Hello and welcome to Purrgatory! We are an 18+ Warrior Cat Roleplay set in an AU where the clans were unable to leave the forest territories and perished!
It has been 100 or more years since then, the clans of the forest are but distant memories to any cats still alive, stories passed down to kits of strangely named wild warriors and leaders with nine lives but the time of the clans is upon us once more and the stars shine yet again.
The scent of hay and dust lingers in the cool morning air, thick and familiar, clinging to the wooden beams of the barn like an old, unshakable memory. Dawn filters in through the slats, casting thin, golden bars of light across the worn floorboards, cutting through the shadows where mice scurry unseen. It is quiet here. Not silent—the horses shift in their stalls, their breath heavy and rhythmic, tails swishing lazily against their flanks. The pigeons mutter drowsily in the rafters. Outside, a dog barks once, sharp and distant, before settling again into whatever restless dream it chases. Dusk moves through the barn like something half-formed, like a shadow stretched too thin. Its dark fur blends easily into the dimness, save for the faint glint of its eyes—steady, watchful, unreadable. It walks with no particular destination in mind, slipping between the wooden posts with an idle, unhurried grace, the way a creature does when it has no reason to be anywhere and no one waiting for it.
The barn is familiar, in the way that all temporary things are. It is shelter. It is quiet. It is not home. Not that Dusk believes in home, not in the way others seem to. A place is just a place. Some are easier to stay in than others. Some are tolerable. Some are not. This one will do for now. It pauses beside a pile of hay, lowering its head to sniff at something unseen—mouse, maybe, though the scent is stale. Not worth the effort. It has eaten already, something small and unremarkable, its hunger dulled to the point of indifference. It sits, tucking its paws neatly beneath itself, tail curling loosely around its side, and watches the dust swirl in the light. There are other cats here. Barn cats, mostly—some born here, some passing through, some clinging to the place as if it means something to them. Dusk knows them in the way that cats know each other—by scent, by distance, by the quiet, unspoken agreements that determine where one cat's claim ends and another's begins. It does not seek them out, nor does it avoid them. They exist. It exists.
A horse snorts in its stall, shifting its weight, and Dusk turns its head slightly, ears flicking toward the sound. It does not startle. It has long since learned the rhythm of this place, the way the creatures in it move and breathe. It knows the lazy pacing of the horses, the way their hooves strike the packed dirt with dull, heavy certainty. It knows the sharp, quick rustling of mice in the straw, the telltale scrape of claws against wood. It knows the humans, too—their voices, their footsteps, the way they smell of sweat and leather and something unnatural, something sharp and bitter and wrong. Dusk does not trust them. It does not fear them, either. A breeze stirs through the barn, rattling the loose boards and carrying the scent of the open fields beyond—the rich, wild smell of damp earth and trampled grass, of sun-warmed wood and distant rain.
Dusk blinks slowly, thoughtfully, before lowering its head to rest on its paws.
