Kobalt took a sip from his ice water on the balmy early autumn afternoon, his eyes trailing around the garden area that the row of houses that he and his housemate lived in shared. The deer-roo hybrid was usually better about supervising his small friend in the open air, but he'd lost track of the stoat.
"Hey Koby!" The mustelid's voice rang out through the garden.
The buckaroo turned towards the voice and found himself looking at his micro friend waving to him on top of a nearby hip-high wall. And also astride the back of a frog.
Cody held on tight, riding the amphibian as it hopped along the rough rock top. "I think its domesticated!"
Kobalt took a drink until the ice pressed against his snout as he walked over, before crouching down to be eye to eye with the stoat and letting his thick tail thud the grass behind him. "You should probably stop that before you get hurt."
Scoffing, the stoat waved a paw. "I'll be fiiiine!"
The hybrid stood back up with a roll of his eyes and started to walk away.
It was at that moment that the frog decided to jump down off the wall to the ground.
Cody yelped in surprise as he went into free fall, only holding on with one hand as he got air from the negative Gs. When the frog landed, he collided with the space between its eyes and bounced forward, tumbling onto the ground in front of the amphibian.
At the vocalization, Kobalt turned around, just in time to see the frog decide micros are as good as bugs. It inverted its tongue outward and stuck it to the prone form of Cody on the ground in front of it. Then it dragged its tongue right back in and snapped its toothless jaws shut.
A startled 'WAH' escaped the stoat as he was dragged in, any further vocalizations muffled after the amphibian's lips closed up.
The frog casually swallowed, the squirming lump of a micro figure becoming visible in its underside.
Kobalt sighed and dumped his ice out onto the mulch under a small fruit tree. Crouching down, he held the glass close to the ground and nudged at the frog's backside until it leapt forward. The buckaroo intercepted and cupped his hand over the glass' opening so the frog couldn't escape.
Cody was continuing to squirm and wiggle, doing little more than making a lively display on the underside of a feral predator.
The hybrid stood up with a grunt and turned back toward the house. Thankfully, Cody was indigestible, so only having gotten snatched up was far preferable to scrapes, broken bones and the like, or a predator that chews its meals. Kody was relieved it was something as simple and, perhaps, humbling as this for his housemate.
Kobalt got back into the house and set the glass' opening down on the tile countertop, the only gaps where the tile's grout indented. Good enough to not suffocate the relatively innocent frog. He crouched again, getting his head level with the captured amphibian, addressing it's weakly wriggling gut. "I told you to be careful."
Cody's movements picked up energy again, muffled shouts coming from inside the frog under glass.
"You can find your own way out of there." The kangaroo-deer hybrid said firmly, before standing up and away from the countertop, on his way to a cabinet to get a new glass to drink from.
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The stoat was nearly immobile by the tight, clinging wall's of the frog's stomach, one of which was translucent enough for him to tell was the outward face of the gut. He faced it and pushed outward, struggling and thrashing as much as he could. His lips were turned down in a scowl as he grumpily wriggled and pushed about. If he couldn't figure out how to get the wild animal to spit him up soon, he'd have to take the long way out, and there was no way he'd keep any of his dignity if he had to do that.
KobaltTheWolf
