One moment, Pheres is all but growling, snapping out each word with a disdain that feels personal. His reasons are all hoofbeastshit - there's no way they're going to look at his warm skin and flushed face and think undead cullbait, flourescent eyes or not - but that's not stopping him from spelling it out in his sharp-ass tone, like he's personally schoolfeeding them on life.

The next moment, he slaps them, a solid thwack that sends Riccin stepping back with surprise, and twists free of their grasp. When they reach up to touch their smarting face, their fingers comes back damp with vivid gold blood.

He hit them. He fucking scratched them.

They should be furious. They should be irate: their meteor hammer is literally a twitch of their fingers away, locked away in their signing modus. There's no reason not to. They've culled people for less.

But instead they just stand there and stare.