Beastly

Chapter 1

A/N: Just some crack that I am treating half-seriously. Don't mind me~

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Hariel could scream and rave about her situation until the sun set in the east and rose in the west. Scream in denial and refuse to accept her reality. Pretend that everything was alright, but it would be pointless.

In the end, it didn't exactly matter how she found herself in this dimension where women were both rare and heavily sought after, and the men overpopulated but capable of shifting into giant versions of certain animals (most prominently were predatory animals, such as tigers, wolves and such, but she had witnessed several other types of men – peacocks and sheep among them) – it was simply her new reality.

Regardless of the type of animal they could become, it remained that women were precious. She could see it in the way that the men treated them: as though they were goddesses worthy of their utter devotion.

Unfortunately, most of the women in turn acted...entitled and spoiled as they realized they could do so much without consequence. Many were petty and cruel, demanding and hurtful even to the men they took as "mates". This was especially true in the women that were deemed "beautiful" in the eyes of beastmen, and therefore heavily sought after. Honestly, Hariel felt heavily for the men who were so desperate for love and families of their own that they were willing to be treated unfavorably just so that at the very least, they weren't alone.

In her reconnaissance during the early part of her time in this dimension, she had uncovered several villages. For the most part, they were simply areas where a large population of a single "beast" lived. There was a valley of leopards, cliffs where eagles mostly stayed, roaming plains where a sheep village was situated and more. Greatest of all that she had found was a city- an actual city with cement looking homes, twisting roads, and large fort looking buildings where all manner of "beastmen" lived.

She had been tempted more than once to go down to the city and find a beastman that she could live with – because she was most certainly stuck in this dimension, of that there was no doubt.

There were a great many reasons why she chose not to do such with the top reason being: she was not ready to have children.

From what she had seen, the main driving point of each village was to boost their population. Women were so few that they were literally dying out- she had heard rumors of actual species having gone extinct because of this. For every female pregnancy – of which only one girl would be born, there were at least three male pregnancies from which one to five males could be born. Worse, a woman was only able to get pregnant once a year if they were lucky and only for a short time after their period.

Whilst she could sympathize with their desperation and situation overall, Hariel wasn't just about to advertise her monthly visits from Aunt Flo, nor was she going to welcome anyone who simply wanted children out of her.

That was very much a firm NO on her part.

Even so, her current lifestyle was coming to an end.

From the moment she discovered the value of women, Hariel knew her luck in dodging the hunting parties, or random male wandering the wilds would end sooner that she would hope. Most recently, there had been a Leopard that stuck to hunting close to where she mostly wandered. Like most men in this world, he was annoyingly attractive, so much so that she had almost let her guard down and discovered by him. Thankfully, she managed to hold back her nearly involuntary response to him shifting to his human form that she remained undiscovered.

Yet, since that day it seemed as though he grew more and more suspicious- creeping closer and closer to the spots where she slept and ate as if knowing she was there but without absolute surety.

It was nearly four months in to living in this world that she decided to "bite the bullet" and make her way to the City of Beasts. She didn't want a man, let alone children – but if she were to be discovered by a beastman in the wilds she could be forced into such without her consent or brought to the center of the city and given to whoever was the "strongest". She had witnessed one of those gladiatorial-esque fights after a hunting party returned with rescued women and she had been utterly horrified.

At least with her going to the city herself, she might have a little more freedom of choice in the matter.

Of course, that had been the plan.

But as Murphy's Law loves to state: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, Hariel found herself two days into her travel staring into the eyes of a panther – who stared with far too much intelligence to be fooled into believing he was an actual animal.

Perfect.