Chapter 67

As the morning sun started to rise in the east, its rays found their way through the front window of Shannon's house and directly into Natalie's face. The sudden burst of light, followed by a slowly rising temperature, gave way to the sleeping woman to start turning over. Groaning at the sudden interruption to her sleep. Sitting up, Nat yawned loud and wide, stretching her arms as she ascended form the couch. Looking around with squinted eyes, it took her a solid minute to remember where she was. Remembering that she was at her friend's house in Lethbridge, she made an attempt to get up and head over to the bathroom. However, she found that she had extremely limited movement in her legs. Looking down to her lap, she was unsurprised to find Kali laying there. The couch was thin and narrow, leaving no room for the wolf who usually slept nestled up beside her. Thankfully it appeared as though her yawn and movements had already gotten the wolf to start moving. Slowly coaxing the wolf off her lap, she headed over to the bathroom once she was free.

Getting there, she got assistance from the recently roused Kali and got the bathtub filled up. After a week of travelling, and all of the fighting and sweating that had transpired throughout, left her with quite a pungent scent. Given that they wanted to wait for everyone to wake up before having breakfast, now seemed to be the perfect time to relax and soak. While it was cold water, on Nat's sore muscles it felt invigorating and relaxing. Kali just laid down on the bathmat in front of the tub and watched toward the door. From her angle, Nat was unable to tell if she was going back to sleep or just getting comfy. In the end, it did not matter anyways. Both of them just laid there relaxing for the next half an hour, and probably would have stayed there for a while longer. The main reason was a tired and groggy Shannon walking into the bathroom without noticing. As she had walked in, her eyes slowly acclimated to the darkness that was present inside the room. No windows with power not working turned the bathroom into its own little hiding hole. While Nat already thought of this as the norm, a now clearly flustered Shannon was still getting used to the whole situation.

"Whoa, I did not know you were already in here. Next time if you take a bath, could you at least turn on the lights?"

Slowly opening her eyes and looking at Shannon, Nat smirked. "Sure, sure. I will make sure to do that. You know, once we actually have some power and working lights."

Shannon froze where she was. "Oh, right. Forgot about that." With that, Shannon quickly turned around and headed out of the bathroom. While she was confused by her friend's actions, Nat thought nothing of it. However, now that she knew almost everyone else was up, it became time to get some food. Slowly pulling herself out of the tub, Nat carefully stepped over Kali's resting form. Out of the entire pack, she felt that Kali was the only one as tired as she was, yet also the one she had gotten the closest too. The fusion between the two of them, despite how brief it was, had hardened the bond between the two so much, that Nat was sure she could almost hold it physically in her hands. Grabbing one of the towels that were hanging up, she started drying herself off. However, a decent amount of water ended up dripping onto Kali, even some on her head. As Nat started to dry herself, so did Kali. The wolf stood up and shook herself out completely, fur and tail repeatedly hitting against the walls of the small room as well as Nat.

Once the two of them were dry, they quickly replaced the water inside the tub with some that was fresher, as well as refilling the hanging towel stock. While Nat was not completely sure, there was a good chance that Shannon would want a bath as well. Leaving it sitting there ready and waiting, the two of them headed back out to the living room. As they came out, they noticed that while the pups ran around, Shannon sat off to the side in a chair, holding her head between her hands. Seeing it as a sign the she was still thinking things over, Nat went into the kitchen and started pulling out toast, cereal and fruits with the help of Maia and Kali. As they did this, Edwin and Lucille came over and popped back into the Soulscape, clearly tired from the long night. They were quickly followed in by the three wargs, who started hunting down some elk so that all of the canine members of the pack had something good to eat that morning as well.

Slowly but surely, almost every other canine followed them inside, knowing that their hunting would not be a timely thing. The only one that stayed out at the end of it all was Scout, who stayed beside Shannon the entire time. He knew that once they got moving, he would not be able to keep up and would have to be inside the Soulscape at that time, but he wanted to help Shannon as much as he could until then. When everything was pulled out and organized on the counter like a discount buffet, Nat called out to Shannon that breakfast was ready. Snapping out of her daze, she stood up and slowly walked over.

Breakfast was exceedingly quiet, save the sounds that came from eating and drinking. Seeka even passed out a chunk of elk on a platter so that Scout could join everyone in eating. Despite the lack of noise, Nat did not feel awkward. She was doing all she could to give Shannon time and space, as she had asked for the night before. Trying to force small talk or drive forward any conversation right now would not be of any help, and were more likely to cause issues than to fix them. Shannon kept her entire focus on the food, but was only nibbling and picking at it. While she had not been starved nearly as long as Scout had, she still went several days without anything to eat, and barely getting enough water to survive. It would likely be a while before she was eating in comparable amounts to Natalie at all. Finally, as the plates were getting cleared and they started cleaning everything up, did Shannon start addressing Natali with a question. "Hey, you remember those dreams you claimed to have that turned out real?" After a slight nod from Nat, she continued, "Well, I think I may have had one like that last night."

Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Jake, Viktor, Nikolas, Saganatsu, Eeleater, Eric, Corgi, Lachlan, Coen, Adam, John, Nicholas, Jacob, Onean, Hades, Neal, Sebastian, Sir Hellington, and Kevin for supporting me and my writing! Remember that I keep Patreon ten chapters ahead at all times. Our next goal on Patreon will be getting up to 25 patrons, which I will then open up an official discord for everyone to come and discuss the story in and hang out!