(A story featuring  deteno and my character Raine. Plus a bonus sketch! I'll move this version into scraps if I make a more finished version of the drawing.)

Final Decision

---

(2521 words)

It was warm, and dark, and soft. It always had been.

Well, perhaps not always. Amber could swear that she had a life before this. She had been a petite little doe -- just a normal person. She had worked as a receptionist, paid her bills, watched the occasional movie. She had never had many friends, and had never been close to her family. It had been a life of going through the motions.

And then she had met the wolf. Well, perhaps "met" wasn't quite the right word: she had witnessed the wolf eating someone, and when she was brought to the police station to identify the culprit, the wolf had broken free and devoured her as well. Except she hadn't done it as a predator. The wolf had actually asked for her permission to eat her, and for reasons that Amber still did not fully understand, she had given it. The next thing she knew, she was sliding down the wolf's throat.

She wasn't sure what she had expected. To be digested, probably? Well, if this was digestion, then it was quite a pleasant experience. She certainly had not expected to have a roommate. The female moth had already been here when Amber arrived, and she had always seemed quite cheerful about the whole situation. She had proved to be quite pleasant company, in the end.

So now she was here, in the warm, dark softness. The moist walls caressed and kneaded them. In spite of the darkness, Amber was never afraid -- though the chamber was comfortably large enough for the two of them, its nature meant they were always in contact, and the feeling of Luna's soft fur would remind her that she wasn't alone.

She couldn't say how long they had been there -- time had lost all meaning. Days, at minimum -- perhaps weeks. Somehow, she never seemed to need to eat or go to the bathroom or even stretch her legs. She could occasionally make out noises coming from the outside, but words were too muffled to understand. At times their small living quarters would grow slightly warmer or colder -- perhaps when the wolf was outside, or when she took a bath. Sometimes they would feel the walls press in as the wolf ran her hands over her stomach. The only constant was the reassuring beat of the nearby heart.

Warm. Dark. Soft. This became her entire universe.

So she wasn't ready when it suddenly changed.

She was sitting in Luna's lap when it happened, the moth's slender arms resting loosely around her waist. Something was happening outside, something different than the norm -- she could hear angry voices and could feel what may have been a scuffle. Then the stomach had suddenly contracted around them, squeezing them tight. This was different than the wolf's massages -- the stomach itself was pressing tight around them. For the first time since she had arrived here, Amber shivered.

She felt Luna's hands tighten around her waist. "Don't worry," she whispered. "I'm staying with you, no matter what."

The stomach squeezed again, and they were pushed up into a tight tube. And then Amber understood.

The light was blinding. Amber felt the movement of a tongue, the scrape of teeth, and then the cold air hit her wet fur. She and Luna were deposited gently onto something soft. Grass, she remembered. This was called grass.

"Are you two okay?"

Amber blinked as her eyes readjusted to the light. Large black blurs gradually gained more definition, and she found herself looking up into the eyes of the wolf.

The wolf was just as Amber remembered her. Even leaning over, she towered over Amber -- if they had both been standing up straight, Amber would barely have reached the other female's thigh. Her bright yellow eyes glittered in the sun, contrasting the color of her dark fur.

"What's going on?" Luna said.

The wolf smile and indicated the ground with her head. "This."

Amber followed her eyes down to see that the wolf was standing on another person -- a female lioness, perhaps about the same size as the wolf. She was lying face down in the grass, and the wolf had one foot planted in the small of her back, holding her in place. The lioness wore a pair of jeans -- she had been wearing a t-shirt as well, but it looked as though the shirt had been removed and used to bind her arms behind her back. The lioness was growling and spouting obscenities, but each time she did so, the wolf pressed down with her foot and pushed the air from her lungs.

"This little kitty thought I would be easy prey," the wolf explained. "She thought I was pregnant, you see -- I've got you two to thank for that. Now I'm going to give her a demonstration of how wrong she was. I just had to get you two out of the way first."

The wolf grinned, then turned her attention to the lioness. She removed her foot from her back and picked the lioness up by the scruff of her neck. The feline didn't look happy about that, but then the wolf opened her mouth wide and shoved the lioness' head into her mouth. Soon, the predator was wiggling her way down the wolf's gullet.

While Amber and Luna watched, the doe couldn't help but wonder what was going to happen to them. It was cold out here -- too cold. She shivered, and then jumped when Luna wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. Still shaking, Amber leaned into her friend, taking comfort in the feel of her fur.

The wolf took her time with the lioness, swallowing her down teasingly slow. It differed immensely from what Amber could remember of her own experience of being eaten -- the wolf had taken her quickly and gently. It had felt like being wrapped up in a warm blanket. The wolf clearly didn't want to give the lioness the same treatment. The feline kicked and fought, her paws gouging large chunks out of the grass as the wolf prodded and licked and bit her body on the way down. When she reached the lioness' waist, she slid off her jeans, an act that Amber felt came from a desire to embarrass and annoy her prey as much as it came from an aversion to eating denim.

The lioness' legs slid down the wolf's throat, and then her feet disappeared into her muzzle. Her teeth came together with an audible click, and she ran a thick tongue slowly across her lips. She rested on the grass, her stomach almost as large as she was; the furry mass writhed and squirmed as the lioness struggled within, seeking an escape. Amber knew that she would not find one.

Amber swallowed. "Is... is she going to be...?"

"Yes," the wolf answered. "She'll be digested."

"But..." Amber took a deep breath, trying to reconcile this merciless predator with the one whose stomach had held her so recently. "But we didn't..."

The wolf's face softened, and Amber felt her heart skip a beat. Here was the face she recognized from when she had been eaten. "That's because you two weren't food. You were... pets."

Amber felt her ears droop. Were?

The lioness gave a particularly strong kick, and the wolf let out a small moan. "Mmm... if you two wouldn't mind, I'd like a bit of time alone. Perhaps you could come back in about an hour? Here." She fished around in the pockets of the wolf's jeans until she found a slim wallet. She pulled out a few bills and handed them to Luna. "There's a coffee shop just across the street from this park. Go relax for a few minutes."

---

Amber sat at the outdoor table, nursing her cup of hot chocolate. She ignored the occasional look that passers-by gave her and Luna. She could understand it, of course -- the two of them were still naked, and their fur remained wet and matted as a result of being inside the wolf's stomach.

"Are you okay?" Luna asked.

Amber shook her head. "N-no. It's too... big out here. It's bright and open and cold."

Luna nodded, taking a sip from her own cup. "Yeah. It's definitely a shock."

"How are you holding up so well? I feel like I'm going to have a full-on freak-out any moment!"

"Hey." Luna reached across the table and rested a hand on Amber's wrist. "Remember what I said? I'm gonna stay with you, no matter what happens to us."

Amber took a deep breath. "What do you think is going to happen to us? Do you think that wolf is just... done with us now?"

Luna looked thoughtful. "No, I don't think so. If she was, she wouldn't have told us to come back."

"I just... I can't s-stand the thought of n-not..."

Luna squeezed Amber's wrist, and Amber took another deep breath. She changed the subject. "I wonder how long we were in there."

"Hm. I don't know." Luna glanced around. At the table next to them, a male rabbit was just standing up to leave. He had left his newspaper behind. Without releasing her grip on Amber, Luna leaned over and picked up the newspaper, setting it in front of her.

She stared at the front page.

"What?" Amber asked, curious. "How long as it been? A few weeks?"

Luna continued to stare at the paper, her eyes wide.

"Luna?" Amber was getting nervous now. "More than a few weeks? Has it been months?"

Luna slowly looked up to meet Amber's gaze. Now the moth was the one shaking. "Twenty years."

"What!?" Amber grabbed the paper, partially crumpling its pages.

Luna was right. The date was just a little over twenty years from the time that Amber remembered.

"It... it can't be!"

"No," Luna said, shaking her head. Her voice had grown steady again. "I think it is. I've suspected since we came out that we were in there longer than it seemed -- I wasn't expecting this much longer, though."

Amber nodded, still staring at the date on the paper.

"Come on," Luna said. "It's been about an hour. Let's go back."

---

The wolf lay on the grass, caressing her stomach. She smiled when she saw Amber and Luna approaching. The lioness continued to struggle inside, though the writhing had died down quite a bit.

"You came back," she said. She sounded a little surprised.

"Yes," Luna responded. "Now, would you mind telling us what's going on?"

"I thought I said. I had to let you out to make room for..."

Luna shook her head. "No you didn't. You've eaten others while we were inside you. I don't know how exactly, but you have. They never joined us in your stomach, but they were in there just the same."

The wolf raised an eyebrow, giving Luna an appraising look. "You could feel that, huh? I guess I hadn't realized you were that sensitive to magic. Okay, so maybe I can create 'pockets' of a sort to keep my pets safe while I eat."

"Then why let us out this time?"

The wolf just smiled. "You're the smart one," she said. "You tell me."

Luna folded her arms, her expression growing pensive. "I think... I think you wanted to let us run away."

The smile grew wider. "Ding ding ding! Congratulations, you got it!"

Amber's heart sunk. "You... you wanted us to run away? You don't... don't want us anymore?" The small doe started shaking again.

The wolf's expression grew concerned, and she moved from her reclining position to sit cross-legged on the grass, her large belly resting in her lap. "No, that's not it at all. I didn't want you to run away. I wanted to give you a chance to."

Amber's brow furrowed. "But..."

"When I took you before, I asked for your permission," the wolf said. "And you gave it. I never take pets like you without asking. But I've found that most pets get tired after a time. So I usually give them a little while to see what it's like being inside me, and then I give them a chance to escape."

Luna let a short laugh escape her throat. "You think twenty years is a 'little while?'"

"Sorry. It's hard to think of time the same way mortals do. Anyway, almost always, they take it. I never see them again. That's fine with me -- then they can be happy, and I'll find new pets. But not you two. You two came back. Which means you now have a choice." The wolf leaned forward, her eyes focusing hard on the two of them. "You can still leave now. No hard feelings. You can just go, and you'll probably never see me again. Or..."

Amber's heart pounded against the inside of her chest. Could she be saying...?

"Or you can stay with me. You can agree to keep being my pets, and I'll swallow you up again."

Amber's breath caught in her throat. "You... you'll really...?"

"Now, understand," the wolf continued, "this is your final decision. If you decide to stay with me, that's it: you're my pets. Even if I let you out, I won't be giving you another chance to escape or making this offer again. And there's a decent possibility that I'll never let you out again. You'll be mine. Forever. I want to be sure you know what you're agreeing to."

Amber thought about the implications. She and Luna clearly hadn't aged during the last twenty years, and there was no reason to assume that wouldn't still hold true. She got the vibe that the wolf was going to be living a long time -- that when she said "forever," she meant it. Forever, back inside the wolf's warm stomach.

She thought about the outside world -- harsh, bright, and cold. The world that never seemed to have had a place for her. The world that had only ever seemed to care about what it could get out of her.

It wasn't really a choice.

"I'll stay," Amber said. "I'll stay with you."

The wolf smiled wide. "And you, little moth?"

"Of course I'll stay, too."

Amber let out a long breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. Her decision had already been made, of course, but the thought of possibly spending that eternity without Luna had been harrowing.

"Hey," Luna said, apparently seeing the relief in Amber's face. "I told you. I'm sticking with you."

"Wonderful," the wolf said, licking her lips. "Then it's time for me to send you home."

---

Amber curled up against the soft flesh of the stomach. She never thought she could have missed something so much.

She cuddled up to Luna, their arms intertwining as they held each other close. They didn't say anything -- they didn't need to. They just lay together and listened to the nearby heartbeat.

Warm. Dark. Soft.

Safe.