Chapter 68
Natalie's fork clattered against the tile floor of the kitchen. She still remembered the dreams she had gotten since the event with great detail. Only one of them had been false, but none of them were particularly bright or happy. In most cases it was either warnings or premonitions of something terrible. First was the one with the wargs that she had found being tortured and abused by a horde of hobs and gobs, followed up by the entire situation they had just gotten free of here in Lethbridge. Preparing herself for anything, she turned to Shannon and asked, "What happened in this dream, if I may ask bluntly?"
Breathing in sharply, Shannon appeared to brace herself for either what she was about to say or for the reaction towards it. "It was weird, but on a similar level to the one where you saw all of the canines in the mountains. I found myself in this dojo, and it went by as if the whole thing was a training montage. The part that made it weird though, was that every single other member of that dojo who was in the montage were gorillas. I would spar with them, show them throws and grapples, and none of them were bad at it either." Silence reigned over the room, letting everyone digest and think about the information. All of Nat's had wolves be a fairly major part to them, so hearing that it was all gorillas made some thoughts come to mind. However, at the same time, she knew that right now would be the worst time to try and force or coerce Shannon into going or doing anything. The trauma she had just escaped from was still fresh, and was not likely to go away in a short period of time.
"Well, what do you want to do about it?" Nat asked, with as much sincerity in her voice as she could create.
"Huh?"
"You said that your dream sounded like mine. Where mine tended to have a reason. What do you want to do about the dream of primates? Only thing I can think of is probably the lowland gorillas up in Calgary."
Shannon collapsed into the chair she had just gotten out of. "I don't know. Maybe go see the gorillas? As you said, there has to be a reason, right?"
As the only answer she could give, Nat just shrugged. "Maybe. The first dream I had had me seeing hundreds upon hundreds of goblins, all chasing me through a forest. So far, I have not had anything of that regard happening to me since. It could just be a weird dream. Regardless, do you want to make Calgary our current destination, as a place to head towards?" At this, Shannon seemed to mull over the decision for a little bit, before meekly nodding. "Alright, then that is where we shall go." With newfound energy, Nat started running around the house getting everything stored. Seeing her friend's antics, Shannon quickly headed back to the bathroom to take a quick bath. It had been ages since she last had a proper bath, and since it was already prepared, she figured why not. Slowly, Nat went through the house, collecting everything of Shannon's that she could. Because her friend was not currently bonded with any animals, she was not able to get them stored herself yet. Instead of leaving it all and potentially having her have to come back to this place that would likely haunt her, Nat made the executive decision to take it all, no matter if it was nailed down or not.
Fifteen minutes later, Shannon came back out from the bath, fully changed into fresh clothes, her hair still dripping wet from the bath. What she saw was her entire house picked clean, looking almost as it had when she bought the place. Looking over to the most likely perpetrator, she found Natalie on the carpet of the living room, playing around with a bunch of wolf and coyote pups. Upon noticing that her friend was staring at her, Nat got up from the carpet with slight difficulty. The pups did not feel as if they had played enough. Apologizing for stealing all of her belongings, Nat got permission before moving onto her friend's bedroom. There, her bed, wardrobe and furniture were all stored away inside of Natalie, ready and waiting for whenever Shannon bonded with an animal and opened up her own Soulscape.
They were unable to ride the wargs, mainly because while Nat had only overexerted herself, Shannon had some pretty serious damage done to her. It would be a while before the two of them could rode off into the distance on warg back, but both were excited for the day that dream could be a reality. Making sure they got everything, Shannon said her last goodbyes to the house before both left out of the front door. Shannon did not even bother locking the door, no longer concerned with what happened to the place. At this point, the sun was slowly approaching its zenith, but was not quite there yet. It was a long distance to the next big city, and this early start would be a good move in the path forward.
Retracing their steps from the day before, the two of them moved back through the residential area with ease. Al of the canines had decided to stay in the Soulscape at the moment, some wanting to relax from the past few busy days, others spending some time together with their partners. Sadly, the good times for the pack were not to last. As Natalie and Shannon left the residential area, they came face to face with a growing horde of monsters. Looking past them, it was now clear as to the source. Multiple holes of darkness were opened up in the power station that was nearby. Nat had felt wrongness from it, and now she saw why. It was one of the locations those holes opened up. Quickly they backed around behind a parked car, peeking out to watch what the gathering of monsters would do next.
Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Jake, Viktor, Nikolas, Saganatsu, Eeleater, Eric, Corgi, Lachlan, Coen, Adam, John, Nicholas, Jacob, Onean, Hades, Neal, Sebastian, 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 25 patrons, which I will then open up an official discord for everyone to come and discuss the story in and hang out!