safe to shore [closed]

On the rare occasion that Mudpaw made mistakes, she did her best to learn from them, and slipping on Sunningrocks during a lesson with Berrycloud had definitely been a mistake. The memory still made her pelt burn a little. That was why she was here now, alone. She would die before she let some vole-brained rocks make a fool out of her again.

Just like the first time, it happened very quickly. One paw slid against the smooth, slightly wet stone; the rest followed suit. Mudpaw’s frantic scrabbling did no good whatsoever. She let out a startled cry as she tumbled off the rock, then another when she hit the ground. However similar this was to the first incident, something had changed—specifically, something pulled. As she lay there, she slowly realized her leg hurt. Sort of like stepping on a thorn, except there were no thorns to be found and the pain wasn’t sharp; instead, it pulsed somewhere above her paw, beneath her fur.

But she couldn’t stay on the ground forever. Clearly, she needed more practice. The calico stood slowly, careful to use her three definitely uninjured legs. Then, once she was stable, she leaned onto her left front paw. What she expected was for the pain to vanish. Instead, it spiked clean through her leg to the end of her tail. Maybe that was an exaggeration—but Mudpaw had never felt anything like that before. ”Ow!” she yelped, stumbling back against the rock. Too late, she recalled her Clanmates might be in earshot; it was nearly sunhigh, and the camp she’d left had been emptier than usual. Getting in trouble was one thing, but a perceptive cat would drag her to Mistlepaw. The mere thought of that made her pelt go a little colder. With difficulty, Mudpaw kept her voice to a murmur. ”Ow, ow, ow.”

Mossbloom had been gathering some herbs along the shore further down from Sunningrocks, working her way towards them. With the river still higher than usual, it was easy to collect herbs that needed the wet ground to grow. The leaf in her mouth was full of coltsfoot and fennel, but her eyes were searching for something else. The smell of the herbs under her nose blocked her sense of smell, but she could have sworn she had spotted the familiar shrub of feverfew just over here.... "Ow!...... Ow, ow, ow." Her ears perked, the thought of the shrub gone, having dissipated with the sounds of an injured cat. Her paws carried her towards where she had heard the voice, and she spotted a pretty young she-cat nursing one of her front paws.

Without even realizing it as she approached the injured cat, she set down the leaf and crossed the RiverClan border. Hurrying to the cat's side, she mewed quietly. "Hurt your paw? Here, let me take a look, we'll have you fixed up in no time. What's your name?" She asked, gazing intently at the paw in question before raising her green eyes to the RiverClan cat's own. "What were you doing to injure it?" The smooth rocks were warm under her paw pads, and she realized with a jolt where she was - and that this apprentice probably had no idea who she was. "Oh! Forgive me, I'm Mossbloom, ThunderClan's medicine cat. Please, let me take a look and help."

No RiverClan cat could get far in their training without learning about Sunningrocks’s history. Upon seeing a stranger advancing toward her, Mudpaw bristled; there was nothing else she could do. ”Hurt your paw?” At that, Mudpaw stopped trying to fuse herself with the rocks in favor of staring back at the ThunderClanner directly. The next questions were about her name and what she’d been doing to injure herself, managing to sound genuine throughout. Bafflement replaced the hostility and fear in Mudpaw’s expression. She’d been in border scuffles before (all right, one border scuffle); while there had been talking, it hadn’t been like this.

Yet the ThunderClanner was introducing herself. Mossbloom was a good name for a medicine cat. Her scent, too, fit the part; if one could ignore the distinct forest-ness of it, it wasn’t too different from Mistlepaw’s. Only the persistent ache in Mudpaw’s leg stopped the apprentice from launching into a full interrogation. She glanced across the river. How can I get back…? She had a hunch swimming wouldn’t be an option. If she walked long enough, she would find a way to cross on land—except walking was a key part of that plan, and trespassing would probably be involved.

She had no choice. Let this cat help her, or be stranded until a RiverClan patrol found them. Mudpaw hesitated. Her ears twitched nervously. ”Only if you tell me exactly what you’re doing,” she said. The challenge in her tone was undercut when, finally, she offered Mossbloom her left foreleg. ”I’m Mudpaw. I was training on the rocks, and I think I pulled something in my leg.” She couldn’t say she fell, could she? ”I tried to stand on it, but it hurt. Hurts,” she corrected.

Mossbloom guiltily shuffled her paws as the fear and hostility in the apprentice's eyes shifted to bewilderment, and glanced to the far side of the river. The quick glance had been quickly noticed, and Mossbloom mentally prepared to use the stern medicine cat voice she reserved for particularly stubborn patients (of which there was, thankfully, few of) but the apprentice seemed to relent slightly. A nervous twitch of the ear later, the silence was broken and she raised her paw for Mossbloom to carefully inspect. Moving closer as the apprentice gave her name, and explained what happened, saying that it still ached. Nodding slightly, Mossbloom agreed to the demand of the apprentice as she spoke.

"Of course, if you want me to explain something a little more I will. You were training, you said? Did you slip?" The rocks were pretty slick from the high river and misty mornings, it wouldn't come as a huge surprise. Plus, the pads of the paws seemed soft and new, not quite hardened from moons of practice moving on the rocks. She spoke continually as she looked at it, lifting her paw underneath of it and gently moving it with her small pink nose. "What I'm looking for first is the signs of a break or fracture. Dangling, excruciating pain, inability to put any pressure. You're not yowling in pain with every movement I make, so I don't believe it's that bad. Your paw isn't bent one way more than the other, so I don't think you twisted it either. At first glance, I would say you just strained it a little bit. So basically, whatever you were doing, it ended up extending your paw a little further than you should have, but if given the time to rest and heal you'll be back to normal in a few sunrises. Since your young, and healthy, maybe even only a couple."

She lowered her paw, motioning with her tail for Mudpaw to do the same as she continued, casting a keen eye around the stones. "The unfortunate part of this is that with a strain, there isn't much I can do for it. Your body will do most of the work on it's own, but I can give you something to help with the pain. Not poppy seeds, because that will make you fall asleep, and I imagine you don't want to be left here alone asleep on the rocks. However...." She chirped nonchalantly as her eyes landed on what she was looking for in a nearby grassy area, damp from the water of the river. Crossing Sunningrocks and landing neatly next to it, she calmly dug up the comfrey roots and brought a small piece up, burying the rest again for Mistlepaw to collect later.

Padding back over to Mudpaw's side, she set down the comfrey. "Comfrey should do the trick! It will help soothe the aching pain, at least for now. Don't hesitate to ask Mistlepaw for some poppy seeds when you return to camp though, and be sure to stay off of it as much as possible in the mean time. I'm going to chew it up into a poultice, and put it around your injured paw. It may be a little uncomfortable, but it won't take long to start helping the pain. However, once I put it on you won't be able to swim, or you'll wash it all off. There's some Stepping Stones further down the river, I can escort you there and help you across, if you'd like." While she waited for the she-cat's response, she knelt and began to steadily chew the comfrey, creating the promised poultice.

Having half-expected the ThunderClanner to refuse, Mudpaw was almost startled to hear her agreement and, on top of that, an offer to explain more in-depth. Mossbloom’s next question was more targeted. ”Did you slip?” Mudpaw briefly entertained the idea of lying outright. Her imagination failed to churn out any better ideas for how she might have fallen. In the end, she decided honesty was worth the cost, if only to make sure Mossbloom had a clear idea of what could be wrong. ”Maybe.” Though Mudpaw said it with as much pride as she said just about anything, she avoided Mossbloom’s gaze.

That didn’t last long. What the medicine cat was doing was infinitely more interesting than staring at the sky or Sunningrocks or ThunderClan’s distant trees. Mudpaw blinked down at her. The constant flow of speech was soothing, more so when Mudpaw actually listened to it. She’d be better in a couple of sunrises… Just in time for the Gathering! Well, hopefully. She lowered her paw at Mossbloom’s gesture, holding it just shy of the ground while the older calico loped across the rocks to retrieve something that turned out to be a small, gnarled root. Comfrey, apparently. The name wasn’t that important—all she cared about was not having to eat it—but she filed it away all the same in case she ever wound up in Mistlepaw’s den.

…Wait. She wouldn’t be able to swim? The apprentice yanked her paw back (and only grimaced a little at the resulting pain, to her credit), but before she could hiss her refusal, Mossbloom offered a solution. ”I can get across on my own,” Mudpaw insisted. Except—wasn’t it walking across a bunch of rocks that had gotten her into this situation? Anyway, it was probably too close to ThunderClan territory for comfort. She sighed, quick and quiet. ”But I guess I wouldn’t mind you walking me there.” Once more, she fell silent, eyes on Mossbloom yet again. "…You're sure this will help?" Why she was trusting a ThunderClanner of all cats was beyond her. Desperate times called for desperate measures. That, and Mossbloom had walked Mudpaw through what she was doing, just as Mudpaw had asked. In Mudpaw's mind, that counted for something.

A flick of her white tail tip was the only response to the maybe, that had been all the answer she needed. She wasn't going to press for any more details, lest the she-cat decide not to trust her. Mudpaw stayed quiet and still as she returned with the herb, and Mossbloom smiled to herself as she set to work on the paw, only to stop and look up to meet the young she-cat's eyes when she pulled away suddenly. The solution she offered sank in after a heartbeat, and Mossbloom's eyes softened as she heard the sigh. This was a very proud she-cat, and a strong one too, but injuries paid no mind to the personality of the cat they found.

"It's not far at all, don't worry. The rocks are sturdy and safe as well, so you won't have much to worry about there." The two cat's eyes met, and Mossbloom nodded to the she-cat in affirmation. "Yes, I promise it will help. It will numb your ache, and while it would still hurt if you jumped around on it like a robin, walking should be bearable. It won't help forever though, and you won't be able to heal if you don't give it the time to, so remember to go easy on it, okay? It's like.... It's like if you were going to try to walk on the water. Just walk as gently as you would if you were going to try not to cause ripples on it's surface."

With that, the medicine cat chewed up the root carefully and began to lick the juices onto the paw generously, coating it quickly and gently with the herb. Once she was done, she spat the remnants of the root into a nearby bush on ThunderClan territory, resisting the urge to grab a quick drink from the nearby river, just in case Mudpaw took offense to it. After waiting for a few more heartbeats, she smiled to the apprentice. "Alright, Mudpaw, you should be okay to try to put some weight on it. It will still be a bit uncomfortable, but it should be bearable now. How does it feel?"

Either Mossbloom was remarkably perceptive or Mudpaw was being too obvious with her reservations. (Or else Mossbloom already knew how to deal with stubborn, mildly injured apprentices on contested territory; Mudpaw considered this option alongside the others and decided the first was most likely.) With enviable patience, without a hint of deception in her eyes, Mossbloom looked back at her. Her answer was as serious and in-depth as it had been before; Mudpaw hadn’t even thought to ask about what would happen after they crossed the stepping stones.

Distantly, the apprentice knew she was still backed into a corner. When she extended her leg this time, however, it felt more like a matter of choice. ”Be careful, and no jumping,” Mudpaw said, nodding. ”I can do that. I’m not a SkyClanner.” She was quiet as Mossbloom chewed, and remained so with somewhat more difficulty as Mossbloom applied the poultice, though her muzzle scrunched up at the foreign sensation. When the older calico backed off, Mudpaw watched her a moment longer, more out of hesitance to test the poultice’s effectiveness than true suspicion. Very, very gingerly, she let her paw touch the ground…

It didn’t hurt. She leaned on it just a little. Chewed-up comfrey was maybe the most uncomfortable thing she’d ever had stuck in her fur, and when she leaned a little more, her leg reminded her it was, in fact, still injured—but the pain was dull, now. Smearing plants on it had actually worked. ”Better.” Surprised as she was, Mudpaw made no effort to hide her wide-eyed expression. ”Like I can walk on it a little.” Like you said. Her gaze swung up to Mossbloom’s face, wonder fading to hesitance. Some sort of thanks was probably appropriate, but when she tried to push the words off her tongue, what came out was ”Good enough to get us to the stepping stones.”

Mossbloom purred at the she-cat's words, a smile gracing her muzzle. "Good, I'm glad. Come now, let's get you home so that you can rest it, and take it easy." The stepping stones weren't far, and Mossbloom walked slowly near the RiverClan apprentice as they drew close. Hesitating at the edge of the water, she pointed out the stones. "They're right here, they go across the river. It's not terribly deep here, but the current is still quick, so you want to take care not to slip with your injured paw. I know you can do it though. There's one stone a few tail length from the shore that is under the water slightly, so watch out for that one. I can accompany you if you would like, but I don't want to overstay my welcome. Will you be okay?"

Mudpaw nodded and set off at Mossbloom’s side, only a pawstep or two behind thanks to the slower pace Mossbloom had set. She hated to admit it, but as close to ThunderClan territory as they were, she was grateful for the medicine cat’s presence, preemptively warding off any ThunderClanners who might accuse her of trespassing. Still, she was glad when they reached the river. ”I’ll be fine by myself,” she said once Mossbloom finished her warning. Once she crossed the stones, she would indisputably be in RiverClan territory, safe from any feline foes. From there, it was just a matter of getting back to camp—or finding one of the many patrols, whichever she wandered into first. After everything else, that was beyond simple.

With one paw resting lightly atop the first stone, Mudpaw looked over her shoulder at the older calico. She was silent for a moment. This time, when the idea of expressing her gratitude nibbled at her, she hooked her claws into it before it could dart away. She might never see this cat again. Besides, a simple “thank you” was less embarrassing by far than falling off Sunningrocks. She gathered up a breath and, in a rush, said, ”Thanks, Mossbloom.” Then Mudpaw began to pick her way across the river toward home, careful to keep the poultice well above the water.