Turn Back Time (OPEN)

CONTENT WARNING.

Floating. She felt like she was floating, drifting through nothingness. Am I dead? Where is StarClan? Have they rejected me because I was born a loner? A hot wave of pain washing over her body told her otherwise. She must still be alive somehow. Tentatively, the she-cat opened her eyes. Though she couldn’t see it, she was a mess. Her face was covered in scabs, her hind leg still bled a little, and her left ear was missing a sizable chunk, but she was breathing. As the blurry world around her came into focus, she breathed a sigh of relief as she saw the wall of the medicine den. However, she soon noticed she wasn’t alone. Turning to the almost-as-badly injured tortie, she rasped, “What happened?”

The she-cat cleared her throat and tried again to speak. “I’m sorry, what’s this about predator pelts? I’m afraid you’re not making a whole lot of sense, no offense of course.”

The black-and white she-cat answered each question as it came. “I seriously don’t know what you’re talking about. And when did we fight? I’ve never met you before in my life! The leader is Murkystar, how do you not know that? And obviously we’re in ShadowClan. I guess I didn’t introduce myself, sorry. I’m Snowpaw, Marshmallow’s my mentor.” Suddenly the other cat got up and yelled two unfamiliar names. “Who are Nightstar and Fuzzybelly?” she asked her. “Are they helping us while Basilbloom’s away?”

Nightstar considered taking his time to see what drama Roseburn had been kicking up again, but she had also called for Fuzzybelly. Nightstar knew that Snowfoot had gotten dragged into camp, an absolute mess to say the least when she had tried to complete her rite. Nightstar hadn't attended her rite, as much as he had wanted to, as he had been inspecting some suspicious scents along the four-trees side of his territory. He had left the supervision in capable paws, but it did not seem that they were capable enough, he'd have to speak to them about their failures. But for now, Nightstar found his paws carrying him to the medicine cat den, and catching Snowfoots words.

How badly was she beaten? Two of his council members were injured, and one with some sort of memory loss. He almost groaned. Nightstar padded into the nursery, nearly cringing at Snowfoot 'While Basilboom's away?'. His sister was dead, Murkystar was dead, and Snowfoot was claiming she was Snowpaw. Nightstar looked for Fuzzybelly, uncertainty stalling him from just correcting Snowfoot, he had never dealt with anything like this after all, and while Fuzzybelly had as far as he knew, he was sure he would have been trained in it. "I'm Nightstar, but you might know me better as Nightstalker." The leader meowed, looking at the black and white she-cat.

"Fuzzybelly is a medicine cat, he'll help you while Basilbloom is gone." Something prevented Nightstar from just telling it how it was since that is what he'd typically do, but something stopped him from doing it. He felt that he'd be making things a lot harder to deal with if he just started correcting Snowfoot.

Fuzzybelly strolled into the den after grabbing some herbs. Stars knew chamomile, marigold and lavender were needed with all these cats attacking predators...

Snowfoot appeared to be awake. Thank StarClan for that! But why was Nightstar in his den? Perhaps to check on her?

The brown tabby tom padded up to the injured warrior.

"Hullo, you were hurt pretty badly, how are you feeling?"

The thing he knew about these things, the little he knew, was that breaking the news all at once was sometimes more traumatic than keeping them calm and letting the truth unfold once they had calmed down.

"I got some herbs for you. They'll help. This one is to help you relax a bit, sometimes things hurt more when we're all tense."

"So... Snowpaw, what do you remember before coming to the den?"

Leopardsun didn't exactly make a habit of avoiding the medicine den, but she wasn't likely to visit on her own. If there was anything she could deal with on her own, she thought it better to do so than take up Fuzzybelly's valuable time and ShadowClan's herb stores. That said, she wasn't here for herself. Snowfoot was injured, and it wouldn't hurt to check in on Roseburn while she was there.

She caught the tail end of the explanations, though not the meaning of them at first. She heard Snowpaw from Fuzzybelly, and blinked. Getting herself injured was far from ideal, and Leopardsun thought it was probably something that could have been avoidable, but demotion was pretty harsh as a punishment.

"Seems like everyone's here today. It's not too surprising, but- what did I miss....?"

Once she processed what Nightstar and Roseburn had said, though, reality crept up on her.

Snowfoot didn't remember. She didn't remember what happened. If she was right, she wouldn't remember her.

Turning her face away from the injured cats, she curled in on herself a little ways away and tried to ignore the tears that stained her face. She would stand and face them again as soon as she could do so with a smile, she promised herself that.

Snowfoot was one of the last older family members she had left; and even if they weren't as close as she might have liked, she still considered them to be fairly close. The older warrior was a constant supportive presence in her life. Snowfoot understood her pain at losing Deerleap, and Sootwhisker, and Vixenpaw, and Froststar. She had promised to defend Harrierkit if it were necessary. But if she didn't remember any of that, any of what they'd lived through- anything about her-

She had let herself lean on Snowfoot, because she couldn't stand entirely alone.

Slowly, she lifted her head, forcing a weak smile. "My name is Leopardsun."

Snow-paw? foot?? continued to try to be calm and polite. Getting worked up wasn’t her style and she couldn’t afford to with how exhausted and in pain she was anyway.

“Nightstalker. Of course I know you. But — wait, no, what happened to Murkystar? Frostgaze?” Her eyes grew wide. If Nightstalker was the leader now… No. No. Stuff like this just didn’t happen overnight. He must be messing with her. She nodded to the cat Nightstalker had introduced as Fuzzybelly. “Nice to meet you. Thank you for helping ShadowClan.”

Then the tortie spoke again, completely confusing Snowpaw. She was hurt, okay, that much was obvious. But then the rest? She couldn’t believe it. How? How was it possible that she was suddenly a warrior, with kits for StarClan’s sake, and apparently grown ones at that? She stared blankly at the other she-cat and finally responded. “Roseburn. Okay. Nice to meet you.” So Murkystar had more kits, apparently?

She was frankly relieved when the medicine cat broke in, taking her attention, providing her with an excuse not to say anything about what Roseburn had just said. “I’m… I’m not sure. My ear hurts a lot, actually my whole face does. And my right back leg, too. But I’m guessing the fact I’m either hallucinating everyone talking crazy or I’ve gone completely bats is probably more important, hehe,” she mewed. The wry laugh was an attempt to do something, anything, to break the spell that hung over the den, but it only felt hollow. Nodding, she took the herbs, then tried to process his question. “I… I remember my apprentice ceremony. Deerpaw had already had hers and I was looking forward to mine. Frostgaze assigned me to Marshmallow. I remember choosing my nest in the apprentices’ den, and wanting to train the next morning, but Marshmallow was busy or something. After that…” her voice trailed off as her face scrunched up. She winced in pain at the pull on her scabbed over wounds, but spoke again, voice shaky. “I woke up here,” she mewed, voice barely louder than a whisper.

Another cat broke in. Snowpaw looked up. “Oh, um, hi. Nice to meet you. I’m Snowpaw.”

OOC: As you can tell, Snowfoot has amnesia. She will be regaining her memory, but it will be slow. If anyone had tense relations with her, now may be an opportunity to rebuild. However, she’ll have to relive a whole lot of trauma. I’ll be referring to her as “Snowpaw” for now because that’s the identity she knows at the moment.

Fuzzybelly processed what Snowpaw had said. So, she lost literal seasons to this? She thought she was a newly named apprentice? This cat literally had grown kits, she was older than he was.

She had mentioned Marshmallow, and as if on cue, the warrior walked into the den.

He knew that if he were to lose his mice, he would probably want Basilbloom or Duskflight to talk him down. But Snowpaw's parents were dead, a trauma this poor cat would likely have to rehash.

This situation was awful.

"Well, I can help with the pain, and the other things too. But one paw at a time, right?"

Fuzzybelly debated on giving her poppy seeds, but poppy seeds were known to numb the senses, something she didn't need right now. Dock would be the safer choice. He grabbed the leaves and brought them to her first. After thinking a moment, thyme would also be a good option, to see if she was in shock. He grabbed sprigs of thyme as well and brought both piles to her.

"These big leaves are for pain, this is dock, it's all over ShadowClan. Works like a charm. I'll be putting this on you, okay?"

"These small leaves are thyme. It's good for a lot of things and calming down cats is one of them. Maybe it'll help you remember what happened, Snowpaw. Thyme actually tastes kind of nice, so at least it's not bitter."

He left the thyme in front of Snowpaw, letting her process being awake.

"I'm going to check that leg of yours, okay? If it hurts or feels weird, tell me."

Fuzzybelly gently patted her leg, first by the hip, then by the knee, then by the shin, then by the paw.

He turned to face the others. Leopardsun was having a particularly hard time, it seemed. Poor thing, he'd have to talk to her.

"Sometimes, when we don't remember things, it's hard to have everyone tell you what happened all at once. Gets really overwhelming and confusing that way. So, I think it's a good idea to have you in here for a little bit while your leg and ear heal up, I'll be giving you lavender and thyme while you're here. I think, for today, you should focus on getting some rest, Snowpaw. You're of course free to talk to anyone you'd like. If you have any questions, or you think you remember more things about what happened or anything else, let us know."

Fuzzybelly ran the differential in his head. Shock was likely, given the wound by the head, but this could also be an episode of amnesia too. And only StarClan had any power over how long amnesia lasted. Could have been a concussion too; he could check if she remembered any of the herbs he used today.

He'd have to explain the treatment plan to Burdockpaw. Fuzzybelly looked to his Clanmates, hoping they would be able to understand that pouring seasons' worth of information in a cat clearly in a fugue state of some sort was not a good idea.

Upon entering camp to the sounds of commotion around the medicine den, Harechaser's immediate instinct was to stay away. Whatever Roseburn had done this time, she didn't care and wanted no part of it.

Except more cats were padding over, and Harechaser knew that alone was reason for concern. Whatever had happened must've been bad, then. Her paws headed in that direction almost of their own volition, concern outweighing her reluctance. Marshmallow had beaten her there, and it seemed like the den was quite crowded as it was. Roseburn was there, but for once her sister wasn't the one who had caused such a stir and wasn't the one who drew her immediate attention.

As she approached, her ears caught the very end of what Fuzzybelly and Marshmallow were saying. "Snowfo- Snowpaw...? What in the stars happened?" Stars above, the older she-cat she'd gone on patrols with and who had met her and her littlermates outside the nursery looked... Well, she looked terrible. Harechaser was glad that her concern had won out over her initial thought. She rather liked Snowfoot, even if they didn't interact too much. But she was a clanmate and a good cat.

"Will she be okay?" Her eyes turned to Fuzzybelly, worry evident in their mismatched depths. "I- I'm Harechaser." She added softly, the tail end of Fuzzybelly's words lingering in her ears. She didn't... Remember her own name, let alone her clanmates? Great Starclan...

Nightstar was grateful for Roseburn just cutting to the chase as he would have, but his suspicions were confirmed shortly after in Snowfoots mounting panic. More and more cats were starting to fill the den, and Fuzzybelly was doing his best to work with the situation. Turning to the growing members of Shadowclan within the den, he meowed loud and commandingly, but hopefully not too loudly as to disturb Snowfoot. "If you are not injured, then leave the den. There's too much crowding. I will be out in a moment. Meanwhile, can someone get Snowpaw's... children, I or Fuzzybelly will be speaking with them." Nightstar turned to look at Leopardsun and rested his tail on her shoulder gently and he lowered his voice to a whisper for her. "You may stay if you decide that it would be the best for you, but I can see that you're crumbling right now. We can talk in my den if you need it, okay?" Nightstar didn't particularly want to be left alone with the two injured mollys, and Fuzzybelly, especially not without his deputy, but he was Shadowclans leader and he needed to act like it.

He needed to get an assessment of Snowfoots condition from Fuzzybelly, and he had to reassess her position as a council member, what to tell her children, if once she's recovered, if she was fit for warriorhood, and if he should put her through apprenticeship again. So many decisions needed to be made and rearranged for her. "Snowpaw... if Fuzzybelly is okay with it, would you like me to answer some of your questions, or would you just like to take a moment to rest?"

"If she's willing, I'm fine with that, Nightstar. You can't push too hard though."

He motioned his head to whisper in Nightstar's ears, "This could be a lot of things, we just don't know yet. If it's shock from the injuries, she'll be on the mend within a sunrise or two. If it's something else... it could take longer. I'm trying to figure out what it is, but if we upset her too much, that just will make her anxious, and that helps no one."

"I can talk to the visiting cats now, or stay here with you, Snowpaw, what would you prefer?"