Running Up That Hill ;; Open, Intro

The leaves almost dropped out of his mouth once a broad figure revealed themselves- How could it have even hid in the first place?!

Tinyleaf stared at them with wide eyes, his initial response lost to him as he was utterly dwarfed by her size and bulk. He was also utterly stunned by its beauty, bright and radiating with moonlight off a pale pelt and uniquely colored eyes. And yet, as he searched her form, he couldn't find even a single star in their pelt to affiliate them to the Silverpelt which had surely dropped it here. How else could it emerge so easily from the darkness, with what should have been an appearance he would've spotted from miles in advance? But no. In spite of everything, this cat was alive and well. And. Definitely not a clan cat. I'd remember that face.

Oh, wow. Whatever he'd been expecting, that type of speech wasn't it. Tinyleaf was struck once again by a strange, looming feeling that seemed to embue even the big, powerful words of this big, powerful visitor. Or, had she just gotten closer? Resisting the urge to step back, he slowly blinked again while his brain took a moment to untangle the meaning behind Humble Bone's strange explanation. "Twinkles..?"

Gathering of plants.

Oh!

Tinyleaf straightened up, pawing the edge of the herbs below him with an easy giggle. "Oh, you mean these! No, I'm not a medicine cat. Or, um- I think that's what you mean! I'm just helping out by bringing these to the actual medicine cat, since he's been busy with other things." Somehow, the thought of being confused for a healer was embarrassing- He was nowhere close to Vinedapple in the scope or elegance of his work. It'd been the most important thing to clear up first, not wanting to take credit for a role he didn't have the honor of inhabiting. But then... Where could he go from there? The smaller cat looked down at his collection before looking at Humble Bone awkwardly, realizing that if he wasn't the kind of cat it wanted to talk to, then it sort of put the both of them at a dead end. Unless..? "If that's the kind of thing you're trying to learn about, then I could escort you to Sunclan's camp so you could meet him yourself? The afterlife... isn't really my strong point. I mean, I hope it won't be for a long time, honestly!"

Tinyleaf withdrew somewhat, leaning away from Humble Bone's critical gaze like a spotlight and feeling all too relieved when it had moved on to place its focus elsewhere. Somehow, even being called in front of Beestar during his apprentice ceremony hadn't carried the same weight he'd felt here with this strange loner. The eyes of a mere stranger, a soft pink and blue that should have reminded him of a sunrise, had left him feeling suffocated beneath unseen claws. It'd felt dangerous, like staring into the abyssal glare of a fox crashing through the camp walls.

It left him feeling a little thrilled! What a powerful aura!

He watched, still silenced from that same overwhelming force it carried, as she approached the sacred pond, breaking its fragile surface with a mere touch of their nose. Tinyleaf felt his pelt squirm at her statement, at the way it didn't seem to realize the consequences of its actions over such a holy site... As exciting as an impression he'd been given, it probably wasn't right to just let them dip at the water like that, regardless of how harmless it may appear to an uninformed wanderer. "I-I'm not sure what you mean... I'm just a regular warrior. So, I don't really get to have much insight about those sorts of things... You should be careful over there, too. It's special."

Little warrior. Maybe compared to them, it was true- yet it felt like a descriptor that ran deeper, as if undermining Tinyleaf's significance. Undermining the importance of his warning. He stared at the broad expanse of her back once it turned away to look elsewhere, up at the skies above. Tentative, the Sunclan warrior knelt to retrieve his herbs, carrying them gently within his jaws as he lingered a little closer to the white rogue, not so bold yet as to sit beside them, but still drawn in by their regal way of speaking and superior mannerisms. Like speaking with a leader who wasn't his own, a leader from something bigger than even the clans. A natural pecking order?

Tinyleaf placed his herbs back underpaw, gazed upon the glow of Humble Bone with the awed caution of meeting one of the very ancestors he referred to. Struck by how easily they spoke as if the clans beliefs were mere beliefs rather than known facts, he blinked uneasily, but cast his own eyes upward, searching for. Something. Honestly, in the grand scheme of his life, he'd always been aware of Starclan, per say, but. There wasn't exactly a relationship to be had between the living and the dead, not for a regular cat like him as opposed to one of the higher powered officials he worked beneath. For him, Starclan was something imminent, yet transient. Something that laid ahead, eternal and constant, yet did not exist in his life outside of secondhand knowledge. Even having ancestors above, it felt.

Distant.

"That's not true!" It was an instinctive defense, but Tinyleaf's eyes rounded with genuine hurt. "Starclan would never hurt you... They would never harm or threaten any cat, even if you don't listen to them. Our former clanmates are as noble as they were in life." The orange and white of his tail spasmed at the end unhappily, not comfortable with the constant push of Humble Bone to call his very reality into question. After all, the stars were every clan cat's inevitable home. It wouldn't be auspicious to doubt them, to offend them in any way. My mom.. is there. He had to believe, with family of his own in the heavens, that he was in their favor. The rest didn't matter.

"Medicine cats don't lie, either.. they're picked especially by Starclan, just like leaders. Starclan wouldn't pick cats they couldn't trust. They.. just can't trust everyone and anyone. No one can." He frowned at his paws, unable to face the sky as he spoke his reasoning. He hoped that much wouldn't be blasphemous, but... "They're a collective. They have to act as a majority, like us. Even if the decisions are selective, it's for the most optimized outcome. Warriors don't have destinies like leaders, anyway. If they did, they'd be leaders themselves."