The cavernous interior of Astraea's famous mouth was just beginning to flood with saliva as her azure eyes scrutinized the living contents beyond a tiny row of windows, when she heard the lyrical chime of her phone. Exhaling, almost with disappointment, she instead curled her tongue from the corner of her lip rather than lashing it out, then produced her cell and held it to her ear. Still, her gaze didn't falter from staring through the glass squares lining the bus, which she palmed yet higher in the air, as the civilian-packed vehicle teetered across her open hand, but then fixed securely in place by her enormous fingers wrapped tightly over the roof.

            "Hi, honey," she cooed into the receiver. Her tone rang in dire contrast to the playful malice she otherwise suggested to the mortally-terrified occupants of the city bus she'd scooped off the ground like a mobile vending machine. Though delayed in feeling them squirm on her tongue, the appetizer of their fear was satiating enough to last a phone conversation. "How are your folks today?"

            "Oh, great! Just great," her husband Mitch replied with faux-cheer. "Well, fine, but you know how it is."

            "Do I? What's the matter?"

            "Not a huge deal. They just got a couple more of those... letters. From people who know I'm related to them."

            "And it upset them."

"It... may have spooked them a little. But I reminded them how safe they are there here."

"Did they happen to save the letters?" she asked. "I'm sure someone has the resources to find out who sent them. Just so the... police... have it in their records. For emergencies."

"Dear, there's no need for you to do anything. The letters weren't even threatening, they were just rude."

"Do anything? Don't be silly, sweetie. I wouldn't "do" anything so brash as opening the tops of their homes and inviting them up here for an up-close in-depth conversation, until their ability to write rude letters was utterly and completely negated. No, I might just stroll past the general area where they live. There's no crime in that, is there? If you could just find out their zip code-"

"Please, Astraea. Believe me. It's fine. Forget I even mentioned it," Mitch sighed.

The one-thousand-foot Apex suppressed an adoring smile, despite the marginal letdown of her husband not selling out the lesser members of his species. Not that she ever expected he would, but it didn't hurt to check from time-to-time, just in case he was annoyed enough at the disturbance to his extended family, and wanted his wife to have a special treat. Certainly she'd implied in the past, without quite crossing the line into distastefulness, that she'd be more than willing to reward such help from Mitch with extra bedroom fun: by no means, she'd emphasize, was he to think of it like she wanted to pay him for human bounties with sexual favors, though she wasn't sure he totally believed her. It was moot either way, since Astraea didn't have the willpower to actually withhold those rewards, regardless of whether or not Mitch ever learned to aid-and-abet his wife's voracious public services.

"Oh, very well. If you insist. You have my vow: I will not go track down and swallow the people who've been harassing your parents. I'll just have to find my nutritional requirements elsewhere," the giantess cooed, emphasizing these words with particular clarity for her audiences on both ends of the phone.

She rolled her eyes and let her lips widen into a gleaming smirk, then refocused her meaningful stare on the paralytic micro-faces looking back at her through the bus windows. After this bit of outspoken honesty, she felt a fresh rush of their apprehension shoot through her. Then, while listening to her spouse's response, Astraea "absentmindedly" lowered her palm from the level of her face, so the doomed passengers were forced on a slowly-descending bus tour that traced down the mountainous swell of her bust, past the border of her tank top and down to her toned mocha-tan midriff for a preview. The rise she got out of them now made goose bumps prickle up her forearm.

"And what about Ana? Hopefully not doing anything I wouldn't do," Astraea questioned, knowing full-well those parameters left her daughter with a lot of freedom. "I'd ask her myself, but you know how she is about answering texts from anyone except her friends."

"Oh! Well, you know. She's... being her wonderful self." Mitch's forced smile was almost visible through the airwaves. "Enjoying our getaway."

"All right, what is it?"

"Huh?"

"Whatever it is you're not telling me."

"It's nothing, hon."

"Come on. How long have we been married?" she coaxed. Astraea bobbed her head with impatience, letting her short silver locks sweep past her cheeks. Another glance at the bus made her stomach audibly gurgle, causing the passengers shriek, which in turn staved off her hunger just a little longer. "Give me some credit here. What did our sweet darling baby girl do?"

"All right. Look, I'm... not trying to sound like I'm blaming her. At all. I know it was just because she wanted to protect me-"

"Go on."

"-but, it's... Bart Townsend."

"Him? That nosy muck-raking piece of human-"

"-she ate him."

"-human garbage, God rest his soul," Astraea solemnly finished, though it was impossible to keep a crescent grin off her lips which nearly blinded the bus inmates when she raised the vehicle back up toward her face and glossed her mouth with a serpentine tongue. Part of her wanted to correct herself and point out that in fact Anastasia, not God, would be resting the tenacious little reporter's soul right in her belly, but she decided Mitch would miss the humor in this.

Pride swelled within Astraea even more powerfully than the whiffs of delicious fear seeping from the bus, and that was saying something. Her only disappointment was that she hadn't gotten to terrorize and then finally scarf down Townsend herself, given all the grief he'd caused Mitch, who throughout the mud-slinging remained humble and even advocated that the journalist be allowed to keep being an asshole, much to Astraea's loving resentment.

Still, this was almost as good. Already she'd withdrawn the phone from her ear and started texting a series of thumbs-up and heart emojis to Anastasia, who would surely bemoan her equally-giant parent's unhipness, but the matriarch didn't care; she was too happy.

"I'm sorry. It sounds like that upset you," Astraea said. "Was he following you again?"

"Well, yes. By air, too, so it was tough to tune him out. I asked her to just ignore him, but I think after a few miles of flying after us and yelling through the speakers, he must've struck a nerve. Then Ana just stopped walking and opened her mouth. I thought it was to tell him off, but instead of talking, she just took a step toward the helicopter, and..."

"Oh, no," Astraea empathetically crooned, while adding more approving emojis to her daughter's text chain. "That's unfortunate it had to happen that way. But if it's... any consolation, sweetie, that's one less probably-better person Ana will have to take in today."

"I know, I know," Mitch glumly replied. "It's just... he's always been attacking our family, our relationship... I guess I always hoped, somehow, I might be able to show him he was wrong. You know, rise above it. Be the bigger person."

"Aww. Don't say that," Astraea sighed, now feeling a twinge of guilt for reveling so much while her husband mourned. "You can and do "rise above it" every single day. I think that's why I married you. That, and your music made you the sexiest little thing I'd ever heard. But, you also never have an obligation to be the bigger person, in any scenario. Understand? Let us take care of things sometimes."

"Sure," he said, not sounding quite convinced, but grateful nonetheless. "Thanks, honey. Listen, I didn't mean to put a damper on your day out and about without us."

"Are you kidding? I was almost dying of boredom here," Astraea amorously fibbed. "But, you are right that I'm taking advantage of the sunshine."