private please stay // deathkit

[nightingalecry]

She's exposed her name choice to Frightkit - a child with a mouth louder than any of her peers combined. Surely she will return to her siblings and taunt them with the possibility of another moniker, if one at all. She is grateful, then, to have had these nearly six moons to mull over names and wish for different circumstances. Deathkit - how could she have let that slide? Painful is her breathing when she approaches the next child, settling a little sparrow by their paws.

"My feathering bird," she chirps, pressing her cheek to Deathkit's briefly, before ensuring that she knows the prey is for her by nudging it closer. "I've... made a decision, recently. I will not ask you and your siblings to change who they are, but I do want you to know that... if things were any different, I would've named you something..." sweeter? Kinder? To say something is almost blasphemous to Nightingalecry, who's entire being is devoted to Ebonylight first, and their kits somehow second. But she prioritizes, she compartmentalizes, she lets out a held breath and tries a smile, "... nicer."

Her tail twitches as she continues, "I think if I could give you a different name, I'd give you... Wishkit. You're a spritely little one - your future is so bright beyond you. Death..., my darling, the end should not plague you as it does now." Nightingalecry sighs, and again she swipes her tongue over the child's head, "Nonetheless, my love for you is endless - whether you continue life as you are now, or if you decide to change at all."

@DEATHKIT ​

 

[DEATHKIT]

Her name weighs heavily on her back. Deathkit, a curse, born drenched in a concept that she had yet to grasp in its honest entirety. It causes her to slink in the shadows, on edge at any time. Sometimes it’s easy to shrug it off when she’s in the presence of her family, but she finds herself cowering at the sides of games, dreading the day she is apprenticed and nothing has changed.

Then, there is the idea she carries it forward with her. Death, an inevitability, it has her pondering the end often. She thinks it may doom her family, or Clan, or everyone, to have to associate it with her so much.

Blaming her mother for it is senseless. As Nightingalecry offers her the sparrow, she can feel the unspoken emotion in each pause of her voice. It goes without a label for Deathkit. The closest she can get is mourning.

Her rigid posture begins to unwind, and she blinks in disbelief. The permission to change her name? Eyes drawing from their undivided attention on the sparrow, she beams at her mother, something bright for the first time in moons. Yet a hint of hesitancy keeps her on the ledge of her excitement. “Are you sure?”

“What if… Everyone gets confused? Do you think they’ll remember to…” The tabby’s ears twitch as she remembers the name offered. Wishkit. Her eyes glimmer, the name a compliment to the quiet girl. A tilt on its axis from morbid to hopeful. Yet her mind goes to normalcy, to the moors, and she thinks of something simpler. Apprenticeship is so soon, she wants a wish to encourage her skills. “What about… Harekit instead?”
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