This story contains some very minor vore.

"Oh no! No! Never! I would never even dream of it! How could you even suggest that! I would never!" Jalen yelled as she paced the forest floor in one of her mini freak-outs.

The human was within reach of, though Jalen knew this, a purple haired giantess, who sat leaning against a tree, waiting for this fit to pass. She wasn't even listening to the small tanned person at all; she was more interested in watching the birds fly from branch to branch. It was beautiful, to her. Nature was the thing that she so adored, enough to fall in love with any dryad she saw. Her thin, bright pink lips curled in a soft smile as she reached up to grab a white harpy that had been following the birds.

"And then you go and try to tell me to be quiet!?" Jalen yelled to the floor, assuming the giantess was listening. She turned around with fury still in her eyes. "Mel, we need to go! What are you doing! That poison antidote isn't gonna find itself!"

Mel had just finished licking her fingers of harpy feathers when she looked down to the screaming human. "But it's so peaceful here; can't we just stay for a little bit longer?"

"Not with half the village dying, ugh, you infuriate me!" she yelled then stomped off.

Mel smiled and followed, crawling on her hands and knees, still enjoying the taste on her tongue. "Jalen, I'm hungry. Get me something."

"Not right now Mel, we have a task to accomplish."

"But I'm hungry," she said, poking the human in the back. "They won't die for another hour; you can find me something by then, can't you?"

"Not right now Mel! Set aside your small needs for the village, they need your help!" she yelled, but jumped back when a rabbit ran in front of her. She got back to her feet and stared at the bush that the rabbit had gone into, then stared at where the rabbit had come from. It took her a few seconds, but she turned around and yelled, "What!? Why would you say something like that!? I wouldn't do that at all, you don't know me that well!"

Mel still had a childish smile. She made the ground shake when she plopped her bottom on the plants to wait for the passing of yet another screaming fit from Jalen. This was the perfect opportunity to find something fast to eat. Her stomach gave a loud growl; the small amount that she had eaten apparently wasn't going to satisfy her. She looked around with blank eyes, as her mind was more focused on what would be good to eat, instead of what she could eat around her. She froze when she thought of a naga in a bowl of warm sauce, beckoning her with a curling finger. Her body relaxed, and she started to drool.

"And then you bring this up again! Why can't you just stay quiet and let me do my job! Mel, what are you doing!?" Jalen yelled, eying the large amount of drool that had fallen from Mel's chin and landed on her hand. "Stop sitting there, we need to go!"

Mel snapped out of it, wiped her mouth on the back of her already saliva dirtied hand, then crawled after Jalen. Her stomach gave another long growl.

Jalen put her hand into the air before Mel could even say anything, "No, I'm not gonna get you anything! I don't have time, quit asking me! We need to find this plant as soon as possible!" She continued to stomp forward and leap over fallen trees while her cat-like eyes searched every nook and cranny for a plant that was the size of her pinky finger. It had already been half an hour after the village's water was contaminated by a small stream of forest water that had carried poison from a dead tree. The only way to cure this poison was to mix this small plant with milk, and she was one of the few that had not fallen ill. It was up to her to save her village, and Mel was slowing her down, or so she thought.

"Jalen, do you even know where this plant is?"

"Of course I know, don't be so quick to think I'm a babbling idiot," she fixed her short hair, then turned slightly to see Mel, "Besides that, I don't see you doing anything AT ALL!"

"I don't even know what the plant looks like! You just came to me and said you needed to find something. I don't even know why I followed you!" she said in her naturally sweet and innocent voice.

"It's the Red, something, plant. It's pink with small yellow thorns over the stem. They said I wouldn't be able to miss it, and they grow in such large patches that I could cure the entire village with just one find. But no, I gotta be stuck with you! You aren't even helping!"

"You're not stuck with me! And you're talking about the Red Lilith; I could find that just by smell."

Jalen put her hands on her head and screamed, "Why didn't you say this to begin with! You're so annoying sometimes! My village is dying and you go and hold this information from me!"

"I didn't' know what you were looking for!" she stopped and took a large sniff of air, then looked around and crawled at an odd angle to where she was going before. Jalen followed her, up until Mel stopped at a large dead animal.

"What the hell! This is no time to want to eat a rotting thing! Stop it Mel!"

Mel ignored her and grabbed a stick to turn over the thing. When she was successful, she pointed to where the animal had been, and under it, were hundreds of small pink flowers in a sort of carpet. "They only grow when something dies over them, that's why they're sometimes called The Flower of the Soul. They used to say that if these grew under you after you died, that your spirit would be warm and cozy in the flower's embrace for all of eternity."

"That's nice and all, but I need to get them, and I don't wanna touch dead animal flowers. Could you get them?"

"What!? And destroy such a beautiful thing, I couldn't! That animal's soul is sitting in the flowers, what if it's tortured if we take the flowers away!?"

"Then that means all the souls that have died over these flowers are being tortured! The flowers go away after like, a week! Now, stop believing in such things and help me get them!" She grabbed a small stick and started to shove the flowers in the bag that had hung around her shoulder.

Mel whined and covered her eyes with her hand while she scooped a handful of flowers from the ground, and released them where she thought the bag was. She had missed and Jalen had to put the handfuls in the bag herself, but it was easier then having to unearth them. After a few handfuls, Jalen swatted the giant hand with the stick. Mel didn't take her hand from her eyes. "Does the patch look bad? Is it still beautiful?"

"Yes Mel, we dug up almost all of them and the patch is still as full as when we got here," she said then started to walk quickly in the direction of her village. "Come on Mel!"

Mel smiled a bit, then took her hand off of her eyes and looked down at the patch. Most of it was just overturned dirt, and only a few flowers remained. Mel gasped and looked extremely sad, "Why would you lie to me Jalen, why!? It isn't beautiful anymore!" She crawled to catch up to Jalen and tried to stick her finger in the bag. "Just let me put a few of them back, please?"

Jalen pulled the bag in front of her and put an arm around it, "No, I need as much as I can if I'm going to cure my village! Who wants dead animal flowers anyway, that's so gross!"

Mel whined but submitted, "You know, even though it only grows under dead things, it's the cleanest flower in the whole forest. People even use it for tea, of course after a small rinsing, but that's not the point." She started to look distant again, imagining food. "Mmmm, a neko covered in Red Lilith sweet cream."

"Hey! My sister's a neko, have some respect! At least when I'm around!"

"Sorry, sorry, I'm just soooooo hungry."

"No! I will not get you anything! Why do you keep asking! I've told you five times already! But you never listen! You're like a child!"

Mel smiled when she saw that Jalen wasn't looking at her. She never took anything Jalen said as an insult, she knew she didn't mean it. This was the perfect time to find something to eat. She started to think about food again, but snapped herself out of it. She looked back at Jalen, who was now kicking a tree, and Mel crawled away to look inside a rotting tree. Mel reached it after a few minutes of crawling, then drove her hand into the weak bark and pulled a large chunk off of it. She looked inside and there was three neko, each so surprised that they were frozen in place. One that was standing dropped the cup of tea she had, and started to back against the wall. "Hi!" Mel said.

"And you know what else!" Jalen yelled then turned around, to see that there was no more Mel, "Mel? Mel? Mel!? Mel, don't leave me! Mel! Help! Help! I'm gonna get eaten! I'm too young to be eaten!" She bolted into an opening that looked like it could fit Mel. She was fully panicking now, and her eyes darted to find some clue as to where her giantess friend had gone. Finally she saw Mel's huge butt sticking in the air. She ran faster then she ever had towards that rump. When she got there, her breathing was labored and she could hardly make a sentence. "Mel . . . you . . . left me . . . alone . . . on . . . purpose."

Mel turned her head slightly to see who the voice belonged to, and when she saw that it was Jalen, she swallowed hard and turned around to hold her. "What happened Jalen!? Are you alright?"

"You . . . you left me! For food! I could've been eaten! And you would've never known it!" She coughed a few times to get her throat clear.

"Food is a good enough excuse to take a small break," she reached her hand inside the house and pulled out a neko and held her up by her foot. The neko's dress was falling over her body, showing the thin white pants that she wore under it. Mel closed her eyes, opened her mouth, and extended her tongue. The neko took one look and screamed at the top of her lungs while her arms flailed in the air.

Jalen looked on with wide eyes; she had never seen anybody get eaten before. Her heart raced and she started to breath quickly. "Mel . . ." she said in almost a whisper, "Mel, stop, I can't . . . Mel?" She had never seen Mel like this either. She preferred to think of Mel as the sweet girl you go to when you have problems, or when you're afraid to do something alone, and not as a predator. Everything around her started to brighten and she could see Mel stuff the neko gently into her mouth while the girl's legs kicked as hard as they could. The last thing that Jalen saw was Mel's tongue slide under the neko, then her eyes rolled back and she thudded to the floor.

**********

". . .e. . .l. . .al. . .Jal. . .Jalen. . .Jalen! . . . Jalen! Hey!" Mel yelled as she shook Jalen slightly.

Jalen had a massive headache, and the simple act of turning her head shot pain through her body. She looked up at Mel, "Wha, what happened?"

"Oh, I'm so sorry! That was so inconsiderate of me! Please forgive me! Jalen, please, I'm sorry, it'll never happen again!" Mel cuddled her head as close to Jalen as she could and started crying heavily.

"What?" Jalen whispered, but started to remember what had happened. She was suddenly struck with a monstrous fear of Mel, it made her want to get up and run. Just run, not knowing how far she would need to, or how long, just running to survive. Her body locked up and the fear began to turn to panic, but then she remembered how they used to look for wildflowers when they were kids, and how for both of their entire lives, they had been best friends. Mel wasn't going to ever do anything to harm Jalen, and would never let harm come to her. "It's okay Mel, I'm fine."

"I'm so sorry, will you ever forgive me? What can I do to make it up to you?"

"I already forgive you, and . . . the antidote! Mel, where is it! Where are the flowers?" She sprang up but screamed in pain. A quick feel of her back revealed that she had a large bandage across it. She looked around and was very surprised that she was in her own house. Beside her was a pinkish tea in a clay cup, and curled up, trembling in the corner, was the neko that Mel almost ate. "When? I didn't have anything to do with that then."

Mel put her hands gently around Jalen and eased her to lie back down. "You passed out, it's all my fault. You landed on a sharp rock, and you were bleeding, I thought you were dead," she began to cry again, then looked at the neko, "I spit her out right when I saw you on the ground, I thought it would make you happy knowing that she was alright."

Jalen looked up at Mel, then turned her head slowly towards the neko. She got up with difficulty and grabbed the tea, then walked over to the neko and knelt down on one knee. "Here, you need this more then I do."

"Stay away from me," the neko said, still trembling.

"Please, we're sorry."

"You may be, but she isn't. She would've eaten me if it wasn't for you. She ate my friends, she's a monster."

Jalen looked back and Mel was looking into the ground, she looked like she felt horrible. Jalen turned back to the neko and set the cup down next to her, then walked over to Mel. "You left the sliding door open. So, what happened to the antidote? Is everyone alright?"

Mel looked back to see the giant door that she used was indeed open, and it wasn't just another one of Jalen's hallucinations. "Sorry, I didn't think about it. I wanted to get you here as fast as I could. And I had the villagers make the antidote as soon as I got here, everybody's been fine for an hour or so now."

"Do they wanna see me?" Jalen said. Mel nodded. "You should get that tooth checked Mel, it looks bad."

Mel watched Jalen limp to the sliding door, and when she was sure Jalen couldn't see her; she used her finger to check all her teeth. She sighed when she couldn't feel anything unusual. "Jalen, what do you want me to do with her?"

Jalen grabbed the handle to the door and started to shut it, then stopped to think for a second. Mel wouldn't let any harm come to her, and Jalen would never let any harm come to Mel. Calling Mel a monster looked like it did as much damage as any other type of harm would do. "Do whatever you want with her, just don't break anything," she said, then smiled, shut the door, and began the short walk to the village leader's home.

"WAIT!" yelled the neko. She waited to see if the door would slide back open, but it didn't. Finally, she sat back and pressed herself against the wall. She was trembling again, and her heart beat quickened exponentially when Mel turned away from the door to look at her. She stared right into the eyes of the giantess, but was still able to see Mel lick her lips.