the lazy warrior

chapter 13

To no one's astonishment, Freckledkit hadn't regained her liveliness throughout the rest of her kithood. The days and moons had seemed to drag on for the tarnished kit and her frantic parent, which was now her father. Sandbreeze had assumed the role, replacing Tawnybriar's task.

However, Featherkit had attained much enjoyment in the odd time. Her mother had resorted to her half and the kit had gladly absorbed her attention. The two had left camp to wander about every now and then, a dusk here and there. She'd also accepted Graypaw's offerings to accompany her beyond boundaries. But ever since she'd witnessed the vast lake at the heart of the clans, the once warm and fluid apprentice had seemed jumpy and unstable.

She couldn't decrypt the reason behind the apprentice's edginess, or any ulterior motive. However Featherkit sure found it amusing and even entertaining, although it was no match for the glory of her mother's attention. She felt like she was on cloud 9 each time she felt her mother's warm breath billowing on her flanks. She basked in its sweet warmth each time, even though her mother's transition couldn't have occurred if Freckledkit hadn't cooperated.

She'd also begun to notice Drippingpaw's shiftiness. Although she was cynical, she couldn't wait to gauge in some of their sibling quarrels and rivalry. She could taste in the air every time she extended her tongue. Enough littermate drama already resided in the camp's atmosphere, with her and Freckledkit and her mother and Echospring. She couldn't wait to add more to her list. Stoatpaw, like her brother Breezypaw, seemed to be the only cats left out, kept gorge-lengths from their sibling's turbulence.

The variance in Graypaw did irk Featherkit every now and then, but she dismissed it as the jitters for his encroaching warrior's assessment, which couldn't have been far off.. She'd grown over the past moons and her apprentice ceremony couldn't be far off. Featherkit just hoped she would make it in time to spend at least one night in the same den as Graypaw. She couldn't pin down the source of her feelings, but she knew it sat like a pebble in her heart.

Freckledkit had grown, but she appeared frail next to her littermates, her ribs jutting out her rattling chest despite the endearing season; almost like a homunculus kit as her bone frame had expanded. The kit had refused to even move her jaws to chew. Featherkit couldn't comprehend such an extent of indolence and sloth. However, it was perhaps Featherkit's most riveting source of entertainment.

Since Freckledkit's condition gave no sign of improvement and the likelihood of her hunting dwindled, the medicine cats had given up force-feeding her despite the bountiful amounts available. Sandbreeze and Breezykit's only possibility to provide for their kin was to share their left-overs, as explicitly affirmed by Reedcrawl. The father and son were the only cats who were willing to touch Freckledkit's rank jaws, it's roof parched with a thirst they rarely quenched. Tawnybriar had given up for moons by that time.

Featherkit often wondered if her sister would actually perish from hunger if she were left without force-feeders. However, she knew such a wish wasn't feasible just yet. Instead she preoccupied herself in her anticipation for the apprentices ceremony. She wondered whether her sister's idyllic lump would comply with the season's old tradition of shoulder licking and weaving, and she yearned to find out. She even weighed the possibility of the leader postponing her sister's inception.

Looking back, it was hard to imagine that she'd once been perturbed by the senior warriors' requests to apprentice her sister early. The only positive scope of that possibility had been potentially extracting Freckledkit from the nursery, leaving Tawnybriar for her. Except the entire time she contemplated the prospect, she agonizingly acknowledged Tawnybriar's total capability and right to simply step out of the nursery and abandon her once her predominated kit was gone.

Now it was all ironic and comical, the fact that her mother wasn't passionate for her first kit anymore, unwilling to lust after her and prioritizing her other she-kit, and the fact that there was no chance Freckled could be apprenticed early- at four moons- anymore. Glancing at her sister each time her father gingerly traced her muzzle, Featherkit found it challenging to even picture the cat that had once occupied the empty kit's soul, guzzling prey confidently for all to see, leaving behind only bones and compressed scraps in heartbeats.

Echospring, Tawnybriar's littermate, had moved into the nursery, expecting Swiftscorch's kits too. That fact had been the only distraction keeping her mother from her. The promise of newer life seemed to deter the clan from mulling over Freckledkit, hoping they'd receive replacements and more cats to provide for the lame kit after leafbare hit.

Featherkit was surely savoring in the tide that turned for her, while the placid Freckledkit didn't leak any of her thoughts. Instead, she was lost in her own mind, a world of thoughts wracking it, although none made it past the shell of her thinking realm.