It's Been a Sooty Day

recap (continuation of this thread):

Sootpaw's suffering seemed to last ages; when finally his convulsions began to die down, Mottledspark stared at him fearfully, but hope sparked in his belly. "S-Sootpaw?" he whimpered, his voice shaking, when the apprentice had fallen still. Please don't be dead! Mottledspark thought desperately, but then he heard a small, pitiful mew come from his friend, and suddenly Sootpaw was gasping.

"Oh, Sootpaw, you're okay!" Mottledspark cried, immediately sweeping to Sootpaw's side to wrap his large body comfortingly around the apprentice. "It's okay," he repeated again, "just take deep breaths. Easy now." The tom began to lick soothingly at his friend's fur, murmuring, "Catch your breath. You're okay. We'll go back to camp when you're ready." And we're going straight to the medicine den.

---

The dark tortoiseshell warrior felt small and helpless even as he bore the weight of his companion, Sootpaw, over his back and shoulders. Mottledspark and his friend had been wrestling in the copse when suddenly the apprentice had fallen and begun thrashing and foaming, unable to breathe. The young RiverClan warrior could do nothing except watch helplessly while it happened. Now he felt just as helpless even as he rushed his ruffled and disoriented friend into RiverClan's camp. Mottledspark tried to ignore the feeling of blood dripping down his neck and shoulders; Sootpaw seemed to have bitten his tongue during his fit. "Goldeneye!" he called as he began making his way towards the medicine cat's den, his voice trembling as he stammered, "S-Sootpaw! Please, he-- I-I don't know. Help!" The mottled tom slowly helped his friend down into a nest and then immediately scrambled back out of the medicine cat's way, staring wide-eyed at Sootpaw.

Sootpaw lied dazed across his friends shoulders. His head hung limply and his tounge hung out, split in the middle and dripping blood. His eyes were closed and his chest rised very slowly, each breathe was a battle.

A shrill shriek rose from the other end of camp, and it didn't take long at all for Flurryshine to race out of the warriors' den to her adopted son's side. Her green eyes were wide with absolute horror as she stared down at Sootpaw, her thick white fur bushed out. "SOOTPAW! Oh, great StarClan, my little kit! Oh, Sootpaw!" She wanted so very badly to cuddle and comfort her adopted kit, to rapidly lick away the blood oozing from his wounds, to drag him right back to the nursery to protect him forever. But she had no idea if that would do more harm rather than good, and that's what scared her the most. She felt so incredibly helpless, and she knew she had to wait for Goldeneye to tend to him, but that would take too long!

She looked up at Mottledspark, her gaze locked with her Clanmate's amber ones. Then she spat and yowled furiously and swatted her claws at him, trying to shoo the tom away from her son. "Stay away from him! Why didn't you protect him? You should have been there to save him from whoever did this to my poor kit! You can't be trusted with any of my kits, you beast! If I see you anywhere near any of my kits again I'll kill you!" A small part of her knew she was being completely unfair to the tom, but she truly didn't care. Whatever happened to Sootpaw, Mottledspark hadn't been there to prevent it when he should have been.

Wolfsong lied peacefully on his rock when he heard how Mottlespark suddenly called out for Goldeneye and then that Sootpaw needed help, he swiftly got onto his feet and hurried over to the young warrior and Sootpaw, just as he reached them he saw and heard Flurrysine yelling at Mottlespark. He sighed and looked at Flurryshine "Calm down and let Mottlespark tell us what happend, there is no use in yelling at him." he meowed, his voice calm with a hint of irritation in it "Sootpaw is strong, he won't die and to be honest I don't belive that someone this to him, I've seen him fight, he's quick and moves better than some warriors, he can protect himself." he then told her.

He turned his gaze to Mottlespark "Now, tell us what happend while you two where out." his voice were a little milder now. He glanced at Sootpaw with a worried look in his eyes.

When Flurryshine first whirled to face him, Mottledspark didn't register it at first; he moved his gaze slowly up from Sootpaw's trembling body to lock with the queen's, and he stared back confused and uncomprehending for a moment. Then, she leaped for him, and Mottledspark let out a startled and confused yelp as he scrambled away from her fierce warning strikes, stumbling over the floor and nearly out of the medicine den completely. The dark tortoiseshell tom hunkered down against the wall of the den and stared, wide-eyed and terrified, at the mother of his best friend. "N-No, I would n-never hur-hurt him," Mottledspark protested feebly, but Wolfsong had come to intervene already.

Mottledspark turned his dark eyes to Wolfsong, clinging onto what the warrior said for a moment. "Sootpaw is strong. He won't die." After a deep, shaking breath, Mottledspark replied, his voice barely above a whisper, "I-I don't know wh-what happened. We were sparring in the copse, and he was about to come at me again when... when..." Mottledspark trailed off, his eyes widening with terror as he recalled the look on Sootpaw's face when suddenly everything went wrong. His best friend, the cat he loved most in the entire world, had just silently screamed. The look on his face...

Mottledspark slowly turned to look at Sootpaw. The warrior knew he needed to tell them everything that happened, but... but how could he? How could he relive that? Sootpaw needs them to know. Mottledspark continued, a little softer even, "He was just standing there and then his eyes rolled back and he fell to the floor. H-He started jerking around and choking, a-and I thought maybe he was suffocating, but..." And suddenly, Mottledspark remembered that his ear had been slashed in Sootpaw's thrashing. He became aware of the dull pain and the blood that had already stopped flowing and dried. "H-He just kept thrashing, until he just... didn't..."

Fallowpaw's ears were pinned to her skull as she stared down at a particular set of herbs, all gathered during the tracking competition devised by Jaystar and Scorchclaw. The petite she-cat was elated at the what the competition had amounted to, but she was having trouble finding places to put the enormous collection of herbs that her Clanmates had brought in. The metallic scent of blood caught her attention before Mottledspark was even able to make it back to camp, however, and any lingering thought of the herbs was completely erased from her mind when the young warrior burst into her den and heaved Sootpaw into a nest. Her paws were a blur as she raced to the apprentice's side, trying her best to ignore anything that wasn't an explanation. Other than the laceration on his tongue and trouble breathing, Fallowpaw couldn't tell anything was wrong with the young tom, which annoyed her to no end. Here was an obviously ill tom, and she had no clue how to treat him.


Her annoyed state was on heightened by Flurryshine's unnecessary fumbling and clawing. Feeling the beginning of a headache blooming behind her eyes, she turned to the Queen. "Flurryshine, now is an awful time for this." Raising a paw to touch the distressed she-cat's foreleg and lower it to the ground, she tried her best to stay calm. 'Where in StarClan's name is Goldeneye?' "Mottledspark, you've done nothing wrong, so please, come back in here. I need you to tell me exactly what happened. Okay?" Turning back to face Sootpaw, she pressed a paw to his chest as he drew in each rattled breath. "Start over, from the very beginning. You were sparring at the Copse, and then?" Fallowpaw had absolutely no clue what was wrong, but she was going to find out.

Sootpaw lied in the nest, unable to move. His tongue hunge out of his mouth while his claws will still unsheathed. He opened his blurry eyes. He saw the cats around him but herd almost nothing.

"Get out Flurryshine." Goldeneye meowed from the entrance, her gaze cold and stony as she looked at the queen, speaking with a tone that brokered no argument. She whisked into the den, her eyes resting on Wolfsong. "You can follow her out as well." Goldeneye meowed as she came to sit next to her apprentice. Goldeneye's gaze raked over the apprentice, her paw reaching to stretch the toms eye-lids open. Then she leaned forwards and clicked her tongue by his ear. No response for either. Leaning down she pressed her ear against the toms chest and measured the thrum of his heart and lungs. Blood leaked from the apprentice's mouth and she pried it open to see a laceration across it, her brow raising.

Pieces tried to connect, but without the full story, she was unsure. "Fallowpaw, see how his eyes are open but isn't reacting to the light? And how when I clicked my tongue his ears did not move? Pay attention to these subtle signs, for we are not looking for signs in nature, but in our clan-mates as well." She meowed lowly, a lesson ready to be taught. "I have suspicions but I can't confirm it until I know what happened." She meowed, her gaze zeroing in on Mottledspark.

Flurryshine turned to glare at Goldeneye, and she actually bared her teeth and snarled at the medicine cat, looking as though she were about to pounce on her and fight for her right to stay beside her adopted son. However, she knew that it would only cause more stress to poor Sootpaw, so she really had no choice but to obey. Lashing her tail furiously, she stalked out of the den and sat down as close to the entrance as she could get away with.

Mottledspark glanced up nervously as Fallowpaw siad his name. "You've done nothing wrong," she told him, and she asked, "I need you to tell me exactly what happened. Okay?" But the RiverClan warrior kept a wary eye on Flurryshine, who was now facing Goldeneye - a she-cat that Mottledspark feared more than any of his other Clanmates. At last the medicine cat was able to get Sootpaw's mother to leave, and Mottledspark hesitantly moved further in to explain while Goldeneye examined Sootpaw.

After the medicine cat gave her explanation, Mottledspark cleared his throat and said as steadily as he could, "We were sparring. He had jumped on my shoulders and I couldn't shake him, so I rolled onto my back to dislodge him. I came back up to face him and h-he was ready to fight. Then he just looked... confused, or scared, and his eyes rolled back in his head while he just collapsed." The dark tortoiseshell tom grimaced and murmured, "I swear on my life I didn't hurt him."

He looked away and forced himself onwards, "He was just jerking and shaking and gasping - I kept calling for him and trying to figure out what was wrong but he just kept flailing. He cut me when I tried to get close..." Mottledspark wondered how badly Sootpaw had snagged his ear, but that worry wasn't most important. "I couldn't leave him, but I didn't know what to do. After a while he just stopped, but he's... he's just like this." The warrior began to tremble, fighting back sobs. "I don't know what happened..."

The leader noticed the sudden increase of cats entering the medicine den and he could only fear the worse. Jaystar made his way to the reed structure and entered the place just in time to hear Mottledspark explanation. It was... unexpected, unheard for the tom. A cat who simply fade out and started shaking like he was choking? With not a real hit on his head? The large tabby took a glance to the young tom who was lying in the nest with blood coming out of his mouth. He didn't look well...

The silver-furred cat reached Mottledspark's side and offered him a gentle, comforting nudge with his shoulder as he rested his fluffy tail on his back. "It's okay... You did well when you brought him here, Mottledspark." He mewed softly to the confused and worried tom. Jaystar turned his gaze to Goldeneye and Fallowpaw, trying to know what these symptoms mean. "Do you know what it is? Is he going to recover?" He asked, trying to be hopeful about the future of the young apprentice. The golden-furred she-cat had proven over and over to be an exceptional medicine cat... if there was someone who could save him, it was her.