The Medicine Den: Fanfiction by Nibby the Bird

this is a fanfiction I wrote a while ago! It doesn't really take place in any specific part of the series, although the part with dialogue is probably just before Midnight starts. please do not edit except for typos!!

word count: 1585

character count: 8824

*****

The medicine den is a strange place.

It’s a small, smooth cave tucked away from the rest of the Thunderclan camp, poking out from the wall of foliage. The walls of it are overgrown with moss and ivy, leaving just the rim of the cave opening revealed. But if one looks closely, they will see the stone itself is so intricate and delicate, impossibly fine carvings spreading across the surface, so subtle and organic only time itself could form them. This cave is the oldest part of ThunderClan camp, after all— trees fall in seasonal storms, puddles dry up in the noon sun, and the bramble bushes guarding the clearing die and are reborn every year. But this stone cave, it has stood since the days when the Great Clans walked the forest.

It looks small from the outside, a tiny stub at the edge of the wide ravine, but as any medicine cat will tell you, the interior feels massive. Sunlight from a skyhole illuminates up the walls of herbs, as dust floats into the light. The den smells of spices and clean plants, washed by cool and clear water trickling through the cave— the last remains of the ancient stream that once carved this place. The ground underfoot is soft, softer than the floor of the rest of the camp, and neat pine nests line up against the walls, organic but orderly. It is quiet, peaceful here; it is meant to be so, when it must house cats at their weakest.

Leafpaw always found the medicine den to be strange. It had an old, lively quality to it, like it was some elder huddled away, living, breathing, containing all kinds of knowledge. It felt so different from the rest of the camp- inside, you spoke quietly. Noises echoed against the walls very faintly. Herb piles were kept in order. You must watch where you step, in order not to disturb the soft and serene nature of the place, and any cats who may have to stay there. It was so different from the brash nature of the camp, the bright spots of sun across its packed floor, the shreds of fur dusted across it, the loudness of the cats. The medicine den was an isolated world, separate from time, immeasurably comforting and calm to Leafpaw. Her peers didn’t seem to like it— they found its age creepy and uncomfortable, and associated those walls of herbs with pain and illness. But Leafpaw, for whatever reason, didn’t. She was a quiet and patient cat and fell in love with the den, feeling her heartbeat slow and breathing ease as she entered.

What Leafpaw didn’t know was that she wasn’t alone in her way of thinking. She knew that the role was an ancient tradition, needed in every clan, but she couldn’t understand that it was here, this very place, on this very soil, where that history happened. She didn’t realize that the den was to her what it was to countless cats before her, comforting as their own little place in the world. She didn’t realize that she stepped so gingerly in the same places as them, sorting her herbs under the same skyhole, healing and reviving cats the same way, with the same techniques. She didn’t know the names of Oatspeckle and Featherwhisker, didn’t know about their experiences, how alike to hers they were.

And yet she felt it.

She felt the warmth of their paws in the soft, cool ground. She tasted their tongues in that clear, sweet, stream, felt their snouts nudge her towards the right herbs, guide her into knowing what to do. There was immense love in the simple chores; she could see it as Cinderpelt did them, repetitive, but familiar and comforting, and felt the care and tenderness in every action as Cinderpelt healed. She seemed to know everything in the world, that gray cat, wise beyond her years, and yet she never showed it off or boasted. She simply healed, and maintained. And as Leafpaw learned to mimic her movements, knowing that the ease her mentor completed tasks in was yet to come, she couldn’t help but feel proud. Here was a den where generations of cats stood, and healed. They were the backbone of the clan, keeping it alive, tending to it, yet cats seemed to forget they were in the medicine den as soon as they were well enough to leave. Cinderpelt said that was good- it meant they had done their job.

Cinderpelt didn’t know much about the line of medicine cats before them. Her own mentor, Yellowfang, was from ShadowClan, and barely knew the name of the late medicine cat she replaced. But that name, that crucial name, had managed to survive, as Leafpaw’s father told it: Spottedleaf.

Leafpaw clung to that name like her life depended on it. It was her name, she thought gleefully. Moons before, this medicine cat stood in the same place Leafpaw did, unaware that her successor would share her name. Perhaps her smell still lingered in the medicine den, although didn’t the mark of all of the medicine cats stay there? Didn’t Cinderpelt’s earthy, rugged smell mix with the old fresh-kill scent of Yellowfang? Was the sweetness in the air, that comforted Leafpaw, stroked her fur, guided her paws, was that Spottedleaf’s?

Would Leafpaw too leave her mark here, become legendary just as the ancient ones? Even if her names were lost, would her stories of her life still travel on? Would Leafpaw do something to warrant a memory at all?

But every time the thoughts crossed her mind, almost every time she entered the den, she shook her head and stopped. Cinderpelt always said it didn’t matter what cats thought of her a dozen seasons from now, when the elders were all dead and the leaders replaced. What mattered was doing the right thing in the moment. The famed medicine cats, they didn’t become loved by the apprentices of their apprentices for any reason, Cinderpelt said, other than doing their job. And that was what Leafpaw must do. Do her job in this ancient, sacred place. Heal cats. Guide the leader. Save lives. “Is that not why you became a medicine cat?” Cinderpelt said thoughtfully, one morning, sorting the herbs. It was quiet and peaceful. There had been no battles or illnesses or storms. ThunderClan were well.

“Why did you become a medicine cat?” Leafpaw asked back, looked up from the herbs. She didn’t know the story. She had only chosen to train here, in this den she had fallen in love with, a moon ago.

Cinderpelt smiled halfway, a soft and shaking breath from her nose. She told Leafpaw, she told her about her father and the road and the plant stalks that bound her leg for weeks. She told her she had no choice. “I don’t know why you chose to be a medicine cat, Leafpaw. I didn’t choose at all. But I know from my own experiences as one that it doesn’t matter what your legacy is. You have to heal in the moment. I couldn’t remake myself as a warrior, or plan out my future when I was recovering. I just had to be healed, be helped. That’s what you have to do.”

The gray cat paused for a minute, and then added, “and you have another purpose, Leafpaw. You have to teach another cat. You will be a medicine cat for many moons; someday a curious kitten will wander into the den, this very den, with its ancient history and carvings, and you must take that kit in as an apprentice. You have to.” It was a rare moment of seriousness from Cinderpelt. “Medicine is what holds clans alive, what keeps them together, what powers them through their darkest hours. Itself, medicine is only held alive by word of mouth, by mentors and apprentices teaching each other. It is an ancient practice that has lived and given life for as long as cats have walked the forest. It is your job to continue it, to make sure that your kin— or, well, I suppose your sister’s kin— may be healed as well.”

It was one of the first times Leafpaw felt the cats that had come before her. She felt the knowledge, every detail of it, every mouth that spoke it, every ear that heard it, every paw that practiced it. She didn't know them, she didn't know their names, but she felt them in that ancient, sacred den, present, still, peaceful. Her heart swelled up as she realized that one day she too would be dead, her spirit still in this den, haunting it lovingly, her own apprentice remembering what she taught him. An apprentice of her own. Another cat to continue the tradition, go on with the cycle.

The smooth, close walls wrapped around the two cats as they did their work, shielding them, protecting them. The aromatic smell of thyme and chamomile lingered in the air, Leafpaw nearly sensing them against her skin, sweet, shimmering.

So much history. So many cats dead, so many cats healed, in this medicine den, a pocket of time, of mothers giving birth, elders passing peacefully, kits relieved for the coughs to pass, apprentices entering with their bodies tired but spirits sharp, warriors recollecting their senses after an injury they didn't feel because of their adrenaline, because they were too focused, too intense.

And all Leafpaw had to do was take care of them.