D1C7 - Names

My stomach woke me with a fierce growl, I was beginning to regret my body modifications. Of course, An extra 30 percent metabolism was fine in normal circumstances, that is, assuming that I was to be born a human. But now that I wasn't, life was sucking. Literally, I felt the need to eat at every other hour. Of course, I never cried too loud, I felt apologetic towards my mother for having to eat so often, but she only gave me an understanding smile each time.

With a bit of thought, I realised why I was so hungry. Of course, this realisation was also based on the fact that my other half was indeed based upon an arctic fox, or any kind of fox. If I wasn’t then I may as well throw my conclusions out the window. Not that we had any windows, at least from what I could see. In my previous life, or more specifically, during my years as an undergrad, I met quite a few girls who wanted to get cosy with the so called “prodigy”. My future was bright, so if they managed to score with me, ie, get married, they wouldn’t have a hard life. Naturally, being the hormone-pumped teenager that I was, I was too blinded by love and I never saw through their seduction. My mother on the other hand, was too smart for those gold diggers or should I say prospectors.

“You can fuck them all, but no permanent relationships.” was her words.

And so it was. In my household, it wasn’t the men who ruled, it was the women. The one time I saw her and daddy get in a spat, I swear I could’ve seen the arms of Asura come out of her back. Yes, she was scarier than the slenderman himself. Monsters under the bed? Ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat. I gotta deal with the one in front of me! And so with her Iron-fisted arms of Asura she ruled our household like the tyrant Nero. Alright, so maybe I was exaggerating, I did love my mother and her sushi rolls but she was rather strict at times. At any rate, enough about my old life, back to the point.

You see, one of the girls I dated was a hopeful veterinarian-in-training. One time, we went to on a date to the zoo, where she then proceeded to bore me with the details of all the animals there, such as the arctic fox. Of course, I paid attention, even if it was boring. After all, I did want to get some.

Anyways, said details was that foxes, including the arctic subspecies, were built like felines (cats). They were light weight, had a structurally strong loose-jointed skeleton, a small stomach(50% the size of an average dog), powerful muscles for acceleration, agility at high speeds with excellent jumping ability. Of course, it was all thanks to my amazing memory that I could remember this, it had nothing to do with the fact that that girl was a bombshell ok?

At any rate, even with my memory, I was unable to remember the finer details such as the numbers on speed and whatnot but that didn’t matter. What did matter at this moment was the fact that foxes had a small stomach. This trait must have been passed on into human form, which explained why I was always so freaking hungry! Combined, with my extra metabolism, I was basically screwed. Of course, I wasn’t about to give up any time soon, splitting the standard 3 meals a day into, 5 light meals a day should tide me over until I was able to work out a proper diet regiment.

I was also curious as to exactly “what” I was. Was I beastman? Or perhaps demi-human? Or god forbid, Were? This line of thought was somewhat amusing. The modern humans binomial nomenclature or scientific name was Homo sapiens sapiens, or H.s. Sapiens. The arctic wolf was called Vulpes lagopus. So what would the current me be called? H.s. lagopus? This was a question worth thinking about, but then again, if I actually did want to tackle this question, wouldn’t I have to come up with some sort of classification system for organisms that were like me?

Ugh. too much work. I put thought away into my “lock and forget” cell. To be entirely honest, this was a rather important issue. Being a surgical doctor, if a demi-human or beastman or whatever they are called, is not anatomically similar to a human, then I will be unable to perform surgery, or be able to diagnose my own condition. Of course, there was also the possibility of “healing” magic, but I would prefer to put stock in something that I am already familiar with. I guess will have to find a dead fresh beastman cadaver in the future for dissection. Yet another thing for my to-do-list. Of course, all this would only happen in the far far far off future. I didn’t want to know what they did to a child hoisting around a cadaver.

As I was thinking these dastardly thoughts, my mother rocked me back and forth in her arms. Did I mention how much I love her? Having a mom who does not have the arms of Asura was just so gratifying. I could lay here all day and be satifisied, which to be fair, I was doing. A few had passed now and I have not seen many people. Only my mom who was always beside me, my dad who visited often and the maids who often came in to clean and bring. food.

My mom was still tired and recovering from my birth so all we did all day was play peekaboo and laze around. I might have been a young adult before, but I am now a baby. I realise that my body is somewhat influencing the way I am thinking, I have somewhat short attentions spans and anything my mother does never fails to make me giggle like some high school girl. I also seem to have grown a fascination for my mother’s hair, it was simply so silky and smooth. I could totally picture her in a shampoo commercial.

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On the fourth day from my birth, my dad came visited us with a pair boys in tow. At this time my mother has holding me in the air so I could see who had entered the room. Immediately, I was able to recognise who they were. Like me, they had pale ivory skin and jet black hair. Unlike me, however, they had my dad’s electric blue eyes. With that, the question of whether or not I have siblings was answered. My two brothers were very different despite their similar looks.

The younger of the two, he looked around 9 and had my moms features, had a slightly martial atmosphere around him, he was very cheery and somewhat childlike for his age. Yet despite this, I could tell his future lay in battle. The aura he had about him was similar to the SWAT team members or MMA fighters I had once treated. It wasn’t the cold atmosphere of a killer but rather that of someone who had something to protect. I also noticed, he was like my mom and myself in that he had the features of a demi-human. The tail swishing behind him had made that glaringly obvious.

Then there was my eldest brother. He had inherited the handsome features from my dad and looked to be about 15 years old, but like my second brother, he too, was also rather cheery and childlike.Unlike me, mom and my brother, he had no demi-human features except for the sharp canines which I saw as he smiled. He was a lot more human than the three of us and very closely resembled my pure human father. Whilst he didn’t have my second brother’s protective aura about him, his eyes had a very calculating look. I almost see that calculations running inside his head, calculating the advantages and disadvantages of every decision. As it were, despite all his smiles, he seemed to be somewhere else, worrying about something else. A look that I had seen upon my dad’s face as he visited us during the past few days.

‘There must be something big going on outside these walls,’ I thought to myself. Both my dad and brother had hid their expressions well, but I had once dealt with patients who grimaced under extreme pain. I could easily see through them. Although I wanted to help them, I could do nothing as a baby who had only just been born. And so, yet again I dismiss my thoughts.

Anyhow, as soon as they came close to us, my dad exclaimed something excited and pointed at me. The two boys face lit up like some kind of christmas tree light and they rushed over. Gabbling in their unknown language and making wild gestures while laugh at this or that. Their excitement was extremely infectious and I could my parents wearing silly grins too. Eventually it spread to me too and I gabbled along with them in my own baby language. We did this for probably over an hour until I realised they were trying to tell me something. With wild movements and pointing, we weren’t playing a weird game of charades.

I observed them carefully. Eventually all the pointing began making sense. My daddy would point at me and say something, then he would point out himself and say something. My brothers and my mother repeated his actions as well. Soon enough, I was able to realise that they were saying their names, there are only so many words that one says while pointing to themselves. I was unable to pronounce their names, due to the fact that both my vocal cords and tongue did not know the range of movement required to produce the correct phonetic sound of whatever language they were speaking in.

However, I could do it in my mind. Because all of my family had made the same “sounds” at the end of each phrase they spoke, I was able to determine that it was probably our family name. It sounded something like”Audacia Regalis”. It was interesting that it sounded so much like Latin. Then again, I am most likely not the only person who was originally from earth, so maybe others like me had come and spread the use of a “latin-like” language. This implied a lot, could our society also then be based upon a Roman model? I was frustrated by my lack of knowledge of my new home. I vowed to myself to read as soon as I learnt the written language.

Moving on, it would seem that my dad was called “Deus”, my elder brother “Aiolos”. Now, I was truly confused, both these names were of Ancient Greek origins. Latin and Greek… The Hellenistic Era? But that wasn’t all, no, not in the least. My mother was called “Inari” and my second brother “Ashura” which coincidentally was my own nickname for the mother of my previous life. They were both of Japanese origin. Another thing to research. Sigh. Maybe I was putting too much thought into this, it was after all, it was just names. I could ask my parents about them once I was able to talk. My to-do-list was already growing at a ridiculous pace.

Oh, and apparently I was named “Diana”. Heh! Not bad. Whilst it may mean something different in the language of my parents. In my world, Diana was still a goddess, so I have no complaints.