Tadpoledrift's Mistakes

Chapter Two

Not even a full moon had passed since she had last been to the moonpool, but she longed to go visit it once again.

In recent days worry had clouded her mind as more and more cats came into her den asking for assistance. It seemed that the foxglove and holly berries that Tadpoledrift had gathered to help fend off the foxes hadn't worked as planned. She wanted more than anything to ask her mother for help and assistance, but she had been stuck for entire days in her Den caring for the wounded and sick.

She heard a quiet grumble nearby and turned her head to look at her apprentice, a blue ticked tabby sat sniffing through the herbs story and blindly glared at nothing.

"Need any help Minnowpaw?" Tadpoledrift walked to sit next to her apprentice.

"We're already low on catmint, I thought you said you went out to get more." Minnowpaw's blind eyes still looked at the stores as his ear flicked.

"I-I did! I guess I just didn't grab enough." She gave a nervous chuckle.

"Well then get more next time." The Medicine Apprentice growled in response.

Tadpoledrift smiled and dipped her head.

"You're showing yourself to be a way better Medicine Cat than me."

"You know that's not as hard as it sounds. I swear some of the time it feels like I'm the mentor and you're the apprentice." Minnowpaw's blind eyes looked up.

She laughed again and stood up from where she sat, her ear swiveling and flicking when a large white and dark grey tom entered the Medicine Cat den.

"Good evening Tadpoledrift, good evening Minnowpaw." He dipped his head to both the Medicine Cats. "Have you seen Raggedthorn anywhere today?"

"I think I saw her this morning heading out with Evergreen-"

"Mousedung! I'm sorry if I interrupted anything that you were doing, but I must go now." The large tom quickly ran out of the Den before Tadpoledrift or Minnowpaw could reply.

"What's Snowflakeflurry concerned about this time?" Minnowpaw went back to sorting herbs around.

"Dunno, likely just worrying about his mother like always." The silver and white she-cat shrugged her shoulders and turned back to her apprentice. "I'll go out and collect whatever herbs we're out of tomorrow morning, that or go ask the other clans if they have enough to spare for us to use."

Minnowpaw heavily sighed as she blindly looked at the pile.

"You know it's kind of odd and suspicious how often you go out to look for herbs and how rarely or just how little you always bring back. Is there something you wish to tell your clan about that you are hiding?"

Tadpoledrift looked around her den nervously, a few injured warriors lay near her resting in their mossy nests, a sniffling kit lay curled up against his equally sick mother. Tadpoledrift shook her head quietly.

"No, I have no secrets that I hide away from my clan or it's leader." She quietly mewed to her apprentice.

The blind apprentice's expression, like always, didn't change much from where it rested, but she knew that if Minnowpaw truly could, she'd be rolling her eyes.

Tadpoledrift trotted to sit up against her apprentice.

"Let's move away from the dark topics and go over herbs again, okay?" She shuffled the herb pile around with her paws, messing up Minnowpaw's work.

"If you really say so."

The two medicine cats went over the herbs, everyone once and a while Minnowpaw would grumble to herself, and every time some sound came from the entrance of the den Tadpoledrift would look over her shoulder.