“But Arbon.” Holly smugly intoned “At the same time, you'll never know the thrill of defeating and devouring those same opponents. You're giving up so much!”
The tiny mouse at her feet stifles a laugh “I can still defeat them, and Definitely Eat them. defEat if you will. I simply retain the options to fight them again later. Or to learn form them. Or utilize them. Or sacrifice them. Or snackrifice them. Being a necromancer makes "non-lethal" a bit hard to figure out I admit.”
“Far, far too complicated! You make my head spin, little mouse.” The blue haired tigress shouts “There are foods, and there are not foods. The foods are made to be eaten, because they are weaker than you. Once they are eaten you should never consider them again beyond the occasional fond memory of their devourment and defeat. The not foods are to be toyed with, occasionally interact with, but rarely to fight. They are often stronger than you!”
Arbon leaps atop the tiger’s face, bold and without hesitation. "But thats only how predators do it, and I'm a warrior! The people stronger than me are the ones I seek out hoping to fight them, the ones weaker than me are the charges I aim to protect. Such is the warrior way." a mousey sagenod.
"Besides, the more weaker prey there is besides me, the more OTHER things a predator can eat without having to nibble into me. Its like albative flesh armor, only it squeels a lot and begs for mercy."
Hoodoo blinks. As always, her slight muzzle is enough to allow Arbon to cling atop her nose and stare right into her large, golden eyes. She just breathes past him, her warm breath passing over his underside with each other moment. She finally arches an eyebrow as he finishes, giving a sharp chuckle.
"Right, right. Those intentions are about as pure as I suspected. But you see, the stronger -I- get, the less there is that can try to eat me in turn. So my protection comes from myself..."
Arbon laughs on holly's face. In the most literal sense of the term. "Getting stronger is the exact opposite of a predator's goals, they stay in place on the food chain fleeing from stronger things and devouring only the weaker things. Thats what makes them predators. This isn't like a JRPG where you can sit in a single patch of grass and poke birds to get bigger numbers until you can throw rainbow heart-beams at the nearest god."
He then puffs his chest out. "Only warriors get stronger with combat, fighters, survivors, champions. People who fight for a reason, who learn from their fight. People who actually FIGHT, as opposed to just hunt."
Holly pauses for a moment, and gives a slight shrug. "You, I have to admit.. Tsk. I've been saved by a mouse more times than I'd ever care to adknowledge."
He then clambers up the rest of the face, nestling himself between those ears. One paw lazily reaching out to stroke the base, giving the tiger a very intimate scratching.
"How about we make a deal then, I keep training the mouse Army to devour that little housecat, Runtime, and you never mention a mouse saved you ever again. Our little secret."
Holly flicks her ears slightly as he touches up onto them, her thick, furry protrusions shifting and brushing against his fingers. Her fur really was quite luxurious to touch, as always, and the ears and tail were by far the softest parts of her body. The tigress shivered lightly as his paws rubbed over the base - she never let anyone touch them because of how sensitive they were, but over time she'd grown accustomed enough to let the rodent near them. She turned her gaze upwards, just barely sighting him up there as she grumbled.
"Just why do you think life evolved to where it was in the first place? Predators -force- change, and growth. The weaker and slower are finished off mercilessly... A few eons of that, and eventually life grew as complex as us!" she countered with a slight hint of pride to her voice.
Her thumb jabbed upwards into her chest as she continued. "And a Sharp always hunts the strongest thing they can bring down! We grow by forcing ourselves to our natural limits.. Tft. I can't even imagine a tiger like me chasing a mouse across the floor. It is beneath me!"
Arbon closes his eyes and starts rubbing his face against each of those oh so sensitive ears, walking past like a cat rubbing against its owners leg to make sure the side of his belly sliiiiides across with each pass. His teeth clicked to ensure the ball of rodent vibrates into her skull, acting like a fuzzy massage toy.
His voice is calm and whispered, only quiet enough to hear with those ears right in front of the speaker. 'Well now that is certainly true, but at the same time predators are shaped by everything below them, even moreso than the scavengers and the grazers. A tiny change in the environment, the trees get too sparse or the water dries up, the grass stops growing or the bunnies have all left, the air gets too cold or the winds are too hot. The slightest little change, and the top predators always toppled down and disappear, while the scampering things underfoot rise up to take their place. Cats used to be mice you know, they are decedents of mice who survived past the fall of the sauropods, past the age when the air was a tiny bit too poisonous and those with bird lungs all suffocated. You? You are the descendent of a particularly vicious line of mice, who hunted and ate other mice, until the kids were bigger and stronger and better at hunting."
He chuurrs, almost purring now. "That change from tiny snackfood mammal to vicious, striped predator didn't happen when other predators were around. The mice needed a gap. They needed an apocalypse, where everything above them came crashing down. Guess who's near the top now?"
And the entire time each of the mate pair argued at each other over the ethics of hunting and combat and history, neither one noticed nor acknowledged the distinctly unfortunate micro tucked away between layers of skin and muscle and fur. As the discussion waned on into the night and sleep overtook our two “heroes” the feline’s screams weren’t even loud enough to wake a mouse.
