I sat at my spot besides Mother and licked clean the now fleshless bone, I started thinking back on my life, or more correctly my two lives. I was extremely curious if I would have recognized myself, If I had the chance to traverse worlds, jump in time or whatever necessary to meet myself from when I was human. I had this thought often, and for every time I actually had that thought, the doubt about my old self recognizing my new self only grew.

It's only natural that people change with time. I doubt my personality has changed too much, I do kind of have to keep a lid on certain aspects of myself to be able to fit into this crazy tribe.

Every time I do share my thoughts and ideas, everyone just dismisses everything as silly idea’s and it's rather frustrating. But on the other hand, the physical differences were so huge that there was no chance in hell that I would have recognized myself. After all, I had gone from human to some sort of feral humanoid kitsune. On top of that even my gender had changed. I was a girl now, or rather a bitch as they call females here. I might have been a girl for over Four years, but I can't say I felt like one. They don't really do gender Inequality here at all, so I can't say I have been treated as a girl in any way at least not yet.

Other than the massive physical changes, I knew deep in my heart that I had been affected by other things, like my instincts as a celestial snow fox. my senses like my vision and hearing was on a whole other level now. And how I never could satisfy my hunger, no matter how much I ate it would never be enough.

I was also completely immune to blood and gore, my old human self would struggle with something basic like killing and gutting a fish. Now I would kill and eat anything small enough I could get my hands on, which was mainly small rodents and similar small game.

Even if those changes had guaranteed their effects on me, I tried my best to keep some of my old values. I found it increasingly difficult to do so, it felt like my memories faded bit by bit and on my worst days I even questioned if my old life had been real in the first place. I often had to force myself to think back on my last life so I wouldn't forget, And as I went to bed at nights I repeated to myself. I am Alexander, I am still Alexander.

The fear of losing myself to Lunaria was a growing concern for sure.

As I was deep into my own thoughts, the adults had finished the battle over the last of the scraps, and it was time to move over to the morning hall part of our gathering.

It was here we would raise any of our concerns, share important news and divide into hunting parties. There were rarely any concerns of news to bring up, so the only important thing being discussed was how to divide the hunters into parties for this week. Not that it really mattered to me, since I was not expected to join any of the hunting parties, I was only a mere one tailed pup after all.

I waited until most adults had left the longhouse before I put down the bone I had mindlessly kept licking and went over where Arissa was sitting.

As I sat down with her, I gently patted my shirt where I had stashed the piece of meat for her and gave her a wide smile and asked.

"So what do you wanna do today ?"

Arissa let out a weak growl and in annoyance stated.

"Do you really have to ask ? We do what we always do, we go out to train to become great hunters, I'm still hungry so catching anything would make my day."

I gave her a soft chuckle before saying. "Aren't we always hungry ? It's not like I don't like hunting, but it's basically the only thing we do. It could be fun to do something else then to hunt you know. Let's experiment a little, try new things and live a little."

Arissa just gave me her usual look, like I had said something outrageous idiotic.

"Sometimes I don't get you Lunaria, what could be more fun than stalking your prey and sink your teeth in some fresh and warm meat".

Feeling defeated I let out a sigh and replied. "I don't know. I really don't know, I'm just longing for something different, something that isn't hunting, sleeping or eating. We do those things more than enough already."

"No Lunaria, we don't do it enough, I'm still hungry, so how could we ?"

"Aren't we always hungry, isn't everyone complaining about always being hungry, when was the last time you went an entire day without hearing someone complaining about exactly that.

Do you honestly believe that you won't be hungry, no matter how much you actually eat."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Arissa thought about what I said for a few seconds before giving me a predatory grin and stated. "If we catch a lot, we would be less hungry."

I let out a sigh of resignation and waved my paw dismissively. "Have it your way. Any specific place you wanna go ?"

"Yeah I know just the place" she beamed, drooling in excitement.

"Let's go over the river to the east. If we hide up in tree’s there we can ambush anything that tries to drink from the river. It should be close enough that the grown ups wouldn't make a fuss about it"

I gave Arissa a silent nod, before running up to Mother. She was still sitting at the matriarch’s table, sorting through a pile of bones in front of her, with a displeased expression in her face.

I quickly explained Arissa’s plan and she instantly approved, but told me that we shouldn't go further than that. She usually always approved when we asked to do something to practice our hunting abilities. The idea of having her 4 year old travel an hour from the village without adult supervision was not alarming to her at all. It's not like I can complain about the freedom I had, but I can't envision myself being fine with such a thing if I had children. But again, this culture is like night and day compared to human cultures, at least the human cultures I knew of.

With our activities approved I ran out of the longhouse where Arissa stood waiting, inpatient to get going. As I neared her, I took in her appearance. She was one of those that swore off clothes, and would only use them on the coldest winters, in contrast to me who couldn't stand the thought of being naked in front of others.

She had a slim and well trained body, with pure white fur covering her limbs, tail and backside, making her piercing crimson eyes stand out even more. Together with the long white hair, she looked just like a smaller version of every other tribe member. I doubt any outsiders could see any of our tribe members apart, not visually at least, since we mainly used our strong sense of smell to differentiate between each other.

However everyone did have slightly different visible features, and in Arissa’s case she had a little more fur covering her body then the others. Instead of covering her arms up to the shoulders like mine, her fur also went around her throat and neck, and she also had a tiny spot of gray fur on the left side of her throat.

Together with that, her distinct smell and that she was a lot smaller than any of the adults, she would always be unmistakable for me.

I was incredibly curious if I had any unique features like that, I really wanted to get my paws on a mirror, but such things didn't exist in our village, the closest I had gotten was seeing my own reflection in a puddle, so I was mostly ignorant of how my appearance was. The only thing I knew made me stand out compared to the others was the fact that I was always wearing clothes, It might only be a simple shirt and pants but at least I was dressed. The others mostly went around nude outside their natural fur, and would only wear clothes during the coldest parts of winter. So I was definitely the weird one, it might have been the human culture wired into me, or that wasn't comfortable enough to walk around displaying my private parts. I am still pretty conscious of my missing manhood after all

I would also expect Arissa to be a lot taller and look older than me, since she was 2 years my senior, but she was barely half a head taller than me, I had a theory that we grew based on how much we ate, and that could the be reason why she barely was larger than me, but I couldn't tell for sure. Since I only had myself and her as samples on how children grew.

Tired of seeing me space out, Arissa shook her head and grabbed my paw before starting to run eastwards. Taken by surprise I almost stumbled but quickly regained my balance, and after running for a few minutes we were out of sight from the village and any villagers.

Arissa halted and started sniffing my chest, eager for the treat I had brought her out of pity.

Seeing the fox girl in such eagerness I tried to hold back my laughter, unable to suppress it completely I ended up letting out a snort instead. "Come on, easy now girl" I said while pushing her away from me before her nose found its way under my shirt.

She started staring at me with her huge puppy eyes while her drool spilled out of her mouth.

Seeing how she could barely contain herself, I retrieved the slice of meat from under my shirt. As I held up the piece of meat, the smell of raw flesh hit my nose, I felt my stomach rumble, and saliva build up in my mouth. I felt a sudden urge to throw it into my own mouth and had to fight my gluttonous instincts for control. Fearing I would lose the battle of self control, I threw the meat up in the air, while struggling to hold back the urge to jump after it.

Arissa held back nothing, With her eyes fixated on the flying piece she jumped up, catching it with her mouth and swallowing the entire thing without even chewing.

Seeing the meat disappear, my inner urge also vanished, and I was quite pleased with myself that I managed to resist my own instinct so well. I tried my best to find joy in seeing Arissa so pleased, but I couldn't help feeling the regret in not just eating it myself.

Arissa licked herself around the mouth, in a predatory expression of bliss she said.

"Mmmm. That was delicious, thanks for the snack Lunaria.

I really don't get how you do it. Putting away such a piece and even giving it away without asking anything in return, it doesn't make sense, I doubt I could muster such restraint.

And you used that weird word again, Why wont you just call me a bitch like everyone else ?"

Annoyed over having to explain my word of choice, I shrugged before replying. "I don't think anyone would suffer from some self discipline, it builds character you know. And you don't need to point that out every time, you know what I mean by it. I just prefer that word over bitch, it sounds cuter."

Arissa let out a loud groan, seeming to be annoyed to state the same thing over and over again. "Don't get me wrong, I like you and everything, but you can be so strange sometimes. Cute ? What a pointless notion. But let's hurry up, I want to find more to eat."