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"I have something new I'd like to try with for eyes," Fawnpelt said as she sat down a rock bowl that had a few mouthfuls worth of water in it. At the bottom of the bowl were a dozen or so bloated-looking seeds, hazel in color and oblong in shape, "These are fennel seeds... Wait, wait, before you start complaining about how fennel leaves have spikes, rest assured that the seeds do not! Plus I'm not putting the seeds in your eyes anyway, just the water. I've had the seeds soaking for awhile now to infuse the water with their healing properties."
She looked up at Grumpysparrow, revealing the fur around her face was damp, "I tried it on myself twice now, yesterday evening and just now. I don't have eye problems but even I found it soothing. I do hope you'll give it a try..."
Grumpysparrow eyed his sister, debating if this was a joke. Fawnpelt was his sister, and she had earned herself a small amount of trust, but an experimental treating using a spiky plant? That was dangerous.
"Fawnpelt," he growled, baring his teeth, but he stopped as she went on. She experimented on herself? A shudder ran down his spine and left his fur prickling. He hated the idea of his sister being so stupid more than he appreciated the gesture.
"Don't do that. You're going to hurt yourself," the warrior snapped. "They need you healthy. What if you blinded yourself?"
"Oh, don't worry, Grumpysparrow. Fennel and its seeds are totally safe so long as you don't consume too much of them," Fawnpelt mewed, accepting her statement with one of those deceptively easy smiles, "We give them to kits and elders for aches and pains and it always works so well that I figured it was harmless and worth trying on the eyes. Besides, I only tried it on one eye first so that if I did get blinded, I'd still have one good eye. Anyway! Are you gonna let me apply it or what?"
She was giving him herbs they used on kits and elders. Shame crawled through his pelt. He was only just made a warrior and they were already treating him like he was useless. That wasn't a fair assessment, and Grumpysparrow knew it; his sister wanted the best for him but just being associated with the weakest cats in the clan made hatred boil up inside of him.
"Yeah, fine," he muttered, sinking down onto his haunches. He wasn't thrilled, but Fawnpelt had earned this small bit of respect and care from him, so he did not snap at her or stalk off. One test, one chance, that was all he was giving her.
If Fawnpelt noticed Grumpysparrow's shame, she certainly didn't react to it, which was probably a good quality for a healer. She raised a soaked moss ball up to her brother's face and gently squeezed the liquid into his right eye and only his right eye before pulling back and sitting the ball back into the stone bowl that held the rest of the medicine.
"Just one eye for now, in case you have a reaction that I didn't have. In the morning you can let me know if it helped and, if it does, we can apply it to both eyes moving forward. If not... well, I have a few other ideas!"
He held his eye as open as possible, revealing the ugly surface, red and irritated from his eyelashes. He had fought with them as an apprentice, but clawing at the lashes only injured his eyes, and in the end, he had given up the fight. Grumpysparrow flinched as the liquid dripped into his eye. To his credit, he moved only a little: after a few treatments and daily suffering, a little extra string was negligible.
"If not, I'm ripping out both my eyes and leaving them for the crows," Grumpysparrow muttered, not entirely kidding. He didn't want to go blind, but when that inevitable day came, would it bring him some relief to have no eyes at all? At least then he wouldn't be in pain, right? He wiped his face with the back of his paw, finding a bit of juice that had dripped down onto the bridge of his nose.
"That's good!" Fawnpelt mewed reassuringly, leaning forward suddenly to lick the stray droplet off his nose. She immediately made a face, "Yuck, I forgot how bitter that tastes. But that's how the best medicine always is."
She took a step back, granting him his personal space, and then decided to respond to his comment about the crows, "I haven't given up on your eyes, so please don't rip them out yet... Plus there's things I can do to make it easier for you."
Removal of the eyes was an option she'd considered. He'd lose his sight but it would certainly stop the pain in the long-term. But that felt sort of like she was giving up which she didn't plan on going anytime soon.
"Great, you'll be licking that off my fur for the rest of my life if your treatment works," he replied dryly. A small price to pay for salvation. He fluffed up his fur as she stepped away, even the small space between them make him feel vulnerable and isolated, a keen reminder he was just a test subject she was studying. Neither of them knew how this would turn out.
"Nothing feels good." His answer came immediately and with a trace of deep-seated bitterness; it was a habit trained from evading these constant questions his entire life. He hadn't felt good in moons and he could barely remember if there was a difference between good and numb. But then he exhaled, and he concentrated, and he tried to really feel what was going on.
"It's... not as bad," he allowed; "it doesn't ache, but it hurts more when I blink." Without the baseline of chronic pain, every time his eyelashes touches his eyes again, the spike was unexpected, and it was worse, but the seconds in between were filled with relief.
Fawnpelt's smiled faltered, but only for a moment.
"That's no good - perhaps the solution needs to be diluted more and is too thick? Or maybe I should try to add some kind of lubricating substance so that the friction between your eyelashes and the eye is lessoned...?" Fawnpelt began to murmur after that, running through various options in her head, before realizing she'd gotten off track. She quickly reeled herself back in, "Sorry about that. Healing is the best puzzle with the highest stakes: If one thing doesn't work, I immediately start thinking of something else. I think I'll hold off on my experiments for now and ask the other medicine cats at the next half-moon gathering if they have any ideas. Can I ask if it effects your vision at all? Or just a general report on how your vision has been lately?"
Grumpysparrow lost track of her ramblings and just sat back, letting his hearing wander. The camp was quiet today; a few cats here and there passing about, snatches of conversations, but the kits must be asleep or occupied because their voices were quiet. As he waited, his eyes opened just a little bit further, taking in the world with a little bit more light as he relaxed, though the trails of infused water that had trickled down his face were beginning to itch.
His ear twitched as she reeled herself back in, and he turned to face Fawnpelt. "It doesn't have much of an effect, I see normally," the warrior assured her. Normal for him, at least. He ignored her second question -- Grumpysparrow was not keen on letting anyone know how poor his eyesight was these days, even his own sister -- and rubbed at his face with one paw again. "Is it supposed to be so itchy?"
"Um, sure," Fawnpelt replied too quickly. She'd never experienced any itching herself, but she also didn't have tiny cuts all across the cornea of her eye. Itching could mean one of two things, either Grumpysparrow's eye was getting further irritated by her treatment or it had cleaned out the wounds well enough to instigate the beginning of the healing. Perhaps even a combination of the two, "If it starts getting painful, we'll flush it out with some cold water, but I think the itching should subside naturally on its own. Just in case it doesn't, though, want to try and find a stream? Maybe catching some of the season's last fish before the water freezes over while we're at it?
Fawnpelt's response was not very promising, but it was too late to do anything about it now. "First I have to put this gunk in my eyes and now I have to catch you a fish?" he grumbled, fairly certain his medicine cat sister was going to make a poor fisher, but his tone wasn't angry. Even if she was compelling him to work, it would be nice to spend some time with his family. Not that Grumpysparrow was lonely, he didn't want her around either, but sometimes a few quiet moments with his sister wasn't entirely so bad. And if this treatment really worked, a fish was the least he could do.
His paws dropped from his face and he turned to lead the way out of the den, stepping very carefully; in this enclosed darkness and unfamiliar space, it was even harder for him to navigate.
"Oh, stop your fussing! You and I both know we probably won't catch a fish, but that's all part of fishing, ya know? It's always a bunch fo standing around and waiting for the right moment. May as well hang out and do that at the same time... unless... there's someone else you'd rather hang out with than your dear little sister?"
Grumpysparrow may not see very clearly, but he would have at least had a strong indication that Fawnpelt had lowered her head slightly and was giving him those wide, fully dilated eyes of a cat who was begging for something. It was a classic manipulation tactic for kittens and, even once in awhile, the SwiftClan medicine cat liked to use it, too.
Grumpysparrow rolled his eyes. “Obviously I don’t,” he shot back — too harshly, too quickly. He didn’t realize his mistake until it as too late. His denial had been too strong and it sounded like a lie.
“Sorry. There’s no one I would rather hang out with you,” he adjusted.
