Chapter 104

Just a reminder, but there will be no Druidification chapters next week. I hope everyone had a good Easter weekend and enjoys the chapter!

When Natalie woke up, she could still clearly hear the sound of the rain as it fell on top of the two tents. Sitting up, she saw Edwin and Lucille still sitting at the entrance keeping their vigil. Given by the fact that the two coyotes were dry, that meant that they had not gone out to deal with anything. Knowing that this meant they were safe from a sudden group of monsters coming to investigate the disturbance, she let out a sigh of relief. She got up and went to scratch the heads of the two faithful lookouts, making sure that they knew how much she appreciated their efforts to keep everyone safe. Turning her vision inwards to check out the situation with the pups, she was still just as surprised to see what she did as the first time she had seen the effects of the time acceleration that happened within. With slight variances, most of the older pups were hitting that one-year old mark. The coyote pups were almost at their full height, but were not quite there weight wise. That would be happening in about six months at the earliest in normal time, or about six weeks by the assumed Soulscape time. Of course, it could take longer, as in the case of the wolf pups, they were not likely to reach their full adult size until they were three years old. Sure, they were growing fast, but each day seemed to drag by, the six weeks for the coyote's growth seemed so far, let alone the six months for the wolf pups.

Shifting her view over, she took a look at how the new additions were looking. The offspring of Tin and Copper were almost fully weaned off their mother's milk, leading them to walk around and interact with the other canines more. They were walking around on their own checking out everything that they could see, hear, or smell. Tin followed them, and corrected them when they acted out of line, but generally let them learn and experience everything they could. At this point, they had adopted the same sleep schedule as their mother, and were starting to wind down to be ready for bed. As she watched the new pups, Copper suddenly popped into the Soulscape, thoroughly drenched. Shaking off as much water as he could, he walked up and started playing with his pups. Most of his time that he had to play with them was while everyone was milling about camp and having dinner, or right as they were all getting ready to head to bed. However, he did play the good husband duties, and took care of directing all of their pups back and wringing the last bits of energy from them so his mate could get some decent rest. With the amount that he did, he probably deserved some time inside the Soulscape just relaxing with his children. Maybe after they had been fully weaned off, he could just swap duties with Tin. With all of the other pups still asleep, and just having started to be weaned off milk, Nat pulled her view out of the Soulscape.

She came back to a giant wet spot in the middle of her shirt where Copper had jumped into the Soulscape from. Extricating herself from between Edwin and Lucille, she quickly changed it out for a brand new one with the slight help of Tin. However, as she did that, she heard the sounds of movement from the other tent. It made sense for either Scout or Shannon to be up, seeing how Copper had already returned. None of the coyotes popped back in till someone else was awake, though Edwin and Lucille liked to stay out with everyone as they woke up. Probably for more attention, nuzzling, and rubs from both the humans and other canines as they woke up. They loved the attention, though Edwin would never admit it. Moving to the window, Nat went to say hi to her partner in survival.

However, when she looked over, she could not raise her voice to disturb Shannon's focus. She was in the middle of warm up exercises and a light workout, and seemed to be really into it. Knowing that it may be a while, Nat took the time to work on using the energy on her ears to see what effects could be enhanced. While she could have used the rain as a standard, she instead chose to use the sounds of movement and heavy breathing that came from the other tent. In the ten minutes that she spent changing up what parts of the ear got power circulated to them, only one had given her a noticeable change. When she coated her eardrum, it seemed to allow her to pick up on the smaller and less noticeable sounds a lot easier. The feet dragging across the tarp bottom of the tent, drops of sweat hitting either the floor or skin, and even better improved how much of Shannon's breathing she could hear. Nat theorised that it allowed the eardrum to pick up the more subtle vibrations of the air, but there was not enough conclusive evidence to say for sure. In terms of drain, it felt to be just about as draining as when she had applied the energy to the lens of her eye. When she heard Shannon collapse back onto her mattress, she stopped the practice and called out, "Morning Hun, what do you want me to pull out for breakfast?"

At this point, Maia and Kali had woken up and were slowly extricating themselves from the comfy nests of blankets that they had made for themselves. Kali's had actually covered her almost completely, as she had the added dexterity of her hands. Getting Maia to pop in and out with food was easy enough, and Nat and Shan ate in relative quiet, across from each other. Maia got shifted up to her bipedal form when she brought out food for herself, Kali, and Scout. The five of them ate scrambled eggs over top of buttered bread, with a side of sausages. As they did, the sun started to show its dimmed self behind the rain to the east. Upon seeing the sun breach the horizon, Shannon set down her plate, taking the moment to look into Natalie's eyes. "I know its still raining, but please. We need to head into Calgary as soon as possible. I think I finally had one of those prophetic dreams you told me about, for real this time."

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

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