CYRI: I love you, World of Make Believe, Fioralba, and starpaw! You reviewed the story! I wonder if Jaypaw would ever review... =daydreams=
=rolls eyes at Cyri= This is the first actual chapter. Meet the protaganists. =grin=
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Warriors. Not yet, anyway.
One
"Race you to the loch!"
Chicory sheathed her claws and leapt away from her sister's frantically flailing limbs as her brother's loud mew rang out.
The dark brown tom's eyes were bright with exhilaration, and he kneaded his paws on the ground as though he were about to dart off towards the shining expanse of water that very moment, but his sisters exchanged an uneasy glance.
"I'm not sure, Pine..." Lilac hedged, flicking her tail. "I mean, are we allowed?"
"Sure we're not." The light dimmed from Pine's eyes. He sat down with an ungainly thud and drew his tongue over a forepaw. "But only if you're not too scared."
"I'm not scared," mumbled Chicory, pale blue eyes fixed on the leaf-mould at her paws.
"Yeah! We're not scared!" piped up Lilac, springing to her paws at once. A heartbeat later, her tune changed. "But Mama didn't say we were allowed..."
"Mama didn't say we weren't, either," Pine challenged, green eyes flashing.
Chicory threw a glance behind her. The trees there were thick and leafy, dark despite the rare midday sun that warmed her pelt. The water did look so much more inviting...
"But what if we run into any other cats?" The thought had suddenly struck Chicory so alarmingly that she had voiced it without even being conscious of the fact.
Her brother twitched his whiskers. "Who's there to run into?" he mewed airily. "Only those foxhearts from up the other end of the copse and their mousebrained kits, and they live right over there." He flicked his tail in the opposite direction from the loch.
Lilac blinked yellow eyes anxiously. "Don't call them foxhearts," she reprimanded him. "You should have respect for your enemies."
"Yeah, right. I didn't hear our father having much respect for them the other night! You heard him call them a band of stinking cowards."
"You forgot 'crowfood-eating'," supplied Chicory quietly.
"Exactly!" Pine turned to the pale grey-striped she-cat for support. "Exactly!" He blinked at his other sister, who glared at him. "Now, are you going to lighten up," he nudged the tortoiseshell-and-white she-cat, affection softening his mew, "or are me and Chicory going to have to race by ourselves?"
Personally, Chicory couldn't remember ever agreeing to race down to the loch with her brother, but decided that it wasn't worth pointing this out. Besides, what Pine said made sense... their parents had never specifically told them that the loch was forbidden...
"Alright," caved Lilac, sighing dramatically. "Okay... I'll come with you, you stupid furballs. But if we get caught, I had nothing to do with it, right?"
"Yeah, yeah." Chicory got the impression that Pine wasn't listening any more. As soon as he had got his way, he had leaped to his paws, tail curling in delight. "On-your-marks-get-set-go!" The words tumbled out of his jaws so fast that they blurred together, and then Pine was gone in a flash of sunlight on water.
"Cheater!" Lilac accused, but Chicory could hear a hint of amusement colouring her mew this time. As she sped away after him, Lilac darted one look bad and yowled, "Come on, Chicory, you're going to lose!"
"Oh!" The white she-cat flicked a black-tipped ear, coming to her senses, and raced after her two siblings, her paws drumming the hard earth and the wind roaring in her delicate ear fur.
The scenery whipped past her - mostly barren, sloping hills with heather and rushes growing haphazardly, scattered here and there all over the place. The little copse where Chicory, Lilac, Pine, and their parents lived was the only wooded area around that Chicory could see, but despite the shelter and prey that the trees provided, the grey-striped she-cat somehow yearned for something different.
As she sidestepped a tuft of heather and made swift progress downwards into the valley of the loch, Chicory remembered that her family and the rival family that Pine had described were not the only cats living near the loch. When Chicory was a mere five moons old - two moons ago - she had ventured out of the copse for the first time, and fallen whiskers-first into the claws of a rough-tongued young she-cat named Heather.
When Chicory looked back on the incident, she supposed that it wasn't surprising that the dark silver she-cat had nearly clawed her. After all, she had almost shredded Heather's den to scraps of moss, pretending that it was an enemy. And Heather had been forgiving - ish - when Chicory had mewed, stuttering horribly, that she didn't mean it and that she was just playing.
She had been lucky to escape with all fur intact, but at the time, Chicory had whimpered all the way home about the cuff on the ear she had recieved. Chicory's mother, Holly, had taken the matter up with Heather personally, and Chicory heard from her father that there had been a scrap.
"Mousebrained kit!"
A yowl to Chicory's left brought her to her senses. Distracted, her paws slipped under her and she tumbled down into the valley for a few foxlengths, before-
"Whoa!"
"Chicory!"
There was a loud splash, and a drenched Chicory was sprawled in the shallowest part of the loch. Almost simulteaneously, Pine and Lilac, who had reached the water's edge without incident, dashed into the loch to rescue their sister.
Chicory felt teeth meet in her scruff. Raising her head out of the water and spitting out a few mouthfuls of it, the pale grey-striped she-cat recognised a scent that was vaguely familiar.
"B-Beech?" she coughed, trying not to make a fuss about being dragged by her scruff like a helpless kit. "What are you doing here? Where's Heather?"
The dark brown tom dropped Chicory roughly on the shoreline and shook his pelt. Chicory didn't flinch as the drops spun away from his fur - she was already wet. "Heather and I live near here," he growled. "Like you don't know," he added.
The young she-cat felt her ears grow hot with embarrassment. She scuffed the ground with drenched paws. "I was just a kit," she murmured defensively.
Beech snorted. "You're barely past kithood now."
Chicory opened her jaws to respond, but her mew was drowned by a great splashing as Pine and Lilac hauled themselves out of the loch, belly fur wet and expressions disgruntled.
"We were about to save you!" Pine protested, shaking each paw in turn to get rid of the water. "Until this cat came along and ruined everything!"
"I'm not sure why I bothered," muttered Beech. "You destroyed my den before, and now your littermates are treating me like crowfood."
Ducking her head in submission at the older tom, Chicory mewed, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Lilac's yellow eyes were round as she gazed at Beech, apparantly oblivious to the water steadily pooling at her paws. "Who are you?" she breathed.
"This is Beech," Chicory introduced him quickly, before Beech himself could mew a word. "He's Heather's mate." She twitched her whiskers in amusement, not missing Lilac's tail droop in disappointment.
Meanwhile, Pine had completely missed the exchange. "Heather?" he meowed curiously. "Wasn't she that cat that Holly-"
Quickly, and before Pine could insult Beech or his mate, Chicory mewed, "Yes, yes, that was the cat."
Beech bent his head to lick his drying fur, ignoring the conversation that was going on around him. "Clean your pelts," he advised, changing the subject completely, "or your mother will get suspicious as to why you're all so wet."
Chicory's pelt prickled. Had he guessed that the three of them were technically out of bounds?
"I must go," Beech went on. "Heather will wonder what has become of me. I was supposed to be collecting moss for her nest - the kits are due any day now." Chicory detected a slight note of pride in the prickly tom's mew.
"Oh, she's expecting kits?" Lilac's mew was squeaky with disbelief.
Fixing his eyes on Lilac, who lowered her own in embarrassment, Beech mewed drily, "No, she's expecting badger cubs." With a flick of his tail as farewell, he wriggled underneath a nearby gorse bush, and was gone.
"Wow." Lilac's mew was soft. "I hope we see him again!"
Chicory tutted impatiently. "You'd better not start going all moony over him."
Widening her eyes in outrage, Lilac spluttered, "Me? Never! I don't know what you're talking about!"
"We'd better get back," Pine mewed, surprisingly calm about this new revelation and unruffled by Lilac's obvious humiliation. "Beech was right - Holly and Windflower will be wondering where we are."
Murmuring her assent, Chicory turned her gaze back to the hills, which were turning pink as the sun set behind them.
"Oh, and Chicory?" Chicory whipped her had around to her brother as he called her, but there was a sparkle of humour in his green eyes. "You lost."