DUSKWISH

LONER

a tall, black she-cat with pale yellow eyes and white paws

character stature: duskwish presents herself as a confident, and very self-assured she-cat. evenly blended in a lean build is her athletic musculature, that of a sprinter, a climber, as well as an ambush hunter. though taller than she is buff, she is well trained to deliver a mighty strike in the heat of battle. a long, whip-like tail complements her long limbs, and she carries her head high above her shoulders.

character pelt: duskwish's fur is short, but silky smooth and plush to the touch. the pitch black tones effortlessly reflect back even dim light with a vibrant shimmer, the result of a healthy coat with excellent grooming. her fur is thick and keeps her warm on cold nights. though mainly solid black, she has white toes and a long streak of white from her neck to her belly, and almost impossible to see are darker stripes just faintly breaking up the solid tone of her black coat into subtle ripples. a small handful of faint scars are laced over her shoulders and flank.

character face: tall ears give duskwish a pointed look, but her face has a medium balance between round and angled. she often wears a smug expression on her face, and her pale yellow eyes are desaturated to a nearly indistinct hue, almost silvery like at a glance but yellow all the same. her left ear is nicked with a few small scars and one noticable cut into the upper rim.

[+] confident - the pinnicle of boldness in every day life, duskwish doesn't shy away from opportunity, whether it be risking her pelt or social activity. she's always down for a new experience, even when most other cats would dip out of fear or discomfort. she's outgoing, but also very self-assured in her abilities, and is dependable to her allies.

[+] social - she's talkative and happy to strike up a conversation with anyone, will take any topic and ramble about it for a hot minute. she'll tell you about her day and she loves to listen to others talk about theirs. she is confident in her negotiation skills, and willing to break up fights between friends and foes alike as best she can. due to her social nature, she tends to make connections easily.

[-] reckless - duskwish doesn't seem to care much for her own wellbeing, to an extend that it sometimes has concerned her seniors in the clan. she'd often have to be dragged to the medicine cat den to have her scrapes and bruises attended to after a rough outing, and she seems to prefer to keep her concerns to herself. she lives for the chaos she can make or find, and on more than one occasion would boast her abilities to her foes if she thought there was a chance the bluff would work. she can be careless with her words and has pressed buttons before she would take care to avoid pressing from then on, and sometimes her snarky attitude towards authority can land her in shakey standings with those superiors over her if she goes too far.

[-] self-serving - for as much as she willingly socializes, she withholds most of that in trust. duskwish is a cat who believes deep down that her own code of morals, virtue, and justice, may or may not include the warrior code or the word of her leader. choices she makes to adhere to rule are made only for her own wellbeing or the benefit of others. but she doesn't consider herself an objectivelly morally righteous source point. she knows that she would not hesitate to take a life if she felt that she had to, and she lies like it's the normal thing to do. she makes snap decisions and acts on them thoroughly, and then faces the consequences with resolution. she instinctively rebels against order and authority and walks ashamedly on the border between honor and deceit. in many ways, this put her right at home in thistleclan where she was born.

[-] depressed - duskwish hides this so well that practically no one in her life knows about her deep seeded self doubts, her anguish over her lack of family support system growing up, her resentment of her own existence, and her fatalistic perspective of her purpose in life. she doesn't think she'll ever talk to anyone about it and wouldn't even if it was someone she cared about, intent on not burdening others with her own problems. she wants to get stronger, both mentally and physically, but doesn't really think there is help for someone like herself.

kithood: a forward thinker, duskwish rarely ever reminisces about her past life. or perhaps she simply wishes not to think of it. she never knew her father, and she had an estranged relationship with her mother who seemed if nothing else, incredibly unhappy to have had kits. sometimes baseless rumors of conjecture were quietly passed around that her mother had been in a relationship with an outsider, but nothing was ever proven. with a nearly nonexistent parental support system, the hopes set on duskwish's shoulders for her future as a clan warrior were rock bottom, and she was only ever told that she would fail to meet those expectations.

duskwish sometimes forgets about how she spent most of her kithood out of the nursary as often as possible, or as often as she could get away with it. whenever someone took their eyes off her, which was often as her own mother certainly wasn't supervising her, duskkit was off looking for trouble - anything interesting or meaningful to her existence. the dark humor of her clan's culture was impressed on her early on, and in her lawless adventures, she learned to pick up her own chaotic perception of clan order.

adolescence: apprenticeship predictably enabled her to run further from where she was supposed to be at any given moment, and her poor mentor nearly gave up on acknowledging her existence, much less hunting her down every single day. these things came to a head when she got cut off from the routes she was familiar with by a heavy rainstorm, washing away thistleclan's scent markers. the seasonal flooding that year changed the territory drastically, and amidst a particularly heavy rainfall, duskpaw lost her way. she was eventually found and rescued by a loner through sheer luck, having been washed away by the heavy rainstorms to the shoreline of the islands. they kindly pointed out the way to get back to thistleclan territory and she was picked up by a border patrol.

after this event, duskpaw stopped wandering so far and focused on her apprenticeship training with her mentory. she seemed to adopt a new proactive approach to clan duties, and was always most eager to go on frequent border patrols to keep the territory scent marks strong against the looming threat of rogues, even if it could be guessed that this was another means of escape from being in the same space as her parent, who at this time had retired to the elders' den.

adulthood: duskwish's warrior ceremony was later than that of her fellow apprentices in the same age group as herself, in direct consequence of her absence from the clan for a short while. but ultimately, she did manage to earn it through diligent training of her hunting skills and the quality of her performance for the clan in her duties.

yet even as she matured, her relationship with her birth parent seemed to worsen exponentially, and soon duskwish once again developed a habit of staying out of the thistleclan camp as much as she possibly could. with her newfound independence as a warrior compared to her apprenticeship, duskwish attended to her patrol duties thoroughly, but she was reluctant to return to camp, sometimes refusing to come home all day long until late evening when the clan would bed for the night. she worked alone and crossed the border frequently, spending all of her time around the farthest reaches of thistleclan's territory, lest she would hear the spiteful remarks of her mother's voice in her ears. though she hid it well to all of her clanmates, her mental health spiraled faster than ever before since her warrior ceremony.

one morning, after a bitter argument with her mother that nearly shed blood with claws unsheathed, she strayed too far. she always crossed the borders of thistleclan territory like they meant nothing to her anymore, and did so again and again, but decided not to return home after some point or another.

duskwish doesn't remember the exact moment she started considering herself a loner, but she looks back and figures it was somewhere amidst the thick blurry line dividing running away from home and choosing not to go back anymore. living on her own without the clan's support was as challenging as rumor could make it out to be and more. between the boundary of surviving on her own and fighting rogues completely devoid of moral code, duskwish matured into the independant, brutal, but still sociable cat she is today.

no small amount of times a day does she think about going home to thistleclan. but deep down she knows with certainty she will return some day. she doesn't feel ready yet. one thing about thistleclan is different however: in the many seasons since her departure, her mother has passed away from illness and can no longer haunt her future.