He growled and backed up. *can I kill her?*

The tall woman calmly heads back to the ballroom, dragging Skullio behind her. Her grip is tight- much tighter than it should be. She pokes her head into the room. "Ti Ti, dear, why are you still here in the ballroom? You should be getting ready!"

"Please stop calling me Ti Ti. Titania isn't that hard to pronounce." The leapord lady, apparently named Titania, sighs. She's trying to keep her tone calm, but it's easy to pick up on the underlying annoyance.

"I'm the queen, sweetie." The ombre lady smiles, but her smile doesn't match the sweetness in her voice. It's an empty, cold smile. "I'll call you whatever I like, Ti Ti."

He then pounced on the duo and snarled, *im gonna eat your hearts and make you watch while your still alive.*

He suddenly feels sharp pains in his arms, legs, and wings. His hands strike uselessly against the ombre woman, no longer his own hands but instead small, dainty paws.

The woman's voice, now louder and further above him, giggles. "You really don't know anything about leshi, so you little bird?"

"I literally told you that was the case."

"No you didn't!"

"I told you less than ten minutes ago."

"Nope! I say as queen that you didn't."

Titania sighs in frustration and goes silent. The queen takes this as a sign of defeat and giggles again.

He proceeded to bite the queens throat and rip it out, annoyed.

(Yeah, Ive been wanting to do that.)

He does bite her, but his teeth barely draw blood at all. His teeth are uncomfortably dull and flat. Herbivore's teeth.


Ava's laughing gets louder.

The leopard lady sighs. "You're a rabbit now. Not sure how you miss something like that." She walks over and casually picks him up. She's so surreally big compared to him. "I'll take care of him until he learns to behave, Queen. I'll turn him back to his normal self when he can stop biting." The second sentence seems a lot more directed at Skullio than the queen.

. . .

He wants to die now.

"Relax, it's not permanent." She sighs, gently stroking his infuriatingly adorable ears. It feels incredibly nice to be pet, but showing that would be losing so clearly he can't show that it's nice. The queen gets up and walks away, and Titania heads back to the throne, carrying Skullio carefully next to her waist. She gently strokes his head as she does so, her gentle, thin fingers comfortingly light against his new mottled brown-white pelt. "Try not to stress yourself out. You'll be fine if you stay calm."

He proceeded to bolt to find a way to die.

She simply catches him again, and holds him closer to his chest. "Hey, calm down! It's okay. You're okay." She pauses, and thinks for a moment. "Would you feel better if you were a different wild animal? I can't make you anything dangerous but I could maybe turn you into the majestic side of wildlife as opposed to the cute."