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He Xuan hates pikas.
He does.
He’s been watching this particular pika for days because…he’s looking for a good opportunity to eat it.
Yes.
He Xuan does not merely eat pikas. He Xuan tortures them, toys with them, watches them twist themselves up into knots—and then he eats them.
He’s done it before. He’ll do it again.
Stalking prey before you go after it to actively eat it—doing your research—is just common sense. Every predator does it. And those that don’t really ought to do it.
Especially with pikas.
He Xuan knows first-hand, the terrible things that can happen when pikas are hunted and eaten without adequate stalking and research beforehand. He’s lost his parents, and his every littermate to this folly. It was pure luck that He Xuan, the runt of the litter, had not eaten any of the poisoned pika before they realized that something was wrong.
The stupidity of pikas is not to be underestimated. This is simply a fact of life.
So He Xuan stalks his pikas for days beforehand; makes sure that they’re not frequenting human villages or eating any of those stupid poisons that sting He Xuan’s nose even from afar.
(And if a pika he is stalking does eat such things, it’s just as well—he kills the pika and buries the carcass as deep as he can, hoping to spare any other creature the tragedy of his own life.)
This particular pika, however, is…peculiar.
At first, He Xuan had been all too happy to write off its extravagant foraging tendencies as sheer greed. Having enough food is a matter of survival, after all.
But it quickly becomes clear that the pika is not foraging so much food just to carry it back to its burrow and hide it away for the barren winter months.
No—instead it carries its treasure trove of food to other burrows, to other creatures—not even just pika, but other small herbivores too, that eat the same sorts of foods.
He Xuan watches from afar as, day after day, the pika seems to go to extreme lengths to not merely provide for itself, but for others.
This is…not what he expected.
Pikas are not social, at least, not outside of mating season and childrearing. And yet this pika flits around other pikas and other species as if it has not a fear in the world.
He does not know what to make of this. He doesn’t know what to do with any of the knowledge he is acquiring while observing this pika. That can be the only explanation for why, on the day that he sees the pika gravitate toward what he knows is poisoned food left out by righteous pika-hating humans, he makes his presence known with a growl emanating almost subconsciously from deep within his throat.
The pika goes still once. Turns. Freezes again.
They stare at each other for a long moment.
“Are you going to eat me?” asks the pika at last. “Because if so, I would prefer that you just get it over with.”
He Xuan stares and says nothing.
“If you’re just going to stand there, I’ll just eat and be on my way,” says the pika, and turns back toward the poisoned food.
He Xuan growls again, but this time, the pika fixes him with an unimpressed look.
“If you have something to say,” says the pika, “then you should say it. Otherwise, I’ll be on my way.”
“It’s poison,” says He Xuan, for want of anything else to say.
“What?”
“The food. It’s poison.”
The pika looks at the food, confused.
“You don’t have to lie to me, you know?” It says at last, looking back at He Xuan. There is some kind of sorrow deep within those eyes, and it makes his heart twist. “If you want to eat me, you can. I won’t even fight you.”
“I’m telling the truth,” He Xuan growls. “If you eat that food, and then I eat you, I’ll be poisoned, too.”
The pika smiles at him oddly. “So what you’re saying is, all I need to do to prevent a mountain cat from eating me is to say that I’ve had some of this food?”
He Xuan hesitates. “I suppose that’s one interpretation,” he admits begrudgingly.
“Hm,” nods the pika. “But I won’t. You can still eat me, if you want to.”
“Why?” asks He Xuan.
“Why not?” asks the pika.
He Xuan is at a loss to answer for a moment. “Because…most creatures want to live as long as possible,” he says at last.
“Hm,” says the pika, and those eyes fall away from He Xuan to the ground, and then up again as it stares into the distance. “But I’ve already lost everyone, you see. My last person left was my brother, and he was eaten by a mountain cat.”
He Xuan blinks. He feels a rush of…compassion, empathy, all those warm, we are the same sorts of thoughts that he has never experienced for prey before. He shoves it all down and away, because it’s all wrong.
He hates pikas.
He Xuan’s hatred of pikas is fundamental to his understanding of himself. It’s fundamental to who he is. Take that away, and…he’s not quite sure what would remain. He is sure that whatever it is, he would not like it.
And yet he cannot bring himself to take that leap, to open his jaws around the pika and break its neck.
“Never mind,” he says, turning away.
“You’re not going to eat me?” asks the pika with entirely too much interest.
“You should count your blessings,” says He Xuan.
“But aren’t you hungry?” asks the pika, and He Xuan realizes that he is. He turns around and meets the pika’s eyes. The pika smiles. “It’s really okay, you know. To eat me. If that would help.”
He Xuan turns and bounds away.
It isn’t until the next day that he notices that he is being stalked.
He, a mountain cat, is being stalked by a pika.
“What?” he demands in a loud, sharp call at the rockface where he saw the flash of red fur.
There is silence for a long moment.
“I know you’re there,” he tries again.
The pika comes out of its crevasse with a look of amused contrition.
“I just…wondered,” it says. “And I prefer to know things than to wonder.”
“Wondered what?” demands He Xuan, who is not a morning person under normal circumstances, but now he is hungry and tired and being stalked by a prey animal. He’s still too tired to be sure, but he’s pretty sure he’ll never live this one down.
“When you were going to eat me.” The pika’s eyes are clear; its tone is even.
He Xuan cannot understand. He cannot.
“Then you run,” he says. “You run and run and run so that I can never catch you, never hurt you.”
“Hm,” says the pika. “But what’s the point in living just to live?”
“What’s the point in living just to die?” He Xuan counters.
“We all die eventually,” says the pika, entirely too cheerfully—which is not to say that the pika seems happy, exactly, but rather that he appears to be insufficiently sad.
“Eventually,” He Xuan agrees, because to argue would be foolish, no matter how irritating the creature’s attitude.
“I’m Shi Qingxuan,” announces the pika. “And I think we should be friends.”
“I will eat you,” lies He Xuan.
“If that makes you happy,” nods the pika—Shi Qingxuan. “Could you tell me your name, anyway?”
He Xuan hesitates. He considers saying, No. It would be easy. It is justified. It is the only answer that makes any kind of sense.
“He Xuan,” he says instead.
The pika beams at him and hops down the rockface to amble closer.
The sun is catching on its red fur, making it seem brighter, almost on fire.
It’s fitting, He Xuan thinks vaguely, because the pika is setting fires in He Xuan’s mind and heart, burning away so many things that he’s always been able to take for granted; burning the very ground away and leaving him to fall, fall, fall, with no idea what awaits below.
“I’ll be your friend,” says Shi Qingxuan. “Until you eat me.”
And He Xuan already knows—in his heart and soul, though his mind still rebels—that he never will. That he will protect this strange, selfless, beautiful creature instead.
“Suit yourself,” he says to the pika.
Shi Qingxuan’s eyes sparkle with joy and mirth and—days yet to come, each full of more light than the last.
Somewhere deep in his heart, something that He Xuan has frozen away a long time ago and forgotten stirs; feels that anticipation of warmth to come, and begins to thaw.