I am A Warrior

To be

Chapter 3

All of us turned around to the source of the voice and saw a large grey cat with white streaks off her 'mouth', and supporting a wicked scar on her shoulder. Her fur was also the shiniest fur I had ever seen. And from what I had noticed from her speech, she was much older than us. As well as more female than us.

"Bluestar!"

Grey did what I guessed was a bow; and in that same moment, another cat popped out into the clearing with golden fur like a lion. This one however was angry.

"You shouldn't be so close to the twoleg place on your own Graypaw!"

Graypaw dipped his head in disappointment, "I know Lionheart, I'm sorry."

Rusty copied a similar action to Gray. As for me, I did nothing. After all, it was no different to seeing children at the mall being scolded by parents, but the implications given seemed rather important.

The one called Bluestar looked between both Rusty and I.

"Who are they?" She looked into my eyes, and vice versa. They were a deep blue, it was unlike any cat I had seen before with how much blue she had. No wonder her name was blue.

Gray came to our rescue hastily, "They are no threat! Both are just twoleg pets!"

Rusty took offence, while I took none.

If that was an insult, I wouldn't even care.

Blue took a look at the two of us again, Rusty knelt more under the gaze. It seemed that she almost expected me to do the same.

Graypaw then proceeded to whisper a hiss that Blue was the leader of his clan, while Lionheart was his mentor.

Lionheart however heard everything, rolling his eyes (Cat's can do that?) And said, "Thank you for the introduction Graypaw.

The said leader did not remove her gaze from us, making me uncomfortable.

"You both fought well for kittypets…"

Gray and Rusty looked at each other confused. I didn't, she made it clear what she meant.

"We have been watching all 3 of you. It was the perfect chance to see how Graypaw would handle intruders, and you attacked bravely. Even when outnumbered." The said cat puffed with pride.

"Sit up, both of you!" Blue said, sounding joyful rather than angry.

The Gray colored cat rose up, but Rusty didn't.

"You too, Kittypet." Rusty then shot up.

Blue continued, "You reacted well to the attack. Graypaw is stronger than you, but you used your wits to get him off you. And when you warned this kittypet here, you stood your ground by his side. Knowing that Graypaw was stronger than you. You have spirit in you."

Rusty accepted the praise with a nod, and Blue turned her attention to me.

"You however are different…"

She walked closer around us, maybe trying to feel up our strength.

"Yes, most unusual. You have a stronger twoleg smell, and yet you know fighting, albeit different."

She then stopped in front of my face and moved in closer. I moved back a little and my face felt warm with embarrassment.

"You appear only 6 moons old, yet your eyes speak differently. Old, older than even the elders back at camp. Eyes that have seen much..."

I couldn't come up with any response to what she said. Good thing I didn't have to.

She continued, "We were not expecting you to be part of that fight, but it worked out better. Tell me, why are you here?"

I closed my eyes in though and took a deep breath, "To tell you the truth, I don't know. I went to bed, and there I was in your territory-… Wait…"

"What is it?"

"I remember voices, I remember the voices arguing. There is only one bit of I remember… 'Fire alone can save our clan, but a heart can save us all?'"

Bluestar quickly turned away to look at Lionheart, both apparently knowing what that meant. They started whispering, but I was far from done.

"Look, I don't know what's going on. I'm not the same as I was, and I'm probably far from home."

The gray cat looked furious, "You can't just interrupt-."

Graypaw was interrupted by his leader, "We can speak more of this soon."

Lionheart thought differently, "Bluestar, they are 'kittypets.' They shouldn't be in our territory. Send them home to their twolegs!"

Rusty seemed to squirm in his spot a little. "Send me home? But I've only come here to hunt for a mouse or two. I'm sure there's enough to go around…"

Uh oh…

"Uh Rusty, you shouldn't-."

Bluestar shot her head around to face Rusty, "There is never enough to go around! If you didn't live such a soft, overfed life, you would know that!"

Both older cats inched closer with each word Bluestar spoke. Soon they were mere inches from Rusty, towering over him.

Rusty was silent.

"Well?!"

"I am no threat to your clan."

Rusty turned his head down under the piercing gaze of the Blue leader. His body was trembling in fear.

"You threaten our clan when you take our food. You have plenty of food in your twoleg nest already. You come here to hunt for sport. But we hunt to survive."

Do or die…

As Blue spoke this, revelation came across Rusty's face. He sat up straight, and stopped shaking. His eyes met hers.

"I hadn't thought of it that way before. I'm sorry, I will not hunt here again."

The small cat seemed to have a good head on his shoulders if he could see where he was wrong.

"You are an unusual kittypet, Rusty."

The rest of us relaxed at her words, while Lion and Blue shared a glance that obviously said more than what we could translate it to.

"Is survival here really so hard?", The ginger cat asked this quietly.

The conversation that followed told me enough. Their clan sounded big, decent organization so that nobody was alone in what they faced, especially competition.

"How do you take this?"

My thoughts were interrupted by the leader's question.

What do I think?

"To be honest, I don't know. While it's interesting to hear about your clan, I have a bigger problem for me. Even more than how I got here."

All of the cat's were confused. Lion spoke first, "Care to explain it, young one?"

Young one? Oh, right…

"You would just think I'm crazy."

Blue star countered me, "Try us."

I sighed and gestured to my body, "This…"

"This what?"

I started to pace around, "This! Myself! This isn't my body! I was taken from my home and I am not what I was before. For all I know this is all one big delusion for me! I have waited silently, and I want answers. Now!"

They looked at me like I grew two heads.

Lionheart looked furious, "Now see here kitty-!"

His leader's tail cut him off. Blue was more patient than the others and asked, "Can you explain further? I can only help you if you tell us the problem."

I sighed and tried to think of a right way to explain it, "Ok... Before we continue, can you explain to me what you mean by twoleg when you say it. I think I know what you are talking about, but I want to be sure."

Bluestar didn't move her gaze from me, she seemed to be the only one taking me seriously besides Rusty. The other two looked confused.

"What we call twolegs are what someone of your stature would call owners. They are the ones that walk on twolegs. They control beasts that should be able to over power them, and yet they obey. They live in nests of strange design. They go about in mystery unlike any creature in the wild. Our clans avoid them at any cost. We fear they may take us to the cutter and change our very being."

Blue was very somber about what she said, and proved my suspicions to be true. Something stuck though.

Cutter?... Oh…

I turn my gaze from her a little, my voice now somber, "The cutter… are twolegs who practice medicine, animal doctors or veterinarians."

Rusty interrupted, "Yeah, that's what we call them. I have been there a few times, they never cut me."

"Yeah well, they spent… What is your way of keeping track of time? The moon cycle?"

They all nodded their heads suspiciously.

"Well... Twolegs, or what they prefer to be called, 'Humans', track their time by about every twelve moon cycles. Called a year. Well these humans train themselves to practice medicine for many years, learning how to treat different animals. Animal shelters and veterinarian offices are the places where they treat animals captured, or animals owned by humans. They do what they call a neuter, they make it two where animals can't mate. It's a procedure done when they are close to adulthood."

Confusion on their faces went to shock.

Gray spoke up first, "B-but that's wrong! Why would they do that?!"

Looks like they are believing me, which is good if I want their help.

"They do it solely to make sure shelters aren't over populated. To use someone else's words, 'there is never enough to go around.' They can't feed them all... As for pets, they get neutered for similar reasons. So they don't get other cat's pregnant randomly, to eliminate aggressive behavior, and eliminate the desire to mark territory."

Rusty whispered something sorrowful, "Old Henry…"

"I mean it's not painful, the animal is asleep during the procedure. Humans don't want to have to deal with animals spraying over everything in their nests, or homes. We humans are a very clean obsessive race, it helps us from getting sick from a lot of sicknesses and diseases."

This time it was Lionheart who interrupted, "I'm sorry? Did you say, 'we humans?!'"

Now or never.

"I said what I said. I have lived for roughly 300 of your moons."

My face hardened as I made sure not to flinch at any rebuke.

"I am twoleg."

End Chapter