Tails Book 1: Remember

Chapter 1. surprises

Rivertail wondered around the tree house in a circle, waiting for Father to get back from hunting. Father was always the one who got to hunt, saying that I'll probably get caught by a weeping weed, or a GreenTail, which was probably true.

He heard creaking and cracking in the wooden floor, he was almost certain that the tree, or the tree house was going to collapse. Either way, it wouldn't be good. His father didn't bother to even repair it ever though.

Fallen, wilted leaves were everywhere in the tree house, braches peered in from the walls, some of them angled through the oak wood ceiling.

Rivertail was waiting for father to bring back food, it always took him this long. There were tons of prey in the Weeping Woods, and lots of berries, but father always went farther out, thinking that those were all probably cursed to kill them or something. Which means Rivertail had to spend half the day very hungry, and the other half training.

He kinda liked having father leave half the day, because it meant he got lots of time to just relax and be... By himself. It was hard to explain. He didn't like being by himself, there was nobody to tell anything to, except father. Father wasn't worth talking to though, because he knows everything that Rivertail knows. There's almost never a point to telling him anything.

Sometimes he wondered if father just knew everything about everyone and everything. Which was fine with him, after all, why would he need to know all that knowledge? There probably wasn't even enough room in his brain for all of it anyways.

Father knew more about Rivertail than Rivertail himself, but he didn't have a problem with that either.

He wasn't supposed to care anyways, he had been taught his whole life that he was never supposed to question father, he was never supposed to have ideas of his own. He was supposed to be fine with anything father asked him to do, and anything father told him.

So, he was. He never did anything he wasn't asked to do. He never thought about ideas, or his future. It was all laid out for him by his father: Train, and kill the WhiteTails. He never thought about what to do after that was done.

Father never told him exactly why he had to wipe out the WhiteTails. He just had said: "They are evil, maybe even more evil than Sharktail was."

That was really reason enough, anyone even close to being as evil as Sharktail should really be wiped out. Rivertail was taught a lot about Sharktail and how horrible he was. He had read the story several times.

Sharktail was born with 9-tails, which made him very strong and powerful. He didn't use it for good though, he challanged the leader of the BlueTails at only thirty years old, killing the leader easily. He was a good leader at first, until he met her.

He met a yellow 8-tail, who he fell in love with. She disappeared not long after, without a single trace of where she had gone.

That's when Sharktail turned evil, he started killing BlueTails for simple mistakes, like standing in the wrong position, or being late for duties.Some were just killed in rage, for no reason at all, just Sharktail getting angry and killing the nearest BlueTail he could see, or injuring them severely.

Nobody could challenge Sharktail's position, he was too powerful, too strong, and too good at physical fights.

Then, one day Sharktail left, he went to go find his long-lost-love, but he never came back. Not a single trace of even where he had gone.

Which left the BlueTails without a leader, the WhiteTail's spies had figured out about how many BlueTails were killed by Sharktail. The BlueTails also had no leader at the moment, as they were still deciding who it should be. They were weak at the moment, which made it a perfect time for the WhiteTails to strike, and take their territory.

So who was to blame, the WhiteTails or Sharktail?

Father always told Rivertail it was the WhiteTail's fault, for attacking them. So he agreed with father as he always did.

Rivertail heard more creaking as he stepped along the inside of the treehouse.

He could fix the treehouse himself, but he kept that thought far away from his mind. Ideas are dangerous, they can lead to thinking of destroying things and lives, overthrowing leaders, or worse. That's what father said, and he believed every word father said.

Father knows best.

Father is always right.

Father-

His thoughts were interrupted has the trapdoor to the tree house opened and father was poking his head out.

He came over to father and helped him up out of the trapdoor with a flick of his tails. Father said Thanks, like he always did when he came back from hunting. Father looked exhausted when he came back too.

Rivertail peaked over the trapdoor, seeing two dead rabbits and one dying chicken sitting at the bottom toppled over each other. He motioned his tails, and all three of the animals floated up to them with a blue aura.

He dropped the animals on the wooden table in the middle of the room. The ground made a groaning creak as the animals weighed it down.

Father didn't look impressed, that was just an average thing Rivertail did everyday.

Father went over to the table sitting down on the floor and grabbing rabbit from the pile in front of him with his mouth. He set it down and then looked at Rivertail as he sat down across from him.

"So,"

Father tried to start a conversation.

"Anything new?"

"No."

He answered the same answer almost every time.

Father looked disappointed and started chewing on the rabbit's foot. Then, he teared it off, and started crunching into the bones. Father always ate the bones, it was kind of disturbing, even though he does it all the time, RiverTail never seemed to get used to it like he does with everything else.

"I mean- I- I think I hear more creaking in the floors now a days."

He added quickly.

Father only shrugged.

Huh. He still doesn't care.

Or maybe I'm just being over protective.

Rivertail sighed.

Father then randomly looked up at the ceiling with a guilty expression.

What's he thinking?

Father looked like he was yelling at himself in his mind, like a debate with himself against himself.

"Rivertail, there's something I need to tell you..."

He felt a tiny twinge of excitement, sure, father told him things all the time... But this seemed important, something new. He felt the ground quivering below his paws.

"Yes?"

He asked trying to not even sound a little bit excited.

Father breathed, looking even more guilty from Rivertail's obvious excitement.

"I've been meaning to tell you this for a long time.."

"Please don't get mad, or sad, or anything."

He started feeling the excitement sinking away from father's words of guilt.

Father then said it so quickly, he barely heard it.

"I- I'm not your father."