The Bonding Chronicles Ch. 20

"It's alright, Son. You did the best you could, and everyone is alright."

Looking back across the pond, Dave could see Karen and Sara laying on the forest floor and watching them, still whispering amongst themselves. Well, Sara was whispering and Karen was listening, though while he watched Sara said something and Karen laughed.

"If Tani'm can do the things you said, influencing animals and blending into the forest, then she was greatly misused. With the healing abilities that the wolf had, none of you stood a chance without Karen there to even the odds, and yet you all ran in blindly, your forces artificially divided and your numbers clouding your judgement. That's an often seen fault of young soldiers, and one that few who bring it into battle leave carrying. You had the right idea with that ambush, but waited far too long to set it in motion, leaving yourself with very few options. By the time you got there, because of what was happening with Sara, I understand why you did what you did, but goddamn was that foolish."

Dave looked towards the trees, his frustrated thoughts reaching out towards what he would have done in Andrew's position. Taking a deep breath, he allowed the floral fragrance of The Glade to fill his lungs. In that act, he felt strength and clarity fill his body and mind, knowing for certain that the magical place was its source, and for the first time not caring.

"The greatest thing you could have done is fight the wolf together. Karen was vital with her ability to heal, and with Sara and Tani'm there the beast would have struggled to attack her without being killed by them." Dave paused long enough to look at Andrew with a sympathetic smile, before he continued with, "I'm sure you realize this, but right now you're probably the biggest liability in combat. At least against a supernatural wolf.

"You should've waited a day, prepared more fully and brought in support from the Quinault Indian Nation. Sure, the wolf would've been able to gain more strength, but the odds would've been in your favor. Get some hunters with good, high-caliber rifles from the tribe to help. Your gifts, as you've described them to me, would have been better used if you had the tribe take some commercial explosives and turn them into pipe bombs. Once they were hooked up with electrical detonators you would've been damn useful. You could have used telekinesis to move them in close proximity with the wolf before setting them off. Hell, you could have attached them to iron rods and drove them into the wolf's body before setting them off. So, while the beast was in the open, you could stake a few into it, and then when it tried to run, you could have detonated them."

Dave was getting excited as he saw all the things he could have done with the gifts his son had at his disposal, and then grew quiet as he realized just how dangerous Andrew could be.

"The hardest part would be starting the fight in a location you control. The wolf was smart, and it sounds like it had grown cautious of traps, so you may have had to patrol the forest. I would have split people up into three, five-man fire teams. Keep Tani'm in one, Sara in another, and you and Karen in the last. Sure, searching the forest would've been slower, but it would have been a hell of a lot safer. No matter what group the wolf attacked, someone would be there to detect it, and either engage or mitigate its damage. At that point, the rest could close in quickly to support.

"The only risk is that it wouldn't have engaged due to your numbers, but from the way you described its behavior, it sounded like it was impatient and brazen, so even if it was cautious at first, likely it would have attacked after a day or two of being stalked through the forest. The hardest part would be the toll all that hiking would have taken on you, Karen and the men. For some reason, I don't think that would bother Sara, and Tani'm is probably just as tough."

"She wishes!" Sara yelled from across the water.

Dave had suspected that Sara could listen in on their subdued conversation, given the things he had heard, but was still surprised by the woman's overt display of her supernatural gifts. With a roll of his eyes, he turned back to Andrew and concluded, "The gist is, keep your forces unified and fortified with the skills necessary to get the job done. At a certain point as I moved up the ranks, I was trained to anticipate and accept a certain percentage of loss through every engagement, but in this family there is no percentage that I would ever accept."

Just as Dave expected, Andrew took time to process his words, and while he could see some of the weight lift from his son's shoulders, he could tell the bulk of the young man's burden was still there. The pressure of protecting those that you love is a leash that Dave could never release, and as he looked into the lilac eyes of his one and only child, he knew that it was a family trait that Andrew had inherited.

"They'll be okay, Andrew."

"I know, it's just... well, what if I'm not enough to protect them, or to protect me. This is some crazy, high-fantasy, A-D-and-D shit I've fallen into, dad, and the reality of it is so much more frightening than the game."

Dave laughed, admiring his son for the comparison that Dave had already made, but had not given words to yet. Somehow, Andrew had stumbled into the very thing Dave and Michelle had spent their entire careers trying to prove, and the irony was not lost on Dave, who recognized that his job would now involve hiding as much of Andrew's involvement in local affairs as he could. Looking across the water he could see Karen wrestling Sara to the ground, her hand over the young woman's mouth as they both giggled and laughed.

Whatever was going on, Andrew's mood seemed to improve as they both watched the playful game the two women were playing. Even though he could not explain it, Dave found himself thinking of them as part of his family, and wanted to protect them with the same ferocity he devoted to his son.

"The beauty of youth is that you've always been playing a game with no reset button, and you were just so caught up in the joys of life that you never noticed. There have never been any extra lives, or save slots to fall back on if things don't go your way. Your mother and I have tried to shield you from that fact, but you recognized it a long time ago despite our efforts. Somehow, you've failed to realize that whatever world you stumbled into has always been there, but you can take comfort in knowing that it has to be a small place indeed.

"There are people in the government dedicated to finding and harnessing whatever supernatural powers are out there. Through decades of searching, they've found very little proof of anything more than strange creatures and a few cases of unexplained phenomenon."

Dave started chuckling as he looked off in the distance. "Remember a couple of years back when your mom and I were home from assignment, and we were in the dining room while you were watching that stupid haunted house show. After that door slammed and the people in the show jumped and got all excited, declaring it was proof of an afterlife, you just started saying things like, 'how?' and 'like hell you dummy, it's a door, not a portal to Narnia.'

"You turned off the TV and finally noticed your mother and me laughing our asses off in the kitchen. You asked us why, thinking we were laughing at you, but it was what you were saying. The irony was that we had just returned from a debrief where the higher ups were convinced that this kid had supernatural powers, but he was just a really good con man. It took us hours of stating things very similar to what you were yelling at that TV, and it was just the exact thing we needed after probably the most frustrating meeting we've ever had.

"In the end, we learned that some people bend their realities to fit their desires, and some people just want there to be a supernatural edge to our world. A boundary that once crossed unlocks a whole new way of being. While you have stepped foot into something like that, the larger world still seems vacant of that influence, providing only shadows for us to chase.

"Don't get me wrong, I love my job, and it keeps me busy, but my experience tells me that things will be quiet for a long time, and if anything does come up you won't be alone to face it."

There was something in Andrew's eyes that told Dave there was a piece of the puzzle he was missing, something big. Looking at his watch, Dave almost shouted, "Fuck! I've really got to go."

Before he could flee, Andrew gripped his arm and told him, "There's a magical organization that is shielding the world from the presence of the supernatural. Karen dealt with them in the past, and they are powerful and influential. They'll do whatever they have to in order to keep their secrets safe. Please, dad, don't pull on the thread of where that wolf came from too hard, because if you prove there's a magical presence in this forest, you'll bring them here and everything, including you and mom, will vanish as if you never existed.

"While I'm sad at that thought right now, they could make it so that I never even remembered you, and remember my parents as a nice couple who died tragically in an accident years ago, or they could just make me disappear with you. We are hiding from them just like we are hiding from the government. We just want to live in peace, but magic attracts magic, and it seems I'm a pretty big magnet."

Dave's heart was beating like a war-drum in his chest, worry between what Andrew had just told him, and the very real threat of discovery by his lack of checking in on time. His life had just gotten infinitely more complicated, and he needed another perspective before he allowed himself to transform into full papa-bear - as Michelle had started calling him since Andrew was a baby.

"Alright. We'll talk all this through this weekend, when your mother and I will be home. Until then, just keep doing what you're doing, but also try and live. Enjoy being young and in love."

Dave felt like he did a good job keeping the stress from his voice, the tension of his recent discoveries still swarming in his overactive imagination. He was a worrier, and he needed Michelle to help him sort through all of these new sources of tension.

"I'll guide you," Sara yelled from across the pond, bounding around to meet Dave as he jogged his way out of The Glade. "This forest can be pretty difficult to navigate in the dark."

"Thanks," Dave responded, before turning his attention towards Karen and yelling, "It was a pleasure, and keep an eye on my son, he's a worrier like me, and needs someone to keep him from getting in his own way."

Karen waved and yelled her acceptance of his request, promising to give Andrew her full attention.

Sara was right, the moment they left the shelter of The Glade, Dave was surprised by how difficult the forest was to navigate. The canopy blocked most of the stars, and the mossy uneven terrain was almost impossible to walk on. Despite all that, Sara made it seem easy, her careful guidance and steady pace leading Dave to where he had stored his gear after he'd been dropped off earlier that evening. Turning on his sat-phone, he checked its time against his watch and was amazed to find them nearly an hour apart.

Andrew had not been lying, and even with their long conversation and added exchange at the end, Dave was a bit ahead of schedule. Sara had made the difference, getting him to his gear in record time.

"You got it from here?" Sara asked with a pant, her body shivering from some unseen strain as a deep and guttural purr vibrated in her chest. Dave had heard the sound before, from a cat they had owned when Andrew was much younger. It emanated from Sara in a much more intense way than he had heard before, and reminded him of her feline nature.

Despite her heavy breathing, he could tell the young woman was not tired from their run, and yet her eyes were dilated and she was struggling not to bring her hands to her body. The way she squirmed, he would have thought she was... Ohh, she was aroused he realized.

"Yeah, sure. My rendezvous is just a klick from here, so no biggie."

Sara released a sigh that almost sounded like a moan as it blended in with her steady purr. "Thanks, Andrew and Karen are being mean right now, so I need to go teach them a lesson."

For a moment he considered whether he should say anything, but before he could come to a conclusion his voice made the decision for him, "Sara?"

"Yeah?" she asked with a husky voice, her breath coming to her in labored pants.

"Do you regret what happened to you?"

Sara looked at him funny for a few seconds, her arousal seeming to fade as the shock of Dave's question settled upon her.

"You humans are so weird with your hang-ups and idealization of what you think relationships are meant to be. Bonding with Andrew was the best thing that ever happened to me. He is... Well, he's the greatest mate I could've ever asked for, and the most loyal partner I'd ever want. Up until you and Michelle, I didn't even know that humans could love as deeply as Therians do.

"Don't tell Andrew, but for a while before I met him, I was afraid I would never love anyone like my father loved his mates, or how they loved him. Until he entered my life, the human world held little joy for me, and provided little hope for a meaningful relationship. I was not enough of a human to settle into a traditional relationship, and not enough Therian to bond with a compelling mate. I'd just started accepting that I would be alone, surrounded by friends, but forever bereft of love.

"Your son changed that, and thanks to you and Michelle, he's a man I'm proud to call my equal. No matter what anyone else sees, I know what Andrew is capable of, and will protect him to my dying breath - just as he will me."

Dave stood spellbound by her heartfelt words and sudden and unexpected ideas. Everything was so new, and while he wanted to understand, he was flailing about as he tried to relate to what Sara was saying. The way that Sara and Karen seemed to be bound to Andrew appeared so lopsided, and yet to hear it from Sara he could see how wrong he was in that perception. Yet, even with her words there was just something about it he had a hard time accepting, as if Sara and Karen were chattel that Andrew could use and throw away if he wanted. He knew that Andrew would never do that, but seeing how they treated him, and how they idolized him, he wondered if a lesser man could do that, and would probably do worse still.

"Thanks for explaining things from your perspective. I'm sure we'll have more questions this weekend, but until then just be safe, okay?"

Sara popped a salute, stating, "Sir, yes sir! Permission to go defile your son, sir?"

Dave winced slightly at Sara's crude words, having suspected what was going on in The Glade, but not wanting it to be spelled out for him. Before he could answer, she dropped her salute and said, "Fuck this, I'm going AWOL. Seeya this weekend, sir."

Before he could respond she was gone, her legs carrying her out past his line of sight faster than he thought possible.

"Fuck, what a strange night... How the hell am I gonna explain this to Michelle?"