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Breaking the Mold - Chapter 2

Where everything which was normal is now not, and where everything else is fucking weird.

Mike yawned widely and stretched out, the air in the room warm from the light streaming in the window. He was warm; too warm really; but in the state of being half awake that was just right. The air was fresh and cool in his nose; his mum must have opened the window. These blankets were so warm and light. Flopping his hand over himself he yawned again, shifting around in to a more comfortable position, registering that the blanket was fluffy as he played his fingers through it with post-sleep indolence. "Fluffy..." he thought, "Fluffy..." that reminded him of the dream he'd been having. Such an unusual dream, becoming a dog... type... thing... the details were a little fuzzy. He smirked to himself. Fuzzy, that was funny! His mind wondered again, listening to the birds singing, fluttering past the window, sniffing the air softly as a scent caught his nose. Wow... grass, someone must have been mowing their lawn. Flowers too, planted right by his bedroom window by the strength of it. He'd have to rip them up later, he didn't want his room smelling like some girl's perfume.

His thoughts tailed off as a mental shadow fell over him, and sure enough a moment later something prodded him in the back. "Guuuh, mum, I'll get up in a minute" he groaned out, opening his eyes a crack. His brain reeled under the onslaught as he realised many things simultaneously. There was something wrong with his mouth, what he'd said was barely understandable. Secondly, he wasn't in his room, he was in some sort of park, laying on the grass. His eyes darted downwards. He had a muzzle. His arms were fluffy. He was a dog! It wasn't a dream!!

Leaping to his feet he turned around, taking a few steps backwards as he looked up in to the eyes of... of... Well, it looked like a badger. The facial markings were definitely there, and from what he could remember the rest of the colouration was right... expect it was standing there looking at him with what seemed like, and he wasn't sure how he knew this, an annoyed and exasperated gaze. His eyes darted around, taking in the belt with gardening utensils, a rake held in one paw, a shovel strapped to it's back. Other than that it... her... he realised with a blush, was naked apart from the rugged fur of her pelt. Glancing down at himself he flushed right to the tips of his ears realising he was just as naked, automatically crossing his paws in front of his crotch as his tail coiled between his legs subconsciously.

The badger let out a series of chitters, yips and barks, which confirmed to him only that he'd not been wrong about her being annoyed. He gulped and looked around, but seeing nothing or no-one to help he stuttered out in his best attempt to speak "Whiii... I... I dront know wharts harrruff... harrpened tro mre!" his eyes looking up at her pleadingly, hoping beyond hope that there was going to be some reasonable explanation for all this. He yelped and backed up some more as the badger made the same sounds again... but this time hissed at him afterwards. With that he decided it was better to think about this some place else, and he turned tail and ran as fast as he could across the park. Glancing back he watched the badger lumber after him for a short distance, before stumbling to a halt. Relieved that he wouldn't have to run very far, given he'd not quite got used to his new body yet, he turned his head forwards and decided to head to a band of trees and bushes that were a little way away.

Crashing through the bushes until he was out of sight from the grass, he dropped to all fours and wormed his way through the bushes a little further still until he felt safe, then dropped down on to his rear, putting his head in his paws and panting to recover. What was he going to do? He had no idea what was going on, how he'd got here, why he was here, how he was supposed to work anything out when he couldn't even seem to understand anyone! He felt tears welling up in his eyes for the first time in years, slamming his fists in to the floor and clenching his teeth together to try and get himself back under control. No, crying wouldn't help him, he'd learnt that lesson early in life and he wasn't going to unlearn it now. All he needed to do was work out how this place worked, learn the language, infiltrate this society and... who was he kidding, he might as well plan a trip to the moon starting off with creating his own rocket.

One thing was clear though, he needed to stay hidden and work out how things worked around here. It would be no use trying to even sneak around if something he was or something he did brought huge amounts of attention to him. It was clear, the first order of business was information gathering, and the other insurmountable problems could be surmounted when he got around to them. Slowly he lifted his head out of the bushes, his whole body tensed and on edge as he pressed his hearing to the limits, searching for any sign that someone had spotted him. His head surfaced out of the green sea of leaves like a fuzzy submarine, sitting on the surface and rotating slowly as he took his first proper survey of the place he was in.

He was definitely in some sort of park, at least, he assumed it was a park, the tall walls at the perimeter stopped him seeing what lay beyond the confines of the huge botanical area. He strained his eyes in the direction he had run, the badger had seemingly wondered off somewhere, but it seemed other people had started to appear. He lowered his head down, keeping his ears flat, watching them as they walked along the pathways, fortunately none of which came near his hiding place.

People, he realised, was perhaps not the most accurate way of describing them. They all seemed to walk upright, and they walked in groups, chatting away to each other, though the odd snippet that the wind carried to him was no more intelligible than the noises he heard the badger make earlier. That's where the similarities seemed to end though. It seemed most of the animal kingdom was represented one way or another; canines, felines, equines, mustelids, avians and all manner of other creatures, of breeds and mixes that he couldn't even begin to identify walked and talked together, mingling and lazily walking past in the warm morning sun. If he crossed his eyes a little and ignored the dazzling array of fur colourations and patterns, he could be in any park in the world. In his world. Well, in his old world, he guessed.

He shook his head, clearing it of those thoughts, determined to learn more about the beings here. There seemed to be a greater role for smell here, those who he assumed were the equivalent of friends tended to snuffle at each others paws at least, if not (and this happened much more often) bury their noses in the pelt on the other's neck and taking a big sniff. He guessed in some way this was similar to how his aunt used to grab his face and stare at it for what seemed like aeons when he used to go visit her, but taking advantage of scent rather than vision. It did make sense, with his nose how it was currently he could tell that this was a popular hiding space, a fair few scents mixed in with his own when he gave the air an experimental snuffle, so given time he was sure he would be able to tell people apart using it. It was difficult to describe, even to himself, the closest he could come was that smells seemed to be, in some way, further apart on the spectrum than they used to be. Every gentle puff of breeze contained smells a touch different to the last, the perfume of a dozen or more types of plants, the traces of the scents of those going by, and the wider background smell of society going on as a dense, undecipherable mass framing it all.

He lowered himself down even more as he spotted the badger working over at the far part of the field, peering out between a tiny gap in the leaves. After a moment he let himself relax a little as the sight wasn't accompanied by the pounding of feet or any obvious attention from whatever passed as authority here. Brief glimpses in his mind's eye of elephants stampeding towards him waving their trunks threateningly filled him with amusement, and then an equal mix of nervousness too. For all he knew that was perfectly possible here!

Sitting back in the bushes, he listed what he'd worked out to himself. Clothes seemed purely for aesthetic purposes here, like rings and other jewellery, with most relying on their natural fur coating to protect them from the elements. Everyone seemed to speak the same language, all be it with different accents more suited to muzzles, beaks and various vocal arrangements. Scent was much more important than he was used to.

It was hardly enough for him to go around unnoticed, given the moment anyone tried to say anything to him he'd be discovered. Drumming his paw against his leg he scowled, absently flattening the fur on his knee down, then it hit him! Surely people got sick around here... and if they got sick the same way then he could claim to have lost his voice, problem solved! He even remembered some of the other kids telling him that their dogs had trouble barking when they got ill. "Perfect!" he thought, jumping to his feet, shuffling his foot paws as he circled his arms at waist height in a victory dance, before yipping and sinking back in to the bushes. "Idiot!" he chastised himself, he had to be careful! One little slip up and god knows what would happen, and given his experiences with authority he'd rather take on this place on his own terms than take his chances with someone else's.

Sticking his head up in to the clear once more, he took one last look around, making sure the badger lady was busy doing something looking the other way, before he half skipped his way out of the bushes and on to one of the paths, whistling out a deep breath of air as he started walking along in a slow but purposeful manner. He could do this, he just had to stay calm, collected, and in control. He already knew from his previous experiences that looking like you belonged somewhere would make sure most people wouldn't look at you twice, though it was going to take some time to properly get used to have everything dangling out as nature intended, so to speak.

Mike yelped and jumped around as something patted against his butt, blood rushing as he prepared to face whoever did it, not knowing how to react, even if he should react here! "Damn it!" he thought, cursing his luck. What were the chances the first thing he had to deal with was something he hadn't seen? He paused, quivering a little as the fact that there was no-one actually there finally made it's way through the rush of fear. He had definitely felt something, what was go... again he jumped as he felt it the pressure against him, leaping around with a growl this time, whoever was playing tricks would be sorry! Again, he found no-one there. He took a half step, and expecting it this time he spun quickly in a circles as soon as he felt the pat, reaching out and grabbing something fluffy at waist height and dragging it around in front of him. "Wrrat the hrell do you hrink..." he started, staring down at his captive. His tail stared back at him, somehow it's expression yelling idiot, despite it not having a face.

He didn't know whether to laugh or cry as relief and anger at himself spilled over him, taking a quick look around to check that no-one had seen his little... performance, giving his tail a small hug before padding onwards towards the gates of the park, his tail continuing to wag slowly behind him as his nervousness of what could happen was overtaken with the excitement of exploring a world so totally new and different.