Challenges!
Challenge Name: Clueless
Word Count: Over 300
Description: A tom/she-kit notices their clanmates flinching when they look at them. The kit wonders why as his littermates are made apprentices and they aren't.
Other: Any POV, just have it be from the kit's view and a clanmate's.
Cloudkit opened her eyes as the bustling noise of the camp reached her ears. She grinned as the overwhelming sight of the world reach her narrowed eyes. Beside her lay a silver she-cat, her mother, with the same scent and position as the she had every night, curled around her daughter. Twisting her head to see in back of her, she could see rounded greenery with sharp tips, probably what Silvernose had described as brambles and elderberry leaves. The mss beneath her claws was the same colour as the den walls, and it had a fuzzy look to it, strangely.
Not waiting to disturb her mother, Cloudkit bounded into the clearing where many cats four times the size of her were sitting and eating prey. About half-way through the sandy place, many cats froze to stare at her, looking miserably uncomfortable. Two kits, who she assumed were Rosekit and Reedkit, the two new kits, gaped at her, and she could see their undisguised confusion as they gaped at her with a strange glint to their eyes. A middle-sized cat pointed at her, whispering harshly to another cat next to him, immediately earning a cuff abound the ears from an older cat.
Cloudkit froze, wondering what was wrong with these cats, until she caught the murmur of a neighbouring clanmate.
"What is wrong with her?" Came the hushed squeak of a kit.
" It's ok Rosekit, don't be rude, the nursery got attacked by a fox a while ago." Answered a she-cat that she identified as Morningdew, Rosekit and Reedkit's mother.
It took only a moment for the bustling activity to return, most cats avoiding her gaze while performing their daily activities. Feeling hurt, Cloudkit stumbled away, towards a shining puddle near the towering walls of the hollow that sheltered camp. Looking down she gasped in surprise. She could clearly see many criss-crossing scars on her left paw, which she hadn't noticed before. The skin there was pink and raw, and finally, she got the answer to why she felt as if she were missing certain details and her vision was fuzzy to one side; One of her blue eyes was clouded and had taken on a milky tint. Staring back at herself, events from the past days came back to her, and one in particular, one of an orange creature glaring at her with sharp marble-looking eyes before raising an unsheathed claw.
Letting out a small whimper, she also recalled her confusion, the previous day when she had been told to stay in her nest while she heard the clan chanting the names of two new apprentices. At that moment a comforting smell wreathed around her, along with a soft would, like a rippling stream over pebbles, " My dear warrior, when you look at yourself what do you see?"
Cloudkit was about to snap a stinging retort until she glanced down at the muddy puddle before her. No longer was the image of her injuries staring back at her. Instead, she could see a proud white she-cat, blue eyes scanning the landscape confidently, one looking slightly whiter than the other, but reflecting the light of the sun only more. Instead of scars on her left paw, the she-cat had delicate rose petals wrapped tightly around her paw with intricately patterned cobwebs, giving the warrior a different look. "You see, Cloudrose, you do not have to follow the fate that has been laid out for you; Create your own instead."
And from that moment on, Cloudkit never looked back to what could have been changed in the past, instead she changed her future until she could finally claim the name that she deserved: Cloudrose.
Yeah... I'm one of those people who can't stop myself from writing happy endings...