Tail Game (short story)
Firejay was pleased to get the herbs, after stopping in her organizing of herbs to laugh at their appearance. But her joy quickly faded when Mallowfur explained the situation to her.
“I think you may be right,” she told Gorseheart.
“Do you want us to gather more?” he offered.
Firejay shook her head. “We may still need those herbs. If we gather too much now, most would end up dying anyway before we can use them.”
Gorseheart excused himself and left them to discuss it. They were the smarter ones, any ideas he made would surely also be made by them. He would be no help. He padded into the clearing, relishing in the sun warming his back. He curled on the grass, happy that the hollow walls sheltered them from most of the wind, which would help against the cold.
He was just about to drift off into sleep when something small, but firm knocked into his side. Startled, he opened his eyes to see Fallowkit nudging him. “Gorseheart! Gorseheart! You’re back!” she cheered, bouncing on her paws. “Do you have a feather?”
He smiled warmly at her. He had made it a routine to take the feathers off of birds that he caught or from the fresh-kill-pile so that the kits could play with them. He usually aimed for more colourful ones, as the kits squealed the most when they saw those.
“I gave you one just this morning!” Gorseheart replied in mock surprise. It was a good thing birds came plenty, because their feathers hardly lasted a few heartbeats before the overeager kits tore them to shreds.
“It was too small!” Fallowkit told him. She butted his shoulder with her head. “Do you got a bigger one?”
“A bigger thing to chase? Hmm…let me think…” As he spoke, Gorseheart moved his tail, waving it enticingly to and fro. Fallowkit moved her attention to it, eyes sparkling with joy. It was hard to tell if she was pretending not to notice so that she could catch him by surprise, due to her preparing to pounce all too obvious.
She jumped, biting gently into his tail-fur and curled her body around it in a tight grip. “Hey!” Gorseheart exclaimed joyfully. “You want my tail? Hold on to it, and you can have it!” With that, he raced forward. Well…’race’ would be a heavy exaggeration. It was more of a fast walk, but it was quick enough for the small kit to think that he was running at full speed without hurting her. She let out a squeal of delight and gripped him tighter.
Gorseheart kept going, running around in a circle, his chuckles joined by the uncontrollable laughter of Fallowkit. Finally, his legs were too tired to move any further. He collapsed dramatically onto the ground. “You have defeated me! The tail is all yours!”
Fallowkit let go and, once again, bounced on her paws. “I won! I won! I won!”
“Yes, you did,” Gorseheart purred. Part of him noted how Fallowkit didn’t even know about the stream-herb trouble, and that even if she did, she wouldn’t care all that much, games of pretend and moss-ball all too exciting to think about anything else. Sometimes he felt an ache of nostalgia, remembering being that age, and couldn’t help but wish that he could go back to it, no worries, only play. Blightstar would argue that Gorseheart still was a kit half the time.
His throat began to burn from all the running. Perhaps it wasn’t the best choice of game to play. “Why don’t you go tell your mom about your victory? Then I’ll give you the biggest feather you have ever seen!”
“Yay!” Fallowkit cheered, dashing off toward where Nectarclaw lay just outside the nursery.
Gorseheart watched her go with a warm smile, then curled back into the cool grass, feeling burnt now at the sweat that dripped from him. He began to doze off now, this time with no interruptions, and he would be able to sleep a small portion of the day away before he was dragged into a patrol.
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--In case anybody doesn’t know, Gorseheart’s story is being told in chapters which can be found in order on Wattpad, and that can be found on the links post.