Chapter 3: A Tiger's Tears
I looked through the forest of furry limbs to see my father standing in the middle of the camp; the entire Clan was looking as if every kit in the nursery had died, not to mention battered and bloody from the battle. It looked as if some argument was going on between the Clan and Pinestar. My mother spoke into the muffled silence of a morning devoid of chirping birds.
"Pinestar, what about our kits? Won't you stay and watch them grow up?" She inclined her black head to my sisters and I, they were just tumbling out of the nursery brambles, but I was threading my way to my mother.
I ran to my father, not quite understanding what was going on, all I knew was I wanted him to see how big and strong I was getting. I pounced on his red-brown tail hoping he would play.
But he pulled it away!
Why?
Pinestar looked solemnly at mother. "They'll be fine with you, Leopardfoot. I'm not a father they could be proud of, but I will always be proud of them." My heart leapt with promise, but as his words sunk in I began to understand just a little.
Pinestar looked at me with deep green eyes, eyes I would always remember. "Especially you, my little Warrior." I felt his muzzle graze my dark tabby head. I growled at him playfully, but my father still didn't wasn't to wrestle right now.
I could feel his deep green stare growing sadder on my amber one. "Be strong, my precious son, serve your Clan well." I nodded just as the full reality sunk in.
My father was leaving.
My little heart ached as he padded out the gorse tunnel and away forever. But where could he possible go! And why?
My mind reeled with these things, as my mother pulled us all to her, I could see the sadness, and sudden, wrenching loneliness in her green eyes.
I didn't care about the sudden commotion around me, I would never understand it anyway; something about Sunfall and the Moonstone…I pressed my face into Leopardfoot's soft dark fur. I only had her now, and I knew that where ever my father had left us too, whatever path he had chosen, I would never go down it. "Be strong, my precious son, serve your Clan well." I would be strong, and I would lead this Clan one day, I vowed.
