Estelle stared at herself in the mirror, her green eyes piercing their own reflection as her loose
brown hair dangled before them. She breathed deliberately slowly, trying to calm herself down. Her
last appointment had turned into a more intense session than she'd expected. Though she had kept
her composure, her mind had been fighting a losing battle in terms of keeping her impulses under
control.
The door opened behind her and her receptionist stepped inside. 'Estelle? Are you alright?'
'Yea...' Estelle panted, bringing herself back to focus She parted her hair and put it back into place
as the lioness stepped over, her face joining Estelle's in the mirror as she crouched down with a
concerned expression. 'Just a little bit of tension near the end of the session there. Was he alright?'
Aure's amber eyes raised from concern to amusement at the lynx's question. 'Oh, Del was fine. I
don't think he even noticed at all. Pretty high spirits actually considering what he was here for.'
'Just another reason we should have rescheduled.' Estelle sighed. 'Even if I helped, I know I could
have done better if I wasn't distracted. This was just a bad time for that topic.'
'I know, but it was your call.' Aure shrugged. 'And besides, that's what these half hour cooldowns
are for between patients. Now you can stop thinking about a rabbit here for grief counselling after
his fiancé was eaten alive in front of him, yea?'
'Well, I was about to.' The lynx narrowed her eyes and turned to stare at Aure in mock anger.
'I was wondering if that was the same rabbit that Miss Vidalia mentioned.' Aure remarked as she
headed back towards the door.
Estelle shrugged as she straightened her suit back out. 'I don't think so. Del mentioned it was a
leopard, not a cheetah. It's not that hard to tell the difference, surely.'
'Your last appointment is a felid, so you can relax.' Aure placed the file on the desk in front of
Estelle as the lynx stirred her coffee. 'Name is Mikaela Eller, says she feels guilty about consuming a
partner and doesn't know how to deal with it.'
'I see.' Estelle flicked though the file, seeing the wildcat's basic medical records and noting that
there was no history of any illnesses, only minor injuries and no prior psychological issues. Anything
further would require more specialised credentials on Estelle's part, but for now it seemed like this
would be a clear cut grief counsel. She nodded as Aure returned to the office door.
Aure beckoned to someone on the other side, and a few moments later Estelle saw the small felid
step into the room before Aure stepped out and closed the door. She had brilliant fluffy ginger fur
with a stripe pattern, striking yellow eyes and frizzy mid brown hair. She wore a simple maroon shirt
and blue jeans, and as Estelle stood to greet her, their eyes met.
Estelle could see straight away there was fear in that gaze. Fear of something that couldn't be
explained with just words, it was something that would be harder to understand. She stood and
made her way out from behind her desk.
'Doctor Jargal?' Mikaela asked. Her breathing was visibly shallow,
'Yes.' Estelle nodded, holding out a reassuring hand as she approached the young woman. 'You
can call me Estelle. We don't need to be formal in here. Just relax, and tell me what's bothering you.
Would you like to sit down? Lie down? Can I get you a drink of coffee or tea?'
'Uhh, sure.' Mikaela looked around at the three different couches in the room, slowly moving
towards the middle sized one. 'M-maybe a tea? Do you have mint?'
'Of course.' Estelle stepped over to her kitchenette and began boiling the water as Mikaela
climbed onto the couch. 'While we wait for this, have you been to a therapist before?'
'No.' Mikaela shook her head, sitting upright and tense on the edge of the sofa cushion. 'I don't
know how this works, what I'm supposed to do. But I'm falling apart, I haven't seen my best friend in
almost a year now and I don't have anyone else I'm comfortable sharing these feelings with.'
'That's alright.' Estelle called, seeing the tears beginning to form at the corner of Mikaela's eyes.
'Although...' Mikaela briefly smiled before squeezing her eyes shut. 'She never would have helped
me with this anyway.'
Estelle stepped back over with a cup of mint tea in hand and held it out for Mikaela to take. As the
ginger cat took it with a nod of thanks and brought it close to her face, the lynx noted thankfully that
this at least seemed to calm her a bit. She waited patiently as Mikaela took a few slow sniffs of the
brew, then blew softly and took her first careful sip.
'So...' Estelle began slowly, weighing her words as she always did with a new patient to try and
ease them into the topic without being too direct. 'You're here because you heard I was a grief
counsellor, right? But by the sounds of it, it's more complicated than that. Would you like to tell me
what happened?'
Mikaela looked up from her tea and met Estelle's gaze, eyes still glistening and on the verge of
tears and lips still quivering as she tried to form the first words. 'Y-yea. It was an accident. I never
meant for it to happen, but... I-I fell asleep.'
'You... fell asleep?' Estelle asked. 'I don't understand.'
Mikaela placed one hand on her belly and looked back at Estelle, taking a deep breath before she
continued. 'She was in here. With a... a string, that I was gonna use to pull her back out.'
Estelle nodded slowly as she began to understood. 'But you fell asleep... I see.'
'I didn't mean for it to happen.' Mikaela repeated as she lowered her gaze back to the tea,
gripping the cup in both hands once again. 'I always told her it was a bad idea, but she was... she was
into it. I thought it was weird but it was still, sort of fun I guess? Like a game.'
'This isn't unusual.' Estelle replied reassuringly. 'Some of the smaller folks do find themselves
attracted to carnivores, even being somewhat intrigued at the idea of being... well, prey. Tell me
about her. What was her name? How did you meet?'
There was a short minute of silence as Mikaela gathered her thoughts. Estelle waited patiently,
slowly beginning to grapple with her own at the same time. This was meant to be an easy session,
but once again the topic of prey had risen and once again she was reminded that her own last few
hunting forays had turned up empty and leaving her still craving a living meal. At least she wouldn't
be faced with the temptation of eating her patient, but the topic at hand was still going to be
somewhat challenging for both of them it seemed.
When at last Mikaela was ready to talk again, after a few more deep breaths and tentative sips of
her tea, she met Estelle's own gaze and nodded slowly. 'Her name was Alison. She was a mouse.
Worked in accounts and advice at my bank and helped me with the loan I needed to buy my first car.'
'Right.' Estelle nodded, noting that Mikaela was seeming to struggle with reliving these memories.
The lynx slowly sat down on the same couch as Mikaela, keeping close but also allowing a respectful
gap between them. 'Take your time, dear. We can stretch the hour a bit of we need to.'
Mikaela nodded again and took a deep breath. 'She was so... forward about it. We ended up
getting lunch. Talking about... well, the usual cat and mouse dynamic I guess? She wasn't shy. I didn't
think I would ever be in a relationship with another woman. But I have to admit I never really
thought about it either. When the topic came up, I couldn't think of a reason to say no.'
'But could you think of a reason to say yes?' Estelle raised an eyebrow. Maybe the relationship had
been doomed from the start anyway, and if not for this accident it would have simply been
something else. Still, they weren't the first predator prey couple since Equality and likely wouldn't be
the last. The lynx had an open mind about these things, but reality wasn't always as kind as idealism.
'Yes.' Mikaela replied without missing a beat. 'She was so sweet and honest, and she made me
feel like I could be too. There was obviously no risk of accidental pregnancy, and the physical
intimacy was... well, it was new to me but I liked it a lot. We moved in together pretty fast. And one
of her favourite games was to play in my mouth. That was as far as it went for a long time.'
'How did your... hunting, urges impact this relationship?' Estelle asked.
'Mostly they didn't.' Mikaela continued. 'Not at first anyway. She told me she was fine with me
eating other mice. So I kept doing it. But I think she was lying. After a while I noticed she was getting
less comfortable about it. It was about that time we tried extending her game to take her... deeper.
With the string so I could pull her back up. But... I...'
'There's something else?' Estelle pressed, not insistently but gently. The words needed to come
freely for this to truly matter.
'I stopped hunting for a while.' Mikaela admitted. 'Nearly three months. I thought that the games
with Alison would be enough to keep me satisfied. Keep my instinct down. And it did seem to be
working.'
Estelle bit her tongue for the moment. That sort of thing never worked, and sooner or later a
carnivore's mind would stop being fooled by psychological tricks. There was simply too much overlap
between the conscious mind and the subconscious instinct, a fact that had been reinforced many
times when crafting the city's hunting laws.
'It didn't work.' Mikaela sighed. 'Things got tense between us, but eventually she apologised for
how it was making me feel. Said she never meant to make me feel guilty, and that I should keep
hunting. So I did. Vigorously. Almost like I was trying to make up for time, you know?'
'Right.' Estelle nodded, trying to ignore that it was almost exactly how she felt in that moment.
'It was not long after that... the accident happened. I was tired. Thought it would all be fine. We
played around a bit... Then I swallowed her with her safety string... And... fell asleep before I pulled
her back out.'
'I see.' Estelle nodded, holding her next words as Mikaela lost another round of tears and spent
the next few moments sobbing quietly. 'It's alright. Let it out.'
Mikaela shuffled on the couch and leaned heavily into Estelle. The lynx was surprised by this and
raised her arms momentarily. It was unprofessional to have undue physical contact with a patient,
but this still did happen from time to time. She took a slow breath and rested an arm around Mikaela
slowly and carefully, ready to withdraw if the smaller cat showed any discomfort. But Mikaela only
shuffled closer, wrapping one arm tightly around Estelle's waist while the other rested on her thigh,
still clutching the teacup that was thankfully almost empty. 'I-I'm sorry.'
'That's alright.' Estelle replied, remembering the lack of close friends the cat had mentioned. It
may have been quite some time since she had physical reassurance like this. Estelle felt herself
feeling a tad nostalgic as hugging the smaller cat reminded her of her own daughter when she had
been years younger. She tried to suppress the maternal feeling immediately. It was not good to let
oneself get this close to patients.
Mikaela let go after a few more seconds had passed, seeming embarrassed at the sudden burst of
emotion and taking a few more moments to compose herself.
'Are you alright?' Estelle asked. 'Do you feel ready to continue?'
Mikaela turned back to face Estelle slowly, trying to form words but only managed a few empty
mouths of silence.
Estelle decided it might be easier to prompt a question that Mikaela could answer rather than
trying to have her elaborate without a direction. 'Do you feel like maybe she blamed you in her last
moments? Does it trouble you to think how angry or scared she might have been? Or do you think
she might have felt betrayed?'
'No!' Mikaela replied suddenly, almost shouting the reply and catching Estelle by surprise. 'That's
the worst part. She had her phone with her. Said she wanted to record it for... later. But after I fell
asleep, she tried to call me a few times and then... she left a message instead.'
'Oh...' Estelle wasn't ready for this. Still, it was her job to try and help Mikaela through these
issues, and so she was obligated to know as much as she could. 'What did she say?'
Mikaela hesitated for a few moments before she slipped her phone from her pocket. She brought
up a screen and handed it to Estelle, then stood from the couch and stepped away.
Estelle kept her gaze on Mikaela for a few moments before looking down at the cat's phone. The
sight was not something she was mentally prepared to see. On the screen was the face and chest of
a young mouse woman from the camera of her own phone held up before her. She was completely
coated in a layer of clear slime, her fur and hair matted to her body and glistening in her phone's dim
light. Behind her, the undulating flesh of a stomach's interior wall also glistened periodically and the
rippling of a greenish tinted fluid could be glimpsed around the murid woman's naked waist.
Estelle's breath caught. She hadn't made it through medical school or university without seeing a
few internal shots of living bodies, but this was the first time she'd seen live prey inside a predator's
stomach. And to think, this scene had taken place inside the young woman standing just a few
metres away. Her own impulses threatened to overwhelm her senses and she felt her own mouth
salivating at the thought that this is what her own prey experienced. Thousands of murids and other
small folk over the course of her life had experienced this, and who knew how many more were
destined to face this inside her again before her own life was over?
No, no, NO! Estelle took a deep breath and shook her head. She had to focus. She brought her
mind back to the matter at hand and started trying her best to focus on the mouse, not her situation.
And that was when the lynx noticed that the mouse was smiling.
Smiling. Despite clearly showing physical signs of digestion and a lack of breathable air making
fatigue apparent with her body language and drooping eyes, the mouse was smiling. Alison made
sure to reassure Mikaela, saying she didn't blame her for this and that she had always known and
accepted the risk of their games and intimacy. She promised to transfer her money to Mikaela to
help with rent until she found a new housemate. And she professed her love despite how her life was
about to end. The smile made more sense by the end of the video. The mouse was not just trying to
reassure her partner. She was... enjoying herself.
The message ended, and Estelle understood. Mikaela wasn't struggling with any unknowns at all,
she was dealing with grief and an inability to accept that her partner made peace with her fate.
Estelle realised that as much as Alison meant well, her calm acceptance probably only made Mikaela
feel worse. Mikaela may have misinterpreted something here and Estelle needed to figure that part
out. She thought for a few seconds, trying to formulate the best approach, then realised there was a
simple question that needed answering first.
'When did this happen?' Estelle asked. 'How long have you been trying to cope with this?'
'About a month ago.' Mikaela answered. 'My manager at work said I could take some time, and my
university professor gave me an extension on my current project. But I still feel like I'm getting
nowhere.'
Estelle nodded, taking a deep breath before the next question and beckoning for Mikaela to rejoin
her on the couch. 'Okay. Now I need to ask this of all carnivores... Has this event affected your
hunting at all?'
Mikaela sat down meekly beside her and took a few short breaths before eventually nodding
slowly. 'I haven't hunted or taken any live prey since it happened. I want to. I think? But there's this
voice in my head that says I can't. I shouldn't.'
Estelle hid her concern and carried on with the conversation. 'Why do you think that is? Why
would part of you not want to hunt?'
'Because... she died. She died because I ate her and it felt so horrible to lose her that way.'
Mikaela's head bowed and she fell to the verge of tears once again. 'Anyone else I eat would be the
same. Not for me, but for someone! How could I put this kind of pain on anyone else?'
Estelle wrapped an arm around Mikaela as the young felid once again leaned into her. She felt
tears landing in her lap and squeezed a bit tighter.
'I never even met any of her family.' Mikaela sobbed. 'Or her other friends. But how would I ever
face them now? I don't know who they are. They could be any other mouse I meet out there.'
'You never used to feel this way, did you? Estelle asked.
'No...' Mikaela shook her head, slowly sitting back up.
'What about all the mice you've eaten in the past?' Estelle continued. 'Do you feel bad for them?
Or their families?'
'...I don't know. Maybe?' Mikaela shrugged. 'Sometimes I just ate whole families so there was
nobody left to be sad. Kids and all... Is that a bad thing? It never felt like a bad thing...'
'It's normal to feel empathy for someone you've become close to.' Estelle said reassuringly. 'Even
if they were someone you'd eat under other circumstances. There must be some you can think of
that you could have been friends with if you hadn't decided to eat them instead. Right?'
Mikaela thought for a few moments. 'I found a rabbit not long after Equality began. She was a
mother. Had kids that'll never see her again.'
'Didn't bother you though, did it?' Estelle asked with a small smile. 'Any more than those mouse
families?'
'No, not really...' Mikaela confessed, slowly giving a small smile of her own. 'She was so good. The
way she struggled and squirmed inside. Mice never felt that good. And she... she probably felt so
terrified.'
'Mhm.' Estelle nodded, patting Mikaela's shoulder. 'You know, I've had a few nights of bad luck in
my own hunting recently. And I gotta say, snaring myself a helpless little rabbit sounds pretty good.
Doesn't it?' While that was true of course, Estelle told herself that the real motivation behind sharing
this was to try and draw out Mikaela's own vulnerability and honesty.
Mikaela let out a brief hum of amusement. 'Like that guy that was here before me?'
Estelle grinned, but narrowed her gaze and looked back at Mikaela with a slow shake of her head.
'Now I'm glad you're feeling better, Mikaela. But I'm not allowed to talk with you about my other
patients.'
'Sorry.' Mikaela smiled but it was brief. As the sadness returned to her eyes and the smile faded,
she looked back at Estelle with a questioning, almost desperate stare. She still didn't have the answer
she needed. 'How can I feel so bad about what happened to Alison, yet so good about doing the
same thing to a complete stranger who probably had so much more to live for?'
'We already talked about that, remember?' Estelle replied. 'You felt empathy because you grew
attached to Alison. You won't feel that for anonymous prey you find on the street.'
'But I still feel so bad about this.' Mikaela shook her head hopelessly.
Estelle lifted Mikaela's phone back into her hand, beginning to fidget with the video as she replied
in as gentle and calm a voice as she could manage. 'You know, Mikaela. In the psychology field, we've
seen a lot of mixed race couples since Equality began. A lot of them are pretty straightforward. A
squirrel and a cat, or a weasel with a leopard... But there are always obvious power imbalances in
these couples. And it's usually the less powerful of the pair that instigates the relationship.'
'What do you mean?' Mikaela asked as Estelle lifted her own phone up to her. She had taken the
video of Alison's message back to a particular point.
'How often have you watched this?' The lynx asked.
'Almost every day.' Mikaela sighed.
'I think you missed something important.' Estelle said, resting a hand comfortingly on the smaller
cat's shoulder. 'As I was saying, in many of these relationships it's the smaller partner who instigates.
Usually it's a submissive personality, but not always. The point is, on some level they feel a deep
carnal desire to experience being prey. We don't fully understand it ourselves yet, but it's not all that
uncommon, we've found. The smaller partner, sooner or later, wants to be consumed by the larger
one.'
'You think Alison wanted this?' Mikaela asked, almost looking like the idea was absurd. 'It was a
game, she was just... s-she was just fascinated by the idea of... she couldn't have actually wanted...?'
'Look.' Estelle held up the paused image. 'What do you see on her face?'
Mikaela looked at the frozen image of Alison's last minutes. She recognised where the lynx had
paused the video. It was the part just after Alison had remarked on the risk, expressing gratitude that
it had been Mikaela that eventually consumed her and not some other predator. Her expression
was...
'You see it don't you?' Estelle said. 'That's the face of adoration. No panic, no fear or regret. Just
love. Maybe this isn't exactly when Alison had planned to go, but I can all but promise you it was
definitely how.'
'So your... studies and statistics...' Mikaela looked up at Estelle, still not looking fully convinced.
'You think Alison was planning to let me eat her at some point? Like, for real?'
'I do.' Estelle nodded. 'When these kinds of urges arise, the person in question knows it can only
happen once. So they want it to be special. Alison's love for you was real. But this is where she
wanted it to lead. She just... probably didn't get a chance to bring it up with you before this accident
happened. But even so, I can tell from the look on her face, her words. This is definitely how she
wanted to go. She was more sad that you weren't ready for this than for her own life. Watch the
video again and tell me if you think I'm wrong.'
'I've watched it plenty...' Mikaela took a deep breath. 'And... I think you're right. I just wish she had
told me. I mean, she did. I always just thought she was joking.'
'You missed the chance to prepare yourself.' Estelle nodded. 'And the chance to properly say
goodbye. These things can hurt, regrets and missed opportunities are some of the hardest parts
about life. But you have to stop letting them control you. Knowing what you know now, how much
she loved you and how much she was ready to give herself to you completely, do you really think
she'd want you to be this sad?'
'I know... but...' Mikaela came close to tears again, losing the rest of her sentence to indecision
and shallow sobs.
'The hardest part about this is going to be forgiving yourself.' Estelle explained softly. 'But
whenever you're ready, just remember that Alison forgave you as well. And of course, you definitely
need to go back to hunting. I can tell you that nothing good will come from trying to give that up. If
anything it's probably a part of what's making you feel worse than you should.'
'What do you mean?' Mikaela asked. 'I know we get taught that we shouldn't go without hunting
for too long, but is it really that bad?'
'Oh yes.' Estelle nodded, replying with a warning tone to emphasise how serious the matter really
was. 'All Vernite carnivores, whether canid, felid, mustelid, it doesn't really matter. All of us have the
instinct to hunt and consume prey. The easiest way to satisfy this instinct for an extended period is to
swallow prey alive. It grants the most visceral sensation, satisfies the instinct in the most carnal way
possible. There's no doubt about the cruelty aspect of it of course, but even that contributes to
keeping the urge down for longer.' The lynx was almost salivating as she explained this, sincerely
hoping the smaller cat didn't notice.
'Right...' Mikaela nodded, past experience all confirming the fact easily enough. Estelle was
relieved that she wasn't paying too close attention to her lapse in composure.
'Try to suppress it the way you are, and it can lead to all sorts of unhealthy coping mechanisms
that then lead to other complications.' Estelle continued. 'I've seen one case where a person tried
subconsciously to bury themselves in their job, working hard to feign the excuse of having no time to
hunt. They exhausted themselves to breaking point. Another stopped hunting for the sake of their
partner. Eventually they reached a breaking point, and... well, that relationship ended in a different
kind of tragedy.'
Mikaela nodded slowly. 'I think I get it.'
'In your case Mikaela...' Estelle began, hesitating briefly as she weighed the cat's ability to handle
the information. But really, the truth was the best way forward at this point. 'I think it's causing
depression. You've stopped hunting because of your guilt, and your body's withdrawal is affecting
your mind. This is making your grief far more potent than it should be and so you sink deeper into
this feeling that you shouldn't be hunting at all. You validate it by imagining your own grief in the
minds of your potential prey and their loved ones, but really you're projecting an illusion. That's why
your guilt doesn't exist when you think of prey you've already consumed.'
Mikaela stared blankly for a few moments as she processed the therapist's words. 'So basically... if
I start hunting again, I'll start to feel better?'
'I'm sure of it.' Estelle nodded. 'I think the core of this is that your grief pushed you to some
unhealthy coping mechanisms, and they inflated the problem by causing complications you couldn't
see or prepare for. I myself have gone just over two weeks without a successful hunt, and trust me I
am feeling it.'
Mikaela smiled again, a sight Estelle had quickly grown fond of. 'So that last session really was a
challenge for you, wasn't it?'
Estelle sighed. 'Let's just say, I think the both of us would benefit from a successful hunt, and the
sooner it happens for both of us the better.'
Mikaela looked down sheepishly for a moment before her next question. 'That... that's not an
invitation, is it? To go hunting together I mean?'
'W-what?' Estelle was taken off guard. Of course that was never the sort of thing she would do,
she always valued keeping things confidential and private within these sessions.
'I'm sorry!' Mikaela lifted her hands suddenly. 'I shouldn't have suggested that.'
'Why did you?' Estelle asked reflexively. 'I mean, not to be rude but most people aren't too keen
to see me outside this room. Confidentiality, awkwardness and so on...'
'Or the fact that you might eat them, if they're a rabbit.' Mikaela joked, trying hard to break the
tension she'd caused.
'Seriously though...' Estelle asked more calmly this time. 'Why did you ask?'
'Because...' Mikaela hesitated. 'The one person I used to hunt with is out of contact with me and I
don't know how to track her down. I guess I just miss hunting with a partner. And I kind of feel like I
could use the moral support. Maybe just this once. While I get back into the swing of it, you know?'
Estelle felt her heart give a strong pang of sympathy, another thing she usually tried hard to avoid
during these sessions. Understanding was one thing, but she had to keep her own emotions clear.
Still, she was allowed to have friends wasn't she? Mikaela was noticeably younger than her, but it
wasn't like either of them had much of a social life. Whoever Mikaela had lost touch with didn't
seem like they were coming back, and Estelle wasn't exactly a socialite on her own time. Aure and
Linda were probably the closest she could call friends, and they were work colleagues more than
anything else.
'It's alright.' Mikaela said, interrupting the lynx's thoughts. 'I'll make do. I'll make another
appointment with the lioness and see you another time, right?'
'Of course... although...' Estelle said thoughtfully. 'The murids have been clever lately about
catching earlier trains to avoid delays on the later ones. I was planning to prowl the second district
residential zone and see if I could snare a rabbit or squirrel instead. I thought I'd mention it. Just in
case you were open to the advice of a more seasoned hunter.'
'Well...' Mikaela shrugged. 'I guess I could consider it.'
