TWO

I never noticed him, he was just there.

I sat in my usual spot in the apprentices den, curled up to the side of the grass. My body had left a dip on the soft grass bedding, imprinting myself. I pressed against the cool, stone walls of the miniature cave; he slept outside. He suddenly jerked awake, his presence causing my eyes to widen in alarm and my ears prick forward.

He hurtled backwards. "You scared me!" His emerald eyes held a bewildered look, his fur matted in some places. My first impulse was to apologize, like my mother would. But somehow my father's trait had slipped in, and before I knew it I as laughing like I never before, and pairs of eyes from grey to green came to stare in my direction, and so did my mother's. 'Ladies do not bellow!' Her amber eyes spoke sharply. But I didn't care; maybe I was more connected to my father as I knew.

The tom later laughed back. Honestly, I thought he was a girl at the time, and my eyes had gleamed with happiness. 'A new friend,' my brain whispered excitedly, and I felt my eyes brimming with laughter. "Woah." He spoke, steady yet a bit high-pitched. "Your eyes, they're huge. They're so... Pretty. How'd you get that shade of blue?" He lifted a curious paw, which I batted quickly. "Ouch!" He retorted. "Well, it looked like you were going to gouge my eye out!" I cried.

There were no hurt feelings, but me and him snuck out of camp. He came to a large, vast meadow with tall grass that shone like dark blades under the light of the fireflies. I asked him, "Are you a boy or a girl?" My mother would have cuffed me over the head for such manners, but my curiousness got the best of me. "I'm a boy." He spoke, and I felt my eyes widen. My heart pumped. In the few hours I had known him, once he spoke those three words my head started pinging like a bell.
Ring, ring, go get him. Ring, ring. I froze. "What about you?" He said, oblivious to my unusual symptoms. "Girl," I murmured. All of the sudden the pinging washed over me like a tsunami.

"Will you be my mate?" I blurted. I felt my brain hiss, 'Well done, Miss Romance,' and I instantly felt myself slink away, into the shadows. All of a sudden, I heard his voice, far off into the distance. "Yes," and my muscles froze. I stood still, pondering what to say, what to do, anything at all. 'Breathe,' I told myself. 'Breathe.'

I felt my long legs carry myself. It was a feature I liked about myself, my flexible muscles, my lithe, slender form and my long legs. I knocked into him, toppling over him, nuzzling. He laughed.

We lay there, curled up, our bellies facing the starry sky; it was hard to tell star from firefly. "Do you know about art?" He asked. It was out of the blue. "No," I said. "What is it?" He flipped over, and I got up and silently stretched. My muscles, unfortunately, creaked like a sailor's boat. His did too, but it sounded like trees being chopped down, and I chuckled silently.

He then took his claws, and drew figures in the dirt. Fireflies lit his picture, and every time I saw more detail, more color. He chewed up leaves and filled in his eyes, took wild flowers for mine, colored it all in with the elements if the earth. "It's beautiful," I whispered. He grinned proudly. "I don't draw," he warned. "I only color."

I always loved his creations.