Legacy (Book 1)

Chapter 11: Changes

Chapter 11: Changes

The three moons after Scamp's leave were dark and hollow. Rainstone's days were one tedious chore after another, acting, playing, helping, acting some more. As the cold season took firm hold, it blanketed the valley and surrounding mountains with snow so thick that it came up to her shoulders when she went out occasionally with Night or Pepper.

Not that she went out with Pepper much anymore, between the snow and his new kits and duties, they hadn't gone out training in a moon. Whisper had kitted nearly two moons ago, bearing two toms. They were named Blizzard, and Sun.

Two very opposite names for two very opposite toms. Blizzard, a white and gray tall little kit, was rather passive and had a good nature like his father. Sun, on the other paw, with a pelt the color of burning sunlight in the middle of the warm season, had a tongue sharp enough to scorch through anything and enough energy to pass him for a mini sun, bouncing around the cave.

Their view of she-cats were the only thing similar between the two. They'd adopted their father's lenient attitude, though they expressed it in different ways. Blizzard saw it as a wrong, and treated it as such. Sun seemed to feel having a she-cat would slow him down and he didn't want to hunt for the 'miserable little creatures.'

Luckily for him, there were no she-cats for them to take as mates yet. Rainstone liked Sun better then Blizzard, though she felt it ought to be the other way. The wild tom was a natural prankster and had a fun sense of humor, nothing damaging, but still a little crude.

Stick, Ice's and Storm's last kit, had become a Trainee about a moon ago, putting another cat in the training for the hunters. Rainstone flicked an ear as she saw Sun bounding away from the fighters den, his tail straight up in the air and his darker paws swiftly carrying him toward the kit-den.

I bet he put those thistles I gave him earlier in some nests. Her whiskers twitched in amusement, she'd found a light in being his accomplice in his pranks, tiny bits of defiance against the all so superior toms.

Her heart trembled as she though of Scamp. His bright amber eyes only a fading memory, she couldn't even completely remember the pattern of his pelt anymore or the sound of his voice. The only thing that her mind refused to forget was his touch, soft and silky and healing her heart. She was scarred, but not out yet.

Scamp's leaving had caused a bit of a ruckus, it'd been assumed he'd gotten stuck at dusk out hunting in the snow and had fallen down something, dead to the cats. But then his mate, Squirrel, had been left all alone. Because of Nightly's death, there were no hunters without mates, unless they wanted to give her to a Trainee, which they didn't, but several of the fighters were without mates. So Squirrel had been appointed to Fox, Rainstone did not envy her.

As every she-cat had hear, Fox had killed his last mate because he'd found fetching her food too tiresome. Now Squirrel was in the fighters kit-den, expected to kit at any time. Rainstone twitched her ears again.

"You bratty little kit! Where are you?!" Rainstone watched through narrowed eyes as Boulder stumbled out of the fighter's den. The muscular solid gray time swung his head around, amber eyes glaring.

He'd recently gone into the den, as Rainstone sat thinking, and she assumed that he'd had the unlucky nest in which Sun had infected with thistles. "Where'd he go?" Boulder hissed, stalking up to her and looming over her small figure, her tail wrapped neatly over her paws.

"I didn't see for certain, but I think he hid in Crag's den," Rainstone lied, knowing very well that Crag and Leaf were mating at the current moment, she had heard Crag ask Leaf for a 'session.' She half-hoped they were done, half-hoped they weren't.