AN: Soooo, about being able to update while I was camping... It didn't happen, LOL. My bad, sorry about the pause in updates. I'm back now though :) Hope you had a good start to the New Year.
DOLLY
She was spilling her guts in the corner of the lodge, with Miss Mittens crooning encouragement, and a pawful of other cats bickering somewhere in the background. It all came up, a yellow-brown, foaming slurry of half-digested rat, clumps of grass and petals, kittypet catmint, horseflesh and venison scraps stolen from the market, and little strips of fish the senior upwalker threw her every morning.
And now she was tasting it all over again, hacking and retching, shoulders trembling.
"Oh, sweetheart, I think you are in an excellent temperality," Miss Mittens said. "Your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart would desire, and your coat's as pretty as any rose. But in truth, you've eaten too much housefolk food, as marvelous as we all know it is… How are you now?"
Dolly let out a loud belch and took a hard swallow. "Better than I was."
Miss Mittens purred, "Why, that's well said!"
Across the room, Fang and Snare jostled with a skinny, two-day old rat between them. It looked stiff as an old rock, resistant to their teeth. Snare was trying to pry it from Fang's jaws. "What the devil have you brought here?! You know Goosebelly hates this crowfood."
"Thistles, you say true," Fang said, spitting it out.
When Goosebelly did come in, squeezing his way through the gapped window, he came with an off-key tune on his lips, the words fumbled and half-remembered. Thorns, she could bat the old windbag over the head some days.
"When Leafstar sat the Ash—" he sang with lazy delivery. "And something, something, balderdash… Oh, how now, Doll?"
"Sick of a calm, in truth," Miss Mittens mewed.
A qualm, a qualm, not a calm, Dolly could've growled, if not for another fit of retching, contributing to the pool of vomit in the corner.
"As I'd expect from a rogue of her stripes," Goosebelly quipped. "She doesn't tolerate calm for long."
"Die of a pox, you fat, muddy rascal," she snapped once she recovered herself again, turning acid green eyes on the lump-bellied wildcat. "Is that all the comfort you can give me?"
Goosebelly said, "You help make the rascals fat, Doll."
"I make them? Gluttony and disease make them; not me." She stood up fully now, spitting as she rounded on him.
"If the rats help make the gluttony, then you help breed the diseases," Goosebelly countered. "Grant that, at least, grant that."
"Kill yourself, you muddy conger, jump into a fire!"
"Ah, this is the old fashion!" Miss Mittens lamented. "You two never meet without falling into some kind of discord. Doll, you must learn to bear with Goosebelly; he only jokes with you."
Dolly tail twitched irritably now. Why her? Why was it always somebody saying that Dolly needed to calm down? Sometimes, the world needed to calm down.
"Can I really bear such a huge lump? There's a carrion heap worth of fresh-kill in him; I've never seen a vessel so full to bursting." She turned her voice sickly sweet, giving the warrior a much-too-hard playful jab in the flank that made him jump. "Come, I'll be friends with you, Goosebelly. You're going to the wars, and whether I ever see you again or not… Well, nobody cares." She finished with a gale of bitter, cackling laughter, right in his whiskers.
Near the window, Fang swiveled his ears and perked up his head, parting his mouth to taste the air. "Oh, I know that stink," he mewed. "Old Scratch comes this way."
Worse to worst. "Crows peck her eyes, swaggering rascal!" Dolly snarled. "Let her not come here—she's the foul-mouthed'st rogue in town."
That got Miss Mittens to fretting, as she was wont to do. "If she swaggers, don't let her swagger in here," she agreed. "No, I must live among my neighbors; I'm in good name and fame with the very best, and I won't abide swaggerers… I have not lived all this time to have swaggering now!"
"Hold on, Miss Mittens…" Goosebelly began to protest.
"No, hold it! No swaggerers!"
"She's one of our LodgeClan warriors," Goosebelly said. "She's coming with me to the wars!"
Miss Mittens' hackles were up. "Tilly-tally, I don't even want to know. And your ancient swaggerer doesn't swagger in my lodge!"
"She's no swaggerer, Mittens," Goosebelly said. "More of a… tame thief, in truth. You can stroke her as gently as a kitten."
"I don't love it," Miss Mittens said uneasily. "Look, I'm shaking…"
"So you do, Mittens," Dolly gasped, giving her a lick over the ears.
"Do I? Oh, yes, I do! Like an aspen leaf, I do. I cannot abide swaggerers…"
Old Scratch burst in just as they should have expected, bellowing, half-mad laughter at the top of her lungs, a flash of thin, patchy gray fur. Her muzzle was a mask of scars, her black-ringed tail crooked and bent as an old snapped branch.
Two more familiar faces followed. Sneezy for one, and the precious little runt that Goosebelly had been trotting around, taking all his orders.
"Stars save you, Goosebelly!" Old Scratch greeted, breath stinking of fish and revealing a row of crooked, rotten teeth, fangs as thin as needles. She was an infrequent guest to the lodge, but she strolled in like she owned the place, snagging the rat from right between Fang's paws. Fang only shrank meekly back, melting into the corner of the room.
"Welcome," Goosebelly purred, welcoming the ancient rogue in with a wave of his tail. "My LodgeClan clanmates. Shall we share fresh-kill and a fine evening together?"
"Aye, a fine evening," Old Scratch said with a lecherous glance in Miss Mittens' direction. The senior she-cat shrank back from the wolfish gaze.
"Mittens is scratch-proof," Goosebelly pointed out.
"And how about you, Doll?" Old Scratch rasped, turning hungry green eyes on her. "I think I'd rather share with you anyhow."
She couldn't hide the scorn in her voice. "Scurvy companion," she spat, the insults tumbling out in a stream, gut to mouth with no interlocutor. "You poor, base, rascally, thieving patch-pelt. Away, you moldy rogue, away!"
Old Scratch's face just as quickly curdled to rage. "I know you, Doll—"
"Away, you sneak-weasel, you filthy bung, out of my face!" Her claws were out now, advancing on the other she-cat. "By this rat, I'll thrust my claws in your moldy chaps if you play the saucy cuttle with me! Away, you carrion-eating rascal, you…!"
Before she realized it, she had tackled Old Scratch to the floor, and they went tumbling over each other with claws and swipes.
"Warrior!" Dolly laughed in Old Scratch's snarling face as they held each other at claw's length. "Since when?!"
"SkyClan let me not live, but I'll open your throat for this!" Old Scratch blazed, calling on the name of the crazed wildcat spirits of the air or whatever. Dolly would bounce her head off the floorboards and send her to them if she asked.
Two shapes flashed in. It was Miss Mittens who grabbed Dolly by the scruff, yanking her sharply back, as Goosebelly gently nudged Old Scratch back another tail-length, positioning himself between the two fighting she-cats.
"No more, Scratch," Goosebelly said. "I wouldn't have you go off here. We'll go somewhere else, Scratch."
"No, noble warrior Scratch," Miss Mittens begged as Old Scratch still eyed her enemy with a bitter glare. "Not here, sweet warrior."
"Warrior?!" Dolly raged again, as Miss Mittens and Goosebelly desperately tried to form a wall of fur. Maybe they already knew what Old Scratch didn't, which was that Dolly was going to split her skull open. "You abominable dirt-faced tail-chaser, are you not ashamed to be called a warrior? If warriors were of my mind, they would stamp you flat for taking their rank before you've earned it! You, a warrior?! You house cat, you call yourself a warrior for what? Drown, you rogue!"
Sneezy was closing in from the other side, ducking back with a yelp when Dolly shot a hiss in his direction. "Please go, Scratch!" he pleaded.
"Listen to me, Doll…" Goosebelly said in soothing tones.
All to no avail, as Old Scratch began to rage again, her gray fur bushed up and claws out for a fight. "I won't. I'll tell you, Sneezy, I could tear her! I'll be revenged of her!" She gave a few errant swipes through the empty air.
"Please, calm down!" Acornpaw squeaked.
"I'll put her in the ground with the worms and roots!" Old Scratch bellowed. "By my warrior name—"
Miss Mittens interrupted, "Keep it down, Scratch—"
"Nay, by my warrior name, and all the ghosts of SkyClan, I would rather die a thousand deaths than let my warrior's honor be—"
"Good stars, that's pretentious," Mittens cut in again.
"Back off, Scratch, before this turns into a brawl!" Sneezy said again.
It seemed the warrior cat roleplay had fully polluted Old Scratch's head. "Die cats like dogs!"
Miss Mittens' voice was brittle now. "Oh, please, good warrior, be quiet!"
"Then feed and be fat. Get me a rat!" Old Scratch barked the order with an arrogant flip of her tail. Miss Mittens scurried backward and out of the room, and Old Scratch settled back roughly on her haunches, where she'd been sitting before the kerfuffle.
And so, uneasily, they all settled down in their places again.
"'If my fortunes torment me, my hopes content me,'" Old Scratch rasped as Mittens returned, dropping a rat at her paws. This Scratch was always full of moldy old rhymes like that, nonsensical puffed up sayings, and more malapropisms than Miss Mittens herself. "We LodgeClan… Fear we claws? No… Let the fiends rake."
She already felt her hackles rising again. Goosebelly, for his part, looked appropriately steeped in regret.
"Scratch, I would be quiet," he mewed warningly.
"Sweet clanmate, call me Scratchclaw," Old Scratch purred. "How many long moons have we known each other? Since you were a little Goosepaw, by my reckoning. We've been under the seven stars, have we not?"
"Thrust her out!" Dolly exploded again, shooting back to her feet. "I cannot endure such a fustian rascal…!"
"Thrust me out?!" Old Scratch challenged, kinked tail twitching as she stood.
Goosebelly could only sigh, and for once, Dolly was glad to hear the words out of his mouth. "Sneezy, toss Scratch out on her tail."
"Come, time to go, Scratch!" Sneezy said tremblingly, but still faithfully obeying the command and advancing toward the old lean and wiry rogue with his whiskers pinned back.
"What, shall we have incision? Shall we imbrue?!" Scratch yowled, claws slashing a mouse-length away from Sneezy's puffy nose. "Then death rock me asleep, and abridge my doleful days!" Whatever in the world that was supposed to mean.
"Oh, this should be good," Miss Mittens mewed adoringly, moving back a few paces to safety.
"Acornpaw, if anyone asks, this counts toward your battle training," Goosebelly mewed. The young runt just gave an emphatic nod of his head, circling around to flank Old Scratch from behind.
"Goosebelly, do not!" Dolly hissed. She wanted the mangy rogue's pelt for herself.
He advanced on, ignoring her, driving toward the rogue with Sneezy and Acornpaw charging at his side. "Get you outside, Scratch!"
The four of them went in a tumble of claws and clumsy kicks, even as Miss Mittens shouted over the din. "Oh, put away your claws, your claws! Murder! Murder!" Dolly watched with hackles raised, Old Scratch struggling in Goosebelly's grip as he dragged the smaller, skinnier old rogue toward the open window, grunting with exertion.
And with one big heave, tossed Old Scratch out with a piercing shriek. Sneezy went bounding out of the window after her to give chase, as Goosebelly sat back with another leaden sigh. Two thin red lines hatched the bridge of his nose where he'd been cut.
"Please, Goosebelly, settle down now," Dolly mewed. "The rascal's gone. Ah, you dung-heart little valiant villain, you…"
He did have his moments.
"Are you not hurt in the groin?" Mittens gasped. "I thought she made a shrewd slash at your belly…"
Sneezy scrabbled back up the wall and through the window, panting heavily. "Have you turned her out?" Goosebelly asked.
"Yes; Scratch's out of her skull with stolen catmint," Sneezy reported. "You wounded her good in the shoulder."
"A flea to brave me," Goosebelly said, as if there'd never been any doubt.
"Ah, you sweet little rogue, you…" Dolly said admiringly, brushing over his wound with the tip of her tail, and laughing when he flinched back. "Poor boar, how you sweat! You dog-chops… You're as valiant as any Leafstar whatsit, you old, moldy rogue."
Acornpaw and the others kept a post at the lodge entrance. They curled up in another, far corner of the lodge, under the last shaft of light through the windows and gapped walls. The steady pitter-patter of rain drumming against the roof drowned out the faint murmur of conversation and the rest of the world, with Dolly nestled in the crook of the senior warrior's arms.
"The rogue fled from me like water running downhill," Goosebelly purred, the tale growing more polished and exciting by the retelling.
"True, he did," Dolly purred. "And you rumbled after her like a housefolk's carriage. You little, pot-bellied lumbering boar-pig, you… When will you give up your fighting a-days and playing a-nights and start to patch yourself up for your warrior ancestors, or whatever?"
The rafters overhead creaked and groaned like a cat with a sour gut. This old lodge was always moaning like a complaining house cat. It came with age, just like anything.
"Don't speak like a crow waiting for me to die, Doll," Goosebelly said lightly. "Don't make me remember my end. It's not here yet."
His tone was playful, and she might have teased him more, but his blue eyes seemed some other distant place, and she left it where it lay.
"Hmm," she asked to fill the silence. "Tell me, what's Sunfire like? Outside of here, I mean." She wasn't always hovering around the lodge, and she'd crossed paths with him less and less over the past few seasons. It didn't seem so long ago to her that he was a fresh-faced little runt named Sunpaw, scampering about at Goosebelly's heels.
"A good, shallow young warrior," Goosebelly said with a twitch of his whiskers. "He would have made a good kittypet, and begged for treats well."
"They say Socks has a good wit." The easy-smiling, always-joking, snake-quick tom with a tuxedo coat was practically joined to Sunfire by the tail, each time she'd seen them together.
"Him? A good wit?" Goosebelly chortled. "He's a finch. His wit's as thick as Twoleg dog-slop. There's as much subtlety in him as a rock."
"Why does Sunfire love him so then?"
"Because their legs are the same size, and he plays his kit-games, and has a good nose for Twoleg food," Goosebelly listed, encouraged by her snickers. "He skips down the alleys with the rest of the lads, swears with good grace, and all those other capering faculties that show he has a weak mind and an able body. And Sunfire admires that, because Sunfire is such another."
They drew close again amid their shared laughter, so close they shared the air, as Dolly gave him a lick over the ear.
But midway through their quiet sharing of tongues, he paused, pulling back. "I am old," Goosebelly mewed quietly. "I am old."
"I fancy you better than any mangy, young kitten."
The smile returned to his face. "Come, it's growing late. You'll forget me when I'm gone."
"Oh, Goosebelly, you'll break my—AHH!" Her words lilted into a high shriek as two shapes dropped from the rafters, rattling the floorboards with a twinned thump-THUMP. Two toms, one dark and one gold, their scents masked with wild lavender and tansy.
"Heh? A LeafClan deputy in Twolegplace, at a time like this?" Goosebelly mewed with a startled glance toward Sunfire, eyes flicking to Socks at his other flank. "And his nest-warmer?"
"What a life for a senior warrior to lead," Sunfire scolded, craning his head. Dolly couldn't help but shrink from the sight of his hideous scar, the mismatched blown pupil giving her a second taste of nausea.
"A better one than you," Goosebelly countered. "I'm a warrior, and you're a… a lavender shrub."
"Very true, and I've come to plant you in the ground," Sunfire said flatly.
Miss Mittens and Sneezy were rounding the corner now, their pawsteps clear on the floorboards as they approached to investigate the racket. Acornpaw, Fang, and Snare were quick behind them. The old keeper of the lodge just cried with delight upon seeing Sunfire's face, rushing forward obliviously.
"Oh, good whiskers, Sunfire!" Mittens cooed like an old queen greeting her kit's new kitten. "Welcome back home, and bless that sweet face of yours. Are you just getting here?"
"You sneaky, pretend-deputy," Goosebelly said. He gestured toward Dolly and the others with a sweep of his tail. "I swear by all these corrupt, codeless rogues that you're welcome here."
"What? You fat feather-brain…!" Dolly snapped, shoving him away with a rough jab. Socks just watched on with a grin of wry contempt.
This was the usual banter between them, but there was a sharper edge to it now, the thin line separating insults from jokes blurring into nothing. Sunfire's hackles were up. "You rat-breath, how vilely did you speak of me even now, in front of this…" He paused to look Dolly up and down, whiskers twitching. "...this honest, virtuous, civil she-cat?"
"Blessings to your good heart, and so she is, I swear," Miss Mittens contributed.
"Did you hear me?" Goosebelly asked, incredulous.
"Yes, and I suppose you knew all along," Sunfire went on, voice dripping with acid sarcasm. "Just like when you ran away from me in the catmint garden. You knew I was in the rafters, and said it to try my patience, is that right?"
"No, no, no…" Goosebelly mewed. "When did you get up there? Were you waiting this whole time?"
"Confess your abuse," Sunfire cut in, his voice a sharp chop. "Then I'll know how to handle you."
"No abuse, Sunfire, on my honor," Goosebelly laughed, as he so often laughed his way out of trouble, but this laugh was strained. Nervous. "No abuse."
Sunfire bristled. "Not to disparage me and call me kittypet and shallow and who knows what else?"
"No abuse, Sunfire…!" Goosebelly said with a dismissive flick of his tail.
"Oh, none at all?" Socks mewed from Sunfire's side, eyes narrowed into slits.
"No abuse, Socks, never in the world, honestly! None!" Goosebelly insisted. "I understated his character in front of the wicked, so the wicked wouldn't fall in love with him. And by doing so, I've been a loyal senior warrior and wise mentor, and your father should give me his thanks for it. No abuse, Sunfire, Socks, none at all, honestly!"
"Wicked?!" Dolly snarled, tail lashing.
"She's wicked?" Sunfire mewed with a glance toward Dolly, and then toward the others around the lodge. "And so is Miss Mittens, and Acornpaw, and Sneezy? They're wicked too, I'm sure."
Goosebelly fumbled uselessly for the words, mouth opening and closing.
"Answer, you dead elm, c'mon," Socks goaded.
"As for Sneezy, his nose shines brighter than Silverpelt, and I don't think they would allow him up there," Goosebelly said at last. "As for my young apprentice, there is certainly a sagely mentor looking after him, but bad influences still seem to corrupt him."
"What about the she-cats?" Sunfire pressed.
"For one, certainly," Goosebelly said. "For the other, she's forced me into a heavy debt, and whether StarClan holds that against her or not, I'm not sure."
"No, I warrant you," Miss Mittens insisted. "I'm going to the endless hunting grounds with the other wildcats."
"StarClan may give that a pass," Goosebelly granted. "But there's other charges against you, for prey-stealing, trespassing, accepting food from Twolegs…"
"Every cat does that," Miss Mittens said dismissively. "What's a bit of free food? You'd be a mouse-brain to choose an empty belly instead."
The conversation boiled over into chaos; Sunfire speaking over Goosebelly, Dolly over Sunfire, Goosebelly over Dolly, until another THUMP from the face of the lodge snapped their attention away.
"Who is it?" Miss Mittens called out. "Fang, check it out."
Fang slinked out of the room, and when he returned, it was Petey by his side, the large, square-headed golden tom wearing a heavy face. Yet another one of the fools like Sneezy and Old Scratch who'd volunteered for a second go at the wildcats, in the wars on the other side of the forest.
"Petey," Sunfire greeted. "I hope you're better than you look. What news?"
"Wildcats been seen patrolling the outskirts, putting the fright in all the cats around," Petey said. "And some half-dozen rogues wandering around, looking in every hiding spot, asking for Goosebelly. Saying he promised a clutch of fresh-kill and catmint for any cat that would join the fight."
"The storm's coming, and we might as well be sunbathing in the grass," Sunfire groaned. "I've wasted enough time here already. They'll be wondering about me back at camp. And Goosebelly…"
He turned to pin his former mentor with a long glare, before his face melted with a heavy sigh, voice tinged with disappointment. "Goosebelly, good night."
Sunfire padded out of the lodge, Socks, Petey, and Sneezy close behind him. In a moment, they were alone in the dingy quietude of the old Twoleg nest, with just the rain to fill the silence.
"Now's the sweetest morsel of the night, and we have to leave it unpicked," Goosebelly complained. He turned to his remaining companions with a heavy shift of his shoulders. "Come, Acornpaw. Farewell, Miss Mittens. Farewell, Doll. You see how mighty warriors like myself are sought after. If I don't see you again before I go, well… Farewell."
She let him go without returning a farewell, watching his tail and his apprentice disappear around the corner and out of the lodge. "Well," Dolly said after he'd left earshot. "Take care of yourself."
"Farewell!" Miss Mittens called after him, staring at the space he'd vacated long, long after he'd gone. Her voice crackled with reminiscence. "I have known him over seven greenleafs, but an honester and truer-hearted warrior… well…" She smiled to herself. "Farewell."