When I wake up, I'm… On… My bed ? Like, really ? On my bed, alone, just like that ? Not even in a cage or attached by a leash ? Nice, I suppose. Anyway. I get up the best I can and look at myself in the mirror that's on the door of my closet. I really look like a melanistic fox, with black patches on my ginger fur… My fur ? Is it really "my" fur ? Well… I guess it is, for now at least, unless I can somehow get back to my human form…
I try to walk, because I'm still not good at that. Do not ask me how the heck I managed to brawl with my parents yesterday knowing that I struggle to walk right now, I cannot answer you. I train my walking skills for a couple of minutes until it becomes somewhat natural. Walking in a straight line, easy. Turning left and right, I lose balance, but get the trick somewhat quickly (the tails helps). Walking in reverse isn't possible, I fall almost immediately. Maybe trying to jump ? Too noisy, don't want to wake up my parents. Oh yeah, forgot to add that it's still dark outside, even so the sun is slowly lighting up the world outside. Meaning it's… wait. No ! It's the moonlight that was blocked by a cloud ! But then it's even earlier than what I thought!
Now I remember from my research on beasts that most canide, and even most animals except humans, don't sleep in one go, but wake up somewhat regularly, like every couple of hours. I think it's like us and our sleep cycles, when we're in between cycles we don't wake up, but other beasts do. So that means that I just slept for… About 2 to 3 and a half hours. OK, back to sleep then.
The next day, after a couple more wake ups, I'm starving. Like more than usual. I'm used to eating a lot for breakfast, but even with that in mind, I still feel like I haven't eaten in a full day ! The sun is fully up, I can hear my parents in the kitchen downstairs doing something… Not just anything, I can definitely smell my mom preparing my dad's favorite breakfast while he is fidgeting with his coffee mug on the dining table ! Since when did I have that good ears and nose ?
I get closer to the door, but… I think there's some kind of a problem... My size ! There's barely half a meter in between the ground and the top of my head while I'm on all fours ! (That's almost a foot and a half) Even if I try to, I can't reach the handle of the door ! I try to get up on my back legs, but the fragile balance I could keep up until then doesn't keep up anymore… I just fell to the ground ridiculously. And loudly. I try again, this time while using the door as a wall to support my balance, but I still slip left and right each time I try. I try jumping… but 1st I can't aim and miss the handle by a large margin, 2nd even if I could I'm not sure how to use it properly without hands, and 3rd I hurt myself falling back head first on the ground.
OK, so I'm stuck here until my parents set me free, I guess… I try to climb the door again, but fall once more face first into the ground. And I become even more hungry. And thirsty too, for some reasons. Right… I haven't had a drink since the last time I ate, or at noon yesterday… And my parents didn't stop their conversation while I was experimenting with the door. Didn't they hear me ? Guess not. I try to jump to the handle again, but I miss by even more than last time, even managing to bump into the corner of my bed frame (that is right by the door).
I let go a cry, because it hurt a lot to get hit in the nose, and lay down while hugging my snoot with my front paws, still whining like a beaten dog. And that's how my mom finds me like 30 seconds after my last failed jump. She got closer to me, removed my paws from my snout to check, but didn't see anything.
- "Finally awake ?" that my mom says with a tender tone. "You seemed well asleep, so I didn't want to bother you or wake you up."
- "He could also have opened the door, you know ? Instead of whining to call for us."
- "You should be a bit more kind to your son, you know ? He might not be able to open the door himself right now, he just got that body of his yesterday."
- "Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. But he somehow managed to keep his clumsiness even after getting an entirely new body."
I growl a bit in displeasure after hearing that, but I can't say anything about it. First because it's entirely true, I always was clumsy no matter what I tried, second because I'm incapable of human speech.
- "You don't need to growl at me like that !" said my dad. "You know that's the truth. Anyway, you're hungry ? Breakfast's ready. Although…" then, saying to my mom: "How will he eat ?"
- "That's a good question…"(my mom to my dad) "But most importantly: what will he eat ?"
- "Foxes are omnivorous, they're capable of eating the same things as us. I'm not sure about magic beasts though."
- "From the research I know of, magic beasts are not that different from the non-magic ones. The only things that transform a beast into a magic one is the quantity of mana in their diet. At some points, they start to develop a mana core, and after that they develop the ability to…"
- "Japp !" (me, I'm hungry as hell)
- "Oh, sorry." my dad says "Well, follow us, we'll try to make a breakfast that's edible for you." (as they went down the stairs) "Do we need to add mana-rich things in his meal ?"
- "I'm pretty sure we don't. He's already a mana beast judging by the spell he used yesterday and was a mage before he… Became like that. He's surely able to absorb the mana in the air. If he remembers how to do so. "
- "Japp ! "(yes I do)
- "I'll… take that as a yes." (my mom)
When we're downstairs, I look at the door to the toilet, and I get an urge that most of you will understand…
- "Why are you going to the door ? We eat inside, you know ?"
I look my dad dead in the eyes, not moving for a while. Then at the door to the toilet. Then at my parents, and I cross my legs… Or try to at least, and almost fall although I'm sitting down. I'm really clumsy as hell…
- "Oh, don't tell me… You need to pee ?" that my mom ask confusedly
- "Yap !" (supposed to be "yes", good thing it was understood)
- "I mean, it will be difficult for him to use the toilets while he's like that, so…" (my dad) "I guess we should let him outside for now."
- "Yeah, I think so too…"
I'll skip the part when I'm trying to find a place that's hidden enough, and come back at the door after 5 minutes, door which is already open. Ouf, I'm not sure I can ever reach the doorbell. Now onto breakfast.
I get to the table, and I'm hesitating if I should take a chair or stay on the ground. My mom, after seeing my confusion, picks me up and sets me on a chair, and I start to see another problem. I can't properly reach the table while sitting "politely" on the chair. Even though my head is above the height of the table, I don't reach the plate in front of me. It's either I lean on the table the best I can and almost fall because I don't have good balance (and hurt my neck because it's stretched to its limit), or I climb on the table with my … My front paws around the plate to eat like a dog. I still don't like calling this body "my" body, but I guess I have to get used to it.
- "I don't think that will do it" says my dad. "I'm sorry son, but I think it will be more comfortable for you to eat down on the floor."
- "Don't take this as a punishment, I also think after seeing how you walked down the stairs that it will be better like that." (oh yeah, I almost rolled down the stairs while trying to go down…)
- "And that will prevent him from spilling food everywhere when, sorry, if he falls." (he was almost smiling saying that)
I appreciate their consideration, but I was going to do so anyway… My dad is right, even so he should really go easier on me. They leave the plate on the floor, with a full breakfast on it. It's not the one I'm used to eating every morning since I was young, with milk and biscuits (that I don't know how I would have eaten anyway), but a more traditional breakfast of oatmeal and cottage cheese with fruits and berries. And imma be honest, that's still good. It makes me thirsty, though. I don't have a glass of water or a bowl of milk to drink from, and I don't know how to ask for that.
When I'm done, I climb back on the chair (without falling down, even so my dad was ready to catch me…) and wait for my parents to finish. I was already a quick eater before, and becoming a fox didn't help with that. In fact, because I didn't have to fill a fork or a spoon this time, I could eat even more with each bite and finish eating even quicker. My mom raises her head and looks at me weirdly, the same way she looks at me everytime we eat together, almost asking me how I managed to eat this quickly. I point my nose (snout ?) at the jug of water on the table, my mom smiles at me, gets up, takes a bowl from the shelf, fills it with water, and places it on the ground next to the plate I ate from. She also took the plate and put it in the sink.
While I'm drinking, I hear my mom talking to my dad, saying how it reminds her of her youth when she and her family had a cat. And after looking at me, she also says that she doesn't remember her cats spilling water everywhere when they were drinking. Oups, my bad… Well, to be fair, unlike dogs and cats, I never learned to drink properly. I tried their ways of licking the surface of the water, but it… Just wasn't enough. So I just submerged half of my mouth inside the bowl and somewhat half drank and half ate the water. Yes, that was messy. But I'm thirsty.
Anyway. When my parents are done eating, my mom takes a towel and gets closer to me. I don't understand what she wants to do, until she grabs my face with the towel and rubs it to dry my snout. It's unpleasant, but I get it, that's to prevent me from wetting the floor. But I still hate it. Then she takes the bowl back, changes the water inside it, then sets it back on the towel that she placed on the floor. "You should try to drink in a cleaner way next time" that she tells me. And she also threatens me to feed me with a bottle if I'm that messy again. [Nd Writer: he told me that his mom did buy a pet feeding bottle too at some point, just to scare him up. Now he's not as messy when he drinks]
Even though it's Monday, today is a public holiday. Which means I don't have classes today. But my mom warns me that she will call one of the school's elders, the one she works for, so we might go to the school today anyway. That's cool ! They might know something about how to make me human again ! Although, on second thought, maybe keeping the ability to morph myself might be good too. I hope I'm not too greedy on that though…
I just remember that I still have a room inside the residential wing of the school, and I don't know what to do with my stuff that's in it. Yes, I have a room here too, because the school is one and a half hours away from my parent's houses. And also because my mom too has a room there, she needs it for work purposes in case of late night sturdies. Because my mom is a teacher and a researcher here, I have the room for free anyway, so it's not that big of a deal. Also, all the rooms are individual rooms, I don't have any roommates that might want my stuff or pack it up for me.
My mom got a response from one of the elders (that I forgot the name of), and he warns us that he's waiting for us immediately. He even asked my mom if she and I could draw a teleportation circle so that we could be teleported, but my mom asked him to keep it somewhat secret, because she doesn't want her son (me) to become a guinea pig for endless experiments. Anyway, because she had already packed everything she could need for that trip, we're on the move in the 5 minutes following the call, after a goodbye to my dad.