a pack, accumulated
i never noticed when i first showed my fur, when i first stood on two hooves, when i first stood on four. no, i never noticed when i turned, i only noticed when i turned someone else.
we were sat together, on the grass of an empty field at night. exposed, but in the moment, i couldn't care less - my golden fur and features on full display for her, ordinarily a terrifying prospect. and her, fidgeting and fumbling over words, nothing but her determination keeping her warm in the biting cold. to find a human willing to speak to a monster like me was rare, but she was a rare specimen indeed; someone i dared put my trust in.
after some scattered back-and-forth, she decided it was time; leaning forward, leaving her neck bare for my taking.
"What's a herbivore doing with those silly fangs? If you're trying to scare me off, it's not working." "oh, we all have them, it's, how the curse spreads. they're poisonous. it wouldn't kill you per-se, but it'll be close enough." "How much do you think it would take?" and she continued to scribble in her notebook, not a care in the world... maybe that's what finally convinced me to let her have her way.
i bit, hard. i savoured the feeling, the taste of blood, the venom leaving my fangs, the way it made me feel to do what i'm supposed to give in to those thoughts that plagued me from day one. a special primal joy that i had no choice in.
her own yelp quickly quieted down, replaced by the little yips and yaps that her growing muzzle was made to handle. the changes radiated out from her neck, the mangled flesh quickly reforming and rearranging into something more suitable for her new form - lengthening waves of copper fur, metallic like mine, running through lengthening limbs after those terrifying claws. a tail starts to stretch its way around, an uncertain paw guiding it to an awkwardly-cut hole near the back, too high up. and then nervous laughter, which itself transforms into a beaming smile and infectious, contagious laughter.
she makes for a wonderful fox... and a brilliant, shining monster... and maybe she'll be able to take care of herself i mean, only copper, nobody's risking their life for that and she's got some real weapons not like the blunt excuses i'm stuck with but who's going to teach her to use them? nobody who taught me is around anymore and i'm in no shape to teach her myself does she realize the danger i put her in? and for what? to have some company? was it worth ruining her life?
kneeling down, her paw traces around my face, wipes away some of the blood. "It must feel crazy to do that, right? Scratching that itch to take a solid bite out of someone, hehe."
i look up at her, look into her eyes. i look at the way the light reflects around it, how it changes when she looks around. mercury? is that what my eyes look like too?
"And somehow, I'm still here in one piece. A little achiness, but other than that, it feels even better than I thought it would!"
she's talking, posing, gesturing... was it worth it, just to see someone like me?
"Almost like I could run to the end of the field and back without even noticing... I might even be able to run up the stairs and make it back alive!"
she's happy now, but the thrill won't last.
"Even better than that, though..." she takes out that damned notebook, and opens a random page. "...I can finally get a second good set of notes."
"so it is my fault."
"Huh?"
"i didn't take it seriously enough, did i? i made it look interesting, made it look fun, didn't i..."
"No, you-"
"i fucked up. you, you should just shift back and forget about this whole mess, it'll be easier for everyone."
"How am I supp-"
"what will you do when a friend finds out? what will you do when someone sics a hunter on you?"
she sits down now, putting an arm around my shoulder. "If someone lifts a finger on us, I'll split them in half. And I'll talk to my friends, they'll understand."
"you'll talk? that's it? you sure do have the confidence of a human, i'll give you that." and i can't help but flash a smile. maybe she'll subsist on pure confidence, is that a thing humans can do?
"Yeah, but I have to hope. That, or you turn a couple more of us, and we can be our own little pack, right?" and she has the gall to laugh. "Maybe I'll even ge-" i push her away. suddenly, the dirt in front of me is the most interesting thing in the world. she shuffles next to me, but i pretend not to notice. it's still dark, but the birds are starting to wake up. we don't have unlimited time here.
i turn back into my human form. itchy and much too big, constantly wearing down my mind. "we should go now." she nods at me, and looks back at herself. stares, for a moment, in confusion. oh, "do i need to teach you how to shift?" she nods again. "picture your body in your mind. now- oh, you already got it, huh?" i guess it makes sense, with how familiar she must be with that form. at least that's one thing i don't have to worry about.
//
i didn't talk to her for another two weeks. whenever we'd cross paths, i'd just give her awkward silence, it's meaning clear to us both: "please stay away, please stay safe". all the while, my own urges started to resurface, redoubled. all that, for such a temporary reprieve...
it only ended when she showed up knocking at my door, fully in her fox form, in a hallway for everyone to see. of course i'd take her inside, it'd be murder not to. and she just hops onto my sofa, not a worry in the world, leaving her bags around like she owns the place.
"So, what've you been up to?"
i'm not answering that.
"Alright, I'll start." she takes out a book - a new one, but already roughed up - and opens it somewhere in the middle. and there's sketches of- other therianthropes? herself in the middle, and two others i don't recognize. they're not of my kind, at any rate... "There's a couple more of us, scattered around the city. He," she points at the feline on the left, "taught me how to fight, and it," pointing at the rabbit on the right, "taught me how to better control my shifting. They're clever, but lonely; you should swing by to say hi, sometime."
i flick through the pages. no, there's not many of them, but they're all so interesting... animals and materials i'd only heard of in tales as a child. and they're right here?
she skims over the notes as i go. "Yeah, it's nice being a powerful animal and all, but getting to talk to others like me is even better. There's no way I could've held a conversation with them as a human; if you were secretive, everyone else is a bank vault."
"...you've done a good job taking care of yourself, huh? doing better than me, by the looks of it."
"A high bar, by the looks of it."
"hey!"
"You can't hole yourself up and expect things to go great, you know."
"humans are hard."
"They are, but some of them are pretty cool, it turns out."
"maybe... at least one, but they're not human anymore, so i don't know if it still counts." i'm smiling, i didn't even notice, smiling at her. she's laughing, in a tone no human lungs could make and with a volume no therianthrope would dare project. then i look back at the book, and notice a couple humans sitting in the margins. some holding their own papers, others surrounded by little animal silhouettes.
"I sure don't, but I've seen some curious humans in this time. And some shitty ones, but like I told you, they're easy to disperse. Some of them are just that: curious, friendly. I think they count."
"are any like you, then?"
"I, um. Tried turning one of them myself. Thankfully I did it a lot more gently than you did, because my fangs are actually just venomous. Not much, but enough to ruin the day for all of us, hehe..."
"wait, it didn't work?"
"Oh, no, not everyone's got fangs like yours. Or the will to do it, by the looks of it."
wait, what? was i just lied to? what exactly did they say... i try to remember, rack my brain to remember, but nothing comes out just that feeling in the back of my mind telling me over and over, go for it
"Someone else could've done it, but they seem to like the idea of metal more than silk."
holding back my whole life until someone gives me a chance on a silver platter a chance i can't resist and i mess it up so badly! but i need it
"So, how about you come over sometime?"
you can't just say something like that! give me a minute, ok? "sometime, sure. but... can i read some more?"
"Of course!"
and here i was supposed to take care of her but maybe... maybe i need it more than she does.
a lineage, unassumed
when i was young, my parents would tell me so many stories of what home was like. someplace we could exist, wild and unbothered, among our own kind.
when my parents were young, they were told so many stories of the humans that had ruined our home. poachers given free reign to run through our land, killing for scraps of gold and ivory - weapons we never would have imagined, arrogance we never could have matched.
it didn't stop them from leaving & living with the enemy, nor did it stop me from leaving them to live with their enemy.
i never learned much in detail. they taught me the basics, sure: how to take care of myself, how to defend myself, how to shift back and forth, a little on how we worked. but i was always distracted, always disconnected - listening to them talk gave me headaches. their hatred for the world that surrounded us dripped from every word they spoke, made it toxic to hear; "my people" just a phrase they'd parrot, not something i could ever be a part of; and the person they always wanted me to be was someone who hated me.
it sounded like they persisted on pure anger, almost.
there's plenty of benefits to living among humans. they give you safety, if you're willing to be quiet, and the food is pretty good. a lot of us don't like crowds, but it's calming for me, so somewhere busy like here is nice! sometimes, they'll even spend their overflowing wealth on you, if you don't ask too many questions. only humans get to do that.
i caved, quickly; easily the better deal.
there's good hearts out there, in some of them. maybe it was silly... but i thought they could be enough. just to keep me happy, alright, sane in the moment, just to tide me over until i could figure things out. maybe i can put these feelings behind me, and... just... enjoy my life, wherever i am.
the feelings caught up to me.
i found people like me. i made people like me, sniffed out anyone that had that potential in them, anything to have company. i had to answer to those feelings, anything to answer to those urges.
i bit, hard. it'd be murder not to.
a strange collection of animals, not of any single clade or kind. some of them once human, some of us born this way, some of the latter indistinguishable from the former. trained to hide so deeply, we hid from ourselves and eachother for months and years, until we couldn't find ourselves. now we put ourselves on full display: the terror of it present as ever, but maybe
it's worth it, this time?
a rabbit, skin of silk and eyes of obsidian, takes my hooves and teaches me a game. a frivolous playground activity, one of its remaining memories of a life long lost; made to help them control their form, the playful slaps and punches don't hurt at all when you're made of fabrics. my solid metal hooves are about as ill-suited as it gets. it's the most fun i've had in months.
a pangolin, scales of citrine, dares to speak up. her voice, a music of its own... must also be her burden, more than anything else. and her fangs, striking rose quartz, perhaps she's like me?
peeking in occasionally, a curious creature. human in physical form, we don't know yet what his true form will look like. we're still looking for the courage to find out.
//
a particularly sympathetic human asks, "where did you even get this ability from?"
a particularly learned human would tell you: "The curse is almost as old as mankind itself; a tribe forced to take the appearance of livestock, and bear with them precious materials for their masters to harvest and trade, upon their deaths."
my parents might, if you made the terrible mistake of talking to them, say: "Those humans did it, to take even more from us.", which always struck me as strange. humans don't know magic.
if you ask me, the curse is that i can't go grazing in a forest without attracting attention, and that i don't have any other deer to do it with. these people will have to do.