Solun knew that he was no longer human, and he suspected that he was in some sort of cave. The ground under him felt like loosely packed dirt, the chilly wind he felt was probably from the opening of the burrow. Soft breathing reverberated through its walls, likely from his new siblings.
The idea of leaving the burrow briefly crossed Solun's mind but he abandoned the thought. A newborn mammal leaving home would be suicide. Solun collapsed back onto the ground, his legs too weak to further support him.
He took a minute to rest before getting back up on his feet. Although it was dangerous to wander outside, a little stretch around the burrow couldn't hurt. That was the plan until he felt an authoritative force snatch him up by the scruff of his neck, and carry him deeper into the burrow.
Although he had been seized by the neck, he felt no ill intent from the creature he assumed to be his parent. Solun was dropped into a mass of warm bodies, which likely belonged to his siblings. Their soft breathing and the heat their tiny bodies radiated soon lulled Solun to sleep.
Time went by in a blur. Solun would wake up, wander around the burrow, and then get carried back to his sleeping siblings. When his eyesight had developed well enough to perceive his surroundings, he started playing little games with the older foxes, much to their chagrin. Some weeks, he suspected, passed by in this manner.
The little games he played—such as hiding from older foxes in the burrow and rolling around the ground—were slight distractions he enjoyed in his dull, monotonous life of sleeping and eating. Unfortunately, the rest of his siblings weren't so energetic.
At first it started with a single sibling joining in his frivolous antics, but soon enough, to the bewilderment of their mother, the entire litter joined. The whole point of hiding from the older foxes was lost now that the entire litter followed him around when hiding. Solun didn't mind, however. The more the merrier after all.
The mother fox finally relented and let the younglings leave the burrow. The pups were excited to finally see the world outside their burrow but still stuck close to their mother. Straying too far from her would be foolish, and foolish pups were the first to die.
By the time his legs and eyesight had fully developed, Solun already had a good idea on how their community operated. Unlike the foxes he had known in his previous life, these foxes formed large clans, made up of different families.
His father was usually out hunting and seldom made time to interact with the pups. The rare times he did, his siblings would scramble to gain his recognition. Solun did no such thing of course, regardless of what he was now, he was still a human in his past life. He hadn't had many opportunities to interact with neighboring families, but from what he saw his father was well respected in the clan.
Life as a fox wasn't all rainbows and sunshine, though. In just a single day, half of his siblings perished.
It was the hottest day Solun had experienced so far in this form, and the mother fox had decided to take the pups out a little further out than usual. She had let them wander around a clearing in the forest while she took respite under the shade of a tall oak. He couldn't blame her, anyone would've been tired from dealing with ten rambunctious pups all day.
Their group splintered off like usual, an arrogant upstart had decided to form his own group a week prior. Solun couldn't care less but it was still amusing to see beasts act so human. Perhaps those greedy, ever-warring nobles weren't so different from animals after all.
He had decided to stick closer to the mother fox. Despite the close proximity to the fox clan, there could still have been dangerous beasts lurking. The other group felt far more adventurous and went to explore a nearby cave, no doubt looking for shelter from the sun.
And just like that, the number of his siblings had been reduced by half. It was sudden, in the blink of an eye the mouth of the cave collapsed. The commotion woke the mother fox up from her slumber, it didn't take much for her to piece two and two together. Solun and his remaining siblings could only watch in disbelief as his mother scratched desperately at the cave-in.
She scratched and scratched for hours until her paws bled and the fallen rocks were dyed crimson in her blood. In the end it was useless, no amount of scratching and wailing would bring back his siblings. They returned to the burrow dejected. Except for Solun. He wondered if something in him had changed when he reincarnated. If such an accident occurred in his previous life he would no doubt be shaken.
Instead, all he felt was cold apathy. If the foolish foxes had chosen to play somewhere safer, they wouldn't have died. It was as simple as that. If they were lucky then their deaths were quick and painless, he mused. The other outcome was to slowly starve in a dark cave before cannibalizing the weaker siblings.
Their father was waiting back at the burrow. To Solun's bewilderment he hardly noticed that he had just lost five children. To his prior knowledge, premature deaths were common among foxes. Still, he would've thought that losing half of its children would shake even the most hard-boiled fox. Perhaps his father was emotionally stunted, or simply never cared enough about the pups to grieve their deaths.
Contrary to his expectations, the mother fox didn't sulk for long. In a few days, she was back to her fussy self. The only real change was that she stuck closer than before to her pups when they left the burrow. It was also quieter in the burrow, sometimes even lonelier. A constant reminder that in the cruel wilderness, even the smallest slip up could result in death.
Solun knew that to acquire human followers for Yod, he'd eventually have to leave his burrow and traverse that cruel wilderness on his own. He was unsure if his quest would end in success. There was one thing he knew for certain, however. He had never felt so excited before, having spent his past life cooped up in libraries scrutinizing ancient scrolls and dusty tomes. But now, he had a chance to make a real difference. A chance to leave his very own mark on the world.