Nature's Cruelty

Story by FlynnCoyote on SoFurry

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#29 of Vorish

Another old story that I missed from the old account. I would consider this story to fall within Vertis canon at no specific point to the timeline other than when Nerele is alive.

Which reminds me I want to explore Nerele's childhood.


It was night, and night was when Jerome was at his best. A lot of his fellow mice would have warned him against this, but he had been running on his own for months now and he had never once looked back. Life alone was so much simpler than having to live by the rules of a colony. No curfews, no ration tax. What he found, he kept. There were risks of course. The ginger furred mouse had seen predators about in the forest after dark, but they were easy enough for him to avoid. He had learned that most of them hunted by scent, so covering his trail was easy and he regularly dusted his fur with dried mud to mask his own odour. It was simple. It was good. And he had no master but himself.

This night had been more productive than most. Judging by the path that had been cut through this part of the forest, a canid foraging party had come through. Jerome felt a little pang of sympathy for the other mice. Raids by predators were common, and quite often a dozen mice were taken at a time. It was simply too difficult for so many to remain hidden, yet the paranoid colony elders insisted on the nonsense rhetoric of safety in numbers, when in truth it was just an excuse for them to hide behind the expendable masses. Well they didn't get to this fresh young mind! Jerome sniggered to himself as he dashed clear of a chunk of tree roots to seize a piece of ration that had fallen from one of the party's backpacks. He sniffed it over, deducing that it was probably some sort of grain compacted into the form of a bar. What a jackpot, something like this would feed him for a week! He dug his claws under it and hefted, taken by surprise at how much the food weighed. He let out an involuntary little squeak of exasperation as he dropped it back to the ground. Hmm, what a shame. He'd probably be forced to break this into smaller pieces and come back for it piece by piece. Oh well, he thought to himself. Working quickly and excitedly, he tore through one of the edges and broke off a large enough chunk to keep him going for a day or two and then hefted it onto his back. Turning to walk proudly back the way he came, his march was immediately interrupted as he bumped nose first into something soft, but undeniably firm... And warm. Looking up in trepidation, he squeaked in alarm as his worst fear came into sight. A canid, towering over him, her green eyes reflecting the pale starlight as she stared straight down at him. His heart missed a beat and his legs turned to jelly. This shouldn't have been possible, he'd always been so careful, he'd always known how to avoid being caught, and he'd always- 'Hi.' The coyote's voice derailed his thoughts and he forced himself to look up again. She still hadn't moved, maybe he could...! The thought vanished as she suddenly knelt down in front of him and placed her hand almost gently on his back, scooping him into the air. 'I said, hi.' 'Oh, umm, hello!' He said in a panicked voice. 'So so sorry to interrupt you Miss, I was just out looking for a quick bit of food you see. And umm, well I appear to have wandered off the trail, I really should be getting back to -' 'Oh shush.' She interrupted him, bringing him closer to her face and standing back up. 'We both know you're not going anywhere now.' She grinned suddenly, licking her lips as a look of hunger crossed her otherwise pretty features. 'Ohh...' She shrunk back into her hand. 'No... please, I'm too young for this...' He began to shiver, as though the night air had gotten to him for the first time ever but he knew it was far worse than that. 'There's no such thing...' She giggled and brought her hand closer, pressing her nose and lips to his little form and inhaling his scent. 'Mmmm...' Her lips parted and the breath washed back over him, humid and a little stale. Her teeth suddenly clamped over the small piece of ration still locked between his trembling arms and she began to pull away. Willing himself to move, Jerome let go of the thing only to watch in fixated terror as it suddenly fell back onto her tongue, to be swished around and crunched lightly between her terrifying teeth. Her hand lowered slightly, putting him level with her neck and cleavage as her head tilted back and she swallowed. He panted in horror, seeing what he would be reduced to any minute now, a mere bulge of foodstuff as it travelled down her neck to vanish into her chest. He felt himself being lifted back up, and another wave of her hot unpleasant breath preceded her warm drool covered tongue as it slapped against his body and slid up over his face. He half shrieked half whimpered. This was a cruelty he couldn't cope with. In these moments he realized he was never really prepared to live on his own in a place like this. 'Please... stop...' His pathetic little cries went unheard as she licked him again. Suddenly his body was overturned and he was briefly falling only to find himself plopped onto her tongue and even the pale starlight vanished. He heard her moan softly around him as her tongue cupped his body and began to shove him unceremoniously from one cheek to the other like some kind of candy. Every movement just made his fur more and more matted with her warm unpleasant drool. His every struggle meant nothing. Suddenly he felt her teeth at his back, followed moments later by more pressed up against his chest and belly. Was this it? Was she about to chew him to pieces...? He heard her soft giggle moments later before he was ruthlessly sucked back onto her tongue. Suddenly she pinned him to the hard roof of her mouth, sucking on him like a straw to draw his flavour away. A sickening wet sound followed as she swallowed it down, moaning happily. Jerome tried to push the tongue away, and was surprised when it did just that. His tiny elation turned to terror as he realized why, as he only slid further down until he felt his head bump on the soft flexing tissue of her throat. Her tongue raised again, only this time it was behind him and it pushed him even further into the tight fleshy tunnel, almost threatening to crush the life out of him. Suddenly the space opened up beneath him for the briefest of moments, allowing him to fall deeper in before constricting around him once more. An explosion of wet sound accompanied the drop and then the squeezing musculature began to force him headfirst down... The coyote had swallowed him alive.

The merciless inner workings of the predator's gullet had seen the mouse go without a breath for almost fifteen seconds. He gasped as he felt the slack finally loosen around him, and immediately wished he hadn't. Her breath had not been pleasant, but this was a hundred times worse. The humid stench of something he didn't want to guess at still lingered in here. As her gullet finally finished forcing him down, he fell the last two inches to the pit of her stomach and landed with a shallow splash. Each breath was torture, and the sounds of her body churning and squishing everything trapped in here was something the mouse desperately wished he could block from his senses. Coughing violently, he begun to wish she had ended him with her teeth up there, it would have been a mercy compared to this. Viscous juices began to rise around him, and he realized this was it. He had an hour or two at best before her acids would reduce him to a chunky soup, but at least he was likely to suffocate before the pain became too much... Or at least he hoped.

Who was he kidding? What use was hope at a time like this...