[closed] A Jerry Unexpected Meeting

Things had been hard lately for the SkyClan medicine cat... her mind had been too busy since the Gathering, and the dark medicine den had felt strangely constricting to Amberdawn. It was not an unfamiliar sensation, but recently it had become more consistent - more insidious. She'd grown up in the den, practically, but with Mintwhisker unreachable in SkyClan, it just felt empty. It felt wrong. The older she-cat's nest had remained untouched for two moons straight now. Amberdawn constantly felt as though she were living in borrowed space, shifting and replacing and removing herbs that were not hers and treating patients she had no right to touch with her useless paws. She crept around and did her best to keep the space clean and organized as if Mintwhisker would come back to claim her den any day... as if the medicine cat's apprentice were only as useful as a warrior's apprentice doing busy work for an afternoon. It no longer felt right, or real. What had changed?

The bright golden tabby didn't want to think of herself or of personal thoughts and feelings. I'm a medicine cat, she tried to tell herself. So long as I am doing my medicine cat duties and Tinystar can see how hard I'm working, I'm doing the best I can do for my Clan. No one needs me second-guessing myself when I'm all that we've got. Yet it was hard to think of anything but all the ways she was failing. Flintfang's glazed expression stared past her when her eyes were closed; Mosspaw's quiet, emotionless departure from the scene of his death stung; Mintwhisker's silence boomed like thunder in the camp; Leaftwirl's absence was impossible to forget; Maplep--Delta's refusal to accept help stirred her insecurities; Aspenpaw's accusing stare after learning of Sparrowpaw's execution shook her to her very core. What a useless medicine cat I've turned out to be.

Frustrated and lost, Amberdawn resolved to go for a walk. No, a hunt. An herb hunt. I know something I can do for SkyClan now, she thought determinedly. I'll go to twolegplace - find some catmint, or maybe some lavender. Something from a garden. We haven't had the chance to go since the flood... since Mintwhisker left. So the slight she-cat made her way from her den, pausing to let a warrior know where she was going - and explaining that no, she didn't need a chaperone with her - before slipping out of camp and into the forest.

---

Amberdawn arrived at Twolegplace quite some time later. The thoughts had not gone away; of course, they had only gotten louder on her trip. So much weighed heavily on her shoulders, and it showed in her eyes and her gait as she slowly approached the fence that separated SkyClan's forest from the twisting expanse of twoleg nests ahead. "Where do I even start looking?" she murmured to herself, and then suddenly there was a scent in the air.

Jerry lay sprawled out in the grass when it happened this time.

A fresh caught mouse in his belly, he laid satisfied as he recounted the day’s typical humdrum.

He had spent the morning as he did any other; lazily curled in a ball, drifting in and out of sleep as he pleased. He eventually found it right to sit up properly and pick out the bits of twigs and leaves that usually found their way into his fur, and from there, he was off.

To where, Jerry never really knew. SkyClan’s land? Thunderclan’s? Jerry didn’t much know the difference. Wherever there were no cats in sight, that was Jerry’s land, to him, at least.

Today, Jerry’s territory was a patch of grass, one which lay at a comfortable distance between both the forest and a row of twoleg nests, so as not to disturb either respectively. He faced toward the forest, as he always found it much more entertaining to watch. Sometimes the trees would sway in the wind and would keep Jerry mesmerized for what felt like many moons.

However, now it was a bee which held Jerry’s preoccupation. He swatted playfully at it several times, determined to defeat the blur of black and yellow that was this foul beast. He might have gotten it this time too, completely free of a sting, if he hadn’t felt it again.

Just as he did the other night when he thought he was alone on the thunderpath. When he was not really alone on the thunderpath.

Although this time, something was different. A good different. He spied the she-cat before she seemed to know he was even there, and while part of Jerry was always at least partially compelled to run, to hide at the sight of another cat, something about this one drew Jerry several paces closer to her.

It was evident she was in some kind of emotional distress, and “goodness,” Jerry remarked to himself, recalling his last encounter with another cat, “what is it with all the cats in such emotional distress around here?”

Jerry waited for the she-cat, who had a fiery pelt similar in color to his own, to notice his scent. If she did, she simply didn’t care to pursue it, finding that her task of raking a paw through some of the shrubbery that Jerry knew the twolegs to tend to more important.

Growing impatient, he called out to her instead.

“Looking for lavender?”

The she-cat paused for a moment, her tail twitching as she considered what she scented. Amberdawn was right next to twolegplace, and so scenting a kittypet was to be expected; however, she could pick out some information about the cat based on what she smelled, and it smelled like a happy tom had found himself a meal. It was possible that he had moved on and that the scent was merely remnants, or possibly he was resting nearby to sleep off his full stomach. The medicine cat wondered if it would be better to introduce herself and risk giving her position to an aggressive cat or to try to creep around without disturbing the locals. Amberdawn's ear flicked, and she opted for the latter. After taking a brief glance around - her eyes skipping directly over the lounging tom skewed by the grasses - she began to skirt the fence towards several thick branches of lavender growing out between the slats of wood.

"Looking for lavender?" a voice called, and Amberdawn jumped with a squeak, spinning in the air to face the source of the noise.

Immediately she spotted him, the massive blazing-furred tom cat lounging in the grass. "O-Oh, yes! Sorry! I-- the, uh-uhm, lavender, I'm..." Amberdawn stammered for a second, startled. Her fur bristled by reflex, though her face showed no aggression. Oh, you look like a kit, she scolded herself slightly in some further corner of her mind, you knew he was probably nearby, and clearly he knew you were. You should have checked better. It was no use scolding herself now or trying to sneak away. Amberdawn cleared her throat and addressed the cat again, replying, "I m-mean, yes, I am looking for it. Sorry if I'm intruding - I don't mean to take anything that belongs to someone else."

Jerry was almost startled himself, seeing the she-cat’s reaction. He felt incredibly bad knowing he might have given her a fright. She stumbled over her words now, stammering something about the lavender at which she had been prodding at.

”I m-mean, yes, I am looking for it. Sorry if I’m intruding- I don’t mean to take anything that belongs to someone else.”

The chubby tom  tried to be more gentle with his tone this time as he spoke, careful to make a show of his tail swaying calmly from side to side. Whoever the cat was, she was obviously young, understandably skittish.

“Oh, no, it’s just-“ Jerry found his own words hard to formulate suddenly. “Just regular old lavender.”

He swallowed the ball of nervousness that had clumped his words together, and offered his closest to a friendly smile.

“You must be new to these parts, I don’t think I’ve seen you around. I’m Jerry, and  there’s plenty of lavender, too. Take what you like.”

Well, Amberdawn really did feel like a kit when she saw the new tom-cat's expression become clouded with confusion and guilt. He clearly hadn't intended to sneak up on her and cause her a fright. Indeed, once Amberdawn had gotten herself back together slightly and made eye contact with the tom, she could see how he had softened his expression - although that was certainly helped by the round softness of his face - and how soothingly he regarded her. His tail was low, movements slow; the tom was clearly showing as many signs of peace as he could think to throw out. The golden she-cat tried to force her tail to lie flat again as the other cat spoke, seeming almost as nervous about interacting with her now as she had felt a moment ago.

They stared at each other uncomfortably for another few seconds before the tom cat smiled, though the look on his face was a bit awkward. He began to introduce himself, assuming that she was new to the area since he hadn't seen her before. Amberdawn thought his assumption was interesting; incorrect, but logically founded. She hadn't quite been around for the entirety of all four seasons, and though the forest had been her home nearly her entire life, it still made sense that this "Jerry" had never seen her before. She had avoided the twolegplace for as long as she could during her training; she was still an apprentice, even if she had her full name, and she had been content to leave the gathering of twolegplace herbs to her mentor. Mintwhisker had been gone so long it was no longer an option.

Another moment of slow tension release passed before Amberdawn scuffed her paw, and Jerry the tom cat spoke again of the lavender. "O-Oh! Well, thank you," she answered shortly, glancing between the stalks of purple and the blazing pelt of the tom. She paused for a second, and then she gasped. "Oh! Yes; um, my name is Amberdawn. I live in the forest, but... I try not to come here." She winced slightly and said apologetically, "I-I don't mean anything personal by it, of course, it's just not where I'm supposed to go." Her tail flicked, and she sighed. "I suppose here I am anyways, though. Is this your home?" That felt like a silly question.

Jerry tried to think of a response. He wasn’t sure he’d ever really felt at home anywhere, or rather the exact opposite extreme, he felt at home everywhere he went. Sure, he ended up in twolegplace by the time the moon began to peak out from behind the trees most nights, but the tom had known being crafty  about finding a place to lay his head. He was content in any case.

“I guess you could call it that,” he finally spoke.

He had gotten so caught up in finding his answer that he had only begun to register the she-cat’s other words. Her name was Amberdawn.

That was a clan cat name, absolutely, it had the same ring to it as Sandblaze’s did. Jerry wondered if the two might know each other. It then came to him that they could also be sworn enemies, if they were of different clans. His imagination ran wild with the prospect of the two mixed up in all the battling and hunting, but he shook the image from his mind. It didn’t make sense to picture her that way.

Amberdawn’s demeanor was not at all similar to what Jerry recognized in his other singular interaction with a clan cat. He had only just met her, but he could recognize she was timid, or shy. He couldn’t believe a cat like her had known the hardships of clan life.

“You don’t have to worry, you know.” Jerry mewed with sudden confidence. “You don’t have to be afraid. I don’t know what you’ve been told, but twolegs, their nests, this place? It’s not so bad.”

Well, maybe Amberdawn had thought it was a silly question, but it seemed to stump the tom-cat for a moment. He pondered her words thoughtfully before answering that it was his home, in a way. Curiosity prickled at her pelt. What could he mean by that? Amberdawn was used to the close, tight space of the forest, but the twolegplace seemed a different sort of cramped. She wondered how a cat could be comfortable there, but she certainly wasn't going to question his choices. The tabby cat looked at her paws nervously for a moment, and a silence stretched out.

Jerry seemed to notice her discomfort, for after a moment he stated that she didn't need to worry. "Worry? Me?" Amberdawn gasped with surprise, though not disagreement. Jerry cotninued confidently that the place they were in really wasn't so bad and that she didn't need to be afraid.

Perhaps it was his confidence, or perhaps it was the lavender aroma permeating the air nearby, but Amberdawn felt her fur flatten a little and her shoulders relax slightly at his words. Instead, she felt curious. "I... Well, one of my friends said that a twoleg used to pick on her and pull her fur when she was a kitten. My mentor said all twolegs are like that, and that once they get you in their nest they never let you leave again."

She turned to the lavender plant and focused on one of the thick, long stalks peeking through the fence to gnaw on to take home; a branch would be enough for two moons. She added over her shoulder before she set to work, "You're out here, though... I suppose that must mean something."