Strange Friends

Well, here is my Strange Friends story, FINALLY. It took a long time and a lot of thinking to get this set in my head, but here it is. It's my main story, the big one. Critiques are welcome.

Strange Friends

Prologue: Falling from Nowhere

The rip appeared from nowhere, tearing through reality like it was cheap cloth. It expanded quickly, engulfing half a tree and vines as it sluggishly spun and grew. The Miragia Forest was silent as the hole increased to the size of a house, consuming everything it touched. As it let things in, it also let things out. From its core came things that were wholly indescribable, not capable of being produced by any sane world.

Sounds, beautiful and horrible and haunting, unable to be recreated by anything, flooded out of the void, made by the symphony that played madly and meaninglessly at the end of the universe. The noise shook the trees around it, notes from an alien dimension.

Colors, unlike any hues found in nature, pulsed in the rift. The psychotic sheen and glow twisted out, slithering and spinning through the air line maddened serpents. Lines of illogical color spiraled and twined in patterns that meant nothing. It was unbelievable, cosmic.

Emotions, ideas, and insanity exploded out from the rip, so crazed and chaotic that it could not be described. Emotions too strong to even be called emotions anymore filled the air around the rift, terror, rage, joy, despair, love, hatred, everything spilling out. Ideas and madness that could only be seen in the depths of insanity and the most terrible nightmares, the loveliest of dreams, poured forth.

No sane being could have taken in all that the void had to offer without being driven instantly to madness. It was the center of insanity, the one moment between life and death. It was the surreal, the sublime, chaos in its most pure and most awful form. It was everything and nothing at once, its name: Nowhere.

Something came forth from this psychosis, something that was not IT.

It was a concept, an EXISTENCE, a being formed of nothing but idea and thought.It seperated from the swirl and became individual. When it touched the air of Felarya, it tightened. It coalesced, twisting in on itself and solidifying into something else. The collection of sound and light and concepts, trying to conform to its new reality, formed a shape. It became a living thing. It became a small human boy.

And then it fell.

* * * * *

His first sensation was that of falling. One moment he was moving in every direction at once, and then he was moving in only one: Down. He flailed in the air, feeling it rush by him without knowing why, or how, or what was going on, or ANYTHING. He thrashed, and his first emotion took hold. It was panic. His mind took that fear, the only solid thing it had, and integrated with it. He was AFRAID.

Pain was his next sensation. He had fallen twenty meters from the portal, and he hit the ground on his shoulders. The rest of his body followed in a rush. The impact forced him to take his first breath of real air, beautiful and tasting of vegetation, rich soil, and something that tingled in his lungs. He made a sharp 'urk' sound, trying to draw in another breath, tried again, and finally succeeded.

He took a deep breath of air, filling his lungs up. Encouraged by the oxygen, his heart began to beat, just as it was meant to. Blood moved through him. He was ALIVE. He stared up at his origin, that mad rip in reality. He could not comprehend it, unable to be thrown into psychosis by it, but he knew, by some means, that the rift was where he belonged.

He lurched to his knees, slowly and shakily, then tottered to his feet. He did not know why, but something in him was crying out to be with that insanity again. He wanted, NEEDED, to get back into the rift. He had to, somehow. The portal was calling to him. He could not deny it. He HAD to be there again. Desperation and fear suddenly filled him, abstract and with neither sense nor signal.

Reaching the portal, though, was another matter entirely. It was hovering ninety feet in the air, halfway in a tree, a ball of chaos thirty feet in diameter. He ran to the tree, thinking to climb it and be reunited with that madness. He did not know how to climb, however, and it showed; he could do nothing but scrabble futilely at the bark and slap at the trunk.

When he looked up again, he was horrified to find that the void had shrunk, now smaller than before and losing a few more inches in diameter every second. He leaped wildly up at the rift, arms waving and snatching at the air meaninglessly as he made a useless, last-ditch effort to reach his goal. He found words, his first words, as the diminishing portal reached the size of a person.

"No! No, no, no!"

The uncaring rip ignored his screams, continuing to get smaller. He cried out as it grew smaller and smaller, going to the size of a bowling ball. He howled as it got even smaller, down to the size of an orange, then a golfball, then a pea. At last, with a quiet pop, it vanished.

"NO! Nonononononono!" he shrieked, falling to his knees and tilting his head back to wail at the now-empty sky.

He felt liquid trickle from his eyes, his first tears, but certainly not his last. He twisted in on himself, screeching, tearing at his mousy hair in his frustration and misery. He had been so desperate to go back into the void, but that was impossible now. His goal was gone. He sobbed and screamed, hiccoughing as he did but unable to stop.

He collapsed, no longer having enough energy to sit up, and ground his head into the dirt. He couldn't go on. His exhaustion was too great; he felt unconsciousness pull him down into its depths. He accepted it, the blissful emptiness of a dreamless sleep far better than his horrifying new reality.



There we go, the prologue of Strange Friends. Here we get to see one of the two main characters be "born" and get deposited in Felarya.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated

Impressive writing. Some very vivid and striking descriptions. Though the introduction was designed for me not to understand who the boy was, nor what the rift was, I felt for his need to return to it. Good work indeed - and I'm curious for the rest!

Thank you. I tend to write my best when dealing with very strong emotions, so this boy is a good character for my main story. Here's the first proper chapter. No vore. Critique as you like.

Chapter 1: Terror in the Forest

He came back to consciousness slowly, drifting up out of the comforting dark reluctantly. The sun was playing in patterns on his face, insistent and demanding that he rise to face his new reality. He turned over, reaching up to shield his still-closed eyes; he had no desire to confront this dilemma, either now or later. He would rather lie here forever and sleep.

A thought came, swift and leaving a flash-imprint in his head.

He got the briefest idea of some nightmarish thing, huge and slavering, glaring down at him as he slept. His heart instantly leapt into his throat, irrational panic seizing him. He twisted around, hands flying up in defense of the imagined horror even as his eyes flew open. Light blinded him for a second, and he realized that he could not see what was coming at him.

He was up in an instant, dodging away from the monster bearing down on him. Still half-blind, he took off running full tilt, fear lending him wings. He ran blindly, flailing his arms and yelling as he tried to escape the fiend on his tail. He was going to-

"Tok!"

The sound of skull on wood made a peculiar noise as he ran headfirst into the trunk of a tree. He bounced off the obstacle, semi-conscious, and landed flat on his back. He stared dazedly up at the canopy, blinking as pulsating stars swirled across his vision. A few seconds of collecting his mind brought him back around. He remembered why he had run in the first place and started up, eyes darting around.

There were giant trees all around him, towering above his head more than two hundred feet for some, massive and silent. Vines hung in long bridges in the branches, forming brown-green webs and tangles. Plush moss covered most of the ground, even forming soft green patches on the heavy roots of the great trees. Strange plants and flowers grew here and there, everything huge and bizarre. He was in a jungle, soft, rich soil under his feet and thick vegetation surrounding him.

Though he now realized there was no beast, he still cowered down at the size of everything. He felt tiny, an insignificant speck in a vast and unknown world. He was nothing, and he was, above all, afraid. The fear he had first felt had woven itself into him, as much a part of him as his leaf-green eyes.

Very slowly, he eased up into a crouch, heart pounding as he looked around for any sign of danger. There didn't seem to be anything-

Something moved, and the movement instantly threw him into a panic. He had no reason; motion simply went straight into his mind as DANGER. He scrambled backwards as the thing came at him, a round thing the size of his fist coming down at him from up above. He shrieked as the thing landed on his arm, thrashing to try and get it off.

It fell off, falling down to the soft moss with barely a sound. He backed up from the thing immediately, gazing at it with frightened eyes. It didn't move anymore. He stood, staring and waiting for it to begin its assault again, taking fast, shallow breaths as he watched it. He waited several minutes. No movement.

Oh so cautiously, he extended one foot, a black running shoe on it, to touch the thing. It still refused to move. He nudged it, very gently, but it only moved as he pushed it. He looked up at where it had come from, barely daring to take his eyes from the thing lest it jump at him, and saw a group of the things up there. They were hanging in a cluster on a branch up above him, harmless. It was just a fruit.

Calming a little at this realization, he picked up the round yellow fruit and examined it. It was about the size of an apple, brillaint yellow and firm-fleshed. It smelled lovely, with an earthy spice kind of scent to it. He felt his mouth water, and instinctively bit into it.

It was quite good, with a crisp, sweet flavor. There was a sharpness, also, an aftertaste that was prominent but not unpleasant. It had a bite to it. His stomach, knowing what to do even if he himself had never eaten, took the bit he swallowed and demanded more. He hurriedly ate the fruit, licking his fingers once he was done. Glancing around, he spotted several of the same type of fruit lying around and crouched down to pick them up.

Perhaps it was some sound, some motion at the corner of his eye, or a subtle change in the air pressure. Perhaps it was all of these combined. Perhaps it was just paranoia. In any case, he spun with a scream, darting sideways as he did. The monster barely missed him.

It looked like a bird of some kind, but giant, five times his size at least, clawed feet and a feathered plump body that was a russet shade with brown speckles. The neck was long, nearly twice as long as its body and sinuous, powerful muscles working to hold the length of it up. The head was large, a sharp, pointed grey beak accompanied by a set of unblinking eyes the color of a pumpkin. The thing hissed at the boy, coiling its neck up to strike at him again.

The nexolt shot its head out at the human that had been eating the dragonapples, trying to curve its strong neck around him to catch and constrict its prey. The human, seeing the beginning of the motion almost before it started, leapt away with all the hyper-alert alacrity of a startled duiker. He took off, moving fast in abnormally long, rapid bounds.

The boy outran the nexolt in a flash, sprinting away. The creature was an ambush predator, not able to chase down most prey, certainly not such a fast thing as the boy. It gave up quickly, going back to its drakewillow tree to await its next meal. He kept running regardless, too frightened to look back and find that it was no longer chasing him.

The boy was light, far lighter than should have been possible for his mass. He was small, only five feet tall and scrawny, but he weighed less than half of what he should have. His density was off, the physics of his body not fully in sync with reality. It allowed him to move very fast, leaping in swift, long strides rather than actually running.

For all his speed, he could not control his legs. He couldn't keep up with the pace his fear drove him to, his abnormal weight confusing his own body. He had barely made it two hundred meters when he overstepped a root and went flying, tumbling to the ground and sliding on his face a dozen feet before skidding to a halt.

After a moment, he got back up, face scraped up and filthy with dirt. His tan trousers and green shirt, too, had smears of loam on them. Thankfully, though, the soil of the jungle was soft, and he wasn't injured by the fall other than a few scratches.

He rubbed his face, trying to get the dirt off but only managing to smudge it, as he nervously glanced around. There was no sign of the long-necked bird, but his heart was still pounding from the encounter and he trembled at the thought of another monster sneaking up on him. Even as he started to move about, he constantly was turning back and forth, watching for any motion.

He wandered for hours, aimless and yet searching for something he could neither define nor explain. He was always on high-alert; nothing could have approached him unless invisible and inaudible. Adrenaline pulsed through him constantly, making everything that moved a threat and his body continually shiver. Anxiety gnawed at him the whole time, turning every rustle in the undergrowth a beast leaping upon him, every falling leaf another attacking bird, every snap of a twig a demon on its way to kill him.

He crept through the massive forest like an insect, staying low and keeping to the shadows, hardly daring to breathe for fear that something would discover him. He had been going about like this for most of the day, the sun now beginning to set and make long shadows that ate away at the light, dark teeth chewing apart the fading day.

His fear decreased as darkness fell; the night soothed him in a way he could not comprehend. He felt safer in the dark, the cool obscurity shrouding him from malicious eyes. It calmed him down, relaxed him with deep shadows and gentle light from the three moons. One stood at full, one at half, the third a little less than half, all giving him just enough light that he could see the general outline of things.

He was still incredibly watchful, never letting his guard down for even a moment. He froze at the slightest noise, started at the least amount of motion, and kept himself always primed for evasion. Once or twice he saw something large moving through the trees, once a giant wolf-thing with six legs and a dull sheen to its claws that he instinctively knew was deadly dangerous, another time a vast creature like a tortoise that had a shell which gleamed in the moonlight. Both times he hid, avoiding detection, terrified that they would hear his loudly thumping heart.

He didn't sleep that night, too afraid that some horror would find him while he dozed, and the next day's sunrise found him still creeping through the jungle, a frightened rabbit watching for the hawk.

He came upon the strange land near noon.

It was a massive stretch of land, going on forever. This land was different than that in the forest. It gleamed in the sunlight, and had a blue tint to it. It was somewhat transparent, but it hid its depths in dark blue shadow. It was moving, but very slowly and calmly, so he decided it was not a threat and got closer, thinking to investigate.

He touched it carefully, and was surprised to find that it flowed around his hand. It was cool and wet, unlike any soil he had touched before. He withdrew his hand. Some of the substance stayed on his hand, glinting in the light and dripping off his fingers. It made his hand feel oddly . . . heavy. He stood, looking out across the strange expanse while shading his eyes with a hand. He couldn't see the other side of it, and it stretched to his left and right seemingly forever, cutting right through the jungle.

He decided to walk across it.

He took a step in, his foot going into the stuff and halting at the normal soil that lay beneath, just visible. The strange substance soaked into his shoe, making his foot cool and damp. It felt good after the hours of walking in the humid jungle. He took another step, then another, continuing until he was up to his chest in the new land. He felt very heavy, like he was being pulled down by weights all over his body.

This strange change in how heavy he was worried him a little, but it didn't hurt and the flow of the substance was comforting. He kept going until he was up to his chin. Now he could no longer lift his arms, they were so heavy. He walked further in, until the stuff closed over his head. He took a breath . . . and could not get air.

He panicked as the water flooded his lungs, choking him. He thrashed, trying to get up out of the substance, back to air, but could not. The water had changed his density, altering how his physics worked. Now he weighed three times as much as anyone his size had a right to. He couldn't get out of the water.

The boy was drowning in the Jewel River.


Chapter one, in which the boy learns the hard way that being dimensionally unstable really sucks. Less weight and more speed, but his body can't adjust to his lightness and any change in density is like putting on a suit of armor.

Felarya is Karbo's

Drakewillow Nexolt is credited to SilentEric, Kensha to Randomdude.

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

Very interesting perspective, on discovering everything through new eyes and senses.

Presumably, he'll be rescued by something that doesn't eat him. I'll be curious to read the next part.

Here's chapter 2. The boy runs into further troubles, the least of which is drowning.

Chapter 2: Drowned and Chased

The boy twisted, trying to turn around and walk back out of the river and to air. His altered weight was too much; he was unable to get the momentum required to turn his now superdense body and move. He was thrashing in the water, barely able to wave his arms with the increased pull of gravity, but he could no more swim than a statue could.

He was choking on the water he had breathed in, drowning and desperately trying to hold on to his fading consciousness. If he passed out in this river, he would die. His weight was still increasing, driving him to his knees. He started to sink into the silt at the bottom; he was close to a hundred and fifty kilograms now, and that weight was dragging him down with alarming speed. If this continued, he would be permanently buried in the riverbed.

He slowly raised his arms up, grasping at the tantalizing sunlight that fluctuated at the surface, just out of his reach. It was almost identical to when he had reached for that chaos portal, an absolutely imperative goal that he could never reach. The surface was getting farther away as he continued to sink into the silt, precious air growing more and more into an impossible dream. He was going to drown.

He decided then and there that he feared water more than anything else he had encountered yet.

His weight and density had stopped increasing, but at this point it was irrelevant; he weighed nearly two hundred kilograms and was about as capable of swimming as a rock. He was trying to hold on, but a few minutes more and he would go unconscious from lack of oxygen. What's more, he knew it.

With a heave, he struggled to crawl backward out of the river, now on his hands and knees. Every motion was excruciatingly slow, taking every ounce of muscle and willpower he possessed to continue his movement. His lungs screamed to be filled, but there was no air to be had. His vision was going dark, reducing him to a half-blind thing crawling desperately to escape the inevitability of death.

He wasn't going to make it.

He cried out underwater, the sound distorted, and a rush of bubbles came with it. He was at the edge of unconsciousness, fading fast. He would drown in moments now that he had lost the last of his air. He had to breathe sooner or later. Then he was out cold.

* * * * *

Asil was flying over the Jewel river, close to the Miragia side, when she spotted a human in the shallows, lying at the bottom and half buried in silt. That was curious. Humans almost always floated when dead. The idea that he might have treasure entered her head, lots of nice stuff that was weighing him down. The thought excited her; there was always more room in her hoard for more beautiful things.

She adored anything of beauty, from jewels and gold to embroidered cloth and artwork. Enthused at the idea of getting something good for her collection, she dived down and halted above the human. Her bright dragonfly wings a blur as she hovered, the fairy grew to thirty feet tall, landed, and plucked the now-tiny human from the water.

He was a pitiful thing, really, absolutely soaked and bedraggled. Scrawny, short even for a human, and skinny as a twig. He was wearing a green short-sleeve shirt and sand-colored trousers, plus black shoes. It all looked too big for him, and hung on his thin frame, trickling water. For all his lack of size, though, he was astonishingly heavy; he sat in her hand like a brick.

Ignoring this oddity, she looked at his clothes, seeing if there were any telltale bulges that meant treasure. She gave a sigh of disappointment when she saw none. Then she poked him, pushing in his little tummy with two fingers. Usually she did this to people she caught to eat, making them squeal delightfully, but this one surprised her. Instead of noise, water gushed from his mouth. There was a spluttering cough, wheezing, and the human woke up.

He wasn't dead after all.

She put him down, shrinking to his size as she did so. He went down, shivering and still barely conscious, eyes unfocused. She smiled at him, hoping he would talk; she loved it when her meals talked to her.

* * * * *

The boy came to lying on his back, half-sitting and half-lying, vision fading in and out at first. Things were blurry, and his ears were ringing, a high-pitched buzz that made it hard to concentrate. There was something moving in his field of vision, but he was too weak and woozy to run away. Rubbing his head, he took a moment to recover his senses and look up at the thing that stood before him.

It was a woman, his size, with two strange things sticking out of her tangled brown hair. Her eyes were the same color as his, a grassy-green shade. Under her small button nose was a bight smile, showing white teeth. She didn't have any of the cloth things on herself like he did, her chocolate-colored skin exposed, and glinting, iridescent insect wings.

He tried to crawl backward from her, but he was still weighed down and far too weak to move again quite yet. She was looking down at him with interest, curious. Then she spoke.

"Hello. Are you okay?"

He could understand her. He comprehended it, and opened his mouth to answer. Then he paused, unsure of what he should say back. He knew how to speak, somehow, it being part of his makeup, but he had never been spoken to, nor spoken to any living thing.

Finally, he responded.

"Y-y-yes-s-s-s-s." he stuttered, trembling so hard he could barely get the words out.

"That's good. I though you were dead, and dead humans aren't as good to eat. They, I dunno, go stale, or something, and they don't squirm around in your tummy. Its always best when they move around in there and tickle." the fairy stated, giggling a little at the thought of it.

The boy felt his heart clench into a knot. EAT? He tried to back away again, but he was too heavy, and too tired. He could feel his weight returning to normal as the hot sun dried him off, but it was not nearly fast enough for his liking. He needed to get away from this thing NOW.

The woman chuckled at his efforts at dragging himself away from her, and then leaned down. She held a hand out over him, drawing forth her shrinking magic. She would make him even tinier than he was, and then have a nice lunch. She hit him with the shrinking magic a moment later.

The boy shivered as a buzzing tingle passed over his skin, like a mild shock. He stared up at the woman, wondering what she had done. He waited, the two staring at each other silently for several seconds. Nothing happened.

Asil blinked as her magic touched him, passed over him, and dissipated. He didn't shrink, not one bit. It wasn't supposed to work like that; he was supposed to get small when she used her shrinking spell. He wasn't blocking it, or using magic himself, either, because she hadn't felt anything of the sort. It was like her spell just . . . didn't do anything. He was nullifying it, somehow.

"Hey, you're supposed to turn really small when I do that! You're not supposed to stay normal!" she protested.

The human just stared at her announcement, eyes round and frightened. She huffed in annoyance, then shrugged as she accepted the fact. I wasn't like she couldn't eat him. If she couldn't shrink him, then . . .

The boy watched, horrified, as the fairy started to grow. She expanded fast, rocketing upward in an instant. She got taller and taller and taller, five feet to twenty, twenty feet to forty, forty to sixty, then eighty, finally stopping at ninety feet tall. She was more than fifteen times her original height now, towering over him, a giant. She looked down at him, grinning at his terrified expression.

Then she licked her lips.

His heart skipped at beat at the sight of her tongue sliding across her pink lips, at the knowledge that she was going to EAT him. It made all the moisture in his mouth dry up, and the hair on the back of his neck prickled. It took him beyond fear and put him far past the realm of terror. His weakness was forgotten in a second, washed away by the tidal wave of adrenaline that flooded through him.

He decided he was even more afraid of being eaten than of water.

And then he shot to his feet and bolted.

His weight had been reduced to almost the same level as before, just a bit heavier, but he couldn't have cared less even if he had still been soaking wet and as heavy as a boulder. He was off like a shot, startling the fairy with his astonishing speed. After a moment of confusion, the sprite came after him.

Asil was amazed at how fast this human was. He wasn't even moving like a person, instead streaking along with rapid bounds like a duiker. He could've outstripped a neko at the rate he was going, taking long, very quick strides that often had both his feet off the ground for two or three seconds at a time. She actually had to make an effort to keep up with him, even though she was much larger and with much longer legs, going at a giant's equivalent of a brisk jog.

The boy sprinted through the forest, jumping roots and flying through the undergrowth at a breakneck pace. It was a miracle he hadn't tripped and gone flying yet, like last time he had gotten up to this speed, and he was far too frightened of the fairy on his heels to worry about where he was going. He glanced back, and screamed.

Asil laughed, giddy at the thrill of the chase, as she watched her prey's pupils shrink down to pinpricks. The twin skulls of raw terror chattered in each, a glint of primal fear. It was fun to chase, the excitement of hunting all well and good, but her empty stomach demanded she end the pursuit. She sped up a bit, drawing close enough to grab, and reached for him.

The human saw her hand, bigger than he was and coming for him, and felt the dark flower of true horror blossom in his chest, constricting his heart with its black-thorned roots. The adrenaline rushing through him increased, becoming something akin to liquid panic. Even with this boost, he couldn't outrun the sprite. He turned back, and found himself barely two steps from the bole of a tree. Instantly he leapt sideways.

There was a sharp crack as his ankle was dislocated, not made for turning at such speeds.

* * * * *

Asil was so concentrated on chasing the ridiculously fast morsel and keeping him in her sights that she didn't see the tree until the human darted to the right and fell with the snapping sound of something coming loose in his leg. By then it was too late for her to avoid hitting it. She crashed into the trunk headfirst.

Stars exploded in her head, vision going black, as she slammed her head into the tree. Her neck popped as her head twisted sideways painfully. Dazed, she slid down to lie at the foot of the tree, brain temporarily scrambled. Her consciousness wavered, with her on the verge of passing out. After several minutes, she sat up and managed to shake off her near-concussion.

The human was gone.

She scowled, now genuinely annoyed. This snack just wouldn't play by the rules; he ran too fast, he wouldn't shrink, and he had made her crash into a tree. It was a far cry from the easy meals she had eaten before. More determined to catch and eat him than ever now that he had upset her, she looked for a sign of where he had gone. There was a scuff-mark in the moss to her right, so she shot off in that direction, toward the river.


That's it for chapter 2. His dimensional instability wrecks any dimensional, spatial, or size magic he touches, so he's immune to fairy shrinking. Which, as he finds out, doesn't mean much when the fairy can grow.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

Chillingly good description of drowning. And good work on Asil, showing us her perspective as a fairy. Her way of viewing things is disarmingly simple.

(As a sidenote, you meant "he couldn't have cared less", not "he could have cared less".)

Really great job on that story so far

The descriptions of his various feelings and emotions are very vivid and immediately pull the reader in. The moment he is starting to drown was chilling o.o

Great job !

Thank you both very much. I'm glad my main story is doing so well. Here is chapter three. We get to meet the second of the two main characters. This story has vore, so do not read if it offends you.

Chapter 3: Hide Me!

The boy was hobbling along as fast as he could, trying to keep his meager weight off of his twisted ankle. The adrenaline pulsing through his system was blocking out the majority of the pain, reducing it to a dull throb, but every step made a bolt of white-hot lightning shoot up his leg. He ignored it; his only thought was to get away from the fairy he had managed to temporarily evade and get OUT of this horrible place.

He should have been thinking about where he was going.

Suddenly he ran into something soft, the substance yielding for a moment before bouncing him back off. He sat down hard, surprised by the sudden halt, and looked up.

His heart did a fear-induced somersault in his chest.

* * * * *

Calimn had been moping, lying on the bank of the Jewel River with her hands crossed behind her head, when she felt something tap her on the arm. She rolled over, onto her stomach, and looked down at the thing that had run into her. It was a human, a twig of a boy that was staring up at her with horror and trembling so hard it looked like he was going to shake himself apart.

Calimn gave an annoyed "tch" at the sight of him. Just what she DIDN"T want to see now: a morsel she couldn't eat. It was agonizing, the tasty little thing sitting right there and making her mouth water, with her knowing that eating something his size would hurt. The stupid whaler with his STUPID harpoon had made sure of that. She could still feel the metal fishing spear where it was caught in her throat, a rasping itch that turned into a burning sensation whenever she swallowed.

Besides being painful, it made it nearly impossible for her to swallow anything larger than a mid-sized fish, anything bigger than three feet getting caught on the toothpick in her throat and making it excruciatingly painful before finally going down. She gave a sigh, then spoke to the human.

* * * * *

The boy stared up at the giant fish-woman, heart hammering away fit to burst. He was so scared it felt like he was going to throw up, a knot in his throat making it hard to breathe properly. First that winged woman that moved around fast and wanted to eat him, now a massive fish-lady that probably wanted to eat him, too.

She was completely out of the river, showing her full size to him, and was immense. Her green-scaled tail was a hundred feet long at least, and her human half close to seventy. She was looking down at him with bright emerald eyes that shone out of her pleasant face. Dark blue hair, straight and smooth, went midway down her back, still a little damp from the river.

Something was wrong, though, a depressed aura about her. Her robin's egg blue skin had a sickly pallor to it, her figure thinner than it should have been, eyes dull and troubled. He was startled by how . . . limp . . . her voice sounded when she spoke.

* * * * *

"What do you want? I'm not interested in you." she huffed, propping her head up with one hand.

She gave a sigh. Well, she wasn't interested in him NOW. If she didn't have this awful harpoon jammed in her gullet, it would be a different story. She would have slurped the delicious thing down in a moment, savoring his wonderful fla- Calimn shook her head, trying to get rid of the image of her eating the human. It wasn't going to happen. Not with the spear stuck in her throat.

"Y-y-y-y-you a-a-a-aren't-t-t-t g-g-going t-t-t-to eat m-m-me?" he asked, stuttering so hard she could barely understand him.

She shook her head again, confirming that she wasn't going to eat him.

"No. I'm . . um . . . not hungry."

A lie. She was VERY hungry. She hadn't had a decent meal in nearly two weeks, unable to take the pain of swallowing a lot of food at once. She didn't want to admit to that, though. This STUPID harpoon . . .

* * * * *

The boy felt a wave of relief. She wasn't going to- no, wait. Paranoia kicked in before he had even finished his thought. What if she was just saying that to get him close? He had scrambled out of her reach initially, and she didn't look like she was capable of moving around that fast on land. Maybe he should ju-

"I'm coming to fiiiiiiind you!"

His heart turned over, then attempted to strangle him by leaping into his throat. It was that fairy. She was following his trail, and coming fast by the sound of it. If she caught him, he was dead. That much he knew.If he stayed here she would have him, if he ran she would chase him down, if he hid she would fi- The fish-woman. She could hide him. The fairy would surely ignore something her size.

But could he trust her? She had said she wasn't going to eat him, but that could be a lie. He was caught firmly, stuck between trusting a giant that would probably eat him, and facing one that would eat him for sure. He twisted in place, chewing on his lip as he struggled with indecision.

"Here I cooooome!"

* * * * *

"HIDE ME!"

The request surprised Calimn. Even with whoever was coming to eat him-and the thought made her envious-she hadn't expected him to ask her for help. It ticked her off. Her response had a bite like a selachi.

"Why should I? Just cause you asked? You're a selfish thing. I've got problems, too!"

The boy twined his fingers together repeatedly, wringing his hands.

"Look, I'm sorry. There's a weird flying lady with bug wings coming for me and I-"

As if prompted by his words, the fairy called out again, this time quite close. She would be here in a couple minutes.

"Where aaaaaaaare you?"

At that point the human's brain apparently fried from stark terror, because the rest of his speech tumbled out as a speed-stuttered mess, most of which was babbled nonsense and the rest of it barely comprehensible. Out of the whole string of words she only caught "Hide me!", "Please!", "Help, no swallow!"

She was stunned. He was going to help her with her inability to swallow if she hid him? That was a sweet deal!

* * * * *

The mermaid grinned.

"You'll get the spear out if I hide you, little guy?" she asked.

The boy had no idea what she was talking about. He had asked her to help him without swallowing him, and didn't remember anything about a spear. The fairy calling again spurred him to agree. He went with it.

"Y-y-yeahs-s-s-ureI-I-Ifixit." he assured, barely able to talk anymore.

He gave a sharp squeak as she pushed forward on her muscular tail, instantly closing the gap and snatching him up. Maybe she wasn't so awkward on land as he had first thought. He yelped as she pushed up on one hand, placed him under her body, and laid back down. He screeched; she wasn't going to eat him, she was going to squish him!

* * * * *

"Hush up. I'm not hurting you." she hissed at the sharp squeals coming from underneath her.

The muffled yelling quieted at her words. Just in time, because a second later the fairy, still giant, buzzed out of the forest. She looked around, brightening when she saw the mermaid. She grew to a hundred feet-rule 1. Never socialize with someone bigger than you- and flew over to hover in front of Calimn.

"Heya! Have you seen a twitchy, really fast little human go by? I'm looking for him." she announced, giving a winning smile.

Calimn tilted her head, returning the smile. She could act with the best of them, and this conversation was high-stakes. If she could fool the fairy, she would get that nasty harpoon out of her throat and be free to eat all the delectable little treats she wanted.

"Was he short, kind of tetchy, looks like a mouse? Super-scared?"

The fairy's friendly smile lit up, brightening by a hundred watts.

"That's the one! Which way did he go?"

Calimn gave the sprite an apologetic look and opened her mouth, pointing down the darkness of her throat.

"Sorry. I didn't know you were hunting him. He was really good, if it's any consolation."

The fairy pouted, floating a little higher, disappointed that somebody else had gotten that unfair snack besides her. But, what could you do?

"I could spit him up, if you really want him."

Asil wrinkled her pert nose at the mermaid's suggestion. He would taste horrible like that. All fishy and nasty.

"No way, that's so gross! Well, sorry to bug you. See ya!"

With that, the fairy flew off, vanishing back into the forest.

Calinm grinned, then reached under herself to retrieve the human.

* * * * *

The boy was squashed under the mermaid, in the little space made just below her breasts, where her sternum was. He was pressed firmly against the ground, unable to move and barely able to breathe. Even though she was soft and had him in the best possible place to keep her weight off him, all that mass was on top of him and suffocating. He could hear the fairy and mermaid talking, but only just, muffled and incomprehensible.

The pressure was going to kill him, he was sure of it. He felt like he was running out of air, and the mountain of flesh above him was getting heavier and it was pushing down on him and oh he was going to die and-

Then he was out. The fish-lady rolled to one side and pulled him out from under her, back into the wonderful open air. He was shaking, not even able to stand.

"I-I-I th-thought I w-was going t-to die un-under there." he managed.

The mermaid glared down at him, making him cower under her gaze.

"It's not like I'm fat, you wimp. Now, time for you to hold up your end of the bargain."

She laid all the way down, chin on the ground, and opened her mouth wide. Her mouth was big enough for him to walk right in. Her tongue, quite long, rolled out like a cheery pink welcome mat, providing him a plush road to the inescapable tunnel of her throat. Its periwinkle tip curled, gently beckoning him in. "So glad to see you. Care to join us for dinner?" it invited, quivering in anticipation of having a guest.

The sight of it was terrifying to him. Her teeth, each as big as his head, could crush him if she bit down on him, her tongue could grab him and drag him in, back to that pink thing that dangled at the dim entrance to her throat, and there was WATER in her mouth, or something like it, and-

At some point he must have passed out, because the next thing he knew he was twenty meters away from her and clinging to a tree root with the white-knuckled desperation of a drowning man. There was blood in his mouth; he had bitten his tongue in the moments he had gone unconscious from terror. There was no way he could go down that tunnel willingly. He would have a heart-attack before he even stepped on her tongue.

* * * * *

Calimn was astonished, even a little disturbed. She had never seen anyone get so incredibly hysterical in her life. Her ears were still ringing from the piercing shriek he had let off when she put her tongue out for him, and he had jumped a good fifteen feet in his first bound despite an obviously twisted ankle.

He wasn't going to come through on his end of the deal. At least, not WILLINGLY. She could remedy that easily enough. She gave him a gentle smile, soothing him with the calm words she next spoke.

"Hey, it's alright if you don't want to. I get it. It's fine. Just come to my hand. I can't have you meandering around on your own, can I? I'll take good care of you."

The human, shivering, looked up at her. He was scared, but there was also trust in there. Not much, but it was very solid. After a moment, he crept over to her open palm, like a puppy that was wary of being punished but still hoping not to be. He very cautiously raised his arms, letting her pick him up. She lifted him up to her face, seeing the fear with which he glanced at her lips.

"Now, I'm going hold you by the leg, upside-down. I promise I won't drop you. Just be calm and trust me, okay?" she said, pleased when he meekly nodded and let her flip him around.

She really hated to be mean like this, but he shouldn't have promised to do something he was too frightened to go through with. He was going to keep his promise, whether he liked it or not. She raised him up higher, above her head, and opened her mouth wide. He started screaming his head off as she lowered him towards her mouth.

She ignored his thrashing, and lowered him into her mouth. Then she flexed her throat, opening it up. The talent she had learned from Jab would be helpful now. She kept lowering the human down, until he was as far down her throat as she could put him without letting go. She was almost gagging, her fingers touching her uvula. She held on though, and waited for what she knew would happen.

* * * * *

The boy was surrounded by slick flesh walls, the mermaid's esophagus around him but not touching him. He had stopped squirming now, afraid she would drop him, or that he would touch the saliva in her throat and get heavy or run out of air like with the river. He merely trembled, breathing fast and shallow, and tried to squeeze himself smaller to avoid coming in contact with the walls of her throat.

Suddenly his head hit something hard, making a metallic sound.

He looked down, and saw a long steel shaft just below him, wedged in her throat. It was about four feet long, with a sharp spike on both ends. It was stuck, the twin points pressed into the tissue but not piercing it. Her throat must have been incredibly tough to keep from being punctured, but the area around each point was reddened and sore, irritated by the obstruction.

This was what was making her so upset! Now he knew why she wasn't going to eat him: she couldn't. Or at least, couldn't without a lot of pain. He realized why she had been so insistent on him going into her throat; this thing must hurt.

"I didn't know y-you had something like this in you. I'm s-sorry I w-was too scared to go in myself." he apologized.

"Apol'gy acceped. Jus' ge' i' ou'." she mumbled, trying to talk past her hand.

He took ahold of the spear, very gently trying to work it sideways. He heard the mermaid give a whimper of distress, and he froze, terrified, as the walls of her esophagus shuddered around him. Once it stopped, he tried again. He teased it out, working on one end. It took nearly a minute of heart-pounding, barely-breathing anxiety, every moment expecting to fall down her throat, but he got it. The fishing spear came loose, starting to slide down her esophagus. Barely in time, he caught it by the cord-wrapped handle.

* * * * *

Calimn felt the human working at the harpoon, sharp pricks of pain as he fiddled with it. It hurt and tickled at the same time, a paradox of sensation. At last, he gave a relieved cry.

"O-okay, I g-got it! P-p-pull me up!"

She obliged. He came back up hanging onto the harpoon, shaking but unharmed and barely even wet. She was finally free of that horrible spear.

"YEEEEE-EEEEESSSSS!" she cheered, pumping a fist in the air.


There's chapter three. The boy runs into Calimn, and helps her out. Although it was kind of forced Anyway, chapter four will be up soon. Critique as you like.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

Aww, poor fairy. She was so looking forward to finding riches in his pockets, and then to eating him, and in the end she got nothing. At least she seems not to have taken the disappointment too badly.

The boy looks as though he may succumb to a heart attack before a predator even gets him... Though might he now have a very useful giant mermaid friend?

He might have . . . except having a harpoon stuck in your throat for two weeks can make one rather . . .

Has vore in it, so do not read if you do not like vore.

Chapter 4: The Dream, The Nightmare

In retrospect, giving the boy a kiss was not the best of decisions.

Calimn kissed him, a gift for helping her, and got a taste of him. Even that little bit of flavor was like ambrosia. She hadn't had a human or anything like that since getting the harpoon caught in her throat, and had been craving them most of the two weeks she had gone without eating any.

The taste had her stomach growling loudly. She hadn't been eating properly, too depressed by her dilemma and unable to take the pain of swallowing down larger meals. Hunger was chewing at her gut, insisting that she fill it with the little human. She thought about it.

He had helped get the harpoon out, which was a positive. On the other hand, she was starving, and he was right there in her hand. He had volunteered to help, but on the other hand she had needed to force him to keep his word. She was enthused that the spear was out, but then again he was begging to be eaten. He was just the right size to go down her raw throat smoothly, he was delicious, and he trusted her.

She just kept working at the problem. Surely she shouldn't eat him after he got the harpoon out. Well, he WAS food. He was sitting in her palm, clinging to the fishing spear and shaking ever so slightly. The urge to put him in her mouth was overwhelming. Her belly was pretty firm on the subject, demanding food.

She had promised to take care of him, though . . .

"Well, do you take care of yourself?" her hungry belly asked.

"Yes."

"He'll be a part of you when you eat him, right?"

Her stomach won the argument with that.

She lifted him to her mouth, as if she was going to kiss him again, but instead she pursed her lips and sucked his head in. He instantly started struggling, limbs flailing while his head was stuck. She licked his face, gently. His flavor soaked into her taste-buds. She almost cried at how good he tasted.

Whatever he was running on, it was beautiful on the tongue. Most humans had a trace of it in their sweet-salty taste, but this boy had so much more of it. It was the taste of adrenaline, buzzing pleasantly on her tongue. She gave a sigh of pleasure, closing her eyes as she slurped him farther into her mouth. He was in up to his waist, more of his delightful deliciousness flooding her mouth.

* * * * *

The boy was screaming in her mouth, trying to pull himself back out, but to no avail. His heart was hammering so hard he could hear nothing but his own pulse, blood rushing in his ears. It was pitch-black in her mouth, and he flailed blindly in the dark. His legs, still outside, were kicking furiously, regardless of the fact that every kick sent barbed-wire agony twisting through his injured ankle.

She had forgotten to take the harpoon from him, and in his frenzied swinging he struck her uvula squarely.

Her startled "arck-!" deafened him, and then he was flying out of her mouth and through the air. The sun blinded him, but he could blearily see where he was going. He was falling towards the ground, and that relieved him; if he were to land in the river he would drown in short order. The height made him nervous, but he was so light that-

Then he realized that his upper half was soaked in saliva and he was plummeting like a stone. If he hit at this weight, he'd break something. That was something he couldn't afford to do, not here right next to the man-eating mermaid. He twisted around in the air, arms and legs pinwheeling wildly. Then he hit, landing on his back.

The impact knocked the air out of his lungs and rattled the teeth in his skull, but there was no gruesome crack to indicate he had broken anything. He wheezed, trying to pull in another breath, and scrambled back towards the forest. He heard the mermaid coughing violently behind him, but she didn't seem to be in pursuit of him.

He crawled for ten minutes straight, not wanting to risk her following him, before he collapsed from exhaustion. He propped himself against a thick root, gasping. The mermaid could move on land, that was for sure, but he didn't think she would come this far into the jungle. He had dried somewhat, so he had returned to his normal super-light weight. He panted, trembling with fear and the pain of his turned ankle.

First I see monsters, then I almost drown, then I get chased by a bug-winged woman, and then I almost get eaten TWICE! Does EVERYTHING want to kill me here!?, he thought, starting to rise.

He yelped as the ground gave way beneath his feet. Only his adrenaline-fueled reflexes and near-weightlessness kept him from falling into the hole. He leapt back even as the earth collapsed, backpedaling rapidly. He hit the trunk of a tree and kept his back to it, wary of the pit. Who knew what was down there, waiting to grab him.

Though he stayed frozen, all senses focused on the hole, for several minutes, nothing emerged to attack him. Very, very carefully, he went up to the opening and looked in. It was a burrow of some kind, a straight drop of eight feet to a soft dirt floor. He waited, breathless, and finally decided to go in when nothing attacked. He dropped down, hissing as his ankle protested.

The tunnel curved, the drop leading to a sloped corridor that was just big enough for him to walk through if he stooped. It went down for ten feet or so, then curved up sharply. It went on a steep slope up about two meters, and opened up into a chamber. It was dark, but he could feel around and work out its shape in his head. When he could, he used the spear to feel around in the dark. The chamber was just his height, ten feet across and twenty feet long, an irregular oval.

The dark comforted him, and the knowledge that nothing bigger than he was could get in. He was so tired, and the dirt was nice and soft. He went to sleep in the abandoned burrow, not knowing he had found his new home.

* * * * *

Calimn was annoyed. The boy had gotten away, leaving her craving for humans and raging hunger unsatisfied. She had nearly choked when he whacked her uvula with the harpoon. That little stunt had negated whatever compunctions she had still held against eating him. She hated to be outsmarted.

Then again, she was rid of the harpoon, and could find more little treats if she looked enough. No more cringing as she swallowed, no more drooling at the sight of a passing riverboat knowing she couldn't eat its tasty occupants, and no more pain! She swam out into the river, and then headed downstream, looking for ships.

Hours later she was lying on the bank of the river, right where she had met the boy. She had found a ship alright, and the evidence of her successful hunt was showing as a slight bulge in her belly. She gave a contented sigh, rubbing her stomach and smiling at the tickling deep inside. She was pleasantly stuffed, having eaten seven humans, three nekos, and five elves. She had never eaten so much at once in her life.

She was glad she had eaten, and more than just because of her relief from perpetual famine. She felt much better physically, of course, but also emotionally. She had been cranky with hunger and frustration before, and depressed because she couldn't enjoy her favorite meal, being humans, or sing. Now she was feeling marvelous. She could eat properly again, and once her throat healed up she would be able to sing, too.

She wasn't as upset with the human boy she had met earlier. Sure, he had clocked her uvula a good one, but she HAD been trying to eat him. She felt that they were even now. She would eat him if he showed up again and she could get her hands on him, but not out of spite. He wouldn't return, but she could hope. She wanted to taste that strange, lovely, tingling sweetness again. Well, not now. Right now she couldn't eat another bite.

She gave a quiet, polite burp, and sighed. She stretched, a warm wave of pleasure rolling through her muscles as they were pulled taunt, and then relaxed. She hadn't felt this good in a while. Two moons, both crescent, were rising as the sun dipped below the horizon. She watched them until she went to sleep, drifting off peacefully.

She dreamed about catching the boy and gobbling him up . . .

* * * * *

The boy, deep in his burrow, cried out in his sleep. The mermaid had followed him into his dreams, and now she was eating him. She had his legs in her mouth, and was . . .

* * * * *

. . . slurping him down, delighting in his flavor. Calimn started to drool in her sleep. He tasted so good, she couldn't help but roll him around on her . . .

* * * * *

. . . tongue, the powerful muscle crushing him up against the roof of her mouth. He thrashed in his nightmare, whimpering. Then she . . .

* * * * *

. . . swallowed, tracing his path down by the bulge in her throat. The mermaid's physical self swallowed, too, a reflection of her dream. He squirmed delightfully in her . . .

* * * * *

. . . stomach, hurling himself against its yielding but implacable walls, doomed.

* * * * *

The boy trembled on the dirt floor of his new home, cringing as he fell into an even worse nightmare.

The mermaid rolled over, smiling happily as she fell into an even better dream.


Chapter four, where the the boy is nearly eaten-AGAIN-and just barely gets off the hook (fishing reference, lol). Calimn's not ungrateful, but she's also pretty dang hungry.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

Some lovely descriptions, again, of each character's perspective and experiences. And I like Calimn's opportunistic "stomach logic". A little ungrateful, but she doesn't come across as malicious. Good idea with their common dream, too.

Thank you. Calimn is really a nice girl, but, well . . . she's got to eat. And the boy happened to be the closest food. In any case, here is the fifth chapter, with no vore but some dialogue referencing it. Mostly Calimn-oriented. Critique and enjoy.

Chapter Five: Explanations, Arguments, and Introductions

Calimn woke up late. It was nearly noon, the sun high overhead and brilliantly shining. She smiled, knowing she could sleep in longer if she wanted. No more getting up early to catch enough small fish to keep from starving now that she could eat properly again. It had been three days since the harpoon had been removed, and she had made the most of that time.

She had hunted along the river, and her searching hadn't been in vain. She had feasted on the crews of several trading ships, tearing the vessels apart and eating any small treats that came out. She felt rejuvenated, her two-week depression seeming like a distant memory. There was really no substitute for humanoids when it came to staying healthy and happy.

She was lying on her back, in her favorite spot on the bank of the Jewel River. It was where she spent most of her free time, the exact same place she had met the boy. He had gotten the harpoon out of her throat, but ran away when she tried to eat him. She really couldn't blame him for it. She had nearly had him for lunch. She had just been starving, and he had tasted so good . . .

The mermaid sucked up a little drool that had started to run from the corner of her mouth, and wiped her lip with a hand. She wouldn't get to eat him again. He was neither brave nor crazy enough to come back here, not after nearly being devoured.

She was wrong on that point.

She was rolling over to let the sunshine warm her back when she saw motion at the edge of the forest. There was a flash of mousy hair and a frightened squeak as the boy ducked back behind a tree. Calimn, astounded at his reappearance, rolled over again and sat up, folding her tail under her. She watched the place he had vanished, waiting for him to reappear.

He peeked out of his hiding spot a few minutes later, giving another cry of distress and ducking behind the tree again when he saw that she was looking. She waited patiently for him to peer out at her again. This time he kept his head out, but didn't approach her. He was shaking, eyes fearful.

The trembling, tiny human incensed her predator instincts instantly, urging her to spring on him. She ignored that idea; she was not as clumsy on land as most of her kin, but she couldn't reach him in one jump. Even a little thing like him could get away from her out of the water. She couldn't catch him with speed.

Trickery was another story.

* * * * *

The boy was having a hard time recognizing the mermaid. He had taken two days, barely leaving his burrow, to wait for his twisted ankle to heal. It was much better, only a little twinge when he leaned on it too hard. The mermaid had undergone a radical change in that time.

When he had met her initially, she had been thin, pale, and with a heavy aura of depression about her. Her speech had been tired and sad, except when it became angry and frustrated. Her attitude had been terrible, her health poor, and she had been starving.

Now she was like a different person. Her emerald eyes held a bright, cheerful gleam, her lips curved into a pleasant smile that lit up her visage. She had gained weight, figure filling out, back to normal from her previous thinness. Her skin had darkened to a light blue, the thin membrane on her gill-like ears returning to a healthy grass-green. She had gone from a limp, depressed grouch to a vibrant and happy beauty.

He had come back here on impulse, scared to death but unable to consider not doing so. It had been the only thing he could think of to do, now that he had a home. He didn't want to wander around in the giant, monster-filled forest anymore, not when he had found a relatively safe hideaway. He had hidden the entrance with a mat of sticks and leaves, and had no desire to abandon his new house.

With no need to wander around, he had found some fruit to eat, and then had nothing to do. He was too frightened to explore the jungle, worried he might run into a beast or other danger. He had sat in his burrow, trying to think of something to do, when he had gotten the ludicrous idea of spying on the mermaid.

He didn't even know why such a thing had occurred to him, but he had come anyway. Maybe it was because she was the only intelligent being he had met. For all he knew, her, the fairy that had tried to eat him, and he himself were the only sentient creatures in this whole world. So he had gone to the spot he had met her and watched her.

* * * * *

Calimn loved to trick her prey. She was very good at it, a marvelous actress and excellent at predicting what would get her meal within her grasp. The twisting path of cause and effect excited her, the complexities of luring her food in pleasing her immensely. It was her favorite game, because she won quite often. It made her prize at the end taste all the better.

It also served to whet her appetite.

"Hello again. There's no need to be frightened. I won't hurt you."

The boy shrank down into himself a little, and muttered something. She barely caught it.

"You're not nice."

Calimn was genuinely hurt by his mumbled accusation. She was nice! She was never cruel to her prey, never torturing them. She played with her food, but that wasn't mean. That was fun and it didn't hurt them at all. Well, they cried a lot, but she had to EAT! She would starve if she didn't.

"That's not true! I'm nice. I know, I know, I tried to eat you, but I was starving. I'm sorry."

All true, except for the apology. She wasn't sorry for trying to eat him. He was food, even if he had helped her. The boy didn't accept the false apology.

"You . . . I h-helped you and y-you . . ."

"YOU were the one who smacked me with the harpoon."

"Because you were EATING me!" he squeaked, coming a bit farther out from behind the tree.

Calimn took note of the step. One step closer to her.

"Well, you're food. I'm supposed to eat you. Plus, I hadn't eaten a human in weeks."

"What? Crazy per-you're a crazy person, you know th-what kind of sense . . . is that?" he said, getting a little closer.

Calimn felt a little hurt again. He was starting to seriously upset her with all these insults. She let her words come out hot this time. Hot and absolutely true.

"You don't know how hungry I was! I had to sit here and watch food that I love to eat go by even though my stomach was growling. I couldn't eat anything bigger than a jewel fish. A jewel fish! That's BABY food. You know how long it takes to catch enough little fish like that to feed me and swallow them one at a time? A long dang time! I was starving and I couldn't do an-anythi-"

Calimn felt tears well up at the memory of her two-week hell. She sniffled back her sorrow and turned her attention back to the human. He had backed off when she had gone on her rant from fear. She had forgotten about her plan to lure him in, and mentally slapped herself for the slip-up. She took a breath to calm down, and tried again.

"Sorry about that little outburst. Anyway, I say we ended our last meeting somewhat badly. I think we should just forgive, forget, and start over. My name's Calimn." she introduced, giving him a friendly smile.

He took a cautious step toward her, looking curious.

"You're called Calimn?"

"That's right. And what's your name, sweetie?

Well, he was certainly sweet . . . tasting. Her mouth started to water as she remembered that tingling deliciousness, exquisite even in memory. She wanted to taste it again, and this time get the full experience. If her plan worked, she would.

"I . . . I d-don't have one. I . . . I-I'm NEW. I don't kn- I don't have a name."

Calimn was taken aback. She didn't know what he meant by "new", but running around without a name? She didn't know what to say to that. Well, not initially.

"Do you want me to name you?"

* * * * *

The boy eased a little closer, curiosity overriding his fear. The mermaid was so DIFFERENT, all cheerful and pleasant and nice. It made him less wary of her. The idea of her giving him an identity, a name, was appealing.

"Yes, please."

* * * * *

Calimn though about it. She couldn't call him "sweetie" all the time. She didn't really want to give him anything complex, since she was going to eat him once he was close enough, like now . . . like now!? She barely kept her gaze off him, pretending to be lost in thought so he wouldn't dart away. He wasn't but thirty meters away, close enough to pounce on him if she leapt.

She tensed, the muscles in her tail getting ready to launch her at him. She fought hard to keep from looking at him, not wanting to scare him off when he was so close to being her meal. A moment later she jumped at him, tail propelling her up and forward like a spring.

* * * * *

The boy saw the slight shift of her body even before she sprang at him. His curiosity turned instantly into stark terror as the fish-woman sailed towards him, looming like a flying mountain and filling his vision as she came down at him. She had a triumphant look, excited and happy, but also hungry. His feet, operating faster than his brain, turned him around. He dove for the cover of the forest.

She missed him, surprise crossing her face as he dodged past her outstretched fingers. She hit the ground a second later. The impact of more than a hundred tons of flesh crashing to earth was tremendous. The shockwave shook the ground under his feet, sending him tumbling.

* * * * *

Calimn was astonished by the boy's quickness. He took off almost as she flexed her tail to leap, and she missed him. She hit the ground, having missed him, but the force of her weight made the little morsel fall. He immediately started scrambling away from her on all fours. Realizing he was still within her reach and she had a decent chance at catching him, she went after him.

She pushed her upper half off the ground with her hands and "walked" forward, using her arms as makeshift legs. Her tail was heavy, dragging behind her, but she was still unwilling to give up on that lovely taste.

* * * * *

The boy was crawling away from the mermaid as fast as he could, on his hands and knees but trying to rise to his feet. Not easy while trying to keep moving. He screeched, mind seizing up with fear, when he looked back and saw the fish-woman coming after him, actually gaining on him. He was going to get eaten if he didn't get up.

Her hand was nearly on him before he managed to struggle to his feet and take off running. He heard a disappointed groan behind him, the mermaid upset at losing her meal. He sped up, heart pounding as he sprinted through the forest, making a beeline for his burrow. He should have known better than to trust her. He was going to go back down his hole and never come out!

* * * * *

Calimn dragged herself back to the river, hot and starting to dry out, with a sigh of exasperation. That human was a lot faster than she had thought. Still, if he had come back once, he might come back again. She would eat him then. Well, provided she could catch him. He was a swift little thing, that was for sure. Swift little thing, indeed.

That gave her an idea.


That's chapter five. The boy goes back to watch Calimn and almost gets caught. We get to see a little of how Calimn's mind works, since this chapter is mostly from her perspective.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated

Nice chapters here ! Once again it's very well described and flow very well
The moment where she pounce at him was striking !

The relation between those two is turning out interesting. I'm really curious how things will go from there

Damn it, now I almost want Calimn to succeed! Except that it would put an end to the story.

Interesting seeing her perspective, again, and very nicely written.

Thank you both Here's chapter six, where the boy gets a name. There is vore (sort of), but no actual eating. Critiques are welcome.

Chapter 6: Naming

The boy took all of three days to crack under the pressure of being alone and with nothing to do besides clean his house up. He had found a big, comfortable sack kind of thing out in the woods while running back home, next to a still smoldering fire and abandoned cloth dome, and had been using it as a bed. Other than that, his burrow was the same as when he had found it.

He went back to watch the mermaid again.

It was a foolish thing to do, but he just couldn't take sitting in his burrow for hours with nothing to do but lie there and worry. When he was sitting idle, he started to have paranoid fantasies, very frightening ones. He imagined all kinds of horrors, from water flooding his hole and drowning him to a monster digging him out to the roof caving in on him. He couldn't take it.

He had been tethered to the mermaid, her being the only intelligent creature he knew. She scared him to death, wanted to eat him, but she was the only solid thing he had to hold onto in this terrifying world of giant beasts and horrors.

He went to see her around midmorning.

He kept absolutely silent as he slowly, cautiously looked out from behind a tree at the edge of the forest. He saw her immediately, and tensed up at what she was doing. She was lying on her back, just as she had been when he first met her, bare body stretched out in the warm sunlight. That wasn't what made him tense, though.

She was yawning, a bead of moisture building at the corner of her eye, and the sight of her mouth wide open had his heart pounding with fear. He froze up, not daring to move, not daring to breathe. For all his stillness and silence, she caught him.

He didn't have time to duck out of sight. She looked over at his hiding spot idly, the motion practiced. She had been doing the same thing every day, glancing at the place now and again, half-expecting him to be there. Lo and behold, there he was.

Her face lit up when she saw him.

"Hi, Swiftlit!"

* * * * *

Calimn saw the boy start when she called him. He crouched down behind his tree quickly, but poked his head out after a few seconds. He had a look of curiosity on his face even if his eyes were bright with anxiety.

"Swiftlit?" he inquired.

"Mm-hm. It's the name I thought up for you. It's 'swift' because you're fast, and 'lit', as in 'little', because your so small. See?"

He nodded.

She rolled over, propping her chin on her interwoven fingers, to get more comfortable and see him better. The name fit him perfectly; he was a tiny, mousy thing with a surprising turn of speed. He was trembling minutely, the motion and sight of him waking her hunger up. Just looking at him was making her mouth water.

The boy caught her hungry look and shrank behind the tree, his shaking becoming more pronounced. She quickly wiped the hunger off her face and replaced it with a warm smile. She didn't want to scare away her meal, now did she?

"Well, you've got a name now. I know you, and you know me. We kinda started off on the wrong foot the last two times, so let's start over. I think we can be good friends if we try. Why don't you come out a little farther so I can see you properly?"

The boy shook his head rapidly. She hadn't really expected to lure him with that, but it was worth a try. If she worked at it, she could get him close enough to jump on. The thought of catching him made her stomach growl.

"Y-you want t-to eat m-me!" the boy cried, backing up several steps.

Traitorous tummy! She tightened her abdomen, silencing the complaints of her belly. Then she hurried to reassure the boy.

"Oh, no no no no. I'm not going to eat you. I just want to talk, is all."

He shook for a moment, caught between running and staying, before easing back into his previous position. She put a soothing tone to her words, trying to lull him into a false sense of security.

* * * * *

Swiftlit-and he liked his new name-listened to the mermaid. Her voice had taken on a soft, calming cadence, but he stayed hyper-alert, watching for any sudden movement or tension. He wasn't going to get caught if he could help it.

"I'm sure we can get along nicely if you just trust me. There's no reason to be afraid of me."

She obviously didn't know that he already trusted her, in a way. He didn't trust her not to eat him, oh no, but he trusted that she would try to catch him only if he got too close. The surety that she couldn't just rush up and grab him was comforting. It eased the fluttering in his stomach a little.

"You're Calimn. What are you? A fish?"

She looked somewhat miffed.

"I'm a mermaid. You know, half-woman, half-fish? Have you never heard of mermaids?"

He shook his head. So she was a mermaid. Another new thing to learn. He snapped out of his train of thought as the mermaid continued.

"So, you want to come over here and see me? I'll let you touch my tail. It feels nice. I've got really smooth scales." she told him, curling her huge fin over her back to lie over her left shoulder. Her tail was marvelously flexible to do such a thing. Her tail WAS very pretty, with bright emerald scales that took on a gleam in the morning sunshine.

He certainly was curious to see what those scales felt like. They looked very ni-no, no, she was trying to trick him. She would eat him in an instant if he went over to her. Don't trust HER, Swiftlit, his paranoia muttered, trust that she can only eat you if you get too close.

"I don't thi-no thank you. I'll just stay right here."

* * * * *

Calimn was getting a tad impatient. Even with her trying her best to coax him closer, he wasn't coming any nearer, refusing to even leave his hiding spot. He was just so PARANOID. She would never get him at this rate. She decided to switch gears on him.

"Alright, if you don't want to it's your loss. You go and do whatever." she said, giving her voice a disinterested tone. She started to slide back into the river.

She got the reaction she had wanted. He had kept coming back, and that made her think that he had something making him come back that was stronger than his fear of getting eaten. She had guessed that it was loneliness.

She had guessed right.

"W-wait a minute! I-I'm all by m-myself and . . . Can I just talk to you?"

She stopped, now with her tail halfway in the river, and smiled on the inside. He might be as cautious as a startled duiker, but he still wanted company. As long as she got to eat him, she was perfectly happy to provide that company.

She had a foot-well, tail-fin-in the door, and sooner or later she would be able to push that door open. And then eat the boy behind it.

"I don't know . . . It's hard to hear your teeny-tiny voice from that far . . ."

The boy hurriedly stepped out from his hiding place and scurried forward a few meters. Not nearly close enough to grab, but it was a start. It would take some twists and turns of conversation to get ahold of him, but if she could make him take a few steps forward then she could probably get him even closer than that.

* * * * *

Swiftlit was nervous. She had almost left him to his heart-pounding paranoid fantasies, and he had been forced to come closer to her. She wasn't close enough to leap at him, but her proximity was scaring him. She started talking to him again, and he looked up.

He made the mistake of looking at her mouth.

Instantly he froze up, staring at her lips. The motion itself was terrifying, but the idea of disappearing in between her lips was far beyond terrifying and off into the realm of waking nightmares. He could see brief glimpses of white teeth and her tongue moving around as she spoke.

It mesmerized him, holding him with a kind of horrified fascination. He was rooted to the spot, unable to move or look away, heart beating so fast he thought it was going to burst. He was like a bird being hypnotized by a snake, immobilized by fear.

"So, what do you say?"

He came back to himself, snapping out of the terror-induced trance at her question. He hadn't heard anything of what she had been saying.

"Wh-wh-what?"

Calimn raised an eyebrow.

"Were you listening? I asked if you could come a tad closer."

"I . . . I-I . . . I-I-I-I-I-I-NO!"

* * * * *

Calimn actually flinched a little at the scream. It was loud, with a piercing quality to it that hurt her ears. The boy started running away, still spouting a stream a shrieks and nonsense. She was going to lose him!

"Wait, I just want to be friends with you!" she yelled, a last, futile attempt to bring him back.

By now he was out of sight, but he screamed back a rapid-fire, mostly-gibberish response.

"YOU AND YO-MOUTH-STAY AWA-TEETH-NOT COMING BACK EVER! NONONONONO!" was all she caught.

She slumped a little, lying down all the way and giving a disappointed huff.

He had gotten away again.

* * * * *

Swiftlit arrowed down his hole, shot into the main chamber, and collapsed, crying. He had been so scared he hadn't been able to breathe, and he had finally snapped under the pressure. He sobbed, terrified tears running down his face and darkening the dirt with small spots of dampness. He couldn't take this; he was too scared of her, and too scared of EVERYTHING. He just couldn't keep going like this.

He fell asleep much later, crawling into his salvaged sleeping bag and curling up into a ball. He had nightmares every night, and this was no exception. Fear was an integral part of him, following him everywhere.

Even into his dreams.


Finished with chapter six. The boy gets named Swiftlit, and Calimn tries to lure him close enough to grab and eat. Not easy when the prey you're trying to coax close is as paranoid as Swiftlit.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

I'm really enjoying that story ^_^

You describe very well their feelings and this game of cat and mouse between those two is just fascinating !

Thank you. I'm glad my story is rolling along nicely and seems to be doing okay. Here's chapter seven, where Calimn pulls out all the stops to try and catch poor Swiftlit. This has vore in it, so do not read if vore offends you.

Chapter 7: Tricks and Traps

Calimn scooted the first box over a bit, adjusted the second, and nudged the third forward. She was lying on her stomach at her usual spot, with a trio of wooden crates in front of her. Each was just big enough to contain a crouched human, perhaps three feet by three feet by three feet. She had a surprise for Swiftlit today.

She smiled, a grin that contained equal parts hunger and playfulness. She would get him today, that was for sure. She could already taste that tingling sweetness that he had, and felt her mouth start to water. She shook her head to clear the thought; she needed to keep her mind sharp to catch him, skittish as he was.

It had been three days since he had last shown up and subsequently run off. He seemed to take three days to recover from the shock of nearly being caught each time in about that long. He would show up sooner or later. He generally came around noon.

She waited for him, relaxing and occasionally glancing at his usual hiding place now and again. The day wore on, sun reaching its zenith and then beginning to descend again. Calimn laid under that bright sun, basking in its heat, and napped. Half-awake and half-asleep, she daydreamed about how well her plans to catch the boy would go.

He would be along any minute now, peeking out from behind that tree. She could taste him, practically, so salty-sweet she could hardly bear to swallow him. She did, though, after having sucked all the delicious flavor from him . . . he went down silky-smooth, a small bulge in her throat that . . . tickling in her tummy . . .

* * * * *

Swiftlit couldn't keep going. Not like this. Not constantly terrified. Even when there was no danger, his mind started to weave horrendous scenarios that just kept getting worse and worse as he continued to sit there in his underground house. He was going to go completely insane if he didn't get out of his burrow and do something.

He had nothing to do, though. He had cleaned up his burrow and made a plughole for the entrance, a circle of earth and moss he had gouged straight out of the ground that hid his home perfectly. He was far too frightened to go wandering around in the forest, fearful of beasts and other dangers. All he could do was sit here and lose his mind as waking nightmares paraded through his head.

The mermaid-

He crushed that thought in an instant.

There was nothing in the world that would make him go back to that terrible fish-woman. He had nearly been eaten by her three times already. He would have a heart-attack if he had to endure another visit with her. No, he would never go back. Never.

* * * * *

Calimn started awake. She hadn't even realized she had drifted off to sleep, easing into a dream of eating Swiftlit so gently and subtly she had been asleep before she knew it. She sat up, wiping some drool from the corner of her mouth, an indication of how vivid the dream had been. Well, at least she hadn't slept too long; the sun was still up . . .

On the other side of the sky from were it had been when she had gone to sleep. It was morning again, just a few hours after sunrise. She had slept the whole afternoon and night! She hurriedly looked at Swiftlit's hiding spot at the edge of the forest. He wasn't there.

She had missed him! Her plan to catch him, all that time spent setting her plan up, wasted! She had spent two days searching the river for ships with the right cargo, even sparing the crews of the ships when they answered her questions on what they were carrying. That had taken a lot of willpower, and a long time to get the sailors to tell her about their goods.

It wasn't fair! He was the only human she had spent so much time on and more than one try to catch, and now she had missed him. There wasn't any guarantee that he would come back, either. She had talked to him the last three times, but now she hadn't and there was no way of knowing if he would return or not.

She shook her head, hard, and slapped herself on the cheek lightly. No, no, there was still a chance to get him. Who had said, after all, that he had come by? Maybe he was late, or delayed, or just busy. She didn't really know what the small folk did in their spare time, other than shipping and fishing, but surely they had things to do when not being food.

She settled down, rolling to lie on her stomach and prop her head up on one hand. He would come back. She was sure of it. All she had to do was be patient and wait. And she would.

* * * * *

Swiftlit finally broke on the morning of the fifth day. He was exhausted from the constant tension of his paranoid fantasies. He couldn't take any more of sitting here, with nothing to do but go searching for fruit and edible vegetation when he got hungry or looking for a stream when thirst hit him. He had to talk to somebody, or he would lose it.

And there was really only one person he could talk to.

He got up and went to see Calimn. Her presence terrified him, but at least she was real. The infinite parade of imagined horrors that came when he was alone was far worse. He could talk to her and have the anxiety of her proximity ease the more frightening imaginings of his mind. Replacing a greater fear with a lesser one, basically.

He snuck through the Miragia Forest, moving faster than usual and less cautiously. He was eager, in a way, for the heart-pounding conversation with the mermaid. Anything was better than those waking nightmares. He just couldn't keep going if he had to endure those horrifying ideas.

He was still very cautious as he went through the forest, and that alertness was what saved his skin.

One moment there was nothing there, and the next he was surrounded by half a dozen giant lizards. They were huge, close to thirty feet long, and came out of nowhere, literally just popping up right in front of him. He yelped, instantly backpedaling away from the blue-scaled reptiles with his hands flung up in front of him in a futile attempt at defense.

They didn't do anything, merely taking a few steps forward to keep close to him. His eyes darted around, looking for a way to escape. All he saw was six sets of bright yellow eyes staring at him, no way to run without going straight at one of the lizards. He was trapped.

He kept whipping around, trying to keep his eyes on all the beasts at once, spinning back and forth in an attempt to watch each and every one of the reptiles. They weren't attacking, just standing in an irregular circle around him, none any closer than five or six meters. He kept twisting around, breathing fast and shallow with fear.

Suddenly something moved in the corner of his eye, one of the creatures leaping at him with a wide open mouth. It was more than big enough to swallow him whole, and it looked like that was what it planned to do. His reflexes instantly took over at the sight of the movement, and he darted sideways so fast he nearly broke a leg.

The duplicator gecko wound up with nothing but a mouthful of dirt. The human it had trapped had been turning around too much, not giving it a solid opportunity to sneak up behind him and swallow the boy. Now the human was gone, vaulting over the back of one of its duplicates in an amazingly long leap. The gecko slid back under the surface of reality slowly, copies vanishing as it left. It would have to go hungry for today.

* * * * *

Just as Calimn had predicted, Swiftlit showed up. She had gotten a little worried about him, that he had been eaten by something or involved in some accident on his way here. The thought of him dying before she got to eat him upset her, what with all the work she was putting into catching him. This time, though, he would be her lunch for sure.

She looked down at the little morsel, excited by the sight of his small frame shaking minutely with fear. She couldn't wait to eat him. It was a sure thing this time. There was no way he was going to escape, not in a million years. She schooled her face to a pleasant smile and sp-

Wow, he looks . . . messed up, she thought. He seemed exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes that spoke of lack of sleep. He was tense and trembling, but he was somehow . . . slumped, too. His eyes were dull, tired, and frightened all at once. It was an unhealthy combination.

She was taken aback, but she was also glad. Tired was good. Tired was great, even. He would have a harder time concentrating, and he would have more difficulty evading her if it came to a physical ambush. She quickly gave him a worried look and spoke, eager to get her plan moving.

* * * * *

"You okay? You don't seem yourself today."

He wasn't anything like okay. He had barely slept in the five days since their last meeting, and what little sleep he had managed to get had been filled with nightmares. At least half of them had been of the very mermaid he was talking to eating him alive. He shuddered, and then responded.

"I'm just . . . r-really tired i-is all."

The mermaid smiled. The smile held sympathy, but he knew better than to trust her. The concerned expression was a ruse to get him closer, and even if it wasn't she would eat him if he approached her. He made sure not to look at her mouth as she spoke, remembering his previous experience.

"Oh, that's no good. Well, I know just what you need. You're probably hungry, huh?"

He was, actually. Before he had been too scared to realize it, but now he could feel how empty he was. He burned energy like a furnace, his constant state of panic eating up calories very fast.

"Yes, I am kind of hungry."

* * * * *

Calimn smiled at his response. "The easiest way to fill your own stomach is to exploit someone else's", as her mother had always said. She could very well have him with this. She indicated the three crates in front of herself with a sweep of her hand.

"I got these crates of food just for you. You can have some right now, if you want. Just come over and have some." she urged, trying to hide in her internal excitement.

He looked at the crates cautiously, scrutinizing them with a suspicious squint. She realized just how tired he was when he took several steps forward before stopping. He would normally never do such a thing. Her heartbeat sped up, instincts flaring up as her anticipation increased. He was so out of it she practically had him in her mouth already.

She was really going to get him this time!

He paused, freezing in mid-stride, and backed off a bit. He slapped himself, obviously trying to clear his sleep-deprived mind. Well, he could slap himself all he wanted, he wasn't getting away this time. He gave her a nervous glance, looked back at the crates, and then back at her. He didn't move.

"I d-don't think so. N-no, I-I'm not getting c-close just for food. I'M food to y-you."

True, but she had to convince him otherwise if she wanted to get ahold of him. Time to switch over to second phase of her plan. She picked up the crate on her left, his right, and popped the top of it off. Inside was some fruit, the size and bright golden sheen declaring them to be dragonapples.

"If you don't want any, I guess I'll have to eat it all myself . . ."

She tilted her head back and lifted the container up, tilting it so the fruit fell into her mouth. Once they were all in, she closed her mouth and bit down. She didn't really like fruit, but dragonapples were acceptable. They had a sweet taste with a cinnamon bite to it, but they were really too small to be a viable source of food.

And they didn't hold a candle to humans when it came to pure deliciousness.

She made a great show of eating them, though, chewing and humming "Mmmmmm!" as if they were the best thing in the whole world. He reacted much as she had predicted, gaining an envious, hungry look to his demeanor. She swallowed, and smiled, reaching down to pick up the next crate. She crushed the empty one in her hand as a human might crush a soda can, tossing the destroyed container aside.

This was her best plan ever.

* * * * *

Swiftlit trembled as the mermaid ate the fruit in the second crate just as she had done with the first, wanting to go and eat some himself but too scared to move. He had to fight to keep his eyes off of her mouth as she ate, and he nearly froze up again when his gaze wandered to her lips once. It was excruciating, caught between wanting to join her in the meal and fearing to join her AS the meal.

She finished the second crate, and clenched her fist on it as with the first. The sturdy box was instantly crunched into a mass of splintered boards. He shook, realizing just how much strength a giant like her had. She had ripped the crates open with a casual flick of her finger, and he could imagine-very vividly-what would happen if she did the same to him. He'd lose a limb at the very least.

He finally plucked up the nerve to speak as she reached for the third crate.

"W-w-wait! W-wait a minute, I want some!"

She looked up at his shout, surprise crossing her face.

"I thought you wouldn't come over and eat any. That's what you said, right?"

"Y-yeah, but I ch-changed my mind. I . . . Could you b-back off? J-just a little, s-so I can eat without y-you trying t-to grab me?"

She gave him a hurt look, pouting a bit at his words.

"I'm insulted. I wouldn't grab you. We're friends, remember?"

"Not even close. You j-just want to e-eat me."

She threw up her hands with an exasperated huff.

"I obviously can't be nice to you. I got you all this foo- . . .Fine, I'll go in the river, since you don't trust me."

She pushed herself up on her hands, swinging around to crawl back into the water. She swam out a bit, turned, and sank down until everything below her nose was submerged. He waited until the wake of her movement in the water had disappeared before approaching the crate. He kept a wary eye on Calimn as he pried the top off of it.

His mental exhaustion really HAD affected his judgement, because the idea that the gift might be a trap never even crossed his mind.

There was only a large chunk of soil in the crate, with a mass of long green-brown vines, each about as thick as his thumb and several meters long, growing out of it. They were coiled up initially, but when his breath touched them they sprang to life. He screamed as they lashed at him, leaping back to avoid them. Despite his speed, his sleep-deprived reflexes were not quick enough to keep him from being grabbed.

The vines wrapped around his wrist. He tried to run, but he only got about twenty feet before he reached the end of the vines' length and was jerked to a halt. His feet flew out from under him as the vine snapped taunt, and he slammed into the ground, the breath knocked out of him.

He was trapped.

* * * * *

Calimn cheered as the boy got caught by the grabbing vine she had placed in the last crate. Her shout sent a flock of mirror birds-or maybe it was just one?-flying from a nearby tree, their bright feathers glinting like a reflection of the brilliant smile on her face. She swam up to the edge of the river and climbed out, water pouring off of her as she walked herself over to him on her hands.

She was ecstatic that her plan had worked. She had spent several hours searching for the grabbing vine, and some time to get it primed in the crate for him. She had him now. He was back up and darting around, bouncing at the end of the vine like a rabbit in a snare. His frantic struggles had her mouth flooding with saliva instantly.

Her belly growled, ready and waiting for the meal to come.

* * * * *

Swiftlit was howling, trying desperately to get the tendril wrapped around his wrist loose, tearing at it with his free hand and swinging his caught limb wildly. The vine ignored his struggling, keeping a firm hold on his wrist. The mermaid was rolling around on the ground a few meters away from the crate, for no discernible reason. She was drying herself off, why he didn't know, and the predatory grin on her face had his heart doing horrified flips in his chest.

She reached over and pulled the crate closer, the vine towing him along with it. He watched as she reached into the crate and plucked the vine holding him. Hope flared in him; if she had snapped the vine it would let go!

It didn't let go.

It just tightened.

* * * * *

Calimn watched as Swiftlit's face fell. That she had finally caught him made her so excited!

"The vine stays on for a couple hours if it gets severed. It won't let go until it gets some water on it. That's why I dried off. And guess what else? . . . It's edible!"

She put the end she had pinched in her fingers against her lips, and sucked it in a bit. She had him now, and she was going to have as much fun with him as she could. She started to slowly suck the vine up, relishing the slightly sour-bitter taste of the plant. It would make his sweet flavor at the end all the more delicious.

* * * * *

Swiftlit was screaming, straining backwards to keep as far from the mermaid's mouth as he could. His heels were dug into the dirt, but he was still getting dragged forward, leaving twin furrows behind himself. He was no more than fifteen feet from the mermaid now, the vine's other end disappearing past her lips inch by inch.

He pulled at the tendril tethering him, trying to backpedal, and slipped. His feet slid out from under him, towards the mermaid, and he landed on his back, swinging around and being dragged. He was shrieking the whole time, trying to get back up but unable to with the vine constantly pulling him along.

His heart was going to explode if this continued, beating so fast his pulse had become one continuous rush that roared in his ears. He couldn't seem to breathe, though he could scream perfectly well. Fear was growing in him, out of control, black flowers budding and blooming as they consumed his mind. He managed to speak through the terror, yelling at the mermaid.

"STOP, NO, STOP, ST-NO, I DON'T WA-NO! NONONONONONO! LET GO OF-LET GO! STOP EATING ME!"

The mermaid ignored his wails, slurping up the last bit of the vine. A moment later she sucked his arm into her mouth.

At that point he went mad.

Calimn was going to eat him.


Chapter seven. Calimn makes traps inside of traps and manages to catch Swiftlit. Chapter eight will be up as soon as I work it out and polish it up a little. Critiques are welcome and appreciated.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

ohh great chapter ! Sneaky Calimn XD
Somehow I saw that one coming

Now I'm really curious to see what will happens next. As far as I can tell he is pretty screwed ^^

Damn; a cliffhanger! :p How clever of her - but how mean! I felt for both of them, there. The boy's fear and tiredness and hunger and hope... And Calimn's excitement at having got him. It's hard to blame her for trying. Most of me hopes that he'll survive... but if Calimn does eat him, I suspect I'll be pleased for her.

Thank you. Well, here is chapter eight. We have an unexpected guest show up.
EDIT: This has vore in it. Apologies for the late warning.

Chapter 8: Tense Negotiations

It was rather ironic that Swiftlit nearly went insane from fear visiting Calimn when that had been what he had been attempting to avoid.

He was trapped, his arm inside her mouth, with the rest of him outside but pressed against her lips in a parody of a full-body kiss. He was thrashing furiously, no longer even screaming but simply emitting a shrill, continual whistle like a teakettle on the verge of boiling over. He was barely conscious, pushed so far into the realm of panic that he was on the edge of insanity.

His mental state had become something like the mind of someone having a nightmare, splintered but hideously clear details and blurred lines. He could feel the gentle but firm grip of her soft lips on his arm, her tongue coiling around and stroking his entrapped limb like a monstrous serpent. His arm was warm, the heat of her mouth a pressure on his arm, saliva soaking the caught limb.

She was breathing through her nose, and every exhale had his hair ruffling, the same heat that was encasing his arm washing over him. She was enjoying him, giving a joyous hum of pure pleasure as she sucked on his arm. She was going to eat him, very slowly, and there was nothing he could do about it.

* * * * *

Calimn had been waiting for this moment since she had first encountered the boy. She had spent so much time and effort getting ahold of him, pulled out all the stops to finally catch him, and now, at last, she was going to eat him.

He tasted even better than she remembered, a bright, delicious tingling on her tongue that made her want to pull him all the way into her mouth and swallow him immediately. She ignored that instinct; she had spent more time on Swiftlit than any other humanoid in her life. She was going to take her time with him, draw the pleasure of eating him out as far as she could manage.

She just sucked on his arm very gently, getting as much flavor as she coax out. She sighed contentedly, closing her eyes halfway. His sweet taste, with that unique tickle of adrenaline, was just so good . . .

A furious shout interrupted her.

"You JERK!"

* * * * *

Asil had come to investigate the loud yell of triumph that had emanated from the Jewel River, and discovered the mermaid she had met a couple weeks earlier while looking for a particular human. The mermaid had caught something, a small male human, and had his arm in her mouth. She was smiling gently, sucking on his limb idly as she hummed with pleasure.

The fairy had been about to leave when she had noticed something about the human. He was small, with fearful green eyes and messy, mousy brown hair. She recognized him instantly. She could never forget that speedy little cheater. He had made her hit a tree and shrugged off her shrinking magic, breaking rules left and right.

That mermaid had lied to her! The fish-woman had said that she had eaten the boy, yet here he was. She had lied and kept him to taste whenever she wanted. After Asil had nearly given herself a concussion chasing the tetchy little human. That was just . . . just . . . she didn't even know a word bad enough to express herself.

She went for her default.

"You JERK!"

* * * * *

Calimn looked up, and spotted a fairy, grown to about sixty-five feet tall, hovering over her. She looked mad, glaring down like an enraged gargoyle. She seemed familiar, bright dragonfly wings and chocolate-colored skin, plus a head of br-

Oh. This was going to be bad.

She went from blissful to a mix of anxious and seriously ticked off. She had been about to enjoy a long, peaceful, perfect session of eating, and here comes somebody to ruin it. Could she not get a single break, just one? She had toiled for two weeks trying to catch him, and now she couldn't even relax and eat him properly.

"You are such a jerk! A mega-jerk times a million and one! You said you ate him! You lied! Liar!"

Calimn didn't bother to try deceiving the fairy a second time. She was too frustrated with the worst-ever timing of the fairy's appearance. The mermaid shifted the boy's arm to the side of her mouth to speak and snapped back at the sprite with quite a bit of venom.

"Well, so what. If you couldn't catch him, it's your own fault. I spent days trying to get ahold of him and he's mine now. So buzz off and go play in some feyweed."

She didn't expect what happened next.

The fairy landed, reached over, and yanked the human right out of her mouth. His arm came loose with a loud 'pop!' from the suction. The fairy held him, taking a step back as the mermaid reared up on her tail, powerful muscles holding her steady, to look the fairy in the eye.

"You'd better give him back."

* * * * *

Asil wasn't going to give the human back. The mermaid had lied, and that negated her claim to him. Asil had found him first, used up magic to try and shrink him, and chased him all over the place. She had EARNED him, unlike the mermaid.

She stuck her tongue out, and let the mermaid know what she thought.

"You're a liar, so you don't get him."

The mermaid flushed, skin going from light blue to a dark teal color. She was Angry with a capital A. She puffed furiously for several seconds, but then slumped, the fire leaving her eyes. She obviously knew Asil was too much for her to handle on land. She turned around and went back to the river, sliding in with a sigh of disappointment.

"That's right, you better get back in the water! Liars don't get honest peoples' food!"

Asil looked down at the tasty little snack in her hand, and licked her lips. He was struggling wildly, but seemed to be only semi-concious, eyes glazed with terror. His failing tickled her palm, making her giggle. She was going to enjoy this. A meal earned honestly was the best meal of all, as she often told herself.

"Let's see how you tas-"

"Eat water, you food-theif!"

* * * * *

The word "water" brought Swiftlit back around. He was dizzy, vision blurry and with a headache from thrashing around so furiously. He had nearly given himself a case of whiplash, flinging his head around so intensely, but he was beginning to recover from it. He looked up, and saw Calimn in the river, drawing her tail back. Someone had him in her hand, the fairy that had chased him a few weeks ago. He wondered what was going on.

Then Calimn's tail hit the water, sending up a massive wave. With an expert flick of her dexterous tail, she cut the base of the wave and sent it through the air like a missile of liquid the size of a small house. The mass of water flew at him, and he screamed.

"NO, I HATE WA-"

Then the wave hit him. It was like running into a brick wall. The air was knocked right out of his lungs, and his body bent backwards in a U-shape in the fairy's hand as the weight of the water slammed into him. He felt the fairy stagger, and she actually fell, not expecting the impact of several tons of water. She crashed to the ground and dropped him.

He recovered his breath as he fell, and let out a screech; his weight had increased enough from the deluge that he would break half his bones when he hit the ground. He was going to die. He had a brief moment, just an instant before he landed, where he was relieved.

At least he would not have to endure all this fear anymore. He wasn't going to be eaten, and he wasn't going to drown, either. He accepted it. He was finally going to be released from all this nonsen-

Fate decided to throw him a curveball.

He landed on Asil's chest, bouncing and rolling off her to reach the ground without so much as a scratch. He laid there, gasping, and realized that he was alive. The fairy sitting up beside him and yelling at Calimn snapped him out of his trance. He had to get away from here while the two were fighting. He couldn't get up though; he was too wet and heavy.

Wait . . . Calimn had rolled around in the dirt to get dry . . . He could, too!

The ground where the fairy was sitting was wet with Calimn's giant splash, but he had fallen far enough that he was in a relatively dry area. He could get dry. He immediately began rolling around as well as he could with his weight. He just had to pray that he could dry off before they remembered what they were arguing over.

* * * * *

Asil was madder than a boom bee on red-flower-picking day. The mermaid had hit her with a wave of water, and her fall had damaged one of her delicate wings. She couldn't change size now, stuck as a giant until her wing healed. She was a little scared about her wings, the most important part of a fairy, being hurt, but because she was big it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.

"Look what you did to my wing! It's all messed up!" she shouted, getting back up.

She reached back and lifted the injured member, a small tear in it where it had twisted under her. It was minor, and probably would heal in a few hours, but Asil was still furious.

"You deserved it! I spent a long dang time making that plan and setting it all up, and you ruined it! Two weeks worth of work! Two!"

"You're a mega-jerk and a liar! You lied about the boy, and then you messed up my wing! ALL your plans should get ruined!"

At the mention of the boy, they both looked at Asil's hand. It was . . . empty. They looked around hurriedly, but there was no sign of the human they had been arguing over. He was gone.

"Oh, that is just PEACHY KEEN!" the mermaid yelled, throwing her hands up.

Asil wasn't able to fly, but she started to march off. She had had enough of this. Forget the boy. Forget the mermaid. She was going to go home to Lakeland and stay there once she could fly. She was done with this jerk mermaid. She would never come back to this side of the river again.

* * * * *

Calimn watched the fairy walk off, seething. That idiot had cost her the best meal of her life. There was no telling when Swiftlit would be back, or even that he would come back at all. She had spent so much time and effort just to get nothing but a quick taste. It was the most unfair thing in the world. She HATED to have her plans fail.

She had never been so upset. The boy had become her golden goose, a nigh unto unattainable prize. She wanted to eat him so badly . . .

She climbed back up onto shore and flung herself down, lying on her empty belly. She would wait. He had come back before. He would come back again. She would get him. Sooner or later, she would eat him up. And she would enjoy every second of it.

* * * * *

Swiftlit ran all the way back to his burrow, having to go at a normal human pace with his lingering dampness weighing him down. He opened the plug at the entrance, jumped down, and yanked the makeshift door shut behind him.

He wasn't going to come back out for anything!


Well, chapter eight is done. Calimn can get pretty mad when her plans and traps get ruined. Chapter nine will be up once I figure it out. Critique as you like.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated

I read up to the beginning of chapter 3 so far, and I think the story is going into a pretty interesting direction! Your writing style is unique, and I don't know if this was intentional, but I've found quite a few instances of alliteration which gives it almost a poetic quality. The prologue was a little hard to understand, though, and I think you want to make sure that you aren't being repetitive; Instead of using the same noun, try finding a synonym for the first few restatements of it. You probably didn't do this on purpose, though, and the story so far to me is suspenseful and gripping, and I'll finish it when I get the chance.

Thanks for the advice. I do have a kind of poetic style to my writing, and I write poems all the time. Words are kind of my thing. I'll keep word repetition in mind during the rest of my chapters.

I really, really like this story. You better continue it, or I'll hunt you down. That's a compliment, by the way.

No, don't kill me! *starts typing furiously* lol. Here's chapter nine. Even though Asil's long gone, her interruption has changed how the two interact. Has vore, so I would advise against reading if you dislike it.

Chapter 9: Unique

Calimn swallowed the last of the neko sailors with a sigh. She could feel all eight of the cat-people struggling in her stomach, a pleasant tickle in her gut, but she wasn't satisfied. There was something missing, something off.

Oh, she still loved the taste of humanoids, and they were filling enough, but there was a kind of blandness to hunting them. Lately she had been troubled by this unfamiliar sensation, this peculiar feeling of boredom that made her meals rather . . . dull. Her former enthusiasm in trapping and confusing her food was gone, replaced by a lackluster feel that was beginning to make her depressed.

She looked up at the sun, working out the current time in her head by its position in the sky. It wasn't quite to its peak yet, indicating that it was close to noon. Her moodiness turned over quickly, changing into bright excitement that revealed itself as a large grin. It was just about time.

She started swimming back up the Jewel River, towards her favorite spot on the Miragia Forest's side. She had a hunch that he would show up today. It began to rain as she headed for her little place on the banks of the river.

* * * * *

Swiftlit was having an intense mental argument with himself. He was deep in his underground house, sitting on the floor of loose earth and muttering to himself. It was dark in his burrow, with the only indication that the small boy was there at all the murmuring in the blackness.

"There's no way I'm going back to see that monster. She'll eat me so fast I-"

"Would you rather sit here in your hole and go crazy?" his mind asked back

"She'll EAT me if I go!"

"Only if you get too close. She's not the most mobile of giants. You know what she can and can't do. If you stay here you're going to lose your mind." his reason insisted.

He had to agree with that. It had been four days since his most recent encounter with the mermaid, and the closest to being eaten by her he had ever been to date. Nothing but nightmares had filled that time, during both his fitful snatches of sleep and his waking hours. Disturbia clawed at him whenever he was alone, intense fear that had neither form nor any base in reality.

He stood, mind made up. He had to go see her, even if it was dangerous. He would go mad otherwise. All he had to do was stay alert and make sure he didn't get close to her. He scurried down the tunnel that led out of his little den, then climbed up to the plug of dirt he had fitted over the entrance to his home. He pushed it open, the moss growing in the plug holding the soil together.

He peered out with the utmost caution, turning three hundred and sixty degrees to make absolutely sure that nothing was waiting for him. No beasts presented themselves to his eyes, no dangers at all. Assured that the coast was clear, he crawled out of the hole and pushed the plug back into place. It blended so well with the rest of the ground around it that only someone who knew exactly where it was could have located the burrow.

He patted the makeshift door firmly into place and looked furtively back and forth, watching for any movement as he headed out into the thick jungle. He went about the forest silently, never making any noise but for his shallow, nervous breaths. He had so little weight that his footfalls were completely silent, barely even making an impression in the moss and earth of the jungle floor.

He was nearly to the river when something tapped him on the top of his head.

He jumped nearly twenty feet and, unable to control his flight, flailed wildly in the air before crashing into a tree. He managed to stifle his scream of fright, reducing it to a muffled squeak. He bounced off the trunk, thrashed some more as he fell, and landed in a tense crouch. He looked around, eyes wide.

There was nothing there.

Another tap on his arm made him look down sharply. There was a small wet spot on his forearm, a drop of clear li-

WATER.

A few more drips hit him, then a few more, and it continued to increase as he stared up at the sky that had decided to suddenly and brutally betray him. He was terrified of water; he couldn't swim at all and had nearly drowned in Calimn's river a few weeks ago. Not only that, he became incredibly heavy when wet, barely able to move and therefore vulnerable.

Now water was coming to kill him from the air itself.

He ran here and there in a panic, zig-zaging towards the river while trying desperately and futilely to avoid the rain that was coming down. Though it was only a gentle shower, he was frightened out of his mind attempting to dodge all the raindrops. He was damp by the time he reached the place he had first met Calimn, and the rain finally stopped as he sighted her.

* * * * *

Calimn was glad to see Swiftlit. She had been anxious about his abnormally long absence, worried that her prize prey might not come back. Yet here he was, just like always. Why he came back time and time again was a mystery. She thought he was lonely, starved for companionship even if the companion in question saw him as food.

She licked her lips, anticipating his wonderful tangy taste, a kind of sweet fizz on the tongue that was unique. Most small folk had a hint of it to their flavor, part of what made them so delicious, but in this boy it was intense and absolutely beautiful in the mouth.

She stretched out on her stomach, putting her head on her hands and gazing down at him. He was shivering, and not just from fear. She herself had no problem with rain, used to the coolness of the river she swam in all day, but he was probably cold. He was a little wet from the rain, and shivering from both the chill of it and from fear. Well, he'd be nice and warm once in her stomach with the nekos.

They weren't moving around anymore.

She considered him, thinking about how to draw him closer. He was exciting to play with, naive but far from stupid. She decided to try something new.

"You look cold, Swiftlit. Want to cuddle?" she asked.

She gave him a sly, suggestive smile. She knew that many of the small males were attracted to female giant predators, and sometimes a pose could make them hesitate long enough to grab. Calimn didn't feel any attraction to prey herself, and used it only sparingly as a hunting technique. There was a naga named Vivian* at the Chordoni Falls that specialized in such things, or so her harpy friend Jab had told her, but Calimn just didn't use it.

She wasn't all that good at it either, apparently, because the boy didn't react other than to shake his head. Maybe he was too young for that technique, or maybe he just was too scared of her to be attracted.

"No. You'll just eat me."

The mermaid nodded. There was no use trying to deny THAT particular fact anymore, not since she had nearly slurped him up at the end of a vine like spaghetti last time. She couldn't use the "I'm not going to eat you, let's be friends" approach any longer. All she had to work with now was logic.

"I'll eat you, yes. Would that be so bad? It'll be nice and warm inside my stomach, at least."

He blinked slowly, shaking his head in denial. She noticed how incredibly tired he looked, eyes dull and bloodshot. He appeared so exhausted she had no idea how he was even still standing and awake. She had a good chance of making him into a meal, if she played with him the right way.

"Come on. It'll be comfortable in there, soft and quiet and dark." she soothed, voice becoming slow and gentle.

His eyelids drooped, just for a second, and then snapped back open.

Calimn felt exaltation rise in her chest. She could probably lull him right to sleep, if she kept this up. Then she would have him. Her stomach muttered, empty of its former contents, demanding to be fed again. It would have something else to fill it soon enough.

"I . . . I-I'm not . . . No. No."

She wove more gentle charm into her speech, adding a rhythm to it that made her words into a subtle lullaby.

"You know you can trust me. I promise it won't hurt a bit. I'll just taste you for a while, and then there'll be a quick gulp, and done. I'll be very gentle. You won't feel a thing."

* * * * *

Swiftlit could barely stay awake. He hadn't been sleeping much, maybe a few hours a day, and now that he was here with Calimn his adrenaline levels had dropped. With his constant supply of liquid panic gone, he felt drained, absolutely exhausted. His rest had been limited by horrendous nightmares, terrible dreams that had him jerking awake with a scream before he could get any real sleep.

That constant fear-induced insomnia had turned him into a wreck. His eyes ached, he couldn't concentrate, and the mermaid's melodious, soothing voice was definitely not helping him keep his eyes open and his brain running.

" . . . and you'll be a part of me. You won't have to worry about anything ever again."

He hadn't caught most of her words.

"Wha-?"

* * * * *

Calimn knew she had him. He was practically asleep on his feet, wobbling in place with his head nodding now and then. He wasn't paying attention, either, because he never looked up when she began to very, very slowly creep toward him. She moved only a foot at a time, shrugging her shoulders and wiggling forward on her belly a little bit at a time.

She kept talking as she did so, continuing to put him to sleep with her lullaby voice.

"Really, there's nothing at all to be afraid of. You'll be warm as toast and perfectly happy in there. You can take a nice nap, and forget about being afraid. A good, really loooong nap sounds great, doesn't it?" she whispered, now almost close enough to grab him.

He hummed, barely conscious now.

"Nice . . . ni . . . nap . . . sleep . . . slee . . ."

He fell asleep a few moments later, quietly sliding to the ground.

Then she reached out, with excruciating slowness so as not to wake him, and wrapped her hand around him.

She had caught her little prize.

* * * * *

Swiftlit jerked awake as he felt the rush of being lifted. He couldn't figure out was going on for a second, and then he realized Calimn had snuck up on him while he was passed out and had him in her hand. Her huge fingers were curled around his body, her grip warm and soft but absolutely, inescapably firm.

Adrenaline instantly pulsed through him, accompanied by an explosion of terror that woke him up like a slap to the face. He started screaming as the mermaid lifted him toward her open mouth. She was slow about it, playfully going "Ahhhhh" as she brought him closer to her maw.

Her tongue slid out to greet him, lapping at his face and one free arm idly. She hummed some cheery tune, happy at catching him, as she tasted him, coiling her tongue around his head. His vision cut out as she pulled the upper half of his body into her mouth with gentle but irresistible force. He kept shrieking even though he knew he was dead for sure this time, and nothing he could do or say would make any difference in his fate.

* * * * *

Calimn let go of Swiftlit's legs and sucked the boy entirely into her mouth, reveling in his incredible flavor. It was worth every minute of the three weeks it had taken to finally catch him. There was no one to interrupt her meal now, no one but her and her prey. It was utter bliss.

She kept him in her mouth for almost an hour, teasing him around with her dexterous tongue and letting all that tingling sweetness soak into her taste-buds. It was such a beautiful moment, finally with her ultimate prize, her very own golden goose, in her mouth. At last, she began to swallow him . . .

And couldn't.

He was just too good to let go of. Now she knew why she had become so bored with her other food; they didn't satisfy her on the same level as Swiftlit did. She hunted them because it was necessary for survival, but she hunted him because it was exciting and fun.

He was her perfect prey, blisteringly fast, paranoid enough to be a challenge to capture, and delicious. He made her think more than any other humanoid she had yet encountered, forced her to push her mental boundaries and imagination. It would be a foolish thing to eat him.

Reluctantly, she opened her mouth and plucked him from where he was thrashing on her tongue. She held him by the back of his dripping shirt, then put him down. He started crawling slowly away as soon as he was back on the ground, coughing up some of her spit that had gotten into his mouth as he screamed in hers.

She watched him go, wanting to pounce on him again but holding back.

She slid back into the river as he vanished into the undergrowth, still dragging himself along like a broken-backed animal. It began to rain again, the same light shower as before. She sank farther into the water, until only her eyes showed, and blew a few bubbles.

He would be back. He came back every time. Every. Single. Time. It was part of what made him so prized by her.

All she had to do, really, was wait.


There's chapter nine, where Calimn changes how she sees Swiftlit. Now he's not just food, he's VALUED food, almost a pet. Chapter ten will be up when I can get it.

Felarya is Karbo's

*Reference to Vivian - Vivian is also Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated

Ahh thanks mate! Another chapter was just what I needed to let my imagination take over and erase the troubles of the day from my mind.

Oh btw I saw a few spelling errors. Unfortunately I forgot where they were...