondering about some of the cats in the junkyard…and their…status as 'normal cats', or lack thereof…"

"So formal," Bombalurina nudged her sister.

"Are you talking about Old Deuteronomy?" Mistoffelees said knowingly, nodding his head, as though he expected her to ask this question.

Demeter and Bombalurina jumped. "You mean," said the red queen, "he IS a Jellicle?"

Mistoffelees looked cornered. "Oh…you didn't know. Now I don't mean to say if he is or if he isn't. I really have no idea. I barely get to speak with him. And what with him rarely coming to the junkyard anymore…" He shrugged. "To be honest, I don't know if I'm seeing something there that I want to see, or not."

"He's been here a long time," Cassandra reminded him. "No Jellicle would subject themselves to the pressures of being found out. Not after everything we've gone through…all the scars we carry from the past."

"I'm getting to the point that I don't know what to think anymore. The more I find out, the more confused I get." He shook his head.

Demeter sighed. "Oh…I would have liked to know."

"Me too," agreed Mistoffelees. "But…then who were you talking about?"

"Coricopat and Tantomile," she said, off hand. Now she had her mind set on trying to formulate a plan to get to the vicarage wall. It would be difficult with Munkustrap always wanting someone with her, and even more difficult, seeing as how hardly anyone ever goes to see Old Deuteronomy alone without one of his offspring there. And it was a pretty long walk. There were a lot of dangers on the way a queen like her could be susceptible to…

"Coricopat and Tantomile," Mistoffelees echoed. "Those two…there's something odd about them, but I don't think that is it. I talk to them a lot, but it's very difficult to get 'close' with them. I'm not even sure they're magical. But you're right, they are weird." He smiled. "Why do you want to know?"

"No reason," Demeter said, shrugging it off. She avoided her sister's questioning look. She didn't tell Bombalurina about the two cats following her around, looking at her suspiciously. She wanted to figure this out on her own, without causing too much alarm. There were too many questions she had, and for some reason, though her guard was up, she felt they knew something.

If she could only ask…

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She wasn't supposed to get that involved. Now she was trapped in a relationship. She supposed it was bad to say one was trapped in a relationship, but this is how cats get hurt. And she was certain she would be causing all of the pain this time.

As she snuck back into the den with the sleeping tom, she tried to assess her feelings. Did she feel anything towards the silver tabby curled up in the corner? 'No,' she answered herself quickly. It was better that way. No feelings, and at least she would save herself some hurt.

The tabby stirred, and then his green eyes opened to slits as he looked up at the queen, who was still standing at the entryway. "Why'dyou leave?" He mumbled groggily.

Her throat tightened up on her. She didn't realize he had woken up before and found her gone. "I…always make it a habit to watch the sunrise," she answered mechanically. "You were sleeping, and I couldn't bear to wake you."

He seemed to consider this very slowly, as the gears in his head were trying to get to work. "I would'na minded," he mumbled, closing his eyes and laying his head back down.

"I hope you didn't think badly of me," she whispered. "That couldn't have looked good."

He yawned. "I was…a lil' hurt," he muttered.

"Sorry," she whispered. "Think of it as a bad dream."

The corners of his mouth drew up in a smirk. "But you came back." Demeter smiled. She found herself thinking of how cute he was…even if he was a tabby.

She walked in, laying down beside him, grinning to herself. She admired the striking tabby stripes on his fur. They weren't so bad, now that she thought about it. In fact, on him, they were endearing.

"Sunrise?" The tabby suddenly shot up, scaring the poor queen, causing her to jump. "I completely ignored my duties last night," he said.

"But was it worth it?" Demeter asked. The silver tabby looked to the queen, their eyes meeting. The queen gasped as she felt an intense feeling building up in her as she looked in her new lover's eyes. A feeling she was unfamiliar with. It almost felt like she was falling.

He smiled warmly. "I think so," he said, teasingly. Demeter had to look away. She couldn't stand that feeling. "It definitely was," he finished, laying back down, and pulling Demeter down with him, holding her close. "Why are you shaking?"

"Because I can't stop falling…"

She hadn't thought of that in a while. She had tried to repress it, but the memory stayed there. It was all so perfect in the eyes of the other cats. Queen meets tom; tom likes queen. They seem the perfect match, and it seemed nothing could rip them apart. They fall madly in love. They announce they want to be mated, though they already jumped that part by 'mating' sooner than they should have. Passion did that to them. And after they were mated, the perfect confession of love begins to grow.

How nice her life seemed in the eyes of others.

Munkustrap ran into the den, causing Demeter to start. She was half asleep. "Names," he said.

Demeter stared. "Huh?"

"We need names for the kittens," he said, almost in a panic. Demeter smiled, looking the tom over, thinking how funny he was. With her tummy now slightly distended, he probably realized there were actual kittens that would be there soon.

"Munku…darling…we have about a month and a half. I think we're okay for now. We don't even know if we're having little toms or queens."

"But…we need names," he said hopelessly. "It's a difficult matter…we should get right on it." Demeter motioned him to come over to her, and he sat by her side, eyes on her stomach, paws hovering over it as though it were injured. Demeter sighed and took his paw and put it on her tummy.

"You can't hurt them. I'll keep them safe, I assure you." She smiled, and he bowed his head, putting his ear to her stomach.

"Do you think they can hear us?" he whispered. Demeter couldn't help but smile. He'd defended the tribe against Pollicles, Macavity, stray cats, humans that were trying to remove the cats from the junkyard, and on several occasions, crows that were picking on the kittens. He would probably stop a moving train from entering with his bare paws if he could. And now, he was scared of unborn kittens.

"Maybe," she shrugged. Munkustrap got up and gave a shaky sigh. "Nervous?"

"No!" he laughed. "A little…a bit…okay, so I'm a little petrified, but I'm okay."

"You know what will make you feel better?" Demeter asked. "For one, the fact that I'm carrying them, and not you. And two, since I'm carrying them, then you should go get me some rice pudding. And shrimp, that sounds good!"

Munkustrap groaned. "That's a chore. How will that make me feel better?" She pouted. "I didn't say I wouldn't do it," he smiled, kissing her on the nose. He then left the den, taking one last account of what she wanted, which had changed to cabbage and argentine roast.

Demeter stretched lazily, got up, and walked out the entranceway. Then she took a deep breath. She had some cats she needed to look for.

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The twins were - for lack of a better word - intimidating. They sat on the old pipe, always seemingly alert, even when they were resting. It reminded Demeter vaguely of Macavity, though their alertness was on a different level than was the ginger cat's. She still couldn't help feeling very nervous with what she was about to do.

"Tantomile?" she asked, hoping that it would be easier if she just said one name. Why she chose the queen first when she didn't even like queens, she didn't know. But it didn't matter. Both cats turned to look at her. She knew they had individual personalities somewhere in between the two of them…but perhaps for intensity's purpose, they chose now to act as one.

"Hello, Demeter," Tantomile smiled gently. The queen swallowed hard as the two looked to her. No, it wasn't looking, it was staring. Or was it peering? They were peering straight through her.

"What?" she asked, backing up slightly. "You freak me out when you do that!"

"Sorry," they said in unison. Demeter folded her ears down against her head, and frowned. She wanted to run away, but she needed to ask them something. It was important for her to know why they were watching her. She couldn't be frightened when it was her and her sister's reputation on the line.

"You two," she said, as she tried to make her paws stop shaking. "You've been watching me, haven't you?"

"Yes," they admitted immediately. This set Demeter back. She was expecting them to dodge the question completely. Or at least fumble, as NORMAL cats do. She cleared her throat.

"Oh…okay. Why?" Demeter wished she had at least brought Bombalurina with her. But she figured if this had nothing to do with what she was and was instead about her, she didn't want her sister to find out. Ever since this whole predicament started, she felt more isolated, even with the spotlight shining on her. "Why have you been watching me? It's rather disturbing."

Coricopat and Tantomile looked to each other, then down to the queen before her. "It has to do with your kittens," Coricopat explained. "What you are, what you're not, and what they may be, and may not be."

Demeter instantly got on the defensive. "What?" she asked drolly. "Whether they'll be more or less tabby?"

"We know what you are," Tantomile said. "Though we had not reason to care before. We expected you to have left. But now…we're curious."

Demeter looked between the two cats. "What do you assume that I am?"

"A Jellicle," Tantomile said. Demeter opened her mouth to contend the matter, but the odd queen quickly continued. "I don't mean that of the Jellicle tribe, we normal cats. I mean a true Jellicle. The wandering kittens of the Everlasting Cat. Yes, we know what you are."

Demeter looked around nervously, before turning to glare at the cats. "How do you even know about that, let alone guessing what I am?"

"Different aura," Coricopat said offhandedly. "And a keen sense for these things. Different things."

"How much do you know? Why do you care? Are you two ones, also?"

"We've seen it before," Coricopat continued. "We've been burnt by it before. And we have sources of knowledge others don't."

"It's a gift," Tantomile smiled. "A sense of the world different than most cats have. Perhaps if Mistoffelees could focus his energy more on his natural senses than his learned ones, he would have more than just feelings and slight premonitions, and see the world for wanders far beyond what he can see now."

"I didn't come here for a lecture you mean for another cat," Demeter said curtly. "I want answers. Everyone is confused about my kittens, about what's what with them, and I don't want them involved in anything that I can't protect them from. And since you two seem to always know what you're talking about, maybe you can tell me why the hell we're even having this conversation in the first place!" She didn't mean to yell, but between the stress of it all, and the peering of the cats before her, she was increasingly uneasy, and felt even more alone than before. "I should have left by now, you're right. But there is something holding me back, and you two know why. I need to know."

"It's complicated," they warned in unison.

"I'm smarted than I look," Demeter pleaded.

The cats looked to one another, then back to the queen. "It begins with genetics," Coricopat said.

"What?"

"A human discovery," he assured her. "As you said before, the difference between a tabby and a calico."

"How do you know anything about what humans know?" Demeter frowned, ready to give up on the two as playing a trick on her.

"We are a witch's cats, after all," Tantomile said. "It would be safe to say that our connection is deeper than most cats have with their humans. We are familiars, privy to any information she is. And we've seen it happen before, as has she. Or, at least, she has heard of such tales from witches in her coven, of familiars who come to them, who find permanent homes for themselves because they are linked to their human, and they know of their cats secrets. A cats knowledge of both her and her human's world opens innumerable possibilities to what can be assessed of the otherwise unexplained."

Demeter cleared her throat. Already Tantomile was losing her. "My kittens," she reminded her. "Please?"

"Jellicle traits are rare. It's probably recessive. The normal cat gene is most likely dominant. Which makes it more likely that the gene will not show up, if the two could even mate to begin with. But it's believed that hybrids, over time, have gotten into the gene pool. They, with all technicality, shouldn't be able to breed, but we're dealing with a different magic. And selective breeding, possibly. Humans tend to get involved in cat genetics, and it can be a messy affair, indeed."

"Oh," Demeter muttered. "If I walk around the corner again, and start this conversation over, will you two begin to make sense?"

"To put it simply…" Coricopat said, giving her sister a 'stop trying to sound smart' look. "The chances of your kittens being like you are very slim. Possible, but slim."

"Why would you say that?" Demeter asked.

"Let's assume Munkustrap is completely normal, without any odd mutation that made him grow up any slower, even if it wasn't noticeable by the other cats," Tantomile said again. "That means he inherited genes from his mother side, dominant genes to being a normal cat, rather than his father's side, a Jellicle cat. Assuming this mating is a result of him containing the recessive gene, as that's the only time I can assume that he even could have offspring with you, that gives your offspring a fifty-fifty chance of having a kitten that's a Jellicle, like you. The others may show odd development growing older, but would be like their father."

"You mean to say," Demeter said, trying to cut down to the parts she understood. "If I had two kittens, one might be like me, one might be normal…and I would have to raise a Jellicle cat…?"

"Almost," Coricopat said, obviously surprised Demeter could understand any of his sister's ramblings. "To put it at its most simply," Coricopat said, considering. "Each kitten in and of itself would have a fifty percent chance of being normal." Demeter had to sit down.

She hadn't even thought about what it would be like when the kittens were actually born. She got so caught up in the glamour of it, she hadn't even considered what it would be like if they were Jellicles. Or if they were normals. But the thought of having both? Perhaps she could hide it a bit if they were all like her, but not if it were the other way around.

"Are you alright?" asked the voice of Coricopat. Demeter put up a paw and waved them away.

What would she tell Bombalurina?

Suddenly, she realized her sister might have known all along. In retrospect, each little look to the side at the mention of the kittens, the fact that she wasn't excited about the kittens, the looks she would give Demeter when she spoke of staying… Her sister refused to tell her! She refused to tell her that once the kittens were grown, she would have to leave.

Demeter stood up mechanically and began to walk away from the others. Her mind was reeling from the thoughts, from the pains of the past, from the pain of the future. She wanted to live in the 'now', instead of thinking of her next step. She wanted to enjoy being a cat, just once, without the thought of where she would wander to next. She wanted to believe that the cats around her would still be there. She wanted to pretend there was nothing 'wrong' with her and that she was normal.

Perfect in the eyes of the other cats. Queen meets tom, tom likes queen. But does queen like tom? They seem the perfect match, and it seemed nothing could rip them apart. Only until it's revealed what she truly is. They fall madly in love, or so it would seem, they announce they want to be mated, as was her plan for survival. They already jumped that part by 'mating' sooner than they should have. Passion did that to them. No, he was the one with the passion. She wasn't even thinking, for once. What forethought went into that? He should have stopped her, knowing how upset she had been. And after they were mated, the perfect confession of love begins to grow.

The perfect thing to finally push her over the edge.

And she couldn't stop falling.