Mothpaw's Medicine Cat Ceremony

Mothpaw stared at the mallow leaves before her, not really seeing them. Instead, her mind was elsewhere; somewhere she couldn't quite see. Flashes of blood and death filtered through occasionally, some from the fox battle and some from the mountains and the lakeshore, but mostly it was emptiness. She'd pushed it aside, kept going despite it all, through the Gathering and the medicine cat meeting and the various Moonstone trips she'd had to make since Scorchstar's death.

What had she done? What had they done, ShadowClan as a whole, to deserve so much loss? They'd been without a medicine cat when she took up the position, they'd lost their leader and she still had yet to earn her true name. They'd lost ShadowClan entirely for a time. Wasn't StarClan supposed to stop things like that? But they hadn't. They'd warned her, vague and ominous; and she hadn't known what to do with what they'd said at the time. How could she?

Distantly, somewhere outside her mind, she felt another cat's tongue smoothing her fur.

(How long had it been since she groomed herself?)

The leaves came back into focus in her mind. A symbol, she supposed, of the path she'd chosen for herself. Because that was what it was: the path she chose to walk. StarClan hadn't called to her any more than it did any warrior's apprentice... But they had accepted her, hadn't they?

And she had to wonder, staring them down... Was it worth it? Knowing what was going to happen didn't matter if she couldn't change it, after all, and she was just one cat.

Eventually, though, the feeling of being groomed pulled her back to her den, where she was still sitting silently. The leaves still sat before her, unsorted as they'd been since she brought them back.

Whether it was worth it didn't matter, she decided. She loved being a medicine cat, after all, most of the time; the ability to help and heal and the connections it allowed her - with cats in other Clans and with her ancestors. And whether she'd make a different choice if she was asked again... Well, it didn't matter. This was her path, she'd chosen to walk it and she would continue to do so.

(The same words she'd said when she fought to go to the mountains on that battle patrol surfaced in her mind. Someone has to help. And really, why shouldn't it be her?)

Still, she had to wonder...

How long had it taken her to go in circles, back to where she'd started?

...And just when had someone else entered the den?

She shifted slightly, suddenly very much awake. She'd been alone when she got lost in her thoughts, she recalled that much, but who was with her now? There had been a voice, hadn't there... Thornstar?

"What are you doing here?" she asked, her confusion evident in her tone.

It took Thornstar's actual words for what was happening to process in Mothpaw's mind. The words were harsh, yes, but she was accustomed to that from her former mentor. "Do I...?" she asked softly. She hadn't realized, through everything else. Throwing herself into her duties whenever she could and sitting here, despondent, when she couldn't... It had fallen into something of a routine. "I hadn't realized."

But that it was bad enough for Thornstar to notice and groom her, for StarClan's sake? She'd honestly sometimes thought Thornstar didn't understand the concept of grooming. Beyond that, she'd never been the type to do things like this. But, truth be told, Mothpaw was beyond the point where she felt the need to look for problems in anything that happened around her. All she wanted now was something to look forward to.

And it seemed she would receive it.

Big day...? she wondered, rising to her paws as she was told. The only thing that came to mind was that she'd been ShadowClan's medicine cat apprentice for an awfully long time. Long enough that, some days, she wondered if her medicine cat name would just be Mothpaw again. She didn't have a mentor in the Clan, after all; it had really just been her; first stumbling along unsure of herself and then with practice and experience her name failed to indicate.

Well. If that was actually it, she certainly didn't want to look like an owl pellet. So she stood still, but at least this time she seemed to be aware of her surroundings.

"Right," Mothpaw nodded. If she was preparing for a journey to the Moonstone, then... It had to be, right? She'd looked forward to this moment for so long, and she couldn't let her own sadness and drifting keep her from enjoying it. Instead, she dealt with it the way she'd been dealing with most things lately - by distracting herself, if only for a moment. Sorting out the herbs she would need was relaxing, and it grounded her to where she was as long as she stayed on task.

She was in ShadowClan's camp, in the medicine den, gathering traveling herbs for a trip to the Moonstone. One at a time. Sorrel first, as she always did. Then daisy, then chamomile, and finally burnet. She wrapped them all up in a bundle, and then started the process a second time in the same order. In the back of her mind, past all her too-loud thoughts, she noted that they'd need more chamomile soon. Maybe the rest too, with how many apprentices there had been recently.

Then she picked up the traveling herbs, carrying them outside the den, and looked around to see where Thornstar had gone. Something told her that she might not believe her if she said she'd already eaten her bundle, even if it was true.

Mothpaw deposited the herb bundle at Thornstar's paws, and gestured with her tail - 'wait a moment' - before fetching the second bundle. "Here," she said quietly when she returned and set it down. "I didn't want to carry both of them at once. I thought I might drop something," she explained. "We can't afford to waste herbs like that, after all... And I don't know about you, but I don't particularly want to lick them up off the dirt leaf by leaf."

Truth be told, though, she had nearly forgotten. Still, what was done was done, and she chewed her bundle with the same familiar resignation she had every day since the first. She'd chosen this life, and so she'd keep going, one awful-tasting herb bundle at a time. "They never do get any better," she remarked, seemingly for the sake of it. "You'd think, maybe after the thousandth time, they'd stop tasting quite so strong. Or that you'd get used to it. But no. If anything it just gets worse."

That was a good question, Mothpaw mused. Was she nervous? She didn't think so, necessarily... At least, no more than she usually was. "I'm not sure," she admitted. "I've made this trip so many times, for so many different reasons... Maybe I've forgotten how to be afraid of it, even if I should. It's not too late for them to change their minds." Still, she didn't think they would; so that concern was more of an afterthought than anything that actually bothered her. "It feels strange, though... Usually there's an apprentice, or the other medicine cats." She was, on some level, aware that she was the apprentice tonight. But the title had lost most of its meaning in relation to herself moons ago, for it was only that, wasn't it? A title. She'd been a lone medicine cat for some time, despite retaining her apprentice name. True, she'd had guidance from StarClan and from Amberdawn at first, but after that she was more or less alone.

Well. Not completely, as she was reminded now. She wasn't completely alone, and she never would be again; between the stars that sometimes seemed so cruel but let her walk with them still and the mother she'd come to view as her own, and the rest of her friends and family. She just had a way of forgetting that, right when she really should remember.

She let out a soft breath she hadn't realized she was holding, and a hint of her usual self slipped into her voice when she spoke next. "Okay. I'm ready as I'll ever be!"

"That sounds like it'd be really soft," Mothpaw said quietly as she led the way through the tunnel. A nest lined with fox-fur... It sounded endlessly soft and comfortable. But the battle they'd have to undertake just to get it felt almost insurmountable now, making the whole thing feel entirely unattainable. "Maybe one day."

"I'm as new to this as you are," Mothpaw pointed out; looking, sounding and feeling much more like herself than she had in some time. "I've never seen a medicine cat ceremony. Just my apprentice ceremony. I imagine it would be kind of like a warrior ceremony, but with less... Warrior-ness? Since. You know. We're not?" She twitched her tail, curious to see what her mother would do with this information. "But no, to answer your question, no one told me any magic words either. So I guess you've got to improvise." She wondered if they ever would, or if it was something passed from medicine cat to medicine cat. If ShadowClan had a tradition that had ended with their last fully-named medicine cat, and whether a new one would find its beginnings here tonight.