I remember when I opened my eyes for the first time—well, the second time, the first one didn't count.

It wasn't long after I had come to my three conclusions. By this time, I had accepted that the two people in my life were my parents and that I by extension was their child. This of course led to the obvious conclusion that I had died, via piano, and been reincarnated... with my memories intact—I could just imagine the farce of a funeral that must have resulted, with my friend Ripley playing the shattered remains of the piano that had literally knocked me into another dimension. While I had been open to the idea of reincarnation in my previous life—I was never particularly religious, but I assumed some forces went well beyond human understanding—I found it suspect that I would retain my memories. I've never heard of someone retaining memories from a previous life, outside of those who claimed to have a few select memories from previous incarnations, though they never seem to amount to anything particularly pragmatic, except perhaps a slot on a morning talk show. I, however, retained not only the full scope of my recollections but also my mental acuity.

When I opened my eyes, the world was as blurry and unfocused as it had been the first time, but the light didn't hurt nearly as much. Slowly the pain subsided, and my eyes adjusted. Instinctively, I wanted to call out to my parents, but I restrained myself. I want to take in the world first before beckoning my progenitors. I'm sure they wanted to be there for the first moments when I opened my eyes, but I'm sure they would forgive me a few moments to take in my environment.

Brown... That is what first came to my mind. Everything seemed brown. The walls, brown; the ceiling, brown; whatever contraption I was resting in, all brown. I suppose it was a small sample size, but regardless, that is what struck me. With a little more analysis, I soon realized the reason. Everything was made of wood, or perhaps everything WAS wood would be a better description, at least with regard to the walls and ceiling. It looked like the room was carved out of a giant block of wood.

I struggled to look around some more, but I couldn't do much besides rollover. If I really tried, I probably could have found a way to get myself seated upright, but there was no point, the walls of the... "cradle" we will call it, were solid, with no way to see through it. So, I let myself do what I'd been instinctively wanting to do and let out a call for my caregivers.

(For you curious types, the message transmitted was a general request for emotional support. I only seldom had the urge to make these kinds of summons and felt strange about making them when I did. As I became more attuned to my caretaker's thoughts, I began to take note that they had some concerns about how infrequent such demands from me were. This only got worse once I realized how to manually take control of these telepathic communications, as I would often resist the impulse to beckon them. Perhaps I shouldn't have resisted the urge. I had no desire to cause distress for the two who were now my parents and part of me actually was craving their attention from time to time, but it just didn't seem like the kind of thing a grown-ass man should do. Well, I suppose now I was technically a child, but I wasn't the one who decided to reincarnate me with the complete works of "The Life and Times of Seth Wills" installed into my brain!)

At any rate, I call out to them. The one benefit to the seldom requests I made was that when I did, they couldn't have answered quicker than if someone had thrown in a live hand grenade—this wasn't the case for more pragmatic things, like being hungry, though those needs were still met promptly. As expected, they were there before I realized I had even beckoned them. So, this was to be my first time actually seeing my parents, I was more than a bit surprised...

They were both wearing masks. At least they were when they came over, but once they saw that my eyes were open, they quickly removed them, much to my relief—I thought I was about to be killed by masked assassins. However, that emotion was quickly replaced by shock.

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. I mean, I did have a tail, but everything else felt pretty human. I guess I was expecting a pretty human duo to greet me. However, those who now attended to me were... Perhaps less human than anticipated?

Okay, the thing that stood out the most was the large animal-like ears, and I do mean large! Like Satellite dishes. They had to have made up nearly half of the space occupied by their heads. If I were to describe the aesthetic, I would say it was a cross between a cat and a fox ear.

It took me a moment to collect myself after seeing how large the ears were. By the time I regained my composure, I was already in the outstretched arms of my father. (As an aside I could say confidently that this was the case, as I had learned to identify my two parents by smell. As it turned out, whatever I was now had a heightened sense of smell, though it wasn't good enough to be particularly useful). He seemed to be overjoyed though his face would only mildly reflect this. I was bombarded with telepathic sentiments, and it seemed like I had hit some important milestone. I guess it wasn't too hard to connect the dots, that it was related to my eyes opening, but I found it strange that this event would warrant such adulation.

I was soon passed to my mother, who seemed perhaps a little irked that my father was hogging my affections. Unlike my father, she opted to gently cradle me in her arms, with a gentle smile. "That's my Indigo". What a strange sentiment. I had heard them express this idea before. (I will use the word heard, but in this context, it is expressing a telepathically shared thought). It seemed out of context and didn't really make sense, but now I was getting the impression that perhaps this was what amounted to a name. It occurred to me to take a look at myself and found that the name Indigo was indeed fitting, I was a deep indigo hue, bordering on violet.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

While we are on the subject of color, let me say that my parents did not share my rather rich color. My mother, for her part, was a straw yellow with darker yellow hair on top of her head. My father was more on the orange side, but his hair was red. But that is only a base description, besides color they had some distinguishing features. My mother had black speckles around her nose and a black outline around her eyes. Together with her yellow complexion, it gave me the distinct impression of a cheetah. This stayed on theme with her green eyes with vertical slits, very much like a cat's eye. My father shared this characteristic and presumably me as well, but more on him in a minute. Her face was very catlike in many ways, but also human, the sharp eyes and nose being the most animalistic. More specifically, her nose was what you would get if you crossed a human nose mesh, with a cat nose texture. The last thing I remember standing out was her teeth. Ordinarily, I don't think I would have gotten such a good look at them, but she was grinning ear to ear. That being said, she had some, um... Impressive canines and incisors. Clearly, whatever species this was, they were surely carnivorous. If I wasn't her child, I may have been terrified.

After taking a moment to regain my composer, I glanced back at my father. If this species embodied characteristics that were both feline and canine (cat and fox), my mother would have leaned more towards the feline side, and my father was more of a fox, although his coloration made me think of a Bengal tiger, the main contributing factor being the black stripes that sat just below the eyes and wrapped around his head. The hair atop his head was a bit disheveled, which only added to the wild look given off by his coloration. Mother's on the other hand was more orderly, with it more combed back and flaring out at the ends just a bit.

"Well, he seems to have taken an interest in his father", was my mother's reaction to me directing my attention back to my father, there was definitely a bit of jealousy in her statement. She must have taken my desire to gather information as an expressed preference for my male parent. I was still a little overwhelmed, but I had no desire to slight my mother.

I sent out a sentiment of general curiosity about the world to help assuage her insecurities, as well as reaching out to touch her face—it was close enough. I wasn't sure if this was expected behavior, but it seemed like a gesture that would be appreciated. It would also help me confirm something. She lit up at this gesture—the warm feelings were quite intense.

They spent the next several hours passing me between the two of them and parading me around the hovel. Hovel seems like an apt word to describe it. It was a quaint one-room setup, but it seemed like everything had its place. There was a place for eating and preparing food—that's what it looked like to me anyway—a section that seemed to be for sleeping—my cradle was there—and what appeared to be a lounging nook? It looked to have a couple of chairs and there was a window. Combined with the wooden aesthetic, it didn't seem like a bad place to spend a sunny afternoon.

I expressed my curiosity about a number of things I saw, and they were kind enough to verify a number of my assumptions. I don't believe that they actually thought I could process the information they were projecting, but I suppose that has never stopped parents before. In the end, I got a pretty good lay of the land, and after several hours I had grown very sleepy. Sensing this, they decided to stop carrying me around like a Superbowl trophy and let me rest. Although I had a lot to process, I was out cold after only a moment.

I was a furry... That was the first thing that crossed my mind when I woke up. The thought had been at the tip of my mind since I first laid eyes on my parents, but due to all the information that was bombarding me, I couldn't come to terms with this thought. Now that my mind was rested and things had calmed down, however, this nagging thought finally stormed the foremost reaches of my consciousness.

How did this happen!? It seemed like the universe had done me dirty! I mean, you attend one convention, and all of a sudden you're a marked man!? The injustice!

Okay, calm down, I needed to analyze this. So, I know I had the full-blown fluffy tail, but what else had I learned? I had large fox...cat ears? Large animals like ears at any rate. At least my parents did. I found it hard to believe I hadn't noticed this, surely, I must have touched my head at some point, I know I touched my face all the time. Reaching up and feeling my head, I saw what happened. They were there, but just lying flat, so I must have mistaken them for part of my head. It wasn't as though I was particularly interested in the top of my head after all. I guess, given the tail, perhaps I should have been. Okay, I could live with the belief that a tail and animal ears a furry did not make, but what else was there?

Ah yes... There was what I discovered when I touched my mother's face. It wasn't exactly hairy, but there was definitely a distinct fuzz. To continue with the cat comparison, it was like the hair along the bridge of a cat's nose. I felt myself, and while it wasn't as coarse, now that I was aware of it, I could definitely feel what I imagined would become that same kind of fuzz. Okay, LET'S NOT PANIC!!

What could I cling to make the case against being a furry? I looked at my hands, they looked human, perhaps just a bit more gaunt. From there I moved down my body until I reached my feet. Everything seems pretty in line with normal human anatomy, except perhaps my feet. I could quite place it, but there seemed to be just a slight deviation.

Okay, I was still an infant, I needed to refer to an adult. Well, my parents had an animalistic face, for sure, but it was still human enough. If you were just scanning a crowd, you might just pass over them if going just by the facial structure. They had those large teeth as well, but this didn't really bother me. They also had a much leaner profile than a human. I couldn't tell, as I didn't have anything to reference, but I got the impression that this species might be quite a bit smaller than humans. So, the facial structure and body dimensions were a bit out of line with your standard rank-and-file furries.

Final conclusion, I was a furry... light. But a furry light was still a furry. I cursed the Universe.