Where is my Mind? (CLOSED)

Rookpaw was sorting the herbs inside ShadowClan's medicine den after Iniko told him some of the herbs' uses. The perfectionist inside him wanted to make sure that the right herbs were organized in the right place, instead of just leaving them all under the den. He had tons of traveling herbs organized if any cat needed extra strength, and he organized the rest of the herbs that he knew according to usage. Dandelion belongs near the blackberry leaves for bee stings. Horsetail is important to treat infections, and cobwebs help the wounds heal. Since goldenrod is used to treat open wounds, I should put it with the horsetail and the cobwebs. The black tom slid the yellow flowers to the cobwebs and horsetail plants to sort them all by usage.

Eventually, every single type of herb that he knew of was organized near other herbs that would be useful. Rookpaw didn't know the usage of some of them yet, so he couldn't organize all of them by usage. However, by the time he was a full medicine cat, he knew that he needed to memorize all of the herbs. I will know how to use all of them when I'm done with this. Eventually, the black tuxedo walked out of the medicine den to grab a piece of fresh-kill. As he walked out, he saw Mistyfalcon on the other side of camp. Rookpaw knew that Mistyfalcon really cared about Brighteye, and so her death really hit him hard. Perhaps it would be a good idea to talk with him.

"Hey," Rookpaw spoke. "You doing alright?"

Mistyfalcon sat on the edge of camp, picking at the remains of a mouse. He hadn't really felt hungry, despite his stomach's insistence that he actually was. He hardly tasted the mouse, and ate in silence. Blue eyes seemed distant, and most of his clanmates had, thankfully, decided to leave him be.

He was trying... to not think of Brighteye's mangled form surrounded by the scent of dog. Trying not to think of how she'd saved him all those moons ago from the same fate. Of all their time spent in companionable silence, both in the medicine den while he'd recovered and later, on their hunts in the pine grove. More often than not they'd run into some predator or another, but together they'd always prevailed and lived to fight on. This time, she hadn't. Maybe if he'd gotten there sooner...

Not thinking of Brighteye was working well, clearly.

A voice broke through his thoughts, and Mistyfalcon jumped slightly, obviously not having paid attention to the apprentice approaching him.

"Fine." There was a hint of brittleness to his tone that he couldn't quite hide.

"How's your training going?" Anything to take the subject of conversation off of him, though Mistyfalcon was genuinely curious. He didn't know the apprentice well, just that he'd been picked by the Asylum cats to be Cinderpaw's replacement. He couldn't imagine that that would leave room for traditional training, not that Cinderpaw's training had been all that traditional either. But Cinderpaw had at least been able to train under another clan's medicine cat.

Rookpaw sat down next to Mistyfalcon. The tom didn't seem fine, and anybody could tell, but the black tuxedo decided to not push harder on the tom. I don't know him well enough to force the issue. "My training's going well. I'm learning my herbs and their uses, and I think that at the pace that I'm learning at, I'll be an excellent medicine cat in the future." He believed that he would not just be excellent, but that he would be the best. Of course, those were lofty expectations that he set for himself, but he was going to definitely reach them. And I will protect my clan from the times to come as well.

The more he hung out with Iniko, the more Rookpaw grew to like the calico tom. And the more Rookpaw grew to like the calico tom, the more he trusted Asylum's judgement. Unlike his clanmates, he didn't despise Asylum's occupation. At the very least, he enjoyed Iniko's way of teaching him. He learned how to fight, which satisfied the young tom's desire to be able to do so, while also being taught the herbs that he needed to know to be the medicine cat of ShadowClan. "If you want, I can tell you the herbs that I learned about."

To say Mistyfalcon was relieved that Rookpaw did not push the issue was an understatement. Herbs and the training of medicine cats were something mostly foreign to him, and Mistyfalcon was a warrior. He found it much easier to relate to the warrior apprentices, of course, but... it would be something new to talk about. Something that was distracting. At least, something he hoped would be distracting.

"It's good that Shadowclan has a medicine cat who is willing, you seem like your want to excel at it. Your predecessor, Cinderpaw, hated how she was forced into the role, I'm pretty sure..." Mistyfalcon's words ended in a shrug. Cinderpaw had up and left, gone without a trace. Dwelling on it served no purpose. If the apprentice in front of him wanted to talk herbs, Mistyfalcon would gladly listen.

"Honestly, I can see that," Rookpaw said, replying to Mistyfalcon. "When I was younger, I wanted to be the best ShadowClan warrior." He put emphasis on that last word, implying his goals were different back then. "But when I was told to be a medicine cat apprentice, I accepted. Really, the reason why I was so on board with the medicine cat training is that..." Rookpaw trailed off, trying to think if he should tell Mistyfalcon the rest. Well, I've gone this far, and I can't leave my clanmate hanging. The black tuxedo took a deep breath. "Iniko is training me to fight, not just to heal. It's what kept my interest up to be a medicine cat apprentice, especially in the beginning of my training."

Rookpaw really didn't want to continue to talk about this topic, so he chose to switch topics to the herbs that he learned about. "Horsetail is a useful and common herb. It's used to treat infections and stop bleeding, and it's supposed to be found in marshy areas, which would make it easy to find in ShadowClan territory." Iniko didn't say himself that horsetails were common in ShadowClan territory, just that it was found in marshy areas. Rookpaw just assumed the rest.

"It makes sense, though." Mistyfalcon responded, "Knowing how to fight and hunt are skills all cats should have regardless." Cinderpaw had been large and brawny, and that muscle had gone to waste when she was only allowed to look at herbs and treat injuries. Mistyfalcon thought that allowing medicine cats to at least keep up with those skills would soften the blow of being forced into a role they may not have wanted. Maybe if she'd been allowed to keep up with her warrior training, she would have stayed.

Horsetail... Mistyfalcon thought he recognized the name, Cinderpaw had mentioned it and it was one of the herbs she'd used to treat his wounds after the dog attack, he was pretty sure. Tattered ears flicked in Rookpaw's direction, indicating that he was listening to the younger tom as he spoke.

When Mistyfalcon gave Rookpaw his ears, Rookpaw didn't hesitate to continue talking. "Catchweed is also very useful overall, since it helps prevent poultice from being rubbed off. Goldenrod is used to heal open wounds, and marigold petals have similar properties to horsetail when it comes to medicine." He liked talking about these types of herbs, since they were important for him to memorize just in case he needed to heal a cat's wounds. That was the job of a medicine cat, after all.

He couldn't help but think of Brighteye after that. When she had been brought back, she was already dead. And he knew that Mistyfalcon was suffering as well from her death. She had been attacked by a dog, according to Mistyfalcon's testimony. Rookpaw knew that there was nothing he could have done (what could he do with a cat who was already in the stars?) but there was still a twinge of guilt in him since he couldn't save the she-cat from getting killed. Either way, he didn't want to dwell on it too much. "We also have traveling herbs, even if we don't need to use them yet."

"Those are the herbs that I've memorized so far." He still had a while to go before he knew all of them, just because of the sheer number of herbs that he had to memorize. "I never knew very much about Cinderpaw. Could you tell me a little about her?" He didn't mind if Mistyfalcon declined, but he thought that learning more about Cinderpaw might help him be a better medicine cat.

"I'll be glad if I never have to eat traveling herbs again. I thought I was being punished when I went to the moonstone, they were so bitter." Mistyfalcon's whiskers twitched, the tone of his voice almost, almost sounding amused. Flintstar had been confused by his reaction, but Mistyfalcon hadn't dropped dead from the herbs, and they had done the job of waking him up and giving the energy to make the trek to highstones.

Mistyfalcon took a moment to think about Rookpaw's question about his predecessor before responding. "Cinderpaw was Flintstar's daughter, and Crowpaw's sister. she was Tulipfang's apprentice, not much older than me. I'm not sure what happened between her and Mothglow, the medicine cat before her. Mothglow died protecting some apprentices, and Cinderpaw announced that she would be our next medicine cat. She wasn't happy about it, but I know she went and trained with a medicine cat from one of the other clans."

"Still, Cinderpaw was dedicated. Strict, and beyond infuriating when she was keeping me in the medicine den, but dedicated. Brighteye and I saw her more than most, I think... Becoming medicine cat wasn't something she chose willingly, but she dealt with it, I suppose. Sometimes I wonder if things had been different, maybe she'd still be here. Maybe it was the stress of the position, or Asylum's takeover, or something else. I don't know. But she vanished without a trace." It was perhaps the most he'd spoken in one go in... moons, probably. Rookpaw had asked, though, and Cinderpaw's memory would live on, at least for a while longer.

Rookpaw nodded. He thought that traveling herbs were useful for keeping one's strength up, and there were some possibilities of using them in creative ways. Of course, that's when it's an absolute emergency, he reasoned. And there's no emergency here. He didn't see the Asylum occupation as a huge emergency to get away from, as his life in the Asylum wasn't that different than clan life. As long as ShadowClan had enough autonomy within Asylum, Rookpaw wouldn't have any problems with Asylum control.

That didn't matter at the moment, since Mistyfalcon began speaking about Cinderpaw's life. Rookpaw listened intently, gathering as much information about his predecessor as he possibly could. It seemed like Cinderpaw was surprisingly similar to him in more ways than one. She was born with a desire to be a warrior... but those dreams were derailed when she was asked to become a medicine cat. Despite her former dreams, she was extremely determined to serve ShadowClan as a medicine cat, and was trained by a mentor who was decidedly not ShadowClan.

Perhaps that's where the similarities ended. Cinderpaw was trained by another medicine cat, and Rookpaw was trained by Iniko. While Cinderpaw hated the role, Rookpaw embraced it. And while Cinderpaw left ShadowClan, for whatever reason, I refuse to do so. "Thanks for telling me all of this," he said, grinning at his clanmate. "I got to go, Iniko's calling me. I might be able to learn a lot from him." Rookpaw stood up, nodding at Mistyfalcon. "See ya, Misty."