when dreams were made and used and wasted [p]

[Neptune.]

Hollowpaw
~<>~
8/100
4 moons || he/him || ThC medicine cat apprentice || Silk Spinner, Dream Walker
brown, masked classic tabby w/ low white; titanite eyes

His very first night in the medicine den is... weird. It smells of herbs and the vague tang of sickness that Hollowpaw isn't quite used to yet. One day he might grow accustomed, but tonight is not that night. His nest was hastily made, his first time doing so on his own, without the assistance of his mother or sister. What was Bravepaw doing right now? Was she okay? If the other apprentices were bullying her, Hollowpaw would learn just the right herbs to make their deaths painful, he swore it.

Speaking of herbs... there were so many to learn, where on earth would he even start? He knows some names, but not what they do - hell, he'd never even seen the bright orange flowers that sat in the herb supply before today. Marigold, he'd learned they were called. He didn't know what they did at all, though, and that's only one example of so many... Could he really do this? He doesn't really have a choice, though, does he? It's for his clan, but, more than that, it's for himself so that he's prepared to the Dark Forest and back for the day he's taking over the forest.

Sleep doesn't come easy that night, and Hollowpaw finds himself drifting in and out several times before his eyes eventually shut the lid on wakefulness and find themselves opening the doors to dreamland. Dreams are not something Hollowpaw has found himself used to remembering, in fact, he often forgets his dreams the moment he wakes up, and this is not a dream he expects will be any different.

He finds himself inside the medicine den, though it looks a little different, hazy around the edges almost, and there's a small assortment of herbs on the ledge where they belong. It's a different collection than he remembers seeing before going to bed, and that confuses him. What confuses him more, though, is the large ginger tabby he just now notices in the den with him. Hollowpaw starts, fur standing on end as alarm bells blare in his mind.

"Who the bloody hell are you?!" He shouts, "what're you doing in the me- in my den?!"

[ @Mica - eaglepaw ]

[Mica]

Eaglepaw
Outsider
she/her | 11 moons
[Golden and white tuxedo tabby with green eyes and a heavily scarred face]
Purrks: Dreamwalker, Herbal Knowledge T2
⋆˖⁺‧₊☽ The Star ☾₊‧⁺˖⋆
· · ────────────── · ·
[Hollowpaw - @Neptune. ]
· · ────────────── · ·
Eaglepaw’s dreams had always been extremely vivid. She remembered each and every one of them and tucked them away into the colorful recesses of her mind for safekeeping. Some dreams were more exciting than others, and some she wished she could forget. But her most vivid dreams took place in Her Place. A prismatic tundra bordered on one horizon by impossibly high mountains, and a shadowy, quiet forest on the other. As a kit, this had been her safe haven. When in the waking world she was alone or forgotten, Her Place had been a source of comfort. She felt…. Comfortable, here. Like it was a place she had roots in even though she had never seen it outside of her dreams.

But recently, Eaglepaw had found herself dreaming of other places. Places she wasn’t familiar with; places that didn’t belong to her. As uncomfortable as it made her, Eaglepaw knew that when she was in a dream like this, someone had summoned her. She took a look around the den, noting the herb storage—with a shockingly small amount of herbs… and coincidentally the herbs she knew. Huh. Eaglepaw peered at the walls, the ceiling, the entrance before finally settling on the nest where a small—so small, compared to her—brown tabby stared hatefully at her.

“What are you doing in my den??”

Ah. So it seems bringing her here was an accident, then. Eaglepaw blinked from her reverie, coming fully out of the shadowed corner of the den and sitting beside the herbs. This cat was a spitfire, that’s for sure. His accent reminded her of her own, though hers was more rounded and lilting. The accent had slipped away the older she got, but sometimes when she was emotional it came back with a vengeance.

“Well I don’t know what I’m doin’ here.” She canted her head at him. “You brought me here. What’s your name?” She didn’t particularly care where she was, since she was no longer a clan cat. This world was not for her any longer. Even if the rough-hewn walls made her nostalgic for RiverClan’s camp. Not RiverClan itself. Never RiverClan. The golden tabby tried to give a soft smile, but realized too late that with the gaping—though healed—wound on her face she was a frightening sight.

She turned to the side, suddenly ashamed. She didn’t want to scar the poor tom. “I’ll tell you mine, if that helps. I’m Eagle—“ the molly paused, looking stricken for a moment before composing herself. “Eaglepaw.” Eaglepaw was torn between dropping her clan suffix and keeping it. She had grown up waiting for her warrior ceremony, where she would be welcomed as a full, StarClan-approved warrior and given a name that would define her for the rest of her life. But now… she might never go back to RiverClan. Should she drop the name? Rushwater already called her Eagle, so the name had cemented in her head. Eagle was a name suiting an Outsider.

But what if she wanted to become a warrior someday? What if she returned? Eaglepaw shook the thoughts from her mind and brought a paw up to groom herself nervously.

[Neptune.]

Hollowpaw
~<>~
14/200
4 moons || he/him || ThC medicine cat apprentice || Silk Spinner, Dream Walker
brown, masked classic tabby w/ low white; titanite eyes

What? He'd brought this strange cat here? That hadn't ever happened before... was this something many cats could do? This cat, at least, seemed to be able to, otherwise she wouldn't have known what was going on immediately. She didn't seem all that phased by his hostility either... annoying.

"Eagle...paw..?" He says, tasting the name in his mouth. There was no one in ThunderClan by that name, he was certain... he didn't know about the other clans, though. "What clan are you in?" He asks with narrowed eyes, unwilling to give up his name and his secret position along with it if this cat started asking questions. He paces closer to her, abnormally long tail held out straight behind him as he tried to take any of her scent in. Maybe it was because this was a dream, but she didn't seem to carry a clan scent - not that he really knew what the other clans smelled like just yet.

[ @Mica - eaglepaw ]

[Mica]

Eaglepaw
Outsider
she/her | 11 moons
[Golden and white tuxedo tabby with green eyes and a heavily scarred face]
Purrks: Dreamwalker, Herbal Knowledge T2
⋆˖⁺‧₊☽ The Star ☾₊‧⁺˖⋆
· · ────────────── · ·
[Hollowpaw - @Neptune. ]
· · ────────────── · ·
Ah, the question that she expected. Eaglepaw set her paw down, swishing her tail over her white paws and giving the strange new cat a soft, sad smile. "No clan. Not for a few moons. Honestly, it feels even longer than that." The large feline shrugged. "I won't ask you for your clan. I can't scent it, either." Usually scents were diminished or entirely removed in her visitation dreams. Her smile brightened a little, a conniving twinkle in her eye. "That's the great thing about these dreams, yeah? Clan barriers don't impact us. We're two stars beyond the confines of the clans, now."

Eaglepaw's green eyes caught on the herbs lining the wall again, and she hummed contemplatively. "Are you interested in herbs?" She stood, padding over to the ledge and sniffing each one. "I just so happen to know all these." She looked over her shoulder at the younger cat, studying him for a moment. He was so small, compared to her. Even though she had promised not to ask for his clan, curiosity swirled in her mind. He was in the medicine den, which hinted towards a couple of things. Was he injured? Injuries appeared weirdly in dreams--she remembered the flowers that bloomed from her wounds in her dream with Dusklion--and he seemed alright. Perhaps he was a medicine cat's apprentice? She recalled WindClan being without one before she was separated from RiverClan. Eaglepaw frowned at him, though her eyes were far away. Trying to remember who she saw upon the Seastones; who was missing.

A click of her tongue and shake of her head had Eaglepaw floating back to the present, turning back to the herbs. "When I was a kit, I spent all my time in the medicine den. Not because I was injured, but because I had no one else. The medicine cat at the time was kind to me, so I didn't want to be anywhere else." Maybe opening up to the kid would help him trust her. "I wanted to be the medicine cat apprentice so, so badly." A snort. "Look how that turned out, aye? Hmmm but I digress. Are you going to tell me your name? Or should I come up with something because I've just been referring to you as "him" in my head and I don't know if that's even right."

[Neptune.]

Hollowpaw
~<>~
20/200
4 moons || he/him || ThC medicine cat apprentice || Silk Spinner, Dream Walker
brown, masked classic tabby w/ low white; titanite eyes

"...Hollowpaw," he eventually answers after moments of debating it. She doesn't belong to a clan anymore, so what's the harm in telling her his name? Bumblestar simply said not to let anyone know he was the medicine apprentice, not that they couldn't know his name and, beyond that, the order was directed in relation to the other clans, not outsiders, though Eaglepaw had belonged to a clan once upon a time.

"I'm... interested in herbs, yeah," he says, gaze drifting to the storage shelf once more. "I have to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can or bad things will happen. My mentor Wolf- um, Spiderthroat, said I should learn as much as I can from wherever I can... and I can learn from the medicine den, so I thought..." The switch-up from saying Wolfpaw's name to Spiderthroat's name is forced, and Hollowpaw does not make the connection that perhaps Eaglepaw will be able to garner where he resides from that name alone. "You know herbs?" He asks her, walking a little closer and tilting his head to the side, "D'you know more than just the ones here?"

[ @Mica - eaglepaw ]

[Mica]

Eaglepaw
Outsider
she/her | 11 moons
[Orange and white tuxedo tabby with green eyes and a heavily scarred face]
Purrks: Dreamwalker, Herbal Knowledge T2
⋆˖⁺‧₊☽ The Star ☾₊‧⁺˖⋆
· · ────────────── · ·
[Hollowpaw - @Neptune. ]
· · ────────────── · ·
Learn quickly? Bad things? Eaglepaw canted her head as she studied this Hollowpaw. "Y'say you need to learn, like you don't have anyone to teach you." She joked lightly, then began pulling the herbs off the ledge and laying them out. The tabby glanced sharply at Hollowpaw when he mentioned his mentor. He almost called him by the wrong name, which was suspicious in it of itself. But the name he settled on gave away what clan he belonged to easily. Spiderthroat. The elder apprentice's tail lashed once before she managed to compose herself into the friendly face she desired to be. ThunderClan. "Why not ask Drizzlecloud or Springlight? Unless things have become drastic since you lot drove RiverClan from their home and separated me from my family--" bitterness laced her voice "--then you have two perfectly good medicine cats to help you." The thought that both medicine cats would be out of commission didn't even occur to her. That sort of thing only happened to RiverClan, anyway.

But Hollowpaw seemed young, cynical, too much like her when she learned the cruelties of the world. She would not be another reason for him to hate the forest. But was she really going to teach herbs to an apprentice from the clan that raided her home when she was but a kit?

... yes, she supposed she was. There was nothing wrong with teaching a young cat how to save lives, right? Eaglepaw sighed, shaking her head. "Sorry, I suppose I still harbor a bit of frustration, hm? Yes, I know some herbs. Only a few, and really only these." She gestured to the ones between them. "I suppose it is a bit of StarClan leaking into the dream that made these be the herbs that appeared, aye? Would you like me to teach them to you?"

[Neptune.]

Hollowpaw
~<>~
25/200
4 moons || he/him || ThC medicine cat apprentice || Silk Spinner, Dream Walker
brown, masked classic tabby w/ low white; titanite eyes

"I don't have to tell you anything." Hollowpaw snaps at the probing for why he didn't ask Drizzlecloud or Springlight. He had asked Drizzlecloud, and he couldn't ask Springlight, but Eaglepaw didn't need to know any of that. She'd already somehow guessed his Clan, anyway (how she managed to do so he had no idea. Was it something he said?), she didn't need to know anything else.

The insinuation that it was StarClan influencing his dream in some way gave the young medic pause, though. Could they do that? Was this divine intervention of some sort? Why? They'd made Bumblestar choose him, but would they guide his paws still? Eaglepaw's offer to teach him isn't as unexpected as he thought it would be... he brought her to this dream for a reason, unintentional as it may have been, so her acquiescence is wholly expected.

"...yes," Hollowpaw agrees to the offer after a moment, an odd feeling of guilt for snapping at the ginger molly a moment before settling in him. Bleugh. Get rid of it, he doesn't like that feeling. He squares his shoulders and pushes the fuzzy yellow plant closer. "This one, what is it and what does it do?"

[dandelion]
[ @Mica - eaglepaw ]

[Mica]

Eaglepaw
Outsider
she/her | 11 moons
[Orange and white tuxedo tabby with green eyes and a heavily scarred face]
Purrks: Dreamwalker, Herbal Knowledge T2
⋆˖⁺‧₊☽ The Star ☾₊‧⁺˖⋆
· · ────────────── · ·
[Hollowpaw - @Neptune. ]
· · ────────────── · ·
Eaglepaw resisted the smirk that tugged on her scarred maw as Hollowpaw snapped at her. She shrugged. Who was she going to tell if she suspected ThunderClan's medicine cats were struggling? She was an outsider living at a kittypet's medicine den. Besides, there were many reasons that the medicine cats could have refused this cat. He could just be a random apprentice wanting to learn herbs, and the medicine cats didn't have time for him. As that was the most likely scenario--not one medicine cat retiring and the other being carried off by an owl so Bumblestar appointed two untrained apprentices in their stead--Eaglepaw merely moved on.

Hollowpaw pointed towards a familiar yellow-orange flower, asking about its use. Eaglepaw hummed knowingly, settling into a loafed position with her tail sweeping around her body. "This is marigold. These 'r one of the most important herbs to know. You chew it up and put it on the wound to keep it from getting infected. Infection severely increases the likelihood of death in a patient." She wasn't going to sugarcoat it with this kid. He probably already knew how dangerous infection was, but she couldn't stress it enough. It had nearly killed her, after all. "Their scent is sweet and pretty strong, but they have a sort of bitter taste." Not the worst she had experienced, but it wasn't the greatest.

Eaglepaw looked up at Hollowpaw, awaiting any further questions.

[Neptune.]

Hollowpaw
~<>~
41/200
4 moons || he/him || ThC medicine cat apprentice || Silk Spinner, Dream Walker, HkT1
brown, masked classic tabby w/ low white; titanite eyes

Marigold, yes, Wolfhive had told him about that one. Staves off infection by being chewed into a poultice and spread onto a cat's wound. Infection was deadly, so always have marigold in the herb stores. Alright.

"What about this one? What's this one good for?" He points his nose to a plant with small, ridged muted green leaves and purple flowers growing in sprigs. It looks pretty, like it might be used as decoration in some snooty cat's nest. "And what about this one too?" He points to another plant, this one with a fuzzy redish stem and little green fowers that are sort of in the shape of weird ovals.

[ catmint & thyme !! ]
[ @Mica ]

[Mica]

Eaglepaw
Outsider
she/her | 11 moons
[Orange and white tuxedo tabby with green eyes and a heavily scarred face]
Purrks: Dreamwalker, Herbal Knowledge T2
⋆˖⁺‧₊☽ The Star ☾₊‧⁺˖⋆
· · ────────────── · ·
[Hollowpaw - @Neptune. ]
· · ────────────── · ·
This was nice. Teaching these herbs to someone who actually wanted to learn. Hollowpaw understood marigold swiftly, immediately pointing out catmint and thyme and asking for their uses.

Catmint was a little difficult for her to remember, the older molly humming as she studied the pretty plant. "That's catmint." She meowed, pointing at the flowered plant. "You'll mostly find it growing in twoleg gardens, so that makes it a bit dangerous to collect." Eaglepaw had seen a lot of the sweet-smelling herb in the idyllic little gardens that lined the twoleg dens near where she was staying. "It smells very sweet and inviting, and can make you feel silly and light-headed if you smell it for too long." Getting too close made her paws thrum and her skin itch, so she tended to avoid it. But she had heard kittypets describe it as a delightful plant to roll around in. "Even though it can be very useful, it is very dangerous in high doses." She nosed the herb, noting that its alluring effects were lessened in this dream. "Eating it helps alleviate symptoms of greencough and whitecough. I've never experienced either in my time in the clans, but I hear both are incredibly deadly and can wipe out whole swaths of cats in just days." It was probably one of if not the deadliest and most contagious sicknesses, if she recalled correctly. Eaglepaw looked up to meet Hollowpaw's eyes. "I hope you never have to deal with it, seriously. But if you do, remember that catmint can help. I heard there are other herbs to help with breathing, but I don't know those." Her gaze turned a little clouded. "I'm sorry." She wished she knew all the herbs in the forest and beyond and their uses, but the problem was finding a teacher. Nathaniel was doing his best, but it would take time to get through his herb storage.

Clearing her throat, Eaglepaw moved onto the next herb with its fuzzy stem and reddish coloring. A fond smile graced her lips. "This one is thyme. You can chew it to help alleviate anxiety, or to help patients in shock." She chuckled. "It has a bit of a strong taste, but you get used to it. You can find it in any territory, I think, and it shouldn't be difficult to find." Thyme had gotten her through the last few moons as a clan cat. After she moved to the Caduceus place she couldn't chew much of anything for a while, so she gave up the habit. But without the stressors of a failing clan and a mentor/brother/leader that was changing into something terrible right before her eyes, Eaglepaw found she didn't need her anxiety curbed as much. Who woulda guessed!

Smiling benignly at Hollowpaw again, Eaglepaw shuffled her white paws. "Any questions on those?"