how the mighty fall ❧ // warrior cats

VIII - CONVERSATION

     Thrushpaw intercepts them. Though both Stonetail and Streamheart begin to approach Mistpaw's prone form, the medicine cat apprentice plants herself firmly in their way. "Leave her be," she commands. "She's been there for a while now."

     "But she looks–"

     "It's how she's grieving," says the small tabby, not budging as Stonetail peers around her. Her eyes are flinty, all hazel and hard with a frostiness that Stonetail has never seen before. The grey warrior glances once more past Thrushpaw at the WillowClan apprentice (thank StarClan, she catches the faint rise and fall of Mistpaw's chest), but averts her eyes quickly, looking anywhere but at the apprentices before her. Streamheart is similarly evasive in regards to Mistpaw, although she dips her head to Thrushpaw before murmuring something about getting something to eat. Then she is gone, off choosing from the fresh-kill pile while ex-mentor faces ex-apprentice.

     Stonetail feels like she could tear the tension apart with her claws. It's hard to look at Thrushpaw with Mistpaw lying in the background, and it grows harder still when the pale warrior realizes she has been hovering over Mistpaw from a safe distance since WillowClan's arrival. Her concern for the orphaned she-cat is just as palpable as the strain between herself and Thrushpaw.

     And Thrushpaw knows it.

     "Quit holding your paw up and go see Robinfoot," she says, giving Stonetail's shoulder a brief scan. "It won't heal itself if you keep it tucked like that." Without any hint of malice save for the level tone she holds, Thrushpaw pads around the grey tabby and to the camp entrance, where she nods at Stormfoot and gives some explanation for leaving that concerns marigolds. Stonetail forces herself not to watch the medicine cat apprentice vanish into the pines, and instead swings her focus to the medicine den. Suddenly deflated, the walk to the other end of camp seems like it's tree-lengths and tree-lengths long, while her nest is so very close. The temptation to visit Robinfoot later in the evening is overwhelming, a feeling only strengthened by the desire to lie in dry moss and worry with Streamheart over Greystar's private vendetta against the nameless cat. But Robinfoot needs rest like any other cat, and the possibility of waking him too late (and by extension, waking Thrushpaw) is far from appealing. Besides, Thrushpaw is absent, if only for the time being, and another conversation is temporarily avoidable. Good shoulder sagging, Stonetail limps to the bracken-covered den with her tail leaving a faint line in the dirt.

     "Robinfoot?" she calls, trudging in. "I think I twisted my shoulder."

     A pair of amber eyes blinks open in the corner at the sound of her voice, but they do not belong to the medicine cat. Coal lies in a small nest, chin on his paws and body curled in tight; Stonetail is beginning to think she will never see him in any other position, he is so often postured like this.

     "What are you doing here?"

     He pushes a paw forward gingerly. "Tore two claws," he grunts, withdrawing as soon as Stonetail gets a good look. Blood is crusted across his toes, and there is a fresh stain on the moss. Cobwebs are nowhere to be seen.