Wildfire~The Dark Forest (Book One)

Chapter Fifteen~The Difference Between A Clever Cat, And A Kind Cat:

"Hello, Checkers!" I yelped. 

"Sophia, there's no one called 'Checkers' here." Pixels pointed out to me. 

"Oh yes there is Pixels," I replied. "There really isn't." 

"It's a nickname! A nickname for the cat that's come to watch over us. Don't let the Big Bad Wolf get me Little Red Riding Hood. Oh... Wait..." I shook my head, "No, that wouldn't work. It would be more like, 'Don't let the Big Bad Wolf get my goodies in my goodie basket.' No... Still chaos. Wait... Was it even 'Big Bad Wolf'? Or was it just 'Bad Wolf'?" 

"Shut up with your mindless rambles!" Shadow growled. 

"But wait! It gets better, you didn't call out your Alpha's little snake friend here, therefore you don't particularly like your Alpha. Don't worry, your secret's safe with me." 

Shadow opened her jaw to speak, but I beat her to it, "But who am I to assume when I'm just mindlessly rambling!? Well I never mindlessly do something. I know a quote. I love this quote. It says, 'Don't put a gun in a room unless you're gonna use it.' I live by that quote." 

"'Gun'?" She asked me. 

I sighed, "Out of everything I just said, you ask me what a gun is? You might know it as a 'Swiftclaw'." 

She cocked her head, "What's a 'Swiftclaw'?" 

"A 'Gun' keep up! But you seriously don't know do you? What about the 'No-Claws'?" 

She shook her head slowly, "I know they're a different creature than us cats. And they act different, and from what I heard they are bad...?" 

"Not all of them I'm sure. I mean of course they are greedy, but not all of them are like that." Then I muttered, "Or so I've been told." 

"I'm sorry?" 

"You should be sorry." 

Her throat rumbled, "For what-Wait! You're trying to change the subject!" 

"I'm not though." 

"Yes. Yes you are, you muttered something, and when I was asking what you had been muttering, you retorted." 

"Well... Yeah, that was a test! Congrats, you passed." 

She narrowed her eyes, "I'm not as stupid as you think. I'm not just a idiotic little kitten. You seriously underestimate anyone who isn't you. You do this because you overestimate yourself." 

"Yeah, it's my overconfidence." 

"Or pridefulness." 

I grinned, "I beg to differ." 

"Of course you do." 

Pixels finally spoke up, "Okay, I can't just idly watch this happen any longer than it already has gone on for." 

"Pixels-" I started but she went on, "I know you're over a thousand years old, Sophia, but can you just stop thinking about yourself for one second! Or maybe somethings you should just keep to yourself. You don't have to prove you're clever by saying everything on your mind. 'Cause guess what!? We already know you are clever! And you can't just be rude to everyone just because it's true that you are clever. Wasn't the whole point of you not being Wildfire anymore was to be nice? Or was it to stop your own suffering?" 

Unlike Pixels, Ash was idly watching us quarrel. Well, I wouldn't say quarrel exactly. More like, 'Ash was idly watching Pixels try to prove a valuable point to me.' 

My grin faded she had a good point, and an even better question. 'Wasn't the whole point of you not being Wildfire anymore was to be nice? Or was it to stop your own suffering?' No one is just nice, you have to prove that you're kind you can't be friendly just because you said so. Same thing goes for trust, and I have done nothing for anyone's trust. Not in my long lifetime yet anyways. Or at least of what I can recall... 

My thoughts were interrupted by a clamor of yowls, and meows. And they weren't coming from me, Ash, Pixels, Shadow, and obviously not any of they snakes for they don't meow, or at least I didn't think they did. 

No, the frantic sound of chaos was coming from behind me. And no, they weren't coming from a tree, even though a tree was behind me. They weren't coming from any of the other trees, or twigs, or whatever bugs, or every blade of grass that lay behind me. 

The growl, and hisses were coming from behind me, a bit far behind me. Probably the chase of a rabbit-hunt behind me. 

By 'rabbit-hunt', I mean if one cat were hunting a rabbit and by the time they caught the rabbit, they'd be roughly where the hunter caught the rabbit. 

The air was brimming with fear-scent of the two cats that were current members of this pack that had set a camp up in this dark forest. 

Shadow and Ash. Their fur was on end, and besides the fear in their eyes, there was a certain flash of remeberance. 

It looked like their breath was caught in their throats. And I had to make a joke about it, "Cat's got your tongues, eh?" Pixels smiled faintly, most likely a bit mad at me but my jokes are so awesome that I got her to smile faintly. 

Okay, time to be clever, and maybe kind, I thought. I was gonna need to talk my way out of this one. Or more accurately, talk my way into this one. 

"Looks like someones-or somecats-are in trouble. And based on your stench of fear, and the angst looks on your faces, Checkers, you could use some help. But hey, what do I know, it's not like I have over a thousand years of experience or anything." 

Though, Pixels didn't seemed very phased about whatever was going on behind me, so then I could only assume that Pixels didn't really have a clue of what was going on-again just assuming-at their camp. This was what was adding up at the time. And you couldn't forget the simple fact that there was a flash of regonition across their beautiful eyes. 

"Yeah," Pixels meowed. "You're gonna need Sophia's help, and mine. I don't melt down in bad situations, unless there is the element of surprise. We can help, just get the snakes off of us. Please." She's probably 'subtly' trying to teach me to be nice. 

I waited as patiently as I could, and after a few seconds of unspoken silence-joke intended-Shadow spoke up, "I'm the one who should be begging you for help." 

Ash slowly, silently nodded and she continued on, "Please help. I know this might be against Alpha's orders..." "Dont worry," Pixels reassured her voice sounding as if she were Shadow's mother-cat. "If it turns out well, we'll say that it was your idea. And if your Alpha gets upset we can just say that we escaped and attacked you. What could go wrong?" 

Let me tell you now, when someone asks 'what could go wrong?' there is usually something that is gonna go wrong. It's almost a one hundred percent guarantee. 

When-if-something bad happens, and someone asked 'what could go wrong?' it's called 'dramatic irony'. 

Just as when Humans in the 1900's created 'The Titanic' they kept saying things such as, 'It will never sink.' and 'It is simply impossible for the Titanic to sink for it has the finest engineering!' and 'Everything will run smoothly,' you get the idea. 

But this piece of history ends in almost everyone drowning-a terrible way to die-because it sunk after the ship hit an iceberg, all because they couldn't see it, and I'm sure some ignorance has something to do with it. 

Nowadays, I try to stay away from that question, 'what could go wrong?' because of what happened that very day in that very very dark forest. 

That's because on that day in that dark forest... 

It felt like it got a little bit darker.