I was pulled out of my deep slumber by someone gently shaking me.

What? I managed to groggily grumble as I woke up.

The familiar voice of Mother gently said. Lunaria, it’s time to get up, how long are you gonna lie there, lazing around ?

I grunted, annoyed over having my sleep interrupted. I even had this amazing dream of being back home and enjoying popcorn at the cinema.

I let out a deep yawn before storing the memories of my dream in the back of my mind, since that's not something I could share with anyone around here.

I removed the warm fur quilt from my body, got up from my sleeping spot and drowsily found my leather pants and linen shirt and dressed hurriedly so Mother wouldn't complain too much about me being slow.

I'm now about 4 years old, or 4 winters old as Mother would say. Physically I'm closer to what you would expect from a 9 year old, I don't know if the year here has more or less days then what a year back on Earth has. It's not like we have calendars, and I haven't tried counting the days, I spent most of my two first years here sleeping several times a day after all.

I suspect that Celestial snow foxes just grow faster than what humans do.

I did pick up a lot of information the last few years. The language came naturally after a while, I still make grammatical errors and I pronounce certain words wrong like a child, which I am.

I also found out that I belong to what the adults call the Celestial snow fox race. I have never heard anyone mention anything about kitsune’s but everything I have learned so far indicates that we would be labeled as kitsune back home. A much more bloodthirsty and brutal versions of the kitsune’s I've heard stories about

To my surprise the adults claim that we don't die of old age, that we only get stronger the older we get, and they say my mother, who also is the matriarch of our tribe, is over 800 winters old and a respected six tails.

The idea of anyone living for that long seems unreal, but again everything I've experienced over the last 4 years doesn't seem real either.

Our village isn't that big either, we only have 23 members in our little tribe, and besides me there is only one more pup, which is Arissa.

She is 2 winters older than me, and is my only friend in this place. I could complain and say that she is a little childish, but I don't think I could expect otherwise.

There isn't much to do here for entertainment, and the only thing our tribe have a passion for is hunting and eating, and if the adults are not doing those things they mainly complain about being hungry. They don't eat anything but raw meat either. I thought I would struggle with only eating raw meat, but I have taken a liking to it, I think that might be a racial thing.

When I asked Mother about eating other things than meat, she just looked at me like I was a complete idiot before laughing and telling me to put those silly ideas away. Apparently I ask about silly stuff all the time, and she wonders where I get all these strange ideas from.

I wish I could tell her about my earlier life, but I don't think she would believe me, and just dismiss it as imaginative dreams. I don't think the concept of modern ideology and technology would go over well with such primitive beings.

Of the many things I have asked about, I have asked about humans, which surprised my mother, and she wondered where I had heard about those. I had dismissed it as something I heard the adults mention in passing.

As she started telling me about humans, she warned me that they could be dangerous in larger groups, and we hadn't seen any humans in our territory for many, many winters. And apparently they kept away from the northern territories.

I was overjoyed that there actually were humans in this world, and hoped I could meet any of my former kind in the future. The prospect gave me hope, and I wondered how technologically advanced they might be in this world. Celestial snow foxes had no interest at all in advancing their development level. And the most advanced thing we did was tailoring, tanning hides and making leather. Everyone seems satisfied with living in such primitive conditions. I tried to suggest the idea of having an open hole in the center of our tents so we could have a fire inside, to provide both heat and lumination. But as usual it was just one of my silly ideas, since we don't freeze easily, most go around barely clothed or not wearing anything except their natural fur, even during the harshest winters.

I had already formed ideas on how I wanted to make my own tent when I was old enough to move out. I would definitely improvise to have the most modern primitive tent in the village, maybe if the others saw how useful some of my ideas could be, they wouldn't dismiss all my so-called silly ideas anymore.

But for that to happen I would need to grow my second tail first, only then would I be counted as one of the adults.

According to Mother, that would happen somewhere between the age of 14 to 18, depending on how well fed I am.

Completely lost in my own thoughts, I heard my mother yell. Lunaria ! what's taking you so damn long. And in an instant I was back in the present, and ran out of our tent so I wouldn't annoy her anymore than what I already had.

I was eager to get going too, since today it was communal breakfast after all, it was difficult to not be eager on such days.

Outside she was waiting for me, looking annoyed, I bowed in respect and gave my apologies before we walked together towards the longhouse, like we did most days. It was early spring now, and the trail we walked was filled with mud. I felt my paws sink into the mud for every step I took,and my short legs didn't make trudging through the mud any easier.

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On arrival at the longhouse, where every gathering took place I had mud stuck up to my knees, inside and outside my simple pants. getting all the dirt off both my pants and fur would be a struggle for later. If I tried to clean off now, Mother would surely yell at me again, since no one cared much about being a little dirty.

As we entered, the entire tribe was seated by the two tables on each side of the hall. At the sight of Mother, they all stood up and bowed in unison as she walked past them. She found her rightful seat up front at the matriarch’s table, the exact spot where the naming ritual had taken place. It might only be a few years ago, but it felt like ages ago now, I had gotten used to the brutality of life here, even if the stare of the green eyes of that elf still haunted some of my nightmares.

As a pup I wasn't allowed to have a seat at any of the tables, instead my place was to sit on the dirt floor beside mother to either catch scraps falling from the table, or wait until she fed me.

After Mother had found her seat and pointed with her paw at the side entrance as a command. Five members of the tribe got up and hurried off to bring in the breakfast. They quickly returned with several flayed carcasses for us to eat. I noticed the first man brought something that could resemble a wolf, just larger, maybe more akin to a direwolf. I eyed the carcass as he unloaded the entire thing on one of the long tables, the scent of blood and fresh meat hung heavy in the air and my stomach rumbled as I had to swallow just to avoid drooling all over myself.

It didn't take long until the second man came in with a large buck slung over his shoulder, and he put the entire thing on the matriarch’s table. This animal was also skinned, and I could only tell that it was a buck due to the large antlers that were still attached to its head.

My stomach growled again, and I stared up at the creature that was about to be devoured.

I had the urge to jump up and start chewing on the giant piece of meat, but I had to be patient. Doing otherwise would reflect badly on the matriarch, showing the tribe that she couldn't control her own offspring.

I spaced completely out while staring with hungry eyes on my next meal, and before I knew it, they had put two carcasses on each table, with the large buck on the matriarch’s table.

When everyone had gotten back to their seats and the silence of anticipation felt unnatural.

Mother stood up and bowed before loudly saying. Here we are yet again for another communal breakfast, our hunters have done what they do best, and we are all here to share their bounty. Let's devour the weak, let their flesh become our strength for tomorrow.

With that speech she clapped her paws together and hell broke out immediately.

Everyone threw themselves at the carcasses, immediately taking bites from the animals as they lay on the table, a few had their claws extended and tore large pieces of flesh off, only to throw it as fast as possible into their mouths, before rushing to get the next piece, not even taking a pause to swallow. The entire thing was a crazed feeding frenzy, a battle to stuff as much meat into their mouth until there was nothing left. Nothing was off limits until it had entered someone's mouth and they ripped the meat out of each other's paws while growling and snarling at each other.

To this date, I had yet to experience any communal meal without any injuries, and no scrap of meat, marrow, organ or entrails ever survived any of our meals. The entire thing was a brutal affair.

Anyone that thought that we were a civil race would change their mind after seeing a feeding session and would most likely end up being eaten in the process. Luckily for me I had privileges as the matriarch’s daughter. As our leader She usually got a whole carcass to herself and didnt have to participate in the battle for the meat. Nevertheless she was just as noisy while eating, Growling towards towards her own meal, and she could devour a whole buck in 20 minutes or less by herself.

I had been curious for a while on how everyone could eat more than their own body weight in meat, but Mother had never provided me with a satisfying answer, But I was experiencing endless hunger on a daily basis so the how and why got lost in my desire to eat.

No matter how much I ate, it never felt like it would be enough. I had on several occasions eaten over twice my own body weight in meat, and still felt hungry afterwards. It was like my stomach was an endless pit that never neared half full, It was incredibly frustrating going around hungry constantly.

As I sat on the floor and watched Mother eat with great enthusiasm, I had to be patient and wait for her to throw down any meat for me to eat. As my mother it was her role to feed me until I grew my second tail, and she did fulfill her duty, but I could see it in her eyes, that parting with any food while feeding went against her nature.

But today was my lucky day. Mother actually halted her feeding for a few seconds to look down at me and gave me a loving smile before ripping an entire hind limb from the buck and holding it over me. My stomach growled as I stared at the juicy piece of meat, anticipating to sink my teeth into that beautiful piece of meat.

After teasing me for a few seconds, she finally dropped it. I caught it with my mouth while supporting its weight with my paws, and I immediately lost myself in the joy of ripping flesh from the bone.

As I gnawed and clawed on the delicious leg, I noticed something dangling from the table in my side vision. As I forced my attention from my delicious prize I saw that a piece of entrails had made it off the table and was hanging within paws reach.

I had learned that I should never interrupt Mother while she was feeding, and should never take anything directly off the table, but this isn't technically on the table so it should be fair game.

I put the leg I had been gnawing on down and took hold of the dangling entrail and put it in my mouth. As I gulped it down I had the mental image of eating a giant string of spaghetti, I held back my laughter of the image in favour of pulling more entrail down.

I kept slurping and pulling on the entrails, feeling extra lucky for my chance to eat even more, the more I pulled the more I got, and it felt like a never ending string of deliciousness and I must have swallowed nearly 20 feet of entrais before it came to a stop. My disappointment only lasted for a brief moment before I shook the feeling off, figuring I should count myself lucky that I even had that chance. As I was about to resume gnawing on the leg I had gotten earlier I had a look towards the long tables and saw Arissa sitting on the floor by her mother, her eyes filled with jealousy.

I knew that Arissa’s mother fed her, so it wasn't like she would starve, but I also knew that I always was fed more, since I was the matriarch’s daughter so I took pity on her. After all, she was the closest thing to a friend I had, If you could say that Celestial snow foxes had friendships.

It was closer to tribemates or hunting partners than anything else, but I often looked at things differently from everyone else around me.

I had long feared that I was losing my humanity by living in this village, So i tried extra hard to keep some of my old core values.

I used my claw to slice off a fairly sizable piece of meat and held it up so Arrisa could see, and then hid it under my linen shirt.

It wasn't the first time I had hidden away food to give to Arissa, so her eyes lit up in joy and she started wagging her tail uncontrollably as she saw what I had done. And after giving her a grin I went back to gnawing on the leg.