How It Started, I

Shuule was not discovered until her 10th week of life.

She was born in a small village, with three other siblings. Male siblings, kits, as expected. Nobody would have considered to assume she wasn't anything other than a boy kit, as nothing else existed.

In this world, beastmen had two forms; that of an animal and that of a human. Women, however, did not. They could not shift to an animal form, and for the most part could be mistaken as an average woman walking down the street. The boys were born as animals, in litters growing up as such until around their sixteenth birthday, when they were able to transform back and forth as they pleased. Girls, however, were far more rare, being born as single children, and always human. They were treasured, begged for, blessings, protected at all costs and the pride of their communities. Fertility being scarce and annual, and female pregnancies being even more so, if Shuule had been normally born, she would have been celebrated in the womb for nine months, named by her mother at her birth, and shielded from all ills.

But, she wasn't. Inexplicably, she was born as a fox kit. Assumed male, her mother, Iris, did as was tradition, not naming her or her siblings, as they would choose their own names when they were able to turn human. For ten weeks she slept, nursed, closed-eyed and furry, then gaining sight, then gaining the ability to walk, tumble, and play, with her brothers.

But, finally one day during the heavy rain season, to Iris's despair, her children rolled head to toe in the mud. Shaking her head, she dragged them into their wooden hut by their tails one by one despite their protests.

"Stop crying," Iris snapped, clenching her jaw. "I told you not to get dirty, and instead you got filthy."

Finding a coarse deer hide towel, she used the fur side to scrape the mud off each howling kit as well as she could, and that was when, as the kit that would be Shuule struggled to wriggle its hind end free from her mother, she saw. Stunned, Iris grabbed the child by the scruff of its neck to hold it still to look again.

To hold her still.

Iris shrieked and tossed the kit on reflex, who was unharmed, bouncing and rolling over herself and happy to just be free from being cleaned. "ASHER COME HERE!"

Iris knew her spouse, and the father of this litter, would be within his (long) earshot, but she also knew the other two would be along momentarily as there wasn't any way for her not to have a tone of alarm in her voice. Sure enough, two wet, stinky foxes shot into the house, with an equally drenched peacock on their heels.

"Shake off out of the - ASHER SHAKE OFF OUTSIDE OF THE HOUSE" Iris barked, alarmed but not so upset that she wanted wet dog sprayed all over the living area. Mid shake, both foxes pinned their ears but whined an apology, tip toeing out the door. A makeshift open area with thatched grasses had been made right outside the hut so the men could shake before entering when they were rained on. Smugly the peacock fluffed his feathers, as he wasn't banished, and was the first to transform back to his human form.

"Love, what's wrong?" The tall, middle aged nude man asked, while reaching back to tie his long green hair into a wet knot on top of his head.

"Arron, that one's a girl."

Arron squinted his eyes and cocked his head, assuming he didn't hear his spouse correctly, as the other two mates strode back inside in their human forms. Also both nude, nakedness what not much of an issue in the Beastworld culture for the males, especially within their own family units. After all, they didn't transform with their clothes, and constantly putting their hide skirts on and off became tiresome when in company that frankly didn't care.

With a shaking hand, their mate pointed back again at the kit, who was now heavily invested in chasing its own tail. "That one. Is female. I'm sure I am not wrong."

Asher, the biological father, shot both Aaron and the other fox spouse, Hiram, a look, that was mixed with a tinge of fear, but mostly skepticism. When Iris saw this, she snorted, got up out of her seat on the floor and scooped up the yelping kit, holding her out to them.

"Does this look like male anatomy to you?"

They all stood their looking at the kit, a precious life to all beasts as any pregnancy was scarce, mouths agape. It was Hiram who broke the silence first.

"Well what the fuck do we do now?"