[Fawn]

Originally Posted by Beau

[ @Dipper- makes sense! It would be pretty odd for a TC apprentice to witness the whole resigning/firing thing haha ]
(also, in regards to Corm- he’d originally dragged himself out of the den to puke and managed to sorta walk back in so he’s not like prancing around haha just cause I don’t want him to be like a superhero or something- he’s still pretty weak and I don’t think he’d be able to actually walk somewhere for real)

Cormorantpaw had ignored the voice behind him as he dragged his weak body outside to throw up an ashen, toxic mixture. He figured the medicine cat would appreciate having to clean up that nasty excretion. The apprentice was far too foggy and pained to really care to look at his facial expressions or try to gauge his mood either so any emotions that Fawnsqueak experienced at the sight of the disheveled apprentice half walking/ half dragging himself back to the nest were lost on him.

As for the question of how he was feeling, Cormorantpaw blinked at the cat before him like he had three heads. Yes it still hurt- everything hurt! His mind was just working enough to process a feeling of incredulity at the question and he wondered briefly if he’d gotten it wrong and this wasn’t the medicine cat. The black and grey apprentice didn’t want to be rude despite his pessimistic thoughts so he rasped,

“My paws hurt and my lungs hurt and my face hurts a lot but aside from that I think I’m fine. Do you know what’s up with my eye?”

Cormorantpaw noticed with some irritation that Fawnsqueak skipped over his questions to ask his own and the apprentice raised a brow at the surprise that he registered on the other cat’s face. So he had been right, this was the medicine cat. Why was he so surprised he knew his name? Surely a Riverclan cat would be able to name Thunderclan’s medicine cat. Still, Cormorantpaw provided an answer.

“Uh... I mean, you’ve been to gatherings and Lionstar has said your name a bunch. Plus, I’m in the Riverclan medicine den and you’re the only one here so I figured you’re probably Fawnsqueak. But... no, we haven’t met.”

Now that Fawnsqueak had been weirded out by him knowing his name, Cormorantpaw realized that it could’ve been a stretch to immediately call the cat before him Fawnsqueak but he wasn’t really in the mood to wonder whether the cat in the medicine den was the medicine cat before he had started speaking.

Feeling his throat start scratching more painfully, Cormorantpaw paused to take a drink from the moss he’d been provided, nodding his thanks to Fawnsqueak. Truthfully, if he’d been in a better mindset and physical condition he might have been more questioning when addressing the cat before him rather than assuming their identity, but his pain addled brain just couldn’t process social uncertainty on top of everything else. Even at that moment all the talking was making him feel dizzy again and he was swaying harder as though he might crumple back to the ground. His voice sounded alright to him- aside from the coarse raspiness of it- but he suddenly found himself with the strange thought that he might have been nearly unintelligible. His weakness and raspiness and the fogginess of just regaining consciousness likely made him hard to understand. Yet, there were things he had to know.

“Do you know where my mentor is?”

[ I’m planning on Corm being half blind because of the branch hitting his eye- which is why he can’t see out of it rn c; also, sorry that this is super long!! ]

Fawnsqueak was quick to dismiss Cormorantpaw's physical evidence of illness, writing it off as an issue for the general populace of RiverClan to deal with. His services were needed in here and with that in mind, he quit craning his neck outside and scuttled back in to the patient. "Yeah, it's killing me too," he replied dryly through the 'everything hurts' spiel while his gaze drifted to Cormorantpaw's bandaged eye. "Uh, not.. really? I mean, it doesn't look good." The unintentional pun caused Fawnsqueak to cough abruptly to move on from his faux pas and rephrase, "It was bleeding, so.. it's patched up now but I don't know how it's going to heal." That was about the best answer he could give when the only other eye-injury he'd seen was Goosefury's, and that one had an obvious ending with the extent of the wound.

Fawnsqueak wasn't sold on Cormorantpaw's explanation. "I don't sit with the other medicine cats at the gatherings," he commented idly, the implication pretty heavy-handed that Cormorantpaw apparently sought him out somehow. Although Fawnsqueak couldn't recall if Cormorantpaw had been conscious during his rescue, he didn't over-analyze that aspect, already chalking this up to something uncanny. "It's just weird you'd know my name." The misalignment of gender identity and scent made it a stranger mystery, but he mentally filed that away for future consideration.

"Buckbranch?" he guessed from the name Cormorantpaw had tossed out previously. "Yeah, I don't know where that guy is. Maybe standing around with the rest of them at Cattail Pond? I don't think they're doing much," from what Fawnsqueak had seen, that was a general descriptor of ThunderClan throughout the ordeal, "..so I wouldn't worry about being left out of anything."