Chapter Text
If a story has the main character die and wake up as an infant, seven times out of ten it’s going to be a terrible premise. Why? Because of a wonderful thing called infantile amnesia.
A human newborn’s brain is too new, too unfinished, too biologically incomplete to store real long-term memories. The hippocampus and prefrontal cortex aren’t developed enough.
A baby can’t form stable autobiographical memories until around four or five years old. So any story where a reincarnated character pops into a fresh body with full adult cognition and their memory intact is already fighting against basic neuroscience.
Without a reason, a mechanism, or at least some acknowledgment of the biology, it’s just lazy writing pretending the human brain is a flash drive you can unplug and shove into a fresh motherboard.
She remembers an argument she had with someone before all this—someone trying to get her to read a reincarnation story. She always hated them, preferring her thrillers and sci-fi fantasy instead. Funny how life—or whatever this is—likes irony. The unrealistic premise kept her away from the genre.
But she is not human, is she?
That thought keeps returning, slipping into the quiet moments like a whisper. Maybe this new species she’s been born into has a brain that develops faster—after all, they’re clearly predatorial.
She’s already seen the fangs in her parents’ mouths, and her food is nothing but meat ground into a strange smoothie-like substance. Her parents only eat meat; she hasn’t seen a single grain or vegetable on the table.
She doesn’t remember coming out of the womb—thank god (does God even exist here, or should she find a different phrase?)—but she can remember the after.
Her new Matka is always so gentle with her. Hands steady and sure as she swaddles her, as she feeds her, burps her and changes her diapers (she’s spent far too many stints in hospital too injured and weak to feel any lingering embarrassment about someone cleaning her ass for her).
Her new Ojciec sings to her sometimes, words strange but mostly recognisable, sung so strangely like he's trying to yodel and sing at the same time but she loves it all the same.
And...she loves them.
Loves the smiles on their faces when she makes noise, the warmth in their eyes, the shape of their faces, the cleverness of Matka's fingers, the scent of her Ojciec.
But today there is something in the air. Something has changed their routine.
Her Matka straps her into a baby harness; the fabric she’s swaddled in is soft, and she has no complaints. It smells faintly of whatever detergent this species uses—sharp, herbal, a bit like crushed leaves warmed in the sun.
Her Matka’s reddish-orange hands are gentle and sure, and the white-and-blue limbs that extend from her Matka’s head cradle her from behind, supporting her from head to collarbone. Their touch is cool at first, then warms quickly, like smooth river stones cupped in a hand.
A conversation drifts between her parents as they move. She doesn’t understand the words; her ears—or whatever the equivalent is for this species—aren’t fully developed yet. Language is only tone and intention, shapes of sound she can’t grasp. Her parents’ voices blend into a low, rhythmic murmur, like distant drums softened by thick curtains.
Her Ojciec’s maroon-colored skin and dark brown eyes scrunch with doubt, and the white-and-blue head limbs on him are broader and shorter than her mother’s. Sexual dimorphism, a quiet voice in the back of her mind supplies, filing the knowledge away.
Her Matka answers him with a chiding calmness, brushing aside his concerns with the certainty of someone confident in their bond.
The baby—she—lets the rest fade. Adults always have their debates.
She doesn’t leave the house often, so when her Matka turns toward the door, her attention sharpens. A faint draft slips across her cheeks, carrying the earthy scent of outside—wet soil, greenery, and something sweet she can’t yet name.
She tries to look around as much as she can. They seem to live in a village of some kind.
Just as her interest piques, her Matka shifts, blocking her view, and frustration bubbles up in tiny growls.
Her Matka shushes her gently and grabs the rifle by the door, pressing the blue button on the frame. The door descends from the top with a soft hiss. Cooler air rushes in, brushing against her bare skin like a whisper.
Outside, her Ojciec speaks to her again. She can’t understand the words, but she recognizes affection, nothing sharp or mocking in his tone.
She rewards him the only way she can: a gummy smile, a few baby babbles—carefully deployed cuteness.
He coos back from his position on the roof, hammer-like tool in hand, patching the damage from last night’s rain. She can smell the wet wood from the roof—damp, slightly sour, with a hint of resin.
They head down the dirt road.
Many people of the same species pass by, carrying baskets and sacks. The world around her is lush, thick with green grass—so much green. The air is humid enough to cling to her skin, warm and heavy with the scent of crushed plants beneath passing feet.
It feels impossibly different from her past life. She is almost certain she lived in a city before, the countryside being a rare detour. The contrast settles oddly in her chest, familiar and foreign at once.
A voice she recognizes calls out, pulling Matka’s attention.
She turns, and the baby’s breath hitches when she sees the Elder.
She isn’t sure about a lot in her new (unwanted? why was she here? she had wanted so badly to rest—) life, but she can recognize respect, and the Elder is the one with the highest authority in her village. Matriarchal, perhaps?
The Elder is scattering pellets to strange black-and-white creatures, who munch at them eagerly. Their teeth click together softly, and the pellets give off a nutty, grain-like scent despite this species’ carnivorous habits. The baby watches with fascination, utterly captivated.
The Elder approaches—unnoticed until a shadow blocks her view of the animals.
She looks up at a worn light-orange face and a genial smile. Each person of her species she has glimpsed has had unique facial markings, and she traces this one’s pattern with her eyes. The Elder’s skin carries faint creases, the kind made by years of sun and laughter.
The Elder speaks to her Matka while reaching into the pouch at her hip. A finger emerges coated in blue pigment.
It approaches her face; she pulls away on instinct and sniffs it first, to the amusement of both Matka and the Elder. It smells like berries and plants—harmless enough—so she allows it.
The cool pigment drags from the center of her forehead to the bridge of her nose. It tingles faintly, like mint brushed across her skin.
The Elder repeats the gesture on Matka while speaking reverent words. A prayer, perhaps? A blessing?
Whatever it is, the Elder bows shallowly, and Matka returns the gesture with quiet gratitude.
Then they move on, leaving the village behind.
Into the woods surrounding the settlement they go, where the path thins, softens, and finally disappears into grass and trees. The forest breathes around them—chirps, rustles, distant calls layering into a living tapestry of sound. The air cools under the canopy, smelling of damp bark and rich soil.
They walk, and she looks at everything she can. She’s never been in the woods outside the village.
Strange creatures—she compares them to squirrels from her old world—jump from tree to tree ahead of them, high in the safety of the branches. Their movements are quick flashes of fur and energy, scattering bits of bark that patter onto the ground.
And oh, how she wishes she was—
(older no younger she can no longer climb she hasn’t learned yet but that is not— the illness wouldn’t let— stop)
She shakes away the fog of unwanted thoughts and forces herself to focus on the present.
Her Matka is talking again—kind voice, firm rhythm. A lecture, that small stubborn voice in the back of her mind supplies. Then Matka says her name. The sounds are still mushy and indistinct, but she knows one truth:
That sound means me.
Matka gestures to the towering trees, the mossy ground, the sunlight slanting green through the leaves. One hand presses briefly against the harness over her tiny chest, right where her heart thumps. She tries to understand—to connect any of this with meaning—but it’s hopeless. The world is still just shapes and colors and mysteries.
“Could you give me another hint, Matka? It’s only forest out here,” she tries to say—except what comes out is babble and a confused little whine. Matka laughs softly. The vibration rolls through her chest and jostles the baby against her sternum like a gentle wave.
They continue on, rounding a bend in the path. Something catches her attention—bright purple plants clustered along the trail, each topped with a fluffy white puff. They look almost like Bulbasaur bulbs… if Bulbasaur bulbs had dandelion hats.
She squeaks in wonder. Matka notices. She shifts her grip on the rifle—then brings the butt of it down sharply on one of the puffs.
POMF
The plant explodes into a cloud of drifting seeds and glittering dust. The baby squeals with delight and reaches, fingers grasping at the floating white motes. But the harness keeps her trapped against Matka’s chest, limbs flapping uselessly.
Matka huffs a quiet laugh and smacks another plant.
POMF
And another.
POMF
Suddenly the air is full of white—spinning seeds, sparkling dust. It feels like snow. It feels like home. She babbles, giddy, noise bubbling out of her—
“Shhh.”
Matka’s hand covers her mouth.
Silence crashes in, heavy and immediate.
Right. The woods. Always dangerous. No matter the world.
Shame prickles through her—ridiculous, she’s a baby, but the instinct remains. She’ll remember. She won’t slip up again.
Now that she’s quiet, she hears what Matka heard first: a distant, eerie baying. Something hunting. Something close.
Matka lowers herself into a crouch mid-step, entire body shifting from relaxed to razor-focused. Her breathing goes slow and even. The rifle angles forward with practiced precision.
Only then does the baby spot movement in the trees ahead.
A creature steps into the clearing—kangaroo-like body, but with a goat’s head. Swept-back horns. Twitching ears. Two more graze beside it, unaware of danger.
Hybrid animals. ATLA flashes through her mind, absurd and familiar all at once. Curiosity flares bright behind her wide eyes.
What are you called? she wonders.
Matka turns her face away from the scene—listen—and she obeys. She doesn’t see the aim, only hears the sudden eruption of sound. A shot, loud and sharp, but wrong—underlaid with a strange mechanical whir she’s never heard in any firearm. Her ears ring and she whines, startled and hurting.
Technology here is not what she knew. That much is certain.
They approach the downed animal. Its dying breaths rattle in its throat, pained noises filling the clearing. The sound claws into her chest. Forgotten wounds—blood and fear from a life before—tear half-healed inside her. The creature’s eyes gloss as life slips out.
She turns away. Why couldn’t she have been truly reborn? A clean slate? A normal baby who didn’t know what dying sounded like?
But Matka will not allow her to hide.
Gentle fingers turn her head back toward the animal. Her name is spoken—firm, soft, instructional. A lesson.
Life? Death? The forest? She does not know yet. But she must watch.
She looks up into blue eyes like her own. Kind eyes. Sad eyes. Eyes that are teaching.
Matka places one hand on the animal’s shuddering ribs and with the other draws a knife free. She murmurs words—prayer, gratitude, a ritual of some kind?—and plunges the blade into the heart.
The suffering ends.
A flicker from her old world breaks the surface of memory— a tall blue woman with yellow eyes doing the same to a hunted creature, while a man who wore her skin but not her spirit watched, confused by the custom.
Am I like him? she wonders. An outsider trying to belong?
She doesn’t have time to untangle the thought. Matka removes the harness and sets her down beside the kill. She freezes. Don’t move. That rule she knows. She learned it the hard way—the last time she wandered, the terror in Ojciec’s voice was enough to brand obedience into her bones.
Matka works quickly, glancing at her every ninety seconds. Exactly. The baby counts—because she can.
She ties the legs of the animal and speaks to her in the soft cadence of teaching, gesturing when her hands are free. The baby babbles back when there’s a pause. It almost feels like conversation. Matka taps her nose—affection—then rises again.
A rustle.
The baby sees something yellow moving between the trees. Large. Too large.
Matka is still talking, unaware.
Then she turns—and fear flashes across her face.
The baby whines, panic seizing her tiny body. She’s a baby—she can’t help—oh god another predator—
The beast emerges fully now. A feline shape, enormous—twice Matka’s height. A long body built for pouncing, fur golden and striped with jagged black bolts. Fangs like sabers, gleaming.
A sabertooth. An alien one. Hungry.
Matka roars—a sound she didn’t know her mother could make—and the cat startles back. She dives for the rifle.
The baby’s instinct collapses her inward, mind trying to flee where her body cannot. She cannot see Matka die. She cannot die again. (It was cold so so cold why was she cold? Gener-)
The struggle is chaos. Matka swings the rifle as a club. The cat knocks her back, snarling. A flash—a beam of red light streaks from the barrel when Matka manages to fire. It hits the beast’s flank and scorches fur, skin. It screams and charges, ripping the rifle from her grip with a jerk of its jaw.
But Matka is relentless. She draws the hunting knife—the same blade that granted the prey a merciful death—and dances around the sabertooth’s claws, fast and precise.
She keeps glancing back. At her. Making sure her baby is alive. Breathing. Safe.
The cat rears—an eruption of muscle and fur—massive paws slashing outward. One blow flashes like lightning across Matka’s vision and sends her crashing to the dirt. The sound of her body hitting the ground is wet, wrong.
The baby does not scream. She can’t. Her mind locks on the impossible shape in front of her. Predators are just silhouettes in stories until they are close enough to smell the blood on their breath.
Then—
Light explodes through the trees.
Figures break into the clearing, silhouettes fractured by the glow of their weapons. Villagers—dozens of them—red beams hissing and spitting through the air like angry spirits. The forest flashes with each shot, a strobe of color against alien leaves.
The giant cat wheels toward the reinforcements, its pupils narrowing into predatory slits. It hesitates for a single heartbeat… then chooses survival.
It lunges.
Teeth hook the back of the baby’s shirt and the fabric jerks tight around her throat, choking her with its own seams. She finally manages a cry—thin, startled, strangled.
Matka’s voice shatters behind her, raw and terrified, calling her name again and again. She reaches. Crawls. Tries to rise.
But the cat is already gone—gone in a blur of motion, a smear of blue-green foliage and shadow, weaving through trunks and ferns with impossible speed. Branches whip past. Leaves slap against her face. The forest becomes streaks of color and noise.
She is carried far—farther than her tiny body can comprehend—until even the echoes of Matka’s screams are swallowed by the wild.
The world becomes motion and terror.
The pounding of the beast’s paws thunders beneath her, each impact jolting her ribs and rattling her tiny bones. Air rushes past in ragged bursts—hot, humid, crowned with the scent of disturbed earth.
And the smell—
Oh God.
Sweat mats the cat’s fur into slick ridges beneath her cheek. Its breath gushes over her—hot and thick with the stench of old kills. Rot and iron. Fur and bile. The sour reek of stomach acid and blood long gone cold. It clings to the back of her throat, choking her worse than the fabric biting into her neck.
Her sharpened senses—supposedly an advantage of this new body—betray her now. Every sound is too loud, every scent a punishment. Even sight fails her; everything beyond a few feet dissolves into a blur. All she truly has left is her mind.
The animal slows. Then, without care or ceremony, she is dropped—thudding onto cold earth. A nest, maybe. A den. The ground here has been scraped into a shallow hollow, ringed by trees that loom like sentinels. Bones—some fresh, others half-buried and softened by decay—jut from the dirt like exposed tree roots.
It doesn’t eat her. Not immediately.
Instead, the beast circles once and collapses with a pained grunt. Its tongue drags over its own fur in harsh, rasping streaks, cleaning blood. When it shifts its weight, she sees them—three brutal, cauterized burns searing across its front left leg, puckered and angry. The wounds pulse with each breath, weeping heat. Was that what that light was from those guns?
A sharp, stabbing agony blooms across her arms and legs—like fire racing beneath her skin. She doesn’t understand why it hurts so much. She only knows it feels wrong. Too hot. Too tight. She whines, a tiny helpless sound that feels too fragile for this wild place.
She tries to move—her limbs jerk in uneven, uncoordinated twitches. Muscles scream. The ground seems to sway beneath her. Instinct forces her upward anyway. She reaches for the nearest jutting bone, fingers curling around the rough edge. It supports her just enough for her shaking legs to lock.
She stands.
Unsteady. Barely balanced.
But upright—alive—still hers.
The cat’s eyes flick toward her.
A slow turn of a massive head—pupils widening, golden irises catching a sliver of starlight.
It notices.
She understands that much.
The air between them stills—
and then shatters.
Not with sound from the world outside…
but voices bursting inside her skull.
Hungry—Prey—Hurt—HURT—HURT—HURT!
Raw urges. A chorus of instincts with teeth.
They aren’t her thoughts—but they are loud enough to feel like they should be. This isnt her pain it is the animal’s across from her’s.
Images slam into her mind—
She sees the forest through different eyes:
Wide. Predatory. Furious.
She sees another cat. Larger. Shoulders crowned with scars.
A male? Mate. Yes. Mate.
Familiar warmth flickers behind the vision.
Then—
A body.
A heap of fur and breath stilled forever.
Not prey—
Family.
Beside him, a smaller shape: a kitten, limp and cooling, still curled like it expects its father to wake.
Her stomach lurches.
The grief is not hers.
But she feels it like claws raking her ribs.
The beast’s pain floods her—hotter than its breath, heavier than the threat of its jaws.
She gasps, shuddering beneath the animal’s sorrow and opens wounds.
Her legs buckle.
And the cat’s mind screams one word that is not instinct—
not hunger—
but rage:
Stolen!
She opens her eyes—she hadn’t realized they’d closed—and finds herself inches from a maw of curved fangs and blood-slick breath.
The widowed raxshir—
(Where did that word come from? She isn’t sure. It simply arrives in her mind.)
Its snarl vibrates through her bones.
Terror spikes…
but something stronger surges up to drown it.
A strange, fearless determination not her own—or maybe too deeply hers to question.
Her small hand rises before she can think better of it.
She presses her palm to the beast’s snout.
Her thoughts reach outward—fumbling, clumsy, but bright:
SoulSister—Harm—Not.
The words aren’t exactly words.
They have meaning. Emotion.
She remembers warmth—
a home that smelled of safe things. Laughter she can’t place. Hands that cradled, not carried away. She bundles all that joy with the tight thread of “Family” and pushes it outward—
The raxshir’s eyes widen, snarl faltering.
Confusion flickers through its mind—
She keeps going.
She shows the raxshir Matka’s blue eyes—brimming with love, with fear—and the ache of being torn away, both physically and from a life she barely had. She shows being small. Helpless. Alone. Not an enemy. Not a thief. Just a child ripped from her mother’s arms.
For a heartbeat, their breaths sync. Her tiny palm feels the tremor of its pain. Its loss.
A new thought, shaky and uncertain, leaks from the Raxshir: Prey-Not-Cub
The beast’s enormous body lowers, weight sinking as if under the burden of memories.
her rage ebbs—
replaced by something far more dangerous and fragile:
Hope.
She pushes her forehead against her outstretched hand—a gesture of wild trust.
She reaches back.
Desire-Home