When Fleck woke up early in the morning, she took a little time to enjoy the beauty of the new day. The birds sang their cheerful greeting, dozens of songs melding together to make a bright and harmonious medley. A light, cool breeze rifled through the fading tree leaves, a reminder of the coming colder seasons. The leaves of ancient oaks, tall ash trees and young birch saplings were changing color. Now they were a summery green splashed with bright scarlet and rusty orange.
The morning dew clung desperately onto the leaves of the plants in sparkling droplets, several falling noiselessly to the ground when the light breeze whisked past. The grass waved to and fro sleepily, glistening with dew. The soft dawn sunlight light the dew, making them a thousand sparkling stars. All of the flowers dipped their heads, heavy with the sunlit droplets of dew.
Fleck walked drowsily out of the hollow ash tree. The bright green stalks of grass bent beneath her paws. She could feel the cool moisture of the dew on her pads and the mild roughness of the early autumn grass. She breathed in a deep breath of the fresh morning air. It was cool, crisp and smelled of nothing but the pleasant and mild scents of greenery and dew. This was slightly tainted by the foul stench of slate’s factories, but in her bliss, Fleck ignored this.
Deciding that this would be a good chance to do so, Fleck headed towards Ember’s kingdom at a brisk walk. She enjoyed the sights of the forest as she went. It was full of fast-flowing rivers and shallow creeks. The forest floor had a messy look to it that Fleck found pleasant; strewn with faded tree leaves and scattered with countless paw prints headed in all directions. The leaves of the tall forest trees cast dappled shadows riddled with spots of mellow, pale gold sunlight.
Once Fleck had reached Ember’s kingdom, she went straight to his home. She ventured a timid knock on the large black door, not wanting to startle the king. He was probably still on edge from the events of last night.
When his maid peeked through a crack in the door, Fleck knew for sure that he was. Katrina, the maid, was tense and only opened the door by the tiniest degree. When she saw who it was, she relaxed, gestured for he to come inside, and offered her a cup of hot peppermint tea.
“No thanks,” Fleck declined. “But thank you for the most generous offer.”
Katrina gave her a polite nod and a flash of a smile, which dissipated quickly. Then she turned away and called to Ember, announcing his guest.
Ember hurried down a scarlet-colored flight of stairs that Fleck hadn’t noticed before. Evidently, wherever they led was where he resided for the night, which explained why he was up there. He probably felt safer and more secure the farther away the door was from him.
“Hello, Ember!” Fleck greeted him warmly and with fairly inappropriate merriment. She was in a fine mood this morning and her tone was how she felt--cheerful and carelessly happy.
“Hello,” Ember murmured distractedly, absently fingering the wound on his neck that he had received last night.
“Let me see that,” Fleck suggested, joy expressed in a slightly more suppressed manner. She walked over to him with a long and purposeful stride. The wound was actually quite deep and probably irritated. It looked like it had recently been reopened, as there were a few half-dried trails of blood in his soft fur. “You really shouldn’t scratch it, or it’ll never heal. You might have a scar as it is, so let’s not make it any worse, okay? The longer it takes for it to heal the more likely you are to get an infection. Scratching won’t help prevent infection in itself.”
“But I can’t help it,” Ember whined, pawing pathetically at the wound.
“Stop it!” Fleck instructed harshly. After a short pause she asked, far more calmly, “Does it hurt when you eat or swallow?”
“Yes,” Ember replied after hesitation, “but only a little. By when do you think that it will heal?”
“Probably about five days,” Fleck answered, studying the wound. She didn’t know why he was treating her like a professional doctor and why she was acting like one (more or less), but that was her guess. “Anyway, what are you going to do about last night? You know, safety measures to make sure that that kind of thing doesn’t happen again.” She didn’t really want to talk about it, but it had to be done.
“I’m going to stay inside, always have my maid, Katrina, answer the door, stay away from any windows and not trust a single cat in the world.” At this statement, he narrowed his eyes at her and visually searched her for a weapon.
Fleck rolled her eyes and sighed with exasperation. “I was thinking more along the lines of real safety measures. You know, like keeping your door locked, posting guards by your door and by the weapon shed and the entrance of your empire. Guards at all of the entrances and exits would make it so that Quince wou--”
Ember covered his ears with his paws and shouted, “Don’t say that name! She tried to kill me and I don’t want to have to think about her!”
Fleck bit her lip and continued. “She wouldn’t have been able to get in or out to report to Slate and request a new mission.”
Ember perked up. “Which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to give you another mission. I feel that I haven’t done that for a while and if we’re going to win this war, we’ll have to use excessive spy-work.”
“Spy-work? Seriously?” Fleck raised her eyebrows at her king, who grinned stupidly at her. Rolling her eyes, she questioned with more reluctance then interest, “What are you going to ask me to do?”
“Well, I was thinking that you should really tell me who is in this group of guards that you work near,” Ember suggested, smiling at her like a frog.
“Uh... Okay...” Fleck didn’t really know what to make of this. “There’s Ginger, Jade, Sparrow, Cinder and Ash. Why do you need to know?” Fleck narrowed her eyes and flattened her ears by a degree.
“I was wondering if you would assassinate some of them for me,” Ember continued to smile up at her, acting as though this was just a chummy little chat and not discussing killing cats.
“What?” Fleck snarled, baring glistening ivory-white fangs. “No way! First of all, it’s stupid and needless. And second of all, the security is topnotch! I wouldn’t even be able to raise a dagger there without being killed.”
“Oh,” Ember said, shrinking back a little. Katrina the maid retreated. “Wait--how did you murder that wounded cat? What was his name? Bob?”
“They installed the new security after that,” Fleck claimed, cooling off a little. “You can give me a mission, but that one’s off limits. And don’t even think about asking me to assassinate Slate.”
“Well, then, I’ll have to think about that,” Ember said. He sat down on his plump gray-blue couch and thought. After a long wait, he humped up and said, “I know it! You could feed them false information about us moving to a different place! Then, when they go to that place, we can ambush them and finish this war!”
“Ugh,” Fleck grunted with disapproval. “That sounds hard. But it might not be impossible. I’ll try, I guess.”
“Yes!” Ember cheered. “Good job. Now go back there and help us finish this war!”
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-KittyLover8
© 2013
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