Lightning flashed across the sky. Rolls of thunder echoed through the air like deep, dangerous waves across the colorless clouds. In the pitch black night, a she-cat was struggling to make her way through the storm, paws slippery with bl00d. Vineripple was heaving, teeth bared against the pain screaming in her right shoulder and back leg. She would make it. She would make it. She had to. Anytime she blinked, white teeth flashed in her mind. Dark, beady eyes of a badger and the long, long fall. The sand should have been soft. The brown tabby swallowed and pushed on. Four days she’d been missing. Four days patrols had been sent out, the forest had been scoured in hopes of finding her, she assumed. Now, her body was weak with hunger, her mind foggy with pain. She couldn’t go on but she had to. Where was she? Even as lightning lit up the trees around her, she wasn’t sure she recognized her surroundings. She had been sure she was on ThunderClan territory not long ago, but.. She opened her mouth to taste the air, realizing too late that the pounding, painful rain would have washed away any hope of identifying the smells around her. She had to keep going. Her body was trembling. Her paws left small lines in the mud from where they had dragged across the ground. She was moving terribly, impossibly slow, and she knew it. The night was a fever dream of cold and pain and soreness and bl00d until she finally stumbled, fell, and didn’t get back up. >>><<< “Vineripple?” The noise echoed through silent blackness, disturbing her soft, warm blanket of sleep. She tossed her head and tuned it out. “Vineripple?” It was a familiar voice, and it was persistent. But Vineripple was awfully stubborn. Why wake up when sleep comforted her so greatly? “Honeypool, leave her be.” Heronfeather. Vineripple’s eyes flashed open before immediately squeezing shut once more. The light pouring inside the Medicine Den was blinding. “Heronfeather, she’s awake. Her eyes opened.” Honeypool whispered urgently, Vineripple wrinkling her nose and trying to get rid of the taste of sleep in her mouth. “Then it’s time for you to leave.” The grumpy Medicine Cat snapped, and Vineripple heard him shuffle a hesitant Honeypool outside the Den before a soft thud signaled he was sitting beside her. “If-If you’re awake then you need to work with me, Vineripple.” He tried to be strict and stern as ever, but Vineripple could hear a thickness of emotion entangled in his voice. “You need poppy seeds and water and food.” Slowly, Vineripple opened her eyes to a squint, the familiar sandy ground and herbs lining the walls greeting her like old friends. Heronfeather continued. “I’ve already bandaged your shoulder and other cuts, and I’ve held that broken leg of yours together quite nicely.” Her eyes slowly opened wider. “Ah, there we go. Have something to drink.” Vineripple saw some wet moss to her left and craned her neck to drink it, wincing at the soreness in, well, everywhere. But the water was worth it, cool and refreshing as it poured down her throat, cooling her insides and giving life to her frail body. “How-“ She was interrupted by her own coughing, and she saw Heronfeather tense. It wasn’t bad, though. She was only not used to talking-she hadn’t had any fits of red cough on her grand adventure. “How long was I asleep?” She saw Heronfeather take in a shaky breath, turning away to hide his shining eyes. His voice came out steady this time, though. No hint that he cared whether she lived or died. She knew better. “A day and a half.” He replied. There was a rustle at the entrance and Heronfeather bristled. “No, Creekfrost, you may *not* come in!” He snapped. Vineripple couldn’t see her friend from where she was laying, but she felt her heart lift knowing she was there. “But-“ She heard her voice. “Absolutely not.” There was no arguing with that tone. “If you want to be helpful you can go and get her something to eat-something small, mind you.” “I could eat a badger.” Vineripple protested, her stomach growling in agreement. “Yes, and then you’d throw it all up again. Creekfrost, a mouse. Now.” Heronfeather turned away and came back over to Vineripple’s side, sitting down. “You managed to get a pretty bad claw to your back.” He commented, pulling away a wad of cobwebs from said wound. Vineripple winced. “Yeah..” “What happened?”
“Ugh. It was a badger. I should have been paying attention, but-“ Her words with Thornstar came back to her now, and her face heated. She didn’t think she could bare the embarrassment of seeing the tom again. What would she say? What would she do? What would *he* do? “But I was distracted. I came on it with its cub, and so I ran, obviously. It chased me off of the territory and then..” This was the part she didn’t understand. “And then part of the ground just gave out beneath me. It looked solid, though. Grass must have been covering the hole, and I fell into what was.. a cave, I guess.” She licked her lips, wincing as Heronfeather prodded at her broken back leg. “That’s when that happened.” Heronfeather silently changed the binding on her leg, Creekfrost returning with a mouse soon later-though the she-cats barely had the chance to exchange words before Heronfeather had thrown her out again. Then, her great friend Sleep welcomed her once more. >>><<< Everyone had come to see her. Sheepstep (who she learned had been the one to find and carry her back to camp), Honeypool, Creekfrost, even Nightshade. But not Thornstar. She didn’t know if the fact saddened or relieved her. She sighed and shifted in her nest, wincing slightly. The pain from her wounds had been eased with poppy seeds and strange-smelling poultices, but it was still there, hiding just beneath the surface. It had been a day since she’d woken up, and Heronfeather was finally starting to let her walk and eat. The old Medicine Cat had left an hour ago to collect herbs, and Vineripple pushed herself to her paws. Limping outside, she smiled as warmth bloomed on her pelt from the golden afternoon sun. It was a beautiful day after such a terrible storm, and the forest was coming back to life. Purring to herself (in a surprisingly good mood for her latest ordeal) she slipped out of camp. Usually she’d try to look for Creekfrost or Sheepstep to walk with her, but they were no doubt out hunting or patrolling for the Clan. She would go on her own today. As she padded through the forest, her amber eyes drifted up to the trees above, waving lazily in the summer breeze. A grin split across her face and she closed her eyes for a moment. Finally, she was home. Finally she was back and healing and recovering from those long, cold, sleepless nights in the cave and out in the wilderness. It had been.. horrible. It didn’t seem like it would be that bad, but simply laying there, bl00dy and broken and defenseless, only waiting to die as every tiny sound turned into a badger or snake or fox or cave-in, ready to steal her life away before it had even begun. Though she hated to admit it, she had.. given up. She swallowed, pushing the dark thoughts away. She didn’t need to think about that anymore. She was home. She had barely cracked open her eyes whenever she was bowled over and sent yowling onto her back. “Oof-I’m so sorry-“ A deep voice spoke frantically above her, and suddenly she was staring into a pair of forest eyes. “V-Vineripple.” Above her stood Thornstar. She vaguely felt the gash on her back crying out as bl00d leaked from where Heronfeather had so carefully patched it up, her broken leg throbbing vaguely. But how was she supposed to feel the pain whenever her heart was singing? Whenever it was flying above the world and couldn’t be torn down? Whenever the cat who owned every fractured, broken piece of her was standing right over her, *touching* her. For a moment the two cats were in a trance, wrapped up in a single moment that felt all too long and short at the same time. Then, he stepped off of her, and reality came crumbling back down around her. Reality and memories. She cringed, both from pain and the knowledge that he knew how she felt about him. Their argument, the messy confessions.. the rejection. She swallowed, pushing to her paws and gently shaking out her fur. “Thornstar.” “Vineripple.. I-I’m sorry I didn’t come to visit you sooner, I.. It was..” Vineripple could only stare at the ground as her leader stumbled over his words, finally falling silent. “..I heard what happened. The badger and everything. ..Must-..Must’ve been pretty scary, huh?” He asked gently, searching her face. Finally, Vineripple tilted her chin to look into his eyes, her heart a jumbled mess. “I-..” The whole time, she had been thinking that any second she was going to die. Any second, jaws were going to close around her throat or rocks were going to crash down on her. Anytime she wasn’t thinking about that, she was thinking about Thornstar. She didn’t know which train of thought brought her more anguish. “Yeah. Pretty scary.” A heavy silence fell over the pair, laden with spilt secrets and suppressed emotion. Finally, Thornstar spoke again.
