sensitive topics PINS AND NEEDLES &; infection

[RAINSHADE.]

She wakes up with a burning in her shoulder. Hot, searing pain that has her gasping with the morning's first breath.

It is not the pain that rouses her. It is only the sun; murky dawn light seeping into the cracks of the warrior's den. The ache rushes in with a quickness, nearly vengeful. A harsh reminder of the pain she'd dared to forget overnight. The pain she'd dared to hope gone once the sun had risen. Her rising with the sun was not decided by a cause, but today she had one, nonetheless. The dawn patrol called, though silently; as much as a need today as it was any other. The gnaw of leaf bare weighed harshly on them all. She would not be bedridden on account of a days-old wound.

With a grunt, she pushes herself to stand, and so soon, the action is aborted. Brought to halt with the choking of a growl. Too soon, she's panting. Exerted by this never-ending pain. And she could not understand why. Always notoriously nasty, the bite of a rat, but she'd never felt it like this. Heart-racing. A chill shudders down her spine, yet she feels like she might melt. She'd already been treated, hadn't she? Slathered with some frightful herb at the insistence of their medicine cat. Why demand something that wouldn't work?

On her second attempt, she makes it farther. She stands. She sways under her own weight, but she stands. The couple of steps she manages are sluggish, garish, and yet her heart beats wildly in her chest all the same. Her stop is abrupt; quivering of limbs, she slouches. "S-shit," She felt like shit. Blue-gaze, wide-eyed stare; one might think she held a grudge with the very ground. Her own pelt was too big for her. Dully, does she acknowledge the patter of feet, smoke-twinged, in her peripheral. She can't quite look, though. The apprentice does not speak, and so, neither does she. At least, not until she can catch her breath. The heat never abides. Her panting persists, no matter how the snow crept up around her.

"L-looks... worse." Warbling tone; her apprentice speaks.

Rainshade lifts her head. Just enough to see her. A worried face springs in the corner of her vision. Sharppaw is spinning, for some reason. "What?" The words don't make sense. Too little, too vague, still spinning– somehow.

Meek, Sharppaw's lip mashes shut like he'd said something wrong. Rainshade looks on, face pinched. Waiting. The heat still crashes overhead; leaves her impatient. Her tail flicks, but she waits. It's almost like he's waiting for her to keel over before he says a thing. "Th- The- um, the bite..."

If it was doing anything but healing over into a scar, she could only presume it was not good. Visibly, Rainshade winces, and so does Sharppaw, along with her. Even as she falls to the ground and twists for a better look, she could barely make out thing. But as the world spun and her flesh ran hot, only broken by the occasional sudden shutter, she would conclude something was wrong. Rainshade swallows, dry. And briefly, she laments. Not one, but two medicine cats have been lain at their paws, at their service, and a job well done had evaded them both. She wonders, had the other four clans been just as lucky? Her skin itches. "G-get Starling." Spoken as an order, though her eyes fall back to the expanse of snow.

And Sharppaw hesitates. Rainshade has been treated before, yet here she lies, panting with fever. They knew the same things, did they not? She wouldn't have been doing her job, otherwise. Sharppaw turns tail.

[ @STARLINGHEART . ]​

 

[Starlingheart]

She can smell the infection before she even sees it. Her paws guide her to it, her head spinning as she looks down upon the wound. It looks worse than it did before? How was that possible? She had done everything Bonejaw had taught her, which admittedly, was not much. She cannot help but feel like she is failing them, like she is doomed to watch her clan wither away before her eyes and not be able to do a damn thing about it.

Perhaps it was part of some divine plan that she could not comprehend. She sure hopes so because watching cat after cat be buried was not going to do well for their already dwindling morale. She lowers her head and sniffs the sour wound, trying not to make a face as she pulls away. "I-I d-doooont I don’t u-u-uuuunderst-st-stand" she murmurs quietly, mostly to herself. "I d-did I did ev-every-everything everything b-b-booone bone t-taught me about in-infeeeec-infection" and it was true. She had cleaned the wounds, used marigold to stop bleeding and prevent infection. What else could she do? Perhaps some wounds just could not be healed?
"Sh-sharpaw pl-please go go and ge-get sssssssome wa-warriors please we uhm we ne-need to-to taaaake her back back to uhm my-my den" it wasn’t far but with the state of the red and black warrior she doubts she can make it, and Starling was too small to do it herself.

She leans down to murmur gently to the fallen she cat. "Rain-rainshade c-can you can you he-hear me? I’m I’m here I’m here we-we’re go-going to-to ta-take yoooouuu to my my de-den" she does not promise that she will be okay, she truly does not know.
​

 

[hitch]

in character   out of character   character tags   reference

• 
  
  
  ── ShadowClan's a wounded animal that the world amuses itself by kicking in the ribs every time they try to stand. Every faint, faint light in the desperate dark is just the glint of a predator's grin eager to gnaw on their starved bodies. How much longer 'til the frail tether holding ShadowClan from the brink just snaps? This isn't the same hunger the marsh group faced all those moons ago.
  
  The helplessness of it all does nothing but thin their ribs and burrow their eyes deeper in their faces. And now, with the aftermath of the rats— shit. If ShadowClan is that limping beast in his analogy, he'd have long since put it out of its misery.
  
  "I'm here," he announces as he moves to Starlingheart's side, searching Rainshade's collapsed form, her breaths leaving as harsh pants that have his gut tightening with worry. He doesn't know that he can carry her weight alone. Once, yes, when he was tall and strong with meat on his sides, but not anymore. "When we get her back to your den, do you need anything else? Anything I can get?" He looks to their medicine cat, and not for the first time, his stomach sours thinking of Bonejaw. She's doing her best, Starlingheart, but her best is also Bonejaw's best.
  

  ---

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• n/a​
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• ──── surr'oseal'isme (rosemire; formerly roseal). he/him. reluctantly shadowclan.
  ──── approximately thirty-eight months old; not entirely certain of his own age.
  ──── single & uninterested in any romantic attachments; possibly open for flings.
  ──── tall, scarred albino w/ sharply-peaked ears and a bobbed, scruffy tail (voice).
  ──── ─── currently noticeably thin and haggard. ribs and spine are pronounced.​
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• 
  
  

 

[Halfshade]

"I'm on your other side, Rosemire." Halfshade had not been fetched but she'd been curiously watching from nearby as Sharppaw fled to fetch the medicine cat and her blue and orange eyes narrowed in confusion to the urgency rising in the young black and white she-cat's voice. Hadn't Rainshade been treated already? Had Bonejaw not taught the girl what to actually do or was this different? It would not have surprised the torbie to find out their previous medicine cat lied to sabotage her clan given her penchant for lying so boldly to get her way. Crying over her clan being 'different' and her leader not helping her find her mate and son when they had so clearly done so to the best of their abilities despite starving and suffering the cold. No, Halfshade could fully understand Bonejaw was just a notorious liar, she had done nothing but cause problems for her clan and even still now she'd left Starlingheart to anguish alone. The striped molly had joined them in the warrior cat den, moving to stand opposite the pale tom and their ailing clanmate to get her upright. She ignores the sickly sweet scent of infection filling the den, nose wrinkles and instead imagines herself sinking teeth into white-striped fur in almost giddy delight. She'd kill that woman the second she saw her again. Mark her words.
"Steady your paws if you can, Rainshade dear, we're going to give you a little escort to the medicine cat den now~"
​

 

[RAINSHADE.]

[ CW: death ]

She doesn't know what she's talking about.

Rainshade squints through the pain, her flanks heaving with the effort of laying down, for stars sake. She was no stranger to war. Never pulled away from any signs of battle. And yet this wound, inflamed mess of flesh, was enough to bring her to her knees. Shame was a bitter taste upon her tongue, written in the way he winces. Starling's sluring of words is incomprehensible. All Rainshade knows is that she could do nothing. Her face pinches, confusion written. A flash of blackened sky is all she truly registers; Sharppaw leaving her side.

Her head swings, following the motion, and the shadow is replaced by blinding light. Rainshade's throat is dry. She felt like she might burn alive; swallowed whole by an unseeable enemy. Sickening advantage. An enemy she could not fight alone. "–at? Wh-what?" Incomprehensible, not only her, tripped tongue and all. She couldn't hope to make sense of any of it. Light-headed, there's weight pressed up against her. A low hiss rumbles, low, but she does nothing. All of them– it's nothing.

And she's nodding off, even though the day had only just started. Even though her heart burned so wholy she could feel steam rolling in her gut. Even though the shivering was driving her crazy; frayed nerves, her muscles have never felt quite so tight. "Don't– Why–?" She can't stand, and she doesn't know why.

Not enough. She's not trying hard enough.

Her claws grip into ground. It burns. She keeps shivering. "No, no. I'm..." frustration growled out, a feeling unspoken. And stars, she's weak. They're all talking to her. Sharppaw is talking to her.

But stars, she's tired. Digging, digging into her. The bite doesn't want her to make it out alive. She can hardly understand. Anything, anything, none of it meant anything, but especially this. Nothing to fight against. Nothing but petty patrols and scrawny mice day after day. Her breaths were hardly there; too-shallow. Camp swims in her vision. Not the slash of claws, not a throng of bodies. It is only winter. All for a rat.

She wanted to scream until she couldn't anymore. She wanted to tell their damned medicine cat to do something; make her worth their while.

But the world only goes dark, now. Breath is more and more shallow until there's none at all. Tired, she's so tired.​