Transliterated

The official blog of webnovel Transliterated! A story about humans who are no longer human. They cause a lot of problems.

[transliterated-the-book]

Welcome to the World of Transliterated!

What makes you “you?” Is it your body? Your voice? Your home? Your name? If you lost all of them, who would you be?

Two humans awaken in a strange forest, their minds now inhabiting the bodies of ordinary animals. As they scramble to survive and hold on to their identities, they quickly discover that the world they've found themselves in is already inhabited, and that they have taken over the bodies of two of its inhabitants. To them, their lives have been upended and their minds have been forced into the incompatible bodies of ordinary animals, and any hope in uncovering the reasons why is shrouded in ancient mysteries. To the natives of this world, however, they are people who had existing lives and responsibilities. People stricken by an affliction of the mind, in need of care and a cure. Or perhaps people who have killed their bodies' original inhabitants and taken their place...

Together, they will need to master both their new bodies and the strange powers that allow them to communicate, all while grappling with an alien society and questions no one is prepared to answer. What good is a human mind in a world where humanity doesn't exist? What responsibility do you have to those you've harmed through no fault of your own? Do you even have a right to exist if your existence comes at the cost of others?

What will you do about those who claim that you don't?

Transliterated is a "Xenofiction Isekai" web novel that I have been writing for well over a year now. It was originally serialized on Cohost.org, but when that site shut down, it moved to more dedicated serial fiction sites such as Royal Road and AO3. In my eternal quest to get as many eyeballs on this book as possible, I would also like to start uploading chapters here as well.

If you're interested in reading ahead, check out the links above! If you'd like to support me and my work, then you can donate on either my Patreon or my Ko-Fi. Patreon supporters get access to advance chapters! And of course, my asks and submissions are open for those who wish to ask/send me things related to the book!

Otherwise, I hope you stick around and enjoy!

Be safe and fly true, folks.

[transliterated-the-book]

Chapter 5: Administration

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Like most explorers’ outposts, Deep’s End was simple in construction. Most buildings in the village were temporary, erected with lightweight materials to suit the basic shelter and sleep needs of the currently planned occupants. The only permanent structures were the infirmary, the storehouse, and the foundations that temporary housing was built on: black-brick for surface structures, and woven grasses for arboreal lodging.

The population was small, mobile, and deliberately transient. Only about twenty or so residents could comfortably live there at any one time, all of them small-bodied. Larger creatures required more food, more living space, and more complex shelters. Because of this, however, all stationed personnel needed to be able-bodied. Simple injuries and brief illnesses could be compensated for, but the procedure for long-term disability was clear: Affected personnel were to be sent back to Darksoil for treatment and replacements would be dispatched as soon as word that they were needed was received.

Coordinator Gleaming-Scale had handled these procedures many times before. It was nothing new. Scholar Ink-Talon, Forager Keen-Ear, and their kits would be returning with the next supply caravan, and hopefully their minds could be repaired. What most concerned the black snake as it reviewed the incident report was the question of investigating further. Without knowing how any of this had happened, continuing the outpost’s survey work or exploring the site of the incident would only put the creatures in its care at risk. It had made the decision to suspend all activity in the Border Forest until the Lead Scholars could review the available facts, but if the suspension continued indefinitely, then Deep's End and the years of work put into the research here would have to be abandoned.

To that end, Gleaming-Scale would have to interview the victims itself. The first stop would be the infirmary. Ink-Talon was still there, as evidenced by the one side of an argument that was audible from outside the entrance curtain.

“Are you sure I can’t just eat seeds? Maybe some grain? Crows eat grains, right?” The caws, croaks, and clicks were unmistakably Ink-Talon’s, but the manner of expression was entirely unlike it. Inefficient, improvised, inconsistent. Certainly what one would expect from someone with no established habits or patterns. Gleaming-Scale moved inside, finding what might have been a humorous scene out of context. Ink-Talon was nervously staring at a modest pile of dried beetles on the ground in front of it, while Physician Mindful-Sight placed a supportive foot on its wing to encourage it to eat.

“You could, if we were in a larger settlement with more access to agriculture. As it stands, most of our seeds, nuts, and grains are reserved for those who don’t have the physiology to eat anything else, so your rations of it are more limited. These are far more nutritious, regardless.”

“Okay. I suppose I don’t have the luxury of being particular.” Rather than interrupt, the Coordinator coiled up near the door and simply observed. Ink-Talon was far too distracted to notice its entrance, and Mindful-Sight knew better than to draw attention to it. What followed was the most bizarre behavioral display the Coordinator had ever seen. Ink-Talon slowly leaned forward, beak opened wide, and picked up a beetle with an unsure delicateness. It then repeatedly crushed it in its beak rather than swallow it, only to fumble and end up dropping the mangled carapace to the floor with a frustrated cry, expressing some manner of crude expletive the snake lacked precise context for.

“Are you… attempting to chew it?” The Physician had turned a deep mauve with sympathetic embarrassment. “You do not have teeth.”

“I’m supposed to just swallow it whole?”

“How else would you?”

“Okay…” The crow tensed up for a moment before closing its eyes and breathing deeply. After a long pause, it snapped up the remains of the insect and flipped it down its gullet in one smooth motion. One that gave an impression of practiced flair completely at odds with both the helpless bird who had been standing there a moment prior and the remarkably sloppy Ink-Talon that the Coordinator knew. Mindful-Sight visibly flinched at the skillful display, one eye darting to Gleaming-Scale as if begging it not to pay attention. “There. I just had to focus on the specifics.” It was then that Ink-Talon’s gaze finally landed on the large snake watching from the corner, and all of that confidence faded as quickly as it had appeared. “Oh!” Its feathers fluffed up reflexively as it took a defensive stance, betraying an almost Feral-like response to the presence of a potential predator. “…Sorry, I didn’t see you there. I hope I’m not keeping you from seeing the Physician.”

“I am here to collect you, actually.” Gleaming-Scale uncoiled and approached, communicating by varying the position of its head and the pattern of its movement, very careful to keep its unease from being expressed in any way. “But please continue eating. Once you are finished, meet me outside. We can converse as I take you home.” The snake made a tight u-turn and returned outside, motioning for Mindful-Sight to follow with a flick of its tail. Once the two were outside, Gleaming-Scale coiled back up into an aggressive posture and glared at the chameleon. “Physician. What did you do?”

“I do not know what you mean,” The chameleon lied, gesturing dismissively as its scales took on a greenish tint, only one of its eyes looking back at the snake.

“We had an agreement. No more experiments.”

“I didn’t ‘experiment’ with anything,” Mindful-Sight hissed, finally locking both eyes with the Coordinator. “That would imply that I did not know exactly what was going to happen. I administrated life-saving treatment, fulfilling my mandate as Physician.”

“By inducing Attunement? Did you forget the reason why your previous research was deemed too dangerous to publish?” Gleaming-Scale slithered around the chameleon, enclosing it within a loose coil and threatening to pull in tight. “Did you even explain what you were doing so that it could consent?”

“If a creature is delirious and dying from an infected limb, you do not ask for consent before performing an amputation. You assume that it would prefer to live damaged than die painfully and act on that wish.” The Physician called the snake’s bluff and simply climbed out of its coils, knowing full well that it was not prepared to follow through. “Besides, this isn’t Ink-Talon. This is a creature who does not have even the slightest grasp on what narrowing its Understanding actually entails. I removed a capability that it did not even know it possessed, granting it a new one and saving its life in the process. It was the correct decision.”

Gleaming-Scale paused to think, unable to immediately come up with a counterargument. To Attune with something meant sacrificing broader Understanding for greater depth and precision in one’s Understanding of a single subject. A focus so intense it blocks out nuances of the world around you. Only the most long-lived of creatures had the time to undo such a switch, and committing to Attunement itself took significant effort and training, which prevented it from being undertaken lightly. The Physician’s own Attunement to the connections between mind and body provided a way to bypass that, and now Ink-Talon had to live with the consequences, should its mind ever be recovered.

Much of the world’s nuance would be lost to it. Knowing the weather from the wind and sky, making precise use of a tool by Understanding its weight and shape, feeling the emotion behind written markings, not just their meanings. Any level of Understanding deeper than the surface. However, the Coordinator had read Mindful-Sight’s report thoroughly, and the Physician never exaggerated when it came to medical diagnosis. If the crow truly would have died had it not been made to Understand its own body, and if this was the only way to do it…

“Wow…” The tense silence was broken by an impressed click of the beak from Ink-Talon, who had just emerged from inside. “You really made all this yourselves?” it asked, gazing about at the various buildings surrounding the infirmary. “I don’t think I could have managed it even back when I was taller, stronger, and had opposable digits.”

“You can speak with the Builder sometime if you’re curious,” Mindful-Sight waved, deftly changing the subject. “Do not be afraid to return if you have any concerns, but I must take my leave. I leave the patient in your care, Coordinator. Farewell.” And with that, the chameleon wandered back inside, knowing that it had quite handily won their debate, at least for now.

“Coordinator?” The crow cocked its head. “Does that mean you’re in charge here?”

“In a sense.” Gleaming-Scale uncoiled and began slithering away, beckoning Ink-Talon to follow. “You may call me Gleaming-Scale. I am going to take you home.”

“Right. ‘Home,’” Ink-Talon croaked with clear disdain for the idea. “Where is the squirrel staying? We’re in this together, and I don’t want to leave him alone if I don’t have to.”

“You were already living together, actually. You, Forager Keen-Ear, and Keen-Ear’s offspring.”

“Wait. What? Stop.” The crow halted in its tracks, forcing Gleaming-Scale to curl back around to look at it. “Keen-Ear’s offspring? The squirrel, my friend, the [Member Of My Species]’s offspring?”

“Yes,” the Coordinator answered, having decided that being direct and up-front about this would be in everyone’s best interest. “We offered to find others to care for them, as Keen-Ear does not currently remember ever having them, but apparently it was extremely insistent that it continue to do so itself.”

“But how… Oh. Oh.” After a long, almost painful silence, Ink-Talon hissed out another unknown expletive and continued walking, somehow even more sullen. “I think I’m done with questions now. Let’s go.”

“...A reasonable choice. Follow me.”

Perhaps being direct had not been the best idea.

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[transliterated-the-book]

Chapter 4: Obligations

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“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-“

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.”

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[transliterated-the-book]

Interstitial: Medical Assessment

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Attached to Incident Report drafted on the 17th Day of New Blooms, in the 1386th Year of Understanding

Medical Assessment of Forager Keen-Ear and Scholar Ink-Talon Recorded by: Physician Mindful-Sight

A disclaimer: My assessments have always been as direct and without unnecessary judgements as possible. I have a healthy disdain for those who are asked to state their opinions on a narrow set of facts, such as the health of an individual, and then contribute additional thoughts, often moralizing about the scenario and providing anecdotes with no bearing on what they were asked to do. However, I cannot in good conscience provide a medical judgement on this case without also speculating on ideas of a more abstract nature and passing judgement on things beyond my expertise. This is beyond anyone’s expertise. In the interest of transparency, I will make myself clear here and now:

What has happened to these two is important. In the interest of their well-being, as well as that of anyone else subject to this phenomena in the future, I judge any and all dismissal of their perspectives as delusions, hallucinations, or amnesia with no other components to be ignorant, irresponsible, or both, for reasons that shall be made abundantly clear in the proper assessment.

The patients were delivered into my care in varying states of physical health. Forager Keen-Ear, a gray squirrel native to here in the Blacksoil region, was alert and responsive, with no physical injuries or symptomatic illnesses. It was confused by its circumstances, but clearly aware of what was happening. Scholar Ink-Talon, a common crow native to an undisclosed region, arrived unconscious, witnesses having reported delirium and emotional instability prior to loss of consciousness. Keen-Ear reported that Ink-Talon did not seem to have slept the previous night. Upon examination, sleep deprivation is the obvious physical diagnosis.

Seeker Silver-Tail had engaged in extended conversation with the Forager during retrieval, and provided the following testimonial:

“Forager Keen-Ear is damaged in ways that I did not believe possible. We have been friends for several years, as the roles of Seeker and Forager allowed us to share techniques for exploration, navigation, and searching. But the squirrel I spoke to today behaved like a different person altogether. Beyond simple loss of memory, the Keen-Ear I know is outspoken and blunt. Quick to anger, and passionate to a fault. This squirrel is reserved, thoughtful, and considerate, even in the face of a great hardship. I displayed clear discomfort in our conversation, and rather than playfully chide me for it, it acknowledged my unease and ceased asking questions, despite its confusion and curiosity. It claims to have been someone else, of a species I do not believe exists in the Known World. I am not inclined to believe such an assertion, but I am certain this Keen-Ear does.”

After the physical assessment of both patients, I moved on to a deeper cranial assessment, my standard examination for cognitive function. The physical mind is complex to the point that obtaining a complete Understanding of it would take more time than any creature has in its life, so I concern myself only with an Awareness of motor and sensory connections. Associations created within the physical mind between the true mind and the body. It is in this regard that the nature of the Forager and Scholar’s conditions becomes more concerning.

Damage to the physical mind can break connections. One may find that skills they have practiced no longer come naturally, or that scents or sounds that recalled emotions and events no longer do. It can never create new connections from nothing. Not only are the physical minds of these patients undamaged, but I am keenly Aware of new connections with no clear origin. Every time either patient consciously moved its body, many of these connections would go nowhere, in a manner similar to an amputee suddenly without a limb. Others function properly but prompt unnatural responses, such as emoting using muscles in the face rather than with ear or tail orientation. This is most impactful for Scholar Ink-Talon, who had developed a negative association with the physical mechanisms of avian sleep patterns. Without intervention, their insomnia would have likely proven to be terminal.

As such, I can only offer one conclusion: different consciousnesses than before reside in the true minds of both patients, ones used to entirely different bodies and physical capabilities. This is not a matter of medicine, but of existence, and I can only implore the College to treat this matter with the utmost care. I fear that if we do not, then more than the lives of two people may be at risk.

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[transliterated-the-book]

Chapter 3: Sleep Study

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Static erupts from the radio as the young man turns the tuning dial, desperate for anything but the country and oldies channels he’d been stuck with for the last hour and a half of rural highway. Eventually he finds one, catching the end of a callsign declaring it was “the best of classic rock, every day, all the time.” He’s soon greeted by the opening riffs of “The Boys are Back in Town” by Thin Lizzie and slumps back in his seat with a groan, utterly defeated.

“This will have to do,” he mutters, knowing that despite his tastes, at least this is moderately less grating than what he’d been listening to prior. However, he quickly notices that something is off. The lyrics don’t line up with the rhythm of the song, like the singer ran the song through a machine translation before performing. “Fine, no music, then.” He reaches for the dial, only to find his hand unable to grip it. In fact, he doesn’t have a hand at all. Instead an outstretched, jet-black wing brushes futilely against the controls. He opens his mouth to scream, only for an alien screech to fill the air-

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

”Be calm.”

The command cut through the crow’s panic like a blade. He instinctively latched onto it as an anchor, and while it didn’t directly calm him, it was just enough grounding for him to do it himself. And then he was awake.

He was lying on his side on something soft, still a bird, with the distinct feeling of something lightly pressed against his forehead.

“It was just a nightmare, you can stop touching me now,” he croaked, only to find himself beak-to-nose with something extremely different than the squirrel when he opened his eyes. “…Who are you?”

“Quiet, and be still,” the creature hissed. It was a bright blue lizard with a broad, crested head and two bulbous eyes, something rather unexpected given the forest he last remembered being in. “I cannot assess your condition if you do not let me focus.” It continued to hold one of its feet to his forehead, its oddly arranged toes spread wide to avoid jabbing him with its sharp claws. He opened his beak to ask another question, only for the animal to tap his beak with the claws of its other foot, silently repeating the request. He realized that he should be panicking, waking up in yet another strange place with yet another strange animal, but between his exhaustion and whatever the creature had done to help him calm down from his nightmare, he just couldn’t muster the energy. All he could do was start looking around the place he’d ended up in instead.

He was in a building. A simple one, but far more than the plain burrow or hovel made of mud and sticks he would have expected from a society made up of creatures with no hands. The wall beside him was made of actual bricks, clean-cut and solid, though clearly of a different make than the red brick he was most familiar with. These were a dark gray, about half the size of his already small body, with no visible mortar holding them together. Flickering lamplight illuminated a low ceiling made of sloped wooden planks, unfinished but just as clean-cut as the bricks, with the wall opposite his bed being taller than the one beside him. It all seemed very deliberate in design, but his sleep deprived brain couldn’t even begin to put things together.

“I see. Same as the Forager, but worse off.” The lizard removed its foot and tapped his beak once as the hue of its scales noticeably darkened to convey the message. “To expedite things, I will assume that you have most of the same questions that it did before allowing you to ask more freely. Agreed?” The chameleon’s eyes both fixated on the crow, though only one met his gaze, the other looked at his feet, seemingly interested in how he would go about standing.

“I’d rather you not,” the crow clicked his beak as he struggled to his feet, talons gripping the thick fabric of the cushion beneath him as his vision swam briefly. “I can’t… think clearly right now.”

“Good. Then I can skip that courtesy and cut straight to the current situation and what you can do to fix it.” The chameleon communicated almost entirely through gestures with its forelegs and head, punctuating its expressions with slight shifts in coloration. “I am Physician Mindful-Sight. You were brought to me after you and Forager Keen-Ear suffered some form of catastrophic mental trauma. Both of you are missing vital survival instincts in addition to your memories. This is worrying enough for the squirrel, but for you, it is life-threatening. You have forgotten how to sleep.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” The crow asks. “I’m terrified and confused, of course I can’t sleep very well. Why would ‘forgetting’ have anything to do with it?”

“Show me how you would normally attempt to sleep.”

“Why?”

“To prove a point.”

“Right here?” The crow poked at the cushion with his beak.

“Wherever you are most inclined to.”

The crow nestled down onto the cushion like he’d assume any bird would do in a nest and shut his eyes. “There.”

“You are trying to sleep like a mammal, not a bird. It is no wonder that proper rest has eluded you.”

“How would you know?” the crow snapped, the veneer of calm he’d been able to maintain while the chameleon was touching him quickly fading. “You’re neither.”

“I,” Mindful-Sight tapped his beak with a claw, “am a Physician. It is my job to know how the bodies of everyone in our community function. Most birds are vigilant sleepers. You will find it near impossible to rest unless you are standing upright and close only one eye, letting half of your mind sleep at a time.”

“Why would I need to do that? How do I do that?” The crow’s voice increased in intensity, panic and anger filling his voice with equal intensity.

“Such adaptations were meant to protect our feral ancestors and serve little purpose for the civilized, but being Gifted does not allow us to simply ignore our physical bodies. Your body knows what to do, you just need to Understand what it is telling you to do.”

This isn’t my body! Stop acting like it is! The crow screamed internally, trembling as he barely contained an outburst of rage and confusion. Shouting demands at animals wouldn’t accomplish anything. “I don’t know why any of this is happening. I can't understand…”

“I can help you with the latter part.” Mindful-Sight gingerly placed a foot on the crow’s breast. “To Understand your body.”

“Understand?” It was at this moment that the crow realized that there was a subtle, but important difference between the meanings he and these animals ascribed to the word. Their “Understanding” was… deeper, somehow.

“You are already doing it, to an extent. You Understand the meanings I express in my motions and colors.” The Physician performed a far more elaborate gesture than usual, illustrating the point. “Normally, achieving an Understanding beyond the surface of something requires dedicated training and study. However, you will succumb to your lack of sleep long before you have the chance to do it properly. I will have to guide you towards the part you need.”

“Then do it,” the crow nodded. “I just want to sleep. Please.”

The Physician nodded, and began its instruction. “To start, close your eyes and turn your attention inward, to your heartbeat.”

He did so, focusing on the rapid, incessant pulsing within his chest. It was orders of magnitude faster than a human heartbeat, and even faster than the squirrel’s as he’d felt it on the previous night.

“It’s fast. Too fast.”

“Is it? Listen to it, like you listen to me.” Even with his eyes closed, the rhythmic prodding of Mindful-Sight’s claws were more than enough to convey the directions.

Listen… to sensations. The crow paid closer attention, trying to associate the beating of this foreign heart with a meaning the same way he did the chameleon’s touch. And sure enough, a meaning came to him.

“It’s… strong? Fast, but not dangerously so. I’m scared.”

“Indeed.” Mindful-Sight traced a claw up the crow’s neck, stopping on top of his head. “Now look deeper. To your physical mind, within your skull. It is in pain. It needs to rest. But something is stopping it. What is it?”

He stopped pushing away the throbbing and swirling sensations of his sleep-addled brain, letting them come to the forefront. This was harder to grasp, as he was paradoxically trying to focus on his inability to focus. But his exhaustion was crystal clear.

“I’m just tired. There’s nothing else.”

“Yes, but communication goes both ways. Understanding comes from conversation. Prompt your mind to sleep, and listen to the response.”

Sleep… The crow tried to drift off, and after a while, he noticed something. A block. He’d get so close to sleep, only for something within him to stop, like a small jolt. It was not part of his mind, but something physical. Something… divisive?

“It’s a reflex, pulling me away. It feels wrong.”

“That division is what your physical mind seeks,” the chameleon explained. “You are primed to reject it as something foreign, but you must not. Understand it, then embrace it.”

Sleep, and let it pass. Listen, and Understand… Once more he attempted sleep, and after an indeterminate amount of time, he felt that reflex push back again. It wasn’t blocking him from sleep, just partitioning it. I just need to… let it… And finally, sleep came, but his awareness did not end.

He opened one eye and stared at Mindful-Sight. Barely thinking. Just watching. Vigilant.

“Impressive,” the Physician waved as it turned and walked away.

“Even if you needed an extra nudge. Take your well-earned rest, 'Ink-Talon.' We will speak again tomorrow.”

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[transliterated-the-book]

Interstitial: On Context

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An excerpt from Musings on Our Gift, recorded by Scholar Delving-Thought:

Context is everything. This is because we Understand. Understanding is how we recognize ourselves, our neighbors, and our world. But what happens if we Understand something we lack context for? Something we know nothing about, and have never experienced? It is reduced. Abstracted in the most direct possible terms, stripped of nuance we would not comprehend. For most, such an idea feels absurd, but that is because we live and interact with those who share our perspective, our context. They know much of what we know, and if either party lacks knowledge, it need only be provided.

However, it is rather simple to demonstrate the power context holds over our Understanding. One needs only to start discussing colors with those outside their own species. I am fortunate enough to perceive many colors, but there are those who know fewer, and some who see more. One of the latter is a colleague of mine, a dove. It loves to speak of its life-mate, but will often mention features that I cannot see. I once asked what these invisible markings looked like, and I was entirely incapable of envisioning them. The markings were an iridescent pattern of colors I'd never seen, and so my Understanding was delivered in those terms.

"My mate's wings are spattered with blacks and grays and whites and [Other Colors]." The statement struck me as odd, so I repeated it back to my friend. It informed me that it had listed at least three more shades in its description, and tried to explain what they looked like. "The first color is similar to a second color, just a few shades closer to a third color from violet." I stopped the dove there, having learned my lesson.

To Understand is not to know, but rather to know if you know, and what you know. And there are some things you will never know.

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[transliterated-the-book]

Chapter 2: Hard Truths

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The squirrel explained as best he could to the fox what he and the crow had experienced since waking up in these bodies. The panic, the lack of functional instincts or muscle memory, learning to follow a scent on the fly and barely being able to crawl back to this hole in the dead of night. The loss of their names.

For their part, the fox patiently listened, never chiming in to ask difficult questions. But he could tell that his story was unbelievable. There was a palpable tension building between them as he spoke, the fox’s posture stiffening and relaxing as they tried to calm themselves. Eventually, this tension boiled over and they spoke up.

“Stop,” they growled. “I know that you are not trying to deceive me, but these creatures you claim to have been… They don’t exist.”

“You’ve never seen a human before? Bipedal, mostly furless mammals with opposable digits?”

“…That is the most ridiculous combination of features I have ever heard a creature described with,” the fox stated after an uncomfortable pause. “And whatever you have named it is as lost on me as the name you claim to have had is on you.”

“Oh.” He tried to think of things from their perspective, that of an otherwise ordinary animal born with self-awareness and intellect. Of course they wouldn’t know what “a human” is if they’d never seen or heard of one. It’d just be an empty term referring to… something vague. And humans were kinda silly looking, relative to the rest of the animal kingdom. The more he thought of the fox’s perspective, though, the more his thoughts drifted to another subject.

“This body. It belongs to someone you knew, doesn’t it?” the squirrel squeaked. “We’re not just transformed or inhabiting the bodies of unintelligent animals. That’s why you asked what had happened to us.” He looked over to the crow, who lay slumped over on the ground nearby. He had finally passed out after his sleepless night and the excitement of the earlier misunderstanding and argument.

“If you truly do not remember,” the fox whined softly, “then it may be best not to say any more. You are damaged, and I do not want to risk further harm by overwhelming you.”

“Please. I need to know what is going on.”

“Very well,” the fox huffed, a knowing sorrow overtaking their tone. “Your name is Forager Keen-Ear. You have lived in our village for your entire life. You gather food to supplement our stores, to feed those who cannot feed themselves. The crow is your life-mate, Scholar Ink-Talon.”

The squirrel stared and blinked for a few moments, the names and jobs feeling far less important in that moment than the other new term they used. “I’m sorry, life-mate?”

“So you really are that far gone…” The fox huffed in apparent frustration before standing up and gently lifting the sleeping body of the crow in their jaws. It was clearly awkward for them, the crow’s body was just a little too big to be held comfortably. “Come, we need to return to the village as soon as possible. You need help, maybe there is still a way to fix this.” Despite their vocalizations being muffled by the muzzle full of crow, their words were still completely intelligible. They began to walk back the way they came, turning back to make sure the squirrel was following.

“I’m serious, what did you mean by ‘life-mate?’” the squirrel asked as he followed behind as best he could, barely able to keep up with the fox’s much longer strides.

“Ink-Talon is your mate, you vowed to spend the rest of your lives together. To build a family together.” The fox picked up the pace, their muffled growls audibly becoming more frustrated. Not at the squirrel, but at the situation. “You are both important to our village, so I will do everything in my power to bring you both back.”

A vow to spend their lives together… So they were married? Or a rough equivalent, at least. The squirrel declined to press for more details, this was clearly rather hard on the fox. Instead, he focused on improving his strides to keep from falling behind, letting his mind wander as he did. Love is love, but how would a squirrel and a bird build a family? Adoption? Do they have the infrastructure for that? It occurred to the squirrel that it was odd just how readily he was able to take this idea of an animal society with towns and inter-species life partners seriously. It was almost saccharine. Like something you’d see in the adorable queer children’s books that obsessed bigots back home kept trying to get banned from schools and libraries. But he was talking to one of them right now, with their words and emotions feeling very real. And that only made what was happening all the more horrible. If we’re inhabiting their bodies, what happened to them? Are they locked away in some deep recess of their brains, or did we…

“So, what is your name?” the squirrel asked, trying to talk about anything else to get his mind off of that possibility.

“Seeker Silver-Tail,” the fox answered flatly, no longer surprised by all the things the squirrel didn’t remember.

“Thanks for putting up with me being so-Ah!” The squirrel’s attempt at showing gratitude was cut off by his left-hind leg hooking in front of a foreleg, causing him to trip and skid to a stop on his stomach while his legs on the opposite side flailed uselessly. A series of stabbing pains shot across his torso where it made contact with the ground, as if he were re-injuring a bunch of bad bruises. “Ow ow ow ow ow,” he squeaked pathetically as he drew in sharp, shallow breaths and tried and calm himself.

“Keen-Ear!” Silver-Tail let out a muffled bark before they carefully set down the crow’s unconscious body and rushed to the fallen squirrel’s side. “Are you injured? What happened?”

“I’m fine, I just tripped,” the squirrel chittered. “I’m not any good at moving faster than a leisurely walk just yet. I tried to pick up the pace and my legs just got tangled up.” He pushed himself to his feet and waited for his heart to slow down. He knew it never would completely. Even calm and at rest it beat almost twice as fast as his human heart ever did. A constant reminder.

“Apologies. I let my emotions get the better of me without considering your… condition.” Silver-Tail’s ears pinned back as they expressed the idea, as if they didn’t want to think about it any more than they had to. “That is not all, though. You are in pain.” They whined as they lowered their head to the ground and examined the squirrel for any injuries.

“I’ve just been sore since last night, and it’s gotten worse. This is the first time it’s ever hurt like that, though. Am I doing something wrong?”

“Technically, yes,” the fox answered as they stood back up, clearly relieved that it wasn’t something worse. “But it is to be expected. You have been away from home for over almost a day longer than expected and have not had any opportunity to alleviate it.” The moment they finished expressing that thought, Silver-Tail cringed, having said something against their better judgment.

“It’s okay. I’m not going to press you for any more details,” the squirrel gently placed a forepaw on the fox’s leg and looked them in the eye, trying to calm their frayed nerves. “I trust you. If you think it is best that I don’t know just yet, or if explaining it is too hard on you, then I won’t ask. This is clearly as stressful and unnerving to you as it is to me. If it is as you said, I will just find out on my own when the time is right anyway.”

“…Thank you,” the fox nodded and turned to pick up the crow once more. “We will be at the village by midday, even if I take a slower pace so that you can keep up. Follow me.”

The pair plodded on through the forest in silence, crow in tow. Unfortunately for the squirrel, learning about that last detail Silver-Tail didn’t wish him to know wouldn’t be able to wait. He had already figured it out.

Parallel points of soreness across my underside. A vow to be a family. To build a family. Very specific anatomy that I really, really was hoping wouldn’t matter… The squirrel trembled and took a deep breath, ready to acknowledge the rest, painful as it was. Keen-Ear was a new mother. She and Ink-Talon had children waiting for them to return. But they won’t.

Because they’re gone.

Because we’ve killed them and taken their place.

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[transliterated-the-book]

Chapter 1: Missing Persons

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“This should be the site they were camping at,” Messenger Darting-Flight peeped as they arrived at their destination, the swift’s gaze flicking around the odd mess of tools and materials. “It was in a much better state when I was here to collect their report two days ago. Something must have happened, Ink-Talon is never this careless.” It fluttered down to the ground and began rooting through one of the piles.

The low angle of the early morning sun through the forest's canopy created a display of spotty shadows across the camp that danced in the breeze with the leaves that cast them. If not for the growls and chirps of the bird and fox currently searching the area, the forest would have been completely silent. All together, it seemed that there hadn't been an accident so much as the pair of missing people just dropped everything they had been doing and left. Something was incredibly wrong.

“The notes and records are still here. Maybe those will have an answer for where the two of them went? Or should we keep following your nose, Silver-Tail?”

“No need, because they’re still here.” Seeker Silver-Tail put its nose to the ground and confirmed the scents, quickly finding a hollow at the roots of a nearby tree where they seemed to be sheltering. Moving to investigate, the black-furred fox immediately saw the glint of eyes peering out of the darkness. Eyes that didn’t look on it with familiarity, but with fear, anger, and confusion. “Apologies if we startled-” It could not even finish expressing the sentiment before Scholar Ink-Talon awkwardly stumbled out of the darkness, squawking a command to someone behind it as it flapped its wings and threw itself at the fox.

“Go! I’ll distract it!” the crow cawed, only to be immediately knocked over and pinned by the fox’s forepaw in one swift motion. Its movements had all the effectiveness and precision of one of its kit hunting crickets on its first trip outside the den.

“Scholar! Control yourself!” The fox barked. “We are not feral, and you are not in danger!”

“Wait, you’re… like us?” Forager Keen-Ear chittered as it emerged from the hollow, the squirrel’s slow, deliberate gait betraying uncharacteristic clumsiness in much the same way Ink-Talon’s frantic movements did, not to mention a fair bit of physical discomfort.

“Something is wrong,” Darting-Flight flicked its tail feathers silently, communicating the message out of view of the crow and squirrel. “They do not seem to be mentally or physically sound.”

“Ink-Talon, please stop struggling,” Silver-Tail huffed, struggling to split its attention three ways to think about any of this.

“That’s not my name! Get off!” the crow screeched before biting into Silver-Tail’s leg with its beak, forcing the fox to leap back with a surprised yelp.

“Friend! Stop!” Keen-Ear squeaked, placing a forepaw on the crow’s wing to placate it. “They don’t mean us any harm.” Ink-Talon slumped over, collapsing from apparent exhaustion.

“At least one of you is lucid,” the Seeker whined as it licked its wound. Ink-Talon’s bite had actually drawn blood.

“I’m not entirely sure I am,” Keen-Ear said, staring at its own paws. “Do you know what happened to us?” It didn’t just mean the two of them, seeming to include Silver-Tail and Darting-Flight in this happening as well. “One moment we were [Our Species], the next we’re… animals. I hoped it was just a bad dream, that I’d go to sleep and wake up back in my bed, but-”

“Not ‘were!’ We still are [Our Species]!” Ink-Talon cawed angrily, finally managing to stand back up. “Don’t you dare give in to this!”

“I’m not giving in to anything! You’re getting caught up in semantics!”

The two began to argue, much of what they were talking about shrouded in some bizarre context that Silver-Tail could not even begin to unravel. Whatever small amount of sense the squirrel was speaking was instantly rebuffed by the far more delirious bird, and the pair seemed to be at a stalemate. Silver-Tail tuned them out and motioned to its nearby companion.

“Messenger Darting-Flight, you need to gather up all of the Scholar’s records and deliver them along with details of what happened here. I will keep them safe and try to get them back to the village.”

“Will you be okay alone?” Darting-Flight nervously glanced between Silver-Tail and the other pair as it gathered and stowed the few scraps of notes in its satchel. “Neither of them are behaving rationally.” Once it had finished, it hopped around to the fox’s front, gesturing at the visible blood on its leg with a wing. “You’ve already been injured, as well.”

“I will be fine. They are far more of a danger to themselves than me in this state.” The fox’s ears drooped as it eyed the pair with a mix of pity and concern. The possibility of whatever had happened to them being contagious or caused by a nearby danger could not be discounted, and the small wound on its foreleg throbbed as the thought crossed its mind. But they themselves were not a threat. Just unwell. “Informing the Coordinator is more important than avoiding small risks.”

“Understood, I will make sure the Physician is prepared for them as well.” Darting-Flight spread its wings and prepared for takeoff before pausing and looking back. “Be safe, Seeker.”

“Fly true, Messenger.” As the swift zoomed off above the trees, Silver-Tail turned back to the arguing pair, only to find the fight having already ended and the two sorrowfully commiserating instead. Keen-Ear sat beside a crestfallen Ink-Talon, awkwardly wrapping a foreleg around the crow. The fox clearly Understood it to be an expression of comfort and consolation, but it was an unusual one for these two. A poor fit for either of their body shapes.

“I can’t do it.” Ink-Talon’s squawks had devolved into some odd mix of a croak and a gurgle. “I can’t move how I want. I can’t think how I want. I can’t speak how I want.” It slumped over on its side, barely able to remain conscious. “But I’m still me, right? I know I’m me. I have to be. If I’m not, then-”

“Stop it.” Keen-Ear interrupted the crow with a desperate, barely audible squeak. “You have to stop overthinking it. We’re going to be okay. We found help. We can survive this.” It was immediately obvious that despite its encouragement, the squirrel did not believe what it was expressing. It was trying to convince itself as much as its partner, and it was not doing a good job.

“Are you ready to converse now?” the Seeker asked, carefully approaching the pair. It needed to intervene before their mental states deteriorated ever further.

“I am, I think,” the squirrel answered, “but my friend isn’t. Too tired.”

“Understood. We can let it rest for a while, and then I can carry it back.” Silver-Tail sat down in front of them, wracking its brain as it tried to figure out how best to approach this. In the end, it just had to sigh and hope that the Forager wouldn’t react poorly to having its mental state questioned. “Before anything else, I need to know. What happened to the two of you? How much do you remember?”

Keen-Ear stared blankly for a moment, as if confused by the question.

“Do you not know? You’re like us, right? [Our Former Species]?”

“No.” The Seeker was caught off-guard by the question, just as much as Keen-Ear was caught off-guard by the answer. This was far more severe than it had initially assumed, and it immediately regretted sending Darting-Flight back so soon. It did its best to hide its fear and confusion, expressing its next question with only a calm tilt of the head and an inquisitive whine. “Start from the beginning. Just who, and what, do you believe yourself to be?”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The previous evening…

He awoke to sensory overload. Even with his eyes closed, he was assaulted by unfamiliar scents, sounds, and sensations with absurd detail and intensity. The scents, rather than mixing into a single amalgam of various smells, were each clearly distinguishable, while the pained cries of an extremely distressed bird rang in his ears with the intensity of a fire alarm, somehow communicating the exact location of the poor animal. He needed to shut it out. Focus on one thing. Ground himself, or else start to panic.

Touch. Just focus on touch. Taking an inventory of his senses was a tried and true grounding technique and the first thing he attempted. However, he immediately got the sense that things were wrong. Very wrong. But he hoped he could handle wrong, so long as he took it one thing at a time. The sounds and scents faded into the background as the world gave way to practiced mindfulness.

Breathe in, breathe out. What do you feel? He was lying on his side, cushioned by thick grasses. The contours of his body, however, were bizarre. His arms and legs were outstretched, but felt disproportionately short compared to his torso. And that was to say nothing of what felt like a long, heavy extension of his spine, curving outwards.

No pain. No broken bones. No numbness. But I’m... misshapen? With a… tail? His heart began to race. Fast. Faster than the human heart could beat. It could only mean one thing, and that only made it worse. Rather than accept the clear truth he’d already put together, he withdrew again. He decided to start from square one with a different sense.

Focus. Breathe. Just listen. Pick one sound and listen. The most immediate and obvious sound was the rapid thrumming of an inhuman heart in his ears, so he latched onto the only other thing he could hear: the panicked cries of a bird. It was more than just distressed and angry, like injured or trapped wild animals he’d encountered before. No, these were cries of confusion, terror, despair, and denial. So much emotion and meaning wrapped up in what were obviously the sounds of an animal. It was almost as if…

“No no no no no! This isn’t real! This isn’t happening! Wake up wake up wake up!” Like tuning into a radio station, the unintelligible caws and screeches suddenly became crystal clear. Not audibly, the sounds were the same as they had been, but he understood them. They formed sentences and expressed emotions to him, despite not containing any actual language he recognized. “I’m not an animal! Not a bird! I’m me! Just let me wake up!”

Once more, panic nearly overtook the man as the reality he’d been avoiding washed over him, but this time something else kept him grounded. He was not alone. Someone else was here, experiencing the exact same impossible thing. Someone who was lost in the terror and disbelief he had only narrowly avoided because their presence had drawn him out of it. Knowing nothing else, one thing became clear: He needed to help them, because he refused to entertain the idea of going through this alone. Not for him, nor for anyone else.

So he finally opened his eyes.

He was prepared for his sense of sight to be wildly different in this body. But what greeted him was still bizarre and almost impossible to parse. It was only when he tried closing one eye that he got a better grasp on what he was seeing. His eyes were on the sides of his head, facing outward more than they faced forward. Rather than looking straight ahead with both eyes, he could see most of his surroundings at once, with even the peripheries of his vision coming in crisp and clear. Even grasping that, it was nearly as overwhelming as all of his other senses combined, but after a moment the strain of it all seemed to fade. Even the gray, furry muzzle taking up a sliver in the center of his view felt unobtrusive, as if it didn’t exist if he didn’t focus on it. A sudden rush of movement through the grass to his left caught his eye, and his attention snapped to it reflexively.

Am I wired to notice movement and pay less attention to stationary things? He wondered, though the source of that movement reminded him that now wasn’t the time for experimentation. The other person, who seemed to be a crow of some sort, was thrashing about in the dirt a short distance away. The first thing to do was stand up, and he immediately noticed that rather than ending up on his hands and knees in the middle of the process, he was standing on all fours.

He took his first steps forward, trying to push past the bizarre clashing of his human muscle memory and quadrupedal body. He was less than successful, however, immediately stumbling as he moved limbs in the wrong order. The first idea that came to mind was pretending to crawl. That did the trick. One paw at a time, alternating sides between front and hind limbs. The gait and posture were natural, so it was far less strenuous than crawling on his former hands and knees would have been, but it was still slow. He’d need to figure out that sort of scampering movement small animals did if he wanted to move any faster.

Having made it past the grass, he could see more of where they were, along with the crow in their entirety. They were situated in a forest clearing of some sort. It certainly seemed huge, but given the apparent size of the trees, which stretched upwards like skyscrapers, he could only assume that their small size was the reason for that. The crow was a fair bit larger than he was, but not enough to make approaching him particularly daunting. By this point their cries had died down to the avian equivalent of sobs and incoherent muttering, so he just needed to figure out how to grab their attention.

“Hey-“ he squeaked, his “voice” catching in his throat as he heard what he sounded like for the first time. Small, rather cute in any other context, and very, very vulnerable. But it was what he had to work with right now, so he shoved that thought away, trying not to think about it. “Hey, can you hear me?” His chittering didn’t seem to phase the bird, however, and he remembered that he didn’t understand what the bird was saying until he tried to focus on the sounds. He needed to give them something more concrete to pay attention to. So he pounced, leaping at them with outstretched limbs.

“No! Let me go! Change me back!” The crow’s cries once again filled the air as he tried to wrap his forelegs around them in an impromptu embrace. Thankfully the crow was even less adept at moving their body than he was, and their attempts at struggling failed to dislodge him.

“Calm down. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay,” he said, his words forming out of an odd, cooing purr. He was lying, of course. None of this was okay, and he had no reason to believe that that would change any time soon, but he needed that lie as much as the bird did. “Stay calm and talk to me. Just make any sounds you can, I think we can understand each other.”

After a long and awkward silence, the crow finally spoke, softly cawing and clicking to create their words. “You’re a squirrel,” they stated flatly, still clearly lost.

“Oh.” The squirrel turned his head to confirm this, finally seeing the enormous fluffy tail that had been residing in the blind spot behind his head all this time. “I suppose I am.” He turned back to the crow, who just stared at him in disbelief. “But I’m also like you. Formerly human.”

“We’re not ’formerly’ human,” The bird snapped, finally managing to shake off the squirrel and pull themselves up onto their talons, towering over him as their eyes stared into his with a sudden clarity and conviction. “We are human! I won’t have my personhood dictated by any of this… mystical nonsense!”

“No arguments there.” The squirrel nodded. “Glad to see you’ve pulled yourself out of that spiral, friend.”

The crow just stood there for a moment, all of that determination and anger quickly fading. “…What now?” They asked, looking around the clearing as fear began to creep back into their voice.

“Survival.” The squirrel looked up at the sky, which had begun to take on a lovely orange tint over the last few minutes. “If all that time I wasted as a scout in my teens taught me anything, it’s what your priorities are when you’re lost in the woods. We find shelter, we find food and water, and we find help.”

“Help?” The crow scoffed. “Who is going to help us like this?”

“Perhaps nobody, but making ourselves impossible to find isn’t going to do us any good on the off-chance that…” Something caught the squirrel’s attention as he spoke. Not a sight or sound, but a smell, suddenly highlighted by a shift in the evening breeze. It was a pair of smells, to be precise, clearly distinct from the scents of the two of them and the ambient odors of dirt and grass. They clung to his fur and seemed to leave a clear trail to follow, one clearly pointing out into the woods as he sniffed the air around him. “I think I’ve got a direction for us to go in. Can you walk?”

“…Maybe?” The crow took an awkward couple of steps forward, visibly cringing as they paid attention to the way the joints in their legs were oriented for the first time. “It feels like I'm walking backwards, but it doesn’t hurt. I think I can manage.” They flashed the squirrel an odd open-beaked expression that read as an uneasy attempt at a smile. “Sorry that our introductions started out so poorly.” They paused for a moment, that sentence having come out rather strange. “My name is-“ Another pause, this time with a distinct twinge of panic. “I’m… myself.”

A cold realization crept over both the squirrel and the crow. Their names were gone, replaced by the same translated meanings that had replaced all of their communication. Even within their own thoughts.

They were simply themselves, and that was all they could say.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of all the complications of the crow’s new state of being, none were more distressing than the effects it had on his thoughts. For the most part, he mentally felt like himself. This body was still as foreign as it should be, despite him starting to adjust to moving it. His emotions and inclinations didn’t clash with his memory of himself, either. He wasn’t obsessing over shiny things or compelled to peck at the ground or whatever a real crow’s instincts would tell it to do. It was one of the few pieces of solace he could draw from the situation. He’d read about enough malicious transformations in tabletop games and fantasy novels to recognize that the greater horror was losing one’s mind to that of the animal, not one’s body.

But he wasn’t one-hundred percent the same. The way he understood language was different. It was obviously a boon in this situation. Neither he nor the squirrel could vocalize the way humans could, but they understood each other all the same. Chirps, squawks, squeaks, caws, gestures with wings and paws, and even more nuanced body language like posture. All of it came across clear as day as if they’d spoken with their old voices or expressed with their old faces.

This understanding, however, came at a cost. To communicate in meaning rather than sound meant that many words and phrases simply ceased to exist, even in their own thoughts. What used to be metaphors were instead “translated” literally, or otherwise mangled into less succinct similes, and many proper nouns were replaced with their definitions instead. This included their names.

For the crow, any attempt to express or think his name simply produced “me,” “myself,” or “my name,” while the squirrel expressed similar difficulties, so much so that it was distressing to even try. As it turns out, neither of them had bothered to learn the definitions of their names in their native languages, the crow’s parents having simply picked a nice sounding biblical name for him that he’d never bothered to investigate. They eventually worked out some basics like the fact that they were both men who had been passing through the same stretch of backwater highway before waking up here, but that was all they could manage without taking the time to really dig into how this worked.

He knew that this was a small price to pay to avoid being isolated by an inability to easily communicate, but the loss of his name ate at him. He even recalled his own memories differently, with text and even people’s voices being interpreted through the same filter of meaning as everything else, the sounds of his and others’ names having been reduced to an inexpressible onomatopoeia. And if his memories could be altered, even in such a small way, how could he be sure that nothing else was?

“Good to keep going, Friend?” A small squeak from the squirrel brought him back to the present. He’d apparently gotten so lost in thought that he’d stopped walking.

“Yeah, sorry,” he nodded, fluffing up his feathers in an apparent bid to shed some anxiety, a reflex he wasn’t exactly happy to learn he had. “Just got distracted. Let’s keep moving.”

“Got it. Just don’t be afraid to let me know if we’re pushing it, okay?”

They’d hadn’t been walking long. It was impossible to tell time precisely, but the sun had just set enough for the entire forest to be blanketed in the final purple hues of twilight. He’d never had to wonder how well a crow could see in the dark before. The answer? Not well. The best he could do was follow the bobbing tail of the squirrel in front of him, its brownish grays standing out a bit against the darkness in front of them.

“Can you see where we’re going?” The crow asked. “My eyes aren’t any better at night than they used to be, how about a squirrel’s?”

“Only marginally better than a human’s, I’m afraid,” the squirrel answered. “But I can smell where we’re going. It’s really strong, we’re practically on top of it.”

“Let’s just hope that whatever it is, it’s worth finding. I don’t really fancy sleeping out in the open now that I’m small enough to snack on.”

“Hold up, I think we’re here,” The squirrel said, night haven truly fallen and plunged the forest into darkness. “Let me feel around for a moment… Huh?”

“What is it?”

“There’s… stuff on the ground here.” Wooden clattering and light metallic clinking filled the still air at the squirrel rooted though assorted objects. “I think they might be tools?”

“Tools? A human was here?” The crow immediately perked up. “Then we’re close to civilization!”

“Not… human tools.” The squirrel replied, his voice uneasy. “I can’t see them, but these paws can suss out the shapes of things really well. They’re sized for us, and our scents are all over them.”

“What is that supposed to mean? We were here long enough to craft tools and just… forgot everything?” A much simpler and more likely answer immediately occurred to the crow, but he quickly dismissed it. Contemplating it would complicate things.

“Maybe we…” The squirrel trailed off, clearly grappling with his own theories. “I don’t know,” he lied. It was easy to tell when he didn’t mean what he said when his underlying emotions and intentions were as clear as the actual words. “But it looks like we can camp here. There’s a hollow beneath the tree roots, and our scents are inside.” A soft pattering noise came from ahead as he scurried into the hole he’d found. “Follow my voice! There’s just enough room for you.”

“You’d better be right. I don’t think I know how to back out of a tight space.” The crow gingerly stepped forward until his beak bumped up against the bark of the tree, and then poked around until he found the top of the opening. He crouched down as best he could and tried to shuffle in. “Okay, this is definitely not something these legs are made for.”

“Need help?”

“No, I just need to…” The crow shifted from the initial crouch he’d attempted to a wider, somewhat more uncomfortable stance, enabling him to waddle his way in. “There, that was awkward- Oh!” Both creatures chirped as the crow’s beak poked the squirrel in the forehead. “Sorry!”

“No worries, let me move over.” The squirrel shifted to the left, giving the crow room to squeeze in next to him and turn around. “You’re… really warm.” He squirmed a little bit, the crow being large enough to eclipse his whole body while pressed up against him.

“Same goes for you, fluffy,” The crow croaked. “It was getting chilly anyway.” He sighed, his feathers once more fluffing up reflexively. “But honestly, I’m just scared. I know we barely know each other, but you’re all I’ve got right now. You’ve been far kinder to me than I’ve been to you. It’s impossible not to be direct speaking like this, so I just want you to know that I appreciate it.”

“I don’t know if I’m as altruistic as you think I am,” the squirrel chittered softly. “When I first woke up here, in this body, I wanted nothing more than to run off into the woods and escape, as stupid as that sounds. It was hearing your voice that pulled me out of it. I just didn’t want to be alone, and felt guilty that I'd considered leaving you alone. That doesn’t make me kind.”

“Then I guess that makes us two similar people.” The crow paused for a moment before cawing with attempted laughter. “God, I just wanted to make a comparison to peas in pods and it came out like that. We’re doomed.”

“Well, at least we’re doomed together.” The squirrel sighed, shifting in an attempt to get comfortable, though the direct contact made the crow keenly aware that they weren’t quite able to.

“Are you hurt?” The crow asked.

“Just… sore in places that don’t make sense,” the squirrel answered, needing to pause to give his answer some thought. “Nothing lines up with the way I’m used to picturing my body, so I can’t tell if I’m just moving wrong, if I was injured before waking up, or if I’m just coming down with a squirrel cold or something trivial like that.”

“Well, getting enough sleep is important for animals as much as people, as far as I know. Maybe you’ll feel better in the morning?”

“Yeah, I hope. Sleep well, Friend.”

“I’ll try.” The crow closed his eyes and tried to let himself drift off. Unfortunately, sleep never came.

Every movement, every sound, every sensation in that body seemed to jolt him awake the moment he felt himself drifting off. This wasn’t normal anxiety, he knew anxiety. This was alertness. Hypervigilance. Something deep within him screamed that he was in danger. That sleep was the wrong move to make. And as far as he knew, that was true. A fox, or a badger, or a weasel, or any number of predators could make easy work of the two of them.

I’ll keep watch until I pass out, then. The crow trained his eyes and ears on the hole in front of him, the inky-black abyss of night giving him neither signs of danger nor safety. He ached with exhaustion, and his thoughts became foggy even as they continued to wander, but he wouldn’t sleep. He couldn’t sleep. His body refused. As the night dragged on, one, single truth became apparent.

Something inside of him was broken, and he did not know what it was.

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