puppy love

~~~

ONCE THEY REACHED CAMP, Sweetpaw assigned Violetpaw the lovely job of fetching mouse bile while she collected moss from a tree near the nursery. The white she-cat had tried protesting, but her sister had gone before she could say a thing, tossing a cheeky smile at Violetpaw over her shoulder.

So, Violetpaw set off finding mouse bile, which turned out to be a much harder task than she'd anticipated. She hadn't the slightest clue where to begin looking, and so looked around the camp to see if there was someone that could help her. When she realized Ravenpaw was the only other apprentice in sight, it took her a long while to swallow her pride and pad up to him.

"Hey."

Ravenpaw looked up at her from where he'd been sunbathing, his yellow eyes a sleepy mess and completely unimpressed. "What do you want?"

Violetpaw shifted her weight, taking a deep breath. "Could you help me find the mouse bile?"

The black tom raised an eyebrow, as though he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. "You'd like me to leave my comfy spot in the sun - which I had to fight Brightkit for, by the way - to help you find mouse bile?"

"Yeah."

Ravenpaw scoffed, laying his head back down and burying his muzzle beneath his paws again. "No."

"Ravenpaw, please?" Violetpaw hated asking him for anything, much less practically begging him, but she'd already upset Sunbounce today and didn't wish for it to happen again. "It's only my first day. Just point me in the right direction."

"No," he replied again. "Now go away." 

Violetpaw was about to sigh and give up when she suddenly felt the presence of another cat come up behind her, followed by a low, soothing voice. "What's the matter here?"

A strong, earthy scent filled her nose (he must've just returned from patrol), and the white she-cat already knew it was Eaglepaw before she turned around to face him. Despite having complete awareness of who she was speaking to, her words still came out jumbled and stupid as though she'd been caught off guard. "Mouse bile."

Eaglepaw's eyes glittered with gentle laughter. "I'm sorry?"

"Mouse bile," Violetpaw repeated, as though it would clear anything up, then promptly wanted to claw her eyes out. "I'm looking for mouse bile. Sunbounce and Stormbird want Sweetpaw and I to take care of the elders' ticks and clean their den."

"Elders on the first day?" Eaglepaw wrinkled his nose sympathetically. "That's rough."

"Yes. Well. Clan life is occasionally rough." Violetpaw's pelt burned with embarrassment - Great StarClan, what was wrong with her?

The brown apprentice purred, not in a way where he was laughing at her, but more in a way where he thought she'd made a funny joke. "Just so you know for the future, you don't need to search around for mouse bile. It's typically kept in the medicine den. Come on, I'll show you."

Violetpaw plastered a smile on her face, hoping it didn't seem too eager or mortified. "Thanks."

~~~

"WHERE'VE YOU BEEN?" Sweetpaw was waiting by the den's entrance with rolls of moss at her paws when the white she-cat padded over, carrying a stick coated with mouse bile. "I didn't want to go in without you."

Violetpaw twitched her pelt, the meowed something along the lines that she couldn't find the mouse bile and that next time she could be the one who fetched moss while Sweetpaw dealt with the droppings - but it all sounded incoercible, as everything was muffled by the stick. So, Sweetpaw just shrugged and ducked inside.

The elders, Dovesky and Cloverbounce, were both there when the apprentices entered, hiding from the brisk leafbare day. They were dozing off, but Dovesky was roused almost immediately and lifted her head.

"Thank StarClan," she meowed, ruffling her fur. "These ticks have been bothering me for the longest time, I've been waiting for them to send someone."

"I'm here to clean the nests," Sweetpaw mewed, glancing at Cloverbounce's sleeping form a little awkwardly. "Erm- should I-?"

Dovesky lifted her ears, as though she'd just realized. "Oh, right, of course. Cloverbounce"- she tapped her mate lightly with her tail -"Cloverbounce, wake up."

Though Cloverbounce didn't react until she'd hit him at least five times, he didn't seem to be in deep sleep, for he opened one sleepless eye and flicked her back with his own tail. "I heard you the first time, Dovesky."

"Well, you weren't moving," Dovesky retorted without edge. "Sweetpaw here needs to clean our nest."

Cloverbounce grumbled, but still rolled out of their nest without much protest as Dovesky followed him. Violetpaw felt a grin spreading on her face as she padded over with the mouse bile; it was cute how they interacted, to be so in love with the same cat after years and years.

Dovesky caught her smile, and returned it with her own. "What're you laughing on about?"

"Nothing." Violetpaw shifted, crouching to focus the stick of bile on a tick on Dovesky's shoulder. "You two just have a nice relationship, that's all." 

"Us?" The black-and-white elder snorted in a lighthearted way. "Please, we're nothing compared to your parents."

"Our parents?" Sweetpaw's ears stood up with interest. "What do you mean?"

"Well, your mother was in love with your father ever since she was a young kit." Dovesky settled into a comfortable sprawl, her blue eyes glittering in that wise way elders' always seemed to as Cloverbounce snored on beside her. "I believe all the kits and apprentices were playing a game one day, and Frostsky - well, Frostkit at the time - volunteered to be the badger when nobody else wanted to."

Violetpaw made a face. "She fell in love with him because he agreed to play a badger?"

"Well, he saved the game," Dovesky pointed out, "and since then, Swanfrost tried everything she could to get him to notice her. On her first day of being an apprentice, she even tried making a catch - and a thrush at that, mind you."

"Did she get it?"

A soft purr rose from Dovesky's throat. "No, of course not. She tripped over her tail and tumbled quite a bit before stopping, and came close to breaking her leg. She had to stay in the medicine den for a week after that."

"Well, Dad must've noticed her then," Violetpaw mewed matter-of-factly. "She was sent to the medicine den, for StarClan's sake."

"Yes, but Frostsky's a tom, you must remember," Dovesky replied. "They hardly notice anything until it falls out from the sky in front of them. No, I don't even think they spoke more than a sentence to each other until Frostsky was about to become a warrior."

"Really?" Sweetpaw's ears twitched. "What happened?"

"All the credit really must go to your mother's best friend, Violetdust-" Dovesky broke off suddenly and then cleared her throat, as if grief suddenly overtook her, before continuing again in a softer voice. "Sorry. As I was saying, Violetdust was tired of having Swanfrost be too scared to actually interact with Frostsky, so she took it into her own paws.

"We'd just suffered through a particularly harsh leafbare, and newleaf was coming. Violetdust suggested the apprentices sneak out to the lake and watch the stars to celebrate. After they got to the beach, she and Sunbounce managed to slip away, leaving your parents alone and, well, the rest is history." Dovesky smiled fondly. "They became mates soon after Swanfrost became a warrior."

"Woah." Violetpaw hummed softly. "I never knew."

"It was lovely, watching your parents grow up and fall in love." Dovesky twitched her pelt. "Now bring that stick up a little higher, will you? There's a tick on my neck that I can't quite reach."