The initial panic had subsided but the pain wasn't going anywhere, and neither was the uncharacteristic anxiety that coursed through his veins. Damn it, Quailpaw, couldn't you have been more careful? Now look at yourself! The ringing in his remaining ear still hadn't ceased, and he winced as Dawnstar's voice, which sounded piercing and underwater at once, grew in tone. If I'm deaf, what use am I to the Clan? I-

Suddenly Quailpaw noticed Dawnstar approaching him and swing her maw in towards his head. He flinched, expecting the worst, but instead, he received a surprisingly gentle lick across the wound, though it still stung like a hornet's nest. He barely registered the cobwebs pressed against his head, and even when Gingerpaw approached him and hissed her impatient command he refused to focus on her words; every sound was painful and so muffled that he knew if he dwelt on it he would be terrified.

I really can't hear. I'm at least half deaf. Oh, StarClan, how could you let this happen?

Obligingly, he licked up the poppy seeds, trying to keep a straight face no matter how much the pressure of Gingerpaw's paws burned his wound. Quailpaw forced himself to sit up, analyzing his wounds.

His head was the worst. He really wasn't that injured except for the puncture wounds in his scruff, his ear (or lack of it), and a lingering headache from the dog's shaking. He would live. The question was only if he could still perform his warrior duties.

Finally able to regain a bit of his usual coldness, he turned a stink eye on the assisting Gingerpaw, though he didn't speak. Words or no he knew an irritable expression when he saw one- and he was sure it was mutual. What right did she have to judge him? It barely looked as if she had fought any dog.

Exasperated and worn thin, Quailpaw turned a withering frown on the offending Gingerpaw. Enough was enough. "You could at least warn me," he snapped with a grimace as his wound stung from the poultice. "It's not as if I'd want you to touch me in the first place." He stopped just short of addressing her "pretty boy" remark- it hit a little too close to home.

He was almost surprised at how biting his words had come out. Normally he tried to let stuff like that roll off his back- he wasn't the talkative type. Then again, it was probably the byproduct of the recent goodbye to his ear.

Then there was the part about not touching it. Although her instruction made sense, it felt like the wound was boring through his head, splitting his skull in half with a stick covered in onion grass. It took all the strength he had not to rub the leaf mash off with his paws, which certainly didn't improve his disposition towards Gingerpaw. He would have reached out and swiped that self-righteous irritation off her face if he'd had enough energy to move a muscle.