Week 3 : Bargaining

Nothing worked. Nothing killed it. Nothing even slowed it down! What was this? What kind of foul plague? Raven had seen so many similar things, and yet nothing was enough to stop the disease's stubborn persistence. And now Spruceheart was dead. Gone in the early hours of the morning. At least the den was quieter now. It was a grim thought, but true. He had gone out as badly as Firecloud. Moaning and hacking all the way.

Two dead. One dying. Three more sick.

"Ravenface."

A raspy, gruff voice behind her as she looked over her stores. Trying to concentrate. Trying to think. She had to think. She had to find a way out of this. She had to find a way to save them. She had to stop this now, before it got any worse. The silver shecat remembered the nightmare she had been given so vividly. Great how they could warn her but not give her a solution. Fat lot of good these cats were, huh?

"Not now," the Medicine Cat mumbled under her breath. 

That heather idea had been stupid. What had she been thinking? Well, she hadn't been thinking she was dealing with a plague! That much was for sure!

Balsom Fir had worked a tad for Firecloud, but hardly more.

Mallow had been worse than useless, but it dealt with the stomach and the upper airways. This seemed to go for the lungs.

Borage and Honey was a bust, not that she'd held out much hope for it anyway. Borage was a rough plant, nothing like what Ravenface would normally use.

Holy Holly at this rate she would be infusing her patients with nothing but Lamb's Ear and Poppy stalks by the moon's end!

"Ravenface," Mountainclan mewed again, gentler this time.

The Medicine Cat's gaze snapped up, frustration and intolerance bleeding away as she looked at her patient. He did not need to see her like this. There was a reason she had sectioned off her stores from the rest of the sick living quarters. She needed somewhere she could think, somewhere she could let her frustrations free without scaring her patients. Too bad her patients did not get the hint.

"I'm dying... aren't I?" the tom asked quietly, his strong voice husky and cracked.

Raven's face fell. "No," she told him with more conviction than she felt. "I'm going to beat this. Don't you worry. I know I'll find something. I can-"

Mountainclaw shook his head. "It's alright. I've lost a lot in this lifetime. My old clan. My mate. My beautiful daughter." The large tom's eyes misted for a moment but then they looked down to her. "I know how hard you are trying. I've seen it. I also know you are doing this alone. I am alone too, Ravenface. If I am going to die, I would rather do it helping my clan than sitting in a nest."

Ravenface blinked. "Oh. I don't need-"

"Consider it a last wish," the tom mewed gently. "So I can go to Star Clan with pride. You don't have an apprentice, and I don't know much about herbs, but let me help. If Spruceheart is any indication, at most I'll only be an irritation for a few more days."

Ravenface's heart broke at the way this brave tom spoke of his own death. "You don't have to do that," she whispered.

"I am a Warrior. To serve my clan until my dying day is what I swore many moons ago and I had no intention of stopping now. And, above all, I want to."

What could she say to that?

"Alright. Well," Ravenface turned back to her stores, trying to swallow down the thickness in her throat. "Currently everyone is getting different plants."

"Why? Why not just give us all the same plant that will fix it?"

"Because I don't know what will fix it," Ravenface admitted quietly.

Mountainclaw's eyes narrowed on her. "I thought you were a Medicine Cat. You are supposed to know."

The silver shecat bristled. "You can cut out that tone right now, Mr. High and Mighty. I have tried the herbs for cough. I have tried the herbs for throat soreness and even stomach aches! The herbs that are 'supposed' to work aren't cutting it, so I have to find something else. I have to branch out. I know what all of these do and one of them holds the cure. I know it. I just have to find it."

"Oh." Mountainclaw looked out over the rows and shelves Ravenface had painstakingly carved with her own claws into the heart of the tree. There were rows upon rows of them up so high even he would have a hard time reaching them. She must get Boltfang in here and stand on his back when she wanted the ones up top. "That's a lot to go through."

"Yeah," Ravenface breathed, crestfallen.

"Well... what about that one?" Mountainclaw pointed at the highest shelf, the hardest to get to and on the far right side.

Ravenface shook her head. "That's columbine. It's for stomach tumors. It is highly toxic."

Mountainclaw's ears flattened and he cocked his head. "Tumors?"

"Rocks of blood and muscle inside the body," Raven supplied.

The massive tom's eyes widened in horror. "Cats can get something like that?"

The Medicine Cat nodded, smirking a bit. "And before you go on, those top three rows are ALL highly toxic and poisonous. That's why I keep them up so high. They probably are not what we need in this case."

The huge warrior shuddered. He would hate to think what case in which those nasty things would be needed. He tried the lowest, bottom left row now, as far from the rock-tumor plant as he could get. "What about that one?"

"That's dogwood. It's for headsickness and boosts strength."

"Boosting strength would be good," he pointed out.

"You all are already getting Lamb's Ear. It's better."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Well, what about this one?" 

"Gentian. It's for fevers and... ahem. Shecat... needs."

Mountainclaw pulled a face at that and Ravenface laughed, but even so shook her head. "Mountainclaw, this is nice what you are trying to do and all but it would take ages to go through every plant I have in here!"

Mountainclaw met the shecat's eyes and the Medicine Cat found herself blinking in surprise at the fire she saw in them. This cat was dying, soon, very soon, and he knew it, and it did not phase him in the least. He was still going, still fighting. Not for himself but for his clanmates. For the flagging Sandpaw and the sweet Brooksong and the fidgety Ravenmist. His bravery... it was something Raven had only ever heard about in stories.

"Then it's a good thing we have a few days before I kick it, isn't it?" he asked blandly.

Raven did not want to smile. This was serious. This was deadly. Every choice she made would either save someone or kill them.

But she found an amused smirk creeping onto her face all the same. "Yeah. A real good thing."

"Alright then. Now what is..."

And on they went. On and on and on. Days passed. One plant would seem to work, but then in the span of a few hours all their work was wasted. On and on. Back to the stores. Back to test something else. Back to the shelves. Back to the patients. Ravenface fought with one herb than the next, Mountainclaw pushed her to try things even she knew could never work, but to try was better than to give up and so they went. On and on. The silver Medicine Cat would have given anything to find a cure by the end of that week. Anything to make the cures stick.

But no matter what she tried, how she bended, how she pleaded, nothing could stop it.

And nothing could save them.