Lightmare (closed)

Hours had passed since Stoatclaw had woken from his restless sleep. All he had to keep him entertained were the sounds of the cats outside of this den and the shuffling of the medicine cat while she tended to her stores. It wasn't so bad, he could have woken up in Starclan instead. Compared to that, being stuck in Shadowclan's camp while he waited to learn what plans they held for him didn't seem that bad. Still, Stoatclaw caught himself staring at the entrance to the medicine den almost every other minute. His biggest fear at this point was to be visited by that red warrior, come to finish off what he had started despite the medicine cat's protection. The face that he saw pop up in the entrance however was not one that he knew. Stoatclaw lifted his head from the bedding, wincing slightly as the pain the action sent along his belly. He opened his mouth to speak, but promptly closed it. Why would this cat be here to talk to him? Stoatclaw rested his head back on the bedding, though he still kept an eye on the stranger.

Rookfire thought it would be nice to check on the SkyClan tom stuck in camp.

Since he had been quickly called to talk with the rest of the council, he couldn't actually spend a significant amount of time in the medicine den. However, now that the council had made a decision on Redice, he could go up to the injured cat and try and talk with him for a decent amount of time.

He saw the tom confusedly lifted his head at him before quickly putting his head down on the bedding. The black tuxedo quickly sped his pacing towards the tom before slowing down as he entered the medicine den. "You feeling alright?" Rookfire asked, sitting down next to the tom. "My name's Rookfire. I'm a ShadowClan warrior. What's yours?" Obviously, the injured tom could've had some apprehensions from telling Rookfire anything about himself, as they were definitely from different clans, but the black tuxedo hoped that he could still communicate with him.

The tom's pace quickened, and Stoatclaw shot a fearful look at the medicine cat. His sides heaved painfully as he tried to stand, though another burst of pain would stop his escape attempt. He was left to watch helplessly as the new arrival drew nearer, eventually settling on some... friendly words? They didn't seem to be filled with malice, or with the same playfulness that red warrior had. "I-I-" His voice shook, and Stoatclaw realized what was wrong. He was breathing too heavily, too frequently. It was sending more waves of pain through him, though he had attributed that to his previous action. Stoatclaw's eyes shut. Warm thoughts filled the tom's head as he began calming himself. Before long his breathing had returned to normal, and his eyelids lifted slightly.

Hesitantly, he responded. "No." All of his wounds were screaming in pain, but even those felt like aches compared to the gash on his belly. He was far from being "alright", but at least he was still alive. For how long though, he wasn't exactly sure. "Rookfire... I'm Stoatclaw." The words were slow, almost as if Stoatclaw was unsure of if he should even be speaking. "Why am I here?"

It seemed like Rookfire startled the tom by quickly moving towards him. That wasn't exactly what he wanted, but it seemed like he settled down eventually. As he did so, the black tuxedo scanned the tom's wounds thoroughly. Despite how terrible they looked when he checked the tom before meeting with the rest of the council, it seemed like every wound was treated properly now. Each wound was bound by cobwebs with poultices inside to help treat the wounds directly. Even the big, gashing wound in the middle of his stomach was stitched up. Burdock stabilized him. He was really impressed with Burdock's treatment of him; she had to execute under the pressure of a dying cat in her den and stabilize him, and she did.

Rookfire nodded solemnly at the SkyClan warrior's response. He seemed to be good enough to talk, too, even if it did seem to hurt for him. "It's nice to meet you, Stoatclaw. Even if the circumstances surrounding it were... you know. Bad." Turning to his right, the black tuxedo grabbed some of the small black poppy seeds in the medicine den, before giving them to Stoatclaw. "Here. These are poppy seeds. They'll help ease the pain you're in. If you don't trust me on this, ask Burdock to confirm." He assumed Burdock didn't give him poppy seeds due to his unconscious state, but now that he was awake, he thought it would be alright to feed a few to him to help him feel a bit better.

When Stoatclaw asked him why the SkyClan tom was here, Rookfire responded almost immediately: "To help you survive and recover. And after that, for you to be able to make the trip back to your home." It was the truth, from the bottom of his heart. And even the most pragmatic of his clanmates would understand that Stoatclaw's survival and return to SkyClan had to happen so that SkyClan and ShadowClan wouldn't end up in some sort of massive conflict, if not full-blown war. "We don't want to hurt you." Besides Redice, but he's dead now. He didn't know if Redice's death would come as a relief or a sho- wait, no. He should tell him. "Redice, the tom who attacked you on the Thunderpath, he's dead now. Nightstar killed him." Maybe it wasn't the right time. Maybe that's what was trying to stop him before. Anyways, nothing he could do about it now.