He watched her from across the Junkyard. Her fur seemed to shine even more in the full moonlight, and she danced as though no one could see her. He prayed that she wouldn't see him peeping out at her from underneath the remains of an old car.

Munkustrap knew he loved her. He had loved her since she had first entered the Jellicle tribe, so many moons ago. He loved the way her eyes glittered mischievously when she was with her queen friends, and the way she spoke. The way her words... words...the words he could never say. He sighed.

“Why can't I just tell her?” he whispered. But he knew why. Because she was always with him. Her mate. Her soulmate. When she was with him, neither her mind nor her eyes could focus on anyone else. Munkustrap envied almost everything about the wild tom...his smooth nature, his attractive smile, his grip on her heart.

“Someday, I'll kill him,” he thought, and relished, although shamefully, the mental image. He envisioned himself ripping the tom's throat out, and carrying the beautiful, petite queen off into the sunset to live happily ever after.

Munkustrap shook his head to free himself from his fantasy. He knew he shouldn't think such things...he was, after all, Old Deuteronomy's second-in-command. Someday Deuteronomy would go to the Heaviside layer and leave Munkustrap in charge of the Junkyard.

“Then she'll want to be with me,” he thought, smiling a little. “I just know she could love me, if only I could tell her somehow...” Then, for no apparent reason, it came to him. He knew what to do.

He stared at her for another moment, savoring her motions, the way her fur blew in the soft breeze...before taking off for the other side of the Junkyard to his little chamber. Once there he dug through his belongings until he found a rather old, yellowing sheet of paper. He picked up a pen and started to write.

Munkustrap's pen flew across the page, words seeming to magically form under-neath his paw. It was such a relief to finally let the feelings out, a rush of hope. “Maybe,” he thought as he wrote furiously, “she'll understand...”

He finished the letter and folded it up into quarters. A huge smile on his face, he darted back to the place where he had last seen the love of his life was enjoying the warm evening in early summer.

The scene Munkustrap found, however, was not what he had expected. She had stopped dancing. She now lay in the paws of her mate. He crept closer until he was only a foot or so away from this romantic scene. He heard her soft purr, nearly drowned out by the tom's loud yowling. Munkustrap, knowing what was coming, ripped up the letter, turned away, and walked back to his area of the Yard, head held high.

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The next morning, the queen rolled over and laid her head on her mate's chest. He purred and nuzzled her. After they had made love, she had fallen asleep where she lay, in a secluded corner of the Junkyard, the place where she practiced her dancing.

Opening her eyes, she gazed around at the scenery before noticing a small pile of paper shreds. Curious, she knelt down and picked them up, trying to piece them back together. None of the words were legible anymore; they had all been smeared and dust- covered.

She could only read one last part of it, one piece that was larger than the rest. What she saw made her gasp, for it wasn't her lover's handwriting. In small, scrawled letters was written Munkustrap's last sentiment:

I love you, Rumpleteazer.

.:End:.