Cabira returned home from the guild, having turned in her bounty for the day. It was a simple task, slaying those pestilent slimes... They were dangerous to farmers' crops and animals, but clobbering them with her mace once would disintegrate the invasive, mindless creatures. Maybe twice, for some of the big ones. After collecting their hearts and turning them in as proof of the deed, Cabira made it out of the guild with her reward, a small pouch jingling with coins. Though she was more interested in her plans for the night than the silver she'd gotten for the menial task, the smiling moth-dragon let her long and fluffy tail swish happily behind her wings while she walked to the inn.
She had been excited all day to sit back and relax, and finally smoke some cannabis she'd managed to snag from the usual traveling merchant. It'd been a long week of doing unimportant jobs such as culling monsters that attacked plowing fields, or hauling stuff around... Stuff that was beneath an adventurer of Cabira's caliber – and that maybe these farmers themselves could handle –, but still paid decently enough. Besides, it killed some time, before she and Terra could finally set off and continue with their real quest. Hopefully, it wouldn't take another whole season until that diary had been deciphered, and they could finally leave this town...
Cabira headed upstairs to her inn room, zoning out from the other guests remarking about the yellowish-beige moth-dragon hybrid's appearance as she passed them by, and entered her place. She headed straight to her quarters, closing another door to make sure that Terra would keep out as Cabira smoked. Setting down her pack and coin pouch, but still clad in armor, the moth-dragon immediately darted to the weed's super secret hiding spot, feeling for the jar taped to the underside of one of her wardrobe's drawers... But it wasn't there anymore. She felt over the whole area, and checked if it had fallen to the lower drawer, or behind the wardrobe. No luck.
The hybrid tossed all of her clothes out, and checked last month's hiding spot... And the previous one... Nope. Her cannabis had simply vanished. She could have assumed that it was misplaced, but Cabira knew her companion too well. She slammed her quarters' door open, and shouted across the inn room:
"TERRAAAAAAAA!"
It took a few moments until the slow, but unfaltering thumping of Terra's steps could be heard creaking on the old house's flooring. Cabira set down her weapon on a table, sat down on her bed, crossed her arms, and wore her most furious expression before a large boar appeared in her doorway. The moth-dragon had found Terra years ago when she was a much smaller cub, alone and missing its parents, and she pitied for the scared squeaker. She thought that it was simply a feral creature, but as the moth-dragon nurtured her, Terra soon showed to be completely sentient. As she reached maturity, her body also grew to an enormous size, and she was just wide enough to have to squeeze through most doors. At almost twice Cabira's size, and easily seven times as heavy, the large-tusked brown boar grew much larger than the tiny kitten-sized piglet she'd rescued.
However, when Cabira spoke to her companion, her tone showed dissatisfaction. "...Why do you have puppy eyes already? I didn't even say why I'm mad."
"S-Sorry." Terra replied in her deep, growly voice, looking away from Cabira's eyes. "But you only shout when it's something bad."
"If you don't want me to shout, then don't give me a reason to!" The moth-dragon uncrossed her arms to begin removing her armor, starting by the spaulders. "Now tell me: where did you take my weed?"
"Your...weed...?"
"Don't play dumb. I know you took it!" She tossed her shoulder pads aside, and move to the back of her breastplate. "I have no idea how you did it, with those hoofs and huge tusks of yours, without leaving even a shred of evidence... But I know you did it!"
Terra turned her face until the curved bone spires on both sides of her face touched the ground, looking down with a sad expression. "But I don't even have thumbs... How could I open your wardrobe?"
"That's what I just asked...! But I didn't even mention my wardrobe. How did you know I kept it there?"
The boar gulped, then hiccuped.
"Aha! So you admit it!" The yellowish moth-dragon pointed triumphantly at her companion, standing up to look larger than the called-out wild pig. Her loose cuisses on her legs fell to the ground when she got up.
"W-Well...I like weed too! I don't know why you were hiding it. I want to smoke it, too!"
"You do know why! You remember what happened last month when I let you have a puff of my joint. There's no way you forgot about that...'incident'." She signaled the air-quotes over her head.
"It's not my fault that I had a bad case of...uh, what did you call it? Munchies?"
"Easy for you to say," Cabira huffed, sitting back down to remove her sabatons. "As for me, I'd rather spend the night all clean, just me and my pot, thank you very much. Now, if you could give it back to me–"
"N-No...! Not unless you share it with me."
"Come on, quit hogging it...hog!" She sighed. "We don't even know if it's safe for a pig to smoke weed."
Terra looked back at her, offended. "Please don't call me that word."
"I'm just saying it in scientific terms! I'm– Look, I'm sorry, Terra, okay? I didn't mean to call you that. But I don't want you to get hurt. Or me!"
"I'd never hurt you." The boar shook her head as she approached her companion, then burped softly.
Cabira, now just in undergarments, placed her furry hand on Terra's mane. "You can say that now, but what if you lose control again like last month? When you swallowed my mace, it could have stabbed either of us! I almost freaked out!"
"I know! I remember. I'm – cough – sorry. This time, I promise that I won't eat anything I'm not supposed– cough, cough!"
"Um, are you okay, Terra? ...And where did you hide the weed, exactly?"
"Throat... – cough! – itchy...! Oarp!"
The large boar didn't reply, instead simply coughing in a fit with the occasional burps. The anthro's antennae flicked as she felt the alarming stench of smoke, though she couldn't see any dark puffs in the air... But it wasn't any random thing burning. She recognized that smell...
***
Hdýr's day simply wasn't going her way.
Being a tiny fire salamander was certainly to blame for most of her problems. She looked like a red snake with arms, who was capable of breathing fire...although at her size, they were more akin to sparks than town-razing fireballs. Not that she had any reason to wreak havoc on the defenseless villagers that she'd spy on throughout the day. Hdýr was more interested in learning the curious people's customs, even having picked up their language by watching them every day.
Though she lamented how the recent hordes of mindless foes have made things less peaceful around town, even for the slithery inhabitant who concealed herself from the rest of society. She'd lived all of her life to adulthood around this place, which was big enough that she had spent years finding new things, like the best houses to sneak into to steal food. To Hdýr, this village was the whole world – and she was affected by the monstrous slime raids as much as anyone else.
In fact, the salamander came very close to certain death late this afternoon in the outskirts, as a slime tracked her scent while she enjoyed the fresh air of the fields. It was one of the bigger monsters, tumbling towards her like a terrifying and translucent slug, faster than the salamander could slither through blades of grass. This life-threatening chase lasted for a few minutes...until Hdýr heard a thumping 'splat!' behind her.
And when she looked back, she saw her towering savior. A brown, furry quadruped, which the fire salamander recognized from her hidden excursions to town. An animal that walked and talked among people, though her brutish and strong appearance meant that Hdýr tried to steer clear from the hog's path. However, she did feel jealous that someone with Terra's unusual looks could fit into society.
Now, she was the salamander's savior, destroying her pursuer with a single step, reducing it to nothing but a small magical orb. Hdýr owed her life to her! She opened her arms towards the giant hog, and for the first time ever, spoke to a real person:
"Thank you for wessscuing me fwom that ssslime!" is what she tried to say, but Terra spoke before Hdýr had the chance.
"Ooh, a gummy worm!"
That bemused utterance of excitement sealed Hdýr's fate. In one fell swoop, she suddenly found herself scooped off the ground, and into the hog's jaws. Fortunately, she'd slipped past her dangerous-looking teeth; but less fortunately, this piece of candy was squished along the flat tongue, then squeezed as a suctioning 'slurp' launched her onto the center of the wide chamber. In mere moments, she was drenched in drool, bathed in bad breath, pushed against palate and papillae, and guided down a gullet. Barely a meal for the ravenous boar, who'd have to eat so much every day to maintain her weight, the spicy serpent was a speck sliding to the stomach, spilling into the empty chamber after Terra's voluminous lunch had been fully absorbed.
Just her luck...saved from one creature trying to devour her, only to find herself in another, in a twist of fate. Much as the salamander owed Terra her life for saving her, this was the last way she'd ever want to repay the hog! Though at her micro height, the pink walls didn't even bother to groan around this new piece of 'food'.
Her world rumbled only when the boar took heavy steps, and once more when her deep voice shouted. "Cabira, I've got another of those slime hearts for you!"
Great...Terra herself no longer seemed to care about her scarlet serpentine snack from seconds ago. There was little that Hdýr could do now, other than searing her savior's stomach, but she wasn't even sure that her flames would so much as tickle the warm walls. Plus, even if it felt like a matter of life or death, she didn't want to harm the brutish boar, strangely enough. Instead, the salamander resigned herself as fodder – or whatever a 'gummy worm' was –, hoping that she would find a way out in time. Despite every indication of the opposite, she somehow believed that Terra's gut wouldn't harm her.
As it turned out, that unfounded hope wasn't wrong.
A couple of hours had passed, with Terra's stomach jostling its occupant haphazardly, the organ's sway in her large belly quite formidable to a tiny snake. The smell of whatever mixture she'd had for lunch wasn't entirely awful, as Hdýr herself had grown accustomed to eating all sorts of scraps from people's food. Being launched against the walls on occasion wasn't even that big of an annoyance. The impacts wouldn't hurt her arms or coils as the fire salamander bounced over and over. And the stomach seemed to not care about – no, it appeared to intentionally avoid – digesting the tiny 'gummy worm'. Meaning that Hdýr would live to fight another day, although she hoped that her introduction to society wasn't destined to turn into a permanent stay in someone's stomach.
Things had gotten quiet for a while now, with Terra no longer chatting with the other female voice. She could still make out the loudest of Cabira's words, but her voice was no longer present. They must have gone separate ways – something about 'an inn', maybe? She did hear other muffled voices, such as a few people spooked at Terra's feral appearance – and others, who were familiar with the boar, assuaging their fright.
Soon, all voices died down. Only the sounds of the hog's body, including her mighty gait, could be heard. Most curiously, Hdýr could listen to her pulling air through her nostrils, tracking a particular smell with her sensitive nose. Then, more muffled rummaging...and finally, yet surprisingly, a powerful 'gulp!'.
The fire salamander recognized that something had been swallowed – how couldn't she? Though she expected another defenseless micro, or perhaps the first mouthful of dinner, what squeezed into the stomach was neither. She watched as a transparent, hard, round container splattered onto the cushiony ground, with a few brownish green balls safely housed inside. Hdýr slithered closer to the glass bottle, the first thing she'd seen in a while other than flesh and her tail. Was this...for her?
As she popped the cork out with both hands, her surroundings quaked with the boar's chuckle. "If Cabira wants to hide her weed from me, then I'll hide it from her," Terra thought out loud.
'Weed'...? Hdýr pondered, having heard that term a few times during her lifetime of eavesdropping. Though she quickly picked up that it meant something other than just any undesirable plant, depending on context. In fact, it was something quite fun to use, from what she'd gleaned. She wasn't sure exactly how, but she definitely knew that people didn't simply eat these... Except for this one boar, apparently.
As Terra moved everything back into place to make her heist as inconspicuous as possible, the forgotten anthro inside of her belly went about to take a closer look at Cabira's pot. Hdýr crawled partway into the glass, broke off a bit twice as big as her head with her hands, then slithered back out into the stomach. She was surprised at how light the bud felt in her arms...but now that she had some, she didn't know what to do with it.
"TERRAAAAAAAA!" Cabira's loud yell could even be heard through walls of wood and flesh, and the giant boar resignedly made her way back to the moth-dragon's quarters, realizing that her plan wasn't infallible as expected. Terra prepared herself for the earful she'd undeniably get.
And an earful she got. Soon, her own nervousness got the best of her, and she accidentally spilled the beans. Hdýr tried to keep up with the scolding, but the two would speak too fast in contrast with her basic understanding of the language. Still, it was amusing to hear the brutish boar get some payback, after what the consumed serpent had to endure. However, the first full sentence that she managed to make out from Terra's lips answered that nagging question that the salamander had.
"W-Well...I like weed too! I don't know why you were hiding it. I want to smoke it, too!"
Smoke weed, huh... Ah, that's why she didn't realize it at first! She'd always skitter away from people who used cannabis in their homes. At the first sign of smoke, thinking it was some type of airborne poison intended to kill pests, she'd rush back out. If only she'd known that it was a puff of delight, instead... But it meant that this green thing in her hands was meant to be burned in some way, though she couldn't remember much. Well, a fire salamander like her didn't mind creating some sparks, so without hesitation, she blew a small flame from her lips onto the bud.
Despite the damp atmosphere, the firm and dry chunk caught fire in no time, releasing a dense smoke as the bits of herb and oil were consumed. Hdýr couldn't get burned, so she casually held the clump on her steady hands, admiring the blazing ball gradually scrunch into itself and decrease in size as the embers spread inside out. The process accelerated, and soon, almost the entire thing had combusted.
As a result, a lot of smoke was produced, quickly filling up the stomach for a lack of ventilation. The salamander didn't mind the fumes, her species being able to withstand even the inferno of a volcano's bowel. But she could feel some lightheadedness due to the THC entering her bloodstream, getting baked and relaxing despite the hours of being treated poorly by this stomach. Hdýr even felt a bit euphoric herself...! Was this due to the excitement of her discovery alone, or another effect of 'smoking weed'?
The organ, however, didn't seem to agree with the concentrated smoke. The walls groaned at the hot and thick suspension in the air, and closed in to expel the hazardous gas through the esophagus. Even as the last of the cannabis in the serpent's hands had burned away, a single burp did little to alleviate the brunt of the discomfort. Every single belching expulsion shook the chamber around the scaly micro, stealing more room and vaporized dope, though she was already too blissful to care about the dissipating fog of the dank room. At least, the stomach left however much smoke it could comfortably handle inside for Hdýr to enjoy this organic smoking lounge.
Despite her body's efforts to get rid of ganja, not a lot of it actually left Terra's insides, and went down her airways instead...
***
Another sputter from Terra, and Cabira finally saw the smoke escape from her companion's lips. The smell was, unmistakably, of pot.
"What on Earth...?" The moth-dragon shouted. "Did you burn the weed and eat it?!"
The boar desperately shook her head in-between coughs. "N-No! I– Urp... I just swallowed the bottle, cork and all...!"
"Then how is it smoking? Come on, Terra, try to hurl it before you get hurt." She knelt in front of her friend's snout, trying to soothe her by stroking her fur.
"Ugh...so hungry..."
The large brown hog started salivating, feeling her appetite increase thanks to THC taking its effect. Some of the thick and clear liquid stained the anthro's insect-like paws.
"Eww... D-Don't tell me you've got the munchies again!"
Terra drooled so much to the point that her mouth frothed, like a rabid beast. "S-S-Sorry, Cabira, I need...eat..."
Her maw opened in front of Cabira's face, parting wide enough to fit the large curved tusks on the sides of her head twice over stacked. The muscles of her mouth unfurled and yawned in front of the adventurer, a pink horizontal slit gaping at the back while the large flat tongue slapped, splattering foamy spit everywhere in front of her. The moth-dragon only reacted to shield her eyes, but her nostrils were still overtaken by the boar's pungent breath. That odor of pigswill mixed with other slop – not to mention, pot – also wafted onto Cabira to coat her fluffy and scaly yellowish exoskeleton, but what the adventure feared most was getting even more acquainted with the mouth currently shuffling towards her.
"T-TERRA...! Don't you dare eat me again!" She shouted, but her hungry companion didn't so much as flinch.
"Need food...hee...just for...little bit."
"I can find you dinner, j-just wait until–"
When Terra's instincts overtook, it was hard for her to maintain good Manners. In a less-than-civilized swoop, her jaws gaped even wider, and snagged almost half of her friend into her mouth. She moaned in delight, letting her munchies get the best of her, unable to stop consuming her friend; instead focusing what little control she had left on making sure that Cabira wouldn't get hurt. She knew that the moth-dragon wasn't supposed to be food...but then, why did she taste so good, and why did the hybrid always fill her up unlike any other hearty meal? She may not have provided any nutritional value whatsoever, but Terra still wanted to gorge herself on her fosterer more than anything else in the world.
Maybe her cannabis-induced cravings simply broke down the barriers inhibiting one of her deepest desires. Not that the boar would complain – the struggling anthro halfway in her maw felt heavenly.
Cabira struggled and grumbled, trying to free herself while also being mindful of her companion's well-being. Being eaten alive was no excuse to hurt Terra, as much as the whole ordeal bothered her. She'd rather face stinky slobber a hundred times worse than this before even considering striking her sentient feral friend...even if the boar was seemingly testing the moth-dragon's patience and good will, moaning and running her large tongue over her head and arms and wings, taking her sweet time savoring her. Terra hadn't been this measured the last time she got swallowed, Cabira admitted to herself, but the adventurer doubted that it was for selfless reasons, given how the muscle explored every inch of her skin. In fact, she didn't even want to know what her taste was like to the hog...it might have been too humiliating if she gave any credence to idea that she could fulfill the role of Terra's dinner.
"You've had your fun... N-Now let me out!" The moth-dragon groaned and wriggled, pushing her claws against the soft and squishy tonsils at the sides of the boar gullet's entryway. She tried to get free, but one powerful 'gulp' undid any progress she might've made. Cabira was forced headfirst into the awaiting esophagus, scarfed down a tunnel which accommodated her just as easily as any snack she got her jaws on. "Terraaaa...!"
Suddenly, Cabira stopped halfway through her friend's neck. The walls were surprisingly wide, she realized, now that she had the time to actually feel around the spongy walls compressing her... Wide enough to move her arms around, in fact. When she felt the boar's tongue rush over every region of her lower legs, drenching her fluff and undergarments in unpleasant drool, she realized that Terra was holding her here in order to taste the rest of her body... Unbelievable! She gave the inside of the throat a few taps with her palm, hoping to call Terra's attention through the moans rumbling around her.
"Hey...you glutton! You better spit me out this instant, or I... err... I'll ground you for a week– No, two weeks! Yeah...no top-notch swine feed for two weeks, and no cuddles for two weeks. And no more weed, ever!" Cabira commanded, not sure if Terra was even listening to her words anymore. "Hellooo? You hear me?"
"Mm...s-sorry, Cabira... Heehee..." The boar finally replied groggily, with a hint of guilt in her growly but delighted voice. Under the effects of the smoked ambrosia, she watched the moth-dragon's long fluffy tail hanging out from her maw, the last trace of her companion still outside of her lips. "Just...so starved...lost control..."
The half-devoured adventurer consoled the large boar. "Hey, hey, it's okay, Terra. Just puke me out, and we'll get you some actual dinner, and we don't talk about this ever again, alright? And if you promise to behave, maybe next time I can share my weed with–"
Gulp.
"–TERRAA-MMMMmmmphhhhh..."
The mass in the hog's maw shifted entirely into the sloped neck, turned into nothing but a bulge that'd soon stuff Terra's stomach. Following the swallow, the moth-dragon's legs squeezed into the fleshy opening of the pharynx, and the hog looked down her snout, watching the tail slurp inside like a furry strand of pasta. The appendage was as long as Cabira was tall, so there was a good chunk of throat for it to travel still. The half-bug, half-dragon adventurer soon spilled into her stomach, causing her chubby dome to round out and sag so low that it almost touched the ground between her hoofs. Most of the lengthy tail slipped inside simply from following its owner's trail, but once Cabira had fully settled in Terra's digestive crop, it needed a few more licks and slurps to be ingested, which the boar gladly provided.
Feeling the last of her companion's tail brush past the surface of her tongue and uvula, Terra scurried to climb and lie on Cabira's mattress – the added weight barely making a difference to her thundering stomping as she walked. The boar lied on her side, letting her distended skin splay over the bed. Its occupant was forced to slide and adapt to the shift in gravity. The adventurer inside complained still, but all words were muffled under the insulating layers of fat that Terra had. The hog was used to eating a lot in one sitting, but never something as heavy or in a single piece as this. Only Cabira'd had the privilege of filling her up twice.
In fact, knowing that it was her in there, and not anyone else, was the best feeling of all. Her lifelong friend and leader. Terra wondered why that was... She let out another burp, projecting yellowish fur, transparent spittle, and gray smoke from her mouth, before lying down and snugging her head next to her engorged gut. From outside, it almost looked like she was carrying a huge litter. She prodded the moving limbs with her snout, seeing her furry skin squeeze against one of her tusks, and simply enjoyed how fulfilling this was.
Although, she still felt so hungry, it'd be almost impossible on such an empty tummy... Maybe there were more things around their room that she could snag.
***
Terra's stomach reeked of burnt weed. That, and stale food scraps. It already gave a poor impression of what Cabira would have to endure, perhaps for hours – especially as everything jumbled and shifted around, with more goop lapping at her fluff and scales and exoskeleton. Unidentifiable objects, soft and hard both, prodded through the tight walls on occasion, stealing more precious space away from the moth-dragon forced to curl up. Being her second stay in this stomach, she didn't feel any gladder or appeased about her situation, regardless. She knew that Terra would let her out safely, eventually – but Cabira wasn't looking forward to smelling like boar guts for the whole week. Nothing she tried seemed to rinse the pungent odor properly.
In the mess of the large hog's organ, the sequestered hybrid did spot something out of the corner of her eye that wasn't more pink flesh. She grabbed the transparent container just before everything changed directions again, and a wall became her new floor. Terra had gotten up from the bed to find more snacks, and Cabira felt the sway of the feral's heavy gait like a hammock. Once she managed to sit back up, she inspected the object that she'd held close to her chest. A very recognizable glass bottle. It was missing its cork and tape, but it was, unmistakably, the one that the moth-dragon had bought and hid in her quarters. Most of the cannabis was still inside, the buds unmolested by gastric elements. Some was missing, of course – otherwise, the boar wouldn't have coughed up smoke and had the munchies. The question was how Terra managed such a feat.
Cabira jolted in surprise when something other than stomachal folds snagged onto her tail, which had to coil around the perimeter of the chamber to fit around the rest of her body. The moth-dragon grabbed whatever it was with her other paw, and also brought it to her face to take a better look. This red thing was unlike anything she'd ever seen before, and it was staring right back at her.
"Gweetingsss." Hdýr spoke, finally able to properly introduce herself to someone else – and quickly, making sure they didn't decide to snack on her before she was confused for a gummy worm again.
"...Hi." The moth-dragon mustered, bearing an extremely confused expression to the fluid-drenched micro in her palm. "Ahem. What is a...erm...snake with arms like you doing here?"
"I'm Hdýr, a fire sssalamander, and I wisssh to learn more about people! And thisss cweature ssswallowed me a few hoursss ago, thinking I wasss a pieccce of candy."
"S-Sure..."
Swallowing her weed was one thing, but a tiny, defenseless, talking serpent...? All that Cabira could think of was how Terra would need a stern talking to about her inappropriate eating habits.
And if on cue, a mighty swallow could be heard, letting more junk that the boar had found enter her stomach. The moth-dragon groaned, realizing it would be a repeat of last month, with random things padding out the rest of the organ along with Cabira herself. She just hoped she wasn't sending anything that could actually harm anyone, like her spiky club.
"–Ow!"
Something small spat from the seal above her head, hitting her before sinking on the pool of juices at the bottom. Cabira turned around, with her back to the wall opposite the entrance sphincter, to avoid a concussion in case something heavier came that way, and found the two objects that had joined them. She reached for the small boxes with the hand holding Hdýr, inadvertently bathing the serpent in the gastric liquid.
"Sorry about that, Hdýr," she apologized as she rinsed the drool and checked the items now grabbed by the slick salamander's arms and coils.
"No need to apologizzze. I enduwed worssse before. And I blame thisss Tewwa, not you."
"No, it's not Terra's fault, it's all mine, really. I shouldn't have been so hard on her, or make her feel let out," the moth-dragon admitted to the tiny anthro, begrudgingly watching as pieces of her armor plopped into the chamber as well. "Still, I'll have to talk to her about eating tinies like you. That's just rude! Anyway, where was I...ah, right! Was it you who burned weed in here?"
"Yesss! I wanted to learn how to sssmoke weed like people do."
"Without rolling paper, or even grinding it...?"
"Wolling paper...? Gwinding...? I don't underssstand."
Cabira sighed, pitying the naïve serpent who simply wanted to learn about smoking weed, and ended up becoming a snack for a stranger instead. She felt sorry for her, like the time she first saw Terra years ago. A tiny and defenseless piglet, orphaned in a cruel world...she couldn't bear to say no, could she?
"Alright, Hdýr... I'll roll one up, and you can watch and learn." If Cabira was going to be stuck in here, might as well make the most of it, she thought.
"Weally? You would do that for me?!"
"Yeah. But maybe you should climb on my shoulder instead." She brought her hand to her clavicle. "And leave the grinder on my palm, though you can still hold onto the box on your hands. We'll need that later."
"Underssstood!" Hdýr uncoiled from the cylinder and moved over as instructed. Cabira thought that the way that she slithered was kind of adorable, squeezing her body and tail like a concertina, keeping her front upright as she carried the box on her arms.
Once she was perched on her fluffy shoulder, the moth-dragon continued, opening the lid of the grinder and shaking the glass bottle over the top to dump the buds inside. "Have you ever seen a joint, at least?" She asked to the red snake.
"A joint? Like, an articulation...?"
Cabira chuckled as she shut and twisted the lid, turning the dry balls into a fine dust. The salamander was just too adorable. "Nah. It's how you actually smoke this. Did you think we just burned the bud?"
"Sssowwy... You awe ssspeaking too fassst. It'sss my firssst time usssing your language."
"I see... How did you learn the language? Did you have a teacher?"
"No. I learned all by myssself. From watching people ssspeak."
"Wow, that's impressive!" The moth-dragon said, with genuine awe in her tone.
In a way, it wasn't unlike how it went for a certain boar, whose stomach swayed around them as more things plopped down from her gullet. Though Cabira tried her best to pretend that she wasn't inside of Terra.
"Sssowwy, didn't mean to intewwupt you."
"Huh? Oh, don't worry! I was still grinding the bud. See?" She popped open the lid she'd been twisting around, showing the fine ground. "Now open that box you have and get me a leaf and a crutch. ...Uhh, that would be a big paper sheet and a small hard tip."
Cabira watched as Hdýr fumbled with the box, getting the requested parts for her. All things considered, it was better than the last time she was stuck between these gurgling walls, for a few reasons. She wasn't worried about being digested; there wasn't a mace threatening to stab something it shouldn't and to constantly worry about; she had a new acquaintance to talk to; and, most importantly, she actually could enjoy her weed tonight! But some things, like the smell attacking her nostrils and consumed armor pieces, were as bad as she recalled.
The salamander's tiny hands offered the bits needed to roll a joint, and the moth-dragon took them after tossing away the empty bottle. Cabira creased one end of the paper at the middle to turn it into a container, placing the filter in the pinched tip before sprinkling powder over the crease of the joint. Once it was filled up, she closed and put away the grinder as well, not wanting the remaining powder to spill into the stomach. Maybe she could even make a second joint later, depending on how long it'd take for Terra to let them out.
Hdýr watched intently as the adventurer rolled the joint, expertly rolling it into a cone to give the joint its distinguishable shape. To seal the paper, she used the gastric environment to her advantage, figuring the goop dripping from the wall would serve just fine as a makeshift glue instead of saliva. Cabira ran her long and thin claw to collect some of the fluid, then used its moisture to close the open edge around the joint. Using a different insect-like digit of her hand, she tightly packed the powder inside from its open end, then twisted it close. And voilà! The first joint the moth-dragon had ever rolled inside of a stomach...and quite possibly, that anyone ever had! It wasn't perfect, with a few tiny lumps from the thick gastric goo, but she couldn't complain about it.
"And that's it!" She announced to the tiny serpent. "Now all we need to do is light a cherry, and get baked... I-In other words, we light a fire on this end, and we can smoke the joint from the other tip."
"I ssseee... Intewesssting! But it feelsss that you did twenty diffewent thingsss jussst now, and I only paid attention to four or ssso..."
The moth-dragon chuckled. "Don't worry, Hdýr. There'll be more opportunities for you to learn!"
Her head perked with a grin at the invitation. "Weally? I don't want to be a bother..."
"Nonsense! I'd be happy to introduce you to all sorts of things – including weed! Oh, speaking of..."
Cabira looked around, seeing if Terra's stomach had a fire source. Other than the stuff that the adventurer had tossed aside, there was some a lot more random junk that the boar had swallowed in the meantime. A coin pouch, a magic whistle, a shoulder pad, a slime heart orb, a bunch of food still in its packaging that was supposed to be tomorrow's breakfast... But she couldn't find what she was looking for.
"Say, Hdýr... How did you burn the weed earlier? I can't find any matches or a lighter, or anything."
"Oh, that? I'm a fire sssalamander, I can ssspit flamesss fwom my mouth. Let me ssshow you..."
The adventurer raised her eyebrows, bringing the winded end of the joint close to her face – and was surprised at the bright plasma blowing from the snake's lips, not unlike a living lighter. Cabira had been amazed by the micro twice now. With an amused smile, she sucked on the filter once the embers spread to the hemp.
"Is sssomething funny?" Hdýr asked, watching Cabira.
The moth-dragon finally inhaled a well-deserved toke, after what was possibly the craziest day she'd ever had. She watched the smoke blown out from her lungs and, with a blissful grin, brought the tip to the fire salamander's face. She'd decided to never hog her joints anymore.
"Wanna take a hit?"
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