The Bonding Chronicles Ch. 18

She looked over and saw Karen watching their exchange with a broad and poorly hidden grin.

"What?" Tani'm asked.

Karen laughed, taking a moment to think before she shrugged and said, "It's nothing, just nice to see how protective he is of you."

"It's damn annoying if you ask me," Tani'm tried to sound convincing, but knew she failed as a smile cracked her veneer.

Karen was amazed as she watched Tani'm walk around the clearing, nursing several small plants into blooming life. Thunderfoot was right at her side, pulling leaves from each of them and tasting them with a discerning look upon his face. After sampling most of them, he would grimace and spit the partially macerated fibers onto the ground, before looking up at her and chirping.

"Ohhh, now your all picky huh? Not even a week ago and you were starving, and now you've turned into a goddam food critic?"

Thunderfoot just watched her with his large, childlike eyes, and in what appeared an unnatural act, they watched him shrug.

"Well, what do you want then?"

The jackalope rose up on his hind legs, sniffing the air and turning his head, the tips of his broad antlers almost glinting in the morning light. With a few powerful and determined hops, he found his way to a thick undergrowth of clover and grass, his stomach grumbling as he looked between Tani'm and the plants.

"Yeah, I know you like that, but you know how much it hurts your tummy. Dumb rabbit."

Tani'm laughed, knowing that Thunderfoot didn't care how it made him feel, and sensed his frustration at not being given what he wanted.

"Here, try this, " she said, before walking several yards away, where she carefully pulled a small basil plant out of the ground before walking back to Thunderfoot. With tremendous care, she rooted it into the center of the large patch of clover, and with the aid of her gift spread its roots and brought it strength. In no time, the grass and basil covered a large area, small amounts of clover peeking out from under the broad leaves of the sweet smelling herb. The only thing more impressive than Tani'm's gift, was Thunderfoot's ability to eat the bounty the small woman had produced.

Thunderfoot's appetite had given Tani'm time to consider Karen's question, and the fact was she was unsure why her fears about Andrew and his family had grown so intense. The one thing she knew was that with Karen's aid, she felt more like she had during those previous nights when the turmoil of her past had been kept at bay.

"Were you suppressing my emotions these last couple of days?"

Karen looked bashful, but answered honestly, "A little. Just enough to temper your anger. The fact is, you never had emotions as intense as this morning."

Tani'm caressed Thunderfoot's side while the jackalope ate a large patch of leafy greens she had coaxed into abundance. While she wished the answer had been that simple, she trusted Karen enough to accept that she hadn't been blocking her emotions.

"I... I don't know..." She took a deep breath, her throat clenching while she spoke, "It's been years since I've had an attack like that, and... Well, I don't know what to do about it."

That voice in the back of Tani'm's mind screamed out, warning her against trusting that strange but enticing woman, trying to remind her of those pains she had just remembered. While she wanted to listen, Karen's gift muted that voice behind a familiar sense of silence. No matter how comforting Karen's protection felt, she could not help but notice the differences between it and the dulling force that had sheltered her during the previous days.

While Karen's gift muted her nagging pain, she could not shake its alien nature, knowing that she was being influenced from the outside. Whatever had been protecting her before seemed like an old friend in contrast, protective and warm like a hug from the inside. What bothered her more, was that somehow she knew that whatever had sheltered her vanished because the wolf was no longer there, as if the lack of the threat welcomed her personal demons to the surface.

"Whatever was keeping me from freaking out about all this, it's not there now."

Karen could feel the vulnerability pouring off of her friend, like a cornered animal glancing between shadows, sensing a threat that refused to come into the light. There was something childlike in the purity of Tani'm's emotions, unfettered and unrestrained by the wisdom of experience. Whatever would happen for Tani'm, it would not be an easy road.

"I can only provide a temporary reprieve, my dear. At some point..." Karen's words tapered off as she considered the impact her statement might have. With a sigh, she continued, knowing that the truth had to be spoken if it was to ever be seen. "You're going to have to deal with the source of your pain, and while I wish we could take credit for it, I think you know where you need to look."

There were fresh tears streaming down the young woman's face, her reddened cheeks made all the more bright by the feathery black hair that hung down around her face. Tani'm refused to meet Karen's gaze, knowing that her friend spoke the truth, but her instincts refusing to allow her to admit it.

Karen began to reach out, staying her as she chuckled at her own struggle, saying, "I want to heal your arm so much it's actually getting difficult to stop myself. Would you please let me? Because if not, I'm afraid I might do it anyway, and I honestly don't know how I'd feel about myself if I forced a healing upon you... Raped you with healing, as it were."

Tani'm sniffled as she tried to stifle a chuckle, failing as the air filled with the musical sounds of their laughter. There was an obvious catharsis in the melody, felt by Karen and mentioned by neither woman as a tremendous weight seemed to lift from both of their shoulders. They hadn't realized how hard that entire exchange had been until the shadow of it had finally lifted, providing light to their current situation.

Tani'm looked at Karen and smirked, stating, "Yeah, alright. But only because you asked."

Karen's eyes sparked in the sunlight, causing Tani'm to spot slight specks of blue in her otherwise hazel eyes. As the older woman reached out to grip her shoulder, Tani'm couldn't help but notice that Karen had been through a significant change since earlier that morning. The woman before her seemed different, she looked younger, but more than that, there was a sense of intelligence and playfulness when she looked into Karen's marvelous eyes, as if everything the woman saw was new and exciting.

For some reason, that made Tani'm happy, and she had no idea why.

The moment Karen's hand made contact with Tani'm's shoulder, she felt her gift shape the numerous spells that drove her powers forward. The process was so different from anything she had felt before. Her perception shifted through the small woman's body, and she immediately sensed the healing magic of the druid's poultice working to mend the stub where her arm used to be.

She could tell exactly what the druidic magic was doing, as she sensed it converting wounded flesh into scar tissue, and scar tissue into fresh and healthy dark-red skin. An ever narrowing path of energy that sped up Tani'm's natural healing, carrying the process further by removing the scars that would have otherwise left her stub disfigured and uncomfortable. It was a remarkable device, and one that Karen wished she could understand, but the powers that drove it felt completely unknowable to her, as if its very nature was against everything she knew.

By instinct, Karen moved her hand towards the ground and pulled out a large clump of dirt and mud, held together by moss and thin roots. She felt herself trying to cast a spell, but failing to find the shapes. She knew her gift like she knew her body, and recognized every step that it tried to take, her long life making her intimately familiar with how her magic worked.

Frustration crossed her face as she looked down at the wad of mud and moss clutched loosely in her hand. The cold of it mocked her as she again tried to will her gift into action, knowing that whatever she was trying to do was important, but failing to connect with the power she was attempting to access.

Tani'm saw her friends frustration, and asked, "Everything okay? You seem, I don't know, kinda' off."

Karen dropped the mud and wiped off as much dirt as she could manage into the grass. Shaking her head at the tenacious stains that clung to her hand, she responded, "Yeah, just trying something new, but I don't think it'll work... Not yet anyways."

There was a story there, Tani'm could feel it, and she knew it had something to do with what she had witnessed that morning. That strange and unnatural act that Andrew had performed was the key to Karen's physical changes, Tani'm had figured that much out, but wondered if he was doing more? Her mind started to move towards Sara, when she felt Karen's magic start to affect her shoulder and her attention was drawn back to that moment.

Karen marvelled at how naturally her spell shifted and changed based on what she was doing. What had always felt like a rigid and stubborn process had become a flowing and fluid experience, her magic bending and shaping itself to the nature of the task. Every transition between bone, muscle and sinew forged subtle changes to her spell, weaving Tani'm's body together at a rapid and efficient pace.

In a matter of moments, Tani'm's poultice fell to the ground, landing with nary a sound as both women watched in rapt attention as Karen quite literally worked her magic. Even with her expanded reserves, the task was draining, bone continuing to prove a challenge to even her new and improved spells. Even so, she reached Tani'm's elbow, and estimated that she had used around two-thirds of her reserves, far less than she had used when healing Thunderfoot and Sara.

She started to do the math, trying to calculate if she could complete the task now or if it would be better to wait for another time, when she felt Andrew connect himself with her. It never ceased to amaze her how much magic that boy had, the heights of his power feeling mountainous in comparison to foothills of her energy.

It was a strange sight, watching the muscle and tissue grow out and fuse around the ever outward reaching bone. Even as Karen worked, Tani'm tried to use her regenerating limb, finding the sensation odd as she manipulated muscles that had not existed minutes before. Ghost limb syndrome was a real thing, and never before had that been more true than it was for Tani'm, who flexed and twisted muscles that were only partially formed, watching the fibers pull and release as veins and capillaries wove their way through freshly grown flesh.

Within her mind that partial flesh was complete, and the acceptance she had found after waking from her slumber the night before was cast aside, replaced by a consuming knowledge that her arm was there, and ready to be used. The fact that she could not see it was a failure of reality to catch up to the truth she knew existed.

In a third of the time it had taken Karen to restore Thunderfoot's hind leg, she had fully given Tani'm her arm back. The small hand turned and flexed in the bright rays of light that shone from just over the trees, Tani'm giggling as she tried to hide her excitement. She had been prepared to live her life without her arm, but the fact that she would not have to was a huge relief.

Karen basked in her friend's joy, watching as Thunderfoot head butted the small woman and chortled with excitement, happy to be able to share that moment with them. She could feel a cloud of suspicion forming in the background of Tani'm's joy, so after giving Thunderfoot a firm scratch under his chin, the older woman rose and stated, "Andrew and Sara will arrive soon. How about you take off for a bit, and we'll get finished up here while you're out?"

Tani'm fought her urge to run, not wanting to give into the terror that had consumed her earlier. Karen's gift continued to give her strength, but failed to prevent that inner voice from calling out from the distance, "Flee, before she makes you trust her. Before she can make you love her." The voice got even more quiet, an aching sense of melancholy in its sad and desperate tone as it whispered, "Before she can hurt you."

"Thank you," was all Tani'm could say, before she sprinted into the forest.

Karen sensed her pain, smelling it on the breeze and feeling it in her bones. Even under the shelter of her spell, Tani'm's past continued to haunt her in profound and overwhelming ways.

"Good luck, sweet girl," Karen murmured as she watched Thunderfoot vanish into the brush, giving chase to Tani'm.

A few minutes later, Andrew and Sara pulled up in his parents' S.U.V., Karen bouncing on her feet with barely contained excitement as Sara dashed into her arms. Andrew was there a moment later, being welcomed into their family huddle. Being apart was becoming more difficult, they could all feel it, but none of them cared to mention it. They were together, and that was all that mattered.

"How's she doing? Excited to be free?"

Andrew meant his question to be playful and light hearted, but as he felt Karen's pain build up while she turned her attention towards the trees, he knew he had misinterpreted her tormented emotions from earlier. He had known she had healed the powerful druid, having sacrificed a large amount of his own energy in the effort, and had felt the troubled emotions that had led up to that gentle and caring act. Andrew was well aware of how Karen felt about Tani'm, and assumed that her pain had been caused by having to witness the girls excitement and joy at being free from what she feared, but as he watched the melancholy look on his mate's face, he knew he was wrong.

"What happened?"

Karen sighed, and began to help unload the car while she explained everything that had happened, her flowing dialogue helping her to sort through her emotions. Sara listened, but they could both tell her attention was on the forest. By the time they had moved everything into the living room, and Karen had completed much of her tale, Sara's diverted attention was too obvious to ignore.

"Thanks for helping, Kitten. If you want to go run around in the woods you should. I think we're good here."

Sara looked at the door that leaned against a wall, glancing back to Andrew with a questioning gaze. "Are you sure? I know you're stronger, but it really feels like that's a two-person job."

"I'm right here, you know?" Karen grumbled from the kitchen, before tipping back a glass of water.

They both laughed, before Andrew stated, "Yeah, I'm positive. Go have fun."

Sara grinned, not questioning his offer any further. "Love you," left her lips as she rubbed his cheek with her temple, before she darted over and did the same to her other mate. She whispered "Keep an eye on this troublemaker," into Karen's ear, and then with shocking speed Sara sprinted from the room.

Her impulsive nature was difficult to ignore, but joyful to watch. They both looked towards the doorway, admiration and longing in their hearts.

"You know she's right, don't you?" Karen began. "I may have experience on my side, but I know nothing about carpentry."

Andrew laughed, "I know, honey. How about you just sit over there on the couch, drink your water, and finish telling me about what happened with you and Tani'm. I got this."

Karen looked at her man with a questioning gaze, uncertainty written in her eyes as she topped off the large glass of water before making her away across the room. Curling her legs under herself, she wiggled until she was comfortable and could continue her story.

He stood there for several moments, finally able to take stock of the task that loomed before him. The damage the dire wolf had caused was more than he had pictured, and as he walked from the living room to the bedroom, pieces of wood and glass clattering with every step, he could almost picture the massive beast raging as it tore apart the small woman's house.

How frightening that must have been for Tani'm, the tattered remains of her bed reminding him of how she had been trying to sleep moments before the attack had started.

"It's amazing she survived this," Andrew observed as he returned to the living room.

Karen smiled and nodded, pride in her eyes as she responded, "She's a strong woman..." her voice trailed off while she waited for Andrew to look at her, and the moment his eyes found her completed her statement, "It seems like you have a type."

Andrew rolled his eyes and sighed. "I'm doing this for you, not her."

"Keep telling yourself that, honey."

With a chuckle, Andrew returned his attention to his tasks, while Karen began her story from where she had left off. It was such a wonderful moment for them both, Andrew captivated by Karen's melodic voice as she gave life to the events from earlier that day, and Karen savoring his joy as he worked, feeling it fill the room like a warm summer breeze.

Andrew walked through the living room and bedroom, surveying the damage and inspecting the house. The door frame was in remarkable condition, the hinges had held fast against the wolf's attack, thanks to the cheap door which had shattered under the sudden force. The same was true for the window frame, and as Andrew stood in the middle of Tani'm's bedroom, Karen's words drifting in from the living room, he studied a blueprint of her house in his mind.

The monolith continued to prove its worth to him in every way. In that moment, it had graphed out every inch of the space Andrew had surveyed, measuring the distance through some new and unfamiliar means. Andrew had felt himself shape a spell, sensing its pattern for a moment before the measurements streamed into his mind.

All the materials they had brought would work, though he would have to widen the window opening a bit for the window they had purchased to fit. Nothing too extreme, and something he was confident he could handle. The fact was, he was excited to see what he could do, the project that stood before him was a perfect test for his growing abilities.

"So, you think she's gonna' get through all of this? It really sounds like she's got some serious stuff to deal with."

Karen sighed and squirmed from the living room, uncomfortable with the fact that she had ignored the signs of Tani'm's damage, and welcomed the poor girl into their lives. They would be fine, she was more upset at what she had done to Tani'm, forcing her to deal with things she was obviously unprepared for.

"I hope so."

Andrew appeared in the doorway, a smile splitting his youthful and eager face. "We had no way of knowing about any of this. I've never been able to predict that girl, or her motivations. She's way outside of my experience, and while my instincts kept me cautious, my heart wants to help her. The problem is, out of everyone, I'm the last person that should. You would prob-"

"No, Andrew." Karen interjected. "None of us can. The flourish of my words will never be adequate to express her pain, or the damage that has been done to her. She is a woman torn open by distant events, and while I cannot know the source of her torment, my instincts tell me that she is the only person that can mend her heart."

Andrew studied her face for a long moment, tasting the tang of her frustration through their bond. She wanted to help Tani'm, and hated her own impotence, knowing that there was nothing she could do.

"Well, do you mind writing her a note about how the wolf may have survived the attack? While I normally think Sara is overly cautious, I'm forced to admit that the lack of a body is pretty damn disconcerting."

They both sighed with the reminder of that fact, Karen finishing her water before rising from the couch, while Andrew focused on the first steps of his task. A subtle sound began to filter into the air, like wind chimes tinkling in the distance, distracting Karen from finding a pen, who stopping and scanning her environment for the source of the sound. She began to notice small pieces of wood, dust, dirt, and any other loose garbage that was resting on the ground as it rolled across the floor.