Neve grunted as he opened his eyes.
He sat up slowly, legs folding under him, and scratched his head. Yawned. Covered his mouth with his hand out of habit and then stopped.
Hand.
He stared at it.
Long fingers. Pale skin. Actual human hand with actual human nails that were slightly too long and needed cutting.
He looked at his other hand.
Same thing.
He looked down at the rest of himself.
Pale. Lean. Long legs. No fur except for the ears he could feel sitting on top of his head and the tail swishing slowly behind him.
He stood up.
He was tall.
He hadn't expected that. He looked down at the ground and it was further away than it had been for the past however many hours and something about that was deeply satisfying.
His tail wagged.
He couldn't help it. It just did it on its own, moving back and forth with an energy his face wasn't showing.
{Congratulations, Host! First shift complete! Now, regarding your miss—}
Neve waved his hand through the system screen without looking at it.
It flickered and went quiet.
He needed to see himself properly. He looked around the cave, found a large barrel near the entrance with water sitting in it and crossed over to look inside.
He stared at his own reflection for a long moment.
Then stared a little longer.
He was — okay, he was not going to be humble about this — he was genuinely, unreasonably good-looking. Sharp jaw. High cheekbones. Golden eyes that caught the light from the cave entrance. Black hair falling loose around his shoulders with dark red bleeding through the ends like it had been dipped.
He turned his face to one side. Then the other.
On his arm, just below his shoulder, was a small tribal mark. Clean lines. He hadn't noticed it before. He touched it with two fingers and looked at it for a moment.
Then ignored it because he had found something more pressing.
He straightened up and looked down at himself.
He had nothing on.
Nothing at all.
"Okay," he said. "I need something to wear."
He looked around the cave. The straw mat. The leopard's things along the wall. The animal skin had been thrown over the bed.
He grabbed the animal skin and wrapped it around himself.
The smell hit him immediately.
He pulled a face so strong his whole head moved with it. Dead skin, dried and old and not properly treated, wrapped directly against his body.
He gagged slightly, adjusted the cloth and gagged again. He decided to endure it because the alternative was nothing and nothing was not an option.
He looked around the cave.
The leopard was gone. The carved spikes from last night were sitting against the wall, neat and sharp.
Neve looked at them and looked at the mission sitting in the back of his head.
'Hunt.'
He picked up one of the spikes and turned it over in his hand. It was solid and heavy. He didn't know how to hunt but he had a weapon and two working legs.
He stepped outside.
.
.
The forest behind the cave was dense and quiet in the early morning. Neve stood at the edge of it with the spike in his hand.
He remembered that he had never hunted before. He cleaned enclosures and fed the animals. He had once successfully guided a very agitated flamingo back into its pen using nothing but a broom and sheer stubbornness.
He had never hunted.
"Okay," he said quietly. "How hard can it be?"
He walked into the forest.
Birds moved through the branches above him. Something small crossed the ground ahead. He spotted a rabbit between two roots, stopped, raised the spike and tried to remember everything he had ever seen about hunting in documentaries.
He threw the spike.
It hit a tree two feet to the left of the rabbit.
The rabbit left.
He retrieved the spike and kept walking.
More birds. Another rabbit. He kept his grip on the spike and kept his eyes moving and was feeling reasonably focused and determined about all of this until he saw the fruit.
It was sitting in the branches of a tree not far off the ground. Round and dark red. He had never seen that variety before but his nose had already decided against it and his body was following before his brain caught up.
He put the spike down and climbed the tree in about four seconds. It was faster than he expected. He grabbed the fruit and bit into it.
It tasted like berries. Rich and sweet with something underneath that was almost warm.
He ate it.
He grabbed another one.
He ate that too.
He moved further along the branch and found more. He ate those. Found a cluster near the top. Climbed up and ate those. Went back down and found the ones he had missed on the lower branches and ate those as well.
At some point, he was sitting comfortably in the middle of the tree surrounded by the remains of approximately fifteen fruits with juice on his chin and his tail curled around the branch beneath him.
Then he looked up at the sky and noticed the light had changed.
He looked at the sun's position and looked at where it had been when he walked into the forest.
"...How long have I been up here?" he said slowly.
He looked at the fruit remains around him.
His tail had stopped wagging.
'Red pandas spend hours eating,' some part of his brain supplied helpfully. 'It's a primary behaviour. They'll eat for most of their active period.'
"I forgot," he said to himself. "I forgot that I am a red panda."
He climbed down, dropped to the ground, picked up the spike and shook himself off.
"Okay. It's time for hunting for real this time."
He turned around and immediately heard a voice.
"Who are you?"
Neve went still.
A man stood behind him on the forest path, a large basket balanced in his hands, looking at Neve with surprise and confusion. Then something else that Neve recognised and immediately did not like.
The man set his basket down slowly.
Neve watched him do it.
"Do you have a mate?" The man took one step forward. His eyes hadn't moved from Neve's face. "Mate with me." He reached out and took Neve's hand. "I'll take good care of—"u
Neve pulled his hand back. "What the fuck? I'm a man."
The man didn't stop. If anything, he stepped closer and Neve stepped back and hit the tree behind him. Then the man grabbed his wrist and pushed him back against the bark and was leaning in, nose moving along Neve's neck.
Neve went rigid. "Let go."
The man didn't answer His breath was warm against Neve's skin and Neve shoved at his chest and the man didn't move. Neve was about to do something drastic with the spike he was still holding when—
A short and heavy sound interrupted him.
The man's eyes closed and he slid sideways and dropped directly onto Neve, full dead weight, pinning him to the ground.
Neve lay under him and looked at the sky.
"...Thank you," he said flatly, "whoever you are."
He tilted his head back.
The leopard stood behind where the man had been, a massive boar slung across his shoulders, looking down at Neve on the ground with the unconscious man on top of him.
Neve looked at the leopard.
The leopard looked at Neve.
Something slipped. The boar slid off the leopard's shoulders and hit the ground and the leopard didn't look at it. He didn't look at anything except Neve. He walked forward slowly and crouched down and the man between them was moved aside. Then they were eye level and the leopard's hand came up.
Neve went very still. He thought they were going to hit him, but the leopard's fingers touched his cheek. Like he was checking if something was real.
"Who are you?" the leopard said. His voice was low.
"I'm—" Neve swallowed. "Neve. My name is Neve."
The leopard said nothing for a moment. Just looked at him.
"Neve," he said finally, like he was testing the shape of it.
"Yes."
"Good." The leopard's hand dropped. "From now on, you're mine."
Neve blinked. "...Ehn?"
The leopard stood, reached down and picked Neve up off the ground like he weighed nothing, and sat down against the nearest tree with Neve settled directly on his lap.
Neve squealed. A full, undignified, very loud sound. "What are you— where are we going—"
"Nowhere yet," the leopard said.
"Yet?!"
"We will go when I'm ready."
"Go WHERE—"
"To mate."
Neve opened his mouth and closed it.
Opened it again.
"...Ehnnnnnn?"