Chapter 120

After they finished eating breakfast, the first thing that they checked was whether or not Nat was able to walk. After all, if she couldn't, then they would not exactly to be able to continue their trek northwards. After getting the dishes stored, Nat tried to stand up once more, but even that caused pins and needles of pain running through her legs. It was clear that her legs had been pushed well past their limits the day before. Thankfully, her arms still felt good, albeit a little sore. That meant that she could still do things, but not have any sort of mobility. According to Shannon, this was seen fairly regularly in her line of work, and it was simple enough to deal with. Muscles grew stronger through exercise, but in a whole process of breaking and repairing. The soreness was a sign of a good amount of steady growth, but the feeling in her legs were from overexertion. While it could cause issues, that was only if it was improperly managed from here on. As long as she did not push too far and kept right at the edge of where her body was capable, it shouldn't pose any sort of issue. Thankfully, Shannon knew where to dial back and reduce the amount of strain placed on those legs. It was a slow process, but so was anything really worth doing.

Since they were unable to travel today, they decided to make the most of the time, especially now that the gorillas had woken up. Since Natalie had next to no experience working with primates in a medical sense, she spent the rest of the morning going over a few textbooks and instructional papers that they had duplicated back in the zoo. However, what probably shocked her most was her reading partner. While she was reading some of the more basic items to work on her vocabulary, Sierra sat beside her in a shifted form. The albino warg seemed to be different from most of the other canines that she had bonded with. None of them had taken an interest in reading, and most were having fun playing around, working out under the supervision of Shannon, or tending to the farm inside the Soulscape.

While the two of them read, Shannon sat beside her love while critiquing the exercises done by Kali, Maia, and Scout. The three of them wanted to both gain strength and capability in their shifted forms, and they felt that going through Shannon's training was the best way to do this. As for why Shannon and Natalie sat beside each other, that was due to the work of the pups and gorillas. Now that most of the gorillas had woken up, and finally ate their fill of food, they were starting to get Shannon's Soulscape up to par. As the pups created and passed things over to the waiting hands of the gorillas, the primates then stored and organized everything inside Shannon's Soulscape, decorating it as they went. While there were many hands making the work go by fast, there was just an abundance of things that were getting transferred. If it wasn't for the duplicating everything part of it, one would call Natalie and her pack a bunch of kleptomaniacs. Heck, even with that they might call them hoarders. The sheer number of items was ridiculous. While the gorillas were bored of this quickly, they still did as they knew having access to these items may help in the future. As for the puppies, they had decided to turn it all into a competition. Whoever gave the most items out to the gorillas was the winner, with the referees being the still nursing mothers with nothing else to worry about.

It wasn't until later in the afternoon that Natalie put down the book, at the behest of Shannon. Once more, they tried to get her to stand, and all that was there was soreness. No spikes of pain flew through Nat's body as she stood up and took a few steps. Seeing this, Shannon said it was a good idea for Nat to walk around the place slowly and carefully. While Nat didn't want to, the insistence of her lover made her cave and start walking. Shannon monitored her the whole time, and they took regular sitting breaks every few mins. Sierra followed them around, but that was mainly to ask for help when she came across a word that was unfamiliar or having difficulty with. What surprised Nat the most was how fast Sierra was picking up the language. It was at a much faster rate compared to Kali when she first bonded. Whether that was due to a bunch of English-speaking wolves around her or the large amount of reading she had been working on was currently unclear, as the other canines from the zoo were picking up the language at a decent pace as well. It was just a matter of seeing the times after all was said and done.

Having read enough to do a basic check-up, Natalie spent the rest of the hours of sunlight doing a quick and basic physical on the gorillas. Most were in the recovery process from malnutrition, where they would be for a while. It took Scout weeks to get over his, and they had it either similar or worse than he did. The main one that was different was the large six-limbed gorilla. While seeing him for the first time immediately reminded Nat of that dream she had a few days prior, that immediately got put out of mind when she saw what state his body was in. Gashes, claw marks, and bite marks spotted his body, showing a lot of experience in fighting. The tough part about this was that all of the wounds that she came across on the gorilla matched with what she had found to be wounds that came from monsters. None of the other gorillas had any wounds on them, which meant that this one gorilla had taken every hit for the two distinct groups of primates.

There was not much that Nat could do, except recommend to Shannon that the gorilla get physical therapy. All of the wounds seemed to be sealed and were now scars that decorated his body. While he was still physically capable and strong, the scars themselves may end up causing him some issues when it came to his dexterity and coordination. This was to nip the potential issue in the bud before it was too late, making way for a healthier group dynamic overall. After dinner, which was a lovely roasted pig with potatoes and carrots, Shannon got Nat to do some light and easy arm exercises before they called it a night in their tent. It was a busy, but productive day where they went nowhere. Sometimes though, that is just what is need, to take a break, breathe, and make sure that everything you need to do gets taken care of.

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!

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