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As our food arrives, the chitenous lady sitting at the other side of the table pauses in her story. Due to our difference in scale, she was seated upon a miniature stool on the tabletop, with a smaller table in front of her. As varied as our scale is, our pallet is equally distinct. I smile down at the full pizza margarita that's been set down by the server and my dining companion smiles down at an array of wood shavings that have been tossed in some kind of glaze, honey and spices if my nose isn't deceiving me.

The restaurant itself is a cozy affair, only a dozen or so tables with open air at both ends. There's a wonderful view of the Caldera's largest pool, the lake at the center, with the small temple mount sitting out in the distance. Out the other way I can see the boardwalk that we took to get here, winding through the myriad trees.

Taking my knife and fork, I start to cut into my pizza. I feel eyes upon me, and sigh, resolving to start dividing it into wedges. The life of a travel blogger; having to always adjust your customs to your surroundings.

My companion chuckles and concludes the food-initiated break in the conversation. "You must spend quite a lot of time in Europe." This is Isoptera, my guide to the Caldera. She contacted me through the administration here at Hawthorne after the boss put out feelers for this new travel series. I was glad to take the job. I'm getting ahead of myself, however.

I should explain. The Caldera is a predscape; a world located metaphysically within a predator which houses their prey until they are ready to return to the material world after the predator has digested them. (Of course, there are some predators who can put prey into their predscape without digesting, but that can wait for another blog.)

The Caldera resides within a predator named Kee. He's an attractive aardwolf, and a size-shifter. When I met up with him he only stood a foot or so taller than myself, though reports of him being five to ten times my height were common.

Kee had been informed by my bosses at Hawthorne what I was up to before I arrived, but didn't rush right to the point. He was a proper gentleman, making small talk with me until he was sure I was comfortable. Then, as casually as everything else, he turned that corner.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"May I eat you?" The hyenid smiles, a hint of a blush formed on his cheeks. He is close enough to me on his couch that he can and does reach out and take my hand.

I very carefully make sure to save the work I'd been in the midst of when he asked, and close my notebook with my other hand. "You're sure I'll have access to this once I'm Inside?"

He gently begins to lip and nibble at my fingers, silently nodding in confirmation. I could hear his stomach growl emptily.

At that toe-curling sound of desire, I can't help but scoot over towards him.

Kee releases my hand and reaches to wrap around my shoulders and draw me closer still, while his pink tongue darts out and cradles my palm. Deceptively large compared to his narrow muzzle, the muscle is coated in his particularly sticky saliva. Both are traits of an insectivore.

Feeling the adhesion to my fur and giving a gentle tug, I relax and let my hand be drawn in past his jaws. I can feel how strong his tongue is as it squeezes to make sure it has a grip, until my fingers brush at the entrance of his throat.

I can't stop myself blushing anymore as the practiced predator keeps eye contact with me, his jaws closing around my wrist. He takes a few moments to savor my flavor, the soft muscular insides of his jaws squeezing along my digits, before I feel the hold on my palm loosen. Moments later, his long tongue is sliding out to wrap around my arm all the way to the elbow.

His own cheeks have blossomed into a full blush as well, while his free hand takes a moment to stroke along the side and top of my muzzle. The contact is reassuring, and a scratch behind the ear leaves me off-guard for when his tongue squeezes and he ducks his head a bit.

My arm extends on its own from the powerful pull. It's not so strong as to hurt or startle, but it definitely deepens my blush. I can feel the flesh of his throat conforming to and between my fingers, squeezing, and I can't help ducking my head down and wiggling the trapped digits. As I hoped for, I can see the shape deforming his lengthy neck in time with my movements. Meeting his gaze once again, I twist on the couch to face him more properly, my notebook set aside, and I offer up my free hand to the predator.

Rather than opening up and pulling my arm in to match the other, he takes his time, first lipping at my fingers as best as he can with my elbow in his jaws, then easing his tongue out to twist and curl, constricting pleasantly. I hardly hold in a moan as I watch his powerful tongue drag my other arm to meet the first inch by inch, until I'm nearly muzzle to muzzle with the hyenid.

I feel Kee's hands stroking along my back and sides, one sliding up to cup the back of my head while the other squeezes on the curve of my hip. Down below, the vibrations of his stomach eagerly churning for its doggy dinner ripple up my fingers, meeting the gentle squeeze of peristalsis coming the other way.

He holds me like this for quite some time, the predator's manner always striving to bolster my reassurance in my decision to be consumed. I lose count of the waves his throat dances up my arms in involuntary motions as he holds back his instinctual desire to swallow properly. As I make eye contact again, I feel his tongue snake out once more. The powerful muscle smoothly slides and curls, before making a snug loop around my throat, like a fleshy collar and leash. He gives a gentle scratch behind my ear from the hand on the back of my head, before removing it. And then he gives a gentle tug with his tongue, not a sustained pull. Like a master getting their pet to heel.

I practically melt, and let my eyes fall closed. Not a moment later, the dam's broken, and I feel his warmth surge over my head and nearly to my chest in one go.

At the same time, my outstretched fingers press to the snug entrance to the stomach below. The valve squeezes tighter for a brief moment, before loosening to allow my paws through. I feel his hands grasping my hips, and his predatory strength comes into focus. He lifts me seemingly effortlessly from the couch towards and into his jaws. My arms easily curl to fit within the chamber below, and soon my chin has to be pressed to my chest in the same way.

Purring indulgently, he readjusts his grip, working down my thighs to hold onto my shins just above the ankle, before he pulls again. With my center of gravity past his jaws, it's mostly his practiced throat doing the pulling this time around. When it's just my feet peeking out of his muzzle, his long tongue curls and wraps them up, giving a squeeze, before that strong appendage works them onto the correct side of his teeth.

I can hear his jaws knit back together with a sharp, wet click, and know I've been devoured completely. His hands, now free to do as he wishes, are rubbing over my form through his stomach walls. Once again I feel the gentle flexes of his body holding back a swallow on my legs as he savors the feeling. Then one hand leaves my back to rub along my shins through his powerful throat. I can feel his head tilt back around my feet, and then another powerful swallow clenches and drags at my legs.

As my knees are forced to bend up against my chest, I feel his hand on his throat stroking against my toes until his ribcage separates the disparate digits further. As the last of me slips through the cardia, I feel his hands again rubbing and pushing on me, but this time he's readjusting my position inside his body. Naturally I'd end up nearly inverted from the way my legs had to bend, but he gets me upright with practiced ease, the top of my head brushing against the entrance from the inside, before he gently rotates me around until I'm 'seated' in his lap. He nuzzles the top of my head through his stomach and hugs around me with his arms.

All the while his pillowy stomach lining was rippling and contracting, massaging over my body and making sure that thick viscous saliva and now the stomach juices were saturated through my thin coat of fur.

I feel him shift his hips so that I slip down onto the couch between his thighs, before his legs join the embrace, squeezing me tightly, possessively. I can't help but moan. I have a weakness for being claimed by such a gentle predator, after all.

I feel him nuzzling over my head again, as his voice comes from both the other side of his stomach walls and reverberating all around me. "You're such a good dog. I'm going to enjoy having you as long as you want to stay."

I can't really think of how to respond to him in the moment, so I just press a paw outward to express my understanding.

This receives a moan. Well, with an invitation like that, I start rubbing around with my hands and feet, and feel it drive my predator wild.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Your journey here must have been a long one." Isoptera comments to me between nibbles at her wood shavings.

I swallow the mouthful of delectable pizza I'd been working on and set my slice down. "How do you figure?"

"Kee's an insectivore." She states simply, as if that explained everything. After a moment she elucidates further. "You see, mammals end up waiting a long time, but exoskeletal types can get here in a matter of minutes."

"Does that affect how often you come and go?" I ask her.

She smiles. "Not at all. Why would I want to leave?"

This is a fair point. The Caldera is a calm, peaceful place to be. After I finally melted away inside my affectionate host, I awoke in a comfortable bed inside a small wooden house. On either side of the chamber were doors leading out into dense rainforest, though a boardwalk was visible on one of them, extending off and around out of sight. On a small side-table to my desk I found my notebook, or a reasonable facsimile.

I know not through what magic Kee managed it, but I was able to access all my files, and even the internet of the outside world from inside him. I did get invited to a few websites which were clearly communities for people who found themselves here. One of which was clearly a sort of 'orientation' page, listing basics: Thousands of people were here at all times, more if Kee had recently gotten peckish while in his macro form. The path to going "out" (to be reformed into the material world) was listed at the bottom of an FAQ page, as if it wasn't as important as the other questions.

I checked my messages, and found that my contact here had been alerted to my arrival before I even awoke. After sending a progress report to my superiors (and discovering I'd been stewing for a full week inside Kee's stomach!) I decided to explore a bit.

The FAQ had listed the culture here as "clothing optional" so I didn't bother trying to find any clothes in my new little home.

Exploring the Caldera is mostly an affair of walking long winding boardwalks and the occasional rope bridge between elevated platforms. Everything is raised up from the marshy forest floor, and it's always misty, pleasant, and somehow not too humid despite the surroundings. Occasionally you come across pools and hot springs which have steps leading down to the water. Many times I see denizens of the Caldera coming and going from them.

At one point I saw a jackal emerging from the water to reveal the person-shaped lump in his own midsection. Of course that sort of thing happens here. Even if you aren't a capable predator in the material world, here desire is all that matters. The FAQ explained that people eaten and digested here return to their homes after a fuzzy period of time. There's no deeper nested predscape.

After a while I headed to a hot spring myself, and had a chat with some of the locals taking a soak. A burly otter at the other end of the pool seemed amused by my purpose in being here. "You're here for a job?"

"Ah, yes. The site I work for has an interest in promoting places like this for the more preyfully minded traveler." I responded politely.

"In my experience, people either leave immediately and don't come back, leave after a few days and show up again later, or decide not to leave." A slender rabbit also in the pool nodded firmly.

"So you don't think tourism is likely?" I press in response.

"To get here you take a long time burbling away." The otter responded, seemingly unaware that his choice of words was so similar to our current situation in the hot spring. "You'd have to take off a lot of time just to get here."

"And you two have decided to stay. Why is that?" I asked as the bunny scooted closer to the otter.

"Well, all my friends are in here or are long distance people who I can connect with online, like I did before Kee ate my whole neighborhood." The otter replied. "We get all the new releases in here, and it's far safer inside than out in the material world."

"You don't need to eat or drink, but it's still pleasureful. Our homes are provided in exchange for our material bodies, you might say. People in here with 'jobs' are doing it because they want to, not because they need to." The rabbit added, before grinning mischievously. "And in here I can do this." I watched as the lapine grasped the arm of the otter twice his height and probably eight times his size, and casually swallowed it up to the elbow.

The otter blushed deeply. "Well, yeah, there's this too."

Before I could ask any more questions, both of the others' mouths were too muffled by one another to answer anything, so I settled back to relax and watch until the bunny had finished.

Slurping down a length of thick tail and swallowing, the rabbit grinned at me cheekily. "I couldn't even eat someone my own size back in the material world. In here I could probably eat a macro."

The otter under his skin let out a soft, pleasured moan.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

On the way to my meeting with Isoptera, I came across a series of boardwalks higher up from the ones I'd been using, and far smaller. Micros about 6-8 inches tall walked around those pathways and between the various birdhouse sized buildings. In my wanderings around the Caldera I had found several small communities of closer-knit homes and small 'businesses' but this was literally a small community. I walked along a side-passage of the boardwalk, until I came to a spot where my eye level was about the same as the micros on a wooden 'plaza' slung underneath most of the building.

At first a few of the micros moved away, assuming I was peckish. I explained that I was writing about the predscape and would like some micro perspectives, and that seemed to calm things down. Down the tiny planks, the tallest micro of the bunch walked into view. A fox who must have been a foot tall.

The vulpine looked me over then crossed his arms over his bare chest. "So, what do you want to know?"

"Well, first, what's it like living in here?" I start with what I've asked everyone so far.

The fox appeared bemused for a moment, before responding. "It's like life with the safety turned on. Outside, any random biggun like you could end our lives with a minimum of effort. Inside, such a rampage is an inconvenience at worst." He paused, and smirked. "As for our host, he's a size-shifter, so we know for a fact he's made bigguns like you feel like we did all the time before sending them here."

I confirmed that I had heard such things from others.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"I don't think that it's really any kind of malice." Isoptera responds to what I told her about the micro community I came across. "Really, a catharsis, for living in an uncaring world for so long, and then finding yourself in one that does care as equally for all sizes."

All sizes is right. At one point I could have sworn I saw a macro standing in the mist across the center lake from me. I turn and look out the open doorway facing the lake, and see the ferry moving, and from here can see it packed full of people, milling around as the ship heads towards the island.

My hostess notices my gaze and follows it. "Ah... looks like he went on an eating spree."

"I'd heard tale of that... how often does he do it?" I turn back to her to ask.

I can see the color under her carapace shift, and I realize that it's her species' way of blushing. "Oh, it's hard to keep track." She looks back to the ship. "But when there's that many wanting to leave at once, it's obvious it happened."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

To depart Kee's predscape, you have to catch a ferry from the largest of the towns, on the edge of the center lake, to an island placed at its midpoint, upon which a temple is clearly visible from the shore. The settlement itself is unique amongst those in the Caldera since the 'earth' around the edge of the lake is firm enough to build directly on the ground, and to have paved roads. They're still walking roads, and are cobblestones. They're reminiscent of the streets in old European towns, built well before the invention of cars.

The newest form of transportation is a cable-car system that goes from the shore up the hillside to the edge of the forest on the other end of the settlement, and at the outskirts, a few train lines leading out and around to other settlements in the caldera. The trains themselves aren't like trains Outside. They feel like tourist attraction trains, with quaint engines that are just barely taller than you and a lot of small cars that can fit a few people each. The lack of smoke belching from the smoke-stack is a sign that they work through unseen means, like much of the technology in the Caldera. It's at the outskirts of this town, past the docks, by the small railyard, that I met Isoptera, and she led me to the restaurant further along the shore.

The tallest building I could find was four stories tall, and had a set of double-doors half that height on the front. Similar to the open-air buildings having full modern amenities in the settlements further into the forest, this old world town has modern lighting and modern businesses within them.

One of the most popular I find is an arcade, filled with game cabinets, ticket games, air hockey, and billiards at the back. Because there's no money used here, the way they keep people from hogging any one attraction indefinitely is by distributing the game tokens in small batches, and you have to go stand in line to get more every time you run out. The line moves quickly enough, and it seems to facilitate turnover well.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

By the time I was ready to take the ferry journey, the waiting line for it had dwindled to none.

On the ferry, I watch the water of the lake go by, and the view of the dense forest to all sides, and the glimpses of buildings among them, leading up to the caldera wall. Truly it feels like an enclosed space, but it never feels claustrophobic.

As we near the island, I peek into the little wheelhouse at the front, and find the controls of the large boat being manipulated by a small pixie. I intended to interview the ferryman, but it appears the small fairy man is too busy with the operations of the vessel to talk.

I return to the main exit door as the ferry pulls into dock. As the doors open, I see the temple up close for the first time. It's a six sided pagoda, with open arched doorways on the ground floor. As such, It is an easy walk up and in. The temple is simple, smooth stone with little ornamentation. There are seating benches facing the center, where an opening at the tip of the pagoda shines light onto the floor.

Being here, in this space, the base warmth of knowing you're inside Kee is strongest. Each step towards the pool of light makes it stronger. Once I reach the light, I'll be back in the material world, and likely off to my next assignment shortly thereafter.

I hesitate.

Well, what's a few more days in paradise, really?