If only she could climb better.
Rats could climb, right?
She had white rat ears and a white rat tail. She was a rat beastwoman. Did that an she could climb in animal form? Could females even transform? Nobody had explained that part to her properly. She had seen males shift, but she had not thought much about her own body because too many disasters kept happening one after another.
She frowned and focused hard.
Animal form.
Rat form.
Co out?
Nothing happened.
She squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated harder until her little face beca serious and her tail stood straight behind her from effort.
Then sothing strange pulled through her body.
It was not pain.
It was more like falling inward.
Her limbs felt light. Her height dropped suddenly. The world shot upward around her, and the grass that had barely reached her ankle a second ago now seed far too tall. The fire bowls grew huge. The fruit tree beca enormous. The ground slled sharper. The night air felt wider. Every sound beca clearer, from the distant scrape of stone tools to the soft movent of insects in the grass.
Lin Huahua opened her eyes.
Then she looked down.
There were tiny white paws beneath her.
Tiny.
Very tiny.
Her whole body had beco small, round, soft, and covered in white fur. Her tail was no longer a fluffy human-like rat tail behind her waist. It was now a long pale rat tail behind her small animal body. Her ears were bigger compared to her head, soft and round and twitching from every sound.
Lin Huahua froze.
Then her tiny mouth opened.
"What the fuck?"
The words ca out, but they sounded much smaller than usual, like a tiny angry squeak that sohow still carried her full personality.
She looked around in horror.
Why was she so small?
Why was the world suddenly so big?
Why did the grass look like a forest?
She turned once in a tiny circle, then almost tripped over her own tail.
"Wait, wait, wait," she muttered to herself, her whiskers twitching. "Did I transform? I can transform? Why did nobody tell I can transform?"
Then she rembered that this was technically her body’s natural ability, and the old Lin Huahua probably knew, but she herself had not used it because she was not really from here. That ant she had just accidentally activated her animal form by wanting to climb a tree.
Lin Huahua stared up at the fruit tree again.
Her fear slowly beca interest.
Then excitent.
Because even though everything was huge and strange, her body felt light, fast, and full of energy. Her paws gripped the ground well. Her hearing was so sharp that she could hear one of her brothers laughing from inside the room. Her nose twitched, and she could sll the sweet fruit clearly now.
She stepped toward the tree.
Then climbed.
It worked.
It really worked.
Her tiny claws caught the bark easily, and her body moved up the trunk far faster than she expected. For soone who had hated walking on stones and felt betrayed by the ground every day, this sudden ability to climb made her feel like she had discovered a hidden cheat. She climbed higher, reached a branch, crawled along it carefully, then nudged one fruit with her head.
It fell.
Then another.
Then another.
Lin Huahua beca so excited that her tiny tail whipped behind her. She felt like a great hunter, except her prey was fruit and she was a very small white rat with too much confidence.
After knocking several fruits down, she climbed back down the trunk and landed near the pile with great pride.
Unfortunately, because she was so proud, she did not imdiately notice the change in the air.
The outer side of the family space was close to a darker patch of wild growth beyond the woven fence. It was not exactly forest, but it was not fully part of the safe tribe center either. Tall bushes and uneven stones gathered there, and the night behind them looked thick and quiet.
Lin Huahua’s ears twitched.
Sothing was watching her.
She froze beside the fallen fruits.
Her tiny body went completely still.
Slowly, she turned her head toward the bushes.
Two red eyes stared back at her from the darkness.
Lin Huahua’s whole small body stiffened so hard that even her tail stopped moving.
For one second, she could not breathe.
The eyes did not blink.
They were low enough to be hidden inside the bush, but bright enough to look wrong. Not like firelight. Not like an animal reflecting the flas. These eyes were aware. Focused. Watching her.
A chill rushed through Lin Huahua’s tiny body.
Snake?
rman?
Sothing else?
Before she could run, before she could scream, before she could even decide if her tiny rat body could survive fainting from fear, a familiar voice ca from behind her.
"What are you doing on the ground in your animal form?"
Lin Huahua jumped so badly she nearly flipped over.
A warm hand reached down and picked her up before she could roll into the dirt.
Feng Yiren lifted her with one hand, careful despite the irritated look on his face, and held her up in front of his red eyes. His fox ears were tilted forward in confusion, and his tail swayed behind him as he stared at the tiny white rat in his hand.
Lin Huahua stared back at him.
For a mont, neither of them spoke.
Then Feng Yiren looked her up and down, and sothing dangerously amused entered his eyes. "So this is your animal form."
Lin Huahua’s tiny ears flattened.
"None of your business," she snapped, though in this form her voice was so small and sharp that it sounded more cute than threatening. "Put down."
Feng Yiren’s mouth slowly curved. "No."
"Feng Yiren."
"No."
"I said put down."
"And I said no. Look at you. If I put you down, a bird might mistake you for a snack."
Lin Huahua was so angry that her whiskers trembled. "I am not a snack."
"You are smaller than so snacks."
"Shut up."
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