This was so strange and yet fascinating to Thomas. The heavy odor of the female wrapped around him, combining with the rich, warm milk and warm embrace to ease any fears. He felt protected and loved at a primal level, all of his cares and worries fading away. He became aware of tiny voices whispering 'You are a bear, a beast, an animal.' They were in his mind as well, trying to remove his human memories and replace them with the limited experience of young cub. But they couldn't do it without his permission. Thomas somehow knew that, just as he knew he had had curiosity about living as an animal, about being a bear.
The fae were annoyed with him. Thomas would have giggled, but his mouth was full of teat and cubs didn't giggle anyway. They wanted him to be a bear all the way, not remember being human at all. True, large parts of his past were blurry now - he could not really remember school or even anything he had learned there. He could recall the shapes of numbers and letters, but they had already lost meaning. But he was sill Thomas the human boy in his head.
Buzzing and light increased around him, and he braced against some sort of mental attack. Yet his mind was not touched. Instead, the teat grew larger in his mouth as he shrank. So sleepy now. The fae were making him younger. That was OK. He was curious and unafraid, sure that no matter what they did, he could retain his sense of self.
The cub fell asleep, dwindling as the fae hovered around it, shrinking it to a newborn. The bear grunted as her belly expanded, and the newborn cub melted into her body. Thomas was now a fetus destined to be reborn as a bear cub. Would his identity survive?