CotS #1: The Dark Path (currently being rewritten)

Chapter Three

Sunbright was frozen, her jovial smile flat and emotionless. Her breaths came in rasping gasps and the way she stared at us made us feel like mouse-brained fools. Her mouth opened and closed, and she was in a state of shock.

"Lovegrass has been seeing a kittypet," Sunbright explained softly. Her eyes flickered from Goldenwind to me and back again. "I thought everyone knew. Spiky is a kittypet, a feisty one too. Lovegrass.... I think she likes him. And she went out to see him last night. She came back sick. The cold air, probably." 

I just stared. Lovegrass. After telling me how she despised kittypets ... she was seeing one herself? Just ... just like Littlecloud. A traitor. Lovegrass was a traitor to SeasonClan, and I'd never known it until now.

Suddenly, I heard soft movement in the brambles behind us. My ears perked immediately. I could hear the newcomer, but I couldn't tell who it was.

"Someone's there!" I warned in a low hiss. I edged towards the brambles and pried them apart.

Peacewind. My mother. Of all the times! Why couldn't she leave me alone?

After everything she'd done, as if that wasn't enough, Peacewind was also eavesdropping on my life? "What are you doing?" I hissed angrily. Peacewind had abandoned me my whole life. I didn't need her now, no matter what she had to say. Even if she was expecting more kits. Bleh. I didn't need siblings. I was fine alone.

"I wanted to apologize..." Peacewind meowed quietly. She sounded nervous and her eyes were anywhere but on me.

Those words. I wanted to hear those words for the first six moons of my life, I wanted to hear that my mother loved me.

But not anymore.

I. Didn't. Care. About. Her. Anymore. I didn't want her anymore. I realized she'd left me way too long of my life. I didn't need her, I didn't want her. So, no matter how sorry she finally was, she was too late to be my mother. Way, way too late. She should've told me this when I was a kit, when I was way more forgiving.

"Apology refused." I brushed her off. "Goldenwind, are we training?"

Goldenwind sprung to her feet. "Of course!"

I ran off with Goldenwind to the training hollow, trying to ignore the pained eyes of Peacewind burning into my back. Peacewind had ignored me my entire life, and I most definitely had no use for her anymore. I'd grown used to life without a mother. Life with an absent mother. Besides, Iceflame had probably asked her to apologize. It was nothing about her own initiative being taken. I was bitter, and I wanted nothing to do with her.

I mastered extremely hard techniques with Goldenwind that afternoon, like the back kick. There was also an odd one I hadn't mastered yet: Swiping up with the front paw, following with a back kick to the cat behind me, and then spinning around, finishing off the back person and re-attacking the first, who had been winded by my first attack. Goldenwind said I would need at least two training partners to practice that move properly, but that I could try practicing on my own first. I really wished Goldenwind was my mentor and not Lovegrass, all Lovegrass ever taught me was to do with the front paws. She said I wasn't ready for anything else.

"Seeya, Goldenwind!" I called happily at sunset.

Goldenwind smiled wryly. "We're not saying bye yet! You have to hunt your meal."

I gawked. "It's winter!" I protested. "I could be out for ages!" Goldenwind was just like Lovegrass!

Goldenwind shrugged. "Catch a piece of prey and go back. You'll share that with Mistpaw, no matter the size. Good luck for you if it's big, bad luck if it's small."