Gonna do some med trainin'

Morningfur padded into the camp, glancing around. It was a little awkward, this being the first time she was here, but she ignored any curious glances and sniffed the air. She located the Medicine Den and quickly made her way over to it. "Brightpaw?" she called softly inside.

You could hear scrambling in the den, it took a while for Brightpaw to appear and even when she did, she was covered in cobwebs. "Um, Morningfur! Hi!" she said, embarrassment heard in her mews.

"What in StarClan are you doing?" Morningfur asked, amusement in her voice as she pushed into the Medicine Den.

"Well... I was... Um... Cleaning up the herbs and I kind of got... attacked! Yeah. By a um... Giant spider! That didn't quite want to let me take its webbing and we got in a fight..." Brightpaw started on a very far fetched tale. "So that fully explains why I am covered in cobwebs."

Morningfur laughed. "Come here and let me deweb you." She began to peel the cobwebs from Brightpaw's fur, trying to save as much as she could, but it was difficult. In the end, more cobweb was wasted rather than saved. She put the good cobweb back in the storage. "Okay," she said, pulling a few different herbs from the stash, "Tell me what you know."

"Well from what I can infer is I am the glue, along with my dear leader, that holds the clan together. He leads them to battle and I take care of them after. I know that cobwebs work towards stopping blood flow, but as far as knowledge goes, well that's the end. I never really got to talk to Redfern after I told her I wanted to become a Medicine Cat. She kind of..." Brightpaw stop talking midsentence, shuffling her paws, not wanting to talk about the former Medicine Cat.

Morningfur nodded. "Then we have a lot to do. We will start with basics." She pulled a dock leaf from the pile. "This is dock. Remember it well. You will need it a lot. It is used to heal scratches. You chew it up into a poultice and put it on the scratches, and after a while, you take it off. Got it?"

Brightpaw nodded, storing the information in her mind for later use when it came time to heal her clan.

Morningfur pulled out another herb, a orange flower, and set it next to the dock. "This is marigold. It is another very important herb, used for infection and big wounds. You can chew either the petals or the leaves, and apply it like a poultice like the dock."

"Do they taste bad?" Brightpaw asked, wanting to be warned ahead of time before she went and tried to chew them, only to spit them out.

"All herbs have a bitter taste, Brightpaw, but you will get used to them," Morningfur answered truthfully.

Brightpaw's shoulder bones sagged a bit. "Oh. Okay. What's next?"

Morningfur pulled out a poppy head and shook out a poppy seeds next to the marigold. "Poppy seeds," she said. "Only a few are really needed. They are used to soothe pain or shock and help a cat fall asleep or calm them down. You will need these a lot, too, but be wise to who you give them to, and don't just grant a little to each and every cat who comes saying they are in pain. Save them for more serious things, like battle wounds and such."

Brightpaw nodded. It made her wonder if any of the cats of Thunderclan were addicted to poppy seeds. "So do you think that there will be any battles anytime soon?"

Morningfur processed the question, and then sighed. "Yes," she said. She wasn't one to lie. "Which is why you need to train." She looked through the herbs, finding a very small supply of catmint. Pulling it out, she laid it on the end of the line of herbs in front of Brightpaw. "This is catmint," she said. "It is eaten, and is used for cats with Whitecough, Greencough, and Blackcough, but Blackcough is rare, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. But that doesn't change the fact that the others are very serious, and shouldn't be treated lightly. If a cat gets any of the coughs, then you must contain them in the medicine den. You don't want the sickness spreading."