Chapter 35: I Am NOT A Rambutan!
Morning came with soft and warm air.
Neve’s tail was moving before he was fully awake. Wagging against the mattress in that slow, happy way it always did.
He turned his head to the side.
The pillow was soft, and the blanket was so warm. The lamp was still glowing on the bedside drawer.
He could get used to this.
He stretched and felt something different.
He felt... Smaller. His arms were shorter than yesterday, and his hands, when he held them up in front of his face, were...
Tiny and red. They were FLUFFY.
"NO."
He screamed, and it came out as chittering.
That same loud, frantic chittering he wasn’t used to. The same one he heard from himself the first time he landed in this world. The noise bounced off the stone walls of his new bedroom while he sat on his new mattress in his small red panda body and stared at his own tiny paws.
He looked at his tail. Fully fluffy and red and still wagging with a damn enthusiasm that did not match his current emotional state at all.
"Stop that," he told his tail.
It wagged harder.
He heard footsteps. It was heavy, coming from the main cave. He scrambled to the centre of the bed and held both front paws up in front of him in defence, like that would do anything.
Cael walked in and looked at the bed.
Then he looked around the room, as if Neve might be somewhere else, and this small red panda was a separate, unrelated situation.
Then back at the bed at Neve.
"Neve?" His voice came out different and softer than usual. "What happened to you?"
Neve lowered his paws slowly and sat.
He wished he could answer. He had a lot to say. He had a whole explanation involving systems and things he’s not supposed to say. He had woken up like this, and it was not his fault.
All of it came out as chittering.
Cael crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. He looked at Neve for a moment.
"You can’t shift back," he said. Not a question.
Neve shook his head.
"Are you sick? Should I bring Gideon?"
Neve shook his head much harder.
Cael looked at him. At his face specifically. Neve just remained at the spot, trying his best not to cry about being a red panda; he was absolutely not going to...
Cael reached out and picked him up.
Neve fit in his arms. Cael’s expression did something complicated that he turned away to hide.
Neve felt the arms around him settle carefully.
’He’s scared of breaking me,’ Neve thought distantly, reading Cael’s body. ’He thinks I’m fragile like this.’
He tapped Cael’s shoulder, and Cael looked at him.
Neve pointed toward the kitchen, and Cael carried him out.
.
.
The fruit pile in the kitchen was exactly where he had left it. Neve climbed down from Cael’s arm, settled in front of it, and started eating because he was hungry.
Cael squatted in front of him.
"You led me to the kitchen for fruit," he said.
Neve ignored him and kept eating.
Cael poked his head once, gently, with one finger.
Neve turned and looked at him.
Cael’s finger sank into Neve’s fur as he pulled his finger and stared at it. He obviously wanted to do it again, so he poked Neve’s head again.
"Stop," Neve yelled, which came out as chittering.
Cael tilted his head suddenly, like he felt something from outside.
"The tiger tribe. They’ll be here soon. I have to go with the villagers to greet them." He looked at Neve. "Do you want to come?"
Neve put the fruit down.
He remembered the mission. To entertain the tiger tribe. He had spent thirty seconds panicking about it last night. He still had no idea what entertaining a tiger tribe as a small red panda looked like.
But he couldn’t complete the mission from the kitchen.
He nodded.
Cael patted his head. "Finish eating. I’ll get ready."
The moment Cael left the kitchen, Neve looked at the system screen.
"Explain," he chittered.
{I would have explained yesterday if you had given me a moment, Host. You said tomorrow.}
"I didn’t know it was urgent!"
{I also indicated it was time-sensitive.}
"You said—" Neve stopped and took a breath. The chittering was getting more agitated, and it wasn’t helping. "How do I shift back?"
{Complete the current mission. Entertain the Tiger Tribe. Reward will include shift restoration.}
Neve stared at the screen.
"I have to entertain an entire tribe as a red panda."
{Correct.}
"In this body."
{That is your current body, yes.}
Neve picked up a piece of fruit and threw it at the screen. It went through. Obviously.
He picked up another piece and ate it aggressively.
{For what it’s worth, Host, you are objectively very cute in this form.}
"Do not talk to me right now."
{Understood.}
.
.
Cael carried him out of the cave with Neve sitting at the back of his neck. It was different from the way he had carried him through the forest the very first day, which felt like a very long time ago now.
"Hold on," Cael said.
Neve grabbed his hair with both front paws and held on.
The village had lined up along the main path in the way they did when something official was happening. Everyone in their places, standing straight, the tribe presenting itself. Cael’s brothers were already there — Soren standing on his own, still slightly thin but upright and present, Gideon beside him with his physician bag over his shoulder.
The chief noticed Neve on Cael’s back immediately.
"Is that Neve?" he asked.
"He can’t shift back," Cael said.
Gideon was already stepping forward. "I should examine him—"
"He doesn’t want that," Cael said, not looking at Gideon.
Gideon looked at the small red panda on his brother’s back with the expression of a physician being denied access to a patient. He pressed his lips together and stepped back.
Soren looked at Neve. Neve looked at Soren.
Soren smiled slowly. "Still impressive even like that."
Neve chittered at him. He chose to believe it came across as dignified.
The tiger tribe appeared at the village entrance.
They came in organised, carrying their belongings in bundles, moving with the efficiency of people who had made this journey before and knew how to do it properly. Different builds from the leopard tribe, broader through the chest on average, holding themselves like beastmen who came from a tribe that had always been large.
At the front was Ryker.
White hair, beaded jewellery. Something familiar to the necklace Neve had seen from the trading city.
Both sides bowed.
Everyone in the tiger tribe lowered their heads. The leopard tribe mirrored it.
Neve sat on Cael’s back and did not lower his head.
There was no version of this where he was bowing to anyone while in red panda form. He had standards.
Ryker raised his head.
His eyes moved across the leopard tribe greeting party. The chief, the brothers, the gathered warriors. Then up to Cael’s back.
He stopped.
He looked at the small red and white fluffy creature sitting between Cael’s shoulders, holding onto his hair with both paws.
"What," Ryker said, "is that?"
"A moving rambutan?" someone behind him suggested.
Suddenly laughter. Genuine laughter rippled through the tiger tribe at the sight of whatever Neve currently looked like, perched on the young leopard chief’s back.
Neve’s eye twitched.
A rambutan?
He looked down at himself. Small. Round. Red and white. He had seen rambutans. He understood, objectively, that a red panda at this scale in this position might remind someone of a rambutan.
He hated it.
"It looks somehow familiar," Ryker said, more to himself, still looking at Neve with his head tilted. "Like a very loud thing I once met."
{Mission: Entertain the Tiger Tribe — COMPLETE}
{Reward loading...}
Neve stared at the notification.
That was it. That was the mission. Ryker had laughed at him and called him a rambutan, and apparently, that counted as entertainment, and the system had decided the job was done.
He sat with that for exactly three seconds.
Then he jumped.
"NEVE—" Cael’s hand shot out.
Too late. Neve had already dropped, twisted in the air, and landed on both feet on the ground below.
On both feet. Human feet.
He stood up to his full height in the middle of the path between the two tribes, and every eye in the vicinity moved to him and stayed there.
He felt the air change immediately. That particular quality that came with his appearance stat was doing what it always did. It felt like a collective intake of breath that happened when people looked at him directly for the first time.
He looked down.
’Oh no.’
"No no no no—" he said, which at least came out in actual words, human words, which meant the shift was complete.
’System!!! Where are my clothes?"
{Clothing currently saved in the inventory, Host}
His shirt was in his inventory. His pants were also in his inventory.
Everything he owned was in the inventory that he could access through Purse, which was also in the inventory, and he was standing between two entire tribes with nothing except his red ears and his tail and approximately nothing else.
Neve looked at the system screen appearing helpfully in front of him.
"WHY THE FUCK ARE THEY THERE?" he said.
{Just being helpful.}
Ryker was staring at him.
The whole tiger tribe was staring at him. Not just them, same as the leopard tribe.
Cael had moved to stand directly behind him, hating the way people were looking at Neve. It blocked approximately half the viewing angles but did nothing about the other half.
"Neve," Ryker said slowly. Like someone putting pieces together. "You’re the rambutan."
"I am NEVE," Neve said. "I am not a fucking rambutan. I am not a moving fruit of any kind. I am a red panda, and I would appreciate it if everyone would—"
He stopped. Because everyone was still looking, and he still had nothing on.
He looked at the sky.
’Fuck this!’
{For what it’s worth, Host,} the system said, {you are objectively very—}
"DO NOT," Neve said.