In the wild, the top-dog position was never a secure one; that sort of absolute defeat went entirely against their challenging nature. The idea of the tattoo, of an indelible mark of ownership, had been a uniquely human twist. Even if Char had managed to reclaim his place on the totem pole, he'd still bear that reminder of his own frailty on his shoulder.

Of course, even that much relied on Char being able to actually do that in the first place. Just... take a second to imagine Char beating Max in hand-to-hand combat. ...Are you done laughing yet? No? Give it a second... Okay. Yeah. Definitely not a likely thing at all. Max simply did not lose ever, especially not to runts. Under better circumstances, such an insurmountable challenge might appeal to Char's competitive nature, but with the way things stood, it was hard to feel much more than... well, a vague sense of futile apathy.

The ghost of a touch brought his gaze back down to Bulba. There was another nagging little tail-end of a thought that he'd stepped on before it had a chance to fully form: would this have stung so much if he hadn't been friends with Max? He hadn't been happier during his days of a biting, mistrusting Charmeleon by any stretch of the imagination, but there hadn't been this unnatural obligation to lean on others. He could have avoided a lot of heartache if he'd taken that one little step differently, maybe, but that wasn't a road he could turn down anymore, was it?

"Like what?" Char asked Bulba, a hint of a humorless little self-deprecating smile on his face. "Kinda hard to twist this into anything but gettin' branded, ain't it?"