the lazy warrior

chapter 15

Drippingpaw's gaze condescendingly swept around the clearing for the last time, gauging everything in. Graypaw's moping, crestfallen form wasn't hard to discern at the corner of the clan, wilting like a dying rose that had lost its sanguinity. The reason wasn't hard to fathom either, and it no longer affected him. Featherpaw was blooming and her mentor's pride was just as conspicuous.

The more Featherpaw burgeoned, the more Graypaw withered like some noxious throng of stale herbs; a shadow that diminished the more it faced the emerging sun from which the nine others rather became a redundant moon instead of dissipating. Although that celestial body did provide necessities, they only did so in a subtle sense no cat ever appreciated.

Training had concluded early that day. That was likely because Drippingpaw had pleaded with his commanding demeanor of dominance. He had more on his mind than clan-life and his brother's treason. Drippingpaw's paws hardly skimmed the earth beneath him as he skidded- or rather sashayed- toward where he needed to be.

He no longer needed his claws to dig into the peaty soil below him to propel himself so he no longer had to hear the miasmic squelch of mud that caked his clawbeds and triggered his malady of fluid. His mind was full of a certain white tom with a black splotch under his elongated canine that emphasized the tooth's glinting white. He recalled lecherous fluid finally flooding his jaws instead of his eyes the first time he witnessed that tooth glittered. The apprentice longed to share a tongue with it, but kept his mouth sewed shut to preserve his nectar. Yearning, he furiously charged on.

With Bunny's comb of honey in the air, Drippingpaw could cleanse his mind of his brother. On a normal basis, Drippingpaw would need to scout the trails for any vestiges of his loitering scent. This time however, memory and lust were his sole guides and scent was irrelevant. It was only his second time circumventing and yet it felt like an instinctive second nature. Drippingpaw deciphered it as a prophecy; that it was meant to be. His mind was in a serene trance comparable to the balmy brooks of Riverclan's streams as he floated onward. Indeed there were even cats sploshing around in his euphoric mind

Soon enough, the amiable twolegden and its four sturdy walls appeared in his line of sight like a mountain of worth in a flat horizon of roaming plains; like a leader embodying hope for reform among a long lost and aimless or scattered clan finally converged. A cat was perched on the fence next to it. From afar- without even having to peer closer- Drippingpaw could discern the hard build of the cat and, heart sinking, conceded that it wasn't his Bunny who's grandiose appearance was much more streamy. Not even a heartbeat was wasted with wronged awe. It really was Drippingpaw's intuition.

But before Drippingpaw could find himself in the doldrums, Bunny leaped out of a twoleg flap that seemed ingrained in a slate of wood thinner and shinier than the rest the house was clad in. Drippingpaw hoped it wasn't a coincidence when he bounded up to the tom.

To his consternation, Bunny bounded up and roosted right next to the burly tom who looked like he'd be Dustfang's fairly-matched opponent for an equitable nemesis. However, amid leaping in his ornate outstretched physique, Bunny's gaze sparkled as it laid upon Drippingpaw.

The tom stumbled as he reached the tom- thwarted- but he easily regained his balance, dismayingly close to the other tom's fluffed out pelt. "Welcome, what was your name again?" Nevertheless, Drippingpaw was still tantalized by Bunny's recovering perfection while stoked that he was noticed.

But as the question soaked in, Drippingpaw felt like a branch had impaled him and snagged on a twine in his heart and was tugging on it while it resisted. But Drippingpaw's chagrin and unappreciated feeling didn't last long when he realized he could fabricate a name to rectify his status. "Eagle," he affirmed, wincing as he realized that his declaration rather came out as a sigh and not even an elegant one.

"Beautiful," Bunny remarked to Drippingpaw's pleasure. "You know the wild name my mother gave him was Dust while mine was Bush, but our housefolk began calling us entirely new names so we acceded." At that understanding, laughter bubbled in Drippingpaw. Much to his vexation, he'd almost been afraid of the inevitable day he'd need to tackle the latter tom for what belonged to him. He'd sensed it'd be much more catastrophic than any Featherpaw or Freckledpaw no matter how mighty they once seemed. He didn't like the prospect of the underneath.

Throat heavy with indignant relief, he stole a glance at the rustic tom that seemed even closer to Dustfang before recoiling in disdain. The notion of how close the two brothers were sent icicles rooting themselves in Drippingpaw's heart and catching themselves in awkward angles. However, he eventually recognized how one of the littermates- Bunny- was way out of the other's league. He began to consider whether Graypaw didn't deserve him and was only expressing humility when he retreated. 

The thought consolidated him...