Olivepaw settled herself in Wolfclaw's den as he began rattling off an introduction.

"In order to be a medicine cat, you will have to know the name and usage of every herb, even the poisonous ones. You don't want to end up giving a cat with greencough yarrow instead of catmint. Every warrior, every apprentice, even every kits' lives are in your paws. You need to nourish and respect that responsibility, Olivepaw."

Olivepaw blinked her green eyes, slowly slipping away from the present. Why does he have to talk so long? What good will that do me? she thought irritably, scuffing her paws in the covering of dried pine needles. Why couldn't she use this yarrow or catmint instead of yammering on about them?

"You will begin by memorizing each and every individual herb." Wolfclaw spun around and padded to a tunnel in the back of the den, covered by tall ferns, but Olivepaw stayed put.

"Aren't we going to explore the territory or something? You know, like every mentor does?" She cast a glance over her shoulder, wistfulness tugging at her heart as she watched Poppypaw and Duskpaw bounding out of the camp entrance with their mentors.

"You decided to be a medicine cat," Wolfclaw reminded her as he padded away, as if she could forget. Olivepaw fought the urge to roll her eyes, trying not to let her annoyance show. If she was to be a proper medicine cat apprentice, she would have to get used to orders and lectures. "Medicine cat apprentices don't do what warrior apprentices do. For instance, we'll be exploring the territory for herbs while they'll explore for good hunting places."

No fair! Olivepaw twitched her tail, restlessness making her squirm. She wanted to be out in the pine forest, memorizing the territory with her siblings, not cooped up in the camp! As if I haven't been cooped up all my life, she thought dryly. Olivepaw yearned to feel the wind battering her fur, the force blowing back her whiskers, trying to send her two steps back when she took a step forward. She needed something to drain her energy.

Wolfclaw purred slightly. "We'll go out a little later," he promised her. "But I'm going to get some herbs so you can know their names, appearances, smells, and usages. They're all very important in the art of being a medicine cat."

"Okay," Olivepaw mumbled, bushing her fur out a little. Out of the sunlight, it was cold in the medicine den, the pine needles like icy prickles in her pads. She settled herself while Wolfclaw went to gather up some herbs, crouching and letting her tail swish the needles, the sound like a scrape of claws in the silence.

Way too soon, her new mentor bounded back with leaves in his jaws. Spitting them out, he crouched across from his black-furred apprentice. "Do you have any knowledge about herbs?" he queried.

Olivepaw let her fur lie flat, pressing herself to the ground. Deathberries, deathberries, deathberries.
But what came out of her mouth was a squeaky "No."

"That's perfectly fine." Wolfclaw pawed a blue star-shaped flower toward her. "This is borage. It's mainly used so that queens can produce better milk for their kits, but it can be also used to bring down fevers."

Olivepaw opened her jaws, inhaling the scent.

"Repeat it back to me," Wolfclaw prompted.

"Um..." Olivepaw dug her claws into the pine needles. How could she repeat it, word for word? "This is borage," she meowed, prodding the flower's leaves, "and it's mainly used so that queens can produce better milk for their kits, but it can be also used to bring down fevers."

Wolfclaw nodded approvingly. "Exactly."

A thrum of excitement fizzed through Olivepaw's small body. She got it right, not to mention exactly! She bounced on her paws as her mentor set down some tiny black seeds.

"These are poppy seeds, used for shock or to help cats sleep..."

Wolfclaw made his apprentice learn five new herbs before letting her in the marshes. He padded beside her, his whiskers twitching, as she reared up and caught a leaf in her paws.

"You're an apprentice now, Olivepaw." The gray tom flicked her shoulder with his tail. "You can't behave like a kit anymore."

The black she-cat guiltily dropped to her paws. "Sorry."

"Olivepaw." Wolfclaw sighed, the sound deep and mournful as it whooshed out of him. "ShadowClan thinks you should be banished. Killed, even. They never forgot what you did to your sister."

Alarm shot through Olivepaw like a bird darting through the sky. He thinks I don't know? "What I did to Poppypaw? Like, with the deathberries?" she asked.

"Precisely." Wolfclaw turned his head, his yellow eyes looking distracted and distant. What was he hiding? Olivepaw wondered. What faraway place was her mentor visiting? "I'm not trying to bully you, Olivepaw. I'm trying to help you pass your Clanmates' inspection."

"They're trying to inspect me?!" she shrieked, indignation zipping through her ears to her tail-tip. "What for? It's not like I fed Poppypaw the deathberry on purpose! I'm not Tigerstar or anything."

"Some cats know that. However, most of them don't." Wolfclaw lowered his head and touched his nose to hers. "ShadowClan will be looking for every mistake you make, Olivepaw. Even if they very well know every apprentice makes some mistakes, they will pounce on it and rip you to shreds because of it. I want to save you from that, because you don't deserve it." He straightened up, his gaze solemn. "To the youngest kit and to the oldest elder, every cat makes mistakes. But until everyone trusts you, you're going to have to be perfect."

"But no one can be perfect!" Olivepaw objected.

"Well, you just have to try your best." Wolfclaw's tail flicked back and forth, as if he had ants in it. "You should explore the territory a bit. Even if you're not a warrior apprentice, you still have to know where you are. Go on, and don't look so alarmed! Oh, and if you find some borage, bring it back," he added as Olivepaw bounded away. "We're really low!"

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, and began to race through the trees, her paws pounding on the forest floor. Tree trunks shot above her, looking dark and formidable in the low light. Most of the sunlight was blocked by the dark-green canopy above her, leaves twining together like inseparable littermates. The marsh sucked at her paws, but she liked the tickly feeling when she pulled them out. She didn't care that her paws were wet and dirty as she sprinted through her territory. Who cares when she could wash them later?

Suddenly, a stench stopped her dead. Olivepaw recoiled at the horrible smell and clamped her jaws shut, not planning to open them for anything.

She was at the edge of the marsh, and a stream flowed past her, little tiny shapes darting through the water. The stream rushed into a wide lake that had a shore of pebbles on all sides, but Olivepaw was too busy focusing on the sight in front of her.

On the other side of the stream, there was healthy green grass stretching into a forest with trees that seemed to grow beyond the sky, trees that were a lot taller than the pines Olivepaw saw. Undergrowth shot up through the ground, almost like a barrier for the inside of the forest. It was nice, sure, but the stench was just terrible. Olivepaw gagged and turned around, desperately wanting to vanish in the marsh and leave the smell behind.

"Hey, stranger. Where's your mentor?"

"Yeah, aren't you a little young to be going around by yourself?" a snotty voice added.

Olivepaw glanced over her shoulder and wrinkled her nose at the smell coming off in waves from the cats. Ugh, why do they smell so terrible? It's going to make me vomit! A ginger tom, not unlike Robinpaw, a ShadowClan tom, was staring curiously at her, while a stormy-gray she-cat glowered at her with eyes like blue fire. A tom with weird, curly fur was a few paw-steps behind them, watching the exchange with fearful eyes.

"My name's Applefume, the deputy of ThunderClan," the ginger tom, the one who spoke first, meowed, "and this rude furball here—" he gave the gray she-cat a playful shove "—is Coldsoul. That's Frothsplash, the shy tom hanging back there," he finished, flicking his tail behind him. "So, are you lost? Do you need to get back to camp?"

"You smell funny." Wow. What an introduction.

The she-cat, Coldsoul, scoffed, while Applefume purred with laughter. "So do you, apprentice," he replied, his green eyes friendly and polite. "I don't know how you could live with that marsh sucking at your paws. It's like a monster, and no one likes a territory if it's against you."

Olivepaw stared at the patrol, the memory of battle and blood flooding back to her. She could taste the bitter tang in her mouth, see it splashing around her in grotesque pools... ThunderClan attacked ShadowClan moons ago, she thought, so why is he being so friendly?

"I can get back to camp by myself, thanks," she mewed coolly, and began to pad back further in her territory. "I have to find borage," she threw over her shoulder before watching them get swallowed by the copse of pine trees.

Once Olivepaw made sure she stayed well away from the ThunderClan cats, she tasted the air, trying to find the familiar scent of borage. Instead, she picked up her littermates' scents. I wonder what they're doing, Olivepaw wondered to herself, disappointment making her spine prickle. Probably learning fighting moves or hunting. Something more exciting than looking for dumb herbs!

You frog-brain! she snapped back at herself, a wave of guilt crashing over her. Medicine cats and herbs are important in the Clan's survival. If warriors are wounded or ill, herbs can fix them up.

But yet, the black she-cat knew she didn't want a life of hiding in the medicine den, cowering when other cats were risking their lives for the good of their Clan. She didn't want to wait to heal cats who were thrummed up with the thrill of battle, even if it was crucial to the stability of Clan life. She wanted to fight and hunt firsthand, not just imagine about it with reports from her Clanmates.

No, she told herself firmly, padding away from the scent of cats. You'll be more useful healing than fighting.

Oh, how Olivepaw wanted to believe it.

"No borage? You didn't scent anything?" Wolfclaw's voice was tinged with disbelief, making Olivepaw cringe. She looped around and around ShadowClan territory, almost throwing up when she caught both ThunderClan and RiverClan scent. She tried and tried, but her mind wasn't in it. She could have passed some borage a hundred times, for all she knew.

"I'm sorry, Wolfclaw," was all she said.

Wolfclaw frowned and pawed absentmindedly at some plant with bright orange-and-yellow leaves. The colors flashed up at her from the dark ground. "Maybe I shouldn't have let you out on your own," he muttered, scraping the ground with his claws. In the darkness of the den, his yellow eyes shone like two suns.

"You never even told me where to find borage," Olivepaw pointed out, her gaze trained on her paws. Why wasn't he acting like a mentor?

"Yeah, I should have. I've never trained an apprentice before, Olivepaw." Wolfclaw's eyes clouded, but with a shake of his head, they cleared again. "The Gathering is tomorrow," he meowed, "so it'll take a while to introduce you to StarClan. Every medicine cat from each Clan meets at the Moonpool every half-moon," he explained at Olivepaw's puzzled look. "We had one before you were apprenticed. They're fun, but it's a long walk. I'm sure you can handle it, though."

Forget the half-moon meeting! Olivepaw thought, her paws tingling with excitement, when there's a Gathering tomorrow!