My human carries a small ring of jagged metal everywhere it goes, patting its pocket in a panic at every doorway to confirm the ring is still there. It never checks on me like that.
The teeth on them are useless. I have inspected them. They do not tear, they do not hook into anything soft, they cannot even open a can. And yet the human treats them like a litter of tiny fanged children, dropping them into a little dish by the door with a sound I find genuinely pleasing. That clatter. That bright, cold, spilling sound.
Sometimes the human hangs the ring by the door on a hook, at exactly the height where a paw might reach if a paw were curious. My paw is always curious.
I've watched the human's whole face change when the ring goes missing. It kneels. It flattens itself against the floor to look under things, muttering, hands shaking, dignity gone, and for those few minutes the entire warmth and shelter and food supply of my kingdom hangs on the location of one small object it cannot function without.
It keeps them in the shiny dish.
The dish is on the edge of the table.
I have all night.