Warriors: The Broken Path (Warriors FanFiction)

Chapter 9

"Brokenpaw? Brokenpaw!" The back she-cat hearded a frantic muffled voice become clearer and clearer, and she soon swam to consiousness. She opened an eye to the sight of the medicine cat den, spotting Seedpaw sorting herbs in the rear of the den. It hadn't been the ginger medicine cat apprentice calling her name. The Brokenpaw came to a jolt of realization.

Only one of my eyes is open!

She began to panic, flailing in her nest vividly. "Jayfeather! Jayfeather!" The she-cat wailed desperately, her heart pounding against her chest. Her mossy nest was soon in shambles from her panic attack, and she was stopped when a tail slapped over her muzzle. Brokenpaw looked up and relaxed immediately when she saw Wolfpaw standing before her, his glacier irises glowing with concern.

"I thought you were going to die." He whispered painfully, embracing his sister as she buried her face into his warm chest. She was comforted by the presence of her younger littermate, drinking in his familiar scent and licking his fur affectionately.

"Well she's fine now, isn't she? Now get out of my den! Your taking up all of the room!" A grumpy snarl made them both jump, and the gray tabby medicine cat approached them irritably. Jayfeather scowled at Wolfpaw with blazing, blind blue eyes.

"I'll see you later." Wolfpaw touched noses with his sibling briskly, then he turned and exited the den stiffly.

Brokenpaw glared at the grouchy medicine cat. "That wasn't very nice!" She scoffed at the tabby tom, her fluffy tail-tip flickering among the remains of her nest. Jayfeather completely ignored her statement, peeling a bloody mass of cobwebs from the left side of her face. Brokenpaw gasped and her heart thundered rapidly against her rib-cage.

"Jayfeather? What's wrong with me? Tell me now!" The young black she-cat demanded fearfully, her fangs flashing at the blind medicine cat. Jayfeather glanced up the the apprentice sightlessly, then began to make a new poultice of cobwebs and marigold as he replied to the frightened she-cat.

"Don't worry, your patrol managed to chase the badger out of ThunderClan territory. You blacked out during the attack. The badger wounded the left side of your face terribly, and your wound has swelled up tremendously, making your left eye unusable." He explained casually, placing the poultice over Brokenpaw's injury. She winced as it stung for a moment, then she watched Jayfeather place cobwebs over the juices to keep them in place.

Brokenpaw sulked in her torn up nest, her ears drooping crestfallenly. I'll never be a warrior now...

She thought glumly, staring down at her petite paws. "You'll be fine. Now, take these." The silver tabby tom replied to her thoughts, pawing a few poppy seeds toward the black she-cat.

Brokenpaw stared at him increduously for a heart-beat, then decided she must just be over-imaginative and she lapped up the small black seeds with her pink tongue. Quickly trying to scoop her nest back up together, the black she-cat settled down comfortably and then drifted off into a deep slumber.

~~~~~~

A few days later Brokenpaw sat outside of the medicine den around sunhigh, replaying the scene over and over in her head. Jayfeather had taken the poultice off of her eye again and he had gasped as his senses told himself that this apprentice's eye had been injured as well. But it was an injury far from normal. Blood vessels had blown up everywhere within her once blue iris, and now her left eye was a dark crimson red, her pupil just a dark smudge where it's suppose to be. Plus Brokenpaw's left face would be permanantly scarred for the rest of her life.

Jayfeather had led Brokenpaw over to the small pool of water in the medicine cat den and she was horrified with the sight of herself, wailing in dispair. "I'm hideous!" She had cried out in agony, her shoulders slumped and tail laying limp on the earth.

Now the black apprentice was in a deep state of depression, sitting so her right face was visable to the clan cats. I'm never going to get a mate... I'm never going to have kits... I'm a disgrace. She pouted solemnly at the den entrance, watching all of the "normal" cats living through their everyday life. Brokenpaw felt like an outcast. An ugly outcast.

"Brokenpaw!" A delighted meow erupted from near the apprentices' den, and she was happy to see Frigidpaw trotting over toward her, his icy eyes alit with warmth. His dark gray fur shone beautifully in the sunlight, and his white stripes rippled with his every movement. Brokenpaw realized at the last second that she was looking directly at her friend, and she saw him wince at the sight of her grotesque, still-healing wound. She quickly turned her head away.

"I'm sorry... I know, I'm hideous." The long-haired she-cat murmured in distress, her shoulders stiff and rigid. She was self-consious and embarassed of her face. Frigidpaw looked stung at the she-cat's words.

"No, you're still beautiful... Brokenpaw, you'll be alright. It's just a wound. It's the inside that counts." The handsome tom explained sternly, his tail flicking to and fro. "Just look at Cloudtail and Brightheart. Her face is torn almost completely off, and he still loves her completely." He gestured to the couple sharing tongues by the warriors' den, then stepped toward Brokenpaw confidently.

She blinked at the senior cats, her thoughts wandering endlessly. "So what? I'm different than them." She retorted in jealousy, trying hard to keep her scarred face out of the vision of others. She flinched when Frigidpaw forcefully turned her head toward his, his sky blue irises gazing deep into the black cat's odd eyes.

"So what? So, you have a gash down the side of your face and I still love you completely."