(This chapter was uploaded on Thursday 3/April/2025 8:00 PM, timezone GMT+3)
Just to tell you in advance, but I will be using the names of gods from many pantheons. If you see your country's gods getting mentioned and their behavior does not match the myths, then tell me. But know that the ones Omori changed will remain true to the DanMachi formula, like Loki being a lesbian-seeming woman, not a Jotnar descended the frost giant Fárbauti and the giantess Laufey with no specified gender like in the myths.
Is she, really? I do not know for sure if DanMachi's Loki is actually lesbian or if she is just pretending for shits and giggles. Loki do be chaotic for the fun of it.
Without further ado, please, enjoy the side story.
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Don't shy from commenting on typos and/or inconsistencies. That and/or suggesting a modification to certain things that didn't make sense to you.
I hope you enjoy reading this chapter.
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(Long ago, in the upper realm (Tenkai))
(3rd person PoV)
In the upper realm, for a time at the beginning of creation of the lower realm, the deities of different pantheons gathered to create the races that would dwell in it. The creatures of the oceans and deep seas were created first. Then came the creatures that would roam the skies or be carried by the wind. The creatures walking the ground were last, as they will contain the most complicated among them.
"So, how do you rate humans?" One god said, mentally drained by the continued days of work. Although there were gods too far to hear him, they were all using arcanum to hear each other and relay their words across.
"No" The rest collectively agreed that it was finally over, and that they wanted nothing to do with altering humans anymore. They will start creating them as this final plan that they reached, at last.
"Then, what about the other races? Observing other universes, there are those things called demi-humans" Loki said, making many groan as they wanted perfection, but their creations lacked the time necessary to make them stable.
"Pallums are shorter humans with better eyesight and eternally young appearances" One god said, jotting down the last line of genetic code for Pallums and sharing it among fellow gods of knowledge, medicine and life.
"Animal people are simply humans with tails and their ears are positioned at the top of the head" Another few within the group held up their papers with depictions of what animal people would look like in general, each race shown individually.
"Elves are an absolute must!" Some gods of lust raised a very large flag in protest.
"You sit down! Horn dogs!" Loki said with another deity's voice, sawing chaos. She sat in her chair, snickering. Ouranos later gave her a good talking to once he knew. She regretted nothing.
"Then, what about the spirits? The beings who will be the closest to us, our children" Aeolus said, drinking from his favorite honey wine.
Another few grueling days later, the gods of magic and the supernatural were finally done helping in the creation of spirits. Aeolus's child, a great spirit of wind, got a special thing added to her without anyone knowing, literally no one knew of it, not even Aeolus. It was by complete accident.
"I want to make my own race!" Loki put a foot on the table in front of her, getting a side-eye from Oden, who was sitting nearby. (AN: I didn't realize the funny thing with Oden until I finished writing this sentence. You see, Oden has only one eye. And when I wrote it as 'a side-eye' in singular, I didn't have that in mind😂. What I had in mind was that Oden was Loki's sworn brother/blood-oath brother in Norse mythology)
"Loki, respectfully return to your chair, please" Oden said, making Loki begrudgingly listen to him. He did her a favor and she regretted accepting it ever since. The number of things to screw up decreased since he surveilled almost all of her activities.
"Let's listen, Oden" Ouranos let her have her turn. There were the ones who created bacteria and viruses. What would go wrong if Loki had her turn? The more absurd was already created.
"I want to create what I call a Claw Eater!" And then she went on with her explanation.
Claw Eaters were tiger-like creatures but measured twice as the longest tiger, and that was their average, not maximum. Their furs were varying in color, depending on many factors.
The similarities ended there. Their ears were four instead of the usual two of other mammals. The edges of their eyes housed symbiotic bacteria that would light up in the same color as the eyes when their nictitating membranes were folded.
Their eyes themselves were trichromatic and had nerves controlling the activity of the cones and rods, so their vision does not become blurry under daylight and loses less color-vision during nighttime.
Although their skulls were held up by their muscles and their neck connected to it from the back rather than from under it, their brains still were capable of the lowest human-levels of abstract thoughts.
"But why do they have 48 chromosomes? Primates should be the ones with that number, not any of the Felidae" A goddess of knowledge and order said. Even with exceptions, a jump from 38 to 48 is too big of a leap to make without going against the rules put in place for lifeforms.
"That is because they are actually demi-humans with the primary form being their animal form!" Loki said while raising a finger and nodding sagely, as if her words were not madness in and of themselves.
"But wouldn't that make them anthropomorphic animals rather than demi-humans?" A deity objected.
"Why not some chaos? And to be honest, I simply wanna create the idea, at least" Loki said carefreely with a shrug of her shoulders.
"We will discard the idea, but some of us will help you with creating it, if only for your fun" A deity said while suppressing a migraine. Loki was a headache throughout the realm, and nobody, not even Oden nor Ouranos, could stop her mischief.
"Yay!" Loki said as she jumped in joy, what was other deities' misfortune. They were stuck with her as their peers in the fields necessary to create the creature left in a hurry.
Loki was left with Asclepius (Greek), Athena (Greek), Demeter (Greek), Minerva (Roman), Isis (Egyptian), Heimdall (Norse), Ayur (Hindu), Gula (Mesopotamian), Bixia Yuanjun (Chinese), Omoikane (Japanese), along with a few others.
...
"I AM GANESHA!!" Oh... She did grab Ganesha and put him in the team as some good luck charm. How glad she was once he gave his opinion. In direct contrast with Heimdall, who was grumpy at working hand in hand with Loki of all people.
(Later)
"So, get me this" Omoikane massaged her head that was thumbing with a growing headache. "You want them to be practically immortal unless killed?"
"That is nonsensical" Bixia Yuanjun said. It was especially because she was a goddess of life that she complained about this. If the previous generations of a species never aged, the world will over-swarm with their numbers in no time. The health and life of many other species will be at a detriment because of this one, singular species.
"I agree with them" Isis said. She had a different view but reached the same conclusion. "Such a race would end up tearing their mothers apart with many births during a long life that the mothers would be pained to live" She continued. "Even though it isn't my domain, I sympathize even with the males. I wouldn't want to live long enough to see my great-great-great-grandchildren and so on" Her face became pale. "That many family members is nightmarish for anyone, regardless of gender"
"I AM GANESHA!!" Ganesha energetically posed after dramatically getting up from his chair.
"Shut up, Ganesha. I have enough on my hands dealing with Loki" Heimdall said, frowning at the cheerful god of the masses. Loki gave Heimdall the stink-eye for a few minutes going forward.
"Even with the 24th pair of chromosomes- No, it is because of them" Demeter sighed. Even if she liked for living beings to be fertile, it was not wise for immortal being to be so. Fertility comes with the desire to mate and that has many problems when the subject is an immortal. "Because of these two, many would be too fertile and would face life-threatening health issues arising from their overdoing of the deed over the eons they will live with your design" She wanted to berate Loki for creating such a perfect race yet ruining it with such a flow as practical immortality. But, as if to spite her, she was too tired from days upon days of work. No sleep was needed in the upper realm, yet their mental fatigue accumulated still.
Minerva and Athena nodded at each other before talking at the same time.
"We agree that your idea may have been brilliant, yet it has many flaws. The most glaring would be their conflicting human and animalistic instincts" Minerva and Athena said together.
"I must raise a point of argument here" Asclepius said from under his hood. He was deep, cupping a chin with few of his fingers. "Their transforming between human and animal constantly, and at their discretion, would entail many abnormalities in both forms post-transformation" He threw some papers at the table. "Their anatomy is also a mess. Nothing short of our intervention would stabilize them" He was not expecting much, and that saved him the disappointment.
"Their ability to completely and effortlessly deal with viruses that deal with DNA integration is unreasonable" Sekhmat said her piece. She refused to allow a race that was outright immune to a strain of viruses, not to mention as many as the Claw Eaters were immune to.
"Also" Demeter intervened to add another point to the argument. "The two extra exclusive pairs of bases do not make sense. That breaks the rules we agreed on just some days ago" She lent her face into a hand that was supported by the other.
"But but but! Don't you all want to see this to the end?" Loki said. "It isn't like you have anything to do anyway!" She laughed when not a single one of them retaliated against her words. She knew that they wanted something to do, and they have something in their hands right this moment. There was no way they would throw away this opportunity to pass time.
"See?" Heimdall said, addressing every deity in their gathering. "This is exactly why I hate dealing with this flat table"
"TO THE ARENA WITH YOU!! HEIMDALL!! NOW!!" Loki did not take it lying down when it came to this matter. She had a hard time defeating the guardian god, but she still pulled off a win after an extended fight, one where the other deities watched closely, hoping she would lose.
"Let's resume work! Losers!" Loki said carelessly, resulting in her being tied down and her idea of a race being altered until it was more stable, taking away from its functions to make it viable, and frustrating her since the gods of magic involved did not help make things that did not adhere to logic magical in nature. She was also gagged, making it even worse for her.
"We are finally done here! Folks!" Vishnu (Hindu) said. He was happy to have participated in balancing out yet another of his colleagues' creations.
"Let's make them gladiatorial in nature, to the point they kill each other through their gladiatorial combat. Link it to a rite" Freyja came in uninvited and dropped her opinion yet it was integrated later.
"Let's cement them in the world's archives! Nothing wrong would happen! I am Ganesha and I can guarantee that!" Ganesha's boisterous voice made some of them grumble and just do it. Loki and Ganesha both knew that Ganesha let there be a very miniscule chance that cluwrs could crop up at some point in time. He wanted to give the race a chance since it was created already.
(Back to the Present)
'Woooaaaahhhh!! I just remembered something really important!!' Loki drank herself to sleep in celebration that morning.
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A fair warning: Beware of this foot note. The foot note for this chapter is going into great detail over the cluwr anatomy and life cycle.
Some details are going to either gross you out or make you frown in disgust at the terms used. Be warned that the terms male and female are going to be used a lot in the explanation.
Also, the next part is approximately 5k words long. Read only when you got time to analyze it. I want your opinion on it. And remember that most of the behavioral parts do not apply to Shira because of her prior human memories and upbringing.
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Starting with their genetics (genomics?), the Claw Eaters, called "Cluwrs" after some time, have 48 chromosomes.
Their chromosomes have two distinctive variations, kinda, making for two different variants. Let's talk about the one that got balanced somewhat:
1- The 24th pair:
This pair is supposed to be responsible to keep a memory of the codons, their number, their composing bases, their side of the double helix structure, among other things related to keeping genes from being lost.
This pair of chromosomes are deactivated by the epigenetic factors until the age of 23, when the body is done growing and is going to maintain its general shape until death.
Of course, the genes responsible for the immune system are ignored to leave the immune system some flexibility. If its genes were frozen like the rest, it would mean that the immune system would stop adapting to pathogens and invaders in general.
To insure the process is done perfectly, this 24th pair engraves magical symbols on the genetic memory to make it indestructible once it is formed around the age of 23.
Don't even ask. Without magic, the race would not function to begin with. More on that further down.
2- The Human Portion of Each Chromosome:
Each chromosome is composed of three portions. One of them is the human part, that which allows them to combine with humans to produce viable young.
Nothing new here, though. It's the human gene as is.
3- The Cluwr Portions of Each Chromosome:
The other two portions are made with only the 4 bases present in humans, alongside the 5th (Uracil) that is present only in RNA.
The gods ignored Loki's idea of making them use an extra two exclusive pairs: W-X and Y-Z. (AN: No creative liberty was present here ¯\(°_o)/¯)
Due to not making an extra number of bases to accommodate the transformation, the length increased more than it would have. To deal with this, the gods decided to make the extra genes that start and end the human part of the double helix structure.
Since they already added a part denoting where the human part starts, giving the codon restoring mechanism a clear starting line in the added codons was a given. With this, the 24th pair knows where to start checking the codon integrity of every chromosome more easily.
When the cluwr part starts, the body alters the human form based on it while preserving the human genes as they are, not altering the genes themselves but overwriting their functions when needed. There is a reason for that that I will bring up later in the story.
The cluwr genes start by denoting the transforming process and where every type of cell goes between forms. Once the transformation is triggered, which is a conscious trigger by the way, the human genes get deactivated by the epigenetic factors to let the cluwr's animal form genes express fully.
As for the cluwr genes, making up the third portion of the double helix structure, they are always active.
Due to them being always active, and because they hold priority in some expressions, they alter what they could, giving us the demi-human appearance in human form.
Now, the transformation itself is no magical process in its essence. Thus, the mass of the cluwr is preserved between forms. Like is stated above, the transformation is simply a rearrangement of cells and nothing more. Magical energy, not to be confused with magic or magical spells, speeds it up but does not affect the procedures of the process.
The hormonal trigger of being sexually attracted to a human necessitates the sexual maturity of the cluwr. That makes it possible around the age when the human genes pump their blood full of sexual hormones. Different genes regulate that change at different ages. Some may do so at the young age of 10, while some may be as late as their early 20s. It all depends on how their sexual drive goes according to the human portion of their genes.
This presents the real risk of being stuck in the human form forever, due to the loss of some of the transformation portion of the genes due to mitotic division. And that is a very viable risk, though the chance of it is small. But, the genes are still majorly intact, and reproduction is still possible.
Note that cluwrs do not care about being in either form, it is merely an individual's preference. If a cluwr, male or female, outlived his/her human partner, that cluwr could either choose to remain single to honor the late human partner or to remarry and have another family, possibly with a fellow cluwr.
Now, let's talk Forms and Characteristics:
0- The Constants of Both Forms:
0.1- The Skin:
A cluwr's skin is main beige in human form, but with an ashen hue to it. In animal form, the skin's ashen hue is more emphasized.
All over the skin, black lines with a core that has a metallic sheen on the fur. While the skin itself has the same lines and coloring, the metallic sheen of black lines' cores is lost in the skin.
In human form, the black lines run similar shapes but have shorter fur that is purely aesthetic (aesthetical? I am genuinely confused by this one).
0.2- The Position of the 4 Ears:
cluwrs have 4 ears total, more on why further down. But for now, their positioning is what concerns us.
There is a pair on the top of the head and another right behind the Temporomandibular joint. This positioning persists in both forms.
0.3- The Whiskers:
Wherever there is fur, there are whiskers of the same length. Meaning, human form does not have cat whiskers above the mouth. Remember? They are not anthropomorphic animals.
The only whiskers that are noticeably longer than the surrounding fur are the whisker around their mouth while in animal form.
0.4- The Tail. This one needs no explanation, really.
0.5- The Eyes:
Their eyes remain the same in both forms, along with the usual black eyeliner-skin patches.
1- Human form:
1.1- Feet and Legs (If anyone wants to know why I started with the feet, blame YouTuber Roanoke for this. I picked his habit of starting with the feet):
The feet in human form are plantigrade, meaning like our feet. A human-form cluwr walks the same as us as the leg structure and proportion are also identical to ours.
But they differ in that their toes have thick toenails, sharp claws that are meant to clip into the surface they are walking or running on to help them grip onto it better, and the existence of pawpads.
1.2- The Hips:
Their hips and pelvis are identical to ours, in all the wrong ways. You see, when a human becomes their sexual interest, their reproductive organs, the outer part at least, shrinks to the size of that of a human's.
1.2.1- The Male Cluwr's Reproductive Organs:
The size average of human males.
1.2.2- The Female Cluwr's Reproductive Organs:
Now, here is where it gets weird. It starts from how the nether regions are the same size as an average human female's. The internal parts, bar the womb, are also the same size as an average human female's.
As for the womb, it is somewhat bigger, but only a little. We will explore this more in the reproduction section below.
...
There is also a furry tail that contains all the fur that has no place to go around the human form. That makes it extra thick and fluffy in human form, with much longer and fussier hair/fur, depending on the cluwr.
The tail's actual length is long enough to wrap around the hip and clasp itself, just barely so.
1.3- The Core/(Upper Body):
1.3.1- The Outer Appearance:
The outer appearance is the same. Nothing new here.
...
Oh, their cluwr genes maintain a bare minimum amount of muscle mass whenever nutrients are abundant. From our perspective, their muscles would count as very defined. Make no mistake, they are not buff. If they wore clothes, their muscles would not be apparent from under the fabric.
1.3.2- Internal Structures:
Bones are the same, organ distribution is mostly the same and muscles are identically structures.
Now, the organs are mostly but not all the same because tigers have around 10 nipples but humans have only 2. To accommodate that, half of the glands of the cluwr's 10 nipples get assigned to each nipple in human form. So, instead of one gland behind each nipple, it is five for the cluwr females. Males follow the number but they are as diminished and underdeveloped as it is in human males. They are not functional.
1.4- The Arms:
The arms are the same as the legs, mostly identical except for the presence of claws and pawpads. Well, not quite. Their fingers are somewhat thicker, allowing for a weaker version of their claw swipe attacks in animal form without breaking their fingers with every strike.
The funny thing is, they are so tall that their only real option is kicking others around since most humans would never even dream of reaching their knees, standing at more than 6 meters (19'8.2''-19'8.25'') in height.
Heck, they could bitch-slap the FREAKIN' GOLIATH!
1.5- The Neck and the Back:
The neck and the back are the same as those of a typical human.
1.6- The Head:
The head is where the most visible changes.
1.6.1- Ears:
Their human ears are present and are the same, just with added fur on their upper ridges and behind them. The front and inside of the ears is still human.
Their extra pair of ears are on top of the head and are those of a tiger's in appearance. Yes, they could turn them around like felines could.
To preserve the human symmetry, Loki kept the human ears as is. But to mimic Owl hearing, being able to hear both horizontally and vertically, she added another pair of ears on top of the head.
The nerves connecting to the cluwr's animal ears are somewhat more myelinated to help them relay the auditory information at the same relative speed from the ears to the brainstem. From there, it follows the normal human hearing with the instinctive distinction of vertical position of the sound's source.
The ears, along with the tail, move involuntarily to indicate an honest reaction from the cluwr, even if the facial expression is stiff and/or blank.
1.6.2- The Eyes:
The eyes are completely different. While human eyes have an exposed sclera, the eyes of a cluwr would have their irises proportionally increased in size, covering the sclera most of the time.
The pupils are malleable, much in the likeness of those of the Felidae. They could change between a round or a vertical slit shape to regulate the amount of light coming in.
1.6.3- The Nose:
It is not changed from the human formula.
1.6.4- The Mouth:
The only real difference from a human mouth is the darker coloring as compared to the suggestion of each cluwr's human genes. That is a direct result of the black lining of the mouth trying to overwrite the color of the lips.
1.6.5- The Teeth:
The teeth are mainly the same, just much sharper in comparison to those of a human's. For the molars, that sharpness manifests at their outer edges rather than them being fangs and whatnot. Feel your molars with your own tongue and you would probably get what I meant with this.
1.6.6- The Tongue:
The tongue is that of a cat. One really serious lick would strip flesh form bone. Be careful.
1.6.7- The Tip of the Head:
At the top of the head, a persisting cluwr trait expresses itself in the shape of a sagittal crest. With subsequent generations, it was refined into a horn. It allows the mandibles, in animal form, to be stronger in compensation for the lost power due to the addition of an extra pair of ears where mandibular muscles were supposed to go.
It does not inflate the apparent size of the skull, never. The general shape and proportion of the skull is strictly human.
1.6.8- Not really something of note, but most retain a thick mane-like hairstyle of sorts around their heads while in human form.
1.7- The Fur:
Sadly, it is mostly covered by clothes since cluwrs adhere to the human standard of clothing when their human partner requests it, which is most of the time.
Thankfully, it is covered most of the time, and those clothes also cover the bare front of the cluwr as it has no fur on its front in human form. Now, now, we don't want giants walking around in the nude, do we?
When not instructed on anything specific, they prefer to remain unclothed because they lived like that in their animal forms.
2- Animal Form (Tiger-like):
The only things you need to know are in these pictures below. The colors are a creamy bottom fur with a top that relies on the human portion of the genes for color.
By the way, these pictures represent a calm Shira Vs. and angry/triggered Shira.
Starting here, we talk about their life's progression as they grow up:
1- Formation/Fertilization:
The female cluwrs produce an average of 3-5 cubs. The absolute lowest is 2 and the absolute highest is 9. Anything 1 or higher than 9 is abnormal but could happen at random.
The haploids, as well as the sperm, of a cluwr contain all of the genetic information of the cluwr parent. That is to account for the human genes not containing the transformation and the cluwr form sections of the chromosomes.
1.1- Cluwr-Cluwr:
In this case, they are in their animal forms. Their genitals are the same size as those of a tiger in proportion to their bodies.
Since there is an extra cell's worth of genetic material, the cell goes into mitotic division as is and creates twins. This leads to even numbers of cubs as a result.
1.2- Cluwr-Human:
In this case, the cluwr assumes the human form to attract the attention of the human. The cluwr's genitals, male or female, adhere to the size of a human's genitals, disproportionately so to the cluwr's body size.
It is so that the human, if a woman, would not be ripped apart from something going in. When the cluwr is the female, her genitals are going to be the size where a human male's genitals could connect to them.
Because of these two cases, the cubs are born the same size as human babies. And yes, a cluwr mother suffers childbirth pains all the same, even with her children so small and her body being so big.
2- Pregnancy Duration:
It is either of two cases.
2.1- Cluwr-Cluwr:
The cubs develop for the duration of around 3 months before being born.
2.2- Cluwr-Human:
If it is with a human, whether the mother is the cluwr or the human, the body's hormones have a very high chance of going haywire and utilizing the mana/mind/whatever-magical-energy to hasten the development of the cub/s, ensuring its/their safe yet quick development.
3- Early Childhood:
3.1- Cluwr Mother:
Right after being born, the mother curls around them and covers them with her fur. The cubs at this stage are hairless and their bodies are not yet conditioned to deal with the constantly shifting heat around them. One wrong move and they could freeze to death in some rare cases.
Once their immediate warmth was taken care of, the next step would be for the mother and whoever, whatever, her partner is to help her guide the cubs towards her nipples. Since the cubs are so small, not much milk is needed per cub, making them able to take turns drinking even if both parents were cluwrs, resulting in a potential cub count of 14-18. Refer to the Formation/Fertilization section above.
3.2- Human Mother:
Because the mother is a human, the number of cubs is what humans normally give birth to, mostly one, rarely two and even more so three.
Since humans live in environments where they could control the temperature to suite the cubs, the cubs are not in danger of freezing here. And since not that many are born at once, the human mother is not busy nursing them around the clock.
...
After the cubs are fed, they fall asleep. This goes on until they could stand and move.
Although they develop to be able to stand and move around the age of two months, having their fuzzy, childhood coats fully formed, they start slowing down to a more human-paced growth rate from there. That results in them growing bigger at a somewhat fast rate compared to humans but still slow enough for the human mothers, if that is the case, not to lose their minds with their motherly instincts telling them to do things that they cannot do to their children, who would be too grown up for those things by then.
Don't get me wrong. Human mothers would be weirded out by the fact that they are raising giant tiger cubs instead of frail human babies but would most likely still consider them their children and raise them with love and care.
4- First Steps:
Now that the cubs are strong enough to stand and walk on all fours, they start trying to play with each other. Once they can bolt around and experience their own version of the zoomies, they will start sneakily jumping on the backs of their parents, playing jump-scare with them as an imitation of hunting. They will be rough with their play time until their human mother/father (assuming that is the case) tells them to stop as her/his human mind is feeling uneasy letting her/his children play this rough.
They will stop drinking their mother's milk by the time they are 22 months, with some taking the remaining 2 months to complete 2 years.
5- 2 Y.O. and until Sexual Maturity:
After the age of two, the cubs start developing faster physically, while their mental age progresses at the same pace as a human's as their brains are relatively the same size.
Because of this body plan, their bodies experience a greater amount of hunger. It is not due to lacking energy, as that will be explained a moment later. What their bodies crave are the nutrients in their food to be used to fuel mitotic division.
Their energy needs were balanced using magical energy as the basis. Their bodies are born without the instinctive control of their then underdeveloped magical cells.
Yes, magical cells were integrated into the cluwr portion of the genes to avoid raising core heat due to metabolism. The metabolic rate using ATP is reduced and is replaced by bio-magical energy produced by these magical cells. Those cells slowly develop over the first two months of the cluwr's life and become fully functional afterwards. All the heat and energy needs are covered by them sucking and processing magical energy from the air.
Without this, they would either lower their metabolic rate to avoid cooking themselves from the inside or develop extremozymes. Both are unliekely. Look at how many things deal with fire or lives around heat sources for one reason or the other, and look at how many of these living organisms ever developed the enzymes. As for the first alternative option, that would result in lower reaction speed and lead to them being defeated easily by smaller adversaries that could move faster.
To avoid their vital systems shutting down in precarious situations, the nervous system and the circulatory system are using the usual ATP metabolism. In cases of magical energy deficiency, the body's remaining cells return to using ATP metabolism while disregarding the risk of overheating the core of the body, though at a low enough rate where the heating problem is a minor one.
6- Sexual Maturity:
Well, we reached the nasty part. At this time of the cluwr's life, our cluwr will go through one of two situations.
6.1- Cluwr Mate-Selection Rites and Related Habits:
Within cluwr communities, the cluwrs choose based on strength first and character after. One of the more commonly used methods is proposal by combat.
Cluwr females start waiting amongst cluwr males while knowing that her body is wafting with the smell of her pheromones. The males, smelling desire in the air through properly-developed Jacobson organs, start fighting one-on-one duels until only one remains. Most of the defeated are left to die. Those who survive are less likely to find a cluwr partner in the future with the defeat they are known to have experienced during their first mating rite.
In this case, nobody really shuns them for choosing a human partner. Some are too prideful and choose not to while some are willing to choose a human partner.
In case of choosing a human partner, the only quality they search for is the human woman being a caring family member of a similar age to the cluwr. They dislike marrying humans with a dramatic age gap, for your information. The largest age gap they are willing to accept is around 6-7 years in most cases, though that differs depending on the cluwr.
If the female cluwr does not have male cluwrs who are both single and worthy around her, or if she already got her attention on a human male, then she chooses the human male option.
Once married, they are life partners who will remain with each other until death does them apart. There are no exceptions.
Amongst each other, cluwrs abhor polygamy. But when a human is involved, it is possible for human males to have human females beside the cluwr female. Human females, though, would be experiencing a very possessive husband that will deter any human males who dare approach.
Oh, I forgot how they try to court the human partner.
Cluwrs first appear in their animal forms. Once they are friendly enough with a group of humans, they start forming impressions. Once their impressions lead them to choose one human as the best marriage partner in the group, the cluwr's body starts molding (Not to be confused with molting) into the shape of a human's, a giant since mass is conserved.
The first time the molding/transformations process happens, the body is still removing the epigenetic factors that are actively deactivating the transformation portion of the genetic material. That results in the process that Shira went through for her first transformation. It start by displaying characteristics from the other side, the human side normally. Shira was a human, so her other side was the cluwr side. Normally, the cluwr would develop visible human traits on his/her body while still largely looking like the cluwr's animal form.
Once the genetic material section for the transformation is completely demethylated, the body drops into a blob since the adhesion of cells is weakened. Cells would be swimming between each other under the skin until every cell is where it needs to be to achieve the desired form. The trigger of the second transformation and others going forward is a conscious, voluntary mental trigger.
Their mating habits revolve around making sure that their partners are not harmed. If even a hint of blood is present, other than virgin blood, they are put off and immediately turn on their protective instincts, driving out any lust they previously had and standing at the ready.
Now, some may have thought of this: "What would happen if a cluwr desired to marry a cluwr who was in human form at the time?".
Answer: Human form unlocked!
Another question that might be on your mind: "What happens if the cluwr was in human form, wearing clothes, and tried to transform back into animal form?".
Answer: Clothes are lost!
No, seriously. The clothes would not handle the transformation well and would normally get torn apart in areas while other areas that did not change much in size would maintain some torn fabric that clings to them.
6.2- Mating Seasons and Related Habits:
Mating in cluwrs is happens whenever the cluwr female is not pregnant. She releases pheromones that the males pick up, as stated above. If pregnancy did not occur, another chance is present the next month. That stops around two months before winter, as the cubs do not resist the cold well. No, their desire still surges the two months before winter. They consciously make the decision not to conceive cubs because it will risk them dying.
If the marriage partner was a human, however, the human may convince the cluwr to just do it since humans regularly control the temperature around them and could mitigate or outright eliminate the risk.
Why that is not the case for cluwrs is that they do not have the dexterity to ignite and control fire as efficiently. Lighting a fire is fine and all that, but limiting and controlling it is not something done easily by them for the most part. They simply prefer not to bother spending the effort just to attempt conceiving cubs that could wait the winter to be conceived when the times are warm.
Human-form cluwrs who lost their human marriage partners may return to their own cluwr family and aid them in controlling fire. Then this is done and away with. Families who have a human-form cluwr living with them disregard the time of year and the cluwr females and their cubs within the family simply stay closer to the fire when one get pregnant or gives birth before or during winter.
I think I wrote this above, but human-form cluwrs would prefer being nude when not explicitly told by their human partner to wear clothes. They don't mind the clothes. It's just simply them being used to not wearing any until transforming to the human form for the first time.
In Shira's case, her body is already used to wearing clothes since childhood. She would prefer wearing clothes, unlike naturally-born cluwrs.
About their sexual drives, yeah. That thing brings nothing but chaos. They get too eager to mate that they may nearly force it if the other party does not explicitly say no. But once it is said, their sexual drives plummet all the way down in minutes as they start retreating. As stated above, they are hard-wired not to harm their partners during mating, and are also hard-wired to protect a bleeding family member. Those two things work in tandem to force their lust down.
7- Parenting:
7.1- Cluwr-Cluwr:
In this case, nothing changes until the cubs are born.
Then the mother will stay with the kids until they graduate from her milk. Once that happens, she and her partner take turns hunting to provide for the kids. Neither thinks of hunting as a masculine activity, but solely a survival one.
Like human parents, considering the influence of human genes in their chromosomes, cluwrs play with their children and care for them with the whole family, grandparents, uncles and aunts being involved in raising the young ones when needed.
7.2- Cluwr-Human:
7.2.1- Cluwr Male-Human Female:
In this case, the Cluwr male provides alone. the woman's actual strength is irrelevant while she is pregnant and while raising the young ones. Her cluwr husband refuses to let her exert herself, knowing that the cubs and their hyperactive state tire her out most of the time.
7.2.2- Cluwr Female-Human Male:
The cluwr defies any order not to go hunting since she needs to much food for the man to provide with human methods. Money ain't cutting it with how much a pregnant cluwr eats.
In all three cases, the cubs are left to grow how they want. The cluwr parent/s make sure that it is the case. As long as the cubs do not put themselves and those around them in danger, they are left to their devices for the most part. Once the cubs are grown up enough, they are taken on hunts by their cluwr parent to be taught how to stalk prey and how to be stealthy.
All throughout their childhood, the grown-ups of the family sing and whistle tones in the sounds of the prey around their family's territory. That teaches the cubs how to imitate their prey's calls to give them a false sense of security.
The cubs are also taught how not to overhunt their prey to have a balanced diet and to also allow their population to recover. The elderly are the first to be targeted then comes those who do not have calves with them.
Since they have human genes, integrating them with the ability to digest plant-matter, the older generations tell the cubs what plants are safe to eat and what are not and their locations.
8- Territory:
Every family owns a territory. If a member of another family is detected within the territory, either it is a marriage proposal or territorial aggression. The invader's behavior and first impression make it clear which outcome the invader came seeking.
Remember, they are fairly intelligent, enough to form an actual language that you could largely and successfully imitate with enough effort.
The territories are lenient with travelling cluwrs. Between the territories of each two adjacent families, there is a strip of unowned land that anyone could travel and hunt in. Residing there raises no problems either. They do this so that the younger generations have a better chance of discovering where they want to belong or for them to experience the world. And in the center of every rough circle of territories, there exists a gathering grounds for any member of any family, or even travelling cluwrs, to gather in and talk or hang out. Cubs could occasionally be seen playing and running around in these gathering grounds.
Their human genes made them social, though they don't gather here as often as humans would do. Their gathering rates are only a third of what humans' are. Their animal genes still made them somewhat of a loner like tigers. They need to get alone time from time to time.
...
With all what is written above, Loki's version of the cluwr is much too extreme with everything and is a mess mentally and socially. It included the intended effect of Shira's skill, which the gods and goddesses who balanced them removed. Unfortunately for deities, that ability to increase claw sharpness by eating others' claws was integrated back with Shira's skill as a conduit.