How It's Going, IV

The next month was the best time in her life. On the exception of one time when she had the sudden desire to bathe in the stream as a human, Shuule never shifted from her fox. For the first time, she felt fully independent and self sufficient, something she had longed for. She stalked down and caught wild prey to the point she felt like a glutton, and the season also allowed for the foraging of berries and fruits, which fox also consumed as omnivores. She swam in the stream, just to see what it was like, since she had never attempted to do such in her animal. She also caught a small silverfish, her first taste of fish ever, though it was somewhat an accident.

Only once did she ever feel in danger, when a large brown bear lazily crashed through her territory. Immediately aware of him before he was her, she stopped her play by the water, and scampered up her tree, hunkering down under its thick canopy. He did take a few pauses, raising his head and snorting in the air, but eventually went on his way. Shuule stayed up in her tree for the rest of that day, just to be safe. She wasn't sure if it was a wild bear, or a beastmen, but she didn't want to get close enough to find out.

Things only got difficult when the winds shifted and the weather turned unexpectedly bad. This land had predictable seasons, and this was barely a month into the dry season. As named, it was hot, and rain was not expected. Many years, there would be significant drought. Seemingly making up for such years, one morning Shuule was woken up by a deluge of water, and being fully animal suddenly showed one of its downsides. Well, this would probably be worse as a girl, she figured, shaking the water out of her pelt, though it was of no use. Living on a tree branch and not a hut, or even a dug hole, wasn't an advantage right now. Furrowing her brow and sneezing water out of her nose, at first she tried to wait it out, but then picked up her bag and climbed down the trunk. She kept furiously shaking her fur out, to no avail. She knew most beastmen seemed not to care about the weather in any of its forms, but the women did; she hadn't considered perhaps she was different in that way. Maybe she wasn't able to cope? Or maybe the men were just brutes and enjoyed being soaked down into their soul.

They also all had a dry house with a warm fire always waiting for them, she snorted again, feeling like she was slowly drowning while looking for a rock or something to hunker down into the mud under. Even when her brothers went away to play feral, they could come back home in an hour or two. with resentment sparking in her heart, Shuule found a rotting tree trunk, the best shelter she had stumbled across so far, and groaning at her misfortune, she squeezed inside. It was damp, not just from the rain but from decomposition, and while Shuule had eaten a bug or two in her life as a fox, she was feeling decidedly human in her current situation, crammed in with whatever insects had been calling this home. Bitterly, she fell asleep, hoping it would make the time go faster.

----

Ssssss.

With a startle, Shuule was woken up by a red forked tongue just grazing the end of her nose. Her hackles exploded straight upwards, trying to shove herself backwards farther into the log, but it wasn't entirely hollowed. She gave a low warning growl back, an empty threat. Was this forest just full of snakes? Was the first one just taunting her and let his prey go so he could eat it later?

A bright green eye was angled to look into the log, blinking slowly, calmly. It was definitely Set, she decided, but he wasn't keyed up like her last encounter. After waiting a few moments, she tentatively inched closer to the opening of the log, covered in debris. The black snake, low to the ground, moved his nose towards her, and she braced herself, but to her surprise she was merely bumped gently with his nose. Opening those almond eyes, she looked up at him with a question, but he moved his great black head upwards, and then gestured to the right with a nod, and a pause.

He wanted her to follow.

At this point, the drenched rat of an animal figured she had nothing to lose. The massive snake now twice had the opportunity to eat her, and twice had the opportunity to force her into spousalship. He had proven more trustworthy than her own clan leader, and it was clear she wasn't going to shake him. If he was pulling her out of a dead log, he probably had somewhere better to go - though that wasn't saying much. But regardless, she gave a firm nod, and the two of them headed out, following the stream.