Content
Toby’s little heart thumped in his chest. Was he still there? Those footsteps had sounded pretty close, but now there was nothing, just the happy chirping of birds and the buzz of bugs. He pressed his back hard against the bark, pulling his arms in tight to try and stand as small as possible so the trunk would cover him up.
He wanted to look. He really wanted to look. But he knew if he did, he’d probably be seen as well, so that was definitely not an option. That meant the only option he did have was waiting, standing as still and quiet as possible until-
“Ha!”
His head whipped to one side to see a huge, brown-scaled face, though by the time he set his eyes on it, it was mostly a red, gaping, hungry maw.
*nomf*
The dragon, having crept up on his target, startled it, and snapped it up without a sweat, took a moment to enjoy the smug satisfaction- not to mention the taste- of the little boy sinking into his tongue, before tilting his head back with a sizable:
*gulp*
Toby’s breathing slowed down as he entered the familiar tunnel of muscle that was his big brother’s big throat. He let the rolling walls soothe his surprise, and let the reality sink in just as he was sinking into his sibling’s chest.
He’d been found. Again.
*splat*
The boy slipped out of the closing esophagus, deposited swiftly into the waiting embrace of folding, mucus-rich walls, and a sizable puddle of ex-something his brother had eaten a few hours ago.
*guuurgle* *slorp*
Toby took the grumbles as a kind of greeting, and he put a hand to the familiar familial wall and smiled- but it was a worn, somewhat defeated kind of smile, the kind you put on for someone else. It was hard for him to enjoy the usual fanfare of a trip down his sibling’s gullet when he knew it meant he’d lost. Again.
“Hey, you okay?” Clak’s voice shook him gently through the surrounding gut. “You tasted kinda nervous.” He flicked his tongue around his muzzle, it was a distinctly sour tang compared to the usual excited perspiration he sampled from his little brother whenever they played hide and seek back in the caves.
“It’s just… you found me again. Easy.” Toby sunk dejectedly into the digestive stew.
“But you like it when I find you.” The dragon frowned, clenching just a bit to cradle the boy inside him tighter. Despite being many times larger and in the ultimate position to tease or taunt his indigestible sibling, his tone was nothing but confused and concerned, an open invitation to talk with the promise that he would listen.
“But Uncle Rynn said I had to learn how to be sneaky outside.”
Clak almost grunted, but held it back for fear of sending the wrong message to his emotionally vulnerable occupant. He’d been there, and while he had to admit his uncle had a point, he didn’t like how harshly the older dragon talked around Toby.
“You’d better teach him stealth if you’re letting him out there. Nothing else will save him if another predator gets their eyes on him when you’re not looking.”
Why go out of your way to point out that he’s defenseless? What kind of predator would try to steal something from a dragon anyway? Why did he have to make poor Toby worry like that? Still… it wasn’t a bad idea to teach the little boy to look after himself. Survival was an important skill after all. And with no claws, sharp teeth, or muscles to back them up, and no scales or even fur to ward off blows, stealth really was the best approach.
“You’re not going to be able to hide forever, though,” Clak finally replied, soft and nurturing, as opposed to the harsh, matter-of-fact tone their uncle might have used. “If you just stay still, anyone will sniff you out eventually. The trick to being stealthy is to use it to your advantage. Like getting more time until someone stronger comes to help, or sneaking away to somewhere safer, or even setting a trap.”
Toby made an ‘oh’ face, as he considered his big brother’s wise words. He’d just sort of thought that if he got good enough at hiding, no one would be able to find him. He didn’t think about trying to be sneaky that way.
*squlorch*
The fleshy walls pressed in around him tightly, and he felt the passage of the throat open again as he was squished back inside.
Unable to see his solemn sibling’s expression, Clak thought they might be able to talk better face-to-face, so he worked to lift the little boy out of his old breakfast and back into the world. He lowered his head as he felt the tiny toes squelching back over the edge of his tongue, and parted his jaws so those feet could find the ground again. As he licked the clinging strands of drool from his scales, he was happy to find his little brother looking much more hopeful than he’d tasted a moment ago.
“I wanna try again,” Toby said, determined and almost excited.
“Sure, okay.” He looked up to the sky for a moment and quickly found the little dot that was their sister circling above. She was doing her flight practice, but had agreed to watch over their little brother at the same time so Clak could play a fair game. Someone had to be actually watching Toby, after all. “Go hide; I’ll start counting.”
…
He tried not to sniff too much, but keeping track of his little brother by scent was almost second nature to him at this point. It didn’t take long for the dragon to trace the vaguely zig-zaggy path his tiny human sibling had cut through the woods. And after only a minute or so, the scent was growing strong.
He’d narrowed down the location to this particular grove, and with nothing else around for cover, it seemed sure the boy was hiding behind another tree. Trying that again didn’t seem like the smartest idea, but maybe the little human just wasn’t cut out for stealth. He certainly wasn’t cut out for much of anything else either when it came to self-defense. Clak only hoped the poor kid wouldn’t take it too hard when he-
Something caught the dragon’s eye, an unusual movement from an unexpected position. A branch in one of the nearby trees had shaken a bit, but his instincts told him it was too much motion to be a bird or any of the usual small mammals. He glanced up inconspicuously. Was that… Toby!? He’d- he’d climbed the tree!?
Clak resisted the urge to smile, pretending like he hadn’t noticed. Without any further hesitation, he continued toward the tree, plan firmly in mind. He tensed as he neared the trunk and slowed down like he had the last time, coming in for a quiet approach, and then…
He popped his head around the other side, as if he fully expected his little brother to be there.
“Huh?” went the dragon.
“Ha!” There was a sudden rustle of the canopy above him, and he looked up just in time to see Toby leaping down from a nearby branch, fingers pointed like he was a dragon himself, swooping in for the pounce.
*thump*
The little boy landed right on his big brother’s broad neck, sending it almost to the ground with the impact.
“W-what? Where did you come from?!” Clak feigned. He wasn’t holding back his smile anymore, it was on full display. His proud smile.
“Up in the tree! I climbed it! You didn’t expect that, huh?”
The thing was, Clak hadn’t expected it. If Toby hadn’t made that mistake and given himself away, the dragon likely would have done that exact same thing- poke his head around the tree and look like a confused hatchling until he realized what was happening. It had been a genuinely clever idea, and Clak decided that deserved a win.
“Nope, good job. How’d you get up there?”
“Well, I don’t have wings like you, so I had to find a low branch and pull myself up,” the little boy explained as he pulled his feet up onto the scales of his brother’s neck. “Then I had to walk real careful on the branch so I wouldn’t fall, and get over to the right place.” He skillfully walked down the winding neck like a scaly tree limb until he reached his brother’s back. “Then, I had to move around in all the leaves to find a spot where I could jump out.” He weaved back and forth through the spines running down the length of the brown dragon’s body, until he reached the rear. “And when you were in the right place…. I jumped!” Toby leapt off the scaly haunches and pounced onto his brother’s idly shifting tail, landing on it in mimicry of his brother’s neck from a moment ago.
“Heh, not bad,” Clak praised, feeling the little weight on his tail. He’d let his brother have his moment. …Until he decided the moment was over.
*flick*
“Whaaa!”
With a carefully calculated swish, the brown dragon whipped his tail up into the air, and his sibling along with it. The smooth, talon-less fingers lost their grip on the even smoother scales, and Toby went briefly airborne, right back over his brother’s back, and straight down into his waiting muzzle.
*gulp*
Clak’s smile broadened, feeling the bulge of his little brother slipping down his throat. He carefully traced the boy’s progress on his common path down into the squishy, slimy depths, until he heard the faint, familiar plop, and felt the familiar fullness that came with his family member’s arrival.
“Hey!” the little, muffled voice complained from within his scales. “You didn’t find me this time!” The game was that he got swallowed up when he got found and lost! But he’d won this time!
“I know. This one’s a reward.”
Toby, once again stewing in his brother’s breakfast, pondered this for a moment, and then smiled and nodded his head in agreement.
“Okay,” he chirped from his cozy little chamber.
Honestly, he liked it better that way. Getting eaten when he lost made it feel like a bad thing, which just seemed wrong. Now he could enjoy his time in his brother’s gut, knowing he’d earned it fair and square. He snuggled in a little deeper as it burbled around him.