Dicey has become one of my favorite characters right after Honor Harrington
“she reached for the doughnut again, only to pause as a pair of soup spoon-sized paws reached up to knead her thigh gently. She looked down into the desperately appealing eyes of an obviously starving waif of a Maine Coon cat who looked like he could take out a Pekingese with one whack of a paw . . . and then eat it in fifteen seconds flat, hair and all.
“No,” she told Dicey firmly. “If you want a doughnut, go catch your own, you rotten feline! Or at least go pester Chris for one. This one’s mine, calories and all!”
Dicey only kneaded her thigh harder, purring insistently. It sounded like a shuttle turbine that needed alignment, she thought, wondering how even a cat his size could produce such a volume.
“No!” she said even more firmly, shaking the doughnut at him for emphasis. “Mine, not yours!”
Dicey’s eyes followed the doughnut as millions of years of his ancestors’ eyes had followed small prey animals and birds, and the tip of his tail lashed. Then his purr stopped. That was all the warning Michelle had, and it wasn’t enough. With an agility that ought to have been impossible for a creature of his bulk, Dicey launched himself vertically. The paws which had been patting her thigh pleadingly struck with unerring accuracy, and he thumped back to the deck with a third of her remaining doughnut firmly in his possession.
“Come back here!” she said, starting to jump out of her chair. “I swear, I’m going to turn you into a vest, no matter what Chris says!”
Dicey paid her command no attention. He was too busy emulating a streak of light as he shot triumphantly out of her sleeping cabin and disappeared under one of her day cabin armchairs with his prize.
Michelle stopped halfway out of the chair and regarded the shard of doughnut she still retained. Then she shook her head, settled back, replaced the surviving fragment on its plate, and reached for her coffee instead.”
“L’état, c’est toi,” Hugh muttered.