Mintwhisker looked up from her nest, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes with one paw. "Sparrowpaw...?" She yawned, stretching in her nest and rolling for a moment before pushing herself into a sitting position. She blinked for a moment, squinting into the sunlight that was streaming into her den. Starclan, why did Greenleaf have to be so bright? The young Medicine cat raised one leg in the air and began scratching behind her ear pensively. A faint shuffling sound made the tabby freeze, her leg in midair. Slowly, Mintwhisker stood up. "A-are you alright, dear?" She mewed softly, padding towards the apprentice with a worried expression.
This was Sedgestrike's child. The tom's lifeblood ran through Sparrowpaw's veins. That was one of the things that had given her a reason to refuse to treat Sparrowpaw. And he deserved it- Starclan, Sedgestrike deserved it.
But one look into Sparrowpaw's green eyes, warm and full of life, so similar to Sedgestrike's, yet so different. She was not her father, just like Mintwhisker herself wasn't Pansyface, no matter how she tried to be.
Mintwhisker was never going to be a mother; in her uncertain world, that was one of the only things she was positive of. But just because Motherhood wasn't an option didn't mean she didn't have instinct- the very same that all she-cat's possessed. The one that taught them to groom newborns, pressing air into their lungs and drying their fur. The same that gave them the fierce protectiveness over all their young, no matter their age. The same instinct that Mintwhisker acted on now, drawing the gray apprentice close to her chest and holding her close, resting her cream-colored chin on Sparrowpaw's head as the she-cat cried into her fur.
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