Blossompaw quickly dipped another piece of moss into the stream and whipped back around to hand it to Crystalwing. The blue calico was leaning over a squirming tabby body, who lay stretched widely across a mossy nest. His paler paws were twitching in pain, while the back left one was twisted into a bloody mess.

As she looked up at Crystalwing, then down again at Mousefoot, Blossompaw asked in a tiny whisper, "W-will he be alright...?"

Crystalwing paused for a heartbeat from where she was wiping the dust, soil and blood from his leg. "I hope..." she replied in a voice that was equal to Blossompaw's.

"I-I'll get some sticks a-and... what else?" Blossompaw inquired, her fawn tail sweeping across the floor of the den.

Without looking up from her hurried work, Crystalwing muttered, "About two calendula leaves - remember what they look like? - and a couple of those sticks. As quick as you can!"

Blossompaw nodded and turned around towards the herb store. She half-tripped, half-skipped across the stream and faced the hollow rock. She saw herb pile after herb pile stacked up in neat rows. From shrivelled, brown stalks to bright green, giant leaves, more herbs than she thought was possible laid across the rock floor. As soon as she tried to picture what calendula leaves looked like, her mind went completely blank. She could hear Mousefoot's faint panting and the crowd of cats outside falling silent.

"Hurry up!"

"O-ok...!" Blossompaw replied nervously and eyed two piles of adjacent leaves. Her heart started to beat faster and faster, as she urged herself to remember.

One pile looked a bit like smooth daisy leaves and the other like wide bramble leaves. Blossompaw wracked her head furiously, digging her claws into the earth. She took a few deep breaths, trying and failing to calm herself.

"Blossompaw, hurry!!"

Calendula has flowers like daisies, doesn't it? So... leaves like daises as well? No...! Arnica has daisy-like flowers, so... Yeah! So this must be calendula!

"Coming!"

Blossompaw shook out her fur and grabbed a couple of the bramble-like leaves in her jaw. She rushed over to Crystalwing and stretched out her neck to let her mentor take them. Crystalwing took the leaves without letting Mousefoot out her sight, after less than a moment of chewing them, she spat them out with a yowl of annoyance.

"Blossompaw!" Crystalwing turned to her with ears flattened to her head. Her teeth were bared and she looked absolutely seething, something that was incredibly unusual for the usually calm Crystalwing.

The apprentice backed away, fur bristling slightly, and ears also folded backwards. She stammered questioningly, "Wh-what's w-wrong?"

"They're raspberry leaves! He's got a twisted paw! He's not kitting!" she exclaimed angrily.

"I-I'm sorry...!" she murmured, feeling her fawn ears burning.

"You know what...?" Crystalwing shook her head and muttered with exhaustion clearly lining her eyes and voice, "Sorry, but you're just in the way here. Go look for some more sage - Redsplodge has been having some serious stomach aches lately." More quietly, half to herself, Crystalwing added, "I hope you know what that looks like!"

"Oh- ok..." Blossompaw padded out of the den, without looking back. Her ears felt as if they were on fire, and her stomach seemed to be pressing on itself. She felt sick, but not that type of sick.

She could hear Crystalwing busying herself with Mousefoot's twisted leg until the screen of yew branches hid them from view. Blossompaw slipped out of the den to see a crowd of cats gathered around the HighMound. Owlstar was standing to the side, talking urgently to Silverwhisker. A few tail-lengths away, she spotted Icefang and his siblings talking quietly, head-to-head.

"All this fuss over a bossy, old furball." Frosttail scoffed.

"Don't be rude!" Snowtail exclaimed, flicking her tail, "You were down there as well. It could've been you-"

"But it wasn't." Icefang interrupted, "Because Frost isn't stupid enough to jump under a rock when there was no danger."

"What do you mean, 'no danger'? I thought the rock was going to fall on Rockpaw!" Snowtail asked, tilting her head in confusion.

"No," Frosttail replied coolly, "The rock was no where near that lazy flea-pelt."

"Wasn't it?" Snowtail questioned.

"Nope. And to be honest," Frosttail mewed with a conclusive tone, "good riddance if it was - that nosy rabbit-brain would be no use to any cat."

Icefang murmured in agreement and, spotting Blossompaw looking at them, gave a small, fake cough. Frosttail turned and glared at her, while Snowtail simply smiled and mewed loud enough to be clearly heard:

"We were just saying we hope Mousefoot gets better soon! Rockpaw must be so stricken!"

She grinned awkwardly at Blossompaw and waved her tail in farewell, as she and her siblings trotted away. Blossompaw nodded back and stared after them, unsure whether to feel angry or sad or... something else. Her stomach turned again, and she had lost part of her sense of self. She sighed and looked around the camp.

A somewhat familiar movement caught her attention. She turned to see Rockpaw running out of the cave like a streak of pale brown lightning. Not that she had ever seen lightning, but she'd heard it from the elder tales as a kit.

Feeling a tugging urge to follow Rockpaw again, and with her stomach ache disappearing, Blossompaw slowly followed after him, at a much slower pace.

When she had reached the outside of the cave, there was no trace if Rockpaw, except for his scent trail and a few swinging furls of bracken. Slowly, almost casually, she trotted through the pines, stopping here and there to examine a patch of flowers for useful herbs. She followed a similar route to the night before, except she took a different path to the rabbit track away from the dirtplace.

As soon as she detected Rockpaw's scent on a long, overhanging tendril of bramble, Blossompaw sped up. She ran as fast as she could, while trying not to make too much sound or tracks. After running a few more tree-lengths, Blossompaw saw the pine trees thinning out.

A hill, dotted with pale heather, rose up in front of her. She pushed her nose into a patch of grass right between her paws and found Rockpaw's scent covering it.

Oddly enough, a tail-length away, a small bush of sage grew out from next to a small rock. Blossompaw remembered Crystalwing telling her that sage grows best in well-drained soil. A pang touched her stomach again and she continued walking.

Setting her paws down as lightly as she could, she crept up the hill. Using the heather bushes and rocks as hiding places, she tried to make herself as hard to see as possible. She reached the tip of the hill and looked down. She gasped.

Rockpaw stood at the bottom of a small hollow in the earth. Well, only for a few heartbeats. He seemed to have jumped, because his back paws only just touched the ground. A black cat leaped aside and jumped onto his flank, pinning him down. Blossompaw's ears flattened to her skull and the black cat threw Rockpaw aside and ripped their claws over his flank.

Awestruck and panicked, Blossompaw bounded down the hill, and in a few seconds, landed on top of the black cat. One closer look told her that it was Silentbird. The she-cat' blue eyes darkened and met Blossompaw's copper ones.

With one fluid movement, Silentbird flung Blossompaw onto her back and leaped onto her stomach, holding her down with claws extended. Silentbird glared down at Blossompaw, teeth bared and glistening.

The black she-cat was just about to dig her claws in deeper, when Rockpaw grabbed her tail and pulled her back.

Blossompaw scrambled to her feet and stared at her brother, who looked as if he was helping Silentbird stand up.

"Wh-what are you doing, Rockpaw?!" Blossompaw demanded.

"Who's she? How does she know you?" Silentbird asked Rockpaw, lashing her tail. She tried to get to Blossompaw, but Rockpaw laid his tail lightly across her flank.

Rockpaw looked away, not meeting either she-cat's eyes. To Silentbird, he muttered, "This nosy furball is my sister..." and to Blossompaw, he snarled quietly, "I'm battle training, or is that against the Warrior Code, now?"

Blossompaw stared at her brother. Suddenly, her head filled with image after image, too fast for her to properly see. The emotions and scents around Blossompaw, filled her mind, and her head started aching worse then her stomach. She took a few deep breaths to steady herself and she looked up at Rockpaw again. Besides him, kneading the ground with unsheathed paws, Silentbird scowled at her, teeth still bared.

This she-cat in front of Blossompaw seemed like an entirely different cat from the one that she had met at the Gathering. Instead of a quiet, warm, juvenile warrior, there stood an angry, battle-ready rogue. Blossompaw couldn't help herself from asking again:

"What are you doing...?"

Word Count: 1518

Sorry this took longer than I expected it to!
Still, it's a Sunday, so I'm technically not late with it (where I am).

I hope you like it!!

Thanks for all the veiws, votes and supportive comments!
You really make my day every time I go through them!

It would be very appreciated if you tagged anybody who you think will enjoy this book!

Thanks again and have a marvelous day!