Content
*gulp*
“Dang it!” Toby said as he felt the firm grip of his brother’s throat successfully pull him down. The dragon stood with a smug grin as he felt the little boy begin his descent.
“I told you, Toby, there’s no way you can stop a dragon from swallowing you just by holding onto their tongue.”
“Yours is just too big,” he countered. “Maybe I should try it with Sky or something, I bet I could hold onto hers better.”
“Sky? She’s not even big enough to swallow you yet.”
“She is too, she’s done it before.”
“Really? Whatever, you can’t hold on to a dragon’s tongue like that no matter what size it is, you’ll just end up in their belly.”
Not a moment later and Toby felt himself squeeze through the end of his brother’s esophagus, slipping into his stomach with a loud slosh and a few welcoming gurgles. His point was hard to argue.
Settling in, Toby was distracted by a strange texture brushing up against his leg. It was rough and much stiffer than the loose, squishy walls that he was used to. He let himself begin to glow, providing some light as he went through the deceptively tricky routine of trying to turn himself around in the slick confines of the dragon’s stomach.
“What’s going on in there?” Clak asked, feeling the commotion.
“There’s something weird in here,” Toby replied, managing to sit up straight, the top of his head pressing up into the roof of the squishy organ.
“What is it?”
“Um, it looks kinda like… uh… well it feels a little like a rock… except… well it kinda folds… Um, I have no idea. What’s the last thing you ate?”
“Hmm,” the dragon thought, “I think it was a little human boy, kinda short, thought he could survive by holding onto my tongue.”
“Clak!”
“Alright,” he replied with a laugh. “Let me think… Oh, on my hunt this morning I found a man lying on the ground.”
“You ate another human?! That’s not nice! What if he was my long-lost human dad or something?”
“Relax, the guy looked nothing like you, and he was already dead when I found him. He probably got lost passing through the mountains.”
“Promise he was already dead?”
“Yes, Toby, I promise. Come to think of it he did have a few funny things on him when I ate him.”
The boy investigated a bit, running his hands through his brother’s digestive goop. He felt a few bones but that was about all. Nothing else from the dragon’s recent meal was recognizable, nothing but this weird whatever-it-was.
“I think we should show this thing to one of the elders. It’s the only thing that hasn’t melted yet, maybe it’s like me?”
“Alright. Up you go,” Clak agreed.
Toby reached out and grabbed the strange object. It was about half the size of his chest, didn’t weigh too much, and had a sort of bulky, irregular shape that deformed when he pressed against it. It was almost like skin, but not quite as flexible. He wrapped his arms around it and held it to his body as the stomach walls began to press in against him, squeezing him towards his brother’s esophagus as it opened to shuttle him back up through the dragon’s long, scaly neck.
A number of squelches later and Toby felt himself peek out from the top of the long tube. Clack curled up the tip of his tongue as his little brother came sliding down from the entrance of his gullet, his slime-covered form slipping frictionless across the red, squishy muscle until he finally came to rest toward the front of the dragon’s snout.
Clack parted his jaws and extended his tongue, releasing his little brother back into the world. The boy climbed off, forming numerous strands of drool that broke off one by one as he separated from the dragon’s maw.
Clak eyed the object he was holding inquisitively. He normally didn’t get a second look at the things he sent down his throat (barring his brother). He vaguely recognized it as belonging to that man he had eaten, but otherwise had no idea what it was. It was definitely some weird human thing though.
“Let’s show it to Aunt Thess, maybe she’ll know what it is,” the dragon suggested.
“Good idea. Can I ride on your back this time?”
“While I’m flying? No way. When you’re slimy like this you slide right off, plus you’ll only have one hand to hold on with while you’re carrying that.”
“Aww, but I wanna see,” Toby complained.
“You can ride in my mouth; I’ll keep it open.”
“Fine,” the boy conceded. It wasn’t nearly as good a view, but he’d take what he could get.
Clak stuck out his tongue again and Toby climbed back on. He felt the pull of inertia as his brother quickly lifted him a good number of feet off the ground, raising his head back to its normal height. The boy crawled to the center of the dragon’s squishy tongue and sat down. He felt the thud of his brother’s steps and watched the rocky tunnel walls begin to pass him by, framed by Clak’s massive teeth. The dragon’s breath wafted over him, in and out, as they went.
Eventually they came to the entrance, one of several: a huge opening leading deep into their mountainside home, overlooking the hills and forests of their lands. Toby heard his brother unfurl his wings as the boy stared out at the breathtaking vista. He had hardly even begun to take it in when Clak leapt off the precipice, flapping hard, and began to climb into the sky. He felt his brother bank, his world tilting sideways, the sky and clouds passing before his eyes.
Toby loved to fly with his family, almost as much as he loved poking around in their bellies, but it always seemed to end too soon. Just a few moments later, the view was once again eclipsed by the grey walls of a rocky cave as Clak touched down inside the entrance of their aunt’s den. Technically, though, it wasn’t hers alone.
“Aunt Thess? Uncle Rynn?” Toby called.
There were a few seconds of silence, followed by the pounding of draconic footsteps from further inside. A moment later a large, dark brown dragon emerged from a nearby tunnel. He walked with a solid, heavy gait, his expression stern despite the fact that he happened to be in a relatively good mood. He set his eyes on the two visitors.
“Get that boy out of your mouth! He isn’t your food!” the dragon ordered.
Clak quickly lowered his head and slid Toby off his tongue.
“Sorry, Uncle Rynn,” he replied a bit sheepishly. The elder never did seem to tolerate the way the other dragons treated Toby, regardless of how harmless it was or how much he enjoyed it. Luckily their uncle stayed in his own cave most of the time, and when they visited, his attitude was usually kept in check by-
“Don’t be so harsh, Rynn, you know Clak only means well.” Another dragon, slightly smaller with green scales, emerged from the tunnel behind Rynn. Her gaze was kind, gentle and wise. “If you keep scaring our family away like that we’ll never get any more visits,” she scolded. Then she looked to Toby and smiled. “Come give your aunt a hug.”
Toby ran over as Thess lowered her snout to the ground. He threw his one free arm over her scales in a warm- if somewhat messy- embrace. After a few moments she withdrew and then looked over at her other visitor.
“And always a pleasure to see you stopping by, you’re growing quite strong by the look of it.”
“Thanks, Aunt Thess,” the young dragon replied, trying to accept her warm greeting while still under the weathering eyes of his uncle.
“So, to what do we owe this visit,” she asked.
“I found this weird thing floating in Clak’s belly. It was in there for hours but it didn’t digest.”
“Oh?” Thess withdrew just a bit further so she could get a good look at what the boy was holding.
“That’s stonehide,” Rynn cut in, glancing down at the strange object. “Humans make it from the skin of the toughest beasts around and fashion it into all kinds of trinkets. Just throw it back down his gullet. It’s tough stuff, but it’ll digest eventually just like everything else.”
“Stonehide…” Toby echoed; he couldn’t help but sound a little disappointed. “I thought maybe it was some special undigestible thing… sorta like me.” Rynn turned his head to look the boy dead in the eyes.
“Everything that breathes will digest in a dragon’s belly given the time. And that includes you.”
“Rynn!!” Thess scolded.
The brown dragon looked at his mate for a moment with a begrudging expression. Without saying another word, he turned around and walked back into the tunnel with the same heavy stride with which he had entered.
“It’s okay, Toby,” his aunt said sympathetically, seeing the growing frown on the little boy’s face. “He just really cares about you and doesn’t want to see you get hurt.”
Toby sniffled, but nodded understandingly.
“You know, that thing might not be special like you, but it is special in another way,” the dragoness said.
The boy looked up curiously.
“Do you see that little flap there?” she raised a forelimb and pointed as precisely as she could with one claw. “Try to pull it apart.”
Toby reached out with his tiny human hands and found a little lip to grab onto. He pulled like his aunt said and the object’s surface parted to reveal a hollow interior.
“It’s a bag,” Thess explained. “Humans use them to carry things around.”
Peering inside, Toby could see a bit of Clak’s stomach contents which had managed to leak in. But there were a number of other things inside too: thin, white, stiff rectangles. Most of them had gone soggy and begun to dissolve in the digestive soup, a few were only partly gone, but a small number had managed to stay practically unscathed.
Toby reached in and removed the cleanest one he could find. He looked it over, twisting his hand to see both sides. It had scribbles on it that looked like some kind of writing, but they didn’t look like any of the symbols the elders had taught him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Ah, that looks like an envelope. Humans write down messages and put them inside.”
Toby found the flap on the back and opened it up, pulling out the letter within. He looked it over with avid curiosity.
“What’s this weird stuff that it’s made out of?” he asked. “And what does the message say?” Even Clak was starting to draw closer now.
“Hold it up to me,” Thess instructed.
Toby obliged and saw his aunt’s large eyes focus on the tiny parchment.
“Wait, Aunt Thess, I know you know a lot about human stuff, but can you actually read that?” Clak asked. The old dragoness smiled.
“Oh yes. It looks like this is a message that was written for a human in a different settlement. That bag must have belonged to a messenger, who I presume must have ended up in your brother’s belly.”
“Guilty,” Clak replied jokingly.
“What does it say?” Toby asked.
“Hm, it has been a little while, let me see…” The dragoness peered closer, and after a moment she began to translate aloud:
“Dear Uncle Ashton,
I’ve missed you since you’ve moved away. Are you doing well in your new home? I can’t wait to come visit. Mom says it’s a hard journey to travel all that way, but I’m sure I can convince her and dad to take me eventually. I hope you write back soon.
-Ambur”
Thess looked up from the paper and noticed the frown on her nephew’s face.
“What’s wrong, Toby?”
“It’s just… Ambur won’t ever get a message back from her uncle… cause Clak ate the messenger.”
“I told you Toby, he was already dead, it wasn’t my fault,” the dragon insisted.
Thess thought for a moment, and then a broad, knowing smile grew across her face.
“Clak, why don’t you head back over to your family’s den. I’ll bring Toby back when he’s finished asking all his questions.”
“What? Why?” he asked, feeling he was somehow being punished. But after a quick, knowing flash of his aunt’s eyes, he realized that there was something else afoot. Though curious and a bit suspicious, Clak reminded himself that the elder probably knew best.
“Alright, Aunt Thess,” he said with a hint of reluctance. “Have fun, Toby.” The dragon turned and headed back to the cave entrance. Once he was gone, the dragoness shot Toby a cryptic glance.
“Wait here,” she said before turning and quickly disappearing back into her tunnel. She returned a minute or two later with something odd held between her teeth. Toby stared at it with growing interest as she set it down in front of him. It seemed to be some kind of container; a box made from pieces of wood.
“Now Toby, I want this to stay our little secret, alright?” she said.
The boy nodded.
“Alright then.”
Thess raised one forelimb and used it to lift the top off the box. She reached inside and started fishing out a number of strange objects, one at a time using her claws, including a large roll of parchment, not unlike the material on which the letter was written.
“Now, it has been an awfully long time, but I should still have everything we need,” the dragoness said.
“Need for what?” Toby asked, mystified.
“To write our own message,” she replied. “I’m not sure where that one was going, but I have a pretty good guess where it came from.”
“You mean we could send a message back to Ambur? And tell her that her message got eaten?”
“That’s right dear.”
“Yes! Then she won’t have to be sad and she can just send another one! *gasp* Maybe she’ll even send one to me to say ‘thank you’!”
“Just remember, this has to stay our secret, no one else in the family can know.”
“Promise,” Toby replied.
“Good.” Thess dipped the tip of one claw into a strange-looking container and it came out covered in black liquid. “So then, what do you want to say?”
…
*THUD*
“What on earth was that?!” asked a man in surprise, the sound waking him from his near-sleep. The postal worker leapt out of his chair and rushed outside his normally peaceful waystation, only to find a large, jagged rock sitting a few feet from his door. It was half buried in the dirt, like it had been pounded into the ground or dropped from the sky, and tied onto it, was a large piece of paper.
The man walked over, surprised and confused. Scrawled onto the parchment, in large, sloppy letters, was what seemed to be a letter. Below the details of the recipient, the following message could be read:
“Dear Ambur,
Sorry, but your messenger got lost in the mountains and eaten by a dragon, so he can’t deliver that message you wrote to your uncle. But that’s okay, cause now you know so you can just write another one. I hope your next one makes it to him, and I hope you do get to visit him soon.
-Toby
P.S. If you want to thank me for writing this, have a messenger leave your envelope under a sunstone in the middle of Emerald Fields. I don’t really know what a sunstone is, but my aunt says it will help her find your message.”