Many crunches pervaded the stuffy air inside Equius' vast and cleanly nutrition block and an unseemly silence seemed to preside over the minutes that followed. As he thoughtfully munched celery sticks and carrots, the blue-blood found the silence a trifle upsetting, given that his moirail was bug-eyed and staring at him from no more than two feet away. Nepeta was never this quiet for extended periods of time. Unless she was asleep or trying to disembowel and eat something.

Equius looked down at his palemate and sighed witheringly, not before snapping up the rest of his celery stick as tidily and primly as a female half his size. When he'd swallowed, he raised an eyebrow at her. "I do not particularly care for how you are looking at me right now."

"I'm not looking at you in any purrticular way!" she said in what she perceived to be a gruff tone, spoiled by the singsong musical innocence that he didn't buy even for a second.

"Gosh darn it," the blue-blood looked at her sharply. "Out with it, Nepeta. If you please, you're beginning to concern me."

Her tongue moved out from her lips and wiggled in the air in that sacrilegiously impudent way of hers. He responded by tossing his head like a hoofbeast and flattening his ears to show his lack of appreciation for the "100d" gesture. This type of inane back and forth could go on for hours if he allowed it to. However he could tell she was about to explain herself so he closed his jaw firmly tight and stilled his head maneuvers for the nuance.

"I'm just wondering why you never eat anything but that gross dry plant stuff," she said, wrinkling her nose at the remaining greens on his plate. She reached over and poked at one of the lush, succulent leafy stalks like a hunter examining dried animal scat. "Pounce said it wasn't good for you to eat these unless you're sick," she blinked up at him with a concentrated ray of pure and highly radioactive cuteness. "Do you always have a belly ache? Is that why you always make that purrticular face?"

He blinked back from the cuteness beam. Given his constant exposure, he was mostly immune. But sometimes, when he got the full brunt of it, he still got a contact migraines. He distracted himself by nudging his plate as carefully as possible towards himself, away from her grabby little hands. Unless he remembered to monitor his actions and remain calm, he would end up breaking everything—but thankfully Nepeta's presence, for whatever reason, aided those efforts.

"I've told you before that I partake in the earth's bounty because it is tradition and rather tasty if I might add," he paused. "This is not to say hunting is not a worthwhile activity for some nobility, but the way you do it on the other hand..."

"Ahppffft!" She slammed her hands on the table and fluffed up indignantly, hissing. "Pounce's style of hunting is totally noble, dammit!"

He only had to look at her for her to shrink a bit. "H33 h33, sorry—but it is!"

Equius raised up his hands in a gesture of –not submission- but perhaps leniency. It would not do to insult the honor of his moirail's lusus. "I was merely suggesting that it's not quite as refined as I would like, for my purposes."

She shrugged. "Well it purrcurrs me tasty meat purroducts, so who cares about refined?" she cocked her head and stated boldly. "You nefur get tasty meat so you purrobably just don't know what your missing."

I care about refined, I care a lot. He thought, his lower lip protruding indignantly.

"Nepeta, I don't eat meat."

"Well why not?"

"Because I don't like killing animals, especially not with my bare hands."

She blinked.

"Why not?"

"Because it's barbaric."

"Why?"

"Because-," having fully resigned himself to the next hour or two spent ranting, lecturing, and placating Nepeta's curiosity until she was bored and changed the subject, Equius hadn't been expecting the sudden irritating ping noise coming from his computer, all the way across the hive. He paused, looking at his moirail and asking an unspoken question with a rather desperate mental undertone.

It was rather rude to get up to go check his computer while they were eating together...

But her bright, mischievous eyes flashed back another possibility, the simultaneously best and worst possibility- but what if it's Gamz33 hmmmm?

Oh gosh. What then?

"If you'll e%cuse me..." he said awkwardly, feeling the urge to bite his own lip but resisting because he didn't want to burst it again. He twiddled his thumbs under the table and felt the beginning drippings of of premature sweat on his brow and at the junction of his neck and shoulders just at the notion that maybe possibly it could be that bumbling, (beautiful) idiot (highblood).

"H33 h33, you're e%cused of course!" she purred back, warm and understanding, as he hurriedly nodded and rushed off down the hallway.

Of course, he was far too distracted to hear the slightly malevolent nature of her giggle as he left the room. Sometimes he made the grievous mistake of underestimating 1) her cunning and 2) her skewed view of the world around her and how far she took that skewed view when given the opportunity.

When he returned, by now having toweled himself off (after working himself into a great fuss needlessly it turned out to be Pyrope, always picking the appropriate occasion to snipe at him in a way that was the most psychologically damaging), he looked left and he looked right and he looked under the table and on the roof (it was Nepeta), but nowhere did he spot his moirail. He checked all the rooms in his hive. Still no moirail.

The troll, furrowed his brow at the empty room and wondered if this was one of her elaborate stalking and pouncing maneuvers. While they were admirably clever on a technical level and ultimately harmless, in reality, he did secretly find them the tiniest bit unsettling. Scary.

"Nepeta?" Equius said to the silence, shifting on his feet. Then he added in a more lingering tone, "Anyone who happens to be crouching in my hive incognito is the most grievous of sillyfaces." No response. He'd have to up his game, which involved reaching up gently tapping his glasses further down his nose with the tip of his claw.

"...She is guilty of numerous sillyface infractions and will be tried in the court of sillyface law." Well that was that- she had to be gone, because if she'd been there they'd be arguing by now.

Equius walked back to his computer, planting himself on the seat and staring at the burning window on the screen, just a white square in the dark room. When her Trollian handle didn't flash, he dug one of his blunt teeth into his lip. Where had she gone? She obviously wasn't back at her cave yet. He sat for another minute in puzzled silence and it only took him that long to start worrying and wondering if he ought to go stomping into the woods looking for her. The moment that thought crossed his mind, he heard a soft scratching at the door.

He frowned and got to his feet, eyeballing the knob for a few seconds and trying to tell himself that if he reached for it and opened it as angrily as he wanted to, he'd most definitely pull it off it's hinges. So as painstakingly careful as possible, he managed the door open, not at all surprised to find his moirail beaming up at him from the mat. She was the only one that scratched to get in. However what he didn't expect was...

Oh golly gee whiz, that was such a lot of mud.

"Nepeta...how..."

He swallowed drly with a sense of dawning dread.

"And more importantly- why..."

She grinned a tiny half moon, two thorn-sharp fangs glittering on the edges of her smile. They were really the only bright things left besides her eyes. From nose to tail tip, she was just covered in dark mud and smelled strongly of frog-spawn infested creek-water to boot. Her coat had become an enormous abomination of drippings, tangled in wet ferns and unearthed roots, sludge sloughing off her sleeves and onto his lovely door mat (which said PLEASE GO AWAY, polite as per troll traditions) . Not only that but instead of answering his question, she closed the distance between them and immediately started rubbing the cool wet goo against his skin as far up as she could reach (his forearms) and immediately attempted to get as much of it as possible off her and onto him.

He drew back, shivering and wrinkling his nose in distaste, his mouth flying ajar to complain before she quickly started to shhh him, patting his forearms in quick succession like a meowbeast batting at a featherbeast. It was an infuriating gesture but for some reason, it always seemed to have the desired effect. Which was to make him too bewildered and indignant to do anything but gape.

"Don't look at me like that, sillyface."

"How dare you call me silly when you're standing there covered in filth!" He finally managed to say in a bit of a strangled tone, nostrils flaring.

"It's not just filth, it's cameowflage. I don't usually put this much on but with you along it'll be harder to sneak around. Durr!"

"..."

"I'm going to teach you the ways of the hunt so you don't have to eat those gross dry plants anymeowr. It's fur your own good!"

"I..." He disagreed with this situation so entirely, he wasn't sure what to address first. The plants- he'd start with that. "How many times must I explain that I am not eating plants out of desperation. I like eating plants. Don't you understand? My diet consists exclusively of flora as opposed to fauna!"

"But that's so..." she paused for a moment, unable to articulate it. "Weird."

Well, now she was looking at him as if he'd suddenly sprouted a third horn. Oh this was a perfect mess! Why wasn't there a word for this sort of thing? If only he had a simple phrase with which to label his food consumption habits, perhaps that would make her better understand his preferences.

Ah well, one could only dream.

And she was still rubbing mud on him while he mulled it over. Having finished with his STRONG arms, she was now attempting reach his face. However, even as she stood on her toes, she could not accomplish it.

He crossed his arms over his chest, thus muddying up his shirt. But at least it was a more domineering pose to make.

"Nepeta, this f00lishness has risen to strange and obscene levels. I will no longer tolerate it. You will stop this instant."

She frowned at him and hopped up, swiping her hands across his collarbone and leaving a trail of dirty paw—hand prints, her tone argumentative and not as all submissive as he'd hoped. "No I won't- you're going hunting with me!"

"Yes you will and no I will not."

"Won't and you will."

"Will and I won't."

"Won't, won't won't."

"You won't."

"Yes I will!"

She paused when she realized he was smirking, her eyes widening for a second, and then she balled her hands into fits and slapped at him angrily, knowing full well it was about as useful as striking a giant cement block. "Equius...I'm your meowrail and I'm concerned about your health."

"My health is just fine! It's probably better than yours-"

"I'm just trying to do what's best for you and you're being a big old jerk!"

"Nepeta, I know your heart was in the right place but there are no foreseeable benefits to dipping myself in wet dirt and wandering around the woods like hea-"

She tugged on his hands, now, not managing to move them but flipping her eyes up, flashing with anger- which he expected whenever her plans were thwarted but also a little hurt. "Come on, Equius... Purrlease? You show me how to do stuff all the time. I just wanna show you something useful in return. I wanna help you!"

Well...she...just...

Fiddlesti%

He look at Nepeta, then down at his mud-covered collarbone and then gently reached out to catch some of the mud traveling its merry way off her coat and began rubbing it on his face. Privately, it reminded him a bit of Juggallo make up, but he refused to acknowledge that thought on anything but an embarrassed, self conscious level.

"Very well. Hunting we go."

Before he could so much as blink, her arms were tightly wound around his waist, continuing her efforts in spreading the distribution of mud. She tended to do that hugging thing a lot and he supposed that meant she must enjoy it. But he couldn't fathom why, exactly. It must've been like hugging a boulder to her. He liked to chalk it up to women and their strange feminine urges but he didn't really know all that much about them so it was more of an educated guess.

She nuzzled her filthy cheek into his belly.

"H33 h33, oh heck yes, this is going to be most e%ellent!"

"You don't need to flatter me," he said dryly "I already agreed to go through with this."

"You'll enjoy it Equius, I purromise. Oh well. Purrobably not because you don't enjoy anything but you'll at least learn something! It's a useful skill. Not like rolepurrlaying (though I think you still need to give that a good try sometime!)."

"Well..."

In a direct mockery of his own pose, she crossed her arms over her chest and then reached up to tightened the barely recognizable thing that used to be her blue hat over her head. It twisted back on over her hair, which was drying in mane-like wild clumps of mud with a wet schulp sound.

"Well you just imagine if you were efurr in a situation where you couldn't find any dumb old plants to eat? What would you do then, huh, smartypants"? she said musingly, the tip of her tail twitching in time with her impish tone "Sit there and starve to death?"

He frowned deeply at her, drawing up his dignity. His pants were more than smart, they were gosh darn scholarly and he was proud of it. "No sitting would be involved. I would find and punch the living daylights out of whoever put me in that ridiculous hypothetical situation."

She made a disapproving sort of yowling sound under her breathe that he couldn't quite place in the category of sounds trolls should be able to make. "Punching doesn't solve efurrything!"

"Yes, well, it solves most things. And in the rare case it doesn't, I can always follow up with smashing."

"Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all befurr," she said dismissively. "Follow me!"

He allowed her to drag him into the undergrowth, his feet crunching poor plant life into dust under his heels and leaving big tracks in the mud, as painfully obvious as a gigantic bear tramping around. Nepeta must have seen them, but after all he was a new student and she wasn't about to critique him this early on. Once they were far enough into the middle of nowhere, she turned on him, putting her hands on her hips.

"Okay well, you're not going to be able to just punch something. You'd have to find it first, h33 h33. You have to sneak up on what you're hunting," she crouched down on her fours again. "You have to be stealthy like a furrocious rawrbeast!"

He just stood there.

"Well get down, silly. You can't be stealthy like that! Not unless you're trying to purrtend you're a tree."

"What are we trying to hunt, anyway?" he sniped back impatiently.

"I figured since you're a newbie we could start with squeakbeasts! They aren't furry tasty compared to nutbeasts or hopbeasts but they're really dumb so they're easy. They're the first thing Pounce taught me to hunt after all!"

Equius was far too pompous to be entirely self aware but even he could surmise that stealthy was not really a thing for someone who wasn't able take a step without it measuring on the Richter scale. However, he was also aware that Nepeta's eyes were portals both to the loftiest regions of paradise and the deepest bowels of Hades and there was simply no way he was getting out of this.

Somehow, with much encouragement on her part, he managed to wrestle his pride STRONGLY into submission enough to eventually sink down into the sticky dirt. However much Nepeta insisted this was a noble preoccupation, he still felt unspeakably low in a way he deigned to try not to think about too much because being muddy and sweaty didn't sound agreeable.

Nepeta mouthed something to him without speaking the words, but he couldn't really catch the message she was trying to send him. It was only when she started awkwardly shuffling around on all fours that he got the sense that he was meant to do the same.

When Nepeta did it, it didn't look terrible. Even though her joints and everything about the way her body was built was bipedal, like any other troll, for some reason something about her anatomy made this look effortless, even natural. It had to be something to do with being raised by a giant cat. And he had to admit there was a certain amount of grace and finesse to it.

His attempt on the other hand...was less than admirable. He was pretty sure everything within a hundred miles could ascertain that there was a stupid troll crawling around in the mud. "This is e%ceedingly imbecilic," he mumbled under his breathe, only earning a shhh and the tip of a muddy faux tail flicking into his nose.

He sneezed a STRONG sneeze that uprooted several blades of grass and awkwardly backtracked a little on his knees.

She turned on him. "Equius you have to be quiet," she hissed low. "Even though we're just purracticings stalking you're going to let evefurrything know your there."

"Nepeta I'm farily sure even the most 100dicrously incompetent prey will be able to steer clear of us if we move this way."

"St33r clear?" Her tone became milky and teasing. "Is that pawsibly a moobeast pun I hear, and also a rhyme?"

"What happened to quiet?" he said, pressing his thumbs into the earth below him in a way that was totally and completely non-defensive.

The agile troll twisted around and pressed closer to him, amber eyes glinting as she spoke in a whisper as if relaying some secret matter of worldwide import. "I can hear something shuffling around in those bushes. I think it's a poor unsuspecting squeakbeast waking up from his nap! I'm going to try to catch it and you watch closely, okay?"

"Ah. Alright. Of course. The best way to learn is by e%ample after all."

"H33 h33, okay," Nepeta let a somewhat unpleasant toothy grin spread across her face. "Watch how fast I nail this little guy!"

Equius felt a sudden twist in his gut and his words tumbled out as if he'd accidentally spilled them all over their conversation. "What do you mean e%actly by nail? Is that...meant to a100d to the action of driving a sharp object forcefully into a surface with a hammer?"

"...Huh?"

"What ...e%actly do you mean by catch? Out of curiosity."

She blinked at him, actually stopping mid-crouch to just stare blankly. "I don't...uh...what?"

Equius looked at the ground, at the stumps of trees, at his large muddy knuckles. Anywhere but his moirail. "Do you mean 'catch, catch' or 'brutally murder'?"

It was a squeakbeast. A tiny and crude, rather insignificant life form whose only thoughts were sniffing, defecating and procreation. Sort of like a lot of unscrupulous individuals on his Trollian list back home.

...Nevermind that the only things he'd ever intentionally harmed were non-sentient beings he'd created himself, that was entirely inconsequential. If he needed to, of course, he'd enact physical violence on something non-robotic. He was STRONG, a future Alternian conqueror, a future archeradicator. Kerfuffling was his favorite thing to do. He ate it for breakfast lunch, dinner and sometimes dessert if he felt especially "fuffly".

She snorted with a very pronounced lack of patience. "Not this again! It's not meowduring, it's hunting. It's purrfectly natural. It's the... the circle of life! You know like in my favorite movie. 'A Young Male Rawrbeast Prince Is Set to Inherit a Kingdom From his Wise and Loving Luus but the Jealous Rage of a Greedy and Highly Flamboyant Rival-'"

"Well...yes...I am quite aware of the ideas that film perpetuates," he immediately fell into a ramble, shifting uncomfortably on his palms. "It is the natural order of things... Just as the hemospectrum dictates the role the Mother had in store for us, the foodchain guides lesser creatures along the righteous path of their destinies, ushering them to the eventuality of their b100dy deaths. It's beautiful in a way, clandestine, fated-"

"Equius," Her voice was gentle.

" Don't interrupt me, Nepeta," The larger troll said gravely "I'm talking about nature."

Drawn to the unsteadiness in his tone like a fly to honey, his moirail nuzzled under his head, snuffling into his neck, and then, completely dropping the fierce, predatory facade, she arched up and let the side of her soft, filthy cheek slide along his own.

He never knew how to react to this seemingly endless fount of affection. It was absurd, unecessary and probably on some level he couldn't surmise at the moment a little immoral. He could not make heads or tails of it except for one irrevocably certain thing:

It always seemed to make him feel better.

"Y'know I'm not really in the mood for squeakbeast" She rolled her sleek shoulders in a lazy shrug. "I just ate some antlerbeast earlier and I'm pawfurrly full. I think I'll just catch him and let him go."

He knitted his brow and pulled away, his voice firm. "I really don't care either way. I'm completely ambivalent on the matter of the squeakbeast, antlerbeast or any other type of beast."

"A'course" she nodded seriously, and grinned, pushing her face right up in his and bumping noses just because at the moment she could get away with it. Her eyes glinted mischievously. "Because you know any troll who would care about a silly old squeakbeast would have a pretty gosh darn silly face."

He frowned and nodded his head sagely. "Of course. I would hate to be a party to such overly sensitive f001ishness. The sheer silliness of such a facial structure would require intensive plastic surgery I'm sure."

"Mhm." He could see the smile stretching her face in such a way that she wanted to laugh, but she was determined not to make any more noise than they already had. Nevertheless there was a rumbling purr in her tone. "It sure sounds purretty disgusting to me!"

"Very well said." he replied, his head bobbing in a nod. "100% Accurate."

Before he knew it, her face was replaced with her tail and he couldn't help but sneeze again, but she paid no attention to it, no matter how STRONG it was. She was in the "zone". The female troll lowered into a ridiculous, waggling crouch, her bright eyes on the bushes ahead.

"Now watch and learn!"