Be Smarter (short story)
Marigoldpaw wheezed as she walked, and she wondered if they had ever travelled so far before for a training session. “What…what are we here for?” She asked when they finally came to a stop.
She had been coughing on and off since her birth, but slowly her scratched throat had healed over the past two moons, though her voice was still raspy and it hurt to talk. She felt a familiar pang of unease as she recalled hazy memories of her littermates: Lionkit, Peonykit, and Sunkit, who had all succumbed to the sickness that had gripped them all the day they were born. Should she remember them more?
Dullahan, her older brother and mentor, faced her with his naked scar-marked tail folded neatly around his paws. “Because you’re weak,” he told her bluntly. “You need to learn how to be strong.”
Marigoldpaw didn’t understand why that meant she had to travel so far, especially with her lungs still recovering and her legs weak enough to collapse under her should she stand for too long–a reason she was now laying on her stomach. “I can’t force my sickness to leave,” she pointed out.
Dullahan’s pupils, sharply purple, were as thin as the thorns that guarded their home, the colour behind them almost entirely clouded by black fog. He showed his long, crooked teeth in what most would consider a threat, a danger, a look of insanity. Maybe it was, but to Marigoldpaw and the rest of their family, it was simply a smile of amusement. “We can have a head start, teach your mind before you can teach your body.”
“H….How?” Marigoldpaw wheezed.
Dullahan stood, sweeping his scarred tail around at the undergrowth surrounding them. “Look around you! You’re small and weak–”
“I’ll get bigger!”
Dullahan continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. “You are vulnerable to anyone who chooses to attack, and right now, anyone who chooses to attack you will be stronger than you. But what will you be?”
“Smarter?”
“Correct!” Dullahan grinned. “Look around,” he repeated, “what should you do?”
“Uh..” Marigoldpaw tried to think. She tried to look around, but the movement dizzied her. She closed her eyes, placing a paw on her head to still the spinning.
“If I attacked you right now, what will you do?”
Marigoldpaw blinked at him, trying to think. “I..Uh..”
Without warning, Dullahan leaped. He landed directly above her, placing his paws on either side of her, and digging a claw of a back leg into her tail, keeping her still. Marigoldpaw shrieked.
“What should you do?” Dullahan demanded, voice raising, jaws pressing closer to her face. “Look around!”
Marigoldpaw strained her neck as she took in the plants closest to her. She knew her brother wouldn’t hurt her–not hurt hurt, but even so, the situation still threw her heart into her throat and she struggled to breathe, while the pain in her tail crowded her thoughts.
Think think…Focus focus…
There!
Marigoldpaw stretched her neck out, bit around the stem of the plant, and swung it at Dullahan’s eyes.
“Argh!” Dullahan let go, backing away as he wiped at his eyes.
Marigoldpaw watched him with worry. She hadn’t blinded him, had she?
Then Dullahan began to shake, laughter booming through the clearing and making the hair on Marigoldpaw’s pelt stand on end. “Perfect! Oh, I was hoping you would go for it!”
“Dad told me it’s stinging nettle,” Marigoldpaw told her, recalling the plants Myrtlewing showed her while she still stayed in his medicine den. “He said the stem is fine to touch, but the leaves–”
“Sting?”
“Yeah.”
Dullahan wiped his eyes again. “He wasn’t wrong about that.”
Marigoldpaw leaned toward him. “Are you okay?”
Dullahan waved a dismissive paw. “Don’t be so soft!”
“I can be soft to family,” Marigoldpaw retorted. It was the way of their family. It didn’t matter how they treated non-kin, so long as those who share blood were cared for. “Lay down.”
Dullahan looked at her, then shrugged to himself and did as told. Marigoldpaw raised up and began to clean his eyes and the surrounding area–curling her lip and struggling against the horrible taste. When she was sure she reached every spot, she sat back. “Better?”
Dullahan blinked, feeling his face. “You take the fun out of getting hurt,” he joked.
Marigoldpaw nudged him playfully. “I’m your sister. I’m supposed to take the fun out of everything for you.”
Dullahan grunted. "I guess I should clean your tail."
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This is either Marigoldpaw's first training session as an apprentice or the second or third--definitely early.
Added the last part because I forgot about her tail lmao.
