CHAPTER NINE
Copperpaw felt a jolt of nervousness when Foxpaw started toward him, but he didn't have enough time to make himself look busy.
"Hey, Medicinepaw."
Whatever the jerk wanted, there was no avoiding him now.
Copperpaw begrudgingly met his gaze and answered, "What do you want, Foxpaw?"
Foxpaw flattened his ears as if taken aback and gave him a weird look, but his answer was direct. "Herbs, or whatever you've got. My muscles are sore from training," he explained. That didn't come as a surprise—Scorpionpelt seemed like a harsh mentor. "Do you know anything that'll help?"
"Um—"
"Hi guys," meowed Skunkpaw, approaching the two of them from the direction of Flatrock. She looked a little out of sorts, but Copperpaw was too shy to ask her what was wrong. "What are you up to?" she asked.
"I... was... just about to go to the medicine cat den, for Foxpaw here."
"Can I come with you?"
Copperpaw shuffled his paws. "Uh, well, I need to talk to Deadeye, and he's not very..."
"Everyone knows about Deadeye," Foxpaw interrupted. "Just go."
The medicine cat apprentice fluffed up his fur.
Skunkpaw still looked listless, saying, "I don't mind, Copperpaw."
"Why are you so adamant on coming along, anyway?" Foxpaw asked, sounding impatient.
The molly seemed hesitant to reply.
"Hey, don't you start bothering her too. Let's just go." Copperpaw turned and started off toward the medicine cat den.
"Finally," he heard Foxpaw mutter behind him.
When they reached the dusty mouth of the den, Copperpaw came to a stop just outside it, spotting the dark shape of his mentor inside. Deadeye was a large, hulking tabby cat, one who might've made a formidable warrior under other circumstances. Copperpaw tucked his tail between his legs as he asked, "Deadeye, are you here today?"
The medicine cat turned his head to look at him, one of his eyes bold yellow, one of them mutilated and sealed over. It was a moment before the big tom answered, rasping, "Yes."
Copperpaw let out the breath he'd been holding. "Do we have a treatment for sore muscles?"
Another "Yes."
Before he could ask, Deadeye continued, "Go to the ocotillo plant and take from it a fresh blossom, to be eaten." When Copperpaw hesitated, still standing in the entrance, the medicine cat added, with a hint of impatience, "It is the tall plant, of thin canes like a lightning strike upward from the earth. It has red flowers."
Although that wasn't what we was wondering (and he already knew what an ocotillo plant was), Copperpaw nodded and went off to look, leaving his mentor's presence. Skunkpaw followed, with Foxpaw lagging behind, the slowest.
"Do you always ask him that? If he's 'there'?" she pressed.
"Don't ask questions," Foxpaw said quickly.
She spun around to face him, shouting, "You're one to talk!"
"Look, do you want help or not?" Copperpaw asked, exasperated. He didn't feel like helping an apprentice who was making a nuisance of himself.
"Are you going to answer her question, then?"
He stopped and turned around. Everyone came to a halt. "Yes. Every time. It's better if you do."
He could see in their eyes that they were buzzing with questions, as many as there were raindrops in a storm, but when neither of them said anything, he assumed he'd put the matter to rest and resumed walking.
The ocotillo plant in camp didn't have any flowers, but it was just a short trek to find another. He left camp and the others started after him. "Stop FOLLOWING me!" he whimpered, looking back at them.
Foxpaw narrowed his eyes. "Want to get snatched up by a coyote, do you?"
"No..." It would be safer to go with others, but he didn't see why warrior apprentices were considered fine on their own. Just because he was training to be a medicine cat didn't mean he wasn't observant.
Skunkpaw trotted up faster. "Don't worry, Copperpaw. If a coyote comes, I'll stand on my front legs and threaten it like a skunk."
"It'll never know the difference," Foxpaw muttered, sounding sarcastic.
Copperpaw shook his head and kept walking. "Thanks, but— oh. Oh, you're both coming along anyway. Alright." He didn't see why they didn't just stay back at camp.
"Do you ever get dreams from StarClan?" Skunkpaw asked.
"No." And he didn't really want to. "Deadeye has, though," he added. His mentor was quite opinionated about them.
"You're allowed to tell us about them, right?"
"Huh? Oh—the dreams? He doesn't talk much about what happens in them. I don't think he has them often, either. But I don't think there's any rules about that." Nonetheless, Copperpaw didn't want to say. Medicine cats were in an awkward place, meant to serve as the great bridge between the worlds of living and the dead, but—revered though they were, StarClan was neither omniscient nor monolithic. The medicine cat was the only one who really understood that. Deadeye had unleashed countless scathing diatribes to him in the quiet hours of the night about their shortcomings and indecisiveness. If his mentor was to be believed, the only reason that StarClan was so often silent was because it took them at least a season to even come to an agreement.
Despite his solemnness, he saw that Skunkpaw had already regained the characteristic mischievous look in her eye, starting to speak in the tone he was so used to hearing from her. "Do you think he would say any of the StarClan cats are..."
Foxpaw widened his eyes and leaned away, sensing what was coming. "Oh no. Skunkpaw, how could you—"
"...dreamy?"
Copperpaw stopped and turned to look at her. "Skunkpaw, that was just bad."
She was purring to herself.
"You know, your confidence is really unattractive."
"Oh, a medicine cat apprentice thinks I'm unattractive. Let's count the ways that that affects me."
Later in the evening, Deadeye took Copperpaw out of camp to collect herbs. Sock's litter was expected to arrive before long, and they wanted to prepare enough herbs to be ready. Sage and chaparral leaves, especially. In the fading light, the ginger apprentice trailed after his mentor, picking his way among thorny plants and cacti. The two of them were quiet, focused on hunting down the right plants, but inside, Copperpaw was uneasy. He wasn't sure how far he had progressed in his training, and while it seemed like he had learned a lot since kithood, there were still times when Deadeye treated him as though there were much he did not know. Maybe there were still things to learn, and he didn't want to take on the role of medicine cat by himself just yet, but Copperpaw thought he must be at about the same age Deadeye had been when his apprenticeship ended.
"When do I get my name?" he blurted.
Deadeye stopped and swung his head around to look at him. "When you are ready, you insolent kit."
Copperpaw flattened his ears and crouched down.
Seeing how the smaller cat had responded, his mentor's face softened, and he muttered, as he turned away, "The ceremony's nothing to look forward to. You wouldn't enjoy it anyway."
"But I'll get to see StarClan!" Copperpaw interjected, not meaning to talk back. His tone was confused and pleading, yet excited, with hopeful naivety. "For the very first time!"
Deadeye spat and walked on. His apprentice felt there was no choice but to follow, and they'd gone a ways before Deadeye spoke again. "StarClan is nothing but the product of foolishness. There is nothing so exciting about meeting with them."
"But don't you like to see your old mentor?"
Deadeye stopped again, and Copperpaw wondered if he'd done something wrong by asking.
"Yes," he rasped, "It is... nice... to see Whiteflower again, when she presents herself. But you don't get to choose who comes to you. If it were up to me, I would see her and only her."
That made Copperpaw curious. Whiteflower, the medicine cat before Deadeye, had died before the young Copperpaw could meet her, and he knew very little of her but that she had taught Deadeye everything he knew. "What was she like?" he asked.
"What was she like?" his mentor echoed, but he was quick to answer. "She was... born... different, from all of us. She was white, pure white, and had pinkish blue eyes, like the pale rash of the sky at dawn. She could not stand too much sunlight, had very poor eyes, and kept to the medicine den as much as she could. And despite being a medicine cat, she was flirtatious. Very flirtatious. Even with the mollies." He paused, remembering. "Especially the mollies." He went on. "She could be moody and rash, sometimes. She was selfish, and proud, and sometimes even vulgar."
Copperpaw tilted his head, confused. "But I thought you liked her."
"The presence of flaws does not indicate the absence of virtues, Copperpaw. Whiteflower was a good medicine cat and a caring, protective Clanmate, wise, experienced, and knowledgeable of many things. But her strange condition meant she could not live a long life. She... she died, not long, it seemed, after I had been apprenticed to her." He lowered his head, a cold look in his eyes. "I couldn't have prevented it." With that, he continued walking. "You could be as good a medicine cat as her one day, if you study hard."
Copperpaw followed after him, his imagination filled with thoughts of this mysterious medicine cat named Whiteflower, someone he had never known but whom Deadeye held in high esteem. He tried to imagine what she would have been like, and if he met her in StarClan, whether she would like him.
