#geodepass

[residences-of-the-darkforest]

Frog-Muncher Meets WindClan-Rat (short story)

“Hey, frog-muncher!” 

Blackclover huffed and rolled his eyes. He didn’t want to deal with this–or anyone–right now, but he wasn’t one to take an insult lying down. “Shove a rock up your tail,” he snarled a reply without slowing or looking around.

“Typical ShadowClanners, always so sensitive,” the voice went on. “I was only commenting on your breath.”

Blackclover stopped and glared over his shoulder. He spotted another tom splayed out comfortably on a wide, low-hanging tree branch. The shadows were especially dark here, and in the dappling shade, the cat’s pelt colour was hard to identify. His eyes glowed sharp and yellow. 

Blackclover scented the air inconspicuously. This tom was new. He didn’t die recently, Blackclover considered that because really, who would die and then instantly go to bother someone? But it was fresh enough for his Clan scent to linger on the breeze. “Typical WindClan to be too cowardly to face their opponent head-on.”

The tom rose to his paws quickly. Blackclover felt a flicker of pleasure, seeing that the comment struck a nerve. The tom leaped from the branch and padded to Blackclover until they were nose-to-nose. Being a WindClan cat, the tom was rather lithe, but given Blackclover’s certain…diet in life, he had lost much of the weight that he would have been able to hold over him. Maybe he could have taken him on little over a year ago, but here and now, they looked to be an equal match.

“What now, frog-lover?” The tom challenged. 

Blackclover was at the point where his blood had reached a boil, and he leaped, yowling his rage.

—--------

“Oh!” Fleathistle looked up from where he had just planted a new seed in his garden.

Blackclover had not met him before, but he knew from talk that he was one of the most trustworthy cats to go to if you needed something treated–he was also incredibly surprised that wounds inflicted here could be treated, or that anyone was willing to heal them.

Blackclover’s pelt was covered in deep scratches. They stung, and the stickiness of the blood holding clumps of his fur together was beginning to irritate him. Though his wounds were vicious and many, he had not lost the fight. He didn’t win it either, not technically. They had rolled over and over, swinging at each other with claws splitting skin and blood spraying the air. The tom had run along the branches in the trees–Blackclover wasn’t sure how or why he knew or to travel along them so neatly for a WindClan cat. Blackclover had followed. He was less graceful, but kept up fine, and then he caught the tom and pushed–and the tom fell from the tree into a fast-flowing river that both had been too furious to notice. It swept the annoying rat away, and though Blackclover wasn’t sure if the tom drowned, he liked to believe it.

“Looks painful,” Fleathistle sympathized as he inspected the wounds.

“Should have seen the other cat,” Blackclover grunted. 

He thought of the tom’s smug smile. Hopefully I’ll never have to see him again.

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--Might change his eyes to green, depending on what will eventually match with his fur (when I now his fur colour).