Chapter 86

The next few days were far more raucous compared to the beginning of the week. Copper ran around like he lost his head, trying to make sure that he got each and everything that their new pups could possibly be interested in, despite their eyes not even being open yet. He did try to stay quiet though, as their whole family were currently only awake during the night. And while she could not witness it all the time personally, Lucille loved to watch his antics and retell them, mainly so Tin knew what her man was up to outside the Soulscape while she was stuck inside with their brand-new pups. None of it was bad, so she had not brought it up to him. It was just one more thing for the girls to laugh about, with some intermittent sighs. As if they needed anymore to laugh and sigh about. Ever since Tin had given birth to her litter, all of the visibly pregnant canines had become a bunch of overexcited children. Natalie had to shut them down when they started making bets on who would have the biggest litter. While most felt confident in themselves, it was most likely going to be Luna. It was a consistent statistic that the larger the breed of canine, the more numerous their litter would be. When that was brought up, they then started to try and bet who would have the second biggest litter, as well as how many Luna would have. At that point Natalie gave up and joined with the male canines.

They had probably done the smarter thing, Natalie realized in hindsight. While they took care of their mates, most of their time was spent away from the baby crazy predators. They just always found something to either talk about or compete with, usually a mix of the two. The men wisely realized this and usually spent what free time they could in wonderful silence. They would either take time working on the multitude of farms that they were constantly expanding. They currently had six different plots plowed already, and were slowly working on a seventh. They currently only had seven different types of seeds stored away; barley, rye, wheat, mustard seed, non-psychoactive hemp, canary seed, and buckwheat. Most of them, she could understand wanting to harvest. Most were able to be used quite well in baking, they just needed to get some equipment to grind and thresh the grains. The hemp had a multitude of uses, including being able to be used for durable rope. The only thing that stood out to Natalie was the canary seed. It was only really used as bird feed, why would wolves want to cultivate it. Apparently, it was for a similar reason to why they were doing all of the others, if not slightly different. They wanted to use it to bait some avian prey down to the ground, thus increasing the variety of meat they could get.  When Shannon heard that, she doubled over laughing. Only to let the canines know that she would do her best to cook with whatever she was given. Well, she did once she got her breath back anyways.

It would probably be a while before they could harvest it at all, so that was a worry for later. What Nat was really curious was the effect that growing plants in her Soulscape would have. New bonds increased the amount of energy she had, so would living plants do anything. She already knew that she could take living plants inside her Soulscape. Now that she was cultivating new ones, with the help of the canines, would that affect her at all? It was a hurry up and wait situation. So, she passed her time in what was becoming quite normal for her, by practicing with her energy. It already had shown such great benefits, there was sure to be more down the road. It was all just a matter of getting to that point. There were so many things they did not know, and the more time they spent trying to get answers only resulted in finding more questions. It was like she was trying to run a long-distance race, but was strapped to a treadmill. Sure, she was still running as fast as she could and accomplishing some goals, but it did not feel like she was really getting anywhere at the moment. But she instinctually knew she had to keep running, because if she ever got off that treadmill, she would shoot forward so fast she would not be able to believe it herself.

As the next few days passed, their meal repertoire increased some more, as did Nat's control over her ability. One night, after dinner, Nat decided that she wanted to try something she had not done before. Getting Shannon to be at the ready should she collapse, she tried moving her energy into her eyes. Strangely enough, none seemed to escape, even as they hit the edge of the eyeballs. A gasp from Shannon caused Nat to turn and look at her partner. "Nat, your eyes. They are glowing green!" Shannon exclaimed, almost breathless. Getting Kali's help, Nat got a mirror out of her Soulscape and took a look. She only had about fifty percent of the energy in her eyes at this point, and could see they were subtly glowing. Curious, she poured more and more energy into her eyeballs. Just as she thought, the glow increased based on how much energy she had in her eyes. Turning away from the mirror to let everyone know what was currently happening, she stopped short.

As her eyes crossed over the group assembled around her, she was surprised at what she could see. When she looked at Shannon, all she could see was a faint outline of where her friend was and her features. However, each and every canine in their pack glowed green in this vision. They almost looked more alive than if they were standing in front of her. As she looked more, she began to notice more things. While the coyotes and wolves glowed at a similar level, the wargs seemed to have a denser glow coming from them. Maybe that was why they had become larger and stronger than their wolfen counterparts, while still staying mostly similar biologically. The other things she noticed, were certain areas that glowed brighter on some of the canines. Squinting to try and get a better look, she quickly went wide-eyed with realization. Each of the brighter areas was on the female canines that were showing signs of pregnancy, and each and every glow was a waiting to be born pup. And from what she could see, the day when they all gave birth was going to be a very long day.

Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Jake, Viktor, Nikolas, Saganatsu, Eeleater, Eric, Corgi, Lachlan, Adam, John, Nicholas, Jacob, Onean, Erudual, 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 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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