#old deutoronomy

basically. all cats used to be magical --- further validating the propensity for older civilizations to idolize them.

Edit: I had a whole paragraph here that got deleted somehow but all you need to know is, along comes a particularly powerful magical cat who does the Isildur/Anakin thing and attempts to basically usurp the Cat Diety of Magic, who lives in the moon, that I call Moon Cat until I can think of a better name. He amasses a cultlike following.

the Isildur Cat's attempt to wrest godlike magical power (with a following that he has amassed over time...convincing a bunch of people that his ascension was prophetic...yk cult shit) essentially results in a war and the totality of magic was becoming volatile and corrupted. There's a big battle something something and at the end of the day, Moon Cat sees no other option to save the sacrality of Uncorrupted Cat Magic by gatekeeping what is left of it, so she siphons her own essence into three stones (I call them Moon Stones but I intend to come up with a cooler name) and assigns three different trusted Keepers (Old Deuteronomy is one of them...so yeah he's from Ancient Times) to protect the Stones, and then sends them off to vastly different parts of the world. possession of a Stone bestows immortality to the Keeper so that they can guard it ad infinitum. In the meantime, as a result of this development, a magical cat will never again be born and magic will never exist among cats as it had before.

fast forward centuries, along comes Macavity, one of the many sons of Deuteronomy. he shows sensitivity towards, and a propensity for, magic --- not in its most literal sense a la Mistoffelees, but more in a sense that he's keen to its potency and gravitates towards spiritual avenues in a way not dissimilar to Coricopat and Tantomile. he'd have mystical talents, like prescience/precognition, minor manipulations of extant fire, attuneness to weather, etc. but he couldn't conjur, or summon, or materialize matter or anything like that. Deuteronomy was aware of his son's Uniqueness and chalked it up to inheritance---a little bit of Deuteronomy's magicalness getting passed down. young Macavity, though, wasn't keen to take his heightened senses lightly, and became more frustrated and quixotic the more he attempted to make sense of it. seeing how the pressure was building in Macavity, Deuteronomy sat him down and explained to him the legend about the Moon Cat and the Isildur Cat and the Stones and all that, in an attempt to elucidate on why cats can't be truly magical anymore. he was hoping this knowledge would put Macavity at ease but instead it horribly backfired :D

okay so long story short! Macavity attempts to wrest Deuteronomy's Moon Stone, fails, and then flees to quest for one of the other three Keepers. it's a whole thing but all you have to know is he does find one, and basically...extorts the Stone from him. (it had to do with exploiting the Keeper's romantic feelings for a mortal yadda yadda yadda. master of manipulation, the napoleon of crime! Macavity knows how to get what he wants!)

EDIT: Forgot to mention. this is from where Macavity gets HIS power...but since he's not a truly Magical Cat and because he's Evil and Shouldn't Have The Stone, he's basically destroying himself by using it to wield magic. and he's also corrupting the Stone itself. but obviously he doesn't care or even fully understand what he's doing to himself.

Deuteronomy, beyond deeply troubled by all this shit, sacrifices a sizeable chunk of his magic to send a prayer up to Everlasting via priority mail. basically he's like STOP I fucked up STOP Send Help STOP

his prayer reaches, and Moon Cat and the other Cat Deities senses a Disturbance In The Force. they're like shit. fuck. it's happening again. initially Moon Cat's plan was to amass the dregs of her remaining power to create a sentinel that could potentially stop Macavity, but that would officially kill her off, and then Jellicle Moon would cease to exist and the essence of the entire cat race would be fucked, so...that would be counterproductive. Moon Cat's little brother, a benevolent Demon Cat (I need to work on names 😩) whose job it is to guard the Heaviside Layer, volunteers to do the job instead. he's warned that if he gives up his essence/magic to incarnate into a corporeal form, he won't remember his previous life and won't be able to return to the Heaviside Layer. although obviously this is saddening, he accepts the consequences and heroically allows Everlasting to corporealize his essence into a bona fide...Original Conjuring Cat.

enter the boi! Mistoffelees wasn't 'born' per se, he more kind of...landed? spawned? lmfaooo and so he has no memories of parents or littermates and spends the greater chunk of his life just thinking he was abandoned because he was the runt of the litter.

Mistoffelees is imbued with the fruits of Demon Cat's sacrifice, which is where his magic comes from. he's his own person tho, a truly material Jellicle Cat, so as foretold he retains none of Demon Cat's memories or personality or feelings and so on and so forth. he just has a deep seated instinct that he's...Different™ and has a unique (nonetheless tragic) insight/connection to the Heaviside Layer, where he knows he can never go. he also develops a unique father/son-esque bond with Deuteronomy, because Mistoffelees is, after all, the literal answer to Deut's prayers, and because Deut hasn't felt the special warmth and spiritual connection inherent between Magical Cats in centuries. neither Deut nor Mistoffelees realize this for a while tho...it's during the events of the actual musical that Deut realizes what Mistoffelees is.

Moon Cat keeps her eye on him, hoping he can fulfill his destiny of stopping Macavity from fucking up everything for everybody. no pressure!

Sometime in the 20th century, before the internet robbed the world of its mysteries, there was a circus. If you only saw it from the outside, you may have thought it was just your ordinary entertainment - men and women in eccentric costumes, acrobats, wild animals, dancers, singers...anything you'd expect from such a company. You may have bought a ticket and took your child for an evening of harmless fun. Your son may have been excited for clowns with red noses and over-sized shoes. There would be none, but strangely, he wouldn't mind.

But back to the beginning. It was only when you came inside that you realized the circus was different. The said difference was difficult to describe; it was more felt than seen or heard. The place was more fantastic than your normal circuses and yet it wasn't, for it felt more real than any other shows. The people there did not seem to be performers. They were so natural on their acts, so enchanting you could not peel your eyes from them. Children were mesmerized by the show and so were you, against your better judgment. 

There were two acrobats, a man and a woman, both red-haired and with mischievous glint in their eyes. They moved as one, never afraid of the dangers their profession entailed, true daredevils. They seemed to only for each other. 

The white-haired girl moved you to tears with her dance, you could swear you heard whispers of appreciation and encouragement in your head. She hadn't spoken a single word, yet you felt as if she'd given you more meaning than any other person. And when her partner, a disheveled young man, joined her on stage, it wasn't just words emitting from the two, it felt like a thick, warm blanket of contentedness and love spread over the audience.

Their magician, a lithe young man with dark eyes and pale skin performed magic feats so incredible that you couldn't figure out a single trick, and was it even one? His elegant movements were certain and professional, and yet he exhibited child-like wonder at his own magic, for this was the only way to describe it. 

After him, a wild-looking young man appeared. His presence was commanding, and even though his performance was meant to be about animal-taming, you may have felt that he controlled you as well, that if he said "jump", you'd only ask how high and follow through. Fortunately, he didn't order anyone around - the animals seemed to do as he wished, and his untamed, pure energy was contagious. If there ever was a man enjoying life to its fullest, it must have been him. 

There were many, many more. Contortionists, singers, comedians, an old actor telling nostalgic, but hilarious stories of his prime...the show went on and on. You could have stayed there forever. 

And finally, the old, but still majestic man, their director. He spoke, thanked the audience and a memory flashed right behind your eyelids, of an opera singer with voice deep and gentle as velvet, from another time and place.

As you exited the tent, you may have felt different. You may have thought that you have just witnessed something extraordinary, something you would never, ever forget. But as you returned to your normal life, the spell faded and when people asked you how you found the performances, you could hardly remember them. How strange...

This is a story of the members of the circus, their struggles and their everyday lives, the strange talents they have. It begins with a short, black-eyed boy, and his pale sister, both street performers at the time. But more about that only next time.

-----------------------------------------------------------