Content
It’s not easy trying to hide when your feet literally leave a trail of slimy, stomach-scented footprints right to you, but Toby was, admittedly, getting much better.
Taking the head start he’d been given, he’d pattered off through the browns and greens of the forest, past the occasional patches of purple and yellow and- Oh! A big rock! He stopped to rub himself against it. Maybe they’d think he’d climbed it? Not that that would fool them for long. The little boy quickly turned, ran off, then doubled back several seconds later, brushing his hand along the stony surface a second time as he sped by in the opposite direction.
Huffing and puffing, he took a minute to catch his breath with his back to a tree and a grin on his face. Excitedly, he wondered how well his little trick would work. How long would they spend lo-
Toby clasped his hands over his still-panting mouth as he heard a pair of familiar voices. Unsurprisingly, the apex predators had tracked and caught up with the tiny human faster than he could comfortably flee. But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? He’d never be able to get away on his own, but he could buy valuable time. He stayed as quiet as he could and listened.
“Come on, this way.”
“You smack your snout somewhere, Kint? This way.”
There was a pause as the first of the two scaly siblings sniffed the air once more.
“You sure you didn’t burn yours, Asha? Cause it definitely smells like he went that way.”
“Yes, I’m sure,” she replied sarcastically to his return jab. “And he’s definitely over here. Come on.”
Toby felt his sister’s footfalls through the ground, signaling that she wasn’t waiting for a response. The little hiding boy did his best to keep himself from giggling or glowing as he heard them gradually fade further away.
This trick might not have worked too well with some of his older relatives, but with Kint and Asha being from his younger set of siblings, they weren’t nearly as experienced hunters. Not that any of his relatives were really ‘experienced’ when it came to ‘hunting’ him. His family only ever hunted animals, and animals just ran away as fast as they could and tried to hide. Animals weren’t clever like Toby; they didn’t know how to trick dragon noses.
Having bought enough time to finish catching his breath, and with his siblings safely headed in the wrong direction, the fledgling forest-dweller quietly snuck off again to put some more distance behind him. He snickered to himself as a dull light helped illuminate his pattering steps. Maybe, if he tried, he could even trick them again with a-
“Whoa- Ooof!”
It wouldn’t have been the first time Toby had tripped over a stray root, being much more used to the well-worn floors of his family’s caves. But this actually wasn’t one of those times. This time, it was less that he hadn’t seen the obstacle coming, and more that he had been so surprised by what he saw that he couldn’t react in time to keep himself from tumbling right over it.
Scrambling around in the dirt for a moment, the boy further tripped over himself trying to get back onto his feet, fueled half by curiosity and half by concern. He managed to at least get sitting upright and turned around when he finally got a good look at it, slowing to a stop as he started to stare.
At the same time that it started staring at him.
It turned to face him, waddling on two stumpy little legs, even shorter than Toby’s. Its blue-skinned, round, egg-shaped body rose about as tall as the sitting boy before it, with teeny-tiny arms at each side. But by far its most striking features, were its funny looking, beady eyes, and what seemed to be the tip of a comically wide tongue, sticking just out of its equally wide lips.
It looked like one of his blue relatives trying to make a silly face for him to laugh at, and he almost did start laughing the longer he looked, especially when it leaned in closer to peer at him.
“Heh, you look funny,” the little boy giggled, light glowing a bit brighter. “Sorry I fell on you. I’m Toby.”
It shifted closer, seemingly quite excited to meet him.
“I wonder what kind of-”
Toby had actually been mid-blink when it happened, and in that time he’d legitimately missed most of it. All he really saw was that huge, purple-pink tongue suddenly filling up nearly his entire field of view. Aside from that, there was the brief, blurry flash of a wide, toothless maw, and a very distinct, very loud:
*MELM*
The boy blinked a few more times, his whole world now tinted blue, and felt himself jiggling in the rather tight embrace of what felt very much like a stomach. And if anyone knew stomachs, it was Toby. Now packed up into a little Toby-ball, he slumped there, stone-still for a moment as he processed the shock. Not at being in a belly- no he was way too used to that by now- it was more that no one in his entire family had ever eaten him that fast before. Not even Asha! Not even their dad!
He had only barely processed what had just happened when he felt this whatchamathing starting to move, and then when he saw something moving he got even more surprised. He could feel the undersized belly he was inside stretched tight across his face, much tighter than any dragon belly he’d visited. Normally that would mean his view was limited to whatever little patch of red covered his eyes, but this guy seemed to have a belly stretched so thin that Toby could see through it!
Peering past the glimmering from his own literally glowing curiosity, he could clearly see the blue-tinted grass swish by as his gulper awkwardly waddled away with its prize.
It was at this point that little Toby might have opened his mouth to give some exclamation of wonder, except for the fact that his chin was sort of pressed shut, and a warm liquid was very quickly filling every little crevice there was between Toby and the tight, tinted walls.
Along with a few semi-familiar squelches, a quiet burbling, bubbling sound filled his ears, growing louder. Whatever it was, it was new to him. Strange. Something deep in his mind, way back somewhere, didn’t like it. He started to feel uncomfortable, worried, maybe even a little… scared. This wasn’t one of the familial, friendly bellies he’d grown to enjoy. There was no caring, careful sibling or cousin on the outside watching over him. This thing was probably trying to eat him for real; for food. And while Toby was pretty sure he was food-proof at this point, that stuff Uncle Rynn and the other elders sometimes said did make him a bit nervous, especially as that bubbling, frothing sound mounted louder and higher until-
*BLECH*
Almost as quickly as he’d been gobbled up, the young boy found himself suddenly flung back out into the dirt and grass on his bum, along with a spattering of scattered stomach goo. It hissed and steamed quietly on the plants it touched, adding an extra layer of background noise as Toby shook the slime from his head and tried to get his bearings again.
With a free breath, he exhaled what little fear he’d built up and instead started to giggle, his light growing brighter once more.
“See?” the boy tried to explain. “You can’t eat me, you have to find something else.”
The blue thing waddled confusedly for a moment, its little eyes hopping around a bit in disorientation before eventually settling on him again. It wobbled a couple steps closer, perplexed, goofy tongue still partly peeking into view as it always seemed to be.
“I have this special thing,” the little human continued, “where bellies just do-”
*MELM*
Toby’s important explanation was suddenly interrupted by a blue-tinted stomach wall as he once again found himself suddenly pressed into its grip, scooped up in a flash by that big, goofy tongue. His mouth still open, mid-word, it took the boy a moment to even register that he could no longer speak, at which point he made an annoyed, huffy face, still mildly visible through the stretched, semi-transparent stomach walls.
As that big bubbly sound began to build again, he did his best to look around- not that he could move his head at all- much more curious than concerned, now that he’d been through it once before. And just like that first time, it ended in much the same way.
*BLECH*
“I tried to tell you,” Toby giggled, not even waiting until he was upright this time before talking. “I’m not eat-able. You have to find something else, okay?”
Waddling closer once again, this time the weird blue creature seemed to pause for a really good look at Toby. The boy even thought it might have been sniffing him- though he was having trouble figuring out where this thing’s nose was, if it even had one.
“Good, see. I’m Toby. Tooob-”
*MELM*
The little human rolled his eyes with an amused smirk. Wiggling his arm into a better position with what little available room he had, he took to poking at the taught layer of muscle that now enwrapped him, hoping that he could somehow get his message across this way where words seemed to fail.
But it seemed to take those same few seconds, and that same building, bubbly noise before Toby once again found himself ejected from the blue-tinted bindings and back out into the world.
“Okay, okay. Let’s try this again.”
…
“You smell him right?” Asha asked quietly.
“Oh yeah, he’s definitely here this time,” Kint whispered back as the pair quietly prowled through the green.
“Wait, is that him?”
“Yeah, but… Toby?” The dragon raised his voice, signaling a hint of confusion. “Why are you just standing there? Are you done?”
The boy turned around to see his two siblings, abandoning their lowered, focused posture in favor of a more usual, taller stance now that the game seemed to be up. Their expressions each took on a hint of concern as they saw the troubled look on their adopted brother’s little face.
“What is it? Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Toby replied sadly, “I’m okay, but I don’t think he is.”
Concerned and confused, the pair of dragons walked up closer to find a rather unusual sight. An almost deflated-looking blueish thing, with stubby legs and tiny arms, lay sideways on the ground, with a cartoonishly large tongue partly lulling out into the dirt.
“Wait, is that a melm?”
“Wha- Yeah, it totally is, isn’t it?”
“But what’s wrong with it?”
“I think-” Toby interjected. “I think it got tired trying to eat me over and over.”
The two dragons looked worriedly at each other for a long moment. Maybe even guilty.
“But, you’re okay, right?”
Toby nodded.
“You sure?” the other asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“How did you get out?”
“He just kept spitting me out every time,” the boy answered, but the continued concern in his guardians’ voices made him add an extra, “…Why?”
“It’s just, melms can be kinda dangerous when you’re small.”
“There’s a story that one of Aunt Lorr’s cousins got caught by one when they were hatchlings…”
“Aren’t they supposed to just instantly gurgle up anything they eat?”
“Yeah… But not Tobys, I guess.”
“Guess not.”
Both scaled siblings breathed a joint sigh of relief. And Asha took a few steps closer to circle her neck protectively around her human kin and draw him a bit further from the wild creature. But Toby didn’t quite come easily.
“…Is he gonna be okay?” the boy asked.
Asha, both surprised and preoccupied with escorting their little brother to safety, turned an eye to Kint.
“Well… how many times did it try to eat you?” the dragon asked.
“Um…” Toby started extending his fingers one by one in an attempt to count. “…a lot of times.”
“Huh… I guess it really doesn’t know how to handle something that actually sticks around…” Kint remarked to himself, before returning to the question. “It’s probably hard work to take care of a meal that quick, and if it kept trying and trying with you… I think it might have just used up all its energy trying to get you to… you know… digest…” He looked on at the blue creature, with its shallow breaths. “‘A hunter can’t afford to waste their energy on a meal they can’t keep’,” he quoted, recalling his lessons.
“Could you… catch it something it can digest?” Toby asked sympathetically.
“What?” Kint replied with surprise.
“Toby, that thing tried to eat you,” Asha pointed out sharply.
“Yeah, but… He was just hungry. And he wasted all his energy because of me…” The little boy pouted. “Please Kint? You wanna practice hunting so you can stop getting firewood, right? Can’t you practice-hunt something for Melm? Please?”
The dragon glanced away, as his heart melted at a rate faster than any creature could hope to digest anything.
“Um… yeah, fine, I guess,” he agreed. He couldn’t even really be annoyed at the situation, not when his agreement literally started lighting up his little brother’s face. “You’ll watch him?” he asked his sister.
“If he tries to wander off again, I’ll swallow him myself,” she replied.
Kint nodded, hesitating for just a moment as he wondered how he’d ended up with this crazy chore, before turning and heading off back into the trees, in search of something their would-be-brother-eater could actually keep down.
“You hear that, Melm?” Toby asked, pattering back over to the deflated blue blob. “Kints gonna find you the best lunch ever!” But Asha’s tail came around this time to cut him off before he could get too close.
“You’re staying over here with me.”
…
“Finally,” went the red dragoness in a teasing tone, as the wingbeats of her brother came into earshot at last.
“Did you catch something?” Toby asked anxiously, as his other sibling touched down with a few heavy flaps.
“He better have after all that time. What happened? Couldn’t manage to get your teeth on anything?”
“Of course I could!” the dragon defended himself, setting something down from between his jaws. “I just, um, had to find something small enough for this thing to eat.”
“Riiiight,” Asha continued to tease. But before Kint could return fire, Toby had already rushed over, picked up the bird his brother had managed to catch, and carried the lifeless thing over to the only-semi-lifeless blue bulge in the dirt.
“Melm? Melm, Kint went out and got something just for you,” Toby explained. Ignoring his siblings’ protective postures for the moment, he carried the relatively large bundle of feathers and flesh awkwardly up against his chest, right over to the lulling purple-pink tongue of the depleted predator.
…
“…Don’t you want it?” Toby scooched a little bit closer, to the point where he was almost touching the offering against the creature’s tastebuds. And just when it was starting to seem like the thing had given up hope, the blue mass started to move. It twitched and wabbled, and then-
*MELM*
Even exhausted as it was, the speed at which it snatched up its meal was shocking. Scooping it right out of Toby’s arms in a blur and dragging it down its short, gaping gullet. As the blue curves settled, the lower half of the egg-shaped body had noticeably increased in size, and the stretched, semi-transparent skin revealed a muted glimpse of the captured bird, all quietly tucked away in the melm’s belly.
But it didn’t stay quiet for long. Just a few seconds and even Toby could already start to hear that strange bubbling sound. His eyes widened, watching closely as the fairly clear details of the bird in the belly started to become… blurry. Warped somehow. A froth of tiny bubbles started to appear as a liquid quickly rose to encompass the entire meal, and within another moment the entire thing had disappeared from view, lost in a noisy storm of rumbles, gurgles and sloshes.
The blue belly shrunk, and shrunk, and shrunk, until it was back to the size it had been a few moments earlier. The frantic soundscape of rapid digestion faded. And the swallowed bird was no longer anywhere to be seen.
“Whoooa…” Toby breathed, still staring at the blue gut. But a layer of red scales partially cut off his view, as the tip of his sister’s tail curled protectively around him the moment the melm started to move again.
It wibbled and wobbled and suddenly roll/hopped back upright onto its little feet, shaking off a bit of dirt. Blinking its funny eyes, it looked on at Toby with an unreadable expression.
“You’re welcome,” the glowing boy chirped happily.
It took two steps closer, but was quickly met with a low rumble that seemed to shake the ground, as both draconic siblings growled their warnings. It took three steps back, still staring at the little boy for a moment, then quickly turned and waddled off into the trees as fast as it could.
“Bye, Melm!” Toby called, waving. Asha sighed.
“Toby, you need to be way less friendly with things that want to eat you. I mean, did you see what it did to that bird?” his sister urged. He frowned.
“But you try to eat me all the time, and I’ve seen your belly do things to birds too…” the boy muttered, guilty and confused like he couldn’t quite see what he had done wrong.
“He’s kinda got a point,” Kint agreed reluctantly.
“I, um… yeah, I guess. Just promise you won’t get eaten by anything else before it’s time to go home, okay?”
“Okay,” Toby agreed, “I promise.”