Aftermath
Aug 1, 2014 19:20:58 GMT -4
Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2014 19:20:58 GMT -4
As a service to the medicine cat, the apprentice had aided in bringing the wounded back to camp. Darkness buzzing in the minds of every WindClan warrior, the rain-slick cats had retreated to the safety of their home. Cherrypaw, as she sat just inside the medicine den, staring out at the rain, couldn't even remember which cats were tasked with retrieving their former leader's broken body from the moors where her loved ones could spend their time mourning. Behind her, the cat could hear the wounded in their nests. Shaking her head, young Cherrypaw stepped away from the den and back out into the wet.
Behind her, barely half a mousetail off the ground, trailed her tail. Slender and bony under the torrent of rain, she couldn't ignore the constant stabs of pain at the slightest twitch. The apprentice's eyes were tight with agony, her lip curled. Even so, she'd escaped from Poppycloud before the pretty she-cat could treat her. Other cats, more important warriors, needed her first. Cherrypaw would wait.
Looking back over her shoulder, she felt sick at the sight of her beautiful tail in this state. What was once elegant and graceful, now had a gross kink at the end just by the tip. Feeling lightheaded from seeing how the bone was bent, and the dull throbbing pain, the cat dropped down onto her belly right there in the open. The pain in her toe was nothing in comparison to how much her tail felt like it was being ripped off by a ThunderClan cat.
Mind cloudy, she hadn't even noticed how she'd laid in a dreadfully cold puddle. So dead to the world, her head buzzed like bees in her brain every time the sky flashed overhead. Perhaps it was the cold rain, or the frigid water she now laid in, but her chest started to ache. The cat closed her blue eyes, resting with her chin just in the puddle. Her nose felt full, and after sniffing unsuccessfully cleared it, she rose her head and sneezed. Instead of relief, it only made more mucus gunk up her nose. When she inhaled, the rattle in her chest startled her. Tail forgotten for a second, the cat pulled herself up from the water and shook her head. Being elevated seemed to help her breathing, and she took a few careful breaths to make sure.
However, when she took a few steps toward the soggy fresh-kill pile, another sneeze took her. Her body shook from the strength of it, and that jostling did nothing to soothe the over-whelming ache in her tail. Pulling that tail around her, the cat just sat there in the rain and shivered as all of reality came crashing down on her.
Her leader was dead. There was no way any cat could come back from what that fox had done to her. She suddenly felt so alone. Having not been necessarily close to the she-cat, the apprentice still found herself unwilling to accept that she had joined StarClan so soon. For the briefest of seconds, the young cat fretted over who would make her a warrior now? She remembered Coalstripe, and picked her head up to glance around for the deputy. Instead, a bright flash of lightning blinded her for the moment, and she pulled her ears back against the clamor of thunder that seemed to assault her core. Her chest rattled again, and she pulled her hurt tail tighter against her paws. Suddenly looking more like a lost kit than an apprentice, for the first time in moons, Cherrypaw missed her mother. In that vulnerable moment, the small cat would have traded anything for the warm, dry belly fur and the milky smells of the nursery.
Jaystar was dead.
Her tail was broken.
Her toe hurt.
And now she was sick.