The man's voice was deep.
Like, genuinely, unreasonably deep. The kind of voice that came from somewhere in the chest and just settled in the air around it.
Neve noticed and he couldn't help it.
Then he told himself to stop noticing and focus on the actual problem, which was that this man had just crouched down to his level and asked what he was saying and Neve had absolutely no way to answer that in any language this man would understand.
He chittered once.
The man's expression didn't change.
Neve chittered again, slower this time, as if that would help.
Still nothing.
'Okay,' Neve thought. 'He can't understand me and we are having a staring contest while the sky is already darkening.'
He looked up at the sky. The man looked up at the sky too.
Then the man looked back down at Neve with the expression of someone who had just made a decision, which was the only warning Neve got before the man stepped back and shifted.
One second, he was a man. Next second, he was a big, golden, yellow-eyed leopard.
Neve screamed.
The scream came out as a very loud squeak that bounced off every tree in the surrounding area.
He turned to run but he was already dangling.
The leopard had him by the scruff before he completed the turn, lifted him off the ground in one smooth motion and then he ran.
Neve squeezed his eyes shut immediately. The wind was insane. It pushed against his face and pulled at his fur and the ground below was moving at a speed. He cracked one eye open, immediately regretted it and shut it again.
'Don't look down,' he told himself. 'Do not look down. Just... don't look—'
He looked down.
The trees were blurring.
He shut his eyes again so hard it hurt.
'Okay,' he thought, dangling helplessly at full sprint speed. 'He hasn't eaten me yet. That's good. That's a positive sign. He's either taking me somewhere to eat me later or taking me somewhere that isn't to eat me.'
The wind kept going and after thirty full minutes of running at a speed that Neve's small red panda body was not designed to experience from the scruff, sounds started to appear.
A village.
.
.
The leopard slowed as he crossed into the settlement and Neve finally opened both eyes properly.
It was — a lot.
People everywhere. Some are fully human-looking with fur ears and tails. Some are in full animal form moving between the structures. Fires burning. Children running. The smell of raw meat and smoke and something else underneath that Neve couldn't name.
And then everyone saw the leopard.
The reaction was immediate.
People turned and straightened. A ripple of noise moved through the village, voices rising, and it was so obvious that they were celebrating.
Someone raised their fist. Someone else shouted something that others repeated. The crowd that had started forming was getting louder, all of it directed at the leopard carrying Neve through the middle of it all.
'The black leopard,' Neve realised, watching their faces. 'They're hailing him for killing it.'
He looked at the leopard man's back. He was just walking through all of it. Like people celebrating him was just something that happened and he had no particular feelings about it.
Then Neve felt the shift. The eyes that had been on the leopard were sliding sideways. To him.
Confusion moving through the crowd.
Someone pointed. Someone else leaned forward squinting. They finally noticed him.
Then a man near the front of the crowd tilted his head and said, loud enough to carry —
"...Is that a moving fruit?"
Neve's jaw dropped.
His whole face dropped.
A moving fruit.
A MOVING FRUIT????
He looked down at himself. Red fur. Round body. Fluffy tail.
'I look nothing like a fruit,' he thought, deeply offended. 'I am a red panda. We are a known species. We exist.'
He looked around at the crowd of people who were all looking back at him with genuine uncertainty about what category of thing he belonged to.
'They have no idea what I am,' he realised slowly. 'Not one of them. A red panda doesn't exist here. Either it's extinct or it never existed at all and I am the only one.'
That thought sat in a way he didn't like.
.
.
The leopard ignored all of it.
Ignored the crowd, the celebration, the questions about the strange round red thing in his mouth. He walked through the village and stopped in front of a large dwelling near the centre.
The curtain across the entrance was made of thick straw. Before the leopard could make a sound, it moved aside.
The man who stepped out was older. Broader. Animal skin wrapped around his body, a long stick in one hand with bones and feathers tied along its length. He stood in the entrance and looked at the leopard in front of him.
The leopard set Neve down on the ground.
Then he shifted.
He was a man again with tattoos. He lowered his head toward the older man.
"I have returned, father."
The chief lifted his stick and touched it gently to the top of his son's head. "Welcome back."
Neve sat in the dirt between them and watched.
'This is the Lion King,' he thought. 'But leopard's version. This is the Leopard King. I am watching the Leopard King happen in real life in front of me.'
"Father."
"Mm."
"The black leopard is dead."
The chief nodded once, as if this was expected news. He looked at his son for a moment and then his gaze dropped.
To Neve.
"...What is that?"
The leopard glanced at Neve briefly. "I don't know. I found it in the forest."
"You found it."
"It was chittering at me." A pause. "It has the smell of a female. I brought it back. Someone in the village may want it as a mate."
Neve processed that sentence.
He processed it again.
"Excuse me," he said loudly.
Chittering. All of it came out as chittering.
"Female," he said.
More chittering.
"I am a MALE," he said, very clearly, directly at both of them.
Chittering. Chittering. Chittering.
The chief looked at him for a moment. Then laughed, low and warm, and looked back at his son. "You think of this village even when you're fighting. You'll make a fine chief one day."
The leopard lowered his head slightly. "My older brother is one to—"
"Your brother is well," the chief said, in the tone of someone changing the subject. He looked back at Neve with assessing eyes. "Strong scent for something so small. Keep it safe until it's of age. Someone will want it."
"I'M A MALE!" Neve said.
Chittering.
The leopard looked at him with a flat expression. He turned back to his father, lowered his head once more and then reached down and picked Neve up by the back like a bag.
Neve dangled sideways, all four legs hanging, and kept chittering all the way across the village.
'I am a male. I am a grown adult male. I am twenty years old. I have a student ID. I pay my damn taxes. I am telling all of you right now that I am a MALE and not one single person in this entire—'
.
.
The cave was not what Neve would call welcoming.
Straw curtain at the entrance. Straw mat on the floor. Animal skin was thrown across it. Something in the corner that had been an animal skin once and was now mostly just a smell.
Neve covered his nose with both paws the moment they walked in.
The leopard crossed the room and tossed him at the bed.
Neve landed, bounced once and sat up with his fur going in six directions.
The leopard stood near the entrance with his back half turned and said something low, almost to himself.
"You'd better find a mate quickly once you're of age. I don't want a female's scent in my cave."
He turned and looked directly at Neve.
Neve looked back at him from the bed.
Then slowly moved backwards into the corner.
'He hates females,' Neve thought, watching those yellow eyes. 'Or at least he very strongly doesn't want one in his space. Okay. Noted. I need to shift. I need to figure out how to become human and shift and then I can explain myself and find out where I am and make a plan...'
He didn't know how to shift.
He didn't even know if he could shift.
He looked around the cave and tried to think about what came next and the only thing that came was the quiet realisation that he had no idea what to do in a beast world. No map. No guide. No information. No anything.
He sighed.
"If only I had a map," he muttered. "Or a guide. Something. Anything."
{Map unavailable. Host level too low.}
Neve went completely still.
That voice.
He knew that voice.
He had heard it before. Right before — right when he was lying on the ground in the lion enclosure with his skull cracked.
That voice.
He sat up straight.
"...Who are you," he said slowly.
{Hello, Host! I'm your system!}