100 Oneshot Challenge by Shannon Silver.
All credit for categories goes to Shannon Silver but the actual One-shots are all written by me. Do not ask me if you want to join, ask Shannon Silver. All the rules are on her challenge anyway.
First challenge is... The Cat With Strange Eyes
Featuring: Jayfeather. Takes place before he learns Squirrelflight isn't his real mother.
Jayfeather stared unblinkingly ahead as he moved quickly through the forest just behind a small patrol consisting of himself, Leafpool, and Thornclaw as they ran to the abandoned two leg nest in search of rare catmint for the sick cats of ThunderClan.
Though the two ThunderClan members that could see we're leading the patrol, he did not need them at all. Jayfeather did not need working eyes to know that the ground would slope downwards up ahead or that there was a large root of a large tree that everyone seemed to trip over sometime or another in their lives, whether their lives were short or long. The medicine cat's memory and highly heightened senses saw all of the world for him.
Jayfeather could use his nose to easily smell where the nearest tansy or marigold patch grew best and he used his sensitive pads on the bottom of his paws to feel his surroundings, whether he was in the wet marsh or endless mountains. He knew where he was and what was happening around him. His sightless, blue eyes were merely something that cats could look at when they talked to him, though when he was younger they always seemed to stare at the ground instead.
When Jayfeather was only an apprentice, and sometimes even as a fully grown warrior, ThunderClan felt the need to treat him like a newborn kit who couldn't protect himself. Oh, how wrong they were. Nobody knew, other than Lionblaze and Hollyleaf of course, that he did not need his eyes that were usefull to know whertone was going. He would prove to the Clan that he wasn't a burden that weighed down on the Clan, in fact, he would save the Clans whether he was blind or had perfect vision.
The prophecy he received as a young apprentice was the only thing that kept him eating and sleeping. The only thing that kept him healthy or fighting the sickness that threatened every cat in the Clans and took some lives. The prophecy including his kin was the only thing in the entire Clan, the entire world, that kept Jayfeather alive. And it was the one thing that no cat could ever take away from him. Not even his blindness could discourage him from completing the prophecy and saving the four Clans that lived around the large, blue lake.
If the gray medicine cat had never recieved the prophecy at such a young age, Jayfeather knew that he would probably be rotting in the soft dirt right now instead of racing through the lively forest with Leafpool and Thornclaw just ahead of him in an attempted search for catmint to save the Clan from a greencough outbreak. Whether Jayfeather decided to stop eating or he had flung himself over the cliffs edge, his death would have been self inflicted to rid himself in the depression of being sightless that always surrounded him. Threatening to eat him up and spit him out like a mountain lion does to it's prey. Sometimes even with the prophecy and his 'special gift' Jayfeather wished that he was never born to this black empty world .
Though those times were very few now that he was older and when they ever did appear he usually just told himself that the only thing he was missing every day was the color of the leaf and the beauty of a setting sun. He had seen much of this already during his nightly visits to StarClan anyway. How many warriors who could see normally could say that they saw a sunset in StarClan? Few could, barely would even would for they could see one in real life any other day. But none of that has ever gotten Jayfeather down, because he had something that no other cat had. He saw more than any warrior with flawless eyesight could. Jayfeather saw into other warriors minds whether it was during a dream or in the daylight.
The gray tom knew everything. How Ashfur hated everything about Jayfeather, Squirrelflight and their family, how Lionblaze longed for Cinderheart when she didn't even notice him or at least didn't show it. The medicine cat even noticed how Leafpool stared at him and his siblings in a different way than any of the other cats did, though he wasn't sure what it meant. He was sure he would find out in the future. Even brave, fearless Lionblaze and loyal, clever Hollyleaf could not see any the many things Jayfeather was blessed in seeing.
No, nobody could see as much as Jayfeather could. Not nearly as much. Everyone may think he was a blind burden that had been bestowed on ThunderClan and would have no other purpose in life other than healing the wounded. But what they did not realize is that the young medicine cat apprentice could see the entire world through his senses and special power instead of his blue eyes that never strayed from ahead.
Call him the cat with strange eyes if you may, but the cat with strange eyes could see more than you or any other warrior ever have or ever will. Not even the sighted could match that.
Yeah, just kind of a boring Drabble but this was one of the hardest categories. They won't all be like this, some of them will be short stories, consisting 1000 words as the rules state, and others will be like this. Review please.
