I had overslept. People were busy in the room, the wooden shutters were open and the sun was shining through the window frames. I blinked and got up.

Ugh, all four legs ached, the muscles hard. I got up slowly. I felt the call of nature. And this time I would need to walk a little further to get some privacy.

When I came back, everyone was sitting in the morning sun in the front garden facing the fountain, enjoying breakfast, even Freya was up. She had swapped her Sunday shirt again for the dark healer's tunic. Said breakfast was just the leftovers from the evening, plus bread. For me, only the dark grey bread counted. It was almost burnt on the outside, but crunchy and good to chew. It went well with the rest of my soup.

Then it was time to bid farewell. I put on my saddlebag, which was heavier with a few carrots and two loaves of bread, and we, or rather I, set off at a slow pace to ease my aching muscles. The children ran alongside us for a while before they also said goodbye. I called to Kulov and gave him two of the small copper coins from my purse. "For sweets," I said, although I was not sure if he could use them in the village. Heck, I had no idea what they were worth.

Not wanting to prolong this, I sprinted until the children were out of sight, despite protesting legs. After a short stop to tighten the buckle on my saddlebag, I continued at yesterday's pace. The aching was slowly fading, but my steps still felt heavier.

We started the language lessons again. I was even more motivated and from my time with the children, I had a clear idea of which words I wanted to learn first.

After my throat felt hoarse, I decided to change the subject. "Freya, why is your mindspeak so good? I mean, no offence, you are an apprentice healer and most of the clerics were less fluent."

"Natural talent." I could feel her sitting up straight. "Well, and as an apprentice, I still mostly have to do aftercare. With a lot of wounded soldiers from Kwal that nobody wants to take care of. So they came to the apprentices. And I did not speak Kwal and found it easier to improve my mindspeak."

"But if all apprentices can speak mindspeak"

"No, I really have the gift. And so it was that I looked after the poor centaurs. They knew even less Kwal than I do now. So I had to send them concepts, which is the core of mindspeak. Communicating with them was hard work, and everyone was happy to push it in my direction. In this way I also became the 'centaur expert'."

I thought for a while about how to ask the next question. "Say, is that why you took care of me?"

"Of course, at least in the beginning. But you really are a refreshingly different person."

"Inside and out, now."

She giggled. "Exactly. Even with two legs, you would be a lot of fun."

I blushed. Strangely, I couldn't remember being so entertaining. "You coax that out of me."

"So we make a good team!"

"I walk and entertain and you," I coughed badly as I really had swallowed a fly.

"Yes!" she beamed.

* * *

Most of the morning was dense hilly forest, apart from two muddy stream crossings. But now we were on the shores of a lake. As soon as I saw it, I galloped and then braked hard, fumbling to unbuckle the saddlebag. Swimming, I loved swimming, especially in lakes.

"Hey, you crazy cat. Not you!"

I had just won the battle of my big fingers against the buttons of my shirt. It also flew to the side. "Yes, swimming!"

Freya looked at me like I was even more nuts than usual. "You really?"

"Yes, swimming!" End of vocabulary, end of discussion. With that, I put her down and ran into the water.

It was cold but I went deeper. The beach fell away steeply and soon I was swimming. It was going well, the middle legs were doing breaststrokes too, and I was as fast as when I walked on two legs. But the water was really cold and after a hundred strokes I turned back. I was shivering when I got back to the beach, dripping wet.

Freya grinned.

"What?"

"You've shrunk."

I was not sure if I had understood correctly. So I put my right forepaw on a tree. (Not just a tree, corrected squirrel, grippy bark, leaves with rounded protrusions and tasty acorns already in late summer.) Using the grippy bark for support, I stood on my hind legs to look down on myself. Bending forward, I saw mostly dripping fur; but with the fur clinging to my body, it was not at all like a horse. It was even closer to that of an admittedly freakishly large human with the torso of a woman torso instead of a head. And one who was still wet and cold, even in the sun. At least the water ran off quicker standing up.

"A towel would be nice," I sighed.

Freya came and stared at me, still standing on my hind paws. She didn't even reach up to my lower shoulders.

"Cold?"

"Yes, wet fur but no towel."

Freya grinned and simply took a bunch of dried needles and ran them over my fur. It was surprisingly effective at pushing the water out, maybe because of the greasy fur. And I really enjoyed the rubbing: Despite the effort of standing on my hind legs, I even purred. This seemed to motivate Freya even more, and with renewed vigour, she scrubbed every bit of my fur dry. The sun helped too, and soon I was back to my fluffy self, with at least twice the volume of the real body inside and feeling great.

"Thank you," I smiled at Freya.

"Any time," she blushed.

Curious, I tried walking on my hind legs again. It was easier this second time, maybe because I had been standing on them for a while, and the former human could now shine. I was still upright after two minutes and could even walk almost straight with little effort. But there was not much headroom under the overhanging branches here at the beach, so I dropped down to all fours. It felt more natural now. To distract everyone, my stomach growled embarrassingly loud.

"Big cat is hungry!" Freya carried the saddlebag to a flat rock in the sun.

I took out a cabbage head for the main course and a carrot for dessert and then lay down lazily on the rock overlooking the beach. I held the carrot in my forepaws and it was almost as easy to hold as it was with my big hands. Even my hind paws could hold it without much effort. Somehow this made me feel more like an ape. Still, it was nice to have such a versatile body.

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Freya lay next to me on top of her tunic, naked again, eyes half closed, dozing in the sun. After a while she rolled onto my furry lower body, again spreading her limbs to all sides. I was torn by her use of me as a mattress. At least she was not heavy.

Dry and sated, we enjoyed the break until the sun moved on and we were fully in the shade again. I had been feeling the call of nature for some time, and Freya's lying on my belly did not help.

"Freya?"

"Hnn?" She sat up.

"Ouch, elbow!"

"Oh, I'm so sorry!"

"Your mattress really needing toilet."

She waved her arms and rolled down, a disappointed look on her face.

* * *

Instead of just walking back, I suddenly felt the urge to jump at a small stone from a little further away. Stupid, but I still leapt and landed right on it. And then another, and another.

Freya nearly fell over laughing.

"What?"

"Big cute cat playing." She intoned each word slowly so that I could even understand without mindspeak.

That made me stop, embarrassed. Cat! I will show her. Demonstratively, I stood up on my hind legs. "No, cat, Kiara."

"So, an angry giant."

I did not like that last word it sounded again like a mild insult. I dropped to all fours again. "Not angry. I confused." Again, lack of vocabulary. "I thinkinged."

"I was thinking," she corrected me. Then she put her hand on my lower shoulder for mindspeak, "So what is the matter?"

"Your cat truly, she wants to know what she really is."

"Sorry, I never"

"Ah, no. Not philosophically. I mean, what do you see? How human am I?"

She hesitated.

"Just the truth. I really want to know what people think of me."

She took a few steps back, looked at me critically and then came back to mindspeak. "Well, at first glance your torso passes for human, a strong, beautiful woman. However, there are tufts on your elongated and highly mobile ears. No human can move them like that. The first thing that's clearly not human. Given your tail, I would say those are squirrel ears, but I have never really looked closely at a squirrel's ears.

Squirrel ears? I didn't even realise I had tufted extended ears. I put my hands on my head. Oh no, large furry ears ending in tufts. Great, what other surprises were there? "OK, squirrel ears. What else?"

"Your hair is thick and quite reddish brown, as are your bushy eyebrows, again squirrel. Your nose is very wide and your mouth is quite big. Your lips are darker. But none of this is outside the human norm. Your eyes are clearly outside, yellow with slitted pupils, very feline. Do you have good night vision?

Do I? "I don't know." There were, of course, the nocturnal reliefs in the moonlight. But I lacked a reference.

"Then when you smile, no one will believe you are a vegetarian with those fangs."

"Fangs?" I prodded my mouth, and yes, how could I have missed them. Two large fangs on either side.

"And your tongue is much wider and flatter than a human's. And it seems quite long. Can you lick your eyebrows?"

"What?" This got worse and worse.

"Aren't you curious? Please."

Freya's face was only two handspans away. So I searched for a voice to control the tongue. It was a tiny one, and with her help the tongue stretched out and out until it appeared in my left field of vision. I could move it to the right, but the eyebrows were out of reach. "Llll," I had a small cramp and pulled it back.

"You speak really well for such a monster in your mouth. While the fangs and eyes are certainly cat, the tongue, well, you need an animal healer to identify it. And your hair is probably part squirrel too. But you have some kind of mane between your shoulders. I don't think squirrels have manes. That is why your fine shirt has this cut out." She held up the shirt. "Uh, you should put it on. When you were prancing around, your, er, weren't them, er, bouncing a lot?"

I didn't know that one could stammer in mindspeak and blushed even more than Freya. I grabbed it from her and on it went, although the buttons were still a challenge for my broad fingers with the claws hidden in their tips. "Yes, this shirt must have been tailored. It fits so well," I tried to distract her.

"Eh? All shirts are made by a tailor. Unless they are passed down, of course. And your shirt is made of Tangin silk which does not stain easily and is very strong, yet soft. And then the round ivory buttons. I guess your shirt is worth five times the money you got for that courier job.

I was really shocked and no I stammered. "Nice clothes, so I can't until I save more."

She giggled again. "Yes, definitely back to cute. Don't worry too much, you can get good linen, with some silk padding for your breasts. Which are well proportioned for your upper body size." And after a pause, "Nicer than mine." She blushed.

"Honestly, they were always like that. Maybe they had become even firmer."

"Well, nice," she said coldly, "did you have such broad shoulders before?"

Did I? "Maybe. I was rather broad-shouldered, so clothes were always a bit of a problem."

"So you had a lot of passed-on clothing? You were very poor?"

"No, but let's stay on topic. I will explain about industrial clothing later."

"I want to hear about. So promise! Back to your arms, I think they are on the longer side, just within the human range. The hands are definitely too big, but the proportions match. Could you put your hands on the floor like your paws?"

I stand up and bend over, now walking on all sixes. It evoked again a silly response. "I'm a centipede."

She giggled, "Sfg rgerg dsffsdv!" Then she switched back to healer mode and I grabbed my outstretched hand and went over my upper spine and lower shoulder.

"Hmm, your spine is very straight. I think that is the default position of your spine; lifting your upper body is straining your muscles a bit, I would think. Can you bend further?"

Being upright was indeed the limit of my shoulder-thigh region: I could not bend any further back, only further curl my upper spine. But it did not exhaust me to stay upright. I lifted my shirt and looked at my abdomen. Apart from the belly button, the muscles at work there were definitely not human. There was no softness, just muscles in a strange arrangement under a tight skin.

"There's no stomach there, that's in your lower body. That basic check it did in the camp. So, yes, your arms are as long as your legs, and I bet they are built much like your forelegs. Only without the fur and almost like hairless paws with the shielded claws."

I smiled, yes, the claws. I had practised a bit to control them so as not to cut anyone by accident. Now I could even pull them out one by one, from thumb to pinkie and back. I proudly grinned.

"You've really gone from cute to brute with that toothy smile and the claws. I like the cute Kiara better."

I felt guilty and looked down.

"And cute Kiara is back."

Somehow, I felt like I was the immature one, the young one. Ok, in this world I was two days old. But to be tricked so easily by Freya had hurt my pride.

She stroked my fur. "And your fur is just gorgeous." She buried her head in my fur next to her hand. "And you smell so nice, like cinnamon. Not like sweat, and certainly not like horse, cat or dog." She stroked my fur and I began to purr.

"But you are no cat, those legs are masterpieces. The front is more like a second human shoulder, you can feel the shoulder blades here and here. And although you look like a cat, your paws are very different: you are the only cat-like creature that can grab anything with its paws. But your paws, with their hoof-like centres, allow you to walk long distances without shoes. And your legs are longer than a cat's, but they are not horse legs, or you would not be able to jump like you did before. So, entirely custom-made, I would say. In fact, your whole lower body has been very carefully put together." Then she stroked my lower belly. "You have no breasts there. Would you like to also check your er?"

"Yes, please."

She was gentle, but still...

"Sorry, not much experience there. I would say everything around your vagina looks familiar, just a bit bigger. But you have a mini penis, smaller than a thumb, maybe for peeing straight. And everything is a little darker, the same colour as your lips."

She stood up quickly. "Finally, we have this fine long tail. Clearly based on a squirrel, and as long as your body. The fur is similar, but a little less dense." She sniffed. "It smells a bit different too, less cinnamon. Still nice and fluffy. Maybe you could use it as an umbrella in the rain, like a squirrel." She hugged the tip of my tail.

It was strange, but I let her for a few seconds. Still, "I'm not a cuddly toy."

"Does that bother you?"

"It feels a bit strange. But no." Honestly, it didn't bother me at all. It was nice to have some affection, especially after such a drastic change. I waited until she released my tail with a kiss.

"I think I need the tail to cool me down."

"Hm, yes, your lower body could easily overheat with that thick fur. A complete package and so cute."

I ignored her slightly mocking tone. "A mirror would be nice. Neither fountain nor lake was calm enough for a clear reflection."

"There will be mirrors in Krenburg. You must see the Hall of Mirrors in the Old King's Palace."

That sounds like something to look forward to. "Then let's go!" I grabbed the saddlebag and closed the buckle underneath me.