Struggle

 Struggle 

 A short story by Clever 

Have you ever felt like you can’t get something done? Like something doesn’t fit right? Like you’re stuck and can’t move? Like something is missing? Like you’re writhing on the ground, bleeding, but no one seems to notice you? My whole life was like that. My life was a struggle.

And this is my story.

I was cast out, even as a kit. I didn’t know why, of course. My mother didn’t hate me, but she didn’t especially like me. I could see the dismissing look in her dark green eyes as she nursed me. It was the other nursery mother who was the problem. She hated me. She hated something about me that I didn’t understand. She cast sour looks at me at the time of sharing tongues and bad-mouthed me at Gatherings. She convinced her kits to loathe me, which is why they ignore me to this day. Well, they would, if I wasn’t in StarClan.

It wasn’t until I reached apprenticeship that I realized I was Half-Clan. Half RoseClan, half RainClan. Though I was a warrior apprentice, I learned quite a lot about herbs. Not because I am prone to sickness, because I was torn up with wounds and bruises from battle training.

“I thought you were supposed to keep your claws sheathed,” the medicine cat would say daily.

“We are,” I would grunt, feeling the stings of multiple poultices on my scratches.

She would not reply, just fiddle with her leaves.

So when the other apprentices were giggling and whispering with each other, I would be in the corner of the den, drawing horsetail and juniper berries in the sand.

TBC!