I haven’t really seen this concept anywhere before (let me know if you have). This isn’t about a tiny who eats giants, but rather a tiny who eats other tinies.
Content: fatal, unwilling prey,
Imagine there’s a giant who finds a borrower hanging around their home, and so they capture it to keep it safe. They’ve always wanted to have a tiny, they know everything they need, they’ve got a nice little enclosure set up. And yeah their borrow friend doesn’t talk to them, and bites them sometimes when they try to pick it up, but it’s fine they haven’t known each other for that long.
One of the giant’s friends who also has a (more friendly) borrower suggests that they let the two meet. The giant considers warning them about their borrower’s antisocial behaviour, but they decide it probably won’t be an issue. It makes sense that a tiny would be aggressive towards a giant who would pose a threat, but being around their own kind should be fine, and they probably would appreciate the company.
So the two borrowers are placed in the same enclosure, and since they seem to get along, they’re left alone together for a little while.
When the giants return to check in, they find both of the borrower’s are gone.
They panic and start looking all over for them, but there’s no hope. The borrowers aren’t responding to their calls, and there is no trace of either one anywhere. They must have ran off together, is their conclusion.
The giant’s friend doesn’t want to give up, but eventually they leave without their borrower. After their friend leaves, the giant returns sullenly to the abandoned enclosure…
only to find that it has not been abandoned. Their borrower has reappeared, seemingly out of nowhere. It sits on a wooden toy chair, resting their hands on an engorged stomach.
It takes the giant a moment to realise what’s happened, and even still, they can’t believe it. They are distraught; horrified. But then, their borrower speaks to them for the first time:
“You finally fed me. And it was a good meal. If you plan on doing it again, I might stick around.”
“No- you weren’t supposed to eat them! You have to spit them out right now-”
“It’s too late for that now,” the borrower croons, “but it’s okay, your friend doesn’t have to find out about this. You don’t have to tell them, you can just say that you never found us. If you let me go, you won’t have anything to worry about.”
“Let you go?” The giant scoffed, “you’re obviously a danger to other borrowers, how could I let you go?”
“What are you going to do, kill me? And you expect to befriend another borrower afterwards? How could you be able to befriend another borrower after you’ve already killed one? Would you tell them what you’ve done? Or would you just keep it a secret? What do you think they would do if they ever discovered what you’ve done?”
The borrower paused to pick at their teeth, “and another thing, why are you even surprised? You had to have realised that I’m not a regular borrower. You me alone, hungry, with prey species, and you get upset when I eat? And why are you upset? Do you kill a spider when it catches a fly?”
“I’m not- I’m not going to kill you,” the giant said, exasperated.
“Well if you’re not going to kill me, and you’re not going to let me go, then you’ve decided to keep me. And if that’s true, then you have to feed me better. I can't live off of your table scraps. I need something.. Like this.” they gesture to their well fed belly.
The giant can’t believe that they managed to find the most sinister borrower ever. They didn’t want this, they just wanted a nice tiny just like their giant friend had, but now their friend’s tiny had become a meal.
This was a different type of borrower, one that the giant had never heard of. They wondered if anyone else knew about this species
“You do talk a lot.” The giant said eventually
The borrower laughed a little, “only when I have something to say.”
“Okay so, I’ll let you stay, and… I guess I’ll feed you,, you know. But- in exchange, you have to tell me about yourself. Like, what are you? I thought I knew everything there was to know about borrowers, but then… there’s you.”
The borrower smiled, and told the giant everything they wanted to know.