Like fire blazing through the forest, Tundrapaw felt his blood boil and his pelt burning with the embers of resentment. The young tom was almost two years old now, and he still hasn’t been given his Warrior name. Not that he cared, not at all, not one little smidgeon. He couldn’t give less of a fish’s fanny that he wasn’t graced with a warrior’s moniker yet.
No, that wasn’t what was burning him to ashes and anguish.
It was his father, Edgefrost, who was currently giving him quite the tongue lashing and in public no less. He wouldn’t have minded so much if this verbal assault on his eardrums was in private, but the fact his father was so brazen as to do this within the prying eyes of the entire clan? That was a different matter entirely.
He tried walking away, after bristling and hissing at his father that he was done with the conversation. But his father, stubborn as the blinding sun on a scorching day, just couldn’t relent. His father followed him, yowling scathing comments at him about how his siblings were Warriors already, and why wasn’t he?
Why was he shirking his work, why was he giving his mentor Sleetswan so much grief, and why in Starclan was he continuously breaking rules in the Warrior code? Something, something, disappointment, something, something frustration- blah and blah and blah.
For Starclan’s sake could his father not shut his infuriating maw before Tundrapaw does it for him by raking his claws across his face? The long overdue not-yet-warrior halted and extended and retracted his claws in the dirt, he scraped the surface, imagining it was his father’s face.
“Just leave me alone, dad.” He spat, vitriol and venom lacing his tone, as he glowered at Edgefrost over his shoulder, the fur along his spine standing on end. If looks could kill, Edgefrost would have dropped dead here and now and end up waking up in Starclan.
“Just.... leave. I’m not in the mood for your constant condescension!”