Sleeping Willow's healing chambers were four small linked rooms, again mostly below ground with windows filling the space between ground level outside and the roof. It was one of several places of business that fronted onto the large green in front of the King's house. She was the King's cousin and she too lived at King's house, along with eleven other first or second cousins, five aunts, three uncles, the King's mother, the King's partner Deer Foot, his two youngest daughters, and his two youngest sons, none of whom had found partners yet. The King also had custody of five orphaned boys. If Red Hawk's house was organized chaos, King Storm Eagle's house was pandemonium personified.

Cat Rider wore a long coat with a hood instead of a cloak because he couldn't use crutches with a cloak. He got his coat and his mittens on, put the hood up, and faced the wind and snow outside. I knew Sleeping Willow would be right behind him.

As for me, I was out the door first to face my evening tussle with Motley Owl, a tall orphaned boy the same age as Cat Rider. I crept up to the top of the passageway of Sleeping Willow's healing chambers without being seen by Motley Owl. He was intent on his thrown weapon practice. Even with the brisk breeze, his throws were both precise and accurate. He was well on his way to being a superior warrior.

I managed to circle behind him without his notice. Covering myself with snow, I snuck up slowly and silently toward my prey. When he turned his head and saw Cat Rider walking with the false leg, he forgot everything about his surroundings. He started running toward Cat Rider and Sleeping Willow, not five yards in front of me.

Well, of course, I leapt and wrapped my forelimbs around his neck and brought him down. Or I thought I did. He used my momentum to flip us both in mid-air so he landed with his back to me on and top of me. He was tall, even for an elf, but he hadn't filled out with adult muscle yet so I outweighed him. I got all four paws on his backside and pushed. When he came back down, I was already on my feet and pounced. Cougar on chest, tongue applied to face, I won. Then I laid down on top of him, feeling satisfied with myself.

"It looks likes you lost today, Owl," my boy gimped up on his crutches with Sleeping Willow behind him.

"Dang big fat feline," Motley Owl muttered, which was a lot of words for him. He wasn't a talkative boy but Cat Rider talked enough to make up for the two of them. Motley Owl lost his family in a fire and the King took him in when he was nine. The King, his chiefs, and the elders were expected to take in orphaned children. Motley Owl's father had been one of the King's leading warriors.

When Cat Rider showed up at the King's house, the loner Motley Owl took to Cat Rider like a long-lost brother. Even before the King introduced Cat Rider to the household, Motley took one look at Cat Rider's burn scars, walked up to him, and offered to share his bed space in the room that all the boys his age slept in. The boys that age engaged in some serious hazing behavior. Motley Owl assumed that a disabled boy and a human one at that would need a protector.

Before he grew so much that no one dared bother him, he was once the object of much harassment because of his own shyness and his burn scars, mostly on his back and legs. As someone who understood what it was like to survive fire, he appointed himself Cat Rider's protector. Instant friends, the two boys were inseparable. I found it rather touching myself.

As Cat Rider's cat, I slept next to him when I wasn't out hunting. No one dared trouble Cat Rider, though there were a few boys who were politely unfriendly. The one time Blue Fox, the King's youngest, tried to cut in on Cat Rider when it was my boy's rightful turn at the washbasin, Motley Owl simply picked Blue Fox up, walked him to the back of the line, and said simply, "picking on the weak? How worthy of a King's son," while brushing off imaginary dust from Blue Fox's tunic.

The boy and I fell into a habit of roughhousing, something I couldn't do with Cat Rider, at least not until he got stronger and less fragile. Over time, it turned into a game of my trying to ambush Motley Owl and Motley Owl not allowing himself to be ambushed. If I could get him on his back with me on top, I won. If he could pick me up so I couldn't get away, he won. We had a lot of draws before Deer Foot would call us into dinner in annoyance.

But I won this evening. I was feeling happy enough about it that I was purring.

"May I please get my freezing butt out of the snow?" Motley Owl asked, just a tad annoyed. I hopped off. He was up instantly and already inspecting the false leg, "it looks like it works well enough. How does it feel?"

"It rubs a little behind the knee but I think a bit of padding will fix it," Cat Rider picked up the weight of the false leg a few inches off the ground, "that's starting to make all my muscles sore. I might hurt in the morning."

Motley Owl flashed one of his few smiles, "if you are, I can always carry you to Sleeping Willow's healing chambers."

"As if I'd let you," my boy tried to swat Motley Owl with a crutch, over-balanced and fell. Motley Owl picked him up out of the snow and Sleeping Willow retrieved the crutches.

"Save playing around until you're used to walking again," Sleeping Willow chided him lightly. "Now let's get back to the house because I'm hungry, and you should be too."