mintberry

~~~

MINTBERRY'S DREAMS WERE haunted by Snakestar's furious face.

It was odd. She'd never cared for her brother's opinions of her before, and even in her dreams - the two were always arguing - she'd been fueled by anger. But despite whatever fury she'd felt during her slumbers, she always woke up with guilt bubbling low in her stomach.

It always took a few moments after she gained consciousness to adjust, but once she did, the same words always replayed in her mind. There's nothing you can do for them, she told herself. There's nothing you can do.

She was now awake, somewhere in the sleepy, comfortable feeling that wanted nothing more to sink deeper into the soft moss and pass out again. She could hear the river flowing near the den, and the sound of the water running over the pebbles was deeply soothing to her, and the cool breeze that fluttered in every now and then was about to lull her back to sleep.

However, the gray tabby fought it, deciding that it was probably time for her to get up and do something with the day. After all, everyone else in camp was awake and moving.

She yawned, and as her jaws parted wide, the scent of fish and reeds flooded her tongue. Seasons of life had prepared her for the smell of sharp pine needles, and so when her sleep-muddied brain was greeted with this instead, she always clamped her mouth closed in shock.

It wasn't that the RiverClan scent was unpleasant. Mintberry had long ago become fond of it through her relationship with Dapplestar.

Speaking of which, Dapplestar's scent was overtaking the gray tabby's senses right now. After all, it was her nest Mintberry was sleeping in.

ShadowClan's former medicine cat yawned again, stretched, then padded out of the leaders den into RiverClan's camp. She'd been living her for the past moon now, and was surprised at how easily she'd gotten used to a different territory. Fish didn't taste any more unpleasant than frog, and ShadowClan's territory had wet, marshland areas that mimicked RiverClan's land.

Suddenly, the entrance of RiverClan's camp rustled, catching Mintberry's attention. Dapplestar burst in, two water voles dangling from her jaws; the rest of the patrol filed through shortly after, all carrying prey. The hunting patrol seemed to be successful, and the cats who'd been in camp quickly got to their paws and padded over to greet their friends, tail-tip twitching happily.

Mintberry followed that group, stopping only when she was right in front of Dapplestar. "Hey."

"Hey." Dapplestar grinned at her, dropping one of the water voles at the gray tabby's paws. "You're awake. Sleep well?"

"Mhm," Mintbrery hummed in reply. "Better than I have in moons."

Sadly, that part was true. It should've been odd that she felt more at ease in an unfamiliar camp rather than the one she'd grown up in, but Mintberry had a strange sense of safety in a territory under Dapplestar's rule.

The prophecy had been haunting her for as long as she'd known about it. When Ivorystar was leadering, she'd been fretting about the fate of her and her brothers under the victor of the war. When Snakestar became leader, she still wasn't assured; it sounded awful, but she didn't trust her brother not to try and seize the power for himself.

After all, the prophecy only required the death of one. In his eyes, surely her or Viperfoot were easily replaceable; he could've killed one of them, then gave himself a tiny cut to fulfill the rest of the prophecy.

Thankfully, though, he made no such move, and focused his energy instead on winning the war.

Which ended up not working out in his favor, but Mintberry didn't like thinking about that.

Anyway, the point was, she trusted Dapplestar. A sense of loyalty and affection buried so deep inside her that she thought she'd probably trust Dapplestar with anything. The silver bengal wouldn't hurt her.

But telling any of this to Dapplestar would make her sound whimpy, so she quickly supplied, "The sound of the running river is really soothing."

The RiverClan leader purred, rubbing her muzzle against Mintberry's shoulder. "That's my favorite part of this camp. I'll never understand how you lived for so long in the trees."

The gray tabby hummed again. She'd never been truly happy in ShadowClan, but it was harder letting go of her old life than she thought. She was feeling a lot more guilt than she would've imagined, and every time her old Clan was mentioned, it struck a soft spot.

As if sensing this, Dapplestar's voice grew gentler, and she brushed her pelt against Mintberry's softly. "RiverClan is your Clan now," she mewed. "ShadowClan's in the past now, if they're still anything at all."

Mintberry managed a weak smile. "Right," she replied. Hopefully she sounded more firm to Dapplestar than she did to herself.

"Don't you worry," the silver bengal continued, "Snakestar will come crawling to me soon. It'll take him some time to swallow his pride, but they won't be able to survive more than a moon in the Highstones, much less without a medicine cat."

"Right," Mintberry meowed again, quieter this time at the mention of her brother's name, her tail-tip twitching back and forth.

She didn't want to talk about this anymore, and so desperately racked her brain for another conversation topic. However, before she could come up with anything, a loud yowl suddenly pierced through the air, destroying the peace.

"Dapplestar! Dapplestar!"

After years upon years of war, every cat was tense and extremely responsive to calls, and so Mintberry wasn't the only one who leaped to her paws and felt her fur bristling, expecting an attack. But it wasn't a group of ShadowClan warriors who burst in; rather, it was Appleflight, a brown warrior with white spots, carrying his apprentice Leafpaw on his back.

"Appleflight?" Dapplestar shot towards him, blue eyes stretched wide with worry at the sight of Leafpaw. "What's wrong?"

It occurred to Mintberry that Dapplestar knew Leafpaw personally, that they were friends. And though Dapplestar was a few moons ahead of the black-and-white tom, they'd been apprentices at the same time. The realization of how young the silver bengal truly was suddenly struck Mintberry.

Murmurs of worry that turned into loud, yowling questions from the cats of RiverClan burst through the camp. Leafpaw's parents pushed their way firmly through the crowd, and in the midst of all the chaos, Mintberry heard her name being called by Dapplestar.

"Mintberry." Dapplestar's voice sounded confident and calm, but it had a shaky undertone to those who knew her well. Mintberry caught the shaky undertone. "Can you come here, please?"

She received some huffs of annoyance as she picked her way through the crowd, and Appleflight and Leafpaw's parents seemed uneasy at letting her take a look at Leafpaw. She didn't want to do this either. But she was the only cat medically trained in RiverClan's camp right now, and Dapplestar was there, nodding at her and encouraging her to go ahead.

So, she leaned down to examine Leafpaw. What she saw shocked her to her core. The black-and-white tom's pelt was torn, a thick layer of crimson coating him. He was unmoving, and it was difficult to tell if he was still alive if she wasn't looking for those signs of life.

From behind her, she heard Leafpaw's mother - Pebbleflight - whisper, "Great StarClan. What happened?"

"Rogues," Appleflight spat. "We were practicing for his Warriors Assessment, so we'd split up to hunt, and rogues attacked him by the border."

Mintberry straightened. She could feel her face adapting its cold, stoic expression - the one she always wore when caring for cats in ShadowClan. "Bring him to the medicine den. Someone get him some water and press cobwebs over his wounds. Dapplestar, do you know if the herb storage has been restocked?"

The silver bengal hesitated. "Not since Poolmist's death."

"Okay. I'll go look for some." Mintberry twitched her pelt as cats hurried to follow her orders. Catching sight of Pebbleflight's worried expression, she mewed, "Don't worry. He'll be okay."

The tortoiseshell she-cat hesitated, eyeing her, before complying with a nod and rushing behind Appleflight, who was carrying Leafpaw to the medicine den.

Mintberry sighed. That was the first time she'd tried comforting a cat, and that had turned out fairly poorly. Maybe she should stick to the same technique Clearfrost used, distancing herself from her patients and their kin.

Without another thought, she started out of RiverClan's camp, in the search for herbs.