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Chapter 8:

The pony clopped across a small wooden bridge, hooves echoing on the wooden planks. I sat easily on his back as he came to a fork in the road, desperately trying yank on the saddle horn to pull him right but may as well have been tugging on a boulder for all the good it did. I tugged, I screamed, I begged, pleaded, and kicked. i broke down crying, but the pony was as immovable, implacable force of nature that was going left no matter what I wanted.

After I exhausted myself I sat pouting on the back of the horse with nothing to do and looked around. The left path wasn't that much different than the right one. It wasn't as steep or undulating, the shadows weren't as deep or scary. There were more people, and they were much friendlier, smiling, waving, and even giving me gifts befitting a royal princess. Passing through an especially exuberant group of dancers got both myself and my pony festooned with ribbons, and someone even pressed a soft cuddly teddy bear into my arms.

Well, maybe this way wasn't so bad either.

The pony finally stopped as Ahead the trail forked into some very thick woods. Peering left revealed another set of forks, and to the right were three more. While pondering the decision a voice called out from beside my steed.

"Well hello there! " I looked down to see a tall, blonde haired, cherubic looking boy reaching up to take the reins of my stubborn steed. Despite how little it listened to me it seemed to willingly stop for him. "You look a little lost. Would you like some help?"

"Well, I'd like to get back over to that path there...." I stood up on the pony and pointed to what was now an entirely different mountain. "But my horse doesn't want to go there"

"I'm afraid you'll have to climb that mountain another day princess. It will still be waiting for you there tomorrow, or the next day, should you decide to climb it. But for today, why don't you try to enjoy what's here hmm?"

I crossed my arms and tail over myself. If I was a princess then i was allowed a good pout.I tried to tug the pony to turn around, but it started plodding on.

"That will never do sweety. If you try to force it to do what you want you'll never have any control at all. But if you guide it a little bit here, a little bit there" he demonstrated by gently taking the reins and moving the horse left, then right around a tree."you can pick a little bit of your outcome, see?"

I nodded and tried it myself. The pony flicked its ears at me, but started to turn left or right as I wished...sometimes. "That's a very good girl. It just takes practice" My tail thumpthumpthumped against the pony as it wagged, but he didn't seem to mind. The boy reached up to pick me up under my arms and set me down in a nice patch of sun, belly up.

"That's it. Very warm. Very relaxed. See? A nice pleasant day. Sniff in, smell the soft pine needles, the moss, the trees, the grass. Just feel the warmth of the sunlight spreading over your belly.

"And how long do these little games add to their toilet training?" a troll asked as it rose up from under a bridge....

..waking me up with an EEEP to pull a pink blanket over my head, holding onto a teddy bear. I quickly looked left, and right, gasping a little and poked my head out. Dr Bernard was sitting on the couch next to me and starting giving my ears a long, slow pet to calm me down.

"A year or two" Dr Bernard answered as he moved his hand to the top of my head, working the ears left and right , splaying them out. "Probably a little longer for this one. But they'll be happy years, won't they?"

I mmhmmmed and nodded along , swishing my tail at the warm sensation of my muscles going slack, shaking my head as the dream blurred back into reality.

"Happiness is unquantifiable. Toilet readiness is not. It makes it look like i don't know how to integrate a nerve connection." Dr Ockerman looked over a datapad and thrust it under Dr. Bernards nose, who shoved it away.

"Unquantifiable but incredibly important. To the patients, and to us. It's why we're the first choice for the Kin community and the department of rehabilitation." The cherubic 8 year old tickled my tail along the waistband of my diaper, making me kick in the air as a renewed warmth spread between my legs.

"Or they just give us the easy cases," The gangly Doctor countered "and send the harder ones for the full treatment. Or YOU rather. The body is nearly irrelevant to adapting to going around the other way" .

"Oh, not true. Not everyone can swap out a chromosome and keep the fur pattern. It helps maintain a sense of identity and self,so someone knows that that IS them looking back at them in the mirror. You underestimate yourself" The doctor gave the front of my padding a pat, making us both blush a little at the definite squish there. "But enough false modesty. I think our patient needs a change. If you would...

"Changing a diaper is well within the listed duties of a candystriper" Ockerman countered, not even bothering with either the more correct term or looking up from some calculations . For his part Dr Bernard looked down as if he'd forgotten he was wearing the outfit and awwwed. "No fair" He took his watch from his pocket, rubbed a little butter scented oil on the mettle and started to sway the watch back and forth, back and forth. The reflective surface showed the most adorable, dopey grin on the little vixen's face as it went back and forth, back and forth.

"Just watch the watch. Baaack and forth, baaack and forth. Listen to me and relax" his little hands rubbing my ears made my muscles go slack with that now familiar feeling of warmth flowing down my limbs. "There we are. Being changed is going to be a frequent part of your life now. It's alright though. Changes are a good chance to bond with people, to be close to them physically and emotionally. It's okay to relax and enjoy. You can't do anything to hurry your training along. You're going to just have to wait and grow. Nothing you can do about it. Just relaaaax and wait and go along with it. Back and forth now" he scritched under my chin with his bitten nails until my foot started to twitch a little. He rubbed my hands a little, then my feet, and gently rubbed the soft white fur of my belly. "Good girl" he told me, and I found myself melting in his hands.I wasn't sure how my paws got tucked up under my chin or how my teddy bear got in my arms but when he said "you can suck your thumb if you'd like" my thumb was in my muzzle before he finished the sentence, a tiny little milktooth pressing lightly against my skin. .

He fumbled a bit at the tapes around my waist, rolled me left, right, and over to slide my tail out of the hole and muttered "shoulda done that first..." and started to clumsily wipe me down, making me coo into my paw. He tossed the wipe away and brought the thick padding up to me, taped it on, undid the tape, taped it on again, only to notice that the left side was far too snug and now the right side wouldn't go on at all. He undid the left one, redid the right too loose, then tightened them one after another in small increments until they were both snug and more or less even. A pudgy little finger tickled my belly "alright, sit up, i think we're done"

Dr. Ockerman hit something on his datapad "Four minutes, forty-five seconds.I think you need about half that for your merit badge"

"Oh come ON! It's at least a minute for the tail" The child sized physician waved the fluffy appendage about a bit, making me giggle. "At least two for this thing..." he said, stopping to pet it. "So soft...So Besides soft and fluffy." A typing sphere was brought into my paws, and I was surprised how reluctant i was to put down the soft comfort of the teddy bear to take it up "How are you feeling?"

.He asked permission to use a Reader, which I agreed to, picking a sinuous Japanese dragon instead of either the offered kitten or panda bear to be placed on my head. He held up a view screen and had me type in the names of animals that appeared. Snowy owl, great horned owl, Wood duck, mallard. The doctor gave me praise and even an earpet on occasion, and Everything was fine until he put the last few animal's together. My screwed up face should would have shown my puzzlement even if the reader hadn't been there. I growled a little, the word right on the tip of my tongue, tail lashing around.

"Free as a ......

"BIR!" I blurted out without thinking bothering to use the sphere or note the irony of using that expression to someone that was a prisoner in their own body."Whathehellidinr...rrr" before my complaint devolved into a high pitched whine

"You didn't forget!" the Brain Doctor probably couldn't tell how loud he was being with his fingers stuck in his ears. "See, it's still in there. " he paused for a second before taking his fingers out of his ears to pet mine, and after a few seconds i felt the tension draining out of me. He poked a finger at my head, traced sinuous line from one side to the other and tapped it again "It's still in here, but the connections aren't there. The concept here has to get to the word over there. Some of that got a little fried, especially with the work we had to do on your corpus callosum" I pouted a bit, so they made my brain girlier and now it won't work.

"Everyone goes through this when they get regressed, whether they're going around the other way or not. The further back you go the more it happens. Once you get the connections back it will work better than before. Promise" he gave my nose a smooch and held up the pad with another series of pictures while cuddling me in his lap, something i was surprised felt rather nice. "Gi.. you'll have an easier time of it now with the increased connections. But still, the less upset you get, the more you relax and just let me guide you the easier this will be ok?" I nodded a bit. "And I need to ask if Dr. Ockerman can look in on the results. Pleaaaaase?" I huffed and nodded. He was just too cute to resist in that outfit, and they were only using screens anyway. Without using an Immersive device the images would be pretty indistinct and besides, whatever was up there was their fault anyway.

The doctor proceeded to show me words, pictures, map places and gave me hints when I couldn't remember what they were. More than a few times i got frustrated with it, my chest tightening and tiny paws bawling into fists until i wanted to smash the screen. He told me how well i was doing , pet my ears, hugged me, made me hold onto my tail until it passed and then kept going. After what seemed like hours he held up the word "scary". I had a brief flash of myself being punched in the nose, colliding with a wall of flesh being pinned by an enormous weight and...

"That's how you remember it hmmm?" Dr. Ockerman was peering closely at his screen, as if he could spot a forgery in my brain from doing so. I nodded. "And you thought you could tell he'd had modifications done from one sniff?"

I huffed at him and picked up the typing sphere. -You have two kids, three cats, none of them like you, you had grits for breakfast, were with one female last night with another just before you got here and..." the typing sphere turned red as its heroic attempts to turn my clumsy pawing into decipherable language failed.

"OoOOOoo you're back with Ladhi?" The pint sized doctor singsonged with positive glee "Or is there someone new you haven't told me about?"

"Lahdi" he growled, glaring at me. "And you've had more than enough time to get more than one sniff. How'd you know one doesn't like me?"

-No one likes you.-

Dr Bernard and I looked at each other and snickered into our hands and paws respectively.

-Just kidding. Your legs are scratched up where it smells like cat salivia-

Dr Ockerman rolled his eyes "I didn't know kins' noses were THAT sensitive. I mean yes, the nerves are there obviously but the processing.

"... usually isn't that good on the local breeds. Which is why i was worried we could have messed something up. Let's be sure we didn't. From Across the room if you would doctor. I'm busy with the patient" he said, tickling me under my shirt with my own tail. Dr Ockerman rolled his eyes but headed across the room and proceeded to scratch something. I tilted my head quizzically for a few moments before recognizing the scent of..

-Pepper!- i typed, and the doctor nodded, -Hosta.- -Chemalian longhair-

"The peppers right. Not sure what the other two are..." Dr. Ockerman gave the datapad with my brain images a few shakes, setting Dr Bernard giggling.

"They're types of flowers and cats. So yes everything seems to be working.

After a few more correct guesses I noticed something

-How come I can remember all these names?-

"Smell is one of the strongest ties to memory, even for humans. It's a lot stronger with you. It creates a lot of connections, so it's pretty unlikely they ALL got wiped out. Unless your Brain Doctor is incompetent. Which I'm quite the opposite of if i do say so myself" He ran through another 20 or so until he came to what was unmistakably the odor of wet dog, an Alsatian in particular.

For some reason I found myself looking at my paw and rubbing my right pinkie. I'd forgotten how small and pawlike they were at this age. but there was something wrong with the smooth, perfect, uncalloused, unscarred paw...

Unscarred.

I pointed vigorously at the paw with my other hand where here should have been a small line of lighter gray over the nearly black pawpad. A whimper started growing in my throat as memories flooded back to me of Violet, my dog. All at once i was seeing the day we found her, alone shivering in the snow. The day she chased some neighborhood bullies up a tree. The night she got sick that last time and I spent it on the floor with her because we couldn't get her into a bed, and the next morning where she fell asleep one last time never to wake again. We weren't sure where she came from, but when we found her she was alone, sick, and very unwilling to take the medicine the doctor said she needed to stay alive. A strange child, and a Vulpes at that, trying to use an injector on her was less than welcome. She'd bit my hand hard enough to draw blood, and I of course hid it from my parents long enough for it to scar. Or thought I had.until the next day when I woke up there was some synthskin and numbing cream in my schoolbag.

And now it was gone. What I thought I would carry with me forever was gone. I hadn't even remembered her until just then. What else was I missing? What else had they taken away that made me me? I'd learned by this point I couldn't stop myself from crying when I felt this terrible, and for once i didn't even want to try.

Both Doctors put their tablets down and covered their ears at the loud,wailing wracket I was raising.

"What is this about? Can't you..." Ockerman shouted while making petting motions.

"Something about her dog." he said quietly, rocking me back and forth, back and forth a little and patting my back, up and down the fur. "And no, it doesn't work when she's this... upset..." his voice got strained as I hugged him, hard, around the ribs. "She has to calm down the old fashioned way. Shhhh..shhh...."

A few minutes of rocking like that and what felt like a gallon of snot pouring out of my nose and I finally started to feel drained and empty. I wiped my nose on the back of my paw and arm before Dr. Ockerman had the presence of mind to toss over a hankie, which the other doctor set to work cleaning while trying to hold it at arm's length. After I was clean..ish, His small hand gave my ears a long rub up and down the crease where they met my head and i found myself flopping forward on my belly. "That usually means you hit the limit on the reuptake inhibitor and need a recharge.

That sounded suspiciously like another nap, to which i said "Nooooooo" without much gusto. Feeling nothing was starting to feel like a great alternative to the vast, chilly emptiness in the pit of my stomach. The pint sized pediatrician smiled and tucked my teddy bear into my arms, where it started playing soft soothing music and warming itself up to just above body temperature. I fell into a daze, lying there for what felt like hours until he gently shook me.

"Alright, dinner time. Let's see if some hot food helps" He stretched and tapped a foot that had obviously fallen asleep to try to wake up and walked me to the door where miss Lily was waiting for us with her hand raised to knock.

"Awwww... hard day?" she asked as I gave her a hug and buried my face in her skirts. She took the hankie from Dr. Bernard with a "thaaanks. Awww.. what did you put the poor thing through!?" and proceeded to give me a much more thoroughly cleaning while tapping her foot at both of the boys.

"Just hit a bit of a sensitive memory. Happens to everyone at least once. Oh look at the time, child work hours and all that must be going..." and managed to sidestep around the nurse and start sprinting down the hallway.

The nurse snorted. "Boys..." and glared at Dr Ockerman to make it clear he wasn't excluded just for nearing 7 feet tall. "Come on sweetie. You don't want to be late for your first group dinner."