When Fleck awoke the next morning, she immediately headed straight towards Ember’s kingdom. She had to tell her king about the failed assassination. She was not looking forward to this report, but she knew that it had to be done.
She flew like the wind. She checked the bushes by the river, but did not find him there. After that, she stopped at any good hiding places that she could find, but the search was fruitless. She wondered why Ember wasn’t meeting her partway, as had been planned. So she went all the way to Ember’s kingdom, and found him there with a strange new cat.
“Who’s this?” Fleck asked, tilting her head and furrowing her brow in untrusting suspicion.
“This,” Ember announced, voice laden with unnecessary pride, “is Quince.”
Quince was a petite orange tabby she-cat with gray-blue eyes. She appeared to be a short-hair, but her waving feathery tail betrayed the fact that she was not. She greeted Fleck with a friendly nod of her head. “Hello, there.”
“Hello.” Fleck drew out the word with pronounced uncertainty. She didn’t know what to think of this new cat, who looked oddly familiar. She got a kind of bad vibe, but maybe it was actually a slight jealousy. Was Quince going to be taking Fleck’s place as a spy? Anyway, the tabby she-cat seemed to be friendly enough. Fleck knew that she should give her a chance.
“Quince is a good fighter and will be helping to defend us from Slate’s cats next battle. You want to try to have a friendly fight so that she can show off her skills?” Ember’s suggestion sounded friendly enough, but his tone implied that Quince would win against Fleck any day.
“I’m up for it,” Quince said with a shrug.
Fleck took that as a challenge. “You’re on,” she said with a slight snarl.
“Don’t kid yourself,” Ember intoned with a hardy laugh. He obviously thought that Fleck was a horrible fighter--at least compared to Quince.
This filled Fleck with a fiery ferocity. She crouched low to the ground, tail lashing like a whip, eyes filled with burning intensity, claws unsheathed to their farthest extent, lips pulled back and teeth bared in a viscous snarl. Quince assumed the same position. They stared at each other for a long few seconds.
And then Fleck sprang up and leapt upon her opponent with the rage and speed of a bullet aimed to kill. Quince ducked low to avoid the attack. Fleck missed her, but not completely. Her needle-sharp claws grazed Quince’s back, forming long, thin lines of scarlet.When Fleck landed on the other side of the tabby she-cat, she immediately swiveled around to face her agonized opponent.
With immense agility, Quince flew at Fleck. Fleck had no time to dodge, so she got a face-full of claws. By the time Quince had landed beside her enemy, Fleck had earned two slashes on her cheek and one above her left eye. Fleck screamed with rage and flung herself at her speedy opponent. Quince ducked, but Fleck was to fast for her. The sandy-colored she-cat left Quince with several deep cuts on her front legs.
“Isn’t this supposed to be a friendly fight?” Ember asked nervously.
The fighting cats completely ignored him. Fleck locked her jaw around Quince’s right hind leg, biting it as hard as she could. Quince cried out with pain and tried to turn around to return the bite. But a sharp pain in her already injured forepaws caused her to trip over herself. Fleck had seen the move coming and had lashed out at the tabby’s paws.
Still on the ground, Quince twisted her head around quick as a viper and bit down, hard, onto Fleck’s wreathing tail. Biting back a cry of pain, Fleck, still keeping a tight grip on Quince’s hind leg, lashed out with a forepaw in attempt to catch her opponent off guard. Quince dodged the blow, but was a little slow from the excruciating pain and blood loss and still received a deep cut on her cheek. With a wail, she released Fleck’s bleeding tail and fell back a little.
Fleck bit down harder, ruthlessly ignoring the orange tabby’s cries of pain and just concentrating on keeping a good grip on the she-cat’s leg. Quince lashed out with a paw and sliced Fleck on her sensitive upper lip. Fleck fell back with a start, the salty taste of her own blood heavy in her mouth.
Quince leapt on Fleck, who was still stunned with agony, and pitilessly raked her back with her razor-sharp claws. Fleck crumbled underneath her opponent, weak from the unbearable pain. No! Fleck shouted inwardly. I will not be second best! I can’t lose to this cat!
Fleck pushed off of her paws and flung her opponent a couple of feet away. Quince lay in a dazed and bloody heap, moaning a little. A trickle of scarlet blood ran from her mouth.
“Had enough yet?” Fleck taunted.
Quince rose and raised a threatening paw. But then she used the paw to wipe the blood from her mouth, revealing a smile.
“Well, I’ll admit, you’re good,” Quince said. “Better then me, in fact. Actually, you could have killed me if you wanted to. Then again, by the pain in that leg of mine, maybe you did kill me.”
Quince threw back her head and gave a good-humored laugh, which surprised Fleck. The she-cat obviously wasn’t a sore loser, as more were then not.
“You fought back pretty well, Quince,” Fleck said in a moderately complementary tone, but not to such extent that it sounded like false flattery.
“I’m surprised that Quince lost the battle,” Ember cut in with obvious disappointment, his voice almost a snarl.
Quince ignored her new king in a spiteful manner. “So, Fleck,” she began, “maybe we could be friends someday. I don’t want this fight to get between us, seeing as our paths will probably intersect more then once.”
Fleck gave the tabby she-cat and short but friendly nod. “That sounds like a good idea.” Fleck didn’t need more enemies, especially as in her own kingdom.
That was when the she-cats’ meeting ended. Fleck took a brief moment to pull Ember aside and notify him about the failed assassination. He seemed to take the news fairly well, as he only had a small explosion. When Fleck returned do Slate’s kingdom, she was greeted by friends. This war life seemed to be taking a turn upwards.
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-KittyLover8
© 2013
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