Froststar's Destiny

Chapter Twelve

Frostheart admitted to a little reluctance to leave Streamlight, bid her goodbye at the SpringClan border. Streamlight was her only real friend at this point. Skyfeather didn't really count, she supposed. They hadn't talked much recently. Probably because he was confined strictly to the medicine den. Yeah, that was a reason. But instead of hunting for the Clan, Frostheart felt like she was hunting her energy reserves dry. She was eating a lot more than she used to, obviously not expecting kits like some random cat had teased her. She was just hunting way too much. Stonestar was the lone cat rebuilding dens and she was the lone cat hunting. At first rebuilding dens seemed useless, but in the end, Frostheart had to admit to a little gratitude. Being the only cat in the warriors' den, she could avoid the damp spots where the den leaked on damp days, but when it was storming, water flooded in in the buckets full. That couldn't be stopped, and she didn't sleep much on rainy nights, which was bad for her because rain or shine, she had to wake up at dawn in the morning and hunt the entire day away if she wanted to hunt enough for the Clan. Sometimes Stonestar helped her. Sometimes.

Hunting all day was hard enough in itself, but winter was at its edges, threatening to cut through autumn finally, and the cold air was giving everyone colds, even the already sick or injured. Actually, especially them. Frostheart remained one of the only two healthy cats, and Stonestar was only healthy because he'd lost a life and gotten revived. Frostheart knew she was healthy for now, but she was working herself ragged every day, and was quite prone to catch the illnesses going round. Honeyleaf and Hawkfeather worked tirelessly, but with the entire Clan under their care, they needed more than two pairs of paws, but two pairs of paws was all that was granted to them. They were getting increasingly annoyed and snappy, the patients were lonely, and they all had to move to the vacant elders' den, since the medicine cats couldn't afford to leave anyone out in the cold.

"This is catastrophic! We need help. Lots of help. Perhaps Stonestar or Frostheart could ask SpringClan for assistance," Honeyleaf suggested one day. Her nose was running, signs that she was sick as well. It was no wonder. She had been working herself ragged too, and the dark circles underneath her eyes showed she had hardly slept during the entire pandemic. And it hadn't even ended yet!

"Ask for help? Certainly not! SummerClan is strong!" Stonestar bellowed, and he answered anyone else's pleas for him to get help by baring his teeth threateningly at them and shouting at them for believing SummerClan was weak. "We are the strongest Clan in the forest!" he snarled to whoever would listen, meaning his victims to his yelling sprees. "This was merely a small setback! Nothing will ever make us weak!"

Unfortunately, no cat had the strength, time or energy to continue arguing with him. The sick cats had all the time in the world, as did the injured cats, but their bodies were recuperating and they had no energy to yell their heads off and debate with Stonestar, who never backed down to anything, not even concrete evidence. He spent his days marching around the place, eating prey he had not caught and yelling at whoever told him to do otherwise. Honeyleaf had tried to tell him off a few days back. She had been unsuccessful, and had now taken to gnashing her teeth in annoyance every time Stonestar so much as stepped into the medicine den. He wasn't pleased with her, but she was older than him, and he had nothing to say that she couldn't anticipate. Mainly he was just fairly frustrated with her, but he seemed to think his bodyguard, whom he considered Frostheart to be, could do a better job convincing her. That was what Frostheart thought when he approached her, anyway, but their cozy little meeting inside his den turned out to be quite the opposite.

"Honeyleaf expressed her wishes for you to become a medicine cat, Frostheart. I don't know if you've heard?" Stonestar spoke casually, pretending to be uninterested in the topic of conversation, but really, his gleaming eyes were searching her endless violets hungrily, searching her expression and her reaction. "I wasn't sure if you were truly considering this, after all the fighting potential you have shown?"