• A Muse Of Storms And Tragedy - A Warriors Apply Fic•

Chapter 6

The white and ginger colored cat watched from the mouth of his den as the sun started to slowly rise above his clan's camp. Then he watched as slowly, one by one the cats of different ranks woke up and greeted each other. The cat let out a small sigh, being a healer was his dream, he was well respected for his skills, he was part of his clan but also separate from it. He never thought of having kits before, it was never a thought that had ever crossed his mind. But as the days got warmer and the day of gathering slowly creeped closer, he started to pay more attention to his clanmates, they all seemed happy. Even Amethystthorn, she was becoming better and better with each day that passed. It seemed like he no longer needed to take care of her, though he had checked up on her a few times in the last couple of days. She seemed content with her life.

"Hey Snowspark!" The chard called to the healer, smiling at him as she sat down beside him.

"Good morning, Cloudface," The healer smiled back watching as Amethystthorn's kits ran around the camp, the first clan born kits that RoseClan had seen in a few seasons, the youngest apprentice being somewhere around 7 or 8 moons old, though they did have another kit that wasn't born in the clan, though RoseClan took the small kit in, as she is related to RoseClan's elder, Snowwhisper.

"Nothing from the ShiningClan I assume?" Cloudface wondered with a half amused laugh.

"Nothing." Snowpack agreed, "though Sleepingwillow has been on edge lately, she's been like that ever since Grassysky mentioned the name Wolfscar."

"Weird, Wolfscar used to be a friend of mine, though he was in DewClan, he was nice to talk to at the day of gathering." Cloudface smiled.

"Odd, I wonder if Sleepingwillow had anything to do with Wolfscar?" Snowspark asked.

"Who knows, she keeps a lot of things secret from our clanmates, I mean who can blame her, most of us are terrible gossips." Cloudface laughed.

"True..." Snowspark nodded, already growing tired of the conversation, but not wanting to be rude.

"Anyways, I best be off, got lots of work to do, and Ravenshade isn't making my job any easier." Cloudface sighed, mentioning the young adopted princess of RoseClan, she was indeed quite a handful. Snowspark had grown worried that she would overthrow RoseClan for not making her the next chard, or heir to chard, even if she was younger than Cloudface. The chard slipped away from Snowspark and gathered a few protectors and gatherers to patrol the border, hunt and gather some herbs the healers were low on.

"Help-!" A small squeak called out, Snowspark turned his head towards the small voice to see none other than the small kit named Cream. Of course on the nicest day in weeks the small little kit was getting chased by bees. What did she do now? He jumped up chasing the small kit, picking her up and rushing her to the healers den. Once Snowspark laid the small kit down he began to ask her some questions,

"What did you do this time to anger the 'oh so scary' bee gods?" the healer joked.

"Well...I was- uhhh, sleeping, then I woke up, I saw a small bee and stared at it, then. I- uhhhh followed it to the other corner of camp and got a bit too close to the hive?" Cream explained.

"That's what? The third time in the span of a few weeks? I thought you would have learned to stay away from the bees?" Snowspark sighed with a smile, "no matter! I shall conquer the bee gods and get back to you when they are defeated, for now though...stay away from the nest, don't scratch the stings, if they get worse or really itchy come back to me I'll put some herbs on them. Go and stay near Amethystthorn and her kits, she'll keep you safe until the bees are dealt with and until those stings have healed properly." The kit nodded, slowly wandering out of the den to find the den mother. He smiled, to himself, today seemed like it was going to be a great day-

"Pineshade!" A screech sounded from just outside the den. Making Snowspark's smile drop,

"Why is it today of all days that cats decide to get hurt?" He sighed, hurrying out of the den, to see the blurry shape of Valley beside the two royals Pineshade and Dawningstream.

"What happened?" Valley asked quickly as Pineshade's sister dragged him closer to the healer's den.

"He forgot to chew his food again, he's choking!" Dawningstream mewed in worry for her elder brother.

"Set him down, Valley, get Sleepingwillow and some yarrow, I got this." Snowspark informed the healer in training. Dawningstream set her brother down carefully, while Snowspark got closer to see what was going on. He opened the prince's mouth to see a chunk of rabbit lodged down his throat. The odd colored healer kept the prince's mouth open, seeing as he had to work quickly, as Pineshade was starting to lose consciousness. Snowspark stuck his paw into Pineshade's mouth and hooked the chunk of rabbit with his claw, pulling it out with ease. As soon as the piece of rabbit was out of his mouth the prince took a deep breath of air, then started to breathe normally again. Valley got back with Sleepingwillow and some yarrow as he asked. Sleepingwillow examined the prince while Valley fed Pineshade the yarrow so he could clear the rest of his food. Just as Snowspark was about to go back to what he was doing, Valley called him back. There were deathberries in the rabbit and he threw up some more. Snowspark stood there in shock as the rest of the royal family, including Ravenshade, rushed to meet the prince who lay just a few fox lengths outside the healer's den. How did death berries get into his food? Was it intentional? Or was Pineshade not the target but someone else? Who are they and how many death berries are in the food pile?

*1033 words*