Title: "Bruxa, part 1- Breaking the Fast".
Story written December 18th 2003,
by Miateshcha,
Story contains furry, swallowing, F/M.

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Racks of catalogued trophies gathered dust in their shelves as the mistress of the house woke from her content slumber. The female slowly opened one eye, prodded her stomach with one paw to judge how much it shrank overnight, and muzzily rolled off of the pelt-lined flatbed that served as her bed. Six paws landed on the floor with a heavy thud. She shook off some more fatigue and headed down a rusted steel corridor to her pantry, belly swaying beneath her, stepping into the glare of her salvaged electric lights.

Imagine a six-legged ferret the size of a tiger, and then forget that completely; Bruxa, or at least the huntress that locals call Bruxa, would be better described as a vaguely raccoon-ish beast the size of an armored car. Her gray fur had that distinctive black mask, and her tail had a rough halo of black-ringed fur around it, but her build looked more like a wolverine or otter thanks to the sleek musculature that shifted under her pelt with each stride. Color was represented solely by her rubbery pink tongue, blue eyes, and spots of yellow on her numerous rock-hard teeth. Travelers' tales often exaggerated her appetite, though it measured up with such legendary gluttons as pythons and dragons, thanks to the happy combination of a nearby town full of a prey and a body that could let her eat them by the half-score, their intact bodies tucked away to be rendered into the paunchy folds gathered around her stocky midsection and flanks. The cave bear from last night was already a meaty soup destined to become padding on her stomach; prey never became something useful, like bone marrow or red blood cells, but at least she could predict exactly where all the nutrients ended up.

The locals were just as good at predicting where the wildlife around her lair ended up; they all turned into ATP sooner or later, but most of them made a lengthy visit to the creature's larder beforehand. It was the kind of place mothers warned their children about; creatures mundane and magical lined the walls of a giant cylindrical chamber, shackled and bound with enough restraints to make certain naughty villagers squirm with delight. A spiral walkway let Bruxa reach most of her meals, but the most dangerous were kept at the top were no amount of glowing swords and mumbled words could free them, accessible by an enormous lift that could easily fit a great white and still have room for a giant raccoon nibbling at the tail. The bear had calmed her stomach for now, but like any sensible pred she was never content to rest while succulent prey were waiting to be devoured; besides, they were expensive to feed.

As she entered the chamber and grabbed the skeleton key deliberately kept in the prisoners' view, her rough nosepad wrinkled a little as she smelled the musky evidence of some captives enjoying this far more than they should. The creature slowly plodded up the ramp and eyeing each menu item in turn, thoughtfully considering a terrified gryphon chick before remembering how much feathers tickled. Before long she got bored and arbitrarily picked a gagged male lizard, his eyes lighting up with poorly concealed delight as she briskly unlocked his restraints and started to drag him down the slope to somewhere more private, rolling her eyes at another prisoner's loudly wailed pleas to be chosen instead. She didn't know why she ever captured that red dragon in the first place- he was too big even for her- but at least it kept him from eating the villagers before she could.

Time has odd ways of passing, sometimes stretching out to ridiculous length or breezing by so quickly it feels like one can watch the mountains erode away. Other times it jumps like a flea on a trampoline. The wide-eyed lizard- if raptor wasn't a better term, given his build- barely felt himself blink when the scene skipped from his unshackling to staring into a set of dislocated jaws. Impressive jaws they were, too, a double row of carnivorous teeth on top and bottom, the wan yellow light from over his shoulders shining across the topology of her maw- shimmering off the smooth indigo curves of flesh, highlighting the eager quivering of her broad tongue in its slick purple bed, thick saliva trickling along the sides to dangle in ropy threads from the upper jaw. Thick paws clamped down on his hips, but he didn't even flinch, hearing the muted shimmering noise of trembling flesh and gullet as he stared reverently into the glistening depths of her maw, myriad saw-edged teeth slowly folding back to point to her gaping throat.

And with a sudden yank from her forelegs the reptile couldn't enjoy the view any longer, feeling the contours and fluttering muscles he had stared at just a second ago, huntress drool cascading down his smooth hide and adhering to his head in viscous sheets as velvety cardia parted around his snout, her meal panting for breath in the fetid air of her throat. Vapors of acid burned his sensitive nostrils, his inner eyelid hurriedly sealing to block the fumes. All around him the hungry noises of her body reigned, even with the dripping tunnel of her throat clinging to his earholes; muscles instinctively undulated around his head with a thick smearing noise as she smoothly worked him further into her dripping maw.

All this was feeding as usual for the predator. Secondary lungs inflated and emptied within her body, air filtered and recycled to save her the trouble of breathing around the raptor, who barely squirmed in the constricting tube that pulled him to the waiting acids. Their chemical gurgles drowned out her six-chambered heartbeat, leaving only that sound of animal hunger to drown out the pulse hammering in his ears, his hands clenched to his sides as her grainy tongue curled around his waist and slathered her syrupy drool across his shivering hide. A slight effort of foreleg muscles drove the hopelessly slippery raptor in up to his ankles, panting with overload as wet rubbery valves split around his snout, redolent of the acids and melted flesh waiting ahead.

Thousands of pounds shifted as she reared to her hind legs, midlegs supporting her bulk against the wall, throat tilting vertical with the motion to banish him downwards. Her teeth clashed and rose upright, tearing into his scaled pads as they fell with the rest of him. Only now did a bulge finally push out from her pliant throat. He yowled briefly as stomach acids eroded his snout; she swallowed then, a dominating cascade of peristalsis that plunged him into an acid bath strong enough to melt steel, vague nebulae of bear rippling around him as he thrashed once, then stilled...

Flicking a tongue over her whiskery chops, Bruxa belched loudly and let her meal settle, the reptile burbling his death throes inside her. One of the notable things about her body was her ability to feel exactly what was going on inside her with incredible precision, despite the absence of any nerve receptors inside the stomach; it made for a great party trick. She could feel the acids churn back up to speed inside her after their night of steady work, making nutrient soup gurgle and slosh around the lizard as she ambled along a bare stretch of corridor, trailing a midpaw along the ancient steel wall as she rounded the last corner and blinked at the sunlight. With something under her metaphorical belt, it was time to face the day.