Chapter Text
“From long, long ago, humans have given attention to a certain species of animal - the felines. Through a long process of what they call ‘domestication’, these apes have turned a branch of the aforementioned species to domesticated versions of them known as ‘house cats’, and these cats have continued to be their pets and companions for thousands of years.
In the thirteenth century, other humans usually accused - and persecuted - their fellows of carrying ‘magic’. But… What does this have to do with the story?
Well, at that time, witches, wizards and magic did exist, and there was a brilliant twelve-year-old girl under the name of Julianna - or Julie - gifted with magic and had a compassion for animals, especially cats. And she had wanted to do more, to help them gain intelligence, to gift them with magic.
And so, she performed a powerful ritual - and succeeded. The ritual’s main goal was to give her cat, named Marie, intelligence and magical skills. Julie was overjoyed to see her cat able to speak. She dreamed, right then, of a future where cats and humans can live happily in harmony…
However, she was unable to see the future of the soon-to-be feline civilization, for someone had spotted her doing magic. Moments later, she was taken from her parents, and was persecuted for her gift of magic ...
But this was, by no means, the end of feline civilization. Marie had escaped, and with the magical abilities given, created a world separated from the humans’, and recruited other cats to live there. Soon, the nation of Felinia began to thrive, and so did feline civilization.
That’s the myth of the beginnings of our civilization. Any questions?”
The history teacher of class 6A6, Ms. Birchwood, asked. She was a short cat with pure white fur and amber eyes.
A cat student raised her paw. “Yes, Miss Goyangi?”
Said student, Goyangi, or rather Hello Goyangi, was a rather dashing and energetic cat. She had a calico coat with brown on her left ear and gold on her right ear. Her eyes were the strangest thing, however; they were heterochromatic, pink fading to gold, which was rather unusual in cats.
“Ms. Birchwood,” Hello began, “is the story you told… true?”
At that, the whole class exploded into laughter.
“Silence! And no, Goyangi,” said Ms. Birchwood quite irritably, “I did say that the story was a myth. There is no such thing as magic!”
The laughter roared even louder. Hello frowned and lowered her paw. “Well, that was just a question.”
“Alright!” Ms. Birchwood shouted. “Back to the lesson! Now, since the dawn of Felinia, cats…”
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“Hey, Goyang, nice joke back there.” A gray tabby by the name of Coco grinned. “Heh - that got a laugh from the whole class!”
“I wasn’t joking.” Goyangi huffed irritably. “It was a decent question. You idiots just chose to laugh! It might be real!”
Coco snickered. “Yeah, right, and I'm the class monitor. Anyways, we gotta stay back for the end-of-term party, yeah?”
“Mm-hm! Lookin’ forward to it!” Hello exclaimed, back to her usual active, happy-go-lucky self.
“Hello!” A cat ran to the pair.
“Yes, milady?” Coco asked teasingly.
The cat frowned. “I meant my sister!”
Hello Goyangi grinned and gave Coco a bop on the head. “Sorry, Spudkat. What is it?”
The other, younger cat’s name was actually Potato - and fittingly, she had a potato-colored coat of fur and hazel eyes. “I’m gonna go home first. You’ve got the end-of-school year party, right?”
Hello nodded. “Yeah. Stay safe, Spudkat.”
“No, don’t worry ‘bout me! I’ll be fine.”
“See you at home, then?”
“ ‘Kay!” The cat bounced out of the school building. Coco stared after her. “Will she be okay?”
“Duh! This isn’t the first time.”
Coco frowned. “Yeah, but… something feels off. Y’know, maybe…”
Whatever might have happened in Coco’s opinion, Hello didn’t find out. The bell rang with a ding!
“Back to class, Coconut!” Hello shouted. “C’mon!”
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Hello finished school that day with a bag of snacks. The cat hummed, skipping on four paws, when suddenly, she bumped into a cat. “Sorry!” she apologised, then froze.
The cat had black fur and vivid green eyes. As Goyangi watched, however, her visage seemed to flicker. Her fur seemed to be giving off a faint aura, and her eyes flickered to a violent purple, then back to vivid green. Her smile changed from kindly to mysterious and… smug? All this had just happened in a microsecond.
The black cat, now normal, smiled softly down at her. “It isn’t such a hassle, dear. No need to apologise.”
“Um… okay…” Goyangi stammered. “I’ll just… return home.” She slowly trotted away from the smiling woman to the direction of her home. I must’ve imagined it… there’s no way a cat can be like that… Comforted, she continued on her walk, hoping to be met with her happy parents and Spudkat -
So of course, that did not happen.
Instead, her mom ran out and hugged her. “Oh, Hello!” She sobbed. (Can cats even cry?) “You’re here! We thought you were lost, too!
“Lost?” Hello asked, puzzled. “What do you mean, mom?”
Her dad walked out, expression grim.
“Potato’s been missing, Hello.”