Wraith [Open]

Spinning, spinning, spinning. The world, her world, her head was in constant, desperate motion. She wasn't present, at least outwardly, but a glimmer, just a faint echo of her former self remained, struggling to make sense of the whirling broken machinery, her shattered mind.
She wasn't stupid– far from it. She knew some things, at least. Simple facts about herself and the world around her. She was alive, breathing. She belonged somewhere– Skyclan –and she had a job, a very important job. The leaves were changing and falling off the trees just as they did each year, and the ground was soft, littered with them.
She held onto these things, these odds and ends, scraps, broken bits and pieces of herself. She collected them collected and hoarded them away in the deep recesses of her mind. It was these things that kept her from losing the rest of herself, these things that the echo clung onto. Even if she wasn't sure of the exact value of each fact, each object, she kept them close to her chest, shiny trinkets hidden among mountains of empty waste in her brain's magpie nest.

She belonged somewhere. She had a job to do. Leaves, changing. Leaves, falling.
Following muscle memory, the threadbare tabby staggered out of the mountains, down the hill, towards Skyclan. Her pelt clung, ragged and shedding, to her skinny frame. Her pawpads were torn and bleeding from several days spent wandering through the mountains. Her murky green eyes were dull, flat, two-dimensional. There was no longer any light, any sign of life inside them. She was, at least on the outside, nothing more than a wraith.

She stumbled through Skyclan territory, her paws dragging, creating trenches in the formerly seamless, leaf-covered landscape.
When she reached Skyclan's camp, she proceeded to stand at the entrance, her claws shifting in and out of their sheath without rhythm. She stared dully as cats passed. She had made it to her place, to Skyclan– she had a job, she knew, a very important one. "Bu t... what wa.s i t?"
One of her tattered ears twitched.

It was a bit weird, being a warrior to be honest. It wasn't so much different of being an apprentice other than more responsibility and freedom but...He almost felt lost on what to do with himself now that he didn't have a good reason to linger around camp because Spottedleap was to busy to train him... He was eyeing the fresh-kill pile, wondering if he ought to go hunting - not that he thought they would object if he brought back extra food in general. But then something caught his attention, a familiar scent that seemed...Off. Strange. And then he saw her, peering through the fern entrance - Mintwhisker.

He leaped to his paws, whiskers twitching as he leaped forward to greet her. "Mintwhisker!" he called in surprise, amazement...Before he stumbled to a stop suddenly as he recalled Sagelight's wound - which he had heard had been caused by the previous medicine cat in a sudden...Fit of something. He stood there, paws locked to the spot as he fought over what to do...Before he spun to glance back to the rest of the camp. "Tinystar! Spottedleap!" he called for the leader and deputy, tail-nub twitching in worry. "Mintwhisker has returned!"

Having been resting in his den, Tinystar's ears perked at the sound of Foxfire's call. Mintwhisker had returned? Standing up, the little legged leader padded out of his den to see his medicine cat standing at the camp entrance. She had only been gone for a couple of days, but he knew what had happened to Sagelight and wasn't going to let her transgressions against a fellow clanmate go without a proper punishment.

"Mintwhisker!" the tom's voiced boomed above the buzzing clan, causing every cat to halt in their tracks. "Come here," he summoned the she-cat as he stood in the center of camp.

Sagelight had been catching on very quickly. Their herb hunt had gone exceptionally well, and Mossbloom was in the midst of running through some final tasks before making the trek back to ThunderClan.... Then she heard the call. Mintwhisker? Here? Now? Her blood felt chilled, and she froze, pelt starting to stand on end. The look in the she-cat's eyes, the way her claws had sliced through the air... That night was not something the she-cat would easily forget. She hesitated, turning her gaze towards Sagelight. How was he reacting to it? Should she stay here, hidden away? Perhaps it was none of her business, really....

No. Sagelight was her apprentice now, same clan or not. Mintwhisker had betrayed her clan, and her apprentice, abandoned them for not the first time. She had also betrayed all of the medicine cats, in doing what she had done. None of them could have prepared for such a bitter betrayal, such a mad state of affairs. Steeling herself, she padded out of the den to sit at the entrance to the medicine den, and watching with keen eye. Ears perked with quiet interest, her gaze found Mintwhisker where she stood, the same crazed, blank expression in her eyes. Not quite blank, actually, there was something there... Something Mossbloom couldn't put her paw on. What would happen to the she-cat for what she had done? Tinystar had let her harm another cat without raising a paw at least once already, who was to say he wouldn't stop her now?

Spottedleap's attention was caught by Foxfire's call. 'Mintwhisker? It can't be...' When he reached Foxfire and saw that the she-cat had really returned, his hackles raised and his muscles went stiff. She had struck his brother and ran off to who knows where, and now she thought it was okay to come back? He stood in front of the newest warrior, a tug of protectiveness lancing his heart, and almost said something when Tinystar called out first. He ushered Foxfire out of her path, keeping an eye on the former medicine cat and realizing that something was very, very strange in her eyes. It was unsettling.

Overhearing all the commotion going on outside, Honeykit carefully peeked her head out of the nursery to see what was going on. Immediately, she recognized Foxfire, Mossbloom, Spottedleap, and Tinystar standing and staring at a new cat she had never seen before, one that looked incredibly lost and confused. She had no idea who this cat was or where she came from, but one thing was certain: she didn't seem to look all that friendly at first glance. And when Tinystar yowled at the newcomer -- Mintwhisker, was that her name? -- she knew right then and there that this cat wasn't a welcome guest, either.

The little kit flinched at the sharp demand coming from within the nursery coming from her mother. Honeykit, you get your little tail back in here. While still curious to learn more about this stranger, she was more scared than anything else, so she more than happily went back to Murkpelt's side.

(OOC: mobile ;; )

There was a cry of the former medicine cat's name and Sagelight felt his blood run cold. The last time he had seen Mintwhisker, she had struck a deep gash across his shoulder and bolted into the mountains. His hackles raised as he crept to the entrance to the medicine cat den, glowering at the brown tabby in the darkness. He wouldn't let her set paw anywhere near him ever again. His tail tip flicked aggressively as he watched his former mentor, his ears laid back against his head. It was rare to see him in such a foul mood but his heart still stung from Mintwhisker's many crimes. She looked ragged and thin, her eyes still holding that crazed look she had back at Highstones. Tinystar beckoned her forward and he shrunk further into the shadows of his den, watching with slitted pupils. I will never become like Mintwhisker, he vowed to himself. I'm going to be the best medicine cat this clan has ever seen.

Sound. She found herself suddenly hit with a barrage of dizzying, mind-twisting sound. Her face twisted in an attempt to shut it out. She stumbled backward.

Suddenly, a final, booming noise cut all the others off. Clarity. Silence. Her murky eyes brightened: a hopeful animal. The source of the final sound would bring calm.
She stumbled towards it on unsteady paws. A string of drool hung her mouth.

She stared at the white creature ahead of her, eyes coming into and out of focus as she tried to connect the distant, itching memory that it brought.
Grandfather
And she clung to the word, although she was unsure of the meaning. Sound, nothing but sound in her head, but desperately she held onto it and the faint wisps of memory that it brought. Trapped inside her empty mind, Mitwhisker was trying to pull herself out of the fog that she'd sunken into.
But she was cold, so cold, and her paws were slipping...

The cat looked around.
Surrounded.
She felt... uneasy. She could sense a trap, a cage about to drop onto her.
But she didn't run yet. She turned her face back towards the white creature, her eyes settling on a whisper of wind stirring the leaves just above his shoulder. She had been pulled to this place. She would remain here until something turned her away.

Mintwhisker was clearly not in her right mind and looked as if she'd just seen a ghost. But, even so, Tinystar knew he had to resist showing too much sympathy, especially after what she'd done to Sagelight, her own apprentice and clanmates. "Mintwhisker," he began, the tension in the air almost unbearably as his crazed granddaughter quivered before him. "You have committed treason, attacking your own clanmate," Tinystar mewed, his eyes cold but with a glint of hopefullness that she wasn't actually that far gone. "What do you have to say to this?"