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Of all the ways Mickbell had died in the dungeon, he’d never expected this to be one of them.
Kuro was his best friend and his protector, his partner and his lover. Mickbell trusted him more than anyone, loved him more than anyone too. So how could he ever have anticipated a scenario where Kuro would harm him? Where he might kill him? Where Kuro might even potentially devour him? Because as Mickbell peeked up from where he was curled in the corner, his terrified gaze locking on the rows and rows of Kuro’s large, sharp teeth…
He knew that was exactly what was about to happen.
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“Hey, keep up, guys!” Kabru called from the other end of the hall, his bright blue gaze boring into them. “This area is labyrinthian. If we get separated, we might not be able to find each other again.”
“We’re coming, we’re coming!” Mickbell called back, giggling as Kuro snatched another piece of dried meat from his hands. He was riding comfortably on his partner’s shoulders, enjoying not having to walk himself, but also the closeness. Kuro was so warm and soft beneath him, and so happy to be around him.
Mickbell treasured moments like these.
“Just hurry up, please,” Kabru sighed before he turned the corner, leaving the two of them alone again.
“Do we have any more meat?” Kuro asked him, tilting his head back to stare up at Mickbell with his literal puppy dog eyes.
So cute.
Mickbell frowned, shaking out his food pouch only to accidentally scatter crumbs all over Kuro’s fur. Whoops.
“Sorry, Kuro, that was our last one.”
“That’s okay.” Kuro smiled back up at him. “I can wait for more.”
With that, the kobold picked up his pace, gently grabbing Mickbell’s shins to hold him more securely as he jogged down the hall to join their party. Except when they turned the corner, their party wasn’t there. Instead, there was a fork in the hallway. Two barely lit paths stretched out before them, not a single one of their friends in sight.
“Those jerks left us!” Mickbell shouted, grabbing onto Kuro’s ear with one hand as he pointed to the corridors in front of them with the other. “If they were going to pick a path, they could have at least waited for us. Or left some sort of sign to show which way they took.”
“Kabru did tell us to keep up,” Kuro reasoned, but Mickbell shook his head.
“Doesn’t matter! They still should have waited. We weren’t even that far behind. Can you sniff them out, Kuro?”
“I can try,” Kuro said eagerly. “But I’m going to need to bend down, so you’ll have to get off my shoulders.”
“Fine,” Mickbell pouted. He swung first one leg off Kuro’s shoulder and then the other before he twisted and casually slid down the kobold’s back like he’d done it a thousand times.
Which he had.
“Once we catch up to them, you can jump right back on,” Kuro reassured him. The consideration and enthusiasm in Kuro’s voice made Mickbell smile. He took a reluctant step back, already missing Kuro’s warmth as he watched him lower himself to all fours and sniff the ground. Kuro’s nose was talented. He could sniff out anything if he had the scent, and the only smells he knew as well as Mickbell’s own, were chicken and the members of their party. He quickly caught the scent of their friends and started walking down the left path, Mickbell following slowly behind him.
Very slowly.
Mickbell hated walking. His legs were a lot shorter than the other party members. Even Daya, who was the next shortest after him, had far more stamina. It was why Mickbell preferred to ride on Kuro’s shoulders, or be held by him. Then he didn’t have to worry about picking up his pace and getting exhausted. He could just enjoy the ride; he could just enjoy being with Kuro.
Luckily, Kuro was used to Mickbell’s pace. As they walked, the kobold noticeably slowed down his own, never getting more than a few feet in front of Mickbell without turning back to make sure he was still there. It was comforting, knowing Kuro was always thinking of him, always making sure he was safe.
Maybe not as comforting as riding on the kobold’s shoulders, but still.
It made Mickbell feel cared for. It made him feel loved.
He still hated walking though.
Mickbell put his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling as he walked; which he regretted almost instantly when he tripped over something squishy. Reaching his arms out to catch himself, Mickbell fell to his hands and knees with a quiet curse. The fall hadn’t hurt, he was low enough to the ground that they hardly ever did, but his body suddenly felt strange. He had a brief moment to stare at the strange mushrooms he must have tripped over before the air around him filled with purple smoke.
What the hell?
“Kuro?” Mickbell called frantically, gasping when the noise that came from his mouth wasn’t his partner’s name, but a quiet, high-pitched “Meow?”
Oh no.
Glancing down, Mickbell expected to see his arms and hands holding him up. Instead, he found short, furry legs that ended in two tiny paws. He flexed his invisible fingers, and the paws moved instead, little claws extending from them.
Those were his hands.
His paws now.
Oh no, oh no.
Mickbell wrinkled his nose and felt something twitch on his face along with the movement. He crossed his eyes and was just able to make out the long hairs that were extending from his cheeks.
Whiskers.
He felt his ears press back flat against his head. As a half-foot, he’d always had impressive ears, but they’d definitely never been able to do that before.
Oh no, oh no, oh no.
He had no idea how, or why, or what had happened, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was getting away from Kuro as fast as he possibly could. Because while his partner was usually sweet and gentle, that wasn’t the case when it came to creatures of the feline variety.
And Mickbell was definitely now some kind of cat.
Mickbell glanced over at Kuro nervously. His partner was so focused on the trailing their party’s scent, that he hadn’t heard Mickbell’s stumble or his panicked little meow. But he wouldn’t be entirely focused on the scent for much longer. And here Mickbell had just been thinking about how sweet and endearing Kuro checking in on him was.
Now it was more like a nightmare.
He couldn’t stay there and wait to be noticed; Mickbell needed to get away, and fast. Hopping out of the circle of mushrooms that were surrounding him, Mickbell raced down an adjacent corridor, going as fast as his stumpy legs would carry him.
He was running for his life, and from the person he loved most.
All so he wouldn’t be eaten by him.
Kuro was usually extremely calm, his behavior more human than animalistic, but one thing the kobold hated above anything else was cats. He could begrudgingly handle feline beastmen, but any actual cats he saw, he went after. He growled at them, sniffed them out, and had, on a few memorable occasions, even chased them down, barking like a mad dog while he did it.
Which hadn’t been fun to explain to the cats’ owners.
Mickbell had always been able to stop him before any cats were harmed, but how was Mickbell supposed to stop Kuro when he was now the cat? Who would do the explaining when Kuro tore him to pieces just for looking like a feline?
Who would comfort Kuro once he realized what he’d done?
No, Mickbell could handle any other death, but not this one. He refused to be killed by Kuro, for both his and his lover’s sake.
“Mickbell!” he suddenly heard Kuro shout. “Where did you go? Mickbell!”
Mickbell shuddered, hating that the voice that usually brought him comfort was currently making him feel so afraid. He continued to run down the hallway, but he was already growing tired. It would have been nice if whatever had turned him into a cat had granted him more stamina, but instead he felt just as exhausted as he would as a half-foot. The transformation had turned him into a cat, but it had kept everything else the same.
Even his cat form seemed to have shorter legs than the cats he was used to seeing.
Because of course it did.
“Mickbell!” Kuro shouted again, his voice closer than before despite Mickbell’s headstart. So running wasn’t working, and Mickbell knew he couldn’t fight Kuro; partly because he was a tiny cat, but mostly because he could never hurt Kuro.
Never.
So if fight and flight were out, that only left hiding.
Mickbell glanced to his left and then his right, frantically trying to find a broken piece of wall or an alcove that he could slip into, but there was nothing. The dungeon cleaners were too good at their job; the stone walls of this passageway looked pristine. There was nowhere to hide.
Could cats hyperventilate? Because it felt like Mickbell was about to, regardless of if his current body could or not. Stumbling forward, Mickbell moved along the corridor, hoping to maybe find something, anything, that could save him around the next corner.
Instead, he found a dead end.
And he heard Kuro’s footsteps even closer than before.
“Mickbell!”
He heard Kuro’s frantic voice drawing even closer.
With no options left, Mickbell tiredly stumbled his way to the far corner and curled up, turning his new, furry body into a little ball. That would at least make it easy for Kuro to swallow him. He focused on trying to get his breathing under control, both from the panic and his exhaustion; though maybe he shouldn’t bother.
His breaths were numbered anyway, he might as well get in as many as he could.
“Mickbell, where are you? Are you okay?” Kuro shouted again, and Mickbell could tell he was just around the corner, about to turn and discover him.
And then Mickbell definitely wouldn’t be okay.
“Mickbell!” Kuro yelled, and the sound reverberated in the small space that the kobold now shared with him. Mickbell curled up even tighter, trembling as he held back the little whimpers of fright that were trying to escape him.
He knew they’d come out sounding more like meows.
Mickbell could feel the vibrations from Kuro’s voice as he stepped closer. His footsteps were slower than he expected. Usually, when Kuro caught sight of a cat, he immediately charged at them. Maybe Kuro hadn’t noticed him yet.
“Oh.”
Well, he’d definitely been spotted now.
Of all the ways Mickbell had died in the dungeon, he’d never expected this to be one of them. Kuro was his best friend and his protector, his partner and his lover. Mickbell trusted him more than anyone, loved him more than anyone too. So how could he ever have anticipated a scenario where Kuro would harm him? Where he might kill him? Where Kuro might even potentially devour him? Because as Mickbell peeked up from where he was curled in the corner, his terrified gaze locking on the rows and rows of Kuro’s large, sharp teeth…
He knew that was exactly what was about to happen.
Mickbell cringed back against the dungeon wall,closing his eyes again as he waited for Kuro’s loud, furious barks to crash into his sensitive ears, for the press of those ridiculously sharp fangs into his furry skin. He hoped it would be quick, but even more than that, he hoped Kuro wouldn’t feel too bad once he realized what he’d done.
He hoped Kuro would remember him fondly, instead of remembering the taste of him.
At the first brush of something against his fur, Mickbell couldn’t help but let out a frightened squeak, only growing more scared as he felt a large paw dig underneath him and scoop him up around his middle. He kept his eyes tightly shut, not wanting to see as Kuro raised him up, probably to dangle him over his gaping maw.
Mickbell whimpered again, his tremors causing the sound to come out garbled.
“Don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you.”
The voice was Kuro’s, but he’d never heard Kuro speak to a cat before. Had his death been as quick as he’d hoped? Was he in the afterlife now, hearing the voice of the person he loved most? Even if that person had been the one who killed him? But when he peeked open an eye he was still in the dungeon. Kuro was still holding him with one paw around his tummy, which wasn't very comfortable, but at least he wasn't being held inside a stomach instead.
Yet.
He wasn’t being held above Kuro’s jaws either. Instead, the kobold was holding him just below his snout, looking down at him with his head tilted to the side. He didn’t look aggressive; he didn’t look feral. He just looked…confused?
“Mickbell, are you okay? How did this happen to you?” Kuro questioned softly, and Mickbell whimpered again, the adrenaline in his body sending him confusing signals. Was he still in danger? What was going on? Why wasn’t he dog-chow by now? But most importantly, did Kuro really know it was him? How could he possibly know that some strange cat was actually Mickbell?
Pulling him in to rest against his chest-plate, Kuro brought his other hand up. With no claws in sight, he stroked it gently over Mickbell’s back.
Oh, that felt nice.
“Meow?” Mickbell said, even knowing Kuro wouldn’t understand what he wanted, and what he wanted was to know how Kuro had known it was him. Except he shouldn’t underestimate his partner. Despite their differences, they’d always been able to communicate with each other.
“You might not look like yourself, but you still smell the same,” Kuro said. Mickbell tensed up again as Kuro nuzzled against his neck, sniffing before he spoke again, his words slightly muffled by fur. “You still smell like my Mickbell.”
My Mickbell…
Mickbell shuddered as he finally went limp in Kuro’s paws, his tense muscles loosening. He was safe, he was with Kuro; Kuro who recognized him, who loved him, who belonged to Mickbell.
Just like Mickbell belonged to him.
Family and partners and lovers.
“Don’t be scared,” Kuro repeated, holding him even closer as he continued to pet him. “I’ve got you.”
Mickbell meowed in response, letting himself rest fully in Kuro’s hold. His eyes drooped as the adrenaline faded completely, as Kuro continued to stroke him from head to tail. He was exhausted from his escape attempt, but the petting also just felt so soothing. He sometimes petted Kuro when he forgot himself, but the kobold had never told him to stop.
Now he could see why.
“But without my nose, I still would have recognized you.”
Mickbell snuggled closer at that, trying to hide the tears that were threatening to well up in his little cat eyes. How could he have thought Kuro wouldn’t recognize him, even in another form? How could he have ever thought Kuro would harm him?
He was usually smarter than that.
“Even as a kitty, you have short legs,” Kuro murmured, his finger poking at one of Mickbell’s hind legs. Mickbell gave a half-hearted hiss at the teasing, but Kuro only laughed. Mickbell could feel the vibrations of his lover’s laughter from his place on his chest.
It brought forth his own vibrations.
“You're purring,” Kuro gasped, suddenly holding Mickbell even tighter. “That’s so cute, Mick. I love you too!”
Mickbell was about to give his own, meowed declaration of love, when he started to feel a tingling sensation. Without warning, there was another puff of smoke and Mickbell felt his body growing, fitting against Kuro’s chest like it always did; like he was supposed to.
“That was…intense,” Mickbell sighed, wrapping his arms around Kuro’s neck even as his lover gently lowered him to the ground. He really did prefer to be carried, but it was good to stand on two feet again, to be held even more tightly by Kuro.
“You're not a kitty anymore,” Kuro said, a sad little whine to his voice.
“Did you prefer me as a cat?” Mickbell drew back to say, offended. “Do you like me better when I’m all furry, like you?”
“No,” Kuro said, running a paw over Mickbell’s head, petting him like he’d just done to his cat-self. “But I wanted to cuddle with you just a little bit longer. I’ve never met a cat I loved before.”
Mickbell’s expression softened and he leaned back in to wrap Kuro in a tight hug. “We can cuddle again later, once we find the others and stop for the night. But for now, we need to get out of here before what just happened, happens again. Unlike you, I’m not eager to repeat the experience.” While it had been nice to be held by Kuro like that, to be snuggled by him while he was so small, the fear he’d felt wasn’t something he was eager to re-experience.
Not that he would ever be scared of Kuro again, even if he did somehow become a cat in the future.
Kuro nodded and released him reluctantly. Mickbell wanted to jump back into his arms the moment they weren’t touching. He’d just been scared out of his mind, and his body was feeling exhausted from the experience. He, too, wanted nothing more than to sit here and cuddle with his lover. To reassure himself that he was safe, and that Kuro was safe, and that this wasn’t their final adventure together.
But they couldn’t risk being away from their party for that long.
“Okay let’s go,” Mickbell said, taking off down the hallway in the direction they’d come from. He was expecting to hear Kuro’s footsteps following behind. Instead he heard a faint hissing sound. Turning around frantically, Mickbell’s mouth dropped open as he came face to face with a half foot just a little taller than himself.
A half-foot that was standing in a circle of those same mushrooms that Mickbell had stumbled over earlier. The same mushrooms that must have transformed him.
“Whoops,” the half-foot said, his voice a higher pitched version of Kuro’s. Because this was still, unmistakably, Kuro. Mickbell would know him, no matter what form he took, no matter what he looked like.
Mickbell didn’t need a good sense of smell to recognize his lover.
His Kuro.
“Great,” Mickbell sighed, shaking his head with a fond, but exasperated smile. “Now I have to walk again.”