Nobody's Servant 1.0

Not Quite The Beginning [vore]

There are options for those who cannot make it on faith and patriotism alone.

At this time, most ferries won't risk a journey that long until there's adequate naval support to guarantee safe passage. Everyone here on the shores of Tensar is sitting tight and praying for safety. But one could always try their luck with one of the Empress's own privateer crews, freelancers who pick the waters on this side of the line clean of infiltrators and are honorbound to help out civilians in exchange for their lax oversight. In fact, there's a ship in port right now, they said. It'll be a trek to get there, but the burial gardens are a well-frequented spot for crews who want to immerse themselves in the beauty of the land while they can and remember old crewmates. They're not far from here.

Sounding like our best and only option, my travel companion— we'll get to him in a bit —and I make our way there, quickly learning that to call it a garden is a bit of a misnomer. It's a pleasant spot, certainly, a grassy hill at a gentle incline, sparsely populated by trees up to the point it terminates in a cliff looking over the town. Memorials cluster around the oldest trees, partly assimilated by the wood, but many are set into the grass with no other landmark but themselves. But, near the top of the hill, resting near one of the farthest trees, I see her. Or someone, at least.

And she did seem ordinary enough at a distance. Another morph, even another jackal, side-striped if I had to guess, a round tan hat securing some rather prominent long red hair flowing out over the shoulder of a fitted sweater. Her head is tilted back, a thin paperback covering her face; she's really out of it. I guess there's not really a uniform for privateers, I just hope I'm not mistakenly bothering a civilian for no good reason instead. Having potentially found my ticket off this soggy island, I didn't think too much about approaching her as she snoozed at the base of one of the few trees that spring up from the grassy cliff. What a mistake that was. The same new form that earned me such courtesy from the locals pulls an entirely different response from her.

I start to say something, she lifts her paperback off of her face, I make eye contact with her, she makes eye contact with me; it's nice for about four seconds. The following four carry the stammered beginnings of my introduction, which meet head-on with a crimson flash from her outstretched hands. Which brings us to the moment at which my other audience introduces herself. And what about my companion? Well, he's nowhere to be seen, the flake, so I get to be devoured whole all on my lonesome.

Black vapor still drifts from my suddenly nude, suddenly smaller body, rising from her mouth like the aftermath of firebreath. Her lower teeth rest just behind my head, and my legs braced against the roof of her mouth act as the only things saving me from a decapitation my growing anxiety insists is coming. I can't exactly reposition myself, or else believe me, I would love to, just to keep myself mostly out of harm's way. Truth be told, I'm panicking a lot more than I let on.

"I think there's been a serious misunderstanding!" I call. "I need t—"

Before I can finish explaining myself, I'm interrupted by her tongue curling around behind me and tugging me inwards, flipping me onto my stomach and allowing the cage of fangs to lock shut around me, only narrowly missing one of my ankles.

I can't see, but I can feel the sudden tilt and I know what it means even before I begin sliding forward. I scramble to flip myself around, facing towards the front again and standing quickly, bracing against the fleshy ceiling with my hands to avoid being swallowed. You would think for all my mechanical bits, leathered pelt, and a frankly alarming concentration of various preservatives, I'd be exempt from the menu. And yet...

"Can we talk this out?!" I shout. I know she can hear me but she's not giving me a response. Perhaps she was as suspicious about me as I was supposed to be about her.