Strange Friends

Thank you. Chapter seventeen, where Calimn and Swiftlit are shown just hanging out, a quick look into how they interact on this new level of trust. Has vore, so if it offends you please avoid this story.

Chapter 17: Relax

Swiftlit could never have predicted, when he had first met Calimn, that he would ever be where he was now, or doing what he was doing. He reached out tentatively, hesitating just before contact. He really wasn't sure if he should . . .

"Go ahead. You can do it." the mermaid assured.

He couldn't bring himself to actually do so, though. He just wasn't capable of going all the way and voluntarily doing something like this. He was still struggling with indecision when Calimn made her move. He yelped, startled, as his arm was abruptly enveloped by the hot dampness of saliva.

He yanked his hand back, away from the mermaid's tongue, breathing hard and fast. His heart was clenched in his chest, feeling as if it was caught in a vice; he was terrified, barely able to think straight. Being eaten was his worst nightmare, a tremendous, monolithic phobia that stood over the plains of his general paranoia like a monstrous black tower.

Calimn withdrew her tongue, pulling it back into her mouth to speak. She had a patient but slightly exasperated look on her face.

"Come on, Swiftlit, you can do it. It's just being in my mouth. You've done it lots of times before. Well, not willingly, but that's beside the point. I told you I won't do anything, other than giving you a bit of encouragement, and you really need to get used to this if we're going to be playing together."

He knew all that perfectly well. Calimn loved her games, and as far as he was aware he was her only playmate. He had to get used to being in her mouth, since she wanted to taste him when and if she won one of their matches, but . . .

His problem was that he was deathly afraid of being devoured. He trusted the mermaid, trusted her immensely, but when it came down to it and he was looking at her open, saliva-slicked mouth, a deadly periwinkle cavern, he just lost it.

* * * * *

Calimn blew a strand of her turquoise hair up away from her face. She had suggested this little exercise of trust herself, after seeing how scared he was of her mouth. He would actually become paralyzed if he looked at her lips or she opened up, temporarily freezing in place, unable to move for several seconds. It was funny to watch, but it also worried her.

She was, as far as she knew, the only giant predator he had ever met, besides a fairy-bleh, that idiot-and he was naive on Felarya in general. He was vulnerable, very vulnerable, to other large sentients, or so she guessed.

He was incredibly fast, his ultra-light body making him astoundingly agile and able to move quickly in long, leaping strides. This, combined with his rampant paranoia and alertness, kept him relatively safe here in the Miragia Forest, where there were few giant predators. He could keep away from most dangers with these traits, but if he was ever pitted against something like a fairy or naga, he would probably get eaten.

He was fast, but the sheer difference in size would reduce that to merely giving the predator pursuing him a workout. His being constantly on the lookout for the least sign of danger would probably help more, but illusions or the like would be deadly; a dryad could catch him easily if she cared to try. Not only that, liquid drastically reduced his mobility, a serious handicap in any wet areas.

The idea of him being eaten and digested, or killed outright, was painful. It stabbed icy shards into her veins, frost-encrusted barbed-wire twisting through her heart. It scared her, but also made defiance roar up in response, a flare of heat to combat the cold fear that gnawed at her. Nobody was going to eat Swiftlit but her.

So she was helping him to get over his phagophobia, or at least get it to where he didn't freeze at the sight of a giant mouth. He certainly didn't need that to further hinder his survival. Even so, this was much harder than she had first supposed it would be. He just couldn't seem to get past his fear of being eaten.

* * * * *

"Okay . . . let's try again. Just take your time and keep calm. I won't eat you. Remember that, and go for it. Ready?"

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, attempting to ease his nervousness.

"Y-yeah."

He opened his eyes, only to become immobilized by the sight of Calimn's wide-open mouth. It filled the whole of his visual field; his entire universe had been reduced to that horrifying maw, all his senses concentrated on that one thing to the point of pain.

He was pulled into a swirl of terrified hypnosis, mesmerized by the mind-numbing fear, unable to look away or do anything besides stand there and tremble. The adrenaline rushing through him made everything excruciatingly detailed, every little thing agonizingly and exquisitely clear.

He could hear his pulse, so fast the individual beats blurred together into a dull roar in his ears, feeling it through his whole body, straining his heart and blood vessels. He imagined he could hear Calimn's, too, an excited thud-thud that told of her eagerness to savor his taste.

She definitely wanted to sample his flavor, the evidence flooding her mouth. Saliva had formed a shallow puddle at the base of her tongue, coating the muscle itself as well. The glint of it made him want to run, but his legs remained rooted in place. The black hole at the back of the awful cavity, her throat, made him shudder.

It was her breath, a warm breeze that ruffled his messy brown hair, that broke his paralysis. Well, not so much her breath itself but something he noticed about it. It was sweet, with a sharp tang to it. He would have expected it to have the pungent odor of fish, but it didn't. Snapped out of his brief fear-induced hypnosis, he inquired about it.

"Your b-breath . . . it smells weird."

Calimn looked rather miffed, giving an offended huff.

"Hey, I made sure to chew on some lamiole! I don't have bad breath."

"No, no, it's f-fine, not bad at all. It just s-surprised me, is all."

"Oh. Well, go ahead and hop on my tongue, if you can. No need to rush. Like I said before, just take your time." she said, a slightly bemused tone to her voice as she extended her tongue out for him.

* * * * *

Calimn saw the boy take an inadvertent step backwards as her tongue stopped just short of his feet. She held it there, just offering it up for him as a step. She really wanted him to do so, not only to beat his fear but also because . . . well, he tasted great. That sweet buzz was always delightful to have on her palate. The thought of it made her start to drool, but she kept her salivation in check.

He raised a foot, very slowly and extremely carefully, shaking as he fought to place it on her tongue. She was getting impatient, wanting him to hurry up and get it over with so she could feel that tingling flavor on her taste-buds, but she held herself back from trying to rush him. He was obviously having a hard time, and she could wait as long as was necessary for him to work up the requisite courage.

Twenty minutes later he still hadn't put so much as a toe on her tongue and she was about to just give in and slurp him down from sheer exasperation. She knew he was scared, but this was ridiculous! She was a moment away from snapping him up when she managed to turn aside her idea of eating him. Instead, she just gave him a little nudge in the right direction. Literally. With her finger.

She brought one hand around behind him and just barely poked him, the prod taking him by surprise. He gave a squeak as he stumbled forward, landing with both knees and hands pressing against her tongue. His deliciousness slipped across her palate like a flow of melted candy. She knew she wouldn't get much of a taste; he would pull back in a second, startled by her interference, and retre-

She felt him hesitantly push down a little harder, testing the give of her tongue. Now there was a new wrinkle. He really trusted her, enough to resist the urge to recoil from physical contact as he usually did. It was surprising, but not nearly so surprising as what he did next.

He got to his feet again, very gently and hesitantly, climbing the rest of the way onto her tongue, the sensation of tiny scuffilings sliding along the muscle tickling. She could feel him shivering, scared to death, but he kept calm, shifting his weight very lightly and slowly. It was lovely, an odd but quite wonderful massage. It looked like his being on her tongue wasn't so weird an idea to him after all.

* * * * *

Swiftlit pushed on Calimn's tongue, pressing down until his hand disappeared into deep craters of pink, watching as they were brought back into view by the elasticity of the muscle. It was frightening, but also fascinating, in a way. I must be insane, he thought, continuing to test the give of the mass of flesh, turning around to sit down, if a little shakily. Only the knowledge that the mermaid was safe allowed him to be here in her mouth without panicking. He poked at the muscle tentatively, drummed his heels on it only to have them bounce back up.

Even if he considered the action madness, Calimn seemed to be adoring it. She had her eyes nearly shut, smiling to herself and humming a cheery tune to emphasize how pleased she was. He could have laughed at how absurd this was, him with a giant mermaid's tongue under him, her chuckling, tongue shuddering under him as she laughed, both of them just being there on the banks of the Jewel River.

"Ahhh . . . I' be awshome if you 'id 'hish 'o my 'ummy." she sighed, trying to speak without withdrawing her tongue.

"A b-belly-rub? I could do that. It'd be less s-scary."

"I mean' on 'he INSI'E." she chuckled, giving him a mischievous wink.

He jumped back off of her tongue at that particular statement. There was no way he was going to massage her stomach from the inside-out. It was a miracle that he could even do this much, be this close to her mouth without losing it, but getting swallowed was where he drew the line. He backed up several steps, just in case she got any ideas, and shook his head.

"Not a ch-chance. I w-won't even touch your t-t-tongue if you try to e-eat me."

The mermaid pulled her tongue back into her mouth and pouted, giving him a supremely disappointed gaze.

"Awww . . . Come on, I want to feel you snuggling down in my stomach. I bet you'll be happy in there, once you calm down. Although, it's nice when you fight, too. It tickles a lot."

He trembled at the visualization of her swallowing him, sliding down her throat to be trapped inside her with no escape. It had his heart attempting to strangle him, making a tight knot that restricted his breathing.

"N-no, no, nonononono. No s-s-swallowing m-me. If you d-do, I won't p-play with you anymore. Ever."

She made puppy eyes at him, hopeful and pleading.

"Pleeeeeease?"

"No!"

"Hah. So stubborn about being eaten. Fine, you win for now. Now get ready to lose, because I've got a new game! I learned it yesterday. It's called . . ."

She made a set of intersecting lines in the rich soil with a finger, pausing for dramatic effect.

" . . . Tic-tac-toe!"

"Okay. Weird name, but I'll play. What are the p-prizes?"

"If you win you get . . . um . . ."

"Dragonapples!" he put in.

"Sure, you get dragonapples, if you want."

"What about if you win?"

"Tongue massage."

Swiftlit suddenly had a lot more reason to win.


Well, Swiftlit has gotten more comfortable with Calimn, and she's trying to get him to accept being swallowed as "fun". Critique as you like.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

This is a damn good story.

And you update it damn fast too.

I really like the development of the relationship between Calimn and Swiftlit. A lot of stories feature friendships between predators and prey, but a lot of them don't really make sense, how they become friends so quickly. This one on the other hand, felt really natural, it took a long time for Calimn to stop wanting to eat Swiftlit on sight. I really like it.

"Swiftlit suddenly had a lot more reason to win." Classic.

Thank you guys :3. Here's chapter eighteen, a precursor to an extra-special chapter coming up in a bit. More serious than most chapters, and longer. Has vore, so please avoid if you actively dislike it.

Chapter 18: Disruption

Capitan Felthen could only stare in shock and horror as the mermaid rose out of the Jewel River directly in front of his trading vessel, water streaming off of her head and shoulders. She came from the depths without warning, an abyssal behemoth, a playful grin directed at his ship.

She was beautiful, like many of the deadliest predators in this terrible world, smooth light blue skin, gorgeous emerald eyes filled with vitality, and a cascade of long hair the color of the midday sky. The smile on her pleasant face was radiant, friendly. He knew better than to trust that smile, and knew better than to be enamored by her beauty; he had lived thirty-two years in Felarya, born and raised here.

His crew, less experienced than himself, were gawking. Some faces showed fear, others awe, some a mix of both. Nobody moved for several seconds, unable to break their gazes away from the giant predator. Felthen shattered the stillness, giving an order in his trademark bellow that had his men scrambling about the deck.

"TURN THIS DAMN TUB AROUND, NOW!"

Immediately some of the sailors ran for the rigging, going to pull the sails to an angle. The other men scattered to various jobs on the deck, everyone working in concert to try and avoid the mermaid. Felthen himself grabbed the helm, turning it sharply to the left. It was all in perfect unison, concentrated teamwork of the highest degree.

None of it made any difference. The ship began to wheel about, quickly but far too slowly, when he realized they weren't going to clear the living obstacle. The S. S. Magdan was quite sprightly for a ship her age, but there just wasn't enough pep in her old boards, nor enough time to avoid a collision. Felthen made a split-second decision.

"BRACE FOR IMPACT, WE"RE RAMMING THIS GILL-GAL!" he roared.

The crew looked alarmed, but they didn't question him, grabbing onto anything solid or going flat to the deck if there was nothing close enough. Felthen put the wheel straight again, the helm making a whirring racket as he spun it. He knew attempting to rush the mermaid was a fool's errand, but there was nothing else he could do. At least with this they had a chance of hurting her before the inevitable end.

He looked over his ship fondly, telling it all goodbye. He had been on this boat since he and his father had built it together, back when he had been only twelve. They had spent more than a year on the schooner, perfecting the designs, getting the lumber, supplies, everything. Twenty months of work, but one run-in with a mermaid was going to ruin it.

He was sure that the ship would be destroyed. Even if his crash-attack, by some twist of chance, killed the predator, the vessel would be permanently damaged, so far beyond repair that it would have to be scrapped. Poor old gal. Twenty years to be wrecked by a fish-woman.

The impact that came a second later threw him forward hard, slamming him into the helm and knocking the wind out of him. There was no grinding crackle of wood splintering, though, no sound to indicate that his ship had been damaged by the collision. He sucked in a lungful of air, looking up to see what had happened.

The mermaid had caught the ship, stopped it dead. She had one massive arm wrapped around the bow, holding the vessel still easily. She had strength proportionate to her size, being able to halt a ship this large like that. The Magdan was eighty feet from stem to stern, not small at all, but the predator was more than twice again as long, several tons heavier to boot.

He was glad that his ship was intact, but now they had the problem of the mermaid. She was going to eat him and his crew, or at least as many men as she could. There were ten men in his charge, three of them nekos, the rest human. She could probably eat all of them. These monsters always seemed to have room for more.

He felt fury burn through him like a whirl of white-hot molten steel, the rage compelling him to run for the weapons rack. There were a handful of outdated but well-maitnenced single-shot rifles hanging there. He snatched one up, spinning to face the aggressor. She wasn't going to eat anybody on his ship without a fight.

* * * * *

Calimn pushed herself up on the ship a bit, leaning on it with one elbow. The whole thing shifted, deck tilting in her direction, the abrupt cant sending sailors rolling across the worn boards. She considered how to deliver her opening statement.

Swiftlit had surprised her two days ago, winning at tic-tac-toe despite having no previous knowledge of it. He was rather quick on the uptake, even if he was so very naive. She had been so convinced she would win that when he had asked for dragonapples as a prize she had agreed without thinking about it. Now she had to get him some dragonapples to eat, searching any ships she encountered for that golden fruit.

She was still trying to think of how to ask the sailors about their cargo when a sharp crack resounded from the forecastle of the boat. A moment later she felt a stinging pinprick on her left cheek, a bit under her eye. It really didn't hurt, but it was annoying. She looked over at the man who had shot her, the human trying to load another cartridge into the rifle he held.

She sighed. Sometimes prey could be so stupid, shooting at her with such a tiny weapon. So pointless. She wasn't even here to eat them, although she might have a snack in passing, yet here was this silly little morsel attempting to attack her. The other sailors were scattered about the deck, staring up at her, some standing still, others running to the stern of the ship to get away from her.

She felt another sting from the rifle, then reached down and flicked the gun out of the man's hands with one finger. He yelled as the weapon sailed overboard, then tried to go for the other guns in the rack beside him. She preempted him, picking the whole thing up and tossing it away easily. Now that she didn't have him shooting at her . . .

"Cut it out with the shooting. It's dumb, and pointless. I'm not here to eat anyone. I just wanted to know something."

The human, probably the captain by his demeanor and air of authority, responded hotly.

"Go fry yourself, fish! I'm not falling for that trick! You monsters are all the same, pretending to be friendly, but then you eat everyone! You can't fool me, fish!"

She rolled her eyes at his words. An idiot, and an unreasonable one. She needed to know if he had dragonapples, though, and therefore she kept her annoyance in check.

"Look, I don't want to cause trouble, just ask about what you're carrying. Any dragonapples? I need some."

"You'll get nothing from my ship! You go ahead and eat us, fish, and I'll make sure to give you indigestion."

She scrunched up her face, irritated. Conversing with this jerk wasn't going anywhere. She glanced over at the knot of sailors that were up against the bow railing, most giving her frightened looks. She picked one out who seemed to be less scared, a tall, lithe neko man with hints of grey in his reddish fur and a thick mustache. She pointed at him.

"You there. Can you tell me if this boat is carrying any dragonapples?"

The neko opened his mouth, hesitated, and then spoke, clearly uncomfortable under the angry glare of his captain. His ears were lowered, tail lashing about with nervousness, as he responded to her question with one of his own.

"If I tell you this, will you release the ship?"

She considered it. She was kind of hungry, and a handful of prey sounded pretty good at the moment. Then again, she needed to get her cute little paranoid friend his prize. She would be breaking the rules of her game, cheating, if she didn't do so. A nice meal was hard to pass up, though, an easy snack. Maybe . . .

"I'll let go of the ship if you tell me."

The neko relaxed some. The captain, surprisingly, did so also. He nodded at the neko man, a nod of approval, and the cat-person continued. Perhaps that head-sailor wasn't such a jerk as she had first supposed. She perked up her gill-like ears at the neko's answer.

"We do have five crates of dragonapples, in the hull with the rest of our cargo. How many crates do you want?"

She thought about this. One crate was enough to keep Swiftlit happy for a while, but she wasn't sure if it would be enough. He ate quite a bit, his constant jittering around making him hungry. Still, two crates was a bit much. They would go bad before he could eat all of them.

"Make it one crate, please."

* * * * *

Felthen went down belowdecks with Toswal, the older neko boatswain, to retrieve the crate of dragonapples for the mermaid. He was feeling far calmer than before, and much more confident. Sometimes his late father's partner astounded him with his insight and cunning.

"You . . . you did a hell of a job back there. Facing the mermaid, but also keeping me in check. I owe you a big, big favor, Tos. I lost my cool, and could have gotten us all killed, but you managed to fix it."

"No problem, captain. I was scared to death, but she doesn't seem to be interested in eating anybody. Maybe she's not a man-eater."

Felthen felt his gut tighten at that. His poor damn father, lost to a mermaid only ten years ago. He could still see that rough, tanned hand, calloused from years working on this very ship, clenching open and shut from where it protruded between the mermaid's lips. She had come out of nowhere, gotten his dad, and sank back into the river to eat him.

His face became hard.

"They're all damn man-eaters."

Toswal adjusted his glasses, pushing them up on his narrow nose, as he shook his head. The two descended the final set of stairs and emerged in the cargo hold. It was a rectangular space, large enough for the whole crew to stand around with some elbow room, a low ceiling and several support pillars placed in a smaller rectangle.

It was musty down here, dust and the smell of old wood mixing into a scent associated with the homes of the elderly. The room was filled with crates, barrels, boxes, and other miscellaneous containers, all neatly stacked and inventoried. The organization helped them find their objective far more easily. The two lifted the crate up from its place on the floor, boards creaking as the weight shifted, and shuffled around until they could get moving.

* * * * *

Toswal huffed, trying to keep his end of the crate up and moving. He wasn't as young as he had been, having come to Felarya from a distant world in his mid-fifties, and though his aging had halted he was still affected by the accumulated years he already had gained. His back muscles ached, but he preserved, keeping the box upright until they emerged back out onto the main deck.

The mermaid looked delighted, plucking the crate from their grasp before they could even set it down. She opened the top of it, peering inside, and nodded, quickly replacing the lid. She smiled down at them, her expression cheery and appreciative.

"Well, there we go! Thanks for the dragonapples. I'll just help myself, then."

Toswal nudged the captain, nodding at her words.

"You see? She must be a vegetari-"

He cut off, shocked to silence, as the mermaid reached down and picked up two men in her free hand, then popped them into her mouth. There was a moment of tasting, a quick gulp, and then both of his crew-mates were nothing but a large bulge sliding down her throat. She had another two men in her hand before the lump had even finished its journey.

He couldn't believe it. She had asked for dragonapples, but she was eating people? The horror of it hit him a moment later, a granite-hard and sickening punch to the gut. His crew members, men he had known for years, worked with, sailed with, were vanishing into this creature's maw at a terrifying pace. She had promised . . .

"Stop! Miss, you swore to release us if I gave you the dragonapples! You swore it!"

She grinned at him around the wildly kicking legs and thrashing tail of Leslen Drav, the neko quartermaster and a friend of his for six years. The sight made him want to vomit. He could see Felthen standing beside him, shaking with rage, fists clenched so hard there was blood dripping from his fingers. The droplets dribbled onto the deck with light tapping sounds, making darker stains on the deep mahogany wood of the boards. The captain's face was the same color as those infuriated tears of blood.

The mermaid slurped up Drav entirely and swallowed-at least she's polite enough not to talk with her mouth full, his mind gibbered-him before answering.

"Yes. I promised to let go of the ship. I never said I wouldn't eat some of you first."

She reached down and caught another helpless sailor out of the frenzied few running about the deck, this time the cabin boy, Zach Stull. She stuffed the small, screaming boy, normally so calm and shy, into her mouth. Toswal screamed at her to stop, echoed by the captain.

* * * * *

Calimn ignored the shouts of the neko and human, too busy savoring the human boy in her mouth. Swiftlit tasted better, what with his added tingling flavor, but even run-of-the-mill prey was delicious. Her favorite was humans, the perfect mix of salty and sweet tastes that balanced and complemented each other.

A lot of predators said elves were the best, but she found them a tad too sweet for her liking. Nekos were fine, but she still preferred humans to anything else. They had just the right balance of flavor for her palate. She rolled the boy once more around her mouth, then swallowed him. The tickling sensation of his struggles were pleasant, his yelling adding to the din inside her.

"You damn fish-freak!"

She looked down at the last two morsels left, the neko and captain, all the others now fighting in her belly. She sniffed at the human's insult, annoyed.

"We can do without name-calling, thank you. It's very rude. Unless you're a harpy." she added, remembering Jab.

"You just ate my whole damn CREW! I'll call you a fish-freak all I want!"

That remark earned him a premier seat in her stomach. He was swearing even as she swallowed him down. The neko, before just staring in silent horror as she ate his captain, yelled at her.

"You! Have you no heart, you beast!? Those men had families, friends, people who needed them and loved them! Doesn't that mean anything to you!?"

Calimn gazed down at him, eyes locking with his. There was fury in there, defiance, fear, a hundred little tributaries of emotion. She had seen that look, heard this argument, many, many times before. They never understood, prey, what it was all about.

"Of course it means something to me. It means that they have people who love them. I still eat them anyway. That's how things work. You're little, so you're food. You taste good, you're healthy for me, and I'm going to eat you. Period."

The neko gave her a withering, disgusted scowl.

"You're an abomination."

"That's not polite."

"EATING PEOPLE IS NOT POLITE!"

"Actually, it is. It's paying a compliment to how you taste. The only time it's rude is if I burp afterwards and don't excuse myself when I have a guest."

The neko lowered his head, shaking with anger and sorrow, and snarled out one last sentence.

"Go ahead and eat me. I hope you choke."

Calimn sighed, reaching down and scooping up the neko in her free hand. He didn't fight, no resistance, just a rigid body that radiated rage and grief. She was actually quite full, but he had asked for her to eat him, so she would. She kept it short, swallowing him without any session of tasting at all.

She certainly didn't choke on him.

* * * * *

Swiftlit was sitting on his tree root at the edge of the Miragia Forest when Calimn swam up, a big grin on her face and a medium-sized crate cupped in one hand. He had been waiting a while for her to return with his prize of dragonapples. She had been rather startled when he had won tic-tac-toe, and not had any of the gold apples on hand, forced to go hunting for them.

He got up, excited for both the prize and for Calimn's return. He had gotten a daymare stuck in his head, one of her simply never coming back, and was relieved to see her clambering up onto shore. He went over to greet her.

"Hi, Calimn! Did you find some?"

"Yep, a whole crate of them."

She put the box down in front of him, allowing him to start pulling the lid o- This felt familiar.

"There's no gripper vines in here, are there?" he asked, only halfway joking.

"No, just dragonapples."

He pried the top off the container, looking in to find it was indeed filled with dozens of fist-sized golden orbs. He pulled one out right away, biting into it and delighting in the sweetness that was followed by a cinnamon bite. He loved dragonapples; they were easily his favorite food. He ate exclusively fruit and vegetables, having neither the inclination nor the bravery to hunt a living thing of any size, but among the contents of his diet he liked the golden apples the best.

He finished the first quickly, then licked his fingers to get the juice off and selected another. Thinking Calimn might want some, he offered her a few.

She shook her head.

"No, no, I just a-urp-te. 'Scuse me." she apologized, a shade of royal blue coloring her cheeks.

"Oh, what did you eat?"

"Sailors."

* * * * *

Oops, screwed up there, Calimn, she thought to herself, right after her slip-up. She knew humans and the like hated it when their kind got eaten, and Swiftlit was prone to hysteria anyway. She flinched, waiting for the inevitable screaming and running and flailing and other nonsense that accompanied his brief meltdowns.

"Oh. Is a sailor a type of fish?"

The depth of his naivety sometimes astounded her. Usually having to explain things to him exasperated her, but for once she was grateful for his ignorance. She nodded hurriedly.

"Mm-hm, a sailor is a type of fish." she lied.

She didn't really want to deceive him about something this important, but she wanted to have an argument with him even less than she wanted to lie. Let that problem sort itself out.

This is going to come back and bite you on the tail-fin someday, her subconscious whispered.


Well, chapter eighteen. A bit more grim than most of the story, and long. Critiques and comments are welcome and appreciated.

Felarya is Karbo's

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated

I guess Calimn forgot about Karma or Ying and Yang. How long till full circle.

It's great to see their relation developping like that
But you are bringing an interesting point here, tha will surely bite her in the tailfin indeed

Thank you. Here comes the kicker, pretty much the climax of the story. That inevitable speed-bump in any pred-prey relationship. Namely: Eating people. Has a bit of vore. Critique as you like.

Chapter 19: Revelation and Separation

It's only a matter of time before it comes up, Calimn thought, lying out on the bank of the Jewel River, watching the sunlight play on the water in glittering sheets of silver. She was on her back, a human woman halfway in her mouth, the snack's tiny legs still out and kicking at her lips frantically, fists pounding on her tongue. She was sucking on the morsel slowly, idly, not really tasting her. She was too busy thinking.

She didn't know how she was going to break it to her little friend, and she didn't know how he would react to the fact that she ate other small creatures like him. He wasn't aware that she did so, somehow. She remembered a past conversation, when she had just met him, still considered him food. What had he said . . . ?

"I-I'm NEW."

She wasn't sure what that meant. Even someone just warped into Felarya from another world would have some notion of what was what, but Swiftlit seemed to know only the most basic, basic concepts. He didn't even know what a sailor was, for goodness sake! She really didn't know where he was from, or really anything about his past at all. She mulled over the possibilities.

Maybe he was from somewhere truly simple, a world where humans lived like animals out in the wilds. It made sense with his paranoia an- No, he wore clothes of a modern society. Perhaps he had been sheltered from the world from birth, kept in isolation by his parents or whoever had been his caretaker, until she had met him. That didn't really make sense either, though, what wi-

"Calimn?"

She snapped out of her pondering, startled, and turned her head to the side. Swiftlit was standing a few meters away from her head, a bizarre look on his face. It was a flux of chaos, a thousand individual emotions creating a terrible swirl that couldn't be described in words. She was alarmed, what was wrong with him? Why was he loo-

She realized, abruptly, that she still had the woman in her mouth, the lady's legs thrashing wildly. She hurriedly sucked the flailing limbs in and swallowed, but it was far too late. What's more, she knew it.

"Told you it would come back to bite you" her mind mocked.

She didn't know what to say, how to start the conversation over her diet and how he had to accept it. She had known that it was inevitable that she reveal her feeding habits to him, but now that it was time to do so she couldn't find any words. She just sat there, biting her lip, unable to speak.

How he would handle himself was a mystery. Maybe he would just be okay with it. He trusted her, and he liked her. Humanoids tended to react badly to their kind being on the menu, but he might no-

Another look at his face assured her that this wasn't going to go well.

* * * * *

Swiftlit couldn't think straight. There were too many thoughts spinning through his head, too much emotion boiling in him. Calimn had been eating someone. A person, like him. He didn't know what to do, how to react, anything. There were other people his size in this world, ones that could think, had lives. The implications were enormous and terrible.

He had never considered that there might be other sentient creatures besides himself, Calimn, and the fairy he had encountered on his initial arrival in Felarya. The topic had not been discussed in any of their conversations, and he had just assumed that they were all alone in this world. A small part of himself might have wondered, but as far as he had known, there had been no one but himself and the mermaid.

Other people, and Calimn had just casually eaten one, eaten one permanently. He realization that someone like himself had just been destroyed, drowning in terror as he himself had when she had swallowed him that one time, made his heart curl up into a blackened crisp, a leaf upon an open flame. It hurt, hurt to the point that he thought he would die from it.

"Swiftlit . . ."

Calimn was hazy through the tears that were running down his face, a blueish blur in his field of vision. He could tell what her face was like just by the tone of her voice, though. It was gentle, apologetic. He hated that look. She had just consumed a person, no compunctions or regret, and she could still give him that look, that tone of voice?

He said nothing, trying to keep from exploding under the immense pressure of his emotions. There were hints of everything, fury at her lack of sympathy, grief for the person now crying out audibly inside the mermaid, the fear that never left him. A billion feelings that built up into a gigantic black hole in his heart that seemed to suck up everything that he thought, everything that he was or ever would be.

"I was going to tell you, I really was. I just wasn't sure how to . . . tell you about it. I'm sorry."

He put his hands in his mouth, beginning to gently chew on them. He couldn't think; he was about to fly apart. He held it in, keeping his hysteria locked inside, barely able to keep from blowing up. His pulse was straining his body, a gigantic pressure that tried to tear him apart from the inside out, making his skin and muscles feel too tight. His heart was going to burst if this kept up.

He was trembling, on the verge of collapsing or running or screaming, some mad, frantic motion to ease the the tremendous pain in him. He would die if he didn't let it out somehow.

"Swiftlit, don't bite your hands like that. I . . . I eat humans, nekos, all sorts of things that are like you. I'm a predator; I can't help it. I have to eat, and little things are meant to be food."

He still didn't speak. He couldn't. His tongue felt like a block of lead, a twisted piece of useless metal. He bit down harder on his hands, an attempt to alleviate the emotional pain with physical pain. Calimn was gazing down on him, now rolled over onto her stomach. That woman was still in there; he could hear her screaming, the wails getting weaker as she began to run out of air and digestion started.

"Please, don't bite your hands. I can't stand to see you hurting. You're my friend. I would never, ever digest you. You know that, right? . . . I have to eat. Small folk, well, they're food. That's how the world works. You understand, don't you?"

He could hardly hear her past the roar of his pulse. He felt something dribbling down his upper lip; his nose was bleeding. It was a testament to just how much he was holding, bottled up, inside. He increased the pressure of his jaw, teeth pressing into his knuckles hard enough to draw blood. She ate people, beings that were just like him, snuffing their lives out as she fed herself. The thought made bile rise in his throat.

"Stop that biting. Your hands are beginning to bleed!"

He had his head lowered, no longer able to look at Calimn. He bit down as hard as he could, partly to relieve the agony in his heart, partly to spite her. She just casually killed sentient things, saw them as food. His pulse just kept getting more and more out of control, faster and stronger. He felt tears trickling from his eyes, but he refused to wipe them away, refused to look up. He couldn't take seeing Calimn, her body, formed and maintained by the deaths of others.

* * * * *

Calimn was hurting on the inside. Swiftlit was in pain, obviously in pain, and she was the cause of it. The knowledge that she was causing him torment cut up her heart like a vortex of knives in her chest, a ball of barbed-wire and glass.

He was standing there, rigid, shaking with emotion, so reminiscent of that neko man on the ship three days ago. There was blood snaking in thin trails down his arms, a result of his gnawing on his hands so hard that he broke the skin. He wouldn't look up at her, wouldn't say anything, silent, but she could practically FEEL the waves of roiling emotion that radiated off of him like heat from a bonfire.

She didn't know how to comfort him. She was afraid to reach out and pick him up, afraid that he would run away or explode. It was the ultimate in frustration, the fear of getting close raging against the desire to hold him. It was excruciating; she just wanted to hold him, rub her cheek against him, hug him to her chest and keep him there so that he could understand how much she cared about him.

She didn't regret eating people. She couldn't. She had grown up eating them, spent her entire life seeing humans and the like as food, watched her parents eat them as a child, eaten them herself once she was big enough, shared them with her friends. Even if she was friends with Swiftlit, loved him like a little brother, she couldn't.

She did feel he was like family to her, too. He had started as food, then become entertainment, working his way up to friendship. He had woven himself into her life so slowly and subtly she hadn't even noticed the transition, but the days when she had viewed him as nothing more than a small, delicious treat to be eaten seemed like an eternity ago. Now the thought of digesting him, of his dying inside her, made her queasy.

Any other human she would eat without a second thought, their becoming a part of her as she ate them perfectly natural. Swiftlit tasted good, felt good when he went down her throat and squirmed in her belly, but she just couldn't imagine eating him for real. The idea was supremely agonizing. It was fun to tease him, play at consuming him, but digesting him . . . no. Never.

"Y-y-you. Y-you e-e-e-eat p-p-people. P-p-people who th-think and b-b-breathe and f-f-feel."

It wasn't a question.

"I do. It's who and what I am. It's the way things work."

"A-are th-there other p-p-people m-my s-s-size?"

"Yes. Most live in Negav, way to the southwest. There are some in a settlement west of here, called Safe Haven or Harbor* or something."

"A-a-and you e-eat the ones y-you f-f-f-find?"

"Yes."

"S-sailors aren't f-f-fish, a-are they?"

Ooh, he remembered that. She bit her lip, upset that he was in this much pain. She couldn't stand to see him hurting so badly. The sight of it constricted her heart with thorny roots.

"Swiftlit, I-" she began, reaching out to touch him, provide some small comfort.

That was when he finally looked up at her. She gasped at his face; it had twisted up into something truly horrifying. He pulled his hands out of his mouth, both bleeding sluggishly from several bite marks. His mouth was red, chin scarlet where blood was running down. There was blood running from his nose, too, and crimson droplets flew from his mouth as he howled at her.

* * * * *

Swiftlit had finally let go, no longer able to hold in the massive weight of his emotions. His control shattered, his mind shattered, his senses shattered, everything turning into a cascade of shredding glass shards that reflected insanity. His pulse skyrocketed, going even higher than before, heartrate increasing to such a degree that he couldn't even feel his body anymore.

"DO NOT TOUCH ME! You eat people and that's killing them!"

Was that even his voice? He couldn't tell; his senses had shut down from the sheer amount of hysteria and adrenaline in him. He couldn't feel himself, his hearing was dominated by the rush of the blood flying through his veins, and his sight was distorted by black swirls that flashed a warning of impending unconsciousness.

"Swiftlit, I'm sorry you're upset, but this is what I am. I'm a predator, and that means I eat humans and the like. I'll never eat you, though."

"What does that matter?!"

"Don't be like this . . . please."

He could barely hear her. He felt something that wasn't tears trickling from his eyes, running down his face. It was blood; his blood pressure had increased so much that a few of the capillaries under his eyelids had burst from the strain. He heard Calimn gasp at this.

"Oh my-"

He didn't hear the rest. He did what he had always done, right from the start of his life, what he had been doing since being born from the chaos vortex, that mad swirl of insanity and pandemonium.

He ran.

He couldn't see very well, blood veiling his eyes with a red haze, but he didn't need to. He just ran away from Calimn, no longer able to tolerate her presence. He ignored her shouts for him to come back, hardly heard them, and sprinted into the forest. He didn't go home to his hole, didn't go anywhere; he was just trying to escape.

He was running from Calimn, running from the fact that she ate humans, running from his overpowering emotions, running from himself, running from everything that ever existed.

* * * * *

Calimn was still lying on the bank of the river, stunned, tears flowing down her face. She could still see him, red ribbons running down his cheeks as he cried blood, visage contorted into something that was indescribable, more terrible than hate or rage or anything else because it couldn't even be called an emotion anymore.

She cried because he had looked at her like that, but also because he himself had been in pain. It had been her fault for not telling him, she felt, her fault for lying and avoiding it until it had finally been forced. She took the grief tearing at her willingly, let those spiked tendrils work themselves into her. She had hurt him, badly.

She should have known this would happen sooner or later. The differences were too much, the viewpoints too far apart, for them to remain friends. She ate his kind, and he just couldn't accept that part of her. He was gone for good. There would be no more coming back, not anymore. He had always returned to her, but that much agony . . .

She slammed a fist down, leaving a deep impression in the soft soil. She had lost a friend, someone she liked immensely, someone who trusted her, because she hadn't been honest with him from the beginning. If only she had let him know sooner, maybe he would've taken it better, had time to cool off and accept it.

If only!

* * * * *

Swiftlit had finally run out of steam. He had charged blindly through the forest, so fast even the few creatures that had seen him had been unable to react before he was gone like a gale rushing by. Now he was out of energy, lying with his back to the massive trunk of a tree, crying silently to himself. He couldn't go back to Calimn now. He just couldn't.

He would sit here and go mad, let the relentless tide of nightmares that plagued him while both awake and asleep take him. Insanity would be welcome, a final release from this terrible existence. He had been sure he was safe with the mermaid, able to relax at last, but that was no longer anything other than a memory, cruel and mocking.

Perhaps another small sentient creature would come by before he lost himself. If not, he would succumb to insanity and probably roam the forest as a gibbering shadow, a ghost that ran from nothing and everything, until he died. Perhaps someone would come by, but it was not li-

He sat up, an idea coming to him. Why not go to where other people were? She had said that there was a town to the west. He might go mad before he got there, but at least he would lose his mind while he still had hope. He rose to his feet, starting to walk to the west.

He would go to Safe Harbor.


Well, there's nineteen. Calimn and Swiftlit separate after he finds out she eats humans and the like. Swiftlit decides to go looking for Safe Harbor. I'll get chapter twenty up when I can.

Felarya is Karbo's

*Reference to Safe Harbor - Safe Harbor is Ravana3k's.

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

Ouch considering what humanity has been doing to itself over the last couple thousand years Calimn doesn't Realy sound like a monster well that's Karma I guess.

Great story gripping is the word I would use look forward to the next chapter so what will Swiftlits end be I wonder.

Thank you :3. Yeah, Calimn isn't bad, just hungry, and a predator. Swiftlit blowing up is just another example of how much chaos he has in him, and how he tends to keep things bottled up too much.

Karbo: Also, as a secondary to the PM, (in case you don't see it or somesuch thing, apologies if this is repetitive, but just in case you don't ), could I use Crisis and Anna? I'll depict them to the best of my ability. Just a quick interaction w/ Swiftlit, nothing big.

Again, sorry if it's repetitive but I like to cover all bases.

no problem at all !

Well, that was intense! I, obviously, understand the crew hating Calimn, but it's still difficult (for the reader) to hate her for what she does without malice, without cruelty. The conflict of perspectives, the sailors' emotions were very well written. And then we come to Calimn's crisis with Swiftlit... It somehow hadn't occurred to me that Swiftlit really did think they were all alone in the world. No wonder he kept coming back to her. Poor Calimn, too... Her sorrow at hurting him is beautifully written.

(I notice that neither of them think of getting the woman out of Calimn's stomach! After all, it was still possible to save her. Swiftlit knew Calimn was able to throw up, so he could have asked her to do so. But it's understandable that he didn't: He was too overcome with awful emotion, unable to think straight. Calimn might have tried to appease him by throwing up the woman, but I suppose she simply didn't think of it! It's not in her nature to even think of releasing food after eating it.)

Thank you very much. You hit the nail right on the head there, Frenchsnack. Swiftlit was too busy trying not to explode, and Calimn was too busy trying to calm him down. And yes, she thinks that coughing someone up is a waste of food, and usually never considers it.

Thank you for permission, Karbo.

Thank you all for the input. Here is chapter twenty, a HUGE chapter (since it's finally the weekend and I have time to write), where Swiftlit goes looking through the jungle for Safe Harbor. Calimn talks with Jab to calm down. Vore is here. And we have a pair of guest stars.

Chapter 20: Lost and Found and Homeward Bound

Swiftlit had been creeping through the jungle for nearly two days, always heading west, with a slight southward cant to his wandering. He hadn't been thinking straight before, and now he realized he had no real idea where this Safe Harbor* place was. Calimn had never said anything about it other than it was of to the west. He couldn't go back to ask her though. Not after seeing her eat someone, and not going to co-

He had been chewing on his hands as he moved in the undergrowth at a crouch, hidden in the brush, but now he let them drop, mouth open. Why hadn't he told her to cough the woman up?! She might've done it. He shook his head, hard. That was in the past, no way of reversing it now. All he could do now was look for other people.

The idea of other humans (and whatever nekos were, as Calimn had mentioned them) besides himself, was something that he couldn't quite wrap his mind around, dozens or maybe even hundreds of all thinking and feeling and going about their lives. The mermaid had never told him how many others there were, but he guessed there were a lot, perhaps as many as three or four hundred.

He had been keeping a low profile in the forest, never rising up higher than a semi-crouched position. He didn't dare stand up, relying on the thick undergrowth and vegetation to hide him from any monsters. He had really forgotten how terrifying being in the forest was, starting at anything that moved and barely breathing for fear of being heard.

He had mainly stayed in his hole when not visiting Calimn, and only traveled between his burrow and the Jewel River. It had been a ten minute trip while walking, and he had never tried to explore the forest at all, other than to briefly look for food. Now he was just roaming in this deathtrap, constantly on high-alert for danger.

Apparently "high-alert" wasn't quite alert enough, because he tripped over something half-buried in the thick moss and loam of the jungle. He gave a yelp before he could silence himself, quickly bringing his foot down with force and catching himself. He sprang back from whatever he had nearly fallen over, heart pounding, head rotating around in search of any creatures that might have heard his yell and come to see.

He waited, not moving, eyes darting around. They ached from lack of sleep, but he kept them wide open, scanning everywhere for danger. He hadn't been able to sleep since running off, too frightened of being attacked by some beast while he struggled with nightmares. It was taking it's toll on him, reducing his focus, but the constant supply of adrenaline moving in him kept his reflexes sharp and his mind working properly. There didn't seem to be any danger coming, so he bent to examine the object that he had stumbled over.

It was a piece of grey stone, weathered down into little more than a shapeless blob, the moss growing on it making it almost indistinguishable from the ground. That was odd; there weren't all that many rocks in the jungle, mostly just soil and the occasional boulder. He rose up to his regular half-crouched stance, then continued, dismissing the odd chunk of rubble from his mind.

He had just reached the outskirts of Ur-Sagol.

* * * * *

Calimn was lying in her favorite spot on the bank of the Jewel River, moping just as she had been before meeting Swiftlit. No more playing with him, talking to him, teasing him, anything. She didn't even like to hunt that much anymore; it bored her, and reminded her about how much fun it had been to capture that human boy. Now she hunted only to eat, rarely playing with her food, sometimes even letting them go just because it was so dull and unsatisfying.

She could have prevented the argument, or at least mitigated it. That was what bothered her, the fact that she might still be friends with him if she had let him know about her diet earlier. Instead, she had avoided it until it blew up in her face, and wound up hurting him. That was even more painful than that she could have kept him from running away.

She should have been honest, and come clean with him before then. Now it was too late. She sighed, rolling over on her side. She was tired, and didn't feel like doing anything. She just picked at the dirt with one fingernail, disinterested. It was just like when she had gotten the harpoon jammed in her throat, a strange, bland kind of pain that told of depression.

The sound of swearing and blabber coming closer from the Miragia Forest made her look up. Jab was here to visit. She perked up a little, glad that she could at least talk to her harpy friend. Even if it wouldn't bring Swiftlit back, she could talk to the friends she still had. It was a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.

Jab flapped, hovering for a moment before landing. She stood awkwardly on one foot, balancing quite well despite having a squirming, squealing neko girl in her talons. Calimn sat up, putting her tail under her, and greeted her friend.

"Hey, Jab."

The harpy immediatly picked up on Calimn's mood; despite being a chatterbox she was amazingly perceptive. Her normally bright face became concerned, smile turning into a sympathetic frown. Even her language was toned down.

* * * * *

Jab was worried for the mermaid. She hadn't seen Calimn this depressed since her time with that fishing spear caught in her craw. She had seemed so happy the last time they had spoken, a kind of odd glow to her, but now that had been replaced by a lackluster feeling of creeping grief. She asked about it, trying to keep her accent to a minimum. This was obviously important.

"Whoa, you look like somebody just cut off your nose. Want to run your mouth in my direction before I rip it off?"

Calimn sighed deeply, closing her eyes for a minute. Jab waited, straining to keep from asking more questions. It was difficult to keep quiet for her, but she held it in. Her friend was hurting, for some reason, and she could shut up for a minute if it would help. Finally the mermaid opened her eyes and responded.

"I just . . . don't feel so good."

Jab caught that it definitely wasn't the belly-ache kind of bad feeling. Something was wrong. The harpy flitted through her memory, trying to find something, anything, that might give her a clue to what had happened. What had Calimn said in their last meeting? There HAD to be somethi-

"Oh dang, I forgot about him! . . . I have a big-time meeting with someone!"

Oh-ho, so that was it. Her boyfriend had dumped her. That must have been painful, getting rejected. Jab had gotten rejected several times, because of her stature and-ahem-girlish figure. She still didn't have any chicks because of that. It certainly stung when someone decided to say "no".

"Hey, hey, HEY, it's not so bad to get dumped! Even if you're so ugly I want to scratch out my own eyes just seeing you, there's some idiot out there, just for you! Somebody, somewhere, is going to be dumb enough to like you, no matter how much of an idiot you are. Just forget the guy."

Oops, not the right thing to say. Calimn sniffled, starting to cry, putting both hands over her face. This was one serious crush she had. Jab hopped over on one foot, still holding the neko with the other, and draped a wing around Calimn's shoulder. She squeezed her friend, hugging her. Calimn turned to her, crying all over her feathers. Jab patted the mermaid's back with her wings, cooing gentle threats as her mother had done with her as a chick.

"There, there, stop blubbering or I'll jam my claws down your throat and rip out your vocal cords. Actually, it's alright, just be a sniveling crybaby and let it out. That's it, just cry into my . . . well, I don't really have a bosom, but cry into it anyway."

She kept herself quiet as the mermaid dribbled tears all over her. Calimn was shaking, showing how incredibly upset she was. Jab just patted her head softly, providing what comfort she could.

* * * * *

Calimn let her sorrow out, sobbing into Jab's chest. Even if the harpy still mistakenly thought she was lovesick over some male giant predator, it was a blessing to have her to talk to and a sympathetic shoulder to cry on. She looked up at Jab's kind face, the harpy blurry through the tears.

"I lost him, Jab. It was all my fault, too, because I didn't say anything to him about eating humans. He was a good friend, and I should have been honest with him, but I couldn't bring myself to come out with it. I-I just didn't want to upset him, that was all! I knew he would blow up if I told him, but he might've stayed and had time to calm down if I'd only let him know sooner! I'm such an idiot!"

She felt hot desolation swirl through her, making a hollow sound as it blew through her heart like a desert wind. It made her cry harder, the knowledge that she had facilitated his abandonment of her. What was he doing now? Sitting in his hole, going crazy from the parade of paranoid fantasies he always had when alone? Running through the jungle, terrified? Hurt, dead, eaten?

"Oh, Jab, I hurt him so badly! He was bleeding all over the place from biting his hands so hard, and he was crying blood, and he looked like he was going to die, and his face . . . it was awful. I should have just told him the truth right away."

Jab rubbed the top of the mermaid's head with her chin, hugging her closer. Calimn embraced her in return, hard, taking some solace in the warmth of her. The harpy just held her silently for nearly half an hour, until she had cried herself out. Finally the taut lines of spiked roots tearing into her heart loosened, going slack as she released all that pain. Her body also relaxed, slumping, all the tension eased.

"Well, it's not a boyfriend you're talking about, I've caught. You love him, though, and a lot. He doesn't like you eating small folk, but you know what? If he can't let that go and accept it, then that's his problem, and you need to stop blaming yourself. He might have gone vegetarian, but you are you." Jab assured, puffing from the effort to keep from speaking in her own dialect.

She lifted her foot, flicking the neko into the air and catching the flailing cat-girl in her mouth. She had the morsel hanging out but for one leg, dangling and thrashing in the air, screeching out pleas to let her go. Jab proffered the treat to Calimn. The mermaid shook her head, still sniffling.

"No thanks. I'm not hungry right now."

* * * * *

Jab knew a lie when she heard one. Being Calimn's friend and talking to countless people during her travels early in life had sharpened her ear for falsehoods. She continued to hold the neko out to Calimn. Having a neko in her mouth made her want to slurp the little snack up and eat her, but Calimn needed some good old fashioned comfort food a lot more than Jab did.

" 'ere, 'ave a neko. You'll feel be'er af'er a lil' foo' "

"I really am fine, Ja-"

"Ea' 'he &*%^in' neko 'efore I kill you."

Calimn took the neko, holding it for a moment, considering the squirming morsel. She wasn't thinking of the neko at all, Jab felt, but of someone else, most likely her friend. The cat-girl was fighting in vain, unable to break free from the mermaid's grip, squeaking in that cute, mouthwatering way that small creatures had. Calimn didn't do anything for a few seconds, but finally tossed the treat into her mouth.

She spent a moment tasting the neko, then swallowed. She gave a soft sigh, not the usual one of pleasure from having eaten, but a disappointed one.

"Maybe I should have spit the woman up for him. I never thought of it because I was too upset, but I should have done that. If I had jus-"

Jab shushed the mermaid, for once not being the one told to stop talking.

"It's over. Let it go, you idiot."

Calimn nodded, and let it go.

* * * * *

Swiftlit was amazed at the ruins surrounding him, the size of everything, even as worn-down as it was by the elements. Everything was stone, and each building was cut from a single block of stone. The streets, some wide enough for a hundred people to walk abreast, were made of blocks meshed perfectly together, now slightly jumbled and moss encrusted from centuries and centuries of neglect. Decayed splendor, he could FEEL the age of the place, an archaic and ancient aura that pervaded every stone of the ruins.

He had been sneaking through this place for most of the morning, sleeping fitfully in an alcove once, but he was still awed by the gigantic architecture and the sheer weight of history that hung like a cloud of fog over the dead city. It was, indeed, dead, but not wholly abandoned. There were things living here, plants growing, creepers tangling the buildings in green webs, animals moving about.

He avoided the creatures, even small ones, at all costs. The motion of them, their strangeness, everything scared him. He had seen several small brown rodents with fluffy tails, but the rapid darting movements and jerking way of gnawing on the nuts they carried about made him tremble and steer clear of the creatures. He knew there were sentient beings here, too.

He wasn't sure how he was aware of it, but he was. The acute sharpness of the shockwaves of adrenaline that went through him with every heartbeat lent him a kind of hyper-alertness, an instinctive knowledge of when something was close. It was like when one automatically knows someone has entered the room without seeing or hearing them, just a vague sense, as old and powerful as the feeling of being watched.

He couldn't find the people, whoever they were, unable to tell where they were, only that they were close by and looking at him. The back of his neck prickled from their gazes, but he never detected them other than that bleary sense of "somethings here". Once he thought he saw a shadow in a doorway, but it vanished before he could get a good look, only having the time to take in that it seemed to be a person with feline ears and a tail.

Though he wanted to talk to these people, he was too scared. He was even afraid of these beings that were his size, the motion and feeling of them always being just out of his field of vision terrifying. He finally broke down from the fear, going to his knees, shaking.

"What do you want?!" he yelled, forgetting that noise was death.

The people instantly vanished, that feeling of being watched disappearing. A second later a massive Kensha beast rounded the corner of a nearby building, yellow lupine eyes glinting as it spotted him sitting in the middle of the street. The grey fur of the monster rippled as it sprang forward, fifty meters away but closing fast on its six legs.

Swiftlit was up and running instantly, screaming as he ratcheted up his speed, going faster than a human, then faster than a neko. It was far easier to accelerate here, where he had a relatively clear path and solid, mostly even ground, than in the forest. The Kensha was bigger than he was, but with nothing to trip him up he quickly hit top speed, taking steps so long he was off the ground entirely half the time.

The huge wolf-like beast had the advantage in size, and it was fast, but Swiftlit was living up to his name, sprinting in twelve-foot strides that moved him along more than twice as fast as any human could run. He was blindingly fast, weighing barely sixteen kilograms, and astonishingly agile, but the Kensha was right on his heels, lips pulled back in a snarl that had the human boy in a panic.

Swiftlit looked behind himself, and found the monster right behind him, vicious ivory teeth only twenty feet short and gaining for all the raw terror pulsing through him. He turned around, and shrieked; there was a wall, twice as tall as the creature on his tail, only twenty meters ahead of him, a dead end. He snapped his head to the left and right, but there was no way out, no alleyways to duck into, and no way to turn while at this speed.

He was only five meters from the wall when he made a split second decision and jumped as high as he could.

His lack of weight saved him; he sailed thirty feet into the air, slammed into the wall, and scrambled up the rest of the way, using the cracks and crevasses to claw his way up to the top. The beast, unable to stop, turned sideways and braked, sliding into the wall with an impact that nearly knocked the boy off. He jumped down on the other side, taking the fall easily, and kept running.

The Kensha panted, licked its chops, and then went off to look for some other prey. Something that fast wasn't worth the effort of chasing, not for one mouthful of meat.

Even though the monster had given up on chasing him, Swiftlit kept going at full-tilt, leaving the ruins behind, unable to stop moving. The adrenaline, the panic, wouldn't let him still his feet, inertia working its magic on him. He remained in top gear, going as fast as he could, long after he was out of Ur-Sagol. The jungle became a blur of green rushing by, nothing but his heart hammering away and his legs pumping.

He didn't seem to get tired at all, blazing through the trees, fear fueling him. He let go of thought and just ran to run, let the miles melt into a single mass. He continued until he could no longer keep up with his own feet, and tripped. He went flying, tumbling wildly across the forest floor, bouncing and even doing a few flips from the sheer speed he had been going at. At last, he slammed into the ground and rolled a dozen feet before coming to a halt.

He was bruised, but not injured other than that, the soft soil and his abnormal density absorbing the force of it. He laid there, gasping for air, and waited for his pulse to slow. Once it had been reduced to a manageable level, he rose, wiping the dirt off his clothes and face. He looked up at the sunlight filtering through the leaves, tinting everything green, and started to cry.

It was all so pointless. He had run away from the only solid thing in his life, Calimn, and now he was once again a speck of nothing out in a massive world filled with danger and horror. He couldn't go back to her, but he still missed her presence, the safety and solidarity of her being there. He still had to look for others, though, people like himself, that didn't casually eat living, thinking beings.

He had to find a place out here, Safe Harbor, before he either was killed by some monstrosity or he finally lost his mind. He didn't know where it was, but he had to find it. Maybe if he could get to a high place, up one of these huge trees. He had taken the time to learn how to climb trees while out looking for food before, and his lightness made it easy to clamber up high and onto thin branches that wouldn't normally hold someone his size.

It wasn't long before he had popped his head up out of the canopy and looked around. He didn't see anything like a village, just an endless sea of trees that seemed to stretch to infinity on all sides. Trees, trees, trees, tr- What was THAT?

It was a tree, but it was beyond anything he had ever seen, so huge that he couldn't even comprehend it. It was so big that he wasn't even sure it was real at first, taking up a massive chunk of the west like a tower of living wood the size of a mountain. Even though he was four or five miles from it, he was required to crane his head back to look at it. The crown of the tree had to be more than three kilometers up; there were a few wandering clouds breaking against its upper branches.

The awe of it made him tremble, scared simply by the fact that there could be something so colossal in existence. It was so high that if he were to climb up there he could probably see to the edge of infinity. An idea hit him. If he got up to the top he could spot Safe Harbor in an instant! He hurriedly scrambled down from the tree he was in and began running towards the giant monolith of bark and leaves, hope flaring up in him.

Thirty minutes later he was at the base of the massive tree, bent almost in half backwards to look up at the gigantic thing. So high. So huge. He could see where other people were from up there easily. He immediately started climbing, the numerous crevasses in the bark allowing him to go up easily. He was excited, getting higher and higher, now a hundred feet in the air. He had no fear of heights, the one thing he was not afraid of because he weighed almost nothing when dry and could therefore take long falls without much damage, and he was too excited to find someone out in this wilderness.

He was nearly two hundred meters up when a gust of wind hit him. Now his lack of mass turned on him, making it easy for the gale to tear him from the tree. Suddenly he was falling, arms waving wildly as he yelled. He might have no trouble falling a hundred feet, but seven hundred? He would die for sure. He flailed in the air, seeking desperately for something to grab, but there was nothing.

He shut his eyes, plugged his ears against the coming pulping noise of his body splattering on the ground, bones splintering as th-

He hit something, alright, but it wasn't the ground. As far as he knew, the ground wasn't soft and warm and yielding enough to bounce him up again before he settled.

* * * * *

Crisis had juuuust been about to take a nap in the shade of the Great Tree when something small and very light fell onto her stomach, bouncing once and causing the handful of nekos in her belly to renew their struggles. It tickled, making her want to laugh at the wiggling. Nekos were her favorite food mostly because of this; they fought longer and harder, made her feel fuller with all that cute thrashing of theirs. She opened one eye, a bit sleepy from her meal but still curious as to what had fallen on her.

It was a tiny little human, a boy, with mousy brown hair and green eyes that were staring up at her with terror. Crisis opened her other eye, too, now mildly interested. She had just eaten, but it had only been five nekos, and she had plenty of room left over for a snack. It wasn't everyday that dessert fell right into your lap, after all.

Still, she wasn't all that hungry and decided to play with him a bit. It was fun to tease them with the hope of escape, watch them start to squirm adorably and squeak when they figured out they weren't getting away. She always ended up having to cut it short because she started to drool with the thought of eating the delicious little morsels and gave herself away, but it was nice while it lasted.

"Well, hi there!" she greeted, giving him a sunny smile.

He just made a small sound, barely audible. It sounded like "Emeebledeem", which for some some reason struck her as quite funny. She laughed at the nonsense word, then tried again.

"Who might you be? And what are you doing out here?" she asked.

"S-s-swiftlit. S-s-sfehebre." he sputtered out.

The giant sapphire-scaled naga turned her head, cupping a hand to her ear with a big grin on her face. This human was rather amusing, unable to talk properly and shivering uncontrollably. The motion made her eager to eat him up right away, but she wanted to see what he had to say first.

"What was that? Didn't quiiiiiiite catch what you said."

"M-m-my n-name, i-it's S-s-swiftlit."

"Well, it's nice to meet you. And it'll be nice to eat you." she continued.

She reached for him then, beginning to sit up, game over sooner than she had expected. His shaking had made her a little hungry, even with the nekos, and she was having trouble keeping from licking her lips. He was just so small and tasty-looking she couldn't help it.

Her eyebrows shot up nearly into the gold field of her hair when he jumped right off of her stomach, avoided her attempt to grab him, and shot off into the brush faster than she had ever seen a human or even a neko run. Now, that was interesting. Her sleepiness disappeared, replaced by curiosity.

A smile grew on her face, excited, as she rose up and slithered after him. Her turquoise eyes glittered with playfulness. Just how fast could he run? Why could he go so fast? Could he outrun her? She was more than willing to test that last one. She set off in pursuit of him, enthused to be chasing something so amusing and speedy.

This was going to be a fun hunt.

* * * * *

Swiftlit was moving faster than he ever had in his life, even faster than with the Kensha beast, panic lending him wings. He couldn't hear the snake-woman, her being silent in her approach, but he knew she was coming anyway. It had his heart trying to tear a hole in his chest, it was throbbing so hard. Unlike the giant predator on his heels, he wasn't being quiet. He was too terrified to be quiet, instead doing what he tended to do when in danger; ran, waving his arms frantically and senselessly, and screamed.

Just as he had never thought of there being other people before seeing Calimn eat one in front of him and admit that there were, it had never occurred to him that there were other GIANT people, which would eat the small humanoids just as readily as Calimn. Now he knew, and it scared him to death. A whole world of huge sentient predators that ate things his size like candy. The idea was horrific.

"Wow, you're so FAST! I actually have to try pretty hard to keep up! How do you do it? It's neat!" he heard a joyous laugh right behind him.

He glanced back, and shrieked when he discovered that the giant snake-woman was nearly on him. She was grinning enormously, trying hard not to burst into giggles. She was gigantic, even bigger than Calimn was, seventy-five feet from the crown of her head to the point where her serpent half touched the ground, and her tail was at least double that in length. Bright blue eyes, the same color as her gleaming coils, were glinting with predatory good cheer; she was enjoying this chase.

"EEEEEEEEEE!"

He tried to go faster, but he was already at top speed and it was really a miracle that he hadn't stumbled from his own pace yet. He was going to get caught, he was going to get caught, he was going to get EATEN! He screamed even louder, which elicited a laugh from the naga.

* * * * *

Anna laughed triumphantly, putting the last screw in place and twisting it tight. It had taken forever to get this thing fixed, with this giant freak body of hers and completely handmade tools. Trying to fix a radio sized for a human with fingers as big as a person and tools out of the stone age was incredibly hard, and constantly losing the minuscule-to her-screws and bits had been frustrating as hell.

She had done it though. She turned the knob on it gently, careful not to break it. There was a crackle of static, then a hush. She heard something in the distance, somebody screaming, and shook her head. Crisis for sure, probably coming to try and feed her some poor sap she had caught. That glutton. Not only did she eat PEOPLE, she tried to force Anna to eat them, too.

Her momentary bad mood was erased as the radio coughed and then a smooth voice began singing from the cross-wire speakers. Anna propped herself up on one elbow from her prone position, grinning at the machine. In perfect working order, thanks to her expertise.

The screeching was getting closer, and quite fast. It was a bit annoying, but she was in too good a mood to be disrupted. Fixed, with a few chiseled rocks and a twig.

"Damn, I'm so good I surprise myself sometimes." she chuckled, pleased at her success.

"eeeeeeee!"

What the hell was that noise, anyway?

"eeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEE!"

The sound abruptly increased as the source, a human boy, burst into view, arms and legs pinwheeling frantically as he ran. He had a look of abject terror on his face, leaf-green eyes wide and frightened. Oh yeah, Crisis was DEFINITELY behind this one. Well, that slithering stomach of a naga wasn't going to get a meal on her watch, not when her chasing had popped the bubble of Anna's good mood.

"Hey kid, come he-"

He was blisteringly fast, faster than her favorite food, duikers, and those things were damn fast. He was to her and past her in a second, stunning her to silence with how quickly he moved. Just, BOOM, there, then gone in a flash. She scratched her head, confused. Did he have some kind of friction-cutter in his shoes or what? Maybe he didn't need her help getting away from Crisis after a-

A second later the blonde naga shot out from the foliage, the same direction the boy had come from, and slithered right over the top of Anna, pushing her head down as Crisis ran over her. A moment later Crisis was gone, too, with a quick apology over her shoulder.

"Sorry, Anna, can't talk, hunting, bye!" she said in a rush.

Anna raised her head back up, thoroughly irritated. That idiot, just plowing over people trying to enjoy a little music from a perfectly fixe-

The radio was in pieces. Her head coming down on it as Crisis went over the top of her had smashed it. Hours and hours of work, fiddling with screws and wires so small to her eyes she could barely see them, ruined. She felt magma bubble up in her chest, red-hot fury at her hard-earned radio, all that effort and eyestrain, being destroyed. Then she blew up, roaring in the direction Crisis had gone and slithering after the naga.

"CRISIS! You are so damn DEAD when I get my hands on you!" she raged.

* * * * *

Crisis heard Anna shouting furiously behind her, probably mad about being run over. Crisis felt apologetic, and was sure she would get scolded once the other naga caught up, but she just HAD to catch this super-fast treat first. Not only did she want to know how he tasted, wondering if his abnormal speed made him have a different flavor than other humans, but now she also wanted to question him over how he could move so quickly.

She wasn't going at full speed, more like the equivalent of a decent run, but the way he was sprinting along, squealing his head off and flailing, was just so fascinating she didn't want to end the chase quite yet. It was so weird, how he didn't so much run as he bounded, covering a lot of ground with unbelievably long strides. It was tremendously funny, too, and she was laughing as she began to catch up with him, excited.

He surprised her a second time when he jumped straight into a tree, then bounced off of it, shooting back towards her at a diagonal. She tried to grab him, turning around as she did so, but his ricochet movement had the element of surprise. He flew past her hand, landed, rolled, and started running back the way they had come. She gave an enthused grin; this little morsel was immensely fun to chase.

* * * * *

Swiftlit couldn't believe his rebound off the tree had worked. He shot around another huge trunk and sat, gasping and trying to catch his breath. He couldn't outrun the giant serpent-lady, and despite the adrenaline coursing though him he couldn't keep running at top speed forever. He had to rest, hiding behind the tree, and hope she or that pink-haired one he had gone by didn't find him before he could recover.

He was still trying to get his breath back when that feeling came back, all the hair on him prickling.

He dove sideways, just barely missing the massive fingers that snatched at the spot he had just been at. He heard a cheery chuckle from the blonde snake-lady as he dodged another swipe of her hand, darting around in a panic. He couldn't get away, her hands always slamming down in front of him before he could get out of her reach and crank up his speed.

He actually started crying, terrified to the limit, unable to escape and horribly aware that she was toying with him just like a cat with a mouse. He was going to die, right here and now, stumbling around half-blinded with tears and utterly alone. She was saying something to him, conversing with her prey in a sweet, cheerful, and absolutely deadly voice.

"Are you a human? You look like one, but you're so fast! It's neat! Do you taste different than a normal human? I hope you do! It would be kind of disappointing if you tasted regular after all that running around. How did you know I was about to grab you? Can you sense people, like me?"

He couldn't answer, too frightened, almost on the verge of his sanity breaking, heart racing. He just kept screaming and jumping around, trying desperately to escape, to no avail. He lost it, finally giving up all thought, all of who he was, and willingly threw himself into insanity. He wanted to be crazy and unaware when he was eaten. He could at least die without having to know he was doing so.

He went into that crazed state of semi-conciousness, spinning out of control and howling as his heart begin to pump harder, faster, until it felt like he was going to explode into a cloud of blood and terror. Letting go of himself gave him a sudden insight, a realization, an epiphany in the depths of his chaotic waking nightmare.

He should have stayed at home. He should have stayed with Calimn. She was his only friend in this psychotic world of man-eating giant half-humans and monsters, and she was the only one he trusted in the whole of existence. So what if she ate people? She had to eat, just like he did, and her diet included humans and the like. He could accept that. He had to.

She was his friend, and he had run away from her, thrown away their relationship. He had hurt her with his rejection, and that had been the stupidest thing in a long line stupid things his life seemed to be made up of now that he looked back. Supremely stupid.

She consumed living, thinking beings. She had to. He finally let go of that, accepted it. He trusted her, and he loved her, too. Loved her as his one friend, loved her enough to take in anything she did and still love her.

It was too late now. He was going to be eaten, digested, and he would be dead. He would never be able to tell Calimn that he was sorry about blowing up at her, that he could let go of the fact that she ate humans, that she was his best friend and that he loved her. He was, as ever, too late.

Always afraid, always too late, always running, and always making stupid decisions.

"I AM AN IDIOT!" he roared, so loudly and with so much violence behind his scream that the snake-woman actually flinched.

A look of intimate curiosity came over her pleasant face a moment later.

* * * * *

Crisis was quite interested in this human boy now. He had switched gears faster than she could keep up with, going from terrified to hysterical on a level she had never seen in any living creature to suddenly enraged and resolute. The speed at which he changed emotions and how unbelievably powerful they were was amazing.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

She leaned in, placing her hands on the ground to hold herself up better. He wasn't running anymore, and she didn't think he was going to, so she refrained from picking him up. He wasn't shaking either, the movement no longer there to incense her instinctive drive to eat him. The chase had made her a bit hungry, but she kept it down, too interested in the snack. Maybe he would tell her about his life, and why, precisely, he thought himself an idiot. The idea of a story made her excited, so she pressed him.

"Tell me why you think you're an idiot. Go on, I won't bite. I might swallow you, but I won't bite." she giggled.

"I am such an idiot! I am such an idiot! Such an idiot!"

"Yes?"

"I am such an IDIOT! I ran away from her and now I'm going to die out here without even telling her I don't care if she eats people!"

So he knew a predator, then. She wondered who, precisely, he was friends with. She had never seen him before (granted, as she would have remembered anyone so amazingly fast and hysterical), so that ruled out most everybody she knew. Perhaps he came from somewhere quite far?

"Such an idiot!" was all he gave out.

Well, he didn't seem to have anything more to say, and was obviously not going to tell her about his life or a tale of any kind. It had been fun, but now it was time for what came after every successful hunt. Namely: Eating.

Well, I'm feeling sort of hungry, so . . ."

She picked him up, delighting in his thrashing. She kind of wanted to know who he was talking about being his friend, but her tummy was complaining about being empty, growling, and this cute little human was begging to fill it. He was just so tiny, squirmy, too. She wondered how he would taste, and what it would feel like to have him in her stomach.

It would tickle a lot, she was sure. He was so fast he probably would bounce around inside her like a pinball, fight even harder than a neko. It was exciting, and her anticipation overcame her. She lifted him up, opening her mouth.

* * * * *

The sight of this snake-woman's mouth widening to receive him had the usual effect; it paralyzed him, snapping him out of his bout of insanity with the sudden stillness, the immobility. It was over. All of it. The saliva coating the inside of her mouth glistened slightly in the sunlight, reflecting his life, and soon to reflect his death. One long sting of it, suspended between the base of one of her molars and the crown of another, was hanging. When it broke, the thread of his life would snap also, that long line of stupidity with the great stupidity of running away from his friend at the end of it.

"I j-j-just w-wish-"

(-I could have told Calimn it was all okay), but he didn't get to finish. Suddenly an arm wrapped around the woman's neck, yanking her backward. It was the other one, the pink-haired snake-woman, and she looked furious. The blue-eyed one that had been about to eat him gave a yelp, and dropped him. He hit the ground, rose to his feet an instant later to her astonished gasp.

"Wow, you can run really fast, and you can fall so fa-argh!" she cut off as her companion squeezed on her neck.

"Crisis, you don't have time to talk to a human with friction-cutter shoes and some kind of gravity-belt, fascinating as that tech is. You and I are going to have a serious conversation about running over people and BREAKING their JUST-FIXED, DAYS-OF-WORK machines." the one with the blonde in a chokehold growled, voice strained with fury.

"Awww, Anna, I was just about to eat him! I've got to see what he tastes li-"

"You've 'got to' learn some damn manners! You busted my radio! And you plowed over the top of me with ou- You, kid!"

Swiftlit started at her addressing him, looked up. He squeaked, frightened, when he saw her glaring at him with eyes like molten gold and twice as hot.

"Y-y-y-yes-s-s?" he managed.

"Get lost. I saved your backside, so run home. I'm going to have a talk with Crisis, so you'll get out of here if you know what's good for you."

He didn't have to be told twice.

Crisis yelled after him, voice full of good humor, as he dashed as fast as he could towards home.

"Sorry I didn't get to eat you this time! It was fun chasing you, but come back and visit sometime so I can have you for lunch! Or breakfast! Or dinner, that works, too!

He just laughed crazily at that. He wouldn't come back here in a million years if he could help it. He sprinted back to the east, never stopping except to eat or rest. He ran through the Tomeshal Forest, ran through the ruins of Ur-Sagol, ran through the Miragia Forest. He was going home. He was going back where he belonged, back to his burrow.

Back to Calimn.

* * * * *

Calimn was lying on her back, sunbathing, halfway asleep. Swiftlit had been gone nearly a week. He wasn't coming back. She knew she had to get over it, but it still hurt. Suddenly something attacked her, springing onto her face, grabbing onto her nose. She was startled at the whirl of chaos that jumped on her, but one familiar squeal and she knew who it was.

Swiftlit had come back.

He always came back.

She sat up, him tumbling off of her face to land in an outstretched palm. He was shaking and crying, but for once it wasn't from being scared; he was overjoyed. She was the same, a massive nova of bright, beautiful happiness turning her heart into a brilliant sun, a gleaming star. He had come back!

She hugged him, tightly, lovingly. She held him to her breast, brought her head down to rub her cheek against him. He hugged her back, even though she was so much bigger than him he couldn't do it properly. The fact that her love was reciprocated, that he didn't hate her, made a crystal rose bloom in her chest, shining so bright that it was blinding.

"You came back. You don't hate me."

"No. I love you. You're my best friend. My only friend."

"B-but I e-eat humans." she said, for once being the one to stutter, starting to cry all over his head, making him heavy with her tears.

"Don't care. You're my friend. I can accept it."

He accepted it. He accepted HER. Completely. She didn't know how it was possible, but the warmth in her grew even more intense, the sun in her heart becoming a supernova, the crystal flower brightening to the point that it almost hurt.

"You're my friend, too. I love you."

She just kept him there, hugging him, and refused to let go. He clung to her with the same fervor, neither letting go. They stayed that way for two hours, until the sun went down and twilight brushed the sky with dusky purples and reds.

"You should probably head home. It's almost dark."

"No. I'll s-stay here with you."

"Okay. I'll put you in between my breasts so you don't get squished if I roll ov-"

Her stomach growling interrupted her sentence. She hadn't been eating much since he had left, and his proximity was making her hungry. She didn't want to scare him, not when he had just come back and forgiven her.

Then again, he accepted her eating small creatures, and he didn't seem to be panicking over the noise of her belly groaning. He could accept her swallowing him, too. Still, best to ask first.

"Want to spend the night in my tummy? Don't worry about getting digested, I leaned how to shut it off when I'm asleep. It'll be comfy, and safer than being outside. Just asking, though. You don't have to if you don't want to!" she added hurriedly, not wanting to upset him.

For quite awhile he said nothing, and she held her breath, worried she had scared him with her suggestion. She didn't expect his response, and was stunned when it came.

"Y-yeah. I need to get used to i-it. We're still playing, after all. R-right?"

He trusted her so much. She released him, reluctantly, from her embrace, and held him over her mouth, opening up to lower him in. He didn't freeze up; he had shut his eyes, and he only flinched a little as she wrapped her tongue around him and pulled him entirely into her mouth.

She had forgotten how delicious her tiny friend was, that tingle and peculiar fizzing sweet flavor. She teased him around in her mouth with her tongue, exceedingly gentle, and felt him squirm a little in response. It wasn't a frightened motion, so she continued for a little while before finally tilting her head back and, as slowly and easily as she could, swallowed him.

He wriggled a little as he went down, tickling, and slid into her belly. She could feel him moving in there, then settling as she laid down, splashing herself to dampen herself for the night, so that she didn't dry out. She took a deep breath, swallowed the air, then took another, doing the same. That would be enough to last him for hours, plenty of oxygen.

She relaxed, rubbing her stomach, getting ready to go to sleep. She had switched her digestion off, and it wouldn't restart for at least a day. The warm weight in her tummy was comforting. She fell asleep with a quiet, pleased sigh. She was at ease, and dreamed of good things.

* * * * *

Swiftlit was in Calimn's stomach, lying down. It was soft and very warm, damp but not wet. He was frightened, but the joy of just being with Calimn, albeit inside her, overpowered it. He drifted off to sleep gently, the sound of her heartbeat somewhere nearby soothing him. When he dreamed, there were no nightmares.

He had never slept better.


Well, that is the end of the main storyline of Strange Friends. Thanks to everybody who gave me critiques and comments, and particularly to Karbo who lent me Anna and Crisis. There will be a few short pieces in this thread, dealing with Swiftlit and Calimn, but that's it for the main story. Thank you, everybody!

Felarya is Karbo's

*Reference to Safe Harbor - Safe Habor is Ravana3k's, and he retains all rights to it

Crisis and Anna are also Karbo's, and he retains all rights to them, as well as the right to stone me if I got them wrong

Named characters are mine unless otherwise stated.

Wow that's an intense chapter. I guess it was hard to stop.

I don't know where you find the time to write so much, but I've thoroughly enjoyed this saga!

Jab adapting to her friend's mood was very nicely done. Her effort to speak kindly and tone down her "harpy language" (only partly succeeding); hugging and comforting her friend, being quite maternal... ("just be a sniveling crybaby and let it out" ) It was an original and very interesting look at how a harpy can adjust to her friend's needs. (I feel rather sorry for the neko, though, kept waiting all that while in Jab's talons!)

Swiflit bouncing on Crisis' tummy and thereby awakening her meal's struggles was amusing. Though Crisis isn't my character, of course, I think you managed her playful, curious side, her "innocent" excitement at something new, very well indeed. The humour of Crisis smashing Anna's hard work is getting a little old, to be honest, but other than that Swiflit's encounter with the two of them was nicely done.

I very much liked Swiflit's realisation when he's faced with death; the fact that he cares about Calimn, and that she's a real friend, despite everything. Their being reunited was very sweet, and touching; simple, heartfelt emotions, powerfully expressed. It was almost a relief to see him calm at last, to see him accept her fully. I was a little surprised that she felt absolutely certain there was no risk of accidental digestion while she slept, but the image of him settling down peacefully in her tummy was a nice one. Their relationship couldn't be closer, or more trusting, than that.

Thank you . Swiftlit let go, finally, but he isn't quite cured of his phagophobia yet, as you'll see in the short bits in a while. Calimn also is confident in her ability to control digestion. She's quite self-confident most of the time.

A very nice story in the end !
Great writting and excellent descriptions overall, and that last chapter was great and intense

I found that scene with Jab really touching, as she try to comfort her friend, and a little funny too as she does it harpy-style XD
I loved a lot the scene with Crisis and I think you capturing her very well !
My only remark is when she mentionned the people difference ( " "Oh, you meant food. Scared me for a second. " ) I think she would have made the difference by herself.
But besides that, excellent job at capturing her cheerful and playful personnality ! I was grinning all the time while reading ^__^

And I chucckled at that sentence :

"Sorry I didn't get to eat you this time! It was fun chasing you, but come back and visit sometime so I can have you for lunch! Or breakfast! Or dinner, that works, too!

XD

Thank you, and I'm glad I managed to get the two mostly right.

I edited that bit with "people" and "food". Does that work? Or did I make it worse?

Nice story. I really like it. I think you should keep writing these characters. Their really good. Maybe a sequal story.

Thanks. I'm definitely going to put more things down for these two. Shorts, mostly, but maybe a full sequel if I can get one in my head.

In fact, here's a short comedy thing really quick. It's almost Thanksgiving break and I'll be at home (and therefore unable to be anywhere near this site, because of my parents) and not able to write. Hurrah for being on a creative streak.

Vore Warning.

SF (Strange Friends) Shorts

Rock, Paper, NOM

The boy was biting his lip. How was he going to do this? It was impossible!

He looked up at the gigantic creature lying on her stomach right in front of him. It was a mermaid, of the giant persuasion, just over a hundred and seventy feet long. She was enormous, a mountain of smooth robin's-egg blue skin and emerald scales that covered her fish portion. She was as big as a ship, large enough to swallow him whole. In fact, that's what she wanted to do.

She was trying to hide it, but the constant motion of her tongue across her azure lips let him know what she was thinking. She was even drooling, a thin line of saliva running from the corner of her mouth. He gulped, trying to get the knot of fear out of his throat at the sight of that shine. She caught his look, and quickly wiped her mouth.

"Sorry, my tasty little morsel. I'm getting a bit excited about having you in my belly. I hope you'll be comfortable. You'll have the best accommodations available." she laughed, her voice full of evil humor.

He paled at this, but managed to produce a comeback.

"We'll see about th-that. You can't w-win this battle! I WILL DEFEAT YOU!" he roared.

The mermaid hissed, the sight of her gleaming white teeth and dripping maw freezing the hero in place with terror. He managed to shake it off as the monster reared up on her tail, looming over him, ready to strike. He went into a fighting stance, one arm drawn back and up, hand balled into his fist. Despite his strong words, his form shook with uncertainty.

The beast raised a hand, a tight fist big enough to crush the human instantly. She could punch holes in a galleon with her bare hands, what was one small boy capable of doing? She would destroy him, devour him once he was defeated. There was no escape for this little "hero".

"I hope you're prepared, snack-food! Soon you'll be crying in my gut!"

His only response was to bring his fist forward. She mirrored the movement, hand coming down at him like a meteor. Just before her hand reached him, she flicked out her first two fingers, the others tucked in. Then she stopped, the sudden wind of her arm abruptly halting blowing the boy's hair back. He stopped as well, holding his fist out just short of her fingers.

For a moment there was silence.

"Dang it, I demand a rematch! Best two out of three!"

Swiftlit just shook his head, smiling, at Calimn's words. She loathed losing, especially at games she had just introduced to him, like this one. It was an odd game, where you had to make one of three hand-signs, which had a cyclic pattern of winning or losing against your opponent's hand-sign. It was called "Rock, Paper, Scissors", apparently, and was rather popular for deciding on certain things, such as chores.

Calimn huffed, disappointed at having lost. She should have known better than to try this game with Swiftlit. He was good at things dealing in luck and reflexes, and "Rock, Paper, Scissors" was nothing BUT luck and reflexes. She had so been looking forward to tasting him, too. They had set the prizes right before the game.

For her winning, she got to eat him, temporarily of course. For him winning, he got a few dragonapples out of the crate she had scooted off to the side. He wasn't having any of her complaints, though.

"Uh-uh, I won. No rematches."

"Come oooooon. I haven't gotten to even taste you in three whole days."

"Pick a game you can win at, then. I still won this t-time. No re-do's."

"I just want to have you in my stomach, Swiftlit. Even though I've swallowed you three times since we made up, are you still scared? Don't you trust me?" she sniffled, beginning to cry.

Swiftlit knew crocodile tears when he saw them. Calimn was amazing at pretending to be what she wasn't, as her "evil monster" act earlier had shown, but he knew her well enough to call her out on it . . . most of the time. She could still deceive him occasionally. She did have a point in there, though.

"No, I trust you, but I'm s-scared of being e-eaten. You know? Even if I know you're safe, it's hard to stay calm when I'm getting s-sloshed around in your m-mouth and stomach."

"Hmhm, yeah. Last time you were bouncing around in there pretty nicely. It tickled." she chuckled, rubbing her stomach at the memory.

"Geh, don't remind me." he muttered, shivering.

He trusted Calimn, trusted her with his life, but once he was on her tongue and sliding down her throat, he just couldn't keep his instinctive fear inside. He could mitigate it, hold back his frightened whimpering, but he couldn't completely erase his phagophobia. It was irrational fear, as Calimn would never digest him, but it still was there.

The fact that he could stay as calm as he did was a testament to how strong of a bond he had with the mermaid.

"Come on, you know you like it. One more match." she laughed, patting her belly to ease its quiet mumbling.

"Fine, but this is IT." he sighed.

She beamed at him, then drew her hand back, as did he.

"Rock . . . Paper . . . SCISSORS!"

He got her again. She had two fingers out, while he had a fist. She smiled.

"Well, I geus- what's that in your fist?"

"Wha-?" he inquired, opening his hand and examining it.

There was nothing there. What was she- oh.

"That was SO ch-cheap!" he complained, but she just grinned impishly at him.

"Cheap, but fair. No rules about if your opponent spontaneously decides to change."

"TECHNICALITY!"

Calimn used that word a lot when she lost. He had picked it up and figured it could be used in this context. She didn't seem to be bothered by his protest, simply sticking her long tongue out and playfully winding it around his middle. The soft, sticky warmth of saliva instantly soaked into his clothes. The mermaid gave a soft sigh and closed her eyes, savoring him, not pulling him any closer.

He wasn't scared much, since he was still outside her mouth, and let her palate curl around him and squeeze him. He recognized the sudden tightening as a hug, and gingerly patted her tongue, not wanting to get sucked in. Another gentle tongue-hug acknowledged his touch, and then she released him.

"Mmmm. I guess that's enough, since I WAS a bit cheap. One more round?"

"Alright. No s-swallowing?"

"Yes, swallowing."

"Dang."


Well, things are back to (normal), and Calimn is up to her tricks again. Feel free to comment and critique.

Felarya is Karbo's

Swiftlit and Calimn are mine.

I lol'd at Calimn tricking him into opening his fist! xD that was great.

Hahaha Sneaky Calimn

And yes, I think the change works better

Nice more awesome lol

Can't. Stop. WRITING! Sometimes ideas gently tap you on the shoulder and politely ask to be formed. Others jump on your back like a rabid monkey and pummel you until you put them down on paper. Guess which kind I got?

Just a comedic thing. An unexpected guest has an encounter with Calimn.

Strange Friends Shorts

Staring Contest

He wasn't expecting a giant blueish woman to erupt out of the river like a breaching whale, water cascading down her body as she rose. She came up until her shoulders were completely out of the water, bobbing in the shallows, and looked down at him. She was smiling gently at him, a shy, quiet curve of the lips. She seemed hesitant, blushing a shade of deep blue before speaking to him.

"Hello, there. Are you lost?"

The man simply stood there, head craned back slightly to gaze up at the giant mermaid's face. He said nothing for nearly a minute, then shook his head. He was lost, but not concerned about it, so it wasn't really being lost in his mind.

The mermaid blushed harder, cheeks going to a dark amethyst, and then spoke again.

"Oh. I-I'm sorry. Do you want to . . . play a game? I love games. Not that you have to! Just . . . a suggestion. I'm sorry."

The traveler shrugged, but gave a slight nod of his head to indicate he would play. It wasn't as if he were in a hurry to be anywhere. He was rather surprised, though, that this colossus hadn't tried to eat him right away. It seemed like everything in Felarya tended to do that. It was a pleasant change of pace to have a giant approach him in a shy, non-predatory manner.

She beamed at him, a thousand-watt grin that lit up her face. Inwardly, she wore a much more dangerous smile, one full of hunger and impish humor. Nothing was so entertaining as fooling her prey before eating, and her "shy vegetarian" act was so impeccable that even natives to Felarya had trouble not trusting her.

"How about a staring contest? Won't that be fun?"

The man nodded, shrugging again.

"Good, then let's start . . . NOW!"

Calimn stared into the man's brown eyes, watching for any blink carefully and keeping her own eyes wide open. He an odd expression on his face, a humorless smile with his mouth slightly open, and dull eyes that held nothing in them.

The two stared at each other for two minutes straight, neither showing any signs of blinking. Calimn was confident in herself though, her ability to win, and she would have him as a prize for winning once this was over. The thought made her stomach growl.

She squeezed her abdomen tight to cut off the noise, tried to cover the mishap with a cough, but the damage was done. He was going to run, and she would have to grab him. Stupid belly, always ruining her games! She got ready to poun-

He wasn't running. He was still just standing there, staring into her emerald eyes, no change in his expression to indicate he had even heard her stomach complain.

"I'm assuming you're going to eat me after this is done, yes?" he asked.

She stared back, not wanting to lose, and nodded. After a moment of thought, the man reached up to adjust his explorer's hat with one hand, never taking his eyes off her.

"If I win, may I go free and uneaten?"

Calimn brought her shoulders up, then let them down. She would most likely win, and even if she didn't there was always more prey to be found. Why not give this human a sporting chance?

"Sure, I give you my word."

The staring contest went on for three minutes, then five. Calimn's eyes were beginning to water and tear up, aching as the moisture dried up. The blank-faced human didn't seem to have any trouble, though, and his dead gaze never wavered. What the heck?! Does he have no eyelids?! she thought, struggling to keep from blinking.

The man just kept staring and staring, the vacuous smile unchanging and eyes unblinking, for eight minutes. Calimn tried her best, but in the end she had to give in to it. She blinked.

"Dang it! I lost! What kind of eyes do you have, glass ones? Rematch, now!" she snapped, annoyed at losing and dropping her shy act.

"No, just regular eyes. Also, you swore to let me loose if I won. Besides, if you ate me, I couldn't ensure your survival."

Calimn was irritated by the threat, and, though she wouldn't admit it, a bit disturbed by it when delivered in such a casual manner with such an odd face. But then, she HAD promised, and though she was a liar and a trickster she always kept her word. With a disappointed huff, she shooed him off.

"Nice meeting you, miss." he said, over his shoulder, as he left.

Thatris Jibbs continued through the Miragia Forest.


Moral of the story: Never challenge Thatris to a staring or straight-face contest. You will lose.

Thatris, the poker-faced OC from my very first story, survives an encounter with Calimn. Just a little comedy piece, critique as you like, ect.

Felarya is Karbo's

Thatris Jibbs and Calimn are mine.

Huh that was unexpected.

Lol what a strange character :p

hehe nice one, the " shy vegetarian act" made me chuklle XD

Also I added the "sorry" quote from Crisis in the quote section ^^