Nov 10, 2022
Pred who temporarily shapeshifts into whoever they've got in their stomach, until they let them out.
After all, you are what you eat.
seen from Germany
seen from China
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from Portugal
seen from Sweden
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Norway
seen from Bulgaria
seen from Bulgaria
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
Pred who temporarily shapeshifts into whoever they've got in their stomach, until they let them out.
After all, you are what you eat.
Hi, I'd like to be added to the vore taglist, please, but just for safe and soft vore. Thanks! - Nommy-Thoughts (this is a sideblog.)
@nommy-thoughts please confirm?
Spoiler!? Nommy-Thoughts, who hasn't managed to read your stories yet, but fully intends to
Hahaha okay so the spell on Rikard isn’t one spell, but it isn’t more than one spell either. Technically.
What that enchantress who claimed to be ‘Glissenda’ did… shouldn’t be possible. Isn’t possible.
It’s one of the studies he becomes involved with.
Mastication Concentration
Summary: Logan usually chews gum while he studies, but today he is out. Remus volunteers to take its place.
Contains: Hard-ish vore (idk exactly where it falls. There’s chewing, obviously, and even rough chewing at points, but the only injuries sustained are bruises). Brief mention of digestion.
Wordcount: 2.9 K
[more of my vore writing]
~~~~~
“Do you have any gum?”
The sides in the living room look up. Logan’s on the stairs, leaning over the banister and looking down at them.
“Gum?” Patton repeats.
Logan nods. “I’m out,” he says. “I’ve already drunk five mugs of tea, I can’t just keep making more. And chewlery is just too squeaky right now, and I’m trying not to destroy any more shirt collars. So, do you have any gum?”
They exchange glances. Nobody, it seems, has gum. Then Remus perks up excitedly. “Ooh!”
Logan, relieved, starts to say, “You have—”
“Me!”
Logan pauses. “What?”
“Chew on me!” Remus elaborates, bounding to his feet and hurrying over to the stairwell. He grabs a railing in each hand, looking up at Logan imploringly.
Logan makes a face. Then pauses. Reconsiders. “That… that actually might be a worthwhile stim,” he admits. Remus squeals happily, and Logan adds, “But no injuries. I don’t want blood in my mouth; I don’t like the taste.”
Remus rolls his eyes. “Oh, fine. I’ll be durable.” But he’s still grinning broadly. With a dramatic flourish, he summons the shrinking device. Scampering around the corner and up the stairs next to Logan, he sets it. Then, with a flash of sickly green light, he appears to vanish. Logan knows, however, that in reality, Remus has simply shrunk out of Logan’s eyeline. He looks down, and sure enough, there he is.
The device, no longer supported by Remus’s hands, falls from the air. It nearly strikes Remus in the head, missing by less than an inch, and crashes into the carpeted floor beside him. It bounces, skiddering off the step. It continues to fall, bounce, and roll its way down the entire flight of stairs, but nobody pays it much mind. They can always resummon it when they need it again.
Logan bends down, scooping up the now miniature Remus into his hand. He considers his fellow side for a moment, then nods, lifting Remus to his lips. A moment before he inserts him, however, Logan pauses.
“When was your last shower?”
“Does Thomas’s last night count?”
Logan frowns. “As I recall, you just sat on the soap tray, making various random thoughts pop into Thomas’s head, and didn’t even get wet, let alone wash.”
“That’s true.”
“No, it doesn’t count. When did you last wash?”
Remus thinks back further, absently shimmying his shoulders as he does so. After a few moments, Logan sighs.
“Not recently enough,” he concludes. Remus in hand, Logan heads up the stairs. In the bathroom, he plops the shrunken creative side into the sink and turns it on. Squeezing a large dollop of hand soap into his palm, Logan begins to lather Remus up, rubbing the soap into his clothes and skin. Remus squirms. He’s not trying to get away, but he quite enjoys being a slippery problem, and if it means that Logan has to apply a bit more force to get the job done, well. Remus likes being manhandled.
Due to Remus’s constant movement, getting him clean takes rather longer than it needed to, but in the end, Logan is satisfied. He holds Remus directly under the streaming faucet to rinse off, considering the spluttering that results to be fair payback for making things difficult.
“Okay, you’re clean.”
Remus cheers. “Now eat me!”
“I’m not going to eat you,” Logan corrects. “I’m going to chew on you. There’s a difference.”
Remus shrugs. “Not a big one.”
“I suppose not.” Logan considers his shrunken friend for a few moments more, then nods, heading back toward his own room. Once inside, he sits down at his desk.
“C’mon,” Remus pleads. “Put me in your mouth already!”
Logan does so, head first to shut him up. Remus isn’t small enough to fit entirely inside his mouth, so his legs dangle from between Logan’s lips.
As Logan settles back into his study routine, he slowly begins to lick and suck on Remus like a piece of candy. He doesn’t taste like a piece of candy, but thanks to the sink bath Logan just gave him, he doesn’t taste bad, either. Along with the licks, Logan tugs absently on Remus’s ankle, like he might with the stick of a lollipop.
After about a minute, Logan summons the shrinking device with a gesture. He adjusts it, and he activates it again. Remus shrinks.
Logan slurps Remus the rest of the way into his mouth. Positioning him lengthwise along his lower left molars, Logan gently bites down. Remus is somewhat soft and squishy, but there’s some firmness to him too. Logan uses his tongue to move Remus across his mouth to the other side, trying a bite there too. He nods to himself. The sensation is different than that of gum or chewlery, sure, but he believes this will work. Logan returns to his studies.
Inside of Logan’s mouth, it is dark, and warm, and wet. In other words, it’s perfect. Logan’s tongue, bigger than Remus’s entire body, lifts him, crushing him against the roof of Logan’s mouth and knocking the air from his lungs with the force. Pinned in place by the enormous squishy muscle, Remus can’t even wiggle. Logan overpowers him without hardly trying. Echoing all around him, Remus hears an enormous glk as Logan swallows the saliva that had been building up around him.
He has never found the nerd more attractive than in this moment.
Logan’s tongue drops, and Remus drops with it. The large muscle tilts under him, rolling Remus around Logan’s mouth. He’s quickly dizzy and disoriented, and the first time that he has long enough to get his bearings is when Logan shifts him between his back teeth again so that Remus lies, sprawled on his front, across the bumpy teeth. They lift, pressing Remus’s back against the equally bumpy ceiling, and slowly squeeze all the air from his lungs. Logan holds him like that, delightfully snug, for several long seconds. Remus considers blacking out from the lack of oxygen, but decides that he’d rather stay conscious to enjoy the rest of the experience. If he gets bored — which he doesn’t expect to happen, but you never know, he’s had incapacitating boredom strike at the weirdest and most inconvenient moments before — he can pass out then.
After a while, the pressure releases. Remus gasps in a breath of — not fresh air, not really, he is inside a mouth, after all. But it doesn’t smell that bad, either. Unfortunately. All that dental hygiene must’ve given Logan un-bad breath. Actually, Remus realizes, he can smell some of that tea Logan said he drank, though not well enough to guess at what kind it was.
Logan bites him again, the same way. And again. It’s rhythmic, soothing. After a while, Logan moves him over to the other side, and does the exact same kind of crushing bite over there.
After he’s done that enough times that Remus has gotten used to it and is getting bored, Logan changes it up. He moves Remus to the front of his mouth and nibbles on Remus’s ankles with his front teeth. Since his ankles are, of course, boney, they don’t provide much give. If Logan hadn’t made him promise not to, this would have been a good opportunity to break something. Remus wonders, then, if breaking an ankle really would be a breach of that promise. On the one hand, Logan had said “no injuries,” which would technically include broken bones. On the other hand, the only reason he had given was blood, and if Remus just made sure his skin stayed intact, he wouldn’t bleed.
Before Remus could come to a decision, Logan moves him again. Apparently he didn’t like this position nearly as much as the one before. Logan’s tongue pushes at Remus, shoving his legs between teeth and lips, til he can feel the cold outer air on his toes. He wiggles them.
Logan nibbles on Remus’s calves now, which have more muscle to pad them, though not from all angles.
Remus decides that bruises are acceptable under their terms. Logan won’t feel a crunch or taste blood, but Remus will be able to tell the difference. And really, the way Logan’s biting him, his shins should be bruising. And now they are. Remus grins.
Logan shifts again before long. He pushes Remus even further out his mouth, so that Remus’s hips balance uncomfortably on Logan’s front teeth. They’ll be bruising too. His legs stick out of Logan’s mouth. Since his hips are still inside, and a fair portion of his thighs are supported by Logan’s lips, and since he’s lying on his face, meaning his knees bend up, not down, Remus’s legs don’t dangle. He wonders if he’s big enough to kick Logan in the nose, but before he can try, Logan pinches his legs between his fingers, rendering him immobile. Then Logan bites.
His teeth slip off Remus’s hips, thrusting into his stomach instead. Remus’s stomach, having no bones in it, offers considerably less resistance than Logan was probably expecting, and Logan’s teeth sink deep.
Remus nearly pukes. The only thing that stops him from actually doing so is the realization that if he throws up in Logan’s mouth, Logan will spit him out and probably not put him back in again, perhaps not ever. So Remus swallows the bile, forcing it to stay down with sheer willpower.
The pressure against his gut releases, and Remus gulps down air. He has only a second’s reprieve before Logan bites down again, but this time it’s a bit slower, a bit gentler. He still presses his teeth far enough into Remus’s midsection that the shrunken Creativity muses that if not for his promise of no injuries, he’d be bitten in half by now.
Logan seems to like the squishiness of Remus’s gut. He keeps him there for a good while, squishing Remus’s stomach in on itself with his teeth and making its contents want to squeeze up and out his throat each time. It takes a lot of Remus’s concentration to keep the mix of acid and partly-digested food inside, until he remembers that he can simply banish it from reality. It takes only a quick gesture to do so, and then, stomach empty, Remus can finally enjoy the sensation of being chewed on without distractions.
Two bites later, Logan presses his teeth hard into Remus’s stomach, and then slowly pulls his lower jaw back, effectively heimliching Remus. It’s a good thing Remus had banished his breakfast, because otherwise, there was no way he’d be able to keep it down. Logan rocks his teeth forward again, not stopping when they bump Remus’s pelvis. Slowly, Remus finds himself being pushed out of Logan’s mouth. He can feel Logan’s upper teeth scraping along his back, bumping each vertebra as they go.
He can feel cold air on his butt. He’s more outside Logan’s mouth than in, at this point. Logan’s upper teeth are behind Remus’s shoulders, shoving his face down into Logan’s tongue, and his lower teeth, though considerably less deep into Remus’s stomach without an opposing force to hold him in place, force Remus’s butt to stick up in the air.
Logan holds him there for just a second before reversing directions. His teeth slide up Remus’s belly until they catch on the bottom of his ribcage. Slowly, he’s dragged back inside Logan’s mouth, back to where he started. Logan’s teeth press harder and harder into him as they go, smushing Remus’s organs. (He’s not exactly sure what he’s got right there, but he’s pretty sure there are some organs getting smushed right now. Maybe a spleen? Yeah, Logan’s probably smushing Remus’s spleen.)
After Logan’s got Remus back where he started, he does it again. And again. Over and over, Logan pushes and pulls Remus around, not once releasing the pressure. He doesn’t exactly heimlich Remus again, since his teeth are sinking in at the wrong spot for that, but Remus feels reasonably certain that his spleen is paste by the time Logan switches it up again.
Logan slurps Remus all the way into his mouth, and for a few seconds, the lack of crushing pressure is disorienting. Remus lies on his face, catching his breath.
Then Logan tilts his tongue, and Remus rolls like a log til he lands on something hard and bumpy. Logan’s teeth, he realizes. He’s on his side, facing Logan’s cheek — he thinks; it’s too dark to actually see, but based on the direction he’d rolled and the side he’s lying on, he’s pretty sure Logan’s cheek is in front of him, and his tongue behind — with one arm flopped over him and the other pinned awkwardly underneath. His head smarts from striking the tooth, and so does one knee.
He’s only given half a second to make these observations, because Logan immediately bites down. He chomps, really, with enough force to immediately break all of Remus’s ribs if only he hadn’t promised not to get hurt. The teeth separate, and Remus finds himself suspended for a moment, the soft flesh of Logan’s cheek in front of him and the slightly rougher tongue behind supporting him so he does not fall. Logan chomps again, and this time as he releases, he spins Remus with tongue and cheek so that Remus lands on his face once more. Chomp. Spin. Remus lies on his other side. Chomp. Spin. Now on his back. Chomp. Spin. Back to the first side.
It occurs to Remus, as Logan continues to aggressively chew on him, that the nerd is finally treating him as what he’s standing in for, as gum. Remus isn’t quite as squishy, but Logan doesn’t appear to mind.
Remus wonders if Logan will try to blow a bubble with him. That might be fun, being stretched out like gum.
Logan doesn’t, though. He just chews Remus up for several minutes, not even pausing to shift him to the other side. Vaguely, between bites, Remus wonders what the nerd is studying right now. What emotions translate to chewing so intensely? Is Logan reading something exciting? Something infuriating? Is he trying to puzzle out some twisty bit of logic? It doesn’t really matter in the moment, but Remus still finds himself curious.
Eventually, Logan’s bites slow again. He grips Remus (lying on his face again) between his teeth and, almost gently, especially compared to moments before, slowly crushes the air out of his lungs. Remus’s spine goes pop pop pop. There’s a particularly satisfying pop at his hips. After a second, Logan releases the pressure. He shifts his jaw around, dragging his teeth across Remus’s back. Remus sighs happily, relaxing. It’s almost like a massage.
The sensation is pleasant enough that Remus almost falls asleep. Perhaps he does fall asleep. He certainly loses track of what Logan does after that.
Some time later, he has no idea how long, Logan spits him out. Well, no, he’s gentler about it than that. Logan sticks a finger in his mouth and uses it to drag Remus out. He pinches the spit-covered Creativity between thumb and forefinger, looking him over.
“Did you enjoy yourself?” Logan asks.
Remus grins and flips him off — almost his equivalent of a thumb’s up, in the current context. “Why’d you stop?”
“I have concluded my studies for the time being,” Logan answers. “Thank you for your assistance. You were quite helpful.”
Remus beams.
“Would you be amenable to repeating this experience at a future date?”
Remus grins. “You wanna chew on me again?”
Logan nods. “As I said, you were quite the aid to my concentration.”
Remus wiggles happily. “Yeah I wanna do it again!”
“Excellent. Would you like me to swallow you now?”
“Will you digest me?”
“No.”
Remus droops, pouting. “Aww.”
“However,” Logan adds, “I intend to get an actual snack as well, and I have no objections if you wish to observe as it digests.”
Remus considers for half a second, then nods, accepting those terms. “Can I get stomach burns?”
“No, I would prefer not to digest you at all, even superficially.”
“Fiiiine.” But there’s no hiding that Remus is eager to be eaten, even with the restrictions. “Chew me up one more time before you swallow?”
“Very well. Anything else?”
Remus shakes his head, reaching up toward Logan’s mouth and making grabby hands. Logan chuckles.
“In you go, then,” he says, lifting Remus up. He dangles him above his gaping maw, and Remus stares down into it, his heart thudding in delighted terror. Then Logan drops him.
Remus screams as he falls, flailing in the air. He lands on Logan’s tongue, and the mouth snaps shut after him. Before he can get his bearings, Logan’s shoved him back between his teeth, chewing forcefully on him.
Then Logan swallows, and Remus slides head first down his throat, whooping all the way. He gets stomach acid in his mouth when he splashes into it.
Bobbing back up to the surface, Remus flicks his fingers, creating a light so he can see his surroundings. At the moment, he appears to be the only solid in here. But not for long, he thinks with a smirk, settling down against the wrinkled wall.
Maybe he can even convince the nerd to leave him in here through dinner. If Logan objects to Remus skipping a meal, Remus can just have some of Logan’s portion. Isn’t like the big guy would miss the amount it’d take to fill Remus’s tiny gut right now, anyway.
I’m attempting to write a cheesy vore poem
apparently google docs suggestions knows that
however, it doesn’t realize that it’s supposed to be from the prey’s perspective, not the pred’s
still, good effort
Rating Game
Send me a vore-related trope, concept, scenario, etc, and I'll rate it!
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Danger Noodles Chapter 2: The Other Hikers
Wordcount: 6.7 K
Summary: Virgil and Logan go looking for the third member of their party and find a little more than they bargained for.
Chapter 2 of my collab with @that-prey-lounge!
[Danger Noodles Masterpost]
~~~~~
“Wait, where’s Patton?”
Logan pulled his eyes away from the bird he’d been trying to identify, the worry in Virgil’s voice enough to warrant his full attention. He glanced around. “He was stomping leaves right over there a minute ago,” Logan said, frowning. It was painfully clear that Patton wasn’t there now. Both friends looked around the clearing in concern. “Patton?” Logan called. There was no answer.
“Patton!” Virgil called, louder. He looked around, worried. “C’mon, Patton, the one thing everyone knows is don’t wander off alone in the forest! People who go off alone don’t always come home.”
“Pairs don’t tend to do well either,” Logan pointed out, frowning.
Virgil grimaced. “Right. Now we’re all in danger. Great.”
“Which is why we must find Patton immediately.” Logan hitched his bag up higher, and the two scoured the area. Patton’s disturbance in the leaves were evident, and after a minute, they thought they found a trail.
Thank goodness Patton enjoyed dragging his feet in the leaves.
The pair walked briskly, calling out Patton’s name every few feet. They were both set on edge by the silence that dragged on.
Eventually, they found something that made their blood run cold. A serpentine track wound across the path the two were following, and from the size of the marks, it had been made by something big.
“The ranger said that there are rumors of nagas in the woods, didn’t she?” Virgil swallowed.
Logan nodded gravely, and he pressed on, nearly jogging. “Patton!”
“Patton! Buddy!” Virgil had a louder voice, so he did most of the yelling for Patton. “Where are you?!”
Logan stopped Virgil with an outstretched arm over his chest. “Look.”
There were more tracks. Surrounding a glittering stone were a plethora of the naga’s menacing grooves in the leaves and loose dirt.
“No, no, no!” Virgil grabbed his drawstrings on his hoodie. “Patton! Patton! Pa—!”
Logan slapped a hand over his mouth, cutting him off. “Silence. We don’t know if the naga left yet.”
Virgil’s eyes widened to the size of silver dollars, and he went quiet. Logan very slowly removed his hand.
Nothing came lashing out of the woods at them, so Logan took a deep breath. Virgil slowly exhaled through his nose.
“Look for clues, quietly.” Logan instructed before examining the tracks.
One came in from the east, the other from the west. Coordinated attack. That significantly lowered the chance that any of them would make it out alive.
“Logan!” Virgil hissed.
Logan rushed over and saw Virgil clutching Patton’s glasses case in a trembling hand. Logan reached over and opened it. There sat Patton’s glasses.
“You don’t think… he got eaten, do you?” Virgil was shaking a little. “A-and that he’s been crushed to death and torn to shreds and—”
“No.” Logan stopped him there. “If he was eaten, he would have his glasses. He wouldn’t take them off and put them away if he was about to be swallowed.”
Virgil clutched the glasses close as he stood. “Then Patton might be alive!”
“We should go contact the ranger station. She can gather a search party, armed, and more numerous than us.” Logan was looking over the tracks with Virgil. He saw human footprints leading in, but only naga prints leading out.
“But they might have caught him by then, Logan! We have to go after him!”
“Be rational. What can we do against a pair of nagas who might have swallowed—”
Virgil’s glare sent chills down Logan’s spine.
“—that are at such large proportions,” he amended. “This isn’t like our pet at home. These things are vicious man eaters. They might kill us too, Virgil.”
“I don’t care!” Virgil stood tall, and Logan saw that reckless determination flare in his friend’s eyes. “I’m going to get Patton back, and you can help me or not!”
Virgil took off running in the direction the tracks led.
Logan took off after him, hoping with every fiber of his being that Patton was okay.
The tracks led up into the mountains, and eventually up into the mouth of a huge cave.
“The tracks go in here,” Virgil said unnecessarily, looking into the mouth of the cave. It was simply enormous, definitely large enough to house nagas of the size to leave the tracks.
“This is a bad idea,” Logan answered unhappily, but he still didn’t back down.
Virgil nodded, peering into the cave. Though it was large, it had a big overhang, so that the sunlight didn’t reach very far into it. After a few dozen yards, it was too dim to see clearly. Pulling his phone from his pocket, Logan turned the flashlight widget on, shining it into the cave. From this distance, it didn’t do much good against the shadows.
Virgil did the same with his own, taking the lead. He stayed by the left wall of the cave, mostly using his phone light to show the floor. Behind him, Logan followed, legs primed to run.
“Maybe you should wait outside,” Virgil whispered. Logan shook his head vigorously.
“No way,” he said. “I’m not gonna risk both my friends getting eaten without me.”
Virgil chuckled darkly, but he didn’t try to dissuade him again.
Together, they slowly edged into the cave. Suddenly, Virgil threw an arm out to stop Logan. “Do you hear that?” he whispered.
Logan listened, tilting his head slightly. There was the sound of wind, which was not exactly something one expected to hear inside of a cave. Then the wind paused for a moment, before starting again. Not wind. Breathing. Something very big breathing.
Logan slowly swept the flashlight beam across the floor to the source of the sound. Red scales gleamed back at them. Virgil stopped breathing in horror at the size of the serpent. The tracks they’d been following had given them a hint, sure, but it was something else to see it with his own eyes. It was thicker than both friends put together. Honestly, it was almost half as thick as Virgil was tall, and he suspected that this wasn’t even the thickest part of the tail.
But it wasn’t moving. Hand trembling, Logan swept the beam along its length. A few feet down, another tail twisted around the first, just as thick. Unlike the first, it was covered in drying mud, obscuring its color. And then Logan’s flashlight illuminated a human hand, draped limply over the tails.
Virgil gasped, bringing his own light up in an instant. The hand was attached to an arm, which was attached to a shoulder, and… and that was Patton. His face was turned the other way, but they didn’t need to see Patton’s face to know that was him.
“I’m glad you decided we follow the trail when you said we should.” Logan swallowed dryly. “He’s breathing,” he noted. Patton was, somehow, inexplicably, still alive, thank goodness. However, he was also currently cuddled up to two gigantic carnivorous beasts.
Why they hadn’t eaten him, Logan couldn’t fathom. Nagas’ diets consisted of whatever animals they could catch, regardless of whether they could fit it down their throats in one piece or not. Although micro nagas occasionally liked to play with their food and enjoyed the chase, they did not keep prey alive for long, and they certainly didn’t take it back to their nests for a nap. It was assumed that giant nagas were the same. Logan briefly considered the possibility that the nagas were too full, but a single glance at their tails disproved that theory. Logan knew what the tail of a recently fed snake looked like, and this wasn’t it. These nagas were hungry.
“Why isn’t he moving?” Virgil worried. “Why is he just lying there?”
“I don’t know,” Logan admitted.
Perhaps giant nagas’ venom paralyzed prey instead of killing it? Any researcher that witnessed a hunt ended up as their subject’s meal, so they had little to no information. Logan frowned. What would be the benefit of paralyzing their prey, and not eating it right away?
“Patton!” Virgil whisper-shouted.
Eyes widening in alarm, Logan grabbed Virgil’s arm. They both froze again, and Virgil winced. Luckily, the two gigantic nagas didn’t stir. But, unfortunately, neither did Patton.
“You don’t think he’s been bitten o-or crushed, do you?”
Logan stared up at Patton’s limp form for several seconds more. “It doesn’t look like he’s breathing painfully,” he said at last.
Virgil nodded tightly. “I - I’m going to try and get him down from there.” He set his phone down on the cave floor, taking a moment to position it so the beam continued to illuminate Patton.
“Please be cautious.” Logan bit his lip as Virgil approached the nest of coils. He allowed his light to stray from Patton, running up the tails. There were just visible black spot-like markings across the darker tail, and after a second, his beam found more pale flesh.
Much larger flesh.
He estimated that the hand laying on the torso was roughly five times larger than a human hand, with long, thick claws for fingernails, and several scars across the fingers and one that looked like a cat scratch on the back of the wrist.
Logan jumped slightly when Virgil hissed out a curse word, glancing back at his friend. He was standing with the tips of his sneakers mere inches from a thick, red coil and was awkwardly trying to pull Patton down without touching the scales.
Logan glanced back at the nagas. There was a large scar across the jaw of the mud caked one, several smaller scars scattered across its face, and an open red eye.
The still nest of coils exploded into movement before Logan could even gasp. Something heavy smacked into him, sending him stumbling. His phone flew from his grip. Virgil yelped as he was thrown beside Logan, and the two tried to struggle as they were wrapped up in thick, green coils.
Virgil managed to keep an arm free, pushing and struggling for all his worth. Logan tried to kick, but he was helplessly squeezed back-to-back with Virgil.
“Hey, Roman, get up.” Their captor nudged the red tail Patton still slept on. “Dinner just wandered in.”
The other naga shifted, much more slowly than the first had. “What do you mean, dinner— oh. More humans. Sweet.” He continued to move, and Patton slid down his tail out of the light from Virgil’s flashlight.
The pair gasped as the coils around them tightened even further. “Let’s do it quickly,” the naga holding them whispered, “before our snuggle buddy wakes up.”
“Patton!” Virgil screamed, thrashing now. “Patton! Please wake up!”
“Oh shit,” one of the nagas hissed.
“Guys? What’s goin’ on?” Patton said sleepily. Logan’s phone had been only illuminating the ceiling, but now it lifted and turned on them. Patton gasped from the darkness behind it. “Virgil! Logan!”
The red naga moved between Patton and the other two humans, blocking the light. “Why don’t you go back to bed, Patton. Remus and I are just having dinner.”
“What?! No!” Patton scrambled over the red tail and immediately started to tug on the coils constricting around his friends. “You can’t eat my friends!”
“Your friends,” a naga repeated flatly. Was it Virgil’s imagination, or had the coils stopped tightening? It was still very hard to breathe, though. Despite the panic that came from being currently held in the tail of a naga who intended to eat them, Virgil found himself falling into a breathing rhythm with Logan, each breathing in as the other breathed out and vice-versa.
“They’re my friends,” Patton repeated, continuing to pull on the scaled loops surrounding Logan and Virgil. “Please.”
“But—” The one holding them looked at the other, and the silence stretched out.
“If you eat them, then— then you’ll have to eat me, too!”
The nagas made eye contact with each other again, and then the tight coils slackened. Virgil gasped gratefully at the sweet, sweet air that filled his unrestricted lungs. A moment later, his breath was knocked out of him again by Patton crashing into him and holding him in a tight hug. Virgil grabbed him back. After a second, Patton pulled one arm free to make grabby hands at Logan, who joined the tight embrace.
“We’re so glad you’re okay.” Virgil buried his face in Patton’s shoulder before pulling back. “But, what are you doing here?” he hissed in a whisper. “With these things?”
“We were just taking a nap. They weren’t gonna hurt me.”
“How did you manage to convince them not to eat you?” Logan inquired.
Patton giggled. “They think I’m too cute to eat!”
“He is,” one of the nagas chimed in. “Have you seen his adorable little face?”
That jarringly brought the two humans right back to where they were: In a den of hungry nagas, after just denying said nagas dinner. Even if the nagas had decided that Patton wasn’t to be eaten, this was still a very dangerous situation.
Logan stood a little straighter. “We’ll be taking our leave now. Thank you for not eating Patton, or us.”
The dark green tail still loosely coiled on the floor around them twitched nearer, and Virgil gave it a nervous look. “Leaving?” the naga it belonged to protested. “Already?”
“Yes, we need to be getting out of these woods before nightfall, lest we run into more dangerous creatures, and your cave is far enough from the edge of the woods that we really ought to be going now to be safe,” Logan explained in a carefully calm voice.
“Oh honey, nothing out here is more dangerous than the two of us.” The green-tailed naga chuckled and glanced to the other, who gave them a sharp-toothed grin. “You’ll be perfectly safe in our little cave for the night.”
Virgil bit his tongue, trying to not offend the two very large snakes that had decided to spare their lives, and who could oh so easily change their minds.
“It’s such a long walk.” The red-tailed naga lowered himself to be closer to eye level, “The bears have been out in storm, trying to pack on the winter fat. You’d be safer going tomorrow morning.”
Virgil’s grip on Logan’s arm tightened. “We, uh, don’t want to, erm, intrude.”
Patton stepped away, looking up at the two nagas. “They’re just a little nervous about your size, don’t take it personally.”
“We’re used to much worse reactions, Patton, don’t worry,” the red-tailed naga said, patting Patton’s head gently with his huge hand. “We understand, but you all have nothing to fear.”
The green-tailed naga fully uncoiled himself. “I could go grab us something to eat if that’ll calm them down.”
Virgil’s eyes widened, and he glanced up at the naga, who laughed softly. “No humans, promise.” Virgil glared a bit, and the naga added, “Unless you’d like to join me to make sure?”
Virgil shook his head with a grimace, moving closer to Patton and Logan. He had no interest in seeing the hunt up close, especially so soon after so narrowly escaping being dinner himself.
The green-tailed naga stretched, and then shrugged. “Keep an eye on our little guests, Roman. I’ll be back with dinner soon.”
With that, the naga slithered out of the cave, humming softly to himself.
Logan and Virgil looked back towards the remaining naga and their hearts jumped into their throats. He had lazily coiled around Patton again, though he didn’t seem to be constricting him.
“Don’t do that!” Virgil blurted out before he could stop himself.
The naga blinked at him for a moment before giving a dramatic sigh. “Oh, fine,” he said, slithering off from around Patton. He instead made a loose nest of his coils a few feet off, lying on his stomach across it.
“Oh!” Patton said. “We haven’t had introductions. Roman, these are my roommates and really good friends, Logan and Virgil.” He pointed to each as he said their names, and they gave small waves. “Guys, this is Roman. The other naga is named Remus. They’re twins.”
“Twins?” Logan repeated curiously. “Did you share an egg?”
Roman laughed. “No, don’t be silly. We were in the same clutch.”
“I see,” Logan said. “How many eggs were in your clutch? Just the two of you?”
Roman shook his head, “Naw, there were others. Decoys, mostly. You might not believe this, but I used to be smaller than you are. Lotta things out there that would like to eat naga eggs.”
“Oh, Patton,” Virgil interrupted. “We found your glasses.” He pulled the case from his pocket and handed it to Patton, who gratefully opened it.
“Thanks!” Patton said cheerfully, putting them on. He looked around, grinning. “Now I can see again!”
“How did you even manage to befriend two giant nagas?” Virgil asked, still unable to fully believe it.
So, Patton told them. After he had finished his tale, the three humans continued to chat, the giant naga lazily watching them. After some time, Roman yawned loudly, shifting closer. He sprawled out comfortably on the stone floor a few feet away from their cluster.
“Are you truly no longer interested in eating us?” Logan inquired cautiously.
Roman shrugged his gigantic shoulders. “Nah. It would make Patton sad.”
Logan nodded agreeably. “I can certainly understand changing your habits so as to avoid making Patton sad.”
Roman flashed that sharp grin again.
Logan took a step closer, unable to deny his curiosity. “My, what big teeth you have,” he joked. Roman’s grin faltered. “Would you object to my getting a closer look?”
“Logan!” Virgil gasped.
“What?” Logan said, turning back to face Virgil. “This is a particularly unique opportunity! Do you understand how rare it is to be able to observe a live Serpenti Magnum in the wild without risk of being eaten?”
“Just because he promised not to eat us doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to tempt fate by getting all close up to the mouth of a giant naga!” Virgil hissed.
“I’m not tempting fate. Patton and yourself are here to ensure that nothing goes wrong, and if Roman cooperates, I should remain unharmed.”
“All you have is his word.”
Roman made an offended noise, but Logan beat him to speaking. “You had less when we ran up here to rescue Patton. Patton had even less when he was taken. Besides, I don’t just have his word, there are a few tricks up my metaphorical sleeves.”
Virgil couldn’t think of a comeback.
Logan pulled a notebook and a pen from his bag handing them to Virgil. “I’ll tell you my findings, you write them down. Patton, could you keep a light pointed in his mouth?”
Patton nodded dutifully as Logan approached the large naga.
Roman glanced down at Logan, rubbing the back of his neck. “Er, uh, you sure you want to look at my mouth? I don’t want you to cut yourself.”
Logan nodded firmly. “Your mouth is not the first I’ve examined, simply the largest. I know what I’m doing.”
Roman nodded uncertainly, but as Logan approached, he pushed himself up off the ground a little, propping himself up on his elbows and opening his mouth wide. Logan felt a twinge of primal fear at the sight of the gigantic gaping maw, but easily suppressed it in the name of science.
“Patton, come closer with the light,” he instructed, stepping right up next to Roman’s crossed arms to look into his mouth. “Virgil, it seems that without unhinging his jaw, the subject can comfortably open his mouth roughly a foot. I wish I had a measuring tape so I could be more accurate.”
After a few seconds of pen scratching on paper, Virgil made a noise of acknowledgment.
Logan began by examining the teeth, calling out size and his count of teeth. “Two incisors. Two sets of canines, that’s interesting. The second set is a little larger than the first. At least on the top; on the bottom, it's… Hang on.” Logan took a closer look. “Okay, he has two incisors on top, and four on bottom. The lower ones are narrow, while the upper are wide and flat, like a human's front two upper incisors. He does have two sets of canines, as I mentioned. On top, the second set is larger than the first, while the lower canines are all about the same size. Looks like… two premolars on each side, top and bottom, and one set of molars. The positions of the teeth are similar to that of those in a human’s mouth.” Logan hummed. “Interesting. This tooth makeup implies that a fair portion of their food is chewed, rather than all being swallowed whole.” He leaned over Roman’s front teeth, twisting to look up at the roof of his mouth. “I don’t see any snake-like fangs,” he noted. “Thus, I would assume that the subject is non-venomous. This correlates with the suggestion that they hunt by constriction, as we observed earlier.”“Nearly observed digestion firsthand too,” Virgil muttered to himself as he wrote it all down.“Ooh,” Logan said with interest, leaning even further into Roman’s open mouth. “Virgil, he has more teeth behind the ones I already mentioned! On the roof of his mouth, closer to the center. Two rows of… eight teeth each, running from the front of his mouth toward the back. They’re smaller than the other teeth, and are shaped more like snake teeth: all pointed. They’re angled toward his throat. I assume to prevent prey from escaping.” Logan finally pulled his head back, and he glanced up at Roman. “I assume you can unhinge your jaw to allow large prey easier access to the throat.”
Roman pulled back slightly from the scientist standing in front of his face and worked his jaw for a few moments before answering. “Yeah. If we didn’t, we’d have to tear up all our prey. Well, except when Remus would trap rats. But everything that’s big enough to be worth it.”
Logan paused. “Your brother eats rats?”
“Rats, mice, squirrels, whatever he can get his hands on.” He shrugged. “He’ll eat them by the handful. Loves them as snacks. Too much effort for me for the tiny things.”
“Virgil—”
“Don’t worry, I got it.” He shuddered as he wrote it down.
Logan shuffled his feet before looking up at Roman again. “Would you care to demonstrate for me?”
Roman nodded softly, and then, with a soft click, opened his mouth extremely wide. It was easy to see now how he could swallow whole something human-sized, or even bigger. They could have easily crawled down his throat. The three humans stared, varying displays of fear across their faces.
Logan recovered first. “Can you comfortably hold that position?”
Roman half shrugged, but didn’t move otherwise. Logan pulled Patton close, shining the flashlight over the entirety of the mouth. “I would estimate that the opening has roughly tripled in size,” Logan said, fascinated. “There’s about three feet between his upper and lower jaw. Possibly four.” He pulled back again, looking at the underside of Roman’s jaw. “And yes, his throat has slackened as well to accommodate the swallowing of larger prey. I would be curious to examine the structure of his larynx, but of course it would be rather difficult to do so properly and non-invasively on a live subject.”
Virgil refused to look up as he quickly took notes.
“Have I mentioned the tongue yet, Virgil?”
“Nnno.” He glanced over the page. “What’s it like?”
“Forked,” Logan reported, “and proportionally rather slimmer than a human’s, though not so slim as a snake’s. Presumably, that is so that it can perform both functions — guiding chewed food to the throat, and scenting the air. As well as speech.” Logan leaned over Roman’s jaw again, looking curiously at his tongue. “And just as with snakes and smaller nagas, it appears to not be rooted to the back of the lower jaw, instead coming out of a sheath at about the same position. I would assume it can retract fully, to assist in carrying scents inside.”
Roman flicked his tongue into his mouth, demonstrating that exact thing.
“Yes, it retracts. Excellent, thank you, Roman,” Logan said, pulling back out of Roman’s mouth. “Would you mind extending your tongue to its full length?”
Roman stuck his tongue out, and Logan stepped to the side to get out of the way.
“Much longer than a human tongue,” Logan confirmed, pulling his phone from his back pocket to take a few hurried pictures. “I’d say… approximately five or six feet long from the tip to where it enters the sheath. I wish I had a higher quality camera.”
Virgil glanced up and shuddered softly. Logan placed his phone back in his pocket as Roman retracted his tongue again.
“Hold on, Roman,” Patton warned before sticking his hand inside Roman’s mouth. “There’s something stuck in your teeth.”
Roman didn’t move as Patton leaned in closer and snagged a slimy red feather out from between his teeth.
“Guess you don’t mind eating birds.” Patton tossed the feather away.
Roman rehinged his jaw with a slightly louder click than when he’d unhinged it. “Well… they’re hard to catch, but it’s fun to toy with them.”
Logan hummed thoughtfully, retrieving his notebook from Virgil. “That’s all I wish to examine at the moment. Thank you for your cooperation, Roman.”
Logan got to making more notes in the notebook, trying to draw everything he’d seen.
“Is he always like this?” Roman asked.
Virgil chuckled, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, pretty much. I’m impressed by how patient you were. The last time Logan stuck his fingers in my mouth to look at my teeth, I bit him.”
“Hey, guys?” Patton called. “My phone battery’s starting to get kinda low, and it’s getting chilly. Can we make a campfire?”
“I’d imagine that’s up to Roman, since this is his home,” Logan said without looking up from his notebook. Patton turned his pleading gaze to the large naga.
“You… want to light a fire?” Roman repeated.
“Just a little one,” Patton said. “For warmth, and light. Don’t worry. We’ve done it before, we can make sure it doesn’t spread.”
Roman nodded slightly. “If you can get one going.” He nudged a bundle of wood over. Something he and his brother collected from prey. “Remus and I never had much luck with such things.”
“I have matches,” Virgil volunteered.
Roman tilted his head to the side, but he watched with rapt attention as Virgil got the wood into the right position and lit it.
“There we go, Patt.” Virgil wiped his hands. “Done.”
“Thank you, Virgil.” Patton smiled as he sat by it. Logan came closer, turned off his flashlight, and continued to draw, angling the book a little to get the best light. Virgil lay down, trying to get as comfortable as he could on the stone floor. Roman settled down again as well, keeping a wary eye on the leaping flames.
It was a while before they heard from Remus. “I’m back and I brought food!” He announced as he entered the cave, holding three dead deer in his arms.
Roman looked up from where he lay sprawled across the entire floor. “Took you long enough.”
“Rude,” Remus said, throwing a deer at him. It hit Roman square in the face, exactly where Remus had been aiming. “It’s a lot harder to hunt alone, you know, and I was hunting for both of us. Plus I got an extra one for the humans to eat.”
“Oh,” Patton said. All three humans looked at the carcass with wide eyes as Remus set it by them. “Do you have a knife?” Patton whispered to Virgil.
Virgil nodded, pulling a long knife from his boot sheath. He started to hand it over, handle first, but paused. “Do you know how to cut this up?”
“Do you?”
Virgil nodded again. “My family used to keep goats for meat,” he said. “Deer shouldn’t be too different.”
“How are we going to cook it?” Logan asked.
“I have a campfire grill in my bag, which we can use for smallish steaks,” Virgil said, starting to examine the deer. “And we can sharpen a big stick to make a spit.”
“You are way overpacked for a day trip.”
Virgil shrugged. “Better overprepared than underprepared,” he returned. “And in this case, it came in very handy.”
“Fair.”
“Patton, would you look for a long, straight stick?” Virgil asked. Patton nodded, starting to look through the wood pile. “A big one, it needs to be able to support a heavy piece of meat. Some forked sticks would be useful too.”
Virgil set up his phone to shine directly on the deer, while being high enough off the ground that any messiness from the butchering process wouldn’t get on it. “Be more convenient if we could hang this,” he murmured to himself, forgetting for the moment that they were sharing the cave with a pair of nagas, both of whom could easily lift the deer with one hand. He took his knife, slicing through the deer’s skin. Moving with practiced skill, he began to skin the deer, exposing the flesh.
A loud crunch had Logan glance up at the nagas. Remus had bitten a leg off his deer and swallowed it whole.
Part of him was terrified, really, to be in such close proximity to creatures big enough to easily swallow him whole. Another part of him, a louder part, was fascinated.
Logan started to sketch Roman with the deer in his hands, but his eyes strayed as Roman swallowed the thing whole. The soft pop of the jaw unlocking got his attention, but Logan dropped his pencil when he saw Roman just shove it all the way in.
He didn’t even struggle to swallow. Just a few soft bites was all it took for Roman to swallow an entire deer.
Logan watched in awe and in fear as the deer vanished down into Roman’s chest after briefly bulging out his neck. Unlike Logan expected from his observations of smaller nagas, the bulge slid past his human-like torso into the stomach located in his tail without pausing. Roman sighed happily, patting the bulge deep in his body. Remus bit another leg off his deer. Surely he could also swallow it whole just as easily, Logan thought to himself, writing in his notebook. Perhaps Remus simply preferred to draw his meal out as long as possible. Unless he had some reason not to unhinge his jaw? Perhaps an injury?
“Is this a good skewer stick?” Patton asked, wandering back over to Virgil. Virgil looked over. The stick in Patton’s hands would easily reach across the fire, and looked thick enough to support the weight of a fair sized bit of meat.
“Yeah. Good job, Patt. Find anything to prop it up on yet?”
“No, not yet. Maybe we can use some rocks? Hey, Roman?”
The giant red naga looked over. “Yeah, Patton?”
“Can you find us some big rocks to prop this on over the fire?” Patton asked, lifting the stick.
“What for?”
“We need to cook our meat before we eat it,” Patton explained. “We’re gonna skewer it on this so we can hold it over the fire and cook it.”
Roman nodded, looking around the cave. It was harder to see into the darker corners than usual, since his eyes had adjusted to the light of the fire, but after a few moments he slithered into the shadows, returning with a boulder in each hand. “Will these work?”
“Yeah!” Patton said cheerfully, directing him to place one on either side of the fire. He tested to make sure that they would hold the stick in the right place, then grinned up at Roman. “Thanks!”
“You’re welcome,” Roman said, smiling. He settled down on the floor to watch the humans work.
“Patton,” Virgil said.
“Hm?”
“Sharpen the stick, please, and debark it.”
“Okay,” Patton said. He took his pocket knife out and opened it to do just that.
Virgil paused in his butchering process. “Patt. Is that the biggest knife you have?”
Patton looked down at the inch-and-a-half long blade, then back at Virgil. “Yes?”
Virgil sighed. “You’ll never manage to debark that whole thing with that, let alone sharpen it. You can borrow mine.” He moved one hand toward his hip, then paused again. “My hands are gross. Come grab my knife from my pocket.”
Patton put his own small knife away, then awkwardly reached into Virgil’s pocket. It felt really weird to put his hand in someone else’s pocket, but he soon found the pocket knife and pulled it out.
“Be careful, it’s sharp,” Virgil cautioned. “And spring-loaded, so keep your fingers clear when you open it.”
Wide-eyed, Patton opened the knife. It snapped open, gleaming in the firelight.
“Just make sure you keep your fingers clear so you don’t cut your thumb off or anything,” Virgil cautioned as Patton picked up the end of the stick again. Patton nodded. Carefully, with respect for the sharpness of the blade, Patton began to carve. After it was clear he had a handle on what he was doing, Virgil returned his attention to the deer.
Virgil’s knife was really sharp. It cut smoothly through the bark, and Patton had soon stripped the stick. Then he started sharpening one end, carving off long strips of wood and gradually shaving the stick into a point like an oversized pencil.
There was another crunch from Remus, and Roman looked over at his brother. Remus had bitten off and swallowed all of his deer’s appendages and was now gnawing on the main body. Roman gave him a disgusted look, gesturing vaguely to the humans. Remus rolled his eyes and unhinged his jaw to swallow the remains with a huge gulp.
Logan made a note in his book while Remus started to clean himself, licking his fingers.
“Do I need to do both ends?” Patton asked as he finished up, smoothing down the pointy stick.
“No, one’s fine,” Virgil said. He got up and came over, looking at Patton’s handiwork. “Looks good. Let’s get the meat on it. I cut it up into a couple large sections, plus some smaller steaks we can cook on my camp grill, which won’t take as long.”
With Virgil directing and doing the parts involving touching the raw meat directly, they soon had a fair portion of the deer suspended above the flames. Then Patton got the campfire grill from Virgil’s bag, unfolding it. It was a simple grid of thick wires, with squared off pipes for legs. He settled it over a section of fire that was mostly coals, and Virgil laid three medium-small steaks on it. “Those probably won’t take more than twenty minutes to cook,” Virgil said, covering the remaining raw meat with the deer hide.
The twin nagas were watching with rapt attention, eyes a little wide. They were finally staying still enough that Logan was actually able to properly document the way the deer they’d eaten was causing their tails to bulge out slightly.
Virgil looked down at his hands. “Now I gotta get cleaned up,” he said.
Remus, who’d just finished licking his own hands clean, glanced over at Virgil. “I can help with that.” He slowly licked his lips.
Virgil blinked, and then quickly pulled away. “Like hell you are. You are not getting a taste of this.”
Patton giggled while he tended to the meat. Remus continued to make a few teasing comments about Virgil while he cleaned his hands and his knife with a pack of baby wipes from his bag.
“Sure you don’t want me to have just a nibble? I won’t bite, not hard.”
“Positive.” Virgil tossed the wipes into a trash bag before turning to the meat. He used a smaller stick to turn the steaks over, noting that they were cooking nicely.
A few minutes later, Virgil announced, “Food’s ready. Logan?”
“Coming,” Logan said, setting his notebook aside for the moment. Virgil grabbed a baby wipe to scrub his hands again, passing the packet to the others.
“Wash up.”
As they did so, Virgil opened his bag again, pulling out three shallow lightweight bowls.
“Is there anything you didn’t bring?” Patton teased.
“Silverware,” Virgil admitted. “We’ll have to share my knife.”
“That’s fine,” Logan assured him.
Virgil wiped off the pocket knife one more time just to be sure. (He wasn’t going to use his boot knife for this, not until he’d gotten a chance to wash it more thoroughly, with soap and hot water. He’d figured it was clean enough to back in its sheath, though. Wasn’t like he couldn’t wash that too when they got home.) Then he took the meat from the grill, grabbing each piece to quickly transfer it to a bowl. He handed a bowl to each of the others.
Using Virgil’s pocket knife to cut their steaks into more manageable pieces, the three of them ate.
The two nagas watched curiously. “Why did you put it over the fire?” Remus asked.
“To cook it,” Logan explained. “We can’t eat raw meat like you can.”
Remus sniffed the air. “It smells different,” he commented.
“Tastes different too!” Patton said. “Wanna try a bite?”
The nagas perked up. “Yeah!” Roman said.
Patton got up. Using Virgil’s pocket knife, he carved off two large sections of cooking meat from over the fire, handing them up to the nagas. “Eat them slowly,” he said. “And be careful, they’re hot.”
Remus popped his piece into his mouth immediately, while Roman looked at his for a few moments first. Both nagas’ eyes widened at the flavor. “I like it!” Remus said around his piece of meat. Roman nodded agreement. “Roman, we gotta have ‘cook’ meat more often!”
“Did you see how much effort it took them to make it?” Roman scoffed. “Do you want to build a fire and take your prey to bits and carve a pointy stick every time you eat?” Remus pouted a little, and Roman chuckled. “Maybe we can try it sometimes. It is pretty tasty.”
The three humans each finished off their steaks, as well as getting seconds from the deer roasting over the fire, but even between the three of them, they couldn’t finish off the entire animal. Roman suggested they save it for the morning.
With full bellies and the late hour, the humans were starting to get quite tired. Logan had finally stowed his journal back in his bag, eyes too tired to stay open.
Virgil made sure the fire was out completely before looking around for a soft rock. None of them had brought a sleeping bag, since they’d originally planned to be home well before night fell.
Without asking, Roman picked Patton up again, bringing him over to the brothers’ nest.
“Hey,” Patton sleepily protested, wiggling. “Leggo.”
Roman curled up snugly in the indent, and Remus dragged himself in as well. As before, the twins coiled around each other. Roman settled Patton among their coils, but neither twin grabbed at him, so he didn’t mind.
“What about Logan? And Virgil.” He yawned. “They don’t have nowhere to sleep.”
Roman picked Logan up by the scruff and settled him against Patton. Remus managed to drag Virgil over and put him in the pile as well.
“Are you sure this is safe?” Logan asked, though he was tired enough that he didn’t try to move.
“Yeah, we won’t crush you, don’t worry,” Roman said with a yawn.
Remus didn’t do much more than grunt before he snuggled against one of the humans, loving that body heat.
Logan sighed slightly. “Virgil, do you still have Patton’s glasses case?”
“Yeah.” Virgil wriggled for a moment, pulling it from his pocket. Both bespectacled humans put their glasses inside, and he tucked it away again.
~~~~~
Chapter 3: The Part With the Vore (vore timeline)
Chapter 3: The Part With No Vore (non-vore timeline)
Danger Noodles
This is a story co-written with @that-prey-lounge! We’re pretty proud of it, and we hope you enjoy. (Note: I’m posting it on this account because there is vore in this story, but it's safe and soft when it occurs, and there are alternate, non-vore chapters for each of the chapters which contain vore!)
Summary:
Florida Man somehow befriends even the most dangerous of predators.
“I can’t eat him. He’s too cute to be food!”
Or: The time Patton’s sheer adorableness not only saved him from becoming a meal to twin giant nagas, but netted Logan a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that any scientist would envy.
[masterpost]
Chapter 1: The Fateful Hunt
Word Count: 1.3 K
Summary: Patton manages to win himself a pair of very large, very hungry friends.
~~~~~
Cool air rushed through the deep forest, one of the first cold snaps of fall. The trees had recently exploded into bright reds, oranges, and yellows. Leaves swirled on the breeze, and the sun shone brightly.
The peace was only broken by two large creatures stalking prey through the shadows. One naga had deep green scales, covered in mud, and bright red eyes. The other had vibrant red scales and dazzling green eyes.
Both sets of eyes were locked on a human, crouched over a pretty rock. Under the sweater he wore against the cool weather, they could see that he had a good, full figure. He would be quite filling. And he was alone, no packmates to save him.
The two nagas made eye contact, exchanging a silent message, and moving as one, they pounced.
The human shrieked in surprise as Remus swiped at him, sending him stumbling into Roman, who immediately coiled his tail tightly around the struggling creature.
“And that,” Roman said, patting his red tail, “looks like my dinner. Thank you for the help, Remus.”
“Your dinner!?” Remus repeated indignantly.
“Yes, my dinner.” Roman tightened his coils slightly, beginning to constrict his prey. The human continued to squirm, but his strength was beginning to give out. “I caught it, I get to eat it.”
“Puh-leeze, you just grabbed it, I had to shove it at you.”
While the twins argued, the human continued to squirm, managing to pull a hand free as Roman shifted his coil once more. “H-hey!”
They froze and glanced down at the human, who was still wrapped up in Roman’s coils.
“I don’t want to interrupt, but, uh, is there any chance that you possibly… don’t eat me?”
Remus had to stifle a laugh. He lowered himself down to grin in the human’s face. “D’aaawww, the widdle human thinks it can get out. How cuute.” He glanced up at Roman. “Playing with our food is my thing, gimmee.”
Roman scoffed. “No! I’m going to eat it!”
“Then do it already so we can find my dinner! I’m starving!”
Roman used his hands to pull the human out of his coiled tail, lifting him toward his mouth. “Fine,” he muttered. “I never rush your meals, but go ahead and make me stuff it down before I get to kill it properly.”
The human squeaked, not unlike a mouse, and started to squirm more vigorously. “W-wait! Don’t eat me yet! I— I don’t want you to choke on my glasses!”
Roman paused and inspected the human. He did have something on his face, something made of glass and thin metal. That could leave a mark going down. After a moment’s consideration, he set the human on the ground, but kept a firm grip on him. “Take them off… and that bag.”
The human nodded. He slung the bag down from his shoulder, opening it. Roman worried for a moment that he was going to pull out a weapon of some sort, even though he was sure he could quickly disarm him. But instead, the human just pulled out a small box. He took the ‘glasses’ from his face, folded them up, and put them in the box, which he returned to the bag.
The little human squinted up at Roman and sighed quietly. “I guess I’m ready.”
Roman felt extremely conflicted as he took the human up in his hands again. He’d never had any prey actually care if anything they did would injure Roman.
They mostly just screamed and tried to either run or hurt the two nagas.
“Uh…” Roman trailed off, glancing down at the little human. “Thanks… for being so cooperative.”
“You’re welcome.” The human smiled and Roman just couldn’t. He couldn’t eat this precious little creature.
“What is the holdup , Roman!?” Remus hissed impatiently.
“I can’t eat him!” Roman held the human out, one hand under each arm. “Look at his face ! I - I just can’t let myself be responsible for eating this adorable creature!”
The human tilted his head and made a soft noise. It took everything Roman had to not drop him.
“What could possibly be so - oh.” Remus had almost circled Roman to see the human’s face and he stopped when he saw it. “Oh… that is really adorable.”
“I can’t eat him.” Roman set the human down, completely letting him go. “He’s too cute to be food!”
Remus opened his mouth, but shut it after a second. He loved to devour small, helpless creatures, but even he was having second thoughts about turning this little one into mush.
“Well… if… if he’s not going to be eaten… we can’t just leave him here. Those bears don’t have a heart like we do. They’d tear his sweet little flesh up to make winter fat without another thought.”
Roman nodded and scooped the human quickly up into his arms. “Then let’s get him somewhere safe.”
“Agreed.” Remus roughly grabbed the bag up, not noticing the glasses case fall out as the two brothers started up towards their cave.
The human wiggled a little, but didn’t struggle much. Just seemed to be getting comfortable in Roman’s arms. After a second, he piped up. “What are your names? I’m Patton. Patton Hart.”
“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Patton.” Roman flashed his dazzling smile, remembering a minute too late that his sharp teeth could frighten Patton. Humans usually screamed louder when they saw his teeth. “My name is Roman, this is my twin brother, Remus.”
Remus lifted himself a little higher at the sound of his name. “Nice to meet you, sorry for wanting to eat you, we’re both just a little peckish.”
Roman glared, but Patton didn’t seem perturbed at all. They continued up towards the mountain.
It wasn’t too long until the three of them arrived at the mouth of the cave. Roman carried Patton in, setting the human down and allowing him to walk now.
“Welcome to our humble abode.” Roman gently squeezed one of Patton’s shoulders before heading deeper into where they slept.
“None of our other prey has ever seen it,” Remus snickered before herding Patton in.
“O-oh,” Patton said. “Well, then I’m honored to be the first.” He peered around him, looking oddly like he was trying to see through a thick fog. “What I can see of it, anyway.”
When Remus and Patton got to the sleeping portion of the cave, Roman was tossing things around in an attempt to try and tidy up the place. After a moment of gathering up discarded bones, he shoved them behind a rock, hoping Patton wouldn’t notice. Other scattered things were also shoved into piles, and he really tried to shove the assorted backpacks into the bottoms to hide them.
Remus flopped in the shallow indent they slept in, pulling and piling his long tail in. “Before we get dinner for real, I think I could use a nap.” He felt a thin bone under an arm and quickly threw it behind a rock.
Patton shuffled forward, squinting harder, and tripped over part of Remus’s tail. “Oh! Sorry! It’s dark, and I don’t have my glasses on.”
Roman sighed quietly and slithered into the indent, pulling Patton up between them. After a second, the twins snuggled closer, each of their tails trying to wrap around Patton.
He was warm. Deliciously so.
“You two are cuddlers, huh?” Patton squirmed a little as Remus managed to get a grip on him. “Not too tight, please. You’re both very big.”
Roman sighed, pulling Patton out from the loop of tail starting to coil around him. Remus whined slightly, but Roman pointed out, “Wouldn’t want to constrict him in our sleep,” and he had to concede. Instead, Roman held Patton in his hand as the two brothers coiled around each other, and when they were settled, he draped the human over their entwined tails.
It wasn’t hard for the brothers to drift off. They were exhausted from a long, unsuccessful hunt, and they had a lovely soft and warm heat source right in their bed. Patton, recently over a fright, found himself more tired than he ordinarily would be at this time of day, and he was not long in joining them in slumber.
~~~~~
Chapter 2: The Other Hikers