The Life Of Cinderleaf

THE ROOTS (Chapter 7)

 Cinderpaw became engulfed in her work as a medicine cat, almost never spending as much time with her mother as she used to before.

 One day, her mom—er... Yellowclaw, sent her out to collect some coltsfoot. Her worst enemy.

 It was sticky, hard to get out of the ground, smelled weird, impossible to separate from weeds, confusing, and she always got it's abilities mixed up. So, of course, they always send her to collect it, and sent out regular cats for the easy stuff like cobwebs and moss. She wanted to collect moss!

She begrudgingly padded out of camp and into the forest. She stopped at a patch of yellow flowers.

Are these coltsfoot? Hopefully they are and not some evil soul-stealing monster... Oh well, here I go... She tugged at it.

Her mother always told her to pull from the roots. 'THE ROOTS,' She would scream. Cinderpaw would roll her eyes and pull from 'THE ROOTS'. Those StarClan forsaken plants... 

She pulled so hard that she was flung back into the tree.

She heard laughter.

Then a tree snap.

Then screaming.

She let out a loud guffaw as a black and white cat fell from the tree.

"Oh, fox off..." It grumbled.

She stretched and groomed herself as if nothing happened.

"Who are you?" Cinderpaw questioned. "I've never seen you before. What clan are you?"

"ShadowClan." She hissed. "And of course you don't know me, I'm new." 

"Wow, ShadowClan? Couldn't tell." She retorted.

"You don't seem any better, supposed ThunderClan warrior."

"How'd you kno-"

"From the fact that we're in ThunderClan territory now, birch."

Huh?

"My name's not Birchpaw..."

"I know that, motherfoxer. You ashhat, you."

???

"Uhhh, anyway, I'm Cinderpaw. You?"

"Friskpaw. Horrible to meet you."

"Well you seem lovely, but I better collect my herb and go." She continued to pull at the coltsfoot.

THE ROOT, THE ROOT!

"Uh, I wouldn't touch that if I were you."

"Why not, fox-dung?"

"Oh, my feelings. Now I won't tell you that that "coltsfoot" is surrounded by ivy... The poison kind, sweettail.

She leapt away from the ivy-covered coltsfoot, almost reaching the top of the tree. Friskpaw started cracking up. "PRICELESS, AHAHAH!"

She growled and kicked the ground. "Ok, so now what?" "Go find some nonpoisonous coltsfoot, mouse-brain."

"Hey, watch who you call mouse-brain, you mouse-brain!" She snorted.

"Whatever you say, birchy."

What? Why does she call me that? And why does it bother so much... I've never cared about anyone's opinion before... Barely even my mom's now.

"And, just to clarify, I'm not a she-cat...

"Or a tom."

WHAT?!?

She watched her him IT walk away with it's tail high in the air. Suddenly Cinderpaw didn't know how to feel... Or think.

A... A genderless cat... Huh...

Then she fainted.

~LE TIMESKIP~

Cinderpaw was awoken by a forceful prod at her ribcage. She groaned and started to rise. A small kit giggled at her.

"Hiya!" She mewed, giggling some more.

"You have the coltsfoot?"

"Ummm... Who are you?" She giggled some more and ran off to where Friskpaw wandered off to. 

"Hey, WAIT!"

She quickly got up and chased after the kit. 

She knew she didn't have to chase the kit. She could've kept looking for the coltsfoot, but something... In her gut... Told her to follow the kit.

She stopped at the ShadowClan border.

"Miss me?" A familiar snide voice remarked. A black and white cat hopped down in front of her.

"Whatcha doin'?" "Chasing after the kit." "What kit?.." "You can't tell me you didn't see it! You must of been in the trees! You must of seen it." Friskpaw seemed genuinely confused. "Nope. Can't say I have."

She groaned. "Do you you know where it could o-"

She stopped, transfixed. She stared at Friskpaw's eyes. She had one blue eye and one purple, but that wasn't what was distracting her... It's what they were doing. They were swirling in abnormal spirals, the formerly purple eye pooling into a blue one like its twin, until two cyan spheres were staring at her.

"Oh my StarClan..." She said, almost under her breath. Friskpaw rolled her newly transformed eyes. "Yeah, go on."

"WHAT ARE YOU?" She screamed, forgetting about her last problem.

"I'm a cat, genius." It said.

"Yeah, but you don't have a gender-"

"Technically, at the moment, I'm a boy."

"Uh..."

"Two purple eyes, girl. Two blue, boy. Mix, genderless. Got it? Ok? Good. Continue."

"Uuuhh... So, yeah... You can switch genders... And your eyes... They do that... You are not a cat."

"I am. Twolegs... They do bad things to animals, since they can't do it to other two legs. Every night I would hear... The screaming... Nonstop howling and squealing... Experiments... They tried to make me gender fluid... They did, but I couldn't let them... Harm me anymore. I am not a toy to play with! But the other animals..." She shivered. 

"I came here for a better life." Cinderpaw stared at her.

"The twolegs named me after some fictional twoleg character with no gender. 'Frisky~' they'd call. 'Time for num-nums!' drugs. They drugged me!" She started tearing up, large droplets of water pouring out with the force of a waterfall.

"I'm... I can't even say anything about that..." 

She he hugged her, wrapping his black and white paws around her. "Uuuhh..."

"Sometimes... we need a friend..."

Her eyes went wide. She hugged the cat back, it was a cat hug!

"See you... See you later..." He headed off into the clan, but ran back. "And tell anyone about this and you're going to have a *bad time*."

Her eyes went wider. "Ok..." She said, her voice like a little meep. "Good... Ok, bye!"

She ran off again.

It was nice to learn about Friskpaw's...

What's the word again?

THE ROOTS.



(Pic is Friskpaw)