Arno's Peace [a short "super edition"] [solo]

Thuck-a thuck-a thuck-a thuck-a.

Arno’s left ear twitched against the harsh noise. The new light of the morning sun peeked through the window above him, illuminating his cream fur and bathing his body in warmth. Arno was a late riser, but he felt entitled to it. This was his retirement, in clan terms, and though he was far from the forest he grew up in, he had endured plenty of hardships to get where he was. And, besides, it wasn’t as if he was always a lazy, idle thing. Though he was a kittypets, and kittypets were often regarded as soft, he was far from it. He opened his eyes, scar tissue stretching along his eyelids, and pressed all four legs against the ground, hoisting himself up into a glorious lunge, stretching his sleepy body. Lastly, he shook out his feathery pelt.

Thuck-a thuck-a thuck-a thuck-a.

Grumbling, the tom scaled the couch, then the side table, then the windowsill, and pressed his muzzle against the glass, eyes flickering from tree trunk to tree trunk. He found the bird rather quickly, in its usual spot, pecking hysterically at an old maple tree. Arno’s tail flicked to and fro. “Marm, I’m gonna kill that woodpecker!” he hissed, hoping that somewhere in the nest she was listening to his melodrama. He heard the thumping of heavy twoleg footsteps behind him and spun around, meowing pitifully at Sue. “Oh, please, pet me! I am absolutely inconsolable! That silly bird ruined my nap!” he howled, pressing his head up into her fleshy paw. She cooed at him, clicking her tongue and rubbing the itchy spot behind his damaged ear. He laughed, amused by how both of them dropped everything to give him some very welcomed attention. Well… almost everything. Sharon didn’t particularly care for it when Arno decided to lay on her lightbox, groaning and scooping him up off of the clicky stones. ‘Arno!’ she’d gasp, and ‘my keyboard!’ she’d grumble. Twoleg’s garbled language made very little sense to him. He knew his name, he knew Marmalade’s, and he knew ‘dinner.’ He tried to decipher the meaning of ‘don’t,’ as they both said it to him on a pretty routine basis, but it truly was a mystery.

He ducked under Sue’s paw and leaped down from the windowsill, trotting to the yard for a walk through the many plants the housefolk kept in it. He wandered through the flowers, the fragrant herbs, and the vegetables, pawing at them curiously. The diet of a twoleg was positively extensive, consisting of pretty much anything they could get their paws on. Arno envied them. If cats could live off grass and leaves, there’d be a lot less trouble in the woods.

He rolled over onto his back, staring up through the silver vines at the clouds above him. If kinship could be felt for an inanimate object, he felt kinship with the clouds. They wandered aimlessly, without purpose, devoid of meaning, and never minded it for a second. They were simply there, and that was enough for them. Fluffy and perfect and white, soaking up raindrops and releasing them elsewhere. He had found peace that same way. He heard footsteps in the garden and saw the flash of another ginger pelt nearby. Marmalade was carefully observing each plant, though in a much more methodical way than Arno had.

This was their outdoor domain, where they could climb and leap and frolic as much as they wanted, enjoying a more wild scent than they’d get in the twoleg nest. For all of the perks of kittypet life -- the shelter, the food, the love, and the peace -- Arno felt confined by the silver vines that trapped them in their yard space. What were Sharon and Sue so afraid of? Was it the thunderpath, the alley cats, the dogs? He rolled his eyes at the thought. He couldn’t be too bitter about it. After all, the good very much outweighed the bad. And besides, he had found a fantastic loophole.

As soon as the sandy tom heard the telltale click of a nest entrance shutting, he knew Sharon and Sue were gone for the day. Arno sprang to his paws, made a mad dash for the far left corner of the vines, and pulled a heavy plant-holder aside, revealing the shallow ditch he had dug under the insecure vines.

“Alright, I’ll be back a few moments to sundown! I’ve got to play ball with the little yapper next door, feed Bluebell's kits, and swing by Sadie's shed to say hi,” he explained, wiggling under the silver vines, feeling the familiar scrape of the sharp ends on his back. On the other side, he pressed his paws to the vines and called in to Marmalade, who had given up on stopping his daily escapes a very long time ago. “I’ll bring you a mouse from the shed! Save me some pellets! Okayhaveagooddaybye!”

His itinerary decided and his companion mewing her goodbyes behind him, Arno ran down the gravel thunderpath along the side of his home nest. The breeze of late Newleaf ruffled his fur, lifting his wild heart to the top of his chest, fueling his restless limbs as he ran like a WindClanner to the front of the nest. He stared out at the little twolegplace which he lived in now and admired the picturesque view. The small thunderpath which monsters rarely meandered across, the little twoleg kits playing with toys on front yards, and the many fences to climb across filled him with a sense of gratitude.

To his right side, he heard high-pitched barking, and he made a beeline for the neighboring fence.

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To be continued.