“You do not have to do this.”

“Then tell me the other options again, and this time say why I should even consider them. I need to know if you find them as reprehensible as I do, because it really bothers me that you don’t seem to.”

The squirrel stood at the base of a tree, awkwardly craning his neck upward to see the top. Its crown was hidden from view by a woven platform suspended half-way up its trunk. Forager Keen-Ear’s home. A single line of straw rope was securely anchored between an opening above and the soil with wooden pegs. For a normal squirrel, it would make climbing the tree effortless rather than simply easy, but for the former human, it would make this actually doable, if he put his mind to it.

“There are contingencies. We’ve had volunteers checking in on the kits while you were missing and feeding them passable substitutes for their normal diet. Coordinator Gleaming-Scale will send out word to the surrounding villages in search of proper surrogates.” Silver-Tail paced back and forth behind the squirrel. They had simply been tasked with escorting the "damaged Forager" to his home at the edge of the forest after he’d been given a clean bill of physical health by the physician, as he’d insisted that he wanted to stay there rather than in the infirmary. The fox refused to stay out of his business once they realized why, however, constantly questioning the decision and his motives. “You are unwell. It will be easier if you simply rest and recover.”

“Easier for whom?” The squirrel turned around and locked eyes with the fox, his muscles tensing in ways he’d never felt before. Silver-Tail only lasted a few seconds before breaking contact and looking away. “Passable substitutes? Where I come from, creating a ‘passable substitute’ for milk is difficult, and something tells me that you’re not exactly equipped to synthesize any of the stuff for even sub-par formula, especially if you have to travel to find surrogates.”

“I am just worried. If you push yourself to a breaking point, then-“

“It’s a little too late for that!” the squirrel exploded. “I am weak. Helpless. Ignorant of the world I have been brought into against my will. I am imposing my existence upon those around me, demanding attention and care. And you know what? So are those kits! Only they don’t get the choice to take the easy way out. They just get to suffer if I do. So. Tell me again. Why should I abandon them, punishing them for something that is literally my fault!?”

The rapid emotional escalation elicited worried chatter from the smattering of onlookers that had been following the squirrel since he’d arrived. He became keenly aware of a dozen or more sets of eyes and ears trained on him, immediately followed by an awareness of what his body was doing. All four paws gripped the ground tightly, his claws even tearing apart the grass a bit. His hackles were raised along his reflexively arched back, accompanied by an almost electric prickling across his skin, tail poised above his body as if he were about to strike with it. Both ears were pinned back against his head while his elongated incisors ground against each other in his clenched jaws, maintaining their well-honed edge. He was a tiny ball of fur and tightly wound muscle, ready to explode at a moment’s notice.

And he hated it.

This had been a long time coming, he’d been bottling his discomfort and anger and panic for the sake of others since long before ever ending up in this form. He was primed to lash out like the cornered animal he’d become, and it all felt wrong. He’d always wished he could be someone else, something else. He’d never quite settled on what that might be, but it wasn’t… this. Small. Powerless. Trapped. Everything he was and wished he’d been was inverted. He was neither the familiar human nor the comfortable true self he’d sometimes imagine.

He hated it so, so much. But despite it all, he had just enough agency to do this one thing. To make things as right as he could for other victims of this freak accident.

“Keen-Ear, please stay calm! You are in no state to-“

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The squirrel ignored Silver-Tail and leapt up the tree without another word, putting all that tension towards flight instead of fight. The rope did indeed make the climb doable, but it took every bit of focus he had to keep putting one paw in front of the other, and to never look down. But he was determined.

The treehouse more or less amounted to a woven straw mat, anchored across the boughs of the tree. Most of it was open to the air, both for the view and presumably for Ink-Talon to freely come and go. Several small tipi-like chambers built out of cloth and wooden slats bound to the branches above provided shelter from the weather without being too heavy, but his nose quickly pointed him towards the one he needed to head to. Built around one of the larger branches, the entrance was shrouded by a loosely-woven curtain, though several deliberate gaps in the walls would make for plenty of light inside.

All of the scents meandering around the house led back here, including two that he’d already picked up on before, but just hadn’t been able to place yet. The distinct scents he’d noticed on his body the previous evening, the ones that led him and the crow back to the site with all that gear. They were here. He realized that, in a way, Keen-Ear’s kits had saved their lives. Without their scents standing out so much from his own, they may never have been so easily found and rescued.

Enough is enough. No more putting it off. He steeled himself and walked inside.

“Here?”

“Here!”

“Not gone!”

He froze. They were talking.

“Still here?”

“Where?”

“Stopped!”

The inside of the shelter was cozy, decorated by thoughtfully arranged strips of cloth, each haphazardly colored by what seemed to be improvised paints or dyes to catch from light from outside and cast cool and calming hues across the room. The floor was covered with clean straw, recently changed by one of the volunteers Silver-Tail mentioned. And in the center were the kits.

He had never been much of a watcher of nature documentaries, but he knew that most rodents were born blind and hairless. These kits had full coats of fur, one black, and one gray like himself, but their eyes were still shut tight, leaving them to blindly wiggle around and try and pinpoint where he’d stopped. They were still very, very young, small enough that he probably could have held them both in one human hand.

Remember, they’re not ‘talking’, you just understand the meanings behind the squeaks and movements. He reminded himself, attempting to shake off at least some of the weirdness of all of this. It’s as if you could tell exactly what a human infant wanted when it was crying or babbling or grasping at things. He took a deep breath and moved forwards, immediately grabbing the attention of the kits. They turned towards him, only to visibly tense up when he got close.

“Warning?”

“Danger!”

“Hide where?”

Danger? Why would they think… He exhaled sharply, realizing he’d been holding his breath. He was still tense. Not as much as when he exploded at Silver-Tail back on the ground, but enough to be picked up on by the kits… somehow. How can they tell? Is it my scent? I smell… He paid attention to his own scent for what must have been the first time all day. …Frightened. Stressed. Chemical signals, he supposed, were just as much a natural avenue of communication for animals as sounds or anything else. He’d need to tell them otherwise.

“Calm down. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay,” he cooed, repeating the same line he gave to the crow when they’d first woken up here. This time, he meant it. These two were going to be okay. They had to be. The kits relaxed, seeming receptive to the reassurance, though whether they understood the meaning or just the vibes was unclear. Now he just had to get past the hardest part of this. “Are you two hungry? I guess I need to… do something about that…” He’d hoped he’d be getting some deeply buried biological guidance right about now. Some instinctual, motherly impulse that would make nursing baby squirrels feel more natural. But he didn’t. The only things compelling him to feed these kits were his own guilt and a desire to do right by them. It didn't matter how uncomfortable the thought of it made him, though. He was determined, so that would have to be enough.

In the end, all he could really do was awkwardly flop over, exposing his underside to the kits and try not to think about it too much. They must have been fed just recently however, as rather than move in to suckle, they simply snuggled in against his body, curling up to go back to sleep.

“Safe now.”

“Missed you.”

It would seem that he’d get at least a little time to ease into this before jumping right into foreign biological functions.

“Just cuddling, then? I can do that. Sleep well, little ones. Wherever your mother ended up, I’m sure she misses you too.”