There are those who say that dustcats are foolish, thoughtless creatures. Annoying sometimes, but not malicious. This sort of thing is generally said by the kinds of people who believe in their hearts that humans are better than other entities. Only humans are capable of the kind of complex thought that makes deliberate malice possible. Only humans can be evil, because only humans understand the concept of evil and can choose.

Do the dustcats know? Do they know when they go through your kitchen and knock every jar from the shelf that they are doing you a great disservice? Of course knocking things over is always fun, but they are more careful with the possessions of people who have been kind to them. Violently evict a dustcat from your kitchen and there is every chance that they will come back for revenge.

Do they know about how rare it is to find salvageable spices in a shipwreck? Do they guess the amount of work it takes to find and process bits of local plant that are tasty and probably won’t kill you? Have they thought about it? For the people who imagine that dustcats are foolish things, living only by instinct, it may be hard to imagine the forms dustcat anger could take.

All that fine ground kitchen spice. It’s a lot like dust really, and is easy to suck up. 

Only people who have seriously upset a dustcat get to experience the ‘blow’ options that the cats have. What is taken in through the tongue can also be released through the tongue. It is a terrible misuse of precious spices to snort them up and spit them out in this way. It’s also a very effective form of assault.

Almost as if they understood that they had been called thoughtless and foolish. Almost as if they were making a deliberate point.