Feathers

Chapter 8

Feathers gasped in pain as a cat cleaned out a gash in his back with a wet cloth. "Owwww," he growled under his breath as his muscles tensed.

"Sorry Feathers... Maybe I should go see if Silver can stop training Paws and help me..." Finch trailed off before putting down the cloth and turning around to walk off.

The blue-gray tabby suddenly sat up and glanced at the golden molly, shaking his head "No, please don't go Finch. If Silver is in here she'll scold me about fighting with a cat for no real reason even though I would have a reason..." Feathers trailed off before laying on his stomach again.

The molly nodded quietly before padding back over to the male cat and cleaning out the wound in his back more carefully. Once she was done she covered the gash in moss and then licked the back of his ears. "I'm done now." She said before trotting away back to Silver and Paws to watch them talk to each other.

Feathers sighed as he got up before then walking over to the place where the rest of the cats would be resting or eating the prey that was freshly caught.

His walk wasn't very peaceful though as a certain meow snapped him out of his thoughts.

"And we meet once again," A mottled brown tom-cat purred with a smile, which looked like it was a smile stretched a lot too much, his amber eyes were also narrowed to mere slits. Cedar was extremely mad.

"Look Cedar, I didn't do anything to you. I could exile you from here and no cat would argue with my actions." The tabby said back to the cat before then thinking for a second about sending him to exile but deciding against it, shaking his head to himself. *I should give him another chance, that's what a good leader does, right?* He thought before going to find Robin and Willow.

As he was walking to Robin and Willow's sleeping quarters he bumped into both of them by accident when he closed his eyes and his mind started to wander again. "Sorry!" He exclaimed apologetically, bowing his head politely despite having more authority than the two of them. Feathers then remembered what he wanted to say to them and he shook his head clear, "I also came here to tell you that I'm removing your brother Cedar from the rescue team and if he messes up again I'm going to exile him," the tom added.

Suddenly the brown and white molly, Robin, spoke up, "You can't do that!" She exclaimed, anger rising in her voice. "He's our brother, so there's that, and without him on our mission, we're done for! He's the best leader that we could ask for!"

The white cat continued what her sister was saying, "And second, you can't just exile Cedar if he makes another slip up! He's part of our family and Lightning and his cats will rip him apart alive, or worse-," she said before her sister joined her.

"They'll keep him hostage!" They meowed in unison.

Feathers growled before saying to them, "Then what do you want me to do? Look what he did to me! How can we know he won't do that to the other cats in our group? How can we know that we can trust him on such an important mission?" He asked.

The other two female cats were silent and they just walked away sadly together, their heads down, without saying another word to Feathers, but under their breath they were mumbling things to each other.

Feathers sighed and then padded over to where Pheasant, Cyclone, Jay, and a few other cats were talking to each other in hushed voices. Before speaking he decided to listen in to what they were saying, his ears pricking up. It sounded like they'd been talking for a while.

"Are you sure you chose right when making Feathers the leader of this operation?" One of the cats asked Cyclone and Pheasant.

The white cat growled, "I knew what I was doing when I made him our leader. In the battle against Cedar he wasn't fighting with all of his power to begin with because he didn't want to hurt my son, I respect him for that, for having that much discipline!" He looked at all the other cats with narrowed yellow eyes. "Feathers will stay the leader of this operation even if some of you disagree." Cyclone decided.