Beechpaw's Hunger .wip

Chapter 3. Moonlight

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The small tom suddenly woke up, as if sensing that something was wrong.

It turned out to be just Torrentleaf, who was silently washing Beechpaw's pawpads with wet moss.

Beechpaw yawned, feeling a tiny bit better. His wounds hurt less, and his paws felt like they were magically replaced with new ones. His neck still hurt, though.

He slowly turned his head to check around the den.

It turned out to be night already.
Rays of moonlight were coming from outside the den. Most of wounded cats were sleeping already, their sides going up and down calmly, sometimes a couple cats were breathing in a rhythm, sometimes not.

Beechpaw hoped to be able to get to see Pigeonpaw soon, he was so worried for him so much not because they were friends, but because Pigeonpaw was like a brother to Beechpaw.

They always played together as kits, running around like silly little fluffballs of energy, always causing so much trouble to their clanmates.

Besides, they were doing everything together, only taking a break to eat, sleep, or maybe attend a grooming session from their mothers.

Beechpaw could barely imagine his life without the same silver grey tabby tom friend around him.

Beechpaw sighed, as he looked at Torrentleaf, who was glaring at him with curiousity.

"Be careful to not become an owl, you don't want to sleep at day and do your duties at night, am I right?" Torrentleaf mewed, as he finished cleaning leftovers of a poultice and was about to gather the dirty moss.

Beechpaw counted such "questions" a bit weird, but he knew that medicine cats either spend their time in the medicine den, either gather herbs... Either treat sick cats, so of course they would be a bit lonely, and get awkward around other cats often.

"Do you know how many more time my wounds will heal?" Beechpaw ignored Torrentleaf's question, not knowing what to answer anyway.

"Ah, yes, your pads are all fixed up and you can walk around now, but not too much, they can get injured again. Try to not run on hard or spiky surfaces such as sand or rocks, they can get scratched easily, but if they get damaged again anyway, come to me immediately, if you don't want the dirt to bring an infection to your tiny paws." Torrentleaf quickly explained, he surely was a great medicine cat to be able to process so many information at once at such speed. "Your other wounds, however, will need more time to heal, they are pretty deep. You could even have some permanent scars left from them, too." He mewed and pointed at Beechpaw's right side.

"Your neck will also hurt for a while, maybe a tiny bit longer, but it must heal soon enough. You are a very young cat, and most young cats heal fast."
Torrentleaf gave Beechpaw a friendly smile as he mewed.

"Alright, what about my training? Will I be able to train soon? At least hunt?" Beechpaw finally poured out his lot of questions.

"Well... Your training will be delayed for a bit before you get assigned a new mentor, but don't worry, it will take enough time for your injuries to be gone so you can start training right away, after you meet your new mentor, of course." Torrentleaf warmly said, he seemed to always feel that training was probably the most important thing in Beechpaw's short life, so his words were quite relieving to hear for him.