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Sunrise

By Strega

He was a man of many names, this wizard. By birth he was Ruhollah Rushiadah, a child of

Ket in the west, where the nomads built their cities to trade with the fair-skinned easterners.

His name being a mouthful for those not used to it, he went by "Alias" during his adventuring

career. A simple, obvious nickname, but it worked.

When the Arch-Mage Alias came to the Lortmil mountains in the fullness of his powers and bent his

knee to Lord Gray, ruler of Greyston and its surroundings, he was proclaimed the Duke of the

South Court, His Grace Lord Alias, Ruhollah Rushiadah.

But mainly he was called the Maker, after his habit of making...well, people. First he had made the

little Praka raccoon-folk, clever of mind and hand but unable to speak human tongues due to

the structure of their muzzle and vocal chords. With that experiment a success he'd finally, after

years of planning, turned his fox familiar into a fox-man, and made others to keep Chula the

fox company. Thus was born the Volpa race, tall and handsome and keen of wit.

But then he'd turned his mind to warriors, and the Gul wolverine-folk could only be called a failure at

first. Violent, predatory and vicious, their entire first generation had died in battle when they

sank to raiding and plunder in their Maker's absence. He'd almost ended it there, but an

assistant convinced him that with some minor alterations - notably, a more social, less savage

nature - a gul race could be useful.

Now there were three growing races under his rule, and a substantial belt of mountain and foothills

largely at peace, with his furred races mixed among the dwarves, humans and other smooth-skinned

folk. For forty years he'd ruled, and most in the lands would have it no other way.

So it was that on this Starday the Arch-Mage Alias, Lord of the South Court His Grace Ruhollah

Rushiadah the Maker sat in the smaller of his two audience rooms, flanked by a towering gul warrior

in black armor on one side and his former familiar, Chula the foxman bard on the other. He drank

watered wine and ate candied figs brought to him by his favorite praka serving-maid as other

attendants bustled in and out, bringing those with grievances and the occasional prisoner to be judged.

It had been a deathly dull morning, replete with properly-line disputes and who-owned-which-sheep

sorts of complaints. As lord of the lands he saw it as his duty to adjudicate matters not quite solvable

by his underlings.

The only item of real interest so far lay tied up to one side of the room. A Volpa foxman exiled from

the Maker's lands for various crimes had dared to return, had been caught, and had been judged.

Bound and gagged, the fox peered nervously around the room, knowing exactly what was going to

happen to him when the meeting ended.

Convicted criminals were in great demand in the Maker's lands. When the last complaint of the day

was solved to the Maker's satisfaction, he would draw a chit from the lottery urn. It was just a

question of whose stomach the unfortunate fox would be in come sundown or so. It might be a

gul's, or a rare predatory volpa's, an especially hungry praka's, or even a visiting dragon or other

exotic creature. It didn't really matter as far as the fox was concerned. From the point of view of

the digestee one intestinal tract is much like another.

Something had just come to the Maker's attention that swept away the monotony of his day, though

. He leaned forward as one of his lieutenants ushered in a creature the likes of which he'd never seen.

She squeaked gently when she walked, and for a moment the Maker though he was looking at a nude

prakafemme in a close-fitting rubber suit. But no! He saw the wrinkles form at elbow and knee, the

seams along the sides, and even a bit of light that made its way right through the small-breasted torso.

This was not a praka in an odd costume. It was an ambulatory balloon, a cunning mockery of a

raccoon-lass from black nose and mask to ringed tail, delicately clawed hands and feet.

"Well, well," the Maker said with keenest interest. "What do we have here?"

"A strange creature," his lieutenant said. "Perhaps some sort of golem."

The little rubbery raccoon-lady glanced from the Maker to the lieutenant, plainly confused. Save for

a more elaborate yellow robe on the seated mage and the runic R - the rune for Magic - on the

simulacrum-lieutenant's forehead, they were alike from sandaled feet to tattooed scalp. Eventually

she decided, correctly, that the one with the gul and volpa attendants was the real thing.

"Lord Maker," she trilled in Common, and prostrated herself

before the man in the plain wooden chair.

That she could speak the common tongue was a surprise, such was her resemblance to a praka. As

far as he could tell she spoke by vibrating the material of her throat. Not so unlike a normal voice,

or more aptly a singer's.

That reminded the Maker that he'd heard of a praka bard who had learned to sing in human languages.

It had lately struck him that their inability to speak Common or Elvish or whatnot was causing the

already small and sometimes picked-upon coonies grief in lands other than his own. Perhaps he

should turn his attention to fixing that flaw.

That was a matter for another day, though. " 'Maker?' ", he said. "Am I your Maker, little one?"

"Yes, Lord," she trilled without rising from her bow. "I am of the prakafolk, before my transformation.

I am Sunrise of Willowby village, my sire is Arrow and my dam is Summer's-Blossom."

"You may rise, little one." She went as far as to sit up with her rubbery ringed tail sticking out behind

as the Maker made a small gesture. His praka serving-maid darted from the room to consult with the

record-keepers. Willowby was indeed a village in his lands, about ten leagues to the south.

Confident in the skill of the records-raccoons (and -foxes) he took a minute to look her over. The

detailing was remarkable. Her flexible hide had a fur-like grain to its surface, though it was very

smooth and shiny. Where one would expect cheekruffs, jagged but rounded contours protruded from

her cheeks. As fellow coonfolk chittered in prakaspeak behind her, one cup-shaped ear swiveled back

to take it in. Yet her body was clearly hollow, as he could see into her mouth when she spoke. This

was a magical creature. 'Golem' the simulacrum had called her, and that was a good a word as any.

His eye fell on the space between her legs, which was as accurately detailed as the rest of her. No

stranger to the ways in which a little prakafemme and a human man might please one another, he

wondered idly what it would be like to -

His serving-maid returned at that moment and chittered. She wore a charmed amulet that translated

prakaspeak into Common for the benefit of any visitors not able to understand. No one here was so

limited, as it happened.

"Lord Maker, Sunrise of Willowby is reported missing as of a week ago, along with a halfling boy,

Everard. When they did not return from a walk a thorough search was carried out, but the best

trackers in the village could not find a trail."

"Everard," the rubbery prakafemme trilled sadly. "He was my first love. I wish he could be here with

me."

The Maker stroked his clean-shaven chin thoughtfully. "Grievance-time is over," he said without

preamble. "Another session will be held next Starday at ten bells. Lord Vrassry," he he said to the

massive gul in black armor. "You are dismissed. Assign two gul to me as guards while I talk to

Sunrise."

"Yes, Lord," growled the black-furred wolverine. Harmless as the little rubber praka looked, they

had learned not to go by appearances. The Maker was powerful in his own right, especially here in

his own keep, but it couldn't hurt to have some muscle available.

Vrassry glanced at the bound foxman, then back at the Maker, who shook his head. The lottery would

have to wait.

Soon enough it was just the Maker, one almost-Maker simulacrum, his serving-maid Softpaw, Chula

the fox, and two stolid gul whose eyes rarely left Sunrise the rubber-coon. And of course the eyes

peering through a hidden spyhole or two, for orders or not, Vrassry would not leave the Lord Maker

with so few guards. No one paid mind to the tied-up fox in the corner.

"You may rise," he repeated gently to the little rubbery praka. This time she rose, standing with hands

clasped nervously.

"Softpaw," he said to his little serving-maid, and she padded over to look at Sunrise. In a dark room it

would he hard to tell them apart had Softpaw shucked out of her dress and sandals, but here in the

light there was no confusing fur and smooth-skinned sheen. Each was perhaps an inch short of four

feet and of similar build, though the hollow coonie must be much lighter.

Softpaw was more than the simple attendant she seemed, and the Maker knew she was using her magic

to examine Sunrise. He was as well, though his was a different flavor of magic. She also sniffed and

felt at the smooth, slick material of Sunrise's skin, going over her from head to toe.

Almost head to toe, the Maker thought, and kept his thoughts clean.

Even after examining her he was puzzled. She seemed both alive and not-alive, and magical, but not

as magical as he'd expected. Softpaw caught his eye and tilted an ear. She too had no idea what they

had here.

"Sunrise, my distant daughter," he began. "You are of my people, and I would know who did this to

you."

"It was evening," she trilled, and the note of sadness was back in her voice. "Everard and I went for

a walk, to be away from my sisters...."

*****

"A walk," she chittered, and the curly-haired halfling boy smiled. Curly of head-hair and foot-hair, it

must be said, for shoes were a foreign concept to halflings. And curly-haired somewhere else too, she

thought with a hidden smile. Though she had fur and he had smooth skin, they were more than friends.

"I'll make a picnic basket," he replied. She'd played with him as long as could remember, the boy from

the house next door. Like many another riverside town, there were roughly the same number of

halfling and praka families, and the joke went that if the two races could interbreed there'd be an awful

lot of ringtailed halflings out there. Needless to say, praka and halflings got along quite well.

When she reached a certain age and began to entertain thoughts about boys, her mother noticed and

took her aside for a talk. It was short and to the point, for their house was not large and Arrow and

Summers-Blossom were not always able to get the children to sleep or otherwise arrange privacy

when the mood struck them. Not to mention the other local couples whose activities hadn't escaped

the notice of inquisitive young praka. Sunrise already knew most of the gory details.

"Remember, dear, that as handsome as the boy-praka may be, with them you must be careful. If you

lie with one at the wrong time of year, well," and her mother just nodded to the house, where Sunrise's

younger siblings were engaged in a spirited fight over a favorite cloak.

"Don't worry, mother. I know what to do." And with a mutual smile the conversation was over. Her

mother knew she was sweet on a halfling boy, and that solved the problem right there.

And so the next day Sunrise invited Everard on a picnic, just the two of them, and one thing led to

another (with Sunrise largely leading the way) and they established, once again, that praka and

halfling were indeed compatible "that way."

*****

"Mm, yes," mused the Maker, who had made quite sure when creating his people that they were unable

to reproduce with other species. His worry at the time was that a dozen or so generations down the

road he'd have brownish-greyish-orangish ringtailed racoxverines instead of distinct species. Instead

what he had engineered was a recipe for a whole lot of offspring-free interspecies humping. Well,

except for some of the gul, who tried to keep their fucking in-species for their own reasons.

Halflings and praka had been a surprise, but they both lived in similar areas, were both friendly folk,

and it turned out, both quickly figured out that a lover of the opposite species meant no unexpected

children. Later in life, usually, they would marry into the proper species, but it was not unheard-of for

a mixed-species couple to stay together for life, sometimes adopting children of either species.

So Sunrise had a halfling lover, and something bad had happened to him at the time she was

transformed. He sipped his wine and waited for things to get interesting. He didn't have long to wait.

*****

There were several places they liked to go a-picnicking, places far from the village, where privacy was

to be had. The hard part of it was sneaking away from Sunrise's curious younger sister, who could

cause no end of awkwardness if she followed and happened upon them at the wrong moment. This

time they escaped with little effort, since Bowtail was mooning over her own favored halfling boy.

(Pretty soon Summers-Blossom would have The Talk with her, too.)

They'd barely spread the picnic cloth and begun to unpack their lunch - interrupted as usual by much

giggling and wandering of hands - when Everard spied something odd at the brookside.

"What is that?" The clever little halfling said, and snatched up a stick. In a moment he was poking at

something shiny washed up on the shore of the little crick. He wasn't foolish enough to touch it

without making sure it was safe. It was a mass of slick cloth, fox-orange in color, and maybe it was

safe - or maybe it was a blobby creature masquerading as cloth to get a meal.

"There's another one here," Sunrise chittered, for she had found a dark brown one a little ways away.

She followed his lead and poked it with a stick.

"Smooth", the boy said, "Not sticky." He was brave enough to touch it now, and began to unfold the

mysterious bundle. The brown one was bigger and heavier, but Sunrise managed to get part of it

unrolled as well.

"Oh!" Sunrise churred, for she'd unrolled a recognizable bit. It was a rubbery wolverine-mask,

accurate in color and with low-set ears.

"It's all one piece," Everard said, for he'd unfolded the whole thing by now. "It's a volpa!"

A volpafemme, clearly, for even flat and rubbery as it was the shape of the hips and the folds of what

would be breasts caught his eye. He stroked the thing wonderingly. There were seams, but no way to

open it - was it a costume? Did one get inside it with magic? He looked the orange and white and

almost-black thing over, still not finding an entrance.

"Mine's a gul," little Sunrise (though she was in fact three inches taller than he) said. A rather small

one, perhaps six feet long/tall, about the size of an almost-grown teenager. And male; she had found

the balls and the long ridge of mostly-buried sheath in the belly of the mock-gul. She found s

omething else, too.

"It's a balloon," she chirped, and held up the short thick rubbery tail. The bit at the end was clearly a

nozzle. Neither had seen such an elaborate balloon, or one of such thick material; from the feel of it

the things had a hide as thick as one's finger was wide. The bigger one weighed almost as much as

Sunrise did, and even the vixen weighed over twenty pounds.

Each fell to puffing on the nozzles, and though the volpafemme was a foot longer than Everard was

tall and the gul was half again little Sunrise's height, by dint of strong young lungs and much effort

they soon had the squeaky balloons half-filled. It was around then that Everard spoke up.

"They aren't balloons," he said, and hefted the surprisingly heavy and floppy vixen over (squeak!) so

Sunrise could see beneath the tail. There was a pucker there and a slit below that, both clearly leading

into the interior of the thing, though somehow they kept the air in. There was another, similar valve

past the soft rubber teeth of the thing's mouth.

"I know," chittered Sunrise, and pointed to where a smooth black shaft had begun to bulge from the

rubbery gul's sheath. It was rather larger already than a praka's, or a halfling's for that matter, and

more slid into view as she grabbed the sheath and pumped up and down. "They're toys! For sex!"

Teenagers will be teenagers, whatever the species, and they each grinned as they shucked off their

clothing. Sunrise giggled as she straddled the half-inflated gul, pulling the thick and half-inflated

black cock up against her belly. It was flexible enough in its current state that even a little praka sex

could accommodate it, and pretty soon a healthy young prakafemme was wrapped tight around the

top six inches or so of ersatz cock. A prakafemme in her later years, after bearing a child or two, could

sit in a gul's lap and like it. Sunrise wasn't so experienced and had to move carefully when stuffed

full of even half-swollen gul cock.

Everard had beaten her to the punch and simply bent the rubber vixen over. By the time Sunrise

managed to get the rubbery cocktip into her he was enthusiastically sodomizing the vixen.

"It's so smooth!" he cried, his fingers dug into the thing's hips. The vixen's half-inflated head bobbed

on the grass as he thrust. He'd never imagined to be in bed with a volpafemme - the handsome foxies

had their pick of lovers, and were far rarer than praka or halflings to boot - and here he was, about to

let go in the ass of the closest thing to a volpa he was likely to get.

Sunrise was proceeding rather more slowly, for smooth as the rubber cock was it was awkwardly

large and seemed to be getting larger still. It must be the pressure of my hips, she thought. I push

down against it and the air has to go somewhere. Nevertheless she was wet and full of fake gul and

not far behind Everard in the race for orgasm.

Then the halfling boy cried out, bucking his hips as he came, and everything went horribly wrong.

*****

She was flushed, the Maker saw. Unlike a normal praka, whose blush might be noticed only inside

her ears (and maybe not there), Sunrise the balloon-praka was slightly pinker all over than before.

Embarrassed? Probably. Aroused? Maybe.

"Everard finished, and I was close, and then it moved. The rubber gul moved, and then it had me by

the hips..."

*****

It all happened so suddenly. Everard crying out as he spilled his seed inside the vixen, and the rubbery

orange thing was wrapped around him before he finished. Bright yellow eyes looked evilly out of the

inflated face and a narrow muzzle grinned as it nibbled on his neck.

"Good," it said as it gripped him. "Finish in me. Halflings are so tasty when they come."

Sunrise had her own problems. The rubber gul, near full inflation (had it kept inflating on its own?)

grabbed her hips and rolled her onto all fours, following her over until he had mounted her like a

rutting beast. Suddenly he was doing to her what Everard had done to the vixen, albeit in a different

hole, and she yelped as a randy and altogether too large gul bent her over. Before his shaft had

compressed and fit into her easily enough, but now it was swollen hard - albeit with air rather than

blood - and twice as thick. She really was stretched tight, painfully tight, and only her wetness and

the slick smoothness of his rubbery cock let it slide in and out as easily as it did.

Pinned under the rubbery gul - much lighter than a real one, but just as strong - she could only

whimper and protest. It thrust with one rubber-skin-vibrating growl after another, pinning her to the

grass when she tried to wriggle free. The only mercy was that it didn't last long. He only humped for

an agonizing minute before letting out a long deep-throated snarl. Far up inside her abused sex she

felt the hot seed spurt and spurt again.

"That was quick," the vixen said with a grin. Everard struggled is her grip, but she held him as tight as

a constricting serpent. One of her half-inflated arms squeaked as it rubbed against her breast, with the

halfling's face trapped between them.

"Ha," rumbled the rubber gul, sitting up with Sunrise clasped between his hands - and still painfully

impaled. At least his swollen rubber cock was losing some of its tumescence. "If you were in the

mood more often I wouldn't get so pent up."

"It's not as the same as a real one," mused the vixen, while Sunrise very definitely felt the similarities.

She'd never seen an aroused male gul, but she'd seen sex toys fashioned to look like their endowment.

Now a cock too much like a real gul's left her, leaving behind a thick wetness.

"You are a pretty little thing," the gul-balloon said, and sucked in a mouthful of air. He was fully

inflated now, and sure enough he looked much like a late-teens gul. Handsome, even, in a muscular

way, were he not so shiny and so cruel.

"Don't get too fond of dinner, dear," the vixen said, and Sunrise looked on in horror as she worked her

elastic jaws over Everard's face.

"Sunrise!" He cried and reached for her, but the remorseless rubber vixen held him tight. His next cry

was muffled by the elastic valve that separated her outside from her inside. Already his face bulged

through the smooth slick skin of her neck, and Sunrise guessed the rubbery monster would have no

trouble devouring her lover.

She wasn't doing it for entertainment; there was a look of real hunger on her face as she worked her

muzzle over the poor boy's shoulders. Elastic or not, Everard was on his way into a stomach.

She had seen people swallowed whole. There was a praka down the road from her - a "gulper", who

the Maker had changed to be able to eat prey whole - whose job included disposing of vicious dogs

and lawbreakers. Last year a truly evil gnome had come through town, robbing houses and knifing old

Mrs. Clatterkettle in her sleep. The whole village had turned out to watch the tied-up gnome

disappear into Notch-Ear's muzzle. A last still-angry curse had come from the gulper's fat belly as he

belched, and that had been it for the burglar. Disposing of really nasty criminals this way was the

Maker's will; they were less likely to show up again later if there was no body to Raise.

The next day she'd waved to Notch as he worked in his yard, the half digested gnome a much smaller

bulge after an evening in a raccoon belly. She knew what would happen to Everard once the vixen

finished her meal.

"Sorry about this, little lady, but we do have to eat." said the gul, and pushed his broad muzzle down

over Sunrise's ears. As the valve at the back of his mouth expanded over the crown of her head she

found herself entering the smooth, slick throat of the balloon wolverine. There was no saliva, no

slime, no stink of acid, just an effortless progression of harmless rubbery teeth as they slid down her

neck and up over her shoulders. The mock-gul would mass five times her weight if he were flesh,

and he swallowed her head with a creak of his jaws even a non-gulper Gul could have managed.

"Wait," she heard in the elastic vixen's thrumming voice. Even with Everard half swallowed she could

talk. "Not yet, Shural dear."

There was a reluctant pause, then the soft fangs slid back off her shoulders as the gul jaws disgorged

them as easily as they had engulfed. Instead he held her in his lap, the long ridge of his sheath a

stiffness against her back, and made her watch.

Everard was struggling with all his might, and he was strong for a halfling boy, but it was a hopeless

effort. The half-inflated vixen was wrapped around him like a snake, and each time she let her

rubbery grip slide an inch further down his chest her jaws were there to take it in. He was in her to

the waist, his shoulders bulging oddly out through her thin smooth skin. For a moment a perfect

impression of his face appeared between her breasts.

She didn't eat him with abrupt forward thrusts of her muzzle and the help of her hands, as Notch-Ear

had disposed of the gnome. Instead her maw crept forward, simply sliding over as much of the

halfling as was available. The stretchy vixen swallowed Everard with no effort at all.

When there was nothing left but his naked calves as feet she lifted her nose and devoured the last with

one long forward stretch. The blond curly hair on his toes disappeared as the narrow jaws closed,

and he bulge of his kicking feet moved down through her neck as the vixen sat up. Everard was now

just a heavy, struggling lump beneath her breasts, half as big as her whole body.

"Mmm, halflings," the vixen said, and let out a throat-thrumming belch. "Delicious no matter what

hole they go in."

"But why?" Sunrise chittered as she stared at the shape moving in her middle. The smooth shiny skin

stretched over Everard as he moved, showing every contour and detail perfectly. Was he -- yes, there

was something wrong about him already. Even through the finger-thickness of her hide the shape

of his ear and cheek was subtly wrong, more rounded. The strange rubber creature was digesting her

lover with fearsome speed. That answered her question before the vixen opened her muzzle to speak.

"Because I was hungry," the vixen said, and stroked the softening shape in her belly.

The weakening struggle beneath that tough rubber skin was the last thing Sunrise saw as soft mock-gul

teeth slid one more down over her face. The smooth, smooth throat expanded over her like a soft linen

sock, painlessly engulfing each inch of her that passed through the valve. Pressed against the strong

rubbery skin from the inside she shrieked, and heard Everard's muffled and weirdly gurgly reply. She

was on her way to the same fate as her softening love.

The inflated gul didn't have to work himself over her like a snake the way the vixen had fed. He held

her tight until his jaws had taken her in to the hips, then he just lifted his muzzle and began to

swallow. One upward toss of his head and her rump was between his teeth, and a simple upward tilt

of his muzzle sent her sliding into the slick smooth gullet. There was nothing to grab that wasn't

slippery as oiled skin, and with a cry of despair she disappeared down the mock-gul's throat. He

would be five times her mass if he were flesh, and a meal this size was no challenge at all for a gulper

gul, much less a smoothly stretchy one.

Soft fangs scraped over her feet as the last of her disappeared from cool evening air into the elastic

confines of mock-gul stomach. Faint light made its way through the stretched bellyskin; the inside of

the horrible balloon creature was a flesh-pink and as smooth and slick as the outside.

Hopelessly she began to struggle, for though she possessed sharp little claws and a strong bite she

was sure she wasn't the best armed creature to end up in this stomach. Her claws proved useless, sure

enough, just digging grooves in the finger-thick rubber that sprang right back into shape. Even when

she got a fold of the material between her fangs and bit down hard, he didn't react. The material was

too strong for her strength to damage. The dimples her fangs made slowly filled back in when she let

go.

As she kicked and wriggled she felt the change begin. After seeing Everard visibly soften in just

moments she wasn't surprised when she felt her whiskers begin to melt. The walls of the rubber

stomach were sweating beads of thick liquid now, liquid that clung to her fur and flesh. In the dim

light she saw mock-gul semen on her thighs meet the liquid and instantly turn into more of it. Her

fur was following suit, though not so quickly. Even exposed flesh such as her nose and pawpads had

a strange slippery feel to it now. Bit by bit her ears were melting, and her whiskers and much of her

tailfur were long since gone.

It was strange, and painless, but it was still digestion. The strange rubber creature was absorbing her

as the vixen absorbed Everard.

Desperately she pushed at the walls. The sphincter through which she entered was puckered shut

and she couldn't find the lower one, if any. Surrounded by boneless rubber the only difference she

could feel, the only possible point of vulnerability, was the long ridge of sheath. She felt it from

the inside now, and the rubber cock was between the stomach wall and outer hide, but she pressed her

softening hands against it and did her best to crush it.

It didn't work. Worse, he enjoyed it. The harder she tried to grip his shaft the stiffer it swelled beneath

her palms. She could feel, even from in here, the sheath pull back as he went fully erect.

And she felt, and heard, the squeak as he pulled the rubber vixen close and rolled her over onto all

fours. In the painless misery of slow dissolution and gradual loss of consciousness she felt the

mock-gul start to thrust. For a moment she worried where that shaft was going, since the vixen was

full of halfling, but she had her own problems.

He's lasting a lot longer this time, was the last thought of the bellyful of liquid latex that used to be

Sunrise.

*****

"It should have been the end," the shiny mock-praka muttered. "I lost consciousness, digested into

rubber, or whatever this is." She slapped one forearm with the other hand. "I was just food. But they

weren't done with me."

***

**

Sunrise's eye's eyes snapped open, and she sat bolt upright as she woke from her nightmare. What an

awful dream!

There was the picnic cloth, the basket, the wrapped bundles of food, the bottle of wine Everard had

snuck out of his father's house. She must have fallen asleep at the picnic! Well, it had been a tiring

day of helping her father fletch crossbow bolts. The smell of the glue always gave her a headache.

But she had a horrible feeling that something was wrong. The sandwiches and pie were still wrapped

in linen, the hard boiled eggs still in the wicker bowl. Hungry Everard wouldn't have left them alone

even with her asleep. He was a halfling, after all, and thought he was stinting himself if he had only

four meals a day.

The nightmare, which by all rights should be fading from her memory, was as vivid as ever. And when

she'd sat up, she'd heard a squeak.

She knew what she'd see when she looked at her hands. She was right. Soft rubber claws, smooth

slick skin, seams along the side of each finger. Molded-in pawpads and a jagged division between

wrist and forearm where the darker fur started. Above that her forearms where thicker, mimicking

the fluffy fur that should taper down to her delicate, strong hands. All over it was the same: bulbous,

balloony ringed tail, , hips that held their shape from inner air pressure, smooth slick cup-shaped ears

she felt with somehow still sensitive rubber-praka fingers.

She was a balloon now, too. Thinner of material than the other two, translucent in the moonlight, and

hungry. Very, very hungry.

Without thinking she pulled the cloth off the basket of eggs and began popping them into her mouth.

Somehow the delicious sandwiches did not appeal to her at all, but rather the eggs were what she

needed. She didn't even crack the shells; each was swallowed with a quick toss of her muzzle,

becoming hard little lumps that made their way easily down her throat. She knew, somehow, that it

was safe to eat them that way. She needed something in her stomach and just as the other balloons had

digested flesh and bone of her and -

"Everard?" she cried, dropping the empty basket. "Everard, are you here?" She spoke in Common,

thrumming her rubber throat around syllables her muzzle couldn't have managed when flesh. It was a

tiny wonderment in a horrible evening. "Everard, where are you?"

"Gone," came a familiar and frightening voice. "My mate was hungrier than I." From behind a bush

rose the faux-gul, his shiny pelt-skin squeaking as his arm brushed his side.

"We do not eat to be cruel," came a higher voice, and the balloon volpafemme appeared from behind

a tree. "If we could lure in animals the way we do people, we wouldn't have to eat halflings and praka

and khardaki and humans." Her rubber pelt was visibly thicker, its seams and wrinkles more bulky.

Everard had been absorbed.

"Masquerading as toys is how we get our food," the mock-gul rumbled. "I am Shural, and this is my

mate Shalira. Each of us was transformed as you were, me by a balloon vixen I found whilst on a

test-hunt, Shalira by me. And now I have made you. Instead of absorbing you I blew out a bubble

in your shape, keeping your essence in the latex, and here you are."

"We need to eat," the vixen said. "Not often, but when we do, it has to be meat." Or eggs, she did not

say, but Sunrise realized the slight weight of a basket of eggs was gone from her middle. Already they

were converted into latex and absorbed into her body. Her rubber pelt was micrometrically thicker

now, but she was still very hungry.

It was all too much for Sunrise. "But he was my friend," was all she said. "I loved him."

"I was too hungry to spare your lover," the vixen churred. "I am sorry."

"You must be starved," Shural said. "Thin-skinned and new. You need more to eat than a few eggs."

"Yes," Sunrise said. Her hide was so much thinner than the mock-gul's that she sagged slightly

where she stood. The vixen's pelt was even thicker since absorbing an entire halfling.

There was the faintest rustle in the undergrowth, and three sets of rubber ears swiveled to take it in.

Without a word, and silently, the two larger balloon folk collapsed where they stood. It was not

difficult, it seemed, to go from inflated to deflated in moments. With the prospect of food and a

gnawing hunger, Sunrise reasoned out how to do it. She allowed air to escape from her mouth,

anus and sex in one long almost-inaudible hiss, collapsing into a pile of rubber folds.

It was a raccoon. Not a prakafolk, but an actual raccoon. A not too distant relation, since the praka

were only fifty years removed from their four-legged kin. From her pile of rubber, deflated head

carefully left on top so she could see and hear, and watched it peer at the other two deflated masses.

It was only a few feet from Shural, but the faux-gul did not twitch. He was not the hungry one.

It was after the food, of course. After sniffing around the fringes of the little clearing it headed boldly

for the sandwiches. That boldness was the end of it.

It had to pass quite close to Sunrise to reach the picnic cloth and food, and her hunger was such that

she did not hesitate. She restrained herself, barely, until it was close enough to grab, and then with a

sudden hiss of indrawn air she stiffened her rubbery arms and was upon it like a serpent. To its

credit the startled raccoon clawed and bit her as she wrapped around it, and even did some damage.

Her hide was not half as thick and tough as Shural's or Shalira's, and it hurt when sharp fangs sank in.

She was too hungry to care. The moment she had a firm grip on the ringtail she lunged forward and

wrapped her flexible jaws around its rump. Bit by bit, so driven by hunger she did not care about

the beast's chitters of fear or its claws and teeth, she devoured it.

It sank into her smooth slick gullet tailfirst, hissing and thrashing. Instinctively she knew how to feed,

and pulsations in the walls of her rubbery flexible esophagus drew it in despite its efforts to escape.

There was a last chilling shriek as it clawed at her cheeks from the inside, muffled to a fraction of its

volume as her jaws closed. Ravenous, she swallowed, and the great lump of thrashing furry meat

slid down into her torso.

She was one big stomach now, she realized. There was a throat, and presumably its lower equivalents,

but her whole torso was potentially an elastic receptacle for food. There was enough room for the

raccoon, which must be a third her original weight, to snarl and chitter and claw at her insides.

It hurt her, but already the bite marks in her outer hide were knitting shut. Her hide had its own inner

and outer skin, and between them a liquid rubber that moved around as needed. This sealed wounds

and was a store of nutrition at need: Shalira and Shural were thicker, stronger and sturdier than she

because this layer was more substantial.

She'd had a pet raccoon when she was just a cub. It'd never have occurred to her to hurt it, or even a

feral 'coon, unless it was a troublemaker. Any other time she'd just have shooed the raccoon away.

She'd never been as hungry as she was now, though.

It never had a chance. Were she flesh and blood, it would have torn her belly apart. She was tougher

now, and as it struggled it was already dissolving into a puddle of liquid later. The inner struggle grew

weaker as it was consumed, until the last few scratches at her stomach were delivered by softening

paws reaching up out of a pool of rubber. Several minutes after she swallowed, fifteen pounds of

raccoon was now fifteen pounds of balloon food.

"That is what it is like," Shural rumbled. "To be so hungry. Sooner or later we must eat, and it is a

rare thing when we can catch an animal. We must use what we are to lure in people, and so people are

what we eat."

"Right now the raccoon is still alive, in a sense," Shalira churred. "You could blow it out as a bubble,

as Shural did with you, and it would be as we are - a rubber creature, albeit just an animal. But you

won't, will you?"

"No," Sunrise said. Even with a sloshing lump in her middle she was hungry. Slowly the bulge

shrank as the raccoon was absorbed. It took over an hour, during which little was said, and at the end

of it there was nothing at all left of the little ringtail. Instead her rubber skin was thicker, sleeker, tougher.

She was no longer hungry, and the raccoon was part of her now. She knew that there was only one

opportunity to blow a meal out as a new creature. She could no more revive it now than she could

restore a sandwich after digesting it.

"When we move, or heal ourselves, or talk, we use resources." Shalira churred. "I could lie in a pile

for a decade, but if I want to do anything else, I need to eat."

"If you eat too much, or too often," Shural rumbled in reply, "your skin can become so thick you are

little more than a statue. It can take months of what little movement you can manage before you

recover. One meal a month is enough if you are active, less if they are big meals."

"Shural, of course, can use up resources in a way we can't," said Shalira, and the faux-gul grinned

and showed her his unsheathed tip. "Whoever made the first of us, god or wizard, had a sense of

humor. Or maybe we were made to be toys."

"And it still feels good?" Sunrise asked. "We're made of rubber now, not flesh."

"Come and find out," Shural said, and she did.

Looking back on it, she would wonder how that horrible night led her to impale herself in a gul's

lap. Had she forgotten Everard so quickly? At the time, though, she was discovering that her mouth

was not her only stretchy hole. She took the same thick inflatable shaft that had caused her such

pain before in her sex and even beneath her tail, sensing that she could stretch much more at need.

Perhaps even devour prey through those holes, if she somehow overpowered it. And yes, it

felt very, very good.

When Shural, who'd spent himself earlier in both her and Shalira, finally growled out his passion, his

shaft was rammed in beneath her tail and his tip was past the second valve into her stomach. She felt

the thick wetness spurt against the walls, and she had already seen that it could be absorbed. Unlike

the rest of him, it was real, sticky seed, produced somehow in his rubber body and as digestible as any

other protein.

"I've wondered," he rumbled in the ebbing heat of passion, "If I could sire a cub in a strong gul-femme.

I may never know. One thing is sure, when I do this enough, I get hungry faster than Shalira does."

"When we first met, after I'd absorbed my first prey, I lived for months just on sex," Shalira said with

a grin. "Shural on the other hand had to eat several times."

It was a mistake to tell her that, one they soon regretted.

*****

"I was with them for a week," the rubber raccoon-woman said. "We were all fed, and we talked, and

I learned about them. Their kind," she paused, "Our kind is rare. Blowing prey back into a balloon

creature is something they hardly ever do, because they get their meals through secrecy. More of us

means more secrets to keep. In ten years and perhaps a hundred people absorbed, I was only the

third they remade. The other two were lion-people, from what they said."

"Khardaki," the Maker mused. "A wizardress made the first of them. She liked lions a bit too much,

and the lustiness of their four-legged ancestors carries on in the lion people."

One of the gul guards, who knew for himself the appeal of strong lion-women, hid a grin. Luckily that

was another union that could not produce cubs, however frequently and vigorously it was attempted.

"Eventually Shural was hungry, having spent himself many times in myself and the vixen, and

suggested a hunt. They were at least wise enough to not want to hunt near Willowby. They knew I

wouldn't like that. There was a human woodcutter's cottage in the hills, they said, and they'd watched

the family from a distance. Shural suggested that the wife was not happy with her husband and might

make a fine bulge in his middle if she happened to find a certain inflatable toy. No one suggested that

I eat the son, but even so I knew I had to leave."

The little balloon woman clasped her hands together, unable to meet the Maker's gaze. "They lay their

trap. I was the outer scout, because the ones waiting for prey had to remain still. The couple returned

from their woodcutting, and all the attention of my companions would be on them. Shural was very

hungry and Shalira greedy, so while they lay there salivating over their potential meals I snuck away.

I stole a cloak from a clothesline and came here straightaway, as fast as I could walk. You needed to

know about these, these predators in your lands."

"You did the right thing, little one," said the Maker. "I will have notices posted. Surprise is the

weapon of ambush predators like your former companions. Though I am certain they fled as soon as

they realized you were gone. It must be all too apparent to them that you would at once alert the

town guards, at the very least. They underestimated your loyalty to the people of the valley."

There was a pause, and then Sunrise spoke in a near whisper. She could not cry, as she was now, but

her fear and sadness came through in her voice. "What is to become of me now, lord?"

"That is a good question, little one. What would you have me do?"

"I have given this thought," said the balloon-praka. "We, creatures like myself, once we are well fed I

t does not take much food to maintain our health. I could act as a servant here, as other praka do,

and...even in this form I could have a lover, or lovers. Shalira lived on sex; I am smaller. Just a few

matings a day would give me all the food I need. Failing that, I can eat eggs, meat, anything that is

flesh or nearly so."

"You are a predator," the Maker said with an admirably straight face, for he was in a room with two

350-pound anthropomorphic wolverines. "Why should I expect you would not devour someone at the

first opportunity?"

"Lord, you surround yourself with predators. I would guess there are twenty people in this castle who

can, and would if they had the opportunity and the excuse, swallow a person whole. My companions,

the ones who made me, they may not have been monsters once. They are monsters now, because

they do not look for alternatives to eating people. I do not want to be a monster, just a person."

The Maker smiled. "Good answer. It is rather more than twenty, actually. Even the castle mascot,

the large raccoon you may have seen on the way in, can and has swallowed people. Eating people

does not necessarily make you a villain: it is when and why you do so that divides the good from the

bad."

"There is one more thing, though," the Maker continued. "I am a mage and a scholar with a specialty

in curious creatures, some of which I have created. Yet I have never heard of such a creature as

yourself. I owe the scholarly community a thorough research into such creatures. Learn their

strengths, their vulnerabilities, the nature of the magic that powers them. To be the subject of such

research will not be pleasant."

The little balloon prakafemme, who only in the last few moments had overcome her awe enough to

meet his gaze, lowered her eyes again.

"My lord," she murmured. "If it helps protect others from creatures like myself, then what I have left

of a life is a small sacrifice."

"Or course," the Maker mused, "The research subject does not necessarily have to be you."

In the corner, all but forgotten, the tied up volpa's eyes went wide. He saw where this was going and

didn't like it one bit.

Sunrise followed the Maker's glance and saw the fox. "Lord? Are you saying that I should -"

"This one is a criminal," the Maker said, and paused for a sip of wine. Lengthy conversations dried

out his throat. "Condemned. Had you not arrived, someone would have been chosen by lot and our

friend here would have spent the next day or so working his way through a set of innards. Whose

innards those might have been I cannot say; Gul, volpa, praka, and other creatures all have their names

in the bowl. Now, I understand you do not want to be a predator, but I expect you are hungry, and if

you eat and reform him, at least he will still be alive. He will serve a more useful role as a research

subject than as a hundred and fifty pounds of fertilizer, once someone else is done digesting him."

"My lord," the little raccoon-woman said. "I do not want it to seem that I am eager to eat someone.

But," and she smiled a little smile. "It was a long trip here, and I had to hide and move quickly.

Truthfully, I am very hungry, and if he is to be eaten anyway...."

"By all means, proceed," the Maker said, and every eye was on the rubbery little lady. Hesitantly she

approached the fox, who knew what was coming and began to squirm and kick.

She was genuinely reluctant. It was, after all, a volpa, and even a straggly weatherbeaten one like this

criminal was a handsome creature. They weren't like the cute little praka or rough muscular gul; they

were an elegant people.

She must be nearly starved, the Maker thought. He could see light through her thin rubber hide and

saw how she sagged slightly, not quite able to support her own weight. Her one meal of raccoon and

however much faux-gul semen she had absorbed had not been enough to see her through the long trek

to his castle. And here was a fox three times her original praka weight, an enormous meal even if

much of him was blown back out into a new bubble creature.

Presented with this huge meal and utterly ravenous, eventually her hunger overcame her reluctance.

One would not expect a starving man to leave a meal on the plate, whatever orders he was given, and

here she'd been assured she could eat what was on her plate. Delicate rubber hands dug into the

volpa's shoulderfur, and the fox let out a long whine as her elastic jaws engulfed his muzzle.

The Maker had on his staff a very few gulper volpa. Like most predators they preferred prey smaller

than themselves, but it was not unheard-of for one to swallow prey as large as a volpa. Such a meal

was a laborious process and absolutely required the fox be tied up or otherwise subdued. The size

difference was such that only helpless prey might be so eaten.

Sunrise's meal was not so difficult. Her stretchy jaws distended easily to take in the volpa's shoulders,

and there was a visible expansion in her torso as she sucked herself tight around her prey. By

clenching shut her two lower holes and expanding her body with whatever passed for muscular

action in a balloon creature, she created a negative pressure that helped pull the fox in. In less than

a minute the volpa was in her to the waist, his features bulging out through her thin rubber hide.

Contractions ran through her hide, like the swallowing muscles of a snake, as her maw worked its

way over the volpa's hips. The naked fox's sheath bulged out through the soft material beneath her

jaw, then made its way down her neck. Even through that hide his erection was visible. Terror could

do that, or perhaps it was just the soft smooth progress of slick rubber sliding over his shaft. It was a

last bit of pleasure for the doomed fox, whose semen would be digested outside of him as readily as

inside.

Folding a fox nearly two feet taller than herself into her stomach was an awkward process. A gulper

praka might do it by pushing the prey against a wall and walking forward on all fours. The elastic

little raccoon lady had a much easier time. With her almost endlessly expandable stomach she simply

let the struggling fox bulge out where he liked while she stretched her neck to twice its normal length.

When her muzzle was wrapped tight around his knees she pulled herself back into shape. With

nothing but slick smooth stomach wall to push against the volpa eventually tired, hard though he tried

to stay stiffly straight.

Once his legs bent, it was all but over. With a last forward stretch of her muzzle she took the

dark-furred paws into her mouth. Soft rubber fangs closed around his feet, and with a last great

contraction of the "muscles" beneath her neck she swallowed the volpa whole. She was left with a

squirming bulge bigger than herself that distended her torso-skin so thin the fox could be seen in her

belly.

If he weren't tied up and gagged, prey this size might tear its way out of her. An unarmed human

would be a helpless meal at this point, but a volpa has sharp fangs and claws. Tied up, though, there

was no escape. The Maker noted with morbid fascination that the fox's tail was visible through the

stretched skin of her neck, and a few hairs of the very tip stuck out beneath her chops.

She had fine muscular control over her rubber hide, and bit by bit she sucked herself tight around the

fox. Struggle though he would, he was soon forced into a ball in her gut. His shape stood out through

her pelt like a bas-relief sculpture. Even the texture of his furry pelt showed in her hide, so thinly

was she stretched. Eventually, her meal subdued, she gave the Maker a last questioning look. When

he nodded she let out a long high-pitched burp, sat up against the wall, and wrapped her hands around

the great lump of her belly.

So thin was her hide around her meal that they could see the fluid that began to fill the gaps in his

body. A sheen enveloped his still faintly struggling form as the liquid latex she'd told them about

began to consume him. The Maker had seen many creatures eaten, and several forms of digestion,

but this was a new one.

If what she said earlier was any guide, the process would take at least an hour, probably longer given

that the volpa was a much larger meal than the raccoon. And for the entire time the slowly dissolving

fox would be alive. It was a painless process, but it was still digestion. If she chose, the hungry little

balloon lady could simply absorb him. That'd probably make her hide almost inflexibly thick, so if

she didn't want to spend a month working off her meal, she had little choice but to blow him out as a

new balloon creature.

"Absolutely fascinating," murmured the Maker, who enjoyed watching people getting eaten a little

more than was proper. There was a reason he gave some of his followers the ability to swallow large

prey whole, and it wasn't entirely the practicality of disposing of enemies in a very permanent fashion.

Ever since the incident with the young red dragon those many year ago he'd had more than a clinical

interest in such matters.

Slowly the fox was being digested into liquid rubber. The other volpa in the room, Chula, idly

adjusted the strings on his lute, and absolutely no one commented on the fact that Softpaw's face was

now in the Maker's lap. Their lord had his eccentricities, after all.

"I think she'll make a fine addition to the staff," the Maker said a few minutes later, and rubbed his

handmaiden's ears. "Such loyalty, and such an interesting creature."

"Mm-hmm," said Softpaw, and swallowed.