Jayblaze - Sounds of Time

Gorse Thorn

A/N: Last author's note until I start typing the story!  I'm gonna try to update as often as I can, but my last 2 fanfictions failed... Especially the Jaspar one, oops XD  I'm going off the books as well as I can without rereading them, but if I start rereading them I'm gonna royally heck up my sleep schedule even more, so...  Yeah XD  Enjoy ^-^! (I'm trying this part when they're apprentices, let's see how many times I accidentally type their full names lmao)

"Jaypaw!  Jaypaw, wake up!" 

Jaypaw felt something prodding his shoulder and he was ripped away from the comforting warmth of sleep and his head jerked up.  He groggily scented the air, recognizing the scent of his mentor, Leafpool.  "Huh?" he mumbled sleepily, opening his jaws in a large yawn.  

"Finally," she mewed, slightly sarcastic.  "Lionpaw's got a thorn stuck in his pad.  Go and help him and then get some more sleep, I'm going to gather herbs.  I'll be down by the lake shore if you need me."

Jaypaw listened to her fading pawsteps and he stretched, yawning once more before getting to his paws and shaking the moss scraps out of his fur.  This had become the daily routine; Leafpool wakes up, finds some injury on Lionpaw, and goes off to collect herbs while Jaypaw fixes his brother.

"Jayfeather?" a familiar voice called from the bramble entrance to the medicine den.  It was followed by limping and the scent of Lionpaw tinged with blood.  "Leafpool said you'd help..." Lionpaw's words were cut short with a yawn, and Jayfeather noticed for the first time that he smelled of the forest, water, and rock instead of the warm scent of sleep and moss.

"Where were you last night?" Jaypaw asked softly, gathering a poultice of marigold and dried oak leaf.  He sniffed around until he found Lionpaw's paw and began to lap around it, loosening the grip of the barb in his brother's pad.

"Nowhere!" came the snippy response, making Jaypaw flinch slightly.

"Okay okay jeez, don't nip my whiskers off," the blind apprentice retaliated in an equally snippy tone.  

He worked in silence for a few seconds before Lionpaw mewed softly, "Sorry, Jaypaw, I'm just tired..."

"It's fine," Jaypaw muttered quickly, and yanked the thorn out.  He looked up at Lionpaw with his milky blue eyes and mewed, "I just worry about you when you come back injured and don't tell me where you were or what happened," and who you were with, Jaypaw added silently to himself, moving back to lapping the injured pad, not that I care or anything.  

~Lionpaw's POV~

Lionpaw sighed, mentally as well as physically.  He had one job- to protect his brother and not have him worried -and it seemed as if he were failing.  He watched tiredly as his smaller brother cleansed the gap in his flesh were the thorn had been.  "You would hate me if I told you," he mumbled, soothed slightly at the rhythmatic laps of the pink tongue.

"Try me," Jaypaw responded, and began to lap the poultice onto the wound.  

A/N: So I hope you enjoyed that little snippet of Jayblaze...  I'm tired now and I'm gonna go read the series, so...  Bye for now!  I'll try to update tomorrow, but no promises