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“It’s just- how can you live in a dragon’s stomach, and like it?” Max asked.
“…I don’t know, I just think it’s nice,” Lily replied after a moment of thought.
“You think a dragon’s stomach is ‘nice’?” he asked in disbelief.
“Mm-hm,” she answered innocently with a nod.
“But- but- how? Why?” he asked. Max had sort of known all this before, but he had never directly questioned the girl about her arrangement, and her happy, straightforward replies seemed practically crazy to him. Lily thought for another moment on his question.
“Well, it’s just kinda-… it’s, uh…” She frowned for a moment at the thoughts that she couldn’t quite put into words. “Hold on,” she said.
Lily walked over to Mallow. The dragoness had been lying rather lazily nearby, but perked up when she noticed her little snack coming over. The girl motioned for Mallow to come closer, so the dragon brought her head over and tilted a cavernous ear in Lily’s direction. As Lily whispered, the look on Mallow’s face quickly shifted from boredom to interest, she even cracked a small, rather devious smile. If that wasn’t suspicious enough, she then brought a wing around to block out her words as she began to reply in the lowest voice she could manage. A few moments later the wing withdrew, and Lily walked back over with her usual, cheery smile.
“What was that?” Max asked.
“Well, I don’t really know how to say why I like it inside Mallow so much, so I thought if I showed you then maybe you could figure it out. But I wanted to ask Mallow if she was okay with it first; she thinks it’s a great idea.”
“Wait, ‘show me’?” Max tensed up, remembering the smirk on the dragoness’ face.
“Yeah,” she replied, then noticed the color starting to drain from his face. “Don’t be scared! Mallow said she would let you take your time and be extra gentle.”
Max didn’t reply, but his mind whirred. He tried his best to think rationally. He had seen Lily get swallowed a number of times before, and obviously she was still okay; not to mention he had even been inside Mallow’s belly before himself. But he had been so terrified that he had passed out, and that was before his traumatizing incident with Rust. The idea of being eaten again chilled him to his core.
“You’re smart to be afraid.” Mallow’s voice pulled the boy out of his head and he looked over at her. The dragoness still wore that faint smirk on her scaly face, but at the same time there was a definite sympathy in her eyes and in her voice. “My belly is not a safe place for my prey. But I have no intention of making a meal out of you. You are not prey today, you’re a guest. Besides, you’re Lily’s only human friend and I’m sure she’d be quite upset with me if I did anything but keep you safe.”
Something in her gaze took the edge off ever so slightly. And even though he trusted Lily pretty well, hearing Mallow herself promise to keep him safe went a long way. He glanced over at Rust. The dragon had picked up on the conversation and was now watching intently with a skeptical expression. His scaly friend seemed more interested in whether or not he would go through with this than in his safety. Perhaps he should take the dragon’s lack of concern as a sign that he wasn’t in any real danger? Then again, Rust had never been overly protective. He turned back to Lily.
“Alright,” Max said nervously. Lily’s face brightened up. She grabbed his hand and led him firmly up to Mallow where she lay.
The dragoness glanced at each of them in turn, and then parted her massive maw before them, letting the end of her lower jaw press down into the ground and revealing her cavernous, red interior. Lily, quite accustomed to this, hardly even blinked as the dragoness’ warm breath wafted over them, but Max’s heart skipped a beat as he gazed on into the dripping, fleshy depths.
That moment seemed awfully long for Max, but it ended suddenly as he noticed the dragon’s massive tongue begin to move. He stared nervously as it began to creep forward, slipping up and over the numerous pointed teeth and slowly sliding its way past the dragoness’ jaws. For a split second, he almost expected it to reach out and grab them- wrapping around their bodies and pulling them inside- but instead its broad tip simply came to rest in the dirt at their feet; an innocuous red carpet, welcoming them inside. He took a deep breath; it seemed Lily had been telling the truth when she promised Mallow would take things slow.
He felt Lily release his hand, but he didn’t look away. A second later, he almost jumped as the girl suddenly sprinted past him, leaping enthusiastically off the ground to land with a wet splat on Mallow’s massive tongue, sending tiny ripples throughout the wet muscle. Quickly recognizing the familiar taste, the dragoness curled the tip of her tongue back, bringing it up to where the girl had landed. Just as the little girl turned over she was greeted by the eager appendage, pressing her down into the squishy wetness and running along the length of her body in a long, firm lick. Max heard a giggle escape from behind the dripping, pink wall as he watched the dragoness welcome the child back home.
But this only went on for a brief moment before the tongue withdrew from Lily and reached back out toward Max. Once again, it placed itself firmly at his feet, beckoning him to enter the dragoness’ maw. He managed to take a single step toward it but then hesitated, freezing up at the thought of stepping foot on the slimy surface. Lily noticed this immediately and let herself slide back down the length of Mallow’s tongue, coming to a stop at the very edge, just in front of Max.
“Come on,” she encouraged, reaching out her hand. It, much like the rest of her, was now drenched in fresh saliva. He wasn’t too eager to touch it, in fact he was almost ready to just back out of the whole thing, but then he looked her in the eyes. She seemed so excited to show him around, he couldn’t bring himself to disappoint her.
Tentatively, Max reached out and grabbed Lily’s hand, feeling the warm drool squish between their palms. He felt her pull gently, trying to lead him forward, but his legs still refused to move. That’s when she suddenly tugged, hard. Taken by surprise, he stumbled and lost his footing, plummeting face first into the warm, waiting embrace of Mallow’s tongue.
Max heard Lily start to giggle as he hurriedly pushed himself up onto all fours and wiped the dragon droll from his face. He might have started to yell at her if he hadn’t felt the massive muscle underneath tense up and begin to move. The two children were pressed lightly against each other and started to slide backwards as the edges of the tongue gently curled up around them. Then the whole thing lifted off the ground. It slipped back between the rows of giant teeth, drawing its riders in along with it, and then came to rest again in its natural place at the base of Mallow’s maw.
Max felt his heart pounding as he came to a stop and looked nervously over his surroundings. The red ridges of the dragoness’ hard palate loomed overhead, glistening in the light. Her throat watched over them ominously from the far end of her muzzle, pulsing slowly with her breathing. And looking back he could see her jagged teeth, rising up like a blockade to keep him caged inside.
Lily stood up next to him, her feet making little dents in the wet floor, and offered her hand again. He took it, trusting that she wouldn’t fool him again and finding it deceptively hard to get back up despite how easy she made it look- but maybe his nerves were just getting to him.
“Come on, it’s not that bad!” Lily insisted, reading his expression. “Look, everything’s soft and squishy!” She bounced up and down for emphasis. “You can jump and slide around all you want!”
Max felt the squishy mass below him and tried not to think about how the currently placid tongue could also potentially spring up at any moment and probably squeeze the life out of them before the dragon’s stomach even had a chance. But even as he fought off that image, he found himself starting to smile. Lily’s happiness was infectious. And everything was quite calm for the moment.
“Here, come look at this,” Lily said. She padded off toward the front of Mallow’s mouth, her bare feet making little, wet splats as she went. Max followed, a bit more slowly to make sure he kept his footing. When he caught up, she had made it back to the tip of the dragoness’ tongue and was reaching down underneath. Feeling this, Mallow gently curled the edge upwards so she could get at it more easily.
“Feel this first,” she said. Apparently assuming that Max would be too nervous to follow her orders, she immediately took hold of his nearby hand before he had a chance to respond and pressed it firmly against the top surface of the slick muscle. A fresh coat of thick saliva greeted him as she proceeded to rub his hand across the slimy surface.
“…Uh…” Max began to say, but Lily cut him off.
“Now feel this,” she said, pulling him a bit closer as she moved his hand over the thick edge of the muscle and around to the far side- the side that was usually hidden away underneath.
“Whoa,” Max muttered despite himself. It felt totally different- well, it still felt like a tongue; slick, slimy and wet- but it was so much smoother, it almost made the other side feel rough.
“See, isn’t that cool?” she asked. To be honest, he kind of agreed with her, but it felt too weird to say it. Instead he just kept feeling at the odd differences in the squishy surface, and the constant heat that radiated from within.
“Come see this too,” Lily said before running off again. Max was spooked, though only slightly, as a moment later the portion of the tongue he had been touching suddenly slipped back down to lay flat along the floor of the dragoness’ maw. Being reminded that everything around him was very much alive, he suddenly felt the urge to stick a bit closer to Lily, and quickly turned to follow her. She led him along the edge of the dragon’s jaw until stopping about halfway back.
“This is Mallow’s biggest tooth.” Lily gestured out at the massive, white carnassial. He looked it over; it was nearly as tall as she was and at least twice as wide, tapering to a dagger-sharp point at the tip.
“She actually eats with this?” Max asked in disbelief.
“Sometimes, but she’s so big that she only has to use her teeth for her biggest meals. That’s why I’m happy I’m small, because if I was big, Mallow might have chewed me up before we could become friends.”
Before he could comment on that rather dark image, he felt the tongue beneath them shift a bit. A squelching sound drew his attention deeper inside. He turned to see a rather large section of the massive muscle swell up like a huge, pink wave, and then roll backwards towards the dark pit of the dragoness’ throat, flowing over the edge with a deep gulp. And then a moment later everything just settled back into place, as if the two tons of dragon-flesh hadn’t just sprung to life a moment earlier.
Lily was impressed that Mallow had managed to pull that off while keeping their portion of the tongue so still, but Max just stared in tense fixation, his heartbeat quickening again.
“It’s okay, Mallow’s just drooling. That happens every time I’m in here too long,” she explained.
“Oh! I just remembered!” she suddenly exclaimed. “Max, come over here!” The little girl raced across the once again tranquil, pink landscape all the way over to the opposite side of Mallow’s jaw.
“Hey, slow down! Don’t leave me over here,” Max complained, following after her. When he arrived, he saw her staring intently at another set of the dragoness’ teeth. “What’s special about this one?” he asked.
“No, it’s not the tooth. Look,” she pointed. Following her finger, his gaze was led to the space where two of the massive teeth met, and wedged square in the middle, just above the crimson gums, was a large, thick, off-white object of vaguely cylindrical shape.
“What is it?” Max asked.
“It’s from Mallow’s dinner a few months ago,” Lily explained. “She caught a really big one and had to use her teeth, but a piece got stuck. I tried hard to help her get it out, but I couldn’t do it. Maybe if you help, we might be able to get it unstuck.”
That’s a bone… Max thought in disbelief. It was half as thick as his chest! What kind of beast had Mallow caught!? Whatever it had been, it had evidently met its end right where he was standing in the dragoness’ powerful maw, before undoubtedly being sent down into her waiting belly.
“So will you help?” Lily asked again.
“Oh, uh, sure,” he replied, shooing the thought away.
Lily smiled before turning back to the teeth. She stepped off the tongue and up onto the narrow section of gums that poked out around the tooth. Reaching down, she grabbed hold of the lodged bone and then looked to Max, waiting for him to do the same.
Carefully, Max attempted to follow her. He placed one foot on the opposite side of the bone and tested the surface below. The gums were much firmer than the squishy tongue he had been walking on, but no less slick. He carefully stepped up and then reached down and grabbed the pesky organic debris along with Lily. It wasn’t easy to get a grip with everything dripping in saliva, but he did his best.
“Ready?” he asked. She nodded.
Together, the two of them began to pull, attempting to lift the large shard up and out of the space where it was currently wedged. They struggled together for a moment, before Max felt his foot suddenly slip on the slimy surface below.
“Ah!” the boy yelled as he lost his footing entirely. He slid off the narrow ledge of firm gums and felt himself slip down underneath the dragoness’ tongue a bit before coming to a stop.
“Are you okay?” Lily asked, quickly crouching down and grabbing his hand to keep him from sliding any further. With a bit of clear effort, she managed to pull him out from underneath the tongue enough that he could crawl back on top. The fact that she had somehow managed that without slipping off herself was an extra impressive detail that wasn’t lost on Max.
“I’m fine,” he said, catching his breath from the scare, “but it’s just too slippery.”
“Hmm… Mallow, could you help?” she called.
A moment later, Max felt the tongue twitch beneath him as it began to move. It shifted toward the gums, pressing forcefully against the red flesh. Lily hopped back down onto it. With this much pressure, the formerly squishy muscle was now much firmer, and didn’t ripple so much as she landed.
“Let’s try again,” she urged, grabbing the stubborn shard. The tongue was a bit higher and closer now, so they didn’t need to climb up onto the thin gum line to reach. Max nodded, standing back up and grabbing from the other side. They shared a glance and then began to push again.
Max couldn’t believe how different the tongue felt underfoot now. It was just squishy enough that it gave him a foothold, but not so much that he started to really sink into it. He grunted, pushing a bit harder now that he knew he was stable.
*CRACK*
The sharp sound rang through the dragon’s maw as the bone gave way. Both Lily and Max fell back as the pressure released, their combined force launching a piece of the broken bone a few feet away.
A long, relieved sigh washed over them from Mallow’s throat, and a moment later her tongue folded over them as she brought its tip around to feel at the newly alleviated area. She fished around for a few seconds and managed to push the other half of the dislodged bone out of her lip and onto her tongue.
Lily looked at Max as the tongue relaxed again. He didn’t seem nearly as scared as he had been before, he was looking over at the pieces of what remained of Mallow’s previous meal with a satisfied smile.
“We did it!” he cheered. Lily giggled in response.
“Here, help me pick up the other piece,” she said. They both got back to their feet and walked over to where the two fragments had landed. Each reached down and picked up their half, cradling the large chunks in their arms.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked.
“Just follow me.” Lily turned and started to walk. Max began to follow, but it didn’t take him long to realize where she was going. His nerves threatened to get the better of him again, but he kept walking nevertheless, helped a bit by the fact that he was also scared of getting too far away from his guide. He could hear the dragoness’ breathing growing louder as they approached.
Lily stopped when she reached the dip at the back of Mallow’s tongue; standing at the precipice of her throat. Max stopped when she did, only he was still a good few feet behind her.
“Come on, Max,” she encouraged. The boy swallowed fearfully, but then forced himself to take the last few steps.
Mallow’s throat came into view. The tongue sloped sharply down and then back where it met with the roof and sides of her mouth as they converged to form the fleshy gate that would open wide to drag her food down to her churning depths. An opening, relatively small compared to the rest, rhythmically grew and shrank as the dragoness’ breath gusted over them, her inhales alone threatening to pull him over the edge.
“Alright, now drop your piece down there,” Lily instructed. He glanced anxiously at her, but her calm smile helped settle his nerves. Taking a deep breath himself, though a bit of a shaky one, he released his grip.
The large hunk of bone tumbled out of his arms, landing on the tongue in front of him with a wet thud and then quickly continuing down the slick slope. Lily dropped hers a second later, and the two pieces knocked together as they slid before coming to a rest at the farthest reaches of Mallow’s mouth. The moment they arrived, Max saw the muscles twitch, alerted to the sudden presence of something in that place where only food ever goes. Then a moment later he flinched as all the surrounding flesh suddenly squeezed in around the white chunks, enveloping the offering in an avalanche of slimy muscle that took them from view. The movement was accompanied by a low gulp, that made the tongue beneath him quake as the throat’s entrance shuddered. When all the walls withdrew, the bone was nowhere to be found.
“Bye-bye,” Lily said with a smile. She turned to look at Max. He was not smiling. A squishy tongue and a couple of oversized teeth were one thing, but watching the dragon actually swallow something had brought back way too many terrifying memories. Now he just stared into the red abyss, unable to look away.
Lily frowned sympathetically. The little girl took a step closer to him and placed a comforting hand on his back. She felt him shiver. Clearly he hadn’t finished being scared yet.
That’s when she pushed him.
Max’s eyes went wide as he felt the sudden, firm pressure against his back. He felt his feet slip; his heart skipped a beat.
“LILY!!” he screamed before plummeting face-first into the sopping mound of loose flesh at the back of Mallow’s mouth. He frantically tried to push himself away, but everything he pushed against slid and wrinkled like a loose bedsheet. He didn’t even have a chance to turn around and look the treacherous little girl in the eye before he felt the eager walls swell up around him, squeezing him firmly in their tight embrace as the dragon’s windpipe closed and her esophagus began to open.
A long, drawn out squelching sound filled his ears as he felt himself begin to slide, pressed inexorably forward by the powerful muscles of the dragoness’s throat as he was driven from her mouth with another low gulp, sent off to join the snack he had just watched her swallow a moment before.
Terrified, he was given a small reprieve as he fully entered the throat and the muscular walls relaxed just a bit. But then the first wave of peristalsis washed over him.
“Ah!!” he cried, expecting it to squeeze the air out of him. But to his relief, it passed by almost gently; firm, but not suffocating. Perhaps Mallow was trying to make this easier for him, or maybe he was just so small that her throat hardly needed to squeeze him at all. Either way, the undulations continued to roll over him, squishing him laterally along the length of the dragoness’ neck as she guided him inside.
Now surrounded by total darkness and the constant gurgles and squelches of her guts, Max did his best to keep his breathing under control. He felt the urge to grab on to something, but there was nothing he could reach that wasn’t slipping past him as he slid deeper and deeper still. To him, the journey seemed to take an eternity, where every second was spent either pushing back against the overpowering throat muscles, or dreading the knowledge that every squeeze sent him that much closer to the dragoness’ waiting stomach. And he had no idea how close he was; at any moment the next contraction could be the one that pushed him through into the deathly chamber.
It was just as he was contemplating this that he suddenly felt his head pressed through a tight opening and his dreaded fear was realized. His head and torso emerged into the cavernous stomach with a frightened gasp. But that particular wave only pushed him out halfway.
So for a good, long moment he found himself dangling from his waist, staring down at the entirety of Mallow’s hungry belly. And thanks to the mystical light that Lily had put inside, he could see it all. Of course, the thing that grabbed his attention was the lake of pale green slop that churned at the bottom. He immediately thought back to what Lily had told him: how the dragoness’ meals would dissolve in seconds once they were thrown into the caustic soup. He felt his legs begin to slide as another wave of peristalsis pressed him onward.
“Aaahhhhh!!”
*splat*
Yes, *splat*, not *splash*. Because of course he had never been dangling directly over the acids to begin with. Though he had been so busy staring at them in terror, that he possibly didn’t even see the broad ledge of stomach tissue that Mallow had put out to catch him long before he arrived.
Max hit the flesh rather ungracefully, but it squished to absorb most of the impact. The ledge was also on an incline, so he immediately began to roll/slide along the slick muscle until he finally came to a stop against the stomach wall. And there he lay, curled up in a ball and panting hard in the relative safety of his little pouch.
He stayed that way for a long while, until a particularly loud squelch from nearby made him look up. His eyes were drawn to the sphincter he had entered through, where a familiar pair of feet were now sticking out, quickly growing into a pair of legs. A second later and Lily emerged from the opening in full, landing lightly on her bottom and sliding down the lip of the pouch until she knocked into the cowering boy with a cheerful giggle.
“What was that for!?” Max asked, half angry and half terrified.
“Sorry,” Lily apologized, still chuckling a bit. “It was Mallow’s idea. She said the more times you got swallowed, the less you’d be afraid of it, and it didn’t look like you would do it by yourself.” Then she added in a sly tone, “Besides, now we’re even for when you tried to feed me to Rust.”
“Even!? But Mallow already ate me once! Isn’t that enough!?”
“Nope. That first time she got even with you, but this time I got to help, so now we’re even.”
Max glared at her smug face and looked like he was about to say something back, but as he thought about what she had said, his anger slowly drained. Sure, she had pulled a cruel prank, but it was nowhere near as bad as what he had almost done that fateful twilit evening. He looked away from her.
“Hey… I… I don’t think I ever really apologized to you for that…” he forced himself to look back at her, “I’m… I’m really sorry about what I almost did- about what I did do.”
Lily frowned for a moment, feeling the weight of his words, but then she began to smile again: a small, but warm smile.
“It’s okay,” she replied, “I forgive you.”
“You do?!” he asked in surprise. She nodded. They shared a moment of silence, and Max felt as if a weight had been lifted off his chest. His breathing finally slowed.
“On one condition,” she added. The boy looked at her questioningly. “You have to help me get even with Rust too.” Max smiled, then even started to laugh.
“Deal,” he said.