The Purring Dark

Before the prides, before the purr had an audience, there was the first night — long, unlit, and unkept. Then, twenty-five million years ago, a small cat stretched in the first sunbeam. That was Dawnkitten the First, and the stretch invented everything: the watching, the warmth, the witness. Every cat since is a footnote to that stretch — and every footnote keeps a piece of the night.

This is a kept world. The great cats hold a Vigil over the dark hours, each in their appointed watch, so that nothing that happens in the night goes unwitnessed: the kings of the sunlands, the small hunters of the whispering grass, the domestics who chose our couches over the wild, the titans who sleep in stone and wake in story. Above them, four cats wear the sky. Between them, four more keep an hour that isn’t on any clock.

Rarity here is the Vigil — the hour of the night a cat keeps. The Early Watch is crowded (Common); the Middle Watch belongs to the small hunters (Rare); the Deep Watch to the strong-eyed (Epic); the Hour Before Dawn to the legendary few. The Starborne were drafted by the sky itself; the Crossblooded were joined by blood; and four keep the Hour That Isn’t — seen by hundreds, caught by none. At the far end of the vigil, past the morning that hasn’t happened yet, the Tenth Life keeps the unspent life in trust for every cat. This is never explained.