Another short chapter this time, but an important one for the story. And also vore.



Chapter 5

A great skua makes an imposing sight looming menacingly over his next meal. With a wingspan of almost five feet, dark brown plumage, white wing highlights, and a wickedly hooked bill, this bird is a predator and looks the part.

……….

Anthony eyed the soft prey that would soon be his with a hard gleam of satisfaction in his eye. The gull chick was defenseless and small: far less impressive than its parents. Hunger gurgled achingly within him, urging him to supply his body with the energy it needed to survive. It had been days since he had last eaten.

Drooling eagerly, he approached the rocky, cave-like crevice the gull's parents had decided to build their nest in. The chick below him instinctively recoiled away when it saw he was not a gull, but the young bird was only days old at most, and it had no conception of what was about to happen to it.

Anthony thought about teasing his prey for a while, but instead, the urgency of his hunger close at hand, he decided he would simply wolf the chick down whole and be done with it. Reaching into the nest, he grabbed the squirming prey with his bill and tossed his head back, throwing his breakfast at an angle such that it would line up with his waiting throat.

Tossed into the air, the chick landed between the skua’s ravenous jaws, hitting on his pale tongue with a meaty splat. Feeling the prey sliding down into his beak, Anthony opened his mouth wide, working his bill to cram the prey further into his jaws.

With some effort, he worked the food further into his mouth, jerking his head quickly back several times and stretching his jaws around his meal as he scarfed it down, mashing the gull chick’s soft feathers pleasantly against his tongue. His prey seemed to be panicking now, faced with a hungry skua’s gullet, so Anthony paused a moment, drooling and savoring the taste and feel of the prey against his tongue. The chick was not entirely within his jaws; some soft feathers and wriggling feet were still visible to the outside world, yet still he could savor its taste. Anthony knew it would take an additional jerk, a stretch of the jaws and a gulp before he had commenced swallowing his prey whole but he wanted to begin enjoying his reluctant breakfast now.

Licking the prey, wonderful waves of succulent taste washed across his tongue and palate with each slurp. Drooling, he moaned in pleasure, closing his eyes to relish the tickling squirming of the helpless morsel pinned inside his jaws. This tasting had another purpose besides pure enjoyment. It also served to prepare his chick for swallowing, ensuring it was well lubricated with skua spit for the journey down his gullet. Finally reaching a predatory climax of domination and sensory delight, Anthony gave in to his instincts entirely, and swallowed.

The skua raised his head, flapping his wings to use gravity to his advantage, and gave his prey a savage jerk that rammed it the rest of the way into his ravening jaws. As the chick slid down the slick, drool soaked length of his tongue, Anthony cooed in pleasure. Sealing the prey tightly inside his closed jaws, he tossed his head and gulped forcefully, attempting to squeeze the big hunk of meat through his neck with a single gulp. There was a distinct, convulsive squelch of gullet muscles forcing food into a gullet, followed by a deep, throaty ‘ulk’ as he swallowed.

The prey gave a last few wriggles as it felt Anthony's throat open beneath it, the seabird’s muscles squeezing the chick against his slick palate and forcing it into his dark, slimily-elastic throat. Anthony smiled to himself in pleasure, eyes closed, savoring the feeling of the large lump sliding slowly down his gullet. A slight visible bulge distended his neck from the prey trapped inside.

Feeling that the food’s progress required further assistance from his gullet, Anthony gulped again, neck and head moving rhythmically as his throat convulsed, squishing the gullet-lump slowly downwards. Opening his eyes, he looked downwards at himself, tracking his prey's progress as he angled his body upwards, spread his powerful wings for balance and swallowed once more, squeezing the protrusion in his chest the rest of the way into his crop.

The skua let out a sigh of relief as he felt the prey fill his stomach. It's wriggling warmth comforted him as the full weight of the living meal settled into his hot avian gut. He felt his innards gurgle, stretching wondrously, luxuriating in the large, living meal that now stuffed his crop.

Anthony’s digestive revelry was suddenly interrupted as a loud voice broke in from behind.

“Are you quite finished?”

Brown feathers ruffled in surprise. He whirled around, alertly locking his gaze on the intruder. A large, rather well-groomed gull was eyeing him from the entrance of the crevice.


“So you’re Anthony” the gull said in a smooth voice.

“Last seen unsuccessfully hunting a puffin in Seacscape reach two days ago.”

“Who are you?” Anthony demanded.

“How do you know my name?”

“I'm head gull. I know everything.”

“You’re a pretentious bastard, aren’t you?”

The gull stiffened slightly, clearly angered by the insult, but didn’t say anything.

“I want to know how you know I was here two days ago.” Anthony said.

The gull sighed haughtily.

“If you must know, I've got guards and lookouts posted all throughout the reach.”

Anthony was getting impatient.

“You’re full of shit!”

“I’m in charge. Everything that happens here goes through me, and everything else I hear about. I know that you, Anthony, chased an Atlantic Puffin during a storm, and that your hunting attempts were unsuccessful.”

“I don’t have to listen to this” Anthony said angrily, becoming frustrated by the other bird’s air of superiority. He made a start forward, but the black back responded immediately- with a nod of his head.

There was a rustle of feathers, and suddenly Anthony found himself surrounded. With sharp, stiff authority the head gull spoke again, crisply biting off each syllable.

“It would be unwise of you to pick a fight with me. I believe you would find the results to be rather…unfortunate.”

“I'm not looking to start a fight” Anthony said.

“I just want you to move so I can be on my way.”

“And what if I told you we need you for an important mission?”

“I’m not doing anything for a dirty gull. Have one of your goons do it.”

“There is a reward in it you know.”

"What kind of reward?" Anthony asked, his interest piqued.

“As you may already know, a puffin is quite a rare find this far south at this time of year. If I were you, I would still be cursing the luck that robbed me of such a rich prize.”

'A rich prize indeed' Anthony thought, as all thoughts of fighting slipped his mind. The head gull was right about one thing: he did still regret losing such desirable prey.

“Is there a puffin in it for me?” he asked hopefully, drooling despite having just eaten.

“There is a good chance of it- and if not, I am sure we could find a different reward that would be equally suitable.”

'There must be a catch' Anthony thought.

“What could be so bad that you need me to do it for you and to boot you'll even give me a prize afterwards?” He asked incredulously.

"It’s not really so bad. I just need you to help me apprehend a renegade who has undermined my authority.”

“Why do you need me for that? Couldn't you just have some of your own do the job for you?”

“My boys won't go near him, he’s bested every one of them one-on-one in a fight, and outsmarted them all last night. He’s been a thorn in my side ever since Brandon Island colony was expanded to include the Reach.”

This offering seemed too good to be true.

“Can't you just order them to go?”

For the first time, the head gull looked pained.

“Jake- that’s the bird in question - showed Brandon Island that you can undermine authority and get away with it. News travels fast in the colony, even if you try to keep it under wraps, and now the hierarchy I’ve painstakingly cultivated for years is on the verge of collapse. I still have a small following as you can see here, but most of my subordinates no longer obey me. If any of the residents of Brandon Island figure out how little control I have over my own birds, there will be nothing stopping them from doing whatever they want. The results of such a thing are disastrous. It will mean the end of my colony, and the end of me. Everything I have worked for would vanish in an instant. You see why I won’t let that happen.”

“So, you need me to track down Jake, kill him and you’ll give me a puffin in return?”

“Not kill him- you will leave that to me. I want him to suffer, publicly. I want to show that disobedience will not be tolerated. Your role in this will be to help me overpower and cripple Jake. Then we’ll carry him back to Brandon Island together, to be killed in public, proof of what happens to those who do not obey.”

“What about the reward? Where does that come in?”

“I happen to know that the puffin you pursued escaped near Jake's former dwelling. From what my sources have told me, Jake was concealing prey within that dwelling. When my patrol demanded tribute for the privilege of being allowed to reside on colony territory, he refused and the resulting fight severely injured one of my officials.”

“So? What does that have to do with me?”

“My lookouts observed Jake carrying food in his bill from the ocean at the base of the cliffs up into his dwelling. This is atypical behavior for a gull and suggests it was for someone else. When officials searched his dwelling soon after his escape they found evidence of not one, but two birds living there. I have reason to believe that the puffin escaped with him without our knowing, and that she may still be with him now on Hen Island.”

Anthony was not impressed. “That seems pretty unlikely to me. I broke the puffin’s wing, she wouldn’t have been able to fly from the cliffs. Knowing you gulls, he probably just ate her and that's why there isn’t a puffin to be found in that cave.”

“There is no logical reason for Jake to have provided food for the puffin if his only intent was to eat her.”

“He probably ate that food too. Atypical though it might be, eating inside makes perfect sense to me. No one can see you, so it's less likely they will steal your food.”

“The fish Jake was carrying were small enough for him to swallow outright. It makes no sense to risk carrying it in sight of other gulls unless he was bringing it to someone else, other than a gull. To feed their own young, gulls carry food in their crop, just like you skuas do.”

'The head gull is a massive prick, but he's not stupid' Anthony thought.

“You're sure the puffin is with him?” He asked.

“Yes, and if I turn out to be wrong, I am confident that once this is over, we can find a suitable substitute for the puffin as a reward.”

“I want the reward before then. If this successfully restores your leadership, you'll have no incentive to pay your dues.”

“I was just getting to that. If the puffin is indeed with Jake as I suspect, once we have apprehended him you may feed on her as you wish, provided you help carry the body back to seascape.”

Anthony didn't like the head gull. He seemed slimy and untrustworthy and he was sure that he would try and double cross him as soon as he got what he wanted. Vengeance and lust for power didn’t exactly elicit warm feelings of trust and confidence. Oh well. What choice did he have? Fighting one black back was dangerous enough. He couldn’t fight ten at once.

"I'll do it” he said.

“…if you agree that if we don’t find the puffin, I receive my equivalent reward at the same time as I would otherwise”

The head gull cracked a thin smile and relaxed. “Excellent.” he said.

“We begin at first light tomorrow.”