Work Text:
How Not To Become Lunch: 23 - Don’t Get Burned
“There you are, Fi. I was starting to get worried for a second.” Jack stood with Ozzy outside their magic class, watching the werewolf stroll loosely down the hall.
Her being a predator, Jack was used to the piercing, unshakable gaze that would meet him whenever she arrived, always noticing him before he could notice her. Even when she wasn’t hunting, a keen, firm eye was just in her nature. So Jack found it especially weird when he called out his friend’s name, and all she did was continue to stare off into space.
“Um, Fiona?” Jack asked as she grew close. The werewolf blinked and then looked over.
“Hey, Jack,” she replied, smiling at him. Or rather, she just held the smile that had been there the whole time.
“Hey, I didn’t see you after last period. How was your new class?”
“Like a dream,” she replied. Her tail fluttered briefly.
“Are you… alright?” he asked.
“Oh yeah, yeah, I’m just fine,” she assured him. “I can’t wait to tell you all about it.”
“You two mind if we walk and talk?” Ozzy butted in. “I’m starving.”
*gurgle*
That hadn’t come from Ozzy. The two humans glanced at the werewolf.
“Sorry, guess I worked up an appetite too,” she apologized. She did just spend the last two periods running through the hunting grounds. And of course the fact that she’d just met up with Jack may or may not have had anything to do with it.
“Well then that makes three of us, let’s get to lunch,” Jack agreed.
They started the short walk toward the cafeteria, and Jack started with his questions, naturally curious what his friend had been up to. Questions about her first day in advanced pred class quickly led to questions about A.P.E. To Jack it sounded almost like something he might find in one of his comic books: skilled matchups of predators and mages competing for dominance.
Ozzy found the idea unnerving- the thought of being thrown into an enclosed area with all the school’s best preds. But he didn’t find it utterly terrifying. He spoke up a few times to ask questions of his own, mostly about the advanced magic students. He wondered what kind of spells and strategies Fiona might have seen them using, and thought carefully over her replies, seeming to glean some understanding from them.
The thing was, her replies were a bit… strange. At least, Jack thought so. He was excited for her, and proud of her; getting into the advanced class was a big deal. But something about the way she was acting kept throwing him off. Even when she’d mention something really cool, the way she spoke would grab Jack’s attention enough to distract him from his wonder. It only seemed to get worse once they got to the cafeteria, and by the time they had gotten to the end of the lunch line, he was sure something was up with her.
“So what were the other preds like? Did you meet any of them?” Jack asked.
“A few. Some of them are really good hunters. Intelligent, fast… powerful…”
Jack frowned with concern as she started staring off into space again with that strange little smile. It never occurred to him to check what direction she was looking, but if he had, he might have noticed that it was directly toward the tables where the other predators sat.
“I hear advanced pred has more dragon students than any other class,” Ozzy chimed in, distracting Jack.
“Not surprised,” the marked boy replied, “Scales for defense, big teeth and claws, sharp senses, plus they can fly and breathe fire? They’re like the ultimate pred.”
“Dragons cannot breathe fire,” Ozzy corrected with a snort of laughter.
“What!? But I thought- oh man, this is another one of those comic book things again, isn’t it?” Jack realized with embarrassment.
“Yeah, sorry dude. No fire breath. They do have glowing insides though; bioluminescent.”
“Really? Well that’s still pretty cool.”
“Would you wanna get a peek some time?”
“Yeah, I bet it would look-” Jack stopped himself, realizing the joke he’d just walked into. “On second thought, I think I’d be better off not looking down a dragon’s throat.”
Ozzy laughed again as his friend backpedaled. The three of them were walking to their table now, trays of food in hand. Jack glanced at Fiona, she still hadn’t spoken again since trailing off. Worried, he decided to rope her back into the conversation.
“You might be able to get a peek, though, huh?” he asked, giving her a nudge. She blinked and looked back at him.
“Huh?” she replied.
“Of a dragon,” he hinted, hoping she’d been paying some attention.
“Oh, yeah. The teacher’s actually a dragon. He’s intense. And every time he talks you can see this little bit of golden light coming out from his mouth. Isn’t that cool?”
The fact that she obviously had no idea what they’d just talked about was disheartening.
“Yeah,” he answered, much less enthusiastically.
They reached the table and sat down, and their conversation naturally halted as they started eating. Jack kept glancing anxiously toward Fiona. And Fiona kept staring off into thin air between slow bites of lunch.
That is until her eyes suddenly went wide and her fur bristled.
The reaction hadn’t been that conspicuous, but with Jack watching her he noticed it easily. Ozzy seemed to pick up on it too. Her eyes seemed particularly fixed, and finally Jack realized that she might have actually been looking at something this entire time. He followed her gaze, and then he saw him.
A werewolf, with a small smile and a large belly, making his way through the array of tables with his eyes set on theirs. Jack looked back at his friend. She swallowed a mouthful of nerves and took a breath to calm herself.
He must be from her new class, Jack thought. Good thing he’s already eaten.
But he didn’t feel ‘good’, he had a strange feeling growing inside him that he couldn’t quite explain; it was confusing and unpleasant; it wasn’t any kind of fear, and it wasn’t really anger either. As the werewolf got closer, the object of his eyes became more clear.
He’s coming over because of Fiona. And she seems pretty happy about it. He saw her tuck her tail under her butt to keep it from wagging. For some reason that made his emotion grow stronger, which only made him even more confused. As he eyed the approaching werewolf, he couldn’t help but ask himself leerily, What does he want?
As Arthur approached, Fiona had never been luckier that werewolves didn’t blush- though there were plenty of other signs to pick up on. Their eyes had been locked together long before they were at a comfortable distance for conversation. And with every step he took, Fiona wondered what he might say. All sorts of fantasies bounced around her head, but she tried to beat them down and stay in the moment. He stopped a number of feet away from their table- maybe a bit too far by most standards, but as werewolves they weren’t exactly going to have trouble hearing each other. Besides, when he did speak, it was perfectly enunciated and projected clearly enough for all of them to hear.
“Hey Fiona, why don’t you come and sit with us?” He gestured back to where he’d come from, and in a brief glance Fiona recognized at his table the same kids she’d seen around him in class.
“Really?! Sure!” She stood up quickly with a huge smile and grabbed her tray. Eyes still on the other werewolf, she took an excited step toward him. But then she froze just as abruptly. She hesitated for a moment and her smile shrank. She looked back at Jack- in her excitement she’d nearly forgotten about him for a second.
In her eyes, Jack saw regret for her hasty reply, but also desperation and impatience and yearning. She really wanted to go.
“…Would you mind if I sat with him for a little? You and Ozzy can look after yourselves, right? And if anything happens you can just yell and I’ll run right over.”
Jack smiled at her. “Go ahead, Fi. No worries, we’ll be fine.”
He saw her face light up again. She flashed him a look of appreciation, and then she turned back toward the other werewolf, still standing where he’d stopped. He gestured with a hand for her to follow and then turned away. She ran up to him and they started back through the tables.
Jack let the fake smile fall from his face, questions and doubts bubbling up. Why had he needed to fake a smile? He should be happy for her. It was great that she was meeting new kids, making new friends. It was good that she’d found another werewolf to hang out with… a boy more like her…
Walking away, Fiona was nearly giddy, but she tried to compose herself. Not even a full day and the advanced kids had already invited her to sit with them? Heck, just walking there next to Arthur was more than she could have hoped for. Her eyes stayed mostly on him until they started to get close, only then did she spare the other students some attention.
Most of the kids that had spoken to her in the hall were there: the toad boy sat back in his seat, relaxed and mildly curious at the newcomer; the naga smiled at her warmly enough; the neko stared at her observantly with her quiet, unblinking gaze.
Arthur sat down and offered her the seat next to him. It was all she could manage not to squeal. She sat down quickly, rushing to hide her tail before it began wagging frantically out of control. The pressure from all those eyes on her was just enough to help her keep herself in check.
“Hey everyone,” she said awkwardly, “thanks for inviting me over.”
“Of course,” Arthur replied. “You’re in the advanced predator class now, this is where you belong, right?”
She smiled at Arthur appreciatively, and glanced over the other kids as they nodded or muttered in agreement.
“Thanks,” she said again, “you guys are cool.” She paused for a moment, hesitating as she double-checked her memory, but she decided to trust her intuition. “What about the other kid? The dragon? He was with you guys, wasn’t he?” Maybe it had just been a coincidence that he’d been nearby earlier, but it had seemed to Fiona that he’d been part of their group.
“Pyre?” the toad responded. “He should show up soon. The hunger games always give him an appetite, so he usually goes for a big lunch afterwards.”
Fiona knew ‘a big lunch’ could only mean one thing. Along that line, she noticed that no one other than Arthur had a bulge in their stomach, meaning no one else had managed to get a meal during class. The fact that so many advanced preds had left with empty bellies spoke to the skill of the advanced magic class- not that she would know firsthand, considering she’d spent the whole time following Arthur instead of a human. For a second, she worried that one of the other preds might have seen her tailing him, but if someone had, they didn’t bring it up.
“I’d say he’s about to make his catch,” the neko chimed in. Fiona looked at her, but she already had a hand up with a single clawed digit pointing across the lunchroom. Fiona followed the gesture and caught sight of the red-scaled predator.
Pyre was walking the line between the pred and prey tables. He’d been looking hungrily over the human students, not exactly being subtle. Most of them were well on guard, or fled when they saw him coming. As Fiona looked over, it seemed he had just finished selecting his lunch.
“Pel- Ah!!”
A girl, realizing she’d been picked, threw her wand-wielding hand forward and began a spell, but she wasn’t fast enough. The dragon, light on his clawed feet, leapt forward and grabbed her arm mid-swing, holding it away from him easily with his strength. She was so startled that the words to her spell were cut off by her scream. She struggled for a moment, but quickly realized that she had no chance of overpowering him. And then she heard a sound.
*guuuurgle*
A sudden, bone chilling fear struck her. Still in her seat, she looked away from her arm and ahead at the wall of scales that was Pyre’s belly, staring her dead in the face. Her mind involuntarily conjured images of what had made that sound, some horrible place hidden somewhere behind those scales. The fear forced her to look away, up over his sparse shirt- hardly anything at all given that the design had large cutaways to accommodate his wings and the sizable bulge she would make- and up at his face. She caught a fleeting glimpse of his tongue as he finished licking his muzzle.
Fear crackled into terror, and she was about to start struggling with all her might, but instead she froze, and her eyes went wide. The dragon had opened his jaws, bathing her face in a spray of orange light. She stared, both horrified and awed. Every fleshy curve and ridge radiated an orange glow, refracting through strands of drool and glistening on every saliva-soaked surface.
The sight was so unlike anything else she’d seen that she couldn’t look away, she had to spend at least a short moment taking it in. The tongue shifted, seeming all the more alive for its glow, and together with the jaws and cheeks there formed a funnel, leading all the way back to the entrance of his throat, which shone as if there really were a fire beyond it, its light leaking out from deep inside. And in a way, there was: an eagerly burning pyre, just for her, ready to reduce her body to nothing.
The dragon boy closed his mouth around her head without another peep, his muzzle reaching down onto her chest with her shoulders pressing against the edges of his cheeks. She was still for nearly another second before the spell wore off, and she began struggling once more, but it was far too late now.
*gulp*
Her body shuttered as it was pulled inside, her head crammed into the glowing throat, now hidden from view by the rest of her form, but quite visible to her, its light undoubtably leaking through her tightly shut eyes.
*gulp*
He was making quick work of her. He was hungry, and his belly was eager.
*gulp*
*gulp*
She was out of her chair now; her chest, belly and waist gone, just a pair of legs protruding from the scaly muzzle. A tiny glimpse could be seen of the draconic tongue as it wrapped loosely around one leg, savoring the texture and the flavor. The bulge in the dragon’s neck wriggled fiercely.
*gulp*
*gulp*
*gulp*
And it was over; and she was gone. The bulge slithered down and collected in the eager stomach, the scales spreading out as the skin beneath stretched to accommodate. A fresh human log on the Pyre.
“There he goes again,” Fiona heard the toad boy say. She glanced at him and saw him nodding with approval. Then she glanced at Arthur.
“Not bad,” the werewolf chimed in a second later, his eyes attentively resting on his draconic peer across the room. She wanted those eyes on her again in a way she couldn’t fully explain.
She didn’t realize it yet, but soon, they would be.