Chapter 4

I woke up to find a large, bloodied snow leopard talking to me. On top of that, I'm butt naked and apparently sleeping on his bed in his equivalent to house. I'm now curled up in front of the beast, who is obviously waiting for an answer. Not the best start to the day.

I raised my eyes to glance at the leopard, only to see his tail impatiently hitting the cave floor. He's pissed, oh shit, this is the end to my miserable little life. I'm shivering in fear and shame, and my biggest concern right now is to at least look decent when I die, so my first instinct is to turn myself back into a lovable, non-threatening little fox. The process feels a bit like my bones turning to jelly, but I don't care anymore. Once I've gone back, I turn towards the leopard and say,

"My name is Qiao Ai?" I've got the most innocent face I can find it in me to put up, and my puppy dog eyes are on full blast. It seems to work, and the leopards tail calms down as it tilts it's furry head and replies,

"That's a weird name. Now, what's a oh so elusive fox doing here, in human form, on my grass." His stoic face stares straight at me, and his eyes narrow as he asks the hard question. If I could sweat cold sweat would be running down my back, but I decided to be as truthful as I could. I'm innocent, ignorant, and in need of help, so I'll take this chance.

"Because it looked comfy and dry."

"Don't you know that's rude?"

"Is it? I didn't know. I wasn't even aware it belonged to someone to begin with."

"You seem to have nothing in the way of common sense or survival skills. Your parents didn't teach you anything like that?"

"I don't think they taught me at all, because from what I can recall, I do not have any. (In this world)"

"What about the foxes at the settlement?"

"I've never been there. Don't even know where or what it is."

"...What"

The leopard is stunned, unable to talk, and after staring at my genuinely confused face for a while, huffs and plants his face on the floor in exasperation. He asks, slightly muffled against the ground,

"You're matured, right? What stage is your cultivation?"

He looks at me as my eyes roll, trying to think. Does mature mean being an adult? Probably. I'm an adult so let's just say yes. "I'm mature, but I have no idea about cultivation. Do I even have a stage? Does just saying one tail count?"

The now bewildered leopard just stared, as I shifted uncomfortably, wondering if I made some kind of mistake. But in the end, he just says "I'll teach you, but in exchange you have to stay here and help me." Overjoyed by this, my eyes brighten and I nod frantically.

"I can help, I can help. What do you need help with?" I wander over to the leopard, my little paws pitter pattering on the ground. He looks at me and then points over to the prey dead near the doorway. "need help making stuff for the cave, and stocking the food. Can you make clothes?" I nod, I know the basics of sewing and as long as there is stuff around, I can probably figure out something. But, I've just remembered that the leopard didn't introduce himself.

"You haven't told me your name?"

"Ah. I'm Maverick." Maverick huh, that's a name you won't run into twice. Maverick moves over to the corpses, and stops. His body changes, and all of a sudden, he's a tall white man. White shoulder length hair, black eyes, muscular, and also completely naked. The floor is very interesting all of a sudden. Wow, what a lovely texture.

"What, are you waiting for an invite? Hurry up, Qiao Ai." His voice makes me stiffen, and while I know what he wants me to do, I'm still rather embarrassed to be naked in front of a near total stranger, a very handsome man at that. He's getting impatient however, so I curse in my mind and humanise. I avert my eyes from Maverick and rush over to the cover of the carcasses.

"What are we doing with these, exactly?"

"Moving them. I've drained most of the blood but they need to be spread outside for us to take the skin off and cut the meat into usable and unusable. After we need to cook some to eat and smoke the rest. The one closest to you can be first." He moves over to the other side of the animal, which looks kind of like a deer but far more carnivorous from the huge teeth. We lift it up and carry it over to the doorway, and plop it down onto the ground outside that's sheltered from the snow by an overhang. We repeat this with the other three corpses and then begin skinning them with some thin, sharpened rocks.

"this is hard work. Are we supposed to try skin the head too? or not bother." I've managed to skin most of the deer, in one piece at that. It isn't the prettiest but I'll improve with time. I'm up to the head, but I don't think I'll be able to do that.

"Just cut the head right off Qiao Ai, there's no point in doing anything with it. Put in the waste pile, we'll dispose of it later for scavengers to eat." That's a very straightforward approach, but I do as Maverick says. The flimsy skinning rock wouldn't be able to separate the head from the body, so instead I focus on my hand and imagine my fingers morphing into sharp claws. It isn't a wierd a feeling as fully changing, but it will definitely take me a while to get used to the shift. My hand, which should probably be called my claw now, is shaped in a way that would make many humans scream. My fingers are unnaturally elongated and hooked, as well as being sharp to the touch, like a sword.

I bring my hand to the deers neck, and slowly start using my hand as a saw to chop the head off. If this was before, I probably would've thrown up at the thought, but I feel nothing while doing it. Maybe my mentality has changed with my new body. The head comes off pretty quickly, and I pick it up with my unchanged hand, bringing it over to the waste pile. After, I change my hand back and pick up the deer hide, bringing it over to Maverick. I left the meat I'd sectioned off on a thin sheet of hide that I'd accidently ripped slightly.

"I did it! Look, look, not bad for a first timer right?" Feeling rather proud of my achievement, I'm positively beaming at Maverick. He looks up, and stares seemingly in awe at my happy face. I don't know what he's finding so captivating. My hair is slightly disheveled, my face has a few smears of blood on it, and I'm panting from exhaustion while holding animal skin. Yet, he's totally spellbound. Seemingly in a trance, he calls out to me.

"Hey, Qiao Ai. Can you be my mate?"

... "Eh? What's a mate?"