Mossfur.

"Of course, Runningpaw. I'm only teasing, you're not in any trouble. We'll catch a few things and then double back and let you get yourself a bite to eat, alright?"

Runningpaw was a good apprentice though he experienced some trouble with teaching her what he knew of hunting, she had a quick-footed agility and she could have easily been mistaken for Windclan because of it. There was room to teach her how to use that quickness and train it towards her hunting and fighting abilities, brute cats were a dime a dozen but quick cats were harder to come by. Her speed could put her at a higher advantage with fast prey like squirrels and rabbits and he wanted to show her how to do that but there was time for that. Initially he had been very shocked to receive Runningkit as his apprentice and as time had stretched, training her had become a fun routine. He remembered training with his own mentor and he remembered going on battle training with his brother Talonpaw, sometimes it made him nostalgic.

Leading his apprentice out through the tunnel, he stretched under the shade of the trees and breathed in the scent of the forest. It was a good day for hunting, prey was starting to surface from their burrows again and he could hear tiny shuffling noises if he listened very closely. He lead his apprentice towards a clearing, the sun warm on silvery shoulders as he glanced to her, his pale gold eyes glinting warmly.

"You know what to do by now, take in everything. All the scents and sounds. Use your eyes as well as your ears and nose, focus." drawing in a deep breath, the tom crouched low into the grass and keened his focus on where a mouse was nibbling a grass seed nearby. "And when you're ready, go for it."

Bunching his hindquarters, he sprung forward and trapped the mouse between his paws before nipping it's spine and turning towards her. He dug a hole in the ground and dropped it in, covering it with soil to collect later.

"Now show me what you can do."

Mallownose.

"Don't tell any cat this but once when I was a newly named medicine cat, shortly after Robinwing took ill, I went to fetch some Burnet because I wasn't just allowed to sulk around camp. I crossed into Windclan and walked and walked without paying a whisker of attention." he could still recall the day, it had been a cold, wet New Leaf and he had been feeling under the weather. "Now, we go through Windclan frequently! We're medicine cats and that's where the Moon Stone is! Yet, I'm a mousebrain of the highest degree, so,"

The chill hadn't let up from Leaf Bare and the ground had practically frozen him from the paws up, he'd been upset, he'd been upset ever since Robinwing became stricken with sickness. His bones practically ached from laying at her side all day and all night, he would speak to her softly while she lied there in her deep, dreamless sleep. She would never so much as stir and he had to force water down her throat sometimes and each day she seemed to get skinnier and skinnier. The once beautiful mottled brown tabby was starting to show her ribs and her haunches would dig beneath her pelt. Sometimes she would move a paw or her ear would twitch in her sleep but she never seemed to wake up, he had been miserable in seeing her like this. It had been like a very real, very dreadful dream and he had begged Starclan to wake him up.

That day had waken him instead with aching limbs and an aching tug in his chest. She hadn't even twitched a whisker as he'd pulled himself to his paws and began going through the herb stock. Everything was getting low and he knew he'd have to leave the den to go collect some but he also knew that his mind wouldn't leave the she-cat in his den. With a high amount of strain, the tom had left the den and brushed soundlessly past his concerned clanmates. Not a word was uttered from him as he'd made his way to the Windclan border and he crossed it quietly. The moors were always loud with wind and it made his ears hum as he walked, he couldn't get his mind off of his mentor, he couldn't focus. He was supposed to be looking for Burnet, he was supposed to be looking for the bitter scent amongst the hissing wind.

"I lost my way halfway across the moor! Burnet isn't that far from the border but I wandered right past it. I made it down to the tunnel that goes halfway beneath the gorge on Windclan's territory and I was so confused!" a laugh escaped the tom as he shook his head, whiskers twitching with amusement. "Of course, most of that tunnel has been collapsed so it mostly looked like a big old rabbit burrow and I was staring into it with shock. I was wondering to myself, well Mallownose, you've never seen a rabbit big enough to make a hole like this! Why, this is big enough for a cat to fit in! So I made the mistake of pushing on in this ridiculous hole and I fit, so I was confused even more because a rabbit this big has to be a predator of some sort. I decided to inspect it for this giant rabbit because I got so distracted by the thought of a rabbit being this big. I tried to wiggle in deeper when I heard the patrol approaching behind and I nearly leaped in fright."

The tunnel had reeked of wet dirt and had been full of loose soil and it had left a stain in his coat but he hadn't noticed that one bit. It had started going down and his claws had dug to hold on as he'd descended in search of this rabbit that had to live there. The walls had been plastered in red clay and there were sticks fastening the roof up which only made him all the more curious as to why a rabbit would have been this smart. He'd lost his footing for a moment before the tunnel abruptly ended with piles upon piles of heavy dirt and stone. He swore he could smell the faint odor of cats deep within it's depths and he decided to head back. Clawing up the tunnel was much harder than going down and he heard pawsteps outside and for a moment feared that the monster rabbit had returned.

It hadn't been a rabbit at all, it had been a patrol of very confused cats that were staring at him like he was mad as he climbed out of the tunnel and tried to shake loose earth from his white fur. One had even asked him what sort of herb he thought grew down there and he had been full of embarrassment when he stumbled out a joking "mallow?", they hadn't been amused. He'd been guided by a warrior to the Burnet while they scolded him about going down a tunnel that had been deemed dangerous long ago before most of them had been born. Apparently a cave in had killed a very important cat and he'd been very ashamed to have gone tumbling down it like an estranged kit.

"I was scolded and everything like an unruly apprentice! Some warrior named Heatherclaw told an elder in our clan and I never heard the end of it." he mrrowed with amusement.

"I felt like I couldn't get that wet dirt out of my fur for ages! And yes, that's quite enough. Look at me going on about the past like an elder." purring with glee, the white tom picked up a mouthful of tansy, talking around the plants, he continued. "They called me Rabbitnose for a moon. I don't think I'll ever live it down. We can store these on our border beneath a holly bush and take them back with the rest of the stock before moonhigh."

When his apprentice had slipped, he'd prepared himself to leap across the the stones and into the water. Though he wouldn't have been much help in the swimming department, he would have at least been able to throw the tom back onto shore. It would have been worth a pelt full of water to make sure Warmpaw didn't drown on him. He wasn't about to lose another medicine cat, especially one that he was so close to. Robinwing had destroyed him but Warmpaw had so much to look forward to, Warmpaw was going to be a brilliant medicine cat some day, Warmpaw was the only family he had anymore. Warmpaw was as good as kin. So to say that his heart skipped a beat would be an understatement. He held his breath as Warmpaw recovered surprisingly quick and he breathed out a sigh of relief as he watched his apprentice make it back to the Thunderclan side of the border.

He stepped after him quickly, his paws movely swiftly over the stones before he leaped off the last one and landed softly. He had never liked the stepping stones much, they were slick and dangerous, many a cat had hurt themselves from slipping off them. He sometimes wondered why they couldn't find a more sane way to cross into each other's territory. The medicine cats had to struggle enough on those ridiculous stones. Shaking out his white coat, he brought his mouthful of tansy to the holly bush. Pushing the tansy piles beneath the bush, he nodded to it affirmatively before turning to his apprentice.

"Of course! Though we'll need a warrior, we usually teach these things in groups because medicine cats are less likely to be a target." offering the young tom a slight smile, he drew his tongue along his paw and brushed it quickly over each spray of whiskers. "We'll go with a group of apprentices to the hollow tomorrow. We just have to know how to defend our patients and ourselves. We never intervene the actual fighting, though we must interject sometimes if we think it's a thankless battle. Starclan will always make their will known."

A flick of his black tail and he turned to lead his apprentice upwind towards the twoleg place's border. His first battle training had been with Duskpaw and Silverpaw's mentors and he had shown to inherit his father's quickness and hard hit. He'd been encouraged to make use of his lean figure to dodge and blow but he had never seemed to remember the tip when the time came to put it in use. He was much better at ducking and running which had proved to be something of a pain for Robinwing and the other two cat's mentors. Ducking and running was easy but he had to know the basics of getting a good hit in, he had the force and the quickness but he didn't have the drive. It had taken him four different battle training trips before he'd picked up anything and now he could basically defend himself.

He definitely wasn't good enough to train Warmpaw by himself. He made a note to ask Sandfire about that as well when he bothered her to hunt with him later tonight. It would be good practice for Stonepaw to train with someone less experienced, it was a good way to test mercy in battle and mercy was very important. He descended downwards towards the scent of the Twoleg nests, catmint grew relatively well throughout the cold seasons but it never grew in large clumps and if Whitecough was making its appearance then they would have to leave some for the other medicine cats. He made note to go along with Warmpaw's idea of picking up some chickweed if this developed into something bad because though it wasn't as strong as catmint, it was enough to stave off the sickness.

The catmint grew along the border and it smelled heavy and sweet as he approached, it was the kind of scent that made his mouth water but he had enough training to know that it made a cat very groggy after eating it. Groggy and in a slightly amplified mood, it was probably the only herb that cats didn't mind chewing in his den. Amongst that scent was something else, the warm smell of freshkill and the sound of someone loudly chewing and tearing at it. He blinked in surprise and moved past the catmint to look around, a broken branch lay shattered on the ground and just south was a funny looking cat in what he thought was a fox burrow. The cat was hungrily tearing into a blackbird and purring with delight with each bite.

"Warmpaw, do you see that?" he was blinking in confusion but the pale tabby seemed to have heard them and his blue eyes stretched wide.

He was obviously no older than Warmpaw by the looks of it and he was bulky and skinny all at once with long legs and a blocky head with large ears. His whiskers spanned out on either side of his squared off muzzle and they almost seemed to hang with their weight. His tail was long and paddle-like and covered in dark rings. He was backing into the burrow with fright, his fur bristling along his spine.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no," he moaned with dismay, his ears flattening. "Oh no. You-you didn't see me! I'm-I'm not here if you don't see me-! Oh by Starclan, my mother would just kill me if she knew-Oh help me."

Stormstrike.

It was ludicrous in the most shameful way that these warriors had even come past their border and he could feel anger gripping his bones as they finally showed face. It was an entire raiding party and he immediately found his hooked claws sinking into the earth as he stared murder at the Shadowclan patrol. The leader seemed to be hanging by a thread and it would have been startling if he wasn't so blinded by his anger. How dare these cats be so bold to enter their territory with a leader in tow. How dare these cats be so bold to ask for Hawkstar himself, Stormstrike's muscles were tensing in his body as he watched them. Silverstorm didn't signal an attack and that made him all the more furious as she spoke to them in her calm, soft voice. She didn't even get a little ruffled as the rat-faced tom smiled at her through his skinny muzzle.

"You can't be taking them serious--" they seemed to be going on no matter what he was saying in his growling undertone so he clamped his muzzle shut.

He could feel the itch in his paws to leap forward and batter Ratnose until he was nothing but a scrap of bloody fur but he kept himself still. It didn't help the bristling in his fur as he listened to them speak. The last life of one leader wasn't anything to their clan and he didn't understand why Hawkstar needed to be informed of some coughing, pitiful mess. It wasn't their problem if Shadowclan would soon be lead by Ratnose. It wasn't their problem if the old leader up and croaked right now, it was their problem that these cats were trespassers. These cats had violated clan law and they were on their territory, they had even brought enough cats to attack with a force.

When Silverstorm ordered her patrol to hunt for the tired Shadowclan cats, he felt his tail start lashing back and forth. He even turned to give her a challenging remark before she asked him to stay with her. A sigh escaped him and he eased his muscles as much as he could with all of his nerves screaming for a fight. He twisted around to rasp a tongue over his bristled fur as Silverstorm did her speaking thing, he couldn't very well interfere with her as she was talking. She had handled the situation without any bloodshed and it was admirable enough, though he wouldn't admit that to her. As the cats began to fill in again with prey to distribute, he had to keep from springing to his paws again over the loss of so much prey.

It was loyalty that made him so angry and upset over this, prey was important! They needed prey- It was also getting warm again and there would be less struggle to find it. He knew she knew what she was doing but he still wanted to chase these frog-eaters from their territory. He settled for trying to nip a burr from his thick gray coat and nearly tore out a good patch in his fury, tugging it sharply, the burr came loose and he spat it on the earth with a hiss of irritation. He had at least five more clinging to his tail and it just wasn't worth trying to work them out right now. When he looked up, he could see her gesturing him over.

Pulling himself to her side with weighted paws, he settled down and curled his tail over to begin working on the burrs that clung in the thick gray fur. Muttering through a mouthful of gray fur, he asked her in another undertone. "Are you positive this is a good idea, Silverstorm?"