Jayfeather woke up from his mossy nest to the sound of the normal buzz of activity around camp.
Groaning as he rolled over on his side, he got up, shaking the stray bits of moss and bracken that still clung to his untidy fur. Quickly, Jayfeather gave his chest fur a wash, rasping his tongue busily over the messy fur that stuck up in all directions.
Briarlight moaned in her sleep and briefly stirred, rolling over so she faced Jayfeather. Her face was distorted and twisted in agony and pain as she moaned again.
Jayfeather quickly grabbed some of the herbs stacked neatly along the walls of the den and chewed them up, forcing Briarlight to swallow some pulp. With his paw to her forehead, he checked her rapidly beating pulse and felt her head burning from fever and exhaustion.
Fear pulsed through Jayfeather's head so that he could only head to roaring of blood in his ears as he stood there, dumbfounded and paralyzed to move. Eventually, another of Briarlight's groans distracted him and pulled his paws to move.
"Leafpool?" Jayfeather prodded Leafpool with his paw, his voice muffled by the herbs gripped in his jaws.
"Mmph," the light brown tabby she-cat mumbled, still not even half awake yet from last night's whitecough treating.
Jayfeather sighed and prodded Leafpool harder this time, making her eyes snap open and a warm amber light glowed in her eyes.
"Jayfeather," she addressed him curtly, scrambling up out of her nest and shaking her fur, making it stand out as spiky as a porcupine. "What's wrong?"
In response to her question, Jayfeather jerked his head towards Briarlight's writhing body.
Immediately, Leafpool's hard eyes softened as she looked back at Jayfeather. "It's whitecough, isn't it," she murmured softly. "I didn't know leaf-bare would come so soon after leaf-fall."
Grimly, Jayfeather nodded. "Yep. I'll get some marigold and you can find some cat to go with you to gather catmint, we need it before the greencough comes back," he instructed.
Leafpool nodded back calmly, only her sunset amber eyes betraying her worry. "I'll ask Cloudtail if I could borrow Hollypaw to accompany me." Her eyes moistened with tears as she thought of her daughter, and Jayfeather's sister, Hollyleaf, who Hollypaw was named after.
Jayfeather agreed briefly before Leafpool left, her scent carrying across the camp on the wind. In the herb store, he found a few stems left of dried marigold near the low supply of catmint.
Making a reminder to ask Leafpool or one of the apprentices to gather more marigold near the stream before leaf-bare, he padded back to Briarlight, who had stopped spasming and instead lay still in a fetal position.
Pawsteps thrummed the den floor as a cat waited beside the entrance of the den. Millie's scent traveled to him on the fresh wind, blowing the remaining scattered leaves across the den.
Grumbling under his breath, he approached Millie, who was kneading the ground in anxiety, pulling out bits of grass between her claws.
"I need to see Briarlight." Mille glared at Jayfeather, waiting for him to protest against her seeing her kit.
"No," Jayfeather stated firmly, glowering at Millie. "I don't want the sickness to spread!"
"Some medicine cat you are," Millie scoffed with a sneer in her tone as she prepared to attack Jayfeather to see Briarlight.
Jayfeather's eyes widened as she shot the stinging insult. Glaring even harder he hardened his eyes at Millie and pushed her out of the way. "Go," he hissed, blocking the entrance so she wouldn't get in. "It won't help her if you get sick too, would it?"
Millie took a step back, her wide blue eyes reflecting worry now instead of anger. "Are you sure she'll be okay?" she whispered, her eyes filled with anguish.
"She'll be fine," Jayfeather huffed, though he was not sure that he meant it but hoped that he would be able to convince her. "Don't worry."
Millie turned away, though he could still sense that she was worried over Briarlight.
Sighing, Jayfeather turned back to Briarlight, who was now whimpering in her sleep. Chewing a dried stalk of marigold, pawsteps drummed through the ground at the entrance of the den.
Quickly, he parted her jaws, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the foul rancid odor, and placed some of the pulp in her mouth, sighing in relief as she swallowed the pulp.
Lifting his head, Jayfeather looked at Leafpool, who had just came back with Hollypaw from the old abandoned twoleg nest. The fresh scent from the breeze blew her scent towards him, along with the strong scent of catmint that they had brought with them.
From what he could gather, there was plenty of catmint that Leafpool and Hollypaw had collected.
"Do you think you can get some marigold too?" Jayfeather asked, approaching Leafpool after she erged from the herb store from putting away the catmint. "I could get an apprentice to do it if you don't want to," he offered.
But Leafpool shook her head. "No, it's okay. I can manage. Should I take Hollypaw out again too?"
"Sure," Jayfeather replied, going to look over at the stalks of catmint that Leafpool had gathered. "Does Cloudtail mind?"
"No, he's alright with it." Leafpool remarked. "We got lots of catmint this moon. Some stalks have started to dry up but most are still fresh." She nodded at the pile of catmint that they had collected.
"Yeah," Jayfeather agreed. "It's better than a few seasons ago when the greencough broke through and we didn't have any catmint after the Great Battle."
Leafpool's bright amber eyes darkened at the thought of the awful greencough that broke through. All four clans around the lake had suffered badly from the outbreak. "At least now we have catmint."
"Is anyone else coughing or have whitecough yet?" Jayfeather asked sharply, jerking his head to Leafpool's gaze.
"I don't know," Leafpool admitted, meeting his jay-wing blue stare. "I haven't gotten the time yet after we got back from the abandoned twoleg nest."
"It's okay," Jayfeather assured her. "You can rest now and I'll go check on the cats outside."
"Thanks!" Leafpool flopped heavily onto her nest, her breath evening out until it was slow and steady, showing him that she was fast asleep.
Jayfeather muttered under his breath as he padded to the nursery to check on Squirrelflight's kits.
It has been almost a moon since the kits had been born. As Jayfeather erged from the nursery entrance through the brambles, he could scent a few milky scents mixed in with the scent of Daisy, the horseplace cat who helped queens with their kits.
With the kit's scent, he could smell Squirrelflight near the back of the nursery, with Daisy napping near the entrance.
Squirrelflight lifted her head sleepily as Jayfeather approached. "Hi, Jayfeather," she mumbled drowsily. From the wet moss and prey that was at her side, with Bramblestar's scent all over it, he could tell that her mate supplied Squirrelflight with her needs. "Aren't the kits beautiful?"
Jayfeather bit back a retort of him not being able to see the kits, he could scent them perfectly fine, thank you very much.
"Look," Squirrelflight's tail stroked softly on one of the kit's head. "Pinekit, the light brown tom with leaf-green eyes." the tom growled and pawed at his sister. "Larkkit, a pale tabby she-cat with sunset-amber eyes." the she-cat mewled in her sleep after getting pawed at by her brother. "And Icekit, the snowy white tom with ice-blue eyes." the white tom rolled over and pawed at Squirrelflight's tail, until she pulled it out of reach.
Jayfeather was pulled into Squirrelflight's memories of him, Lionblaze, and Hollyleaf when they were kits.
Squirrelflight was standing in the hollow surrounded by three fluffed-up kits, trying to coax them to eat a piece of vole.
"We want milk!" squeaked the she-cat, as black as a yew branch.
"Not that nasty stuff," put in the golden tabby tom, prodding the vole with one stubby golden paw.
"It smells like the dirtplace," chirped the smallest kit, whose pale gray fur blended with the cliffs behind them.
"It does not smell like the dirtplace!" Squirrelflight scolded them. She looked up and met Bramblestar's gaze while the three kits bounced around her paws. She looked ruffled, her pelt ungroomed and her eyes clouded with exhaustion.
"Any cat would think I was trying to poison them!" she hissed to him, her neck fur bristling up.
Bramblestar blinked at her. "You're a great mother," he assured her "They'll know that one day."
Squirrelflight just huffed in exasperation and shrugged, before continuing to coax the kits into eating the vole.
A stone rolling out from beneath his paw jolted Jayfeather back to the present. Now, he sniffed at the fluffy bundles of fur, his cousins.
"They should be fine," he reported to Squirrelflight, who was watching him closely as he examined the three kits, their different pelts, eyes, and scents.
"You turned out to be a great medicine cat," Squirrelflight whispered, as Jayfeather stiffened in surprise.
"Thanks," he mumbled self-consciously around his bundle of borage that he had brought with him. "This will help with you milk."
"Thanks." Squirrelflight chewed up the herb, her face twisting with disgust at the taste but swallowing before swiping her tongue around the edges of her mouth to catch the last traces of the borage.
Jayfeather nodded, backing away as Squirrelflight's head dozed off, nodding before dropping to the nest with her tail safely wrapped around her kits to her tail.
He thought over what Squirrelflight described the kits' looks. Pinekit: light brown tom with leaf-green eyes, just like Pinestar the old ThunderClan leader and Pine that Clings to Rock from Brook's litter. Larkkit: pale tabby she-cat with sunset-amber eyes, like Lark that Sings at Dawn from Brook's litter. Icekit: snowy white tom with ice-blue eyes, like Icecloud, who had died of greencough.
Stepping forward, he rested his muzzle on the kits' heads that mewled at his touch. "Rest well little ones."