Chapter 179

Welcome to the end of the first arc! The two-week break I had before was planning for where this would continue on and how, and I think I have the best plan in place for what I want to do. Hope you enjoy both this chapter and everything that will come after it!

They stayed in that area for the next thirty minutes, giving the owls that bonded with Sophie the opportunity to grab what they wanted from the area. This all happened while the adults were standing there dumbfounded, still trying to process the events that happened. Did the animals around have an instinctive knowledge of what the Soulscape was? They were having an issue processing or understanding why a single hoot from a burrowing owl caused every owl in the area to come and bond with Sophie. That, or how all of them were awake and willing to move right now. Were they now acting on a diurnal schedule, due to living in the zoo for an extended period of time?

When she finally recovered mentally, Nat started taking stock of what breeds that Sophie had bonded with. She observed five different species, and four of them were native to Canada. She had a whole colony of burrowing owls, a couple of which just spent the time perched upon her shoulders. There were four barn and barred owls, which were in two mated pairs each. There were even two eagle owls, whos natural habitat was all the way over in Eurasia. The final one stood out to her as surprising, as there were seven snowy owls, a species known to be solitary except for times of mating. They lived on their own, and usually lived in areas of about ten kilometers squared, due to food availability in the tundra. The fact that so many were both here and willing to bond with Sophie was beyond surprising. When she relayed the numbers and types of species she had bonded with to the rest of the group, her parents were just as shocked as she was. Shannon and Sophie did not quite understand, at least until it was explained to them by the three wildlife veterinarians.

There was one display area that was completely empty, but it wasn't a surprising one. The spectacled owls that had been here were southern owls, generally living down closer to the equator. They probably found the climate here to either be too dry or chilly to be to their liking, and probably started flying south as soon as their enclosure was opened up. Thanks to that, Sophie and her flock took a few more things from there that interested them. Once she got the feeling that they had everything they wanted from the area, the group started moving back south. The owls however, still flew in and out of the Soulscape, grabbing everything that interested them or their new bonded partner. As a result, more than a few rodent corpses were brought in to her, though it was questionable whether or not she noticed. They generally returned to her back, while flying out of her chest.

They did not go straight back to camp though. Instead, Charlene and Matis led them through the wide open space that was the zebra enclosure towards the southern side of the zoo. They didn't explain anything, and just repeatedly told the group to trust them. Shannon and Natalie just followed along, more than happy to watch Sophie spend some time getting a number of items from the surroundings that the owls seemed to like. Surprisingly, there was a very small amount of trees that they found amenable. More than anything, it was large rocks that they seemed to gravitate towards the most. Given that majority of her bonded owls either lived underground or within rocky outcroppings in the barren tundra, it made sense as those were what they were more used to and enjoyed having around.

As they got the area that the two older Vilkas' were leading them too, it started to make a little more sense to the group. The area was called the arctic shore, and had a lot of features meant to replicate the tundra environment. The snowy owls went to town, duplicating everything they could get their talons on. Nat and Shan looked over in understanding towards the elder pair, but became confused when they still had smug looks covering their faces. It wasn't until they got a bit deeper into the area that they realized that this was not an excursion for Sophie to obtain items for her Soulscape. They were being led to the enclosure that held the arctic wolves.

When they got there, it was a scene that Natalie was very familiar with. There were two sets of mated wolves, both with their own sets of newborns. One with three pups while the other had four, and they were still in the stage of nursing. It seemed as if they had been born extremely recently, and had probably been born in the last couple weeks. Kali and Maia took the initiative, and went over to talk first. Bryden had already long disappeared back into the Soulscape to do more farming work, as the crops were making some decent progress. As the two went over to talk about what was going on, the rest watched with baited breaths. At first they were greeted with hostility, having been seen as a threat to their young. That slowly faded away to apprehension, before changing to the two female wolves having the full attention of every single adult. At that point, it was just selling it up before they beckoned Nat over to let them into the Soulscape. After all, the pups were not in a state where they could move freely.

After that, they made the slow progress back towards the camp. This time, it wasn't just Sophie being dragged around by her new bonded. The arctic wolves that Nat bonded with had a much different taste as to what they found comforting then the rest of her group, but she didn't see that as an issue. The sun was just reaching its zenith, showing that they had plenty of daylight left. When they got back, nothing seemed to have changed much, save for the fact that the gorillas and bears were having an arm wrestling competition. They got back in time to see the second last competition, between the non-mutated gorilla and a polar bear. The final after that was the largest grizzly Nat had ever seen versus the four armed gorilla. It was a good go between while Shannon got started on lunch, which was just BLT's. When the competition had ended and everyone was grabbing some sandwiches, Charlene decided to start it off. "So, where do we begin?"

Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Viktor, Saganatsu, Eeleater, John, Hades, Sir Hellington, Onean, Sebastian, Adam, 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 50 patrons, which I will then spend more time each month writing some side stories and shorts that show other perspectives throughout my stories!

Feel free to join us all on my Discord! https://discord.gg/b8gRkD4