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The HaloClan camp was not a long way away from the post that marked the end of their territory. The leader's den was a small thing, a crevice underneath the fallen log where they held their meetings. The medicine cat's den was made by the cats themselves long ago; large boulders covered in dry moss huddled together to create a rather big space underneath. The nursery was adjacent to the medicine cat's den; thick brambles surrounding the small area with a log leaning against the medicine den to serve as a roof. The warriors and apprentices slept in the open, the warriors on the smooth rocks scattered sporadically around the camp, and the apprentices in the tall grasses on the outskirts of the flattened ground; no one slept in the rare rain.

Quietpaw carried a large bundle of yellowed burnet between their teeth, padding into the camp. Olivepaw gave a goodbye tail flick against Quietpaw's hip, before bounding off to the freshkill pile, mouse dangling from her jaws. The colorpoint apprentice ducked under the low rock entrance of the medicine cat den.

Piles of herbs wrapped in dock leaves lined the back rock wall of the den, some spread out on top of the natural rock shelves made by the wall. A large, dark reddish-chocolate she-cat paced back and forth between the herbs, grumbling to herself, before grabbing a herb wrap and returning to a whining kit.

"Hold still for a moment,"the reddish she-cat said, ripping a dock leaf from the tightly wound wrap and chewing it up.

Quietpaw slinked past the pair, dropping his bundle of burnet next to the pile of sorted herbs they would bring to Moonfalls. The colorpoint apprentice sat, sheepishly waiting for their mentor to address them.

Spitting out the wad of dock leaves into her paw, the chocolate she-cat turned, her aqua-green eyes looking over the apprentice. "Quietpaw. Welcome back," she said, sounding relieved and a bit annoyed. Her expression quickly turned stern. "It certainly took you long enough."

"Yeah...sorry Elkbrush," Quietpaw's ears slid backwards, ashamed. "Is there anything I can help with?"

"I don't- Stonekit, stop squirming. Give me a moment, Quietpaw, I'll deal with you later."

Quietpaw swallowed, before trying to make themselves look busy.

Stonekit flailed about. Quietpaw noticed bramble thorns stuck in his fur. Stonekit wailed, "Stop it, Elkbrush!" and tried to squirm away.

The medicine cat wrestled the kit to the ground. "I've told you not to play in the nursery brambles, Stonekit, now hold still."

She pulled a large thorn from between his shoulder blades, and Stonekit puffed up his kitten fur with a hiss, waving his claws around. The reddish-brown medicine cat spat out the thorn and coated the cut with the dock leaf pulp as Stonekit wiggled around, complaining. Elkbrush sighed. "Quietpaw, hand me a marigold petal."

The colorpoint apprentice obliged, picking off a golden piece from their dwindling supplies. They dropped it at Elkbrush's paws. "There's not many left..."

The chocolate she-cat sighed again, flicking her long-furred tail with a grimace. "I know. It's a good thing the trip to Moonfalls is soon, EclipseClan usually has marigold," she turned to the grey kit with a frown. "Until then, let's hope Stonekit here doesn't wander through any more brambles and use up our entire stock."

The medicine cat pressed the petal tightly against the small wound despite Stonekit's hisses and sputters. Quietpaw gently pulled at the other thorns tangled in the kit's fur as Elkbrush tended to the wound between Stonekit's shoulder blades. Luckily none of the other thorns seemed to have punctured the skin, he was just covered in small scratches. Quietpaw cleaned the dirt out of his fur and scratches with cobwebs, and treated them with the leftover dock leaf pulp.

The kit's screeches had subsided into annoyed grumbling, sheathing and unsheathing his tiny claws in the dirt, his raised hackles making the task a bit tougher.

"You're done, Stonekit," said the medicine cat, releasing him from her grip. The grey kitten sped out of the den.

The chocolate cat shook out her long chocolate fur with a sigh. "I swear, that kit's gonna turn my fur grey."

Elkbrush gave a swish of her tail as she padded to the rock shelves to check their herb stock. Mumbling to herself as she sorted through the dwindling stockpile of flowering herbs, she glanced at Quietpaw. "Check the honeycombs for flies, will you? I had Honeythroat complaining about maggots a few moons ago," she said. Her strained voice gave Quietpaw a pit in his stomach, dreading what was to come. "And clear them of crystals while you're at it."

"Yes, Elkbrush."

The blue-pointed apprentice gently unwrapped the honeycombs from the fresh dock leaves, and a sweet scent hit their nose. The apprentice's tail hung low as he cleaned the honeycomb, and Quietpaw's legs trembled more and more the longer their mentor remained silent.

Clearing the last honeycomb of its white-gold crystals and dabbing them onto dock leaves to save for later, the skinny cat sat and rocked back and forth on their haunches, head slumped forward as they waited for their mentor to speak. 

Sweeping the last bits of dust off of the rock shelf surface with the side of her lion-sized paw, Elkbrush gave a sigh, tilting her head upwards to the slate roof for a moment. Peeking out of the entrance, she made sure that no cat was nearby.

Then she whipped around to face Quietpaw, lips pulled back in a snarl. "Where in the name of StarClan's dirt place were you?"

Quietpaw's ears flattened backwards, and their head somehow sunk even lower. Their blue eyes stuck to the ground, afraid to meet the aquamarine ones boring into him from across the den. "I-I lost track of time..."

"How?" She paced around with a growl. "I sent you for burnet! It's the one herb we have in this dry dung-hole of a territory, and it took you until sunhigh to get it!"

"I-I didn't know-"

"Fox-dung," she spat, and Quietpaw flinched, glancing up into her fury-filled eyes for just a heartbeat. She looked away, reddish-brown hackles lowering by a hair.

She paused, squeezing her eyes tightly shut, long silver claws digging into the ground for just a moment before she sheathed them again. "Do you know how many cats came in here today?" She asked coolly, not waiting for an answer. "Three. Four, including that furball Stonekit. Four cats, Quietpaw."

"I'm so sor-"

"Sorry doesn't help me heal cats, Quietpaw, sorry doesn't fix Thistletoe's torn claw, or bring me goldenrod for Brokenfoot's cracked paws, or help Spidertail with her morning sickness while I deal with a squirming kit."

Elkbrush's lips twitched, flashes of her white fangs revealed for fractions of a moment. She sighed heavily. "Do you know why StarClan chose you as my apprentice?"

She didn't wait for them to answer. Her long tail lashed and her blue-green eyes once again trapped Quietpaw in a frosted gaze. "Reliability."

Her lips pulled back into a snarl and her claws unsheathed. Quietpaw flinched, but they knew her infamous claws would never truly lash out at them. Right now her anger was directed towards the ground.

"Reliability!" she repeated, ripping matted dirt from the ground in one swoop of her paw. "That's the mouse-dung that they told me! StarClan's actual word!"

She gave a single, raspy laugh that had to claw its way out of her dark chocolate throat.

"Instead my apprentice is romping around the territory on a 'search for burnet' with a she-cat doing StarClan knows what."

Quietpaw froze, blue eyes wide and staring at his mentor, mouth agape. He felt his heart beating faster and faster, his breathing tumbling over itself in an effort to keep up.

"It-it-it was-wasn't li-like that-at," he gasped, trying to get a hold of himself.

He wanted to tell Elkbrush that she was his friend, nothing more. He wanted to tell her that he didn't even like she-cats.

He wanted to tell her that he had lied to Olivepaw, that he had chased that mouse because he couldn't find any herbs, that he wanted to prove to himself that he was useful because he couldn't even find burnet.

He wanted to tell her that he really had searched, that when Olivepaw showed him where it was he felt like an idiot because he had stepped on the plant himself. He wanted to tell her that he was trying, that he missed his mother, that he was sorry and unsure of everything. His training, his missing family, he wasn't even sure if he was a he. Quietpaw wanted to tell Elkbrush everything, but all they could do was sputter and gasp.

Suddenly the apprentice felt warmth, warm chocolate fur enveloping him and his short little gasps.

The blue-pointed apprentice gratefully accepted the hug, burying their face into his mentor's fur, his gasps decreasing in frequency.

"I-I'm so so sorry Quietpaw, I don't know what came over me..." Elkbrush whispered into Quietpaw's forehead. He heard the beginning of sobs tickling at the back of her voice, but all he could do was clasp at her reddish-brown fur, mumbling incoherently into her chest. "I know it's not like that with you and Olivepaw, I just- I'm looking for someone to blame. There aren't enough herbs this season, and I'm worried about Leaf-bare, and StarClan hasn't..."

They heard Elkbrush stop herself. "I'm... I'm sorry is all."

"I-I'm sorry too-"

"You have nothing to be sorry for, love. I'm too harsh on you."

The chocolate she-cat pulled away from Quietpaw, giving them a lick to their ear.

"How about you hang out with the other apprentices for a while, hm? They should be finished with their duties by now- and, I can finish some preparations for Moonfalls."

Quietpaw didn't want to hang out with the others. Quietpaw always felt like an outcast; a kit who didn't have anyone to raise them often didn't survive in HaloClan, as queens were rare. He was lucky that Springdapple had just given birth to Olivekit, or else he would have starved, but he felt the other apprentices resented him. Many of their siblings died due to a lack of milk to go around; Quietpaw was the exception.

Quietpaw scrambled for an excuse to stay with his mentor. "But what if another cat comes in...?"

Quietpaw looked up to Elkbrush. Pain clouded her aquamarine eyes as she stared unseeing towards the other wall. Other cats might've not noticed- it was something a medicine cat was trained to realize.

Suddenly she broke out of her daze and glanced at him as if she had forgotten he was there. Then she gave a half-hearted smile. "I'll call you if I need your help, but I doubt that any other cats will be ill today besides a possible burnt paw-pad."

Hesitating, Quietpaw wondered for a moment if he should ask what was on her mind, but ultimately decided against it. He nodded, thinking it would be best to leave her alone with her thoughts.

"Make sure to watch your step. You may have just been outside but- well, you know how fast this parched camp heats up in the full sunlight."

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A/N
Part 3 of Chapter 2 will be out soon, need to finish it up :3
Thanks so much for the reads! What do you think of the characters so far? 👀

fin jan 10 2021