Gotham knew that the rain would come soon, so he was appreciating the hot sun while he could. His pink tongue protruded from his mouth as he trotted across the lawn, eyeing a particularly brilliant patch of colors not too far away. Somehow, the patchwork quilt of flowers had never caught his attention before, but with the sun brighter than it had been in a while they stood out even more than usual. Gotham wouldn't admit that he liked flowers, because they were girly, but he did like the little creatures that hung around them. The season for pollination was almost over, but a few bumblebees continued to make rounds through the garden. The boy liked the sounds they made as they traipsed around, bzzzz. He liked the things that lived in the soil, too, centipedes and rolly-pollies.
Reaching the garden, he patrolled its edges, giving each plant a good stare as he passed it by. All the dirt loving creatures had scuttled into the dirt to hide from the sun, and the butterflies and bumblebees were floating deeper in the garden. But, there was one creature that wasn't hiding from Gotham's royal eyes. It was a little green caterpillar, munching on the edge of one of the leaves. The boy stopped immediately, turned to face it, and sat down. He didn't say a word, intrigued by the way the little insect's antennae wiggled as it chewed tiny pieces of the leaf. It seemed to be enjoying his meal quite a bit, and Gotham thought, If it's good enough for the caterpillar, then... Tentatively, he stuck out his neck to reach for a leaf adjacent to the one the bug was munching on. His paws stayed in the same spot, and though he could barely reach the leaf he didn't budge them. He felt almost a little like he was doing something wrong, his ears folded back sheepishly as he nibbled the edge of a leaf with his tiny baby teeth. He was shredding the leaf a little, but couldn't taste what he was eating, so he shuffled his front paws forward the slightest bit to take a bigger bite. The leaf was surprisingly resilient, and Gotham thought that the caterpillar must be really strong to bite it off! The ebony boy could think of only one solution; he craned his neck as far forward as he could make it go, and put the entire leaf in his mouth. It itched his tongue, but he ignored the feeling, intent on discovering what it was like to be a caterpillar.
There was something preventing him from biting it off, though, a sudden thought. This was an entire leaf he was taking from whatever bugs might want to eat it, and bugs were his friends. Gotham didn't need to eat the leaves, but all the little insects did! It didn't seem fair for him to take it. He continued to think through these thoughts, his eyebrows furrowing with disappointment in his lack of foresight, worried about how the little bug parents would feed their little bug babies. The leaf, in the meantime, remained almost unharmed, though drowning in saliva, in his mouth. Though the tension the puppy had created was pulling the flower toward him a little, the caterpillar continued to munch happily. Gotham remained fixed with indecision.