Starvation blurred my vision when a crimson comet streaked across the cave mouth.
Instinctively, I snapped—only to clamp empty air.
Not a berry. A fox. Fluff like condensed skyfire.
"Scram," I rasped, waving a limp paw. "No snacks here."
She stayed. Observed my pathetic heaps for hours as stomach acid devoured my spine.
Can't eat raw. Can't eat alive. Can't eat bloody.
My demise seemed inevitable. Maybe death's the express ticket home.
At dawn, she returned. Something round and purple bounced off my nose.
Grapes.
Tears slicked my whiskers as sweetness exploded on my tongue. Edible! Gloriously edible!
Celia—for that was her name—became my forager. Berries, wild apples, even roots I couldn't name piled before me.
"Herbivorous tiger?" She tilted her head, tail flicking in amusement. "Now that's a cosmic glitch."
I swallowed the confession about cooked meat requirements. High-maintenance predators get abandoned.
So the deal stood:
Celia kept my titanium stomach filled.
I became her living fortress.
Predator and prey, rewritten.