YEWKIT
Like mother, like daughter
.
Yewkit had nowhere to go. Mainly, because there was nowhere physically to go, due to the camp needing reparations and their little temporary camp not being safe enough for mother to let her out. But Yewkit also couldn't leave mother's side without talking to mother about it, and something told her she would not be happy with Yewkit wanting to visit the medicine cats - not after what she's done.
And so Yewkit lay curled against mother, eyes conveniently closed, but not sleeping. She felt trapped, immovable - like her namesake. The great tree, set in ground by its roots, doomed to remain in the place it sprouted in forever. Maybe mother knew this would happen one way or another when she had named them?
In my home, names are more than just identifiers. They are sacred. Parents take a long time to decide on a name - for they are more than just our titles, they are us.
She thought about mother's words as she lay there, the meanings mother had given to her and her siblings. Yew for her of course. Dreary for her brother... and Phantom for her sister. Each name picked out carefully by Plague, to represent what they were. Each name picked out carefully.... Picked out by... by Plague?
Yewkit opened her eyes in sudden realisation - what did that mean? She had to ask mother, even if it might make her punishment even worse. She had to know.
"Mother?" she tried, quietly. "You... you once told us that our names are us. That they have meanings, of who we are and who we will be."
Yewkit waited a moment for mother to acknowledge her, before continuing carefully, choosing her words as best as she could, to not anger mother even more. "I thought... I thought plagues were something terrible that happened to cats, a great disease that spread and killed most. Why..." she hesitated. But the question was already out there, even if she weren't to finish it. "Why is that your name? Why are you named something so...cruel? You're not..." her voice barely a whisper, her paws trembling slightly under her body. "you're not cruel."