In the Meadow

By Strega

Oct 1, 2003

In the meadow there is a fox.

To look at him you'd think him just your typical foxie, about fifteen pounds of muscle, fur, and brush-tail on a frame so skinny only fluffy fur saves him from the label 'gaunt'. Foxies are like that. The price they pay for their niche in the food chain is a small body and thin limbs. A wolf can eat a fifth of his body weight at one sitting, a lion a quarter; a fox can only manage a tenth, because his tummy is small too.

Of course, this isn't your average fox. He is a fox spirit, long-lived but not immortal, with powers a normal fox wouldn't dream of possessing.

Blinking sleepily, he contemplates a nap. On this warm fall day, a nice snooze with nose under brush-tail tail sounds good. Just then, though, something interrupts his solitude.

She strolls into the meadow, striped tail swaying. A hestan, or cat-person, with the rare tiger-stripe fur pattern. Her hair's a flame-colored mane that hangs to her waist, her curves are supple, her stride nimble. Unlike most females of her kind, her breasts are heavy and firm, and like most of her kind, she wears nothing to cover them. Earrings, a red silk loincloth and a few bits of silver jewelry are all she wears, and her orange, black and white fur is taut over her well-toned musculature.

The fox, of course, ignores her. He does crack one eye and peek in her direction, but only to verify she isn't a threat. Not that much can threaten him, shy of a couple of trolls or so. Satisfied she is what she seems, he shuts the eye and goes back to dozing.

His interest in females doesn't extend to two-footed ones, however luscious a two-footed male might find them. He notes in passing, though, that many two-footed men would happily spend their time in this female's company. He knows that much about hestan, elven, and human males.

His nap will have to wait, though, for as she settles herself on a stony outcrop she calls out:

"Hello, foxie."

A black-furred foxy ear flicks back and forth, then orients itself in her direction. Other than that, he doesn't respond.

"I know you can understand me, foxie. I know a Volpé fox-spirit when I see one."

He sighs. Sleep, apparently, is to be denied him. The other triangular ear swivels to join the first in alertly facing her, and he sits up. "Good afternoon, then. What brings you by this bit of forest?"

His little muzzle shouldn't be able to produce such clear language, but speaking is the least of his supernatural powers.

"Oh, I was just wandering." Her tail flicks as she smiles. "I have heard that Volpé can change size."

His brow wrinkles at the change of topic. "Sort of. We have two sizes, small and large."

Leaning forward eagerly, she moistens her lips with a pink sandpaper tongue. "May I see 'large'?"

The fox's eyes narrow as he thinks. If she were human, he'd have already left. Elves and hestans are traditional allies of the Volpé, though. All three races share the same interest in keeping the forests intact. That was especially true here in the Vesve forest, with the evil of Iuz to the East. Many an orcish woodcutting party had been turned back by the combined efforts of a Volpé and a band of elves and/or hestans.

"Why do you want to see? I look the same, just larger."

"I've seen little foxies like you, and I've seen different types of fox-people, but I've never seen a giant fox."

"Fox people?" His head cants to the side. "I've heard rumors…."

Her smile broadens. "Show me your big foxie shape, and I'll tell you about them."

He had lied when he said he only had two sizes. Or, rather, he had told a partial truth. Most Volpé really did have just the small and the large forms. He, on the other hand , could assume those sizes and anything in between, just as there were Volpé who could cast spells where he could not, or could use their forepaws as hands where he could not.

He decides a horse-sized form will satisfy her, and in a moment he has changed. Where he had been painfully thin before, now he is almost wolf-stocky, for his larger form needs thicker legs to support it. His brush-tail is now as long as she is tall, his ears each a foot high, and his eyes are level with the top of her head as he sits.

"Ooo!" Before he knows it, she's run to him. Hugging his white-furred chest for a moment, she breaks away to sniff and feel his flank. "You are so foxie-handsome!"

"Now wait just a," he turns his head to follow the scampering tigerwoman, nearly cricking his neck as she runs past his rump, "Minute, I was just going to show you this form. That was all I offered, and now you have to tell me about foxpeople."

Circling around in front of him again, she strokes the bridge of his muzzle. "Are you sure that's all you want to show me?"

The slant of her hips makes her offer very plain, and very confusing. Hestans rarely have sex save during their mating season, which was months away, and they never mate outside their species.

Yet her offer is clear, especially since she's taken his silence for uncertainly and practically gone to all fours in front of him. Facing away, naturally. Her loincloth doesn't cover her completely from this angle, leaving little to the imagination even if he couldn't smell her readiness.

He taps her on the rump with his chin to get her attention, then winces as that provokes a lustful purr rather than the retreat he'd intended. "Miss, I am not inclined to breed outside my species, even were it possible in this case."

Pouting, she springs to her feet. Fortunately -- as far as he is concerned -- she doesn't swear or burst into tears. "Are you sure? It might be more possible than you think. I --"

Ears reddening, the fox cuts her off before the discussion gets still more embarrassing. "Miss, I don't think…" and then has to lean to the side to keep her from burrowing into the space between his forelegs and his haunches. "Madam!"

She steps back, grumbling. "The foxpeople are not so chaste."

"I'm not sure it's even possible when I'm this size --"

A leer appears on her face, and he hurries on, "…You promised to tell me about the foxpeople."

"Oh. That." Settling herself on a stump, she frowns. "Are you sure you won't hump me?"

This time the wince is so loud she hears it. "You are not like other hestans I've met."

That brings the smile back. "…Which is why I am here talking to you, instead of them. Foxies are usually more willing to accommodate me, and a big foxie has a big --"

"…Foxpeople."

She sighs theatrically.. "Well, you know there are werefoxes and foxwomen, which is another flavor of werefox. And there are the eastern werefoxes, and fox spirits, which you are kin to. Some of them can take human-ish form."

"Kitsune, and the like. Those I know about. Are there more?"

Tracing a pattern in the striped fur of her thigh, she nods. "Down south, near the elf-kingdom of Celene, there's a mage who lives in the mountains. People call him the 'Maker' because he's developed spells that let him turn animals into thinking humanoids. He's made many hybrids, and three new races: raccoon-people, wolverine-people, and fox-people. The last are about human-sized, very clever and articulate, and oh, they are good lovers." Her smile is wistful now. "All three are, actually."

"How many of them are there? The foxes?"

"A thousand or so, I think. They have a few small villages of their own and a few more that are intermingled with the Maker's other two races. Plus there are some that live in the Maker's keep and work for him directly."

"Near Celene, you say?" That was clear on the other side of the Kingdom of Furyondy, well more than a hundred leagues. But Furyondy is mostly farmland, and at his normal size he'd pass unnoticed. It might take a few months to get there, but it was do-able.

A hand tweaked his nose. "There are faster ways to get there than walking. A mage could take you there in no time if she knew the right place to teleport."

His head tilts again. "I suppose you're a mage?"

"Oh yes." She smiles. "A verrry powerful one."

Flicking an ear back and forth, he smiles his own smile. "And what might a mage charge to get me there? I have things buried in the woods a mage might want."

"From your prey, or victims as some might say? "

"Orcs and others who were a problem, but yes. Now, seriously, do you know a mage who could get me there?"

She slapped his nose! "I am a mage. I really am. I might be persuaded to take you down south."

He licks his stinging nosepad. "I'm beginning to wonder if you're even a hestan, much less a mage." Normally he could sense other magical creatures, and just plain magic, and he had no feeling that she was either. Still, she didn't behave like any hestan he'd heard of.

"Oh, you!" Popping to her feet, she walks along his flank. Cautious of another attempt to reach his naughty bits, the fox turns in place without standing, shifting his hindpaws to follow her with his snout. That works until she is directly between him and the nearby tree.

Just as his muzzle swings past the tree, though, a curious lethargy steals over him. His muscles lock up quite painlessly, and in just a few seconds he is rigid as a furry statue. The shock makes his eyes go wide and his tail thrash, but other than those two parts of his body he can't move at all.

"There, see? I am a mage." Since he couldn't turn to follow her any more, she stayed where she was, between the tree and his chest. "A verrry powerful one."

"Why…" was all he could manage. He wasn't used to being magically bound. Volpé are fairly magic resistant, and failing that he knew what gestures to watch for. Her hands hadn't even moved!

"Oh, I'm not going to hurt you. In fact, if you hadn't refused to stand up when I walked behind you, I'd make the afternoon a really pleasant one." She licked her lips. "…For both of us. I have been with big foxies before, and ones not so reluctant to play."

"But…what?" he manages as her padded fingers slip between his lips. He could move, it seemed, but only when and how she wanted him to. She presses lightly up with one hand and down with the other, and his long, narrow muzzle gapes.

Now he can't talk at all, and managed only a confused grunt. "Uuuh?"

"Now don't you worry, foxie..." Her fingers slide along his lips, somehow forcing him to open his mouth wider. Like all foxes he could gape amazingly wide, but he wasn't sure he'd ever yawned this broadly.

"…Auntie Ilya will take good care of you." With that, she pushes her hands down his tongue, getting them slick with drool, and slides them right into a hot tunnel of foxie throat.

"Uk?!" He gags, but even that movement is denied him. He can't pull his head back, either, and can't resist as she pushes her forearms down his gullet.

When she has both arms into his throat to the elbows, she puts her face between his fangs. Even then, he can't fathom her intent, not until she puts one footpaw against the tree and heaves.

"Uommmph!" Her upper arms, blunt feline muzzle, and rounded head push over his tongue and into his throat. Soft gulletskin stretches and slides over her fur, and he feels his underjaw bulge as her whole head pops past the tightness at the back of his muzzle.

'What are you DOING?', he thinks to himself. 'I can't breathe! '

He gags, or tries to, as she puts her other foot against the bark and shoves her shoulders into his mouth. He feels his fangs scraping her soft fur, feels the smooth tigery-striped pelt move along his tongue and palate and into his throat. She pushes, and he can't withdraw, and her shoulders slip past his back teeth to join her head in his gullet.

He sees nothing but bark, waving tail, striped tigress-rump and legs. He feels nothing but a nearly painful tightness in his throat, and the incipient burning in his lungs as she cuts off his air. That, and her wiggling body slipping into his gullet, her softly firm breasts the only padded spot on her tautly muscular frame.

Then he discovers there is one movement he's allowed to make. He discovers this when he swallows.

It's a powerful, desperate gulp. Throat full of hestan, denied any air save that already in his lungs, he has the choice of retching her back up, swallowing, or suffocating. He can't gag -- somehow the muscles don't work -- and he doesn't want to smother. He swallows.

The first gulp tenses his throat around her shoulders and pulls her upper body all the way into his narrow muzzle. She's an enormous, impossible mouthful, bulging out of his cheeks in all directions. Foxies can gulp down surprisingly large prey, though. A foxie the size of a draft horse can manage even a small human…or a hestan female.

The second gulp sends ripples of gulletflesh over her upper torso, squeezing her breasts and arms and ribcage in the smooth slippery tunnel of throat. The ripples knead her downward, propelling her to the navel in foxie gullet and forcing a vast, tight bulge to swell out of his throatfur. As his throat pulls, her feet push against the bark, and more of her slides into his bulging cheeks.

'If I had known you wanted to be eaten, I would have grown larger,' was his next thought. 'Except I'd never have agreed to. Why on earth are you doing this?'

She was not the first humanoid to pass down his throat. At his largest size -- seven feet at the shoulder and a tonne and a half of foxie -- he routinely picked off stragglers from orcish hunting bands, shook them until they stopped moving, and dispatched them with a gulp. Leaving no evidence is just good sense, and since Volpé paws magically make no tracks, it left the orcs scratching their heads. "Where Burok go?", they would mutter, as he belched and trotted away.

She was the first live humanoid to go headfirst down his gullet, though, and the first to ask -- nay, insist -- on making the journey. And he'd never taken a meal like her while he was merely the size of a horse. It was almost, but not quite, past his limits.

She helps. She wriggles strongly, squirming her way inward as her tail lashes and her feet push bark. He swallows again, feels her rump against his palate and the slick silk of her loincloth against his tongue. Another gulp, and her hips -- the broadest part of her -- stick momentarily at the back of his jaws.

As the loincloth rubs his tongue, he tastes her sex beneath it. Unintentionally, almost uncontrollably, as though driven by an instinct he doesn't know he has, he presses his tongue against the mound beneath the silk.

The touch drives her into a frenzy. Tiger-striped tail whips back and forth, feline footpaws kick spasmodically, and her whole trimly muscular frame tenses and struggles in his maw. For the first time it seems as though she might be struggling not to go further in but to pull back out.

'Maybe it is some sexual reaction?' the fox wonders. He's no expert in the erotic behavior of humans, much less the more prudish hestans, but he's overheard a thing or two. Perhaps it is even an orgasm, something Volpé-femmes don't experience.

It doesn't matter. He needs to breathe, and he still can't gag her back up, so he swallows.

His throat takes a firm grip on her torso, tugs firmly, and her rump pulls inward past his rear fangs and the tightness there. He feels his gullet stretch around this widest part of her, take its grip, and she is doomed.

More than half her height, and all her widest parts, are down his throat now. His white throatfur shows her shape as curves and bulges, and each gulp shows as powerful downward ripples.

He no longer has a choice. Even if he were freed, able to choose any action, gravity and his natural instinct to clear his throat combine to ensure she wouldn't come back up. Her head and torso instead slip easily deeper, further into his body. He manages to suck in a sip of air as her rump vanishes down his gullet, but as her thighs follow it past his black rubbery lips and into his throat he can't stop the process.

It still takes effort. As her head and shoulders move from his neck into his body, they squeeze through his collarbones and into his ribcage. A tight pressure develops, a pressure that moves downward as he swallows up her knees, her calves, and most of her stripey tail.

The pressure remains as her second knees -- her heels, but on a cat they look like reversed knees -- and footpaws fall into his muzzle. His narrow snout closes to conceal all but the very tail-tip.

The tightness in his body makes his heart beat painfully, as though the same pressure that forces the tigress toward his stomach squeezed it as well. Then the pressure, the near-pain, begins to ease. Swallowing, he feels the great lump in his body move backward, and gradually the discomfort goes away. The footpaws and twitching tail-tip slide down into his throat as it does, and he keeps gulping, pushing the bulky lump of once-tigress and now-food into his stomach. He feels his ribs stretching to let her hips by, first well forward on his torso, then farther back toward his haunches.

A new discomfort grows to replace the old. This one, though, is a familiar pain, and one he almost welcomes. It 's the feel of his belly protesting as just slightly too much food occupies it.

His stomach, though, is beneath mere flesh and fur, not beneath bones. Unlike his ribcage, there is nothing rigid to keep his belly from expanding to accommodate its meal. As the tigress' tail and paws tickle their way down the last few feet of throat, the pain fades, replaced by the warm comfort of a well-fed gut.

Then it is over. The tickle is gone, his bellyfur taut, and he sits panting as he gradually regains control of his body.

Too gradually, though. By the time he can move more than his ears, and by the time he can move his head more or less freely, the tigress' air has made its way back up his throat.

"Braaaaaapp." His cheeks bulge and marble-sized droplets of saliva fly from his lips as the air departs, and he looks down between his forepaws at a newly swollen belly.

He can still throw her back up. He could eat grass until he was sick, for one. That would take time she doesn't have, though. His gut is already churning around its meal, and she is still.

"Well, tigress, I don’t know what you wanted, or why you did that. I guess you had your reasons." He flicks an ear in thought. If he did eat grass and heave her back up, he'd have to find a hestan and explain how he'd come by a hestan corpse stinking of foxish bile.

Alternately, he could let nature take its course. It wasn't his fault, after all. Best not to tell anyone, either. After all, who would believe him?

As he settles down to digest his unintentional meal, and to relax -- he had wanted a nap, after all -- pawfalls approach. Small foxish paws, in his estimation. Sure enough, a small orange and white form appears in the clearing.

"Sala." He nods to the second Volpé.

"Karume, good meeting. I came to tell you about…oh, well." Trotting up to him, she sits with tail around forepaws. "You already met her."

"Met who?" Another belch bubbled up, and Karume blushed. "Oh. Her. I guess she didn't manage to enspell you the way she did me?"

The little vixen flicks an ear. "What makes you say that?'

"Because she was here to meet me instead of being in you, or being a pile of droppings somewhere."

Tilting her head, Sala smiles a foxie smile. "She's not dead, you know."

Karume peeks between his forelegs at his gurgling belly. "In that case she's in for quite a trip. What does she do, regererate back from, well, you know?"

The little vixen shakes her head. "She's not dead, and she's not digesting. She's just sleeping in there, or maybe pleasuring herself. She'll leave when she'd bored."

"What? Are you feeling all right?" He peers down at her. "I ate her! Not intentionally, but…."

"Karume, don't you know who she is? She wanted to mate with you, right?" She didn't have to ask if he had; she'd have smelled it.

"Yes, but I didn't."

"I know. Tiger-striped female hestan, powerful mage, mates outside species. Does this sound familiar yet?"

"It was her?" He looks at his swollen belly again. "But why?"

"I don't know. I've heard rumors she's cursed. All I can tell you is that yesterday she was in my belly and now she's in yours."

"Did she tell you about the foxpeople down south?"

"Yes, she said she'd take me down there. Probably after she gets tired of making Volpé eat her." She chuckles.

Dead or not, the weight in Karume's gut made him sleepy. Yawning, he curls up around himself. "I still think she's dissolving in there, but if you're right maybe we can go down there together."

Sala nods. "I have to get back to my territory now. See you soon, dear."

Karume nestles his muzzle in his tail-fur brush, belches a last time, and dozes. He has tigress to digest.

Or perhaps he is just a furry sleeping bag for the cat.

Either way, he is sleepy.

The End