Jaggedstar's Choice {COMPLETE}

Chapter 22

Jaggedtail stretched out his injured leg, it was still incredibly stiff and sore to move. He couldn't help but wince at the movement. Sagefeather, who was watching his movements shook his head. "You're still not ready to get back onto full warrior duties." Sagefeather stood up and gave his shoulder a sniff. "The wound is healing nicely, just slowly."

Jaggedtail groaned. "I feel like I'm going mad being trapped in camp all day long." He admitted. "It's the worst."

"I understand but you don't want to go make it worse by running out and hurting it more, do you?" Jaggedtail stubbornly shook his head. "Your sister had to endure the same thing when she hurt her leg when you two were apprentices, remember?"

"How could I forget?" Jaggedtail let out a small chuckle, glancing at his broken tail.

"Go ahead and get some prey, you need as much rest as possible." Jaggedtail thanked Sagefeather as he always did and stepped back into camp, breathing in the fresh-air. It was a warm, early greenleaf day and Jaggedtail's paws itched to be out in the forest, hunting with his Clanmates.

It had been nearly two moons since the fox attack and Jaggedtail was still recovering from his wound, just as his Clan was recovering from the deaths of Applepaw and Mosswing. Cherrypaw and Hazelshine had been completely torn apart by the death of Applepaw and had spent many nights together, mourning her loss. Elmheart had slowly began to recover from the loss of his mother, Jaggedtail didn't have anything else to do so he spent as much time with Elmheart and Maplepool as he could.

Ashstream had gotten away from the fight with very minimal wounds, and Foxpaw had suffered an injury to his hind leg but it wasn't serious. He had only been confined to camp for a quarter moon. Jaggedtail hated that he couldn't train his apprentice, but he had become the temporary apprentice of Fieldfoot. Jaggedtail wanted his stupid wound to heal, he didn't want to miss out on Foxpaw's warrior ceremony.

Despite having a temporary mentor, Foxpaw would come to Jaggedtail after every single training session and tell him all about it, including demonstrating his new moves. It was one of the best parts of Jaggedtail's day, he was glad that Foxpaw hadn't left him behind as a mentor. Fieldfoot was a wonderful mentor, but Jaggedtail had grown so attached to Foxpaw, he missed training with him.

The worst of the injures aside from Jaggedtail had been Sparrowheart. While Jaggedtail had been unconscious, the fox grabbed his tail and dragged him across the forest floor, his tail was severely wounded and after they returned to camp, Sagefeather and Stormsong feared infection, so they removed half of his tail.

Sparrowheart had been so distraught by the death of Applepaw that he wanted to punish himself, no other cat agreed with him and tried to assure him that it wasn't his fault but Sparrowheart had gone to Birdstar and insisted that his name be changed to represent his new wound, Birdstar reluctantly agreed and Sparrowheart was renamed to Shorttail.

Under a new name, Shorttail had slowly begun to get back into his normal life, as did the rest of the Clan. Elmheart had resumed patrols and was taking better care of himself. Even Cherrypaw had returned to duties, but Jaggedtail couldn't help but notice how much the she-cat had changed. She had a dark shadow in her green eyes, and the way she carried herself and acted made her look so much older. She didn't look like an apprentice anymore, and it pained Jaggedtail to think that way.

As he left the medicine cat den, Jaggedtail spotted Elmheart returning from a patrol with Maplepool at his side, she had been spending extra time with him lately and Jaggedtail guessed it was because of everything that Elmheart had been through lately, Jaggedtail wanted to spend just as much time with his friend.

Jaggedtail limped across camp to meet up with his friend and sister. "How was the patrol?"

"The usual." Elmheart shrugged. "We patrolled the AshClan border so nothing much to report."