Content
It was a nice thing, being outside. Having lived nearly all the life he could remember in caves- either stoney mountain caves, or squishy, squirmy stomach ones- he’d never learned to take all the simple little pleasures for granted. Sitting in the swaying grass, he felt the gentle breeze in his hair and listened to the sounds of the trees. There weren’t really any trees up on the mountain, not like these, and the air was always chilly outside the cave, unlike the friendly warmth down on the ground, under the bright sun.
He looked up at the clear sky, dotted with little puffs of white. Another gust blew by, carrying fresh forest scents, and a bird took to the air with a few frantic flaps of its wings. The boy saw it glide into view above him, a beautiful dark silhouette against the blue, wings outstretched with feathers catching the breeze.
*squa-*!
In a flash, the bird was gone. A flash of gold, to be precise, zipping through the air on much larger, leathery wings. Toby watched those wings flare out, bleeding off speed as his brother circled around and skillfully touched down just a few steps away. His golden sibling turned to him as he landed, one or two dark feathers poking through his smile.
*gulp*
Toby watched the muscles at the back of Torh’s jaws contract, and a little bulge rolled down into his neck, pressing out the scales as it slipped its way through. The dragon’s tongue darted out to collect the stray feathers and send them down after with a much lighter little:
*grk*
“Not bad, right? They don’t even see me coming I’m so fast,” the dragon bragged.
Toby giggled. Despite being one of his older siblings, Torh did seem to act a lot more like their younger ones sometimes. He couldn’t imagine Kyla or Averi bragging like that, though maybe Clak if he was trying to be funny.
“You are fast,” the little boy replied earnestly through his entertained chuckles. He couldn’t deny it was definitely true.
Torh smiled. Being the smallest of his clutch, sometimes it was just nice to hear that, even if it was from his flightless little brother.
“How many is that now?” the golden dragon asked, considering the slowly growing weight in his belly.
“Five,” the little human counted.
“Hm, I better start catching more than one at a time, or I’ll never get full. I should look for a flock somewhe- Toby?”
The boy’s expression had suddenly changed, his eyes shifting.
“What is it?”
“Do you hear that?” Toby asked. He got up from the grass and walked over to his brother’s side, the golden head arching around to follow him.
*squawk*
“…It’s still alive in there,” the little boy said quietly.
“Huh… yeah,” his draconic sibling replied, making a face like he’d noticed the unusual movement in his belly. But his tone showed he didn’t think too much of it.
“But- but that’s bad!” Toby insisted. He clearly did seem to think something of it.
“Oh, um-” Torh wasn’t sure what had sparked this upset expression on his little brother’s face, but if Toby wasn’t happy about it, he would definitely do anything he could to make it better. “Should I, um, try to squish it? Or do you want me to cough it up?” he offered.
Toby stared at the scaly belly with a very unusual frown for a long moment.
*squawk*
“No,” the boy finally replied. “Put me in there too.”
“Y-you sure?” He knew the little human didn’t usually share a belly with anything still kicking; he wasn’t sure it was such a good idea, or what their parents would think of it.
But little Toby nodded emphatically, almost demanding it.
“…Okay, if you say so…”
The golden head lowered toward him, and the boy stared up into the jaws as they parted to reveal the familiar flash of red that was his brother’s maw. It descended on him in a single fluid motion, lips closing around his ankles, tongue pressing up against his chest, lifting his feet up off the ground, and then fully skywards as his sibling pointed his muzzle to the clouds. He slid for a short distance over the slick, velvety tastebuds until he reached the wall of muscle at the back of the fleshy gullet, and then-
*gulp*
He felt the swelling of his sibling’s tongue press him firmly onward, his determined face descending into the bulge now growing in the golden scales of the dragon’s neck. Squelching and crackling filled his ears, little details he would have usually taken the time to enjoy, but this time he had something else preoccupying his young mind.
*squelch* *splash*
His head pressed out into the waiting stomach, the sphincter stretching wide to allow him-
*squawk*! *squawk*!
Toby quickly tucked his head in tight against his chest to avoid smooshing into the frightened avian, dunking his face into the pool of chyme in the process. He pressed his hands hard into the fleshy walls to make extra room around him as the rest of his chest and legs were pushed inside the fairly cramped confines of his brother’s belly.
*guuurgle*!
Luckily, this was one of his big brothers, so there was some room to spare, and he managed to keep a tiny bit of space between himself and his belly-mate, who didn’t seem particularly able to move around. Doing his best to move around without crushing the little guy, he situated himself in this familiar environment with his back to the entrance and his legs pressing out against the fleshy walls to give a bit of extra room for the bird at his feet.
Not that he could see his feet. The stomach was half full with a dark, reddish brown stew, covered in floating feathers at various stages of digestion, and poking up just above the surface, was a little head with frightened little eyes, darting back and forth as it watched the horror that was its new, now illuminated environment.
Toby watched carefully for a few moments, frowning with a serious expression. It wiggled a few times, trying and failing to move, then turned its eyes on him and gave a loud *squawk*! like it was warning him to stay back. Toby’s frown deepened.
This must have been so scary for the little thing. He remembered his first few trips into his family’s bellies, the strange sights and sounds, all the walls pressing in, the squishing and squashing, the slime that melted everything away. For this little bird, it must have been a hundred times worse. After all, Toby had known that the big dragon swallowing him up wanted him to be safe, but this bird was his brother’s actual food. The little boy could still feel the other birds Torh had just eaten, floating unseen beneath the murky chyme with only a wing or two poking up above the surface. This poor little creature was stuck in a belly with all his dead friends, about to be churned up into dinner.
“It’s okay, come here,” Toby said softly. He leaned forward and reached out his hands. The bird seemed ‘a bit’ less than willing, but it couldn’t do much about it. The little thing nearly panicked when he first touched it, but it quickly stopped. Toby was gentle, as gentle as his carefullest sibling was with him. He cradled the broken body in his fingers, floating it along the surface until it rested above his lap. He brought his knees up around it, a barrier against the contractions of the stomach walls. And ever so tenderly, he stroked the back of the bird’s head.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “Torh didn’t mean to scare you. He just needs food. I promise it won’t take too long.”
Toby knew a dragon’s stomach better than anyone. He’d grown to love them, to understand them, to revel in their every detail. …But he did know, he knew what they meant for all the little- or big- animals that disappeared inside them. In fact he knew better than anyone. He knew exactly how it would happen, exactly what it would be like.
It didn’t usually bother him. He was usually the only one who made it inside alive in the first place, untouched by claws or teeth. How his favorite bellies treated his family’s food didn’t matter after it was already dead. And he knew his lessons well; death was a part of life, and without eating, nothing would be alive, not his siblings, or his parents, or cousins or even himself. ‘Prey’, the elders called them, the animals they hunted. They were the meals that kept his family alive, so they had to die and disappear into bellies.
…But they didn’t need to go inside while they were still alive. They didn’t need to be scared, and squished, and splashed, and trapped, and lonely.
Toby loved being inside his family. He loved being able to see all the hidden wonders, the little secrets, tucked away behind their scales, to get closer to them than anyone else in the whole wide world. But he knew he couldn’t stay alive in places like this because he was better than all those meals his family ate. He could stay alive because he was special, because he was lucky. Bellies couldn’t melt him, couldn’t churn him up into soup. Without that…
…Without that, maybe he wouldn’t be able to get so close to his family. Maybe he wouldn’t even have gotten close to them in the first place. Maybe he never would have gotten to love them, and they never would have gotten to love him. Maybe… they wouldn’t have been his family at all. Maybe he would have been ‘prey’, just like this little birdie, squished and squashed down inside the big, scary belly, waiting to die.
Toby stroked the feathers of the bird’s head as it lay quietly in his hand, breathing its tiny breaths. He kept its beak just above the chyme so it could breathe and see he was there, but he kept as much of the feathery form as he could under the lapping waves, where his big brother’s stomach could do its work.
*guuuurgle* *glorp*
“Just listen to the sounds,” Toby soothed as the rolling walls jostled him gently, but he kept his companion safely in place. It wouldn’t have to worry about getting suddenly smushed or knocked around; it would be a calm, quiet end. Like going to sleep, with the belly singing it a lullaby.
“…Toby? Are you okay in there?” Torh spoke in a soft, worried voice.
“Would you mind laying down and waiting for a little while?” the boy responded.
“Um, sure.”
The murky liquids sloshed and rose as the dragon around them pressed his belly into the ground, resting his weight atop it. Toby leaned forward over his charge, shielding the bird from above as he tucked himself into the tightening space.
*slorsh* *gurgle*
“Just listened to the sounds,” the little boy repeated softly, as he closed his eyes to listen too. And then all that was left to do was wait. In time, the dragon’s belly would do what it always did with food.
…
“Toby? …Toby?”
The boy awoke to the sound of his name being called. His light brightened as he opened his eyes, glistening on the familiar walls of a draconic stomach.
“Torh?”
“I think you fell asleep. It’s been a while now, do you want me to take you back home?”
Toby suddenly noticed his hand, it was cupped upright near his chest, like he’d been holding something, his fingers stiff. But his hand was empty now, with nothing but his brother’s thick chyme sloshing over his palm. He stayed silent for a long moment… and then he smiled, just a bit. Not a happy smile, but an understanding one.
“…Yeah, I think so,” the boy replied.
“…Are you… mad at me?” The idea of his little brother being seriously upset with him put a weight in his chest, far heavier than the little boy’s actual weight.
“No, it’s okay, you were just hungry,” he said understandingly. “But promise me you won’t swallow any more birdies alive, okay? It’s not nice.”
“I’m sorry. I promise I’ll be careful about that.”
A few objections to that promise came to mind: he thought it seemed like needless extra worry, and he didn’t exactly dislike how it felt when his food moved around- Toby sure felt nice in there after all. But he made the promise immediately and sincerely, swatting the objections aside. He loved his little brother and if this was that important to him, he would do it without question. The guilt he felt for upsetting the little boy was already heavy enough without adding to it.
“Do you want me to let you out before I take off?” Torh offered, unsure of his sibling’s mental state. “I could carry you some other way, or ask one of the others to carry you.” The dragon felt a little sensation in his stomach, which he’d come to learn was the feeling of his little brother’s hand stroking affectionately at his inner walls.
“It’s okay, Torh. I promise I’m not mad.” Toby was smiling a bit wider now. He loved his big brother right back, and it made him so, so happy to feel how much the dragon cared for him, much more than he would care for just some special, lucky human sitting in his stomach.
The walls tightened around him for a moment, squishing in against him from all sides with a chorus of squelches, in what Toby had come to learn was his family’s way of hugging him from the inside. The boy giggled quietly.
“Actually, do you mind keeping me in here for a while after we get back?” Toby asked.
“Of course, I love having you around,” his sibling replied.
“Thanks,” the cradled child said appreciatively.
There was a loud slosh and several following gurgles as Torh stood up. Toby looked over the puddle of rippling chyme he was resting in, his eyes wide and attentive. He couldn’t quite explain it, but he wanted to stay with it for just a bit longer, to make sure it all moved on okay.