Eyesore: The Weight Of Souls

Chapter Nine

Jaypaw collapsed into his nest in the ThunderClan medicine den. He wrinkled his nose. The herb smell was even worse here. Nightcloud was curled around Lionpaw and Breezepaw, grooming both of them with alternating licks, soothing the two still-trembling apprentices.

Leafpool tiptoed around them, trying to sort out herbs for them all. Her tail swept past Jaypaw as she moved.
"There it is," she mumbled to herself. She bent down and nosed a small bundle of herbs towards Jaypaw. He didn't question anything, just lapped them up.

He felt the effects almost immediately. A drowsy calmness began to bloat in his body. His eyes started closing of their own accord, and Jaypaw let them. Nothing would be better than a nice sleep to forget everything. As he started drifting off he felt Leafpool's eyes locked on him, giving him that strange feeling of being watched.

In his dream, everything was sharp and bright. In colour. In shape. He could see again!

Jaypaw laughed out loud, gazing around at the landscape. It was a small hollow in the ground, surrounded by impenetrable gorse, giving the area a safe and protected feeling. It became apparent to him that this was a settlement of a sort. There were a few dens made under the gorse wall, and long-faded scents clung to the area like spirits. The place had an air of melancholy, like a hallowed skeleton left whole in the blistering sun.

"For a prophecy cat, you really are quite unremarkable."

Jaypaw spun around. A tall, muscular cat was standing and watching him, whiskers twitching calculatingly. Jaypaw took in his stone grey fur, peppered with darker grey spots. Looking down at his own paws, Jaypaw noted that the cat's fur was much darker than his own. His eyes were yellow, also dark in tone.

"You're supposed to be special but you really have no intuition, do you? This comes down to common sense. You're blind and suddenly dream with normal sight about your leader receiving a prophecy about cats with powers, and it doesn't even occur to you that you're one of the prophecy cats? StarClan really messed up with you." The tom sauntered towards Jaypaw, his face neutral.

Jaypaw blinked. The way the cat talked to him felt very real. Referencing a dream Jaypaw had told no one about? Dreams couldn't reference dreams, could they?
"I'm... I'm in a prophecy? What does that mean? That dream was real? StarClan chose me?" Jaypaw questioned, eyes wide.

The other tom rolled his eyes.
"Yes, you foolish worm, your dream was real and you're in the prophecy. That wasn't too hard, was it?" He sat down heavily. "StarClan didn't want me to tell you. They thought you needed to work it out on your own. But because your plan of action was to do nothing and despair about your blindness and think alarming things about how you don't think you can make it as a Clan cat, I figured I'd better step in before you leave the Clan or drown yourself in the lake."

Tired of the tom's incessant monologuing, Jaypaw spoke up. "Who are you?" His words came out ruder than he'd intended them to be.

"Hawkheart. I was WindClan's medicine cat before Kestrelflight's mentor. I'm also, I suppose, your guide," he said. Hawkheart sat down, his tail resting on his paws. Jaypaw copied him, sitting down on the drying grass. He fought to keep his gaze fixated on Hawkheart.

"But I...I'm blind! Blind cats can't be in prophecies." His eyes left Hawkheart's face and he allowed them to slip past the tom to stare at the star-speckled sky. "This is just some dumb dream I'm having because I'm so tired and I had those poppy seeds," he mumbled.

Hawkheart let out an exasperated sigh. "Poppy seeds make you drowsy and take away pain, not give you strange dreams! And what's all this nonsense about blind cats not being in prophecies? Do you really think StarClan cares about that?"