RiverClan Medicine Cat's Den

[Fawn]

Fawnsqueak paused, hearing someone call into the den. At first, he thought he'd imagined it in a sleep-deprived state since the voice didn't sound like any one of his clanmates, but then another question rang out. This time, it confirmed it wasn't only in his head, and he curiously peeked around the corner to see a stranger--ThunderClan, possibly--and the kit he'd recognized from before. "Oh, it's you." That was to Gladekit, since he wasn't sure they would bring her here. Clearing his throat, he surveyed Pinepuff, then Gladekit, resting there. "So, uh, Lionstar.. sent you?" They were worse for wear with the soot coating them but beyond that, he didn't know what he should be seeking out: a bloody wound, a burn, or what.

@Beau @Fuzzy

[stag]

*Dark-kit left the den with his flower*

[dionysus]

[ @Fuzzy @Dipper ]

Gladekit had resorted to dangling silently, curled up into as best a ball as she could form. Once they reached their destination, she peeked our balefully to see one of the Riverclan cats from before talking to her. Gladekit merely nodded and then left the second question to Pinepuff, feeling too sickly to answer. The shock and fear of the event had mixed with the pulsating pain of the burn on the side of her face to create an overall feeling of sick, even though she had no other wounds. The burn, ranging from just above her eye around- thankfully not hitting it- down to her chin and still felt terrible. It made the rest of her body feel abnormally chilly and weak and Gladekit couldn’t help feeling sorry for herself in such a sad state.

[BEAR.]

Lionstar was skeptical Otterstone would do anything useful from this point forward. This was the sign of a dying Clan-mate: sporadic behavior, weirdness.. a lack of activity, and finally, they either vanished or dropped dead. It was an unfortunate cycle but one he couldn't imagine going away anytime soon... "We'll see if she even hangs around." He spoke with a mutter, glancing over his shoulder at the den entrance.

".. Otterstrike?" That made Lionstar pause, looking at him in confusion. "Who's Otterstrike?" He'd never heard that name before in his life. It didn't belong to anyone he knew. Was Fawn saying SHE was Otterstrike? He always assumed she got her warrior name from her missing leg, not.. a name change.

Fallenfat really was a hugeass jerk. Lionstar's chest stirred with resentment toward his dark predecessor. "I'll restore her former name.. Otterstrike. Who'd have known." He never fancied her for a hard hitter, but maybe that's because it'd been so long since he saw her in action. A blast from the past might pick her up.. make her better than she currently is.

"It should be taught normally!" Lionstar suddenly hissed, visibly irked. "The medicine cats have a stupid monopoly on healing but for what reason? Every time our Clan has been screwed over, it's because some MEDICINE CAT has ditched us or died without leaving any knowledge behind. How can a Clan with several dozen cats survive if we have ONE healer for every cat with even the smallest of boo boos? It's dumb as hell, it needs to change. Grab whoever you want, Fawn, and make it happen, because I don't want to face another problem with a medicine cat under my leadership."

He was pretty upset with the medicine cat thing and that showed, his tail flicking irritably as he started to leave. "I'll be calling a meeting. If you'd rather figure out your teaching plan, you can sit this one out."

[ @Dipper ]

[Mango]

@Dipper

Fennelheart padded into the medicine cat’s den. Her leg was healing pretty well as far as she was concerned. She padded in and was sad to know Otterstone was gone, someone she trusted far more than the inexperienced medicine cat, Fawnsqueak,” Excuse me? Otterstone helped to set my broken leg, a while ago. I believe it has healed up completely, would you mind checking it for me, I don’t want to be wrong.” she meowed even though she was pretty sure, she knew Fawnsqueak probably knew a bit more than her about it.

[Fuzzy]

@Dipper @Beau

Pinepuff was glad to see a tom come forward when she had called. He was a little thing, or to her he was. Looked like he had a little fawn's pattern on his back. That didn't matter...
The brown tabby glanced down at Gladekit seeing her stir at Fawnsqueak's comment. She was awake, that was good! It had seemed that she was still unconscious earlier. "Yes," Pinepuff answered looking back at the RiverClanner. "Gladekit here, got a nasty burn on her face when we were getting to safety and you know Lionwhisker, bless his heart, couldn't have done anything... Which is why he sent us here." Pinepuff explained. That got everything he needed to know, possibly more.

[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."

[Fawn]

Originally Posted by Dawneye

Dawnpaw walked in, her tail still stuck behind her “Um Fawnsqueak? Is there a way you could help me with my tail? Like take it out of the wrapping and maybe we could work on it?” She hadn’t moved her tail since the medicine cat had put it up. It ached slightly and bothered her to keep it straight so much.

Fawnsqueak peered at her, expression blank until it wrinkled into confusion but he submitted to the request, undoing the binding to inspect her tail. "..I'm not sure what you want me to work on here," he said, looking over it. "It's-- they're bones. Either they heal or it just stays broken, which requires more immobilization... probably." Taking a step back, he watched her through an inspecting stare, waiting to see if she would fluidly move her tail because if she could do that, they had no issue.

[dionysus]

Originally Posted by Dipper

boop

Was that a... was that a joke? At a time like this? Maybe Cormorantpaw should have been annoyed and maybe he was just delirious but the apprentice let out a snort and managed to form a grin. He just got wrecked by the cat who was supposed to be healing him.

“Hey, buddy! At least my face is all messed up from a branch- what’s your excuse?”

Hopefully, the grin on Cormorantpaw’s face would let Fawnsqueak know that Cormorantpaw was only teasing him. It would be awkward to have to apologize for insulting Riverclan’s medicine cat... As for his eye, the black and grey apprentice wasn’t really satisfied with the answer but he had a finite amount of energy with which to have a conversation before passing out again and he figured arguing wasn’t going to change the answer much.

Then again, the other topic for consideration was how Cormorantpaw knew Fawnsqueak’s name, a topic he was growing more and more tired of. Truthfully, he didn’t really know the cat’s name. He’d heard of Fawnsqueak through Riverclan cat’s at the gathering and knew it was the medicine cat’s name and woke up in a den that smelled like Riverclan and herbs (and smoke but that had a different explanation) with a single cat who didn’t really look like he felt out of place.

“I just made an assumption- the medicine cat of Riverclan is Fawnsqueak. I’m in a den that smells like herbs and Riverclan. You are here. You’re fur is brown and white. I jumped to conclusions.”

Cormorantpaw wouldn’t have even continued talking about it, but he didn’t want this cat thinking he was a stalker. That would lead to uncomfortable gatherings for the rest of his life as he avoided even catching sight of the Riverclan Tom who believed him to be an obsessed stalker.

[Dawneye]

Dawnpaw tensed a bit and moved her tail just a bit, a bad but not unbearable pain immediately making her wince. “It hurts to move but I can move it. I’ll try not to use it a lot. Do you have anything that will help with pain but like won’t make me tired or anything? I’m supposed to go out on another patrol” she sighed. It seemed like everytime patrols had been assigned recently she was in it, even right after she had hurt her tail.