Content
It’s a tough thing to describe, really. Even if they had both been older, with many more words at their disposal, either would have likely wound up at a loss. There was a shared excitement, shaded with nervousness; a happy, curious, new moment, in which everything in the world somehow looked a bit different despite looking exactly the same.
To Toby, it was something he only got to do very rarely. A special event where he got to further build on the deep bonds of family and love he’d come to cherish, but also to indulge in wonder and exploration and to experience something both deeply familiar and tantalizingly new.
To his cousin, Coal, it was a once in a lifetime moment. Or, more accurately, a first in a lifetime moment. A coming-of-age milestone. A strange yet familiar, novel yet common, unnerving but exciting, unknown promise of an abstract thing suddenly on the verge of reality.
They stood face to face, each smiling at the other, while simultaneously examining the other’s body as if they’d never quite gotten a good look before. Surrounding them was a small crowd of their fellow kin: mostly a spattering of siblings from either cousin’s immediate family, with the addition of Coal’s mother- Toby’s Aunt Lorr- who towered over the entire gathering with a watchful yet encouraging eye. She had come for safety, a few others had come to offer guidance or support, and a few more had come just to be part of the buzz.
Now, everyone waited as excited tension filled the air, eyes set on the pair of adoptive cousins. The day had come; the moment was here.
Coal was finally big enough to swallow Toby.
Eager, hesitant and inwardly a bit confused, the dark-scaled dragon looked over his little human kin, who was even now smiling innocently up at him with those patient, curious eyes. He’d spent the last few years growing up with the boy, talking with him, playing with him, and more relevantly watching him disappear down the throats of their older, bigger relatives. Toby obviously loved it, Coal’s own brothers and sisters- the ones that were a touch larger- all told him how fun it was, and Coal himself had definitely been looking forward to being able to do the same one day. The idea filled him with a clear excitement that set his tail twitching and belly rumbling.
But at the same time, every single dragon in the family knew the unquestionable importance of keeping their scaleless, adopted kin safe. It had been impressed upon him since almost as far back as he could remember, practically since he’d been a hatchling. To always take care, to never play too rough, to never bite or swipe or even accidentally scrape. To care for the little human and protect him and keep him safe, because it was the only way he’d be able to survive.
And Coal’s belly, well… the things the young dragon put in there definitely did not survive. The things he pushed down his throat were not things he carefully cared for. The things he placed between his jaws were not those he kept safely in one piece. With his teeth and his jaws he tore food to shreds. With his gullet he greedily swallowed them down with no second thought. And with his belly, he churned his meals away until they were all but gone from existence.
Now, Coal knew all the reasons why this should be different, why this should be safe. But that dissonance was still there: looking down at his little cousin, noticeably excited to gobble him up and finally feel him packed away inside. He’d grown very used to the idea of the thing, but the reality seemed so different, somehow, now that it was blinking up at him.
Could he really do it without hurting Toby? He’d done some practice, but Coal had never actually swallowed a human before. He’d never actually had anything in his belly he didn’t want to gurgle. He’d never safely released a live, moving thing from his stomach. What if something went wrong? What if he hurt his cousin by accident? What if he really wasn’t big enough yet and Toby got stuck going in- or even worse- got stuck in his belly trying to get out?
But of course, the young dragon reminded himself, that was the whole point of the day. That was why everyone was there. A whole family’s worth of experience on how to safely swallow and un-swallow their precious human kin, standing by ready to teach him. He wasn’t just there to gulp down his cousin on a whim because they both decided he was finally big enough; he was there to learn how to do it right. To do it safely.
*gurgle*
And, to be honest, the whole thing was kinda making him hungry.
With the support of his family around him, he gave a questioning little nod to the boy in front of him. Toby nodded back positively in response, and it was that earnest trust on his little cousin’s face that finally gave Coal the last push he needed.
Toby watched the scaly jaws part- slowly, almost as if his cousin was yawning. The black gave way to glistening reds and pinks, quite literally dripping with anticipation built up from all the reluctance. Once the maw became relatively still, the little boy stepped toward it and reached out a single hand.
*squelch*
Pressing his tiny digits into the wet, yielding muscle, Toby felt it twitch, watching the pulse radiate out from his touch like a drop in a pond, with all the various bits of his cousin’s insides flexing and shifting in response.
There was a moment of adjustment before Coal reacted consciously. The tip of his tongue curled upwards to press and wiggle against the boy’s outstretched arm, licking at his elbow and shoulder. Toby broke out laughing.
“Hehehe- wait- hehe- that tickles.”
Coal chuckled too; great heaving trembles that rattled the little human’s arm by contact. The young dragon was much smaller compared to some of their elder relatives, but still so much bigger than tiny Toby.
Happily encouraged, the larger cousin decided to try and push further, to actually get his temporary meal into his mouth. Instinct told him to simply close his jaws over his catch and toss his head back a bit, but he stopped sharply after only a twitch of his jaws. He couldn’t just grab Toby with his teeth! With a few awkward wiggles of his maw and one or two half-steps forward, Coal tried and failed to somehow safely wrangle his cousin into place, stopping himself each time he realized his next move wouldn’t work.
Toby, seeing the corners of his cousin’s gaping mouth turn down, studied the situation with the eyes of an experienced child-expert.
“Can you use your tongue some more?” the little boy asked.
“Yeah, just use your tongue,” one of Toby’s older, larger brothers agreed, thinking back on his own technique.
“No, not just your tongue,” Coal’s sister, Sky, countered. Being much closer to her brother in size, she knew that didn’t sound right. “Maybe that works when you’re bigger, but for me he gets too heavy and slippery that way. You gotta kinda stretch your tongue over your teeth and use your whole mouth to pick him up, like this.” She opened her mouth, stuck out her tongue and mimed a ‘picking up’ gesture.
That seemed to make a bit more sense to the black dragon, who did his best to extend his bed of tastebuds like his sister had shown. Toby watched the many pointy teeth in his cousin’s bottom jaw disappear under a layer of pink, and instinctively he started to feel a little bit better. That looked much more like the smaller maws he was used to venturing into. With less subconscious resistance, Toby felt himself more easily leaning in toward the welcoming tongue. He started pressing his weight into it, listening to it squish and squelch as it took in his taste.
“Keep open wide, now,” Coal’s mother cautioned, seeing her hatchling’s upper jaw begin to droop with all its uncovered teeth.
He instantly caught himself, gaping his maw even wider than before, though Toby started to slip out a bit as a result while they both mildly fumbled their footing.
“It’s okay, I can help,” the little human offered, staring down the beckoning gullet of his cousin as it pulsed with alternating breaths. “You just gotta catch me.”
With the squishy ground below safely concealing the pointy danger, Toby shifted his body again. Still mostly standing, he pressed harder into the yielding muscle, imprinting a human-shaped divot in the glistening pink.
“Move your tongue around just a little so you can get used to his weight,” one relative suggested.
“Just watch the teeth,” reminded another.
The little human felt his spongy support start to wiggle, then push slightly as it flexed. It was just a tongue, but that organ alone was probably bigger and heavier than the entire boy that rested upon it. Toby kept his cool and his balance, thanks to years of familiarity and experience, as his unfamiliar cousin took a few seconds to get acquainted.
“Toby, maybe you could kinda put one leg up? Like your knee?”
It sounded like a good enough suggestion, and the little boy complied, slowly but surely feeding himself deeper into the jaws of his hesitantly excited cousin. To the black dragon, it was an odd but deeply interesting sensation, feeling something of Toby’s size and flavor willingly crawling towards his throat.
“Can you start tipping your head back yet?”
“Start slow.”
Tentatively, Coal tested the movement. Shifting the angle of his neck to take on more of his cousin’s bulk, he felt carefully at the ways the human boy sank and slipped on his tongue. Trying a bit more, he almost stopped when he felt Toby beginning to slip back out a little too far, but a subconscious curving from the tip of his tongue quickly held the boy in place, and once Coal realized how easily he could balance his mouthful-to-be with that trick, he began to move a bit more confidently.
“He’s doing it!”
“Go Coal!”
“You okay in there, Toby?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” the little boy called. He’d lost sight of his other kin now; the stony colors and textures of the cave replaced with the glinting reds and fleshy ridges of a new, uncharted maw.
“Straighten your leg now; don’t let it slip off onto his teeth.”
Toby did as he was told, awkwardly trying to shimmy a bit deeper on the slimy surface without spreading his fragile limbs too far. But he found with increasing delight that his position was less and less under his own direction. His feet had long since left the stone, and with another little wiggle from the tongue below, he felt his weight shift decidedly over the hump of Coal’s jaw.
The boy glowed happily as he sagged into the center of the red, dripping chamber, bits of light pouring in from all directions except for where he was headed.
He’d made it firmly into Coal’s mouth.
The black dragon shifted his taste buds a bit, now fully holding his cousin’s form atop them. Toby did his best to keep his weight centered so as not to slip off to one side. It was a very tight fit as far as dragon mouths went, and his young kin’s much larger, rear teeth were poking up noticeably just a tiny distance away on either side.
Meanwhile, the excited boy did his best to look around and take in the sight of this brand-new maw, and the gullet beyond. While all his family’s throats shared certain similarities, each one was also unique. Diligent as always, Toby took in every detail he could, though admittedly the detail that impinged most at this point was just the size. Even laying down, with his head as far back in Coal’s muzzle as it was, he could barely even lift his chin without bumping into the firm palette looming above. There really wasn’t much room, and Toby knew from experience it was only going to get tighter. Much tighter. Any normal boy, human being, or other such sane creature would have found that thought terrifying. But Toby only smiled wider and glowed, feeling his cousin’s drool building around him as the promise of a new belly almost literally stared him in the face.
“I’m ready, Coal,” he called. “You can do it!”
More encouragements joined in reply.
“Yeah! Gulp ‘em down!”
“Have fun Toby!”
Coal felt the building pools of flavor around his tastebuds. He felt the heavy pressure at the back of his throat, and the empty passages beyond, waiting to be filled. He was hungry, and he could already tell his current mouthful would make a very pleasant weight in his gut. But more than that… Feeling his little cousin, feeling Toby, just resting there on his tongue, completely inside his maw, just held there… In that moment, Toby was his. Guarded under his care and his alone. He held the total responsibility for the boy’s safety, and the boy’s very life, there in his jaws. And for just a moment, the young dragon thought of sealing his little cousin away from the world and all its dangers, guarding him with his own life and his own body so that nothing could possibly harm him. Shuttling him away to a place of safety and comfort.
And shuttle him he would, upon waves of peristalsis.
The black dragon tipped his head back- carefully. He curled the edges of his tongue to guide Toby’s limbs as the human started to slide. Nearly the size of the entire maw which held him, the human boy didn’t have to slip far to finally reach that steadily pulsing, fleshy gateway.
*glrk*
The first swallow was, admittedly, a bit awkward. Coal, caught up in the moment, might have momentarily neglected just how big Toby was compared to the usual mouthfuls he downed. He felt his throat flex and heard the loud squelch as a large lump- presumably his cousin’s head- pressed its way over the back of his tongue. At first, he was worried it might be a bit tight, but then he felt the wiggles against his tastebuds. Not panicked, frightened wiggles, but excited, eager little squirms.
The black dragon raised his head higher.
*GULP*
*GULP*
With each mighty squelch of the dragon’s gullet, Coal felt his neck stretch wider, as the excited voyager in his mouth transitioned into an equally excited lump in his throat. Just like when he was first picking his cousin up, he felt the human’s weight shifting. Instinctively he raised his head even higher, flexing his neck in the process to straighten the path.
*GULP*
There was a large shift. Most of Toby’s waist slipped past the precipice, and an eager, helpful wiggle of his hips helped the rest slide through. Coal no longer felt like he was pushing the boy inside; instead it almost felt like it would be more work to keep him out. But neither human nor dragon wanted that.
*GULP*
*GULP*
*GLRK*
And almost before he realized it, Coal felt ten little toes slip completely from his tastebuds. Gone, into his gullet. Stunned, the black dragon froze, focusing on the sensation intently. The progress was relatively slow, thanks to Toby’s size in his throat, but that same factor also resulted in a much more vivid imprint- both visibly and on Coal’s senses. He could feel every one of his cousin’s major contours- head, shoulders, hips, knees- and each fiber of muscle they slipped past, on the long, slithering trip toward his chest.
Once that pressure did reach his bulk, he dipped his head far downwards, where he could see the bulge that was Toby pressing out his scales and nudging his ribs aside as his own body carried the boy deeper and deeper. If not for Coal’s relatively small size, Toby would have disappeared from the world’s view completely- invisible within the belly of his kin. But instead, the black scaled gut swelled- slightly but noticeably- as the human bolas entered his long-awaited destination with a muffled, meaty:
*SQUARCH*
To Toby, there were only a small handful of factors that signaled his arrival. The fact that he’d stopped sliding was the more obvious, but there was also the subtle change in texture: with the flesh now wrapped around his face being a touch softer than the firm contours of his cousin’s throat. Then there was the direction of the heartbeat, and most tellingly, the steady- but rather quick- rhythmic swelling of the black dragon’s lungs as he looked over himself and what he’d just done.
“Yay!”
“Nice going!”
“Congratulations!”
The cheers came not only from his family on the outside, but his family on the inside as well. Coal found his belly wobbling excitedly from a force not his own, with muffled exclamations of praise and excitement reaching the world along with the busy gurgling as his gut settled and acclimated to its new occupant.
“I guess you’re okay in there,” Coal chuckled rhetorically. He could already hear the answer in his cousin’s tone.
“Uh-huh! Uh-huh!” insisted the boy anyway. He was glowing and grinning from ear to ear, though no one could see it beneath the black scales. Hi, Coal’s belly! Nice to meet you! he thought, as he took in all the contours, pressures and shifts of the slimy walls pressing in around him. The stomach molded him into a neat little ball, and he politely obliged, letting his knees and elbows tuck in tight.
*guuurgle*
“Hehe.” The boy gave a heavily muffled chuckle and tried wiggling his hips a bit, feeling the taught muscle that enwrapped him stretch and flex from his movements.
“So, whatcha think?” A bit surprised, Coal looked up from his own body to see his sister Sky and her curious, happy expression. He found himself starting to smile just like she was.
“Little Toby doesn’t feel so little in there,” he half-joked.
“Right?” she replied.
Hoping to add to the point, or maybe just coincidentally experimenting with his new surroundings, Toby chose that moment to try and press his arms out against the sides of this newly acquainted stomach, producing little bulges on each of his cousin’s flanks.
*guuuuurg* *GLORP*
The dragon’s gut rumbled and squelched as the pressure built and then quickly released, with the taught walls contracting back into place the moment his cousin allowed.
“Whoa… that feels… kinda good,” Coal remarked. Cautiously, he made his own first move. With a few tiny, rhythmic shifts, he gently swayed his distended gut, feeling the heft of his occupant pull back and forth beneath his scales.
“Can you feel which way he’s facing in there?” an onlooker asked.
“Um…” Coal went still again and focused a bit, less on the overall experience and more on the finer details, the shapes of all the various sensations in his mind’s eye. Inside, Toby felt little bits of the wall twitch and flex as his cousin subconsciously felt around. “Yeah,” the dragon finally replied. “Yeah, I can!” Craning his neck to try and see his own belly better, he looked to where he was sure he could feel the little human’s head, only to see a rather vague wall of his own scales. No one could see it, but he could feel it there, he was sure of it.
“Try giving him a belly hug, he loves those,” came a suggestion.
“A belly hug?” Coal asked.
“Yeah, a little squeeze,” came the cheerful explanation. But the black dragon seemed a little unsure. That’s when his sister chimed in.
“You’re gonna have to squeeze pretty hard to get him back out,” the young dragoness said, speaking from experience. “I know it’s kinda scary, but he can take it. This is just a little one though. It’s kinda like… breathing, but with your belly, that’s what it should feel like.”
It was a strange explanation, but she seemed to know what she was talking about. He focused on the movement of his chest as he drew in his breath and released it, and imagined a similar, gentle contraction in his gut.
“You ready, Toby?” he asked, just to be sure.
“Ready!” the little belly explorer dutifully replied.
Letting his vision fade into the distance, Coal put his focus entirely on the sensations within his body. He breathed in, then out, then in, then out, and then-
Already curled into a tight ball, Toby felt the slick walls around him shift from their normal pattern, pressing in even more firmly. The warm presence that was his cousin’s being, changed from an environment to an experience. A deep, welcoming, intentful touch that spanned his entire body and permeated all the space between.
If love had a physical feeling, Toby was sure that was it. He nuzzled happily into the taught stretched folds, glowing brighter.
Coal was pretty sure he could feel something too. A warmth, more than the physical one in his belly. He smiled again as he relaxed his abdomen.
*blurb*
He felt like he was starting to understand now. This strange mix of feelings, unnatural yet pure. The common warmth and satisfaction of a big and admittedly tasty ‘meal’, paired with the joy and pride of caring for his little adoptive kin in that special way that so few could. And the knowledge that both feelings, in some way, were also being shared with his occupant, just as both their bodies shifted with each breath the young dragon took.
“Um… are you gonna try letting him back out?”
Coal returned to the world. He’d been staring off into nothing for a few seconds now, neither moving nor speaking.
“Oh, um, right. I guess I should,” he realized. Truthfully, he was a bit reluctant, and it might have even shown in his voice, but that was an important part of the moment. He had to make sure he could safely get Toby in and out, and he wanted everyone there to help if he started having trouble. Ironically, he wasn’t the only one with reservations.
“Awww! Already!?” Toby whined through the layers of muscle and pudge.
“Yes, dear,” his aunt Lorr replied. “You two can play together once he’s learned.”
“Okay, auntie,” the boy agreed, understanding but still clearly disappointed.
“So, um… how should I…?” Coal tensed his gut awkwardly a few times, like trying to get a grip on something that was just too big to hold. He’d coughed up a few things before, even a few pretty big things as practice for this very moment, but this was different. Toby felt even bigger somehow, and suddenly nothing the young dragon had practiced felt careful or gentle enough to put the little boy through.
“You’ve gotta kinda squeeze way back,” Sky offered, “but also relax a bit in the front. It’s easier once you get started.”
Well, she’d been right so far. Coal mentally passed over the many sets of muscles he could feel packed away beneath his scales, pressed tense by the presence of his temporary meal. Way back… the dragon thought, flexing various parts of his gut and feeling the response.
After a moment, he happened across a movement that felt somehow right, with a set of muscles buried deep behind his swollen stomach. Tensing there a bit, he felt the lump in his scales shift ever so slightly forward, pressure mounting toward his chest.
Now I need to relax over there…
That spot he was a bit more familiar with. He needed to clench there sometimes to finish packing away his larger meals, and it didn’t take him long to remember how to do the opposite.
*blurble* went his belly, as the tiny traces of free space inside shifted amidst the increasingly juicy chamber.
Now both at once…
The weight in his gut wobbled slightly a few times, pressed forward towards his chest, then relaxed back to its natural resting position, in a series of experimental but ultimately unsuccessful attempts to get the little boy back up into the dragon’s throat. He was just too big and heavy. Sky was right, he was going to need to squeeze a lot harder.
*sqsh*…
*sqsh*…
*sqsh*…
*squelch*!
“I got-” Coal was overtaken by a moment of celebration when he finally felt a bit of his cousin slide back into the end of his esophagus. Unfortunately, in that moment he lost a bit too much concentration, clenched in the wrong place, and sent the little boy sloshing right back into the firm grip of his stomach.
He frowned, but a few muffled giggles from his gut told him that at least Toby was having fun. He was on the right track now, though. He just needed to keep trying.
Readying himself again and subconsciously widening his stance, the black dragon gave another firm clench, shifting his occupant forward. He felt the far end of his throat slipping open, and pushed again, harder this time. He squeezed and squeezed and squeezed, feeling the bulge slowly slipping along, but it was incredibly slow and incredibly tight. Somehow it felt even tighter than sending him down! How was that even-
*slurk*
One little clench in just the wrong spot, and he accidentally started Toby slipping down again, and once that momentum started, he just couldn’t quite get the human-lump to stop.
*splorsh*
Toby once again slipped back into the wobbling stomach. And once again he began giggling, but louder this time, breaking into an almost mischievous chuckle.
“What’s so funny in there?” Coal demanded, mostly playful. Even with the frustration of the task, it was ironically hard to feel anything other than the lightest of moods with his cousin there weighing him down.
“Wait,” Sky interjected, peering more closely at the contours of her brother’s belly. “Toby, are you doing that on purpose!?”
The little boy let out a full pranksters laugh. “Yes,” he admitted cheekily, through the wobbling scales, “Sorry.”
“What? How?” asked one of Toby’s older brothers, who couldn’t imagine the little mouthful possibly managing to do anything to oppose his own belly’s whims- aside from remaining undigested.
“One time when I tried to let him out, he was sort of folded over weird,” the much smaller dragoness explained. “It was really hard until he moved around a little and made it easier.”
Indeed, Toby had learned that day that if the throat was small enough, trying to go back up butt-first just made him a bit too thick to comfortably fit. He’d needed to shift around just a bit and stretch his legs enough so that his feet found their way out first. But since the excited little boy wasn’t in the biggest hurry to leave Coal’s belly, he’d wondered if just maybe, he could do it the other way around. And it turned out, with Toby pulling his knees in as tight as he could, he’d managed to make it fairly difficult for his cousin indeed.
“Wait, what!?” the black dragon asked, playfully peeved. “Toby!”
“Sorry! Sorry!” the kid giggled. “Here, try it this way.”
Coal felt the Toby-weight shift just a touch as a bit of the boy slid against the forward part of his stomach. There wasn’t a lot of room to maneuver, but there was just enough.
“Okay, ready,” came the muffled signal.
Preparing once more, the black dragon took a deep breath, readied his muscles, and-
*SQUELCH*
All at once, nearly half the little body in his belly shot up into his gullet. He’d gotten so used to the increased resistance, that he’d apparently gone a little overkill. He managed to hold his playful kin awkwardly in place for just a second as he gave his insides a moment to calm down again. But realizing he didn’t want to lose his grip or his progress, Coal quickly resolved to keep pushing.
Gradually, a few tentative clenches evolved into a series of rhythmic, purposeful retches, and the lump beneath the black scales began to gradually travel up, up, up the long serpentine neck, until finally Coal could feel the little boy’s heels pressing into the back of his tongue again.
Lowering his neck and tilting his muzzle down, he continued to squeeze Toby back toward freedom, as the rest of his kin began to call out advice.
“Make sure you open wide so he doesn’t scrape your teeth on the way out.”
“Yeah, use your tongue to move his legs.”
“If you keep your head straight down, he’ll be able to stand easier.”
“Yeah, but Coal might not be able to bend his neck that way with Toby still in there, he’s not big enough.”
The black dragon was listening as best he could, but was mostly following nature’s course at this point, as he felt the balance of his cousin’s weight begin to shift from his throat into his jaws. He made sure to extend his tongue as best he could, attempting to cover his teeth as he was told, and luckily Toby’s experience filled in the rest, as the boy skillfully guided his own body along its slippery surface.
A spattering of saliva and stomach juices dripped from the gaping jaws, moments before two little feet splatted down onto the stone they had left just a few moments before. It wasn’t the smoothest of landings, with Toby still leaning pretty far forward onto his cousin’s tongue, but luckily Coal did a good job holding him up- despite his new, bitter flavor- and with a bit of awkward neck work, the young dragon manage to lift the boy’s body on his extending tastebuds until the human was safely upright again.
The separation was slow and hesitant. Coal withdrew support gradually, making sure Toby was stable, but then the moment the boy’s skin left his tongue, he felt sort of empty. Not just in the obvious literal sense, but in other ways too. Just a moment ago, the little guy had been completely under his care in every possible way, and now he was just… off in the world on his own. …Why was that strange? That’s the way Toby had always been before…
Peeking out from the withdrawing muzzle, Toby quite literally beamed up at his cousin, freshly drenched in all manner of slime, but as far from bothered as possible.
“You did it!” the boy cheered. Without missing a beat, he ran forward and threw his arms around the black scaled leg, just a few steps away from the belly he’d been dangling in. His skin hit the scales with a wet splat.
Coal smiled. It had been weird but… he had liked it. He wasn’t sure he could explain why, but he had. Luckily he didn’t need to explain. Everyone in his family already knew, and he could see it in their proud smiles as they too started to cheer. He lowered his head and curled it in closer to where his little cousin was hugging.
“Thanks, Toby. You’re the best.”