Dark Skies- Book #2 in Sunrise

Chapter 15
Jadepaw was lying on soft moss, an extra clump cushioning her leg. her leg had a brace on it, a thick branch with some sort of wrapping securing it to her leg. Jadepaw was impressed with herself. Wow, I broke my leg. Immediately, it was awkward sharing a den with the now-silent Ravenstar. Tawny had died a while ago, and Amber had left, too.

It just didn't feel right being in the same den as the Clan leader, like she was invading his medical privacy. "Oh, you're up. Do you feel okay?" Jadepaw had just noticed Starlight, who was lying in a nest near Jadepaw's. "Well," Jadepaw couldn't move her leg, but just above it throbbed with pain.

"Well, better, I guess." Jadepaw murmured, not bothering to raise her head, which was buried in her nest. Starlight nodded and scooted closer to her. He was acting like he had never seen an injury before, though he had told Jadepaw and her littermates ho he had fought a fox and gotten really sick as an apprentice.

Starlight sighed. "I know it seems like I'm overprotective and I follow you and your siblings everywhere. Which I do. But I do it because, before she died, I promised her that if anything happened to her, I would protect you guys. And I would allow myself to be happy again, and not to slink in the shadow of her death."

"And I worry very night if I fulfilled that promise, and if I made her proud." Starlight nosed Jadepaw's ear gently, "I love you," Jadepaw offered softly, there were no other words she could summon up. "I love you, too."
. . .
"Keep that thing on, or I will hunt you down to the depths of the forest and fasten your cast to a tree!" Adderjaw said this threateningly with irritation at Jadepaw, but Jadepaw still, for some reason, really liked him as a cat of her Clan. "Okay, I'll make sure it doesn't start to fall off, otherwise, I'll see you." Adderjaw gave Jadepaw a nod of approval.

Jadepaw began to pad away, dragging her awkward leg behind her or occasionally swinging it over an obstacle. It had been a moon since her injury. Her leg had been broken in several places, and Adderjaw and Moonrise were very worried if it would heal right.

Almost all of Jadepaw's time in the medicine cat den was used persuading them to let her out after one moon, not two moons. Sparkpaw probably resented her for eating the biggest pieces of prey for so long in order to 'heal'. Ravenpelt had occasionally meowed fervently about unreasonable things, Moonrise said due to his fever.

Jadepaw had volunteered to go on the dawn patrol with Flipstar, Sparrowflight, Bristlefur, and Clearpaw. Moonrise had recently announced that Ravenpelt would never heal fully, and had traveled to Moonpool to visit with StarClan. Now, Flipstar was leader. Since Ravenpelt would never recover, Jadepaw had been assigned Bristlefur as her new mentor. The deputy was going to be picked at sunset.

"Cats of ThunderClan, please gather beneath Highrock for a Clan meeting!" Rufflekit, Dewkit, Beechkit, and Creamcall hurried out of the nursery. Obviously, the kits thought it was their ceremony. At one moon old. "I have an announcement to make," Jadepaw hobbled over to the rock, finding that this was a lot more exercise than she had expected.

"Ravenst, Ravenpelt, has made some decisions in the past that I didn't agree with, but this was the worst. And I want to make it right. Deathpaw, please step forward." Jadepaw felt a small stirring of excitement stir inside of her. Drizzlepaw stepped past Jadepaw and offered her a nervous smile.

"I believe that this apprentice's mother in StarClan is watching over him now, and I hope I have made the right decision." Flipnose stared deep into Drizzlepaw's eyes. "Deathpaw, I hope you can forgive me for not standing up to how other cats treated you and your horrible name."