Legacy (Book 1)

Chapter 3: Rules And Regulations

Chapter 3: Rules And Regulations

Rainstone muttered under her breath as she sorted through the blackberry leaves, once again. She lashed her tail as she sat in the herb-den, sorting through her piles of herbs. Every she-cat had their own little stash they used for their toms specifically that were kept in a specific place in the den.

Her herbs were stored in a small chink in the stone wall. Like the main cave, only its back wall was stone and water dripped down one side, pooling in the corner with a rhythmic splash. It was the one sound that kept her from going insane from boredom.

Two moons into her training and she had yet to leave the cave. The older she-cats had brought her herbs and told her over and over what they were called and their usage. Rainstone, with a knack for remembering things, had memorized every known herb in the mountain.

She lashed her tail and licked her still kit-soft fur. Only four moons and almost finished with training, as training would only last until Night was eight moons and she was five moons. At least the rule is you can't mate with a she-cat until they're six moons, she thought gloomily.

Night had hinted plenty of times that he looked forward to mating with her, but she had to be six moons and he had to be eight moons, as the rules stated. Just one of the many rules she'd learned.

She'd also learned everything a she-cat couldn't do, which included; not speaking without being spoken too, not leaving the cave without a tom of her family or her mate, not flirting with any tom other than her mate, not learning how to hunt or fight, not being able to be a leader, not mating with another tom, and never complaining.

Just thinking of it made her pelt prickle with defiance. Who were they to tell her what she could and couldn't do? Why did something two she-cats did countless seasons ago have so much effect on life today?

She'd heard the story of the two quarrelling she-cat leaders, blinded by their emotions they killed each other and led many of their cats to their death. Her tutor, Crisp, the mate of a fighter, for by Rainstone being the mate of a fighter she got a tutor on the fighter side, didn't even seem to care that she-cats were discriminated.

It made Rainstone growl with indignation about the regulations. Not to mention all the rules when acting with her mate. Be polite, be loving, tell him everything he wants to hear, do whatever he wants you to do; it was like she wasn't supposed to have a mind of her own!

But I do have a mind, and I do have my own thoughts! She thought angrily, accidentally tearing a blackberry leaf in her silent fume.

"What are you doing?!" Crisp's rolling mew, like water over stone, drifted to her ear. Rainstone guiltily hid the torn leaf beneath her paw.

"I'm sorting out my herb store," Rainstone answered in a growl. At least she could let her temper flare at other she-cats without getting a scratched ear.

Crisp glared at her through narrowed amber eyes and Rainstone glared back. Crisp sighed, "Look, Snake and Night are going to take you and me out on a stroll at dusk so that I can show you the different plants so you know what they look like, though you could probably guess from the leaves," Crisp mewed with a sigh.

The older she-cat's orange-brown fur was ruffled by a small draft that ran down the stone wall and Rainstone glanced a fresh slice on her shoulder. It was shallow and wasn't even bleeding anymore, but it would be painful.

Bitterness filled Rainstone, Snake had done that, Crisp's mate. How could they say that they loved them and then treat them so horribly? Her tail whisked over the floor. "I'll be ready," she promised Crisp, carefully putting the leaves back in the chink.

Stepping back as Crisp left, she lapped up a few mouthfuls of water, enjoying the untainted taste of the water that pooled in a stone hollow like a perfectly round bowl. Her whiskers twitched as she sat up, flicking off tiny droplets of water.