The morning was icy.

It was my first instinct to search for the soothing, pleasant warmth of the bodies I was snuggled against in the reaction to the chilly air, basking in their fluffy softness.

Without even opening my eyes, I buried myself in the furry, welcoming embrace, finding it more comfortable than any blanket would be, and the soft, gentle touches beckoned me even closer.

I pressed myself against the sensations of close, receptive femininity, exploring it with my hands, rubbing my face against a neck, my dreary waking mind entirely ignoring the fact those curves were covered by velvety fur that smelled like aromatic wood. Without thinking, I leaned in for the kiss. I received one. It was also warm, accompanied with the soft purr, a slightly rough tongue, and the face I touched that was a little too different, too non-human…

It woke me up. My eyes opened, and my body jerked in surprise.

I was staring into those yellow, inhuman eyes.

“Master? You didn’t have to stop.” Tama teased with a vulpine grin, “I am quite willing.”

Even though kissing an anthropomorphic fox wasn’t as unpleasant as I would have thought, it was fairly unusual to say, at the very least, if not alien. While it was certainly an awkward moment, it didn’t weird me out nearly enough. It should have, but it did not.

I discovered I was sandwiched between Miwah and Tama. Cuddling with them was calming, even pleasurable, and without a doubt better than facing the cold air.

To break away from the embarrassing stare into Tama’s shiny eyes, I raised my head to glance around the room. I felt a soft lick on my neck. This time it was Miwah, beckoning me back for more intimacy with either of my very affectionate ‘alphas’, and I reached back to give her a gentle rub. Then I stopped. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It just wasn’t right.

The room was quite crowded with my monsters, too.

Even Narita and Mai were there.

This might have been the largest building in this once abandoned hamlet, but it barely had the space to house even the chosen few.

None of them seemed alerted by my waking.

The small ‘Purifiers’ were poking the still burning fire in the central pit, while Narita struggled to position a pot atop the blaze with no supporting construction, only to drop it with a resigned sigh. Wood cracked, the fire burst out, and some spilled water sizzled away without putting down the flame.

A few ‘Eviscerators’ dozing nearby flinched awake with the noise, the closest one only two steps away. They didn’t seem to object to me receiving the gentle attention of their larger kin, instead it almost seemed they were glad someone kept me warm, and cared for.

Neither of them blamed me. I, however, blamed myself.

Mai was equally unconcerned. She was calmly cleaning her scaly skin with a wet piece of cloth, paying little attention to what was happening. My reptilian monster still noticed my gaze and smiled a toothy equivalent of a smile, almost as if she asked for her turn to keep me warm.

It was quite off-putting for me. Unsure how to react, or how to even feel about the situation, I opted to remain silent.

“Yes-yes. I am sorry, Master.” Narita spoke out first. “We should give you some privacy.”

There wasn’t a single sign of blame in her expression either. The rat-like monster sounded apologetic instead, almost like she was ruining the moment, an invasion of privacy in a very wrong moment from her side.

Tama, being herself, immediately chimed in, with the sultry tone in her voice growing. “Yes, I very much want some private time with you, Master.”

“No. Sorry, not now.” I blurted out quickly, trying to free myself from both Miwah’s and Tama’s embrace. They let me out of their grasp. It visibly disappointed the fiery vixen, at least a little, but she said nothing in protest.

The entire situation made me seriously confused, as I didn’t experience any kind of revulsion from the closeness to my monsters, and became used to it, even seeking it out at an increasingly common rate despite the brief time we had together, and their brutal lack of empathy towards any other life. Even if all were decidedly feminine, none of my monsters were normal women by any stretch of imagination, and I wasn’t quite ready to come to terms with that.

The worst thing was, I actually came to like them in that way.

Still, it was probably for the best that we had this communal arrangement where I wasn’t truly alone, just with the most caring, if not lovey-dovey monsters, as otherwise, I would …

I shook my head, almost as I was banishing the thought with it.

“We probably have other things to worry about…” I said, hesitated for the moment, and then added: “I… I am sorry, I was so tired last night. Did anything happen?”

It would probably be best to move this conversation towards more conventional topics, I thought.

“No, my Master.” Mai answered, “But I took the liberties with the plant growth, and I believe we can keep the humans out well for the time being. We also figured out the latrines, just a little digging required. Accelerating or alternating plant cycles requires fertiliser anyway, and the sufficiently quickened processes are so demanding it doesn’t give disease any chance to even spread.”

She seemed quite satisfied with herself for figuring it out.

“Good thinking,” I nodded. The sewerage was probably required considering our numbers, and it was something I didn’t think about until now. There were quite a few other things I didn’t consider either, from housing to tools, and many more.

I found it a little ironic that in order to not think of my monsters as women; I was thinking of them as my people, which needed to be provided for.

“There were only a few berry bushes, though we found some mushrooms. Fruits are not common in this area.” The lizard woman continued, “We need to obtain more diverse plants from human farmland, my Master.”

She shuddered noticeably and wrapped herself up in her assorted drapery. Mai was peculiar like that. It wasn’t me staring at her that upset her, she just visibly thought humans as disgusting.

I shivered too, for a different reason.

Chill in the air quickly brought my attention back to something quite different, the cold. Although there was the blazing campfire to keep us comfortably warm, the walls of this communal house, or whatever it was, didn’t provide that much insulation with how many holes the otherwise sturdy looking construction had.

My answer to feeling cold wasn’t to cuddle with my huge werewolf, even if it crossed my mind. I rather moved close to the fire. It helped, even though I would prefer something better.

“Did we find any better clothes?” I asked.

“Oh, yes-yes. Master!” Narita said enthusiastically, “Some human-things had spare clothes. Not good. Though we distributed them. Found some better ones for you in the cart!”

The rodent monster spaced out briefly after that word, which I already recognised as the common sign of ‘alphas’ communicating with the other monsters which weren’t in her line of sight, an ability they had that was never truly addressed. I became too reliant on it, without even properly weighing the implications of the telepathic communication. If only we had the same option for speaking with natives.

Soon, two smaller ‘Defilers’ barged in, carrying the outfit they looted, presenting it to me proudly with their usual chant. “For Master!”

I inspected it quickly as they held it up for me. Tama toyed with the cloak that was the part of the set, posing for me.

That outfit was certainly better than what I was wearing at the moment. The fact it has been embroidered and dyed suggested it was far from cheap, and the fact it came in what I thought were the different layers made it warmer to wear too. Cotton or linen, I assumed. Just as many other things in this strange land, it had a distinctly Eastern Asian style to it, if recognisably different from what I’d seen from the locals wearing.

“Perhaps it’s what the merchant class wears?” I mused, while deciding to don it immediately, quickly replacing my current clothes with the new ones. Perhaps humans would look at me more favourably if I looked like a respected trader, I pondered.

I dismissed the thought immediately. The language barrier remained the pressing issue I couldn’t overcome. Clothes perhaps made the man, but they couldn’t make me a native.

Still, I changed to it, with my underwear remaining as the only reminder of what I’d lost awakening in this damned forest. I felt slightly better and warmer. However, it made me feel bad for my monsters, thinking that I’d have to obtain clothes for them too.

“Thank you!”

I made an exception in not getting close to my monsters immediately and opted to hug a few of them. They welcomed it. Miwah, taking the last piece of the outfit, the cloak, from Tama, wrapped it around my shoulder, while holding me close for a while.

“Now…” I said, trailing off as I didn’t have any proper plan for the day, and most of my actions so far were rather a gawky distraction from playing along with the flirty parts of my menagerie, or receiving more special attention from them.

“We should…”

I considered trying to travel to the settlements down the road to get the agricultural products we needed, but without a way to communicate with them, it would likely be more of a raid rather than an exchange of goods. I would not order that right now, not with how my own human identity was already impugned.

“Master?” Miwah asked.

I should probably work on the whole understanding of the local speech problem then.

My rumbling stomach brought me a different idea, though.

“Hmmm. I am thinking…” I said, pondering aloud, while enjoying the closeness with Miwah, “What if we prepared the breakfast both we and that captured human can eat, and try if we can eat together to gain trust?”

“My Master!” Mai exclaimed, “You don’t have to! Humans are so...”

“Disgusting?” I guessed.

While she didn’t explicitly say that, it wasn’t hard to guess she was notably appalled by dining close to the creature that was the human. Mai was probably thinking of them as either dirty or otherwise repulsive. Although the dislike of humans among my monsters was apparent, her reaction, or rather that of all ‘Corruptors’, was the most extreme so far. Almost like some people dislike snakes, I realised.

“Yes-yes. We can do it.” Narita agreed, however. “We have meat, human-thing eats that. Rice basket from another place. Mushrooms. Some unbroken pottery.”

“Do we have the gold or valuables from the shrine?” I asked a second question.

“Yes-yes, Master. It was carried here.” She confirmed again.

“Could you prepare the food, then?” I asked. “I also want to offer some coins ceremonially to the merchant as compensation for the clothes.”

It was pointless, as I kept him as the prisoner, however I hoped that showing that exchange was possible was important as a gesture a trader would appreciate. At least, I guessed, proving we understood the concept of trade was as important as learning the local tongue. A positive impression of sorts. Or it was me desperately trying to prove something to myself. I didn’t know, to be honest.

“Yes-yes, already working on it, Master.” The rat-woman nodded while I was still finishing my own little introspection. Her two smaller tagalong kin darted out to fulfil the task, while she followed them more gracefully.

Then I looked at my reptilian companion. Before Mai spoke out, I grabbed her arm. She was the most vocal of my monsters, speaking out objections, and other things on her mind the most. Getting on good terms with her was probably the most pressing.

“Now, Mai, could you please show me what you did with the camp?” I asked.

She beamed out. I quickly tried to come up with a bearing that would help with getting on the locals' good side. I tried to act out a little; it was all supposed to lead to us showing more civilised manners to the only human who didn’t attempt to kill us yet.

“Miwah, Tama?” I glanced towards the duo. “My Ladies. You are always the most beautiful to me, but could you please dress up a little for the occasion?”

I immediately regretted it. With me desperately trying to convince myself I was not thinking of my monsters as women literally a few minutes ago, complimenting the beauty of the anthropomorphic vulpine and the wolf respectively as beautiful was a very definition of insanity. I shook my head again, trying to tell myself I didn’t mean it.

Tama and Miwah, however, were pleased, and answered with the resolute: “Yes, Master.”

“Now, Mai, if you will?”

It was almost shocking how quickly Mai got into the role of a lady escorting a gentleman as she clung to my arm.

“My Master!” She gestured, and the other monsters even opened the door for us.

It was strange, almost intriguing, how quickly they sometimes got a context for something they shouldn’t logically know, while being clueless about the world we found ourselves in just as I was. They never truly wondered about anything I knew, suggesting they operated from a relatively modern pool of knowledge.

I didn’t ponder about it for too long as I was immediately shocked by the alien landscape they left outside, after merely a single night. The fact I slept through all of this was the most unbelievable for it all.

Mai, proud of her works, led me through.

“Master! Master!” My monsters, interrupted in what they were currently doing, chanted as we passed through the camp. I was even thinking about welcoming the crowd, despite all my previous thoughts. I didn’t in the end - it was Mai’s moment now.

The fact ‘Purifiers’ couldn’t hold themselves from making pyres off of the carved tree trunks was almost tame compared to what the other monsters did with the once turfy clearing, draining it out of all the natural life, and replacing the natural grass with the creep of the blackened vines. It didn’t burn though, and they didn’t turn the clearing into a mud pool either. It was just the pervasive denial of the local ecosystem.

It was, however, not all the creep and ash. There was green.

A pool of leathery leaves in an unnatural and varying colour served as a resting place for exhausted monsters. Interlocking branches sprouted from the ground to resemble unfinished structures, some decorated with attempts at unearthly flowers to break the monotony of the bleak colour palette of unusual, almost sickly green.

They found practical applications, too. Abandoning the idea of the racks made of sticks tied together, they grew the twisted shapes of barbs and spikes used to hide and hang the hunted game in one gruesome display.

And that was just the original clearing. Their work didn’t end here, as my companion gestured around, describing her attempts to change our surroundings in our image. I, once again, took it without a reply.

On the one side, the ravine’s stone face was overtaken by sinewy climbing plants, with strange undertones of green, brown, or even purple, almost creepily out of the usual tones seen in nature.

On the opposite end of the camp, empty husks of dead vegetation were mixed with the new plants, lush, yet with clearly unnatural shades of sickly green, threateningly looming at the treeline.

She led me further. After some more blackened, drained, dead vegetation, mutated bushes claimed the land and trees alike to form a literal wall of thorns, suffocating the other, original vegetation under it. They didn’t even forget to decorate it along the road with scorched skulls of animals. Not human ones, yet, luckily.

Though it was unfinished, as likely didn’t make the full circle around our proto-settlement, it was positively menacing, a barrier between the two worlds, firmly separating ‘us’ from ‘them’.

I briefly glared at the normal part of the forest, still unspoiled by the touch of Mai’s magic.

There were a lot of applications to this power, I was certain, but I couldn’t consider them right now. I was entirely preoccupied with the idea of whether I belonged here, with my monsters, or on the other side of that corrupted, spiky, mutated hedge .

I didn’t know the answer, and briefly, I just gazed at Mai.

She responded in kind.

“Did you have something different in mind, my Master?” she asked.

“No.” I said, raising a hand to touch her face. “You did an excellent job.”

Here, standing at the border in between the monstrous and normal, I realised I didn’t mind her scaly features or even the inhuman slit pupils at all.

“I just…” I whispered, and then, turned it into the question which had nothing to do with the impact her magic had on the environment: “Don’t I look similar to humans, feel similar to them?”

My lizard-like companion wasn’t any less willing to interact with me than Miwah or Tama were.

“No!” Mai denied resolutely, and actually raised her own clawed hand to touch my face, “My Master, you aren’t slimy like humans at all! How can you say that?”

She was gentle and sounded as honest as the others were, all of them convinced I belonged with them. I didn’t have a response to that.

Luckily for me, I didn’t have to, as Tama interrupted us.

“Master?” the vixen announced. “I think we are ready, if you want to speak with human,”

She changed little about herself, of course, aside from putting on that dress she wore in order. Miwah, standing at her side without the word this time, dressed herself in the armour, the gold and red one which they once gave me.

They were my furry beast women, tied to me by the force I didn’t quite understand. Just like the rest, always in sight, my menagerie, my horde.

“Thank you, Tama. I will be there at the moment.” I said, “Mai, you don’t have to be there if you don’t want to. We will deal with the man.”

Then I headed towards camp. All the monsters made the way for me.

“My Master!” Mai, just like the other monsters, refused to abandon me, and followed along.

I said nothing. I had something to prove - not to them, but to myself. Successfully dealing with the merchant and learning the language were the last lifelines of me belonging to the world of humans somewhere behind the border, an intangible multiversal one between me and my old home, or merely behind this wall of thorns.

Or, if I was always meant to be here - with my monsters.