Chapter 97: Little Tangerine

Uriel shot up from the stone. He pointed at the orange fluffball in Galatina's lap. His hand shook so hard it blurred, his mouth opening and closing in complete silence.

Galatina glanced up at him. "What's wrong?"

She looked mildly puzzled, but her hands hadn't stopped moving. Her pale fingers traced slow, clockwise circles under the orange fluffball's chin. The notorious Veteran Roundhead Tiger didn't even lift an eyelid. It rumbled steadily in her lap, half-lidded and utterly content. Its tail hung over her knee, swaying left and right, occasionally sweeping across her wrist.

"You know what that is, right?" Uriel finally squeezed the sentence out, voice compressed to the lowest possible register, his pointing finger still trembling.

Galatina paused and looked up at him with the most innocent eyes imaginable. Then she slid both hands under the tiger's front legs and lifted it, the same way you'd pick up a house cat from the couch.

Its hind legs and tail drifted in the air. Its round head swiveled left and right. It did not appear offended in any way.

"This little one?" She held it up to eye level, her tone bright and unbothered, like she was introducing a neighbor's pet. "This is Little Tangerine."

Uriel's face did something complicated.

His left eyebrow climbed nearly to his hairline. His right eyebrow pressed flat. His entire expression achieved a kind of asymmetry that bordered on abstract art.

Little Tangerine. That is the most aggressively wholesome, most deeply Mom-brained name I have ever heard.

The Veteran Roundhead Tiger is named Little Tangerine.

Galatina didn't appear to notice. She settled the tiger back into her lap and smoothed down its orange fur, then addressed it directly in the tone a kindergarten teacher uses on a child who'd grabbed someone's crayon.

"Little Uri didn't throw you on purpose, okay? He just didn't know you were a good boy yet. Next time we play together, we say hello first. Can you remember that?"

Then she raised her head and turned the exact same gentle tone on Uriel.

"Little Uri, if you want to throw someone around and play like that again, you should really build up a friendship first. Otherwise Little Tangerine might think you're being mean."

Uriel stared at her.

In his mother's understanding of the universe, the desperate scramble to yeet a Gold-tier monster into the undergrowth just to stay alive for survival purposes was apparently a game of reckless, unsupervised cat tossing.

He stood there and conducted a brief, intense, and entirely unproductive internal debate. Then he gave up, walked back to the stone seat, and sat down. His knee ended up roughly half a body-width from Galatina's. Little Tangerine was curled in her lap, round head resting on her knee. It glanced up at him from that angle, expression unreadable.

Looking at that ridiculous round head, with his mom right there, some part of Uriel's brain short-circuited. He reached out his right hand and moved it toward the orange fur on instinct.

His fingertip was still half a foot away.

Little Tangerine's right forepaw came up. Uriel couldn't track the movement — he caught only a blurred orange streak, driving straight for his wrist.

Pak.

Total stillness.

Galatina's hand was already in the air. It closed gently around the paw, palm wrapping steadily over the extended claws, redirecting it away from Uriel's fingers. Her other hand reached up and tapped the tiger lightly on the nose.

"No, no. Hitting people like that hurts them."

Uriel's hand froze in mid-air.

Then at Little Tangerine's paw, still resting in Galatina's palm, its claws retracted now but visibly reluctant to stay that way. A cold breath moved through him.

Retracted, the paw looked soft and harmless. But he had just personally witnessed the switch from dozing contentedly to fully extended claws in real time. Zero frames. No windup. Ten times speed. He finally understood what that description actually meant.

If Galatina hadn't caught it, his hand would currently have four neat holes punched straight through it. If he'd been unlucky, he might not have a hand.

He pulled his arm back and put it behind him.

Galatina, meanwhile, shifted the tiger toward him. She held up Little Tangerine's paw and extended it in his direction, smiling pleasantly.

"Come on. Little Uri and Little Tangerine should shake on it. Then we can all move past this."

Uriel stared at the fuzzy paw hovering inches from his face. He swallowed.

Little Tangerine opened its mouth and produced a slow, theatrical yawn. Its tongue curled out, and two rows of teeth came into full view. The length and sharpness absolutely earned the tiger in its name.

Yawn finished, it snapped its mouth shut. It watched Uriel through half-lidded eyes. The paw Galatina was holding didn't struggle. It just hung there, completely limp, waiting.

Uriel looked at the cat. Then at his mother. Galatina watched him with a smile of total, uncomplicated warmth, exactly like a young mother encouraging two toddlers to make up after a scuffle.

Well. She's right here. What's actually going to happen.

He reached out and took the paw. The paw pads felt the same as any kitten's. Just slightly larger.

He shook it twice, stiffly. The tail swayed twice in sync.

Galatina gave a satisfied nod, separated the two of them, and set Little Tangerine back on her lap. The tiger rolled immediately onto its back, exposing a patch of lighter-colored belly fur, four paws in the air. Apparently bearing no grudges.

"It really is the sweetest thing," Galatina said, scratching the exposed belly.

Little Tangerine. The name really does have her fingerprints all over it.

Uriel watched the tiger lie there with its stomach in the air, completely unguarded, and something clicked into place.

"Mom. Can I ask you something?" He kept his voice low. "Roundhead Tigers — are they actually misunderstood? Like, maybe they're naturally friendly, they just don't know their own strength, so they hurt people by accident, and at some point someone wrote it up as ambush predation behavior?"

Galatina's hand kept moving over the belly fur. She tilted her head toward him, something briefly flickering in her eyes. Then she smiled.

"No."

She lifted Little Tangerine upright on her knee, both hands steadying its front legs. The tiger found its balance and shook its head, ears smacking against its skull from the momentum.

"Little Tangerine is just a good boy. Any other Roundhead Tiger — the moment you threw it into those bushes, it would have come straight back and torn you apart."

Uriel heard the gentlest possible voice describe his own near-dismemberment and slowly leaned back an inch.

He looked down at Little Tangerine. The tiger was using its hind leg to scratch its own ear. Two scratches, then it stopped and licked its paw. Licked its paw, then scratched its head. It noticed him staring and tilted its round head to one side.

The expression wasn't hostile. It wasn't friendly either.

"So." Uriel said slowly. "What I was carrying earlier wasn't a cute little kitten. It was the one individual in the entire Roundhead Tiger species that doesn't eat people."

"That's one way to put it." Galatina nodded and pulled Little Tangerine back into her arms. "It just has a very mild temperament. Any other one, and Mom would never have let you play with it like that."

Little Tangerine yawned again. This one ended in a small, soft mew — boneless and barely audible, nothing like the roar from the adult below that had bounced rocks across the cavern floor.

Uriel picked up his spoon and dug out a piece of pork from the pot.

He pulled a small strip of meat free and held it out in his palm. Little Tangerine sniffed it, brought its face down and crunched through it, then looked away. Its tail made one slow circuit around Uriel's wrist.

The gesture said, clearly: Offering accepted. You're dismissed.