Chapter 119
The following morning was one of the worst Natalie had ever experienced. It ranked right up there with after her first shift and the night she first met Shannon, as her muscles screamed at her in protest for the slightest movement. That in itself wouldn't be too bad, except she was currently being the big spoon for her lover. This meant that her arms and legs would have to move before Shannon could even get up to help. However, since she was currently the only one awake, Nat decided that staying in bed a bit longer sounded like a fantastic idea. To try and keep herself from moving and causing more pain, she shifted her sight back into the Soulscape. There she found that she was not the first one up, but the other one who was up seemed just as unhappy to be awake as she was. Seeka's pups were already crawling about and wanting breakfast, causing their mother to be unable to sleep. Seeing that now was a good time, Nat focused in more on Seeka, so much so that it surprised her. Something affected her ability to see into the Soulscape between yesterday and today, as she was able to zoom in farther and with much higher clarity.
Making use of this zoom, she did a check on the status of the mother canines' bodies and their milk. From what she could see, there was no swelling, irritation, or decolourization of any parts on the female wolves, though there were a few nibble marks on some of the mothers, mainly Tin. Her pups were already starting to have their teeth grow in and were biting everything they could get in their mouth. The only one who had milk coming out was Seeka, but it was a nice white colour, with no signs of blood or puss coming out with it. Whether this was by chance, or just the nature of the Soulscape had yet to be seen. What was a good sign though was that every single pup was healthy, at a good temperature, and well fed.
As she was taking some time to just admire the puppies that were sleeping or nursing, Nat suddenly felt sharp pains shoot up her limbs. The suddenness of it caused her to instantly back out of the Soulscape to see Shannon gingerly trying to lift her arm off. A hiss of pain fled out from Natalie's lips, causing her lover to stop what she was doing entirely. With as little motion as possible, Shannon turned over where she lay to come face to face with Nat. No words were spoken, but the signal of pain etched across Natalie's face said enough. She may have pushed her wife a bit far when it came to the workout the previous night. Either that, or the sex afterwards had definitely been a bit too much. Either way, tonight she was going to have to ease up with the amount of pushing she did.
Together they lay there until Maia and Kali awoke. Whether it was the fact that they had already been in pretty decent shape, or just evidence that the intimacy afterwards had been too much, both of the wolfen women reported to only having small blips of soreness flare up whenever they moved. Nothing debilitating, but it was definitely notable. Quick as she could, Shannon got up from bed and started getting Kali and Maia to pull things out of the SoulScape inside Natalie. Ice packs, heat packs, and breakfast supplies flowed out like water. After carefully placing the packs on all the most grievous of sores, Shannon left her lover to go outside and start cooking up some breakfast. As much as she wanted to treat her lover to some comfort food, what was the make or break for workouts was diet. If you did not consistently eat what your body needed, and instead focused on what you wanted to eat, your workouts efforts were doomed to fail.
It wasn't until two hours after sunrise that Nat felt able to stand up and brave the pain. Each step still hurt, but she was at least able to go out and sit down with the rest of them. Kali and Maia sat nearby Shannon, and all three of them seemed to be talking, but it was all pretty lighthearted from what Nat could tell. At least, until she got closer and found out they were discussing the exercise plans going forward. While that was worrying, the sudden grumble coming from her stomach was a much more pressing issue. However, this was long after she had smelled Shannon start making food. She was expecting to have to get more food brought out of her Soulscape, but as she sat down beside Shannon, plates of pancakes and sausages came out in front of her. She hadn't felt any usage of her Soulscape, so she turned to look at her lover. Sure enough, next she knew glasses of juice came out of her Soulscape, on a giant gorilla hand.
It turned out, that this morning the mutated gorilla that Shannon had first talked to had finally regained consciousness after passing out immediately after bonding. Due to that, she was able to get some things stored inside, and passed along the info she had found out to the gorilla inside. Just like Kali did at first, he was able to speak telepathically, albeit in an extremely broken manner. Thanks to that though, the barrier of communication decreased, and knowledge was passed to and from. Thus, food was being spawned and eaten inside the Soulscape, and a few essentials had been stored away. Happy for Shannon finally being able to store things, Nat started moving to give a hug. However, Shannon stopped her with a finger to the forehead, before pointing at the food with a serious expression. So much so, you would think that she was either a teacher or a mother. All Nat could do was grin sheepishly, before turning towards the plates of food that were set in front of her. Seeing that it matched in quantities to what she had eaten the night before, she suddenly became concerned on whether or not she would make it to the end of the day.
Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Selvaria, Viktor, Saganatsu, Eeleater, John, Jacob, Onean, Neal, Sebastian, Ethan, Sir Hellington, 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!
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