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How Not To Become Lunch: 92 - Get Stuff Off Your Chest
Fiona stood there, waiting patiently at the door. She was feeling a little awkward-
*grgl*
-and a little hungry, and had a few too many thoughts going in the back of her mind, but she tried to keep it all off of her face, especially when she heard the clawed footsteps approaching from inside.
With a click and a creak, the entrance to the house opened up, and the form of a familiar dragon boy revealed itself.
“Fiona?” Pyre asked, his brow scrunching.
“Hey, I, um, came to get that chestplate,” she told him, and then picking up on his surprise added, “You know, like we talked about at school?”
“Oh, um, yeah. Sure.” He seemed to visibly work on remembering for a moment before continuing with, “Just come in a minute I guess, I’ll get it.”
The wolf girl nodded and stepped inside, closing the door behind her, and once she was in, Pyre turned and walked off back into his house, leaving her to her own devices. As the sound of footsteps faded, they were replaced by the rapid, soft sniffing of a canine nose, as Fiona explored this new location from the discrete confines of the entryway.
The scent of dragon was thick in the air, at least to a snout like hers. Three different individuals, all accented with notes of scale dust and wing webbing, but each with their own personal twist. As she surveyed the air, she also glanced around. The halls were wide, undoubtably with enough room for the inhabitants to stretch their wings, though the ceilings weren’t nearly tall enough for actually flying. A few family pictures hung nearby, which she politely refrained from looking at too closely (though she did accidentally happen to catch one glimpse of an extremely cute little red dragon kid smiling at the camera).
There were also a couple other open doors in view, one that looked like the entrance to a bathroom, or maybe a pantry, and the other leading to a dark room where all the lights were off and the windows shut. Her eyes lingered there, if only because it was harder to tell what she was seeing, and she could just barely make out a few shadowy shapes that looked like they could be-
“Here it is,” came Pyre’s voice, breaking the hush.
Fiona’s eyes shifted further down the hall as her friend turned into view. Sure enough, there it was in his hands. Maybe she hadn’t really gotten a good look at it before, when he’d been using it as a makeshift snack bowl, but now that it was being held upright, she could instantly see the chest-like contours, as well as the dull, blotchy, weathered texture of the metal. She was sure it must have looked much more impressive before its long stay in the dragon’s acrid stomach, but then again, she hadn’t bothered to get much of a look at it that first time either.
“You’re lucky I even still have it,” the dragon boy remarked with a hint of a grumble. “I left it at Arthur’s place the night we had that last party.” Fiona’s fur bristled at the name. “I went by after school the next day to try and get him to talk to us again, and he got so pissed he chucked the thing at me. Fur-brained jerk.”
“Oh, um, well… sorry to hear that.” What she’d almost said was ‘maybe that’s for the best’. But she didn’t really know how deep Pyre’s history with Arthur went, and well, she should know as well as anyone not to jump to harsh comments about another person’s friendship. …Even if she was sure Arthur was a grade-A-
“So what do you want this thing for, anyway?” Pyre asked, interrupting her train of thought.
Fiona hesitated for a moment, trying to decide how to answer, and trying to imagine how he might react to that answer. She braced herself to speak.
Then something caught her eye.
Back in that dark room, off behind Pyre, a light had just appeared. It shone like flicker-less flame, with the edges of the glow following the sharp outlines of a parted muzzle, filled with pointed teeth. From just that visual cue alone, Fiona’s eyes suddenly started to piece together the other shadowy shapes around it. She parsed from the darkness the silhouette of another dragon, jagged and imposing, like a cliff-side on a moonless night. The scaly predator had been sitting motionlessly in a chair, resting silently and invisibly until this moment.
Pyre noticed her eye-line shift, and a moment later, they both heard the long, quiet rush of air passing through that glowing muzzle, as the other dragon let out a long, distinct breath.
“Never mind,” Pyre quickly dismissed, pressing his trophy to her chest, “just take it and get out of here.”
Fiona did take hold, shifting her eyes back to her friend for a moment, but he didn’t let on any other emotions beyond his usual brash, scaly self.
“Okay, um…” She considered asking another question for a moment, but thought better of it. “See you at school tomorrow.”
“Yeah, sure,” the dragon boy replied. Then he reached for the door and ushered her back outside.
Rather abruptly, Fiona once again found herself alone, back out on the street in front of her friend’s house, door hurriedly shut. She looked down at her new possession: once the property of that scaly teen, before that the property of a marked human, and before that-
*guurg*
She sighed. Guess thinking of that thing’s previous owner was bound to remind her of her hunger, even if remembering where the thing had been since then should have done the opposite. For a moment, she considered trying to catch someone before she made her next stop… but she decided against it.
That probably wouldn’t make the best impression.
…
A deep breath. In. Out. And then…
*knock* *knock* *knock*
…It was a long moment before she heard a definite stirring from beyond the door; the sounds of someone growing closer. It wasn’t the first time she’d awkwardly stood in front of an unfamiliar house today, but the air around her felt much thicker this time as she resisted the anxious urge to dig her claws into the stone.
Fiona heard a hand undoing locks and taking hold of the handle. She took another breath and braced herself as the door opened.
From inside appeared a woman, at least a couple decades older than the wolf. By force of habit, Fiona instantly took in a few details, like the human’s hand holding a wand low by her side, and the noticeable bulge in her midriff. This wasn’t some human-mage-predator, though. No, it was hard to describe, but it hung different. That belly wasn’t in the process of dissolving a life, it was doing much the opposite.
This mother took in her caller as well. She instantly noticed the furry canine muzzle, as well as the teenage physique, but she didn’t end up looking at much else once her eyes reached the tarnished piece of armor the werewolf was holding to her chest.
Fiona watched silently the subtle shifts of the woman’s eyes, as thoughts and emotions stirred within: a twinge of recognition, a subdued double-take, brows narrowing in disbelief and then relaxing as the eyes slowly widened and mouth drifted open, surprise gradually progressing into profound confusion. A few times, the woman’s gaze flicked up to the wolf’s face, but always back down to the chestplate she was holding.
“Um… hi…” Fiona greeted awkwardly. There was no doubt about it now, this was definitely the right place. The woman didn’t reply, in fact she hardly even reacted, not until a pair of strikingly similar little boys rushed up to her from further in the house, and even then, all she did was subconsciously reach out to take hold of them, hardly even shifting her eyes.
“Mommy?” one of them asked, innocent and confused, though not nearly as dumbfounded as the woman in question. Finally, after what felt like a very long while, the mother spoke.
“…I… don’t understand… Are… are you the one who…?”
It was a fairly rare thing, to know which particular predator a loved one had disappeared into. It was usually only something you knew about if you’d been there to see it. Sometimes you might hear rumors or reports in the following day or so, and sometimes those could be pieced together and sometimes those pieces could be trusted, but otherwise it was simply a mystery. It was just a fact of life, that eventually someone you knew would go off into the world, and someone else out in that world would eat them. And when that happened, you usually, simply, never saw any trace of them again. It was a harsh fact of life that all humans had to learn to bear.
And yet, here was a predator, her late son’s age, holding her family’s chestplate. It was right there in front of her again… like some kind of dream.
“…No,” Fiona finally replied, answering the mother’s question, though she continued to hesitate as she tried to pick out her next words. “He wasn’t mine, but… I was there.”
“…Oh…” the woman responded, though it wasn’t clear what feeling was behind the word aside from total befuddlement.
Fiona scolded herself inwardly for a moment. Of course this lady was confused! Predators didn’t just show up at the houses of their old prey- or their friend’s old prey. It was weird! And deeply uncomfortable! And she definitely hadn’t come here to try and make these people uncomfortable on top of dealing with their digested son. No, she’d come to…
“…I know this is… weird, but… one of your son’s friends… he told me that this…” Fiona shifted the chestplate slightly in her grip. “…was some kind of special family heirloom, right?”
The woman’s face changed now, something new pushing around the surprise and confusion. She looked up from the armor and settled more on Fiona’s face, staring into the canine’s eyes.
“…I just thought… even though you… lost the person who was wearing it… maybe you didn’t have to lose this too.”
The werewolf gently extended her arms, offering the smoothly curved metal plate to the staring woman. The mother stared for a moment longer, and then reached out with both hands and took it. The piece was heavy, but she accepted the weight with a familiar ease.
“…It was my grandfather’s… and his grandfather’s…” she said, almost in a whisper. Her hands turned the worn metal like they knew every curve, and Fiona thought she could see the woman’s lips shift upwards. Not a smile, but an approach to one.
Their eyes met again.
This werewolf… even if her diet perhaps had played some kind of part in what had happened… there wasn’t any reason she’d had to come out here, to carry this heavy, marred antique around searching for this house. She’d done it just… just to try and be kind, to be thoughtful. Staring into her eyes, the mother could see it.
“… …Thank you.”
Though still shocked and mystified by the sudden and strange appearance, there was a clear note of appreciation in the woman’s voice, even if tainted and confused.
Fiona couldn’t quite muster a ‘you’re welcome’. She just nodded awkwardly and took a step back, seeing the little hands of the children reaching up curiously toward the item she’d handed over.
“Who’s at the door, dear?” came a masculine voice from deeper inside. The woman glanced behind, then back to the wolf, with a look that said it was time to finish their encounter.
Fiona took another step back, and let the lady close her front door without another word.
…The werewolf took another breath… Her chest felt lighter, and not just because she was no longer bracing a big hunk of metal against it. That boy in the chestplate wouldn’t have digested that day if she’d kept Jack’s trust the way she should have. Taking a meal was one thing, but on that hunt she’d taken something more. At least that one item was something she could let them keep.
Fiona grew just the smallest smile, then finally turned away from the house and started down the road.
I’m lucky I was able to track this place down from the engravings on that thing. No amount of sniffing was gonna lead me down that trail after what Pyre-
It wasn’t a very long few steps before her nose pulled her out of her thoughts. She stopped, she blinked, she sniffed and then in an awkward half-panic she blurted out:
“O-Ozzy!?”
Even once she recognized the boy, she still didn’t quite believe it for a moment, but there he was, standing in her path just a few houses down, staring at her. She took in his expression. It was heavy and more than a little suspicious, but also a little confused and maybe even held a hint of curiosity. He gripped his wand in his hand, but low at his side, ready but not threatening.
“W-what are you doing here?” Fiona asked, the surprise spurring her on.
“I live here,” he answered. His voice was firm, with a biting edge and a twinge of reluctance. He didn’t really want to tell the wolf exactly where he lived, but he also knew that at this point she could find it by scent alone if she wanted.
“You do?! Sorry, I didn’t know…”
Under different circumstances, he would have called her on that. Her just coincidentally showing up on his block after school? Yeah right. In fact, when he’d first spotted her walking by, he’d been thoroughly convinced that she was here looking for him. But that was before…
“What was that about?” Ozzy asked after a moment, nodding slightly towards the house she’d come from.
Fiona glanced away at a thought, then her gaze drifted downward.
He hasn’t been talking to Jack so… he doesn’t know…
The werewolf’s tail sagged low to the ground, her ears folding back nearly flat, arms coming in close.
“Don’t you give me that sad puppy dog look.” Ozzy bit his lip but he tightened his grip on his wand and kept the edge in his voice. This was the same predator who he’d watched devour his friend, and he refused to let himself forget it.
Her eyes snapped back to him, and his gaze held hers in a tense grip; a strange, almost backwards situation that she found very unfamiliar.
“Tell me why you’re here,” Ozzy insisted.
Fiona hesitated, then took a breath, and then hesitated again. When she finally forced herself to speak, she only managed a single word before faulting.
“…He…” she began, but she wasn’t sure if she should…
“Zach,” Ozzy continued for her. He could see in her eyes who she was talking about. He spoke the name like a spell, and it hit her almost in the same way.
“…Zach… wasn’t the only person I shouldn’t have eaten…”
His face shifted just a twinge, but he gave no further response other than to continue staring expectantly.
“…Did Jack ever tell you about… those other marked humans he was going to see?” She wanted to look away, to stop, to flee, but he held her there.
Ozzy nodded, eyes narrowing as he thought.
“…They’re all gone now…” Her claws pressed into the fur of her arm. “Because Jack trusted me to know where they were…”
His gaze widened, then hardened as he scowled at her. Of course she’d gotten them all eaten, that didn’t surprise him one bit. In fact it only served to confirm everything he’d been thinking about her. Still, there was what he’d overheard while Fiona had been talking at the door…
“You got the kid eaten. Another one of Jack’s friends. And then what? He sent you over to return the guy’s stuff as an apology?”
She shook her head.
“I didn’t tell Jack what I was doing, I… guess I didn’t want to upset him more by bringing it up.”
“So you had the bright idea that giving back that thing was gonna make up for the kid you ate.”
“No!” Fiona shouted, like he’d just struck a nerve she’d been nursing, and then the rest came out like a bursting dam. “Of course not! There’s nothing I can do to make up for what I’ve done! Nothing. Don’t you think I know that?! I went in there, Ozzy! I went in there and I ate someone right in front of him. I was on top of Jack, and he had to watch! I made him watch just like I made you watch. He’d found someone he really liked- h-he almost had a date with her- and he had to watch her disappear! Because I was too much of a gut-brain to figure it out! I can’t fix that! I’m never going to be able to make that up to him! I can’t give Ruby back. I can’t give Zach back. I can’t un-digest people!”
She took a sharp, ragged breath. Ozzy’s breathing grew sharper as well, taking in all the details of what she was saying, caught in the emotions.
“…I just… when I realized I could give the chestplate back… I had to… It belonged to one of Jack’s friends… It wasn’t mine to take… I didn’t want to take it…”
She finally looked away, but she could hear them both staying stock still. Even as she let herself settle, she continued to talk.
“…My dad used to tell me, when I was a pup, that I had to be careful with my human friends. Every time Jack would come over he’d always remind me, ‘It’s easy for you to hurt him by accident.’ I used to think he was just talking about my claws…”
The air went silent again for a moment. Ozzy said nothing in reply. A new thought crossed the wolf’s mind. He was listening; now might be her only chance. She looked up and met his gaze once again.
“I wanted to be your friend, Ozzy,” she said firmly. “I really did. But I wasn’t careful enough. I never should have let any of it happen. I’m sorry, Ozzy. I’m really sorry.”
…The two stared at each other for another long moment. Their breathing settled gradually, heightened emotion slowly draining from the air. When Ozzy finally spoke next, his voice was still flat, but the edge was dull and gone.
“…Is that how you got Jack to forgive you? A confession and an apology?” It didn’t sound like much when he put it like that. And honestly, maybe it wasn’t. Even more honestly, it hadn’t been her words at all which had ended up saving her friendship, had it?
“No,” Fiona admitted, “actually, I-”
*GRRRRURG*
The werewolf’s eyes went large with embarrassment. Was thinking of that moment really all it took to set her stomach off? Or was it just that she’d been craving all afternoon and hadn’t hunted yet?
“…Sorry,” Fiona muttered, repeating herself but much less emphatically now. “It’s just been a while since…”
Ozzy rolled his eyes.
“I’m going back inside,” the mage said plainly. He turned his back and started walking. “I’ll see ya at school, I guess.” Without showing much particular concern for the hungry wolf girl, he casually- if solemnly- stepped back up the path to his own front door, but after a few seconds:
“…Ozzy?” Fiona called again.
He stopped and turned to her; a fresh awkwardness had entered her face.
“…You don’t…” She lowered her voice. “…happen to be friends with that girl walking over there, do you?” She pointed a subtle claw.
Ozzy glanced down the road, then back to Fiona. His face read ‘are you serious?’
“I really don’t want to accidentally eat another of your friends,” she admitted bluntly. Awkward or not, a girl’s gotta eat. But she’d do it carefully this time. This was Ozzy’s block after all, he could have plenty of friends around. She saw the mage consider her question for a moment.
“No,” the boy replied almost reluctantly after a moment. “She’s kind of a jerk, actually,” he added candidly under his breath.
“Oh, um, good…” One less thing to worry about. She felt her belly rumble again, much quieter this time, and found her gaze now pulled between her friend and her prey. She didn’t want to lose her chance now that she knew this one was fair game. “Uh, see you at school.”
“Yeah,” the boy replied unenthusiastically, then turned and continued walking.
Fiona forced herself to start walking as well, pushing through the awkward air left in the wake of their encounter as she passed him by at his front door. She felt more than a little embarrassed; her hunting was the last thing she wanted to push into Ozzy’s mind. She’d specifically been holding off all day to avoid making people uncomfortable unintentionally. To her credit, she’d managed it long enough to get through seeing that marked boy’s family, but running into Ozzy had just been an unfortunate twist of circumstances. But it’s not like she could help being hungry. It had been a while since her last human…
Maybe I should wait till later? Try to find someone else?
She felt her gut clench in protest.
Come on, Fiona, you’ve gotta eat. And she’s already right in front of-
The werewolf stopped herself, both mentally and physically. While lost in thought, she’d already covered half the distance to her prey almost without meaning to. If that girl had been walking toward her instead of away, the practiced huntress would have looked more obvious than her little sister.
She closed her eyes, took a breath and centered herself.
‘Hunting without focus is a dangerous mistake’. She remembered the words as Mr. Gold’s, but it was an adage she’d heard for years earlier. She was either going to do this right, or not at all, and her body was being loud and clear about what it needed.
She let her breath out, and when she opened her eyes again, they were intentful and alert.
She took a step. One, then another, then another. Deliberate and measured. Not like some pup chasing after a dangling treat, but a predator stalking her meal. Her pace quickened, smoothly climbing from a fast walk all the way into a full sprint, and then down onto all-fours for an all-out dash. There was no cover to use, no excuse to get close to this human inconspicuously. There was only the silence in which she could plant her paws, and the time in which she could close the remaining distance.
The werewolf saw her prey start to turn: head first, then shoulders, then knees as the human caught sight of the charging wolf. The girl threw a hand to her wand, threw one foot down as her lower body swung around to catch up, but then Fiona threw her claws around her prey, and the resulting impact threw the human’s back firmly into the ground.
“Ugh!” the girl grunted, wind knocked out of her chest, then filled again by a sharp, angry breath.
Fiona quickly worked her claws into her prey’s grip and rid the mage of her wand. She set her sights on her meal’s face and-
“Hey loser!! Get over here and help me with this mutt!!”
Sure that she had the human securely pinned, Fiona quickly looked back over her shoulder, following the girl’s line of sight, tensing preemptively and expecting to see another mage or two that she had somehow missed already charging in for support. Instead, all she saw was one teenage boy, several houses down, standing still in his doorway.
Ozzy!? He didn’t go back inside yet!?
Fiona couldn’t afford more than a quick glance away from her struggling prey, but the expression of the familiar face staring coldly upon her from the distance buried itself in her mind’s eye. Thoughts raced through her mind in fractions of a second.
Should I stop? I didn’t want to do this in front of him. He’s not gonna try to step in is he? No, he wasn’t moving at all. No wand drawn. If he didn’t want me eating her or eating here he would have said something. And he’s choosing to watch. It’s not like before.
“C-Come on, asshole!!” she shouted in his direction, seeing the other human remain still. “We both know you’re like a three anyway, your life isn’t worth shit! So just get in here and-”
*NOMF*
That was enough. Fiona didn’t need to hear this brat railing on her friend, she needed to feel a nice warm meal stretching out her gullet.
*gulp* *gulp* *ulp*
With a few quick swallows, and some equally quick, practiced motions of her hands, Fiona fed the tasty if distasteful girl deep into her parting muzzle. She felt her throat spread with delightful ease, eagerly welcoming the massive mouthful of wriggling meat into her warm, hungry embrace.
She worked her meal’s shoulders past her own, slurping up the girl’s chest and dragging her kicking legs out from under the growing bulge in the werewolf’s neck. By the time the canine’s tongue reached the human’s belly, Fiona’s meal was already reaching her own. In between slurps and swallows, the huntress heard the familiar, muffled gasp of her prey’s head pushing through into the temporary reprieve that was her currently empty stomach. But that meager relief would only last until the next-
*GULP*
*GULP*
Fiona worked over her meal’s midriff and then wrapped her jaws around the girl’s hips, as the human’s head pressed firmly into the bottom of the hungry stomach and then began to slip forward, shoved out of place by the insistent muscles of the werewolf’s stomach, as more of her prey’s body was forced into the sultry, stretching space.
With a strong flip of her neck and a push from her arms, the feasting huntress flung her prey’s legs upwards as she pushed herself up from the ground. The wolf landed hard but steady on her rear, and timed the impact with another strong swallow, sending the last of her meal’s torso firmly down her throat with a jerk and a meaty slurp.
From there, Fiona’s meal practically swallowed itself. Her belly swelled and pulsed welcomingly, her throat clenched and shoved back against every attempted twist and wriggle, and gravity all by itself worked to pull the legs of her dinner downward, burying the girl ever deeper into her new digestive dwelling.
*gulp* *gulp*
*slorsh*
*gulp*
*ulp*
Fiona savored, for a private moment, the sensation of her meal’s last extremities slipping smoothly down her throat, as it closed tightly in her prey’s wake. Her stomach stretched bigger and bigger until finally the bulge in her gullet joined it completely.
She let out her breath, and put a hand to her gut. It rumbled and shuttered with the fresh, lively presence of a new human meal. She could feel the girl shifting inside her, turning and twisting, searching and fighting.
But nothing at this point would divert her from her fate of being wolf food.
Fiona leaned forward slightly, compressing her unhappy dinner as she used her hands to help get herself back onto her feet.
Feeling another thought tickling unhappily against her satisfaction, she glanced back. She was just in time to meet Ozzy’s gaze for a short moment, before he fully stepped back inside his house and finally closed his door. She thought she could catch some hint of an idea on his face, but she couldn’t say for certain, let alone what that idea might have been.
She stood there, looking for a moment, until she was completely sure that the boy wouldn’t be coming back out and wasn’t still watching. Then, quietly, she muttered a few words to ‘herself’.
“For the record, Ozzy is at least a solid seven for a human. And if it makes you feel any better, you were about an eight as a dinner.”
The bulge in her belly suddenly writhed in a violent, angry struggle, pressing fists and joints out against the insides of her furry gut.
*Uuuurp*
Fiona put a set of claws to muzzle, paused, and then gave a little, thoughtful smirk.
“Eight and a half.”