Lost Hope: Book 6: Future of Hope

Chapter 12

It had been several days since Violetshadow had watched Forestpaw, Foxflame, Lilacsnow and Sparrowfeather leave camp for good, much to her satisfaction. Less non-loyal cats that I have to deal with.

    As for Stonestar, she still had some work to do, and she had to train her apprentice, preform her deputy duties and turn up at every Dark Forest training session at night time. She had learned to survive on small pockets of sleep long before she'd become a warrior and had now begun to take small rests during midday after all the patrols had gone out so she could get some good rest.

    That evening, Violetshadow curled up in her nest and closed her eyes. It took her slightly longer to fall asleep, she wasn't used to be here at this time, but when she did she opened her eyes again to find herself surrounded by shadows and mist.

    After waiting a couple minutes, Violetshadow realized that Viperfang wasn't expecting her, and she would not be getting a greeting in the form of her sharp smile and snake-like eyes. Instead, she walked herself to the training clearing, finding just a few cats there, not even supervised by Viperfang, and most unfortunately for her, Tarantulaclaw.

    He spotted her immediately and waved his tail.

    No backing out now. Violetshadow took a small breath and continued forward. She didn't return his greeting, just sat down a bit of distance from him and fixed her eyes on the fight that was currently happening in the middle of the clearing. She recognized their pelts, but didn't have a name attached to them. There was the dark brown calico she-cat with bright patches of white fur. Violetshadow thought for a second she might be Vixen, but she had a lot more ginger in her fur whereas this she-cat did not. The other she-cat was a pale ginger with a few slightly darker stripes running across her back.

    "How's the new deputy holding up?" Tarantulaclaw asked, sidling up beside her.

    "She's holding up just fine," Violetshadow said in a clipped mew, not looking at him.

    In her peripheral vision, she could see him wrinkle his snout at her. "Don't refer to yourself in third-cat, that's so weird."

    Violetshadow turned to him with a questioning look. "Third-cat?"

    Tarantulaclaw shrugged. "One of the rogues mentioned it to me. When you said 'she's fine' instead of 'I'm fine,' ya know?"

    Violetshadow just blinked, then shook her head and turned back to the fighting cats. The two she-cats where pretty evenly matched and just from watching they seemed like they were getting close to Violetshadow's skill level. Viperfang's really working these cats hard.

    "I think Daffodil's got this fight, Lucy's got some great defense going on there though," Tarantuclaw commented.

    Violetshadow guessed that the calico was Lucy, who was making the quick dodges, and Daffodil was the pale ginger, her attacks quick and fierce. She finished off the fight with a clean swipe to Lucy's paws that caught her off balance. She stumbled and gave Daffodil the perfect opening to pin her to the ground.

    "Way to go, Daffodil!" Tarantulaclaw whooped and the ginger she-cat ducked her head as she let Lucy up. The two trotted over to them and Daffodil gave Tarantulaclaw a look that made Violetshadow want to gag.

    "Is that. . . Violetshadow?" Lucy stood with her mouth agape and stared at her.

    "Sure is," Tarantulaclaw said, leaning closer to her, his whisker almost brushing Lucy's face. She seemed to be almost melting under his gaze. "Why don't you say hello? I'm sure she doesn't bite too hard."

    Violetshadow caught Daffodil staring at Lucy and Tarantulaclaw with a look of pure jealously and Violetshadow almost felt bad for her, but then this was Tarantulaclaw they were dealing with so she wasn't sure why Daffodil wanted his affections anyways.