Thanks to World of Make Believe, Fioralba, and starpaw for being the reviewing! Yes, I am back... and starpaw, I never noticed that before. I suppose there is always angsty-ness at the beginning of my stories... Is that a good or a bad thing?
DISCLAIMER: Don't be mousebrained, I don't own Warriors.
Five
Chicory thought that she would never be able to concentrate on the meeting. A dull, distracting grief for Windflower burned constantly in her belly, combined with a dark coal of hatred for the cats who had given him the injuries that slowed him.
She understood now what Iris had meant when she had warned Chicory not to mention her to her parents. If Holly heard of their meeting, Chicory was sure that she would find the tawny she-cat and claw her throat out. Chicory would have done the same if she saw her again now, never mind her being the cat who had saved her.
"It'll be okay, Chicory." Chicory jumped at the sound of Pine's flat mew. He was sitting beside her with his shoulders hunched and his tail lying flat. He hadn't been the same since their father's passing - knowing that he blamed himself for being a deadweight in the water, Chicory leaned over and licked him between his ears.
"I know it will."
Contradicting himself completely, Pine turned to her, wild desperation flaring in his eyes. "But what about Lilac? She hates us, Chicory!"
"Well, that's mousebrained, because we haven't done anything wrong." The words were right, but both cats could tell that there was no belief behind Chicory's mew. It was all very odd to Chicory, too, almost like role reversal - she was the one having to be strong when it was usually Pine.
If I hadn't been messing around with Snapdragon's family, I could have helped save Windflower. Chicory clamped her jaws shut to stop a howl of misery escaping. It was her fault, she knew it.
Lilac took this view, as well as Pine's about being a deadweight. She hadn't said that she wasn't speaking to them, but the way she had struck up a new threesome with their cousins, Lavender and Cornflower, spoke volumes.
"Cats!"
The yowl came from Chicory's aunt's mate, Crocus. The tawny-furred tom was strutting around in the centre of all the cats as though he owned every last pawstep of the land where they sat, though he was not on a ground any higher than they were. Chicory and Pine craned their necks, hardly able to see through the tight-knit circle of cats surrounding Crocus, Poppy, and Holly.
"Our homes are all wrecks," Crocus began. "We have no place to go since the Twolegs overflowed the loch. We've all been wandering for a day and a night on this hilltop."
"We know all this," Chicory noticed a young white she-cat hiss at her identically-coloured sister. "Why has he gathered us here to tell us things we already know?"
Her sister silenced her with a quiet mrrowl of annoyance. "Will you shut up, Snowdrop? I think he's getting to the interesting bit."
Looking rather offended, Snowdrop turned her back on the blue-eyed cat and started whispering to the grey-and-white tom on her other side.
Unknowing of the sibling argument, Poppy picked up where her mate had left off. "We suggest that we look ourselves for somewhere to live." Her clear mew rang out. "Somewhere away. Far from here."
Holly hung back, looking unwilling to say anything at all.
To Chicory's surprise, an angry muttering began almost at once after Poppy stopped speaking, the mews merging into a buzz like that of a giant bee.
"Who are you to tell us to leave our home?" caterwauled a sleek, silvery brown tom, leaping to his paws. A single raucous yowl of approval rang out for his words.
"Our home is gone!" Holly spat, eyes burning. Her change in manner was immediate, and astonishing. "As are some of the cats that we love!"
A dark brown tom sneered scornfully, "One cat dead doesn't mean that we all have to go off chasing wild geese!"
Alarm coursed through Chicory as she saw her mother unsheathe her claws. They're all being mousebrains, she thought. Surely no cat thinks that they can still live here!
"We're too old to go gallivanting off the stars know where!" croaked an elderly grey tabby, motioning towards herself and a dark tom with a white mark on his chest. "I say we stay."
"There's still enough land for us all to get by on," agreed a golden brown tom who seemed to be at the bottom of much of the wordless yowling.
Chicory realised that they were all kidding themselves. Stuck up here, on the gorse-covered hilltops, prey would be comprised mainly of rabbits and the odd bird, which only the quickest cats could catch - and even they were scarce.
As if agreeing with Chicory's thoughts, a small, silvery-brown she-kit mewed excitedly, "Can we go, Lime? Can we, please?"
Lime, a pale brown tom with green eyes, responded harshly. "No," he growled. "You're far too young."
The kit's disappointment showed at once. Pine, who had obviously been listening, too, boldly yowled, "How are you going to feed your kits?"
"You're hardly more than a kit yourself," mewed a dark grey-and-white tabby wryly.
Pine bristled, showing a flash of his old spirit. "I'm very nearly eight moons!" Chicory registered how quickly cats were changing their emotions. Things are tense.
The grey-and-white cat's eyes narrowed. A brown tom pushed his way through the crowd.
"It's not your place to talk here!" he snarled at Pine. Chicory shrank back, but Pine just spat in defiance.
When did he get so bold... again?
A white she-cat with a black ring halfway down her tail pleaded, "Wallflower, think about what you're do-"
"Be quiet, Scabious!" Wallflower cut her off before turning to flash out a paw twice the size of Chicory's own. Chicory's screech as she caught sight of her brother's blood merged with Pine's wail of pain.
For a split heartbeat, no cat moved.
Then the hillside exploded.
"Don't you dare treat my son like that!" Holly bunched her muscles and leapt easily over a couple of elders. She landed directly on top of Wallflower, and the two cats became a writhing mass of fur and claws.
"No! Don't!" To Chicory's horror, most of the cats seemed to be following Holly and Wallflower's example. Fights were breaking out all over the place, and Pine had disappeared. Chicory crouched down low and flattened her ears in fright, eyes darting around. Where's Pine?
To her immense relief, he emerged a couple of heartbeats later, fur torn and blood trickling down his face from a scratch in his cheek. Chicory's relief turned to a panic when she saw the state he was in.
"Aren't you going to fight?" he demanded, eyes flashing. Mute, Chicory could only shake her head, her blue eyes wide with fear. I can't get involved!
Pine shook his head in disgust.
"She-cats!" he muttered, clearly irritated, before bounding back into the battle.
"Wait! Pine, wait!" Finding her tongue, Chicory hurtled after her brother. She didn't want to lose him after just finding out he was alive. And exactly where was Holly? She and Wallflower had been lost soon after the battle had gone into full swing.
Blood spattered the ground, making Chicory's stomach lurch. That could be Pine's! Or Holly's, or... or Lilac's!
Chicory's promise to herself that she would stay away from the fighting was to be broken in heartbeats. As she gazed at the bloodstains, appalled, she failed to notice a flash of dark tawny fur behind her. The many scents confused her nose, and without warning a heavy weight dropped onto her back.
"Ouch!" Chicory wheezed, winded, as an outstretched paw caught her on the back of the head. She tried her best to struggle free, but this she-cat seemed slightly older than her, and was clearly bigger and stronger than she was.
Teeth met in her ear, piercing the delicate skin there. Hot breath panted against her ear, which she involuntarily twitched, hating the feel of it - which only increased the pain. Chicory attempted vainly to jerk her head away as another scent hit her nose - but she couldn't tell whether it came from another fight or if there was another cat attacking her.
As the teeth slackened their grip, Chicory's muzzle was pressed into the heather by a strong paw. All she could see was dry, brittle grass, and she quickly shut her eyes to prevent them from being scratched. However, this did not stop the stems from tickling her nose. Chicory sneezed.
"Didn't your mother ever teach you how to fight?" taunted a low mew next to her ear. Yes, Chicory was certain of it now - there were definitely two cats attacking her.
However, the knowledge clearly wasn't going to be a lot of help in this situation. The first cat had now unsheathed her claws into Chicory's spine, and from what Chicory's nose was telling her, the second cat was weaving jeeringly in front of them, probably with his tail held high in the air at the easy victory.
Holly and Windflower had never taught Chicory any proper fighting - she knew the basic scratching and biting technique, but that was the extent of her knowledge.
"You fight like a kit!" sneered the tawny she-cat who had jumped on Chicory first.
I am a kit.
"Pine!" Chicory opened her jaws to wail, but it came out muffled as her tongue tasted dirt. She swiped out a front paw feebly, but it only brushed long stalks of grass. Both opposing cats let out amused purrs. Humiliation swept through Chicory's pelt.
"Where's Iris?" mewed the second cat suddenly.
At the mention of the tawny she-cat, Chicory stiffened, fur prickling. What did these two cats know of Iris and Sycamore?
The first cat was offhand. "Who cares where our mother is? This is our victory, Ivy. I want it to be ours alone."
"But, Tu-lip." He separated the word into two syllables, dragging it out in a whiny-kit fashion. "What about our parents?" Chicory was no longer listening, a slow, familiar fury building in her limp paws.
These cats were unmistakably the kits of the cat that had effectively killed Chicory's father.