Hi Riley! First of all I want to say that I love your work an that you’re doing an amazing job! You really inspired me to draw battle kitties myself, haha.
I also have a question! How does Mudpaw feel about being a medicine cat apprentice? Does he like it or did he rather be a warriors apprentice? And what does he think about his mentor Owlpounce?
Love youuu :3
WAHH THANK YOUUU <3 And I'm so glad you've been feeling inspired, literally one of the best feelings in the world <3 <3
As for your question, i started out answering it normally and then it turned into an almost-prose-thing about Mudpaw's relationship with Owlpounce. whoops! under a cut, cause it got Long
Mudpaw's initial reaction to being chosen by Owlpounce as an apprentice was confusion, then Incredible Anxiety.
The thing about Mudpaw is that he's dealt with feeling kinda wrong-footed his whole life. Each day, he's never quite sure what the right course of action is, the right answer to the silent questions that seem like they're always being asked. That is, in almost every context aside from combat. Despite not knowing how to bond with his clanmates, now knowing how to please his mentor or how to make friends with his fellow apprentices, Mudpaw's always had good instincts in a fight. If there was ever anything Mudpaw knew Wrentail appreciated about him, it was his ferocity, his willingness to hurt, the blind fury that takes him during combat. So Mudpaw knows that, if he isn't good at anything else, he's at least a somewhat passable fighter.
This skill is not particularly conducive to healing, if you can believe it.
From Mudpaw's perspective, he's barely been able to keep up in standard warrior training, ostensibly the one area of clan life he's not too terrible at, and now he has to shift gears entirely and learn how to practice medicine. There is no way that this is going to go well. He doesn't know the first thing about healing, or herbs, or—or omens, Owlpounce said an omen from Starclan told her to make him her apprentice...
Basically, Mudpaw assumes he's doomed to fail. Maybe even assumes this is some kind of punishment from Starclan for his actions. But Owlpounce had looked so hopeful when she'd asked him to be her apprentice, and. well. it's not as if he was ever going to be a great warrior anyway. Mudpaw decides to give it his best shot, all while bracing for the crash-and-burn he knows is coming. He's going to end up disappointing her, he just doesn't know how long it will take.
Owlpounce is... nice. To the point where he isn't sure if it's genuine. She's pleasant and friendly with everyone, though, so maybe that's just how she is. He doesn't know her too well, despite his somewhat frequent visits to her den for small injuries. He has fuzzy memories from his kithood of being in and out of the medicine den, dealing with a weak constitution made weaker from exposure to cold at too young an age. He thinks she'd been nice, then, too.
Wrentail had been perfectly pleasant with their clanmates as well. Mudpaw knows to stay cautious.
So, Mudpaw tries. In the beginning, he tries because he doesn't know what else to do. It's not as if he can just quit. And he knows what happens when he gets things wrong; out of all of Wrentail's lessons, that one stuck the most. So he pays attention, tries to keep it straight in his mind when Owlpounce shows him two identical-looking plants and tells him how vastly different they are in their applications, tries to remember the exact angle he needs to hold his claws to effectively peel the bark from this specific wood, tries to memorize the exact pressure needed to staunch the bleeding of a wound. He knows he's not doing most of it right. But no matter how many times he fumbles, how many times he mixes up one herb with another, forgets the symptoms of an illness, Owlpounce just... corrects him. Corrects him, shows him the right way, the right answer, and lets him try again.
He doesn't know what to do with that. Wrentail had never let him fail without some sort of repercussion. Mudpaw assumes that this must mean that Owlpounce just... has a longer fuse. More patience. But "more patience" doesn't mean "infinite patience", and Mudpaw still struggles to keep up. Owlpounce is... she's nice. He likes Owlpounce. He doesn't want to see what she's like when her patience runs out. So he stays up late, studying the minute differences in leaves, in their scents, quizzes himself on their uses, long after Owlpounce has retreated to her nest to sleep for the night. He runs himself ragged, trying to keep up, to have the right answers, to do better, be better.
Of course, high levels of anxiety + low levels of sleep for an extended period of time are a recipe for disaster. Mudpaw gets more irritable, oscillating wildly between snapping at Owlpounce and not speaking at all. The entire time Mudpaw has learned under Owlpounce, she's never once gotten upset with him, and that, more than anything, is what scares him. He has no idea where Owlpounce's line in the sand is, has no idea what will push her over the edge, or what she'll do once he does. Eventually, his goal shifts from avoid running Owlpounce's patience thin to figure out what her tipping point is.
This all culminates with Mudpaw saying something terrible to Owlpounce. He doesn't mean a word of it, but it comes out of his mouth all the same, accusatory and venomous. And, finally, finally, Owlpounce's composure breaks. And Mudpaw doesn't even feel fear when he sees it, just relief. Because now he knows what her boundary is, knows what will push her over the edge. Whatever punishment he's earned himself, it will be worth it, because now he knows.
But she doesn't react in the way Mudpaw thought she would.
She doesn't meet him with her own harsh words, doesn't use her claws to teach him a lesson, doesn't even hiss. She takes a step back, takes a deep breath, turns around, and leaves. She doesn't get far enough away to be out earshot before she starts crying.
And for the first time, Mudpaw feels sick not from fear or anxiety, but from guilt. It sits in his stomach like a stone.
When Owlpounce comes back, hours later, she smiles just the same, but it seems more fragile. Mudpaw can't bring himself to even look at her. The guilt roils in his gut. For days, he can't look her in the eye, can't open his mouth without feeling like he'll throw up. He sits in silence, doing what she asks of him, and never looking at her face.
After days of this, Owlpounce apologizes to him. Something about what he'd said, about trying to be a better mentor, he doesn't know because he cuts her off as soon as he realizes what she's doing. He explodes into apologies, saying he didn't mean it, didn't mean any of it, he doesn't know why he did that, why he said that, she's a great mentor and he's sorry, he's sorry, he's sorry.
They hug it out, their first hug, and Owlpounce tells him she forgives him. She knows he's going through a lot, but appreciates the apology. She promises to try to be a better mentor to him. Mudpaw promises Owlpounce it won't happen again, and promises himself to never try to find her boundary again. It would be cruel to do so. Owlpounce won't hurt him. He knows that now.
With this new understanding between them and trust slowly forming, Owlpounce continues teaching Mudpaw, and Mudpaw tries his best. And, now that he isn't blinded by fear of what will happen if he fails, he realizes that he quite likes learning to heal. It's hard, but Owlpounce is a patient teacher. It feels good to get something right, to have a mentor who will congratulate him on each and every little victory. It feels good to be able to help his clanmates, even with things as small as scrapes or bruises or upset stomachs.
He doesn't have any natural inclination toward healing. He doesn't have a fantastic memory for herbs and their uses, doesn't have any preternatural ability to detect illness or injury, he doesn't even really have good bedside manner. But he keeps trying. And he learns. Maybe not as quickly as some other cats might learn—certainly not as quickly as Owlpounce must have learned, back when she was an apprentice—but he does learn. As it turns out, not worrying about threats of physical violence for every misstep does wonders for a young cat's ability to pay attention and take lessons to heart. Where he'd felt like he was always a step behind in warrior training, now he feels like he's found a place to do some real good in the clan. It was a rocky start, certainly, but he vastly prefers medicine cat training over warrior training.
