Rusty instinctively shut his eyes, his jaw clenched from the pain piercing his leg. Fear coursed through his body, he felt his fur bristle in fear, and that same fear panged throughout him. Rusty let his body surrender and went limp as the gray tom inched closer, he could hear the heavy and struggling panting of his aggressor every single pawstep they took closer to the weak ginger. At least he could say that he'd gone down putting up a damn good fight.
"Phew- y'know, you're pretty strong for a kittypet." The gray tom struggled to announce as he started licking his forepaw just a tail-length away from Rusty.
The air was still knocked out of Rusty's lungs, and the vast majority of his body ached and groaned as he moved, so the only form of communication he had to share was just a confused tilt of the head. Remembering that he was attacking Rusty not even a minute ago, the fluffy gray tom moved about a rabbit-length away from Rusty and began licking himself where Rusty had attacked him.
"Great Starclan," The gray tom examined the area of his belly where Rusty raked his hind claws against. "You have super strength or something, Kittypet?" The wound Rusty inflicted on the other tom was deep enough to make him bleed, but not deep enough to threaten the life of his now mildly impressed attacker. Probably because his twolegs liked to cut Rusty's claws when they got too long.
"Star…clan?" Rusty finally regained his breath, his brain felt hazy and his body ached with dull, persistent pain. Yet he was able to get himself to speak up. "Who are you… and why did you attack me?!" Rusty let his fur bristle, not that he would actually be able to scare his attacker.
"Oh! My name's Graypaw, I'm an apprentice of Thunderclan, y'know the clan you almost stole prey from? What's your name, kittypet?" Graypaw took a few pawsteps forward, but he must not have noticed, or just elected to ignore any and or all of Rusty's signs of aggression because when Rusty swatted his paw at him Graypaw nearly jumped back; but after a few heartbeats he carefully moved towards the aggressive ginger, pulling Rusty back to his paws via his scruff.
Rusty was unsure of the stranger, initially, he was planning on running once he got up, but the second he stood up and put pressure on his hind leg he yelped in pain and pulled it back up, trying to balance on his three good legs.
"Oh, erm… sorry for that," Graypaw looked up at the overgrowth of the trees, and pressed his paw against the forest floor in guilt before his facial expression changed- he had an idea.
"I can take you back to my clan's camp, we have the best medicine cat in all the clans! Her name's Spottedleaf! She could fix you up in no time at all, at worst, she'll tell you what to do to take care of yourself! You can trust me, I'm strong and I'll protect you!" Graypaw beckoned Rusty with his fluffy, gray tail. "Not to mention, you don't have any choice! It's either me, the foxes, or the badgers." Graypaw took his sweet time padding away from Rusty, letting the deal weigh in Rusty's mind.
"My name's Rusty…" With no other choice, Rusty limped towards Graypaw's side, but he refused to make any contact with the other tom. Rusty's eyes searched everywhere away from the other tom, until his eye caught a yellow shiny object in the dry dirt- it was the bell from his collar. He looked over to the tree he was slammed against, and there was his now dirty, beat up green collar.
"Rusty, huh? That's a dumb name." Graypaw smirked, trying to get the other's mind off of his pain by joking around with him. Rusty limped over to Graypaw, both of whom were panting.
"Graypaw's an even dumber name!" Rusty retorted, he chuckled but his sides ached, and he coughed so much he had to stop. Graypaw stopped and worry flooded his eyes as he watched over Rusty. "Where are we going again?"
"First of all, Graypaw is my apprentice name- once my warrior name comes it'll sound so cool! And we're going to my clan, Thunderclan- the best clan in the forest! There's our leader, Bluestar, our deputy, Redtail, and I've already told you about Spottedleaf!" Graypaw mewed excitedly.
"Bluestar? Redtail? Warrior name? Wait, there's more than one of you guys?!" Rusty nearly padded closer to Graypaw out of shock using his hurt hind leg.
"Oh, well, since you've apparently never heard of us before, let me summarize it for you." Graypaw began. "There are four clans in the forest, Thunderclan, Riverclan, Windclan, and Shadowclan." Graypaw turned his head to look back at Rusty who nodded to confirm he was listening.
"There are many ranks you can take: Leader, Deputy, Medicine Cat, Warrior, Apprentice, Queen, King and Elder. Queens are mollys who are preparing to kit- or are nursing kits, Kings do the same thing but they're toms. Elders are retired warriors, Medicine cats receive prophecies from Starclan and they heal the clan. Deputies are the second in command, and Leaders are well, the leaders."
"What's a starclan?" Graypaw jumped over a fallen tree in their path, but when Rusty couldn't jump over it, he hopped back over to walk around it with Rusty.
"Well, good question! You see, although the four clans live apart, we are brought together by our warrior ancestors in Starclan. It's where we go when we die. They give us prophecies and it is a place of endless hunting, where you live happily for the rest of eternity!" This piqued Rusty's interest, a place you go after you die? A place of kindness, of prey? A place where people you love go when they die? Was Mother in Starclan?
"So, who are the leaders, deputies of the other clans?" Rusty's curiosity got a hold of him, not only that but his leg was starting to pierce with pain now that the adrenaline was wearing off.
"Well, Thunderclan has Bluestar as the leader and Redtail as our deputy, Windclan has Tallstar and his deputy Deadfoot, Riverclan has Crookedstar and his new deputy Oakheart, and there is Cloudstar and his deputy: Brokentail." Rusty was confused, why did so many cats have the same ending to their name.
"Why did half of their names end with star?" Rusty questioned as he hopped closer to Graypaw.
"Well, leaders, kits, and apprentices have different suffixes to their names! Leader names end in 'star', like Crookedstar's warrior name used to be Crookedjaw, because of his, well, broken jaw, Bluestar used to be Bluefur and so on, so forth. Until apprentices such as myself earn our warrior name we have the suffix: Paw, and kits have the suffix:Kit. So my name used to be Graykit!"
"Names must be very important to you guys!" Rusty felt his fur bristle with excitement at this new experience. Rusty had some knowledge of the subject, after all, Scourge's kit name was Tiny.
"They quite are, Kittypet." A branch snapped behind and Graypaw's eyes widened as he snapped to turn around, Rusty followed suit. The voice belonged to a large, golden, muscular, thick furred tom with something like a mane around his neck. He jumped off of the fallen tree that Rusty and Graypaw tried walking around earlier. "Don't even try anything, Graypaw, I've been here the whole time." Every time the large golden tabby spoke, Rusty swore the earth beneath him shook.
"I-I-I," Graypaw's giant tail hid between his legs, his ears flattened against his head, and his bright yellow eyes widened in fear and worry.
"Hurry, we have no time to waste- his leg may already be infected." Lionheart padded towards Rusty, and bent his neck down to pick up the now terrified puffed up ball of orange fur by the scruff.
Lionheart, swished his tail, signaling to his apprentice and the two raced to camp. Not being able to distract his pain by talking to Graypaw allowed him to drown in it and black out.
By the time Rusty felt like puking, they had made just outside of their destination, the Thunderclan camp. Rusty gladly took to the floor, being lowered by Lionheart, he refused to speak the entire time out of fear. Looking up at the barrier of bramble thorns, Rusty was amazed with the craftyness and ingenuity of a group of wild cats.
He watched after the two other toms push through and into the entrance that led to the clearing behind the bramble bushes, and Rusty followed suit, shying his hind leg away from any possible form of discomfort or prickly thorns.
A tall, lean gray-almost blue furred molly's attention was caught by Rusty's appearance. She hopped from the top of the tall formation of rocks she sat on. Yet her fur lay flat.
"And who might you be?" She got closer to Rusty, her nose curiously sniffing him. "A kittypet?" Her eyes widened.
"Yes, I am, and my name's Rusty. When I trespassed on your territory, Graypaw fought and injured me." Rusty spoke up before seeing the look of terror on Graypaw's face. But the lean molly looked amused before she looked expectantly over at Lionheart.
"This is true, Bluestar ." Lionheart nodded, and Rusty realized just who exactly he was talking to. Bluestar, leader of Thunderclan.
"And why exactly were you in the forest, Rusty?" Bluestar amusingly questioned.
"I wanted to catch and eat a mouse." Rusty admitted with guilt, his fur became hot with embarrassment. The three clan cats all gave him blank stares. Bluestar's back fur bristled.
"Don't you know?! There's not nearly enough prey to be caught to allow a kitty pet who is given food from their Twolegs!" Bluestar chastised, but because of how much embarrassment he had experienced from Scourge, Rusty had no reaction.
"I know, and I'm sorry."
"Anywho," Bluestar sighed, her tail twitched in an almost apologetic way. "Because it was Thunderclan who caused those wounds, it shall be Thunderclan who shall heal those wounds. I shall escort Rusty to Spottedleaf and Graypaw- wait for me to come back out. You left camp without your mentor and you hurt this kittypet very badly, you need some form of punishment."
"I heard everything, Bluestar, I will handle everything from here."
"As you probably know, Rusty, my name is Spottedleaf, and I am the medicine cat of Thunderclan. Now please lay on the bed so I can examine your leg." Rusty nodded and limped over to the soft pile of moss and he laid on his good legs side.
"Is it broken?" Rusty winced as he moved his leg around and yelped as it accidentally hit the floor.
"It doesn't look broken." Rusty turned to where the young, mysterious voice originated but yelped as he saw the pair of green emerald eyes staring at him from the darkness of the nursery.
"Thistlekit, you're supposed to be in the nursery- and asleep!" Spottedleaf rushed to Rusty's perspective where she too just noticed the presence of the third.
"Please just let me watch, Spottedleaf!" A small tortie molly crept from the darkness. Her pelt was pitch black and the only other color on her were her red splotches all over.
"It's fine if she watches just this once right?" Rusty hesitated, even though Spottedleaf wasn't glaring at him, it still made him uncomfortable.
"Fine! Just this once, and then go back to the nursery" Spottedleaf swayed her tail in annoyance, yet being unable to stay mad at the kit she sighed and unfurrowed her brow.
"Any day now, when I'm an apprentice, I'm not just gonna be any apprentice, but a medicine cat apprentice!" Thistlekit whispered into Rusty's ear excitedly.
"Thistlekit, can you help me out here and get me some poppy seeds from the back? Just about three to help with the pain, I'm going to see what I can do for Rusty's leg." Thistlekit nodded and raced to the back of the medicine cat den. She then came up to Rusty and plopped three, small, black seeds in front of him. She gestured for him to eat them, so he did.
"Well, Thistlekit was right, it's not broken, just dislocated. Now, this may hurt but I'm going to have to relocate your leg. I'm going to count down from three, and on the count of one, I'm going to relocate it."
"Three,"
"Wait, hurt?!" Rusty piped up, but wanting to give Spottedleaf a good patient, Thistlekit held him down as best she could.
"Two,"
"How much?!"
" One ."
"Can you please just tell me how much this is gonna hu-AAAAGGHHHHH!"
The pain of everything that had happened that day was too much, his body ached with tiredness and pain. Rusty couldn't help but pass out.