Chapter 44: Mending Bones

"Eclipse has mended broken bones before," said Nightgale, examining Liberty's broken tail. Liberty was going to miss the meeting of Kirin, Snakeseye and Dell's deaths because of her broken bone, but she didn't mind too much. They were in the Healers' den. The tree was still in the roof, but it wouldn't effect them just from sitting there. "But she told me the herb she used wasn't around here...I don't know what to do about this, Liberty."
Liberty grumbled to herself. "Oh, joy. Guess I'll just die, then..."
Nightgale, who apparently hadn't heard Liberty, turned to Comet. "Any suggestions as to what we do?"
"We could ask a traveler," suggested Comet. "Someone who's been traveling for most of their life. They may know what to do."
"Good idea," Nightgale agreed. "But who?"
As if on cue, Tiggerkat came in. "Hello! I heard Liberty's tail broke! Poor thing. Where is she?"
"Uh, here?" said Liberty.
"Oh!" Tiggerkat bounced over to her. "Are you okay?"
"Just dandy," Liberty mumbled sarcastically.
"Oh, good! I thought you were really hurting," Tiggerkat smiled with relief. She turned her attention to the tree. "Whoa! What happ--?"
"Tiggerkat, please leave. I need to figure out how to help Liberty's broken tail," Nightgale insisted.
"Ooh! I can help her!" Tiggerkat insisted.
Immediately Liberty grimaced. No, no, no...
"You sure, Tiggerkat?" Comet said, looking concerned. "You, uh...I don't think you have much medical experience."
"Of course I do! I got this," Tiggerkat smiled.
"Alright then," Nightgale shrugged.
"I'll get the materials!" Tiggerkat exclaimed, bouncing out of the room.
As soon as Tiggerkat would be well out of earshot, Liberty turned on Nightgale. "Why? Why are you letting Tiggerkat mend my tail!?"
"She's the best you got," Nightgale insisted.
"She's not going to help it. She'll make it worse, for Lifebreeze's sake!" Liberty yelled. "Why would you trust--"
"I thought you were taught not to talk back to your elders," Nightgale snapped, taking Liberty by surprise. "Tiggerkat has been proven to be useful in the past. So she may actually know what she's doing. Now, I don't want you to struggle as Tiggerkat mends the bone. You got to be steady. And no insulting her either."
Once Nightgale turned around, Liberty gritted her teeth, growling in anger. She has no idea of the pain I'm going through. Easy for her to tell me to trust Tiggerkat! I'll be that fool of a tiger has forgotten already about my--
"I'm back!" exclaimed Tiggerkat as she bounced back through the door. She was holding two sticks and a bunch of vines with flowers on them in her paws.
"Alright, go ahead," Nightgale said.
Tiggerkat approached Liberty's tail, who immediately flinched, but forced herself to stay steady. She turned and watched as Tiggerkat set the sticks on either side of Liberty's tail and started wrapping the flowery vines around the sticks to hold them against the tail.
Immediately Liberty felt embarrassed. Does that mean I'll be parading around with flowers on my tail for the next couple of moons?
"Done!" Tiggerkat grinned moments later. Liberty examined her tail. Sure enough, her tail was covered in flowers that were holding the sticks on either side of the tail.
"Thank you, Tiggerkat," Nightgale nodded. She turned to Liberty. "You're dismissed. But if anything bothers your tail, please come to me at once. I know you apprentices tend to prefer to avoid the Healer and ignore the pain, but that's not going to help in your case."
Liberty nodded in reply and left the Healers' room. Oh, Lifebreeze, this is embarrassing.
She walked down the stairs, trying to keep her tail up so it wouldn't touch the floor. Liberty headed out into the yard.
The bodies of the dead animals lay in the center of the yard. Animals were around them, looking grief-stricken. But some of the other animals were spread out, looking to be done with their mourning, yet still sad-looking. Why do we mourn our dead? Liberty wondered. It doesn't help anything.
"Liberty!"
Ekaj ran over. "Is your tail--" He then froze, seeing what was on her tail. "Uh..."
"Tiggerkat mended it," she grumbled.
"Well, at least it'll get better," Ekaj shrugged. "It sucks, y'know...Dell and the others dying..."
"Yeah," Liberty murmured.
"My new mentor is Stone. She's okay, but..she'll just, never be Dell, y'know?" Ekaj said.
Liberty nodded. She had a lot of respect for Stone; the raccoon was tough and serious, and from what she heard, handled herself well in combat. Ekaj must consider himself lucky, Liberty thought.
"Malroy now has Leafy for a mentor. She was excited about that," continued Ekaj. "Malroy misses Kirin, though, I can tell..."
Mentors made Liberty recall training and she froze in alarm. With my broken tail...I'm gonna miss training! she thought worriedly. For how long, though?

Author's Note:
I REALLY hope commenters will start coming back since it's summer vacation. I miss everyone's feedback. I'd love all the comments I'd receive after writing a new chapter, hearing about how everyone enjoyed the story and what they thought about so-and-so doing this and all of that. But I'm starting to get worried my readers have left for good. :( Thanks to the few readers who've stayed, though...
Check out my new stories, please. I'd really appreciate it if you'd follow and comment on them.