Chapter 47
It took a while, but eventually Natalie was able to get up from underneath the newest members of the pack. She could not say that she was trying seriously to get out though, as she repeatedly just enjoyed the soft fur of the wargs as it rubbed against her face. When she did, she moved her hands closer to the skin of the large canines in an attempt to scratch and found that just like the wolves they had a layer of hard, bristling fur underneath that acted as sort of an insulation and protection. Looking at sky in freedom, she was startled at how high the sun was already. Judging by how long it had been up this week and attempting the whole fingers against the horizon trick, she guessed that there were maybe three hours left of light. Quickly she got the pack sorted and into the Soulscape, save for Emily, Ash, and Shadow. They insisted to finish the day travelling with her, while Maia went inside to try and help the new arrivals get comfy.
Wary in case other groups of goblins were in the area, they continued to move block by block, going shadow to shadow. As they were now heading northwards through the town, the slowly setting sun helped create deeper shadows for the group to disappear into. They only made one stop to grab loot on the way out, due to their limited time. On the main street was a pharmacy that seemed to still be in one piece. None of the windows were broken, and every thing inside was still extremely nice and orderly, as if waiting for new customers to come in at any point. That demonstrated one of three things. That either goblins knew nothing about medication, that there were no survivors nearby, or that the nearby survivors just did not have time or capability to get to it. Natalie was hoping that it was a combination of the first and last one, so that there would be less victims to this whole shit show. The store was located half a block away from where the goblin's camp in the park was, so it may have been deemed as a high risk location to go into. After leaving duplicates of everything behind in the hopes that it would help someone, the continued north and quickly left the town.
Leaving town helped the entire group feel more at ease. Unlike how packed everything was in the urban environment, out here was open and free. One could see to the horizon easily as the fields were still bare, but prepared for once the ground thawed out. As they started to follow the five that was now heading to the north-east, Nat decided that it was time to find out more about their newest initiates. 'Hello you three, once again I wish to thank and welcome you into the fold with us. I was just curious though, why did you decide to join us instead of sticking with the others? I was under the assumption that all of you were family.'
Feelings of hesitation, slightly mixed with worry and a slight bit of anxiety came through the mental link, before one of them responded, 'Joined recently. Not family. Thought safe with numbers. Found wrong. Plus, you're kind, caring. Want to help you.' Everything clicked into place. The feelings that Nat was feeling from the three of them was due to them leaving their previous pack. Would they be treated as permanent members of a new family, or just temporary hanger-on that may leave at any point should another opportunity that seemed better come up. Would anyone else be trying to tell her otherwise, there would be doubt forming inside Natalie's mind. With how this warg conveyed it to her in both words and feeling however, made her feel that they wanted a family. That they wanted a group with which they belonged.
As the group of four followed the highway, questions mentally flew back and forth between all members of the pack. After finding out that the wargs also had no concept of a name before hand due to a pups innocent question, Nat took a backseat to the conversation and thought on what would be good names. While listening to the conversation, she found out many things about them. One of them was a male, while the other two were female. The male warg was already mated with one of the females, but they had yet to have any pups. After hearing this and getting to know their personalities, she offered the name Sol to the male warg, and the name Luna to his partner. Both were quite happy, as now when they referred to one another as their most brilliant, it just made it that much better. The third one was harder for her to figure out, as she was more reserved and quiet compared to the other two. Eventually she was offered the name Seeka, after Kali kept pointing out how she had been keeping tabs on the direction of everybody in there. The pups wanted to practice their sneaking but had apparently been found out instantaneously.
It was not until the sun finally started disappearing behind the mountains that they found an appropriate place outside Cardston to set up camp. It was a small house just off the road, surrounded with trees and bushes. As a group, the wolves and Nat searched the outside of the property, before moving inside the unlocked door. Finding no trace of monsters or people, they did their usual sweep for tools and supplies throughout the house before heading outside. Going through the kitchen, they found that at this point, most of the stuff in the fridge had already gone bad, and all of the bread on the counter was stale or moldy. Moving on to the rooms and finally the basement, the only thing that they found of any sort of worth was the full set of hiking and mountaineering equipment. Whoever lived here apparently loved going climbing up in the mountains. Duplicating the potentially valuable gear, they did one final sweep of the building before heading back out to the yard. Tonight was one to finally try cooking the cattle she picked up those couple days ago.
Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Jake, Viktor, Nikolas, Saganatsu, Eeleater, Lachlan, Coen, Adam, John, Ty, 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 25 patrons, which I will then open up an official discord for everyone to come and discuss the story in and hang out!