It was the night of the Jellicle Ball once again. December's full moon, once again. I didn't know the date.

In the past year, I had gone from being an innocent human girl living in a small American town, to a Jellicle queen who has lived through more hell than she ever deserved. The year had drastically changed most everything about my life, no matter how you looked at it. I had grown up to be a queen, rather than a young kit.

In terms of what had happened since Macavity's death, Jemima and Cori were officially mated a few weeks after Macavity's funeral, and they had given birth to a beautiful baby girl who looked almost exactly like a grey version of Jemima. She was an absolute delight in the junkyard, and everyone loved her being around. I apparently got deemed her honorary aunt by Jemima shortly after she was born. Antha and Alonzo were actually participating in the more general mating dance this year, and they were actually quite happy together. They had been seeing each other for about six months at this point officially. Porthos, however, was a very sad case, and no one talked about him anymore. Antha didn't even refer to him anymore. He ended up getting some alley queen pregnant, just after I had gotten raped, and he apparently he got hooked on 'nip shortly after that. He tried to see me several times, before Ad threatened to skin him alive if he came back to the junkyard again. Porthos hadn't been seen since then, except by some of the Jellicles who ventured into the alleys once in a while, and he was never very lucid through his fog of drugs. Now as the year continued, Ad had given up being the GRC, and we started focusing more on our friends and making the den more suitable for us. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and it was the best months of my life. Now, however, was our time to officially tie us together to be mates.

Admetus and I had taken up our roles in the mating dance, performing the usual roles as many of the adult Jellicles did, showing ourselves off as able to mate at that point. It normally wasn't anything exceptionally binding, even during the showcase dance, which Ad and I were actually performing this year. It was different than the one Plato and Victoria performed last year, as it normally was, and it normally didn't mean anything binding, if it meant anything at all. However, in this case, as Ad lifted me into his arms with one smooth movement, kissing my lips gently, it was made quite obvious that we intended to have this mating last as long as we could. I smiled as we pulled away, glad to finally be able to call him my mate.

"Shall we go make it official?" he asked softly, able to voice the question I had been thinking about for the past few minutes. I grinned, nodding as he carried me off towards our den, not eager to waste any more time together.

C'est Fini…