Distant Sun - Thunder

Chapter 8

"Heatherpaw, do you think you could walk with Mangledface around camp for a little while?" Goldenlight asks as she pushes leaves together into piles.

"Yeah, I could," Heatherpaw replies.

Mangledface gets to his paws wobbly and walks over to Heatherpaw by the entrance. He still looked downtrodden from his new name, but who wouldn't?

"C'mon, I'm sure everyone is excited to see you," Heatherpaw meows softly, nudging her brother gently with her muzzle.

"Yeah," Mangledface gives a hollow smile and nods. "Let's go."

They walk out into camp together and look around. Not many cats were in camp. That was good, that meant there were less cats to stare.

"This way," Heatherpaw leads Mangledface over to the elder's den, where Firepelt and Snowheart were basking in the sun.

"Oh, hello there, dears," Snowheart purrs. "It's good to see you out and about, Mangledface."

"Yeah, it's nice to feel the sun on my pelt," Mangledface nods, although Heatherpaw notices a wince at the use of his new name.

"I'm sure. And with newleaf coming around, we might be heading back to the greenleaf camp soon," Firepelt adds with a flick of her tail. "That clearing is always a favorite of mine for the sun."

Heatherpaw watches as her brother and the elders chat a little longer. Mangledface still looked a little pained at each use of his new name and she didn't blame him. She hated it too. And it was all Spottedstar's fault it was like this. If she wasn't such a horrible cat, then maybe her brother wouldn't wince every time he heard someone say his name.

"Look at that, I didn't expect to see you out around camp so soon," Ironsong meows as he walks up to the group, pulling Heatherpaw out of her thoughts. "Are you feeling better?"

"A bit I guess," Mangledface shrugs, turning to look at Ironsong.

"That's good, maybe you and I could go hunting together sometime to make sure you didn't lose your skills," Ironsong purrs and Mangledface cracks a smile.

"I still hold our record!" Mangledface challenges.

"Please, you were out so long that I have improved way more than the last time we competed," Ironsong flicks his tail with a grin.

"We'll see about that!"

Heatherpaw smiles softly. Mangledface looked more like himself while talking with Ironsong. Maybe she should have taken him to the warriors first after all.

***

Heatherpaw lies her head on her paws as the cats start streaming back into camp. She frowns as each and every cat does a double take when they see Mangledface. He was too busy talking with Goldenlight to notice. Goldenlight had insisted she reapply some herbs to a couple of his scars after he spent all of that time walking earlier, but Heatherpaw knew it was to keep his attention away from everyone staring at him.

"I can't believe there's now three cats around camp that look like that now," Heatherpaw bites back a growl when she hears Opalpaw's voice. "It's hard enough to have to look at Heatherpaw's face every night. Now we have to worry about Mangledface as well as Raventooth coming out of nowhere."

"They're not that bad, Opalpaw," Silverpaw meows tentatively. "And don't you think it's mean to judge a cat based off of what they look like?"

"No? They know no one really wants to look at them," Opalpaw replies.

"That's not true!" Silverpaw gapes at her friend. "And they all got their scars from noble battles!"

"What, like fighting a badger out of stupidity? Letting a fox take off their leg? Please. That is less than noble."

"Raventooth was protecting kits!" Silverpaw's hackles start to rise. "Not to mention, Heatherpaw and Sn- Mangledface helped Tallwing find that badger set. We drove it off of our territory because of them! So yeah, it was pretty noble."

"You're too ready to defend cats," Opalpaw sighs. "I don't know why I bother talking to you sometimes. Larkpaw gets me more than you do and she's rouge-spawn!"

Heatherpaw turns her head away from Opalpaw and looks at the medicine den once more. Mangledface was still talking to Goldenlight. Good. He didn't seem to have heard Opalpaw. He didn't need that right now. He just needs to recover.