Galefire: Maybe I'll set Hollyleaf up with something else, but ultimately I have her in a much higher role than getting together with someone as a rebound.
Rain's Song: If you're torn between Jayshine and Jaymoon, then you're not gonna like what I have in store for Jayfeather coming up during Christmas break. Just saying.
Kaith: And now, let's see how our little warriors are coping with the problem of a broken hearted she-cat…didn't really know what else to say for my random little info at the start =P
Chapter 9: Christmas Sucks
Jayfeather sighed as he ran his paw over the book Willowshine had given him. He was trying to stay in tune with the book, reaching its climax as Harry Mewer fought Lord Moldlyfur for StarClan's stone. He sat on the old couch in the living room while his parents decorated the Christmas tree. However, reading seemed impossible at the moment. It had been two weeks since Berrynose had broken up with Hollyleaf, and she still hadn't come out of her room. The moment she got home she had barricaded herself in the room and started blasting Kitty Perry music as loud as her speakers would allow.
The house rattled along with the beat of 'The One That Got Away,' forcing Brambleclaw to stop decorating the tree, else it accidentally tip over. The tom sighed and turned to Squirrelflight, who had retreated to an overstuffed armchair. "Are you sure she's alright?"
Squirrelflight half smiled at her mate. "It takes time to heal a broken heart. She'll talk to us when she's ready." Then in a hushed tone so Jayfeather couldn't hear, "Remember what happened to Leafpool."
Jayfeather's ears twitched and he didn't need eyes to know that his parents were now looking at him. They seemed to have forgotten that his ears were sharper than theirs. What were they talking about? What had happened to Leafpool? Suddenly Harry Mewer didn't seem so important.
He didn't get a chance to ask, not that he even knew what to say, because at that moment Lionblaze stopped in the front door. He kicked off his boots and shed the extra layers of clothes looking particularly happy. Squirrelflight was the first to notice this. "So what are you looking so happy about?" She asked.
"Nothing." The tom smiled. "I just got back from pelting Berrynose with snowballs."
"You were having a snowball fight?" Berrynose looked outside. The sun had set long ago and even the moon failed to shine through the clouds.
"Um, sure." He said.
Jayfeather sighed and closed the book. Despite his good intentions, Lionblaze wasn't helping matters at all. He kept ranting on and on about how he was going to kill the tom when school started up again. Now he was pelting Berrynose with unsuspecting snowballs, most likely filled with rocks the way Jayfeather could hear him practically skip up the stairs.
"Well I'm going to bed." He announced.
"Okay. And tell you sister to turn down the music and do the same." Squirrelflight called after him. "If she doesn't sleep then Santa Claws won't come!"
Jayfeather rolled his eyes. He, Hollyleaf, and Lionblaze have known where their parents hid the presents since they were kits. In the closet, covered by a blanket was not a very good hiding place. Although, if they wanted they could have hidden them in Jayfeather's room. It's not like he would have been able to tell his siblings what they were.
When he passed Lionblaze's door, he could tell that it was closed and the tom was already getting ready for bed. Passing Hollyleaf's door was a slightly more difficult task. Jayfeather lay his ears flat against his head and covered them with his paws.
She's going to cause me to lose another one of my senses. Jayfeather thought.
He banged against the door with a paw. There was no response, but the music diminished just slightly. "Holly," Jayfeather called through the door. "Mom said you should get some sleep down and asked if you could turn the music down."
The music blasted for a few more minutes and Jayfeather was about to repeat himself, thinking that his sister hadn't heard him, but then the music fell to a soft hum. Jayfeather sighed and frowned, hoping that his sister might have said something.
Jayfeather retreaded to his own room and changed into his pajamas when his earlier thoughts came back to him. Wait, I didn't lose my sight, I was born bind. He thought as he crawled into bed. So why did I think that I lost it?
"Com' one Jay!" A tiny voice yelled. A small white she-cat wrapped up in multiple layers was waving at him. She couldn't be any older than three moons. Two more kits were standing behind her, a tom and another she-cat. The group seemed to be waiting for him.
Jayfeather would have normally thought this was a dream, mainly because he could see the three kits, but his body moved on of its own accord. And instead of seeing just the kits, he could clearly see the snow falling around them, the playground with its bright colors that stuck out of the snow, and three older she-cats watched the kits, Jayfeather included, with gentle eyes. It was like they were watching their kits play together while they chatted away. It felt more like a memory rather than a dream. But how was that possible? He had never been able to see before.
It took until the moment he reached the other kits to realize he had become one as well. The orange tom spoke first when Jayfeather finally reached the group. "Jeeze Jay, you're so slow."
"Not all cats can be like you Lion." The black she-cat retorted.
Jayfeather blinked. If he was right, then the two kits arguing in front of him were Hollyleaf and Lionblaze, but as kits. If that was right, then who was the white she-cat standing in front of them?
"All right!" The she-cat said, taking charge of the situation. "We're gonna plays lava tag!" She said.
"How do you play?" Jayfeather asked.
"What, you don't remember?" Hollyleaf asked. "I told you yesterday."
"Um, I must have forgot." Jayfeather offered as an excuse.
"That's okay, I'll explain." The white she-cat smiled at him. "One person's it, and that person has to stay on the ground, trying to tag everyone else that's on the playground. Lion's it!" The she-cat said quickly and ran for the playground. Hollyleaf quickly followed, leaving Jayfeather to be the bait for their brother.
Lionblaze lunged at Jayfeather, aiming to kill. However, the over puffed coat and snow pants slowed his movements, giving Jayfeather enough time to dodge and run to the safety of the playground, leaving his brother to flail around in the snow. When Jayfeather reached the safety of the playground, he turned and looked back at his brother.
The act of getting up in such bulky clothing had been too difficult for him so one of the queens had come over to help him. He assumed to see Squirrelflight, but instead it was Leafpool that was helping the young tom to his feet. Squirrelflight herself was still sitting on the bench, talking to the other queen he assumed to be the mother of the white kit they were playing with.
They played for what seemed like hours; making snow angel's, having a snowball fight, drawing in the snow, and eventually going back to lava tag. Now it was Jayfeather's turn and he ran around chasing the other kits. If this was a dream, he didn't want to wake up. He was having more fun than he had ever had in his entire life! He was able to see and play with other kits on the playground, something that had been denied to him when he was younger.
Eventually, the white she-kit was almost in Jayfeather's grasp, freeing him from being it. As it would be, the she-kit jumped out of the way with a gleeful squeal and ran off. Jayfeather chased after her, not one to give up. Just as she was within his grasp, he tripped, allowing the white kit to run farther away. Jayfeather sat up looking rather annoyed.
The she-kit stopped and turned to Jayfeather a few feet away, her face joyful. "Come on Jay, you have to do better than that." She panted.
Suddenly there was a squealing sound of car breaks and all heads turned. The white she-kit was standing in the middle of an ice road, a car quickly approaching her. The mother of the kit stood up and yelled her name, but Jayfeather couldn't hear the name over the car's brakes. The white she-kit stood there, completely paralyzed with fear.
His body got up and the words of his father went through his head, remembering the lesson he had given him and Lionblaze the day before. "You're both very strong toms, and you need to make sure you always act like it. Toms are ready to protect their friends and family, no matter what the danger."
Jayfeather's small body ran as fast as he could, reaching the white kit in a fraction of the time the queen would have. He crashed into the she-kit, projecting her out of harm's way. When he turned to the car, all he saw was a bright set of headlights.
Jayfeather sat up with a start, breathing heavily. Darkness became his only means of sight once again. His clothes were wet with perspiration and Jayfeather had to run his paws over his body. It felt like he had actually been hit with that car, the impact had felt so real…
Jayfeather got up and changed into some spare clothes, not wanting to spend all morning in his sweaty pajamas. He didn't know what time it was, but he soon got his answer when his father knocked on his door. "Wake up Jayfeather! Santa Claws came!"
Jayfeather sighed and shook his head, trying to forget about his dream. This was his life. He was blind, his brother was an over-protective jock, his sister had just gotten her heart broken, and his dad still thought they believed in Santa Claws.
"Doesn't the tree look nice?" Brambleclaw asked proudly. Lionblaze glanced at it. He had to admit that the fir tree that Squirrelflight had stolen from Dustpelt's backyard, combined with the Grandpa Firestar's new lights, and their collection of ornaments, looked pretty good together.
Hollyleaf shrugged in response to Brambleclaw's question, still looking down in the dumps.
Jayfeather piped up, "Hey Holly, why don't you open your presents first?"
"Okay." She shrugged again. She had gotten a case of claw-polish from Squirrelflight, a new book called 'Clancy True and the Secret of the Warrior Code', from Jayfeather, some gloves with a soccer ball print on it, from Lionblaze (who had remembered that Hollyleaf's favorite sport is soccer) and a DSI from Brambleclaw.
"Thanks." she said, smiling a little sadly at them.
Jayfeather opened his next: a paw-made scarf from Hollyleaf, a box of cookies from Lionblaze, an MP3 player from Brambleclaw, and several books from Squirrelflight. "I've seen you with nothing but that book you got from your friend so I figured you could use a little variety." Squirrelflight relied happily after Jayfeather thanked her.
Lionblaze followed with a new basketball from Jayfeather, some chocolates from Squirrelflight (inside was a note saying to give them to Cinderheart), a new backpack from Hollyleaf, and a new cellphone from Brambleclaw.
When the family had all finished, Hollyleaf quietly went upstairs, her tail dragging up the steps. Lionblaze looked at his brother, who had also heard her leave, and sighed. This called for Plan B!
"Please Squirrelflight, please can we go to the park!" Lionblaze begged desperately for the six hundredth time. After Hollyleaf's depressing exit, he had started begging to be let out of the house and free of the cleaning and cooking. Two hours later and they were still at it.
Squirrelflight sighed, finally giving in to her son. "Okay already!" She exclaimed "Just make sure you're all home by six o'clock. Firestar, Sandstorm, and Leafpool are coming for Christmas dinner."
"We know!" Jayfeather yelled as he ran up the stairs to get Hollyleaf. This plan had to work, it just had to!
He pushed open her door, no longer barricaded. "Holly, we're all going to the park!" He said quickly, hoping she would answer yes and Lionblaze wouldn't be forced to carry her against her will to the park.
"Oh...okay..." Hollyleaf sighed, putting down her new book and getting up.
"Hey, who likes my snowtom?" called Lionblaze, adding twigs for whiskers.
"It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen." Jayfeather yelled back. Hoping to hit the thing in the face, he tossed a lump of snow in Lionblaze's direction. However, it hit Lionblaze square in the face.
"Watch it!" Lionblaze hissed good naturedly. He turned to Hollyleaf. "How's you're coming along?"
Lionblaze had to blink to make sure he was seeing things right. She had constructed almost a perfect replica of Berrynose in his basketball uniform. Jayfeather came over to Lionblaze's side. "How's she doing?" He whispered.
"Um…" Lionblaze replied, at a loss for words. Hollyleaf had removed her gloves, extended her claws, and slashed Berrynose's head off so it lay at his feet like a moldy pumpkin. "She's getting her anger out."
'Getting her anger out' was only one was to put it. She had virtually demolished the whole sculpture, kicking what remained of his head a good distance away.
"Ow! Watch it, rabbit-brain!" a voice yelled, sounding very annoyed. The three warriors turned to face two cats; one was a pitch black tom, who had yellow-amber eyes, that were narrowed in dislike. The other was a light brown tabby she-cat, with intense heather-blue eyes. Her tail waved, and her face, unlike the other cat, wore an expression of curiosity.
"Breezepelt, that's not nice!" she scolded the tom, who flattened his ears. "I'm sorry." She apologized. "My friend has extremely bad manners. I'm Heathertail, by the way." she added.
"I'm Breezepelt." the tom muttered, still sounding hostile.
"I'm Lionblaze," Lionblaze answered, speaking more to the she-cat Heathertail than anyone else. "And this is my sister Hollyleaf, and my brother, Jayfeather." Lionblaze said gesturing to them.
"I can introduce myself you know..." Jayfeather muttered. He didn't like it when his siblings acted like he couldn't do anything for himself. Lionblaze ignored him, licking his paw self-consciously. Heathertail looked really cute.
"So, what brings the WindClan cats here?" Jayfeather asked, frownin. WindClan students usually hung out on the other side of town, so what business did they have here?
"You ThunderClan cats don't own this town!" Breezepelt snarled, showing his teeth, tail lashing furiously.
"Cut that out!" Heathertail scolded Breezepelt, smacking the back of his head. "You know it's against school code for us to fight. They might expel us."
Breezepelt grumbled and crossed his arms, still glaring at Lionblaze. He didn't like the way he was staring at Heathertail. Hollyleaf noticed Lionblaze's stare and pushed his hanging jaw up with her paw.
"What are you starting at?" She asked him. "Forget about my friend Cinderheart already? I'm gonna have to tell her all about this."
"About what?" Lionblaze sounded a little panicked. "I wasn't doing anything."
"Sure you weren't." Hollyleaf teased.
Jayfeather sighed a sigh of relief. Hollyleaf was finally starting to act like her old self. Suddenly, he heard a familiar voice say, "But Tigerpaw, why do you think that mom wants turkey instead of frog for the main course? It's obvious that she wants us to try something new!"
Another voice joined in, "Yeah, Flamepaw, but dad likes frog best! That's why I say we have frog!"
Jayfeather sniffed the air and realized that Flamepaw, Tigerpaw, and Dawnpaw were heading towards them.
Tigerpaw spotted the group of warriors and excitedly ran over to Lionblaze. "Yo cousins! What's up?" asked Tigerpaw, trying to act cool in front of his siblings.
"The sky." Jayfeather answered sarcastically.
Just then, more voices joined them. "What is this, the meeting of the clans?" A sweet voice asked. Jayfeather's eyes widened in surprise. He knew that voice. "Hey Jayfeather!" Willowshine said cheerfully, her tail swishing through the snow.
"Willowshine?" Jayfeather said confused. What were all these cats doing here?
"Hm." Minnowpaw said rubbing her chin and examining Jayfeather. "So you're the tom Willow can't stop talking about."
Jayfeather suddenly felt very hot wearing all those extra layers. Willowshine slapped a paw across her friend's mouth. "I don't talk about him all the time."
"Mes dou oh!" Minnowpaw said through her friend's paw, which translated to 'Yes you do!'
Breezepelt eye the newcomers suspiciously. "So what are you all doing here?" He hissed, earning another slap on the head from Heathertail.
"We're just here to have some fun. Isn't that why you came?" Minnowpaw asked cheerfully. "It's a weird coincidence, isn't it?"
Lionblaze looked around confused. It was clear that everyone here was connected somehow; he just had no clue how. "Okay, let's start from the beginning. I'm getting confused."
Heathertail stepped up first. "Okay, as you already know, I'm Heathertail, and that stick in the mud is Breezepelt." she pointed her tail at the dark tom, who glared at them. "We're from the WindClan section of the school."
Minnowpaw came next, and said, "The name's Minnowpaw, and don't you forget it!" she then pointed at Willowshine, and said, "Oh, and that's Willowshine. I'm sure Jayfeather can tell you all about her." Minnowpaw giggled as Willowshine stuck out her tongue childishly. "We're from the RiverClan section of the school."
Tigerpaw, not to be left out, went next. "I'm the amazing Tigerpaw," Then pointing at Minnowpaw, "And don't you forget it!" He challenged. "These two are my lackeys so they don't – ah!"
Tigerpaw couldn't finish with his mouth full of snow. Dawnpaw had taken resentment at being referred to as a lackey and kicked the big-mouthed tom face first into the snow with a sickening crunch.
She glared at the tom for a moment before regaining her composure. "Ignore him." She said in a sweet voice. "I'm Dawnpaw and that's my brother Flamepaw." She said gesturing to the fire colored tom. "We're from the ShadowClan apprentice section of the school."
"Lionblaze, Hollyleaf, and I'm Jayfeather. ThunderClan." Jayfeather said quickly, not wanting to waste any time.
"Okay then," Minnowpaw said, stepping into the middle of the gather cats. "Now that we're all friends, what do you say to a little game?"
"Game?" Tigerpaw said, pulling himself out of the snow. He was obviously one for competition.
Minnowpaw smiled. "Yup. Clan versus Clan in one big free-for-all snowball fight."
"Raging Tiger Snowball Attack!" Tigerpaw yelled as he pelted an armful of snowballs at Minnowpaw's little fort.
The she-cat hissed in annoyance as the snow sprayed everywhere. When the barrage stopped she dared to stick her head up. "Pack them tighter you idiot!" She yowled at him. However, Tigerpaw wasn't done. He had another snowball already flying through the air when Minnowpaw stood up to yell at him. Said snowball smacked her directly in the face.
Tigerpaw froze as the snow melted off Minnowpaw's face. Gathering up as much snow as she could, Minnowpaw closed the gap between the two off them with a single leap. All the while screaming, "DIE! You stupid tom!"
Tigerpaw screamed like a little she-kit when she landed on top of him, shoving snow in his clothes and face. "Dawnpaw, help!"
Dawnpaw of course ignored him, instead aiming a snowball at the back of Heathertail's head. Before she even got a chance to loose the thing she was hit with snowball's from both Lionblaze and Breezepelt.
When they both realized they did the same thing, protect Heathertail, a little war broke out between the two toms.
The only ones who actually seemed to be having fun were Willowshine and Hollyleaf who were just throwing snow at each other and laughing when one of them got hit. Jayfeather was sitting on a bench with Flamepaw, neither of them wanting to join in the fight. "So," Jayfeather said with his head in his paw and turning to Flamepaw. "I know why I'm not joining, so why aren't you?"
"I don't really like any kind of competition or fighting…" Flamepaw admitted. "I'm actually thinking of becoming a medicine cat like Littlecloud."
"Ah." Jayfeather said, turning his head back to the snowball fight he couldn't see. That answers that question. He sat there for about another ten minutes before getting up. Hollyleaf finally seemed like her old self again, so he didn't see why he needed to stay here any longer.
"Jayfeather duck!" Willowshine yelled.
Her warning came too late as Jayfeather was hit in the face with a snowball. Jayfeather sneezed and whipped the snow away irritably before setting off for the direction of home. However, Willowshine soon caught up with him.
"I said wait!" She yelled, grabbing his paw in hers and forcing him to a stop.
Jayfeather stopped and sighed, turning to face the she-cat. "What do you want?" he asked.
"I want to apologize for hitting you in the face with that snowball. You don't have to leave."
"Oh no, that wasn't why I was leaving." Jayfeather explained. "I just felt like going home. Anything wrong with that?"
"No..." Willowshine meowed. "But before you go..." she glanced down at her paw, realizing she was still holding Jayfeather's. "Merry Christmas." she mumbled, blushing slightly.
Despite the fact that he couldn't see, Jayfeather looked away feeling slightly embarrassed. "Whatever..." he muttered.
Willowshine glared at him, and said, "You know, I wonder why I never noticed this before, but I think I should ask you this: why do you act like such a jerk? I came home early so we could hang out and you just go and yell at me!"
"Well then stop bothering me!" Jayfeather spat at her, immediately regretting the words the second they came out of his mouth.
Willowshine let go of Jayfeather's paw like it had suddenly turned to acid. "Fine! I will!" She yelled at him before turning to stalk away.
"Willowshine, wait!" Jayfeather yelled after her, her scent drifting farther and farther away. It was just then, that Jayfeather realized that he had made a big mistake. He sighed and continued his walk home. Christmas sucks...
Kaith: Okay, this chapter turned out longer than I expected it would so think of it as a bonus for me being a little late on the promise. Please review, and thank you Stealthclaw for starting off these first few chapters and letting me adopt this story!