icefeather's realization
922 words - in which icefeather realizes that the mother of his children was an extremely spoiled child, who thinks that spoiling kid is the way you raise them
“Dad! Dad!” Skykit mewls as she toddles over.
“Sorry, let me just…” Icefeather says. Foxbelly gives him a quick nod and Icefeather faces his daughter. Still tiny and full of kit-fluff, every meow that comes from her mouth is more like a squeak, “What is is, Skykit?”
“Mom said that we can go explore the territory! Wolfkit and Whisperkit are already ready to go! We’re waiting on you dad!” Skykit whirls around, ready to dash off but Icefeather is quick to grab her by the scruff, ignoring the kit’s complaints as he gets up. With one quick nod to Foxbelly, Icefeather walks over to the rest of his family.
Well, his mate and the children he had sired.
It was still odd, thinking of these cats as his primary family. He knows that he should by now, but he had his own parents, his own (half) sibling. Thinking of them and this family as different somehow was odd, but well. If his own father was compartmentalize so well, why should he not be able to?
“Oh, good, you’re ready.” Vastspots says, not looking up from Wolfkit, who was playing with her tail. Whisperkit was content to sit on her mother’s paws, “We’re about to set out—”
“Ah, ah.” Icefeather interrupts, placing Skykit on the ground, “May I talk with you before we go. Privately, please?”
Vastspots tilts her head, “Sure. You three. Stay right here. Don’t move.”
Their children’s mouths (well, Skykit’s and Wolfkit’s. Whisperkit just looks ahead, like she isn’t thinking a thing.) audibly click shut because they shake vigorously. One of these days, Icefeather will have to interrogate just how Vastspots made them listen so well. He could barely keep them all in the same nest on a good day.
Icefeather pulls Vastspots towards the medicine cat den, poking his head inside for a quick moment to make sure that this isn’t going to be broadcast as the latest drama.
“You wanted to talk?”
“What are you doing, Vastspots?” Icefeather blurts, “Where do you plan to go? Our kits are four moons old, there’s a reason kits are supposed to stay in camp, why on earth did you ever agree to let them explore the territory?”
Vastspots stares at him as if he’s grown wings.
“What?” Icefeather exclaims.
“Well. They asked, and so I thought it was a good idea? I mean, we could protect them.”
Icefeather wants to bury his head into the ground, “There’s three kits and two of us. At best, that leaves one kit we won’t be able to grab and book it in the face of danger. And we don’t want the kits seeing us fight at this age, what if one of us got hurt! Nevermind how that means that it’s harder to snatch them up and leave, they’re too young to watch us actually fight! How would you feel if you saw your parents get torn apart by a fox, or a CloudClan warrior, or a ThinleafClan warrior!”
Icefeather only stops when he runs out of air, listing out every negative outcome that he could think of. He inspects every mossball they play with to make sure that they don’t have any thorns and Vastspots wants to take them outside camp?!
“Huh. So we need more warriors?” Vastspots asks.
“...You can’t show special treatment to your kits.” Icefeather sighs, “No. They’re staying in camp until they’re apprentices and that’s final. I don’t know what possessed you to make this decision, but it was a bad one…what did make you think this was a good idea?”
Vastspots, whose face had barely shifted from neutral this entire time, shrugs, “I mean, I would have wanted to do it as a kit. I knew what the whole territory was like before I became an apprentice.”
“Your parents let you leave camp?!”
“...Well. No. They did give me very nice descriptions though…” Vastspots pauses, “Ah.”
“You were such a spoiled kit.” Icefeather tells her fondly. Still her face is neutral but he takes it as an internal smile. If Vastspots was upset she would let him know, “So spoiled that you got everything you wanted without noticing what your parents were actually doing, huh? I’m amazed the three of them coordinated so well.”
Vaststar lets out a quick sigh, “I wasn’t spoiled, per se.”
“Yes you were.” Says Whiteflower, from the medicine cat den, and then, “Continue on as if I didn’t say anything.
“We will not being doing that Whiteflower.” Replies Vastspots.
“What we will—and by we, I mean you—be doing is telling the kits that instead of seeing the territory you are going to describe it to them and we—and by that I mean me—will be taking the rest of the day off.”
“And by that, you mean doing errands?”
Icefeather gives his mate a sharp look. Vastspots has a way of speaking that makes it impossible to tell if she’s laughing at you sometimes. Straightforward and curt, yet saying words that didn’t need to be said.
“Go to your children, Vastspots.” Icefeather tells her. His mate turns around without another word and pads off. He’s used to her quick reactions in the face of orders. As deputy, she was more used to giving them than taking them (especially because Morningstar let her take the reins so often) but with the little things, he can make her move.
“Trouble in paradise, eh?”
“I’m not gossiping with you about my wife, Whiteflower.” Icefeather tells the medicine cat, before padding off to continue his errands.
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