Caduceus Place [Invite Only]

[Mica]

Eaglepaw
Outsider
she/her | 11 moons
[Ginger and white tuxedo tabby with green eyes and a heavily scarred face]
Purrks: Dreamwalker, Herbal Knowledge T2
⋆˖⁺‧₊☽ The Star ☾₊‧⁺˖⋆
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[Nathaniel - @Rani ]

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Eaglepaw nodded at Nathaniel's gentle refusal while kneading her paws into the soft dirt. Alright, so now what? Luckily for her, Nathaniel continued talking. Resting after an event such as this... Eaglepaw shifted uneasily. All she knew how to do after something like this was rebuild. Train. Buy back the time taken from you. But she had nothing to rebuild. Nothing to train, while Rushwater was healing (again). Eaglepaw had done enough resting while healing. A sudden wave of shame washed over her, and Eaglepaw's shoulders hooked up to her ears. The problem was... she liked crises. Not the pain they brought, but the purpose. She had tasks to complete, people to heal, foes to fight. The aftermath and the peace times... it was too quiet. It made the paranoia in her mind flare up like the flames that had consumed the Twoleg dens. But she couldn't tell Nathaniel that. Not when this crisis had nearly taken his mate and kittens from him. Had rendered one of them permanently blind. Eaglepaw bit back tears at her own horrid thoughts.

Then Nathaniel was thanking her of all things. As though he didn't know she felt the most alive when others were dying and she had to help them. Of course how could he know? Swallowing past her tears, Eaglepaw forced words through the lump in her throat. "Snowdrop is strong." She managed a small smile, thinking of the white molly. "She was the first to visit me when I arrived." Eaglepaw had developed an affection for the kitten, and it pained her greatly to see her suffering. Yet that was only a fraction of what Nathaniel felt, she was sure. "I am confident she will find her silver lining." Eaglepaw wouldn't let that sparkle go out. Not as long as she was alive.

"I..." Eaglepaw stared down at her watery reflection, considering her words carefully. "I am... struggling. But not for the reasons you think." Eaglepaw looked up and straight ahead, afraid to meet Nathaniel's eyes but unable to stare at her disfigured face any longer. "I am no stranger to the injured. But these last few moons have turned my world upsidedown, and while I really, really appreciate everything you've done for me, Nathaniel..." Eaglepaw swallowed thickly. "I like it here. And that terrifies me. It's so at odds with clan life, and I feel like I'm betraying my family which is ridiculous because I'm not even clan-born!" She snickered, but it was a hollow sound. "A-anyway. I guess... Having something to do helps."

"And... this isn't my first crisis." Eaglepaw admitted. "You found me heavily injured, so there's one. Multi-Clan invasion and exiling of RiverClan." Sometimes Eaglepaw forgot that Nathaniel was a former clan cat, and found herself explaining the clans to him as though he were an outsider, as embarrassing as that was. But slowly she had gotten better at it. "But back when I was a young kit, maybe four moons old, my camp was invaded by ThunderClan. We had no medicine cat, no official leader, no deputy. RiverClan had crumbled under the weight of its failures and we were suffering." Eaglepaw's voice remained steady, if somewhat harsh as she described the situation of her clan. "ThunderClan attacked, and we were doomed. I and another apprentice took the place of medicine cat during that fight." Eaglepaw scoffed, ears pinning back. "Now that I think back on it, I am embarrassed. All I did was fetch herbs and get in the way. I wanted to heal so, so badly." Eaglepaw closed her eyes and swallowed thickly. She hardly realized she was rambling.

"The point of all of that--" Eaglepaw croaked, ears burning with the embarrassment of spilling her trauma to someone who had not actually asked for it, "--is to say I am used to emergencies. As I'm sure you are." She recalled Rushwater telling her that Nathaniel was a former RiverClan medicine cat, and that was how he knew how to heal. "I find the best way to combat shock is to work." She had learned that when she had become an apprentice. In order to beat the paranoia and anxiety, you had to push yourself until you were too exhausted to dream. Patrols, training, cleaning, extra duties to keep her mind from cannibalizing itself and spiraling towards self-destruction. "Am I... broken, for thinking like that?" She whispered. So much for comforting Nathaniel. Eaglepaw had turned this into a therapy session for herself. Another wave of shame threatened to drown her. "Sorry, nevermind. I didn't come here to yammer about my problems. I wanted to see how you were doing. I-I mean obviously not great--I mean--I just--" Eaglepaw's throat closed up and she hissed, gouging her claws into the dirt. "Sorry."