The Bonding Chronicles Ch. 21

They continued like that for a few more minutes, the two dots creating a nice set of parallel lines traveling east to west, building ever taller as they slowly made their way up. He sighed, just about to shift their focus south of where they had started when it finally happened; his suspicions were correct.

Their lines were never perfect, though they never strayed too far from their course. It wasn't until Sara, who was south of Thunderfoot shifted further away, her line getting much closer to the previous one that had been created by Thunderfoot. The most telling thing for Andrew was the fact that Thunderfoot moved north, both of their lines arcing in a noticeable and similar way.

"Did you guys just have to go around a lake or pond that isn't on the map?" Andrew asked, his brow furrowed with concentration as he cross referenced maps from several websites, none of them showing any body of water in that area. Heck, there weren't even any known streams that ran through the area they had avoided.

"Nope, why?" Sara asked, the moment of silence that followed filled before Andrew could respond as she continued, "Thunderfoot says we've gone too far north, and while I have no idea where this thing is, I have to agree. This just doesn't feel like the right place."

Andrew clapped and whooped, his excitement carried over the walkie talkie, deepening Sara's sense of frustration.

"Glad you're excited but I was kinda hopin' we'd be done by now."

After another moment, Andrew forced himself to calm down. Karen appeared in the doorway at a light run, crossing the short porch and dropping to the ground without touching a single step. Seeing her, he knew what needed to happen.

"Sara, I get it, but I think I might know where it is. Can you two move a bit south and wait till we get there? This might go faster if we all search together."

Despite his words he knew that Sara was not buying it, her connection to him was too strong and she felt his deception through their bond.

"Sure, whatever you say... Come on Thunderfo-"

The radio cut off mid-sentence, punctuating the hurt she felt at how he had just lied to her. While he wanted to explain himself over the radio, he knew that he was doing the right thing. Ever since Karen entered their lives Sara had become much better at expressing her feelings. No longer fearing he would abandon her like her father and mother had long before.

"Wow, she didn't like that," Karen provided as she knelt down beside him. "Though that looks promising."

Her finger pointed towards the curved lines that seemed to form the top and bottom edges of a perfect circle.

"No she didn't," he confirmed, "And yes it is," Andrew finished with an infectious smile.

The expression on his face darkened as he looked over at her, his hand cupping the side of her bronzed cheek. "I hate to put you in danger, but I need to ask you-"

Without hesitation she leaned in and gave him a deep kiss, their hearts swelling with excitement as their tongues darted out and caressed between their lips.

"You guys suck!" Sara's voice announced loudly from the walkie talkie that rested in Andrew's lap.

She was only half serious, though her annoyance did not stop them from laughing as they parted.

"Of course I'm coming."

Karen's voice was husky and deep, arousal painting her words with double meaning.

"Not yet, but I'm sure Sara will help you with that later."

Her smile was wistful and filled with longing as she shook her head.

"Dirty little boy... Now focus."

"Yeah, sorry."

They all knew he wasn't, even Sara who only knew about their exchange through the emotions and broad concepts she could glean through their bond. If Andrew focused and used some of his magic he could communicate with her, let her in on their playful exchange, but it felt like such a waste of precious energy.

The sheet went blank, a rusty red replacing the white and grays that had dominated its face. The red lines that traced the paths that Sara and Thunderfoot were taking vanished along with everything else, and Andrew watched as Karen had a moment of panic. Unlike him, she could not still feel their locations, could not know that they were fine and safe.

Andrew rose and rolled up the sheet, taking it to the back of the SUV where he opened a familiar looking black duffel bag. All of them were starting to feel worry, Karen and Sara seeming to realize the same thing he had been worrying about since they started.

Part of him wondered what Tani'm's therapist would think of their relationship. What would she think of how extremely devoted they were to one another, and how completely and totally dependent they were, none of them seeming to function without the others. He knew it was toxic, in a classical sense, even his parents having more independence despite their clear and total love for one another.

Regardless of what others thought, he knew it was natural, and it was right. It might not work for regular people, but they were not regular, and his girls were anything but normal. They were amazing and special, capable in ways few could possibly understand, and he would always feel blessed for having them in his life.

Opening the duffel bag, Andrew took out a couple of handguns. The same ones he had taken with him the night they attacked the wolf. He could see the look of disgust on Karen's face as he held one out for her.

"Take it."

It was the first time he had said something even remotely like a command to her, and he had to admit that it felt weird. She backed away and shook her head.

"No, I won't... I can't be responsible for what that can do."

Andrew appreciated her honesty, but knew her nature was interfering with her reason.

"We don't know what's out there. The moment we get close to that passage there might be packs of those wolves waiting and protecting it. We don't know."

He could feel her emotions roiling as she struggled with what he was saying, his words spelling out what she already had considered.

"This is what you've been struggling with since we got here, isn't it?"

His eyes moved down towards the gun before returning to her gaze with a forlorn cast.

"Of course. Finding his path home was only the first step, and I needed to think this through."

Karen's amber eyes brightened with respect as she straightened her back, resolve seeming to take hold as she reached out and took the gun. He knew she hated it, could feel it radiating out from the center of her being, but he also knew how she felt when she had seen him at death's door the night Sara had been kidnapped.

It was against her nature to cause pain, but for them she would kill, if it meant saving their lives.

As she struggled with the choice she had made, Andrew took out a change of clothes. Removing his shirt, he replaced it with a tactical turtleneck, black and form fitting but most importantly, warded. Unlike the others he could activate it when needed, so he had placed the ward on the tag, where it rested against the small of his neck.

His pants were next, replaced with loose fitting forest-green camo BDUs, their ward placed at his hip where he could feel it begging to be given power. Karen's attention was on him, the skin tight shirt seeming to stir something in the older woman as she studied his small but defined muscles.

Reaching back into the bag he produced clothes he had purchased for her. All had been warded, but unlike his they were loose fitting and he hoped would maintain her sense of style while providing her concealment and protection. The symbols were placed under her arm on the outside of the shirt, and on her rear buttocks, where she would be unlikely to touch them by accident.

In a matter of minutes Andrew was loaded up with another harness. A knife on one hip, his gun holstered on the other and a few clips attached to the back of his belt. Karen had finished redressing and attached a belt holster to her jeans, loathing every second as the weapons weight reminded her of its presence. He no longer had the M16, or any explosives, and if he was honest with himself he feared he was making another big mistake.

His father's words were coming back to him, helping him see how much he could have done if he had taken the time to prepare. The problem was, he had tried and failed. Sourcing explosives was not as easy as his father had made it sound. Tani'm was still keeping her distance, so the Quinault Indian Nation was not available to help, not that he would have asked knowing how she felt about him anyways.

Despite his efforts, the internet could only give you so much. Sure, he found a few black websites, and even considered sourcing some bit currency to make purchases from them, but then came a thousand questions about where to have it sent? How to pick it up? Hell, where would he keep it without endangering people's lives?

No, he knew he had made the right decision by giving up, but still he had to hold onto the hope that his nervous nature was just making him overly paranoid. If they did run into another wolf, their only option was to run and try to make it to safety, so he just clung to the belief that the passage would be clear. That finding it was the hard part, and everything else was a simple matter of getting to it.

"Let's do this!"

His voice sounded confident and brave, but his heart betrayed him as his worry seeped out through their bond. Karen kissed his cheek, providing comfort just before Andrew took a deep breath and ran off.

The forest was dark, and Karen struggled to keep up even the lightest of jogs, her feet constantly catching on roots or slipping on moss. It was easy to forget that she didn't have any of Sara's enhanced senses, and Andrew kicked himself for not remembering.

What would have taken Sara and Thunderfoot about fifteen minutes took Andrew and Karen almost two hours. The older woman was drenched in sweat and would have been sore if not for her gift, which kept her body from succumbing to the exhaustion that would have surely crushed a normal person.

Sara and Thunderfoot were wrestling in a small clearing by the time they arrived, laughter and chortling noises filling the air as Andrew and Karen crested into the open and collapsed to the ground. Andrew's muscles were tense but not sore, most of his energy having been spent helping Karen navigate the dark and difficult terrain.

In a moment, Sara was there taking the water bottle from Andrew's outstretched hand before she vanished into the forest to fill it.

Karen rested back against her hands as she took long and deep breaths, her magic unable to keep her from feeling the strain of what she had just done. Sure, she was much more fit than she had been a month before, but nothing like Sara or Andrew, whose very natures seemed to make them supernaturally strong.

"I'll be fine," she said, her hand gripping his shoulder as her confident gaze filled his vision, attempting to wash away his worry. "I promise."

Andrew turned his head and kissed her hand, his heart telling her everything she needed to know.

Standing, Andrew looked off in the direction that Sara and Thunderfoot had skirted, where he suspected the bridge between two worlds would be. The land seemed so different from what he had expected when he compared it to the topographical maps. It made sense, the trees, rocks, moss and subtle shifts in terrain not given shape by the swirling and sweeping gray lines from the maps he had been studying.

It was like looking at a black and white picture of a masterwork painting. You got a sense of it, but never a true understanding of the beauty or complexity that made it so revered.

Turning his blue eyed gaze back towards Karen, he stated, "I'm gonna go check this out. You okay?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Just... You be careful."

Andrew smiled and nodded, taking off at a light jog as he crossed the clearing, his mates concern fading to hope as she watched him leave. Thunderfoot came up beside him, the jackalopes excitement entering his mind as a childlike voice asked, "Is it here? Like, here here?"

"I don't know," Andrew responded. He thought it was, but didn't want to give the jackalope false hope. "We'll find out soon enough."

It was a strange feeling that washed over Andrew, a vision of an open field with tall thick grass flooding his mind. His body moved through the tall grass with surprising speed, the shape of his antlers helping to direct the reeds to his sides as he ran. In a moment he was there, a slight mound of grass covered earth with a sloped entrance into darkness standing before him.

The heat from the sun was quickly replaced by a moist cool that welcomed and comforted him. He could feel his mate down in their burrow, her body warm and aching for him in a way that only a female could. He was excited, and eager to breed.

Andrew shook his head and forced the jackalope out of his mind, the confusing thoughts still affecting him as he felt his manhood stiffen and struggle within the confines of his jeans.

"You might want to wait here."

They were getting close to the point where Thunderfoot had first diverted his path unknowingly, and Andrew could already feel his mind searching for reasons to leave.

"If path here, I come."

There was already doubt in his innocent sounding voice, quivers of indecision spreading out his words and defying his meaning.

It was a powerful force, and was unlike anything Andrew had ever felt before. He could feel it influencing him, his mind finding countless excuses to divert his path. Small things like logs he could easily jump over started to look like insurmountable obstacles that barred his path. He looked to the side and watched as Thunderfoot drifted further to the side, giving a wide berth to bushes and stones that he would have normally bounded over or skirted.

"This dumb!" Thunderfoot shouted. "We search here, find nothing last time. I go back, I search better place."

Andrew's voice was strained as he forced a statement he did not want to make. "Sounds good, big-guy."

What he wanted to say was "Wait for me," but another part of his mind knew that was wrong, that it was foreign and was being forced upon him. Instead, he pushed that timid and frustrated part of his mind aside and gave a new part of his consciousness control. That new piece was fresh and unaffected, and saw the reality of the situation for what it was.

He was being attacked, not physically but mentally. His thoughts were being skewed and adjusted, his perception warped in any way that would cause him to want to turn away. His clarity lasted for a few seconds before he felt that new part of his mind starting to get affected as well. Focusing inward, he could tell that the original piece of him, that part that had been so worried and ready to flee a moment before, was once more clear and focused.

Andrew had learned early on that he was great at multitasking, his mind solving problems while he worked on other things. It had always been that way, but grew far more obvious once he bonded with Sara. As he ran forward, his body fighting between a desire to turn back, and a need to push forward, he felt it more than ever.

For the first time he searched for those pieces of himself that handled his background requirements. Those parts that wrote his code, or performed his research while his conscious mind worked and played. All those wonderful and unknown processes that ran in the background of his mind.

The moment he searched, he saw them and almost laughed, The Monolith and its mysteries once more the answer to a question he never knew to ask.

"At some point I need to study this damn thing," he mumbled to himself.

To be honest, it had been weeks since he had paid it any attention, not since he almost bonded with Tani'm. It was just as tall as it had always been, and as his astral self looked upon its dark and glossy surface, he could already tell that something was different.

There had always been pathways hidden within the outer shell of the mysterious construct, only visible because of the bright spots of violet light that coursed along those hidden channels. When he had first constructed The Monolith those many weeks before, those pathways were few and broadly spread, but in that moment he could see that there were many more, and he suspected they had been growing in number as his power grew.

Points of light coursed across its surface, following circuits as if they were each running a race. Hundreds of paths appearing and vanishing as the light ran along those secret invisible courses. There was once a time that Andrew would have struggled to count them, but that time had passed and he knew that there were over fifty.

He could see that one of them was brighter than the rest, and as his desire to know the exact count grew, another became more intense and picked up speed. It would vanish from one place and appear in another, never truly disappearing but rather seeming to teleport from one location to another. A few moments later he had his answer, seventy three.

Just as he had that answer, the point which had grown in brightness and darted along its path once more faded, appearing just like the rest. Once it teleported to a new location he lost it, unable to know which of the points of dim light that just appeared was it.

Through all of that there was that one dot of light that was brighter than all the rest, moving differently and captivating him with its meaning. He marvelled as he studied it, knowing that was his thoughts, that was who he was. Some people might have found themselves pulled into an existential crises at that moment, fearing that their place in the universe could be so finite and so easily portrayed, but not Andrew.

The point grew even more bright as he reached out and traced its path, the spot feeling warm and familiar. At the same time he knew that there was something wrong with it, the bright lilac coloration shifting further and further green with every passing moment. Each second clouding his thoughts and slowing his pace as more of his thinking turned towards escape.

Andrew had only been in his mind for a couple of seconds in the real world, and in that time the magic influence of the forest had made large strides. His legs felt weak and his willpower was drained. He wanted to turn back, exhaustion seeming to weigh him down while his thirst felt unquenchable, threatening to close his airways with the dryness of his parched throat.

Before his reason could leave him, he willed a new piece of his mind into control and once more felt clear headed, knowing that his body was in perfect condition and that he was not even close to being tired.

"Damn," Andrew thought, "this ward is clever."

Before the magic of that place could once more corrupt his thoughts, Andrew tried something new. The battle from there was simple, and he picked up his pace as he moved forward, shifting from one mental process to another before the magic that surrounded him could skew his reasoning. The more he did it the more familiar it became, and with every switch he began to feel the shifting as one mental process prepared to take over from the one before it.

It was fascinating and confusing at the same time, a brief window where two thoughts blended as one, two voices making the same command in different tones, one calm and collected while the previous was tainted by the slight edge of magic that had just started to infiltrate its thoughts.

So much had happened for Andrew in those twelve odd seconds it took him to break through the wards effect. The capabilities of his mind somehow coming more into focus because of the corrupting influence that had tried to sway him.

Andrew knew the second he stepped out of its area of effect, the air growing warmer as his body felt more alive. Goosebumps decorated his arms as he stopped and took a long deep breath, magic surrounding him and welcoming him in.