Starlingheart stands as far out of the entrance of her den as she dares, unwilling to leave her yellowcough patients for too terribly long. She needed to coax them to eat, to drink water, to keep their strength up so that they could fight this terrible disease. There was no more cure. No more life saving lungwort. Not here anyways. There is still a chance for the cats who sleep soundlessly in the back of her den to be saved. They just needed to hold on long enough.
Anxiety makes it hard to sit still during this meeting and she finds herself kneading the ground with her snow-capped paws. Nettlekit and Ghostkit were being apprenticed, and Starlingheart had spent hours grooming their fur and reassuring them. They would do great, they would be fine. Was she really telling them or herself? It seems uncertain. She watches with eyes blurred with pride and relief as they are apprenticed to her siblings. Nightswarm and Lilacstem would both make great mentors. They were both her blood, after all.
She knows how Flintkit must feel, alone in his mothers den, held back because he had been unlucky enough to fall ill, but tonight she would curl around him like she had for the past few moons and she would tell him stories that her mother had once told her. She would do everything in her power to make sure it was okay. She would do it for any of her kits. Her eyes shut closed for a second as she thinks about just how much she was willing to do for them. It was a great cost, love.
When her eyes open again it is when Chilledstar is describing the dreams the medicine cats had and what the leaders had decided to do with the information. She feels several eyes find her form in the shadow of her den but she ignores them, keeping her green gaze on their leader. They go on to ask for volunteers and this part is expected. Her eyes flit from cat to cat as they offer themselves up. Honeyjaw, Needledrift, Clearheart and then Smogmaw with Sharppaw. It is so few. Starlingheart cannot help but wonder if the other clans would have more. Probably. ShadowClan always seemed to have so much less in comparison.
It is not until her own apprentice volunteers that she reacts. Her eyes fly open wide like she had just been kicked in the gut and she quickly scrambles to her paws to stand, though why she does she is not too certain. She quickly finds his black and white pelt in the crowd and her mouth opens to speak. "'dont'" she wants to say. The journey is too dangerous, too much. What if he perishes out there? What would she do without him? But then she thinks about it - really thinks - and she can see the logic in the decision. She closes her mouth and sits back down, but tears swim in her vision and her gaze remains firmly on the ground in front of her.
