Gustclan Post 59

Teasel-leaf had noticed a distinct lack of words for numbers in Gustclan’s vocabulary. He had no way to keep in his head the numbers of cats properly.

But he had not earned his way to being a medicine cat through being stupid. He was a very clever cat, and no one denied this, although some would much rather he put his intelligence into herb-gathering rather than pranking when there was no one to heal. Some cats suspected he did his pranks just to force there to be enough apprentice duties for all of the apprentices. Some cats knew he did this… and that he also did a lot extra for fun.

Teasel-leaf was very capable of actually applying his intelligence when he wanted to.

He’d come up with a system of counting. Six was the biggest a litter could be expected to be, so he counted in sixes. That was a litter. A litter was convenient to count in, because he had six fleshy pads on his feet, and he could use these to count to six. If six littermates all had six kits, they’d have a litter of litters. He hadn’t worked out his names yet, but saying that Gustclan had two litter-litters and a litter sounded stupid. Maybe he’d ask Zirconpaw.

Each cat had had a symbol chosen for them. Not all were unique, but they were all linked to the cat in question. Teasel-leaf was represented with a teasel head, Gannetpaw was a white feather, Ploverstripe and Martinwhisker were both a brown feather, and so on. Knotfish actually got knotweed, and several cats – like Amo, Elsker and Amuri, as well as Llosgi Llyn, Mor, Eryr, and Tymestl (although Fioled had got a violet) were represented with small pebbles from the Northern shore (and so was Cairngormpaw, although care was given to assign him a brown stone). Kachookit had caught a butterfly two days ago, and there was Camberfoot.

And now, across the floor of the medicine cat den – such that Teasel-leaf could keep an eye on Barnfish as he worked – were neatly arranged little symbols. The teasel leaf and a white feather were off to one side, where everywhere else, little litters of objects were pushed closely together, with litters of these arranged in circles. Teasel-leaf carefully placed the teasel head in the circle of one ring, and the feather in the centre of the other.

That looked like far too much, even without the other few cats spread around – and without the furtive glances towards the nursery, where Troutstripe would soon give birth to who knew how many kits?

Well, that was it. Decided. Gustclan needed more medicine cats. And judging by how quickly they were growing, as many as they could train now.

It was a good thing that Gannetpaw was looking ready to end his apprenticeship now.

And Adoniscloud had had to negotiate wanting to take his sons to visit the rest of their family.