Listen Well [Sprucebark]

Dovesight was getting stronger by the day, and she was ready to take on her full duties once again. Today, she had asked Sprucebark to join her in the medicine den. Poppyshine and her had agreed that she would start training warriors in some of the herbs, in case another issue like the predators were to happen again. This way, the Clan would be prepared.

She had selected the herbs she would be teaching beforehand—just the very basics. After all, she wasn't training medicine cats. They just needed to be able to take care of themselves if they got in a tight spot.

Now she just had to wait for Sprucebark to come.

Sprucebark arrived exactly on time, schedules and orderly routines were simply how he operated. So when he was given the assignment to learn herbs from Auntie Dove at a given time that is when he showed up not a minute earlier or later.

The very proper warrior grinned a warm welcome to his aunt who he had formed a good friendship with. She and Sandy were both incredible medicine cats. He was excited for his lesson with her although memorizing herb names and what they all did sounded difficult.

Having gone on an herb patrol with Sandypaw earlier, he knew Marigold... but that was pretty much it, the Marigold herb made him sneeze alot and it gave him a bit of a scratchy throat too when he had sniffed at it on their herb hunt.

Not exactly much that he knew besides that so he was basically starting off from scratch. It was so good to finally see that Auntie Dove was on the mend from her bout of sickness. "Im glad you are feeling better now. Sandypaw took really good care of things while you were recovering.
She and I went on an herb hunt, and she even went to the half-moon med cat gathering by herself" he mewed very proud of his sister in how well she had done given all the challenges thrown her way. He purred a little as he tilted his head looking around at the herbs that she had selected curiously and awaited her instruction.

"So I had heard. She's doing pretty good, isn't she?"

She smiled, motioning for Sprucebark to take a seat. "So we're only going to be doing a few herbs. And I also want to show you how to make a poultice. So in front of me, we have basil, marigold, burdock root, and goldenrod. Do any of these sound familiar to you?"

She pointed to each of the herbs as she said them, looking at Sprucebark curiously. Now she sat, patiently waiting for a response.

Sprucebark nodded in response "she is doing awesome!" he praised his sister highly.

He sat down and glanced over the herbs... they all looked pretty foreign... OH wait! Yes he had seen this one before, it was that one that Sandypaw had shown him on their herb hunt... what was it called again?? He had nicknamed it sneezy plant because it made him sneeze so much and gave him that weird throat feeling...

He pointed to it with his tail. "umm yes I know this one... Marigold! he purred satisfied the name finally coming to him.

He inspected it closer looking at it.  "Sandy showed it to me" he explained.

ACHOO he was interrupted by a sneeze followed quickly after by another one.  Ughh.. and that weird throat thing was back... it was somehow worse this time around too so scratchy!

He stopped inspecting the sneezy plant so much.

"erm... the rest of these I dont know" he answered her original question.

He half wondered if he should mention that the marigold seemed to be very strange effect on him. He decided against it however, he wouldn't want to interrupt his Auntie Dove's lesson.  Besides it was probably supposed to do that anyways ... right?

Sprucebark watched the marigold be taken away (Which he was very thankful for not liking that herb at all) hmm so apparently it was not normal to sneeze and get a super agitated throat from the plant? maybe that is why his sister was able to collect it with so much ease.

He blinked a little hesitant when the dock leaves were brought forth, would this make him uncomfortable too? Giving a little half sigh he still did as she told and took a little sniff of the leaves. Waiting a bit there was no reaction to this at all. He grinned nodding "ok, dock leaves, good for infection he repeated back to his aunt. He did his best to memorize this as he said it in case he ever had to use this in a pinch.

"erm so do I just like cover the wound with it?" he asked a little confused how a leaf would do such things. Auntie Dove was so smart knowing all this and he felt like a total newbie, which fair enough he was.

He gently picked up the leaf and covered his Aunt's face with it pretending she had a cut on her face. It felt a little strange way to do it maybe he was missing something. The leaf balanced for a little bit on Dove's face but soon fell off not really held that well.
Peekaboo
Sprucebark tried to bite his tongue to hold back the laughter. Sitting back down he refocused getting back to his much more serious self. ahem ermm right then. So what do the rest of these do? he asked very curious

Sprucebark froze eyes wide unblinking.  He sat up straight and was motionless, like a student that had been caught slouching.  

You fool! you are all about rules and procedures! why did you stray away from that? Now you are just wasting her time when she is trying to teach you things his conscious snapped at him.  He was so rule and task oriented that he thought maybe for once he could relax a little and try and have some fun with his family member.

She did not take it well at all and called him out on it.  He was glad that she did, it still hurt being called out for goofing off and 99/100 times he would always be super on task and such.  

He was glad that Auntie Dove cared enough about him to call him out when he was being out of line.

"Yes mam! he replied quickly and obediently. She was his medicine cat and held authority over him and she deserved all his attention and respect.

"I apologize, I never meant for it to distract out of the lesson. Please, accept my apology and continue with your knowledge passing" he mewed

He was so scared that he had messed everything all up.  He didn't mean to put the herb on wrong he just earnestly had no idea that it had to be chewed up before. Stars he would make the worst medicine cat, he couldn't get anything right.  

First he was allergic to that one plant... what was its name again?
Dohh!! he had already forgotten its name?? How was he so bad at this? He felt awful, he really was trying his hardest.

Then on top of making his Aunt's life harder by her having to worry about using a different thing for him, he had messed up how the new one was supposed to be applied.  To top it all off he had in an error of judgment: made the mistake of trying to lighten the mood after his misuse of the herb when it of course didnt stick to her face the way he thought it might...

he had no idea what a poultice even was but at this point he was nervous to even ask... he was also not gonna ask the name of the herb he was allergic too afraid to make his poor aunt even more upset than he already had.


He nodded his head and focused on it best he could though he was holding back tears he was so upset with himself. He would never again let any error like that happen again, he would be even more focused and never break any rules ever again.  

"I want to take it seriously I promise he answered the question his voice on the verge of a tremble.

She rattled off several more herbs in quick succession and he tried his hardest to repeat them over and over in his head for them to stick.  But they all got so jumbled so fast.   There were two that started with a B ... Burn root?? good for rats... or was that the poison one? He didnt know, it was all so many new names so fast.

He had never wished so much that he could just disappear for a little bit. Turn invisible and let everyone forget about him for the day ... or moon...

He had never felt this way before, of being so stuck on something that was supposed to be this easy.  Autnie dove even said that this was just gonna be the basics of herbs and med cat stuff.  But he didnt even understand that! He felt like a total failure.  The part where he had lost focus if even for just a second and not stayed true to his usual so rigid organized self was not helping either.

He wasn't even sure what the right thing to do was anymore he was so overwhelmed by it all.  Should he tell her he had no idea what any of the words she was speaking meant?

Umm.. auntie Dove? whats a poultice? Whats the name of that one herb I am never supposed to have cause Im super allergic to it? oh and ermm can you repeat the herbs you just said because Im too dumb to get what they all did

... somehow saying all that didnt feel correct thing to do.  So they remained just thoughts for now.

He put on his best fake smile... What was that expresion? Fake it till you make it? nodding.

He prayed to starclan she wouldnt test him over this... but what if he did need to know this later on in life, it could save one of his clanmates after all?!

But then again asking her to redo all the parts he didnt understand... would that be wasting the medicne cats valuable time? Sprucebark felt like he was gonna be sick... He didnt know what the right thing to do was anymore.  The code didnt offer any help which is where he always looked for guidance there wasnt exactly a rule for

"I messed up the med cat lesson and how to proceed" section in the warrior code, if there was one he would have known it by heart and had it memorized.