Yeah, I know I'm late. Sorry. :( I was going to put this up before, but my parents didn't let me go on. But here it is! And it's pretty dang long. :D

IMPORTANT: You've all heard of SOPA and PIPA, right? Well, if they get their way, then on the 24th will be shut down, and all the fanfics with it! :0 I know it's a bit close to the deadline, but check out this fanfic for more information: .net/s/7753936/1/. We will not allow this wonderful site to be shut down!

Bubbletail: Maybe he is, and maybe he's not. ;)

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Mizumaru2312: Thanks for reviewing all the chapters! :D And yeah, Amberpaw's a pretty deep thinker. :P

Disclaimer: I do not own Warriors.

Chapter 6: Treated

Ravenwing soon comes back with Falconflight and Whispersong dogging her heels. As predicted, Falconflight has a bunch of mice hanging from his jaws. Whispersong is carrying a bundle of herbs in her mouth. She makes a beeline to me and Tigerpaw quickly stands up, retreating to Ravenwing's side. Whispersong doesn't seem to notice.

She drops the herbs at my paws and asks, "Where are you hurt?" It should be obvious from what Ravenwing told her, but I guess that this is a normal procedure to go through.

"My right paw. The front one."

"And when did it start hurting?" she asks, continuing on with the authoritative medicine cat questions.

"Ah, well…um, I sort of landed on it hard when I jumped down from the Hightree. After my apprentice ceremony." It occurs to me that I probably sound very stupid and stubborn. If you get injured, you're supposed to go to the medicine cat. Of course, you can't go running to the medicine cat like a kit every time you get a measly scrape, but you should be careful about your health. A simple bout of coughing could turn into a deadly case of greencough.

Whispersong sighs. "And here I was thinking that Falconflight's such a bad mentor that he gets his apprentice hurt on the very first day."

I look down at my paws guiltily.

"Well, there's no use yelling at you for that mistake," Whispersong says. "Let's take a look at it." She probes my paw with hers, feeling from the top of my leg to all the way down, until when I yelp in pain when she hits the injured part. I hear Tigerpaw shift his paws in an almost nervous kind of way, but I ignore the sound.

Whispersong doesn't. "What are you still doing?" she demands, looking up. "Don't you have some apprentice training to do or whatnot? I'm looking at a patient here!"

I stifle a giggle, thinking that Whispersong is certainly very forward with her words. Maybe that's part of how she helps cure her patients. You can't heal much if you're always moping, and I find Whispersong's way of speaking humorous. It didn't save my mother. But I don't blame Whispersong for it. There's no use holding a grudge, and a medicine cat can only do so much.

"Shoo!" the gray she-cat shouts, and this time I can't stop myself from laughing.

Ravenwing nudges Tigerpaw, telling him that they're going to go scent the borders now, but before they manage to disappear through the evergreens, Tigerpaw mouths to me, "Tell me how it goes." I just manage to nod back before his dark brown tabby pelt disappears through the scratchy pine needles.

The gray medicine cat has already turned her focus back to my paw, the annoyances called "Ravenwing" and "Tigerpaw" seeming to have already vanished from her mind. She pokes and prods a little more, making me wince each time, but finally declares it to be "a sprained paw".

"It's a bit swollen, and you'll need to stay in my den for my few days until it gets stronger," Whispersong says. "You also won't be able to train during those days, so you, Falconflight"—she looks up at said tom—"will be free from mentoring for a few days." The deputy nods.

"What?" I sit up, ready to protest.

"That's what you get when you don't go and tell me right away," Whispersong says in a matter-of-fact tone. "You're lucky you didn't land on it harder, at least. Then you might have broken it."

I shiver at the thought of breaking my leg. That would be horrible, and Cloudpaw, who seems to not like me very much for some reason, would have even more reason to make fun of me while I'm cooped up for who-knows-how-long. And I already have to stay in the medicine cat den for—what, three days?

Harrumph.

Whispersong wraps some cobweb over my paw with rush stalks in it, for a kind of splint. She chews up a slightly dried, yellowish orange flower and then makes me swallow the poultice. "It's marigold for inflammation," she tells me. Whispersong also makes me eat a poppy seed—to ease the pain, of course—and chew for a while on a piece of wood—willow bark, she informs me. If this is the procedure that you have to go through when you get injured, I'm going to try to stay as much uninjured as I possibly can. It's a bit tedious.

When she's done applying the herbs to me, she helps me stand up and lets me lean on her on the way back to the camp. Falconflight trails behind us, the mice still hanging from his mouth.

In the medicine cat den, she points the way to a nest just a few tail-lengths away from hers, tucked up against the wall. I figure it must be a "guest nest", one that patients stay in when they have to recuperate, like me. A quick peek into a sizable hollow in the wall shows me that there are more of them.

I lie down in the nest and curl my tail under my chin, stretching out my right front leg so that the injured paw hangs over the edge of the interlocked ferns and twigs, cushioned by moss. Falconflight lays a mouse at my feet.

"This is for you," he says through the rest of the mice.

"But…I didn't do anything!" I say, though the mouse looks pretty juicy to me.

"You did a good enough job for your first day, and I admit that I should have been watching you better," Falconflight says. "Now, get better soon, or those other apprentices will be better warriors than you."

"Never!" I say.

"Good," my mentor purrs. He wishes me a good night's sleep and pads out of the den.

It takes a few seconds for me to contemplate what he says. A good night's sleep? I carefully get to my feet, stepping over my tasty-looking meal, and walk to the outside of the den. Whispersong is busy organizing her herbs in another hollow in the wall, muttering about how I cleaned her out of the marigold in the middle of leafbare, and doesn't notice her patient getting out of her nest.

Outside, there's still a lot of sunlight left. But, it's not night yet…. I think. So how am I supposed to get a good night's sleep? I'm too hungry to remain pondering why you should take some things literally and some things not, so I go back to the guest nest and, bite by bite, finish the mouse that Falconflight gave me. It fills me up, and by the time I'm done and washing my face, I feel full and sleepy. The poppy seed must have also have a paw in that, as it's supposed to not only ease pain but also calm a cat in shock, and gently make them go to sleep.

It's something that Brightsky taught all of us. I guess she thought that if we ever wanted to make an annoying cat go away, we could just shovel poppy seeds down their throats until they went to sleep. It was probably something more serious, of course, but I like thinking that way. It's interesting to imagine humorous outcomes. An example would be Cloudpaw getting a mouse tail stuck between her teeth and not knowing it, or having to pick ticks off the elders….
I smile contentedly and rest my head on my paw, having hung the injured one over the edge of the nest again. And then I close my eyes and have a good night's sleep.

Or not quite.

"Amberpaw!" someone shouts, loudly. Very loudly.

Huh? I jerk up in my nest, my eyes flying open to frantically search the dim area of the den to find the shouter. And there he is.

"Of course it's you," I groan, laying my head back down on my paws. "Do you always have to wake me up like that?"

"What, would you prefer to have me jump up on down in front of you while shouting 'Your morning breath stinks!' until you wake up?"

"If you did that, I would probably slap you so hard that my other paw would get injured and your face would look like a Twoleg's." I close my eyes, fully prepared to ignore whatever lame response he comes up with and go back to sleep.

I hear him come closer. "Well, how do you think my face looks like right now?"

"Don't know," I grunt. "'Cause I'm going back to sleep."

"Ah, come on," Tigerpaw says. "I brought you a mouse. Aren't you going to eat it?"

I reluctantly crack my eyes open to find a mouse's dead beady eyes staring at me, right in my face! It nearly gives me a heart attack, and I back up until my back is pressed against the wall. "TIGERPAW!"

"Hey, quiet down there," Whispersong calls. "Shouting is not good for your health or your throat."

Tigerpaw rolls his eyes. "Come on, do you want it or not?"

I gingerly settle myself back down. "Falconflight already gave me one," I say. "Eat it yourself."

"I already had a vole."

"Fine, give it to the elders."

"I already brought them some prey."

"Give it to the queens, then."

"They moved out, remember? After our apprentice ceremony." Tigerpaw gives me a "duh" look. "But I already brought my mother a mouse," he adds as an afterthought.

I huff, annoyed. "Did you remember to feed the leader and the medicine cat, too? I heard Branchstar likes his rabbits stringy." Rabbits sometimes hopped over from the StoneClan territory to ours, and I'd heard that the light brown tabby tom leader had acquired a taste for them.

"Well, there's no one else to give it to!" Tigerpaw says. His tone is getting close to a whine. I guess he thinks Branchstar and Whispersong can get their own fresh-kill. Well, I mean, they can, but apprentices do bring the queens and kits and the elders prey to eat. Why not the leader, or the medicine cat, or the deputy? Occasionally, of course, if the medicine cat wasn't feeling too well, or something like that.

"Put it back in the fresh-kill pile," I order.

He gives me a look. "Who would want to eat some prey that someone had their mouth all over?"

I give him a look back. A dumb look for a dumb look. "Well, then why would I want to eat a mouse after you had your mouth all over it, huh? And especially since you shoved it in my face so nicely."

"Well, you eat prey that your mother or father brings you, right?"

"And so you're saying you're my mother." I try to make that come out as sarcastic, but somehow it ends up feeling…awkward.

Tigerpaw doesn't look as if it sounded awkward to him. Instead, an annoyed expression is on his face. "Well, it's the middle of leafbare! You should be glad that you have another mouse to eat, and especially since you have a hurt paw! Why am I arguing with such a stubborn idiot, anyway?" He doesn't pause for an answer, and goes on ranting. "And don't be so worried about if it was in someone's mouth or not! You can wipe it on moss or something! It's really not a big—"

"I'll eat it," I interrupt.

Tigerpaw goes at it for a couple more seconds before he actually understands what I said.

He blinks. "Wait, you'll eat it?"

I answer with an exaggerated nod, and he gives an exaggerated sigh.

Whispersong chooses this moment to cut in. "Remember, yelling isn't good for your health!" she yells from the hollow from which she is still—I think—sorting herbs.

Fail, I think.

And suddenly we start laughing. "That's ridiculous," Tigerpaw comments, referring to Whispersong's yelled yelling advice.

"Not as dumb as shouting at someone for not eating a stupid mouse," I retort.

"Ah, shut up," he says, but he's grinning. He lies down next to me and slides the mouse toward me, waiting for me to take the first bite before him. I do, and surprisingly, it doesn't taste that bad for having been in someone's mouth.

I stop chewing. Actually, it would be a good idea to not think about that too much… I swallow the bite and take another. Slowly we work our way through the mouse in companionable silence, until Tigerpaw takes one more bite and asks, "So how long do you have to stay in here?"

"About three days," I answer.

"I'll visit you every one of those days," he promises, and I smile.

We're almost done when a dark shape appears in the front of the den. Cloudpaw.

"Tigerpaw!" she shouts. "Why are you still there? Let's go to the apprentices' den already!" She completely ignores me. I feel a small ball of anger growing in my chest.

Tigerpaw swallows. "I better go," he says. He looks down at the almost-finished mouse. "Um, you can have the rest." He stands and joins Cloudpaw at the entrance, only looking back once before following Cloudpaw's quickly vanishing tail.

I look down at the fresh-kill, and suddenly I'm not hungry. I scuff a small hole next to the nest with my uninjured paw and then bury the mouse, scraping dirt over the carcass. Maybe some healing plant will grow there in newleaf, and Whispersong won't gripe about apprentices using up her herbs.

I then drop my head down onto my paws and close my eyes, preparing to go to sleep. But it takes me a very long time. And for some weird reason, I feel empty, as if I never even ate at all.

Aww, poor Amberpaw. :( And bad Cloudpaw! I admit that Amberpaw's and Tigerpaw's arguing about eating a mouse is a bit exaggerated, but it was humorous, no?

Remember the SOPA and PIPA, guys. :(

And review! :)

~Ponyiowa