The Loners

Characters
Petalpaw: Silver tabby she-cat with lavender eyes and one white paw

Tabby: Small dark brown tabby she-cat with green eyes

Ebony: Dark black she-cat with green eyes

Snap: White tom with blue eyes

Patches: Black and white tom with gray eyes, son of Ebony and Snap

Rock: Old ginger tom with silvering muzzle

Tabby collapsed in a heap once they reached the cover of a holly bush. Petalpaw sighed and rubbed some dock juice - she had stuffed ehr collar with herbs before they left - over Tabby's pads. The former kittypet's pads weren't as tough as Petalpaws; her's were only a bit sore.

"Greetings." Petalpaw leaped to her paws and whipped around. Tabby growled low in her throat but didn't stand. There was a black she-cat standing in front of her, a black and white tom standing just behind her. Petalpaw bared her teeth threatiningly, but the she-cat only surpressed a mrrow of laughter. "My name is Ebony, and this is my son Patches. You have tread upon our home." Embarrassed, Petalpaw sat again, wrapping her tail over her paws.

"I'm sorry, Ebony," She mewed. "You frightened me is all. And we'll leave right away; We're sorry to have bothered you."

"Nonsense." It was Patches who spoke. "Let them stay, Mother. They won't be here forever, and they won't be a burden to us." Ebony nodded.

"I wasn't going to drive them away, Patches. We'll let them settle in and hunt, and we'll come back at nightfall." Without another word, the black cat and her son bounded away into the forest.