the painter [c]

Slanted rays of pale dawn light cut through the trees, dappling the ground beneath with patches of warm sunlight. Two cats padded side-by-side through the trees, slow in pace, and with no real purpose or destination in mind. It was a rare thing, lately, that Sunfire and Mintglade got to spend a morning together, a rarer thing still that they got to do it alone. But the stars had aligned, and given them both a brief respite… Sunfire, from warrior duties, and Mintglade from motherhood. Day by day, their kits grew… any time now, the first of them would become an apprentice, he was sure of it.

Try as he may, though… Sunfire couldn’t bring himself to be happy about that.

He’d been close to his children until they’d become apprentices… until other warriors had gotten into their ears, seeded them with weakness and fear. Most of them were strangers to him now, and as desperate as he was to fix it, he had no idea where to start. So Mintglade’s kits, those seven smart, brave kits that looked at him with love and confidence and awe? He just… wanted them to stay that way. And the closer they grew to leaving the nursery, the closer they got to sharing the same mistrust in him that he saw every time Bubblebeam refused to meet his gaze.

It was clear in the heavy, deliberate paw steps, in the slant of his ears, the furrow in his brow, that Sunfire was upset, but he refused to let his sour mood ruin the morning by ranting or raving about it. Hopefully, Mintglade wouldn’t read his silence as discontent with her, but just in case, the yellow tom took a step closer to his mate as they walked, bumping her shoulder gently with his own and managing to soften his gaze briefly with a warm blink as he met her eyes.