Small Morsels
By: K.D.
July 29, 2012

	Asura was walking merrily along with a spring to his step, a bounce to his tail, and a fluff to his fur. Why not, after all? It was a beautiful sunny day in the forest – the kind that a nature-loving fox like Asura loved… and everything else loved, for that matter. The birds were a’chirping, and the bugs were a’buzzing, and everything was just perfect.
	As it happened, there was someone else that didn’t share such a carefree outlook. 
Without any warning, caught in mid-caper, Asura’s tail was wrenched up into the air (and the rest of the fox along with it) by some unseen force. “Yerf!” he squeaked in shock, flailing all four of his legs as though it might do something. He was fully aware, of course, that squirming wasn’t a very good counter to anything, much less magic.
But one did need to keep up proper appearances, after all.
A dragon named Fafnir (not the Fafnir of legend – just one who named himself such in homage and admiration) swooped down from the air, slowed to a stop with an abrupt outstretching and thunderclap of his wings, and landed softly on the grass. 
He was a massive and fearsome beast: his scales an intricate pattern of black and crimson, and his eyes a luminescent yellow that glowed like a bonfire. He was covered from head to tail in plates, spikes, spines, and several other appendages that would not be very fun to accidentally bump into.
Fafnir landed only on his hind legs because he was holding his right forepaw outward, the claws pointed downward and pressed together as though he was holding something. He was holding nothing, physically, but it didn’t take a genius to guess that he was using some kind of telekinesis to hold Asura up in the air.
“Hmm… such a small morsel,” the dragon purred, his voice a deep and feral growl. “Don’t worry; you’ll do as an appetizer. It'd be cruel to catch someone I don't intend to eat.” He chuckled at his own joke, flashing a toothy grin.
Asura wiggled his forepaws in the air a little more and studied the dragon. He certainly wasn’t a very polite sort. Nobody could legitimately fault a carnivorous dragon for needing to eat other animals, but the fox thought it was a little ignoble for some of them to taunt prey that they had already captured – even if a dose of fear made the prey taste a little sweeter.
“Oh, but you don’t want to eat me, sir,” Asura said.
Fafnir gave a dramatic show of rolling his eyes and sighing. “Yes, here it comes,” he growled, and switched to an oddly soft and high-pitched voice that belied his size and stature: “Oh no! Don’t eat me, meester dwaggin! I’m too cute and precious and fuzzy to go gurgle-gurgle.”
Asura shook his head, which made his entire body swing like a pendulum in his precarious position. “I doubt that would work, sir,” he said. “But if you eat me, you would be missing out on what I could give you.”
With his idle paw, Fafnir made a sort of twirly motion with a single talon, perhaps meaning one of: “helicopter”, “you’re loopy”, “this is what I think of your opinion”, or (most likely) “let’s move this along”. 
The dragon said, “Yes, yes, what gimmicky tribute are you going to try bribing me with? Gold and jewels? Power and prestige? All your friends to eat instead?” he chuckled throatily. “Because there’s really nothing a fox can give me that I do not already have, or cannot simply take.”
“What about knowledge, sir?” Asura asked, so quick he nearly interrupted the dragon’s monologue. “I see you know some magic. What will you do when you meet a more powerful mage and cannot match him?”
It was a rare day that someone suggested knowledge, and none of those who did had actually given him anything of use. And yet, the suggestion gave Fafnir some pause. Could this random fox really teach him anything useful? 
“Interesting…” he said at last, his fiery eyes narrowing to a squint. “I’ve been offered knowledge before, but always some trivial stupidity. Why don’t we add some spice to this deal? If you teach me something useful that I don’t already know, I’ll let you go… this time. But if you are wasting my time, fox…” the dragon slurped his slobbery tongue over his scaly lips, “… you must willingly give me your soul, and I will utterly devour you.”
That was a really one-sided deal. “That’s fair,” Asura nodded.
Fafnir gave a chuckle at that. He twisted his paw slightly to turn the fox upright, still holding him in the air, but in a kinder and more natural position. “Go on, then,” he said, giving that toothy grin again. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Not yet,” Asura said. He reached a paw behind his back, and from … somewhere … pulled out a rolled-up scroll nearly as tall as the length of his body. The fox held the scroll firmly between his stubby paws. Floppy paper unrolled and dropped all the way to the ground a couple meters below – and continued unrolling a few meters on top of that.
“Hmm? What’s this?” Fafnir demanded. The writing was so tiny. Dragon eyes are usually strong and Fafnir’s were no exception, but he’d have to press his snout against the paper just to read one letter at a time! And where did he get that scroll from?
“This is your lucky day, finding me, but we need to follow the due process,” Asura explained patiently. “My name is Asura. I know the perfect answer to any question or request you have, and all you need to do is give me a little something in return. Just sign your name on the dotted line at the bottom of the scroll, down…… there.”
This was getting awfully strange. Fafnir was starting to wonder if this was all just too much trouble… but there was no way he would just walk away right now. He was either going to learn something from this fox, or eat him, and that would be that. If he walked away from this and any other dragons heard about it, he’d be ruined!
Fafnir continued staring at the top section of the illegible writing. “I’m giving you your freedom,” he said, dubiously. 
“Well, yes, of course that’s in there,” Asura replied, keeping his tone chipper – never condescending. “I wouldn’t be able to do this for very long if people were allowed to eat me or keep me in a cage after getting their question answered.”
Huh. How long had he been at this, then? And how many satisfied customers did he have? And where did he learn how to supply the “perfect” answer to any question? Even Fafnir had to admit his curiosity – this was one of the more interesting snacks he had caught.
Grunting an affirmation, the dragon lifted a claw and gave a little flourish, signing his name, in dragon writing, on the aforementioned dotted line with conjured magic ink. And, at last, he set the fox gently back on the ground.
The scroll quickly rewound itself into a compact package, and Asura put it behind his back again, where it seemingly vanished. “Very good,” he said. “So, you have no specific question, but would like for me to tell you something you don’t know.”
“Something useful,” Fafnir said snidely. “Some new magic would be nice.”
With all of his limbs now under his own control, Asura brought a paw up and rubbed his chin. “Well, let’s not limit ourselves,” he said thoughtfully. “You did sign the contract. Strictly speaking, I don’t need to stop until you’re satisfied.”
Fafnir thought that was a strange thing to say. Assuming that this entire thing wasn’t a giant prank, it seemed like a very easy system to cheat – what if he decided to never be satisfied? “Well, get on with it,” the dragon said, waving a claw. “Start talking.”
“I’ll do better for you,” Asura replied. “I will start showing.”
The vulpine’s irises began to glow and take on a very blue hue, his gaze deliberately centering on – and drilling straight into – the nearby dragon. Fafnir felt himself become very… wobbly. The ground seemed to move under his feet. Was he dizzy? Drunk? On top of tectonic plates moving around deep beneath the Earth’s surface?
Not quite; the dragon was shrinking. And not just that, he was physically becoming younger. His horns and spikes receded and vanished, having simply not grown in yet. His steel-hard scales became soft and leathery, becoming lighter and more suited for a weaker hatchling with little use for armor.
When it was all done, Fafnir was as cute as a button, with tiny little nubs for horns, and a pair of floppy little wings. And he was small – extremely small. He knew how big hatchlings of his particular subspecies were, and he knew that they weren’t smaller than a perfectly ordinary fox. Unless Asura had grown a bit, somehow.
“What… what in the…? What is this?!” the tiny dragon demanded, still retaining his former personality and voice. He bounced onto all fours and took in his new, lower view of the world with shock. How could this even happen? It was impossible.
Asura’s eyes stopped glowing, and returned to their former mundane color. A jovial smile crept its way onto his muzzle. “Oh! So you haven’t seen that spell before!” he said. “I must say, we’re off to a very good start.”
“Yes, very funny,” Fafnir spat, holding himself up tall and proud like a regal dragon would. In his current state, it increased his adorability factor by a fair bit. “It would be an amusing trick to use on my enemies. Now, change me back! I command you!”
Asura didn’t respond right away, but Fafnir looked on with increasing incomprehension as the fox’s perfectly friendly smile transitioned directly into a truly sinister grin. “Change you back?” Asura repeated. “Oh, no, my dear dragon, I can’t do that. The contract you signed is quite clear – did you really think that I could maintain a business of answering any question asked of me without an appropriate repayment?”
Fafnir wasn’t very impressed. He didn’t back down at all. “I decided not to end your pathetic little life!” he snarled. “You should be bowing down and thanking me that I did not simply eat you where you stood!”
The evil grin didn’t leave Asura’s face as he mockingly “bowed” before the decidedly littler dragon. Of course, it might not have been so much bowing as readying himself for a pounce. “I’m afraid that’s not actually part of the deal. You see, a great many people have signed the contract and asked me a question, and only a relative few of them have been the violent and voracious type, like yourself. No, everyone must pay me in the same way. That’s the only fair way to do it.”
Fafnir growled in frustration. He had been too headstrong and arrogant to read over that contract carefully. He had been tricked, and, physically trapped in this young body, couldn’t make the fox pay for his insolence. For now, he just needed to get through this. He could plot his revenge later.
“And what is the ‘payment’ you want?” the dragon asked sarcastically.
“It’s very, very simple. You only need to play a little game with me,” Asura said, a bit of a playful wag overtaking his big bushy tail. “I transform you into a prey critter for 30 minutes. If you can stay away from me long enough, you’ll turn back to normal, with your question answered, and you can be on your merry way.”
The fox’s muzzle tipped downward, and his eyes glowed with that eerie blue hue again; Asura’s grin had shifted into a menacing stare. “But if I am able to catch you, I will eat you and devour your tasty little soul, dragon. When I do, every single scrap of knowledge you have… will be mine. And there will be nothing left of you, dragon.”
Fafnir only stared, completely dumbstruck. Asura added a cold chuckle. “I’m sure you have a doubt or two in that tiny little head of yours, but answer this. How do you think I learned the perfect answer to any possible question that someone could ask?” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “It feels almost unsporting to devour arrogant creatures like you… but, then again, you wouldn’t believe how gullible so many ‘intellectual’ types can be when it comes to getting their favorite pet question answered.”
Was this all a giant trick? A huge, over-elaborate bluff? Fafnir didn’t know, but it was clear to see that he was utterly outmatched here. He had been trying to use his own magic this whole time, but it was either being suppressed, or his current hatchling body couldn’t support it. The only choice was to evade the fox for 30 minutes, then, and hope that the few minutes they had continued talking counted.
Not wasting another moment, the dragon turned tail and sprinted away from Asura as fast as he could. It was a rare thing for him to be doing. In fact, he had chased his cowardly prey or enemies plenty of times, but couldn’t remember ever running away from anything in his life! What was the best way to do it? Should he go straight? Zigzag? Abruptly change direction to obfuscate his trail, maybe?
Wanting to cover as much of a distance as possible, he opted to run straight. After just a few minutes, the mix of fear, adrenaline, and full-tilt pace had reached its limit, and the dragon found himself completely winded. He spotted a nearby copse of vegetation – probably something he would have accidentally squashed at his full size, but as good a hiding place as any while he was small like this.
Fafnir dived into the brush and huffed for breath… but tried making an effort to remain quiet, listening. He didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. The birds still chirped and the bugs still buzzed, oblivious to the duel between fox and dragon. He snuck a peek out of his hiding place, scanning in all directions.
No foxes.
He hadn’t been counting exactly, but he figured a good chunk of the 30 minutes still remained. If he needed to sit here for the remainder, that was fine. Then, he would get his revenge.
“Rotten liar of a mammal,” he grumbled softly, his cute little hatchling teeth gnashing together in rage. “I bet he doesn’t know the answer to anything. He’s not even keeping up his end of our ‘contract’.”
“That’s so untrue, I’m offended!” Asura’s voice boomed from overhead. The vulpine was looking straight down into the bush. He tapped one stubby paw against the other, as though counting off on fingers, “Look, I showed you a new spell that you can now investigate and research further. And I’m teaching you fear, and terror, and humility, which are all very useful things to know about.” 
He counted each one off on a “finger”, and then stood back on all fours again, looking annoyed. “Really, I’m going out of my way for you. Most people just want a quick solution for wooing a girl, or repairing a spat with friends or family. Or even something super-philosophical like ‘What is the meaning of life?’ Those are so easy to give a single, perfectly straightforward answer to. But you types with the vague requests are never happy, no matter how many valid answers I give. That’s just not fair.”
Fafnir couldn’t believe his eyes, seeing the fox tower over him – not to pounce him and end the game, but to pout and monologue for nearly a minute! And the dragon had barely gotten a chance to get his breath back, there was no way he could manage another sprint unless his goal was to collapse out in the open. Asura didn’t look tired at all – if he made it here so easily, running further wouldn’t do any good.
It seemed a daunting task, but if this fox was as conceited as Fafnir was, and if he enjoyed hearing the sound of his own voice, maybe they could… talk until the time ran out on this spell. “No! I’m not happy!” Fafnir didn’t need to fake the angry tone, but still added in what acting ability he had. “So you need to teach me more until I am!”
Asura tilted his head slightly, as though pondering. “Sure, I can do that,” he said, and leaned down close, so close that the heat and moisture of the fox’s breath puffed over the hatchling dragon’s entire body. “I’ll teach you what it feels like to be swallowed alive, and to have your soul devoured, and to spend the rest of eternity as just another part of me. By the way … caught you.”
Paying no mind to the immediate yelp of protest, Asura carefully hooked his teeth around the dragon and lifted him up, to extract him from the bush and set him down, belly-up, on open ground. Fafnir had been well and truly caught now. Really, there had never been any chance for him to escape at all. His fate was decided the very moment that he signed his name on that scroll.
Asura forced Fafnir’s wings out and held them down with his paws, ensuring that his prey wouldn’t be able to avoid what was coming next. The fox leaned down, and gave the dragon a great big lick, all the way across the length of his belly. Then another, and another, licking and licking until keeping count was impossible.
The fox’s expectant hunger was surely greater than he was letting on; slick and gooey vulpine-saliva practically flowed off of his tongue, pooling and dripping down the dragon’s leathery scales. The dexterous pink-fleshed muscle was soft to the touch, but forceful in its conviction. Like a paintbrush, it lapped and raked across the hatchling’s underbelly, tail, arms, legs, neck, and face to ensure perfectly even coverage of the slimy sheen. And the sound – it was almost worse than the feeling! Slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp. He was being tasted all over, and there was nothing he could do about it!
Not that he didn’t try. Fafnir growled ferociously, slashing at the tongue with his diminutive paws and exceedingly blunt talons. Asura didn’t miss the opportunity to make the offered paws and arms nice and slick. “Rrgh… stop this!” the dragon snarled, feeling the damage to his pride just as much as anything else. He was no plaything of such a lesser creature! “I command you to stop this at once!”
Asura paused in his task, smacking his tongue against his hard palate a few times, quite satisfied with the flavor he was getting. Predators really did have something right: the smaller and cuter something was, the better it tended to taste. “D’aww… do I have to? You're such a small morsel, but it'd be cruel to catch someone I don't intend to eat. Don't you agree?” 
The fox purred, tilting his head and widening his eyes in visible – possibly faked – disappointment. “You ought to know, dragon… you are indescribably delicious. Hey, I think that counts as yet another ‘something useful to know’, don’t you?”
Fafnir glared upward, quite wholly defiant in spirit, even if his “new” body was not quite up to the task of resisting. He was utterly drenched in slobber – several thick strings of the goo even hung from his claws and chin. He tried to stem the indignity of it, to shake or wipe off the excess, but it was all so slimy and clingy, he couldn’t even manage that! 
It would soon be the least of his worries, anyway. Asura loomed even closer overhead, such that the tip of his nose nudged against Fafnir’s muzzle. The fox’s eyes glowed the familiar blue again, the luminescence of it so intense now that it made the dragon’s eyes water just to stare back.
“The game is over, dragon,” Asura said. He suddenly let out a heavy breath, sending a funny, warm tingle over Fafnir’s soaked body. “You belong to me… now, and forever.”
The fox’s tongue darted over his lips one last time, and then his jaws parted. It was a slow, deliberate action, the mouth opening with almost painful delay. The view engulfed Fafnir’s entire line of sight. He couldn’t move with his wings pinned – he couldn’t even turn or look away!
When the teeth parted, like a portcullis risen, he was treated to every drip and viscous dangle of slimy drool, every stretching of clingy slime between the upper and lower jaws… and when the vulpine’s mouth had opened as wide as it would go, the  deep, deep tunnel at the very back was exposed. 
While the ambient sunlight made the copious amount of fox-slobber shine and reflect just ever so slightly, there was naught but utter darkness beyond that gullet. The hatchling dragon breathed out a squeaky whimper. The enormity of the situation hadn’t quite hit him until just now. Unless he could somehow fight off the larger fox – that being unlikely under disadvantage and peril – there really was only one place he’d be going.
No time for fighting, anyway – the fox’s jaws snapped downward and wrapped over the dragon’s head and neck. The teeth came down as well – gripping, thankfully; not biting – instantly forming a bony cage he’d never be able to wiggle out of! “S- Stop! Please!” the formerly-mighty dragon cried out, trying to ignore the ultimate humiliation that came with begging. “I’ll give you anything! Anything! Treasure! I have a hoard of treasure!”
He couldn’t say anything more – the massive tongue pressed hard against his underside and chin, forcing his jaw to abruptly clamp shut. From all around him, he heard and felt the vibration of a deep, closed-mouthed, rhythmic sound – was Asura chuckling? He would chuckle, Fafnir realized with a terrible sinking feeling, if “knowledge” included secret hiding places.
The dragon’s protests came in wordless groans as Asura dutifully continued his work, curving his neck around, nose pressed upside-down against the grass, wiggling his snout back and forth and sliding his maw over his prey’s shoulders. Fafnir’s snout was pressed up against the narrowest part of Asura’s throat, rubbing and squishing against the soft and pliable flesh.
Asura paused. Neither of the two moved at all for a long moment. Had he transformed the dragon into more than he could swallow?
Not quite.
With a heavy glurk, Fafnir was wrenched forward, the entirety of his head and half his neck had simply been grabbed by the powerful throat muscles, plunging him into complete darkness and splattering his face with more slime. He yelped aloud at the sudden wrench of another noisy swallow, more and more fox-slobber pooling on his scales, flowing and dripping down his neck and chin.
Asura clamped down firmly with his teeth and lifted his head up to show the world his captured prize. Only half of the soaked hatchling poked from between the “merciful” cage of carnivorous fangs. 
The once-mighty beast had been reduced to a couple undeveloped wingtips, a pair of adorable squirmy legs and paws, and perhaps the best bit: that ever-delicious noodle-tail – all with barely any fight left. They gave only enough movement to please the predatory vulpine and prove that the dragon was quite awake and aware for his once-in-a-lifetime experience. 
Asura sat back on his haunches and continued to swallow in sharp, aggressive lurches. He stretched his jaws open and snapped his head forward at the same time of his throat-muscles pulsing and pulling. With ease, he gulped down the satisfyingly chubby bulk of the defeated dragonling, sucking in the rest of his wings and legs, adding more and more size to the growing bulge that graced the fox’s gullet.
The tricky vulpine had consumed countless others before, but there was something about dragons – their pride and general sense of exceptionalism, perhaps – that enhanced their taste like none other. He rumbled aloud and took another big swallow, claiming his prey’s wide hips. He tipped his head back and simply opened his jaws. Without even intentionally swallowing, the reptilian hindpaws slipped past the tight muscular ring on their own, with the tail slithering to follow. Then, the tailtip vanished, and the jaws snapped shut, locking the dragon within.
Asura closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh. No matter how many times he did this, and no matter the species, the weight and bulk of his prey wiggling and squishing and cramming themselves into his stomach was simply like nothing else. He sometimes wondered if it was worth omitting the next part, just to have the chance to repeat the act and swallow them again and again… but always dismissed it as a frivolous thought.
Asura flopped over onto his back, taking a moment to complacently enjoy and rub over his wonderfully stretched belly as it slowly burbled to life. The dragon was no doubt curled up tight, so covered in slime he would scarcely notice that not all of it was innocent saliva.
“Ahh…” the fox rumbled out another sigh, pressing his paws hard against his gut and causing the dragon flinch and squirm. “Not long now, my dear dragon. I’d ask you how it feels to be swallowed by a fox, but, well… once I take your soul, I’ll know…”
The dragon’s squirms intensified just slightly – perhaps a result of the taunting, or perhaps because the fox’s stomach had rapidly begun heating up, quickly nearing intolerable levels; the fleshy walls pressed ever tighter around him, and his whole body itched and tingled – the result of very unique stomach acids beginning their work.
“D- don’t…” Fafnir pleaded, muffled, each word coming with increasing difficulty. “You can’t … digest … a dragon’s … s-s-soul…”
“Can’t… or shouldn’t?” Asura asked slyly. There was no further verbal response from his belly – only a sudden intensifying of gurgles and glorps. He rumbled with delight and merrily swished his tail as the hatchling within his belly was swiftly digested – absorbed – alive. 
Not one bit of his prey was left untouched: the dragon’s physical mass and energy was simply drained away, and flowed through Asura’s body like an electric current, rejuvenating him completely. His lush furry coat seemed to take on more vibrant hues of color – merely a sign and aftereffect of every miniscule physical imperfection and stress repairing itself with the dragon’s energy. The bit of rich dragonflesh that couldn’t be put to immediate use settled as a small layer of fox-pudge on the vulpine’s belly: a trophy to admire for a bit, perhaps, but soon to be exercised off…
But the real prize, of course, was the dragon’s supposedly immortal soul. Fafnir’s spirit was trapped within the fox’s belly – the fully-grown dragonsoul roared with defiance, trying to slash and destroy his prison. It was his last hope. It was his only hope standing between himself and oblivion.
It was no use. 
Asura stared down at his belly, and a truly devilish smile crept onto his muzzle. His eyes glowed blue once again, more fiercely than ever before. There was no contest, and no battle about it. The fox’s far superior, overwhelming, dominating essence wrapped itself tight around the captive dragon, as a spider would wrap a captured fly. Then, with his ghostly prey nice and immobilized, he began to simply drink up the dragon’s soul – as easily as one would drink a milkshake.
Oh, how sweet it was – even a well-experienced predator like Asura was staggered by the potency of the dragon’s soul energy, as it was assimilated into his own essence… for that was all the dragon was and would be in the end. Fafnir’s physical strength, sharpness of mind, and deep understanding of the metaphysical had made his soul grow very bright and hearty.
That’s why Asura loved to eat dragons above all others: the same traits that granted their power and magnificence also made their souls ever so satisfying.
As promised, it wasn’t just energy and life force that the soul-eating fox stole away, but knowledge. As raw ethereal power electrified his body and spirit, all of the dragon’s knowledge poured into Asura’s mind. The process was like a hurricane – ten libraries worth of books and encyclopedias pushing themselves upon him at once.
“Give it to me… give it… give me everything you know…” Asura savagely growled. Drool leaked out between his clenching teeth, and his eyes – shining brighter blue than ever before – seemed to glaze over and become unfocused. It was more than just knowledge. Every thought, every past conflict, every battle, every experience, every memory held dear to the dragon… was stripped and hoarded away within the fox’s mind. The last wisps of remaining dragonsoul were worn completely bare of individuality, and then they too were soaked up and subsumed.
The hurricane calmed. The eye-glow ceased. Asura’s stomach resonated with a less intense, more cheerful gurgle. The deed was done; Fafnir the dragon (this one, at least) had completely ceased to exist – not that many were likely to miss as wicked a creature as he. His soul had not just been absorbed, but unmade. His personality and self had been eradicated, with the component parts added – in fragments – to the fox’s vast store of knowledge.
“Ah, typical…” Asura mused, not too unhappily. “Well, add another brute who knows nothing but intimidation and a few magic tricks to the collection.”
Still, there was something for him to smirk about. 
“That treasure hoard could be useful…”

Fin