Week 2 : Anger

The pretty grey shecat's delicate face was contorted into a furious grimace as she stood in her store room. Herbs were scattered all around her, most unlike her normal fastidiousness nature. Her chipped and muddy claws were out and digging into the packed earth beneath her paws. Blue eyes were hard as ice and just as sharp as she glared down at the innocent foliage. Her teeth were grinding together and her fur was unkept. It was amazing how much could change in the span of a week and the universe had certainly decided to prove that to her now.

Firecloud did not just have a cough. She had started to run a fever after only a pawful of days. Following that...

Ravenface growled deep in her throat and bared her teeth at the memory. Star Clan. Yeah. Fat lot of good they had done. They had warned her Firecloud's sickness was more than it appeared. Yes. That was very kind of them. Very helpful. Except, oh right, they did it in the grossest, most horrific nightmare ever that only a sicko would conjure up and gave her the warning TOO LATE, oh, oh, AND they had not mentioned the sickness would spread. That would have been real helpful guys. Seriously. 

Ravenface almost wanted to tell those cottonheaded old ghosts not to even bother next time but as much as she yearned to spit in their collective, shiny faces, even she knew better. The nightmare did make sense -in hindsight. Of course. Because that was so helpful. The shecat's cracked claws burrowed angrily into the dirt. This was why she hated dealing with the Mystical. They could never be straight forward and she had no head for figuring out their weirdness. She had enough of her own thankyouverymuch. She knew the mice had been disease. She knew the blood meant death or pain or something like that, and it running down the Cedar tree meant it would spread. She had figured that all out after it happened, when the information was useless, but there was one thing left from her dream that had yet to happen. One she did not need a Star Clan Translator to figure out.

She knew Firecloud was going to die.

The petite shecat stifled a roar of anger and frustration. Why?! Why would they just accept that? Why wouldn't they just tell her the cure?! Why did an innocent cat have to die just so they could play head games with her? She knew it was not that simple. In the back of her mind she knew that Star Clan, like all Mystical Beings, was limited in how much they could interfere, but at the moment she could not have cared less! Cat's lives were at stake!

The shecat's fur bristled in fury as she thought about what awaited her back in the den. Firecloud had quite literally been torn apart in the span of a week. Her body was littered with sores and her fur patchy.  Ravenface had discovered the source of these was, to her relief, not from the actual disease but rather from Firecloud herself. She had been scratching and clawing at her skin. Her chest had constricted and breathing was beginning to get more and more difficult.  The shecat had scratched herself down to the skin, and sometimes further, unable to get even a stitch of comfort through the agony she experienced every time breathed and the chills that ran over her from the fever that wracked her body. Raven had tried to do something to make the shecat more comfortable, filling the nest with moss or feathers, offering her poppy seeds and honey, anything to soften Firecloud's overloaded senses. When that failed, the grey shecat snapped at her every time she caught the warrior scratching. It was all useless. Firecloud's body was falling apart and nothing Raven tried could stop it.

Which did not bode well for Mountainclaw or Spruceheart, who had just come in with coughs yesterday.

Ravenface looked over her scattered herbs with fire in her eyes. This was not the way it was supposed to be! She refused to accept this! Star Clan said Firecloud was doomed but that was just wrong! So help her, she was going to fight for every cat until she deemed they were past saving, not some mystical ghosts in the clouds with massive sticks up their butts. 

Ravenface grabbed a pawful of tansy. She had not tried that one yet. She did not have much of it either. She just hoped it would do... something. And something was infinitely better than the many nothings she had gotten over the past week. The grey shecat marched into the main area of the den, catching sight of Flickerkit's slumbering form from the corner of her eye. She needed to get the kit moved out of here, but she still had to be isolated and watched constantly. She was not yet stable -might never be stable- and she would not be able to handle even the mildest sickness, let alone something on this scale of destructive force. Ravenface would have to talk to Starlingfur about it. Soon. Before she had one more dying cat on her paws.

"Firecloud." Ravenface tried to wake the orange tabby. She had fallen asleep, which was a good sign. She had not been able to get any sort of solid rest for the past two days so this was definitely an improvement, but Raven still needed her to wake up to take the herbs. She didn't want any sort of a relapse. The shecat wrinkled her nose in distaste as the smell of the orange Warrior's nest hit her. Ew. Alright. She was getting up to eat herbs and have her bedding changed. Immediately. Gah. It almost smelled like she had-

The grey shecat's mind stumbled over the thought as a terrifying idea hit her.

"Firecloud," she mewed, more insistently this time. She reached out to gently nudge the shecat's scratched and patchy shoulder. Nothing. Her skin was already chilled by the Leaffall air. Ravenface's anger at the world bubbled back up and she threw the now useless herbs across the den in her rage. She hated this! She hated not being able to help! She hated not finding a cure! She hated Star Clan sitting on their asses while lives slipped out through her paws! She hated it all! But none of that hate could change the fact that confronted her in the Warrior's nest.

Firecloud was already dead.