“If you’re going to be staying here for a while, you might as well get to know the lay of the land,” Stephen explained as he ushered Tom out the front door of the bed and breakfast. As he closed the front door behind him, he flipped the sign on the front door from “OPEN” to “BE BACK SOON”.
“Are you sure it’s okay for you to leave right now?” Tom asked as he watched the deer flip the sign. “Won’t any guests who come while we’re gone get mad that they can’t check in right away?”
Stephen simply shrugged his shoulders as he led Tom off the porch and started down the sidewalk towards the town. “Shouldn’t have anyone checking in until around noon or so,” the stag explained. “If anyone I’m not expecting comes in before then, they can wait for half an hour or so. Claw Valley is a small town, so it’s not like we’ll be gone long. Plus, my phone number is on the sign, so if they need me, they can call.”
Tom looked around as they began to walk down the sidewalk toward the heart of the town. Even though he caught a few glimpses of it the night prior, the town had something about it that just made him smile. There was something about this place that made Tom feel…happy.
“Nice little town you’ve got here,” Tom commented as he and Stephen passed a small general store. “It’s quaint…like it just leaped out of one of those shitty Christmas romcoms. No offense, of course.”
“None taken,” Stephen replied with a bit of a chuckle. “I’ve thought the same thing, especially around the holidays. If you think the town looks nice now, you need to stick around until November. After Thanksgiving, the snow rolls in and covers the town in a thick layer of snow. Sure, it’s always a hassle to clear the sidewalks and get the snowplows running, but the sight of the valley covered in snow more than makes up for it in my opinion. I have some pictures hanging up on the wall back at The Fox Den that I can show you later.”
“I’d love to see them,” Tom replied, giving Stephen a friendly smile before looking around a bit more. His attention eventually fell onto the large number of cars on the road, all heading in the same direction. “So…what’s that about?”
“Hmm? Oh, the cars? Those are all students who are returning to campus for the fall semester. Don’t worry, it’s never typically this busy. It’s only like this at the start and end of a semester.” Stephen paused for a second, seemingly mulling something over in his head. “The campus shouldn’t be too crowded yet if you wanted to go and see what it looks like.”
“Sure, why not?” Tom replied with a shrug. “I’ll admit: I’m curious to see what the campus looks like if the town is this beautiful.”
“Oh, it’s an absolutely gorgeous campus,” the stag replied. “It’s kind of hard to explain, but the entire thing is a perfect balance between nature and civilization. You really have to see it to understand what I mean. Come on!” Stephen took Tom’s hand and began quickly leading him down the street, making Tom’s face turn red.
As they moved, Tom couldn’t help but admire the hoof-hand hybrid that the stag possessed. His hands were only composed of two large digits and a thumb, with the nails being a thick black keratin. It seemed like they’d be weird to use, but given how well Stephen was able to grab things (like Tom’s hand), the man assumed that they worked just as well as his own hands.
“You good Tom?” Stephen’s voice snapped Tom out of his thoughts, making the man turn even redder than he already was.
“O-Oh! Y-Yeah…I’m fine,” the man stuttered. “Sorry…I was just…I’m still trying to figure out how things around here work. Like, how are you able to hold things so well with those?”
“My hands?” the stag asked, looking down at his hooflets. “Oh, I see. Well, it comes down to how a lot of things in this world are designed. Most of it is very subtle, so you might not notice them until you’re really paying attention. For example, ceilings and doorways in this world are a bit higher than those in your world to account for taller anthros and those like me who have horns or antlers.”
“Huh…sounds like I have a lot to learn,” Tom remarked. “Might be hard to remember all of the little nuances though.”
“Nah, it’ll all come naturally when your new memories come in.”
Tom grimaced slightly at that. New memories. The stag said it as if it was a completely normal thing for people’s identities to be completely changed. “How can you say that so easily?”
“Come again?” the stag asked, giving Tom a strange look.
“You said that everything will come naturally when my new memories come in, as if it’s completely normal for me to forget I was ever human and become someone entirely new.”
Stephen frowned. “Well when you put it like that, it does sound bad, yes,” he said. “Although that’s not really how it works. Your identity isn’t erased, it's more…reshaped, for lack of a better word. While you’ll eventually have new memories of living your whole life on this side, your memories of life as a human will still be there. They’ll just be tucked into the back of your mind, where you can only really remember them if you want to. Whatever happens, you’ll still be you…but a bit fuzzier.”
“When will these new memories start to come in?”
“I’ve been told they come in relatively soon after the transformation starts. They come in random small doses, though it can be a bit jarring when they do occur. We’ll cross that bridge once we get there though.”
Tom frowned, looking towards the people walking around the town. He could see quite a few humans, all of them on the younger side. They all seemed quite bewildered. By the end of the week, most if not all of them would be transformed and have memories of living their lives on this side. He could only imagine what some of them must have been thinking.
“Right…when we get there…”
-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-==-
Tom finally understood what Stephen meant when he said that the Claw Valley University campus was “a perfect balance between nature and civilization”. The towering brick buildings all covered in ivy, the massive trees that dotted the campus, the solar panels on every roof…it was everything and nothing he had expected. Stephen had taken him to a large open area of grass in the middle of all the academic buildings that had a large oak tree in the middle. The “Great Lawn”, he had called it.
“Looks like all the freshmen from the other side have gotten out of their orientation,” Stephen commented, looking at the large number of humans wandering around. “Most of them are probably trying to process everything that their RAs told them.”
Tom looked at some of the humans. While most of them seemed relatively normal, he could tell that a few of them had already undergone some noticeable changes. One man who was talking with a group of anthros had what looked to be bear ears on the top of his head. Not too far from them, a woman had what looked to be a feline tail with black fur.
“Why do some of them already have tails and ears?” the man asked. “I thought the changes started out small, like in my case.” Tom held up his slowly changing hands to emphasize his point.
“It’s like I said at breakfast: people change at different speeds depending on how accepting they are of their changes,” Stephen replied. “The body part that undergoes changes also seems to correspond with your acceptance. In your case, your nails are the only thing to have changed because you're still very tense about all of this.” Stephen paused for a second before quickly adding “But that’s not a bad thing! You can change at your own pace!”
Tom couldn’t help but crack a small smile. The stag was rather adorable when he was flustered, and he seemed to care so much about a man he’d only just met yesterday. The man definitely didn’t mind that though. It had been a while since it felt like anyone in his life truly cared about him and his well-being.
“You know Stephen, I-”
THUMP!
A sudden collision with a fast-moving object caused Tom to stumble backward, landing on his ass on the brick pathway that outlined the Great Lawn.
“Oh shit! I’m so sorry about that!” a voice said. Looking up, Tom saw that the something he had run into was actually a someone: a muscular young human with sandy blonde hair and brown eyes. The young man extended his hand to help Tom up, and Tom accepted, only to be surprised when he was pulled up so effortlessly.
“You okay Tom?” Stephen asked, looking the man up and down.
“Yeah, I’m fine…” Tom replied. He then turned to face the young man who had run into him. “You all good?”
“I’m perfectly fine,” the young jock replied. “Again, I’m so sorry about running into you like that. I’m in a bit of a rush to get back to my dorm room because I need to show my roommate what happened after our orientation!” It was then that Tom caught a glimpse of the slender, feline tail flicking behind the young man. White fur, black stripes…was he becoming…
“A tiger tail, huh?” Stephen admired. “Looks good. I take it you’re pretty accepting of everything that’s going to be happening to you?”
“Oh, is that why I got my tail first?” the young man asked. He looked back at his new appendage with a grin on his face before turning back to the two men in front of him. “I mean, I don’t see any point in resisting the inevitable, especially now that I know that I’m going to be a badass tiger!”
“I like your attitude kid!” Stephen said, holding up a hoofed hand for a high-five, which the young man quickly accepted. “Not too often that freshman embrace their changes so eagerly on the first day. Good to see it’s all working out for you so far.”
“Thanks, dude! Oh…you’re not a professor, are you? If you are, I’m really sorry about calling you ‘dude’ just now.”
Stephen couldn’t help but laugh at the young man’s comment. “Oh god no! I’m not suited to be a teacher!” the stag said. “I’m Stephen. I run one of the local bed and breakfasts down in town. I’m just showing my friend Tom here around a bit. He’s basically going through everything that you and all the other freshmen will be going through.”
“Huh…that’s neat!” the young jock said enthusiastically. “I wish I could stay and chat a bit more, but I gotta show my roomie my new tail! Oh, I’m Sam, by the way! It was nice meeting you!” Before either Tom or Stephen could say anything else, Sam ran off in the direction of the freshman dorms. Tom couldn’t help but chuckle a little as he watched the high-energy jock round a corner and disappear from sight.
“Nice kid,” he said. “Bit high energy if you ask me. Hope his roommate can handle all that.”
“Don’t worry about it too much,” Stephen responded. “From what I know, the school puts students who they think will mesh well with each other together. From what I’ve been told, it works pretty damn well. Whoever his roommate is, he’s probably just as high energy as Sam.”
“Let’s hope so,” Tom laughed. “Now come on, you’ve still got a lot of campus to show me."