Jellicle cats meet once a year. . .
For the sake of this set of headcanons, I’m taking that more or less literally. The Ball is a huge celebration, right, but it’s also a huge reunion, a chance to catch up on the year that’s passed, and essentially the one time a year Jellicles who aren’t immediately related or mating/courting see each other. Everyone fawning over Bustopher Jones when he shows up? Big “favorite uncle stops by the holiday party for 5 minutes to hand out fancy expensive candies”-energy. And obviously the Ball is Skimble’s one night off from riding the rails to kingdom come (. . . Wales, probably), and he has SO MANY stories to tell.
But did you think this was gonna be all fun and games? Nope, Munkustrap childhood trauma time.
Deuteronomy’s clan (Old D, Grizabella, Munk and Tugger - personal hc that Macavity is an interloper/party crasher/rat bastard, ok) was the closest thing the Jellicles had to a royal family in Munk’s childhood, and they’re in charge of hosting the Ball every year and his earliest memories of them are his favorite things in the world - everything drenched in moonlight, so extravagant and joyful and wonderful, getting to play with kittens his own age instead of a baby like Tugger, their parents presiding over everyone together and stealing glances and nuzzles when they think no one is looking.
Then the Ball becomes the one time a year that Munkustrap sees his mother happy, or put together, or, finally, at all.
The abandonment hits Munkustrap hard, no matter how gently or how often Old D tells him it wasn’t his fault. Tugger was too young to remember Griz as vividly, and grew up with Munk as a surrogate second parent. He has a lot of Grizabella in him, Munk and his father both know - in the way they draw others to them almost effortlessly, how they both revel in being the center of attention, so charismatic and warm.
By the time Munkustrap is grown, being The Protector is second nature to him. He takes it upon himself to look after the stray kittens who congregate in the Junkyard as a sort of home base, He’s so devoted to helping and nurturing those who have been orphaned with his whole heart, certainly at the expense of his own social life, and sometimes his mental and physical health (not that certain queens wouldn’t love to help him relax a bit. . . please insert your own dirty pun on a combination of “monk” and “strap” here). He’s always just striving to be so good, the best, better than she was. . .
Anyway, it explains why the Ball we see in the show stresses him out so much, since the kittens’ behavior is a reflection on him as a Guardian and how well he’s raised them (the Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles, anyone?), and then, to make matters worse, because Murphy’s Law says that anything that can go wrong will, Grizabella shows up. And Macavity.
Where is Grizabella, by the way, when Macavity shows up to attack? Is she watching? Munkustrap doesn’t know, but if she is he’ll show her how real families act, what real love is, how it’s the opposite of what she did to him. Love means being there for each other, protecting and defending anyone weaker or younger.
Griz, to her credit, doesn’t show up at the Ball expecting much. She doesn’t come begging for forgiveness, much less to be Chosen, even though she’s old and shabby and hurt and regretful. If she could have gone unnoticed the whole time, just watching her family and her Tribe at their happiest, she would have, accepting that it would be the last Ball of all her lives, the end of the line, the endless night.
And then something extraordinary happens.
Victoria touches her, and Munkustrap watches Victoria touch her and lets her do it, and then it’s like she’s spinning, or floating, this is all so much more than she had hoped for. She sees Old Deuteronomy from across the yard and for a moment they’re just Dee and Bella, two kits with the rest of this life stretched out in front of them, and he chooses her again, not as a mate, but Chooses her. And their sons sing to her as she goes.
A few years later, Demeter has a kitten, and it’s like Munkustrap has been preparing for this forever. Dem hands a bundle to him - the new, soft fur is gray and as curly as a lamb’s - and he holds her whole tiny body against his heart and they know each other instantly.
They know love, for the rest of this life.
