**Elmshadow & Cougarivy**
[CLOSED]
It had been a mentally taxing few days since the announcement that he was to be the next Medicine Cat. He wasn't used to the mental strain. Physical strain and taxation was common throughout all of Elmshadow's 32 moons but before becoming a medicine cat he rarely had to think hard in those situations. There were things that needed to get done and he would work until they were complete, exhaustion an afterthought, if at all. He wasn't a dumb cat and problem-solved his way out of many issues that arose, and he figured he'd do the same here. Ebonyfang was a valuable source of information and a respected former medicine cat, Coldamber was proving to give him useful knowledge; yet neither seemed to be able to provide all of what he needed so he decided to take it into his own paws.
After straightening his den and going over once more everything they had in stock, he walked out into the lightened shadows of the clearing. He still didn't know everything in the herb storage but familiarizing himself with them as useful herbs, he was sure, would prove useful. He paused a moment to glance over the clearing. He didn't want to leave camp if there was anything pressing but he also realized he couldn't do much for any cat in his current state of knowledge and ability, or lack thereof. If he was to be of any use in the future he would have to take the time now to go find the knowledge and experience.
Elmshadow slipped through the entrance, taking in a deep lungful of fresh air. He couldn't imagine spending most of his time in the medicine cat den and missing out on the forest as he'd come to know it. He resolved then, as he started away from the camp, that he'd still take daily walks and go hunting. He'd be of no use to the clan if he lost his mind stuck in a stuffy den. He wasn't even out of sight of the camp entrance when he heard his name called. He paused but didn't look, peeved at the recognition of the voice.
"Elmshadow! Wait up!" Cougarivy had been just returning to camp when she caught sight of Elmshadow's unmistakable dark grey pelt slipping out into the forest. Quickly burying her prey shallowly beside the entrance, she turned and ran after the tom. Her excitement grew when he stopped and she picked up her pace, only slowing for the last couple tail lengths to pull up beside his flank.
"Didn't think you could avoid me forever, did ya?" She smiled at him with a playful gleam in her bright blue eyes.
Elmshadow sighed and, without looking at the small she-cat, meowed gruffly,
"Go back to camp. I'm conducting medicine cat business, it doesn't concern you." He continued walking forward.
Cougarivy harrumphed but chased after Elmshadow, falling into step with him.
"You're my mate, anything you're doing concerns me."
Elmshadow's pelt crawled at Cougarivy's use of
"mate". His mind was thrown into memories and worries of Goldenstep, sending his mood instantly irritable.
"We are not mates. Goldenstep was my mate."
Irritation and jealousy burned inside Cougarivy's belly.
So he is still hung up on that useless
queen. She put on an easy expression, stuffing her anger down. She shrugged,
"Well we have kits together."
"That was only a mistake, nothing more."
Cougarivy brushed off the hurt that panged her at Elmshadow's words but she shrugged dismissively and hurried to keep up with Elmshadow's pace.
"Fine, not mates, but we're friends. We used to have a lot of fun, Elmshadow. Come on! I can help you. I'll do everything you tell me.
Anyway, I've been gone and I deserve to know what's been going on with our kits. We have so much to catch up on. Please!?"
Every instinct inside him was resisting allowing her to tag along and the thought of the times they'd spent together haunted him. He
had had fun with her. She was lively and fun and eager to learn and please. She had a tenacity about her that he respected, but the good memories were no overshadowed by what had followed. Though he couldn't help remembering that Goldenstep was gone. He had no reason to continue pushing Cougarivy away other than his own intrusive thoughts. He sighed, maybe it'd be good letting her come along. She was right, they had kits together. His family with Goldenstep had blown apart in such extraordinary fashion, the least he could do was stay cordial with the only other mother of his kits he still had contact with.
"Fine. Keep up."
Cougarivy's steps faltered momentarily as an excited shiver ran down her spine and a jubilant smile radiated her face. She got her first step back into Elmshadow's life. It wouldn't be long now before she made it the rest of the way. He fell for her once, she was confident that she could remind him again what he once saw in her. She ran to catch up with him, falling into step with him again, her pelt brushing softly against his. She was unfazed by, and hardly even noticed, his steps tending away from her; she simply matched her angle to keep beside his shoulder. They walked in silence, she glancing coyly up at him but not wanting to be the first to break the silence, until she noticed where they were heading. The path beneath their paws was becoming worn with wear as they neared the old abandoned twoleg nest. Her step skipped as she moved up towards Elmshadow's head.
"What's at the nasty old twoleg nest for a medicine cat?"
"Rats," he answered simply.
Her head cocked curiously.
"Rats? Do rats have some healing ability?"
Elmshadow kept his pace steady and his nose pointed in the direction of the twoleg nest.
"Nearly 20 moons ago I lost my tail to a dog. I wasn't conscious for the healing but I thought it only appropriate that I of all medicine cats should know how to heal a tail wound." He stopped to dig at the base of a young willow and chewed off a soft root before continuing his trek to the nest.
"So what does rats have to do with...ohhhh." A wicked smile spread across her face as she skipped to keep up with Elmshadow's longer strides.
"Oh how fun! Let me cut their tails off, oh won't you, please?"
Elmshadow stopped beneath the open window of the twoleg nest, dropping the root, and turned to look at Cougarivy.
"Hop in. Stay near the window. When a rat comes out I'll pounce on it."
Cougarivy did a small bounce then looked to the ledge above Elmshadow's head. She hopped up gracefully then turned to look at Elmshadow.
"Then you'll let me bite the tail off?!"
"Sure. Go." As soon as Cougarivy disappeared into the dim and stuffy nest, Elmshadow pulled himself onto the ledge, using the wall to obscure his shape but peering around to keep an eye on Cougarivy. The small she-cat sat down and flicked her tail impatiently. It wasn't long before slight shifts in the deep shadows caught Elmshadow's eye. He prepared his muscles to pounce. There was a brief moment of stillness before two rats burst from the shadows, running at Cougarivy. Elmshadow pounced from his hiding place, his broad paws landed squarely on the closest rat's back as Cougarivy darted forward and quickly rolled the other rat over, biting his throat fatally. Elmshadow lifted his catch by the back of its neck, giving Cougarivy an exasperated side-eye as the rat beneath her lay limp and bleeding and the rat in his mouth lashed its stout body back and forth. He turned and leapt strongly to the ledge and dropped out onto the cool forest floor, followed directly by Cougarivy and her dead rat, not much smaller than herself.
He used a paw to bring the willow root closer to him then pushed the rat's belly down to the ground. Placing two paws solidly on its back, he released his grip from the back of its neck then cocked his head to offer the tail to Cougarivy. The she-cat shivered in anticipation then hopped behind the rat. The naked tail was lashing and circling in its attempts to get free. She lunged forward and gnawed close to the base of the tail until it fell limp then detached completely. Elmshadow then instructed Cougarivy to take the willow root and lay it across the shrieking rat's shoulders then put each paw on the root on either side of the rat so the rodent was trapped beneath the root. Elmshadow let his weight off the rat's back and jumped quickly to the window, wrapping the cobwebs attached to the corners around his paw. Jumping back down he pressed the cobwebs into the rat's bleeding tail. Blood pooled out at Elmshadow's paws and the white cobwebs were quickly soaking through. He turned back to the window and grabbed more cobwebs. He returned and quickly switched out the sodden webs for fresh ones. It wasn't working.
"The tail bleeds too much. The cobwebs aren't stopping it, not fast enough."
By his fourth round for more cobwebs, the rat's squeals and struggles were growing weaker and as he reached to remove the last sodden cobwebs, the rat gave one last death throw then fell still. Cougarivy stepped away from the dead rat.
"You sure you didn't die when you lost your tail? That was a whole lot of blood."
Elmshadow grabbed the rat and tossed the limp body onto Cougarivy's dead rat then turned back to the window.
"Let's try again."
They worked together in the same fashion to lure out a rat, bring it out, bite off the tail through its wretched screams, then attempt to staunch the bleeding. Elmshadow tried cobwebs, larger wads of cobwebs, moss, his paws, dirt, balled leaves, different shrubs, nothing seemed to slow the bleeding quickly enough before the rat bled out and fell still. After the fifth dead rat, Elmshadow's frustration finally peeked through and he hit his paw into the blood soaked ground.
"There has to be a way." He considered holding the tail before Cougarivy bit it off but he wouldn't get that chance if a cat came to him with the injury.
How can a tail bleed so much? The last rat had proved that if it was just the tail tip the bleeding successfully slowed on its own but when the tail was bitten closer to the base it was near impossible to staunch. The tail was not vital and Elmshadow himself had survived his own tail amputation so it had to be savable.
Elmshadow sat down and took a deep breath, sighing it out. Cougarivy dragged the rat back over to the other five dead rats then joined Elmshadow, sitting beside him with her flank pressing into his. So many words wanted to come but she decided to stay quiet, letting Elmshadow ruminate silently. He didn't move away from her so she decided she was doing something right and rested her cheek on the side of his shoulder softly. Elmshadow's frustration seemed to slowly dissipate against the pressure of Ccougarivy's slight frame. He could almost pretend Goldenstep was here with him instead and he let his eyes close into the thought, his body relaxing and his mind slowing.
Finally he opened his eyes and rose to his paws, a curious thought occurring to him.
Cold. During leafbare the prey they caught seemed to bleed less. It took him a moment as he thought it through. How would that help him now? He couldn't count on cats only losing limbs during leafbare when the bleeding would hopefully be slower.
Cold. The only thing that was consistently cold...the creek water.
"Wait here," he instructed before running through the forest away from Cougarivy and the twoleg nest. There was a nearby creek. He stopped at the bank and dipped a paw in tentatively. The water was icy against his pads. He contemplated for a few heartbeats then gathered as much moss as he could carry and submerged it under the flowing, chilly water. He pulled the dripping wad from the creek and hurried back to the twoleg nest where Cougarivy was waiting curiously. He set the moss on a rock in the shade then hopped onto the ledge into the nest to signal to Cougarivy to catch another.
The sixth rat was caught quickly and brought out. The duo had gotten into a good rhythm and were getting quick and efficient with their process without needing to exchange words. As soon as the rat was pinned securely, Elmshadow grabbed the cold sodden moss and pressed it firmly into the rat's tail stub. His green eyes blazed with focus. After a few heartbeats, he moved the wet moss and pressed cobwebs into the wound, wrapping them securely around the tail. The cobwebs saturated slower. The rat still slowly slipped into a cold unconsciousness, eventually dying. He sat down and thought through everything he'd done. Cobwebs were the baseline and the cold water obviously helped. The moss didn't seem to do anything. Dirt only seemed to dirty the wound without benefitting and the leaves didn't seem to absorb anything so it wasn't much different from using his paws, which were also ineffective on their own, except...He remembered one of Coldamber's suggestions. He had compartmentalized it away until he could experiment more with it but what better time than now?
He gathered more cobwebs, ran to the creek to prepare more cold-soaked moss, then stopped at a small shadowy cove where a cluster of broad mushrooms, glowing weakly, sat. He scooped one off its base and returned to where Cougarivy was waiting then used his claws to shred the mushroom head. The two collected another rat, pinned it down then gnawed off its tail. Elmshadow quickly pressed the soaked moss against the thrashing stub where it began to spurt red. He removed the moss and pushed a pawful of the shredded mushroom against the rat's tail before wrapping it in cobwebs. the rat was sent into another flurry of hysterics as the mushroom touched its raw wound. He applied another layer as the first ones slowly soaked through but it seemed to be slowing and the rat was still lively and angered, though writhing in misery beneath the stifling willow root. The rat didn't settle and eventually gained enough leverage in its desperation to free itself from under Cougarivy's weight. Elmshadow crouched immediately, preparing to attack but the rat turned on itself, lashing its wedge-like head back and forth at its tail. It tore away the cobweb bindings and stopped long enough to chew away and throw the reddened mushrooms from its wound. With the mushroom gone the rat went back to thrashing, taking nips at its own tail wound.
Elmshadow watched the event curiously. It didn't take a trained medicine cat to see the rat's pain, even greater than that of the previous rats. It wasn't long before the bleeding took up again and the rat's throes turned fatal.
"Looks like even some rats can be overly dramatic," she giggled. Elmshadow recalled Coldamber mentioning that one of the mushrooms could cause inflammation and irritation. It appeared he'd found the one. Elmshadow turned back towards the creek but was stopped by Cougarivy's voice,
"Where are you going? You're going to keep going after that?"
Without turning to look at her he meowed,
"Yes, I'm close. I think this is the one." When he returned with more cold water, cobwebs, and a different mushroom, Cougarivy was already holding the neck of another rat half her size. Elmshadow faltered as he saw the red trickle just above her front paw.
"Did you get bit?" He placed his paws on the rat so Cougarivy could let go and set to work gnawing the tail. She shrugged as she moved around him.
"Just a little nibble, no big deal. I'm just hurrying this along, is all."
"Rat bites can be nasty and I don't know how to fix any infection."
The small she-cat looked up, her mouth smeared with rat blood, and smiled broadly.
"Awe, is Elmshadow worried about me? I'll be fine, I'll clean it well, it's not deep. Look, it's even stopped bleeding."
"I'm a medicine cat now, it's my job to not let my clanmates die."
Cougarivy shrugged, the smile still plastered on her face, as she grabbed the root and moved into position. Elmshadow pushed Cougarivy from his mind and set to work on the rat, using the cold water moss first, then the shredded mushroom head, then wrapping it with cobwebs. the bleeding slowed, the rat's thrashing remained even and consistent. Elmshadow swallowed and sat back, watching the rat for any signs of change. The cobwebs held and didn't bleed through, nothing was spiking the rat's anger...Tentatively he let himself feel accomplished. The rat was still alive.
"Let it go," he meowed quietly. He didn't move to ready himself but his claws had never failed him before in their readiness. Hopefully the rat would just scamper back to its shadows. As Cougarivy doubtfully let her weight off the rat, it did just that. The she-cat gave it a small chase, swatting its butt with a sheathed paw then turned back and joined Elmshadow when it scurried through a hole in the wall of the twoleg nest.
"You saved that rat's life."
Elmshadow looked sideways at Cougarivy who giggled.
"Well, so what we were the reason it was like that in the first place. You still let it live after you saved it."
Elmshadow sighed, feeling the extent of the mental exhaustion rest against his shoulders like he hadn't allowed himself to feel over the past few days. Looking at the pile of seven rats, all but one missing their tails, built up beside the blood stain in the dirt, he shrugged and replied,
"We only need to eat so much rat, and carrying it back to camp will pose its own issue."
Cougarivy looked to the pile as Elmshadow did then meowed tentatively,
"Well, then why don't we stay here? Just for the night. It's late, the weather is nice enough and we have food to keep us, then less to carry back to camp and we'll be fresher in the morning." She glanced at Elmshadow with bright blue eyes.
Elmshadow looked to the mother of his kits through tired green eyes. the pair of them made quite the sight, both covered in blood. After some thought he finally nodded then rose to his paws.
"Clean that wound then we can eat."
A Tail for a Tail[P]
