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How Not To Become Lunch: 54 - Pick Your Friends
Fiona felt the gentle burble in her gut as the last of her latest meal slowly worked its way through her. Her grand prize, her top-of-the-class mark, a difficult prey skillfully taken for all to see, caught right before Arthur’s eyes so he could see every detail of her prowess in action- and not least a hearty, filling feast for her belly to churn.
And Jack’s friend. A boy named Zach whom she’d never know beyond a face and a taste.
She put a hand to her flat belly. Those thoughts had been heavy on her mind sitting in history class, side-eyeing Jack’s empty seat. And they still hadn’t left her now that the next day had come, the school week had ended, and she was sitting at home, just about one human meal lighter.
“Fiona?” came a mildly squeaky voice.
She looked over. It was her little sis, come to say hi. Or- more probably, judging by the look on her face- to ask for something.
“I’m getting hungry,” the adorable pup told her with a little frown. And then immediately followed with, “Is Jack coming over?”
Fiona felt her lingering anger spike; there Sissy went again, hoping to get Jack into her belly, not to mention all the other feelings that came just from hearing his name. But she stopped herself at a brief glare; she wouldn’t take out those feelings on her little sister.
“No, not this weekend,” she said simply, emotion only mildly tinting her words. Innocent little Sissy let those hints of repression slip right by, swiftly moving on to plan B.
“Could you take me out hunting then? Please? Pretty please?” The pup’s eyes were wide and pleading, her little hands clasped together and her tail wagging behind with hopeful excitement.
Fiona gave a small smile. Not that her sibling’s cuteness had much effect on her, but the eagerness and admiration painted so clearly on her face was hard for a good big sister to resist. And, yes, okay, she was cute too.
“Yeah, alright,” Fiona agreed.
“Yaaaay!” Sissy cried, running in little circles, tail going like a hummingbird’s heartbeat.
Fiona stood up, taking a moment to stretch.
*guuuurgle* went her lower guts.
“So, what are you in the mood for?” she asked the excited pup.
“Can we hunt birds!? I wanna work on my pounce! Hrm, but birdies aren’t that big… Maybe we could find a rabbit hole!”
“You’d have to take a bath after that,” Fiona reminded.
“No! Dumb rabbits, hiding in dirty holes. They should just hide in my belly instead, then we’d both be happy! I bet I could fit a bunch of them in there, so I’d be nice and- OH!” She gasped, as if she’d just had the most brilliant idea of her life. “Can you take me human hunting!? I haven’t been able to catch one in days! The ones at school keep running away! But if you showed me how to do it, I bet I’d catch all of them! Please Fiona?! Please!?”
Once again Fiona found that unbound eagerness and pure admiration just too endearing to let down. Plus, she could remember how fun it was for her when their mom had started teaching her to hunt, and she knew mom was a bit too busy these days to give Sissy that same attention.
“You think you can do it? Hunting humans is hard work. Dangerous even,” she challenged sarcastically.
“Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes!”
Fiona took some small comfort in how unabashedly her little sis seemed drawn to humans in particular as meals, now that she could eat them. It was perfectly natural, after all, for a pred to want to eat humans. Jack just didn’t know what he was talking about, telling her she was eating too many. She would know better, of course, and Arthur better still! He’d said it so eloquently once: the best hunters are the ones with the fullest bellies. She was a great hunter, and humans were very filling!
“Alright, human hunting it is.”
“YES!” The little werewolf pup dashed to the door like an excited… well, the perfect metaphor eludes me, but she turned and waited impatiently for her teacher/sister to catch up, tail thumping against the wall.
And with the clack of a handle and the sound of a shutting door, they were off.
“Oh! Me and my tummy are so excited! I bet they’ll be the tastiest- well, second tastiest- human ever! How long will it take to catch them!? I’m hungry now!”
Is this what she’s like when she tries to hunt at school? No wonder she can’t catch anything- erm- anyone.
“Sissy, remember what I taught you,” Fiona instructed softly. “What do you need to be a good hunter?”
“Patience! Right!” Sissy quickly ran back to Fiona’s side, put on a ‘super serious’ expression and began walking at an even pace just like her big sis- except for her wildly beating tail, that is.
“Good. Now, when you’re going out on a hunt, what’s the first thing you need to think about?”
“Hmm… it’s… erm, um, it’s… Oh! Hab-tat! I have to know where to look!”
“‘Habitat’.”
“Yeah-yeah, rabbit-tat.”
“N-” Fiona stopped herself, realizing it was good enough that she understood the meaning, if not the pronunciation. “Okay, so where should we look?”
“That’s easy! There’s humans everywhere! There’s one over there, and over there, and over there, and over-”
“But what about humans your size?”
“Oh yeah… hmm… there are lots of kids at school, but school’s closed on the weekends, no one there now… Inside houses, but houses have doors… The playground! That’s a good rabbit-tat, right!?”
“Yes,” Fiona replied, holding back a chuckle.
“Yes! Let’s go!” Sissy started to run, but stopped herself after a few joyful bounds. “Oh- um- patiently,” she added, but she couldn’t help walking just a bit faster.
Fiona kept pace; nothing wrong with showing some excitement on the way to a hunt. Though Sissy did keep gradually speeding up as her anticipation mounted, and her little tummy began making little gurgles as it presumably dreamed of a nice, filling meal.
There really was nothing quite like a good hunt. The thrill of the moment, the satisfaction of taking your prey, feeling them pressing out your throat, your belly. And humans were the best prey around. Undeniably. Nothing squirmed like a good human. Arthur always talked about how that was a skilled predator’s natural reward, nature’s way of paying them back for their well-practiced talent. It’s not like Jack could know what it was like- not that it was his fault. Though maybe it was his fault that he didn’t know a little better by now. After all, when your best friend is a predator, you’d think you’d be a little more understanding of their basic needs, like their diet, for instance.
At Sissy’s increasing pace, they reached the playground rather quickly, and just as the little pup had predicted, a number of kids her age were there playing on swings and jungle gyms, climbing and crawling and running abound.
*guuurgle* went Sissy’s empty belly.
“Looks like you picked a good spot,” Fiona complimented. “Now, what should you do next?”
Well, what she had been doing the past few days was chasing down and pouncing on the first human that looked tasty, but now that Fiona said it that way, it did jog her memory a bit.
“Hm… what was it again? It sounds like ‘growl’, but it’s not, cause I’m supposed to be quiet… What’s the word again, Fiona?”
“Prowl,” Fiona reminded.
“‘Prowl’,” Sissy repeated, working the unfamiliar word carefully through her mouth like it was some strange meal she’d never wrapped her jaws around before.
“Remember what that means?”
“It means I’m supposed to… pick one, but kinda sneaky?”
“Kinda,” Fiona admitted, though she doubted that was an answer Mr. Gold would approve of. “But how do you pick one?”
“I find the one that looks tastiest!”
“Thaaat might not work too well, especially not with humans. Humans can be tough. You want to find one you can catch. And since you’re still learning, you probably want to find the easiest one you can.”
“Ooooh…” Sissy marveled, nodding. “How do I do that?”
“You have to learn to predict your prey.”
“‘Predict’.”
“It means to sort of… guess what they’re going to do, before they do it. Like him,” Fiona pointed to a kid, “If you walk up to him, what do you think will happen?”
“He’ll run away screaming,” Sissy replied quickly.
“Yeah, good guess.”
“No, we go to school together. I tried to eat him three times this week, he always runs away screaming.”
“Oh… well, I guess that’s a good lesson to learn. And see, now you know that he’s not an easy target… at least not if you just run up to him.”
Fiona noticed a pair of adults quickly approaching the boy they’d been talking about. They shared a few hushed words together and then took off in a hurry.
“That’s also something you have to watch out for. Humans your age can’t use magic yet, but they probably have their parents with them out here, who will try pretty hard to get their kid back if they catch you. You have to try and predict that too. Will they try to call for help? What will you do if their parents come after you?”
Will they have an invisible friend waiting nearby to rat on you for eating someone you’d never even met? she added spitefully, though only in her head.
“Oh, I think I get it. If I know my human is gonna run, I should try to… surprise them or something.”
“Yea, exactly. Now if you surprise them and get close, what will happen next?”
“Well, I know if I try licking them, they get all pushy and yell at me. Yesterday I got sad cause I couldn’t catch anyone, so I tried just tasting them instead, and they still wouldn’t let me! I bet their mommies and daddies would hear them yelling here.”
“Wow, you’re catching on pretty quick,” Fiona complimented- half for herself considering she was the teacher.
“I’ll be here to help you this time if any adults get involved, but you should try not to let that happen. A good hunter can claim their prey without a fight.”
“Like you?”
Well, she didn’t want to brag, but she had taken that last line from Arthur, who in fact had been talking about a catch she’d made when he’d said it. So, while the answer was ‘yes’, she decided to stay humble for her impressionable little sis.
“Sometimes,” she replied, her tail giving a quick little flick. “So, you think you’re ready to give it a try?”
*guuurgle* went the pup’s belly again.
“I think so, my belly’s getting angry.”
“Okay, but remember not to be obvi- um, to be ‘sneaky’- while you’re prowling, and try to pick a prey you can catch and eat without getting noticed. If people see you, we’ll probably have to go to another park, your belly might have to wait a whole half-hour.”
*gurg*
“Don’t worry Ms. Belly, I’ll catch a human for us! I just gotta pick the right one… Let’s see, I gotta think, gotta be like Fiona, look around, who’s going in my belly today… Hm… no… no… errrr, no… oh, what if… yeah, and then… and then… yes. Got it! Here we go Ms. Belly, your human is on the way!”
And with that, Sissy took off into the playground. Fiona watched her head straight for the jungle gym, already dotted with a few other children. At first she thought the approach a bit obvious, but reconsidered after a moment. Sissy did look just like any other kid excited to go play; nobody else knew she was actually excited for a different reason.
Fiona took a few steps around the edge of the park to keep a good view on her budding young huntress, she was heading toward the back of the installment, near a miniature climbing wall and a large, upright tic-tac-toe game.
When the pup arrived, she eyed the other kids noticeably, and there was one kid in particular that Fiona could tell she had her eye on. At first, Sissy just stood there, but after a little while it seemed she realized how conspicuous that looked. That, or she just got bored. Either way, she started climbing on the jungle gym herself, but she was always glancing back to that one other kid, a boy who had just made it to the top, now on his way back down.
When he reached the ground, she jumped off nearby, though nobody seemed to notice the timing. Sissy started over to the climbing wall, and a moment later, he started that way as well. That detail, Sissy moving first, caught Fiona a bit by surprise. Even more so, when the boy noticed Sissy already standing there, he hardly hesitated in walking up to her.
Fiona reasoned she must just be used to more challenging prey: humans who know better. These were just kids, after all: hardly worth the effort for any larger preds, and just becoming aware of the fact that the preds their size were now getting old enough to hunt them.
The two kids got in close to the climbing wall, Sissy with a huge grin on her muzzle, and the boy with a pleasant smile of his own.
Right up until Sissy’s muzzle opened wide and-
Fiona felt a jolt. She caught sight of the boy’s expression, in that last moment when it was visible to the world, and suddenly the image of the late Zach flashed through her mind. She was suddenly filled, just for a moment, with anxious fear. Had she just let Sissy eat someone she shouldn’t? What if that boy was-
It only took that short moment for Fiona to catch herself and realize how irrational she was being. She couldn’t be expected to identify every random human she- or her sister- ate. That would just be ridiculous! What were the odds this random kid on the playground had any relation to anyone she cared about- except now to Sissy as her latest meal? Zach had been a fluke… a mistake… but it’s not like it had been her fault! Sure, if she saw him now, when she knew he was Jack’s friend, she wouldn’t eat him, but, well, considering the last of him was already trekking the last few inches of her bowels, it was a bit late for that.
When Fiona finally pulled herself back to the present, her eyes found a pup with a throat bulging a good two or three times its normal size, and then suddenly four times as she worked her meal’s shoulders down her gullet with a heavy swallow and nimble use of her excited little tongue.
Sissy was doing quite well. She’d picked a good spot to attack, mostly out of sight. One of the other human kids noticed and started climbing down the opposite side, but another human noticed and simply kept playing- which was safe enough, after all, Sissy couldn’t eat both of them.
But she was definitely working hard on eating the boy she had caught. She had a little trouble with his arms, which she hadn’t quite pinned down properly, but with a bit of help from her muzzle, and a few failed attempts, she managed to keep him still enough for another heavy gulp, and from there things fell well under control.
Wabbling around a bit with her prey’s struggles, Sissy gave a huge gulp, fueled by all the youthful eagerness of her age and the predatory hunger of her growing, empty belly. The boy’s waist slipped mostly out of view, partly buried between her jaws.
The pup paused for a moment, maybe catching her breath, or getting a few tastes in- after all humans were a relatively new flavor for her. But it wasn’t long at all before Fiona could see her little throat tremble with another greedy swallow, and the boy’s knees dropped that much closer to her gaping gullet.
From there, it all went quite fast. Her throat had a good hold now and a lot of human to push against. His arms were packed in tight- soon to be even tighter- and his flailing legs weren’t doing much good. Sissy ended it with a few quick, successive gulps, sucking her own skillfully captured human down lurch by lurch until the boy disappeared completely from sight. And in his place, of course, the pup’s big, furry belly bulged out wide, showing everyone in the world just how much of a hunter she was.
As Sissy began to waddle back toward her older sibling, occasionally thrown off course by the struggles of her unwilling lunch, the thought occurred to Fiona that she should be proud. She was helping pass down the ways of the predator, after all. She was helping to make sure her little sis would grow up to be a great huntress, so she could eat all the humans she wanted some day. What werewolf- or any pred for that matter- wouldn’t be proud of that?
“Did you see!? Did you see!?”
“I did. Nice job!”
“I caught him without a fight! Just like you said!”
“Yeah, good going! He feel good in there?”
“The best! Well- second best.”
Fiona knew better than to pull that thread. Instead, she decided to ask a question that had been on her mind.
“So, why’d you pick that human for lunch?”
“Oh, we played together here a few times. I knew he liked climbing up that wall- we raced like five times one day- so I just waited for him to go over there, and then I got him! Rar-rar-nom!”
*guuuuuuuuurgle*! came her squirming belly in happy agreement.
“I hope you like it in there, cause you’re not getting out!” the cheery pup said, putting her hands to her bulging gut and rocking it side to side. “You’re all mine now! And you were really yummy!”
Fiona was… less than happy. She couldn’t help thinking that Sissy’s description of him had it sound almost like they had been… friends. And she’d eaten him… without a second thought. That look on his face… had he been surprised? Betrayed?
She shook her head. It didn’t matter now! He was lunch! Food! That’s how humans end up, and that’s how hunting goes.
“Are you going to hunt too?” Sissy asked.
“Oh- um… no, I just came out here for you,” she replied. She wasn’t in the mood for a human right now- not because she thought she’d been eating too many or anything like that- it’s just that she wasn’t totally done with her last one. And Arthur was leading the whole pack on a hunt tomorrow, so she had to make sure she had room, of course.
“Okey-dokey. Geeze, he’s kinda heavy.”
“Come on, let’s get you home so you can digest. Before anyone comes looking.”
“Can you carry us?”
“Sissy, you have to learn to walk on your own with your belly.”
“Pleeeese?”
“Oh, okay.”
“Yay!”
*guuuuurgle* *glorp*