Title: Ritzkin
Rating: PG
Warnings: Macavity is a mean kitty. His father isn't much better.
Additional Notes: This is a short part, meant to explain the Monniks more than move the story along. I'll put part 4 up tomorrow to move things along more.
HUUUGE thank you again to everyone who's responded (and bigger thanks to Puddycat - link didn't work, but since you gave the name of the site, Google did. :) )
Also, if anyone is interested in a CATS RP (I'm playing Munkustrap from this arc, as well as Etcetera, Tumblebrutus, and Munk's mommy), check out Our Jellicles (ourjellicles. We need Tugger, Victoria, and Demeter, among others!
Still don't own it.
Ritzkin - Part 3
The Monnik tribe and the Jellicle tribe had a few similarities. Both had a patriarch – Deuteronomy for the Jellicles, Leviticus for the Monniks – and those patriarchs were brothers. They had both been Jellicles too, at one point, and the Jellicles had been a large tribe that stretched all the way to the docks on the far side of town. When their father died, though, Leviticus and Deuteronomy had fought for the leadership of the Jellicles. Deuteronomy, though older, would have had no problem letting Leviticus step up, except that Leviticus had ideas for what to do that disturbed the older cat. Rather than see Leviticus' plans implemented, Deuteronomy had faced off against Leviticus in a duel, one which he eventually won. Deuteronomy wanted to soothe his brother's anger, though, and gave him half of the Jellicle land, for him and his followers. Leviticus had soon begun setting up his own tribe, naming them the Monniks. Some things were similar to the Jellicles, especially the patriarchal nature and one main communal gathering place, but Leviticus had used this opportunity to implement his own ideas. As such, the Monniks, had several key differences in how they ran things, most notably how they treated families and queens.
In the Monnik tribe, all the cats were encouraged to cause trouble for humans, dogs, rats, and, occasionally, other cats. As such, the Monniks were a disorderly bunch as a whole, fierce and rough and prone to claw and tooth battles among each other. With this tougher nature, though, there was a chance that toms would attack kittens to get back at intertribal rivals. To prevent this from happening, kittens were separated from their true mothers at birth and mixed up among other the other litters. Very rarely did anyone know who their own children were, much less their rivals'. Most Monniks didn't know who their siblings were, or their parents. Leviticus had fathered most, but not all. Other than that, they simply didn't know. As such, the Monniks came to consider themselves as one large family, with everyone as siblings to each other, and Leviticus the father of all. This was something Leviticus encouraged.
The kittens were kept in two isolated groups from most of the older cats, except the milk-queens, until they were weaned. At that point, the group of toms would be allowed to join the older cats, while the group of queens would continue to grow in their nursery where only queens could visit, until they reached full maturity. At that point, Leviticus would choose a tom, usually someone who had recently won his favor, to welcome them into adulthood properly.
While the young queens were kept away from the influences of toms, adult queens were free to mingle with whoever they pleased. They could tease and flirt and play with the older toms, but only Leviticus was allowed to authorize a mating when a queen was in heat.
All of this, Tugger learned from Ritzkin, who had been surprised to hear that Tugger could mingle with any queen in his tribe, and even more surprised to find that Tugger knew who his family was. Ritzkin had explained how his entire litter had had an identifying mark – one he refused to show Tugger – which was how he and Macavity had known they were brothers after they had been split among the milk-queens (they had ended up in the charge of the same milk-queen). The two brothers had hunted down the rest of their siblings (there had been a total of six, a huge litter), and so Ritzkin was one of the few Monniks who knew his brothers and had met his sisters (that had required quite a bit of sneaking and hiding on his part). As far as his mother went… he had no idea who she was, but he assured Tugger that he hadn't eaten her. Ritzkin loved hearing stories about Tugger's mother, though, and several times, he said he wished he had been able to meet her. He would like to have met a mother. None of the Monnik queens acted like mothers – they either ignored the kittens, or they fussed over them like nannies, not like mothers were supposed to.
Tugger thought Ritzkin was weird, wanting a mother, but, hey, at least Ritzkin was smart, unlike Rumpus.
The two toms spent their days exploring the Monnik and Jellicle territories together, sharing their favorite places with each other (and taking care to avoid other cats). Ritzkin taught Tugger how to jump extra far and balance on a narrow ledge against a wall (very difficult, because you couldn't center yourself, with the wall in the way). In return, Tugger taught Ritzkin how to dance, to really dance. Apparently, the Monniks were more interested in wrestling than dancing. Ritzkin had the strength, but he was sorely lacking in grace. Tugger was determined to fix that.
Several months after they began hanging out, though, Tugger found out just how the rumors of the Terror Twins' first massacre began.