# HNTBL 74: Be Brave

By: TheDragonBoy

## Content

How Not To Become Lunch: 74 - Be Brave

Fiona followed her prey silently from an inconspicuous distance. He’d looked back a couple times, and perhaps even saw her, but she’d been sticking close to the dinner table and hadn’t been looking directly at him. By all appearances, she was only checking out what the rest of the banquet had to offer, or maybe going over to chat with another friend seated elsewhere.

Her pace tripled the moment her human target stepped through the doors into the northern wing of the mansion. Now out of sight of her quarry, she closed the distance quickly, but she paused for a moment at the doors before opening them herself. She wanted to get the timing right.

After a few moments, when she felt confident, the werewolf opened the doors and peered into the firelit hall. It was empty, no human boy to be seen. Just as planned.

She walked through the passage, leaving the music and chatter of the banquet behind, but she didn’t go far. She stopped at one of the first doors and turned to face it. She took one more moment to fully prepare herself- ears pointed and alert, tail stiff and still- before she reached out and opened it.

The Beatricias’ bathroom was particularly designed. It was architected with a small entryway; a very short, very empty hallway between two doors, with a supply closet along one wall. The design helped to further isolate the sound and smell of the inside, a desirous feature for privacy in a mansion occupied by hunters with hyper-sensitive hearing.

Fiona stepped into the small, in-between chamber, letting the first door fall silently shut behind her as she walked up to the second and… stopped. She stood there, primed and focused, and she waited.

She’d hoped it would be fast, after all, she was following a boy, but it soon became evident that her prey was tending to a longer task. But a good predator was a patient predator, and so she continued to stand and stare down the elegant door before her, knowing that her moment was soon to-

Without warning, the door in front of her casually swung open, silent on its vampirically-calibrated hinges. Fiona caught a glimpse of that familiar moment on a human’s face; that indifferent, collected countenance of a person just going about their business, followed by them suddenly focusing their eyes on those of a hungry huntress on the prowl, and their expression quickly contorting with shock and fear.

The werewolf took two steps forward at a measured pace, sending her prey reeling backwards through the doorway, but not quite so much as to make him fall over. She followed as that secondary door began to fall shut behind her, just as the boy in front of her decided to make a move for his defense.

She moved almost before he did, like she’d been impatiently waiting for the invitation. She grabbed his hand before it could reach his wand and held it there at his side, feeling his pulse between her fingers. His palm was still wet from washing. With her other hand, she brought a single, clawed digit to his lips, just as they were about to part into a scream.

“Shhhh…” she urged quietly; her wide predatory eyes fixed unblinkingly on his. A scream wouldn’t do either of them any good. She felt her prey’s tension plateau, held back just short of bursting out. She let him take a few shaky breaths to calm down, and when she felt confident he wouldn’t try anything immediate, she slowly lowered her finger from his mouth, simultaneously leaning ever so slightly closer. He watched her steady expression with trembling eyes.

Fiona let her tongue lull out of her muzzle as her jaws slipped slightly open. Holding him firmly in place by some combination of the grip on his hand and her pure predatory presence, she splayed her maw wider, flexed her taste buds, and squished the pink streak directly into the boy’s face with a delightfully flavorful squelch. Running her tongue gently along his features, she gave a long, slow:

*sluuuuurp*

Her tail wagged blissfully as she smiled, flavors dancing across her taste buds. She leaned back and sealed her maw into a satisfied grin, taking a tiny gulp.

*gurgle*!

She was getting properly hungry now, tasting all these prospective meals. She could just so easily… slide her gullet over this boy’s head and send him to her belly to be worked away into dinner. He was plenty tasty enough. It was truly tempting.

She looked deeper into his eyes.

…But… no. A meal in one’s claws was always tempting- and strategically speaking, usually the right call. But tonight wasn’t about hunting strategy, it was about having fun. And she had tasted better humans in attendance. She’d just have to make an effort to hurry things up before her belly got too impatient and she ended up scarfing down the nearest kid she could grab- especially considering the nearest kid would probably be Jack.

Fiona stepped aside, releasing the boy’s hand, which continued to hang limp in its place.

“You can go,” she said with a prideful smile.

For a long moment he just continued to stare at her, terrified and utterly dumbfounded, until he finally realized that understanding her reasons was far less important than getting out alive, and he took off. He crossed through both bathroom doors in less than a single second, and then he was gone, sprinting off to as far away from Fiona as he could get.

Good to know he washes his hands, the werewolf thought idly to herself as she stood for a short time in the satisfaction of a successful hunt. Can’t always be sure of a hygienic meal. Though a predator’s digestive tract was usually pretty good at killing off anything and everything that slipped inside.

Eventually, she turned around and stepped out of the bathroom, following much more calmly in her fleeing prey’s footsteps, out through the second door and back into the main hallway. She was halfway through turning toward the drawing room when a sound caught her ear- which in the vampiric mansion meant it was fairly close.

It sounded like someone was rattling a door handle.

…

“That was supposed to make me feel better?!” Harry asked in a hushed, rhetorical whisper.

“Well, at least you know she’s not going to eat you right now,” Jack offered feebly. “…Or me,” he added. “…yet.”. It sure didn’t seem like talking to Petal had helped make either of them less nervous. “This happens sometimes,” he justified. “Sometimes it gets worse before it gets better.”

“Worse like digestion?” Harry asked.

“Can I help you two with anything?” interjected a new voice, firm yet genteel. The boys stopped walking and looked up. They’d reached Mr. Belv, glass in hand.

“Oh, um… I actually came to ask about that water,” Jack replied.

“Here you are.” He handed over the drink. “Apologies for having to leave the table.”

“Oh, no, that’s okay. We, um, needed to step away.”

“Hm?” The butler asked as the marked boy took the glass.

“We weren’t planning on leaving!” Harry somewhat blurted out, remembering how the man had dealt with the pair of boys at the front door who’d tried to skip out early.

“Leaving?” Jack asked, confused. “No, we just needed a minute. Things were getting… uncomfortable.”

“How so?” the reserved mage asked.

“It’s just, there was this pred…” Jack trailed off, not wanting to sound rude.

“A lot of preds,” Harry found himself adding.

“No offense, of course,” the marked boy quickly included, this man was clearly allied to the Beatricias, after all. “I mean, I’m sure you understand, you’re human and working in a household of vampires, right?”

“Yes, I believe I can gather your meaning,” Mr. Belv replied without letting much on.

“I don’t know how anyone human could survive working in a place like this,” Harry muttered, a hand to his face. “How do you manage it?” It was more a remark thrown to the wind, rather than a direct question, and while it was somewhat crass and not well thought out, the butler mage seemed to appreciate something about it. Mr. Belv smiled very lightly as he replied.

“Personally, I’ve made myself somewhat indispensable,” he said, his tone still quite professional despite revealing a hint of pride. “The Beatricia family has dozens of rooms here with beds that need making, long lengths of corridors with hundreds of candles that need lighting and replacing, windows to be kept pristine, fertile grounds that need tending. A flick of the wrist, and skilled spellcraft can supplant what might otherwise take a dozen hands a dozen hours to accomplish.”

“You can do all that yourself?” Jack asked, impressed.

“Those duties fall to me for the most part, yes.”

Jack, only a few weeks into his magic lessons, marveled at the concentration and skill it must take to light a hundred individual flames precisely in an instant, to wipe clean rows of glass panes without breaking a single one. He’d seen Sarabeth and her parents; he was sure they had some high standards. He could only imagine the proficient use of magic required to meet them.

A thought crossed the marked boy’s mind and he frowned.

“Do you… mind if I ask you a question?” asked Jack, semi-reluctant but as politely as he could.

Mr. Belv paused to consider for a moment, but eventually nodded permissively.

“If you have skills like that… couldn’t you do something other than just… you know, house work?”

“Yeah,” Harry added, trying to remain respectful. “Couldn’t you find a better job somewhere safer?”

The butler looked at them both for a moment, wordless, and then calmly raised a hand and slipped it into the inner-side of his jacket.

Jack tensed for a moment, afraid they might have crossed some line and upset him, and he was maybe pulling out a weapon with which to threaten them. But what the man withdrew was no weapon. He revealed from an inner pocket, a small square of stiff paper; a photograph. The boys looked it over. Pictured was Mr. Belv himself, alongside a beautiful woman, surrounded by a handful of knee-high kids, all wearing cheerful grins.

“This is my family,” the man said, smiling slightly once again. “For my service, my wife and I have lived here well over a decade. For my service, my children are growing up inside a mansion more lavish than I could ever hope to provide. For my service, my loved ones are free to roam the estate almost as if it were their own, strictly safeguarded under the Beatricia family’s order by kin and staff alike. We are cared for, looked after and protected. And in exchange for all of this, all I am required to do is keep their home tidy, orderly and quiet.”

To Jack, suddenly it all made sense. This skilled mage wasn’t wasting his hard-earned talents away in a menial job under the thumb of some vampires, he’d managed to deftly secure himself the perfect, easy job to give his family the best, safest life possible.

“The Beatricia family are an honorable lineage,” Mr. Belv said. “They follow their word and keep good on their debts. My own family is a testament to that. All things considered, I am very grateful for my position here.”

“Whoa…” Harry muttered under his breath.

The butler looked over to him, expression unreadable.

“I mean- just- you gotta be brave to do something like that,” the spectacled boy clarified.

Mr. Belv considered the remark for a moment, as well as their position, half a room away from the vampire’s dinner table. He spoke his next words just a touch softer.

“May I offer some modest advice?” he asked Harry.

“Um, sure.”

“When it comes to the matter of predators, do not avoid them. Do not ascribe survival to the mindset that you can keep your distance, keep yourself separated, and keep yourself safe. In this world, there is no avoiding predators.” He took a pause. “Retreat when you must. But learn to face them. To live with them. Be brave.

“In either approach, survival is largely incidental. But you will live better for it.”

Harry looked up at this clean cut, imposing man, standing tall and strong inside the very home of a powerful family of vampires. His young eyes widened ever so slightly. A moment of silence passed before Jack gave his friend a firm nudge in the ribs.

“Oh! Uh, thank you, sir,” Harry said earnestly.

“You are welcome,” Mr. Belv replied. “Now, shall we return to the table? I’m sure Sarabeth and her guests are-” The man stopped mid-sentence, as if his words had smacked into a brick wall. Suddenly his eyes went wide.

Jack saw the mage grab his wand faster than a pouncing predator. Out of reflex he did the same and turned to face the direction Mr. Belv was looking.

What he saw was absolutely one of the last things he would have imagined.

…

Fiona turned around, her ears flicking as they did their best to pinpoint the sound in this strange acoustic setting. It didn’t take her long to find- in fact she was almost surprised she hadn’t noticed immediately; she must have been too busy savoring the remnants of that boy’s flavor.

But within a second or two, her eyes focused on another figure standing in the firelight. A small figure, short enough in stature that the little hands had to reach upwards on little arms just to touch the door handle they were fidgeting with.

It was a little girl.

Does Sarabeth have a cousin? Fiona wondered.

The girl happened to look Fiona’s way, and the werewolf saw something distinctive about her face. It wasn’t even the fact that her neat, flowing hair clearly showed her ears, no, it was that subtle, deeply ingrained, instinctive fear that crept into her little eyes when they fell upon a predator.

The girl was human.

“What are you doing here?” Fiona asked gently in response to the girl’s uneasy stare. She seemed far too young to be one of Sarabeth’s guests. After all, there was no point in inviting human meals who weren’t meal-sized.

“…I’m trying to get into our room,” the girl replied. She took half a step back at the sight of the unfamiliar predator. Her voice had the undertones of a confused, fearful child, but with a practiced, formal coating that held her together to the point where she sounded almost confident.

“Your room?” Fiona glanced at the door in question, but couldn’t really see it from her angle. She took a step forward, and then another, watching the kid. She had a fear in her eyes, but stood firm, remarkably calm. So Fiona continued at that steady pace, drawing closer and closer until she stood directly next to the child. The little girl hardly even moved until Fiona reached down to try the handle herself, and even then all she did was jerk her hands away- steadily if a bit rushed.

The werewolf tried to turn the handle and it rattled quietly. Locked. Looking at the door, there was a very clear sign affixed to it: a large red square. She recalled the instructions from Mr. Belv before hide and seek, this was one of those rooms they weren’t supposed to go into.

“Why won’t it open?” the little girl asked, hesitant and scared.

“It’s locked,” Fiona replied.

The child seemed to almost shrink, cowering a little, as if she didn’t like being out in this hallway and would have felt much safer inside- a place it was becoming increasingly clear she wouldn’t be able to reach.

“This is… your room?” Fiona asked.

The kid nodded.

“So you live here?”

The kid nodded again, and this time gave a single, quiet sniffle. Fiona looked down at this hip-high human and considered for a moment.

“…Come on,” she said eventually, her voice soft past her canines. “Let’s find someone who can help you.” She half-gestured back down the hall toward the drawing room.

“Wait,” the little girl squeaked.

Fiona’s head snapped back in her direction.

“…I’m scared…” she whimpered quietly. She seemed to know there was something going on in there. “Mommy and daddy said there were predators around that could eat me,” she told the predator that could eat her.

Fiona looked down at this little human, mesmerized for a moment by the dichotomy. She was so small and vulnerable, and yet she had a strength in her that let her look a werewolf more than twice her size firmly in the eyes, even when her own eyes were glimmering with fear.

The wolf girl crouched sympathetically to her level.

“It’s okay, I won’t let them,” she promised.

In response, the little girl reached her arms up and forward, almost like she wanted a hug. But she didn’t come any closer, she just stood there staring with sad, expectant eyes. Fiona was more than a bit surprised, especially because she recognized the gesture from when Sissy had been growing up. Apparently it was somewhat universal.

Fiona hesitated for a moment, but then the werewolf reached out her clawed hands and placed them, one under each little arm. She stood up, lifting the girl off the floor. She was so much lighter than any of the humans Fiona usually hoisted, and so much smaller…

Like out of an old habit, Fiona drew the child in close, cradling her in one arm. The little human girl silently rested her head against the werewolf’s furry, exposed belly, squishing gently into the thin layers of pudge. It was soft and warm.

Fiona smiled, though she wasn’t quite sure why, and took in the sight for a moment. The stray thought crossed her mind that this would probably have gone very differently if she’d decided to down that boy in the bathroom a second ago. But before she let her mind wander too closely to the subject of her empty stomach, she turned and started down the hall toward the drawing room door.

…

“Mr. Belv, wait!” Jack cautioned, making an effort to keep his voice down despite the situation. In the sudden moment of surprise and confusion, the one thing he’d settled on was Fiona’s face, a face he could read better than anyone, and though he didn’t yet understand, it had told him everything he needed to know.

The werewolf had re-entered the room, not with a teen boy kicking and punching her belly from the inside, but with a little girl quietly resting against her fur on the outside. Fiona was looking down at the child even as she walked forward, tail lightly swaying behind her. Jack wasn’t sure what he was seeing, but he was sure that he wasn’t seeing any slightest hint of the hunt in her eyes.

Whether Mr. Belv had intended to act immediately or not, the mage held his wand pointed at the ready, but made no further move after Jack’s words.

Fiona heard them too and looked up. She immediately set eyes on the intent, imposing mage, recognized the man as the familiar butler, and her ears and tail fell flat with a heavy mix of submissive fear. Not only did she not want to fight him- she knew he was a powerful spellcaster and he already had her pinned- but she also just didn’t want to fight; she hadn’t been trying to get into any trouble and she had no idea what she’d done wrong!

The tense standoff lasted for a long moment, there in the corner of the room. Slowly, Fiona put on a friendly, nervous smile, hoping to signal that she meant no harm. It wasn’t the clearest gesture, considering it showed a number of quite pointy teeth, but it seemed to do the trick. Mr. Belv lowered his wand, and the werewolf cautiously approached.

“Maribelle!” the mage called out, fairly quiet by normal standards, but remarkably loud and coarse compared to his usually calm voice.

The little girl with her face buried in Fiona’s belly fur turned her head quickly at the call of her name and immediately brightened up.

“Daddy!” she called back, wiggling to get free.

Unlike 99% of humans Fiona got a hold of, this one had a fairly easy time getting away, as the werewolf gingerly placed the kid feet-first on the floor. Maribelle pattered quickly over to her father and plastered herself around his leg in a hug. Her momentary escort walked up at a slower pace a moment later, and by that point the mage’s wand was limp at his side.

“I found her in the hallway, trying to get into one of the locked rooms with the red sign on it,” Fiona explained.

“Mary,” he breathed, half scolding, half relieved. “I told you you needed to stay with your mother tonight.”

“I just wanted to get Cera,” she whined apologetically.

“Your stuffed bat? I’ll get her for you,” he replied, placing a hand on her head.

He looked up to Fiona.

“Thank you for bringing her to me,” Mr. Belv said. His tone and his face made it very clear he was thankful for what those words didn’t say.

“Of course,” Fiona replied, still a bit surprised by all this herself. “I, um, didn’t know you had a daughter.”

“We usually live in that room,” he replied, referring to the one his child had been trying to enter. “But the northern wing was the easiest to prepare for the celebration, so we moved into a room in the southern wing for the night.”

A momentary lull followed his response, and he took the opportunity to make his exit.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to get her back to her mother,” he said. Nods of agreement followed as he bent down to pick up his daughter. But as the little girl ascended, she turned to look back.

“Thanks for being fluffy and not eating me,” she squeaked, showing a little smile. Fiona giggled at the innocence.

“You’re welcome,” the werewolf replied, smiling back.

Mr. Belv turned, obscuring the child from view, and walked off. The three of them, Fiona, Jack and Harry, watched them go.

… *gurgle*

Jack turned and stared at his predatory friend with shock.

“What!?” she complained. “Are you going to look at me like that every time my stomach growls!? I wasn’t going to eat her. I’m just hungry! I’ve licked like twenty kids tonight!”

Harry took a step away from the emotional, self-proclaimed ‘hungry’ werewolf.

“Ugh,” she grunted, looking over to him and rolling her eyes. That little girl was braver than you, she thought.

Originally Published: 8-Sep-2023