[Insidious]

The gray body of Cinderfall slipped through the last concealment of brambles standing in her pathway between the surrounding area and the LightningClan camp. Her pale green eyes were glazed over with a newly aroused ire, this trait of inner anger seemingly unusual... until her front, left paw was tugged free from the prickled thorns of the brush. Coated in a thin layer of blood, various tooth marks were visible puncturing generally all over the paw. She spared a glance down at the wound, an attempt of placing it on the terrain to properly function without the subtle limp proving to be more difficult than she would have liked to admit to. Wincing under her breath, a jolt of fire surged through the limb as she hastily surfaced it once again; flashing hateful eyes at the injury as if it sparked a memory of the creature that had inflicted it.

During her lone hunting session, Cinderfall had been on the trail of a mouse. Her pounce was perfect, calculated to a point. She landed on top of the tiny mammal, delivering a finely executed kill bite to its spinal chord region. She had clamped the piece of flesh between her jaw, keen to return to LightningClan camp and place the afternoon's catch in the prey pile. However, her journey back to camp had arrived at an untimely halt: that fox apparently figured it'd be easier to scam her catch instead of locating its own. Cinderfall, being the stubborn type when it came to her successes, didn't give in easy. The fox had to deliver quite a few painful nips to her left paw before she was sent scurrying off into the bushes for protection.

And now, she returned to LightningClan camp without her mouse.

She kept her eyes astray, not desiring to meet any curious stares from her clan members. Her sights were upon the den of Rookfrost, intending to seek out anything he had to assure the paw wouldn't grow infected from the puncture wounds. Rookfrost. Cinderfall held her breath, attempting to keep the shivers away from her spine. It was perhaps the dumbest thing a clan cat could ever do: take interest in a medicine cat. It wasn't as if she meant to, though. Cinderfall had always found his unique, ghostly movements and machine-like speech to be captivating. Different, even. Most clan cats were all the same: dedicated to their duties, their leader, their clan. She didn't doubt Rookfrost's loyalty, but, from what she had been able to gather about the black tom-cat, he certainly wasn't as tightly bonded as some other cats.

“Rookfrost?” The tone of Cinderfall rose from her throat, a questioning note arising at the end of the medicine cat's name. She didn't enter just yet, in case the tom was busy with other matters. Her interest in the LightningClan tom had always been kept to herself, so incredibly exclusive that she hardly allowed herself to exchange words with him in case some peering eyes got ideas. Nobody could get any ideas from this event, however. She had a reason to be in his den, after all.

Maybe, that fox did her a favour.

[Fawn]

There were times when the quietness became particularly unbearable. It left him alone with his thoughts, with his mechanisms and the inner, darker workings of his mind that he would do well to never share with others. Rather than be here in the dark hollow of his den in the ground, presenting an outward appearance of properness if not a lack of humor, the spectral tom longed for the oddities of the cache stashed at the edge of LightningClan territory. The obvious fact that he were not up to the wrist-joints in the carcass of some once-living thing scorched a nerve, but no more than usual.

In this horribly droll afternoon, a morbid flicker - a taste - of something interesting wafted in long before the voice of a nameless Clanmate had ever reached him. It was one of the few things that would rouse him no matter what he was doing, who he was talking with, or even where he was.

Blood.

Darkly hoping it wasn't something as unimpressive as a thorn claw or even a ridiculous scratch obtained through clumsiness, the shadowy figure stepped out from the earth as though he had literally been summoned from the impossible netherworld below. Scenting the irony tang of blood that cloyed the glands atop his mouth and the innermost chambers of his nose, the large black tom pinpointed the source.
"Hold up your paw."

There was a second smell - one he had familiarized himself with throughout the course of his long, highly attentive life - Fox. It wasn't as if he were any brilliant detective, his powers of deduction were uncommon and - dare he fluff his own feathers - rather unique to him and perhaps two other cats in LightningClan. Amidst the furious rapidity with which his brain processed information, a question arose as to Cinderfall's overall state of being - if she had truly encountered a fox, and that was the reason for the blood drawn, then why was she neither mangled nor maimed or missing something?

It wasn't a question that could be answered right away, heck, it wouldn't be long before his interest in the subject faded entirely, but it was unusually enough to pique his curiosity. Would it be wrong to assume she had the ability to fight off a full grown fox with only a damaged paw to show for it?

Logic told him yes, that would be a gross overestimation of her abilities. She did not have the body of a prize-fighter, after all. She was not riddled with scars or physical discrepancies put there by a dozen moons of roughness and claw-slashes. It had likely been a young fox then, a yearling forced to survive in the extremeness of a very hard leafbare, perhaps abandoned by it's mother or orphaned by that great big lynx in the mountains.

Ah well.
The fact that Cinderfall was very much alive would be a topic to return to later. Already mentally ticking off what kind of herbs he would need to gather, he waited with great impatience, icy eyes fixed on her gray visage, breath coming out in cold clouds, Rookfrost utterly still. The manner with which he moved - there was no such thing as wasted movement, a fluidity that was both mechanical and just a tad supernatural, that black tom who crept across the ice and snow like a phantom come to reap what Winter had not already claimed.

[Insidious]

“Hold up your paw.”

The words had summonsed her full attention forwardly, pale green eyes intent on searching the looming shadows of the medicine cat's den for the face that belonged to those familiar vocals. It wasn't long before she registered that Rookfrost was far closer than she predicted prior to beginning her search. Clamping her gray-white jaw shut with the softest click sound, she forced a quick nod before doing as was instructed of her by the black tufted tom-cat.

Lightly, at first, she surfaced her left paw to an extent high enough to be in examination range of the medicine cat before her. As it lifted upwardly, she found her own eyes trailing over the damage that had been done. Of course, no amount of hope would shape Cinderfall into a skillful medicine cat. It was easy enough to desire it, though. She could at least play pretend by performing her own analysis, more or less backed up by a knowledge of herbs that likely hardly even compared to what Rookfrost knew. He had experience in the field; something she could only dream of having for herself. It wasn't worth putting much thought into, however. It wasn't like she'd ever willingly attempt to scam Rookfrost of his position. Partially, because it was simply an unrealistic course of action that would never work out in the end. Though, the other part of her knew all too well that she wouldn't do it, because it was Rookfrost. She respected his position, and overall, respected him as a cat.

No longer interested in analyzing her own blood, the she-cat's gaze was withdrawn and instead averted to the facial features of Rookfrost. For a moment, her eyes skimmed the base of his dark furred frame, attempting to keep her own thoughts far inside the depths of her intellect. Who was she trying to fool, here? As if Rookfrost would have any drive to speak with her unless it involved an injury in some form. He wasn't allowed to have a mate, so, why would he even bother wasting his time contemplating such thoughts? Why did she have to waste her time contemplating such thoughts? He was a medicine cat, not a warrior. She couldn't hold him to the same standards as a warrior, nor force herself to believe his morals didn't revolve around his position. He would never possibly see her in that light, so, she had to stop herself from seeing him in that light.

It was seeming to be more difficult than she would ever admit to It would have been much easier to push aside her law abiding crush on the ominous LightningClan tom, had she not feel her heart skip a beat each time her pale green eyes were fixated in his direction.

Clearing her throat with a soft cough, the she-cat attempted to allow her mind to travel toward the situation at paw. That way, it wouldn't be so easy to grow increasingly lost in the intelligent glisten of the tom-cat's eyes... stop that. “I could have easily gotten away, had I simply departed with that mouse,” She had noticed the look in the tom's eyes upon his capture of the scent: likely being a mixture of fox and blood. In the off chance he was curious about what had happened, she figured she'd be able to make conversation out of it. Or, at least try to. “but no animal gets to steal my catch of the day without fighting for it.” She smirked slightly, in a sense, almost prideful that the image of a fox itself didn't immediately cause her to turn-tail and flee out of panic.

She couldn't be overly prideful, though. After all, she hadn't managed to get away completely unscratched; this fact buzzing in her mind upon yet another random, burning sting arising from her paw. It was likely, under any other circumstances, she would have allowed herself to wince. Not in front of Rookfrost, though. She wasn't about to appear to be some weakling warrior that couldn't handle her own battles. So, the winces of pain were caged by the biting down on her tongue in a futile attempt at stifling the agony by ignoring it.

[Fawn]

“I could have easily gotten away, had I simply departed with that mouse,”

The words of Cinderfall seemed to float like asteroids towards his outermost atmosphere, burning up into dust before they could pierce through the final layer, let alone reach it's destination. “but no animal gets to steal my catch of the day without fighting for it.”

Scarcely blinking in acknowledgment of her explanation, the mentally preoccupied creature spoke over her with hardly a breath between the end of her statement and the beginning of his, the tom already half-turning in the direction of his den.
"The fox has lacerated the heelpad and two digital pads. Place your paw into a snow bank to clean the wounds."

It was one of the healer's more frustrated behaviors; he was exceptionally taciturn. He did not outline his steps to the often bewildered patient he was treating, he neglected to soothe any emotional damage that often came with severe injuries, and he was an exceptionally poor liar when some cats needed it most, preferring to stick to his insensitively honest policy rather than delve into the realms of faith, hope and delirium. Leaving Cinderfall to do as she had been instructed, Rookfrost was swallowed whole by the shadows of his den, navigating through the dark interior as though he were traipsing through the shadowy recesses of his own mind, knowing the placement and quantity of everything on an almost subconscious level. Collecting cobwebs with the tip of his voluminous black tail, Rookfrost then selected 3 dandelion leaves to serve as pain killers - he expected her adrenaline surge from that fox to crash even as he rummaged - and goldenrod, the latter of which he would form into a poultice that would keep out infection and clean whatever ill-begotten bacteria that had already worked it's way in.

Coming back with the acquired herbs, Rookfrost set them down just outside the den, preferring to work in the light rather than the dark, though the work itself was contradictory much of the time. Studiously grinding up the leaves with his back teeth, Rookfrost finally tuned in a little better to his surroundings, as though removing the mental mute he had placed upon all that wasn't the rustle of leaves and the occasional cry of the wind, the loud clanging of his thoughts what usually drowned out everything else.
"Snap to, Cinderfall." He called, seeming to shout without really shouting, a raise of the voice when he momentarily paused in his chewing was so quickly followed up with silence it was almost as if he'd never spoken at all.

Though he could've cleaned and dressed the wound in his sleep, Rookfrost brought full consciousness to the task at hand, icy eyes fixed upon the she-cat as though he might gorgonize her should she take too much time, the world never seeming to turn fast enough for those who always felt they had something they should be doing. It wasn't quite urgency that seemed to linger in his gaze, it was more of a spark, really, a cold fire ignited by the simple task of performing his duties as Medicine Cat. Though the easiness of this job would do nothing to satisfy his craving for knowledge and his almost obsessive, compulsive behavior to explore the realm of science and medicine and anatomy, it was enough to remind him of why this position was...
Precious to him.

If his one true love was truly and unerringly the pursuit of knowledge, then the application of acquired knowledge was then to him like a stepchild. It would never bring him the immense satisfaction and delight that the pursuit of knowledge would, but he had grown fond, so very fond -- enough to embrace the position that acted as the cover to his one true passion.

[Insidious]

"The fox has lacerated the heel pad and two digital pads. Place your paw into a snow bank to clean the wounds." Of course, Cinderfall had heard and thoroughly acknowledged Rookfrost's command. If her mind hadn't been so terribly occupied, the order behind the medicine cat's words would have been far simpler to put into a course of action. Nodding along, as if she had clearly and without issues processed his words, pale green irises watched as the tom-cat's figure soon was no longer visible upon its harmonizing with the thick blanket of black shadows created by his den.

Upon his vanishing from view, the she-cat, at last, was able to return to the present. What did he ask her to do again? Briefly allowing confusion to glaze her pale green eyes, the feline almost absentmindedly fixated her attention upon the blood-coated paw. Rattling through her brain for the information she had seemingly stored and lost within the depths of her intellect, gray hued ears pinned forwardly upon yet another pair of familiar vocals ringing in her eardrums. “Snap to, Cinderfall.”

She glanced up at the tom, meeting his icy gaze for a moment before flashing an awkward grin, averting her gaze downward as the command recently given seemed to click. Rummaging her paw about in a pile of softer snow, her pale green eyes observed attentively as the colour of white slowly evolved into a lighter pink. There was the slightest sting accompanied with sudden cold exposed to her injury, though, she ignored it effortlessly. After having your paw nearly mauled by the pointed fangs of a fox, there was little pain otherwise that could effect a cat.

While finishing up the task, she tilted her head upward and twisted it to the side to spare another thoughtful glance toward the medicine cat. It seemed he was preoccupied with the chewing of herbs, likely meant to be applied to her paw and... do something beneficial that she couldn't quite pinpoint.
Sighing mentally, the she-cat felt the slightest skip-beat of her heart, as if pushing her forwardly to voice aloud her curious question. It seemed unusual, for a feline that clearly wasn't a medicine cat, or medicine cat's apprentice to be openly curious about herbal remedies. She couldn't help herself, though. The idea of following such a life path had always intrigued her. “What will those herbs do?”

After the words exited her mouth, she quickly closed those white jaws of hers and held her breath for the shortest of moments. Why did she have to let herself ask? Rookfrost probably wouldn't feel any need to explain it to a warrior. After all, she had no business being involved in the wondrous, mysterious ways of a medicine cat.
Blinking pale green eyes in the direction of Rookfrost, she at last exhaled her breath of air and awaited for some kind of 'why are you so curious?' type of look to befall her. Even though it was unlikely to occur. Rookfrost never seemed to brush off as the type to care, or be bothered with genuine curiousity about... anything, really.

[Fawn]

“What will those herbs do?”

Rookfrost waited until he had completely ground the herbs up to respond. Spitting the leafy mixture into his paw, the dark tom gestured for her to lie down with a swish of his tail, and once she had done so, he began to apply the poultice to her paw, pulling his tail forward and wrapping his paw in the cobwebs he'd carried out. Wrapping them as tightly as a creature without thumbs could, Rookfrost inspected his handiwork, letting Cinderfall's question hang in the air between them like a dark cloud that foretold of an oncoming storm.

"That is the sort of question an intelligent feline could figure out the answer to."
Replied the tom, his tone that of a cold lecture, of as if he found her question stupid. It wasn't stupid in the way that he knew the answer and just didn't feel like talking. It was stupid in the way that he was certain a cat of above average intelligence would be able to make a decent deduction that would lead to an eventual answer. "You are neither running a fever nor showing signs of infection, thus my primary objective is the prevention of infection, the stoppage of blood, and to keep the wound from getting dirty."

Pulling back, movements never wasted, Rookfrost swept his tail around his front paws, his back legs having folded into a sitting position, growing statuesque the longer he sat there, seeming for all the world as though he simply did not breathe. "A little deduction goes a long way, Cinderfall."

It was funny to think that a cat as anti-social as this one actually knew the name of a warrior he did not have much interaction with. To be honest, Rookfrost had gotten lucky - he had heard her name spoken recently, and had had the opportunity to apply the name to the face and store it later, in case an opportunity, such as this one, ever arose. When one was trying to keep up the facade of caring, forgetting the names of his Clanmates was not generally a good idea. She was supposed to be one of the smarter ones, he had noted, icy pools fixing her with a scrutinizing stare, gaze peering through that awkward smile and the inquisitive look in her eyes.

He did not mind questions. Cats rarely asked questions of a medicinal nature - they usually preferred to be treated, happy in the doldrums of a life that did not allow the study of herbs and remedies, and thus they would go on their way once the 'experts' had seen to their injuries, never bothering to ask any crucial questions or glean a little knowledge from the situation. Though, Rookfrost, supposed, if everyone asked him about medicine all of the time, he would go mad from the repetition, and would be more inclined to cut into a few cats if it meant that would finally shut them up.

For reasons only a cerebral tom such as himself could give, he expected better questions from a cat who was smarter than the average warrior cat he was used to treating.

[Insidious]

"That is the sort of question an intelligent feline could figure out the answer to."

Great. Her last intention was to appear as anything less than knowledgeable, especially while in the presence of the machine-like medicine cat of her clan. From what she had been able to gather of him, his intelligence was not merely fact. With the fluidity of his movements, and the clipped way in which he delivered speech, and of course, the fact that he was a medicine cat. Cinderfall, any any other feline, would be foolish to think a brain with no sense of knowledge was hard-at-work in the black tom's head.

By merely sparing a glance into his icy eyes, she was able to recognize that her question was, perhaps, easily answered and not worth asking in the first place. It wasn't her fault that a few of her most important senses tended to work a smidgen less efficiently when in the presence of this creepy tom-cat that just so happened to make her heart skip a beat... but, it wasn't like Rookfrost would know about that. It was to be expected that he would expect her to put her intelligence to good use. Regardless of how difficult the task was when she was aiming to impress a medicine cat that seemed to lack emotion in every way, shape or form possible.

When he, at last, answered her question, she found her light green irises averting toward him for the first time since minor embarrassment had kicked in prior to him shooting down her asking. “A little deduction goes a long way, Cinderfall.” Briefly, her muscles tightened. The gray she-cat forced a quick nod, scrambling for a response that was seemingly lost in the depths of her mindset.

Deduction goes a long way?
Perhaps, she was viewing this situation in the wrong light. Apart from her question not exactly being worth asking, it was likely not at all a challenge for Rookfrost to answer. After all, he hadn't expected it to be a challenge for her to answer it herself. Therefore, her intelligence would not be taken into a perception of lesser so if she was able to gather a question of proper interest – a question that even Rookfrost would perhaps need a chance to consider.
Now, Cinderfall was stuck searching for just what kind of question this would be. It was required that Cinderfall examine the deepest realm of her mind; this being what it would take if she desired to pose a challenge for Rookfrost. For, this task alone didn't seem to be possible. She wasn't certain as to what he wouldn't already be familiarized with. It was a worth a try, though.

“In a case of higher severity, when a life is in grand danger,” Cinderfall paused abruptly, eyes flickering across Rookfrost's jet black facial features before allowing herself to venture farther into this question she had honestly not been inclined to voice aloud until a flicker of drive had crossed her mind upon her first question not being considered worthwhile. “It's always required that a medicine cat try their best to save them, even when it seems unlikely there life can indeed be saved. I'd assume you would know when the life cannot be aided. Does a medicine cat actually attempt? Using an abundant portion of their herbs to save a life that has no chance? Or...” her voice trailed, light green eyes locking themselves within the ominous depths of Rookfrost's own. “is fate left to take its course?”

Now, this question seemed a little... overboard. Cinderfall wasn't trying to test her boundaries, she had only wanted to prove her intelligence. This was a question she, in complete honesty, did not know the answer to. She had never been inside of a medicine cat's den when such a life-crisis was taking place. Therefore, she didn't know what actions a medicine cat took to upon this type of situation arising. She hoped she hadn't crossed an odd line but bringing in a card of death, but either way, it wasn't like she would arise an emotion from the tom-cat. She had never witnessed a lace of emotion across his features before, why now?

[Fawn]

→ROOKFROST←

_{Medicine Cat of LightningClan}

---

“It's always required that a medicine cat try their best to save them, even when it seems unlikely there life can indeed be saved. I'd assume you would know when the life cannot be aided. Does a medicine cat actually attempt? Using an abundant portion of their herbs to save a life that has no chance? Or...”

Perhaps he had underestimated her intelligence. Her deduction skills were weak by say, Whiteshade's standards, and almost nonexistent by his own, but in terms of philosophy, she was capable of asking a question worthy of a decent response. Her attempts at probing his mind were interesting to the cerebral black tom, his expression remaining blank - as it always was when his brain was working at above-average speeds – while he stared back, an answer rising to the surface of his mind like a body to the surface of a lake, too bloated to sink. It was a scary response, it was an honest response, and that was what made it so frightening, Cinderfall's question bringing into play how he felt about playing the role of the Decider, he who passes judgment on who is worth attempting to save and who is beyond his help. He could not allow himself to admit it to anyone living or dead, but it was those high octane moments that he tended to enjoy his job the most; a lover of a good medical challenge, Rookfrost could still tell the difference between a chance worth taking and a lost cause.
"In the event that a cat is so severely wounded that no amount of medical attention could possibly help, then no, I would not waste the herbs, not even for the emotional comfort of any onlooking family members and loved ones. I am not a sentimental cat. I do not believe in miracles, only the skills I possess and the circumstances which draws me wherever I am needed."

She may think him cruel, she may think him a heartless wretch of a tom, but he would neither apologize nor let it effect him, in the arrogant hallows of his intellectually driven core, lay a conscience dictated by science and the pursuit of knowledge, which could, upon many occasions, mean very little or simply no conscience at all. Sentimentality had no place in medicine. He was a healer, his title was not guidance counselor, or faith-healer, nor had he ever been trained to look after the emotional well-being of his Clanmates. That was not a job he wanted; he was no listening ear, no giver of sage advice, no watchful eye or shoulder to cry on. Instead, he was both the saver of life and the bringer of death, the scientist and the judge, the believer in the hypothesis, the theory and the conclusion.

As he sat there, directly in front of the beautiful gray-furred she-cat, Rookfrost felt a twinge of gratitude somewhere deep inside of him – grateful, no, relieved that she had not asked him a question that would require him to lie. She had not asked him if he believed in StarClan, and he hoped upon the only things that mattered to him, that she would refrain from doing so.

Pretending to care to listen to the words of dead cats, pretending to be just as blindly fearful of them as any other halfwit who dared not peek behind the curtain – it was all so exhausting. Nothing tired him out more than having to express false piousness.

"Don't lick it, you should experience some stinging in the next few days, try to be off your feet as much as possible for the rest of the day, or else you'll agitate the wound." It might seem weird for the jet black tom to switch gears so quickly, able to slip right back into his role as medicine cat despite the deeply psychological question Cinderfall had dropped upon him like a bomb, but he had always been an excellent multi-tasker.