He had always been good at playing games. He viewed them as a show of intelligence, a sign of strength. There was not a single game he had ever lost.
Even now, as he stalked through the dense foliage of the jungle, the black tom was playing a game. Though he seemed for all the world to be absorbed in the task of hunting, his mind was racing, planning out his next move. Playing pretend was not always easy. One had to plan carefully, prepare themselves for every one of their opponent's moves.
It was very much like hunting. First, he would pick up the scent of his prey. Then, he would approach it, stalking carefully and preparing to pounce, observing its movements as he executed his own. And, finally, when he was close enough, all that was left to do was go in for the kill.
The tom gave a satisfied purr as the jungle mouse fell limply to the ground. In three easy steps, the game was over. His mood turned sour when he realized the game he was currently playing would not be that easy.
Clamping his jaws tightly around the prey, he unsheathed his claws and leaped onto the nearest tree. Slowly, very slowly, he began to climb, paws slipping on the slippery exterior of the tree every so often. Grunting with the effort, the tom finally pulled himself up onto the first branch, padding along its length and leaping from the end, only to land on the branch of a neighbouring tree. It was the quickest way to travel in the jungle, unless one liked to push their way through the thick tropical vegetation below.
He arrived in camp soon after, a cluster of trees that stood so close together that their branches almost intertwined, creating bridges between one another. In each of the five trees making up the camp were dens, hollowed out of the bark by whatever had lived here before JungleClan had made it their home.
"Scorpiontail!" came a high-pitched voice from somewhere in the camp. The black tom flicked his ear as a sign that he'd heard and headed for the fresh-kill pile - a small burrow in the tree nearest him. He never got to his destination, as he was interecepted by a ball of white fur.
"It's almost dark out, I've been so worried!" Her green eyes were wide as she spoke and she pushed her nose into the tom's chest soon after. Scorpiontail could already feel annoyance prickling beneath his fur, but he remained still. He had to remember that this was a game.
Side-stepping the she-cat, he dropped his prey in the fresh-kill pile. "I was in the trees before the sun went down. Don't worry about me, Whitecloud." He pressed his nose to her forehead reluctantly, telling himself the show of affection was necessary. Whatever true affection Scorpiontail had ever held for Whitecloud had faded away some moons ago.
"Worrying is what she-cats do, especially when it comes to their mates," the she-cat purred in return. It was then that Scorpiontail became aware of the eyes that were watching him, making his pelt prickle uncomfortably. He cleared his throat, excusing himself on account of having to meet with Spiderleap, the deputy.
The twisting branches of the clustered trees took him lower, far away from Whitecloud. The feeling of someone's eyes on him, however, did not fade and Scorpiontail travelled even lower, until he was on the lowest branch. From here, he would have been able to leap down to the jungle floor without injuring himself.
He turned to meet another pair of green eyes. They were very similar to Whitecloud's, but these ones shone with an intelligence he fancied was only rivalled by his own. They were prettier, too, a vibrant emerald rather than the duller palm green of her sister's.
"Scorpiontail, I've been so worried." Her voice sounded like bells and the twitch of her whiskers mesmerized the tom. He realized that she was mocking Whitecloud.
"Don't worry about me, Lilyfeather," he replied, his voice deep, the opposite of the dead response he had given Whitecloud earlier. He flicked the white she-cat's nose affectionately with his tail. She purred back, touching his nose with her own.
"I'm tired of pretending, Scorpiontail," she whispered. "Tell me, when exactly do you plan to end this game you're playing. You can't have both me and my sister, you know." Her eyes glimmered playfully, but Scorpiontail knew that the she-cat was getting impatient.
"Soon, my flower," he said. "Getting rid of one's 'mate' is not as easy as it might seem. Especially when she's as attached as Whitecloud as is."
Lilyfeather snorted. "Let's do it tonight."
Scorpiontail was taken aback. As much as he would have liked to get rid of Whitecloud, who had professed herself his mate without even asking his opinion on the matter, he quite enjoyed playing this game. As annoying as Whitecloud could be, it was nice to have someone fawn over him. Lilyfeather, on the other hand, was the one he spent his nights with, meeting secretly away from camp in order to stay away from the prying eyes and ears of their Clanmates.
"I'll ask Spiderleap to put you and me on the midnight patrol tonight," Lilyfeather said, and Scorpiontail could feel her sweet breath stirring his whiskers. "Whitecloud is on night-watch duty tonight. We'll pretend that we've been attacked and I'll rush back to get her. Then, once we've drawn her away from camp, we'll get rid of her."
Scorpiontail considered Lilyfeather's words for only a few moments before responding. The idea of being with someone whose cleverness and ambitions matched his own was too tempting, especially in comparison to Whitecloud, who he found boring and unintelligent. Yet, he was still hesitant.
Seeing the uncertainty in his yellow eyes, Lilyfeather backed away from him. She sat down on the branch, and curled her pure white tail over her paws, the movement not as fluid as it usually was. It was only now that Scorpiontail noticed something slightly different about her.
"You're not..." Scorpiontail trailed off. He would have never noticed that she was getting larger had she not made it obvious.
The she-cat smiled. "You're the father."
Like that, his mind was made up.
"I will see you tonight, Lilyfeather," he said, savouring the taste her name left on his tongue. He waited for the she-cat to travel back up a couple of branches before following her. She enticed him like no one else did and that was enough to make him want to stop playing pretend.
Waiting for midnight patrol was one of the most excruciating experiences of Scorpiontail's life. It was not that he was too nervous to think about it; in fact, he could already feel the adrenaline beginning to flow.
Finally, the moon was at its highest point in the night sky and Scorpiontail set off down the intertwining branches at the center of camp. At the bottom he was met by two familiar white figures.
"Be careful out there, love," said Whitecloud. Scorpiontail gave her a nod, running his black tail over her back before disappearing into the dense undergrowth with a nearly identical white she-cat.
They did not have to travel far. The patrol of two stopped at the edge of a gorge, the waterfall nearby filling the air with the sound of thundering water. There was a smile playing at Lilyfeather's lips as she scented the air and Scorpiontail followed her lead.
"Panther, and fresh," the she-cat commented. "It was here not too long ago."
The black tom nodded. "So, what is your plan? Did you want to kill her with our own paws and blame this panther or are we pushing her into the gorge?" He nodded over the edge at the river below, clear blue water mixed with the frothing white of foam.
"She's so mouse-brained she wouldn't know the difference between being attacked by a black panther or a black tom," Lilyfeather hissed. "But, for our sakes, why don't we push her over the edge. It would be harder to prove our guilt if anyone ever suspected us in the first place."
Again, Scorpiontail nodded. When was the last time someone else had planned his games for him? Clearly, this was a sign from StarClan that he and Lilyfeather were meant to be together.
"How good are you at pretending you're in pain?" she asked, turning back in the direction of the camp. Scorpiontail smirked and lifted his head to the canopies of the trees, letting out a loud yowl, as if he had just been attacked by something twice his size. Then, he was moving up along the trunk of the nearest tree and finding a place on the lowest branch to observe the scene below. Two white shapes appeared out of the darkness moments later, sprinting through the jungle plants.
"Where is he, where is my Scorpiontail?!" Whitecloud was hysterical, her green eyes wider than the tom had ever seen them. She was so distraught that she did not even notice Lilyfeather herding her towards the edge of the gorge.
Scorpiontail decided to make his entrance then, dropping down from his perch and landing on four feet right before Whitecloud. Startled, the she-cat jumped back.
The rock crumbled beneath her hind legs and, though she scratched at the earth with her front paws, she could not grab enough of a hold to keep her from falling. The black tom and white she-cat watched as Whitecloud fell, not even so much as moving a muscle to help her. To Scorpiontail, it felt like her white form fell for an abnormally long time before finally disappearing underneath the waves of the river below.
It was now that he became aware of a sinking feeling deep in his chest, even as Lilyfeather pressed her body against his, purring deep in her throat. It felt as if a part of him had disappeared, something he could never regain. Scorpiontail realized that he had been pretending with Whitecloud for so long that finally being free of her felt wrong.
"Is something wrong, love?" Lilyfeather asked.
Scorpiontail turned his yellow eyes to her, to the other she-cat who had been the reason behind his pretending. Though her eyes were still green, they now seemed more dull, not the dazzling emerald they had been before. Her fur, though pristine, was not as white as it usually was. Her voice, too, did not have the same bell-like quality anymore.
"Nothing's wrong," he replied, his own voice not as deep as he remembered it being around the she-cat. He twined his tail with hers all the same.
She returned to camp first, stating that it would look less suspicious if they returned separately. Scorpiontail waited for a long time before getting up to follow her. He was lost in his thoughts, the three steps of the game he had been playing for so long. Whitecloud had fit the formula perfectly. With a jolt, he realized that Lilyfeather, too, fit the mold.
He looked down upon the white foam of the river far below, and wondered: had he been pretending all along?
A/N: First challenge for LeafClan complete! This short story was written for the Pick-A-Letter challenge, in which I received the word 'pretend'. Hopefully my writing followed that theme - please let me know in the reviews!
- Spirit