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How Not To Become Lunch: 38 - Be Polite
“Jack, um, are you sure you’re alright?”
Jack tore his eyes off the table at the other side of the room and glanced at Zach.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied less-than-convincingly, forking another bite of his hardly-touched lunch into his mouth.
Within a few seconds, his eyes had found that table again; Fiona and Arthur sitting next to each other, both bellies still wriggling as they chatted happily with their friends. He caught a flash of a certain look in her eye, from all the way across the noisy hall, and that feeling inside him surged, hitting even greater heights as the other werewolf put a hand proudly on her shoulder.
Arthur. It was the only word- or name, as it were- that he could put to the feeling. He couldn’t quite make sense of it, but there was something he didn’t like, and it certainly had something to do with him.
“Um, Jack?” called Ozzy this time.
Ugh, am I that obvious? he asked himself, but then he noticed the nervous fear in the boy’s voice, just as he heard one of the other kids stand up and leave their table.
“Afternoon,” came a discontented, feminine voice.
Jack tensed and his hand went for his wand, but then he looked over and saw who it was.
“Oh, hello Sarabeth,” he replied.
“I see Fiona is still occupied with that boy Conri.” She might have sounded a bit more discontent with that line, but it was hard to say. “Might she be coming back this way soon?”
“I don’t know.” Jack’s frown deepened slightly. “She’s been with him a lot.”
“Indeed… You can release your wand; you are not the reason I’m here.”
Jack was confused for a moment, seeing as he wasn’t holding his wand, until he realized she hadn’t been talking to him. She was looking at Zach, who did in fact have an inconspicuous hand clasped firmly on his wand.
“Oh, I don’t think I’ve introduced you to my friends,” Jack said nervously, thinking that might ease the tension. “Ozzy, Zach: Sarabeth. She’s one of Fiona’s friends, she helped pull me out of a naga a few days ago. Sarabeth, these are my friends. That’s Ozzy, you met him last time you came over. And this is Zach.”
“Thank you for the introductions, Jack, but Zachary and I are already well acquainted,” she replied in her typical, elegant, matter-of-fact voice.
“I trust you’ll forgive my guard, given our history,” Zach added with a small smile.
“Of course, I’d expect nothing less,” Sarabeth replied with a nod. “What brings you into Jack’s circle?”
“Ozzy here just got put into the advanced class with me.”
“Is that so?” She glanced at the mildly nervous boy with a look somewhere between impressed and incredulous.
“Wait, how do you two know each other?” Jack asked, interested and surprised. It was hard to tell with the vampire’s decorum, but they almost seemed to be on friendly terms. At the very least, Zach certainly knew how to talk to her, and he seemed noticeably more confident about it than usual.
“If I recall, I nearly had you for lunch some months ago,” Sarabeth answered.
“That’s right, I’d say you were this close to getting your fangs in me.”
Now Jack was confused.
“He managed to fend me off, as is evident, but he did so in a most intriguing way. And afterwards he was rather inhumanly genteel.”
“I didn’t see any reason to be rude about it.”
Sarabeth actually smiled as she nodded in agreement. “I admire the skillful yet civil style in which he defends himself. He’s an exceptionally worthy quarry.”
“And she’s a finely skilled huntress,” he complimented in return. “She’s made a number of attempts since then, but I don’t think she’s ever gotten as close as that first one.”
“And I won’t until the day my fangs taste you.”
*gurgle*
The distinct sound caused an equally distinct pause in the conversation. Ozzy shifted nervously in his seat as all eyes briefly fell on the vampire.
“Sarabeth, you, um, hungry?” Jack asked. She turned her attention to him.
“Not for long,” she replied plainly.
*glorp*
Jack heard a faint whimper from Ozzy, his own little smile shrinking. If there were any other kids but the three of them left at the table, they certainly would have fled at that.
“Um, Ms. Sarabeth?” Ozzy asked, obviously trying to sound as polite as possible while suppressing the quiver in his voice. “Could I ask: why you came to visit us here during lunch?”
The question all three of them wanted to ask was ‘Does that mean you’re planning to eat one of us? Because it sure sounds like it.’ But that could quite easily come off as rude, and that was a mistake they all knew well enough to avoid.
Ozzy’s breathing grew noticeably louder as she looked his way to respond.
“Well, I’d hoped to ask something of Fiona, but seeing as she seems quite busy over there, I don’t think it would be proper for me to interrupt.”
I hope the question wasn’t ‘Can I please have one of your friends for lunch?’
“Might I ask you something else instead?”
The words stunned him like a deer on alert, and only the sound of her belly spurred him back to life.
*squelch*
“Oh, um…” Ozzy did his best to clear the frog from his throat (while trying hard not to think too much of hers). “Sure.”
“‘Ozzy’ is such a peculiar sounding diminutive. Tell me, what is your full name?”
A little more color drained from the boy’s face as he spared a quick glance to his other friends. Why had she had to ask him that question? Refusing to answer would definitely be rude, and judging by the sounds coming from her gut, she had a punishment just waiting for him. On the other hand, answering up would be a punishment of its own.
…How well did he favor his chances trying to lie?
*glorp*
Not well enough. He sighed.
“My full name is… Ozma, Ozma Emeral.” He flashed a look at his friends again, who were now trying their hardest not to be rude by laughing in his face.
“Ah, a fine name,” she replied.
*guuurgle* *glorp*
“You’ll all have to excuse my stomach, my meal is settling in,” the vampire said.
“Oh,” Jack said, disguising the tiniest laugh as a cough, “so you’ve already eaten then?”
“Ah, yes. Tasty little chap.” Whom I had to catch beforehand to avoid being tempted by you lot, she added mentally. The sudden revelation that there had been a tiny human quietly digesting in her stomach the entire time, once again threw Jack off his poise.
“Well, uh, good to hear,” he replied.
“Yeah,” Ozzy added with noticeable relief, “for a second I was worried you were about to snatch one of us for your lunch.”
She shot him a look and he went deathly quiet and still, but when she spoke, it was in her usual calm and collected voice.
“As much as I might like to, I’m sure Fiona wouldn’t approve, you being friends of hers.” Though if you insist on bringing that indignity to light, I might be tempted to try for a second course anyway.
No one replied, certainly not Ozma.
*gloooorp*
“…Jack?” Sarabeth asked after a moment.
“Yes?”
“Has she… spoken to you much? In these recent days?”
He thought for a moment. “We spent most of the weekend together, but since then, not so much.” He frowned. “You?”
“Not a word,” she replied, disappointment clear even in her stern voice. So she forsakes us both for that mut after all. At least when it was only the human we still shared a class to ourselves.
“I guess they must just have a lot to say to each other,” Jack said. She noticed him looking out toward Fiona’s table and followed his gaze.
“Nothing but frivolous prattle over their opulent new meals,” she corrected.
“You can hear them? From all the way over here?” Jack asked with surprise, though not nearly as much as a moment later when he looked back toward Sarabeth and nearly flinched. The vampire’s belly, resting at about eye-level where he sat, suddenly had a noticeable, writhing bulge of its own. The shrunken meal inside was beginning to regain its size in preparation for digestion, and by the looks of it the ‘chap’ was still very much alive and kicking. Throwing Jack even more off balance was the predator’s reply.
“Of course I can. What kind of vampire do you take me for?”
“Oh! Um, I didn’t mean anything by it, of course! I’m just impressed is all. You know, me with my pitiful human ears.”
*guuurgle* *squelch*
Her belly suddenly grew another inch in diameter. Jack did his best not to stare as the wriggling prey ballooned the girl’s gut just a few feet away, trying to distract himself with the conversation at hand.
“So they’ve just been sitting around talking about their lunch? How is there that much to say?”
“Actually, you can tell a lot about a human by the way they struggle inside one’s stomach-” *glorp* “-Or you can do what the dragon did, and attempt to compare the sizes of their respective distentions in contest. An exceedingly pointless activity considering Fiona’s is obviously the largest. She did consume the patriarch, after all.”
*gurgle* *splash* *slosh*
“Right…” Jack replied. Honestly, between the vocabulary and the unsettling, growing bulge in the vampire’s belly, he’d missed most of that, though he’d picked up the sentiment well enough. Speaking of picking things up, the boy inside her stomach was getting large enough that Jack could start to make out his muffled protests, which definitely did not help his focus.
“Well, I suppose I’ll leave you three to your meals. Ozma, Jack, Zachary.” She turned to leave, her belly sloshing with the motion.
“Sarabeth,” Jack called (as politely as he could). She turned back to face him. “When we do talk again, I’ll ask her to pay you a visit.”
“That would be… appreciated.” She nodded and then turned back and continued walking, her belly giving one last audible groan as she left.
Ozzy let out a sigh of relief. Jack looked back down at his plate. Once again, he’d sort of lost his appetite. His eyes drifting, they eventually landed back on Fiona.
She’s really spending all this time just talking about eating humans?