Early afternoon is a rather calm and peaceful day. The sun is out, there’s not a cloud in the sky, and the air is warm and pleasant. Far from any cities, the natural beauty of this landscape remains untarnished by civilization, and there’s little more than the serene ambiance of the grasslands around.

Little more, that is, aside from a giant lion sitting on the grass. And he’s feeling anything but peaceful.

Leroux had awoken this morning with a sharp pain in his tooth that felt like it had split right open. Nothing he tried had made it stop hurting, and after he had to skip breakfast for fear of agitating the tooth any worse, he arranged an emergency appointment with his two caretakers – Agatha, his wolfess veterinarian, and Aspen, his husky groomer. He hoped at least one of them would be able to help him out; he couldn’t go on not eating forever! Especially not with the appetite of a lion as big as he is…

About an hour after he called for their help, Leroux spots the two canines approaching him, both dressed in their usual attire – Neither of them normally really bother dressing formally for work, and especially for a job like this, they opted to wear clothes that they didn’t mind becoming messy.

The bespectacled wolfess has a loose-fitting white tank-top and equally loose grey sweatpants over her curvy figure’s pristine white fur, and her signature daisy tucked behind her ear into her deep red, shoulder-length hair. Her tail is relaxed, showing little emotion as she’s prepared to do her job. Her emerald-green eyes are focused on the notes she’s taken on her clipboard, making sure she has everything ready as she approaches the lion.

The husky is wearing his cyan v-neck work shirt and blue jeans over his taller, athletic frame, the white fur with lilac patterns neatly brushed and trimmed beneath his clothes. His lavender hair, adorned with some white tips, is brushed down in the front with a braid on the left side, and in the back, it’s stylized with a windswept look, brushed to a point! Unlike his coworker, Aspen’s tail is lowered, clearly feeling some anxiety for the task at hand, his pupil-less purple eyes showing worry for what he’s expected to do.

They approach their lion friend – Agatha taking in the sight of the hundred-or-so-foot-tall panther’s white fur that’s nearly as pristine as her own, while Aspen’s eyes focus on his loose and fluffy electric-green mane, nose, tailtip, and goatee-like tuft of fur on his chin, as well as his heterochromic eyes – Sapphire-blue on the left and electric-green on the right!

When the pair draw close, Agatha looks up at Leroux with a concerned expression, seeing his paw holding his cheek, able to tell her friend and client is in great pain right now. Aspen, meanwhile, shifts uncomfortably; sure, he’s known Leroux for quite a while too, but that didn’t keep him from feeling intimidated by a hundred-foot-tall predatory panther!

Agatha is the first to speak, breaking the awkward silence with her usual friendly greeting when speaking with a client. “Good afternoon, Leroux; how are you feeling today?”

The lion responds with a whine, rubbing his cheek. “Hurts…”

Agatha nods. “I’m sorry, hun… What seems to be the problem?”

To this, though, Aspen scoffs. “His tooth hurts, moron; why are you asking? You’re the one who took the call!”

Agatha shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath – Aspen has a way of getting on her nerves, but right now, she needs to keep focused. “Okay, you said you have a toothache. Can you be a dear and lean down for us and open wide so we can step inside and have a look?”

Aspen tenses a little at these words. “Inside? What do you mean, inside?”

This time, Agatha responds in a condescending tone. “Well, you tell me how we’re supposed to look at his tooth from out here!”

Leroux whines softly. He hates seeing his friends argue, especially over petty and meaningless stuff, especially when they’re supposed to be helping him. “Guys…”

Brought back from their bickering, the two canines sigh gently, before Agatha nods to the lion. “I’m sorry – Please lower down for us, okay?”

Leroux nods softly and brings himself down onto his belly and chest, resting his chin on the ground, slowly opening his massive maw, revealing to them the fleshy pink interior. His rough, almost spiky tongue lolls out, offering them safe passage over his large teeth. While Agatha is focused on the task at hand, Aspen shrinks back a touch as he takes in the sight of that cavernous mouth, watching the twitches in the lion’s cheek, the ridges of his bony palate leading back to the fleshier velum, and that dangling uvula swaying in front of his pharynx. He feels a rumble through the ground and shudders – Leroux isn’t just in pain, but he’s hungry too! He wonders if this was a good idea after all…

“Aspen, you coming?”

The husky blinks and looks up, seeing Agatha already inside the lion’s mouth. If she felt any kind of intimidation, she certainly isn’t showing it – The wolf generally maintains her composure in these situations, needing a certain stoicism for her job. Sometimes, Aspen envies this part of her – But then again, the idea of being comfortable inside a gigantic predator’s mouth nearly makes him shudder as much as the idea of being inside there in the first place!

“Aspen!”

He blinks again, shaking his head. “R-Right, coming…”

Taking a breath to steel himself, Aspen steps onto the lion’s wet tongue, feeling it squish beneath his paws. The rough papillae provide a decent enough grip for him to stand upright, even if it’s a bit unsteady from the subtle movements - Involuntary twitches from the lion’s nervous system. He makes his way over to Agatha, who’s shining a flashlight around the lion’s mouth, inspecting the teeth from here.

The wolf takes a look around, examining Leroux’s mouth for anything out of the ordinary. “Hun, where does it hurt?”
 
The lion groans softly. “Left side… Bottom…”
 
Agatha shines her light in the specified direction and immediately spots the problem. “Ah, that’ll do it – You’ve got a cavity in your second premolar.”
 
Aspen comes over, blinking in shock. “Holy… How’d it get so bad?” There’s a visible hole in the tooth that reaches down to the nerve! No wonder Leroux is in such pain…

Agatha mutters something under her breath – Too quiet for Leroux to hear, but Aspen’s sensitive canine ears lift up. “What was that?”

The wolf repeats herself, glaring at the husky. “Probably because someone didn’t do his job.”

Aspen’s eyes narrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Agatha scoffs. “You’re his groomer; why didn’t you clean his teeth properly?”

Indignantly, he fires back. “Hey, I cleaned his teeth perfectly yesterday! And last I checked, you’re his vet!”

Agatha’s voice raises too, finally losing her temper. “Vet in training!” Before adding “And what does that have to do with anything anyways? I make sure he’s healthy!”

To which the husky shouts “Which he obviously isn’t!”

Leroux rolls his eyes in exasperation as he listens to the back-and-forth within his mouth; his supposed help is too focused on arguing with each other to do their jobs making his tooth feel better. He quietly groans. “Calm down in there, please; don’t fight…”

The lion’s plea goes ignored, though, as Agatha turns and yells at Aspen. “Because you didn’t clean his teeth properly!” She takes a threatening step towards him; eyes narrowed and ears folded back, snarling and looking like she’s ready to throw a punch.

But Aspen retaliates before she can swing at him, giving his coworker a firm shove away. “Get out of my face! I can’t help it if he chows down on donuts after his cleaning!”

The shove makes Agatha stumble back a few steps, which wouldn’t have been a problem, had she not been standing at the back of the lion’s tongue – Her paw slips on the slick surface, the lack of rough papillae here leaving her with nothing to grip, and she starts to fall backward, right off the back of the tongue!
 
Aspen gains a moment of clarity as he realizes what’s about to happen, and he quickly sprints to try to stop her fall, but it’s too late – Agatha slips off the back of Leroux’s tongue with a yelp and drops right into his pharynx!

The lion’s eyes widen as he feels a sudden mass in his throat, choking and gagging before taking an involuntary swallow to clear his pharynx, gulping the wolfess down his esophagus! Aspen can only watch as she’s gripped by those tight muscles and descends out of sight, down into the lion’s digestive system.

“Oh, heck…” is all he can say.

Leroux coughs once more, feeling his throat returning to normal, before groaning. “Ugh… W-What just happened..?”

Aspen’s voice is meek as he responds. “Agatha… Kinda slipped.”
 
But an indignant voice echoes up from that tunnel. “Excuse me, I was pushed!” Evidently, Agatha can still hear them!

Leroux rolls carefully onto his back, making sure not to jar the husky still in his mouth as he sits up to look at his belly. “Poor Agatha… Will she be alright, Aspen?”
 
Before Aspen can respond, the wolf shouts from the digestive chamber. “I’ve been swallowed by a giant predator – What do you think?” She huffs audibly before adding “I was supposed to stay in your mouth, not become cat food!”

Aspen sighs as his swallowed coworker rants, trying to calm himself down; as much as he bickers with Agatha, he doesn’t want her to actually get hurt, or worse. He takes a deep breath before telling the lion “Oh, she’ll be fine… I hope…” Unlike how the wolf spoke when she arrived, Aspen’s voice is audibly unsteady; he’s not used to being put in situations like this, especially by himself, and he lacks Agatha’s mental control to keep focused and somewhat stoic while treating her patients. It’s apparent Aspen is saying these words to himself as much as to the lion; evidently, he’s trying not to think of the alternative right now…

Hoping to distract himself, the husky remembers why he was called out in the first place, and he attempts to look around within the lion’s closed mouth, trying to see in the dim cavern without Agatha’s flashlight to help. “Right, where was that toothache…”

Unfocused as he is by what just happened, he doesn’t think to ask Leroux to open his mouth again for light; Aspen feels around more or less blindly for Leroux’s incisors, then moves back to the long canine tooth on the left. “Uh…I don’t know anything about teeth, except for how to clean them…” He admits to the lion with an apologetic chuckle.“She said the second pre-thingy, right? So that would be…”
 
He taps the first premolar, but without being able to see, when he goes to tap the second one, he unintentionally places his hand right into the hole in the tooth, causing the Leroux to roar with pain, tilting his head back as he yelps out “Aaagh!”

Aspen, reeling from the loud sound of the pained roar blasting his sensitive ears, feels the flat tongue beneath his paws suddenly lift vertical – And gravity promptly does its thing. He scrambles at the sheer surface of the lion’s tongue, attempting to hold on, and he even tries grabbing onto Leroux’s fleshy uvula, but his downward momentum makes him slip from the appendage and fall right into the lion’s gullet, much like Agatha had moments ago!

Leroux’s eyes widen momentarily as he feels another weight in his throat, and he thinks to himself “Not again..!” as he fights to keep himself from gagging, knowing exactly what – Or rather, who – is in there. But it’s no use as the lion’s involuntary reflexes override his conscious efforts, making him swallow the husky too!

Aspen yells as he too drops into the lion’s stomach, landing with a splash in the pooled fluids within the chamber. He coughs and sputters when he surfaces, shaking his head to get the warm gastric liquids off of his face.

Agatha, who had managed to find a spot to keep safe for now, looks up in confusion as she hears the noises of someone else entering the stomach, until she shines her light and spots her coworker, who turns towards her and then gives her a sheepish grin, weakly saying. “H-Hi..!”

Thoroughly unamused, Agatha whacks the husky over the head with her flashlight. “You idiot! Now you got us both eaten!”

Outside, Leroux whines softly, letting out an uncomfortably large belch that tightens his stomach, before he places a paw on his belly, speaking apologetically to the canines inside. “Ooof… Sorry about that… Are you two okay in there..?”

Still unamused, Agatha calls out “It’s hot and disgusting in here… What do you think? I’m trying to figure out how to get out of here, and now I have to bring this moron with me!”

Aspen growls softly but doesn’t verbally respond to either of them, still smarting from the solid hit he took. He climbs onto Agatha’s safe spot before sitting down and rubbing his head, feeling sorry for himself and trying not to think too much about the space he’s inside of.

The lion winces and groans softly as his tooth stings again, rubbing his cheek and whining quietly. “Oww… It hurts so much…”

This, however, gets Agatha to shout again, too focused on the predicament she’s in to worry about the lion’s own situation. “Leroux, we kinda have bigger problems right now!”

Leroux stands with a huff after being told off, starting to walk away while angrily telling his stomach’s occupants “Well, maybe if you two could, you know, work together instead of pissing each other off, you wouldn’t be in this mess!” Muttering under his breath, he adds “…and this toothache would be fixed by now…”

The stomach lurches, dumping both canines into the pool of digestive fluids with a splash; the hungry lion’s belly seems to realize it finally has food inside after he had skipped breakfast, and the chamber is ready to process what’s within! The wolf and husky sputter as they surface, standing about chest-deep in the fluids soaking into their clothes and fur.

By now, Aspen has calmed down somewhat, too concerned for his own safety to worry about his feud with Agatha. He attempts to remain calm and focused, despite being terrified both of the claustrophobic chamber as well as exactly what said chamber is actively trying to do to him and Agatha. “All blame aside, I think getting out of here should be our biggest worry right now.”

And surprisingly, Agatha adds “Yeah… He’s right.”

Leroux’s eyes widen momentarily as he processes the notion of the two canines agreeing on something for the first time he can recall, before he speaks. “Well… Agatha, you said you’ve been studying feline anatomy; I know you’re pretty familiar with mine. That means you’ll think of something, I’m sure!” There’s a brief pause, before he asks “Right, Agatha..?”

The wolfess sighs gently. “I certainly hope so, anyways…”

As Agatha considers the options available, Aspen shifts uncomfortably, the stomach fluids starting to make him itch. “Ah… This stuff is starting to tingle…” He looks at Agatha, asking “Can’t you just cut him open or something?”

Leroux cringes at just the thought, wincing as he imagines the pain of having his belly forcibly opened from the inside, a firm shudder causing the stomach to quake as he says pleadingly “N-No! No slicing please…”

Agatha glares at Aspen, speaking in just as offended a tone as Leroux in response to the husky’s thoughtless suggestion. “I’m not gonna slice his belly open just because you’re scared of being lion food! He’s still our friend, after all – Are you trying to have me kill him?”

Aspen’s ears fold back as he yells in response. “Then what do you suggest we do, doctor?”

The wolf thinks for another moment, though it’s not easy for her to focus as she too is feeling the tingling, almost burning sensations from the fluids. She soon lets out a quiet whine, both from the discomfort and from the idea she’s come up with – She speaks meekly, not exactly happy with her idea. “Well… There is another way… Uhm… Don’t you have some prunes in your office, Aspen?”

The husky blinks, asking “What? What’s that got to do with…” before he trails off as he begins to piece together her train of thought. He shudders firmly once he realizes where she’s going with it. “You mean… The long way though?” Visibly cringing at the idea of passing through the lion’s digestive system, he firmly denies the idea. “Uugh… Absolutely not!”

Agatha shouts back at him “Well, do you have a better idea? You’re the idiot who got us both swallowed!”

Angrily, Aspen retorts “I’m not an idiot!” as he swats a blob of the stomach fluids at Agatha’s face. “And would you shut up about that already?”

“Ack! Aspen!” Agatha sputters, wiping her face off before turning and taking a swing at the husky, screaming “You bastard!” as she decks him in the jaw.

Absolutely sick of the fighting at this point, Leroux groans and lays down in the grass, feeling queasy from the constant thrashing inside his belly – Not helped by the pain in his tooth and how hungry he is. He holds one paw on his cheek and the other on his stomach as he weakly pleads “Uhhn… Would you two… Please calm down in there…”

Ignoring the lion’s suffering, Aspen takes a swing back at Agatha, but with his vision still reeling from the hit he took, he misses and instead impacts the springy stomach walls.

Leroux yelps in pain from the impact and gags, covering his mouth with his paw, grunting softly “Oww… I think I’m gonna be sick…”

Agatha laughs for a brief moment as Aspen misses his punch, before realizing what he did just hit. “Watch it, you idiot; that’s his liver!”

The stomach groans and starts to contract, closing in towards both canines, making the husky blink, forgetting his anger as it turns to fearful worry. “Uh… Is that supposed to happen?”

Agatha scoffs at him and responds in a condescending tone. “Yes, you moron; now he’s going to digest us.”

The husky panics at these words. “D-Digest us?”

Agatha screams “Yes, genius! That’s what stomachs do!”

The stomach clenches in, forcing the two canines tightly against one another as they struggle in panic. The fluids rise as the space within the stomach reduces, and the rolling muscles work to pull them both beneath the liquids! Aspen screams out hysterically “Agatha, do something!” while the wolf yells out to the lion. “Leroux!”

Leroux heaves as his stomach tightens, standing up and hunching over with his chest low to the ground while muttering to himself “Yep… Something’s definitely coming up…” He’s so nauseous, he doesn’t even register the canines shouting at him and at each other before their words turn to burbles, the fluids having overtaken them!

The stomach continues to contract, threatening to crush Agatha and Aspen while they drown, but before they black out, there’s an abrupt release of pressure – The esophageal sphincter suddenly opens, and the fluids rapidly rush upwards, carrying them along!

Leroux gags, then hacks, before coughing out a massive amount of foul-tasting stomach fluids, along with two utterly soaked but thankfully mostly unharmed canines!

Agatha gasps and sputters, panting to catch her breath as she takes in the fresh air, while Aspen coughs softly and wipes his face off, asking incredulously “...were we just puked up by a lion..?”

Leroux lowly growls “Hey, be grateful you’re still alive!” before he collapses onto his side, clutching his aching stomach with one paw and his cheek with the other, whimpering in pain. “…all I wanted was to have this tooth fixed…”

Aspen looks on, having completely forgotten why they were even there in the first place, while Agatha walks over, apologetically giving the lion’s belly a rub – Speaking in her stoic doctor tone, as though she hadn’t nearly met her end inside him. “Sorry for the tummyache, big guy… Tell you what, after we both clean up, I’ll fix that tooth for you, alright?”

But at this point, Leroux has had enough, blurting out “God no!” before quickly clearing his throat, standing up and looking away as he mumbles “I mean… Maybe I should just see a certified dentist for this…”

Slowly, he walks away from the two canines, who just look at each other in confusion.

“What’s gotten into him?” Aspen asks.