The Pelt Maker and the Pelt Wearer [closed]

Burdockroot knew Thalia was the one who brought skinning pelts to ShadowClan. It was a unique trait. While the why and how she knew was fuzzy, all Burdockroot knew is that she wanted to learn. She stood now at the edge of camp, her hulking frame obscured in the night time shadows. Harriertalon could hold down the fort while she was gone. The medicine cat had invited Thalia for a hunt, but what she really wanted to do is learn how to skin pelts as well. Perhaps it would help keep the chain of tradition going through ShadowClan. In turn, she could teach Harriertalon. Harriertalon could teach her apprentice. And so on. There was no better cats to learn this than medicine cats, whom already knew so much more than the average warrior.

Thalia had been meaning to approach Burdockroot for some time, unsure of how to avoid offending or worsening her chances to befriend ShadowClan's more prickly medicine cat. She found herself in a difficult position, and Thalia had gathered that a number of ShadowClan cats avoided her seemingly on purpose- which was something she remembered. It was likely that it didn't sting any less, even knowing that Burdockroot had chosen her position as a full-grown cat.

"Thank you for asking me to join you," she said politely. "I'd been hoping we could talk, but I know medicine cats are busy, so I usually just leave the herbs where you can find them..."

Well, Burdockroot already knew that. Thalia had been providing herb bundles for the medicine cats for longer than Burdockroot could possibly remember. But she'd also tried to befriend the cats within the medicine den, and she'd let herself falter in that particular tradition.

"I just didn't want to bother you," she said.

In truth, there was something she wanted to ask of the medicine cat as well; but it would be somewhat rude, she thought, to ask to learn medicine before they even really knew one another at all. She wasn't a medicine cat, and as far as she knew she had never been in StarClan's favor (for as much as she was ShadowClan, as much as she had taken the forest as her own, there were other ancestors she didn't know the names of watching over her).

So. First things first.

Do what she should have done quite some time ago, and just be nice.