As the days passed by Mother became more stubborn about giving us less milk, to the point where we were barely having it every other day. Father would take my siblings and me out to the termite mounds every night, where he would gather some food for us to eat. When we weren’t trying out our more solid diet, we passed the time playing with one another – although I swear sibling No.1 was holding malicious intentions when he was biting harder than the others. “Let’s see how you like it when I bite harder, next time!”

The weather grew hotter with every day, however it seemed that our bodies were well-adapted for such things. Not that it really mattered that much, seeing as how we tended to leave the den at night. I will say that the moon always looked so serenely beautiful, but the sun made me feel more mentally satiated. Stretching my slightly larger body, I then followed Father – who was guiding us towards some different termite mounds – and kept deftly avoiding the nipping bites of my siblings. “Hey, we’re supposed to be paying attention to Father! Stop trying to trip me up!”

Reaching the undisturbed mounds, I heard the gulps from my siblings who were already drooling at the thought of the feast we’d be foraging for. Being the best of the bunch, I took it upon myself to jump onto the mound that Father had chosen. “I’ll show you how it’s done properly, my fellow siblings!” I thought, as my nimble body flew towards the mound at my fastest speed. I definitely did not faceplant the mound upon impact…nor end up making the ground collapse beneath me – thus wrecking the mound.

Father grabbed me by the ruff of my neck and carried me to the bottom before returning to the crater I’d formed and started digging through the softened soil for any termites still in that area. I lowered my ears and tucked my fluffy tail between my legs, avoiding the schadenfreudian gazes of my siblings. “Schadenfreudian? Where did that word come from?!”

Sibling No.5, the quietest of our menagerie, came up to my sorry state and licked my muddy and swollen face. “Ahhh, finally a sibling who knows I am to be treated kindly! You shall be in my good graces, sibling No.5!” I nuzzled my cute quinquennial sibling to show my thanks, before bounding back up the mound to have a go at finding some termites. The others soon followed behind me, no doubt to not be one-upped by me.

Approaching the hole, Father saw us arrive and allowed room for us to manoeuvre for a better vantage point. He then demonstrated how to catch the termites by sticking his long tongue into the collapsed termite tunnels before pulling it back in with close to ten termites stuck to it. My eyes widened at the speed with which Father caught them and I was excited to try it. However, sibling No.1 got the jump on me and already caught some while I was admiring Father.

Not wishing to be outdone, I stuck my head into one of the holes and shoved my tongue in. “Ouch!” I immediately reversed as a termite’s pincers were pinching my soft and tender tongue. Tears began welling in my eyes from the pain before Father came over and bit the head to remove it. He then licked me and nibbled on my ear before resuming his hunting. “Catching termites is hard!”

After spending the majority of the night trying to catch termites, we eventually returned to the den. Luckily for us, today was a milk day, so as we entered our humble abode, we all gathered around Mother and began whimpering in an almost choreographed unison to beg for some milk. Of course, we weren’t really that hungry after feeding on so many termites, but the sweet taste was enough to make us forget such minor details.

Mother eventually relented and allowed us to crowd around her so we could attain our much-missed bliss. Once we had all had our fill of Mother’s milk, my siblings and I bundled into a heap of small bodies – with myself on top, of course – and promptly fell asleep in contentment.

+++

I found myself peering through the eyes of the not-aardwolf again, only this time they seemed to be in a hostile environment; lots of jagged boulders and dead trees dotted the area, with dry grass and red soil covering the ground. Beside me was that familiar beast, emitting a bright blue light from its crystal before a plume of blue stuff came out of its mouth to engulf a nearby foe. “Fire.” I seemed to recall, as I continued to observe this strange scene.

In front of the not-aardwolf and beast was a slender creature of pure muscle; half of its body was reared in the air with the upper part seemingly flattening and widening close to the head. Green crystal fangs and nucleus between its eyes glowed as a similar coloured mist poured out of its gaping maw. “A crystal cobra.” My memory seemed to tell me, although I’m not sure what memory that alluded to.

“Bastien! Close it’s mouth!” My body shouted before the beast by my side sprinted towards the snake. Dodging out of the way from the cobra’s tail swipe, the beast pounced and twisted in the air before landing and jumping to another spot. As the beast did this, my body clasped the furless paws together and began muttering something I did not understand.

Eventually, the beast – presumably Bastien – landed behind the cobra and pushed on its head, before pressing its full weight on its mouth with its large paws. The cobra hissed through its lips as its tail swung ferociously around – trying to grasp hold of the beast’s legs to pull it off. However, the body I was in opened the furless paws and released a purple energy straight at the cobra.

The serpent jolted upon impact with the energy before stopping its movements; occasionally twitching from time to time as the muscles seemed to spasm out of control. The eyes of the body I was in moved to a shadowed, two-legged figure that came from behind a large boulder. The not-aardwolf then threw something in its furless paw at the cobra’s head – hitting the green crystal nucleus between its eyes.

“Good catch! We’ll be able to sell this for a lot in the market!” The body I was in said.

The other not-aardwolf looked at me coldly before shoving Bastien off the snake’s body and crouching to inspect it. “…You damaged its scales with your paralytic bolt and this muscle-head’s claws. It’ll be worth next to nothing because of this.” They took out a giant not-claw from inside their not-fur and began gouging out the crystal.

“What are you doing?!” My body cried out in surprise.

“We’ll get more use from it by selling it in parts. We’ll take the crystal nucleus, fangs, venom sac and scales. If the bones are crystallised, then those too. The rest…well the beasts of this area can have it.”

“But…Victor…we promised not to kill anything…” My body said.

The not-aardwolf looked at me, their gaze even colder than before, “You promised them. I didn’t. Don’t watch, so they can’t blame you.”

“…This is wrong!” My body said before walking away.

+++

I woke up to sibling No.1 slumped on top of me with my ear in his slobbery mouth. “Ew! Disgusting! Get your saliva off me at once!” I kicked at him with my four legs before wriggling out of the heap. I then realised I needed to relieve myself and so made my way to the designated area. My movements woke the others up who then decided to tackle me for play-fighting. “Hey! Can’t you see I’m urinating right now! Give me some privacy! Argh!” I felt the liquid trickling down my legs as my siblings landed on top of me. “Give me back my dignity!” I cried internally as my siblings realised what had happened.

Mother saw the commotion and just ignored us. Instead, she headed for the exit while yawning – no doubt to hunt for food on her own again. “She abandoned us, again!” Father came over and picked me up in his mouth before carrying me outside so I could…clean myself. When everything was all done, Father guided us to a different termite mound since the previous one kind of got demolished by me...I swear these things don’t happen that often, just sometimes.

In the distance, I noticed Mother was also at this termite mound. “Huh, good things must be happening today for Mother to be joining us!” I thought as I wagged my fluffy tail in happiness at not having been abandoned by Mother. I mean, with both parents with us, what could possibly go wrong?