Chapter 139
Natalie shot awake as soon as the fade to black ended, and sat straight up. While the dream itself felt like it took no more than ten minutes, the sun was already rising and shining through the open door of the tent. Every night, she set the tent up with an opening facing east. It was a habit she picked up from her parents, who always rose and slept with the sun. Their whole family treated it as an alarm clock of sorts, and that was a difficult habit to break in university, since she had to wake up before the sun most days in the winter to be able to get to class on time. As she remembered these memories, she was suddenly greatly worried for the child in her dream. If they did exist, then their memories from this event would probably stick with them for the rest of their life. Instead of going and sitting with the coyotes, she sat on a chair that was set up beside the now extinguished fire pit.
Lucille and Edwin both saw her come out, but were surprised that she did not come straight over to them as she always had. Worried, Edwin started to make his way over before his mate put her hand on his shoulder. Turning his head, he saw that she was shaking her head, implying not to go over. As he took one last look at their Alpha, he noticed that she seemed to be deep in thought and worried, but it was almost entirely undirected. She spent most of the time just staring north, a distant look filling her eyes. Understanding most of what his mate was trying to tell him, he turned back and continued the watch while the three of them worked through their finishing stretches.
They kept going until Shannon stumbled out of the tent, groggy as ever. She was not a morning person, nor had she gone to sleep early either. This had left the coyotes doing their stretches for almost two hours like the group had done last night. However, the three of them actually planned for that. They saw how Shannon made everyone stretch for that long and that thoroughly, and figured she must have a decent reason as to why. After all, Lucille observed every decision that their Alpha's mate made, and checked to see whether or not they were helpful. So far, except for the couple times where she was just doing it to tease Nat, everything she had gotten others to do had worked out to their benefit. There was not blind trust though, and probably never will be. But what was there between the two was a willingness to communicate and understand both what the other person was saying and what they were trying to achieve.
Instead of sitting down beside her lost in thought partner, Shannon instead went over to talk with the coyotes. They first talked about what they did, what they felt was working, what they did not find to be helpful as of yet. Then they started going through and planning the next exercise plan for them to go through. Comparatively to the rest of the pack, the three of them were currently falling behind physically, but it was hard to just dedicate their time to training. After all, there were only the three of them that were currently available to keep watch. Going forward, they were going to try and split the night into shifts, minimizing all of their time keeping vigilant while at the same time maximizing the time that they would spend improving. Edwin would take the first of the three shifts, followed by Copper and then Lucille.
This plan got shifted though when Tin came out of the Soulscape in her shifted form and embraced her mate. Thanks to the exercising and watch duties, as well as nursing their pups, they had not had much time to spend together. However, last night she had apparently fed them only meat and there were no issues. She had checked with Nat, and they all got a green bill of health, allowing her to move about and help out as she had been. However, like all of the other mothers who had been nursing, she was clumsy and had difficulty walking around. None of them had experienced the shifted forms before, and were only able to pay attention to the exercises and advice only some of the time they were inside the Soulscape. Thus, until she caught up with the other three who kept watch at night, she would be spending the time working out entirely without having to pull a shift herself.
During this discussion, Nat came over and wrapped her arms around her lover, cuddling up together as they stood and talked. She only butted in when they were talking about what to do with the coyote pups that were now able to walk, roam, and explore. "Train them out here with all of you. As far as teaching and educating young canines, this time period in their growth is when they are the most receptive to outside stimuli, as well as willing to try anything. Get them started now, and they will continue with it easily, though that goes for both good and bad habits." Copper, Tin and Shannon looked at her skeptically, but when Edwin and Lucille backed her up, they all accepted her idea. It just meant that night watch was about to get a hell of a lot more lively compared to how it had been. Trying to teach six coyote pups on how to walk, stand and work out while keeping them on task would not be a pleasant time, but with two sets of adults, one who had already experienced pups, it was an obtainable goal.
As everyone woke up and breakfast was brought out, today was a carb heavy meal for breakfast. For the past bit, the main focus had been on protein, but there had to be balance. Blueberry pancakes were made over top of the flame, alongside bits of bacon and sausage. It was well received though, and over a hundred flapjacks disappeared into the guts of the pack. As everyone started to clean up and get things packed, Nat pulled Shannon aside. Before she could be asked what was up, Nat blurted out, "I had another one of those dreams. And it involved a kid."
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