the music of the night [closed]

Somehow, Briarthorn had managed to get two large thorns lodged into her large pawpad, so she hobbled into camp with her front right paw held close to her fluffy chest. At first she had tried to walk normally so that it didn't look as if she were being weak, but the closer and closer she got to camp the more it began to hurt. The thorns had been driven so deep into her pawpads that only the very end of them stuck out, and blood pooled around the edges and a consistent stream had begun to flow from the two holes. Droplets of blood could be seen trailing from where she'd initially stepped on the vine of thorns to where she now stood in the middle of camp.

With her lip pulled into a half snarl she began her half-hobble towards where she knew Rookfire would be, probably sorting herbs or some equally dumb medicine-related task. Ducking into the den, she quickly made eye contact with Rookfire and pushed forward into the den, lifting her paw and turning it so that he could see the thorns deeply embedded in her paw. She was slightly hunched over as the den was rather small and felt crowded, and she began to wait impatiently for whatever chastising she was about to get from the tom.

Rookfire was in the medicine den, grooming himself. After all, he wanted to look good if or when he came out of here. Perhaps it was a moot point most times of the day, because more often than not he would be interrupted by someone who needed help with a thorn or something. It meant that he always had to keep an eye out for other cats who came into the medicine den.

Sure enough, Briarthorn was here, waiting for him. "Hey, Briarthorn," he said, a smile on his face. He didn't know Briarthorn as well as he would have hoped, but maybe he could build a relationship with her. "Okay, I'll get some herbs for that." Grabbing the herbs needed to work on her injuries, he began to pull the thorns out of the she-cat's paw. While he was working on Briarthorn's thorns, he decided to talk with the she-cat. "How did this happen, by any chance?" he asked.

She had to admit, she was rather surprised that Rookfire hadn't elected to yell at her for shoving the thorns further into her paw, or get onto her case about not looking where she was going. With a curt grunt, she sat down and waited for the tom to gather the appropriate herbs. When he approached her she lifted her large paw and watched as he methodically worked on each one. A grimace of pain formed on her face as he pulled on them. "Wasn't looking where I was going," She mewed in a low voice. "I was... Not close to camp. Walking on it pushed them in deeper." She chose not to comment on the fact that she wasn't in ShadowClan territory at all. As always she was quiet unless spoken to, and simply watched as the tom worked on her paw. Occasionally she'd grunt in pain or twitch and wiggle at the feeling of the thorns moving around inside her paw pad, but otherwise, she didn't bother talking to the tom. She didn't care if it was awkward or, truthfully, what the medicine cat thought at all. She was here to get these thorns out and maybe some poppy seeds for the pain, and then she'd be gone.