Fleck rose from her cramped little ditch in the guards’ den. She shock her head to clear it from the sleepy fog. She felt the warmth of the sunlight awakening her limbs and the slight breeze playing on her fur. Through the cracks in the ancient ash’s bark, Fleck could see the pure blue expanse of the sky. A few wispy white clouds drifted across the endless blue, adding to the beauty of the seen.
Fleck exited the shady guards’ den. She inhaled deeply, scenting the cool green smell of nature. A distance away, she could see the forest that grew a mere yards away from Slate’s kingdom. The blooming flowers, the dew-laden leaves, the chatter of the woodland animals--they all made the seen all the more beautiful. It’s great to be alive, Fleck thought wistfully, smiling to herself.
Fleck strode purposefully to the training grounds. The sun hadn’t yet cleared the horizon, but this was still fairly late for Fleck to be waking. All of the other guards--aside from the guards-in-training, that is--were already practicing in the training grounds.
“What’s up?” Ginger said in greeting, walking over to Fleck in a cheerful manner. The ginger she-cat raised her eyebrows. “You look happy.”
“Well what’s wrong with that, sourpuss?” Fleck snarled, feigning indignant rage.
“You’re a sourpuss!” Ginger growled, suppressing a smile. “And you’d better watch your step, ‘cause I know a really good place to mount your head in the guards’ den...”
Fleck lowered her head and raised her paws to signal Ginger’s victory. “Let’s not get nasty here, ahem, ‘friend.’ We’ll just say that you won this, m’kay?”
Ginger gave a small nod, scowling. She stalked away into the sidelines. Once she was there, she glared at Fleck, pointed at herself and then her ‘enemy’ and drew a claw across her neck. A clear death threat. Ginger then ruined her intimidating demeanor by smiling and winking at her good friend.
Fleck lashed her tail and released a loud, furious hiss with an over-exaggerated, flustered air. “Are we gonna wake up those lazy apprentices, or wait until midnight comes along, ‘cause it looks like it’ll be around that time when the annoying things wake up!”
“Agreed,” Jade said, nodding grimly. Her jaw was set and she had a humorless demeanor poisoning the air around her, but she was secretly suppressing a playful smile.
At that, the friends marched grimly in the direction of the guards’ den, where laughably audible snores could be heard. Attempting--and more or less succeeding--to stifle their laugher, the cats crept inside. Their paws, clumsy with giddiness, scraped the ground as they shuffled across the floor towards their sleeping apprentices. But it didn’t matter, because the thunderous snores drowned out every sound they made, including the stray giggle.
As they neared their unknowing victims, Fleck’s acute senses told her that not all of the apprentices were as oblivious as she had previously thought. Tigger (even just thinking of this embarrassing name sent shivers down her spine), GoldenSunn (again, Fleck felt extreme anguish at the mention of his name), and Sparrow were all snoring like a bunch of overfed hogs. But the two kittens, Cinder and Ash, were still and almost completely silent. Their mouths were slightly agape, as if they were sleeping and they were completely limp. But instead of breathing even, shallow breaths, the kittens were taking quiet, small and sharp inhales. Fleck cautiously approached the dangerous pair, holding up a suspicious paw that warned the others to stop. But as she neared... Closer and closer...
The twins leaped out of their shared bed, snarling viscously, unleashing a whirlwind of needle-sharp claws and scaring Fleck so much that she bristled and took a frightened hop back. It was to much for poor mellow Mudsplash, who shrieked with horror. This started the other guards and awoke the groggy apprentices.
“What happened?” Sparrow asked disinterestedly, eyes half-open a voice cracked with exhaustion.
“Nothing, Wheezy,” Fleck laughed, nudging her apprentice playfully. She instantly recovered from her previous shock at the memory of Sparrow’s ridiculous snores.
“What?” he cried indignantly. “What are you calling me ‘Wheezy’ for?”
Fleck rocked knowingly on her paws, giving Sparrow a teasing grin. “You were snoring like a boar with a sore throat, Frogmouth.” Ginger stuffed a paw in her mouth to suppress a giggle at that last remark. Or maybe it was at Sparrow’s bashful expression, which was quite hysterical.
The young tomcat flushed with embarrassment. “I was not!” Sparrow flustered, looking slightly desperate. This was not a dignified start to his second day of being a guard in training.
“Actually,” Jade leaned foreword so that her face was an inch away from Sparrow’s, eyes alight with mocking radiancy and nose slightly wrinkled nastily, “you were.”
Fleck put on a serious expression and raised her from paws like she was carrying out some sort of official ceremony. “From now on, you shall be known forever as Frogmouth!”
Sparrow’s lower jaw trembled from the effort of not attacking Fleck. Even though he greatly respected his mentor, he couldn’t help but shout in distress, “Shut up!” Obviously he hated being mocked.
Ginger gave him a hard--but in her book, ‘gentle’--shove, laughing with good-humor and mirth. “I think that he’s had enough, guys. After all, we still have two other Frogmouths to tease...”
“...And a pair of trouble-making kittens to scold!” Jade finished with a laugh, eyes shining.
At this statement, the powerful she-cat pounced on her two helpless apprentices, snarling intimidatingly. Cinder attempted to scramble out from underneath her unyielding mentor, but Jade seized her with half-sheathed claws and dragged her back into the fray. The pair of overconfident kittens were untouched by Jade’s ferocity.
“Remember how I leapt up and Mudsplash was all like, ‘Scream!’ and me and Cinder were all like ‘Rah!’” Ash popped his head out from under his sister, who had somehow ended up on top of him, smiling broadly.
“You should have seen the look on your face!” Cinder was pointing teasingly pointed at Fleck. She had risen up and pushed her brother’s head back underneath her. She then fell over, squashing her brother and laughing uncontrollably.
Fleck flicked the disrespectful kitten on the head with her tail. “Whatever. Anyway, we should go out and fill your empty heads. We’ve spent all morning snoring, teasing and wrestling. I think that we should all talk before training. You apprentices can tell each other what you learned and us mentors can discuss our training tactics, how our apprentices are learning, and give each other advice on training.
Ginger shrugged agreeably. “Okay then.” She then shouted shamelessly like a prison warden, “Everybody out!”
Cats rushed out as fast as they could, Ginger smugly bringing up in the rear. Once they were back at the training grounds, the cats parted. The five apprentices grouped together; GoldenSunn drooling, Sparrow excitedly relating his training with Tigger, who wasn’t paying that much attention, and the twins wrestling viciously. The mentors gathered together on the other side of the dusty training grounds. Ob occupied himself back picking some flowers and throwing them up into the air. Fleck couldn’t help but feel a little bad for him.
“Okay, so I’ll start,” Fleck decided promptly. “I taught my apprentice how to tell your enemy’s build, personality, and feelings. He... Learned well.” Fleck nodded decisively and raised her eyebrows, expressing that she was impressed with her student. “I took him to the clearing to practice on the Commoners. Sparrow did wonderfully and guessed quite well.”
“Huh,” Ginger scoffed. “GoldenSunn--” she made a face at the name, “did horribly. I had to smash him several times because he wouldn’t listen. I think that he only has a fraction of a brain; just enough to function his body with no room for thinking. And something is wrong with that remaining part ‘cause he can’t seem to move properly, either.”
Fleck decided to be as helpfully productive as possible. “Well, I saw you training him. Maybe you should ease up a bit on the whole smashing thing. You have to be more patient with GoldenSunn, and encourage him when he does something right. If he does something wrong, you shouldn’t hurt him--mentally or physically.”
“Problem is, he never does a thing right!” Ginger exclaimed in rage after her friend had said her piece. “As a matter of fact, he doesn’t do a thin period. Just lays there and drools.”
Mudsplash cleared his throat before speaking. “My apprentice--Tigger--is doing fairly well. He is a little slow, but I managed to teach him how to swipe with his front paw and dart backwards before I, the ‘enemy,’ know what’s happening. He does the move okay, but needs to work on his speed a bit.”
Fleck nodded approvingly. “I didn’t find time to teach Sparrow any attacking or defensive moves. Just analyzation.”
“Cinder and Ash fight like pros,” Jade smiled warmly at the thought of her much loved apprentices. “They work together really well and are faster then a bolt of lightning. I haven’t really gotten around to teaching the little mites, though. Yesterday I was mostly just having them show me what they know.”
Ginger sighed longingly. “You three are so lucky. You guys got actual cats, while I’m left with a far lower form of life. I have no clue what he is.”
That concluded the meeting. The mentors circled back to where their apprentices were gathered. Ob saw that they had finished and hurried eagerly foreword, closely resembling a human-loving dog greeting its owner home from a long day’s word. Again, it was king of sad. But before they had time to start training, King Slate emerged from the hollow ash tree and began to give a speech, taking no notice of the four new cats gathered below him.
“I have decided to give you all a notice on the nearing battle, which will occur in approximately two weeks,” he intoned steddily. “Train up, and be ready. Last battle we had, I recall us having difficulties with this Motherworm thing.”
“Motherlord,” Fleck hissed in annoyance, ears flattened against her head. “And, as you may have or may have not noticed, we have four new recruits.” Fleck said this next sentence in a whisper. “Knowing you, the former is quite unlikely. And that is not including the one that you chose--GoldenSunn. We can’t possibly train them all for battle in two weeks, in addition to readying ourselves. We need more time. I’m sure that you can squeeze in at least another week...” Fleck gave her king a fleeting smile, which showed her immense desperation.
“No,” Slate answered, stoney-faced. “Anyway, who are these new recruits--” he spat out the words like they were scum. “--and what need do we have for them? We replaced Oatmeal with Fleck, Stinger with... Well, maybe one, but certainly not a whole gang of them! This is far to many mouths to feed.”
“But King Slate,” Fleck began fawningly, battling her eyelashes, “we need more cats. It’s always just a couple of us fighting a whole army. It isn’t fair and we need more help. Please?”
Slate considered this for a long time. On one hand, this might be a good idea. More cats meant more labor. He would be able to justify more hunting missions and smaller rations. It would also ensure his winning sooner. This war was taking longer then he had thought it would already. He could use a few more cats to speed things up a bit. On the other hand...
“Fine.” Slate looked greatly annoyed. He wanted to be an imposing and leader-like figure to his guards, and swaying his discussion was not very intimidating. “We’ll keep these new guards. But the date of the battle has not changed, and that is final!”
After he had finished speaking, Slate stormed back into his chambers, looking greatly disgruntled.
“Is that guy our king?” Sparrow asked in a frightened manner, obviously unwilling to be lead by someone so srlf-serving and uncaring of those around him. He was reconsidering his hastily made decision of ever joining.
Fleck laughed dryly. “Yep. You’ll have to deal with him for as long as you live.” She said every word darkly, eyes narrowing into slits. “But I wouldn’t sweat it; I’m sure you won't be around much longer.”
Sparrow look even more terrified now.
“It’s all right, rookie,” Ginger laughed. “She’s just messing with you.”
Sparrow was vaguely comforted, and nodded. It started to rain, so the guards hurried inside of the tree for cover, deciding that it would be best if they momentarily postponed training while it was storming.
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-KittyLover8
© 2013
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