A sudden tugging on Raelynn’s back woke her up. She yawned, noticing she really had fur and paws.

- Oh, right, that happened.

Looking to the back she saw one of the pups playing with her tail. Raelynn stretched and stood up while the pup refused to let go.

- You are adorable, but you have had your fun, now shoo. - She said to the pup which ignored her. - Ok, now you are getting annoying!

After Raelynn raised her voice, the pup looked up and stared at her with the eyes of a creature with no thoughts. He stared at Raelynn for a few moments, then playfully ran away. Despite very good sleep a few problems became apparent. She still didn’t know how to come back to being human, she needed water and food for survival, lastly, Raelynn didn’t know the area.

- First things first, I need to drink something. Mammals can learn where water is from their parents, they can also sense moisture or smell water. - Raelynn paused, thinking for a moment – How does water smell!?

She put her nose up in the air and took a deep breath, a plethora of smells entered her nose, but she didn’t know which one was water. Raelynn thought of 2 options: either follow someone from the group until they get thirsty or wander around hoping to find a source of water.

- Or maybe they eat some special plant to get hydrated? What's a better way to learn than stalking one of them.

Raelynn laid down on her side picking a target. While waiting, she started thinking about what she should name this species, scientific name should follow the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, but common name doesn’t need to.

- Blue foxes? Are they even foxes? And foxes don’t form big packs.

While she was pondering, the two of them came close and laid down next to her, basking in the Sun. A bird came down and landed on one of them, it had dark gray-ish feathers with a brighter underbelly. The beak was a bright, vibrant colour, cylindrical with a slight curve at the end. The bird started pecking at fur, eating off parasites. Time passed as Raelynn thought of a name for them to take her mind off being thirsty.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

- False foxes could work, there are false crabs, so why not?

As the two false foxes got up and started heading away from dens, Raelynn decided to go with them. They walked for a few minutes when her ears picked up the familiar sound of running water. Happy that she will finally have something to drink, Raelynn started swishing her tail. When they got close to the stream she was shocked at what she saw.

- WHAT THE FU… - She barely contained her scream.

Getting down on the ground to hide among the foliage she startled the other two false foxes, they stopped, alerted by Raelynn and looked around for any danger. On the other side of the stream there was a huge dragon drinking water. It was at least 3m tall, who knows what the weight of such a beast would be and what kind of bite force it has.

Raelynn carefully observed the dragon, aerodynamic head of a dragon with front-facing eyes was lowered down to drink from the stream. Smooth scales on the upper side were the beautiful colour of sky with silvery dots, while the underside looked softer with a pale yellow hue.

Very unusual for a tetrapod the dragon had 6 limbs: 4 legs as well as 2 impressive wings tucked into the sides. There are known cases of animals “losing” limbs in evolutionary process, like snakes or legless lizards, but she doesn’t know any animal that "gained" an additional pair.

Perhaps something similar to Coelacanth took another evolutionary path or a mutation of Sonic hedgehog gene caused the development of an additional pair of limbs, however it wasn’t time to ponder how evolutionary tree looks like in this world.

To Raelynn’s surprise, two foxes after looking around for a while, started casually approaching water, ignoring the presence of a dragon. Hesitantly, she also came to stream observing potential danger.

She looked down at murky water and snarled, animals tend to develop resistance to dirty water and Raelynn hoped she somehow gained such immunity when she changed to a false fox. She took a big sniff to remember how it smells for later. The scent of algae entered her nostrils. With a slight disgust she started drinking water, still observing dragon. The dragon raised its head from the stream and without paying attention to Raelynn’s group it turned around and lazily walked away.

After coming back to her temporary home, thoughts were constantly running through Raelynn’s head. Others weren’t concerned about giant lizard but she didn’t know if they just weren’t part of the dragon’s diet or if just this particular dragon was on good terms with this particular group.

Both scenarios were possible, but for now a new issue has appeared. She was getting hungry.